Library of the World's Best literature,Ancient and Modern, Vol. 9

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LIBRARY OF THE

WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE

ANCIENT AND MODERN


CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition
Vol. IX.

NEW YORK
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Connoisseur Edition

LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA

No. ..........

Copyright, 1896, by
R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
All rights reserved

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. IX

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FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IX

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Adelbert von Chamisso
William Ellery Channing
George Chapman
François René Auguste Châteaubriand
Thomas Chatterton
Andre Chénier
Victor Cherbuliez
Rufus Choate
Earl of Clarendon
Matthias Claudius
William Collins
William Wilkie Collins

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ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO

(1781-1838)

ouis Charles Adelaide de Chamisso, known as Adelbert von Chamisso, the youngest son of Count Louis Marie de Chamisso, was born in the paternal castle of Boncourt, in Champagne, January 30th, 1781. Driven into exile by the Revolution, the family of loyalists sought refuge in the Low Countries and afterward in Germany, settling in Berlin in 1797. In later years the other members of the family returned to France and established themselves once more as Frenchmen in their native land; but Adelbert von Chamisso, German by nature and characteristics as well as by virtue of his early education and environment, struck root in Germany and was the genuine product of German soil. In 1796 the young Chamisso became page to Queen Louise of Prussia, and while at court, by the Queen's directions, he received the most careful education. He was made ensign in 1798 and lieutenant in 1801, in the Regiment von Goetze. A military career was repugnant to him, and his French antecedents did not tend to make his life agreeable among the German officers. That the service was not wholly without interest, however, is shown by the two treatises upon military subjects written by him in 1798 and 1799.

Chamisso

As a young officer he belonged to a romantic brotherhood calling itself "The Polar Star," which counted among its members his lifelong friend Hitzig, Alexander zur Lippe, Varnhagen, and other young writers of the day. He diligently applied himself to the mastery of the German tongue, made translations of poems and dramas, and to relieve the irksomeness of his military life incessantly studied Homer. His most ambitious literary effort of this time was a 'Faust' (1803), a metaphysical, somewhat sophomoric attempt, but the only one of his early poems that he admitted into his collected works.

While still in the Prussian army, he edited with Varnhagen and Neumann a periodical called the Musenalmanach (1804), which existed[Pg 3504] three years. After repeated but vain efforts to obtain release from the uncongenial military service, the capitulation of Hameln at length set him free (1806). He left Germany and went to France; but, disappointed in his hopes, unsettled and without plans, he returned, and several years were lost in profitless and desultory wanderings. From 1810 to 1812 he was again in France. Here he became acquainted with Alexander von Humboldt and Uhland, and renewed his friendship with Wilhelm Schlegel. With Helmina von Chézy he undertook the translation into French of Schlegel's Vienna lectures upon art and literature. Chamisso was indifferent to the task, and the translation went on but slowly. To expedite the work he was invited to stay at Chaumont, the residence of Madame de Staël, where Schlegel was a member of her household. Here his careless personal habits and his inevitable pipe brought odium upon him in that polished circle.

Madame de Staël was always his friend, and in 1811 he went to her at Coppet, where by a happy chance he took up the study of botany, with August de Staël as instructor. Filled with enthusiasm for his new pursuit, he made excursions through Switzerland, collecting and botanizing. The period of indecision was at an end, and in 1812, at the age of thirty-one, he matriculated as student of medicine at the University of Berlin, and applied himself with resolution to the study of the natural sciences. During the war against Napoleon he sought refuge in Kunersdorf with the Itzenplitz family, where he occupied his time with botany and the instruction of young Itzenplitz. It was during this time (1813) that 'Peter Schlemihl's Wundersame Geschichte' (Peter Schlemihl's Wonderful History) was written,—one of the masterpieces of German literature. His 'Faust' and 'Fortunatus' had in some degree foreshadowed his later and more famous work,—'Faust' in the compact with the devil, 'Fortunatus' in the possession of the magical wishing-bag. The simple motif of popular superstition, the loss of one's shadow, familiar in folk-stories and already developed by Goethe in his 'Tales,' and by Körner in 'Der Teufel von Salamanca' (The Devil of Salamanca), was treated by Chamisso with admirable simplicity, directness of style, and realism of detail.

Chamisso's divided allegiance to France and Germany made the political situation of the times very trying for him, and it was with joy that he welcomed an appointment as scientist to a Russian polar expedition, fitted out under the direction of Count Romanzoff, and commanded by Captain Kotzebue (1815-1818). The record of the scientific results of this expedition, as published by Kotzebue, was full of misstatements; and to correct these, Chamisso wrote the 'Tagebuch' (Journal) in 1835, a work whose pure and plastic style[Pg 3505] places it in the first order of books of travel, and entitles its author, in point of description, to rank with Von Humboldt among the best writers of travels of the first half of the century.

After three years of voyaging, Chamisso returned to Berlin, and in 1819 he was made a member of the Society of Natural Sciences and received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, was appointed adjunct custodian of the botanical garden in New Schöneberg, and in September of the same year he married Antonie Piaste.

An indemnity granted by France to the French emigrants put him in possession of the sum of one hundred thousand francs, and in 1825 he again visited Paris, where he remained some months among old friends and new interests. The period of his great activity was after this date. His life was now peaceful and domestic. Poetry and botany flourished side by side. Chamisso, to his own astonishment, found himself read and admired, and everywhere his songs were sung. To the influence of his wife we owe the cycles of poems, 'Frauen-Liebe und Leben' (Woman's Love and Life), and 'Lebens Lieder und Bilder' (Life's Songs and Pictures), for without her they would have been impossible. The former cycle inspired Robert Schumann in the first days of his happy married life, and the music of these songs has made 'Woman's Love and Life' familiar to all the world. 'Salas y Gomez,' a reminiscence of his voyage around the world, appeared in the Musenalmanach in 1830. The theme of this poem was the development of the romantic possibilities suggested by the sight of the profound loneliness and grandeur of the South Sea island, Salas y Gomez. Chamisso translated Andersen and Béranger, made translations from the Chinese and Tonga, and his version of the Eddic Song of Thrym ('Das Lied von Thrym') is among the best translations from the Icelandic that have been made.

In 1832 he became associate editor of the Berlin Deutscher Musenalmanach, which position he held until his death, and in his hands the periodical attained a high degree of influence and importance. His health failing, he resigned his position at the Botanical Garden, retiring upon full pay. He died at Berlin, August 21st, 1838.

Frenchman though he was, his entire conception of life and the whole character of his writings are purely German, and show none of the French characteristics of his time. Chamisso, as botanist, traveler, poet, and editor, made important contributions in each and every field, although outside of Germany his fame rests chiefly upon his widely known 'Schlemihl,' which has been translated into all the principal languages of Europe.

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THE BARGAIN

From 'The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl'

After a fortunate, but for me very troublesome voyage, we finally reached the port. The instant that I touched land in the boat, I loaded myself with my few effects, and passing through the swarming people I entered the first and least house before which I saw a sign hang. I requested a room; the boots measured me with a look, and conducted me into the garret. I caused fresh water to be brought, and made him exactly describe to me where I should find Mr. Thomas John.

"Before the north gate; the first country-house on the right hand; a large new house of red and white marble, with many columns."

"Good." It was still early in the day. I opened at once my bundle; took thence my new black-cloth coat; clad myself cleanly in my best apparel; put my letter of introduction into my pocket, and set out on the way to the man who was to promote my modest expectations.

When I had ascended the long North Street, and reached the gate, I soon saw the pillars glimmer through the foliage. "Here it is, then," thought I. I wiped the dust from my feet with my pocket-handkerchief, put my neckcloth in order, and in God's name rang the bell. The door flew open. In the hall I had an examination to undergo; the porter however permitted me to be announced, and I had the honor to be called into the park, where Mr. John was walking with a select party. I recognized the man at once by the lustre of his corpulent self-complacency. He received me very well,—as a rich man receives a poor devil,—even turned towards me, without turning from the rest of the company, and took the offered letter from my hand. "So, so, from my brother. I have heard nothing from him for a long time. But he is well? There," continued he, addressing the company, without waiting for an answer, and pointing with the letter to a hill, "there I am going to erect the new building." He broke the seal without breaking off the conversation, which turned upon riches.

"He that is not master of a million at least," he observed, "is—pardon me the word—a wretch!"[Pg 3507]

"Oh, how true!" I exclaimed, with a rush of overflowing feeling.

That pleased him. He smiled at me and said, "Stay here, my good friend; in a while I shall perhaps have time to tell you what I think about this." He pointed to the letter, which he then thrust into his pocket, and turned again to the company. He offered his arm to a young lady; the other gentlemen addressed themselves to other fair ones; each found what suited him: and all proceeded towards the rose-blossomed mount.

I slid into the rear without troubling any one, for no one troubled himself any further about me. The company was excessively lively; there was dalliance and playfulness; trifles were sometimes discussed with an important tone, but oftener important matters with levity; and the wit flew with special gayety over absent friends and their circumstances. I was too strange to understand much of all this; too anxious and introverted to take an interest in such riddles.

We had reached the rosery. The lovely Fanny, who seemed the belle of the day, insisted out of obstinacy in breaking off a blossomed stem herself. She wounded herself on a thorn, and the purple streamed from her tender hand as if from the dark roses. This circumstance put the whole party into a flutter. English plaster was sought for. A quiet, thin, lanky, longish, oldish man who stood near, and whom I had not hitherto remarked, put his hand instantly into the tight breast-pocket of his old gray French taffeta coat; produced thence a little pocket-book, opened it, and presented to the lady with a profound obeisance the required article. She took it without noticing the giver, and without thanks; the wound was bound up and we went forward over the hill, from whose back the company could enjoy the wide prospect over the green labyrinth of the park to the boundless ocean.

The view was in reality vast and splendid. A light point appeared on the horizon between the dark flood and the blue of the heaven. "A telescope here!" cried John; and already, before the servants who appeared at the call were in motion, the gray man, modestly bowing, had thrust his hand into his coat pocket, drawn thence a beautiful Dollond, and handed it to Mr. John. Bringing it immediately to his eye, he informed the company that it was the ship which went out yesterday, and was detained in view of port by contrary winds. The telescope[Pg 3508] passed from hand to hand, but not again into that of its owner. I however gazed in wonder at the man, and could not conceive how the great machine had come out of the narrow pocket; but this seemed to have struck no one else, and nobody troubled himself any further about the gray man than about myself.

Refreshments were handed round; the choicest fruits of every zone, in the costliest vessels. Mr. John did the honors with an easy grace, and a second time addressed a word to me: "Help yourself; you have not had the like at sea." I bowed, but he did not see it; he was already speaking with some one else.

The company would fain have reclined upon the sward on the slope of the hill, opposite to the outstretched landscape, had they not feared the dampness of the earth. "It were divine," observed one of the party, "had we but a Turkey carpet to spread here." The wish was scarcely expressed when the man in the gray coat had his hand in his pocket, and was busied in drawing thence, with a modest and even humble deportment, a rich Turkey carpet interwoven with gold. The servants received it as a matter of course, and opened it on the required spot. The company, without ceremony, took their places upon it; for myself, I looked again in amazement on the man—at the carpet, which measured about twenty paces long and ten in breadth and rubbed my eyes, not knowing what to think of it, especially as nobody saw anything extraordinary in it.

I would fain have had some explanation regarding the man and have asked who he was, but I knew not to whom to address myself, for I was almost more afraid of the gentlemen's servants than of the served gentlemen. At length I took courage, and stepped up to a young man who appeared to me to be of less consideration than the rest, and who had often stood alone. I begged him softly to tell me who the agreeable man in the gray coat there was.

"He there, who looks like an end of thread that has escaped out of a tailor's needle?"

"Yes, he who stands alone."

"I don't know him," he replied, and—in order to avoid a longer conversation with me, apparently—he turned away and spoke of indifferent matters to another.

The sun began now to shine more powerfully, and to inconvenience the ladies. The lovely Fanny addressed carelessly to the gray man—whom, as far as I am aware, no one had yet[Pg 3509] spoken to—the trifling question whether he "had not, perchance, also a tent by him?" He answered her by an obeisance most profound, as if an unmerited honor were done him, and had already his hand in his pocket, out of which I saw come canvas, poles, cordage, iron-work,—in short, everything which belongs to the most splendid pleasure-tent. The young gentlemen helped to expand it, and it covered the whole extent of the carpet, and nobody found anything remarkable in it.

I had already become uneasy—nay, horrified—at heart; but how completely so, as at the very next wish expressed I saw him pull out of his pocket three roadsters I tell you, three beautiful great black horses, with saddle and caparison. Take it in, for Heaven's sake!—three saddled horses, out of the same pocket from which already a pocket-book, a telescope, an embroidered carpet twenty paces long and ten broad, a pleasure-tent of equal dimensions and all the requisite poles and irons, had come forth! If I did not protest to you that I saw it myself with my own eyes, you could not possibly believe it.

Embarrassed and obsequious as the man himself appeared to be, little as was the attention which had been bestowed upon him, yet to me his grisly aspect, from which I could not turn my eyes, became so fearful that I could bear it no longer.

I resolved to steal away from the company, which from the insignificant part I played in it seemed to me an easy affair. I proposed to myself to return to the city to try my luck again on the morrow with Mr. John, and if I could muster the necessary courage, to question him about the singular gray man. Had I only had the good fortune to escape so well!

I had already actually succeeded in stealing through the rosery, and on descending the hill found myself on a piece of lawn, when, fearing to be encountered in crossing the grass out of the path, I cast an inquiring glance round me. What was my terror to behold the man in the gray coat behind me, and making towards me! The next moment he took off his hat before me, and bowed so low as no one had ever yet done to me. There was no doubt but that he wished to address me, and without being rude I could not prevent it. I also took off my hat, bowed also, and stood there in the sun with bare head as if rooted to the ground. I stared at him full of terror, and was like a bird which a serpent has fascinated. He himself appeared very much embarrassed. He did not raise his eyes, again bowed[Pg 3510] repeatedly, drew nearer and addressed me with a soft tremulous voice, almost in a tone of supplication:—

"May I hope, sir, that you will pardon my boldness in venturing in so unusual a manner to approach you? but I would ask a favor. Permit me most condescendingly—"

"But in God's name!" exclaimed I in my trepidation, "what can I do for a man who—" we both started, and as I believe, reddened.

After a moment's silence he again resumed:—

"During the short time that I had the happiness to find myself near you, I have, sir, many times,—allow me to say it to you,—really contemplated with inexpressible admiration the beautiful, beautiful shadow which, as it were with a certain noble disdain and without yourself remarking it, you cast from you in the sunshine. The noble shadow at your feet there! Pardon me the bold supposition, but possibly you might not be indisposed to make this shadow over to me."

I was silent, and a mill-wheel seemed to whirl round in my head. What was I to make of this singular proposition to sell my own shadow? He must be mad, thought I; and with an altered tone which was more assimilated to that of his own humility, I answered him thus:—

"Ha! ha! good friend, have not you then enough of your own shadow? I take this for a business of a very singular sort—"

He hastily interrupted me:—"I have many things in my pocket which, sir, might not appear worthless to you; and for this inestimable shadow I hold the very highest price too small."

It struck cold through me again as I was reminded of the pocket. I knew not how I could have called him good friend. I resumed the conversation, and sought to set all right again by excessive politeness if possible.

"But, sir, pardon your most humble servant; I do not understand your meaning. How indeed could my shadow—"

He interrupted me.

"I beg your permission only here on the spot to be allowed to take up this noble shadow and put it in my pocket; how I shall do that, be my care. On the other hand, as a testimony of my grateful acknowledgment to you, I give you the choice of all the treasures which I carry in my pocket,—the genuine 'spring-root,' the 'mandrake-root,' the 'change-penny,' the 'rob-dollar,' the 'napkin of Roland's page,' a 'mandrake-man,' at your own[Pg 3511] price. But these probably don't interest you; rather 'Fortunatus's wishing-cap,' newly and stoutly repaired, and a lucky-bag such as he had!"

"The luck-purse of Fortunatus!" I exclaimed, interrupting him; and great as my anxiety was, with that one word he had taken my whole mind captive. A dizziness seized me, and double ducats seemed to glitter before my eyes.

"Honored sir, will you do me the favor to view and to make trial of this purse?" He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a tolerably large, well-sewed purse of stout Cordovan leather, with two strong strings, and handed it to me. I plunged my hand into it, and drew out ten gold pieces, and again ten. I extended him eagerly my hand. "Agreed! the business is done: for the purse you have my shadow!"

He closed with me; kneeled instantly down before me, and I beheld him, with an admirable dexterity, gently loosen my shadow from top to toe from the grass, lift it up, roll it together, fold it, and finally pocket it. He arose, made me another obeisance, and retreated towards the rosery. I fancied that I heard him there softly laughing to himself, but I held the purse fast by the strings; all round me lay the clear sunshine, and within me was yet no power of reflection.

At length I came to myself, and hastened to quit the place where I had nothing more to expect. In the first place I filled my pockets with gold; then I secured the strings of the purse fast round my neck, and concealed the purse itself in my bosom. I passed unobserved out of the park, reached the highway and took the road to the city. As, sunk in thought, I approached the gate, I heard a cry behind me:

"Young gentleman! eh! young gentleman! hear you!"

I looked round; an old woman called after me.

"Do take care, sir, you have lost your shadow!"

"Thank you, good mother!" I threw her a gold piece for her well-meant intelligence, and stopped under the trees.

At the city gate I was compelled to hear again from the sentinel, "Where has the gentleman left his shadow?" And immediately again from some women, "Jesus Maria! the poor fellow has no shadow!" That began to irritate me, and I became especially careful not to walk in the sun. This could not, however, be accomplished everywhere; for instance, over the broad street I must next take—actually, as mischief would have[Pg 3512] it, at the very moment the boys came out of school. A cursed hunchbacked rogue—I see him yet—spied out instantly that I had no shadow. He proclaimed the fact with a loud outcry to the whole assembled literary street youth of the suburb, who began forthwith to criticize me and to pelt me with mud. "Decent people are accustomed to take their shadow with them when they go into the sunshine." To defend myself from them I threw whole handfuls of gold amongst them, and sprang into a hackney coach which some compassionate soul procured for me. As soon as I found myself alone in the rolling carriage, I began to weep bitterly. The presentiment must already have arisen in me that on earth, far as gold transcends merit and virtue in estimation, so much higher than gold itself is the shadow valued; and as I had earlier sacrificed wealth to conscience, I had now thrown away the shadow for mere gold. What in the world could and would become of me!

FROM 'WOMAN'S LOVE AND LIFE'

Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.

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WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING

(1780-1842)

r. Channing, the recognized leader although not the originator of the Unitarian movement in this country, was a man of singular spirituality, sweetness of disposition, purity of life, and nobility of character. He was thought by some to be austere and cold in temperament, and timid in action; but this was rather a misconception of a life given to conscientious study, and an effort to allow due weight to opposing arguments. He was not liable to be swept from his moorings by momentary enthusiasm. As a writer he was clear and direct, admirably perspicuous in style, without great ornament, much addicted to short and simple sentences, though singularly enough an admirer of those which were long and involved. A critic in Fraser's Magazine wrote of him:—"Channing is unquestionably the first writer of the age. From his writings may be extracted some of the richest poetry and richest conceptions, clothed in language—unfortunately for our literature—too little studied in the day in which we live."

William E. Channing

He was of "blue blood,"—the grandson of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration,—and was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April 7th, 1780. He was graduated at Harvard College with high honors in 1798, and first thought of studying medicine, but was inclined to the direction of the ministry. He became a private tutor in Richmond, Virginia, where he learned to detest slavery. Here he laid the seeds of subsequent physical troubles by imprudent indulgence in asceticism, in a desire to avoid effeminacy. He entered upon the study of theology, which he continued in Cambridge; he was ordained in 1803, and soon became pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston, in charge of which society he passed his ministerial life. In the following year he was associated with Buckminster and others in the liberal Congregational movement, and this led him into a position of controversy with his orthodox brethren,—one he cordially disliked. But he could not refrain from preaching the doctrines of the dignity of human nature, the supremacy of reason, and religious freedom, of whose truth he was profoundly assured.

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It has been truly said that Channing was too much a lover of free thought, and too desirous to hold only what he thought to be true, to allow himself to be bound by any party ties. "I wish," he himself said, "to regard myself as belonging not to a sect but to the community of free minds, of lovers of truth and followers of Christ, both on earth and in heaven. I desire to escape the narrow walls of a particular church, and to stand under the open sky in the broad light, looking far and wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with my own ears, and following Truth meekly but resolutely, however arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads."

He was greatly interested in temperance, in the anti-slavery movement, in the elevation of the laboring classes, and other social reforms; and after 1824, when Dr. Gannett became associate pastor, he gave much time to work in these directions. His death occurred at Bennington, Vermont, April 2d, 1842. His literary achievements are mainly or wholly in the line of his work,—sermons, addresses, and essays; but they were prepared with scrupulous care, and have the quality naturally to be expected from a man of broad and catholic spirit, wide interests, and strong love of literature. His works, in six volumes, are issued by the American Unitarian Association, which also publishes a 'Memorial' by his nephew, William Henry Channing, in three volumes.

THE PASSION FOR POWER

From 'The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte'

The passion for ruling, though most completely developed in despotisms, is confined to no forms of government. It is the chief peril of free States, the natural enemy of free institutions. It agitates our own country, and still throws an uncertainty over the great experiment we are making here in behalf of liberty.... It is the distinction of republican institutions, that whilst they compel the passion for power to moderate its pretensions, and to satisfy itself with more limited gratifications, they tend to spread it more widely through the community, and to make it a universal principle. The doors of office being opened to all, crowds burn to rush in. A thousand hands are stretched out to grasp the reins which are denied to none. Perhaps in this boasted and boasting land of liberty, not a few, if called to state the chief good of a republic, would place it in this: that every man is eligible to every office, and[Pg 3515] that the highest places of power and trust are prizes for universal competition. The superiority attributed by many to our institutions is, not that they secure the greatest freedom, but give every man a chance of ruling; not that they reduce the power of government within the narrowest limits which the safety of the State admits, but throw it into as many hands as possible. The despot's great crime is thought to be that he keeps the delight of dominion to himself, that he makes a monopoly of it; whilst our more generous institutions, by breaking it into parcels and inviting the multitude to scramble for it, spread this joy more widely. The result is that political ambition infects our country and generates a feverish restlessness and discontent, which to the monarchist may seem more than a balance for our forms of liberty. The spirit of intrigue, which in absolute governments is confined to courts, walks abroad through the land; and as individuals can accomplish no political purposes single-handed, they band themselves into parties, ostensibly framed for public ends, but aiming only at the acquisition of power. The nominal sovereign,—that is, the people,—like all other sovereigns, is courted and flattered and told that it can do no wrong. Its pride is pampered, its passions inflamed, its prejudices made inveterate. Such are the processes by which other republics have been subverted, and he must be blind who cannot trace them among ourselves. We mean not to exaggerate our dangers. We rejoice to know that the improvements of society oppose many checks to the love of power. But every wise man who sees its workings must dread it as one chief foe.

This passion derives strength and vehemence in our country from the common idea that political power is the highest prize which society has to offer. We know not a more general delusion, nor is it the least dangerous. Instilled as it is in our youth, it gives infinite excitement to political ambition. It turns the active talents of the country to public station as the supreme good, and makes it restless, intriguing, and unprincipled. It calls out hosts of selfish competitors for comparatively few places, and encourages a bold, unblushing pursuit of personal elevation, which a just moral sense and self-respect in the community would frown upon and cover with shame.

[Pg 3516]

THE CAUSES OF WAR

From a 'Discourse delivered before the Congregational ministers of Massachusetts'

One of the great springs of war may be found in a very strong and general propensity of human nature—in the love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest; a propensity which gives a charm to those bold and hazardous enterprises which call forth all the energies of our nature. No state of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and often rushes with impatience from the security which demands no effort, to the brink of peril. This part of human nature is seen in the kind of pleasures which have always been preferred. Why has the first rank among sports been given to the chase? Because its difficulties, hardships, hazards, tumults, awaken the mind, and give to it a new consciousness of existence, and a deep feeling of its powers. What is the charm which attaches the statesman to an office which almost weighs him down with labor and an appalling responsibility? He finds much of his compensation in the powerful emotion and interest awakened by the very hardships of his lot, by conflict with vigorous minds, by the opposition of rivals, by the alternations of success and defeat. What hurries to the gaming tables the man of prosperous fortune and ample resources? The dread of apathy, the love of strong feeling and of mental agitation. A deeper interest is felt in hazarding than in securing wealth, and the temptation is irresistible.... Another powerful principle of our nature which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for control. I need not enlarge on the predominance of this passion in rulers, whose love of power is influenced by its possession, and who are ever restless to extend their sway. It is more important to observe that were this desire restrained to the breasts of rulers, war would move with a sluggish pace. But the passion for power and superiority is universal; and as every individual, from his intimate union with the community, is accustomed to appropriate its triumphs to himself, there is a general promptness to engage in any contest by which the community may obtain an ascendency over other[Pg 3517] nations. The desire that our country should surpass all others would not be criminal, did we understand in what respects it is most honorable for a nation to excel; did we feel that the glory of a State consists in intellectual and moral superiority, in pre-eminence of knowledge, freedom and purity. But to the mass of the people this form of pre-eminence is too refined and unsubstantial. There is another kind of triumph which they better understand: the triumph of physical power, triumph in battle, triumph not over the minds but the territory of another State. Here is a palpable, visible superiority; and for this a people are willing to submit to severe privations. A victory blots out the memory of their sufferings, and in boasting of their extended power they find a compensation for many woes.... Another powerful spring of war is the admiration of the brilliant qualities displayed in war. Many delight in war, not for its carnage and woes, but for its valor and apparent magnanimity, for the self-command of the hero, the fortitude which despises suffering, the resolution which courts danger, the superiority of the mind to the body, to sensation, to fear. Men seldom delight in war, considered merely as a source of misery. When they hear of battles, the picture which rises to their view is not what it should be—a picture of extreme wretchedness, of the wounded, the mangled, the slain; these horrors are hidden under the splendor of those mighty energies which break forth amidst the perils of conflict, and which human nature contemplates with an intense and heart-thrilling delight. Whilst the peaceful sovereign who scatters blessings with the silence and constancy of Providence is received with a faint applause, men assemble in crowds to hail the conqueror,—perhaps a monster in human form, whose private life is blackened with lust and crime, and whose greatness is built on perfidy and usurpation. Thus war is the surest and speediest way to renown; and war will never cease while the field of battle is the field of glory, and the most luxuriant laurels grow from a root nourished with blood.

[Pg 3518]

SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

From the 'Discourse on Spiritual Freedom,' 1830

I consider the freedom or moral strength of the individual mind as the supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am aware that other views are often taken. It is said that government is intended for the public, for the community, not for the individual. The idea of a national interest prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would maintain that the individual is not made for the State so much as the State for the individual. A man is not created for political relations as his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more sacred than the State, and must never be sacrificed to it. The human soul is to outlive all earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away. Thrones which have stood for ages are to meet the doom pronounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind survives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to power never wielded by earthly potentates.

A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to contribute to some general joint result. He was created not to be merged in the whole, as a drop in the ocean or as a particle of sand on the seashore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being, made for his own perfection as his highest end; made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the property of the State, meaning generally by the State themselves; and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have even believed that this was their highest destination. These views cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me so needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which governments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate[Pg 3519] worth. Let the individual feel that through his immortality he may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation for immortal glory. To me the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind.

In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and the sacrifice of private interests to the State. Far from it. No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fervently, as he who is not their slave; as he who, casting off every other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit, as man's glory and likeness to his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-subsistence, is the surest foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community, as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the State and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil; but for no good of others ought he to part with self-control, or violate the inward law. We speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public weal. Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most properly himself, the principle of piety and virtue? Do we not feel that however great may be the good which through his sufferings accrues to the State, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself; and that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in his own soul?...

The advantages of civilization have their peril. In such a state of society, opinion and law impose salutary restraint, and produce general order and security. But the power of opinion grows into a despotism, which more than all things represses[Pg 3520] original and free thought, subverts individuality of character, reduces the community to a spiritless monotony, and chills the love of perfection. Religion, considered simply as the principle which balances the power of human opinion, which takes man out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to moral strength and elevation.

An important benefit of civilization, of which we hear much from the political economist, is the division of labor, by which arts are perfected. But this, by confining the mind to an unceasing round of petty operations, tends to break it into littleness. We possess improved fabrics, but deteriorated men. Another advantage of civilization is, that manners are refined and accomplishments multiplied; but these are continually seen to supplant simplicity of character, strength of feeling, the love of nature, the love of inward beauty and glory. Under outward courtesy we see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calculation, and little energy of love.

I confess I look round on civilized society with many fears, and with more and more earnest desire that a regenerating spirit from heaven, from religion, may descend upon and pervade it. I particularly fear that various causes are acting powerfully among ourselves, to inflame and madden that enslaving and degrading principle, the passion for property. For example, the absence of hereditary distinctions in our country gives prominence to the distinction of wealth, and holds up this as the chief prize to ambition. Add to this the epicurean, self-indulgent habits which our prosperity has multiplied, and which crave insatiably for enlarging wealth as the only means of gratification. This peril is increased by the spirit of our times, which is a spirit of commerce, industry, internal improvements, mechanical invention, political economy, and peace. Think not that I would disparage commerce, mechanical skill, and especially pacific connections among States. But there is danger that these blessings may by perversion issue in a slavish love of lucre. It seems to me that some of the objects which once moved men most powerfully are gradually losing their sway, and thus the mind is left more open to the excitement of wealth. For example, military distinction is taking the inferior place which it deserves: and the consequence will be that the energy and ambition which have been exhausted in war will seek new directions; and happy shall we be if they[Pg 3521] do not flow into the channel of gain. So I think that political eminence is to be less and less coveted; and there is danger that the energies absorbed by it will be spent in seeking another kind of dominion, the dominion of property. And if such be the result, what shall we gain by what is called the progress of society? What shall we gain by national peace, if men, instead of meeting on the field of battle, wage with one another the more inglorious strife of dishonest and rapacious traffic? What shall we gain by the waning of political ambition, if the intrigues of the exchange take place of those of the cabinet, and private pomp and luxury be substituted for the splendor of public life? I am no foe to civilization. I rejoice in its progress. But I mean to say that without a pure religion to modify its tendencies, to inspire and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not ennobled by it. It is the excellence of the religious principle, that it aids and carries forward civilization, extends science and arts, multiplies the conveniences and ornaments of life, and at the same time spoils them of their enslaving power, and even converts them into means and ministers of that spiritual freedom which when left to themselves they endanger and destroy.

In order, however, that religion should yield its full and best fruit, one thing is necessary; and the times require that I should state it with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion should be held and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as it assumes an intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts instead of strengthening the soul's freedom, and becomes the heaviest and most galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and conscience. Religion must be viewed, not as a monopoly of priests, ministers, or sects, not as conferring on any man a right to dictate to his fellow-beings, not as an instrument by which the few may awe the many, not as bestowing on one a prerogative which is not enjoyed by all; but as the property of every human being and as the great subject for every human mind. It must be regarded as the revelation of a common Father to whom all have equal access, who invites all to the like immediate communion, who has no favorites, who has appointed no infallible expounders of his will, who opens his works and word to every eye, and calls upon all to read for themselves, and to follow fearlessly the best convictions of their own understandings. Let religion be seized on by individuals or sects, as their special province; let them clothe themselves with God's prerogative[Pg 3522] of judgment; let them succeed in enforcing their creed by penalties of law, or penalties of opinion; let them succeed in fixing a brand on virtuous men whose only crime is free investigation—and religion becomes the most blighting tyranny which can establish itself over the mind. You have all heard of the outward evils which religion, when thus turned into tyranny, has inflicted; how it has dug dreary dungeons, kindled fires for the martyr, and invented instruments of exquisite torture. But to me all this is less fearful than its influence over the mind. When I see the superstitions which it has fastened on the conscience, the spiritual terrors with which it has haunted and subdued the ignorant and susceptible, the dark appalling views of God which it has spread far and wide, the dread of inquiry which it has struck into superior understandings, and the servility of spirit which it has made to pass for piety—when I see all this, the fire, the scaffold, and the outward inquisition, terrible as they are, seem to me inferior evils. I look with a solemn joy on the heroic spirits who have met, freely and fearlessly, pain and death in the cause of truth and human rights. But there are other victims of intolerance on whom I look with unmixed sorrow. They are those who, spell-bound by early prejudice or by intimidations from the pulpit and the press, dare not think; who anxiously stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard to their opinions, as if to doubt were a crime; who shrink from the seekers after truth as from infection; who deny all virtue which does not wear the livery of their own sect; who, surrendering to others their best powers, receive unresistingly a teaching which wars against reason and conscience; and who think it a merit to impose on such as live within their influence, the grievous bondage which they bear themselves. How much to be deplored is it, that religion, the very principle which is designed to raise men above the judgment and power of man, should become the chief instrument of usurpation over the soul!

[Pg 3523]

GEORGE CHAPMAN

(1559?-1634)

eorge Chapman, the translator of Homer, is of all the Elizabethan dramatists the most undramatic. He is akin to Marlowe in being more of an epic poet than a playwright; but unlike his young compeer "of the mighty line," who in his successive plays learnt how to subdue an essentially epic genius to the demands of the stage, Chapman never got near the true secret of dramatic composition. Yet he witnessed the growth of the glorious Elizabethan drama, from its feeble beginning in 'Gorbodue' and 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' through its very flowering in the immortal masterpieces. He was born about 1559, five years before Marlowe, the "morning star" of the English drama, and he died in 1634, surviving Shakespeare, in whom it reached its maturity, and Beaumont, Middleton, and Fletcher, whose works foreshadow decay. From his native town Hitchin he passed on to Oxford, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. Then for sixteen years nothing definite is known about him. His life has been called one of the great blanks of English literature. He is sometimes sent traveling on the Continent, as a convenient means of accounting for this gap, and also to explain the intimate acquaintance with German manners and customs and the language displayed in his tragedy 'Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany,' which argues at least for a trip to that country. In 1594 he published the two hymns in the 'Shadow of Night'; and soon after he must have begun writing for the stage, for his first extant comedy, 'The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' was acted in 1596, and two years later he appears in Francis Meres's famous enumeration of the poets and wits of the time. Hereafter his life is to be dated by his publications.

George Chapman

He occupies a position unique among the Elizabethans, because of his wide culture and the diverse character of his work. Though held together by his strong personality, it yet can be divided into the distinct groups of comedies, tragedies, poems, and translations.[Pg 3524] The first of these is the weakest, for Chapman was not a comic genius. 'The Blind Beggar of Alexandria' and 'An Humorous Day's Mirth' deserve but a passing mention. In 1605 'All Fooles' was published, acted six years earlier under the name 'The World Runs on Wheels.' It is a realistic satire, with some good scenes and character-drawing. 'The Gentleman Usher' is full of poetry and ingenious situations. 'Monsieur D'Oline' contains also some good comedy work. 'The Widow's Tears' tells the well-known story of the Ephesian matron; though coarse, it is handled not without comic talent. In his comedy work Chapman is neither new nor original; he followed in Jonson's footsteps, and suggests moreover Terence, Plautus, Fletcher, and Lyly. He has wit, satire, and sarcasm; but along with these, poor construction and little invention. He was going against his grain, and we have here the frankest expression of "pot-boiling" to be found among the Elizabethan dramatists. Writing for the stage was the only kind of literature that really paid; the playhouse was to the Elizabethan what the paper-covered novel is to a modern reader. This accounts for the enormous dramatic productivity of the time, and also explains why the most finely endowed minds, in need of money, produced dramas instead of other imaginative work. By the time he wrote his comedies, Chapman had already won his place as poet and translator, but it earned him no income. Pope, one hundred and twenty-five years later, made a fortune by his translation of Homer. But then the number of readers had increased, and publishers could afford to give large sums to a popular author. Chapman takes rank among the dramatists mainly by his four chief tragedies: 'Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron,' and 'The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron.' They are unique among the plays of the period, in that they deal with almost contemporary events in French history; not with the purpose of exciting any feeling for or against the parties introduced, but in calm ignoring of public opinion, they bring recent happenings on the stage to suit the dramatist's purpose. He drew his material mainly from the 'Historiæ Sui Temporis' of Jacques Auguste de Thou, but he troubled himself little about following it with accuracy, or even painting the characters of the chief actors as true to life. In these tragedies, more than in the comedies, we get sight of Chapman the man; indeed, it is his great failing as playwright that his own individuality is constantly cropping out. He alone, of all the great Elizabethan dramatists, was unable to go outside of himself and enter into the habits and thoughts of his characters. Chapman was too much of a scholar and a thinker to be a successful delineator of men. His is the drama of the man who thinks about life, not of one who lives it in[Pg 3525] its fullness. He does not get into the hearts of men. He has too many theories. Homer had become the ruling influence in his life, and he looked at things from the Homeric point of view and presented life epically. He is at his best in single didactic or narrative passages, and exquisite bits of poetry are prodigally scattered up and down the pages of his tragedies. Next to Shakespeare he is the most sententious of dramatists. He sounded the depths of things in thought which theretofore only Marlowe had done. He is the most metaphysical of dramatists.

Yet his thought is sometimes too much for him, and he becomes obscure. He packs words as tight as Browning, and the sense is often more difficult to unravel. He is best in the closet drama. 'Cæsar and Pompey,' published in 1631 but never acted, contains some of his finest thoughts.

Chapman also collaborated with other dramatists. 'Eastward Ho,' in 1605, written with Marston and Jonson, is one of the liveliest and best constructed Elizabethan comedies, combining the excellences of the three men without their faults. Some allusion to the Scottish nation offended King James; the authors were confined in Fleet Prison and barely escaped having their ears and noses slit. With Shirley he wrote the comedy 'The Ball' and the tragedy 'Chabot, Admiral of France.'

Chapman wrote comedies to make money, and tragedies because it was the fashion of the day, and he studded these latter with exquisite passages because he was a poet born. But he was above all a scholar with wide and deep learning, not only of the classics but also of the Renaissance literature. From 1613 to 1631 he does not appear to have written for the stage, but was occupied with his translations of Homer, Hesiod, Juvenal, Musæus, Petrarch, and others. In 1614, at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, was performed in the most lavish manner the 'Memorable Masque of the two Honorable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple and Lyncoln Inne.' Chapman also completed Marlowe's unfinished 'Hero and Leander.'

His fame however rests on his version of Homer. The first portion appeared in 1598: 'Seven Bookes of the Iliade of Homer, Prince of Poets; Translated according to the Greeke in judgment of his best Commentaries.' In 1611 the Iliad complete appeared, and in 1615 the whole of the Odyssey; though he by no means reproduces Homer faithfully, he approaches nearest to the original in spirit and grandeur. It is a typical product of the English Renaissance, full of vigor and passion, but also of conceit and fancifulness. It lacks the simplicity and the serenity of the Greek, but has caught its nobleness and rapidity. As has been said, "It is what Homer might have[Pg 3526] written before he came to years of discretion." Yet with all its shortcomings it remains one of the classics of Elizabethan literature. Pope consulted it diligently, and has been accused of at times re-versifying this instead of the Greek. Coleridge said of it:—

Keats's tribute, the sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,' attests another poet's appreciation of the Elizabethan's paraphrase. Keats diligently explored this "new planet" that swam into his ken, and his own poetical diction is at times touched by the quaintness and fancifulness of the elder poet he admired.

Lamb, that most sympathetic critic of the old dramatists, speaks of him as follows:—

[Pg 3527]

ULYSSES AND NAUSICAA

From the Translation of Homer's Odyssey

THE DUKE OF BYRON IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH

From the 'Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron'

[Pg 3531]

FRANÇOIS RENÉ AUGUSTE CHÂTEAUBRIAND

(1768-1848)

iscount de Châteaubriand, the founder of the romantic school in French literature, and one of the most brilliant and polished writers of the first half of the nineteenth century, was born at St. Malo in Brittany, September 14th, 1768. On the paternal side he was a direct descendant of Thierri, grandson of Alain III., who was king of Armorica in the ninth century. Destined for the Church, he became a pronounced skeptic, and entered the army. In his nineteenth year he was presented at court, and became acquainted with men of letters like La Harpe, Le Brun, and Fontanes. At the outbreak of the Revolution he quitted the service, and embarked for America in January, 1791. Tiring of the restraints of civilization, civilization, he plunged into the virgin forests of Canada, and for several months lived with the savages. This remarkable experience inspired his most notable romantic work.

Châteaubriand

Returning to France in 1792, he cast his lot with the Royalists, was wounded at Thionville, and finally retired to England, where for eight years he earned a bare support by teaching and translating. His first book was the 'Essay on Revolutions' (1797), which displayed some imagination, little reflection, and an affectation of misanthropy and skepticism. The subsequent change in his convictions followed on the death of his pious mother in 1798. Returning to France he published 'Atala,' an idyll á la mode, founded on the loves of two young savages. Teeming with glowing descriptions of nature, and marked by elevation of sentiment combined with a sensuousness almost Oriental, this barbaric 'Paul and Virginia' immediately established the author's fame. Thus encouraged, in the following year he gave the world his 'Genius of Christianity,' in which the poetic and symbolic features of Christianity are painted in dazzling colors and with great charm of style. The enormous success of this book during the first decade of the century unquestionably did more to revive French interest in religion than the establishment of the Concordat itself. Napoleon [Pg 3532]testified his gratitude by appointing the author secretary to the embassy at Rome, and afterward minister plenipotentiary to the Valais. When the Duke d'Enghien was assassinated (March 21st, 1804), Châteaubriand resigned from the diplomatic service, although the ink was scarcely dry in which the First Consul had signed his new commission. Two years later the successful author departed on a sentimental pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He visited Asia Minor, Egypt, and Spain, where amid the ruins of the Alhambra he wrote 'The Last of the Abencerrages.' To this interesting tour the world owes the 'Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem' (1811), that book which in Saintsbury's opinion remains "the pattern of all the picturesque travels of modern times."

With the publication of the 'Itinerary' the literary career of Châteaubriand virtually closes. On the return of the Bourbons to power, the man of letters was tempted to enter the exciting arena of politics, becoming successively ambassador at Berlin, at the court of St. James, delegate to the Congress of Verona, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1830, unwilling to pledge himself to Louis Philippe, he relinquished the dignity of peer of the realm accorded him in 1815, and retired to a life of comparative poverty, which was brightened by the friendship and devotion of Madame Récamier. Until his death on the 4th of July, 1848, Châteaubriand devoted himself to the completion of his 'Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe,' an auto-biographical work which was published posthumously, and which, although diffuse and even puerile at times, contains much brilliant writing.

His contemporaries pronounced Châteaubriand the foremost man of letters of France, if not of all Europe. During the last half of this century his fame has sensibly diminished both at home and abroad, and in the history of French literature he is chiefly significant as marking the transition from the old classical to the modern romantic school. Yet while admitting the glaring faults, exaggerations, affectations, and egotism of the author of the 'Genius of Christianity,' a fair criticism admits his best passages to be unsurpassed for perfection of style and gorgeousness of coloring. 'Atala' is a classic with real life in it even yet,—powerful, interesting, and even thrilling, in spite of its theatricality, and often magnificent in description.

In 1811 Châteaubriand was elected to the French Academy as the successor of the poet Chénier. Among his works not already mentioned are 'René' (1807), a sort of sequel to 'Atala'; 'The Martyrs' (1810); 'The Natchez' (1826), containing recollections of America; an 'Essay on English Literature' (2 vols.); and a translation of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1836).

[Pg 3533]

CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED

From 'The Genius of Christianity'

During the reign of the Emperor Julian commenced a persecution, perhaps more dangerous than violence itself, which consisted in loading the Christians with disgrace and contempt. Julian began his hostility by plundering the churches; he then forbade the faithful to teach or to study the liberal arts and sciences. Sensible, however, of the important advantages of the institutions of Christianity, the emperor determined to establish hospitals and monasteries, and after the example of the gospel system to combine morality with religion; he ordered a kind of sermons to be delivered in the pagan temples....

From the time of Julian to that of Luther, the Church, flourishing in full vigor, had no occasion for apologists; but when the Western schism took place, with new enemies arose new defenders. It cannot be denied that at first the Protestants had the superiority, at least in regard to forms, as Montesquieu has remarked. Erasmus himself was weak when opposed to Luther, and Theodore Beza had a captivating manner of writing, in which his opponents were too often deficient....

It is natural for schism to lead to infidelity, and for heresy to engender atheism. Bayle and Spinoza arose after Calvin, and they found in Clarke and Leibnitz men of sufficient talents to refute their sophistry. Abbadie wrote an apology for religion, remarkable for method and sound argument. Unfortunately his style is feeble, though his ideas are not destitute of brilliancy. "If the ancient philosophers," observes Abbadie, "adored the Virtues, their worship was only a beautiful species of idolatry."

While the Church was yet enjoying her triumph, Voltaire renewed the persecution of Julian. He possessed the baneful art of making infidelity fashionable among a capricious but amiable people. Every species of self-love was pressed into this insensate league. Religion was attacked with every kind of weapon, from the pamphlet to the folio, from the epigram to the sophism. No sooner did a religious book appear than the author was overwhelmed with ridicule, while works which Voltaire was the first to laugh at among his friends were extolled to the skies. Such was his superiority over his disciples that he sometimes could not forbear diverting himself with their irreligious[Pg 3534] enthusiasm. Meanwhile the destructive system continued to spread throughout France. It was first adopted in those provincial academies, each of which was a focus of bad taste and faction. Women of fashion and grave philosophers alike read lectures on infidelity. It was at length concluded that Christianity was no better than a barbarous system, and that its fall could not happen too soon for the liberty of mankind, the promotion of knowledge, the improvement of the arts, and the general comfort of life.

To say nothing of the abyss into which we were plunged by this aversion to the religion of the gospel, its immediate consequence was a return, more affected than sincere, to that mythology of Greece and Rome to which all the wonders of antiquity were ascribed. People were not ashamed to regret that worship which had transformed mankind into a herd of madmen, monsters of indecency, or ferocious beasts. This could not fail to inspire contempt for the writers of the age of Louis XIV., who however had reached the high perfection which distinguished them only by being religious. If no one ventured to oppose them face to face, on account of their firmly established reputation, they were nevertheless attacked in a thousand indirect ways. It was asserted that they were unbelievers in their hearts; or at least that they would have been much greater characters had they lived in our times. Every author blessed his good fortune for having been born in the glorious age of the Diderots and d'Alemberts, in that age when all the attainments of the human mind were ranged in alphabetical order in the 'Encyclopédie,' that Babel of the sciences and of reason....

It was therefore necessary to prove that on the contrary the Christian religion, of all the religions that ever existed, is the most humane, the most favorable to liberty and to the arts and sciences; that the modern world is indebted to it for every improvement from agriculture to the abstract sciences, from the hospitals for the reception of the unfortunate to the temples reared by the Michael Angelos and embellished by the Raphaels. It was necessary to prove that nothing is more divine than its morality, nothing more lovely and more sublime than its tenets, its doctrine, and its worship; that it encourages genius, corrects the taste, develops the virtuous passions, imparts energy to the ideas, presents noble images to the writer, and perfect models to the artist; that there is no disgrace in being believers with[Pg 3535] Newton and Bossuet, with Pascal and Racine. In a word, it was necessary to summon all the charms of the imagination and all the interests of the heart to the assistance of that religion against which they had been set in array.

The reader may now have a clear view of the object of our work. All other kinds of apologies are exhausted, and perhaps they would be useless at the present day. Who would now sit down to read a work professedly theological? Possibly a few sincere Christians who are already convinced. But, it may be asked, May there not be some danger in considering religion in a merely human point of view? Why so? Does our religion shrink from the light? Surely one great proof of its divine origin is, that it will bear the test of the fullest and severest scrutiny of reason. Would you have us always open to the reproach of enveloping our tenets in sacred obscurity, lest their falsehood should be detected? Will Christianity be the less true for appearing the more beautiful? Let us banish our weak apprehensions; let us not, by an excess of religion, leave religion to perish. We no longer live in those times when you might say, "Believe without inquiring." People will inquire in spite of us; and our timid silence, in heightening the triumph of the infidel, will diminish the number of believers.

It is time that the world should know to what all those charges of absurdity, vulgarity, and meanness, that are daily alleged against Christianity, may be reduced. It is time to demonstrate that instead of debasing the ideas, it encourages the soul to take the most daring flights, and is capable of enchanting the imagination as divinely as the deities of Homer and Virgil. Our arguments will at least have this advantage, that they will be intelligible to the world at large and will require nothing but common-sense to determine their weight and strength. In works of this kind authors neglect, perhaps rather too much, to speak the language of their readers. It is necessary to be a scholar with a scholar, and a poet with a poet. The Almighty does not forbid us to tread the flowery path, if it serves to lead the wanderer once more to him; nor is it always by the steep and rugged mountain that the lost sheep finds its way back to the fold.

We think that this mode of considering Christianity displays associations of ideas which are but imperfectly known. Sublime in the antiquity of its recollections, which go back to the[Pg 3536] creation of the world; ineffable in its mysteries, adorable in its sacraments, interesting in its history, celestial in its morality, rich and attractive in its ceremonial,—it is fraught with every species of beauty. Would you follow it in poetry? Tasso, Milton, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, will depict to you its miraculous effects. In belles-lettres, in oratory, history, and philosophy, what have not Bossuet, Fénélon, Massillon, Bourdaloue, Bacon, Pascal, Euler, Newton, Leibnitz, produced by its inspiration! In the arts, what masterpieces! If you examine it in its worship, what ideas are suggested by its antique Gothic churches, its admirable prayers, its impressive ceremonies! Among its clergy, behold all those scholars who have handed down to you the languages and the works of Greece and Rome; all those anchorets of Thebais; all those asylums for the unfortunate; all those missionaries to China, to Canada, to Paraguay; not forgetting the military orders whence chivalry derived its origin. Everything has been engaged in our cause—the manners of our ancestors, the pictures of days of yore, poetry, even romances themselves. We have called smiles from the cradle, and tears from the tomb. Sometimes, with the Maronite monk, we dwell on the summits of Carmel and Lebanon; at others we watch with the Daughter of Charity at the bedside of the sick. Here two American lovers summon us into the recesses of their deserts; there we listen to the sighs of the virgin in the solitude of the cloister. Homer takes his place by Milton, and Virgil beside Tasso; the ruins of Athens and of Memphis form contrasts with the ruins of Christian monuments, and the tombs of Ossian with our rural churchyards. At St. Denis we visit the ashes of kings; and when our subject requires us to treat of the existence of God, we seek our proofs in the wonders of Nature alone. In short, we endeavor to strike the heart of the infidel in every possible way; but we dare not flatter ourselves that we possess the miraculous rod of religion which caused living streams to burst from the flinty rock.

[Pg 3537]

DESCRIPTION OF A THUNDER-STORM IN THE FOREST

From 'Atala'

It was the twenty-seventh sun since our departure from the Cabins: the lune de fer (month of July) had commenced its course, and all signs indicated the approach of a violent storm. Toward the hour when the Indian matrons hang up the plowshares on the branches of the junipers, and when the paroquets retire into the hollows of the cypress trees, the sky grew overcast. The vague sounds of solitude gradually ceased, the forests were wrapped in universal calm. Suddenly the pealing of distant thunder, re-echoing through these vast woods as old as the world itself, startled the ear with a diapason of noises sublime. Fearing to be overwhelmed in the flood, we hastily disembarked on the river's bank and sought safety in the seclusion of one of the forest glades.

The ground was swampy. We pressed forward with difficulty beneath a roof of smilax, among grape-vines and climbing plants of all kinds, in which our feet were continually entangled. The spongy soil trembled all around us, and every instant we were on the verge of being engulfed in the quagmires. Swarms of insects and enormous bats nearly blinded us; rattlesnakes were heard on all sides; and the wolves, bears, panthers, and badgers which had sought a refuge in this retreat filled the air with their roarings.

Meanwhile the obscurity increased; the lowering clouds entered beneath the shadows of the trees. The heavens were rent, and the lightning traced a flashing zigzag of fire. A furious gale from the west piled up the angry clouds in heavy masses; the mighty trees bowed their heads to the blast. Again and again the sky was rent, and through the yawning crevices one beheld new heavens and vales of fire. What an awful, what a magnificent spectacle! The trees were struck by lightning and ignited; the conflagration spread like a flaming garland; the showers of sparks and the columns of smoke ascended to the very heavens, which vomited their thunders into the sea of fire.

Then the Great Spirit enveloped the mountains in utter darkness; from the midst of this vast chaos came a confused roaring made by the tumult of many winds, the moaning of the trees, the howlings of ferocious beasts, the crackling of the flames,[Pg 3538] and the descent of balls of fire which hissed as they were extinguished in the water.

The Great Spirit knows the truth of what I now say! At this moment I saw only Atala, I had no thought but for her. Beneath the bent trunk of a birch-tree, I succeeded in protecting her from the torrents of rain. Seated myself under the tree, supporting my well-beloved on my knees, and chafing her bare feet between my hands, I was even happier than the young wife who feels for the first time the consciousness of her motherhood.

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THOMAS CHATTERTON

(1752-1770)

o the third quarter of the eighteenth century belongs the tragedy of the life of Thomas Chatterton, who, misunderstood and neglected during his brief seventeen years of poetic revery, has by the force of his genius and by his actual achievement compelled the nineteenth century, through one of its best critics, to acknowledge him as the father of the New Romantic school, and to accord him thereby a place unique among his contemporaries. His family and early surroundings serve in a way to explain his development. He was born at Bristol, a town rich in the traditions and monuments of bygone times. For nearly two hundred years the office of sexton to the church of St. Mary Redcliffe had been handed down in the family. At the time of the poet's birth it was held by a maternal uncle; for his father, a "musical genius, somewhat of a poet, an antiquary and dabbler in occult arts," was the first to aspire to a position above the hereditary one, and had taken charge of the Pyle free schools in Bristol. He died before his son's birth, and left his widow to support her two children by keeping a little school and by needlework. The boy, reserved and given to revery from his earliest years, was at first considered dull, but finally learned to spell by means of the illuminated capitals of an old musical folio and a black-letter Bible. He spent much of his time with his uncle, in and about the church. St. Mary Redcliffe, one of the finest specimens of mediæval church architecture in England, is especially rich in altar tombs with recumbent carved figures of knights, and ecclesiastic and civic dignitaries of bygone days. These became the boy's familiar associates, and he amused himself on his lonely visits by spelling out the old inscriptions on their monuments. There he got hold of some quaint oaken chests in the muniment room over the porch, filled with parchments old as the Wars of the Roses, and these deeds and charters of the Henrys and Edwards became his primers. In 1760 he entered Colston's "Blue-Coat" charity school, located in a fine old[Pg 3540] building of the Tudor times. The rules of the institution provided for the training of its inmates "in the principles of the Christian religion as laid down in the Church catechism," and in fitting them to be apprenticed in due course to some trade. During the six years of his stay, Chatterton received only the rudiments of a common-school education, and found little to nourish his genius. But being a voracious reader, he went on his small allowance through three circulating libraries, and became acquainted with the older English poets, and also read history and antiquities. He very early entertained dreams of ambition, without however finding any sympathy; so he lived in a world of his own, conceiving before the age of twelve the romance of Thomas Rowley, an imaginary clerk of the fifteenth century, and his patron Master William Canynge, a former mayor of Bristol whose effigy was familiar to him from the tomb in the church. This fiction, which after his death gave rise to the celebrated controversy of the 'Rowley Poems,' matured at this early age as a boy's life-dream, he fashioned into a consistent romance, and wove into it among the prose fragments the ballads and lyrics on which his fame as poet now rests. His earliest literary forgery was a practical joke played on a credulous pewterer at Bristol, for whom he fabricated a pedigree dating back to the time of the Norman Conquest, which he professed to have collected from ancient manuscripts. It is remarkable as the work of a boy not yet fourteen. He was rewarded with a crown piece, and the success of this hoax encouraged him further to play upon the credulity of his townspeople, and to continue writing prose and verse in pseudo-antique style.

Thomas Chatterton

In 1767 he was bound apprentice to John Lambert, attorney. The office duties were light. He spent his spare time in poetizing, and sent anonymously transcripts from professedly old poems to the local papers. Their authorship being traced to him, he now claimed that his father had found numerous old poems and other manuscripts in a coffer of the muniment room at Redcliffe, and that he had transcribed them. Under guise of this fiction he produced, within the two years of his apprenticeship, a mass of pseudo-antique dramatic, lyric, and descriptive poems, and fragments of local and general history, connected all with his romance of the clerk of Bristol. A scholarly knowledge of Middle English was rare one hundred and thirty years ago, and the self-taught boy easily gulled the local antiquaries. He even deceived Horace Walpole, who, dabbling in mediævalism, had opened the way for prose romances with his 'Castle of Otranto,' a spurious antique of the same time in which Chatterton had placed his fiction. Walpole at first treated him courteously, even offering to print some of the poems. But when Gray and Mason[Pg 3541] pronounced them modern, he at once gave Chatterton the cold shoulder, entirely forgetting his own imposition on a credulous public.

Chatterton now turned to periodical literature and the politics of the day, and began to contribute to various London magazines. In the spring of 1770 he finally came up to London, to start on the life of a literary adventurer on a capital of less than five pounds. He lived abstemiously and worked incessantly, literally day and night. He had a wonderful versatility; he would write in the manner of any one he chose to imitate, and he tried his hand at every species of book-work. But even under the strain of this incessant productivity he found time to turn back to his boyhood dreams, and produced one of his finest poems, the 'Ballad of Charity.' At first his contributions were freely accepted, but he was poorly paid, and sometimes not at all. Yet out of his scanty earnings he bought costly presents for his mother and sister, as tokens of affection and an earnest of what he hoped to do for them. After scarcely two months in London he was at the end of his resources. He made an attempt to gain a position as surgeon's assistant on board of an African trader, but was unsuccessful. He now found himself face to face with famine; and, too proud to ask for assistance or to accept even the hospitality of a single meal, he on the night of August 25th, 1770, locked himself into his garret, destroyed all his note-books and papers, and swallowed a dose of arsenic. It is believed that he was privately buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe. There a monument has been erected, with an inscription from his poem 'Will':—

His death attracted little notice, for he was regarded merely as the transcriber of the 'Rowley' poems. They were collected after his death, from the various persons to whom he had given the manuscripts, and occasioned a controversy that has lasted almost down to the present generation. But only an age untrained in philological research could ever have received them as genuine productions of the fifteenth century: for Chatterton, who knew little of the old authors antedating Spenser, constructed with the help of Bailey's and Kersey's English dictionaries a lingo of his own; he strung together old words of all periods and dialects, and even coined words himself to suit the metre. His lingo resembles anything rather than Middle English. It is supposed that he wrote first in modern English, and then translated into his own dialect; for the poems do not suffer by retranslation,—on the contrary, they are more intelligible and often[Pg 3542] more rhythmical. Chatterton had a wonderful memory, and having read enormously, there are frequent though perhaps unconscious plagiarisms from Spenser, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and others.

Yet after all has been said against the spurious character of the 'Rowley' poems, Chatterton's two volumes of collected writings, produced under the most adverse circumstances, are a record of youthful precocity unparalleled in literary history. He wrote spirited satires at ten, and some of his best old verse before sixteen. 'Ælla' is a dramatic poem of sustained power and originality, and its songs have the true lyric ring; the 'Ode to Liberty,' a fragment from the tragedy of 'Goddwyn,' is with its bold imagery one of the finest martial lyrics in the language; the 'Ballad of Charity,' almost the last poem he wrote, comes in its objectivity and artistic completeness near to some of Keats's best ballad work. But more wonderful perhaps than this early blossoming of his genius is its absolute originality. At a time when Johnson was the literary dictator of London, and Pope's manner still paramount, Chatterton, unmindful of their conventionalities and the current French influence, instinctively turned to earlier models, and sought his inspiration at the true source of English song. Bishop Percy's 'Reliques of Old English Poetry,' published in 1765, first made the people acquainted with their fine old ballads; but by that year Chatterton had already planned the story of the monk of Bristol and written some of the poems. Gifted with a rich vein of romance, he heralded the coming revival of mediæval literature. But he not only divined the new movements of poetry—he was also responsible for one side of its development. He had a poet's ear for metrical effects, and transmitted this gift to the romantic poets through Coleridge; for the latter, deeply interested in the tragedy of the life of the Bristol boy, studied his work; and traces of this study, resulting in freer rhythm and new harmonies, are found in Coleridge's own verse. The influence of the author of 'Christabel' on his brother poets is indisputable; hence his indebtedness to Chatterton gives to the latter at once his rightful position as the father of the New Romantic school. Keats also shows signs of close acquaintance with Chatterton; and he proves moreover by the dedication of his 'Endymion' that he cherished the memory of the unfortunate young poet, with whom he had, as far as the romantic temper on its objective side goes, perhaps the closest spiritual kinship of any poet of his time.

But quite apart from his youthful precocity and his influence on later poets, Chatterton holds no mean place in English literature because of the intrinsic value of his performance. His work, on the one hand, aside from the 'Rowley' poems, shows him a true poet of[Pg 3543] the eighteenth century, and the best of it entitles him to a fair place among his contemporaries; but on the other hand he stands almost alone in his generation in possessing the highest poetic endowments,—originality of thought, a quick eye to see and note, the gift of expression, sustained power of composition, and a fire and intensity of imagination. In how far he would have fulfilled his early promise it is idle to surmise; yet what poet, in the whole range of English, nay of all literature, at seventeen years and nine months of age, has produced work of such excellence as this "marvelous boy," who, unrecognized and driven by famine, took his own life in a London garret?

FINAL CHORUS FROM 'GODDWYN'

[Pg 3544]

THE FAREWELL OF SIR CHARLES BALDWIN TO HIS WIFE

From 'The Bristowe Tragedie'

MYNSTRELLES SONGE

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AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITTE

As Wroten bie the Gode Prieste Thomas Rowleie, 1464.

THE RESIGNATION

[Pg 3551]

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

(13—?-1400)

BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY

nglish literature, in the strict sense of the word, dates its beginning from the latter half of the fourteenth century. Not but an English literature had existed long previous to that period. Furthermore, it reckoned among its possessions works of value, and a few which in the opinion of some display genius. But though the name was the same, the thing was essentially different. A special course of study is required for any comprehension whatever of the productions of that earliest literature; and for the easy understanding of those written even but a half-century or so before the period indicated, a mastery of many peculiar syntactical constructions is demanded and an acquaintance with a vocabulary differing in a large number of words from that now in use.

But by the middle of the fourteenth century this state of things can hardly be said to exist any longer for us. Everything by that time had become ripe for the creation of a literature of a far higher type than had yet been produced. Furthermore, conditions prevailed which, though their results could not then be foreseen, were almost certain to render the literature thus created comparatively easy of comprehension to the modern reader. The Teutonic and Romanic elements that form the groundwork of our present vocabulary had at last become completely fused. Of the various dialects prevailing, the one spoken in the vicinity of the capital had gradually lifted itself up to a pre-eminence it was never afterwards to lose. In this parent of the present literary speech, writers found for the first time at their command a widely accepted and comparatively flexible instrument of expression. As a consequence, the literature then produced fixed definitely for all time the main lines upon which both the grammar and the vocabulary of the English speech were to develop. The result is that it now presents few difficulties for its full comprehension and appreciation that are not easily surmounted. The most effective deterrent to its wide study is one formidable only in appearance. This is the unfamiliar way in which its words are spelled; for orthography then sought to represent pronunciation, and had not in consequence crystallized into fixed forms with constant disregard of any special value to be attached to the signs by which sounds are denoted.

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Of the creators of this literature—Wycliffe, Langland, Chaucer, and Gower—Chaucer was altogether the greatest as a man of letters. This is no mere opinion of the present time: there has never been a period since he flourished in which it has not been fully conceded. In his own day, his fame swept beyond the narrow limits of country and became known to the outside world. At home his reputation was firmly established, and seems to have been established early. All the references to him by his contemporaries and immediate successors bear witness to his universally recognized position as the greatest of English poets, though we are not left by him in doubt that he had even then met detractors. Still the general feeling of the men of his time is expressed by his disciple Occleve, who terms him

Yet not a single incident of his life has come down to us from the men who admired his personality, who enrolled themselves as his disciples, and who celebrated his praises. With the exception of a few slight references to himself in his writings, all the knowledge we possess of the events of his career is due to the mention made of him in official documents of various kinds and of different degrees of importance. In these it is taken for granted that whenever Geoffrey Chaucer is spoken of, it is the poet who is meant, and not another person of the same name. The assumption almost approaches absolute certainty; it does not quite attain to it. In those days it is clear that there were numerous Chaucers. Still, no one has yet risen to dispute his being the very person spoken of in these official papers. From these documents we discover that Chaucer, besides being a poet, was also a man of affairs. He was a soldier, a negotiator, a diplomatist. He was early employed in the personal service of the king. He held various positions in the civil service. It was a consequence that his name should appear frequently in the records. It is upon them, and the references to him in documents covering transactions in which he bore a part, that the story of his life, so far as it exists for us at all, has been mainly built. It was by them also that the series of fictitious events which for so long a time did duty as the biography of the poet had their impossibility as well as their absurdity exposed.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

The exact date of Chaucer's birth we do not know. The most that can be said is that it must have been somewhere in the early years of the reign of Edward III. (1327-77). The place of his birth was in all probability London. His father, John Chaucer, was a vintner of that city, and there is evidence to indicate that he was to [Pg 3553]some extent connected with the court. In a deed dated June 19th, 1380, the poet released his right to his father's former house, which is described as being in Thames Street. The spot, however unsuitable for a dwelling-place now, was then in the very heart of urban life, and in that very neighborhood it is reasonable to suppose that Chaucer's earliest years were spent.

The first positive information we have, however, about the poet himself belongs to 1356. In that year we find him attached to the household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III. He is there in the service of the wife of that prince, but in what position we do not know. It may have been that of a page. He naturally was in attendance upon his mistress during her various journeyings; but most of her time was passed at her residence in Hatfield, Yorkshire. Chaucer next appears as having joined the army of Edward III. in his last invasion of France. This expedition was undertaken in the autumn of 1359, and continued until the peace of Bretigny, concluded in May, 1360. During this campaign he was captured somewhere and somehow—we have no knowledge of anything beyond the bare fact. It took place, however, before the first of March, 1360; for on that date the records show that the King personally contributed sixteen pounds towards his ransom.

From this last-mentioned date Chaucer drops entirely out of our knowledge till June, 1367, when he is mentioned as one of the valets of the King's chamber. In the document stating this fact he is granted a pension—the first of several he received—for services already rendered or to be rendered. It is a natural inference from the language employed, that during these years of which no record exists he was in some situation about the person of Edward III. After this time his name occurs with considerable frequency in the rolls, often in connection with duties to which he was assigned. His services were varied; in some instances certainly they were of importance. From 1370 to 1380 he was sent several times abroad to share in the conduct of negotiations. These missions led him to Flanders, to France, and to Italy. The subjects were very diverse. One of the negotiations in which he was concerned was in reference to the selection of an English port for a Genoese commercial establishment; another was concerning the marriage of the young monarch of England with the daughter of the king of France. It is on his first journey to Italy of which we have any record—the mission of 1372-73 to Genoa and Florence—that everybody hopes and some succeed in having an undoubting belief that Chaucer visited Petrarch at Padua, and there heard from him the story of Griselda, which the Clerk of Oxford in the 'Canterbury Tales' states that he learned from the Italian poet.

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But Chaucer's activity was not confined to foreign missions or to diplomacy; he was as constantly employed in the civil service. In 1374 he was made controller of the great customs—that is, of wool, skins, and leather—of the port of London. In 1382 he received also the post in the same port of controller of the petty customs—that is, of wines, candles, and other articles. The regulations of the office required him to write the records with his own hand; and it is this to which Chaucer is supposed to refer in the statement he makes about his official duties in the 'House of Fame.' In that poem the messenger of Jupiter tells him that though he has done so much in the service of the God of Love, yet he has never received for it any compensation. He then goes on to add the following lines, which give a graphic picture of the poet and of his studious life:—

In 1386 Chaucer was elected to Parliament as knight of the shire for the county of Kent. In that same year he lost or gave up both his positions in the customs. The cause we do not know. It may have been due to mismanagement on his own part: it is far more likely that he fell a victim to one of the fierce factional disputes that were going on during the minority of Richard II. At any rate, from this time he again disappears for two years from our knowledge. But in 1389 he is mentioned as having been appointed clerk of the King's works at Westminster and various other places; in 1390 clerk of the works for St. George's chapel at Windsor. Both of these places he [Pg 3555]held until the middle of 1391. In that last year he was made one of the commissioners to repair the roadway along the Thames, and at about the same time was appointed forester of North Petherton Park in Somerset, a post which he held till his death. After 1386 he seems at times to have been in pecuniary difficulties. To what cause they were owing, or how severe they were, it is the emptiest of speculations to form any conjectures in the obscurity that envelops this portion of his life. Whatever may have been his situation, on the accession of Henry IV. in September, 1399, his fortunes revived. The father of that monarch was John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III. That nobleman had pretty certainly been from the outset the patron of Chaucer; it is possible—as the evidence fails on one side, it cannot be regarded as proved—that by his marriage with Katharine Swynford he became the poet's brother-in-law. Whatever may have been the relationship, if any at all, it is a fact that one of the very first things the new king did was to confer upon Chaucer an additional pension. But the poet did not live long to enjoy the favor of the monarch. On the 24th of December, 1399, he leased for fifty-three years or during the term of his life a tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster. But after the 5th of June, 1400, his name appears no longer on any rolls. There is accordingly no reason to question the accuracy of the inscription on his tombstone which represents him as having died October 25th, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was the first, and still remains perhaps the greatest, of the English poets whose bones have there found their last resting-place.

This comprises all the facts of importance we know of Chaucer's life. Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it may be well to say that many fuller details about his career can be found in all older accounts of the poet, and in spite of the repeated exposure of their falsity still crop up occasionally in modern books of reference. Some are objectionable only upon the ground of being untrue. Of these are such statements as that he was born in 1328; that he was a student of Oxford, to which Cambridge is sometimes added; that he was created poet-laureate; and that he was knighted. But others are objectionable not only on the ground of being false, but of being slanderous besides. Of these the most offensive is the widely circulated and circumstantial story that he was concerned in the conflict that went on in 1382 between the city of London and the court in regard to the election of John of Northampton to the mayoralty; that in consequence of his participation in this contest he was compelled to seek refuge in the island of Zealand; that there he remained for some time, but on his return to England was arrested and thrown into the Tower; and that after having been imprisoned [Pg 3556]for two or three years he was released at last on the condition of betraying his associates, which he accordingly did. All these details are fictitious. They were made up from inferences drawn from obscure passages in a prose work entitled 'The Testament of Love.' This was once attributed to the poet, but is now known not to have been written by him. Even had it been his, the statements derived from it and applied to the life of the poet would have been entirely unwarranted, as they come into constant conflict with the official records. Not being his, this piece of spurious biography has the additional discredit of constituting an unnecessary libel upon his character.

From Chaucer the man, and the man of affairs, we proceed now to the consideration of Chaucer the writer. He has left behind a body of verse consisting of more than thirty-two thousand lines, and a smaller but still far from inconsiderable quantity of prose. The latter consists mainly if not wholly of translations—one a version of that favorite work of the Middle Ages, the treatise of Boëtius on the 'Consolation of Philosophy'; another the tale of Melibeus in the 'Canterbury Tales,' which is taken directly from the French; thirdly, the Parson's Tale, derived probably from the same quarter, though its original has not as yet been discovered with certainty; and fourthly, an unfinished treatise on the Astrolabe, undertaken for the instruction of his son Lewis. The prose of any literature always lags behind, and sometimes centuries behind, its poetry. It is therefore not surprising to find Chaucer displaying in the former but little of the peculiar excellence which distinguishes his verse. In the latter but little room is found for hostile criticism. In the more than thirty thousand lines of which it is composed there occur of course inferior passages, and some positively weak; but taking it all in all, there is comparatively little in it, considered as a whole, which the lover of literature as literature finds it advisable or necessary to skip. In this respect the poet holds a peculiar position, which makes the task of representation difficult. As Southey remarked, Chaucer with the exception of Shakespeare is the most various of all English authors. He appeals to the most diversified tastes. He wrote love poems, religious poems, allegorical poems, occasional poems, tales of common life, tales of chivalry. His range is so wide that any limited selection from his works can at best give but an inadequate idea of the variety and extent of his powers.

The canon of Chaucer's writings has now been settled with a reasonable degree of certainty. For a long time the fashion existed of imputing to him the composition of any English poem of the century following his death which was floating about without having attached to it the name of any author. The consequence is that the older [Pg 3557]editions contain a mass of matter which it would have been distinctly discreditable for any one to have produced, let alone a great poet. This has now been gradually dropped, much to the advantage of Chaucer's reputation; though modern scholarship also refuses to admit the production by him of two or three pieces, such as 'The Court of Love,' 'The Flower and the Leaf,' 'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,' none of which was unworthy of his powers. It is possible indeed that the poet himself may have had some dread of being saddled with the responsibility of having produced pieces which he did not care to father. It is certainly suggestive that he himself took the pains on one occasion to furnish what it seems must have been at the time a fairly complete list of his writings. In the prologue to the 'Legend of Good Women' he gave an idea of the work which up to that period he had accomplished. The God of Love, in the interview which is there described as having taken place, inveighs against the poet for having driven men away from the service due to his deity, by the character of what he had written. He says:—

Against this charge the queen Alcestis is represented as interposing to the god a defense of the poet, in which occurs the following account of Chaucer's writings:—

This prologue is generally conceded to have been written between 1382 and 1385. Though it does not profess to furnish a complete list of Chaucer's writings, it can fairly be assumed that it included all which he then regarded as of importance either on account of their merit or their length. If so, the titles given above would embrace the productions of what may be called the first half of his literary career. In fact, his disciple Lydgate leads us to believe that 'Troilus and Cressida' was a comparatively early production, though it may have undergone and probably did undergo revision before assuming its present form. The 'Legend of Good Women'—in distinction from its prologue—would naturally occupy the time of the poet during the opening period of what is here termed the second half of his literary career. The prologue is the only portion of it, however, that is of distinctly high merit. The work was never completed, and Chaucer pretty certainly came soon to the conclusion that it was not worth completing. It was in the taste of the times; but it did not take him long to perceive that an extended work dealing exclusively with the sorrows of particular individuals was as untrue to art as it was to life. It fell under the ban of that criticism which in the 'Canterbury Tales' he puts into the mouth of the Knight, who interrupts the doleful recital of the tragical tales told by the Monk with these words:—

Accordingly, from the composition of pieces of the one-sided and unsatisfactory character of those contained in the 'Legend of Good [Pg 3559]Women,' Chaucer turned to the preparation of his great work, the 'Canterbury Tales.' This gave him the fullest opportunity to display all his powers, and must have constituted the main literary occupation of his later life.

It will be noticed that two of the works mentioned in the prologue to the 'Legend of Good Women' are translations, and are so avowed. One is of the 'Roman de la Rose,' and the other of the philosophical treatise of Boëtius. In regard to the version of the former which has come down, it is sufficient to say that there was not long ago a disposition to deny the genuineness of all of it. This now contents itself with denying the genuineness of part of it. The question cannot be considered here: it is enough to say that in the opinion of the present writer, while the subject is attended with certain difficulties, the evidence is strongly in favor of Chaucer's composition of the whole. But setting aside any discussion of this point, there can scarcely be any doubt that Chaucer began his career as a translator. At the period he flourished he could hardly have done otherwise. It was an almost inevitable method of procedure on the part of a man who found neither writers nor writings in his own tongue worthy of imitation, and who could not fail to be struck not merely by the excellence of the Latin classic poets but also by the superior culture of the Continent. In the course of his literary development he would naturally pass from direct translation to adaptation. To the latter practice he assuredly resorted often. He took the work of the foreign author as a basis, discarded what he did not need or care for, and added as little or as much as suited his own convenience. In this way the 5704 lines of the 'Filostrato' of Boccaccio became 8246 in the 'Troilus and Cressida' of Chaucer; but even of the 5704 of the Italian poet, 2974 were not used by the English poet at all, and the 2730 that were used underwent considerable compression. In a similar way he composed the 'Knight's Tale,' probably the most perfect narrative poem in our tongue. It was based upon the 'Theseide' of Boccaccio. But the latter has 9896 lines, while the former comprises but 2250; and of these 2250 fully two-thirds are entirely independent of the Italian poem.

With such free treatment of his material, Chaucer's next step would be to direct composition, independent of any sources, save in that general way in which every author is under obligation to what has been previously produced. This finds its crowning achievement in the 'Canterbury Tales'; though several earlier pieces—such as the 'House of Fame,' the 'Parliament of Fowls,' and the prologue to the 'Legend of Good Women,'—attest that long before he had shown his ability to produce work essentially original. But though in his literary development Chaucer worked himself out of this exact [Pg 3560]reproduction of his models, through a partial working over of them till he finally attained complete independence, the habits of a translator clung to him to the very end. Even after he had fully justified his claim to being a great original poet, passages occur in his writings which are nothing but the reproduction of passages found in some foreign poem in Latin, or French, or Italian, the three languages with which he was conversant. His translation of them was due to the fact that they had struck his fancy; his insertion of them into his own work was to please others with what had previously pleased himself. Numerous passages of this kind have been pointed out; and doubtless there are others which remain to be pointed out.

There is another important thing to be marked in the history of Chaucer's artistic development. Not only was poetic material lacking in the tongue at the time of his appearance, but also poetic form. The measures in use, while not inadequate for literary expression, were incapable of embodying it in its highest flights. Consequently what Chaucer did not find, he had either to borrow or to invent. He did both. In the lines which have been quoted he speaks of the "ballades, roundels, and virelayes" which he had composed. These were all favorite poetical forms in that Continental country with whose literature Chaucer was mainly conversant. There can be little question that he tried all manner of verse which the ingenuity of the poets of Northern France had devised. As many of his shorter pieces have very certainly disappeared, his success in these various attempts cannot be asserted with positiveness. Still, what have survived show that he was a great literary artist as well as a great poet. His feats of rhyming, in particular in a tongue so little fitted for it as is ours, can be seen in his unfinished poem of 'Queen Anelida and False Arcite,' in the 'Complaint to Venus,' and in the envoy which follows the Clerk's Tale. In this last piece, though there are thirty-six lines, the rhymes are only three; and two of these belong to fifteen lines respectively.

But far more important than such attempts, which prove interest in versification rather than great poetic achievement, are the two measures which he introduced into our tongue. The first was the seven-line stanza. The rhyming lines in it are respectively the first and third; the second, fourth, and fifth; and the sixth and seventh. At a later period this was frequently called "rhyme royal," because the 'Kingis Quair' was written in it. For fully two centuries it was one of the most popular measures in English poetry. Since the sixteenth century, however, it has been but little employed. Far different has been the fate of the line of ten syllables, or rather of five accents. On account of its frequent use in the 'Canterbury Tales' it [Pg 3561]was called for a long period "riding rhyme"; but it now bears the title of "heroic verse." As employed by Chaucer it varies in slight particulars from the way it is now generally used. With him the couplet character was never made prominent. The sense was not apt to end at the second line, but constantly tended to run over into the line following. There was also frequently with him an unaccented eleventh syllable; and this, though not unknown to modern verse, is not common. Still, the difference between the early and the later form are mere differences of detail, and of comparatively unimportant detail. The introduction of this measure into English may be considered Chaucer's greatest achievement in the matter of versification. The heroic verse may have existed in the tongue before he himself used it. If so, it lurked unseen and uninfluential. He was the first to employ it on a grand scale, if not to employ it at all, and to develop its capabilities. Much the largest proportion of his greatest work is written in that measure. Yet in spite of his example, it found for two centuries comparatively few imitators. It was not till the end of the sixteenth century that the measure started on a new course of life, and entered upon the great part it has since played in English versification.

The most important of what are sometimes called the minor works of Chaucer are the 'Parliament of Fowls,' the 'House of Fame,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' and the 'Legend of Good Women.' These are all favorable examples of his genius. But however good they may be in particular portions and in particular respects, in general excellence they yield place unquestionably to the 'Canterbury Tales.' It seems to have been very clearly the intention of the poet to embody in this crowning achievement of his literary life everything in the shape of a story he had already composed or was purposing to compose. Two of the pieces, the love of Palamon and Arcite and the Life of St. Cecilia, as we know from the words of his already quoted, had appeared long before. The plan of the work itself was most happily conceived; and in spite of most painstaking efforts to find an original for it or suggestion of it somewhere else, there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the poet himself was equal to the task of having devised it. No one certainly can question the felicity with which the framework for embodying the tales was constructed. All ranks and classes of society are brought together in the company of pilgrims who assemble at the Tabard Inn at Southwark to ride to the shrine of the saint at Canterbury. The military class is represented by the Knight, belonging to the highest order of the nobility, his son the Squire, and his retainer the Yeoman; the church by the Abbot, the Friar, the Parson, the Prioress with her attendant Nun, and the three accompanying Priests, [Pg 3562]and less distinctly by the Scholar, the Clerk of Oxford, and by the Pardoner and the Summoner. For the other professions are the Doctor of Physic and the Serjeant of Law; for the middle-class landholders the Franklin; and for the various crafts and occupations the Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Upholsterer, the Cook, the Ploughman, the Sailor, the Reeve, the Manciple, and (joining the party in the course of the pilgrimage) the assistant of the alchemist, who is called the Canon's Yeoman. Into the mouths of these various personages were to be put tales befitting their character and condition. Consequently there was ample space for stories of chivalry, of religion, of love, of magic, and in truth of every aspect of social life in all its highest and lowest manifestations. Between the tales themselves were connecting links, in which the poet had the opportunity to give an account of the incidents that took place on the pilgrimage, the critical opinions expressed by the hearers of what had been told, and the disputes and quarrels that went on between the various members of the party. So far as this portion of his plan was finished, these connecting links furnish some of the most striking passages in the work. In one of them—the prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale—the genius of the poet reaches along certain lines its highest development; while the general prologue describing the various personages of the party, though not containing the highest poetry of the work as poetry, is the most acute, discriminating, and brilliant picture of men and manners that can be found in our literature.

CHAUCER.

Title-page of the first attempt to collect his works into one volume.
The imprint reads:
Imprinted at London by Thomas Godfray,
The yeare of our lorde
M.D.XXXII.

Title:
The Workes of Geffray Chaucer newly printed, with dyuers workes
whiche were neuer in print before: As in the table
more playnly dothe appere.
Cum priuilegio.

Such was the plan of the work. It was laid out on an extensive scale, perhaps on too extensive a scale ever to have been completed. Certain it is that it was very far from ever reaching even remotely that result. According to the scheme set forth in the prologue, the work when finished should have included over one hundred and twenty tales. It actually comprises but twenty-four. Even of these, two are incomplete: the Cook's Tale, which is little more than begun, and the romantic Eastern tale of the Squire, which, in Milton's words, is "left half told." To those that are finished, the connecting links have not been supplied in many cases. Accordingly the work exists not as a perfect whole, but in eight or nine fragmentary parts, each complete in itself, but lacking a close connection with the others, though all are bound together by the unity of a common central interest. The value of what has been done makes doubly keen the regret that so much has been left undone. Politics, religion, literature, manners, are all touched upon in this wide-embracing view, which still never misses what is really essential; and added to this is a skill of portrayal by which the actors, whether narrating the tales themselves, or themselves forming the heroes of the narration,[Pg 3563] fairly live and breathe before our eyes. Had the work been completed on the scale upon which it was begun, we should have had a picture of life and opinion in the fourteenth century more vivid and exact than has been drawn of any century before or since.

The selections given are partly of extracts and partly of complete pieces. To the former class belong the lines taken from the opening of the 'Canterbury Tales,' with the description of a few of the characters; the description of the temples of Mars, of Venus, and of Diana in the Knight's Tale; and the account of the disappearance of the fairies at the opening of the Wife of Bath's Tale. The complete pieces are the tales of the Pardoner, and of the Nun's Priest. From the first, however, has been dropped the discourse on drunkenness, profanity, and gambling, which, though in keeping with the character of the narrator, has no connection with the development of the story. The second, the tale of the Nun's Priest, was modernized by Dryden under the title of the 'Cock and the Fox.' All of these are in heroic verse. The final selection is the ballade now usually entitled 'Truth.' In it the peculiar ballade construction can be studied—that is, the formation in three stanzas, either with or without an envoy; the same rhymes running through the three stanzas; and the final line of each stanza precisely the same. One of Chaucer's religious poems—the so-called 'A B C'—can be found under Deguileville, from whose 'Pèlerinage la de Vie Humaine' it is translated.

Chaucer's style, like that of all great early writers, is marked by perfect simplicity, and his language is therefore comparatively easy to understand. In the extracts here given the spelling has been modernized, save occasionally at the end of the line, when the rhyme has required the retention of an earlier form. The words themselves and grammatical forms have of course undergone no change. There are two marks used to indicate the pronunciation: first, the acute accent to indicate that a heavier stress than ordinary is to be placed on the syllable over which it stands; and secondly, the grave accent to indicate that the letter or syllable over which it appears, though silent in modern pronunciation, was then sounded. Thus landès, grovès, friendès, knavès, would have the final syllable sounded; and in a similar way timè, Romè, and others ending in e, when the next word begins with a vowel or h mute. The acute accent can be exemplified in words like couráge, reasón, honoúr, translatéd, where the accent would show that the final syllable would either receive the main stress or a heavier stress than is now given it. Again, a word like cre-a-ture consists, in the pronunciation here given, of three syllables and not of two, and is accordingly represented by a grave accent over the a to signify that this vowel forms a separate syllable, and by the acute accent over the ture to indicate that this final syllable [Pg 3564]should receive more weight of pronunciation than usual. It accordingly appears as creàtúre. In a similar way con-dit-i-on would be a word of four syllables, and its pronunciation would be indicated by this method conditìón. It is never to be forgotten that Chaucer had no superior in the English tongue as a master of melody; and if a verse of his sounds inharmonious, it is either because the line is corrupt or because the reader has not succeeded in pronouncing it correctly.

The explanation of obsolete words or meanings is given in the foot-notes. In addition to these the following variations from modern English that occur constantly, and are therefore not defined, should be noted. Hir and hem stand for 'their' and 'them.' The affix y- is frequently prefixed to the past participle, which itself sometimes omits the final en or -n, as 'ydrawe,' 'yshake.' The imperative plural ends in -th, as 'dreadeth.' The general negative ne is sometimes to be defined by 'not,' sometimes by 'nor'; and connected with forms of the verb 'be' gives us nis, 'is not'; nas, 'was not.' As is often an expletive, and cannot be rendered at all; that before 'one' and 'other' is usually the definite article; there is frequently to be rendered by 'where'; mo always means 'more'; thilke means 'that' or 'that same'; del is 'deal' in the sense of 'bit,' 'whit'; and the comparatives of 'long' and 'strong' are lenger and strenger. Finally it should be borne in mind that the double negative invariably strengthens the negation.

PROLOGUE TO THE 'CANTERBURY TALES'

THE TEMPLES OF VENUS, MARS, AND DIANA

From the Knight's Tale

[Pg 3577]

THE PASSING OF THE FAIRIES

From the Wife of Bath's Tale

THE PARDONER'S TALE

[Pg 3584]

THE NUN'S PRIESTS TALE

[Pg 3600]

TRUTH

BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL

[Pg 3601]

ANDRÉ CHÉNIER

(1762-1794)

BY KATHARINE HILLARD

here are some reputations which seem to depend upon their environment. Certain names are surrounded by a halo of romance, through which all outlines are enlarged and heightened in effect until it becomes difficult to discern their true proportions through the golden mist. When we think of André Chénier we see a youthful figure among a crowd of fellow-prisoners, the light of genius in his eyes, the dark shadow of impending death already enveloping him and climbing slowly upwards, as the mist of the Highland second-sight rises higher as death draws near. The pathetic character of his fate touches the heart, and disposes us to judge the poems he wrote with that bias of personal interest which is so apt to warp the verdict of the critical mind. Had André Chénier died comfortably in his bed at a good old age, would Sainte-Beuve have been so apt to call him "our greatest classic poet since Racine and Boileau"? unless indeed he had vainly racked his memory to think of any other.

André Chénier

André-Marie de Chénier—as he was called until 1790 swept away all ornamental particles—was born amid picturesque surroundings at Constantinople, October 30th, 1762, where his father then held the office of Consul-General. He had married a young Greek girl, a Mademoiselle Santi-l'Homaka, whose family came originally from the island of Cyprus. A Languedocian father, a Cyprian mother, an Oriental birthplace,—it was no wonder that the passionate fire of his blood flamed somewhat too hotly through his verse. André was the third of four sons, and four daughters were also born to M. de Chénier. In 1765, when he was but three years old, his father returned to France; but two years afterwards left his native country again to fill a diplomatic position in Morocco, while his wife remained in Paris with their children.

André seems to have always looked back with pleasure to his Eastern birthplace, and long cherished the hope of revisiting it, but[Pg 3602] he never got farther on the way than Italy. Madame de Chénier, who was a refined and cultivated woman with much taste for art and literature, gave him his first lessons; but he was soon sent with his brothers to the College of Navarre. There he made many friendships that lasted to the end of his short life, and his school-fellows, some of whom belonged to noble and wealthy families, often took him to spend his holidays at their country-houses.

At the age of sixteen he carried off a first prize in rhetoric; and from that time began his apprenticeship to the trade of the Muses, as Ronsard would say, by writing translations of Greek and Latin verse. He does not seem to have been particularly precocious as a poet, and his imitations of Sappho were even then considered rather feeble. His mother's salon was thronged with artists, poets, writers, and men of the world, among whom André might have found many indulgent listeners, were it not that his reserve and fastidious taste made him rather chary of exhibiting his youthful efforts. His mind was already full of ambitious projects for future epics, and his leisure was spent very much as his classic models had spent theirs, in light and facile pleasures and loves.

M. de Chénier, who watched over his family from afar, was ambitious for the future of his sons; Constantine, the eldest, was already in the diplomatic service; the other three were destined for the army. André joined his regiment when he was twenty, and went to Strasbourg to learn his new duties; but the life of a soldier was not congenial to him, and although he made one or two dear friends in the garrison, the six months that he spent there seemed interminable, and he returned to Paris to resume his life of elegant dissipation among his rich and titled acquaintances. But his health began to give way, and the hope of relief from a change of climate induced him to join his old friends, the brothers Louis and Charles Trudaine, in a journey they projected through Switzerland and Italy to Constantinople. The three friends started together in the summer of 1784, passed through Switzerland, and spent the autumn and winter in Italy; but although they remained away a year, they never got any further.

This journey and its experiences did much to educate and enrich the mind of André, and he continued to devote much time to study and poetic composition to the elaboration of vast schemes for dramas and epics, and to the imitation of the Greek and Latin poets he loved and copied so well. He wished to enlarge the province of the idyl, and to give to it more variety than even Theocritus had succeeded in doing; to make it more dramatic, less rustic, and in short if we may judge from the assertions of his countrymen, a more perfect picture of that elegant and aristocratic world in which he moved.[Pg 3603] The idyls of André Chénier are to poetry very much what the pictures of Watteau and Boucher are to painting. The variety he wished so much to impart to them is after all confined to the grouping of the figures, and their greatest beauty is the classic elegance of their style; as one of his French biographers says, "The style of these poems makes up for what the sentiment lacks of ideality, and lends a sort of purity to details which from any other pen would have run great risk of coarseness." Sainte-Beuve speaks of "his boxwood flute, his ivory lute"; but all this beauty of diction, this smoothness and grace of verse, can hardly blind the unprejudiced critic to the fact that "a sort of purity" will hardly make up for his too frequent choice of subjects that appeal only to the grossest tastes. His highest ideals, like those of most poets, were never reached. He had lofty visions of writing a poem called 'Hermes,' which should be an exposition of natural and social laws, principles, and progress; a system of philosophy in heroic couplets, beginning with the birth of humanity and its first questioning of natural phenomena, its first efforts to solve the problems of the universe, and coming down to the latest discoveries of physical and political science. He never succeeded in completing the preliminary studies necessary to the carrying out of this vast conception, and the 'Hermes' remains a mass of incoherent fragments.

André de Chénier had not the robust common-sense that underlay all the poetic eccentricities of the poet whom in many ways he so much resembled,—Alfred de Musset. The latter knew and recognized his limitations. "My glass is not large, but I drink from my own glass," he said, and what he did attempt was well within his possibilities and was exquisitely done. Not so with Chénier. With a genius like that of De Musset, pre-eminently lyrical, but with infinitely less variety and richness, he laboriously accumulated vast piles of materials for dramas and for epics that if ever completed must have but added another page to the list of literary soporifics. He made a colossal sketch of another poem, to be called 'America,'—a sort of geographical and historical encyclopedia, M. Joubert calls it, whose enormous mass of detail could scarcely be floated by any one current of interest, but whose principal motive seemed meant to be the conquest of Peru.

In the midst of these enterprises he suddenly conceived what one of his biographers calls "the amiable intention" of writing a poem on the story of 'Susannah and the Elders,' but only completed a prose sketch with two or three short passages in verse. He also began one or two tragedies which were to be after Æschylus, a comedy called 'The Charlatans,' poems on the literary life, and many other subjects; and at the same time he was keeping up his relations with[Pg 3604] many of his distinguished contemporaries;—the Polish poet Niemcewicz; Mrs. Cosway, the charming young wife of the well-known English painter, and an artist herself; the Italian poet Alfieri; and the Countess of Albany.

In 1787 his father, who had returned to Paris, was anxious that André should begin his diplomatic career; and he was appointed attaché to M. de la Luzerne, just sent as ambassador to England. The poet went to London in December,—a most unpropitious season,—and naturally nothing pleased him there; he found the climate detestable, the manners of the English rude and cold, their literature of a barbaric richness, and in fact he approved of nothing in England but its Constitution, which he thought not only good but worthy of imitation.

He had been in London about sixteen months when the first rumors of the French Revolution reached him and turned all his thoughts towards the great political questions of the moment. The project of a rule of liberty and justice for France appealed to the noblest side of his nature; and while passionately opposed to all excess and violence, he was eager to assist any movement that promised to help the people.

With his friends the brothers Trudaine, he joined the Society of '89, when it was a centre for varying shades of opinion, reconciled by a common love of liberty and hatred of anarchy. He returned to Paris definitely in the summer of 1790, and wrote independent and impassioned articles in the Journal of the Society of 1789, warning the people against their real enemies, the fomenters of anarchy, while he expressed much the same ideas in one of the most celebrated of his poems, the ode to David's picture called 'Le Jeu de Paume,' representing the deputies taking their famous oath in the Hall of the Jeu de Paume at Versailles. Lacretelle, in his reminiscences published half a century later, spoke of André Chénier as a fellow-member of the club called Friends of the Constitution, as a man of great talent and great force of character:—"The most decided and the most eloquently expressed opinions always came from him. His strongly marked features, his athletic though not lofty stature, his dark complexion, his glowing eyes, enforced and illuminated his words. Demosthenes as well as Pindar had been the object of his study."

But moderate opinions and a horror of the excesses of the Revolution were very unsafe things to hold. Although André took refuge in 1793 in a quiet little house at Versailles, he could not stay there altogether, but made frequent visits to Paris; and an unfortunate chance caused his arrest at the house of M. Pastoret at Passy, where he was accused of having gone to warn his friend of his own danger.[Pg 3605] Chénier was first taken to the prison of the Luxembourg, which was too full to receive him, and then to St. Lazare, where he was registered on the 8th of March, 1794.

Apart from the suspicion which caused his arrest, he could hardly have escaped much longer; his fellow editor of the Journal de Paris had already been in St. Lazare for several months, and his friends the Trudaines joined him there before long. M. de Chénier exerted all his influence to procure his son's liberation, but was put off with promises and polite evasions; and not long after, his second son, Sauveur, was imprisoned in the Conciergerie.

By this time there were nearly eight thousand persons in the prisons of Paris; about eight hundred in St. Lazare, where Chénier found many of his friends, and among the ladies there the beautiful and charming young Duchess of Fleury. It was she who inspired the poet with the idea of his poem called 'The Young Captive,' perhaps the most beautiful, as it is the most touching, of all his poems.

Shortly before Chénier was arrested he had formed a close friendship with Madame Pourrat of Luciennes and her two daughters, the Countess Hocquart and Madame Laurent Lecoulteux. To the latter, under the name of Fanny, he addressed many charming verses; one ode in particular, that seems to have been intended to accompany the gift of a necklace, is almost worthy of Ronsard, although like many of Chénier's poems it was never finished.

His last poems were written in a very fine hand on some narrow strips of paper that had escaped the vigilance of his jailers, and were smuggled out of prison with the linen that went to the wash.

On the flimsy pretext of a conspiracy among the prisoners, André Chénier, then only thirty-one, was condemned with twenty-five others as "an enemy of the people, and for having shared in all the crimes perpetrated by the tyrant, his wife, and his family; of writing against liberty and in favor of tyranny; of corresponding with enemies of the republic abroad and at home; and finally of conspiring, in the prison of St. Lazare, to murder the members of the committees of general safety, etc., and to re-establish royalty in France."

The twenty-five victims went through the mockery of their trial in the morning of the 25th of July, 1794, and at six the same evening were executed at the Barrière de Vincennes. Three days afterward, Robespierre and many of his accomplices perished upon the scaffold, and the Reign of Terror was at an end.

Very little of André Chénier's poetry was left in a state fit for publication; he began so many vast enterprises of which he left but the merest fragments, and he wrote so much that his literary executors feared would shock the public taste. His brother published 'The Young Captive' and one or two other poems some seven years[Pg 3606] after his death, which were quoted by Châteaubriand in 1802 and warmly admired by him. The first complete edition of his poems did not appear till 1819, a year before Lamartine's 'Meditations' came out, and three years before Victor Hugo's first collection was printed. He was not considered a great poet by his first readers, and he would be almost a forgotten one now, were it not for the romance of his short life and his early death. He was the precursor of Byron and De Musset, having the ardent love of liberty of the former and the sensuous grace of the latter; but he lacked the strength for a sustained flight, and he did not know the measure of his powers. He had saturated himself too completely with the honey of Greek verse, and was prisoned in its cloying sweetness. When he would soar into the empyrean, his wings were clogged, and he soon fell back again among the flowers. But he will always be a notable figure in French literature, although we may not consider him, with his French admirers, as one of the masters among the poets of our own time.

THE YOUNG CAPTIVE

[Pg 3608]

ODE

[Pg 3609]

VICTOR CHERBULIEZ

(1829-)

n 1863 the Revue des Deux Mondes offered its readers a novel by a young author very slightly known to Parisian littérateurs. But everybody read him with interest, whether cordially approving or not. The story was not evolutionary, had no definite moral purpose. Perhaps the public were glad to temporarily lay aside their instruments for scientific dissection of literary art; for 'Le Comte Kostia,' a lively tale of romantic adventure, was the most popular story that had been published by the Revue des Deux Mondes. Naturally the gratified editors accepted the author as a regular contributor, which he has been ever since. He had been introduced to them by George Sand, who, pleased with an earlier work of his, wrote him appreciatively and did him this kind turn. This earlier work, 'Un Cheval de Phidias' (A Horse by Phidias), cordially praised by Sainte-Beuve, was a capable dissertation upon archæology and art, strung on a thread of narrative.

Victor Cherbuliez

The young author, Victor Cherbuliez,—Genevese, of French descent,—was about thirty-four when 'Le Comte Kostia' appeared. A critic in discussing him speaks almost enviously of the liberalizing influences experienced in cosmopolitan little Switzerland. Cherbuliez's advantages have been great. His father was a professor in the university, and of his parents it has been pleasantly said that from his father he learned all he ought to know, from his mother all he ought to be. He was graduated from the University of Geneva, and later studied history and philosophy at Paris, Bonn, and Berlin. For a time he taught at Geneva; then he married, and with his wife traveled extensively in the East, where he collected abundant material for his trained powers of observation and his love of social and artistic questions. He has been a member of the Academy since 1881, and now lives in Paris,—a perennial novel-writer, distinguished also for the clever sketches on modern French politics which appear regularly in the Revue des Deux Mondes signed "George Valbert."

[Pg 3610]

But his best and most abundant work has been in fiction, where his talent lies in the union of romantic imagination with a practical view of life. There is sometimes falsetto in the imagination, but it gratifies a liking for falsetto in many readers. Translated, his novels have been read almost as much in English as in French; and among the best liked are 'L'Idée de Jean Tétérol' (Jean Tétérol's Idea); 'La Revanche de Joseph Noircel' (Joseph Noircel's Revenge); 'Le Docteur Rameau.'

If they refuse Cherbuliez a place among great writers, at least the critics always respect his cleverness, and recognize the range of his information regarding the art, literature, politics, and history of different lands. The prime quality of his work is interest. His remarkable inventiveness shows in one unusual situation after another, without repetition and with always fresh stimulus. His kinship with George Sand's romantic spirit was felt at once, and his style has always remained essentially unchanged. But that his earlier emotional spontaneity has grown with maturity to a more conventional spirit, may be seen by comparing the two ends of his work. In 'Le Comte Kostia' we have the persecution of a beautiful young daughter by a Russian nobleman. He forces her to hide her sex and personate the son he has lost, and subjects her to many terrors until she is rescued by his chivalrous young secretary, who in time discovers her secret and marries her,—but first, numberless adventures and scenes of passion. In 'Le Roi Epèpi' (King Epèpi: 1895) there is no profound emotion. It is the cleverly cynical account of the rescue by a worldly old uncle of a romantic and short-sighted nephew. The young man, infatuated by an adventuress, insists upon marrying her. The uncle ingeniously, without compromising himself, leads the lady to believe that he himself is in love with her. Naturally she prefers proprietor to heir, and throws over the latter only to find herself deceived.

Perhaps the best way to indicate Cherbuliez's place in French literature is by comparison with the English Trollope. Both create interest. Both have a swift firm style, with sometimes almost too facile a rush. But while Trollope draws ordinary men and women who talk in ordinary fashion, Cherbuliez invents brilliant-minded people who shower us with epigram. They shoulder too much of their creator's erudition, and are too clever to be quite natural.

[Pg 3611]

THE SILENT DUEL

From 'Samuel Brohl and Company'

Madame de Lorcy ushered Samuel into the salon, where he had scarcely set foot when he descried an old woman lounging on a causeuse, fanning herself as she chatted with Abbé Miollens. He remained motionless, his eyes fixed, scarcely breathing, cold as marble; it seemed to him that the four walls of the salon swayed from right to left and left to right, and that the floor was sliding from under his feet like the deck of a pitching vessel.

The previous day, Antoinette once departed, Madame de Lorcy had resumed her attack on Princess Gulof, and the princess had ended by consenting to delay her departure, to dine with the adventurer of the green eyes, and to subject him to a close scrutiny. There she was; yes, it was indeed she! The first impulse of Samuel Brohl was to regain the door as speedily as possible; but he did nothing of the kind. He looked at Madame de Lorcy: she herself was regarding him with astonishment; she wondered what could suddenly have overcome him; she could find no explanation for the bewilderment apparent in his countenance.

"It is a mere chance," he thought at last; "she has not intentionally drawn me into a snare." This thought was productive of a sort of half-relief.

"Eh bien! what is it?" she asked. "Has my poor salon still the misfortune to be hurtful to you?"

He pointed to a jardinière, saying: "You are fond of hyacinths and tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think me very effeminate."

She replied in a caressing voice: "I take you for a most worthy man who has terrible nerves; but you know by experience that if you have weaknesses I have salts. Will you have my smelling-bottle?"

"You are a thousand times too good," he rejoined, and bravely marched forward to face the danger. It is a well-known fact that dangers in a silken robe are the most formidable of all.

Madame de Lorcy presented him to the princess, who raised her chin to examine him with her little glittering eyes. It seemed to him that those gray orbs directed at him were two[Pg 3612] balls, which struck him in the heart; he quivered from head to foot and asked himself confusedly whether he were dead or living. He soon perceived that he was still living; the princess had remained impassible—not a muscle of her face had moved. She ended by bestowing upon Samuel a smile which was almost gracious, and addressing to him some insignificant words which he only half understood, but which seemed to him exquisite—delicious. He fancied that she was saying to him: "You have a chance—you were born lucky; my sight has been impaired for some years, and I do not recognize you. Bless your star, you are saved!" He experienced such a transport of joy that he could have flung his arms about the neck of Abbé Miollens, who came up to him with extended hand, saying:—

"What have you been thinking about, my dear count? Since we last met a very great event has been accomplished. What woman wishes, God wishes; but after all, my own humble efforts were not without avail, and I am proud of it."

Madame de Lorcy requested Count Larinski to offer his arm to Princess Gulof and lead her out to dinner. He mechanically complied; but he had not the strength to utter a syllable as he conducted the princess to table. She herself said nothing; she seemed wholly busied in arranging with her unoccupied hand a lock of her gray hair, which had strayed too far over her forehead. He looked fixedly at this short plump hand, which one day in a fit of jealous fury had administered to him two smart blows; his cheeks recognized it.

During dinner the princess was very gay: she paid more attention to Abbé Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the good priest—in endeavoring to shock him a little. It was not easy to shock him; to his natural easy good-nature he united an innate respect for grandeurs and for princesses. She did not neglect so good an opportunity to air her monkey-development theories. He merrily flung back the ball; he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen angel rather than a perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu made a much sorrier figure in the world than the descendant of an old family of ruined nobility. She replied that she was more democratic than he. "It is pleasant to me," said she, "to think that I am a progressive ape, who has a wide future before him, and who by taking proper pains may hope to attain new advancement."[Pg 3613]

While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his might to recover from the terrible blow he had received. He noted with keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably impaired; that the microscopic studies for which she had always had a taste had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she was obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-glasses. "She has not seen me for six years," thought he, "and I have become a different man; I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I have difficulty sometimes in recognizing myself. Formerly my face was close-shaven; now I have let my entire beard grow. My voice, my accent, the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my countenance, all are changed; Poland has entered into my blood—I am Samuel no longer, I am Larinski." He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled the sight of old women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made of him his twin brother. Before the end of the repast he had recovered all his assurance, all his aplomb. He began to take part in the conversation: he recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little story; he retailed sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace and sprightliness; he expressed the most chivalrous sentiments; shaking his lion's mane, he spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with tears in his voice. It were impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.

The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity; she concluded by saying to him, "Count, I admire you; but I believe only in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me."

After they had left the table and repaired to the salon, several callers dropped in. It was like a deliverance to Samuel. If the society was not numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it served him as a shield. He held it for a certainty that the princess had not recognized him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence unutterably ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him all the miseries, the shame, the hard grinding slavery of his youth; he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were being seared with a hot iron.

He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and pedantic counselor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled ennui. This fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who[Pg 3614] found in him wit, knowledge, scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes) meritorious quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come to divide the human race into two categories: the first comprehended those well-to-do, thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he placed in the second, old women who did know him. He interrogated the counselor with deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an air of approbation at all the absurdities which escaped him; he would have been willing to have his discourse last three hours by the watch; if this charming bore had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would have held him back by the button.

Suddenly he heard a harsh voice saying to Madame de Lorcy, "Where is Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with him."

He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counselor with regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Madame de Lorcy drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the effect of a stool of repentance. Madame de Lorcy moved away, and he was left tête-à-tête with Princess Gulof, who said to him, "I have been told that congratulations are due you, and I must make them at once—although we are enemies."

"By what right are we enemies, princess?" he asked, with a slightly troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered, "I am a Russian and you are a Pole; but we shall have no time for fighting: I leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."

He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly kissing her two hands in testimony of his gratitude. "To-morrow at seven o'clock," he mentally ejaculated. "I have slandered her: she has some good in her."

"When I say that I am a Russian," resumed the princess, "it is merely a formal speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea which has had its day, which had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but which has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the locomotive; and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or more ridiculous than a patriot. Rumor says that you fought like a hero in the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable prowess, and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks. What harm had they done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they[Pg 3615] not sometimes haunt your dreams? Can you think of your victims without disquietude and without remorse?"

He replied in a dry, haughty tone: "I really do not know, princess, how many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some subjects on which I do not love to expatiate."

"You are right—I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do Sancho the honor to explain himself to him every day."

"Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey," he observed, in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed. "That is a question which has the advantage of being neither Russian nor Polish."

"You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense you. You uttered, at table, theories which displeased me. You are not only a Polish patriot,—you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you do not know how I have always detested this man. In all these sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but selfishness and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I promise not to steal it from you. O Poet!—for you are quite as much of a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much—"

"Nothing remains but to hang me," he interposed, smilingly.

"No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be hanged, it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who adores you, who was created expressly for you, and whom you will shortly marry. When will the ceremony take place?"

"If I dared hope that you would do me the honor of being present, princess, I should postpone it until your return from England."

"You are too amiable; but I could not on any consideration retard the happiness of Mademoiselle Moriaz. There, my dear count, I congratulate you sincerely. I had the pleasure to meet here the future Countess Larinski. She is adorable! It is an exquisite nature, hers—a true poet's wife. She must have[Pg 3616] brains, discernment; she has chosen you that says everything. As to her fortune, I dare not ask you if she has any; you would turn away from me in disgust. Do idealists trouble their heads with such vile questions?"

She leaned toward him, and fanning herself excitedly, added, "These poor idealists! they have one misfortune."

"And what is that, princess?"

"They dream with open eyes, and the awakening is sometimes disagreeable. Ah, my dear Count Larinski, this, that, and the other, et cætera. Thus endeth the adventure."

Then stretching out her neck until her face was close to his, she darted at him a venomous viper-like look, and in a voice that seemed to cut into his tympanum like a sharp-toothed saw, she hissed, "Samuel Brohl, the man with the green eyes, sooner or later the mountains must meet!"

It seemed to him that the candelabra on the mantel-piece darted out jets of flame, whose green, blue, and rose-colored tongues ascended to the ceiling; and it appeared to him as though his heart was beating as noisily as a clock pendulum, and that every one would turn to inquire whence came the noise. But every one was occupied; no one turned round; no one suspected that there was a man present on whom a thunderbolt had just fallen.

The man passed his hand over his brow, which was covered with a cold sweat; then dispelling by an effort of will the cloud that veiled his eyes, he in turn leaned toward the princess and with quivering lip and evil sardonic glance, said to her in a low voice:—

"Princess, I have a slight acquaintance with this Samuel Brohl of whom you speak. He is not a man who will allow himself to be strangled without a great deal of outcry. You are not much in the habit of writing; nevertheless he received from you two letters, which he copied, placing the originals in safety. If ever he sees the necessity of appearing in a court of justice, these two letters can be made to create quite a sensation, and unquestionably they will be the delight of all the petty journals of Paris."

Thereupon he made a profound bow, respectfully took leave of Madame de Lorcy, and retired, followed by Abbé Miollens, who inflicted a real torture by insisting on accompanying him to the station.

[Pg 3617]

SAMUEL BROHL GIVES UP THE PLAY

From 'Samuel Brohl and Company'

The gate opened and admitted Samuel Brohl, who had a smile on his lips. His first words were—"And your umbrella! You have forgotten it?"

Mademoiselle de Moriaz replied, "Do you not see that there is no sunshine?" And she remained leaning against the apple-tree.

He uplifted his hand to show her the blue sky; he let it fall again. He looked at Antoinette, and he was afraid. He guessed immediately that she knew all. At once he grew audacious.

"I spent a dull day yesterday," said he. "Madame de Lorcy invited me to dine with a crazy woman; but the night made up for it. I saw Engadine in my dreams—the firs, the Alpine pines, the emerald lakes, and a red hood."

"I too dreamed last night. I dreamed that the bracelet you gave me belonged to the crazy woman of whom you speak, and that she had her name engraved on it."

She threw him the bracelet; he picked it up, examined it, turned and re-turned it in his trembling fingers. She grew impatient. "Look at the place that has been forced open. Don't you know how to read?"

He read, and became stupefied. Who would have believed that this trinket that he had found among his father's old traps had come to him from Princess Gulof; that it was the price she had paid for Samuel Brohl's ignominy and shame? Samuel was a fatalist; he felt that his star had set, that Fate had conspired to ruin his hopes, that he was found guilty and condemned. His heart grew heavy within him.

"Can you tell me what I ought to think of a certain Samuel Brohl?" she asked.

That name, pronounced by her, fell on him like a mass of lead; he never would have believed that there could be so much weight in a human word. He trembled under the blow; then he struck his brow with his clinched hand and replied:—

"Samuel Brohl is a man as worthy of your pity as he is of mine. If you knew all that he has suffered, all that he has dared, you could not help deeply pitying and admiring him. Listen to me: Samuel Brohl is an unfortunate man—"[Pg 3618]

"Or a wretch!" she interrupted in a terrible voice. She was seized by a fit of nervous laughter; she cried out, "Madame Brohl! I will not be called Madame Brohl. Ah! that poor Countess Larinski!"

He had a spasm of rage that would have terrified her had she conjectured what agitated him. He raised his head, crossed his arms on his breast, and said with a bitter smile, "It was not the man that you loved, it was the count."

She replied, "The man whom I loved never lied."

"Yes, I lied," he cried, gasping for breath. "I drank that cup of shame without remorse or disgust. I lied because I loved you madly. I lied because you were dearer to me than my honor. I lied because I despaired of touching your heart, and any road seemed good that led to you. Why did I meet you? why could I not see you without recognizing in you the dream of my whole life? Happiness had passed me by, it was about to take flight; I caught it in a trap—I lied. Who would not lie, to be loved by you?"

Samuel Brohl had never looked so handsome. Despair and passion kindled a sombre flame in his eyes; he had the sinister charm of a fiery Satan. He fixed on Antoinette a fascinating glance which said, "What matter my name, my lies, and the rest? My face is not a mask, and I am the man who pleased you." He had not the least suspicion of the astonishing facility with which Antoinette had taken back the heart that she had given away so easily; he did not suspect what miracles can be wrought by contempt. In the Middle Ages people believed in golems, figures in clay of an entrancing beauty, which had all the appearance of life. Under a lock of hair was written, in Hebrew characters, on their brow, the word "Truth." If they chanced to lie, the word was obliterated; they lost all their charm; the clay was no longer anything but clay.

Mademoiselle Moriaz divined Samuel Brohl's thought; she exclaimed, "The man I loved was he whose history you related to me."

He would have liked to kill her, so that she should never belong to another. Behind Antoinette, not twenty steps distant, he descried the curb of a well, and grew dizzy at the sight. He discovered with despair that he was not made of the stuff for crime. He dropped down on his knees in the grass and cried, "If you will not pardon me, nothing remains for me but to[Pg 3619] die!" She stood motionless and impassive. She repeated between her teeth Camille Langis's phrase: "I am waiting until this great comedian has finished playing his piece."

He rose and started to run toward the well. She was in front of him and barred the passage, but at the same moment she felt two hands clasp her waist, and the breath of two lips which sought her lips and which murmured, "You love me still, since you do not want me to die."

She struggled with violence and horror; she succeeded by a frantic effort in disengaging herself from his grasp. She fled toward the house. Samuel Brohl rushed after her in mad pursuit; he was just reaching her, when he suddenly stopped. He had caught sight of M. Langis, hurrying from out a thicket, where he had been hidden. Growing uneasy, he had approached the orchard through a path concealed by the heavy foliage. Antoinette, out of breath, ran to him, gasping, "Camille, save me from this man!" and she threw herself into his arms, which closed about her with delight. He felt her sink; she would have fallen had he not supported her.

At the same instant a menacing voice saluted him with the words, "Monsieur, we will meet again!"

"To-day, if you will," he replied.

Antoinette's wild excitement had given place to insensibility; she neither saw nor heard; her limbs no longer sustained her. Camille had great difficulty in bringing her to the house; she could not ascend the steps of the terrace; he was obliged to carry her. Mademoiselle Moiseney saw him, and filled the air with her cries. She ran forward, she lavished her best care on her queen. All the time she was busy in bringing her to her senses she was asking Camille for explanations, to which she did not pay the least attention; she interrupted him at every word to exclaim:—"This has been designed, and you are at the bottom of the plot. I have suspected you—you owe Antoinette a grudge. Your wounded vanity has never recovered from her refusal, and you are determined to be revenged. Perhaps you flatter yourself that she will end by loving you. She does not love you, and she never will love you. Who are you, to dare compare yourself with Count Larinski?... Be silent!... Do I believe in Samuel Brohl? I do not know Samuel Brohl. I venture my head that there is no such person as Samuel Brohl."[Pg 3620]

"Not much of a venture, mademoiselle," replied M. Moriaz, who had arrived in the mean time.

Antoinette remained during an hour in a state of mute languor; then a violent fever took possession of her. When the physician who had been sent for arrived, M. Langis accompanied him into the chamber of the sick girl. She was delirious: seated upright, she kept continually passing her hand over her brow; she sought to efface the taint of a kiss she had received one moonlight night, and the impression in her hair of the flapping of a bat's wings that had caught in her hood. These two things were confounded in her memory. From time to time she said, "Where is my portrait? Give me my portrait."

It was about ten o'clock when M. Langis called on Samuel Brohl, who was not astonished to see him appear; he had hoped he would come. Samuel had regained self-possession. He was calm and dignified. However, the tempest through which he had gone had left on his features some vestige of its passage. His lips quivered, and his beautiful chestnut locks curled like serpents about his temples and gave his head a Medusa-like appearance.

He said to Camille, "Where and when? Our seconds will undertake the arrangement of the rest."

"You mistake, monsieur, the motive of my visit," replied M. Langis. "I am grieved to destroy your illusions, but I did not come to arrange a meeting with you."

"Do you refuse to give me satisfaction?"

"What satisfaction do I owe you?"

"You insulted me."

"When?"

"And you said, 'The day, the place, the weapons. I leave all to your choice.'"

M. Langis could not refrain from smiling. "Ah! you at last acknowledge that your fainting fit was comedy?" he rejoined.

"Acknowledge on your part," replied Samuel, "that you insult persons when you believe that they are not in a state to hear you. Your courage likes to take the safe side."

"Be reasonable," replied Camille. "I placed myself at Count Larinski's disposal: you cannot require me to fight with a Samuel Brohl!"

Samuel sprang to his feet; with fierce bearing and head erect he advanced to the young man, who awaited him unflinchingly,[Pg 3621] and whose resolute manner awed him. He cast upon him a sinister look, turned and reseated himself, bit his lips until the blood came; then said in a placid voice:—

"Will you do me the favor of telling me, monsieur, to what I owe the honor of this visit?"

"I came to demand of you a portrait that Mademoiselle Moriaz is desirous of having returned."

"If I refuse to give it up, you will doubtless appeal to my delicacy?"

"Do you doubt it?" ironically replied Camille.

"That proves, monsieur, that you still believe in Count Larinski; that it is to him you speak at this moment."

"You deceive yourself. I came to see Samuel Brohl, who is a business man, and it is a commercial transaction that I intend to hold with him." And drawing from his pocket a portemonnaie, he added, "You see I do not come empty-handed."

Samuel settled himself in his arm-chair. Half closing his eyes, he watched M. Langis through his eye-lashes. A change passed over his features: his nose became more crooked, and his chin more pointed; he no longer resembled a lion,—he was a fox. His lips wore the sugared smile of a usurer, one who lays snares for the sons of wealthy families, and who scents out every favorable case. If at this moment Jeremiah Brohl had seen him from the other world, he would have recognized his own flesh and blood.

He said at last to Camille, "You are a man of understanding, monsieur; I am ready to listen to you."

"I am very glad of it, and to speak frankly, I had no doubts about it. I knew you to be very intelligent, very much disposed to make the best of an unpleasant conjuncture."

"Ah! spare my modesty. I thank you for your excellent opinion of me; I should warn you that I am accused of being greedy after gain. You will leave some of the feathers from your wings between my fingers."

For a reply M. Langis significantly patted the portemonnaie which he held in his hand, and which was literally stuffed with bank-notes. Immediately Samuel took from a locked drawer a casket, and proceeded to open it.

"This is a very precious gem," he said. "The medallion is gold, and the work on the miniature is exquisite. It is a masterpiece—the color equals the design. The mouth is marvelously[Pg 3622] rendered. Mengs or Liotard could not have done better. At what do you value this work of art?"

"You are more of a connoisseur than I. I will leave it to your own valuation."

"I will let you have the trinket for five thousand francs; it is almost nothing."

Camille began to draw out the five thousand francs from his portemonnaie. "How prompt you are!" remarked Samuel. "The portrait has not only a value as a work of art; I am sure you attach a sentimental value to it, for I suspect you of being over head and ears in love with the original."

"I find you too greedy," replied Camille, casting on him a crushing glance.

"Do not be angry. I am accustomed to exercise methodical precision in business affairs. My father always sold at a fixed price, and I too never lower my charges. You will readily understand that what is worth five thousand francs to a friend is worth double to a lover. The gem is worth ten thousand francs. You can take it or leave it."

"I will take it," replied M. Langis.

"Since we agree," continued Samuel, "I possess still other articles which might suit you."

"Why, do you think of selling me your clothing?"

"Let us come to an understanding. I have other articles of the same lot."

And he brought from a closet the red hood, which he spread out on the table.

"Here is an article of clothing—to use your own words—that may be of interest to you. Its color is beautiful; if you saw it in the sunshine, it would dazzle you. I grant that the stuff is common—it is very ordinary cashmere—but if you deign to examine it closely, you will be struck by the peculiar perfume that it exhales. The Italians call it 'l'odor femminino.'"

"And what is your rate of charge for the 'odor femminino'?"

"I will be moderate. I will let you have this article and its perfume for five thousand francs. It is actually giving it away."

"Assuredly. We will say ten and five—that makes fifteen thousand."

"One moment. You can pay for all together. I have other things to offer you.—One would say that the floor burned your feet, and that you could not endure being in this room."[Pg 3623]

"I allow that I long to leave this—what shall I say?—this shop, lair, or den."

"You are young, monsieur: it never does to hurry; haste causes us acts of forgetfulness which we afterward regret. You would be very sorry not to take away with you these two scraps of paper."

At these words he drew from his note-book two letters, which he unfolded.

"Is there much more?" demanded Camille. "I fear that I shall become short of funds, and be obliged to go back for more."

"Ah, these two letters! I will not part with them for a trifle; the second especially. It is only twelve lines in length; but what pretty English handwriting! Only see! and the style is loving and tender. I will add that it is signed. Ah, monsieur, Mademoiselle Moriaz will be charmed to see these scrawls again. Under what obligations will she be to you! You will make the most of it; you will tell her that you wrested them from me, your dagger at my throat—that you terrified me. With what a gracious smile she will reward your heroism! According to my opinion that smile is as well worth ten thousand francs as the medallion—the two gems are of equal value."

"If you want more, it makes no difference."

"No, monsieur; I have told you I have only one price."

"At this rate, it is twenty-five thousand francs that I owe you. You have nothing more to sell me?"

"Alas! that is all."

"Will you swear it?"

"What, monsieur! you admit then that Samuel Brohl has a word of honor—that when he has sworn he can be believed?"

"You are right; I am still very young."

"That is all, then, I swear to you," affirmed Samuel, sighing. "My shop is poorly stocked; I had commenced laying in a supply, but an unfortunate accident deranged my little business."

"Bah! be consoled," replied M. Langis; "you will find another opportunity: a genius of such lofty flights as yours is never at a loss. You have been unfortunate; some day Fortune will compensate you for the wrongs she has done you, and the world will accord justice to your fine talents."

Speaking thus, he laid on the table twenty-five notes of a thousand francs each. He counted them; Samuel counted them[Pg 3624] after him, and at once delivered to him the medallion, the hood, and the two letters.

Camille rose to leave. "Monsieur Brohl," he said, "from the first day I saw you, I formed the highest opinion of your character. The reality surpasses my expectations. I am charmed to have made your acquaintance, and I venture to hope that you are not sorry to have made mine. However, I shall not say au revoir."

"Who knows?" replied Samuel, suddenly changing his countenance and attitude. And he added, "If you are fond of being astonished, monsieur, will you remain still another instant in this den?"

He rolled and twisted the twenty-five one-thousand-franc notes into lamp-lighters; then with a grand gesture, à la Poniatowski, he approached the candle, held them in the flame until they blazed, and then threw them on the hearth, where they were soon consumed.

Turning toward M. Langis, he cried, "Will you now do me the honor of fighting with me?"

"After such a noble act as that, I can refuse you nothing," returned Camille. "I will do you that signal honor."

"Just what I desire," replied Samuel. "I am the offended; I have the choice of arms." And in showing M. Langis out, he said, "I will not conceal from you that I have frequented the shooting galleries, and that I am a first-class pistol-shot."

Camille bowed and went out.

The next day, in a lucid interval, Mademoiselle Moriaz saw at the foot of her bed a medallion laid on a red hood. From that moment the physician announced an improvement in her symptoms.

Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, 1877.

[Pg 3625]

LORD CHESTERFIELD

(1694-1773)

s the best representative of a creditable type among English noblemen in the reign of George II.,—an accomplished courtier, a diplomatic statesman worthy of reliance on occasions of emergency, a scholar, and a patron of literature,—Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth earl of Chesterfield, occupied a prominent place in the history of his country for more than forty years. He was the eldest son of Philip, third earl, and was born at London in 1694. Most of his boyhood was spent under the care of his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax. When eighteen, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became "an excellent classical scholar." The principal events in his public career were his election to Parliament in his twenty-first year; his appointment as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard in return for a political vote; his selection for special service as Ambassador to The Hague after his succession to the family title; his appointment as Lord High Steward, with the Garter, as a reward for his success in Holland; his expulsion from that position by Horace Walpole for political disobedience in opposing an excise bill; his second successful mission to The Hague; his selection, as a reward, for the responsible post of Viceroy in Ireland, and subsequently his resignation and acceptance of office as Secretary of State, this latter appointment being taken when the Earl had reached his fiftieth year. Chesterfield was first a warm friend, then a bitter enemy of Horace Walpole. He also antagonized George II., but that monarch finally succumbed to diplomatic treatment at his hands and offered his former antagonist a dukedom, which was courteously declined. In his fifty-eighth year, partial deafness caused him to withdraw almost wholly from public affairs. In diplomacy, his successful missions to The Hague made him strong with officials in power. His ability as a statesman was shown to great advantage in a firm yet popular administration of Irish affairs during a critical period in Irish history. As a patron of literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson deemed him a distinct failure, and expressed this opinion forcibly to that effect in his celebrated letter. His literary reputation rests chiefly on letters addressed to his natural son Philip, who died in his thirty-sixth year, greatly to his father's disappointment, he having looked forward to a great career for the young man. His letters of counsel and advice were to that end; oddly, they left the recipient[Pg 3626] still shy, awkward, tactless, and immature. These epistles, not intended for public perusal, were subsequently printed in book form.

The Earl of Chesterfield died in 1773. Four years after his death, 'Miscellaneous Works' were published in two volumes, also 'Characters.' 'The Art of Pleasing' and 'Letters to His Heir' appeared ten years from the date of his decease, and this was followed, a few months later, by 'Memoirs of Asiaticus.'

CHESTERFIELD.

FROM 'LETTERS TO HIS SON'

Concerning Manners

There is a bienséance with regard to people of the lowest degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he speaks to neither d'un ton brusque, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world, in which le ton brusque is becoming a gentleman. In short, les bienséances are another word for manners, and extend to every part of life. They are propriety; the Graces should attend in order to complete them: the Graces enable us to do genteelly and pleasingly what les bienséances require to be done at all. The latter are an obligation upon every man; the former are an infinite advantage and ornament to any man.

The Control of One's Countenance

People unused to the world have babbling countenances, and are unskillful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles those whom he would much rather meet with swords. In Courts he must not turn himself inside out. All this may, nay, must be done, without falsehood and treachery: for it must go no further than politeness and manners, and must stop short of assurances and professions of simulated friendship. Good manners to those one does not love are no more a breach of truth than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challenge, is; they are universally agreed upon and understood to be things of course. They are necessary [Pg 3627]guards of the decency and peace of society: they must only act defensively; and then not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honor, or prudence.

Dress as an Index to Character

I cannot help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses better, as he thinks,—that is, more than they,—he is a fop; if he dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent: but of the two, I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed: the excess on that side will wear off with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. When you are once well dressed for the day, think no more of it afterwards; and without any stiffness or fear of discomposing that dress, let all your motions be as easy and natural as if you had no clothes on at all.

Some Remarks on Good Breeding

A friend of yours and mine has justly defined good breeding to be "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them." Taking this for granted (as I think it cannot be disputed), it is astonishing to me that anybody who had good sense and good nature (and I believe you have both) can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and[Pg 3628] experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good manners are to particular societies what good morals are to society in general—their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine.... Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects: whoever in either case violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing: and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of "well-bred."

THE CHOICE OF A VOCATION

From 'Miscellaneous Works'

It is very certain that no man is fit for everything; but it is almost as certain too that there is scarce any one man who is not fit for something, which something nature plainly points out to him by giving him a tendency and propensity to it. I look upon common-sense to be to the mind what conscience is to the heart,—the faithful and constant monitor of what is right or wrong. And I am convinced that no man commits either a crime or a folly but against the manifest and sensible representations of the one or the other. Every man finds in himself, either from nature or education,—for they are hard to distinguish,—a peculiar bent and disposition to some particular character; and his struggling against it is the fruitless and endless labor of Sisyphus. Let him follow and cultivate that vocation, he will succeed in it, and be considerable in one way at least; whereas if he departs from it he will at best be inconsiderable, probably ridiculous.

[Pg 3629]

THE LITERATURE OF CHINA

BY ROBERT K. DOUGLAS

he distinguishing feature and the crowning glory of the Chinese nation is its literature. It is true that the Chinese can boast of an ancient empire, of a time-honored civilization, of conquests in the fields of science, and, in spite of recent events, in the field of battle; but in the mind of every true Son of Han these titles to fame sink into insignificance before that of the possession of a literature which dates back to a time when the Western world was yet in a state of barbarism, and which as centuries have rolled by has been worthily supplemented in every branch of knowledge.

Confucius

It may now be accepted as beyond dispute that the Chinese migrated into China from southwestern Asia about B.C. 2300, bringing with them a knowledge of writing, and in all probability the beginnings of a literature. In the records of that distant past, history and fable are so closely intermingled that it is difficult to pronounce definitely upon any subject treated in them, and we are compelled to seek in comparative philology for reasonable explanations of many points which Chinese chroniclers are content to leave, not from want of assertion, in the mists of uncertainty.

By common consent it is acknowledged that the 'Yi King,' Book of Changes, is the oldest work extant in Chinese literature; though other works, the names of which only have come down to us, were contemporaneously current in the country. A peculiar veneration is naturally felt by the Chinese for this sole surviving waif from a past literature; and from the time of Confucius downward, scholars of every age have attempted to explain its mystic pages. The basis of the work is popularly believed to be eight diagrams, which are said to have been designed by Fuh-hi (B.C. 2852), and which by subdivision have become multiplied into sixty-four. One of these stands at the head of each of the sixty-four chapters into which the work is now divided. Following these diagrams is in each case an initial character, with short phrases which have been held by Confucius and every subsequent native commentator to explain the meaning of the[Pg 3630] diagrams. But the key to the puzzle was denied to these scholars, who made confusion worse confounded by their attempts to make sense of that which was unintelligible to them. So mysterious a text was naturally believed to be a work on divination; and accepting this cue, the commentators devoted their energies to forcing into the Procrustean bed of divination the disjointed phrases which follow the diagrams. The solution of the mystery, which had escaped the keen study of five-and-twenty centuries of native scholars, was discovered by the late Professor Terrieu de la Couperie, who by many irrefragable proofs demonstrated that the 'Yi King' consists "of old fragments of early times in China, mostly of a lexical character." With this explanation the futility of the attempts of the native scholars to translate it as a connected text at once becomes apparent. A large proportion of the chapters are merely syllabaries, similar to those of Chaldea. The initial character represents the word to be explained, and the phrases following express its various meanings.

An excellent translation of the 'Yi King' as it is understood by native scholars was published by Professor Legge in 'The Sacred Books of the East' (1882); and a comparison of his translation of the seventh chapter with Professor T. de la Couperie's rendering of the same passage must be enough to convince the most skeptical that even if he is not absolutely correct, the native scholars must undoubtedly be wrong. The chapter is headed by a diagram consisting of five divided lines and one undivided; and the initial character is Sze, which is described in modern dictionaries as meaning "a teacher," "instructor," "model," "an army," "a poet," "a multitude," "the people," "all," "laws," "an elder." Of the phrases which follow, Professor Legge gives the following rendering:—

"Sze indicates how, in the case which it supposes, with firmness and correctness, and [a leader of] age and experience, there will be good fortune and no error.

"The first line, divided, shows the host going forward according to the rules [for such a movement]. If these be not good, there will be evil.

"The second line, undivided, shows [the leader] in the midst of his host. There will be good fortune and no error. The king has thrice conveyed to him the orders [of his favor].

"The third line, divided, shows how the host may possibly have many inefficient leaders. There will be evil.

"The fourth line, divided, shows the host in retreat. There is no error.

"The fifth line, divided, shows birds in the fields, which it will be advantageous to seize and destroy. In that case there will be no error. If the oldest son leads the host, and younger men [idly occupy offices assigned to them], however firm and correct he may be, there will be evil.

"The topmost line, divided, shows the great ruler delivering his charges [appointing some], to be rulers of States, and others to undertake the headship of clans; but small men should not be employed [in such positions]."

OLDEST CHINESE LETTERS.

From an inscription attributed to the Emperor Yao, 2350 B.C.

The most ancient historical books of the Chinese date from the time of Yao.
The events of his reign were chronicled by contemporaneous writers;
tradition being the foundation of all previous Chinese history.

[Pg 3631]

It is impossible to read such an extract as the above without being convinced that the explanation was not that which was intended by the author or authors; and on the doctrine of probabilities, a perusal of the following version by Professor T. de la Couperie would incline us to accept his conclusions. But his theory does not rest on probabilities alone; he is able to support it with many substantial proofs: and though exception may possibly be taken to some of his renderings of individual phrases, his general views may be held to be firmly established. This is his version of the chapter quoted above, with the exception of the words of good or ill omen:—

"Sze [is] a righteous great man. The Sze defines laws not biased. The centre of the army. The three conveying orders [officers] of the Sovereign. Sze [is] also corpse-like. Sze [is] an assistant officer. In the fields are birds [so called]; many take the name [?] The elder sons [are] the leaders of the army. The younger [are] the passive multitude [?] Great Princes instructing. The group of men who have helped in the organization of the kingdom. People gathered by the Wu flag [?]."

From what has been said, as well as from the above extracts, it will be observed that to all except the native scholars who imagine that they see in its pages deep divinatory lore, the chief interest of the 'Yi King' lies in the linguistic and ethnographical indications which it contains, and which at present we can but dimly discern. It is difficult to assign a date to it, but it is certain that it existed before the time of King Wên (B.C. 1143), who with his son the Duke of Chow edited the text and added a commentary to it. That parts of it are very much earlier than this period there can be no doubt; and it is safe to assume that in the oldest portion of the work we have one of the first literary efforts of the Chinese. It was not, however, until the time of Confucius that the foundations of the national literature may be said to have been laid.

From constant references in the early histories it is obvious that before that period a literature of a certain kind existed. The Chinese have an instinctive love of letters, and we know from the records that to the courts of the various princes were attached historians whose duty it was to collect the folk-lore songs of the people of the various States. "If a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws," said Sir Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. So thought the Chinese legislators, who designed their enactments with direct regard to the dispositions of the people as displayed in their songs. At the time of Confucius (B.C. 551-479) a large collection of these ballads existed in the archives of the sovereign State of Chow; and as is generally believed, the sage revised the collection, and omitting those he considered[Pg 3632] unworthy of preservation, formed an edition containing three hundred and five pieces. This work has come down to us under the title of the 'Shih King' or Book of Odes. The ballads are just such as we should expect to find under the circumstances. They are plainly the utterances of the people in a primitive state of civilization, who nevertheless enjoyed considerable freedom; and though they occasionally had to lament the tyranny of individual princes, they cannot be described as having been among the down-trodden nations of the earth. The domesticity which is still a distinctive feature of Chinese life figures largely in them, and the filial piety which to the present day is so highly esteemed finds constant expression. The measure in which the odes have been handed down to us makes it difficult to understand how any rhythm could be found in them. With few exceptions they are all written in lines of four characters each, and as read at the present day, consist therefore of only four syllables. This seems to be so stunted and unnatural a metre that one is inclined to accept Professor T. de la Couperie's suggestion, for which he had much to say,—that at the time at which they were sung, the characters which now represent a syllable each were polysyllabic. It would seem probable that certainly in some cases compound characters were pronounced as compounded of syllables in accordance with their component parts, as certain of them are read by the Japanese at the present time. Numerous translations of the odes into European languages have been made, and the following extracts from Professor Legge's rendering of the second ode, celebrating the industry and filial piety of the reigning queen, give a good idea of the general tone of the pieces.

Such were the odes which Confucius found collected ready to his hand; and faithful to his character of transmitter of the wisdom of the ancients, he made them the common property of his countrymen. But these were not the only records at the court of Chow which attracted his attention. He found there historical documents,[Pg 3633] containing the leading events in the history of the Chinese States from the middle of the twenty-third century B.C. to 721. These curious records of a past time possessed an irresistible attraction for him. By constant study he made them his own, and with loving care collated and edited the texts. These fragments are, from a historical point of view, of great value; and they incidentally furnish evidence of the fact that China was not always the stage on which the Chinese people have played their parts. There is no sign in these records of the first steps in ethics and science which one would expect to find in the primitive history of a race. The utterances of the sovereigns and sages, with which they abound, are marked by a comparatively matured knowledge and an advanced ethical condition. The knowledge of astronomy displayed, though not profound, is considerable, and the directions given by the Emperor Yao to his astronomers royal are quite such as may have been given by any Emperor of China until the advent of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century; and the moral utterances of the sovereigns and their ministers are on a par with the sentiments expressed in the Peking Gazette at the present time. "Virtue," said the minister Yi addressing his Emperor Yü, "is the basis of good government; and this consists first in procuring for the people the things necessary for their sustenance, such as water, fire, metals, wood, and grain. The ruler must also think of rendering them virtuous, and of preserving them from whatever can injure life and health. When you would caution them, use gentle words; when you would correct, employ authority." "Do not be ashamed of mistakes, and thus make them crimes," was another piece of advice uttered forty centuries ago, which has a peculiarly modern ring about it.

According to the system in vogue at the Chinese courts, the duty of recording historical events was confided to historians of the right hand and of the left. To the latter was given the duty of recording the speeches and edicts of the sovereigns and their ministers, and to the first that of compiling chronicles of events. The historians who had placed on record the documents which Confucius edited in the 'Shu King' or Book of History were historians of the left hand, and in the only original work which we have by the Sage—'The Spring and Autumn Annals'—he constituted himself a historian of the right. In this work he traces the history of his native State of Lu from the year B.C. 722 to B.C. 484, and in the baldest and most calendar-like style enumerates, without any comment or expression of opinion, the facts which he considers of sufficient importance to report. However faulty we may consider his manner of treatment, any criticism should be leveled against the system rather than against the author. But in other respects Confucius cannot shelter himself under the plea of[Pg 3634] usage. As a historian, it was his bounden duty above all things to tell the truth, and to distribute praise and blame without fear or favor. In this elementary duty Confucius failed, and has left us a record in which he has obviously made events to chime in with his preconceived ideas and opinions. Considering the assumption of virtue with which Confucius always clothed himself, this is the more noticeable; and still more is it remarkable that his disciples should be so overcome by the glamour which attached to his name, that his obvious lapses from the truth are not only left unnoted, but the general tone and influence of the work are described in the most eulogistic terms. "The world," said Mencius, "had fallen into decay and right principles had dwindled away. Perverse discourses and oppressive deeds had again waxen rife. Cases had occurred of ministers who had murdered their rulers, and of sons who had murdered their fathers. Confucius was afraid and made the 'Ch'un ch'iu.'" So great, we are told, was the effect of the appearance of this work that "rebellious ministers quaked with fear, and undutiful sons were overcome with terror." Love of truth is not a characteristic of the Chinese people; and unhappily their greatest men, Confucius among them, have shown their countrymen a lamentable example in this respect.

So great is the admiration of the people for this work of Confucius that by universal consent the 'Ch'un ch'iu' has through all ages been included among the Five Classics of the country. Three others have already been spoken of, and there remains only one more, the Book of Rites, to mention. This work is the embodiment of, and authority for, the ceremonial which influences the national policy of the country, and directs the individual destinies of the people. We are informed on the highest authority that there are three hundred rules of ceremony and three thousand rules of behavior. Under a code so overwhelmingly oppressive, it is difficult to imagine how the race can continue to exist; but five-and-twenty centuries of close attention to the Book of Rites have so molded the nation within the lines of the ceremonial which it prescribes, that acquiescence with its rules has become a second nature with the people, and requires no more guiding effort on their part than does the automatic action of the nerves and limbs at the bidding of the brain. Within its voluminous pages every act which one man should perform to another is carefully and fully provided for; and this applies not only to the daily life of the people, but also to the official acts of the whole hierarchy of power from the Emperor downward. No court ceremony is undertaken without its guidance, and no official deed is done throughout the length and breadth of the eighteen Provinces of the Empire without its sanction. Its spirit penetrates every Yamên[Pg 3635] and permeates every household. It regulates the sacrifices which should be offered to the gods, it prescribes the forms to be observed by the Son of Heaven in his intercourse with his ministers, it lays down the behavior proper to officials of all ranks, and it directs the conduct of the people in every relation of life. It supplements in a practical form the teachings of Confucius and others, and forms the most important link in the chain which binds the people to the chariot wheels of the "Sages."

Of canonical authority equal to the Five Classics if not greater, are the 'Four Books' in which are recorded the ipsissima verba of Confucius. These are the 'Lunyü' or Sayings of Confucius, twenty books, which contains a detailed description of the Sage's system of philosophy; the 'Ta Hsio,' the Great Learning, ten chapters; the 'Chung yung,' or the Doctrine of the Mean, thirty-three chapters; and the development of Confucianism as enunciated by his great follower Mencius in the 'Mêng tzŭ,' seven books. These works cover the whole field of Confucianism; and as such, their contents claim the allegiance and demand the obedience of ninety-nine out of every hundred Chinamen. To the European student their contents are somewhat disappointing. The system they enunciate wants completeness and life, although the sentiments they express are unexceptionable; as for example when Confucius said: "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. Have no friends not equal to yourself. When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them." Admirable maxims such as these flowed from his lips in abundance, but he could offer no reason why a man should rather obey the advice thus presented than his own inclination. He had no reward to offer for virtue, and no terrors with which to threaten the doers of evil. In no sense do his teachings as they came from his lips constitute a religion. He inculcated no worship of the Deity, and he refrained altogether from declaring his belief or disbelief in a future existence.

The author of the 'Great Learning,' commonly said to be the disciple Tsêng, describes the object of his work to be "to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence." And following on the lines indicated by his great master, he lays down the ethical means by which these admirable ends may in his opinion be attained. The 'Doctrine of the Mean' takes for its text the injunction, "Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish." The author of this work, Tzŭssŭ, goes deeper into the motives of human conduct than Confucius himself. "First he shows clearly how the path of duty is to be traced to its origin in Heaven, and is unchangeable, while the substance of it is provided in ourselves, and[Pg 3636] may not be departed from. Next he speaks of the importance of preserving and nourishing this, and of exercising a watchful self-scrutiny with reference to it. Finally he speaks of the meritorious achievements and transforming influence of sage and spiritual men in their highest extent."

In the teachings of Mencius (B.C. 372-289) we see a distinct advance on the doctrines of Confucius. He was a man of a far more practical frame of mind than his great predecessor, and possessed the courage necessary to speak plainly in the presence of kings and rulers. His knowledge of political economy was considerable, and he brought to the test of experience many of the opinions and doctrines which Confucius was willing to express only in the abstract. Filial piety was his constant theme. "The richest fruit of benevolence is this," he said,—"the service of one's parents. The richest fruit of righteousness is this,—the obeying of one's elder brothers. The richest fruit of wisdom is this,—the knowing of these two things, and not departing from them."

These Five Classics and Four Books may be said to be the foundations on which all Chinese literature has been based. The period when Confucius and Mencius taught and wrote was one of great mental activity all over the world. While the wise men of China were proclaiming their system of philosophy, the Seven Sages of Greece were pouring out words of wisdom in the schools at Athens, and the sound of the voice of Buddha (died 480 B.C.) had hardly ceased to be heard under the bôdhi tree in Central India. From such beginnings arose the literatures which have since added fame and splendor to the three countries in Asia and Europe. In China the impetus given by these pioneers of learning was at once felt, and called into existence a succession of brilliant writers who were as distinguished for the boldness of their views as for the freedom with which they gave them utterance.

The main subject discussed by these men was the principle underlying the Confucian system; namely, that man's nature is in its origin perfectly good, and that so long as each one remains uncontaminated by the world and the things of the world, the path of virtue is to him the path of least resistance. While therefore a man is able to remain unenticed by the temptations which necessarily surround him, he advances in spotless purity towards perfection, until virtue becomes in him so confirmed a habit that neither the stings of conscience nor the exertion of intellectual effort is required to maintain him in his position of perfect goodness and of perfect peace.

These are still the opinions of orthodox Confucianists, but at different times scholars have arisen, who from their own experiences in[Pg 3637] the world, have come to conclusions diametrically opposed to those taught by the Sage. In their opinion the Psalmist was right when he said, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Scarcely had Confucius been gathered to his fathers when the Philosopher Hsün enunciated this view, and since then the doctrine has formed the chief ground of contention among all schools of philosophy down to the present day. By certain writers it has been held that in man's nature there is a mixture of good and evil, and by no one was this view more ably expounded than by the philosopher Chu Hi (A.D. 1130-1200). In season and out of season this great writer, who has done more than any one else to elucidate the dark pages of the classics, "taught that good and evil were present in the heart of every man, and that just as in nature a duality of powers is necessary to the existence of nature itself, so good and evil are inseparably present in the heart of every human being."

But there were others who felt that the bald and conventional system proclaimed by Confucius was insufficient to satisfy the desire for the supernatural which is implanted in men of every race and of every clime, and then at once a school arose, headed by Laotzŭ (sixth century B.C.), the Old Philosopher; which, adopting the spirit of Brahminism, taught its sectaries to seek by self-abnegation freedom from the entanglements of the world, and a final absorption into the Deity. The minds of most Chinamen are not attuned to the apprehension of philosophical subtleties, and the wisdom imparted by Laotzŭ to his countrymen in the pages of his 'Taotê King' (The Book of Reason and Virtue), soon became debased into a superstitious system by a succession of charlatans, who, adopting Laotzŭ's doctrine that death was only another form of life, taught their followers to seek to prolong the pleasures of the present state of existence by searching in the mazes of alchemy for the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone. Before the faith reached this degraded position, however, several writers supplemented and enlarged on the doctrines advanced by Laotzŭ. Foremost among these were Litzŭ and Chwangtzŭ, who were both men of great metaphysical ability, and whose speculations, though not always in harmony with those of their great master, help to some extent to elucidate his system and certainly add considerable interest to it.

Around the systems of Confucius and Laotzŭ a considerable literature grew up, which was cherished, copied, and discussed by all those scholars who had time to spare from the contemplation of the records of the various States into which the country was divided. These records had assumed a permanent place in the literature of the land, and were bound up with the feudal system which then existed. The time came, however, when this feudal system was[Pg 3638] destined to come to an end. In the third century before Christ a leader arose who proclaimed the States an Empire and himself as Emperor. To so conservatively minded a people as the Chinese the revolution was difficult of acceptance, and Shi Hwangti, seeking to facilitate the transfer of their allegiance, ordered the destruction of all books which might preserve the memory of a bygone constitution. With ruthless severity the ukase was put into force, and all works, with the exception of those on medicine and alchemy, were thrown to the flames. Happily no tyrant, however powerful, can enforce the complete fulfillment of such an edict; and in spite of threats and persecutions, events showed that through all that fiery time manuscripts had been carefully preserved, and that men had been found ready to risk their lives in the sacred cause of learning.

Fortunately the Dynasty founded by Shi Hwangti was short-lived, and in 202 B.C. a revolution placed Kao ti, the founder of the Han Dynasty, on the throne. With commendable wisdom Kao ti placed himself at once in complete harmony with the national mind, and had no sooner assumed the imperial yellow than he notified his desire to restore the national literature to its former status. Under his fostering care, manuscripts which had lain hidden were brought out from their places of concealment; and to these works were added others, which were dictated by scholars who had treasured them in their memories. That the works thus again brought out were numerous, is proved by the fact that in the catalogue of the Imperial Library of the Han Dynasty (B.C. 202 to A.D. 25), mention is made of 11,312 works, consisting of volumes on the classics, philosophy, poetry, military tactics, mathematics and medicine.

It was during this dynasty that the national history and poetry took their rise in the shapes with which we are now familiar. After the night of turmoil and darkness which had just passed away, men, as though invigorated by the time of sterility, devoted themselves to the production of cultured prose and original though pedantic poetry. It was then that Ssŭma Ch'ien, who has been called the Herodotus of China, wrote his 'Shichi' (Historical Records), which embraces a period of between two and three thousand years; namely, from the reign of Hwang ti (B.C. 2697) to the reign of Wu ti of the Han Dynasty (B.C. 140-86). Following the example of this great chronicler, Pan ku compiled the records of the Han Dynasty in a hundred and twenty books, and it is on the model thus laid down that all succeeding dynastic histories of China have been written. Almost without variation the materials of these vast depositories of information are arranged in the following order:—1. Imperial records, consisting of the purely political events which occurred in each reign. 2. Memoirs, including treatises on mathematical chro[Pg 3639]nology, rites, music, jurisprudence, political economy, State sacrifices, astronomy, elemental influences, geography, literature, biographies, and records of the neighboring countries.

Tempora non animi mutant, and in the poetry of this period we see a close resemblance to the spirit which breathes in the odes collected by Confucius. The measure shows signs of some elasticity, five characters to a line taking the place of the older four-syllabled metre; but the ideas which permeate it are the same. Like all Chinese poetry, it is rather quaint than powerful, and is rather noticeable for romantic sweetness than for the expression of strong passions. There is for the most part a somewhat melancholy ring about it. The authors love to lament their absence from home or the oppressed condition of the people, or to enlarge on the depressing effect of rain or snow, and find sadness in the strange beauty of the surrounding scenery or the loveliness of a flower. The diction is smooth and the fancy wandering, but its lines do not much stir the imagination or arouse the passions. These are criticisms which apply to Chinese poetry of all ages. During the T'ang and Sung Dynasties (A.D. 618-1127), periods which have been described as forming the Augustan ages of Chinese literature, poets flourished abundantly, and for the better expression of their ideas they adopted a metre of seven characters or syllables, instead of the earlier and more restricted measures. Tu Fu, Li T'aipai, and a host of others, enriched the national poetry at the time, and varied the subjects which had been the common themes of earlier poets by singing the praises of wine. To be a poet it was considered necessary by them that a man should be a wine-bibber, and their verses describe with enthusiasm the pleasures of the cup and the joys of intoxication. The following is a specimen of such an ode, taken from the works of Li T'aipai:—

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But before the time of the T'ang Dynasty a new element had been introduced into the national literature. With the introduction of Buddhism the Chinese became acquainted with religious doctrines and philosophical ideas, of which until then they had only been faintly conscious from their contact with the debased form of Brahminical teaching which under the name of Taoism had long existed in the land. A complete knowledge of the teachings of Sakyamuni was however imparted to them by the arrival, at the beginning of the first century of our era, of two Shamans from India who settled at Loyang in the province of Honan, and who translated the Sanskrit Sutra in forty-two sections into Chinese. From this time onward a constant succession of Buddhist missionaries visited China and labored with indefatigable industry, both by oral teaching and by the translation of Sanskrit works into Chinese, to convert the people to their faith.

The knowledge thus acquired was of great advantage to the literature of the country. It enriched it with new ideas, and added wider knowledge to its pages. The history and geography of India, with which scholars had previously been scarcely acquainted, became, though indistinctly, matters of knowledge to them. Already Fahsien, the great forerunner of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims (B.C. 399), had visited India and had described in his 'Fuh kwo chi' (The Records of Buddhist Countries) the wonders which he had seen in Hindustan. With the spread of Buddhism in China, a desire to follow in his footsteps prompted others to undertake the long and arduous journey across the Mongolian steppes and over the passes of the Himalayas into the plains of India. Sung yun in the sixth century and Hüan Ts'ang in the seventh are conspicuous among those who undertook this toilsome pilgrimage in the interest of the faith.

Notwithstanding the occasional influx of new sentiments, however, the circumscribed circle of knowledge which was within the reach of Chinese scholars, and the poverty of their vocabulary, have always necessarily limited the wealth of their ideas; and at an early period of the history of the country we see symptoms of sterility creeping over the national mind. It is always easier to remember than to think; and it cannot but be looked upon as a sign of decadence in a literature when collections of ready-made knowledge take the place of original compositions, and when scholars devote themselves to the production of anthologies and encyclopædias instead of seeking out new thoughts and fresh branches of learning. In the sixth century, a period which coincides with the invention of printing, there was first shown that disposition to collect extracts from works of merit into anthologies, which have ever since been such a marked peculiarity of Chinese literature.

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That the effect of these works, and of the encyclopædias which are in a sense allied to them, has been detrimental to the national mind, there cannot be a doubt. Scholars are no longer required to search for themselves for the golden nuggets of knowledge in the mines of learning. They have but to turn to the great depositories of carefully extracted information, and they find ready to their hand the opinions and thoughts of all those who are considered to be authorities on the subject with which they desire to acquaint themselves. For the purposes of cram for students at the competitive examinations, these treasuries of knowledge are of inestimable value: and by their help, "scholars" who have neither depth of knowledge nor power of thought are able to make a show of erudition which is as hollow as it is valueless.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) this class of literature may be said to have reached its highest development. In the reign of the Emperor Yunglo (1403-1425) was compiled the largest encyclopædia which has ever seen the light. This gigantic work, which was entitled 'Yunglo ta tien,' consisted of no fewer than 22,877 books, and covered every branch of knowledge possessed by the Chinese. Possibly owing to its immense extent, it was never published; and such volumes as still survive the destroying influences of neglect and decay are yet to be found in manuscript on the shelves of the Imperial Library. Inspired perhaps by the example thus set, the Emperor K'anghi of the present dynasty appointed a commission of scholars to compile a similar work; and after forty years had been consumed in extracting from the past literatures every passage bearing on the 6109 headings which it was the will of K'anghi should be illustrated, the compilers were able to lay before their sovereign a work consisting of 5020 volumes, which they entitled 'Kin L'ing ku kin t'u shu chi ch'êng.' Unlike Yunglo's great work, this one was printed; and though only, as it is said, a hundred copies were issued, some still remain of the original edition. One such copy, complete in every particular, is to be seen at the British Museum. For completeness from a Chinese point of view this work stands out pre-eminently above all others; but owing to the very limited number of copies, it has never superseded the 'Wên hsien t'ung k'ao' by Ma Twanlin, which, though published four hundred years earlier, still holds its own in popular estimation.

Much has been written by Chinese authors on scientific subjects, but the substance is remarkable for its extent rather than for its value. In each branch of knowledge they have advanced under foreign influence up to a certain point, and beyond that they have been unable to go. Their knowledge of astronomy, which is of Chaldean origin, is sufficient to enable them to calculate eclipses and to[Pg 3642] recognize the precession of the equinoxes, but it has left them with confused notions on subjects which are matters of common knowledge among Western people. It is the same in the case of medicine. They understand certain general principles of therapeutics and the use of certain herbs; but their knowledge is purely empirical, and their acquaintance with surgery is of the most elementary kind.

It is perhaps in their novels and plays, however, that the most marked defects in the national mind become apparent. The systems of education and the consequent mental habit in vogue are the outcomes of that lack of imagination which distinguishes the people, and which finds its reflection in all those branches of literature which are more directly dependent on the flow of new and striking ideas. There is little delineation of character either in their novels or their plays. The personages portrayed are all either models of virtue and learning, or shocking examples of ignorance and turpitude. Their actions are mechanical, and the incidents described have little or no connection with one another. The stories are in fact arranged much as a clever child might be expected to arrange them, and they are by no means free from the weary iterations in which untutored minds are apt to indulge. Chinese scholars are conscious of these defects, and attempt to explain them by describing novel-writing as being beneath the serious attention of all those who are interested in learning. This view is commonly accepted by their learned world, who divide literature into four classes, viz., Classics, History, Philosophy, and Belles-lettres. The last of these does not include either romances or plays; and with the exception of two or three standard works of fiction and the 'Hundred Plays of the Yüan Dynasty' (A.D. 1280-1368), no specimens of either of these two classes of literature would ever be found in a library of standing. But this contempt for works of imagination is probably less the cause of their inferiority than the result of it. The Providence which has given Chinamen untiring diligence, inexhaustible memories, and a love of learning, has not vouchsafed to touch their tongues with the live coal of imagination. They are plodding students, and though quite capable of narrating events and of producing endless dissertations on the interpretation of the classics and the true meaning of the philosophy on which they are based, are entirely unprovided with that power of fancy which is able to bring before the eye, as in a living picture, the phantoms of the brain.

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SELECTED MAXIMS
On Morals, Philosophy of Life, Character, Circumstances, etc.

From the Chinese Moralists

Filial piety and fraternal submission, are they not the root of all benevolent actions?—Confucian An., Heo Urh (ch. ii.).

The path of duty lies in what is near, and men seek for it in what is remote. The work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult. If each man would love his parents and show due respect to his elders, the whole empire would enjoy tranquillity.—Mencius, Le Low (pt. i., ch. xi.).

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.—Confucian An., Heo Urh (ch. viii.).

If what we see is doubtful, how can we believe what is spoken behind the back?—Inscription in "Celestial Influence Temple."

Words which are simple, while their meaning is far-reaching, are good words. Principles which are held as compendious, while their application is extensive, are good principles. The words of the superior man are not necessarily high-sounding, but great principles are contained in them.—Mencius, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxii.).

The superior man is correctly firm, and not firm merely.—Confucian An., Wei Ling Kung (ch. xxxvi.).

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise; and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed in what we say.—Confucian An., Observations of Tsze Kung.

In archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the centre of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.—Doctrine of the Mean (ch. xiv.).

God leads men to tranquil security.—Shoo King, ii., Numerous Officers (ch. ii.).[Pg 3644]

The glory and tranquillity of a State may arise from the excellence of one man.—Shoo King, ii., Speech of the Duke of Tsin (ch. viii.).

Mencius said, The superior man has two things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the empire is not one of them.

That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety; this is one delight.

Then when looking up he has no occasion for shame before heaven, and below he has no occasion to blush before men; this is a second delight.—Mencius, Tsin Sin (pt. i., ch. xx.).

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with virtue.—Confucian An., Yang Ho (ch. xvii.).

I am pleased with your intelligent virtue, not loudly proclaimed nor portrayed, without extravagance or changeableness, without consciousness of effort on your part, in accordance with the pattern of God.—She King, ii., Major Odes, Hwang I.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.—Confucian An., Wei Ching (ch. xv.).

Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven it is impossible to be a superior man.—Confucian An., Yaou Yue (ch. iii.).

The ways of God are not invariable; on the good doer he sends down all blessings, and on the evil doer he sends down all miseries.—Shoo King, Instructions of E (ch. iv.).

In the way of superior man there are four things, not one of which have I as yet attained:—To serve my father as I would require my son to serve me; to serve my Prince as I would require my minister to serve me; to serve my elder brother as I would require my younger brother to serve me; to set the example in behaving to a friend as I would require him to behave to me.—Doctrine of the Mean (ch. xiii.).

Virtue has no invariable model. A supreme regard to what is good gives the model of it. What is good has no invariable[Pg 3645] characteristic to be supremely regarded; it is found where there is conformity to the uniform decision of the mind.—Shoo King, Both Possessed Pure Virtue (ch. iii.).

Man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as all water flows downwards.—Mencius, Kaou Tsze (pt. i., ch. ii).

Virtue is the root; wealth the result.—The Great Learning (ch. x.).

Its sovereigns on their part were humbly careful not to lose the favor of God.—Shoo King, ii., Numerous Officers (ch. viii.).

He who loves his parents will not dare to incur the risk of being hated by any man, and he who reveres his parents will not dare to incur the risk of being condemned by any man.—Hsiao King, Filial Piety (ch. ii.).

Do not speak lightly; your words are your own. Do not say, This is of little importance; no one can hold my tongue for me; words are not to be cast away. Every word finds its answer; every good deed has its recompense.—She King, ii., Major Odes, the Yi.

Looked at in friendly intercourse with superior men, you make your countenance harmonious and mild, anxious not to do anything wrong. Looked at in your chamber, you ought to be equally free from shame before the light which shines in. Do not say, This place is not public; no one can see me here: the approaches of spiritual beings cannot be calculated beforehand, but the more should they not be slighted.—She King, ii., Major Odes, the Yi.

Let me not say that Heaven is high aloft above me. It ascends and descends about our doings; it daily inspects us wherever we are.—She King, i., Sacrificial Odes of Kau, Ode, King Kih.[Pg 3646]

What future misery have they and ought they to endure who talk of what is not good in others?—Mencius, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. ix.).

Above all, sternly keep yourself from drink.—Shoo King, Announcement about Drunkenness (ch. xiii.).

There are three thousand offenses against which the five punishments are directed, and there is not one of them greater than being unfilial.—The Hsiao King, The Five Punishments.

Benevolence is man's mind and righteousness is man's path.

How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to lose the mind and not know to seek it again.—Mencius, Kaou Tsze (pt. i., ch. xi.).

Tsze Kung asked, saying, "What do you say of a man who is loved by all the people of his village?" The Master replied, "We may not for that accord our approval of him." "And what do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his village?" The Master said, "We may not for that conclude that he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good in the village love him and the bad hate him."—Confucian An., Tsze Loo (ch. xxiv.).

Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then they are able to act with vigor in which they ought.—Mencius, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. viii.).

Learn as if you could not reach your object and were always fearing also lest you should lose it.—Confucian An., T'ae Pih (ch. xvii.).

King Wan looked on the people as he would on a man who was wounded, and he looked toward the right path as if he could not see it.—Mencius, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. xx.).

To nourish the heart there is nothing better than to make the desires few.—Mencius, Tsin Sin (ch. xxxv.).

When Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and[Pg 3647] bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.—Mencius, Kaou Tsze (pt. ii. ch. xv.).

You should ever stand in awe of the punishment of Heaven.—Shoo King, ii.; Prince of Leu on Punishments.

Great Heaven is intelligent and is with you in all your doings. Great Heaven is clear-seeing, and is with you in all your wanderings and indulgences.—She King, ii., Major Odes, the Pan.

Ke Loo asked about serving the spirits of the dead. The Master said, "While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?" Ke Loo added, "I venture to ask about death." He was answered, "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?"—Confucian An., Seen Tsin (ch. xi.).

For all affairs let there be adequate preparation. With preparation there will be no calamities.—Shoo King, Charge of Yue (ch. i.).

As to what the superior man would feel to be a calamity, there is no such thing. He does nothing which is not according to propriety. If there should befall him one morning's calamity, the superior man does not account it a calamity.—Mencius, Le Low (pt. ii., ch. xxviii.).

God is with you, have no doubts in your heart.—She King, Decade of King Wan II.

Beware. What proceeds from you will return to you again.—Mencius, King Hwuy (pt. ii., ch. xii.).

Show reverence for the weak.—Shoo King, Timber of the Tsze Tree (ch. iii.).

When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves; i.e., men are not known save in times of adversity.—Confucian An., Tsze Han (ch. xxvii.).

By nature men are nearly alike; by practice they get to be wide apart.—Confucian An., Yang Ho (ch. ii.).[Pg 3648]

All are good at first, but few prove themselves to be so at the last.—She King, ii., Major Odes, the Tang.

In serving his parents a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him he does not allow himself to murmur.—Confucian An., Le Yin (ch. xviii.).

The Great God has conferred on the inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right.—Shoo King, Announcement of T'ang (ch. ii.).

Confucius said:—"There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth when the physical powers are not yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsomeness. When he is old and the animal powers are decayed, he guards against covetousness."—Confucian An., Ke She (ch. vii.).

He who stops short where stopping short is not allowable, will stop short in everything. He who behaves shabbily to those whom he ought to treat well, will behave shabbily to all.—Mencius, Tsin Sin (pt. i., ch. xliv.).

Men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion; partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there are few men in the world who love and at the same time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred.—The Great Learning (ch. viii.).

Heaven's plan in the production of mankind is this: that they who are first informed should instruct those who are later in being informed, and they who first apprehend principles should instruct those who are slower to do so. I am one of Heaven's people who first apprehended. I will take these principles and instruct this people in them.—Mencius, Wan Chang (pt. i., ch. vii.).

From 'The Proverbial Philosophy of Confucius': copyrighted 1895, by Forster H. Jennings; G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers

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RUFUS CHOATE

(1799-1859)

BY ALBERT STICKNEY

ufus Choate, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of advocates who have appeared at the English or American bar, was one of the most remarkable products of what is ordinarily considered hard, prosaic, matter-of-fact New England. He was a man quite apart from the ordinary race of lawyers or New-Englanders. He was as different from the typical New-Englander as was Hawthorne or Emerson. He had the imagination of a poet; and to his imagination, singular as it may seem, was largely due his success in handling questions of fact before juries.

Rufus Choate

He was born of good old English stock, in the southeastern part of the town of Ipswich, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, on the first day of October, 1799. His ancestors had lived in Essex County from a very early date in its history and had filled important public positions. He was born and bred in sight of the sea, and his love for it stayed with him through life. One of his most eloquent addresses was on 'The Romance of the Sea.' And in his last illness at Halifax, his keenest pleasure was to watch the ships sailing in front of his windows. Dropping into sleep on one occasion, a few days before his death, he said to his attendant, "If a schooner or sloop goes by, don't disturb me; but if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me."

Mr. Choate had the ordinary education then given in New England to young men who had a love of learning. He began with the district school; from there he went to the academy at Hampton, New Hampshire; and later he entered Dartmouth College, where he graduated the first scholar in his class, in 1819. It is hard to find an accurate standard of comparison between the scholarship of that period and that of the present. No doubt, in our New England colleges of to-day there is a larger number of young men who have a considerable store of knowledge on many subjects of classical learning. But it is very doubtful if the graduates of Harvard and[Pg 3650] Yale of to-day are able to read the standard classic authors at the day of their graduation, with the ease and accuracy of Mr. Choate at the end of his active professional career in the year 1859. His continued devotion to the classics is shown by the following extract from his journal in the year 1844, while he was a member of Congress:—

"1. Some professional work must be done every day.... Recent experiences suggest that I ought to be more familiar with evidence and Cowen's Phillips; therefore, daily for half an hour, I will thumb conscientiously. When I come home again, in the intervals of actual employment, my recent methods of reading, accompanying the reports with the composition of arguments upon the points adjudged, may be properly resumed.

"2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings—Odyssey, Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or critic—I need make no change. So, too, Milton, Johnson, Burke—semper in manu—ut mos est. To my Greek I ought to add a page a day of Crosby's Grammar, and the practice of parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. On Sunday, the Greek Testament, and Septuagint, and French. This, and the oration of the Crown, which I will completely master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be enough in this kind. If not, I will add a translation of a sentence or two from Tacitus."

A similar extract from his journal under the date of December 15th, 1844, reads:—

"I begin a great work,—Thucydides, in Bloomfield's new edition,—with the intention of understanding a difficult and learning something from an instructive writer,—something for the more and more complicated, interior, inter-State American politics.

"With Thucydides, I shall read Wachsmuth, with historical references and verifications. Schomann on the Assemblies of the Athenians, especially, I am to meditate, and master Danier's Horace, Ode 1, 11th to 14th line, translation and notes,—a pocket edition to be always in pocket."

Throughout his life Mr. Choate kept up his classical studies. Few of the graduates of our leading colleges to-day carry from Commencement a training which makes the study of the Greek and Latin authors either easy or pleasant. Mr. Choate, like nearly every lawyer who has ever distinguished himself at the English bar, was a monument to the value of the study of the classics as a mere means of training for the active practical work of a lawyer.

Mr. Choate studied law at Cambridge in the Harvard Law School. Nearly a year he spent at Washington in the office of Mr. Wirt, then Attorney-General of the United States. This was in 1821. Thereafter he was admitted to the bar, in September, 1823. He opened his office in Salem, but soon removed to Danvers, where he practiced for four or five years.

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During these earliest years of his professional life he had the fortune which many other brilliant men in his profession have experienced,—that of waiting and hoping. During his first two or three years, it is said, he was so despondent as to his chances of professional success that he seriously contemplated abandoning the law. In time he got his opportunity to show the stuff of which he was made. His first professional efforts were in petty cases before justices of the peace. Very soon however his great ability, with his untiring industry and his intense devotion to any cause in his hands, brought the reputation which he deserved, and reputation brought clients.

In 1828 he removed to Salem. The Essex bar was one of great ability. Mr. Choate at once became a leader. Among his contemporaries at that bar was Caleb Cushing. Mr. Choate at first had many criminal cases. In the year 1830 he was, with Mr. Webster, one of the counsel for the prosecution in the celebrated White murder case.

In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, at the age of thirty-one years. At once he laid out a course of study which was to fit him for the duties of his public life. An extract from it reads as follows:—

Then follow in his manuscript upwards of twenty pages of close writing, consisting of memoranda and statements, drawn from a multitude of sources, on the subjects laid down by him at the beginning as the ones to be investigated.

In Congress he found himself in competition with many men of marked ability. Among the members of Congress then from Massachusetts were Mr. Webster in the Senate; and in the House, John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs, and John Davis. In the Senate, from other States, were Peleg Sprague from Maine,—one of the ablest jurists this country has produced; Samuel Prentiss, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Clayton, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Benton. In the House were James M. Wayne, Mr. McDuffie, Mr. Polk, Mr. Corwin, and Mr. Verplanck.

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Among men of this calibre Mr. Choate at once, with ease, took rank as one of the first. He made but two speeches during the session; but these gave him a position which he ever afterwards held among the most eloquent and convincing speakers in public life.

In April 1833 Mr. Choate was re-elected to Congress. At this session he made a speech on the removal of the public deposits by President Jackson from the Bank of the United States. The following incident shows his power as an orator:—

Benjamin Hardin was then a member from Kentucky, of the House of Representatives; and was himself intending to speak on the same side of the question with Mr. Choate. In such cases, Mr. Hardin's rule was to listen to no other speaker before speaking himself. Consequently when Mr. Choate began speaking, Mr. Hardin started to leave the House. He waited however for a moment to listen to a few sentences from Mr. Choate, and with this result, as told in his own words:—"The member from Massachusetts rose to speak, and in accordance with my custom I took my hat to leave, lingering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice and the manner of his speech. But that moment was fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by the music of his voice, and was captivated by the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to move until the last word of his beautiful speech had been uttered."

At the close of this session Mr. Choate resigned his seat in Congress and went to Boston, there to follow the practice of his profession. At the Boston bar he met a remarkably brilliant group of men. There were Jeremiah Mason, whom Mr. Webster is said to have considered the strongest man that he ever met in any legal contest; Franklin Dexter; Chief Justice Shaw (then at the bar); Judges Wilde, Hoar, and Thomas, afterwards of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; Mr. Fletcher, Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, Sidney Bartlett, Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D. Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assembled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advocate,—with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound legal judgment,—he had now acquired a large professional experience and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had a thorough classical training,—that is, of the kind best fitted to his needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him, they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide. He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress. [Pg 3653]And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this time.

His success at the Boston bar was phenomenal. He was in a contest with giants. Mr. Webster alone could be deemed to dispute with Mr. Choate the place of supremacy. The general verdict has been that for pure intellectual power Mr. Webster was the superior. But it may well be doubted whether as an all-round advocate Mr. Choate did not carry off the palm. The common idea of Mr. Choate has been that his marvelous eloquence was his great source of strength and success in his forensic contests. This is an error. Eloquent he undoubtedly was; few men have ever been more so. But unless in frontier communities, eloquence alone has never commanded great success at the bar—if indeed it has ever existed—without strong logical power and sound judgment. The power of convincing intelligent men always depends largely and mainly on soundness of judgment in the selection of positions. Especially is this so in the profession of the law. There have been, no doubt, many instances where men of eloquence have captivated juries by appeals to passion or prejudice. But in the vast majority of cases, success as an advocate cannot be had without sound judgment in the selection of positions, coupled with the power of clear logical statement. Mr. Choate was no exception to this rule. Mr. Henry W. Paine, one of the leaders of the Boston bar in Mr. Choate's time,—himself one of the most logical of men,—once said that he did not care to hear Mr. Choate address a jury, but to hear him argue a bill of exceptions before the full bench of the Supreme Court was one of the greatest intellectual treats. With the ordinary twelve men in a jury-box Mr. Choate was a wizard. His knowledge of human nature, his wide and deep sympathies, his imagination, his power of statement, with his rich musical voice and his wonderful fascination of manner, made him a charmer of men and a master in the great art of winning verdicts. So far as the writer is able to form an opinion, there has never been at the English or American bar a man who has been his equal in his sway over juries. Comparisons are often condemned, but they are at times useful. Comparing Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster, it must be conceded that Mr. Webster might at times carry a jury against Mr. Choate by his force of intellect and the tremendous power of his personal presence. Mr. O'Conor once said that he did not consider Mr. Webster an eloquent man. "Mr. Webster," he said, "was an intellectual giant. But he never impressed me as being an eloquent man." The general judgment is that Mr. Webster had eloquence of a very high order. But Mr. Choate was a magician.[Pg 3654] With any opponent of his time except Mr. Webster, he was irresistible before juries. Mr. Justice Catron of the United States Court is reported to have said of Mr. Choate, "I have heard the most eminent advocates, but he surpasses them all." His success came from a rare combination of eloquence, sound logical judgment, and great powers of personal fascination.

In another respect the common opinion of Mr. Choate must be corrected. His great powers of persuasion and conviction undoubtedly gave him some victories which were not deserved by the mere merits of his cases. From this fact there went abroad the impression that he was a man without principle, and that his ethical standards were not high in his selection and conduct of cases. This impression is quite contrary to the judgment of the competent. The impression was due largely to his success in the celebrated defense of Tirrell. Tirrell was indicted for the murder of a woman named Bickford, with whom Tirrell had long associated, who was found dead in a house of ill-repute. At about the hour when the woman lost her life, either by her own hand or by that of Tirrell, the house caught fire. The cause of the fire was not proved. Tirrell had been in her company the preceding evening, and articles of clothing belonging to him were found in the morning in her room. Many circumstances seemed to indicate that the woman had been killed by Tirrell. He was also indicted for arson in setting fire to the house. In addition to other facts proved by the defense, it was shown by reputable witnesses that Tirrell had from his youth been subject to somnambulism; and one of the positions taken by Mr. Choate for the defense was that the killing, if done by Tirrell at all, was done by him while unconscious, in a condition of somnambulism. Tirrell was tried under both indictments and was acquitted on both. The indictment for murder was tried before Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard. The indictment for arson was tried before Chief Justice Shaw and Justices Wilde and Dewey. The foreman of the jury stated that the defense of somnambulism received no weight in the deliberations of the jury. The judgment of the profession has been that the verdicts were the only ones which could properly have been rendered on the evidence. In the arson case the charge to the jury was by Chief Justice Shaw, and was strongly in favor of the defense. No doubt the defense was extremely able and ingenious. But the criticisms against Mr. Choate for his conduct of those cases, in the opinion of those members of the profession best qualified to judge, have been held to be without good foundation. Lawyers—that is, reputable ones—do not manufacture evidence, nor are they the witnesses who testify to facts. The severe tests of cross-examination usually elicit the truth. No one ever charged Mr. Choate with manufacturing evidence. And no [Pg 3655]lawyer of good judgment, so far as the writer is aware, has ever charged him with practices which were not in keeping with the very highest professional standards.

In the space here allotted, any attempt to give an adequate idea of Mr. Choate's professional and public work is quite out of the question. In addition to the conduct of an unusually large professional practice he did a large amount of literary work, mainly in the delivery of lectures, which at that time in New England were almost a part of the public system of education. Throughout his life he took an active part in politics. He attended the Whig convention at Baltimore in 1852, where General Scott received his nomination for the Presidency, and where Mr. Choate made one of the most eloquent speeches of his life in his effort to secure the nomination for Mr. Webster.

Mr. Choate finally killed himself by overwork. Though a man of great physical strength and remarkable vitality, no constitution could stand the strain of his intense labors in the different lines of law, literature, and politics. His magnificent physique finally broke down. He died on July 13th, 1859, being not quite sixty years. His death was an important public event. In the public press, at many public meetings throughout the country, and by public men of the highest distinction, his death was treated as a public misfortune. In his day he rendered distinguished public services. He had the capacities and the interests which fitted him to be a great statesman. Had it not been for our system of short terms, and rotation in office, Mr. Choate would probably have remained in public life from the time of his entry into Congress, would have been a most valuable public servant, and would have left a great reputation as a statesman. As it was, he left, so far as now appears, only the ephemeral reputation of a great advocate.

This scanty sketch can best be closed by a quotation from the address of Richard H. Dana at the meeting of the Boston bar held just after Mr. Choate's death. That extract will show the judgment of Mr. Choate which was held by the giants among whom he lived and of whom he was the leader:—

"'The wine of life is drawn.' 'The golden bowl is broken.' The age of miracles has passed. The day of inspiration is over. The Great Conqueror, unseen and irresistible, has broken into our temple and has carried off the vessels of gold, the vessels of silver, the precious stones, the jewels, and the ivory; and like the priests of the temple of Jerusalem after the invasion from Babylon, we must content ourselves as we can with vessels of wood and of stone and of iron.

"With such broken phrases as these, Mr. Chairman, perhaps not altogether just to the living, we endeavor to express the emotions natural to this hour of[Pg 3656] our bereavement. Talent, industry, eloquence, and learning, there are still, and always will be, at the bar of Boston. But if I say that the age of miracles has passed, that the day of inspiration is over,—if I cannot realize that in this place where we now are, the cloth of gold was spread, and a banquet set fit for the gods,—I know, sir, you will excuse it. Any one who has lived with him and now survives him, will excuse it;—any one who like the youth in Wordsworth's Ode,—

It will also tend to secure justice to Mr. Choate's memory, if there be here recorded the statement by Judge Benjamin R. Curtis of the judgment of the men of Mr. Choate's own profession, as to the moral standards by which Mr. Choate was governed in his practice. Judge Curtis said in his address at the same meeting of the Boston Bar:—

"I desire, therefore, on this occasion and in this presence, to declare our appreciation of the injustice which would be done to this great and eloquent advocate by attributing to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any deference to wrong, because he employed all his great powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and enforcing the comparative merits of one side of the cases in which he acted. In doing so he but did his duty. If other people did theirs, the administration of justice was secured."

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All the citations are from 'Addresses and Orations of Rufus Choate': copyrighted 1878, by Little, Brown and Company

THE PURITAN IN SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS LIFE

From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834

Turn first now for a moment to the old English Puritans, the fathers of our fathers, of whom came, of whom were, planters of Ipswich, of Massachusetts, of New England,—of whom came, of whom were, our own Ward, Parker, and Saltonstall, and Wise, Norton, and Rogers, and Appleton, and Cobbet, and Winthrop,—and see whether they were likely to be the founders of a race of freemen or slaves. Remember then, the true, noblest, the least questioned, least questionable, praise of these men is this: that for a hundred years they were the sole depositaries of the sacred fire of liberty in England after it had gone out in every other bosom,—that they saved at its last gasp the English Constitution,—which the Tudors and the first two Stuarts were rapidly changing into just such a gloomy despotism as they saw in France and Spain,—and wrought into it every particle of freedom which it now possesses,—that when they first took their seats in the House of Commons, in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, they found it the cringing and ready tool of the throne, and that they reanimated it, remodeled it, reasserted its privileges, restored it to its constitutional rank, drew back to it the old power of making laws, redressing wrongs, and imposing taxes, and thus again rebuilt and opened what an Englishman called "the chosen temple of liberty," an English House of Commons,—that they abridged the tremendous power of the crown and defined it,—and when at last Charles Stuart resorted to arms to restore the despotism they had partially overthrown, that they met him on a hundred fields of battle, and buried, after a sharp and long struggle, crown and mitre and the headless trunk of the king himself beneath the foundations of a civil and religious commonwealth. This praise all the historians of England—Whig and Tory, Protestant and Catholic, Hume, Hallam, Lingard, and all—award to the Puritans. By what causes this spirit of liberty had been breathed into the masculine, enthusiastic, austere, resolute character of this extraordinary body of men, in such intensity as to mark them off from all the rest of the people of England, I cannot here and now particularly consider. It is a thrilling and[Pg 3658] awful history of the Puritans in England, from their first emerging above the general level of Protestants, in the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., until they were driven by hundreds and thousands to these shores; but I must pass it over. It was just when the nobler and grander traits—the enthusiasm and piety and hardihood and energy—of Puritanism had attained the highest point of exaltation to which, in England, it ever mounted up, and the love of liberty had grown to be the great master-passion that fired and guided all the rest,—it was just then that our portion of its disciples, filled with the undiluted spirit, glowing with the intensest fervors of Protestantism and republicanism together, came hither, and in that elevated and holy and resolved frame began to build the civil and religious structures which you see around you.

Trace now their story a little farther onward through the Colonial period to the War of Independence, to admire with me the providential agreement of circumstances by which that spirit of liberty which brought them hither was strengthened and reinforced; until at length, instructed by wisdom, tempered by virtue, and influenced by injuries, by anger and grief and conscious worth and the sense of violated right, it burst forth here and wrought the wonders of the Revolution. I have thought that if one had the power to place a youthful and forming people like the Northern colonists, in whom the love of freedom was already vehement and healthful, in a situation the most propitious for the growth and perfection of that sacred sentiment, he could hardly select a fairer field for so interesting an experiment than the actual condition of our fathers for the hundred and fifty years after their arrival, to the War of the Revolution.

They had freedom enough to teach them its value and to refresh and elevate their spirits, wearied, not despondent, from the contentions and trials of England. They were just so far short of perfect freedom that instead of reposing for a moment in the mere fruition of what they had, they were kept emulous and eager for more, looking all the while up and aspiring to rise to a loftier height, to breathe a purer air, and bask in a brighter beam. Compared with the condition of England down to 1688,—compared with that of the larger part of the continent of Europe down to our Revolution,—theirs was a privileged and liberal condition. The necessaries of freedom, if I may say so,—its plainer food and homelier garments and humbler habita[Pg 3659]tions,—were theirs. Its luxuries and refinements, its festivals, its lettered and social glory, its loftier port and prouder look and richer graces, were the growth of a later day; these came in with independence. Here was liberty enough to make them love it for itself, and to fill them with those lofty and kindred sentiments which are at once its fruit and its nutriment and safeguard in the soul of man. But their liberty was still incomplete, and it was constantly in danger from England; and these two circumstances had a powerful effect in increasing that love and confirming those sentiments. It was a condition precisely adapted to keep liberty, as a subject of thought and feeling and desire, every moment in mind. Every moment they were comparing what they had possessed with what they wanted and had a right to; they calculated by the rule of three, if a fractional part of freedom came to so much, what would express the power and value of the whole number! They were restive and impatient and ill at ease; a galling wakefulness possessed their faculties like a spell. Had they been wholly slaves, they had lain still and slept. Had they been wholly free, that eager hope, that fond desire, that longing after a great, distant, yet practicable good, would have given way to the placidity and luxury and carelessness of complete enjoyment; and that energy and wholesome agitation of mind would have gone down like an ebb-tide. As it was, the whole vast body of waters all over its surface, down to its sunless, utmost depths, was heaved and shaken and purified by a spirit that moved above it and through it and gave it no rest, though the moon waned and the winds were in their caves; they were like the disciples of the old and bitter philosophy of paganism, who had been initiated into one stage of the greater mysteries, and who had come to the door, closed, and written over with strange characters, which led up to another. They had tasted of truth, and they burned for a fuller draught; a partial revelation of that which shall be hereafter had dawned; and their hearts throbbed eager, yet not without apprehension, to look upon the glories of the perfect day. Some of the mystery of God, of Nature, of Man, of the Universe, had been unfolded; might they by prayer, by abstinence, by virtue, by retirement, by contemplation, entitle themselves to read another page in the clasped and awful volume?

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THE NEW-ENGLANDER'S CHARACTER

From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834

I hold it to have been a great thing, in the first place, that we had among us, at that awful moment when the public mind was meditating the question of submission to the tea tax, or resistance by arms, and at the more awful moment of the first appeal to arms,—that we had some among us who personally knew what war was. Washington, Putnam, Stark, Gates, Prescott, Montgomery, were soldiers already. So were hundreds of others of humbler rank, but not yet forgotten by the people whom they helped to save, who mustered to the camp of our first Revolutionary armies. These all had tasted a soldier's life. They had seen fire, they had felt the thrilling sensations, the quickened flow of blood to and from the heart, the mingled apprehension and hope, the hot haste, the burning thirst, the feverish rapture of battle, which he who has not felt is unconscious of one-half of the capacities and energies of his nature; which he who has felt, I am told, never forgets. They had slept in the woods on the withered leaves or the snow, and awoke to breakfast upon birch-bark and the tender tops of willow-trees. They had kept guard on the outposts on many a stormy night, knowing perfectly that the thicket half a pistol-shot off was full of French and Indian riflemen.

I say it was something that we had such men among us. They helped discipline our raw first levies. They knew what an army is, and what it needs, and how to provide for it. They could take that young volunteer of sixteen by the hand, sent by an Ipswich mother, who after looking upon her son equipped for battle from which he might not return, Spartan-like, bid him go and behave like a man—and many, many such shouldered a musket for Lexington and Bunker Hill—and assure him from their own personal knowledge that after the first fire he never would know fear again, even that of the last onset. But the long and peculiar wars of New England had done more than to furnish a few such officers and soldiers as these. They had formed that public sentiment upon the subject of war which re-united all the armies, fought all the battles, and won all the glory of the Revolution. The truth is that war in some form or another had been, from the first, one of the usages, one of the[Pg 3661] habits, of colonial life. It had been felt from the first to be just as necessary as planting or reaping—to be as likely to break out every day and every night as a thunder-shower in summer, and to break out as suddenly. There have been nations who boasted that their rivers or mountains never saw the smoke of an enemy's camp. Here the war-whoop awoke the sleep of the cradle; it startled the dying man on his pillow; it summoned young and old from the meeting-house, from the burial, and from the bridal ceremony, to the strife of death. The consequence was that the steady, composed, and reflecting courage which belongs to all the English race grew into a leading characteristic of New England; and a public sentiment was formed, pervading young and old and both sexes, which declared it lawful, necessary, and honorable to risk life and to shed blood for a great cause,—for our family, for our fires, for our God, for our country, for our religion. In such a cause it declared that the voice of God himself commanded to the field. The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself. It would not have hurried her sons to the Nile, or the foot of the Pyramids, or across the great raging sea of snows which rolled from Smolensko to Moscow, to set the stars of glory upon the glowing brow of ambition. But it was a courage which at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, at Bennington, and at Saratoga, had power to brace the spirit for the patriot's fight, and gloriously roll back the tide of menaced war from their homes, the soil of their birth, the graves of their fathers, and the everlasting hills of their freedom.

OF THE AMERICAN BAR

From the Address before the Cambridge Law School, 1845

Something such has, in all the past periods of our history, been one of the functions of the American bar. To vindicate the true interpretation of the charters of the colonies, to advise what forms of polity, what systems of jurisprudence, what degree and what mode of liberty these charters permitted,—to detect and expose that long succession of infringement which grew at last to the Stamp Act and Tea Tax, and compelled us to turn from broken charters to national independ[Pg 3662]ence,—to conduct the transcendent controversy which preceded the Revolution, that grand appeal to the reason of civilization,—this was the work of our first generation of lawyers: to construct the American constitutions: the higher praise of the second generation. I claim it in part for the sobriety and learning of the American bar; for the professional instinct towards the past; for the professional appreciation of order, forms, obedience, restraints; for the more than professional, the profound and wide intimacy with the history of all liberty, classical, mediæval, and above all, of English liberty,—I claim it in part for the American bar that, springing into existence by revolution,—revolution, which more than anything and all things lacerates and discomposes the popular mind,—justifying that revolution only on a strong principle of natural right, with not one single element or agent of monarchy or aristocracy on our soil or in our blood,—I claim it for the bar that the constitutions of America so nobly closed the series of our victories! These constitutions owe to the bar more than their terse and exact expression and systematic arrangements: they owe to it in part, too, their elements of permanence; their felicitous reconciliation of universal and intense liberty with forms to enshrine and regulations to restrain it; their Anglo-Saxon sobriety and gravity conveyed in the genuine idiom, suggestive of the grandest civil achievements of that unequaled race. To interpret these constitutions, to administer and maintain them, this is the office of our age of the profession. Herein have we somewhat wherein to glory; hereby we come into the class and share in the dignity of founders of States, of restorers of States, of preservers of States.

I said and I repeat that while lawyers, and because we are lawyers, we are statesmen. We are by profession statesmen. And who may measure the value of this department of public duty? Doubtless in statesmanship there are many mansions, and large variety of conspicuous service. Doubtless to have wisely decided the question of war or peace,—to have adjusted by a skillful negotiation a thousand miles of unsettled boundary-line,—to have laid the corner-stone of some vast policy whereby the currency is corrected, the finances enriched, the measure of industrial fame filled,—are large achievements. And yet I do not know that I can point to one achievement of this department of American statesmanship which can take rank for its[Pg 3663] consequences of good above that single decision of the Supreme Court which adjudged that an act of legislature contrary to the Constitution is void, and that the judicial department is clothed with the power to ascertain the repugnancy and to pronounce the legal conclusion. That the framers of the Constitution intended this should be so is certain; but to have asserted it against the Congress and the Executive,—to have vindicated it by that easy yet adamantine demonstration than which the reasonings of the mathematics show nothing surer,—to have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism on the public mind, so that no demagogue, not in the last stage of intoxication, denies it,—this is an achievement of statesmanship of which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all the good.

DANIEL WEBSTER

From Eulogy delivered at Dartmouth College, 1853

Sometimes it has seemed to me that to enable one to appreciate with accuracy, as a psychological speculation, the intrinsic and absolute volume and texture of that brain,—the real rate and measure of those abilities,—it was better not to see or hear him, unless you could see or hear him frequently, and in various modes of exhibition; for undoubtedly there was something in his countenance and bearing so expressive of command,—something even in his conversational language when saying "Parva summisse et modica temperate," so exquisitely plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich truth, the forms at least of a large generalization, in an epithet,—an antithesis,—a pointed phrase,—a broad and peremptory thesis,—and something in his grander forthputting, when roused by a great subject or occasion exciting his reason and touching his moral sentiments and his heart, so difficult to be resisted, approaching so near, going so far beyond, the higher style of man, that although it left you a very good witness of his power of influencing others, you were not in the best condition immediately to pronounce on the quality or the source of the influence. You saw the flash and heard the peal, and felt the admiration and fear; but from what region it was launched, and by what divinity, and from what Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do that you must, if you saw him at all,[Pg 3664] see him many times; compare him with himself and with others; follow his dazzling career from his father's house; observe from what competitors he won those laurels; study his discourses,—study them by the side of those of other great men of this country and time, and of other countries and times, conspicuous in the same fields of mental achievement,—look through the crystal water of the style down to the golden sands of the thought; analyze and contrast intellectual power somewhat; consider what kind and what quantity of it has been held by students of mind needful in order to great eminence in the higher mathematics, or metaphysics, or reason of the law; what capacity to analyze, through and through, to the primordial elements of the truths of that science; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repressing one by another, thus producing, not a collection of intense and conflicting paradoxes, but a code, scientifically coherent and practically useful,—consider what description and what quantity of mind have been held needful by students of mind in order to conspicuous eminence—long maintained—in statesmanship; that great practical science, that great philosophical art, whose ends are the existence, happiness, and honor of a nation; whose truths are to be drawn from the widest survey of man,—of social man,—of the particular race and particular community for which a government is to be made or kept, or a policy to be provided; "philosophy in action," demanding at once or affording place for the highest speculative genius and the most skillful conduct of men and of affairs; and finally consider what degree and kind of mental power has been found to be required in order to influence the reason of an audience and a nation by speech,—not magnetizing the mere nervous or emotional nature by an effort of that nature, but operating on reason by reason—a great reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence, maintained and advancing for a lifetime,—it is thus that we come to be sure that his intellectual power was as real and as uniform as its very happiest particular display had been imposing and remarkable.

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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

(A.D. 347-407)

BY JOHN MALONE

 strong soldier of the Cross and from good fighting stock was that John of Antioch who, among the people that were first of the earth to bear the name of Christian, was called Chrysostom—"mouth of gold." His father Secundus, who died about the time of Chrysostom's birth, was a military commander in Syria under Constantine and Constantius II. John was born at Antioch, A.D. 347, when the Eastern Empire and the City of Constantine were new. His young mother Arethusa, a Christian, then but twenty years of age, devoted herself to widowhood and the education of her son in the city of his birth. The youth's early years were passed under her careful guidance, and at the age of twenty he entered on the study of oratory and philosophy under the celebrated Libanius. In 369 he became a baptized Christian and reader in the house of Melitius the bishop. The unhappy reigns of Valens and Valentinian, when neo-paganism in the West and in the Gothic settlement in the East began to work the Empire's fall, saw John devoted to an ascetic life, after the example of the monks and hermits who sheltered in the mountains about the gay and queenly city of his birth. His mother's grief and loneliness brought him back from his cave to an energetic career as an outspoken preacher of God's Word and the eternal profit of good stout-hearted workaday well-doing. He made himself dear to the people of Antioch, for he had eloquence such as had been unknown to Greeks since Demosthenes, and he shrank not from labor and self-denial. So they called him "golden-mouth," as the Indians call their tried men "straight-tongues." On the death of Nectarius, the successor of Gregory of Nazianzenus, Theophilus of Alexandria and Arcadius the Emperor made him Metropolitan of Constantinople, A.D. 397. All before this time he was laying about him with good ear-smiting Greek at vice and luxury, of which there was abundance both in palace and in hovel; and his elevation to an Imperial neighborhood did not stay him. He cleared Byzantium of pagan shows, gathered the relics of the martyrs, and sent missionaries to preach to the Goths in their own speech. Not many years of this kind of leadership were allowed him. Arcadius, well disposed but indolent, was under the rule of a willful woman; and when Chrysostom turned his swayful voice against her pet vanities, the[Pg 3666] vexed Eudoxia intrigued his deposition. In 403 John went to exile in Bithynia, with the words "The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away" upon his lips. A great earthquake so frightened the Imperial City and family that with one outcry they called Chrysostom back. When the fear of the infirm earth had worn away, Eudoxia remembered her enmity and took it back to nurse. So one day when John had said in his sword-like invective that "Herodias was raging again," she showed less mercy than the Baptist had obtained; for under the plea that his restoration had been unwarranted, the Metropolitan was sent to a forced wandering in the wilds of outer provinces, from which there returned of him only the venerated relics of a martyr. Driven from spot to spot, sometimes in chains, always under the prod of guarding spears, one day of September, 407, he dragged himself to the tomb of the martyr Basiliscus at Comana in Pontus, and laid his soul in the hands of God. Thirty years afterward, Theodosius the Younger brought the body back to Constantinople.

In person Chrysostom was small and spare. His life of rigorous fasting and toil made him still more slight and hollow-cheeked, but it is told that there was always a blaze of fire in the deep-set eyes. The work of Chrysostom was chiefly ecclesiastical oratory, in which no one of his own or later time surpassed him. First of the great Christian preachers after the Church came from the caves, he was not less able as a teacher. His letters, full of sweetness and firm honesty, his poetry, delicate and musical, and his philosophic essays, rich with the clear-cut jewels of dialectics, are worthy of his station in the first order of the Doctors of the Church.

THAT REAL WEALTH IS FROM WITHIN

From the 'Treatise to prove that no one can harm the man who does not injure himself'

What I undertake is to prove (only make no commotion) that no one of those who are wronged is wronged by another, but experiences this injury at his own hands.

But in order to make my argument plainer, let us first of all inquire what injustice is, and of what kind of things the material of it is wont to be composed; also what human virtue is, and what it is which ruins it; and further, what it is which seems to [Pg 3667]ruin it but really does not. For instance (for I must complete my argument by means of examples), each thing is subject to one evil which ruins it: iron to rust, wool to moth, flocks of sheep to wolves. The virtue of wine is injured when it ferments and turns sour; of honey when it loses its natural sweetness and is reduced to a bitter juice. Ears of corn are ruined by mildew and drought, the fruit and leaves and branches of vines by the mischievous host of locusts, other trees by the caterpillar, and irrational creatures by diseases of various kinds; and not to lengthen the list by going through all possible examples, our own flesh is subject to fevers and palsies and a crowd of other maladies. As then each one of these things is liable to that which ruins its virtue, let us now consider what it is which injures the human race, and what it is which ruins the virtue of a human being. Most men think that there are divers things which have this effect; for I must mention the erroneous opinions on the subject, and after confuting them, proceed to exhibit that which really does ruin our virtue, and to demonstrate clearly that no one could inflict this injury or bring this ruin upon us unless we betrayed ourselves. The multitude then, having erroneous opinions, imagine that there are many different things which ruin our virtue; some say it is poverty, others bodily disease, others loss of property, others calumny, others death, and they are perpetually bewailing and lamenting these things: and whilst they are commiserating the sufferers and shedding tears, they excitedly exclaim to one another, "What a calamity has befallen such and such a man! he has been deprived of all his fortune at a blow." Of another again one will say, "Such and such a man has been attacked by severe sickness and is despaired of by the physicians in attendance." Some bewail and lament the inmates of the prison, some those who have been expelled from their country and transported to the land of exile, others those who have been deprived of their freedom, others those who have been seized and made captives by enemies, others those who have been drowned, or burnt, or buried by the fall of a house, but no one mourns those who are living in wickedness; on the contrary, which is worse than all, they often congratulate them, a practice which is the cause of all manner of evils. Come then (only, as I exhorted you at the outset, do not make a commotion), let me prove that none of the things which have been mentioned injure the man who lives soberly, nor can ruin his[Pg 3668] virtue. For tell me, if a man has lost his all either at the hands of calumniators or of robbers, or has been stripped of his goods by knavish servants, what harm has the loss done to the virtue of the man?

But if it seems well, let me rather indicate in the first place what is the virtue of a man, beginning by dealing with the subject in the case of existences of another kind, so as to make it more intelligible and plain to the majority of readers.

What then is the virtue of a horse? is it to have a bridle studded with gold and girths to match, and a band of silken threads to fasten the housing, and clothes wrought in divers colors and gold tissue, and head-gear studded with jewels, and locks of hair plaited with gold cord? or is it to be swift and strong in its legs, and even in its paces, and to have hoofs suitable to a well-bred horse, and courage fitted for long journeys and warfare, and to be able to behave with calmness in the battle-field, and if a rout takes place, to save its rider? Is it not manifest that these are the things which constitute the virtue of the horse, not the others? Again, what should you say was the virtue of asses and mules? is it not the power of carrying burdens with contentment, and accomplishing journeys with ease, and having hoofs like rock? Shall we say that their outside trappings contribute anything to their own proper virtue? By no means. And what kind of vine shall we admire? one which abounds in leaves and branches, or one which is laden with fruit? Or what kind of virtue do we predicate of an olive? is it to have large boughs and great luxuriance of leaves, or to exhibit an abundance of its proper fruit dispersed over all parts of the tree? Well, let us act in the same way in the case of human beings also: let us determine what is the virtue of man, and let us regard that alone as an injury, which is destructive to it. What then is the virtue of man? Not riches, that thou shouldst fear poverty; nor health of body, that thou shouldst dread sickness; nor the opinion of the public, that thou shouldst view an evil reputation with alarm, nor life simply for its own sake, that death should be terrible to thee; nor liberty that thou shouldst avoid servitude: but carefulness in holding true doctrine, and rectitude in life. Of these things not even the devil himself will be able to rob a man, if he who possesses them guards them with the needful carefulness, and that most malicious and ferocious demon is aware of this.[Pg 3669]

Thus in no case will any one be able to injure a man who does not choose to injure himself; but if a man is not willing to be temperate, and to aid himself from his own resources, no one will ever be able to profit him. Therefore also that wonderful history of the Holy Scriptures, as in some lofty, large, and broad picture, has portrayed the lives of the men of old time, extending the narrative from Adam to the coming of Christ: and it exhibits to you both those who are vanquished and those who are crowned with victory in the contest, in order that it may instruct you by means of all examples that no one will be able to injure one who is not injured by himself, even if all the world were to kindle a fierce war against him. For it is not stress of circumstances, nor variation of seasons, nor insults of men in power, nor intrigues besetting thee like snow-storms, nor a crowd of calamities, nor a promiscuous collection of all the ills to which mankind is subject, which can disturb even slightly the man who is brave and temperate and watchful; just as on the contrary the indolent and supine man who is his own betrayer cannot be made better, even with the aid of innumerable ministrations.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

ON ENCOURAGEMENT DURING ADVERSITY

From the 'Letters to Olympias'

To my Lady, the most reverend and divinely favored Deaconess Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the Lord: Come now, let me relieve the wound of thy despondency, and disperse the thoughts which gather this cloud of care around thee. For what is it which upsets thy mind, and why art thou sorrowful and dejected? Is it because of the fierce black storm which has overtaken the Church, enveloping all things in darkness as of a night without a moon, and is growing to a head every day, travailing to bring forth disastrous shipwrecks, and increasing the ruin of the world? I know all this as well as you; none shall gainsay it, and if you like I will form an image of the things now taking place so as to present the tragedy yet more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea upheaved from the very lowest depths, some sailors floating dead upon the waves, others engulfed by them, the planks of the ships breaking up, the sails torn to tatters, the masts sprung, the oars[Pg 3670] dashed out of the sailors' hands, the pilots seated on the deck, clasping their knees with their hands instead of grasping the rudder, bewailing the hopelessness of their situation with sharp cries and bitter lamentations, neither sky nor sea clearly visible, but all one deep and impenetrable darkness, so that no one can see his neighbor; whilst mighty is the roaring of the billows, and monsters of the sea attack the crews on every side.

But how much further shall I pursue the unattainable? for whatever image of our present evils I may seek, speech shrinks baffled from the attempt. Nevertheless, even when I look at these calamities I do not abandon the hope of better things, considering as I do who the Pilot is in all this—not one who gets the better of the storm by his art, but calms the raging waters by his rod. But if he does not effect this at the outset and speedily, such is his custom—he does not at the beginning put down these terrible evils; but when they have increased and come to extremities, and most persons are reduced to despair, then he works wondrously and beyond all expectation, thus manifesting his own power and training the patience of those who undergo these calamities. Do not therefore be cast down. For there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible, only one real trial, and that is sin; and I have never ceased continually harping upon this theme: but as for all other things, plots, enmities, frauds, calumnies, insults, accusations, confiscation, exile, the keen sword of the enemy, the peril of the deep, warfare of the whole world, or anything else you like to name, they are but idle tales. For whatever the nature of these things may be, they are transitory and perishable, and operate in a mortal body without doing any injury to the vigilant soul. Therefore the blessed Paul, desiring to prove the insignificance both of the pleasures and sorrows relating to this life, declared the whole truth in one sentence when he said, "For the things which are seen are temporal." Why then dost thou fear temporal things which pass away like the stream of a river? For such is the nature of present things, whether they be pleasant or painful. And another prophet compared all human prosperity not to grass, but to another material even more flimsy, describing the whole of it "as the flower of grass." For he did not single out any one part of it, as wealth alone, or luxury alone, or power, or honor; but having comprised all the things which are esteemed splendid amongst men under the one[Pg 3671] designation of glory, he said, "All the glory of man is as the flower of grass."

Nevertheless, you will say, adversity is a terrible thing and grievous to be borne. Yet look at it again compared with another image, and then also learn to despise it. For the railing, and insults, and reproaches, and gibes, inflicted by enemies and their plots, are compared to a worn-out garment and moth-eaten wool, when God says, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings, for they shall wax old as doth a garment, and like moth-eaten wool so shall they be consumed." Therefore let none of these things which are happening trouble thee; but ceasing to invoke the aid of this or that person, and to run after shadows (for such are human alliances), do thou persistently call upon Jesus whom thou servest, merely to bow his head and in a moment of time all these evils will be dissolved. But if thou hast already called upon him, and yet they have not been dissolved, such is the manner of God's dealing (for I will resume my former argument); he does not put down evils at the outset, but when they have grown to a head, when scarcely any form of the enemy's malice remains ungratified, then he suddenly converts all things to a state of tranquillity and conducts them to an unexpected settlement. For he is not only able to turn as many things as we expect and hope, to good, but many more, yea infinitely more. Wherefore also Paul saith, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Could he not, for example, have prevented the Three Children at the outset from falling into trial? But he did not choose to do this, thereby conferring great pain upon them. Therefore he suffered them to be delivered into the hands of barbarians, and the furnace to be heated to an immeasurable height and the wrath of the king to blaze even more fiercely than the furnace, and hands and feet to be bound with great severity, and they themselves to be cast into the fire; and then, when all they who beheld despaired of their rescue, suddenly and beyond all hope the wonder-working power of God, the supreme artificer, was displayed, and shone forth with exceeding splendor. For the fire was bound and the bondmen were released; and the furnace became a temple of prayer, a place of fountains and dew, of higher dignity than a royal court, and the very hairs of their head prevailed over that all-devouring element which gets the better even of iron and[Pg 3672] stone, and masters every kind of substance. And a solemn song of universal praise was instituted there by these holy men, inviting every kind of created thing to join in the wondrous melody: and they uttered hymns of thanksgiving to God for that they had been bound, and also burnt, as far at least as the malice of their enemies had power; that they had been exiles from their country, captives deprived of their liberty, wandering outcasts from city and home, sojourners in a strange and barbarous land: for all this was the outpouring of a grateful heart. And when the malicious devices of their enemies were perfected (for what further could they attempt after their death?) and the labors of the heroes were completed, and the garland of victory was woven, and their rewards were prepared, and nothing more was wanting for their renown, then at last their calamities were brought to an end, and he who caused the furnace to be kindled, and delivered them over to that great punishment, became himself the panegyrist of those holy heroes and the herald of God's marvelous deed, and everywhere throughout the world issued letters full of reverent praise, recording what had taken place, and becoming the faithful herald of the miracles wrought by the wonder-working God. For inasmuch as he had been an enemy and adversary, what he wrote was above suspicion even in the opinion of enemies.

Dost thou see the abundance of resource belonging to God? his extraordinary power, his loving-kindness and care? Be not therefore dismayed or troubled, but continue to give thanks to God for all things, praising and invoking him; beseeching and supplicating; even if countless tumults and troubles come upon thee, even if tempests are stirred up before thine eyes, let none of these things disturb thee. For our Master is not baffled by the difficulty, even if all things are reduced to the extremity of ruin. For it is possible for him to raise those who have fallen, to convert those who are in error, to set straight those who have been ensnared, to release those who have been laden with countless sins, and make them righteous, to quicken those who are dead, to restore lustre to decayed things, and freshness to those who have waxen old. For if he makes things which are not to come into being, and bestows existence on things which are nowhere by any means manifest, how much more will he rectify things which already exist!

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

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CONCERNING THE STATUTES

From Homily VIII.

Knowing these things, let us take heed to our life: and let us not be earnest as to the goods that perish; neither as to the glory that goeth out; nor as to that body which groweth old; nor as to that beauty which is fading; nor as to that pleasure which is fleeting: but let us expend all our care about the soul, and let us provide for the welfare of this in every way. For to cure the body when diseased is not an easy matter to every one; but to cure a sick soul is easy to all: and the sickness of the body requires medicines, as well as money, for its healing; but the healing of the soul is a thing easy to procure, and devoid of expense. And the nature of the flesh is with much labor delivered from those wounds which are troublesome; for very often the knife must be applied, and medicines that are bitter; but with respect to the soul there is nothing of this kind. It suffices only to exercise the will and the desire, and all things are accomplished. And this hath been the work of God's providence. For inasmuch as from bodily sickness no great injury could arise (for though we were not diseased, yet death would in any case come, and destroy and dissolve the body); but everything depends upon the health of our souls; this being by far the more precious and necessary, he hath made the medicining of it easy, and void of expense or pain. What excuse therefore or what pardon shall we obtain, if when the body is sick, and money must be expended on its behalf, and physicians called in, and much anguish endured, we make this so much a matter of our care (though what might result from that sickness could be no great injury to us), and yet treat the soul with neglect? And this, when we are neither called upon to pay down money, nor to give others any trouble, nor to sustain any sufferings; but without any of all these things, by only choosing and willing, have it in our power to accomplish the entire amendment of it: and knowing assuredly that if we fail to do this, we shall sustain the extreme sentence, and punishments, and penalties, which are inexorable! For tell me, if any one promised to teach thee the healing art in a short space of time, without money or labor, wouldst thou not think him a benefactor? Wouldst thou not submit both to do and to suffer all things, whatsoever he who prom[Pg 3674]ised these things commanded? Behold now, it is permitted thee without labor to find a medicine for wounds, not of the body, but of the soul, and to restore it to a state of health without any suffering! Let us not be indifferent to the matter! For pray what is the pain of laying aside anger against one who hath aggrieved thee? It is a pain indeed to remember injuries, and not to be reconciled! What labor is it to pray, and to ask for a thousand good things from God, who is ready to give? What labor is it, not to speak evil of any one? What difficulty is there in being delivered from envy and ill-will? What trouble is it to love one's neighbor? What suffering is it not to utter shameful words, nor to revile, nor to insult another? What fatigue is it not to swear? for again I return to this same admonition. The labor of swearing is indeed exceedingly great. Oftentimes, whilst under the influence of anger or wrath, we have sworn, perhaps, that we would never be reconciled to those who have injured us.

I am now for the sixth day admonishing you in respect of this precept. Henceforth I am desirous to take leave of you, meaning to abstain from the subject, that ye may be on your guard. There will no longer be any excuse or allowance for you; for of right, indeed, if nothing had been said on this matter, it ought to have been amended of yourselves, for it is not a thing of an intricate nature, or that requires great preparation. But since ye have enjoyed the advantage of so much admonition and counsel, what excuse will ye have to offer, when ye stand accused before that dread tribunal and are required to give account of this transgression? It is impossible to invent any excuse; but of necessity you must either go hence amended, or if you have not amended, be punished, and abide the extremest penalty! Thinking therefore upon all these things, and departing hence with much anxiety about them, exhort ye one another, that the things spoken of during so many days may be kept with all watchfulness in your minds; so that whilst we are silent, ye instructing, edifying, exhorting one another, may exhibit great improvement: and having fulfilled all the other precepts may enjoy eternal crowns; which God grant we may all obtain through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

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MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

(106-43 B.C.)

BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON

he outward life, the political career, of Marcus Tullius Cicero, is to nearly all students of history a tragic and pathetic story. He seems peculiarly unfitted to the people and the time in which his lot was cast. His enlightened love for the traditions of the past, his passionate sentiment of patriotism, his forceful eloquence as a debater in the Senate or as an orator in the Forum,—these qualities of a Burke or a Webster stand out violently dissevered from the lurid history of his time. This humane scholarly life was flung into the midst of the wildest century in all Rome's grim annals; the hundred years of civic turmoil and bloodshed, from the elder Gracchus's murder to the death of Cleopatra.

And yet such was the marvelous activity, the all-sided productiveness, of the Ciceronian intellect, that perhaps no human mind has ever so fully exploited all its powers. Moreover, in each intellectual field which he entered, the chances of time have removed nearly every Roman rival, leaving us no choice save to accept Cicero's guidance. There was many another orator, and history of eloquence. There were other practical treatises on rhetoric. Many a notable correspondence was actually preserved and published, though now lost. Even his free transcriptions from Greek philosophical treatises—hastily conned and perhaps imperfectly understood—have acquired, through the disappearance of the Greek scrolls themselves, an ill-deserved authority as to the tenets of the Epicurean and other schools.

Before and above all else, Cicero was a pleader. Out of that activity grew his ill-starred political activity, while his other literary tastes were essentially but a solace in times of enforced retirement. With the discussion of his oratory, therefore, we may best combine a rapid outline of his life.

By their common birthplace, Arpinum, and by a slight tie of kinship, Cicero was associated with Marius; and he began life, like Disraeli, with radical sympathies. He was the elder son of a wealthy Roman citizen, but no ancestor had ennobled the family by attaining curule office. After a most thorough course of training in Latin and Greek, Cicero began to "practice law." The pleader in ancient Rome was supposed to receive no fee, and even more than[Pg 3676] with us, found his profession the natural stepping-stone to political honors.

At the age of twenty-six, Cicero (in 80 B.C.) defended his first important client in a criminal case. In the closing days of the Sullan proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged with murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kinsmen were probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chrysogonus, a wealthy freedman and favorite of the Dictator, to insert the dead man's name among the outlawed victims and to divide the confiscated estate. The son was persecuted because he resisted this second outrage. Cicero says he is himself protected by his obscurity, though no other advocate has dared to plead for the unlucky youth. In our present text there are some audacious words aimed at Sulla's own measures: they were probably sharpened in a later revision. The case was won, against general expectation. Cicero may have played the hero that day: certainly the brief remainder of Sulla's life was spent by the young democratic pleader traveling in the East,—"for his health," as Plutarch adds, truly enough. At this time his style was chastened and his manner moderated by the teachers of Athens, and especially by Molo in Rhodes.

Cicero's quæstorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B.C. Here he knit close friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a creditable piece of archæological work by rediscovering Archimedes's tomb. His impeachment of Verres for misgovernment in Sicily was in 70 B.C. This time the orator runs a less desperate risk. Since Sulla's death the old constitution has languidly revived. Speech was comparatively free and safe. The "knights" or wealthy middle class,—Cicero's own,—deprived by Sulla of the right to sit as the jurors in impeachment trials like Verres's, partially regain the privilege in this very year. The overwhelming mass of evidence made Verres flee into exile, and Hortensius, till then leader of the Roman bar, threw up the case in despair. Nevertheless Cicero published the stately series of orations he had prepared. They form the most vivid picture, and the deadliest indictments ever drawn, of Roman provincial government,—and of a ruthless art-collector. Cicero instantly became the foremost among lawyers. Moreover, this success made Cicero a leader in the time of reaction after Sulla, and hastened his elevation to posts where only men of sterner nature could be fully and permanently successful.

CICERO.

Pompey, born in the same year, was at this time leading the revolt against Sulla's measures. The attachment now formed, the warmer hearted Cicero never wholly threw off. The young general's later foreign victories are nowhere so generously set forth as in Cicero's too-rhetorical plea "for the Manilian Law," in 66 B.C. [Pg 3677]Pompey was then wintering in the East, after sweeping piracy in a single summer from the Mediterranean. This plea gave him the larger command against Mithridates. Despite the most extravagant laudation, however, Pompey remains, here as elsewhere, one of those large but vague and misty figures that stalk across the stage of history without ever once turning upon us a fully human face. Far more distinct than he, there looms above him the splendid triumphal pageant of Roman imperialism itself.

Cicero's unrivaled eloquence won him not only a golden shower of gifts and legacies, but also the prætorship and consulship at the earliest legal age. Perhaps some of the old nobles foresaw and prudently avoided the Catilinarian storm of 63 B.C. The common dangers of that year, and the pride of assured position, may have hastened the full transfer of Cicero's allegiance to the old senatorial faction. Tiberius Gracchus, boldly praised in January, has become for Cicero a notorious demagogue; his slayers instead are the undoubted patriots, in the famous harangues of November. These latter, by the way, were certainly under the file three years afterward,—and it is not likely that we read any Ciceronian speech just as it was delivered. If there be any thread of consistency in Cicero's public career, it must be sought in his long but vain hope to unite the nobility and the equites, in order to resist the growing proletariat.

The eager vanity with which Cicero seized the proud title "Father of the fatherland" is truly pathetic. The summary execution of the traitors may have been prompted by that physical timidity so often associated with the scholarly temperament. Whether needless or not, the act returned to plague him.

The happiest effort of the orator in his consular year was the famous plea for Murena. This consul-elect for 62 was a successful soldier. Catiline must be met in the spring "in the jaws of Etruria." Cicero's dearest friend, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a defeated candidate, accused Murena of bribery. The conditions of Roman politics, the character of Sulpicius, the tone of Cicero himself, bid us adjudge Murena probably guilty. Cicero had supported Sulpicius, but now feels it is no time to "go behind the returns," or to replace a bold soldier by a scholarly lawyer.

To win his case Cicero must heap ridicule upon his own profession in his friend's person, and upon Stoic philosophy, represented by Cato, Sulpicius's chief advocate. This he did so successfully that Cato himself exclaimed with a grim smile, "What a jester our consul is!" Cicero won his case—and kept his friends. This speech is cited sixteen times by Quintilian, and is a model of forensic ingenuity, wit, and grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but hardly its moral standards.

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The next year produced the famous and successful defense of Cluentius,—probably guilty of poisoning,—and also the most delightful of all Cicero's speeches, the oration for the poet Archias. Whether the old Greek's claim to Roman citizenship was beyond cavil we neither know nor greatly care. The legal argument is suspiciously brief. The praise of literature and the scholarly life, however, has re-echoed ever since, and still reaches all hearts. Brother Quintus, sitting in judgment as prætor, is pleasantly greeted.

This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boastful words uttered in these days make us doubt if he remembered Solon's and Sophocles's maxim, "Count no life happy before its close." The fast-growing power of Cæsar presently made the two successful generals Pompey and Crassus his political tools. Cicero refused to enter, on similar conditions, the cabal later known as the "First Triumvirate." Cæsar, about to depart for his long absence in Gaul, might well regard the patriotic and impulsive orator as the most serious source of possible opposition in his absence. Marcus refused, himself, to go along to Gaul a-soldiering, though Brother Quintus accepted a commission and served creditably. At last, reluctantly, Cæsar suffered Cicero's personal enemy Clodius to bring forward a decree outlawing "those who had put Roman citizens to death without trial" (March, 58 B.C.). Cicero meekly withdrew from Rome, was condemned by name in absence, and his town house and villas pillaged.

As to the cowardice of this hasty retreat, none need use severer words than did the exile himself. It is the decisive event in his career. His uninterrupted success was ended. His pride could never recover fully from the hurt. Worst of all, he could never again pose, even before his own eyes, as the fearless hero-patriot. In short, Cæsar, the consummate master of action and of men, had humanely but decisively crippled the erratic yet patriotic rhetorician.

In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the personal good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics, brought round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were however effectively clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of independence, he made full, even abject, submission to the dominant Cæsarian faction. This was in 56 B.C. The next five years, inglorious politically, were however full of activity in legal oratory and other literary work. In his eloquent defense of Cælius Rufus, charged with an attempt to poison Clodia, Cicero perforce whitewashes, or at least paints in far milder colors than of old, Catiline, Cælius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing feature is the abusive attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia, probably the "Lesbia" of[Pg 3679] Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to have preceded Cælius in the fickle matron's favor.)

The events of the year 52 well illustrate the unfitness of Cicero for politics in such an age. Rome was full of street brawls, which Pompey could not check. The orator's old enemy Clodius, at the head of his bravos, was slain by a fellow ruffian Milo in January. At Milo's trial in April Cicero defended him, or attempted to do so. A court-room encircled by a yelling mob and guarded by Pompey's legions caused him to break down altogether. As afterward written out at leisure, the speech is a masterpiece of special pleading. The exiled Milo's criticism on it is well known: "I'm glad you never delivered it: I should not now be enjoying the mullets of Marseilles."

The year 51-50 Cicero spent, most unwillingly, as proconsular governor in far-off Cilicia. Though really humane and relatively honest, he accumulated in these few months a handsome sum in "gifts" from provincials and other perquisites. Even Cicero was a Roman.

Meantime the civil war had all but broken out at home. Cicero hesitated long, and the correspondence with Atticus contains exhaustive analyses of his motives and temptations. His naïve selfishness and vanity at times in these letters seem even like self-caricature. Yet through it all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patriotism. Still the craving for a triumph—he had fought some savage mountain clans in Asia Minor!—was hardly less dominant.

Repairing late and with many misgivings to Pompey's camp in Epirus, Cicero seems to have been there a "not unfeared, half-welcome" and critical guest. Illness is his excuse for absence from the decisive battle. He himself tells us little of these days. As Plutarch relates the tale, after Pompey's flight to Egypt Cicero refused the supreme command, and was thereupon threatened with death by young Gneius Pompey; but his life was saved by Cato.

One thing at least is undisputed. The last man to decide for Pompey's cause, he was the first to hurry back to Italy and crave Cæsar's grace! For many months he waited in ignoble retirement, fearing the success of his deserted comrades even more than Cæsar's victory. It is this action that gives the coup de grace to Cicero's character as a hero. With whatever misgivings, he had chosen his side. Whatever disturbing threats of violent revenge after victory he heard in Pompey's camp, he awaited the decisive battle. Then there remained, for any brave man, only constancy in defeat—or a fall upon his sword.

Throughout Cæsar's brief reign,—or long dictatorship,—from 48 to 44, Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of courtiers. For him who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for[Pg 3680] mercy accorded, at a despot's footstool, there are no more graceful models than the 'Pro Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello.' Cæsar himself realized, and wittily remarked, how irksome and hateful such a part must be to the older, vainer, more self-conscious man of the twain.

Midway in this period Cicero divorced his wife after thirty years of wedlock, seemingly from some dissatisfaction over her financial management, and soon after married a wealthy young ward. This is the least pleasing chapter of his private life, but perhaps the mortification and suffering it entailed were a sufficient penalty. His only daughter Tullia's death in 45 B.C. nearly broke the father's heart.

Whatever the reason, Cicero was certainly not in the secret of Cæsar's assassination. Twice in letters to members of the conspiracy in later months he begins: "How I wish you had invited me to your glorious banquet on the Ides of March." "There would have been no remnants," he once adds. That is, Antony would not have been left alive.

We have now reached the last two years—perhaps the most creditable time—in Cicero's eventful life. This period runs from March 15th, 44 B.C., to December 7th, 43 B.C. It was one long struggle, first covert, then open, between Antony and the slayers of Cæsar. Cicero's energy and eloquence soon made him the foremost voice in the Senate once more. For the first time since his exile, he is now speaking out courageously his own real sentiments. His public action is in harmony with his own convictions. The cause was not hopeless by any means, so far as the destruction of Antony would have been a final triumph. Indeed, that wild career seemed near its end, when Octavian's duplicity again threw the game into his rival's reckless hands. However, few students of history imagine that any effective restoration of senatorial government was possible. The peculiar pathos of Cicero's end, patriot as he was, is this: it removed one of the last great obstacles to the only stable and peaceful rule Rome could receive—the imperial throne of Augustus.

This last period is however among the most creditable, perhaps the most heroic, in Cicero's career. Its chief memorials are the fourteen extant orations against Antony. The comparative sincerity of these 'Philippics,' and the lack of private letters for much of this time, make them important historical documents. The only one which ranks among his greatest productions—perhaps the classic masterpiece of invective—is the 'Second Philippic.' This was never delivered at all, but published as a pamphlet. This unquestioned fact throws a curious light on passages like—"He is agitated, he perspires, he turns pale!" describing Antony at the (imaginary) delivery of the oration. The details of the behavior of Catiline and[Pg 3681] others may be hardly more authentic. The 'Ninth Philippic' is a heartfelt funeral eulogy on that same Sulpicius whom he had ridiculed in the 'Pro Murena.'

A fragment from one of Livy's lost books says, "Cicero bore with becoming spirit none of the ills of life save death itself." He indeed perished not only bravely but generously, dissuading his devoted slaves from useless resistance, and extending his neck to Antony's assassins. Verres lived to exult at the news, and then shared his enemy's fate, rather than give up his Greek vases to Antony! Nearly every Roman, save Nero, dies well.

Upon Cicero's political career our judgment is already indicated. He was always a patriot at heart, though often a bewildered one. His vanity, and yet more his physical cowardice, caused some grievous blots upon the record. His last days, and death, may atone for all—save one. The precipitate desertion of the Pompeians is not to be condoned.

The best English life of Cicero is by Forsyth; but quaint, dogged, prejudiced old Middleton should not be forgotten. Plutarch's Cicero "needs no bush."

Cicero's oratory was splendidly effective upon his emotional Italian hearers. It would not be so patiently accepted by any Teutonic folk. His very copiousness, however, makes him as a rule wonderfully clear and easy reading. Quintilian well says: "From Demosthenes's periods not a word can be spared, to Cicero's not one could be added."

Despite the rout of Verres and of Catiline, the merciless dissection of Clodia, and the statelier thunders of the 'Philippics,' Cicero was most successful and happiest when "defending the interests of his friends." Perhaps the greatest success against justice was the 'Pro Cluentio,' which throws so lurid a light on ante-Borgian Italian criminology. This speech is especially recommended by Niebuhr to young philologues as a nut worthy of the strongest teeth. There is a helpful edition by Ramsay, but Hertland's 'Murena' will be a pleasanter variation for students wearying of the beaten track followed by the school editions. Both the failure of the 'Pro Milone' and the world-wide success of the 'Pro Archia' bid us repeat the vain wish, that this humane and essentially modern nature might have fallen on a gentler age. Regarding his whole political life as an uncongenial rôle forced on him by fate, we return devout thanks for fifty-eight orations, nearly all in revised and finished literary form! Fragments of seventeen, and titles of still thirty more, yet remain.[Pg 3682] From all his rivals, predecessors, pupils, not one authentic speech survives.

The best complete edition of the orations with English notes is by George Long, in the Bibliotheca Classica. The 'Philippics' alone are better edited by J.R. King in the Clarendon Press series. School editions of select speeches are superabundant. They regularly include the four Catilinarians, the Manilian, and the pleas before the dictator, sometimes a selection from the 'Philippics' or Verrine orations.

There is no masterly translation comparable with the fine work done by Kennedy for Demosthenes. The Bohn version is respectable in quality.

Among Cicero's numerous works on rhetoric the chief is the 'De Oratore.' Actually composed in 55 B.C., it is a dialogue, the scene set in 91 B.C., the characters being the chief Roman orators of that day. L. Crassus, who plays the host gracefully at his Tusculan country-seat, is also the chief speaker. These men were all known to Cicero in his boyhood, but most of them perished soon after in the Marian proscriptions. Of real character-drawing there is little, and all alike speak in graceful Ciceronian periods. The exposition of the technical parts of rhetoric goes on in leisurely wise, with copious illustrations and digressions. There is much pleasant repetition of commonplaces. Wilkins's edition of the 'De Oratore' is a good but not an ideal one. The introductions are most helpful. Countless discussions on etymology, etc., in the notes, should be relegated to the dictionaries. Instead, we crave adequate cross-references to passages in this and other works. The notes seem to be written too largely piecemeal, each with the single passage in mind.

In Cicero's 'Brutus,' written in 46 B.C., Cicero, Brutus, and Atticus carry on the conversation, but it is mostly a monologue of Cicero and a historical sketch of Roman oratory. The affected modesty of the autobiographic parts is diverting. Brutus was the chief exponent of a terse, simple, direct, oratory,—far nearer, we judge, to English taste than the Ciceronian; and the opposition between them already appears. A convenient American edition is that by Kellogg (Ginn).

The opposition just mentioned comes out more clearly in the 'Orator.' This portrays the ideal public speaker. His chief accomplishments are summed up in versatility,—the power to adapt himself to any case and audience. An interesting passage discusses the rhythms of prose. This book has been elaborately edited by J.E. Sandys. In these three dialogues Cicero says everything of importance, at least once; and the other rhetorical works in the Corpus may be neglected here, the more as the most practical working rhetoric among them all, the 'Auctor ad Herennium,' is certainly not[Pg 3683] Cicero's. It is probably by Cornificius, and is especially important as the first complete prose work transmitted to us in authentic Latin form. (Cato's 'De Re Rustica' has been "modernized.")

The later history of the Ciceronian correspondence is a dark and much contested field. (The most recent discussion, with bibliography, is by Schanz, in Iwan Müller's Handbuch, Vol. viii., pp. 238-243.) Probably Cicero's devoted freedman Tiro laid the foundations of our collections. The part of Petrarch in recovering the letters during the "Revival of Learning" was much less than has been supposed.

The letters themselves are in wild confusion. There are four collections, entitled 'To Atticus,' 'To Friends,' 'To Brother Marcus,' 'To Brutus': altogether over eight hundred epistles, of which a relatively small number are written to Cicero by his correspondents. The order is not chronological, and the dates can in many cases only be conjectured. Yet these letters afford us our chief sources for the history of this great epoch,—and the best insight we can ever hope to have into the private life of Roman gentlemen.

The style of the cynical, witty Cælius, or of the learned lawyer Sulpicius, differs perceptibly in detail from Cicero's own; yet it is remarkable that all seem able to write clearly if not gracefully. Cicero's own style varies very widely. The letters to Atticus are usually colloquial, full of unexplained allusions, sometimes made intentionally obscure and pieced out with a Greek phrase, for fear of the carrier's treachery! Other letters again, notably a long 'Apologia' addressed to Lentulus after Cicero's return from exile, are as plainly addressed in reality to the public or to posterity as are any of the orations.

Prof. R. Y. Tyrrell has long been engaged upon an annotated edition of all the letters in chronological order. This will be of the utmost value. An excellent selection, illustrating the orator's public life chiefly, has been published by Professor Albert Watson. This volume contains also very full tables of dates, bibliography of all Cicero's works, and in general is indispensable for the advanced Latin student. The same letters annotated by Professor Watson have been delightfully translated by G. E. Jeans. To this volume, rather than to Forsyth's biography, the English reader should turn to form his impressions of Cicero at first hand. It is a model of scholarly—and also literary—translation.

The "New Academy," to which Cicero inclined in philosophy, was skeptical in its tendencies, and regarded absolute truth as unattainable. This made it easier for Cicero to cast his transcriptions in the form of dialogues, revealing the beliefs of the various schools through the lips of the several interlocutors. Thus the 'De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum' sets forth in three successive conversations[Pg 3684] the ideas of Epicureans, of Stoics, and of the Academy, on the Highest Good. It is perhaps the chief of these treatises,—though we would still prefer to have even those later compendiums of the Greek schools through which Cicero probably cited the chief philosophers at second hand! J. S. Reid, an eminent English scholar, has spent many years upon this dialogue, and his work includes a masterly translation.

With a somewhat similar plan, the three books of the 'De Natura Deorum' contain the views of the three schools on the Divine Beings. The speakers are Cicero's Roman contemporaries. This rather sketchy work has been annotated by J. B. Mayor in his usual exhaustive manner. The now fragmentary dialogue entitled 'The Republic,' and its unfinished supplement 'The Laws,' were composed and named in avowed rivalry with Plato's two largest works, but fail to approach the master. The Roman Constitution is defended as the ideal mingling of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. The student of pure literature can for the most part neglect these, and others among the hastily written philosophic works, with the explicit approval of so indefatigable a student as Professor B. L. Gildersleeve.

The chief fragment preserved of the 'Republic' is the 'Dream of Scipio.' Its dependence on the vision at the close of Plato's 'Republic' should be carefully observed. It may be fairly described as a free translation and enlargement from Greek originals, of which Plato's passage is the chief. Plagiarism was surely viewed quite otherwise then than now. Still, the Roman additions and modifications are interesting also,—and even as a translator Cicero is no ordinary cicerone! Moreover, in this as in so many other examples, the Latin paraphrase had a wider and more direct influence than the original. It has been accepted with justice ever since, as the final and most hopeful pagan word in favor of the soul's immortality. The lover of Chaucer will recall the genial paraphrase of 'Scipio's Dream' in the 'Parlament of Foules' (stanzas 5-12). We give below, entire, in our quotations from Cicero, the masterly version of the 'Dream,' prepared by Prof. T. R. Lounsbury for his edition of Chaucer's poems. The speaker is the younger Scipio Africanus, and his visit to Africa as a subaltern here described was in 149 B.C., three years previous to his own decisive campaign against Carthage which ended in the destruction of the city.

Cicero shared in full the Roman tendency to give a practical, an ethical turn to all metaphysical discussion. This is prominent in the popular favorite among his larger volumes, the 'Tusculan Disputations.' In each of the five related books a thesis is stated negatively, to be triumphantly reversed later on:—

[Pg 3685]

The original portion of this work is relatively large, and many Roman illustrations occur. Dr. Peabody has included the Tusculans, the two brief essays next mentioned, and the 'De Officiis,' in his excellent series of versions (Little, Brown and Company).

The little dialogue on 'Old Age' is perhaps most read of all Cicero's works. Its best thoughts, it must be confessed, are freely borrowed from the opening pages of Plato's 'Republic.' Still, on this theme of universal human interest, the Roman also offers much pleasant food for thought. The moderation of the Greek is forgotten by Cicero, the professional advocate and special pleader, who almost cries out to us at last:—

It was written in 45-4 B.C. The other little essay 'On Friendship' does not deserve to be bound up in such good company, though it usually is so edited. Bacon's very brief essay has more meat in it. Cicero had many good friends, but fully trusted hardly any one of them—not even Atticus. It was an age which put friendship to fearful trial, and the typical Roman seems to us rather selfish and cold. Certainly this essay is in a frigid tone. Professor Gildersleeve, I believe, has likened it to a treatise of Xenophon on hunting, so systematically is the pursuit of friends discussed.

Perhaps the most practical among Roman Manuals of Morals is the treatise on Duties ('De Officiis'), in three books. Here the personal experience of sixty years is drawn upon, avowedly for the edification of young Marcus, the author's unworthy son. This sole Ciceronian survivor of Antony's massacres lived to be famous for his capacity in wine-drinking, and to receive officially, as consul under Augustus, the news of Antony's final defeat and death—a dramatic revenge.

Most of these philosophic treatises were composed near the end of Cicero's life, largely in one marvelously productive year, 45-4 B.C., just previous to the slaying of Cæsar. Not all even of the extant works have been catalogued here. The 'Academica' and 'De Divinatione' should at least be mentioned.

[Pg 3686]

Such were Cicero's distractions, when cut off from political life and oratory, and above all when bereft by Tullia's death. The especial 'Consolatio,' composed to regain his courage after this blow, must head the list of lost works. It took a most pessimistic view of human life, for which it was reproved by Lactantius. Another perished essay, the 'Hortensius,' introducing the whole philosophic series, upheld Milton's thesis, "How charming is divine philosophy," and first turned the thoughts of Augustine to serious study.

Cicero's poems, chiefly translations, are extant in copious fragments. They show metrical facility, a little taste, no creative imagination at all. A final proof of his unresting activity is his attempt to write history. Few, even among professional advocates, could have less of the temper for mere narration and truth. Indeed, reasonable disregard for the latter trammel is frankly urged upon a friend who was to write upon the illustrious moments of Cicero's own career!

We said at first that the caprice of fate had exaggerated some sides of Cicero's activity, by removing all competitors. In any case, however, his supremacy among Italian orators, and in the ornate discursive school of eloquence generally, could not have been questioned.

Yet more: As a stylist, he lifted a language hitherto poor in vocabulary, and stiff in phrase, to a level it never afterward surpassed. Many words he successfully coined, chiefly either by translation or free imitation of Greek originals. His clear, copious, rhythmical phrase was even more fully his own creation. Indeed, at the present moment, four or five great forms of living speech testify to Cicero's amazing mastery over both word and phrase. The eloquence of Castelar, Crispi, and Gambetta, of Gladstone and of Everett, is shot through and through, in all its warp and woof, with golden Ciceronian threads. The 'Archias' speaks to any appreciative student of Western Europe, as it were, in a mother tongue which dominates his vernacular speech. Human language, then, has become a statelier memorial of Cicero than even his vanity can ever have imagined.

(After writing the substance of this paragraph, I was glad to find myself in close agreement with Mackail's words in his masterly little 'Latin Literature,' page 62.)

Resumé of General Bibliography

The chief encyclopædia of facts and citations for this period is the cumbrous old 'Geschichte Roms, oder Pompeius Cæsar Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen' of W. Drumann (Königsberg: 1834-44). The plan is ideally bad, being a series of family chronicles, while these three men are more completely isolated from their families and kin[Pg 3687] than any other great trio in all Roman history! The book is however an exhaustive, inexhaustible, little acknowledged, but still worked quarry of erudition. The best single book in English is Watson's edition of the (selected) letters (or Jeans's translation), until it shall be superseded by the complete annotated edition of the correspondence, by Tyrrell.

Mommsen's severe judgment on Cicero is well known. The other standard historians are less severe. Forsyth's life is not the final word on the subject by any means, but gives a good general view. The stately Ciceronian Lexicon by Merguet, already complete for the orations, will eventually provide a complete concordance and copious elucidation for all the works. The most accessible complete edition of Cicero's writings in Latin is by Baiter and Kayser, in eleven volumes. The Index Nominum alone fills four hundred closely printed pages of Vol. xi. The great critical edition is that of Orelli (Zurich: 1826-38).

On Cicero as an author, and indeed in the whole field of Latin literature, the 'Geschichte der Römischen Literatur' of Martin Schanz (in I. Müller's 'Handbuch') is most helpful, and even readable.

OF THE OFFICES OF LITERATURE AND POETRY

From the 'Oration for the Poet Archias'

You ask us, O Gratius, why we are so exceedingly attached to this man. Because he supplies us with food whereby our mind is refreshed after this noise in the Forum, and with rest for our ears after they have been wearied with bad language. Do you think it possible that we could find a supply for our daily speeches, when discussing such a variety of matters, unless we were to cultivate our minds by the study of literature? or that our minds could bear being kept so constantly on the stretch if we did not relax them by that same study? But I confess that I am devoted to those studies; let others be ashamed of them if they have buried themselves in books without being able to produce anything out of them for the common advantage, or anything which may bear the eyes of men and the light. But why need I be ashamed, who for many years have lived in such a manner as never to allow my own love of[Pg 3688] tranquillity to deny me to the necessity or advantage of another, or my fondness for pleasure to distract, or even sleep to delay, my attention to such claims? Who then can reproach me, or who has any right to be angry with me, if I allow myself as much time for the cultivation of these studies as some take for the performance of their own business; or for celebrating days of festival and games; or for other pleasures; or even for the rest and refreshment of mind and body; or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at dice, or at ball? And this ought to be permitted to me, because by these studies my power of speaking and those faculties are improved, which as far as they do exist in me have never been denied to my friends when they have been in peril. And if that ability appears to any one to be but moderate, at all events I know whence I derive those principles which are of the greatest value. For if I had not persuaded myself from my youth upwards, both by the precepts of many masters and by much reading, that there is nothing in life greatly to be desired except praise and honor, and that while pursuing those things all tortures of the body, all dangers of death and banishment are to be considered but of small importance, I should never have exposed myself in defense of your safety to such numerous and arduous contests, and to these daily attacks of profligate men. But all books are full of such precepts, and all the sayings of philosophers, and all antiquity, are full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but all these things would lie buried in darkness if the light of literature and learning were not applied to them. How many images of the bravest men, carefully elaborated, have both the Greek and Latin writers bequeathed to us, not merely for us to look at and gaze upon, but also for our imitation! And I, always keeping them before my eyes as examples for my own public conduct, have endeavored to model my mind and views by continually thinking of those excellent men.

Some one will ask "What! were those identical great men, whose virtues have been recorded in books, accomplished in all that learning which you are extolling so highly?" It is difficult to assert this of all of them; but still I know what answer I can make to that question: I admit that many men have existed of admirable disposition and virtue, who without learning, by the almost divine instinct of their own mere nature, have been, of their own accord as it were, moderate and wise men. I even[Pg 3689] add this, that very often nature without learning has had more to do with leading men to credit and to virtue, than learning when not assisted by a good natural disposition. And I also contend that when to an excellent and admirable natural disposition there is added a certain system and training of education, then from that combination arises an extraordinary perfection of character: such as is seen in that godlike man whom our fathers saw in their time—Africanus; and in Caius Lælius and Lucius Furius, most virtuous and moderate men; and in that most excellent man, the most learned man of his time, Marcus Cato the elder: and all these men, if they had been to derive no assistance from literature in the cultivation and practice of virtue, would never have applied themselves to the study of it. Though even if there were no such great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only pleasure that is sought from these studies, still I imagine you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but these studies are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country.

And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these advantages, nor even taste them with our senses, still we ought to admire them even when we saw them in others.... And indeed, we have constantly heard from men of the greatest eminence and learning that the study of other sciences was made up of learning, and rules, and regular method; but that a poet was such by the unassisted work of nature, and was moved by the vigor of his own mind, and was inspired as it were by some divine wrath. Wherefore rightly does our own great Ennius call poets holy; because they seem to be recommended to us by some especial gift, as it were, and liberality of the gods. Let then, judges, this name of poet, this name which no barbarians even have ever disregarded, be holy in your eyes, men of cultivated minds as you all are. Rocks and deserts reply to the poet's voice; savage beasts are often moved and arrested by song; and shall we who have been trained in the pursuit of the most virtuous acts refuse to be swayed by the voice of poets? The Colophonians say that Homer was their citizen; the Chians claim him as theirs; the Salaminians assert their right to him;[Pg 3690] but the men of Smyrna loudly assert him to be a citizen of Smyrna, and they have even raised a temple to him in their city. Many other places also fight with one another for the honor of being his birthplace.

They then claim a stranger, even after his death, because he was a poet: shall we reject this man while he is alive, a man who by his own inclination and by our laws does actually belong to us? especially when Archias has employed all his genius with the utmost zeal in celebrating the glory and renown of the Roman people? For when a young man, he touched on our wars against the Cimbri and gained the favor even of Caius Marius himself, a man who was tolerably proof against this sort of study. For there was no one so disinclined to the Muses as not willingly to endure that the praise of his labors should be made immortal by means of verse. They say that the great Themistocles, the greatest man that Athens produced, said when some one asked him what sound or whose voice he took the greatest delight in hearing, "The voice of that by whom his own exploits were best celebrated." Therefore, the great Marius was also exceedingly attached to Lucius Plotius, because he thought that the achievement which he had performed could be celebrated by his genius. And the whole Mithridatic war, great and difficult as it was, and carried on with so much diversity of fortune by land and sea, has been related at length by him; and the books in which that is sung of, not only make illustrious Lucius Lucullus, that most gallant and celebrated man, but they do honor also to the Roman people. For while Lucullus was general, the Roman people opened Pontus, though it was defended both by the resources of the king and by the character of the country itself. Under the same general the army of the Roman people, with no very great numbers, routed the countless hosts of the Armenians. It is the glory of the Roman people that by the wisdom of that same general, the city of the Cyzicenes, most friendly to us, was delivered and preserved from all the attacks of the kind, and from the very jaws as it were of the whole war. Ours is the glory which will be for ever celebrated, which is derived from the fleet of the enemy which was sunk after its admirals had been slain, and from the marvelous naval battle off Tenedos: those trophies belong to us, those monuments are ours, those triumphs are ours. Therefore I say that the men by whose genius these exploits are celebrated make illustrious at[Pg 3691] the same time the glory of the Roman people. Our countryman Ennius was dear to the elder Africanus; and even on the tomb of the Scipios his effigy is believed to be visible, carved in the marble. But undoubtedly it is not only the men who are themselves praised who are done honor to by those praises, but the name of the Roman people also is adorned by them. Cato, the ancestor of this Cato, is extolled to the skies. Great honor is paid to the exploits of the Roman people. Lastly, all those great men, the Maximi, the Marcelli, and the Fulvii, are done honor to, not without all of us having also a share in the panegyric....

Certainly, if the mind had no anticipations of posterity, and if it were to confine all its thoughts within the same limits as those by which the space of our lives is bounded, it would neither break itself with such severe labors, nor would it be tormented with such cares and sleepless anxiety, nor would it so often have to fight for its very life. At present there is a certain virtue in every good man, which night and day stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that our fame will endure to all posterity.

Do we all who are occupied in the affairs of the State, and who are surrounded by such perils and dangers in life, appear to be so narrow-minded as, though to the last moment of our lives we have never passed one tranquil or easy moment, to think that everything will perish at the same time as ourselves? Ought we not, when many most illustrious men have with great care collected and left behind them statues and images, representations not of their minds but of their bodies, much more to desire to leave behind us a copy of our counsels and of our virtues, wrought and elaborated by the greatest genius? I thought, at the very moment of performing them, that I was scattering and disseminating all the deeds which I was performing, all over the world for the eternal recollection of nations. And whether that delight is to be denied to my soul after death, or whether, as the wisest men have thought, it will affect some portion of my spirit, at all events I am at present delighted with some such idea and hope.

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HONORS PROPOSED FOR THE DEAD STATESMAN SULPICIUS

From the 'Ninth Philippic'

Our ancestors indeed decreed statues to many men; public sepulchres to few. But statues perish by weather, by violence, by lapse of time; the sanctity of the sepulchres is in the soil itself, which can neither be moved nor destroyed by any violence; and while other things are extinguished, so sepulchres become holier by age.

Let then this man be distinguished by that honor also, a man to whom no honor can be given which is not deserved. Let us be grateful in paying respect in death to him to whom we can now show no other gratitude. And by that same step let the audacity of Marcus Antonius, waging a nefarious war, be branded with infamy. For when these honors have been paid to Servius Sulpicius, the evidence of his embassy having been insulted and rejected by Antonius will remain for everlasting.

On which account I give my vote for a decree in this form: "As Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus, of the Lemonian tribe, at a most critical period of the republic, and being ill with a very serious and dangerous disease, preferred the authority of the Senate and the safety of the republic to his own life; and struggled against the violence and severity of his illness, in order to arrive at the camp of Antonius, to which the Senate had sent him; and as he, when he had almost arrived at the camp, being overwhelmed by the violence of the disease, has lost his life in discharging a most important office of the republic; and as his death has been in strict correspondence to a life passed with the greatest integrity and honor, during which he, Servius Sulpicius, has often been of great service to the republic, both as a private individual and in the discharge of various magistracies: and as he, being such a man, has encountered death on behalf of the republic while employed on an embassy; the Senate decrees that a brazen pedestrian statue of Servius Sulpicius be erected in the rostra in compliance with the resolution of this order, and that his children and posterity shall have a place round this statue of five feet in every direction, from which to behold the games and gladiatorial combats, because he died in the cause of the republic; and that this reason be inscribed on the pedestal of the statue; and that Caius Pansa and[Pg 3693] Aulus Hirtius the consuls, one or both of them, if it seem good to them, shall command the quæstors of the city to let out a contract for making that pedestal and that statue, and erecting them in the rostra; and that whatever price they contract for, they shall take care the amount is given and paid to the contractor; and as in old times the Senate has exerted its authority with respect to the obsequies of, and honors paid to, brave men, it now decrees that he shall be carried to the tomb on the day of his funeral with the greatest possible solemnity. And as Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus of the Lemonian tribe, has deserved so well of the republic as to be entitled to be complimented with all those distinctions; the Senate is of opinion, and thinks it for the advantage of the republic, that the curule ædile should suspend the edict which usually prevails with respect to funerals, in the case of the funeral of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the son of Quintus of the Lemonian tribe; and that Caius Pansa the consul shall assign him a place for a tomb in the Esquiline plain, or in whatever place shall seem good to him, extending thirty feet in every direction, where Servius Sulpicius may be buried; and that that shall be his tomb, and that of his children and posterity, as having been a tomb most deservedly given to them by the public authority."

OLD FRIENDS BETTER THAN NEW

From the 'Dialogue on Friendship'

But there arises on this subject a somewhat difficult question: Whether ever new friends, if deserving friendship, are to be preferred to old ones, just as we are wont to prefer young colts to old horses?—a perplexity unworthy of a man; for there ought to be no satiety of friendship as of other things: everything which is oldest (as those wines which bear age well) ought to be sweetest; and that is true which is sometimes said, "Many bushels of salt must be eaten together," before the duty of friendship can be fulfilled. But new friendships, if they afford a hope that, as in the case of plants which never disappoint, fruits shall appear, such are not to be rejected; yet the old one must be preserved in its proper place, for the power of age and custom is exceedingly great; besides, in the very case of the horse, which I just mentioned, if there is no impediment, there is no one who[Pg 3694] does not more pleasurably use that to which he is accustomed than one unbroken and strange to him; and habit asserts its power, and habit prevails, not only in the case of this, which is animate, but also in the cases of those things which are inanimate; since we take delight in the very mountainous or woody scenery among which we have long dwelt.

HONORED OLD AGE

From the 'Dialogue on Old Age'

But in my whole discourse remember that I am praising that old age which is established on the foundations of youth: from which this is effected which I once asserted with the great approbation of all present,—that wretched was the old age which had to defend itself by speaking. Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly catch respect; but the former part of life honorably spent, reaps the fruits of authority at the close. For these very observances which seem light and common are marks of honor—to be saluted, to be sought after, to receive precedence, to have persons rising up to you, to be attended on the way, to be escorted home, to be consulted; points which, both among us and in other States, in proportion as they are the most excellent in their morals, are the most scrupulously observed. They say that Lysander the Lacedæmonian, whom I mentioned a little above, was accustomed to remark that Lacedæmon was the most honorable abode for old age; for nowhere is so much conceded to that time of life, nowhere is old age more respected. Nay, further: it is recorded that when at Athens during the games a certain elderly person had entered the theatre, a place was nowhere offered him in that large assembly by his own townsmen; but when he had approached the Lacedæmonians, who, as they were ambassadors, had taken their seats together in a particular place, they all rose up and invited the old man to a seat; and when reiterated applause had been bestowed upon them by the whole assembly, one of them remarked that the Athenians knew what was right, but were unwilling to do it. There are many excellent rules in our college, but this of which I am treating especially, that in proportion as each man has the advantage in age, so he takes precedence in giving his opinion; and older augurs are preferred not only to those who are higher[Pg 3695] in office, but even to such as are in actual command. What pleasures, then, of the body can be compared with the privileges of authority? which they who have nobly employed seem to me to have consummated the drama of life, and not like inexpert performers to have broken down in the last act. Still, old men are peevish, and fretful, and passionate, and unmanageable,—nay, if we seek for such, also covetous: but these are the faults of their characters, not of their old age. And yet that peevishness and those faults which I have mentioned have some excuse, not quite satisfactory indeed, but such as may be admitted. They fancy that they are neglected, despised, made a jest of; besides, in a weak state of body every offense is irritating. All which defects however are extenuated by good dispositions and qualities; and this may be discovered not only in real life, but on the stage, from the two brothers that are represented in 'The Brothers'; how much austerity in the one, and how much gentleness in the other! Such is the fact: for as it is not every wine, so it is not every man's life, that grows sour from old age. I approve of gravity in old age, but this in a moderate degree, like everything else; harshness by no means. What avarice in an old man can propose to itself I cannot conceive: for can anything be more absurd than, in proportion as less of our journey remains, to seek a greater supply of provisions?

DEATH IS WELCOME TO THE OLD

From the 'Dialogue on Old Age'

An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than a young one, since he has already attained what the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called long? For allow the latest period: let us anticipate the age of the kings of the Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned for eighty years, and lived one hundred and twenty. But to my mind nothing whatever seems of long duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has passed has flowed away; that only remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and[Pg 3696] months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be content: for neither need the drama be performed entire by the actor, in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live till the plaudite. For the short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and if you should advance further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of springtime hath passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth, everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force: and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed is so delightful, that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be getting sight of land, and at length after a long voyage to be just coming into harbor.

GREAT ORATORS AND THEIR TRAINING

From the 'Dialogue on Oratory'

For who can suppose that amid the great multitude of students, the utmost abundance of masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards offered to eloquence, there is any other reason to be found for the small number of orators than the incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art? A knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous; speech itself is to be formed, not merely by choice, but by careful construction of words; and[Pg 3697] all the emotions of the mind which nature has given to man, must be intimately known; for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attacking, accompanied with a refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be neglected. And why need I add any remarks on delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves; on which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience? What can I say of that repository for all things, the memory; which, unless it be made the keeper of the matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of excellence, will be of no avail? Let us then cease to wonder what is the cause of the scarcity of good speakers, since eloquence results from all those qualifications, in each of which singly it is a great merit to labor successfully; and let us rather exhort our children, and others whose glory and honor is dear to us, to contemplate in their minds the full magnitude of the object, and not to trust that they can reach the height at which they aim by the aid of the precepts, masters, and exercises that they are all now following, but to understand that they must adopt others of a different character.

In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator possessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of all liberal arts; for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, since unless there be beneath the surface matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow of words....

"I am then of opinion," said Crassus, "that nature and genius in the first place contribute most aid to speaking; and that to those writers on the art to whom Antonius just now[Pg 3698] alluded, it was not skill and method in speaking, but natural talent that was wanting; for there ought to be certain lively powers in the mind and understanding, which may be acute to invent, fertile to explain and adorn, and strong and retentive to remember; and if any one imagines that these powers may be acquired by art (which is false, for it is very well if they can be animated and excited by art; but they certainly cannot by art be ingrafted or instilled, since they are all the gifts of nature), what will he say of those qualities which are certainly born with the man himself—volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of lungs, and a peculiar conformation and aspect of the whole countenance and body? I do not say that art cannot improve in these particulars (for I am not ignorant that what is good may be made better by education, and what is not very good may be in some degree polished and amended); but there are some persons so hesitating in their speech, so inharmonious in their tone of voice, or so unwieldy and rude in the air and movements of their bodies, that whatever power they possess either from genius or art, they can never be reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers; while there are others so happily qualified in these respects, so eminently adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem not to have been born like other men, but molded by some divinity. It is indeed a great task and enterprise for a person to undertake and profess that while every one else is silent, he alone must be heard on the most important subjects, and in a large assembly of men; for there is scarcely any one present who is not sharper and quicker to discover defects in the speaker than merits; and thus whatever offends the hearer effaces the recollection of what is worthy of praise. I do not make these observations for the purpose of altogether deterring young men from the study of oratory, even if they be deficient in some natural endowments. For who does not perceive that to C. Cælius, my contemporary, a new man, the mere mediocrity in speaking which he was enabled to attain was a great honor? Who does not know that Q. Varius, your equal in age, a clumsy uncouth man, has obtained his great popularity by the cultivation of such faculties as he has?

"But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, we must imagine in our discussion an orator from whom every kind of fault is abstracted, and who is adorned with every kind of merit. For if the multitude of suits, if the variety of causes, if[Pg 3699] the rabble and barbarism of the forum, afford room for even the most wretched speakers, we must not for that reason take our eyes from the object of our inquiry. In those arts in which it is not indispensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we judge! For there are no suits or controversies which can force men, though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to endure also bad actors upon the stage. The orator therefore must take the most studious precaution not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily must satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to judge disinterestedly. If you would know what I myself think, I will express to you, my intimate friends, what I have hitherto never mentioned, and thought that I never should mention. To me, those who speak best and speak with the utmost ease and grace, appear, if they do not commence their speeches with some timidity, and show some confusion in the exordium, to have almost lost the sense of shame; though it is impossible that such should not be the case: for the better qualified a man is to speak, the more he fears the difficulties of speaking, the uncertain success of a speech, and the expectation of the audience. But he who can produce and deliver nothing worthy of his subject, nothing worthy of the name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention of his audience, seems to me, though he be ever so confused while he is speaking, to be downright shameless; for we ought to avoid a character for shamelessness, not by testifying shame, but by not doing that which does not become us. But the speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the case with many) I regard as deserving not only of rebuke but of personal castigation. Indeed, what I often observe in you I very frequently experience in myself; that I turn pale in the outset of my speech, and feel a tremor through my whole thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I was a young man, I was on one occasion so timid in commencing an accusation, that I owed to Q. Maximus the greatest of obligations for immediately dismissing the assembly as soon as he saw me absolutely disheartened and incapacitated through fear." Here, they all signified assent, looked significantly at one another, and began to talk together; for there was a wonderful modesty in Crassus, which however was not only no disadvantage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by giving it the recommendation of probity.

[Pg 3700]

CICERO TO TIRO

Ægypta arrived here on the 12th of April. Although he reported that you were now quite rid of your fever and going on very well, he nevertheless caused me some anxiety by his report that you were not able to write to me, the more so because Hermia, who ought to have been here on the same day, has not yet come. I am more anxious than you can believe about your health. Only free me from this anxiety and I will free you from all duties. I would write you more if I thought you could now read more with pleasure. Use all the talents you possess, of which I have no small opinion, to keep yourself safe for my sake as well as your own. Again and again I repeat, take every precaution about your health. Good-by.

P. S.—Hermia is just come. I have your note with its poor weak handwriting—no wonder, too, after so severe an illness. I send out Ægypta to stay with you because he is not a bad companion, and appeared to me to be fond of you; and with him a cook, for you to make use of his services. Good-by.

CICERO TO ATTICUS

It being now eleven days since I left you, I am scrawling this little bit of a note just as I am leaving my country-house before it is light. I think of being at my place at Anagnia to-day, and Tusculum to-morrow; only one day there, so that I shall come up all right to time on the 28th; and oh, if I could but run on at once to embrace my Tullia and give Attica a kiss! Talking of this, by-the-by, do please write and let me know while I am stopping at Tusculum what her prattle is like, or if she is away in the country, what her letters to you are about. Meanwhile either send or give her my love, and Pilia too. And even though we shall meet immediately, yet will you write to me anything you can find to say?[Pg 3701]

P. S.—I was just fastening up this letter, but your courier has arrived here after a long night journey with your letter. I was very sorry, you may be sure, to find on reading it that Attica is feverish. Everything else that I was waiting for I now know from your note; but when you tell me that to have a little fire in the morning "sent le vieillard," I retort il le sent plus for one's poor old memory to begin to totter: because it was the 29th I had promised to Axius; the 30th to you; and the day of my arrival, the 31st, to Quintus. So take that for yourself—you shall have no news. Then what on earth is the good of writing? And what good is it when we are together and chatter whatever comes to our tongues? Surely there is something in causerie after all; even if there is nothing under it, there is always at least the delicious feeling that we are talking with one another.

SULPICIUS CONSOLES CICERO AFTER HIS DAUGHTER TULLIA'S DEATH

For some time after I had received the information of the death of your daughter Tullia, you may be sure that I bore it sadly and heavily, as much indeed as was right for me. I felt that I shared that terrible loss with you; and that had I but been where you are, you on your part would not have found me neglectful, and I on mine should not have failed to come to you and tell you myself how deeply grieved I am. And though it is true that consolations of this nature are painful and distressing, because those [dear friends and relations] upon whom the task naturally devolves are themselves afflicted with a similar burden, and incapable even of attempting it without many tears, so that one would rather suppose them in need of the consolations of others for themselves than capable of doing this kind office to others, yet nevertheless I have decided to write to you briefly such reflections as have occurred to me on the present occasion; not that I imagine them to be ignored by you, but because it is possible that you may be hindered by your sorrow from seeing them as clearly as usual.

What reason is there why you should allow the private grief which has befallen you to distress you so terribly? Recollect how fortune has hitherto dealt with us: how we have been[Pg 3702] bereft of all that ought to be no less dear to men than their own children—of country, position, rank, and every honorable office. If one more burden has now been laid upon you, could any addition be made to your pain? Or is there any heart that having been trained in the school of such events, ought not now to be steeled by use against emotion, and think everything after them to be comparatively light?

Or it is for her sake, I suppose, that you are grieving? How many times must you have arrived at the same conclusion as that into which I too have frequently fallen, that in these days theirs is not the hardest lot who are permitted painlessly to exchange their life for the grave! Now what was there at the present time that could attach her very strongly to life? what hope? what fruition? what consolation for the soul? The prospect of a wedded life with a husband chosen from our young men of rank? Truly, one would think it was always in your power to choose a son-in-law of a position suitable to your rank out of our young men, one to whose keeping you would feel you could safely intrust the happiness of a child. Or that of being a joyful mother of children, who would be happy in seeing them succeeding in life; able by their own exertions to maintain in its integrity all that was bequeathed them by their father; intending gradually to rise to all the highest offices of the State; and to use that liberty to which they were born for the good of their country and the service of their friends. Is there any one of these things that has not been taken away before it was given? But surely it is hard to give up one's children? It is hard; but this is harder still—that they should bear and suffer what we are doing.

A circumstance which was such as to afford me no light consolation I cannot but mention to you, in the hope that it may be allowed to contribute equally towards mitigating your grief. As I was returning from Asia, when sailing from Ægina in the direction of Megara, I began to look around me at the various places by which I was surrounded. Behind me was Ægina, in front Megara; on the right the Piræus, on the left Corinth; all of them towns that in former days were most magnificent, but are now lying prostrate and in ruins before one's eyes. "Ah me," I began to reflect to myself, "we poor feeble mortals, who can claim but a short life in comparison, complain as though a wrong was done us if one of our number dies in the course of[Pg 3703] nature, or has met his death by violence; and here in one spot are lying stretched out before me the corpses of so many cities! Servius, be master of yourself, and remember that it is the lot of man to which you have been born." Believe me, I found myself in no small degree strengthened by these reflections. Let me advise you too, if you think good, to keep this reflection before your eyes. How lately at one and the same time have many of our most illustrious men fallen! how grave an encroachment has been made on the rights of the sovereign people of Rome! every province in the world has been convulsed with the shock: if the frail life of a tender woman has gone too, who being born to the common lot of man must needs have died in a few short years, even if the time had not come for her now, are you thus utterly stricken down?

Do you then also recall your feelings and your thoughts from dwelling on this subject, and as beseems your character bethink yourself rather of this: that she has lived as long as life was of value to her; that she has passed away only together with her country's freedom; that she lived to see her father elected Prætor, Consul, Augur; that she had been the wife of young men of the first rank; that after enjoying well-nigh every blessing that life can offer, she left it only when the Republic itself was falling. The account is closed, and what have you, what has she, to charge of injustice against Fate? In a word, forget not that you are Cicero—that you are he who was always wont to guide others and give them good advice; and be not like those quack physicians who when others are sick boast that they hold the key of the knowledge of medicine, to heal themselves are never able; but rather minister to yourself with your own hand the remedies which you are in the habit of prescribing for others, and put them plainly before your own soul. There is no pain so great but the lapse of time will lessen and assuage it: it is not like yourself to wait until this time comes, instead of stepping forward by your philosophy to anticipate that result. And if even those who are low in the grave have any consciousness at all, such was her love for you and her tenderness for all around her that surely she does not wish to see this in you. Make this a tribute then to her who is dead; to all your friends and relations who are mourning in your grief; and make it to your country also, that if in anything the need should arise she may be able to trust to your energy and guidance. Finally,[Pg 3704] since such is the condition we have come to, that even this consideration must perforce be obeyed, do not let your conduct induce any one to believe that it is not so much your daughter as the circumstances of the Republic and the victory of others which you are deploring.

I shrink from writing to you at greater length upon this subject, lest I should seem to be doubtful of your own good sense; allow me therefore to put before you one more consideration, and then I will bring my letter to a close. We have seen you not once but many times bearing prosperity most gracefully, and gaining yourself great reputation thereby: let us see at last that you are capable also of bearing adversity equally well, and that it is not in your eyes a heavier burden than it ought to seem; lest we should think that of all the virtues this is the only one in which you are wanting.

As for myself, when I find you are more composed in mind I will send you information about all that is being done in these parts, and the state in which the province finds itself at present. Farewell.

CICERO'S REPLY TO SULPICIUS

Yes, my dear Servius, I could indeed wish you had been with me, as you say, at the time of my terrible trial. How much it was in your power to help me if you had been here, by sympathizing with, and I may almost say, sharing equally in my grief, I readily perceive from the fact that after reading your letter I now feel myself considerably more composed; for not only was all that you wrote just what is best calculated to soothe affliction, but you yourself in comforting me showed that you too had no little pain at heart. Your son Servius however has made it clear, by every kindly attention which such an occasion would permit of, both how great his respect was for myself and also how much pleasure his kind feeling for me was likely to give you; and you may be sure that, while such attentions from him have often been more pleasant to me, they have never made me more grateful.

It is not however only your arguments and your equal share,—I may almost call it,—in this affliction which comforts me, but also your authority; because I hold it shame in me not to be bearing my trouble in a way that you, a man endowed with[Pg 3705] such wisdom, think it ought to be borne. But at times I do feel broken down, and I scarcely make any struggle against my grief, because those consolations fail me which under similar calamities were never wanting to any of those other people whom I put before myself as models for imitation. Both Fabius Maximus, for example, when he lost a son who had held the consulship, the hero of many a famous exploit; and Lucius Paulus, from whom two were taken in one week; and your own kinsman Gallus; and Marcus Cato, who was deprived of a son of the rarest talents and the rarest virtue,—all these lived in times when their individual affliction was capable of finding a solace in the distinctions they used to earn from their country. For me, however, after being stripped of all those distinctions which you yourself recall to me, and which I had won for myself by unparalleled exertions, only that one solace remained which has been torn away. My thoughts were not diverted by work for my friends, or by the administration of affairs of state; there was no pleasure in pleading in the courts; I could not bear the very sight of the Senate House; I felt, as was indeed too true, that I had lost all the harvest of both my industry and my success. But whenever I wanted to recollect that all this was shared with you and other friends I could name, and whenever I was breaking myself in and forcing my spirit to bear these things with patience, I always had a refuge to go to where I might find peace, and in whose words of comfort and sweet society I could rid me of all my pains and griefs. Whereas now, under this terrible blow, even those old wounds which seemed to have healed up are bleeding afresh; for it is impossible for me now to find such a refuge from my sorrows at home in the business of the State, as in those days I did in that consolation of home, which was always in store whenever I came away sad from thoughts of State to seek for peace in her happiness. And so I stay away both from home and from public life; because home now is no more able to make up for the sorrow I feel when I think of our country, than our country is for my sorrow at home. I am therefore looking forward all the more eagerly to your coming, and long to see you as early as that may possibly be; no greater alleviation can be offered me than a meeting between us for friendly intercourse and conversation. I hope however that your return is to take place, as I hear it is, very shortly. As for myself, while there are abundant reasons for[Pg 3706] wanting to see you as soon as possible, my principal one is in order that we may discuss together beforehand the best method of conduct for present circumstances, which must entirely be adapted to the wishes of one man only, a man nevertheless who is far-seeing and generous, and also, as I think I have thoroughly ascertained, to me not at all ill-disposed and to you extremely friendly. But admitting this, it is still a matter for much deliberation what is the line,—I do not say of action, but of keeping quiet,—that we ought by his good leave and favor to adopt. Farewell.

A HOMESICK EXILE

I send this with love, my dearest Terentia, hoping that you and my little Tullia and my Marcus are all well.

From the letters of several people and the talk of everybody I hear that your courage and endurance are simply wonderful, and that no troubles of body or mind can exhaust your energy. How unhappy I am to think that with all your courage and devotion, your virtues and gentleness, you should have fallen into such misfortunes for me! And my sweet Tullia too,—that she who was once so proud of her father should have to undergo such troubles owing to him! And what shall I say about my boy Marcus, who ever since his faculties of perception awoke has felt the sharpest pangs of sorrow and misery? Now could I but think, as you tell me, that all this comes in the natural course of things, I could bear it a little easier. But it has been brought about entirely by my own fault, for thinking myself loved by those who were jealous of me, and turning from those who wanted to win me.... I have thanked the people you wanted me to, and mentioned that my information came from you. As to the block of houses which you tell me you mean to sell—why, good heavens! my dear Terentia, what is to be done! Oh, what troubles I have to bear! And if misfortune continues to persecute us, what will become of our poor boy? I cannot continue to write—my tears are too much for me; nor would I wish to betray you into the same emotion. All I can say is that if our friends act up to their bounden duty we shall not want for money; if they do not, you will not be able to succeed only with your own. Let our unhappy fortunes, I entreat you, be a warning to us not to ruin our boy,[Pg 3707] who is ruined enough already. If he only has something to save him from absolute want, a fair share of talent and a fair share of luck will be all that is necessary to win anything else. Do not neglect your health; and send me messengers with letters to let me know what goes on, and how you yourselves are faring. My suspense in any case cannot now be long. Give my love to my little Tullia and my Marcus.

Dyrrachium, Nov. 26.

P.S.—I have moved to Dyrrachium because it is not only a free city, but very much in my interest, and quite near to Italy; but if the bustle of the place proves an annoyance I shall betake myself elsewhere and give you notice.

CICERO'S VACILLATION IN THE CIVIL WAR

Being in extreme agitation about these great and terrible events, and having no means of discussing matters with you in person, I want at any rate to avail myself of your judgment. Now the question about which I am in doubt is simply this: If Pompeius should fly from Italy (which I suspect he will do), how do you think I ought to act? To make it easier for you to advise me, I will briefly set forth the arguments that occur to me on both sides of the question.

The obligations that Pompeius laid me under in the matter of my restoration, my own intimacy with him, and also my patriotism, incline me to think that I ought to make my decision as his decision, or in other words, my fortunes as his fortunes. There is this reason also: If I stay behind and desert my post among that band of true and illustrious patriots, I must perforce fall completely under the yoke of one man. Now although he frequently takes occasion to show himself friendly to me—indeed, as you well know, anticipating this storm that is now hanging over our heads, I took good care that he should be so long ago—still I have to consider two different questions: first, how far can I trust him; and secondly,—assuming it to be absolutely certain that he is friendly disposed to me,—would it show the brave man or the honest citizen to remain in a city where one has filled the highest offices of peace and war, achieved immortal deeds, and been crowned with the honors of her most[Pg 3708] dignified priesthood, only to become an empty name and undergo some risk, attended also very likely with considerable disgrace, should Pompeius ever again grasp the helm? So much for this side; see now what may be said on the other.

Pompeius has in our cause done nothing wisely, nothing strongly; nothing, I may add, that has not been contrary to my opinion and advice. I pass over those old complaints, that it was he who himself nourished this enemy of the republic, gave him his honors, put the sword into his hand—that it was he who advised him to force laws through by violence, trampling on the warnings of religion—that it was he who made the addition of Transalpine Gaul, he who is his son-in-law, he who as Augur allowed the adoption of Clodius; who showed more activity in recalling me than in preventing my exile; who took it on him to extend Cæsar's term of government; who supported all his proceedings while he was away; that he too even in his third consulship, after he had begun to pose as a defender of the constitution, actually exerted himself to get the ten tribunes to propose that absence should not invalidate the election; nay more, he expressly sanctioned this by one of his own acts, and opposed the consul Marcus Marcellus, who proposed that the tenure of the Gallic provinces should come to an end on the 1st of March—but anyhow, to pass over all this, what could be more discreditable, what more blundering, than this evacuation of the city, or I had better say, this ignominious flight? What terms ought not to have been accepted sooner than abandon our country? The terms were bad? That I allow; but is anything worse than this? But he will win back the constitution? When? What preparations have been made to warrant such a hope? Have we not lost all Picenum? have we not left open the road to the capital? have we not abandoned the whole of our treasure, public and private, to the foe? In a word, there is no common cause, no strength, no centre, to draw such people together as might yet care to show fight for the Republic. Apulia has been chosen—the most thinly populated part of Italy, and the most remote from the line of movement of this war: it would seem that in despair they were looking for flight, with some easy access to the coast. I took the charge of Capua much against my will—not that I would evade that duty, but in a cause which evoked no sympathy from any class as a whole, nor any openly even from individuals (there was some of course among the good[Pg 3709] citizens, but as languid as usual), and where I saw for myself that the mass of the people, and all the lowest stratum, were more and more inclined to the other side, many even longing for a revolution, I told him to his face I would undertake to do nothing without forces and without money. Consequently I have had no responsibility at all, because I saw from the very first that nothing was really intended but flight. Say that I now follow this; then whither? Not with him; I had already set out to join him when I found that Cæsar was in those parts, so that I could not safely reach Luceria. I must sail by the western sea, in the depth of winter, not knowing where to steer for. And again, what about being with my brother, or leaving him and taking my son? How then must I act, since either alternative will involve the greatest difficulty, the greatest mental anxiety? And then, too, what a raid he will make on me and my fortunes when I am out of the way—fiercer than on other people, because he will think perhaps that in outrages on me he holds a means of popularity. Again, these fetters, remember,—I mean these laurels on my attendants' staves,—how inconvenient it is to take them out of Italy! What place indeed will be safe for me, supposing I now find the sea calm enough, before I have actually joined him? though where that will be and how to get there, I have no notion.

On the other hand, say that I stop where I am and find some place on this side of the water, then my conduct will precisely resemble that of Philippus, or Lucius Flaccus, or Quintus Mucius under Cinna's reign of terror. And however this decision ended for the last-named, yet still he at any rate used to say that he saw what really did happen would occur, but that it was his deliberate choice in preference to marching sword in hand against the homes of the very city that gave him birth. With Thrasybulus it was otherwise, and perhaps better; but still there is a sound basis for the policy and sentiments of Mucius; as there is also for this [which Philippus did]: to wait for your opportunity when you must, just as much as not to lose your opportunity when it is given. But even in this case, those staves again of my attendants still involve some awkwardness; for say that his feelings are friendly to me (I am not sure that this is so, but let us assume it), then he will offer me a triumph. I fear that to decline may be perilous—[to accept] an offense with all good citizens. Ah, you exclaim, what a difficult, what an[Pg 3710] insoluble problem! Yet the solution must be found; for what can one do? And lest you should have formed the idea that I am rather inclined towards staying because I have argued more on that side of the question, it is quite possible, as is so frequently the case in debates, that one side has more words, the other more worth. Therefore I should be glad if when you give me your opinion you would look upon me as making up my mind quite dispassionately on a most important question. I have a ship both at Caieta and at Brundisium.

But lo and behold, while I am writing you these very lines by night in my house at Cales, in come the couriers, and here is a letter to say that Cæsar is before Corfinium, and that in Corfinium is Domitius, with an army resolute and even eager for battle. I do not think our chief will go so far as to be guilty of abandoning Domitius, though it is true he had already sent Scipio on before with two cohorts to Brundisium, and written a dispatch to the consuls ordering that the legion enrolled by Faustus should go under the command of one consul to Sicily: but it is a scandal that Domitius should be left to his fate when he is imploring him for help. There is some hope, not in my opinion a very good one, but strong in these parts, that there has been a battle in the Pyrenees between Afranius and Trebonius; that Trebonius has been beaten off; that your friend Fabius also has come over to us with all his troops; and to crown it all, that Afranius is advancing with a strong force. If this be so, we shall perhaps make a stand in Italy. As for me, since Cæsar's route is uncertain—he is expected about equally by way of Capua and of Luceria—I have sent Lepta to Pompeius with a letter, while I myself, for fear of falling in with him anywhere, have started again for Formiæ. I thought it best to let you know this, and am writing with more composure than I have written of late; not inserting any opinion of my own, but trying to elicit yours.

[Pg 3711]

CICERO'S CORRESPONDENTS

It seems desirable to add a few letters by other hands than Cicero's, to indicate the manifold side-lights thrown on the inner history of this intensely interesting period. Sulpicius's famous attempt at consolation has already been given above. Two brief letters by Cæsar will illustrate the dictator's marvelous ability to comprehend and control other men. Pompey's gruff rudeness forms a contrast which is hardly accidental on the editor's part. Cælius's wit is biting as ever; and lastly, Matius's protest against being persecuted merely because he, who loved Cæsar, openly mourned for his dead friend, has an unconscious tone of simple heroism unequaled in the entire correspondence.

W. C. L.

CÆSAR TO CICERO

You know me too well not to keep up your character as an Augur by divining that nothing is more entirely alien from my nature than cruelty: I will add that while my decision is in itself a great source of pleasure to me, to find my conduct approved by you is a triumph of gratification. Nor does the fact at all disturb me that those people whom I have set at liberty are reported to have gone their ways only to renew the attack upon me; because there is nothing I wish more than that I may ever be as true to my own character as they to theirs.

May I hope that you will be near town when I am there, so that I may as usual avail myself in everything of your advice and means of assistance? Let me assure you that I am charmed beyond everything with your relation Dolabella, to whom I shall acknowledge myself indeed indebted for this obligation; for his kindliness is so great, and his feeling and affection for me are such, that he cannot possibly do otherwise.

CÆSAR TO CICERO

Though I had fully made up my mind that you would do nothing rashly, nothing imprudently, still I was so far impressed by the rumors in some quarters as to think it my duty to write to you, and ask it as a favor due to our mutual regard that you will not take any step, now that the scale is so decisively turned, which you would not have thought it necessary[Pg 3712] to take even though the balance still stood firm. For it will really be both a heavier blow to our friendship, and a step on your part still less judicious for yourself, if you are to be thought not even to have bowed the knee to success—for things seem to have fallen out as entirely favorably for us as disastrously for them; nor yet to have been drawn by attachment to a particular cause—for that has undergone no change since you decided to remain aloof from their counsels;—but to have passed a stern judgment on some act of mine, than which, from you, no more painful thing could befall me; and I claim the right of our friendship to entreat that you will not take this course.

Finally, what more suitable part is there for a good peace-loving man, and a good citizen, than to keep aloof from civil dissensions? There were not a few who admired this course, but could not adopt it by reason of its danger: you, after having duly weighed both the conclusions of friendship and the unmistakable evidence of my whole life, will find that there is no safer nor more honorable course than to keep entirely aloof from the struggle.

POMPEY TO CICERO

To-day, the 10th of February, Fabius Vergilianus has joined me. From him I learn that Domitius with his eleven cohorts, and fourteen cohorts that Vibullius has brought up, is on his way to me. His intention was to start from Corfinium on the 13th, Hirrus to follow soon after with five of the cohorts. I decide that you are to come to us at Luceria; here, I think, you will be most in safety.

CÆLIUS IN ROME TO CICERO IN CILICIA

The capture of his Parthian Majesty and the storming of Seleuceia itself had not been enough to compensate for missing the sight of our doings here. Your eyes would never have ached again if you had only seen the face of Domitius when he was not elected! The election was important, and it was quite clear that party feeling determined the side which people took: only a few could be brought to acknowledge the claims of friendship. Consequently Domitius is so furious with me that he scarcely hates any of his most intimate friends as much as he[Pg 3713] does me; and all the more because he thinks that it was to do him wrong that his hopes of being in the College of Augurs are snatched away, and that I am responsible for it. He is savage now to see everybody so delighted at his mortification, and myself more active than anybody, with one exception, on behalf of Antonius.

As to political prospects, I have often mentioned to you that I do not see any chance of peace lasting a year; and the nearer that struggle which must infallibly take place, is drawing to us, the more manifest does its danger become. The point at issue about which our lords and masters are going to fight is this: Pompeius has absolutely determined not to allow Cæsar to be elected consul on any terms except a previous resignation of his army and his government, while Cæsar is convinced that he must inevitably fall if he separates himself from his army. He offers however this compromise, that they should both of them resign their armies. So you see their great affection for one another and their much-abused alliance has not even dwindled down into suppressed jealousy, but has broken out into open war. Nor can I discover what is the wisest course to take in my own interests: a question which I make no doubt will give much trouble to you also. For while I have both interest and connections among those who are on one side, on the other too it is the cause and not the men themselves I dislike. You are not, I feel sure, blind to the fact that where parties are divided within a country, we are bound, so long as the struggle is carried on with none but constitutional weapons, to support the more honorable cause, but when we come to blows and to open war, then the safer one; and to count that cause the better which is the less likely to be dangerous. In the present division of feeling I see that Pompeius will have the Senate and all judicially minded people on his side; those who have everything to dread and little to hope for will flock to Cæsar: the army is not to be compared. On the whole, we have plenty of time for balancing the strength of parties and making our decision.

I had all but forgotten my principal reason for writing. Have you heard of the wonderful doings of our censor Appius——how he is rigorously inquiring into our statues and pictures, our amount of land, and our debts? He has persuaded himself that his censorship is a moral soap or toilet powder. He is wrong, I take it; for while he only wants to wash off the dirt, he is really[Pg 3714] laying bare his veins and his flesh. Heaven and earth! you must run, and come to laugh at the things here——Appius questioning about pictures and statues. You must make haste, I assure you.

Our friend Curio is thought to have acted wisely in giving way about the pay of Pompeius's troops. If I must sum up my opinion, as you ask, about what will happen——unless one or other of them consents to go and fight the Parthians, I see a great split impending, which will be settled by the sword and by force; each is well inclined for this and well equipped. If it could only be without danger to yourself, you would find this a great and most attractive drama which Fortune is rehearsing.

MATIUS TO CICERO

I received great pleasure from your letter, because I found that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished it to be; not that I was in any doubt about it, but for the very reason that I valued it so highly, I was most anxious that it should remain unimpaired. Conscious however that I had done nothing which could give offense to the feelings of any good citizen, I was naturally the less inclined to believe that you, adorned as you are with so many excellences of the most admirable kind, could have allowed yourself to be convinced of anything on mere idle report; particularly seeing that you were a friend for whom my spontaneous attachment had been and still was unbroken. And knowing now that it has been as I hoped, I will answer those attacks which you have often opposed on my behalf, as was fairly to be expected from your well-known generosity and the friendship existing between us.

For I am well aware of all they have been heaping on me since Cæsar's death. They make it a reproach against me that I go heavily for the loss of a friend, and think it cruel that one whom I loved should have fallen, because, say they, country must be put before friends——as though they have hitherto been successful in proving that his death really was the gain of the commonwealth. But I will not enter any subtle plea; I admit that I have not attained to your higher grades of philosophy: for I have neither been a partisan of Cæsar in our civil dissensions,——though I did not abandon my friend even when his action[Pg 3715] was a stumbling-block to me,——nor did I ever give my approval to the civil war, or even to the actual ground of quarrel, of which indeed I earnestly desired that the first sparks should be trampled out. And so in the triumph of a personal friend I was never ensnared by the charms either of place or of money; prizes which have been recklessly abused by the rest, though they had less influence with him than I had. I may even say that my own private property was impaired by that act of Cæsar, thanks to which many of those who are rejoicing at Cæsar's death continued to live in their own country. That our defeated fellow countrymen should be spared was as much an object to me as my own safety. Is it possible then for me, who wanted all to be left uninjured, not to feel indignation that he by whom this was secured is dead? above all when the very same men were the cause at once of his unpopularity and his untimely end. You shall smart then, say they, since you dare to disapprove of our deed. What unheard of insolence! One man then may boast of a deed, which another is not even allowed to lament without punishment. Why, even slaves have always been free of this——to feel their fears, their joys, their sorrows as their own, and not at anybody else's dictation; and these are the very things which now, at least according to what your "liberators" have always in their mouths, they are trying to wrest from us by terrorism. But they try in vain. There is no danger which has terrors enough ever to make me desert the side of gratitude or humanity; for never have I thought that death in a good cause is to be shunned, often indeed that it deserves to be courted. But why are they inclined to be enraged with me, if my wishes are simply that they may come to regret their deed, desiring as I do that Cæsar's death may be felt to be untimely by us all? It is my duty as a citizen to desire the preservation of the constitution? Well, unless both my life in the past and all my hopes for the future prove without any words of mine that I do earnestly desire this, I make no demand to prove it by my professions.

To you therefore I make a specially earnest appeal to let facts come before assertions, and to take my word for it that, if you feel that honesty is the best policy, it is impossible I should have any association with lawless villains. Or can you believe that the principles I pursued in the days of my youth, when even error could pass with some excuse, I shall renounce now[Pg 3716] that I am going down the hill, and with my own hands unravel all the web of my life? That I will not do; nor yet will I commit any act that could give offense, beyond the fact that I do lament the sad fall of one who was to me the dearest friend and the most illustrious of men. But were I otherwise disposed, I would never deny what I was doing, lest it should be thought I was at once shameless in doing wrong and false and cowardly in dissembling it.

But then I undertook the management of those games which Cæsar's heir celebrated for Cæsar's victory? Well, this is a matter which belongs to one's private obligations, not to any political arrangement; it was however in the first place a tribute of respect which I was called upon to pay to the memory and the eminent position of a man whom I dearly loved, even though he was dead, and also one that I could not refuse at the request of a young man so thoroughly promising, and so worthy in every way of Cæsar as he is.

Again, I have frequently paid visits of compliment to the consul Antonius. And you will find that the very men who think me but a lukewarm patriot are constantly going to his house in crowds, actually for the purpose of soliciting or carrying away some favor. But what a monstrous claim it is, that while Cæsar never laid any such embargo as this to prevent me from associating freely with anybody I pleased,——even if they were people whom he personally did not like,——these men who have robbed me of my friend should attempt by malicious insinuations to prevent my showing a kindness to whomsoever I will!

I have however no fear that the moderation of my life will hereafter prove an insufficient defense against false insinuations, and that even those who do not love me, because of my loyalty to Cæsar, would not rather have their own friend imitate me than themselves. Such of life as remains to me, at least if I succeed in what I desire, I shall spend in quiet at Rhodes; but if I find that some chance has put a stop to this, I shall simply live at Rome as one who is always desirous that right should be done.

I am deeply grateful to our good friend Trebatius for having thus disclosed to me your sincere and friendly feeling, and given me even an additional reason for honoring and paying respect to one whom it has always been a pleasure to me to regard as a friend. Farewell heartily, and let me have your esteem.

[Pg 3717]

THE DREAM OF SCIPIO

From the Dialogue (The Republic): Translation of Prof. T.R. Lounsbury

When I went into Africa with the consul Manius Manilius, holding the rank, as you are aware, of military tribune of the fourth legion, nothing lay nearer to my heart than to meet Masinissa, a king who, for good reasons, was on the most friendly terms with our family. When I had come to him, the old man embraced me with tears, and then looking up to heaven, said:——"I give thanks to thee, O supremest Sol, and to you, ye inhabitants of heaven! that before I depart this life I behold in my dominions, and under this roof, Publius Cornelius Scipio, by whose very name I am revived: so never passes away from my mind the memory of that best and most invincible hero." Thereupon I made inquiries of him as to the state of his own kingdom, and he of me as to our republic; and with many words uttered on both sides, we spent the whole of that day.

Moreover, after partaking of a repast prepared with royal magnificence, we prolonged the conversation late into the night. The old man would speak of nothing but Africanus, and remembered not only all his deeds, but likewise his sayings. After we parted to go to bed, a sounder sleep than usual fell upon me, partly on account of weariness occasioned by the journey, and partly because I had stayed up to a late hour. Then Africanus appeared to me, I think in consequence of what we had been talking about; for it often happens that our thoughts and speeches bring about in sleep something of that illusion of which Ennius writes in regard to himself and Homer, of which poet he was very often accustomed to think and speak while awake. Africanus showed himself to me in that form which was better known to me from his ancestral image than from my recollection of his person. As soon as I recognized him I was seized with a fit of terror; but he thereupon said:——

"Be of good courage, O Scipio! Lay aside fear, and commit to memory these things which I am about to say. Do you see that State which, compelled by me to submit to the Roman people, renews its former wars, and cannot endure to remain at peace?" At these words, from a certain lustrous and bright place, very high and full of stars, he pointed out to me Carthage. "To fight against that city thou now comest in a rank but little above that of a private soldier; but in two years from this time[Pg 3718] thou shalt as consul utterly overthrow it, and in consequence shalt gain by thy own exertions that very surname of Africanus which up to this time thou hast inherited from us. But when thou shalt have destroyed Carthage, shalt have had the honor of a triumph, and shalt have been censor, thou shalt during thy absence be chosen consul for a second time, shalt put an end to to a great war, and lay Numantia in ruins. But when thou shalt be carried in thy triumphal chariot to the capitol, thou wilt find the republic disturbed by the designs of my grandson. Then, O Scipio! it will be necessary that thou exhibit the purity and greatness of thy heart, thy soul, and thy judgment. But I see at that time a double way disclose itself, as if the Fates were undecided; for when thy life shall have completed eight times seven revolutions of the sun, and these two numbers (each one of which is looked upon as perfect; the one for one reason, the other for another) shall have accomplished for thee by their natural revolution the fatal product, to thee alone and to thy name the whole State shall turn; upon thee the Senate, upon thee all good men, upon thee the allies, upon thee the Latins, will fasten their eyes; thou wilt be the one upon whom the safety of the State shall rest; and in short, as dictator, it will be incumbent on thee to establish and regulate the republic, if thou art successful in escaping the impious hands of kinsmen."

At this point, Lælius uttered an exclamation of sorrow, and the rest groaned more deeply; but Scipio, slightly smiling, said, Keep silence, I beg of you. Do not awake me from my dream, and hear the rest of his words:—

"But, O Africanus! that thou mayest be the more zealous in the defense of the republic, know this: For all who have preserved, who have succored, who have aggrandized their country, there is in heaven a certain fixed place, where they enjoy an eternal life of blessedness. For to that highest God who governs the whole world there is nothing which can be done on earth more dear than those combinations of men and unions, made under the sanction of law, which are called States. The rulers and preservers of them depart from this place, and to it they return."

I had been filled with terror, not so much at the fear of death as at the prospect of treachery on the part of those akin to me; nevertheless at this point I had the courage to ask whether my father Paulus was living, and others whom we[Pg 3719] thought to be annihilated. "Certainly," said he: "they alone live who have been set free from the fetters of the body, as if from prison; for that which you call your life is nothing but death. Nay, thou mayest even behold thy father Paulus coming towards thee."

No sooner had I seen him than I burst into a violent fit of tears; but he thereupon, embracing and kissing me, forbade my weeping. I, as soon as I had checked my tears and was able again to speak, said to him, "Tell me, I beseech thee, O best and most sacred father! since this is life, as I hear Africanus say, why do I tarry upon earth? Why shall I not hasten to go to you?"—"Not so," said he; "not until that God, whose temple is all this which thou seest, shall have freed thee from the bonds of the body, can any entrance lie open to thee here. For men are brought into the world with this design, that they may protect and preserve that globe which thou seest in the middle of this temple, and which is called 'Earth.' To them a soul is given from these everlasting fires which you name constellations and stars, which, in the form of globes and spheres, run with incredible rapidity the rounds of their orbits under the impulse of divine intelligences. Wherefore by thee, O Publius! and by all pious men, the soul must be kept in the guardianship of the body; nor without the command of Him by whom it is given to you can there be any departure from this mortal life, lest you seem to have shunned the discharge of that duty as men which has been assigned to you by God. But, O Scipio! like as thy grandfather who stands here, like as I who gave thee life, cherish the sense of justice and loyal affection; which latter, in however great measure due to thy parents and kinsmen, is most of all due to thy country. Such a life is the way to heaven, and to that congregation of those who have ended their days on earth, and freed from the body, dwell in that place which you see,—that place which, as you have learned from the Greeks, you are in the habit of calling the Milky Way."

This was a circle, shining among the celestial fires with a most brilliant whiteness. As I looked from it, all other things seemed magnificent and wonderful. Moreover, they were such stars as we have never seen from this point of space, and all of such magnitude as we have never even suspected. Among them, that was the least which, the farthest from heaven, and the nearest to earth, shone with a borrowed light. But the starry globes far exceeded the size of the earth: indeed the earth[Pg 3720] itself appeared to me so small that I had a feeling of mortification at the sight of our empire, which took up what seemed to be but a point of it.

As I kept my eyes more intently fixed upon this spot, Africanus said to me:—"How long, I beg of thee, will thy spirit be chained down to earth? Seest thou not into what a holy place thou hast come? Everything is bound together in nine circles, or rather spheres, of which the farthest is the firmament, which embraces the rest, is indeed the supreme God himself, confining and containing all the others. To that highest heaven are fixed those orbits of the stars which eternally revolve. Below it are seven spheres, which move backward with a motion contrary to that of the firmament. One of these belongs to that star which on earth they call Saturn; then follows that shining orb, the source of happiness and health to the human race, which is called Jupiter; then the red planet, bringing terror to the nations, to which you give the name of Mars; then, almost directly under the middle region, stands the sun,—the leader, the chief, the governor of the other luminaries, the soul of the universe, and its regulating principle, of a size so vast that it penetrates and fills everything with its own light. Upon it, as if they were an escort, follow two spheres,—the one of Venus, the other of Mercury; and in the lowest circle revolves the moon, illuminated by the rays of the sun. Below it there is nothing which is not mortal and transitory, save the souls which are given to mankind by the gift of the gods; above the moon, all things are eternal. For that ninth sphere, which is in the middle, is the earth: it has no motion; it is the lowest in space; and all heavy bodies are borne toward it by their natural downward tendency."

I looked at these, lost in wonder. As soon as I had recovered myself I said, "What is this sound, so great and so sweet, which fills my ears?"—"This," he replied, "is that music which, composed of intervals unequal, but divided proportionately by rule, is caused by the swing and movement of the spheres themselves, and by the proper combination of acute tones with grave, creates with uniformity manifold and diverse harmonies. For movements so mighty cannot be accomplished in silence; and it is a law of nature that the farthest sphere on the one side gives forth a base tone, the farthest on the other a treble; for which reason the revolution of that uppermost arch of the heaven, the starry firmament, whose motion is more rapid, is attended with an acute and high sound; while that of the lowest,[Pg 3721] or lunar arch, is attended with a very deep and grave sound. For the ninth sphere, the earth, embracing the middle region of the universe, stays immovably in one fixed place. But those eight globes between, two[A] of which have the same essential action, produce tones, distinguished by intervals, to the number of seven; which number indeed is the knot of almost all things. Men of skill, by imitating the result on the strings of the lyre, or by means of the human voice, have laid open for themselves a way of return to this place, just as other men of lofty souls have done the same by devoting themselves during their earthly life to the study of what is divine. But the ears of men, surfeited by this harmony have become deaf to it; nor is there in you any duller sense: just as, at that cataract which is called Catadupa,—where the Nile rushes down headlong from the lofty mountain-tops,—the people who dwell in that neighborhood have lost the sense of hearing in consequence of the magnitude of the sound. So likewise this harmony, produced by the excessively rapid revolution of the whole universe, is so great that the ears of men are not able to take it in, in the same manner as you are not able to look the sun in the eye, and your sight is overcome by the power of its rays." Though I was filled with wonder, nevertheless I kept turning my eyes from time to time to the earth.

"I perceive," then said Africanus, "that thou still continuest to contemplate the habitation of the home of man. If that seems to thee as small as it really is, keep then thy eyes fixed on these heavenly objects; look with contempt on those of mortal life. For what notoriety that lives in the mouths of men, or what glory that is worthy of being sought after, art thou able to secure? Thou seest that the earth is inhabited in a few small localities, and that between those inhabited places—spots as it were on the surface—vast desert regions lie spread out; and that those who inhabit the earth are not only so isolated that no communication can pass among them from one to another, but that some dwell in an oblique direction as regards you, some in a diagonal, and some stand even exactly opposite you. From these you are certainly not able to hope for any glory.

"Moreover, thou observest that this same earth is surrounded, and as it were, girdled, by certain zones, of which thou seest that two—the farthest apart, and resting at both sides on the very poles of the sky—are stiffened with frost; and that, again,[Pg 3722] the central and largest one is burnt up with the heat of the sun. Two are habitable: of these the southern one, in which dwell those who make their footprints opposite yours, is a foreign world to your race. But even this other one, which lies to the north, which you occupy,—see with how small a part of it you come into contact! For all the land which is cultivated by you, very narrow at the extremities but wider at the sides, is only a small island surrounded by that water which on earth you call the Atlantic, or the great sea, or the ocean. But though its name is so high-sounding, yet thou beholdest how small it is. From these cultivated and well-known regions can either thy name or the name of any of us surmount and pass this Caucasus which thou seest, or cross yonder flood of the Ganges? Who in the farthest remaining regions of the rising and the setting sun, or on the confines of the north and the south, will hear thy name? When these are taken away, thou assuredly perceivest how immense is the littleness of that space in which your reputation seeks to spread itself abroad. Moreover, even those who speak of us, for how long a time will they speak?

"Nay, even if the generations of men were desirous, one after the other, to hand down to posterity the praises of any one of us heard from their fathers, nevertheless, on account of the changes in the earth,—wrought by inundations and conflagration, which are sure to recur at certain fixed epochs,—we are not simply unable to secure for ourselves a glory which lasts forever, but are even unable to gain a glory which lasts for a long time. Moreover, of what value is it that the speech of those who are to be born hereafter shall be about thee, when nothing has been said of thee by all those who were born before, who were neither fewer in number and were unquestionably better men; especially when no one is able to live in the memory of those very persons by whom one's name can be heard, for the space of one year?

"For men commonly measure the year by the return to its place of the sun alone, that is, of one star; but when all the stars shall have returned to that same point from which they once set out, and after a long period of time have brought back the same relative arrangement of the whole heaven, that, then, can justly be called the complete year. In it I hardly dare say how many ages of human life are contained. For once in the past the sun seemed to disappear from the eyes of men and to be annihilated, at the time when the soul of Romulus made its[Pg 3723] way into this very temple. When, from the same region of the sky and at the same moment of time, the sun shall have again vanished, then be sure that all constellations and stars have come back to the position they had in the beginning, and that the perfect year is completed. Of that year know that now not even the twentieth part has passed.

"Wherefore, if thou givest up the hope of a return to this place, in which all things exist for lofty and pre-eminent souls, yet of how much value is that human glory which can hardly endure for even the small part of a single year? But if, as I was saying, thou wishest to look on high, and to fix thy gaze upon this abode of the blest and this eternal home, never give thyself up to the applause of the vulgar, nor rest the recompense of thy achievements in the rewards which can be bestowed upon thee by men. It is incumbent on thee that Virtue herself shall draw thee by her own charm to true glory. As for the way in which others talk about thee, let them take care of that themselves; yet without doubt they will talk. But all such renown is limited to the petty provinces of the regions which thou seest: nor in the case of any one is it everlasting; for it both dies with the death of men and is buried in oblivion by the forgetfulness of posterity."

When he had said these things, "O Africanus!" I replied, "if the path that leads to the entrance of heaven lies open to those who have rendered great service to their country, although, in following from my boyhood in thy footsteps and in those of my father, I have not failed in sustaining the honor derived from you, yet henceforth I shall toil with far more zeal, now that so great a reward has been held out before me."—"Do thou indeed," said he, "continue to strive; and bear this in mind, that thou thyself art not mortal, but this body of thine. For thou art not the one which that form of thine proclaims thee to be: but the soul of any one, that alone is he; not that external shape which can be pointed out with the finger. Therefore know thyself to be a god, if that is essentially god which lives, which feels, which remembers, which foresees, which rules and regulates and moves that body over which it is put in authority, as the Supreme Being governs this universe. And as the eternal God moves the world, which in a certain point of view is perishable, so the incorruptible soul moves the corruptible body. For what always moves itself is eternal; but that which[Pg 3724] communicates to anything a motion which it has itself received from another source, must necessarily have an end of life when it has an end of motion: therefore that alone never ceases to move which moves itself, for the reason that it is never deserted by itself. This indeed is the well-head; this the beginning of motion to all other things that are moved. But to a beginning there is no birth; for all things are born from the beginning. But it itself cannot be born of anything; for that would not be a beginning which sprang from some other source. And just as it is never begotten, so it never dies; for a beginning annihilated could neither itself be brought back to life by anything else, nor could it create anything else out of itself, since it is necessary that all things should come from a beginning. So it results that the beginning of motion is in itself, because it is self-moved. And this can neither be born nor die, for if it did, the heavens would fall to ruin, and all nature would stand still; nor could it come into the possession of any power by the original impulse of which it might be put into motion.

"Since therefore it is clear that what is self-moved is eternal, who can deny that this essential characteristic has been imparted to the soul? For everything which is moved by a foreign impulse is without a soul; but that which lives is made to go by an inward motion of its own, for this is the special nature and power of the soul. But if it is the one thing among all which is self-moved, then certainly it has had no beginning, and is eternal. Do thou, then, employ it in the noblest duties. But those are the loftiest cares which are concerned with the well-being of our native land. The soul that is inspired by these, and occupied with them, will hasten the quicker into this its real home and habitation. So much the more speedily indeed will it do this, if while it is shut up in the body it shall pass beyond its limits, and by the contemplation of those things which are outside of it shall withdraw itself as far as possible from the body. For the souls of those who have given themselves up to sensual pleasures, and have made themselves as it were ministers to these, and who under the pressure of desires which are subservient to these pleasures have violated the laws of God and man, when they shall have parted from the body, will fly about the earth itself, nor will return to this place until they shall have suffered torments for many ages." He departed. I awoke from my sleep.

[Pg 3725]

THE CID

(1045?-1099)

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE SMITH

n the Cid we have two distinct personages, Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz (Dia son of Diego) who flourished during the last half of the eleventh century; and that legendary hero of Spanish epic poems, ballads, and dramas, whom Philip II. tried to have canonized. We are not left to our own conjectures as to the character and life of the historical Cid. Both Spanish and Arabic records place the main facts beyond all controversy.

He was born at Bivar, a hamlet three miles north of Burgos (circa 1040-1050), of an ancient Castilian family claiming descent from Lain Calvo,—one of the two judges who, tradition declares, was named by the Castilian people as their governor after the Leonese king had treacherously put their counts to death (circa 923).

The period of the Cid coincides with the political disruption of Arabic Spain. The Caliphate of Cordova, which in the preceding century had attained its high point in power and in all the arts of civilization, had fallen. A multitude of petty Moorish States disputed with each other the heritage of the Ommiad caliphs. The Christian States were not slow to profit by their opportunity. Ferdinand I. of Leon-Castile (surnamed the Great, 1037-65) not only extended his territory at the expense of the Moors, but also imposed tribute upon four of their more important States—Saragossa, Toledo, Badajoz, and Seville. Valencia only escaped a similar fate through his death.

The Peninsula was at this time divided among a large number of mutually independent and warring States, Christian and Moslem. The sentiments of loyalty to religion and to country were universally subordinated to those of personal interest; Christians fought under Moorish banners, Moors under Christian. Humanity toward the enemy, loyalty to oaths, were not virtues in the common estimation. Between the Christian States of Leon and Castile great jealousy ruled. Castile had come into being as a border province of the Asturian kingdom, governed by military counts. From the first there seems to have been a spirit of resistance to the overrule of the Asturian kings (later known as kings of Leon). Finally, under its Count Fernan Gonzalez (who died 970), Castile secured its independence. But whether leading a separate political existence, or united with Leon, Castile was ever jealously sensitive of any precedence[Pg 3726] claimed or exercised by its sister kingdom. Ferdinand I. of Leon-Castile, treating his territorial possessions as personal property,—a policy repeatedly fatal to all advance in Spanish history,—divided them at his death (1005), among his five children. Sancho, the eldest, received Castile, Nahera, and Pampeluna; Alfonso, Leon, and the Asturias; Garcia, Galicia, and that portion of Portugal which had been wrested from the Moors; Urraca received the city of Zamora; and Elvira, Toro.

The expected occurred. Sancho made war on his brothers, compelling both to flee to Moorish territories, and wrested Toro from Elvira. Rodrigo Diaz, the Cid, appears first at this period. He is the alferez, i.e., the standard-bearer, or commander-in-chief under the King, in Sancho's army. The brother Kings, Sancho and Alfonso, had agreed to submit their dispute to a single combat, the victor to receive the territories of both. Alfonso's Leonese army conquered the Castilian, and relying upon the agreement withdrew to its tents. Rodrigo Diaz was already known as the Campeador, a title won through his having, vanquished in single combat the champion of Sancho of Navarre, and signifying probably one skilled in battle, or champion.

Rodrigo gave a wily counsel to the routed Castilians. "The Leonese are not expecting an attack," he said; "let us return and fall upon them at unawares." The counsel was followed; the victors, resting in their tents, were surprised at daybreak, and only a few, Alfonso among the number, escaped with their lives. Alfonso was imprisoned at Burgos, but soon released at the entreaty of the Princess Urraca, on condition of his becoming a monk. Availing himself of such liberty, he escaped from the monastery to the Moorish court of Mamoun, King of Toledo. Sancho ruled thus over the entire heritage of his father,—Zamora excepted, the portion of Urraca. While laying siege to that city, he was slain by a cavalier in Urraca's service, Bellido Dolfos, who, sallying from the city, made good his escape, though almost overtaken by the avenging Campeador, 1072.

Alfonso, the fugitive at Toledo, was now rightful heir to the throne; and however reluctant the Castilian nobles were to recognize the authority of a Leonese king, they yielded to necessity. It is asserted—but the historical evidence here is not complete—that before recognizing Alfonso's authority the Castilian nobles required of him an oath that he had no part in his brother's murder, and that it was the Campeador who administered this oath, 1073. Whatever the facts, Alfonso will have thought it wise to conciliate the good-will of the Castilian grandees, and especially that of their leader Rodrigo, until at least his own position became secure. To this we[Pg 3727] may attribute his giving to Rodrigo in marriage of Jimena, daughter of Diego, Count of Oviedo, and first cousin of the King. The marriage contract, bearing date 1074, is preserved at Burgos.

Some years later Rodrigo was sent to collect the tribute due Alfonso by his vassal Motamid, King of Seville. Finding the King of Granada at war with Motamid, Rodrigo requested him not to attack an ally of Alfonso. But prayers and threats were alike unavailing; it came to battle, and Rodrigo conquered. Among the prisoners were several Christians in the service of Granada, notably Garcia Ordonez, a scion of the royal Leonese house. Not long after, we find Rodrigo charged with having appropriated to his own use a portion of the tribute and gifts sent to Alfonso by Motamid, Garcia Ordonez being his chief accuser. Taking advantage of the pretext—it can have been but a pretext—of Rodrigo's attacking the Moors without first securing the royal consent, Alfonso banished him. Old wrongs still rankling in the King's memory furnished probably the real motive.

And now began that career as soldier of fortune which has furnished themes to Spanish poets of high and low degree, and which, transformed and idealized by tradition, has made of Rodrigo the perfect cavalier of crusading Christian Spain. He offered first, it would seem, his service and that of his followers to the Christian Count of Barcelona, and when refused by him, to the Moorish King of Saragossa. This State was one of the more important of those resulting from the distribution of the Caliphate of Cordova. The offer was accepted, and Rodrigo remained here until 1088, serving successively three generations of the Beni-Hud, father, son, and grandson, warring indifferently against Christians and Moors, and through his successes rising to extraordinary distinction and power.

At this time—1088—the attention of both Mostain, the King of Saragossa, and of his powerful captain Rodrigo, was drawn to Valencia. This city after the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova had been ruled for forty-four years by descendants of Almanzor, the great Prime Minister of the last period of the Ommiad dynasty. Mamoun, King of Toledo, who sheltered the fugitive Alfonso, deposed the last of these Valencian kings, his son-in-law, and annexed the State to his own dominion. At Mamoun's death in 1075 Valencia revolted; the governor declared himself independent and placed himself under Alfonso's protection.

Ten years later Mamoun's successor, the weak Cadir, finding his position a desperate one, offered to yield up to Alfonso his own capital Toledo, on condition that the latter should place Valencia in his hands. Alfonso consented. Valencia was too weak to offer resistance, but Cadir proved equally incompetent as king and as general. Depending entirely upon his Castilian soldiery, captained by Alvar[Pg 3728] Fañez, a kinsman of Rodrigo, he grievously burdened the people in order to satisfy the demands of this auxiliary troop. But grinding taxes and extortions alike failed; and the soldiery, their wages in arrears, battened upon the country, the dregs of the Moorish population joining them. The territory was delivered at last from their robberies, rapes, and murders, by the appearance of the Almoravides. This new Moslem sect had grown strong in Africa, attaining there the political supremacy; and in their weakness the Moorish kings of Spain implored its assistance in repelling the attacks of the Christian North.

King Alfonso, alarmed at the appearance of these African hordes, recalled Alvar Fañez, was defeated by the Almoravides at Zallaca in 1086, and could think no more of garrisoning Valencia for Cadir. The position of Cadir became thus critical, and he appealed for help both to Alfonso and to Mostain of Saragossa. Mostain sent Rodrigo, ostensibly to his assistance; but a secret agreement had been made, Arabic historians assert, between the king and his general, whereby Cadir was to be despoiled, the city fall to Mostain, the booty to Rodrigo (1088).

The expedition was a successful one: Cadir's enemies were compelled to withdraw, and Rodrigo established himself in Valencian territory. As the recognized protector of the lawful king, in reality the suzerain of Valencia, Rodrigo received a generous tribute; but he had no intention of holding to his agreement with Mostain and assisting the latter to win the city. It is clear on the contrary that he had already resolved to secure, when opportunity offered, the prize for himself. Meanwhile he skillfully held off, now by force, now by ruse, all other competitors, Christian and Moslem alike; including among these King Alfonso, whose territories he wasted with fire and sword when that monarch attempted once, in Rodrigo's absence, to win Valencia for himself.

At another time we find him intriguing simultaneously with four different rivals for the control of the city,—Alfonso and Mostain among the number,—deceiving all with fair words.

As head of an independent army, Rodrigo made now successful forays in all directions; despoiling, levying tribute, garrisoning strongholds, strengthening thus in every way his position. At last the long awaited opportunity came. During his temporary absence, Cadir was dethroned and put to death; and the leader of the insurgents, the Cadi Ibn Djahhof, named president of a republic.

Rodrigo returned, and appealing in turn to ruse and force, at last sat down before the city to reduce it by famine. During the last period of the siege, those who fled from the city to escape the famine were thrown to dogs, or burned at slow fires. The city capitulated on favorable terms, June 15th, 1094. But all the conditions[Pg 3729] of the capitulation were violated. The Cadi-President was buried in a trench up to his arm-pits, surrounded with burning brands, and slowly tortured to death, several of his kinsmen and friends sharing his fate. Rodrigo was with difficulty restrained from throwing into the flames the Cadi's children and the women of his harem. Yet the lives and property of Ibn Djahhof and his family had been expressly safeguarded in the capitulation. It is probable that Rodrigo's title of "the Cid" or "my Cid" (Arabic, Sid-y = my lord) was given to him at this time by his Moorish subjects.

Master of Valencia, the Cid dreamed of conquering all that region of Spain still held by the Moors. An Arab heard him say, "One Rodrigo (the last king of the Goths) has lost this peninsula; another Rodrigo will recover it." Success crowned his arms for several years. But in 1099 the troops he had sent against the Almoravides were utterly routed, few escaping. The Cid, already enfeebled in health, died, it is said of grief and shame (July, 1099). His widow held the city for two years longer. Besieged at that time by the Almoravides, she sought help of Alfonso. He came and forced the enemy to raise the siege; but judging that it was not possible for him to defend a city so remote from his dominions, counseled its abandonment. As the Christians, escorting the body of the Cid, marched out, Valencia was fired; and only ruins awaited the Almoravides (1102).

The Cid's body was brought to San Pedro de Cardeña, a monastery not far from Burgos; enthroned, it is said, beside the high altar for ten years, and thereafter buried. Jimena survived her husband until 1104.

Ibn Bassam, an Arabic contemporary, writing at Seville only ten years after the death of the Cid, after describing his cruelty and duplicity, adds:—"Nevertheless, that man, the scourge of his time, was one of the miracles of the Lord in his love of glory, the prudent firmness of his character, and his heroic courage. Victory always followed the banner of Rodrigo (may God curse him!); he triumphed over the barbarians, ... he put to flight their armies, and with his little band of warriors slew their numerous soldiery."

The Cid, a man not of princely birth, through the exercise of virtues which his time esteemed,—courage and shrewdness,—had won for himself from the Moors an independent principality. Legend will have begun to color and transform his exploits already during his lifetime. Some fifty years later he had become the favorite hero of popular songs. It is probable that these songs (cantares) were at first brief tales in rude metrical form; and that the epic poems, dating from about 1200, used them as sources. The earliest poetic monument in Castilian literature which treats of the Cid is called 'The[Pg 3730] Poem of My Cid.' While based upon history, its material is largely legendary. The date of its composition is doubtful,—probably about 1200. The poem—the beginning is lost—opens with the departure of "My Cid" from Bivar, and describes his Moorish campaigns, culminating with the conquest of Valencia. Two Leonese nobles, the Infantes (Princes) of Carrion, beseech Alfonso to ask for them in marriage the conqueror's daughters. The Cid assents—to his King he would refuse nothing—and the marriages are celebrated in Valencia with due pomp. But the princes are arrant cowards. To escape the gibes of the Cid's companions, after securing rich wedding portions they depart for Carrion. In the oak wood of Carpes they pretend a desire to be left alone with their wives. Despoiling them of their outer garments, with saddle-girth and spurred boot they seek to revenge upon the Cid's daughters the dishonor to which their own base conduct subjected them while at the Cid's court. But time brings a requital. The Infantes, called to account, forfeit property and honor, esteeming themselves fortunate to escape with their lives from the judicial duels. Princes of Navarre and Aragon present themselves as suitors, and in second marriages Doña Elvira and Doña Sola become queens of Spain. The marriages with the Infantes of Carrion are pure invention, intended perhaps to defame the Leonese nobility, these nobles being princes of the blood royal.

The second marriages, if we substitute Barcelona for Aragon, are historical. Of the Cid's two daughters, one married Prince Ramiro of Navarre and the other Count Raynard Berenger III. of Barcelona. In 1157 two of the Cid's great-grandchildren, Sancho VI. of Navarre and his sister Doña Blanca, queen of Sancho III. of Castile, sat on Spanish thrones. Through intermarriage the blood of the Cid has passed into the Bourbon and Habsburg lines, and with Eleanor of Castile into the English royal house.

The 'Poem of My Cid' is probably the earliest monument of Spanish literature. It is also in our opinion the noblest expression—so far as the characters are concerned; for the verse halts and the description sometimes lags—of the entire mediæval folk epic of Europe. Homeric in its simplicity, its characters are drawn with clearness, firmness, and concision, presenting a variety true to nature, far different from the uniformity we find in the 'Song of Roland.' The spirit which breathes in it is of a noble, well-rounded humanity, a fearless and gentle courage, a manly and modest self-reliance; an unswerving loyalty and simple trust toward country, king, kinsmen, and friends; a child-faith in God, slightly tinged with superstition, for "My Cid" believes in auguries; and a chaste tender family affection, where the wife is loved and honored as wife and as mother, and the children's welfare fills the father's thoughts.[Pg 3731]

The duplicity of the historical Cid has left indeed its traces. When abandoning Castile he sends to two Jewish money-lenders of Burgos, chests filled, as he pretends, with fine gold, but in reality with sand; borrows upon this security, and so far as we are informed, never repays the loan. The Princes of Carrion, his sons-in-law, are duped into thinking that they will escape from the accounting with the loss of Tizon and Colada, the swords which the Cid gave them. But a certain measure of prudent shrewdness is not out of place in dealing with men of the treacherous character of the Infantes. And as to the Jewish money-lenders, to despoil them would scarce have been regarded as an offense against the moral law in mediæval Spain.

The second poetic monument is variously named. Amadar de los Rios, a historian of Spanish literature, styles it 'The Legend or Chronicle of the Youth of Rodrigo.' Its date also is disputed, some authorities placing its composition earlier, others later than that of the Poem. The weight of evidence seems to us in favor of the later date. It is rude and of inferior merit, though not without vigorous passages. It treats the earliest period of the Cid's life, and is (so far as we know) purely legendary. The realm of Castile-Leon is at peace under the rule of Ferdinand (the First), when the Count Don Gomez of Gormaz makes an unprovoked descent upon the sheep-folds of Diego Lainez. A challenge of battle follows. Rodrigo, only son of Diego, a lad in his thirteenth year, insists upon being one of the hundred combatants on the side of his family, and slays Don Gomez in single combat. Jimena, the daughter of Gomez, implores justice of the King; but when Ferdinand declares that there is danger of an insurrection if Rodrigo be punished, she proposes reconciliation through marriage. Diego and his son are summoned to the court, where Rodrigo's appearance and conduct terrify all. He denies vassalship, and declares to King Ferdinand, "That my father kissed your hand has foully dishonored me."

Married to Jimena against his will (Jimena Diaz, not Jimena Gomez, was his historical wife), he vows never to recognize her as wife until he has won five battles with the Moors in open field. Ferdinand plays a very unkingly rôle in this poem. While his fierce vassal is absent the King is helpless; and Rodrigo draws near only to assert anew his contempt for the royal authority by blunt refusals of Ferdinand's requests. He is always ready, however, to take up the gauntlet and defend the realm against every enemy, Christian or Moor. But this rude courage is coupled with devout piety, and is not insensible to pity. At the ford of the Duero a wretched leper is encountered: all turn from him with loathing save Rodrigo, who gives to him a brother's care. It is Saint Lazarus, who departing blesses him.[Pg 3732]

At last a formidable coalition is formed against Spain. The Emperor of Germany and the King of France, supported by the Pope and Patriarch, require of Spain, in recognition of her feudal dependence upon the Roman empire, a yearly tribute of fifteen noble virgins, besides silver, horses, falcons, etc. Rodrigo appears when Ferdinand is in despair, and kisses at last the royal hand in sign of vassalship. Though the enemy gather "countless as the herbs of the fields," even Persia and Armenia furnishing contingents, their battle array is vain.

The five Kings of Spain cross the Pyrenees. Arrived before Paris, Rodrigo passes through the midst of the French army, strikes with his hand the gates of the city, and challenges the twelve French peers to combat. The allies in alarm implore a truce. At the council, Rodrigo, seated at the feet of his King and acting as Ferdinand's spokesman, curses the Pope when the latter offers the imperial crown of Spain. "We came for that which was to be won," he declares, "not for that already won." Against Rodrigo's advice the truce is accorded to all. Here the poem is interrupted.

Besides these two epic poems, we have in the earlier Spanish literature two chronicles in prose which describe the life of the Cid,—'The General Chronicle of Alfonso the Learned' and 'The Chronicle of the Cid,' the latter being drawn from the former. Both rest in part upon historical sources, in part upon legend and tradition. Two centuries and more after the Poem, we meet with the Romances or Ballads of the Cid. For the earliest of these do not in their present form date far back of 1500. These ballads derive from all sources, but chiefly from the Cid legend, which is here treated in a lyric, sentimental, popular, and at times even vulgar tone.

Guillem de Castro (1569-1631) chose two themes from the life of the Cid for dramatic treatment, composing a dual drama styled 'Las Mocedades del Cid' (The Youth of the Cid). The first part is the more important. De Castro, drawing from the ballads, told again the story of the insult to Don Diego (according to the ballads, a blow in the face given by Don Gomez in a moment of passion), its revenge, the pursuit of Rodrigo by Jimena, demanding justice of King Ferdinand, and finally the reconciliation through marriage. But De Castro added love, and the conflict in the mind of Rodrigo and in that of Jimena between affection and the claims of honor.

Corneille recast De Castro's first drama in his 'Le Cid,' condensing it and giving to the verse greater dignity and nobility. The French dramatist has worked with entire independence here, and both in what he has omitted and what he has added has usually shown an unerring dramatic instinct. In certain instances, however,[Pg 3733] through ignorance of the spirit and sources of the Spanish drama he has erred. But the invention is wholly De Castro's, and many of Corneille's most admired passages are either free translations from the Spanish or expressions of some thought or sentiment contained in De Castro's version.

In more recent times Herder has enriched German literature with free renderings of some of the Cid ballads. Victor Hugo has drawn from the Cid theme, in his 'La Legende des Siècles' (The Legend of the Centuries), fresh inspiration for his muse.

FROM 'THE POEM OF MY CID'

Leaving Burgos

Farewell To his Wife at San Pedro de Cardeña

[Pg 3734]

Battle Scene

The Challenges

Conclusion

Translation of John Ormsby.

[Pg 3737]

EARL OF CLARENDON

(EDWARD HYDE)

(1609-1674)

he statesman first known as Mr. Hyde of the Inner Temple, then as Sir Edward Hyde, and finally as the Earl of Clarendon, belongs to the small but most valuable and eminent band who have both made and written history; a group which includes among others Cæsar, Procopius, Sully, and Baber, and on a smaller scale of active importance, Ammianus and Finlay. Born in Dinton, Wiltshire, 1609, he was graduated at Oxford in 1626, and had attained a high standing in his profession when the civil troubles began, and he determined to devote all his energies to his public duties in Parliament. During the momentous period of the Long Parliament he was strongly on the side of the people until the old abuses had been swept away; but he would not go with them in paralyzing the royal authority from distrust of Charles, and when the civil war broke out he took the royal side, accompanying the King to Oxford, and remaining his ablest adviser and loyal friend.

Earl of Clarendon

He was the guardian of Charles II. in exile and in 1661, after the Restoration, was made Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Lord Macaulay says of him:—"He was well fitted for his great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more weight and dignity in council and Parliament. No man was better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed the varieties of character with a more discriminating eye. It must be added that he had a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard for the honor and interest of the Crown." But his faults were conspicuous. One of his critics insists that "his temper was arbitrary and vehement. His arrogance was immeasurable. His gravity assumed the character of censoriousness."

He took part in important and dangerous negotiations, and eventually alienated four parties at once: the royalists by his Bill of [Pg 3738]Indemnity; the low-churchmen and dissenters by his Uniformity act; the many who suffered the legal fine for private assemblages for religious worship; and the whole nation by selling Dunkirk to France. By the court he was hated because he censured the extravagance and looseness of the life led there; and finally Charles, who had long resented his sermons, deprived him of the great seal, accused him of high treason, and doomed him to perpetual banishment. Thus, after being the confidential friend of two kings (and the future grandfather of two sovereigns, Mary and Anne), he was driven out of England, to die in poverty and neglect at Rouen in 1674. But these last days were perhaps the happiest and most useful of his life. He now indulged his master passion for literature, and revised his 'History of the Rebellion,' which he had begun while a fugitive from the rebels in the Isle of Jersey. In this masterpiece, "one of the greatest ornaments of the historical literature of England," he has described not only the events in which he participated, but noted people of the time whom he had personally known. The book is written in a style of sober and stately dignity, with great acuteness of insight and weightiness of comment; it incorporates part of an autobiography afterwards published separately, and is rather out of proportion. His other works are 'The Essay on an Active and Contemplative Life'; 'The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon'; 'Dialogues on Education and the Want of Respect Paid to Age'; 'Miscellaneous Essays' and 'Contemplation of the Psalms of David.'

THE CHARACTER OF LORD FALKLAND

If celebrating the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmitting their great virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principal ends and duties of history, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and no success or good fortune could repair. In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.

Before this Parliament, his condition of life was so happy that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to[Pg 3739] twenty years of age he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship, for the most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in the point of integrity; and such men had a title to his bosom.

He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which, in those administrations, he was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses; and if there had been the least of vice in his expense he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore having once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country and pursued it with that indefatigable industry that it will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek historians.

In this time, his house being within ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness of wit and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university bound in a less[Pg 3740] volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation....

The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed commonly from them in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned (in them) a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; insomuch as he was, by degrees, looked upon as an advocate for the court, to which he contributed so little that he declined those addresses and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a morosity to the court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the King's or Queen's favor towards him, but the deserving it. For when the King sent for him once or twice to speak with him, and to give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils which his Majesty graciously termed doing him service, his answers were more negligent and less satisfactory than might have been expected; as if he cared only that his actions should be just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of conscience, without any sympathy in his affections; which from a stoical and sullen nature might not have been misinterpreted; yet from a person of so perfect a habit of generous and obsequious compliance with all good men, might very well have been interpreted by the King as more than an ordinary averseness to his service: so that he took more pains and more forced his nature to actions unagreeable and unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to incline to the court, than any man hath done to procure an office there....

Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the seals, and but for those he had resolutely avoided them. The first, consideration that it [his refusal] might bring some blemish upon the King's affairs, and that men would have believed that he had refused so great an honor and trust because he must have been with it[Pg 3741] obliged to do somewhat else not justifiable. And this he made matter of conscience, since he knew the King made choice of him before other men especially because he thought him more honest than other men. The other was, lest he might be thought to avoid it out of fear to do an ungracious thing to the House of Commons, who were sorely troubled at the displacing of Harry Vane, whom they looked upon as removed for having done them those offices they stood in need of; and the disdain of so popular an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other. For as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions, so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients; and he had so much the more consented to and approved the justice upon Sir Harry Vane in his own private judgment, by how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation of a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit of any excuse for.

For these reasons he submitted to the King's command and became his secretary, with as humble and devout an acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation as could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his own heart. Yet two things he could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that office, that was to his death; for which he was contented to be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary part of his office. The one, employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment to them. I do not mean such emissaries as with danger would venture to view the enemy's camp and bring intelligence of their number and quartering, or such generals as such an observation can comprehend; but those who by communication of guilt or dissimulation of manners wound themselves into such trusts and secrets as enabled them to make discoveries for the benefit of the State. The other, the liberty of opening letters upon a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence. For the first he would say, such instruments must be void of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be of use; and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited: and that no single preservation could be worth so general a wound and corruption of human society as the cherishing such persons would carry with it. The last, he thought such a violation of the law of nature that no qualification by office could justify a single person in the trespass; and though he was convinced by the necessity and iniquity of the time that those[Pg 3742] advantages of information were not to be declined and were necessarily to be practiced, he found means to shift it from himself; when he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the omission: so unwilling he was to resign anything in his nature to an obligation in his office.

In all other particulars he filled his place plentifully, being sufficiently versed in languages to understand any that [are] used in business, and to make himself again understood. To speak of his integrity, and his high disdain of any bait that might seem to look towards corruption, in tanto viro, injuria virtutum fuerit [in the case of so great a man, would be an insult to his merits]....

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear that he was not without appetite of danger; and therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him a strange cheerfulness and companionableness, without at all affecting the execution that was then principally to be attended, in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by resistance necessary; insomuch that at Edgehill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their having thrown them away: insomuch as a man might think he came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowledged that he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, and before he came to age, he went into the Low Countries with a resolution of procuring command, and to give himself up to it, from which he was converted by the complete inactivity of that summer: and so he returned into England and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarm from the North; and then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and[Pg 3743] dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on the one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages which might then have been laid hold of), he resisted those indispositions, et in luctu, bellum inter remedia erat [and in his grief, strife was one of his curatives]. But after the King's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less communicable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had intended before always with more neatness and industry and expense than is usual in so great a mind, he was now not only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and sharp and severe that there wanted not some men (who were strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious,—from which no mortal man was ever more free.

The truth is, that as he was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even a demissness and submission to good and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not but be more evident in his place, which objected him to another conversation and intermixture than his own election had done) adversus malos injucundus [toward evil-doers ungracious] and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once in the House of Commons such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, that the Speaker might in the name of the whole House give him thanks; and then, that every member might as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment stir or move his hat towards him; the which (though not ordered) when very many[Pg 3744] did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honorable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompense), instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head; that all men might see how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular.

When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting amongst his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word Peace, Peace; and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think or pretend to think that he was so much enamored on peace, that he would have been glad the King should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honor, could have wished the King to have committed a trespass against either....

In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, who was then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much dispatched the business of life that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocence: and whosoever leads such a life needs not care upon how short warning it be taken from him.

[Pg 3745]

MARCUS A. H. CLARKE

(1846-1881)

lthough a native of England, Marcus Clarke is always classed as an Australian novelist. The son of a barrister, he was born in Kensington April 24th, 1846. In 1864 he went to seek his fortune in Australia. His taste for adventure soon led him to "the bush," where he acquired many experiences afterwards used by him for literary material. Drifting into journalism, he joined the staff of the Melbourne Argus. After publishing a series of essays called 'The Peripatetic Philosopher,' he purchased the Australian Magazine, the name of which he changed to the Colonial Monthly, and in 1868 published in it his first novel, entitled 'Long Odds.' Owing to a long illness, this tale of sporting life was completed by other hands. When he resumed his literary work he contributed to the Melbourne Punch, and edited the Humbug, a humorous journal. He dramatized Charles Reade's and Dion Boucicault's novel of 'Foul Play'; adapted Moliere's 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'; wrote a drama entitled 'Plot,' successfully performed at the Princess Theatre in 1873; and another play called 'A Daughter of Eve.' He was connected with the Melbourne press until his death, August 2d, 1881.

Clarke's literary fame rests upon the novel 'His Natural Life,' a strong story, describing the life of an innocent man under a life sentence for felony. The story is repulsive, but gives a faithful picture of the penal conditions of the time, and is built upon official records. It appeared in the Australian Magazine, and before it was issued in book form, Clarke, with the assistance of Sir Charles Gavin Duffy, revised it almost beyond recognition. It was republished in London in 1875 and in New York in 1878. He was also the author of 'Old Tales of a New Country'; 'Holiday Peak,' another collection of short stories; 'Four Stories High'; and an unfinished novel called 'Felix and Felicitas.'

Clarke was a devoted student of Balzac and Poe, and some of his sketches of rough life in Australia have been compared to Bret Harte's pictures of primitive California days. His power in depicting landscape is shown by this glimpse of a midnight ride in the bush, taken from 'Holiday Peak':—

"There is an indescribable ghastliness about the mountain bush at midnight, which has affected most imaginative people. The grotesque and distorted trees, huddled here and there together in the gloom like whispering[Pg 3746] conspirators; the little open flats encircled by bowlders, which seem the forgotten altars of some unholy worship; the white, bare, and ghostly gum-trees, gleaming momentarily amid the deeper shades of the forest; the lonely pools begirt with shivering reeds and haunted by the melancholy bittern only; the rifted and draggled creek-bed, which seems violently gouged out of the lacerated earth by some savage convulsion of nature; the silent and solitary places where a few blasted trees crouch together like withered witches, who, brooding on some deed of blood, have suddenly been stricken horror-stiff. Riding through this nightmare landscape, a whirr of wings and a harsh cry disturb you from time to time, hideous and mocking laughter peals above and about you, and huge gray ghosts with little red eyes hop away in gigantic but noiseless bounds. You shake your bridle, the mare lengthens her stride, the tree-trunks run into one another, the leaves make overhead a continuous curtain, the earth reels out beneath you like a strip of gray cloth spun by a furiously flying loom, the air strikes your face sharply, the bush—always gray and colorless—parts before you and closes behind you like a fog. You lose yourself in this prevailing indecision of sound and color. You become drunk with the wine of the night, and losing your individuality, sweep onward, a flying phantom in a land of shadows."

HOW A PENAL SYSTEM CAN WORK

From 'His Natural Life'

The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia Frere was taken through the hospital and the workshops, shown the semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a "dark cell." Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence. This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which pleased them. Maurice Frere penetrated everywhere, questioned the prisoners, jested with the jailers; even, in the munificence of his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick.

With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.

An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, however; and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view of the constables. These "jumpings-off" had become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on[Pg 3747] this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly whipped it for its impertinence.

"It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in the cell where the little body was laid, "that it should have happened to-day."

"Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that seemed to smile up at him, "it can't be helped. I know those young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a character had he?"

"Very bad. Johnson, the book."

Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set down in the neatest of running-hand, and the record of his punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes of red ink.

"20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th November, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December, stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December, absenting himself at roll-call, two days' cells. 23d December, insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22d February, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th March, insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes."

"That was the last?" asked Frere.

"Yes, sir," says Johnson.

"And then he—hum—did it?"

"Just so, sir. That was the way of it."

Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it....

After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and repeated their belief in "One God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth," the party reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which was between it and heaven.

Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly summoned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving[Pg 3748] his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus she became aware of another presence, and turning her head, beheld a small boy with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of gray cloth that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it.

"What is it, you mite?" asked Sylvia.

"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone.

"Him? Whom?"

"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy."

"What do you mean, child?" said she, with a strange terror at her heart; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him.

He looked up at her with joyful surprise. "Oh!" he said.

Sylvia kissed him again.

"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?" said she.

"Mother used to," was the reply; "but she's at home. Oh, mem," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch Billy?"

And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another gray uniform, and another hammer.

"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy."

The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes.

"You two poor babies!" she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over them.

"What is the matter, Sylvia?" said Frere, when he came up. "You've been crying."

"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by-and-by."

When they were alone that evening she told him of the two little boys, and he laughed.[Pg 3749]

"Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons that his wife was half convinced against her will.

Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.

"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong."

"Will it hurt much, Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so courageous.

"Not so much as a whipping."

"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!"

The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.

"Now I can't leave you."

"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?"

"Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children!" repeated Tommy.

"Let's say it, Tom."

And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said, "Lord, have pity on we two fatherless children." And then they kissed each other, and "did it."

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

From 'His Natural Life'

It was not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach, wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's small eye, counting their number, missed the stroke oar.

"Where's Cox?"

"The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly. "He never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it sound on his shoulders."

Gabbett scowled. "That's three of us gone," he said, in the tones of a man suffering some personal injury.

They summed up their means of defense against attack. Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the axe in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck; and Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed.[Pg 3750]

"Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch.

There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill station was not rich in edibles.

"That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. "Is it, Gabbett?"

"It must do, anyway," returned the giant, carelessly.

The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting a fire; but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless together.

Morning breaks clear and bright, and—free for the first time in ten years—they comprehend that their terrible journey has begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?" asks Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before—how's it done?"

"We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till we get a change o'clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main question. "We can follow the coast-line."

"Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch; "we must sneak round yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good glass at the Neck, they can see us."

"It does seem close," said Bodenham, "I could pitch a stone on to the guard-house. Good-by, you bloody spot!" he adds, with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the penitentiary, "I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' Judgment."

Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they feel out-wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. The second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea, and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and must follow the shore-line to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome walking, they reach a big hill, now called Collins's Mount, and see the upper link of the ear-ring, the isthmus of East Bay[Pg 3751] Neck, at their feet. A few rocks are on their right hand, and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island. "We must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, "or we shall fall in with the settlers and get taken." So, passing the isthmus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tightening their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low-lying hills.

The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham, who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the party by frequent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening Greenhill espies a hut; but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage. Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour. "You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, "and give me the axe." Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills, camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this handful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for "to-morrow." The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and as they struggle northward Maria Island disappears, and with it all danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping-ground by twos and threes; and each wonders—between the paroxysms of hunger—if his face is as haggard and his eyes as blood-shot as those of his neighbor.

On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders, but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an understanding among the three.[Pg 3752]

The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the eastward,—the line of ocean is deceitfully close,—and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man."

On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, "I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork."

Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it."

"Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but you must all have a hand in it."

Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as flogger. He deserves it."

"So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch.

"Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis a pity to leave him."

Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch, half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears some one cry out "Christ!" and awakes, sweating ice.

No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In the morning the frightful carcass is divided.

That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-day halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great restoration from the food. Vetch gives it him, and in half an[Pg 3753] hour afterward Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill pursue him in vain, and return with curses. "He'll die like a dog," said Greenhill, "alone in the bush." Jemmy Vetch, with his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers such a death to the one in store for him, but says nothing.

The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dismay that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look until nightfall in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sapling, which being stretched across the water, is seized by Greenhill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.

"What would you do without me?" said the Crow, with a ghastly grin.

They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the tinder, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity to remark privately to him what a big man Greenhill is.

On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow, whimpers, "For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder me!"

"I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror. "Think of poor Tom Bodenham."

"But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to hell with Tom's blood on my soul."

He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett, arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going, sees Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders calls after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem."

The nervous Crow puts his hands to his ears, but is conscious, nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan. When he comes back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are better than his own.

"We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, "now we've got provisions."

Two more days pass, and the three, eying each other suspiciously, resume their march. The third day—the sixteenth of[Pg 3754] their awful journey—such portions of the carcass as they have with them prove unfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-sharpened faces, and wonder "Who next?"

"We must all die together," said Sanders, quickly, "before anything else must happen."

Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the dreaded giant is out of ear-shot, says, "For God's sake, let's go on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is,—he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day."

They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode toward them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem, help!" cried the victim, cut but not fatally, and in the strength of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who bore it, and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it. Jemmy," he cried; "let's have no more murder done!"

They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall, when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him.

"He must die."

"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett. "Give me the axe."

"No, no," said the Crow, his thin malignant face distorted by a horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You shall hold him, and I'll do the job."

Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end had come, and submitted, crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself." They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down and folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony. He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful confusion of his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem!"

"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, "we can't starve here all night."

Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two days each had promised himself that on the next his companion must sleep—and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof.[Pg 3755] Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his companion, and make the odds even for once and forever. In the daytime they traveled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other. In the night-time when they feigned slumber, each stealthily raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion. Vetch felt his strength deserting him, and his brain overpowered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating, and slavering at the mouth, was on the road to madness. Would the monster find opportunity to rush at him, and braving the blood-stained axe, kill him by main force? or would he sleep, and be himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch! It is the terrible privilege of insanity to be sleepless.

On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him pause. Gabbett approaches; he tries to evade him, and steal away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous with famine and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken off. Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The axe that has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. He will fling it away. No—he dares not. Night falls again. He must rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or will wake on his pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at when a boy. Is that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It is not time—surely not time yet. He sleeps—and the giant, grinning with ferocious joy, approaches on clumsy tiptoe and seizes the coveted axe.

On the northeast coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want of fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle. When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony, offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's "natural penitentiary."

[Pg 3756]

MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS

(1740-1815)

atthias Claudius, best known as "the Wandsbecker Bote" (the Messenger from Wandsbeck), was born at Reinfeld in Holstein, August 15th, 1740. He was of excellent stock, coming from a long line of clergymen. It was said that scarcely another family in Schleswig-Holstein had given to the church so many sons.

There is but little to record of the quiet boyhood passed in the picturesque stillness of the North German village. At the outset the education of Claudius was conducted by his father, the village pastor. From beginning to end his life was simple, moderate, and well ordered. After finishing his school days at Ploen, he entered the University of Jena (1759), with the intention of studying theology, in order to follow the traditions of the family and enter the ministry. This idea he was soon obliged to relinquish on account of a pulmonary weakness, and he turned instead to the study of jurisprudence. His strongest attraction was towards literature. He became a member of the literary guild in Jena; and later, when he had attained fame as the "Wandsbecker Bote," he was intimately associated with Voss, F.L. Stolberg, Herder, and others of the Göttingen fraternity. His first verses, published in Jena in 1763, under the title "Tändeleien und Erzählungen' (Trifles and Tales), gave no indication of his talents, and were no more than the usual student efforts of unconscious imitation; they have absolutely no poetic value, and are interesting only as they indicate a stage of development. In editing his works in later years, Claudius preserved of this early poetry only one song, 'An eine Quelle' (To a Spring).

Matthias Claudius

After leaving the university in 1764, he took a position as private secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen; and here, under the powerful influence of Klopstock, whose friendship was at this time the most potent element of his life, and in the brilliant circle which that poet had drawn around him, Claudius entered fully into[Pg 3757] the life of sentiment and ideas which conduced so largely to his intellectual development. Some years later, after a fallow period spent in the quiet of his father's house at Reinfeld, he settled at Wandsbeck, near Altona (1771), where in connection with Bode he published the Wandsbecker Bote, the popular weekly periodical so indissolubly associated with his name. His contributions under the name of "Asmus" found everywhere the warmest acceptance. In 1775, through Herder's recommendation, Claudius was appointed Chief Land Commissioner at Darmstadt; but circumstances rendering the position uncongenial, he returned to his beloved Wandsbeck, where he supported his family by his pen until 1788, when Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark appointed him revisor of the Holstein Bank at Altona. He died in Hamburg, January 1st, 1815, in the house of his son-in-law, the bookseller Perthes.

A collection of his works, with the title 'Asmus omnia sua secum portans, oder Sämmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten' (The Collected Works of the Wandsbeck Messenger), appeared at Hamburg, 1775-1812. These collected works comprise songs, romances, fables, poems, letters, etc., originally published in various places. The translation of Saint Martin and Fénelon marked the pietistic spirit of his later years, and is in strong contrast to the exuberance which produced the 'Rheinweinlied' (Rhine Wine Song) and 'Urian's Reise um die Welt' (Urian's Journey around the World).

Claudius as a poet won the hearts of his countrymen. His verses express his idyllic love of nature and his sympathy with rustic life. The poet and the man are one. His pure and simple style appealed to the popular taste, and some of his lyrics have become genuine folk-songs.

SPECULATIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

From the Wandsbecker Bote

A happy new year! A happy new year to my dear country, the land of old integrity and truth! A happy new year to friends and enemies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and Cannibals! To all on whom God permits his sun to rise and his rain to fall! Also to the poor negro slaves who have to work all day in the hot sun. It's wholly a glorious day, the New Year's Day! At other times I can bear that a man should be a little bit patriotic, and not make court to other nations. True, one must not speak evil of any nation. The wiser part are everywhere silent; and who would revile a whole nation for the[Pg 3758] sake of the loud ones? As I said, I can bear at other times that a man should be a little patriotic: but on New Year's Day my patriotism is dead as a mouse, and it seems to me on that day as if we were all brothers, and had one Father who is in heaven; as if all the goods of the world were water which God has created for all men, as I once heard it said.

And so I am accustomed, every New Year's morning, to sit down on a stone by the wayside, to scratch with my staff in the sand before me, and to think of this and of that. Not of my readers. I hold them in all honor: but on New Year's morning, on the stone by the wayside, I think not of them; but I sit there and think that during the past year I saw the sun rise so often, and the moon,—that I saw so many rainbows and flowers, and breathed the air so often, and drank from the brook,—and then I do not like to look up, and I take with both hands my cap from my head and look into that.

Then I think also of my acquaintances who have died during the year; and how they can talk now with Socrates and Numa, and other men of whom I have heard so much good, and with John Huss. And then it seems as if graves opened round me, and shadows with bald crowns and long gray beards came out of them and shook the dust out of their beards. That must be the work of the "Everlasting Huntsman," who has his doings about the twelfth. The old pious long-beards would fain sleep. But a glad new year to your memory and to the ashes in your graves!

RHINE WINE

WINTER

A SONG TO BE SUNG BEHIND THE STOVE

WINTER.
Photogravure from a painting by L. Munthe.

NIGHT SONG

Translations of Charles T. Brooks.

[Pg 3761]

HENRY CLAY

(1777-1852)

BY JOHN R. PROCTER

enry Clay must not be judged as an orator by his reported speeches, which are but skeletons of the masterly originals, but by the lasting effect of these speeches on those who heard them, and by his ability as an originator of important measures and his success in carrying these measures to a conclusion by convincing and powerful oratory. Judged by his achievements and by his wide-spread influence, he must take rank as a statesman and orator of pre-eminent ability. The son of a poor Baptist clergyman, with but scant advantages for acquiring an education; leaving home at an early age and going among strangers to a community where family ties and social connections were a controlling element;—this poor boy, with no family influence, assumed at once, by sheer force of character and ability, a leadership which he held undisputed until his death. And years after he had passed away, it was the "followers of Henry Clay" who kept Kentucky from joining the States of the South in their unsuccessful efforts to withdraw from the Union.

Of his oratory Robert C. Winthrop wrote after a lapse of years: "I can only bear witness to an impressiveness of speech never exceeded, if ever equaled, within an experience of half a century, during which I have listened to many of the greatest orators on both sides of the Atlantic." As a parliamentary leader, Rhodes calls him the greatest in our history. "His leadership," says Mr. Schurz, "was not of that mean order which merely contrives to organize a personal following; it was the leadership of a statesman zealously striving to promote great public interests."

As a presiding officer he was the most commanding Speaker the National House of Representatives has ever had. Winthrop, who served long with him in Congress, said of him:—"No abler or more commanding presiding officer ever sat in the Speaker's chair on either side of the Atlantic. Prompt, dignified, resolute, fearless, he had a combination of intellectual and physical qualities which made him a natural ruler over men." He was six times elected Speaker, sometimes almost by acclamation; and during the many years which he presided over the House not one of his decisions was ever reversed.

[Pg 3762]

As a Secretary of State, during his term of four years the treaties with foreign countries negotiated by him exceeded in numbers all that had been negotiated by other secretaries, during the previous thirty-five years of our constitutional history. As a diplomat, he showed himself at Ghent more than a match for the trained diplomatists of the old world.

And with all these he was—at his ideal country home, Ashland, surrounded by wooded lawns and fertile acres of beautiful blue-grass land—a most successful farmer and breeder of thoroughbred stock, from the Scotch collie to the thoroughbred race-horse. I have been told by one who knew him as a farmer that no one could guess nearer to the weight of a Shorthorn bullock than he. He was as much at home with horses and horsemen as with senators and diplomats. I have known many men who were friends and followers of Mr. Clay, and from the love and veneration these men had for his memory, I can well understand why the historian Rhodes says, "No man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay."

Clay seemed to have had honors and leadership thrust upon him. Arriving in Kentucky in 1797, he at once advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves, regardless of the strong prejudices to the contrary of the rich slaveholding community in which he had cast his lot; yet, unsolicited on his part, this community elected him to the State Legislature by a large majority in 1803, and before three years of service he was chosen by his fellow members to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. And until his death in 1852, his constituents in Kentucky vied with each other in their desires to keep him as their representative in either the national Senate or House of Representatives. He entered the latter in 1811, and was selected as Speaker of that body almost by acclamation on the first day of his taking his seat. After a long life spent in his country's service he was elected unanimously to the Senate in 1848, despite party strife and the fact that the two parties were almost evenly divided in Kentucky.

No attempt can here be made to even recapitulate the events of importance connected with his long public services. I will call attention only to some of the most important measures which he carried by his magnificent leadership.

HENRY CLAY.

War of 1812

Clay assumed the leadership of those who urged resistance to the unjust and overbearing encroachments of Great Britain, and he more than any one else was instrumental in overcoming opposition and [Pg 3763]forcing a declaration of war. This war—a second war for independence, which changed this country from a disjointed confederacy liable to fall asunder, to a compact, powerful, and self-respecting Union—will ever be regarded as one of the crowning glories of his long and brilliant career. He proved more than a match in debate for Randolph, Quincy, and other able advocates for peace. When asked what we were to gain by war, he answered, "What are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character,—a nation's best treasure, honor!"

In answer to the arguments that certificates of protection authorized by Congress were fraudulently used, his magnificent answer, "The colors that float from the mast-head should be the credentials of our seamen," electrified the patriots of the country. There is but a meagre report of this great speech, but the effect produced was overwhelming and bore down all opposition. It is said that men of both parties, forgetting all antipathies under the spell of his eloquence, wept together. Mr. Clay's first speech on entering Congress was in favor of the encouragement of domestic manufactures, mainly as a defensive measure in anticipation of a war with Great Britain; arguing that whatever doubts might be entertained as to the general policy of encouraging domestic manufactures by import duties, none could exist regarding the propriety of adopting measures for producing such articles as are requisite in times of war. If his measure for the increase of the standing army had been adopted in time, the humiliating reverses on land during the early part of the war would have been averted. He carried through a bill for the increase of the navy, and the brilliant naval victories of the war of 1812 followed. In the debate on the bill to provide for a standing army, it was argued that twenty-five thousand could not be had in the United States. Clay aroused the people of Kentucky to such enthusiasm that fifteen thousand men volunteered in that State alone, and members of Congress shouldered their muskets and joined the ranks.

Treaty of Ghent

Henry Clay's faith in the destiny of his country, and his heroic determination that a continuation of the war was preferable to the terms proposed, prevented humiliating concessions. The American Commissioners were Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, and the British Commissioners Lord Gambier, Henry Goulbourn, and William Adams. The news received by Clay on his arrival in Europe was not calculated to inspire him with hope. From Mr. Bayard he received a[Pg 3764] letter (dated April 20th, 1814) with news of the triumph of the allies over Napoleon, and stating:—

"There is reason to think that it has materially changed the views of the British Ministry.... The great augmentation of their disposable force presents an additional temptation to prosecute the war."

By the same mail Mr. Gallatin writes from London (April 22d, 1814):—

"You are sufficiently aware of the total change in our affairs produced by the late revolution, and by the restoration of universal peace in the European world, from which we are alone excluded. A well-organized and large army is at once liberated from any European employment, and ready, together with a superabundant naval force, to act independently against us. How ill prepared we are to meet it in a proper manner, no one knows better than yourself; but above all, our own divisions and the hostile attitude of the Eastern States give room to apprehend that a continuation of the war might prove vitally fatal to the United States."

Mr. Russell writes from Stockholm (July 2d, 1814):—

"My distress at the delay which our joint errand has encountered has almost been intolerable, and the kind of comfort I have received from Mr. Adams has afforded very little relief. His apprehensions are rather of a gloomy cast with regard to the result of our labors."

Mr. Crawford, our Minister to France, who with Clay favored a vigorous prosecution of the war, writes to him (July 4th, 1814):—

"I am thoroughly convinced that the United States can never be called upon to treat under circumstances less auspicious than those which exist at the present moment, unless our internal bickerings shall continue to weaken the effects of the government."

With discouraging news from home, the seat of government taken, and the Capitol burned, the Eastern States opposing the war and threatening to withdraw from the Union, and his fellow commissioners in the despondent mood evidenced by the above-quoted letters,—it is amazing that Clay, whom some historians have called a compromiser by nature, opposed any and all concessions and wished that the war should go on.

By the third article of the treaty of 1783 it was agreed that citizens of the United States should not fish in the waters or cure fish on the land of any of the maritime provinces north of the United States after they were settled, without a previous agreement with the inhabitants or possessors of the ground.

[Pg 3765]

By the eighth article of the same treaty, it was agreed that the navigation of the Mississippi River should ever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the United States. It was then supposed that the British Canadian possessions included the head-waters of this river. By the Jay treaty of 1794 this was confirmed, and "that all ports and places on its eastern side, to whichsoever of the parties belonging, might be freely resorted to and used by both parties." At this time Spain possessed the sovereignty of the west side of the river, and both sides from its mouth to 31° north latitude. The United States acquired by the Louisiana purchase of 1803 all the sovereignty of Spain which had previously been acquired by France.

Gallatin proposed to insert a provision for the renewal to the United States of the rights in the fisheries, and as an equivalent to give to Great Britain the right to the navigation of the Mississippi River. This was favored by Gallatin, Adams, and Bayard, and opposed by Clay and Russell. Mr. Clay, seeing that he was in a minority, stated that he would affix his name to no treaty which contained such a provision. After his firm stand Mr. Bayard left the majority. Clay's "obstinacy" in opposing concessions is well shown in Mr. Adams's Journal:—

"To this last article [the right of the British to navigate the Mississippi River] Mr. Clay makes strong objections. He is willing to leave the matter of the fisheries as a nest-egg for another war.... He considers it a privilege much too important to be conceded for the mere liberty of drying fish upon a desert, but the Mississippi was destined to form a most important part of the interests of the American Union.... Mr. Clay, of all the members, had alone been urgent to present an article stipulating the abolition of impressment. Mr. Clay lost his temper, as he generally does whenever the right of the British to navigate the Mississippi is discussed....

"December 11th. He [Clay] was for war three years longer. He had no doubt but three years more of war would make us a warlike people, and that then we should come out of the war with honor.... December 22d. At last he turned to me, and asked me whether I would not join him now and break off negotiations."

After five months of weary negotiations under most adverse conditions so far as the American commissioners were concerned, the treaty was signed on December 24th, 1814. During all these months Clay had resisted any and all concessions, and none were made. The Marquis of Wellesley declared in the House of Lords that the American commissioners had shown a most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole of the correspondence.

During Mr. Clay's absence at Ghent, his admiring constituents returned him to Congress by an almost unanimous vote. A year[Pg 3766] later in Congress, Clay referred to his part in the bringing on the war as follows:—

"I gave a vote for a declaration of war. I exerted all the little influence and talent I could command to make the war. The war was made. It is terminated. And I declare with perfect sincerity, if it had been permitted to me to lift the veil of futurity and to foresee the precise series of events which had occurred, my vote would have been unchanged. We had been insulted and outraged and spoliated upon by almost all Europe,—by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Denmark, Naples, and to cap the climax, by the little contemptible power of Algiers. We had submitted too long and too much. We had become the scorn of foreign powers and the derision of our own citizens. What have we gained by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves; and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war? What is our situation now? Respectability and character abroad, security and confidence at home."

Clay more than any other man forced the war. It was the successful military hero of this war—the victor of New Orleans—who defeated him in after years for the Presidency.

Missouri Compromise

The heated struggle in Congress over the admission of Missouri into the Union first brought prominently forward the agitation of the slavery question. This struggle, which lasted from 1818 to 1821, threatened the very existence of the Union. Jefferson wrote from Monticello:—

"The Missouri question is the most portentous one that has ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest moments of the Revolutionary War I never had any apprehension equal to that I feel from this source."

Mr. Schurz, writing of the feeling at the time, says:—

"While thus the thought of dissolving the Union occurred readily to the Southern mind, the thought of maintaining the government and preserving the Union by means of force hardly occurred to anybody. It seemed to be taken for granted on all sides that if the Southern States insisted on cutting loose from the Union, nothing could be done but to let them go."

The two sections were at this time so evenly balanced that the maintenance of the Union by force could not have been successfully attempted. The compromise which admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave State, and recognized the right of settlers to carry slaves into the territory south of 36° 30', was carried through by the splendid leadership of Clay, who thus earned the title of "the great[Pg 3767] pacificator." Future historians will accord to him the title of the savior of the Union.

Upon the adoption of the compromise measures Mr. Clay resigned his seat in Congress to give his attention to his private affairs, being financially embarrassed by indorsing for a friend. During his stay at home there was a fierce controversy over the issue of paper money and relief measures to favor debtors who had become involved through the recklessness following such inflation. Against what seemed to be an overwhelming popular feeling, Clay arrayed himself on the side of sound money and sound finance. In 1823 he was again returned to the House of Representatives without opposition, and was chosen Speaker by a vote of 139 to 42.

Internal Improvements

Soon after his entrance into Congress Clay took advanced ground in favor of building roads, improving water-ways, and constructing canals by the general government, in order to connect the seaboard States with the "boundless empire" of the growing West. He became the leader, the foremost champion, of a system which was bitterly opposed by some of the ablest statesmen of the time as unauthorized by the Constitution. Clay triumphed, and during his long public service was the recognized leader of a system which though opposed at first, has been accepted as a national policy by both of the great political parties. That he was actuated by a grand conception of the future destiny of the country, and the needs of such improvements to insure a more perfect union, his able speeches on these questions will show. In one he said:—

"Every man who looks at the Constitution in the spirit to entitle him to the character of statesman, must elevate his views to the height to which this nation is destined to reach in the rank of nations. We are not legislating for this moment only, or for the present generation, or for the present populated limits of the United States; but our acts must embrace a wider scope,—reaching northward to the Pacific and southwardly to the river Del Norte. Imagine this extent of territory with sixty or seventy or a hundred millions of people. The powers which exist now will exist then; and those which will exist then exist now.... What was the object of the Convention in framing the Constitution? The leading object was Union,—Union, then peace. Peace external and internal, and commerce, but more particularly union and peace, the great objects of the framers of the Constitution, should be kept steadily in view in the interpretation of any clause of it; and when it is susceptible of various interpretation, that construction should be preferred which tends to promote the objects of the framers of the Constitution, to the consolidation of the Union.... No man deprecates more than I do the idea of consolidation; yet between separation and consolidation, painful as would be the alternative, I should greatly prefer the latter."

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Congress now appropriates yearly for internal improvements a sum far greater than the entire revenue of the government at the time Clay made this speech.

Spanish-American Independence

It was but natural that Clay's ardent nature and his love of liberty would incline him to aid the people of Central and South America in their efforts to free themselves from Spanish oppression and misrule. Effective here as in all things undertaken by him, his name must always be linked with the cause of Southern American independence. Richard Rush, writing from London to Clay in 1825, says: "The South-Americans owe to you, more than to any other man of either hemisphere, their independence." His speeches, translated into Spanish, were read to the revolutionary armies, and "his name was a household name among the patriots." Bolivar, writing to him from Bogotá in 1827, says:—"All America, Colombia, and myself, owe your Excellency our purest gratitude for the incomparable services which you have rendered to us, by sustaining our cause with sublime enthusiasm."

In one of his speeches on this subject Clay foreshadows a great American Zollverein. The failure of the Spanish-American republics to attain the high ideals hoped for by Clay caused him deep regret in after years.

The American System

The tariff law of 1824 was another triumph of Clay's successful leadership, since which time he has been called the father of what has been termed the "American System." It must be remembered that Clay was first led to propose protective duties in order to prepare this country for a war which he felt could not be avoided without loss of national honor. When in 1824 he advocated increased tariff duties in order to foster home industries, protection was universal; even our agricultural products were excluded from British markets by the Corn Laws. The man who would now advocate in Congress duties as low as those levied by the tariff law of 1824, would be called by protectionists of the present day a free-trader. When in 1833 nullification of the tariff laws was threatened, Clay, while demanding that the laws should be enforced and that if necessary nullification should be put down by the strong arm of the government, feared that the growing discontent of the South and the obstinacy of a military President threatened the Union, introduced and carried to a conclusion a compromise tariff measure that brought peace to the country.

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Secretary of State

It was unfortunate that Clay temporarily relinquished his leadership in Congress to accept the premiership in the Cabinet of President Adams. Although the exacting official duties were not congenial, and proved injurious to his health, his administration of this high office was brilliant and able, as is well attested by the number of important treaties concluded, and by his brilliant state papers. His instructions to the United States delegates to the Panama Congress of American Republics will grow in importance in the years to come, because of the broad principles there enunciated,—that private property should be exempt from seizure on the high seas in times of war.

His chivalrous loyalty to President Adams was fully appreciated, and his friendship reciprocated. After the close of his administration Mr. Adams in a speech said:—

"As to my motives for tendering him the Department of State when I did, let the man who questions them come forward. Let him look around among the statesmen and legislators of the nation and of that day. Let him select and name the man whom, by his pre-eminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and domestic, a President of the United States intent only upon the honor and welfare of his country ought to have preferred to Henry Clay."

Just before the close of his administration President Adams offered him a position on the bench of the Supreme Court, which he declined.

His Position on African Slavery

Clay was a slaveholder, a kind master—but through his entire public life an open advocate of emancipation. He probably received his early predilections against slavery from his association with Chancellor Wythe, before removing from Virginia, as indeed the best part of his education probably came from personal contact with that able man. The intellectual forces of the border slave States were arrayed in favor of emancipation, until, as Clay writes with some feeling in 1849, they were driven to an opposite course "by the violent and indiscreet course of ultra abolitionists in the North"; but Clay remained to his death hopeful that by peaceable means his country might be rid of this great evil. In the letter above quoted, writing of his failure to establish a system of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he says:—

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"It is a consoling reflection that although a system of gradual emancipation cannot be established, slavery is destined inevitably to extinction by the operation of peaceful and natural causes. And it is also gratifying to believe that there will not be probably much difference in the period of its existence, whether it terminates legally or naturally. The chief difference in the two modes is that according to the first, we should take hold of the institution intelligently and dispose of it cautiously and safely; while according to the other it will some day or other take hold of us, and constrain us in some manner or other to get rid of it."

As early as 1798, he made his first political speeches in Kentucky advocating an amendment to the State Constitution, providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves. Referring to the failure to adopt this amendment, he said in a speech delivered in the capital of Kentucky in 1829:—

"I shall never cease to regret a decision, the effects of which have been to place us in the rear of our neighbors who are exempt from slavery, in the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, the advance of improvements, and the general progress of society."

In these days, when public men who should be leaders bend to what they believe to be the popular wishes, the example of Clay, in his bold disregard of the prejudices and property interests of his constituents, is inspiring.

George W. Prentice was sent from New England to Kentucky to write a life of Clay, and writing in 1830 he says:—

"Whenever a slave brought an action at law for his liberty, Mr. Clay volunteered as his advocate, and it is said that in the whole course of his practice he never failed to obtain a verdict in the slave's favor.... He has been the slaves' friend through life. In all stations he has pleaded the cause of African freedom without fear from high or low. To him more than to any other individual is to be ascribed the great revolution which has taken place upon this subject—a revolution whose wheels must continue to move onward till they reach the goal of universal freedom."

Three years before this was written, Clay in a speech before the Colonization Society said:—

"If I could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of my country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State which gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror."

He longed to add the imperial domain of Texas to this country, but feared that it would so strengthen the slave power as to[Pg 3771] endanger the Union; and when finally he yielded to the inevitable, the Free-Soilers threw their votes to Birney and thus defeated Clay for the Presidency. He deprecated the war with Mexico, yet gave his favorite son as a soldier, who fell at Buena Vista. He stood for the reception of anti-slavery petitions by Congress, against the violent opposition of the leading men of his own section. He continued steadfast to the end, writing in 1849 that if slavery were, as claimed, a blessing, "the principle on which it is maintained would require that one portion of the white race should be reduced to bondage to serve another portion of the same race, when black subjects of slavery could not be obtained." He proposed reasonable schemes for gradual emancipation and deportation, which would, if adopted, have averted the war and settled peaceably the serious problem. He warned the Southerners in 1849 that their demands were unreasonable, and would "lead to the formation of a sectional Northern party, which will sooner or later take permanent and exclusive possession of the Government."

Seeming inconsistencies in Mr. Clay's record on this subject will disappear with a full understanding of the difficulties of his position. Living in a State midway between the North and South, where slavery existed in its mildest and least objectionable form, yet fully alive to its evils, recognizing that the grave problem requiring solution was not alone slavery, but the presence among a free people of a numerous, fecund, servile, alien race; realizing that one section of the country, then relatively too powerful to be ignored, was ready to withdraw from the Union rather than to submit to laws that would endanger slavery; loving the Union with an ardor not excelled by that of any public man in our history; wishing and striving for the emancipation of the slaves, yet too loyal to the Union to follow the more zealous advocates of freedom in their "higher law than the Constitution" crusade,—Mr. Clay in his whole course on this question was consistent and patriotic in the highest degree.

The Compromise of 1850

The crowning triumph of a long life of great achievements was his great compromise measures of 1850. These, with their predecessors of 1821 and 1833, have caused some writers to speak of Clay as a man of compromising nature. The reverse is true. Bold, aggressive, uncompromising, and often dictatorial by nature, he favored compromise when convinced that only by such means could civil war or a disruption of the Union be averted. And he was right. He averted a conflict or separation from the Union when the relative strength of the South was such as to have rendered impossible the[Pg 3772] preservation of the Union by force. The Constitution was a compromise, without which there would have been no union of States. That the compromise did not long survive him was no fault of Clay's, but chargeable to the agitators of both sections, who cared less for the Union than for their pet theories or selfish interests.

Two years after his death the compromise measures were repealed, and the most destructive civil war of modern times and a long list of resultant evils are the result. Those who knew Henry Clay and had felt his wonderful power as a leader, are firm in the belief that had he been alive and in the possession of his faculties in 1861, the Civil War would have been averted. His name and the memory of his love for the Union restrained his adopted State from joining the South.

The struggle over the passage of the compromise measures, lasting for seven months, was one of the most memorable parliamentary struggles on record. The old hero, Henry Clay, broken in health, with the stamp of death upon him, for six weary months led the fight with much of his old-time fire and ability. Sustained by indomitable will and supreme love of country, "I am here," he said, "expecting soon to go hence, and owing no responsibility but to my own conscience and to God."

In his opening speech, which lasted for two days, he said:—

"I owe it to myself to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am for one unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us."

He upbraided on the one hand the ultra abolitionists as reckless agitators, and hurled defiance at disunionists of the South, while at the same time appealing to the loftier nature and patriotic impulses of his hearers:—

"I believe from the bottom of my soul that this measure is the reunion of the Union. And now let us discard all resentments, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of peace, all hungering after gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, from whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the fountain of unadulterated patriotism, and performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our glorious Union."

As described by Bancroft, Clay was "in stature over six feet, spare and long-limbed; he stood erect as if full of vigor and vitality,[Pg 3773] and ever ready to command. His countenance expressed perpetual wakefulness and activity. His voice was music itself, and yet penetrating and far-reaching, enchanting the listeners; his words flowed rapidly without sing-song or mannerism, in a clear and steady stream. Neither in public nor in private did he know how to be dull."

Bold, fearless, commanding, the lordliest leader of his day, he was yet gentle, and as an old friend wrote, "was the most emotional man I ever knew. I have seen his eyes fill instantly on shaking the hand of an old friend, however obscure, who had stood by him in his early struggles." The manliest of men, yet his voice would tremble with emotion on reading aloud from a letter the love messages from a little grandchild.

The following, told me by a gentleman who knew Mr. Clay, illustrates the true gentleman he was:—

"When I was a small boy my father took me with him to visit Mr. Clay at his home Ashland. We found some gentlemen there who had been invited to dinner. Just before they went in to dinner my father told me privately to run out and play on the lawn while they were dining. As the gentlemen came out, Mr. Clay saw me, and calling me to him said, 'My young friend, I owe you an apology.' Turning to the gentlemen he said, 'Go into the library, gentlemen, and light your cigars—I will join you presently.' Taking me by the hand he returned with me to the table, ordered the servants to attend to my wants, and conversed most delightfully with me until I had finished my dinner."

He had the faculty of making friends and holding them through life by ties which no circumstances or conditions could sever.

When Clay passed away there was no one whose Unionism embraced all sections, who could stand between the over-zealous advocates of abolition of slavery on the one side and the fiery defenders of the "divine institution" on the other. Sectionalism ran riot, and civil war was the result. During the many years when the North and South were divided on the question of slavery, and sectional feeling ran high, Henry Clay was the only man in public life whose broad nationalism and intense love for the Union embraced all sections, with no trace of sectional bias. He can well be called "The Great American."

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PUBLIC SPIRIT IN POLITICS

From a Speech at Buffalo, July 17th, 1839

Are we not then called upon by the highest duties to our country, to its free institutions, to posterity, and to the world, to rise above all local prejudices and personal partialities, to discard all collateral questions, to disregard every subordinate point, and in a genuine spirit of compromise and concession, uniting heart and hand to preserve for ourselves the blessings of a free government, wisely, honestly, and faithfully administered, and as we received them from our fathers, to transmit them to our children? Should we not justly subject ourselves to eternal reproach, if we permitted our differences about mere men to bring defeat and disaster upon our cause? Our principles are imperishable, but men have but a fleeting existence, and are themselves liable to change and corruption during its brief continuance.

ON THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

From a Speech in 1824

Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils?

If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly while all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie. Sir, attempts have been made to alarm the[Pg 3775] committee by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity. Ah, sir! "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade and lose its liberties?

SOUTH-AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE AS RELATED TO THE UNITED STATES

From a Speech before the House of Representatives in 1818

It is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignorant to govern himself. Their partisans assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations; if they cannot command universal assent to the proposition, it is then demanded as to particular nations; and our pride and our presumption too often make converts of us. I contend that it is to arraign the dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that he has created beings incapable of governing themselves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self-government is the natural government of man, and for proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. Were I to speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to human liberty, my speculations should be founded rather upon the vices, refinements, or density of population. Crowded together in compact masses, even if they were philosophers, the contagion of the passions is communicated and caught, and the effect too often, I admit, is the overthrow of liberty. Dispersed over such an immense space as that on which the people of Spanish America are spread, their physical and I believe also their moral condition both favor their liberty.

With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God with us. Their prayers are offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer whose intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there anything in the Catholic religion unfavorable to freedom. All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty. If the people of Spanish America have not already gone as far in religious toleration as we have, the difference in their condition from ours should not be forgotten.[Pg 3776] Everything is progressive; and in time I hope to see them imitating in this respect our example. But grant that the people of Spanish America are ignorant, and incompetent for free government; to whom is that ignorance to be ascribed? Is it not to the execrable system of Spain, which she seeks again to establish and to perpetuate? So far from chilling our hearts, it ought to increase our solicitude for our unfortunate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire the redemption of the minds and bodies of unborn millions from the brutifying effects of a system whose tendency is to stifle the faculties of the soul, and to degrade them to the level of beasts. I would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. Was it for yourselves only that you nobly fought? No, no! It was the chains that were forging for your posterity that made you fly to arms; and scattering the elements of these chains to the winds, you transmitted to us the rich inheritance of liberty.

FROM THE VALEDICTORY TO THE SENATE, DELIVERED IN 1842

From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my fellow men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are known only to the great Searcher of the human heart and to myself; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration made some thirteen years ago, that whatever errors—and doubtless there have been many—may be discovered in a review of my public service, I can with unshaken confidence appeal to that divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that in all my public acts I have had a single eye directed and a warm and devoted heart dedicated to what,[Pg 3777] in my best judgment, I believed the true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my country required.

During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure and without disturbance, waiting as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be; and that whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would by the inscrutable dispensations of His providence rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done.

But I have not meanwhile been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with never-ceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say, at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the State whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber?

I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Kentucky now nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, penniless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil when I was embraced with parental fondness, caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; and when in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction[Pg 3778] I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her broad and impenetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that State; and when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons....

That my nature is warm, my temper ardent, my disposition—especially in relation to the public service—enthusiastic, I am ready to own; and those who suppose that I have been assuming the dictatorship, have only mistaken for arrogance or assumption that ardor and devotion which are natural to my constitution, and which I may have displayed with too little regard to cold, calculating, and cautious prudence, in sustaining and zealously supporting important national measures of policy which I have presented and espoused....

I go from this place under the hope that we shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal collisions may at any time unfortunately have occurred between us; and that our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual struggles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and contended for what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing one common object, the interest and the most happiness of our beloved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes it will be my pleasure and my pride to look back in my retirement with unmeasured satisfaction....

May the most precious blessings of Heaven rest upon the whole Senate and each member of it, and may the labors of every one redound to the benefit of the nation and to the advancement of his own fame and renown. And when you shall retire to the bosom of your constituents, may you receive the most cheering and gratifying of all human rewards,—their cordial greeting of "Well done, good and faithful servant."

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FROM THE LEXINGTON 'SPEECH ON RETIREMENT TO PRIVATE LIFE'

It would neither be fitting, nor is it my purpose, to pass judgment on all the acts of my public life; but I hope I shall be excused for one or two observations which the occasion appears to me to authorize.

I never but once changed my opinion on any great measure of national policy, or on any great principle of construction of the national Constitution. In early life, on deliberate consideration, I adopted the principles of interpreting the federal Constitution which have been so ably developed and enforced by Mr. Madison in his memorable report to the Virginia Legislature; and to them, as I understood them, I have constantly adhered. Upon the question coming up in the Senate of the United States to re-charter the first Bank of the United States, thirty years ago, I opposed the re-charter upon convictions which I honestly entertained. The experience of the war which shortly followed, the condition into which the currency of the country was thrown without a bank, and I may now add, later and more disastrous experience, convinced me I was wrong. I publicly stated to my constituents, in a speech in Lexington (that which I made in the House of Representatives of the United States not having been reported), my reasons for that change, and they are preserved in the archives of the country. I appeal to that record, and I am willing to be judged now and hereafter by their validity.

I do not advert to the fact of this solitary instance of change of opinion as implying any personal merit, but because it is a fact. I will however say that I think it very perilous to the utility of any public man to make frequent changes of opinion, or any change, but upon grounds so sufficient and palpable that the public can clearly see and approve them. If we could look through a window into the human breast and there discover the causes which led to changes of opinion, they might be made without hazard. But as it is impossible to penetrate the human heart and distinguish between the sinister and honest motives which prompt it, any public man that changes his opinion, once deliberately formed and promulgated, under other circumstances than those which I have stated, draws around him distrust,[Pg 3780] impairs the public confidence, and lessens his capacity to serve his country.

I will take this occasion now to say, that I am and have been long satisfied that it would have been wiser and more politic in me to have declined accepting the office of Secretary of State in 1825. Not that my motives were not as pure and as patriotic as ever carried any man into public office. Not that the calumny which was applied to the fact was not as gross and as unfounded as any that was ever propagated. Not that valued friends and highly esteemed opponents did not unite in urging my acceptance of the office. Not that the administration of Mr. Adams will not, I sincerely believe, advantageously compare with any of his predecessors, in economy, purity, prudence, and wisdom. Not that Mr. Adams was himself wanting in any of those high qualifications and upright and patriotic intentions which were suited to the office....

But my error in accepting the office arose out of my under rating the power of detraction and the force of ignorance, and abiding with too sure a confidence in the conscious integrity and uprightness of my own motives. Of that ignorance I had a remarkable and laughable example on an occasion which I will relate. I was traveling in 1828 through—I believe it was Spottsylvania County in Virginia, on my return to Washington, in company with some young friends. We halted at night at a tavern, kept by an aged gentleman who, I quickly perceived from the disorder and confusion which reigned, had not the happiness to have a wife. After a hurried and bad supper the old gentleman sat down by me, and without hearing my name, but understanding that I was from Kentucky, remarked that he had four sons in that State, and that he was very sorry they were divided in politics, two being for Adams and two for Jackson; he wished they were all for Jackson. "Why?" I asked him.—"Because," he said, "that fellow Clay, and Adams, had cheated Jackson out of the Presidency."—"Have you ever seen any evidence, my old friend," said I, "of that?"—"No," he replied, "none," and he wanted to see none. "But," I observed, looking him directly and steadily in the face, "suppose Mr. Clay were to come here and assure you upon his honor that it was all a vile calumny, and not a word of truth in it, would you believe him?"—"No," replied the old gentleman, promptly and emphatically. I said to him in conclusion, "Will you be good[Pg 3781] enough to show me to bed?" and bade him good-night. The next morning, having in the interval learned my name, he came to me full of apologies; but I at once put him at his ease by assuring him that I did not feel in the slightest degree hurt or offended with him....

If to have served my country during a long series of years with fervent zeal and unshaken fidelity, in seasons of peace and war, at home and abroad, in the legislative halls and in an executive department; if to have labored most sedulously to avert the embarrassment and distress which now overspread this Union, and when they came, to have exerted myself anxiously at the extra session, and at this, to devise healing remedies; if to have desired to introduce economy and reform in the general administration, curtail enormous executive power, and amply provide at the same time for the wants of the government and the wants of the people, by a tariff which would give it revenue and then protection; if to have earnestly sought to establish the bright but too rare example of a party in power faithful to its promises and pledges made when out of power: if these services, exertions, and endeavors justify the accusation of ambition, I must plead guilty to the charge.

I have wished the good opinion of the world; but I defy the most malignant of my enemies to show that I have attempted to gain it by any low or groveling arts, by any mean or unworthy sacrifices, by the violation of any of the obligations of honor, or by a breach of any of the duties which I owed to my country....

How is this right of the people to abolish an existing government, and to set up a new one, to be practically exercised? Our revolutionary ancestors did not tell us by words, but they proclaimed it by gallant and noble deeds. Who are the people that are to tear up the whole fabric of human society, whenever and as often as caprice or passion may prompt them? When all the arrangements and ordinances of existing organized society are prostrated and subverted, as must be supposed in such a lawless and irregular movement as that in Rhode Island, the established privileges and distinctions between the sexes, between the colors, between the ages, between natives and foreigners, between the sane and the insane, and between the innocent and the guilty convict, all the offspring of positive institutions, are cast down and abolished, and society is thrown into one heterogeneous and unregulated mass. And is it contended that the[Pg 3782] major part of this Babel congregation is invested with the right to build up at its pleasure a new government? that as often, and whenever, society can be drummed up and thrown into such a shapeless mass, the major part of it may establish another and another new government in endless succession? Why, this would overturn all social organization, make revolutions—the extreme and last resort of an oppressed people—the commonest occurrences of human life, and the standing order of the day. How such a principle would operate in a certain section of this Union, with a peculiar population, you will readily conceive. No community could endure such an intolerable state of things anywhere, and all would sooner or later take refuge from such ceaseless agitation in the calm repose of absolute despotism....

Fellow-citizens of all parties! The present situation of our country is one of unexampled distress and difficulty; but there is no occasion for any despondency. A kind and bountiful Providence has never deserted us; punished us he perhaps has, for our neglect of his blessings and our misdeeds. We have a varied and fertile soil, a genial climate, and free institutions. Our whole land is covered in profusion with the means of subsistence and the comforts of life. Our gallant ship, it is unfortunately true, lies helpless, tossed on a tempestuous sea amid the conflicting billows of contending parties, without a rudder and without a faithful pilot. But that ship is our country, embodying all our past glory, all our future hopes. Its crew is our whole people, by whatever political denomination they are known. If she goes down, we all go down together. Let us remember the dying words of the gallant and lamented Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship." The glorious banner of our country, with its unstained stars and stripes, still proudly floats at its mast-head. With stout hearts and strong arms we can surmount all our difficulties. Let us all, all, rally round that banner, and finally resolve to perpetuate our liberties and regain our lost prosperity.

Whigs! Arouse from the ignoble supineness which encompasses you; awake from the lethargy in which you lie bound; cast from you that unworthy apathy which seems to make you indifferent to the fate of your country. Arouse! awake! shake off the dewdrops that glitter on your garments, and once more march to battle and to victory. You have been disappointed, deceived, betrayed; shamefully deceived and betrayed. But will[Pg 3783] you therefore also prove false and faithless to your country, or obey the impulses of a just and patriotic indignation? As for Captain Tyler, he is a mere snap, a flash in the pan; pick your Whig flints and try your rifles again.

From 'The Speeches of Henry Clay; Edited by Calvin Colton.' Copyright, 1857, by A. S. Barnes and Company.

[Pg 3784]

CLEANTHES

(331-232 B.C.)

leanthes, the immediate successor of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was born at Assos, in the Troad, in B.C. 331. Of his early life we know nothing, except that he was for a time a prize-fighter. About the age of thirty he came to Athens with less than a dollar in his pocket, and entered the school of Zeno, where he remained for some nineteen years. At one time the Court of Areopagus, not seeing how he could make an honest livelihood, summoned him to appear before it and give an account of himself. He did so, bringing with him his employers, who proved that he spent much of the night in carrying water for gardens, or in kneading dough. The court, filled with admiration, offered him a pension, which he refused by the advice of his master, who thought the practice of self-dependence and strong endurance an essential part of education. Cleanthes's mind was slow of comprehension but extremely retentive; like a hard tablet, Zeno said, which retains clearest and longest what is written on it. He was not an original thinker, but the strength and loftiness of his character and his strong religious sense gave him an authority which no other member of the school could claim. For many years head of the Stoa, he reached the ripe age of ninety-nine, when, falling sick, he refused to take food, and died of voluntary starvation in B.C. 232. Long afterwards, the Roman Senate caused a statue to be erected to his memory in his native town. Almost the only writing of his that has come down to us is his noble Hymn to the Supreme Being.

HYMN TO ZEUS

[Pg 3787]

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN)

(1835-)

amuel L. Clemens has made the name he assumed in his earliest "sketches" for newspapers so completely to usurp his own in public and private, that until recently the world knew him by no other; his world of admirers rarely use any other in referring to the great author, and even to his intimate friends the borrowed name seems the more real. The pseudonym so lightly picked up has nearly universal recognition, and it is safe to say that the name "Mark Twain" is known to more people of all conditions, the world over, than any other in this century, except that of some reigning sovereign or great war captain. The term is one used by the Mississippi River pilots to indicate the depth of water (two fathoms) when throwing the lead. It was first employed by a river correspondent in reporting the state of the river to a New Orleans newspaper. This reporter died just about the time Mr. Clemens began to write, and he "jumped" the name.

Mr. Clemens was born in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the west bank of the Mississippi, in 1835. He got the rudiments of an education at a village school, learned boy-life and human nature in a frontier community, entered a printing office and became an expert compositor, traveled and worked as a journeyman printer, and at length reached the summit of a river boy's ambition in a Mississippi steamboat in learning the business of a pilot. It is to this experience that the world is indebted for some of the most amusing, the most real and valuable, and the most imaginative writing of this century, which gives the character and interest and individuality to this great Western river that history has given to the Nile. If he had no other title to fame, he could rest securely on his reputation as the prose poet of the Mississippi. Upon the breaking out of the war the river business was suspended. Mr. Clemens tried the occupation of war for a few weeks, on the Confederate side, in a volunteer squad which does not seem to have come into collision with anything but scant rations and imaginary alarms; and then he went to Nevada with his brother, who had been appointed secretary of that Territory. Here he became connected with the Territorial Enterprise, a Virginia City newspaper, as a reporter and sketch-writer, and immediately opened a battery of good-natured and exaggerated and complimentary description that was vastly amusing to those who were not its targets.[Pg 3788] Afterwards he drifted to the Coast, tried mining, and then joined that group of young writers who illustrated the early history of California. A short voyage in the Sandwich Islands gave him new material for his pen, and he made a successful début in San Francisco as a humorous lecturer.

The first writing to attract general attention was 'The Jumping Frog of Calaveras,' which was republished with several other sketches in book form in New York. Shortly after this he joined the excursion of the Quaker City steamship to the Orient, wrote letters about it to American newspapers, and advertised it quite beyond the expectations of its projectors. These letters, collected and revised, became 'The Innocents Abroad,' which instantly gave him a world-wide reputation. This was followed by 'Roughing It,' most amusing episodes of frontier life. His pen became immediately in great demand, and innumerable sketches flowed from it, many of them recklessly exaggerated for the effect he wished to produce; always laughter-provoking, and nearly always having a wholesome element of satire of some sham or pretense or folly. For some time he had charge of a humorous department in the Galaxy Magazine. These sketches and others that followed were from time to time collected into volumes which had a great sale. About this time he married, and permanently settled in Hartford, where he began the collection of a library, set himself to biographical and historical study, made incursions into German and French, and prepared himself for the more serious work that was before him.

A second sojourn in Europe produced 'A Tramp Abroad,' full of stories and adventures, much in the spirit of his original effort. But with more reading, reflection, and search into his own experiences, came 'Old Times on the Mississippi,' 'Tom Sawyer,' and 'Huckleberry Finn,' in which the author wrote out of his own heart. To interest in social problems must be attributed the beautiful idyl of 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and 'The Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,' which latter the English thought lacked reverence for the traditions of chivalry.

During all this period Mr. Clemens was in great demand as a lecturer and an after-dinner speaker. His remarks about New England weather, at a New England dinner in New York, are a favorite example of his humor and his power of poetic description. As a lecturer, a teller of stories, and delineator of character, he had scarcely a rival in his ability to draw and entertain vast audiences. He made a large income from his lectures in America and in England, and from his books, which always had a phenomenally large sale. Very remunerative also was the play of 'Colonel Sellers,' constructed out of a novel called 'The Gilded Age.'

S. L. CLEMENS.

[Pg 3789]

Since 1890 Mr. Clemens and his family have lived most of the time in Europe. For some time before he had written little, but since that his pen has again become active. He has produced many magazine papers, a story called 'Pudd'nhead Wilson,' and the most serious and imaginative work of his life in 'The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,' feigned to be translated from a contemporary memoir left by her private secretary. In it the writer strikes the universal chords of sympathy and pathos and heroic elevation. In 1895-6 he made a lecturing tour of the globe, speaking in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, and everywhere received an ovation due to his commanding reputation. He is understood to be making this journey the subject of another book.

Mr. Clemens is universally recognized as the first of living humorists; but if the fashion of humor changes, as change it may, he will remain for other qualities—certain primordial qualities such as are exhibited in his work on the Mississippi—a force to be reckoned with in the literature of this century. Mr. Clemens's humor has the stamp of universality, which is the one indispensable thing in all enduring literary productions, and his books have been translated and very widely diffused and read in German, French, and other languages. This is a prophecy of his lasting place in the world of letters.

THE CHILD OF CALAMITY

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now departed and hardly remembered raft life, I will throw in, in this place, a chapter from a book which I have been working at by fits and starts during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard of my time out West there. He has run away from his persecuting father, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice truth-telling respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the widow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft (it is high water and dead summer-time), and are floating down the river by night and hiding in the willows by day,—bound for Cairo,—whence the negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a fog, they [Pg 3790]pass Cairo without knowing it. By-and-by they begin to suspect the truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by swimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead of them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the needed information by eavesdropping:—

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to find a thing out. We talked it over, and by-and-by Jim said it was such a black night now that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big raft and crawl aboard and listen,—they would talk about Cairo, because they would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or anyway they would send boats ashore to buy whisky or fresh meat or something. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could 'most always start a good plan when you wanted one.

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck out for the raft's light. By-and-by, when I got down nearly to her, I eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all right—nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was 'most abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and inched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather side of the fire. There was thirteen men there—they was the watch on deck, of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot too. They had a jug, and tin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing—roaring, you may say; and it wasn't a nice song—for a parlor anyway. He roared through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long. When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then another was sung. It begun:—

And so on—fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going to start on the next verse one of them said it was [Pg 3791]the tune the old cow died on; and another one said, "Oh, give us a rest." And another one told him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped up and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lam any thief in the lot.

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there jumped up and says:—

"Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat."

Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes, and says, "You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;" and flung his hat down, which was all over ribbons, and says, "You lay thar tell his sufferins is over."

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and shouted out:—

"Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me! I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whisky for breakfast when I'm in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!—and lay low and hold your breath, for I'm 'bout to turn myself loose!"

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and looking fierce and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking up his wrist-bands and now and then straightening up and beating his breast with his fist, saying "Look at me, gentlemen!" When he got through he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and let off a roaring "Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that lives!"

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle about three times, swelling himself up [Pg 3792]and breathing hard. Then he straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like this:—"Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working! whoo-oop! I'm a child of sin; don't let me get a start! Smoked glass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder! When I'm cold I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather—don't use the naked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my inclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!" He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and as he came down he shouted out: "Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of calamity's a-coming!"

Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again—the first one—the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time, swelling round and round each other and punching their fists 'most into each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called the Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob called him a heap rougher names, and the Child come back at him with the very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob went and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last of this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive, and so the Child better look [Pg 3793]out; for there was a time a-coming, just as sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with the best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than he was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now, never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded in his blood; for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on account of his family, if he had one.

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says:—

"Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash the two of ye!"

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs—and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way through, and shout "Sail in, Corpse-Maker!" "Hi! at him again, Child of Calamity!" "Bully for you, little Davy!" Well, it was a perfect pow-wow for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they got through. Little Davy made them own up that they was sneaks and cowards, and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob and the Child shook hands with each other very solemn, and said they had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the after-sweeps.

[Pg 3794]

A STEAMBOAT LANDING AT A SMALL TOWN

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

Once a day a cheap gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys but the whole village felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep—with shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in watermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the "levee"; a pile of "skids" on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the "point" above the town and the "point" below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote "points"; instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, "S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!" and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. Drays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common centre, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat, as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the boat is rather a handsome sight too. She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind[Pg 3795] swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, all glass and "gingerbread," perched on top of the "texas" deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys—a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch-pine just before arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deck hand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning the water to a foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no black smoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead again, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.

THE HIGH RIVER: AND A PHANTOM PILOT

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

During this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance. We were running chute after chute,—a new world to me,—and if there was a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet a broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a still worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water. And then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.

Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously along through a fog, the deep hush would sud[Pg 3796]denly be broken by yells and a clamor of tin pans, and all in an instant a log raft would appear vaguely through the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap knives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all the steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or a solid log raft with a steamboat when he can get excused.

You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried a large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals were drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come fighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would "ease all," in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would shout, "Gimme a pa-a-per!" as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The clerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were picked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other skiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You understand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare. No. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come on now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over neat bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard swearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when impartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a heavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.

As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before; we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend, which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. The dense untouched forest over-hung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grapevines, the grassy nooks and vistas, glimpsed[Pg 3797] as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except at the head; the current was gentle; under the "points" the water was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms and wretcheder little log cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and the few farm animals were huddled together in an empty wood flat riding at her moorings close at hand. In this flatboat the family would have to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or possibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let them get back to their log cabin and their chills again—chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the blessing too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made the most of these occasions. Now what could these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!

Once in one of these lovely island chutes we found our course completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation in a virgin wilderness while the boat hands chopped the bridge away; for there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.

From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have no particular trouble in the night, for the[Pg 3798] thousand-mile wall of dense forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm or wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't "get out of the river" much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more than a mile wide, and very deep—as much as two hundred feet, in places. Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they form the refuse of the stalks (which they call bagasse) into great piles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar-mills. Now the piles of damp bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.

An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet as a general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and see how she will feel. And see how you will feel too! You find yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are transformed by the smoke and look like a part of the sea. All through your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank and destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure also that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the great Vicksburg packets[Pg 3799] darted out into a sugar plantation one night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no novelty about it: it had often been done before.

I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious thing while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is connected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow pilot for a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger packet. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy, but got over it by-and-by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the water was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering whether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place, when the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is a deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted room on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any purpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can make out objects in the street pretty well. So on very dark nights pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the skylights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The undefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice. This said:—

"Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell you how to do it."

"It is kind of you, and I swear I am willing. I haven't got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig."

So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything,[Pg 3800] steadied the waltzing steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little to this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time had been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished he had not confessed! He stared and wondered, and finally said:—

"Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another mistake of mine."

X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the leads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the centre of the wheel and peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of "drifting" followed; when the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines followed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a tremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and safety!

Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great relieving sigh, and said:—

"That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the Mississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't seen it."

There was no reply, and he added:—

"Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get a cup of coffee."

A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the "texas," and comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and exclaimed:—

"Who is at the wheel, sir?"

"X."

"Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!"

The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion-way, three steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling down the middle of the river at[Pg 3801] her own sweet will! The watchman shot out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set the engine back with power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a "towhead" which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico!

By-and-by the watchman came back and said:—

"Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep when he first came up here?"

"No."

"Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings, just as unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed; now just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that sort of tightrope deviltry the same as before."

"Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I hope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this boat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. And if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when he is sound asleep, what couldn't he do if he was dead!"

AN ENCHANTING RIVER SCENE

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

The face of the water in time became a wonderful book—a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every re-perusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions when he did not over[Pg 3802]look it altogether); but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that,—it was a legend of the largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation-points at the end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there, that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds; whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter.

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling tumbling rings that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough, that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's[Pg 3803] face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture and should have commented upon it inwardly after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling "boils" show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the "break" from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?

THE LIGHTNING PILOT

From 'Life on the Mississippi': copyright 1883, by James R. Osgood and Company

Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming along, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to "get out of the river" (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should overtake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presently grounded the boat, and we lost so much time getting her off that it was plain the darkness[Pg 3804] would overtake us a good long way above the mouth. This was a great misfortune; especially to certain of our visiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no matter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind of darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was different; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing behind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low water.

There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was a deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant ciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal subject; sometimes hope was high, and sometimes we were delayed in a bad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five minutes on shore to draw a good full relieving breath, and start over again. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such portions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of his greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot-house constantly.

An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W—— stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said with a doomful sigh:—

"Well, yonder's Hat Island—and we can't make it."

All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its being "too bad, too bad—ah, if we could only have got here half an hour sooner!" and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob and had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged, and nods[Pg 3805] of surprised admiration—but no words. Insensibly the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep mellow notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck:—

"Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!"

The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.

"M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less-three!... Half twain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less—"

Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on—and it is a weird sound always in the night. Every pilot in the lot was watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible marks—for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea—he would meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk one caught a coherent sentence now and then, such as:—

"There; she's over the first reef all right!"

After a pause, another subdued voice:—

"Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!"

"Now she's in the marks; over she goes!"

Somebody else muttered:—

"Oh, it was done beautiful—beautiful!"

Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do something, anything, to save the vessel. But still[Pg 3806] Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.

"She'll not make it!" somebody whispered.

The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was down to—

"Eight-and-a-half!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... E-i-g-h-t feet!... Seven-and—"

Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking-tube to the engineer:—

"Stand by, now!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

"Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and—"

We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing, shouted through the tube, "Now let her have it—every ounce you've got!" then to his partner, "Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!" The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a pilot-house before!

There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked about by river men.

AN EXPEDITION AGAINST OGRES

From 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster and Company

My expedition was all the talk that day and that night, and the boys were very good to me, and made much of me, and seemed to have forgotten their vexation and disappointment, and come to be as anxious for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old virgins loose as if it were themselves that had the contract. Well, they were good children—but just children, that is all. And they gave me no end of points about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them in; and they told me all sorts of charms against enchantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my wounds. But it never occurred to one of them to reflect that if I was such a wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to[Pg 3807] need salves, or instructions, or charms against enchantments, and least of all arms and armor, on a foray of any kind—even against fire-spouting dragons and devils hot from perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as these I was after, these commonplace ogres of the back settlements.

I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body for a sort of cushion, and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain-mail—these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt on to the floor it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet plenty used it for that—tax collectors and reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes—flatboats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel—and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch on to the breastplate the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal-scuttle, either for looks, or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints on to your arms, your iron gauntlets on to your hands, your iron rat-trap on to your head, with a rag of steel web hitched on to it to hang over the back of your neck—and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mold. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.

The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as not I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip. How stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had on his head a conical steel casque that only came down to his ears, and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended[Pg 3808] down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain-mail, trousers and all. But pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside garment, which of course was of chain-mail, as I said, and hung straight from his shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that he could ride and let the skirts hang down on each side. He was going grailing, and it was just the outfit for it, too. I would have given a good deal for that ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around. The sun was just up; the king and the court were all on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry. You don't get on your horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get disappointed. They carry you out, just as they carry a sun-struck man to the drug-store, and put you on, and help get you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else—like somebody that has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or something like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and is sort of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they stood up the mast they called a spear in its socket by my left foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield around my neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor and get to sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was nothing more to do now but for that damsel to get up behind me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on.

And so we started; and everybody gave us a good-by and waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we met, going down the hill and through the village, was respectful to us except some shabby little boys on the outskirts. They said:—

"Oh, what a guy!" and hove clods at us.

In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They don't respect anything, they don't care for anything or anybody. They say "Go up, bald-head!" to the prophet going his unoffending way in the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy gloom of the Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way in Buchanan's administration; I remember, because I was there and helped. The prophet had his bears and settled with his boys; and I wanted to get down and settle with mine, but it[Pg 3809] wouldn't answer, because I couldn't have got up again. I hate a country without a derrick.

Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through them, and island groves of trees here and there, and huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whispering music comfortable to hear; and at times we left the world behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest, where furtive wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting to business, with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree-trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remoteness of the woods. And by-and-by out we would swing again into the glare.

About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out into the glare—it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours or so after sun-up—it wasn't as pleasant as it had been. It was beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had a very long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is curious how progressively little frets grow and multiply after they once get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all at first, I began to mind now—and more and more, too, all the time. The first ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to care; I got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and dropped it out of my mind. But now it was different: I wanted it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest; I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my[Pg 3810] temper, and said hang a man that would make a suit of armor without any pockets in it. You see I had my handkerchief in my helmet, and some other things; but it was that kind of a helmet that you can't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred to me when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it. I supposed it would be particularly convenient there. And so now the thought of its being there, so handy and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the worse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you can't get is the thing that you want, mainly; every one has noticed that. Well, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off and centred it in my helmet; and mile after mile there it stayed, imagining the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it was bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep trickling down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it. It seems like a little thing on paper, but it was not a little thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery. I would not say it if it was not so. I made up my mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let it look how it might and people say what they would. Of course these iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous, and maybe raise sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort first and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and of course I said things I oughtn't to have said,—I don't deny that. I am not better than others. We couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lonesome Britain, not even an ogre; and in the mood I was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an ogre with a handkerchief. Most knights would have thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I got his bandana, he could keep his hardware for all me.

Meantime it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You see the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more and more all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every little thing irritates you. When I trotted I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't create any breeze at that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and besides, the quieter you went[Pg 3811] the heavier the iron settled down on you, and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be always changing hands and passing your spear over to the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold it long at a time.

Well, you know when you perspire that way, in rivers, there comes a time when you—when you—well, when you itch. You are inside, your hands are outside: so there you are; nothing but iron between. It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. First it is one place; then another; then some more; and it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the territory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine what you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when it had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could not stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars and settled on my nose, and the bars were stuck and wouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and I could only shake my head, which was baking hot by this time, and the fly—well, you know how a fly acts when he has got a certainty: he only minded the shaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keep on lighting and biting in a way that a person already so distressed as I was simply could not stand. So I gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and relieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniences out of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank and then stood up and she poured the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how refreshing it was. She continued to fetch and pour until I was well soaked and thoroughly comfortable.

It was good to have a rest—and peace. But nothing is quite perfect in this life at any time. I had made a pipe a while back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but what some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow, dried. These comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had them again, but no matches.

Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was borne in upon my understanding—that we were weather-bound. An armed novice cannot mount his horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait until somebody should come along. Waiting in silence would have been agreeable enough, for I was full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a chance to[Pg 3812] work. I wanted to try and think out how it was that rational or even half-rational men could ever have learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and how they had managed to keep up such a fashion for generations when it was plain that what I had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform this evil and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion die out: but thinking was out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't think where Sandy was. She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in a city. If she had had a cork she would have been a comfort. But you can't cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think something would surely happen to her works by-and-by; but no, they never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for words. She could grind and pump and churn and buzz by the week, and never stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber;—but just as good as she could be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of having that hornet's nest of other troubles; but more than once in the afternoon I had to say:—

"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasury without that."

By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.

[Pg 3813]

THE TRUE PRINCE AND THE FEIGNED ONE

From 'The Prince and the Pauper': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster and Company

At last the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the trembling mock king's head. In the same instant a rainbow radiance flashed along the spacious transept; for with one impulse every individual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a coronet and poised it over his or her head—and paused in that attitude.

A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive moment a startling apparition intruded upon the scene—an apparition observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great central isle. It was a boy, bare-headed, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian garments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect, and delivered this note of warning:—

"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited head. I am the king!"

In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy, but in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a swift step forward and cried out in a ringing voice:—

"Loose him and forbear! He is the king!"

A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether they were awake and in their senses or asleep and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself and exclaimed in a voice of authority:—

"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again—seize the vagabond!"

He would have been obeyed, but the mock king stamped his foot and cried out:—

"On your peril! Touch him not, he is the king!"

The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved, no one spoke; indeed no one knew how to act or what to say, in so strange and surprising an emergency. While all minds were struggling to right themselves, the boy still[Pg 3814] moved steadily forward, with high port and confident mien; he had never halted from the beginning; and while the tangled minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the platform, and the mock king ran with a glad face to meet him, and fell on his knees before him and said:—

"O my lord the king, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty to thee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine own again!'"

The Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's face; but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an expression of wondering surprise. This thing happened also to the other great officers. They glanced at each other, and retreated a step by a common and unconscious impulse. The thought in each mind was the same: "What a strange resemblance!"

The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity; then he said, with grave respectfulness:—

"By your favor, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which—"

"I will answer them, my lord."

The duke asked him many questions about the court, the late king, the prince, the princesses,—the boy answered them correctly and without hesitating. He described the rooms of state in the palace, the late king's apartments, and those of the Prince of Wales.

It was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable—so all said that heard it. The tide was beginning to turn, and Tom Canty's hopes to run high, when the Lord Protector shook his head and said:—

"It is true it is most wonderful—but it is no more than our lord the king likewise can do." This remark, and this reference to himself as still the king, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his hopes crumbling under him. "These are not proofs," added the Protector.

The tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed—but in the wrong direction; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded on the throne, and sweeping the other out to sea. The Lord Protector communed with himself—shook his head; the thought forced itself upon him, "It is perilous to the State and to us all, to entertain so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation and undermine the throne." He turned and said:[Pg 3815]—

"Sir Thomas, arrest this—No, hold!" His face lighted, and he confronted the ragged candidate with this question:—

"Where lieth the Great Seal? Answer me this truly, and the riddle is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales can so answer! On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!"

It was a lucky thought, a happy thought. That it was so considered by the great officials was manifested by the silent applause that shot from eye to eye around their circle in the form of bright approving glances. Yes, none but the true prince could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the vanished Great Seal—this forlorn little impostor had been taught his lesson well, but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself could not answer that question—ah, very good, very good indeed; now we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in short order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly with satisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with a palsy of guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to see nothing of the sort happen—how they marveled to hear him answer up promptly in a confident and untroubled voice and say:—

"There is naught in this riddle that is difficult." Then, without so much as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and gave this command with the easy manner of one accustomed to doing such things: "My lord St. John, go you to my private cabinet in the palace,—for none knoweth the place better than you,—and close down to the floor, in the left corner, remotest from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you shall find in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little jewel-closet will fly open, which not even you do know of—no, nor any soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan that did contrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under your eye will be the Great Seal—fetch it hither."

All the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still more to see the little mendicant pick out this peer without hesitancy or apparent fear of mistake, and call him by name with such a placidly convincing air of having known him all his life. The peer was almost surprised into obeying. He even made a movement as if to go, but quickly recovered his tranquil attitude and confessed his blunder with a blush. Tom Canty turned upon him and said sharply:[Pg 3816]—

"Why dost thou hesitate? Hast not heard the king's command? Go!"

The lord St. John made a deep obeisance—and it was observed that it was a significantly cautious and non-committal one, it not being delivered at either of the kings, but at the neutral ground about half-way between the two—and took his leave.

Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and persistent,—a movement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that is turned slowly, whereby the components of one splendid cluster fall away and join themselves to another—a movement which little by little, in the present case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it together again in the neighborhood of the new-comer. Tom Canty stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep suspense and waiting—during which even the few faint-hearts still remaining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage enough to glide, one by one, over to the majority. So at last Tom Canty, in his royal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone and isolated from the world, a conspicuous figure, occupying an elegant vacancy.

Now the lord St. John was seen returning. As he advanced up the mid-aisle, the interest was so intense that the low murmur of conversation in the great assemblage died out and was succeeded by a profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which his footfalls pulsed with a dull and distant sound. Every eye was fastened upon him as he moved along. He reached the platform, paused a moment, then moved toward Tom Canty with a deep obeisance, and said:—

"Sire, the Seal is not there!"

A mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-patient with more haste than the band of pallid and terrified courtiers melted away from the presence of the shabby little claimant of the crown. In a moment he stood all alone, without friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. The Lord Protector called out fiercely:—

"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through the town—the paltry knave is worth no more consideration!"

Officers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty waved them off and said:[Pg 3817]—

"Back! Whoso touches him perils his life!"

The Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. He said to the lord St. John:—

"Searched you well?—but it boots not to ask that. It doth seem passing strange. Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken, and one does not think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a thing as the Seal of England can vanish away and no man be able to get track of it again—a massy golden disk—"

Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted:

"Hold, that is enough! Was it round?—and thick?—and had it letters and devices graved upon it?—Yes? Oh, now I know what this Great Seal is, that there's been such worry and pother about! An ye had described it to me, ye could have had it three weeks ago. Right well I know where it lies; but it was not I that put it there—first."

"Who then, my liege?" asked the Lord Protector.

"He that stands there—the rightful king of England. And he shall tell you himself where it lies—then you will believe he knew it of his own knowledge. Bethink thee, my king—spur thy memory—it was the last, the very last thing thou didst that day before thou didst rush forth from the palace, clothed in my rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me."

A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all eyes were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood with bent head and corrugated brow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude of valueless recollections for one single little elusive fact, which, found, would seat him upon a throne—unfound, would leave him as he was for good and all—a pauper and an outcast. Moment after moment passed—the moments built themselves into minutes—still the boy struggled silently on, and gave no sign. But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and said, with a trembling lip and in a despondent voice:—

"I call the scene back—all of it—but the Seal hath no place in it." He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dignity, "My lords and gentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sovereign of his own for lack of this evidence which he is not able to furnish, I may not stay ye, being powerless. But—"

"Oh folly, oh madness, my king!" cried Tom Canty in a panic; "wait!—think! Do not give up!—the cause is not lost! nor shall be, neither! List to what I say—follow every word[Pg 3818]—I am going to bring that morning back again, every hap just as it happened. We talked—I told you of my sisters, Nan and Bet—ah yes, you remember that; and about my old grandam—and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court—yes, you remember these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall recall everything. You gave me food and drink, and did with princely courtesy send away the servants, so that my low breeding might not shame me before them—ah yes, this also you remember."

As Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his head in recognition of them, the great audience and the officials stared in puzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history, yet how could this impossible conjunction between a prince and a beggar boy have come about? Never was a company of people so perplexed, so interested, and so stupefied before.

"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. Then we stood before a mirror; and so alike were we that both said it seemed as if there had been no change made—yes, you remember that. Then you noticed that the soldier had hurt my hand—look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with it, the fingers are so stiff. At this your Highness sprang up, vowing vengeance upon that soldier, and ran toward the door—you passed a table—that thing you call the Seal lay on that table—you snatched it up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to hide it—your eye caught sight of—"

"There, 'tis sufficient!—and the dear God be thanked!" exclaimed the ragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. "Go, my good St. John,—in an arm-piece of the Milanese armor that hangs on the wall, thou'lt find the Seal!"

"Right, my king! right!" cried Tom Canty; "now the sceptre of England is thine own; and it were better for him that would dispute it that he had been born dumb! Go, my lord St. John, give thy feet wings!"

The whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh out of its mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement. On the floor and on the platform a deafening buzz of frantic conversation burst forth, and for some time nobody knew anything or heard anything or was interested in anything but what his neighbor was shouting into his ear, or he was shouting into his neighbor's ear. Time—nobody knew how much of it—swept by unheeded and unnoted.—At last a sudden[Pg 3819] hush fell upon the house, and in the same moment St. John appeared upon the platform and held the Great Seal aloft in his hand. Then such a shout went up!

"Long live the true king!"

For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of the kingdom kneeling around him.

Then all rose, and Tom Canty cried out:—

"Now, O my king, take these regal garments back, and give poor Tom thy servant his shreds and remnants again."

The Lord Protector spoke up:—

"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower."

But the new king, the true king, said:—

"I will not have it so. But for him I had not got my crown again—none shall lay a hand upon him to harm him. And as for thee, my good uncle, my Lord Protector, this conduct of thine is not grateful toward this poor lad, for I hear he hath made thee a duke"—the Protector blushed—"yet he was not a king; wherefore, what is thy fine title worth now? To-morrow you shall sue to me, through him, for its confirmation, else no duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain."

Under this rebuke his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a little from the front for the moment. The king turned to Tom, and said kindly:—

"My poor boy, how was it that you could remember where I hid the Seal, when I could not remember it myself?"

"Ah, my king, that was easy, since I used it divers days."

"Used it,—yet could not explain where it was?"

"I did not know it was that they wanted. They did not describe it, your Majesty."

"Then how used you it?"

The red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he dropped his eyes and was silent.

"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the king. "How used you the Great Seal of England?"

Tom stammered a moment in a pathetic confusion, then got it out:—

"To crack nuts with!"[Pg 3820]

Poor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly swept him off his feet. But if a doubt remained in any mind that Tom Canty was not the king of England and familiar with the august appurtenances of royalty, this reply disposed of it utterly.

Meantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed from Tom's shoulders to the king's, whose rags were effectually hidden from sight under it. Then the coronation ceremonies were resumed; the true king was anointed and the crown set upon his head, whilst cannon thundered the news to the city, and all London seemed to rock with applause.

By permission of S.L. Clemens and his publishers.

[Pg 3821]

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

(1819-1861)

BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

he intellectual mood of many of the finest spirits in England and New England during the second quarter of the nineteenth century had something of the nature of a surprise to themselves, no less than to those who came within their influence. It was indeed a natural though unforeseen result of forces, various in kind, that had long been silently at work. The conflicting currents of thought and moral sentiment, which in all ages perplex and divide the hearts of men, took a new direction and seemed to have gathered volume and swiftness. Hardly since the Reformation had there been so deep and general a stirring of the questions, the answers to which, whether they be final or merely provisional, involve conclusions relating to the deepest interests of men. Old convictions were confronted by new doubts; ancient authority was met by a modern spirit of independence. This new intellectual mood was perhaps first distinctly manifest in England in Carlyle's essays, and correspondingly in New England in the essays and poems of Emerson; it was expressed in 'In Memoriam' and 'Maud'; it gave the undertone of Arnold's most characteristic verse, and it found clear and strikingly distinctive utterance in the poems of Clough. His nature was of rare superiority alike of character and intellect. His moral integrity and sincerity imparted clearness to his imagination and strength to his intelligence, so that while the most marked distinction of his poems is that which they possess as a mirror of spiritual conditions shared by many of his contemporaries, they have hardly less interest as the expression and image of his own individuality.

Arthur Hugh Clough was born at Liverpool on New Year's Day, 1819.[A] His father, who came of an old Welsh family (his mother, Anne Perfect, was from Yorkshire), had established himself in Liverpool as a cotton merchant. Toward the end of 1822 he emigrated with his wife and four children to Charleston, South Carolina, and here for four years was their home. For Arthur they were important years. He was a shy, sensitive boy, "already considered as the genius of the family." He was his mother's darling. She was a woman "rigidly simple in her tastes and habits, of stern integrity"; of cultivated intelligence, fond of poetry, a lover of nature, and [Pg 3822]quickly sympathetic with high character, whether in real life or in the pages of romance. While his father taught him his Latin grammar and his arithmetic, his mother read with him from Pope's Iliad and Odyssey, from Scott's novels and other books fitted to quicken the imagination. Her influence was strong in the shaping of his taste and disposition.

In 1828 the family returned for a visit to England, and Arthur was put to school at Chester, whence in the next year he was transferred to Rugby. Dr. Arnold had then very lately become the headmaster at Rugby, and was already giving to the school a tone and quality unknown previously to the public schools of England. He strove to impress upon the boys the sense of personal responsibility, and to rouse their conscience to the doing of duty, not so much as a matter essential to the discipline of the school as to the formation of manly and religious character. The influence of his high, vigorous, and ardent nature was of immense force. But its virtue was impaired by the artificiality of the ecclesiastical system of the Church of England, and the irrationality of the dogmatic creed which, even to a nature as liberal as Dr. Arnold's, seemed to belong to the essentials of religion, and to be indissoluble from the foundation of morality.

Clough became Arnold's devoted disciple, but he had intellectual independence and sincerity enough to save him from yielding his own individuality to any stream of external influence, however powerful. What he called "the busy argufying spirit of the prize schoolboy" stood him in good stead. But the moral stress was great, and it left him early with a sense of strain and of perplexity, as his mind opened to the wider and deeper problems of life, for the solution of which the traditional creed seemed insufficient. His career at school was of the highest distinction; and when he was leaving Rugby for Oxford in 1836, Dr. Arnold broke the rule of silence to which he almost invariably adhered in the delivery of prizes, and congratulated Clough on having gained every honor which Rugby could bestow, and on having done the highest credit to the school at the University,—for he had won the Balliol Scholarship, "then and now the highest honor which a schoolboy could obtain."

Clough went into residence at Oxford in October, 1837. It was a time of stirring of heart and trouble of mind at the University. The great theological controversy which was to produce such far-reaching effects upon the lives of individuals, and upon the Church of England as a whole, was then rising to its height. Newman was at the acme of his popularity and influence. His followers were zealous and active. Ward, his most earnest disciple, was one of Clough's nearest friends. Clough, not yet nineteen years old, but morally and intellectually developed beyond his years and accustomed already to independent speculation in regard to creed and conduct, was inevitably[Pg 3823] drawn into the deep waters of theological discussion. He heard, too, those other voices which Matthew Arnold in his admirable lecture on Emerson has spoken of as deeply affecting the more sensitive youthful spirits of the Oxford of this time,—the voices of Goethe, of Carlyle, and of Emerson. He studied hard, but his studies seemed, for the moment at least, to be of secondary importance. Although unusually reserved in demeanor and silent in general company, his reputation grew, not merely as a scholar, but as a man distinguished above his fellows for loftiness of spirit, for sweetness of disposition, and for superiority of moral no less than of intellectual qualities. With much interior storm and stress, his convictions were gradually maturing. He resisted the prevailing tendencies of Oxford thought, but did not easily find a secure basis for his own beliefs. In 1841 he tried for and missed his first class in the examinations. It was more a surprise and disappointment to others than to himself. He knew that he had not shown himself in the examinations for what he really was, and his failure did not affect his confidence in his own powers, nor did others lose faith in him, as was shown by his election in the next year to a fellowship at Oriel, and the year later to his appointment as tutor.

His livelihood being thus assured, he led from 1843 to 1848 a "quiet, hard-working, uneventful tutor's life, diversified with reading parties" in the vacations. He was writing poems from time to time, but his vocation as poet was not fully recognized by himself or by others. He had been obliged, in assuming the duties of tutor, to sign the Thirty-nine Articles,—though as he wrote to a friend, "reluctantly enough, and I am not quite sure whether or not in a justifiable sense. However, I have for the present laid by that perplexity, though it may perhaps recur at some time or other; and in general, I do not feel perfectly satisfied about staying in my tutor capacity at Oxford."

The perplexity would not down, but as the years went on, the troubled waters of his soul gradually cleared themselves. He succeeded in attaining independence of mind such as few men attain, and in finding, if not a solution of the moral perplexities of life, at least a position from which they might be frankly confronted without blinking and without self-deception. It became impossible for him to accept, however they might be interpreted, the doctrines of any church. He would not play tricks with words nor palter with the integrity of his soul. This perfect mental honesty of Clough, and his entire sincerity of expression, were a stumbling-block to many of his more conventional contemporaries, and have remained as a rock of offense to many of the readers of his poetry, who find it disturbing to be obliged to recognize in his work a test of their own[Pg 3824] sincerity in dealing with themselves. With how few are conviction and profession perfectly at one! The difficulty of the struggle in Clough's case, the difficulty of freeing himself from the chains of association, of tradition, of affection, of interest, which bound him to conformity with and acceptance of the popular creed in one or the other of its forms, has led superficial critics of his life and poetry to find in them evidence that the struggle was too hard for him and the result unsatisfactory. There could not be a greater error. Clough's honest acceptance of the insolubility of the vain questions which men are perpetually asking, and his recognition of the insufficiency of the answers which they are ready to accept or to pretend to accept, left him as regards his most inward soul one of the serenest of men. The questions of practical life, of action, of duty, indeed presented themselves to his sensitive and contemplative nature with their full perplexity; but his spiritual life was based on a foundation that could not be shaken. He had learned the lesson of skepticism, and accepted without trouble the fact of the limitation of human faculties and the insolubility of the mystery of life. He was indeed tired with the hard work of years, and worried by the uncertainty of his future; when at length, in order to deliver himself from a constrained if not a false position, and to obtain perfect freedom of expression as well as of thought, he resigned in 1848 both his fellowship and tutorship.

It was a momentous decision, for it left him without any definite means of support, it alienated the authorities of the University, it isolated him from many old friends. Immediately after resigning his tutorship Clough went to Paris with Emerson, then on a visit to Europe, as his companion. They were drawn thither by interest in the strange Revolution which was then in progress, and by desire to watch its aspects. The social conditions of England had long been matter of concern to Clough. He had been deeply touched by the misery of the Irish famine in 1847, and had printed a very striking pamphlet in the autumn of that year, urging upon the students at Oxford retrenchment of needless expenditure and restrictions of waste and luxury. His sympathies were with the poor, and he was convinced of the need of radical social reform. He therefore observed the course of revolution on the Continent not merely with curiosity, but with sympathetic hope.

In the autumn of this year, after his return home, and while at Liverpool with his mother and sister, he wrote his first long poem, 'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich; a Long-Vacation Pastoral.' It had no great immediate success, but it made him known to a somewhat wider public than that of Oxford. It was in its form the fruit of the reading parties in the Highlands in previous summers. It was in[Pg 3825] hexameters, and he asked Emerson to "convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was a reading of his 'Evangeline' aloud to my mother and sister, which, coming after a re-perusal of the Iliad, occasioned this outbreak of hexameters." It is a delightful poem, full of vitality and variety, original in design, simple in incident. It has the freshness and wholesomeness of the open air, the charm of nature and of life, with constant interplay of serious thought and light humor, of gravity and gayety of sentiment.

Its publication was followed speedily by a little volume entitled 'Ambarvalia,' made up of two parts; one, of poems by Clough, and one, of those by an old school and college friend, Mr. Burbidge. Clough's part consisted, as he wrote to Emerson, of "old things, the casualties of at least ten years." But many of these "casualties" are characteristic expressions of personal experience, to which Clough's absolute sincerity gives deep human interest. They are the records of "his search amid the maze of life for a clue whereby to move." They deal with the problems of his own life, and these problems perplex other men as well. "I have seen higher, holier things than these," he writes in 1841:—

But he checks himself:—

The little volume appealed to but a small band of readers. The poems it contained did not allure by fluency of fancy or richness of diction; they were not of a kind to win sudden popularity: but they gave evidence of a poet who, though not complete master of his art, and not arrived at a complete understanding of himself, had yet a rare power of reflection and expression and a still rarer sincerity of imaginative vision. They were poems that gave large promise, and that promise was already in part fulfilled by the 'Bothie.'

Early in 1849 the headship of University Hall in London was offered to Clough and accepted by him. This was an institution professedly non-sectarian, established for the purpose of receiving students in attendance upon the lectures at University College. He was not to enter upon the duties of the place until October, and he spent the greater part of the intervening period in a fruitful visit to[Pg 3826] Italy. He reached Rome in April. All Italy was in revolution. The Pope had fled from Rome. The Republic had been declared, and Mazzini was in control of the government. The French army was approaching to besiege the city, and Clough resolved to await the event. No more vivid and picturesque account of aspects of the siege exists than is to be found in his poem of 'Amours de Voyage,' written in great part at Rome, under the pressure and excitement of the moment; then laid aside in the poet's desk, and not published till long afterward. It consists of a series of letters supposed to be written by various persons, in which a narrative of passing events is interwoven with a love story. The hero of the story is a creation of extraordinary subtlety and interest. He has much of the temperament of Hamlet: not wanting in personal courage, nor in resolution when forced to action, but hesitating through sensitiveness of conscience, through dread of mistaking momentary impulse for fixed conviction, through the clearness with which diverging paths of conduct present themselves to his imagination, with the inevitable doubt as to which be the right one to follow. The character, though by no means an exact or complete image of the poet's own, is yet drawn in part from himself, and affords glimpses of his inner nature, of the delicacy of his sensitive poetic spirit, of his tendency to subtle introspective reflection, of his honesty in dealing with facts and with himself. To see things as they are, to keep his eyes clear, to be true to

was the principle of his life. The charm of 'Amours de Voyage,' however, consists not merely in animated description, in delicate sentiment, and in the poetic representation of sensitive, impressionable, and high-minded youth, but in its delicate humor in the delineation of character, and in its powerful, imaginative, picturesque reproduction of the atmosphere and influence of Rome, and of the spirit of the moment to which the poem relates. It is as unique and as original in its kind as the 'Bothie.' It is a poem that appeals strongly to the lovers of the poetry of high culture, and is not likely to lack such readers in future generations.

From Rome in July Clough went to Naples, and there wrote another of his most striking poems, 'Easter Day.' In the autumn of 1850 he again went during a short vacation to Italy, but now to Venice; and while there began his third long poem, 'Dipsychus,' of which the scene is in that city. In this poem, which represents the conflict of the soul in its struggles to maintain itself against the temptations of the world and the Devil, Clough again[Pg 3827] wrote out much of his inner life. It is not so much a piece of strict autobiography of the spirit of an individual, as an imaginative drama of the spiritual experience common in all times to men of fine nature, seeking a solution of the puzzle of their own hearts. In none of his other poems is there such variety of tone, or such an exhibition of mature poetic power. It is indeed loosely constructed; but its separate parts, each contributing to the development of its main theme, with their diversity of imagination, reflection, wit, and sentiment, combine in an impressive unity of effect.

The position at University Hall proved not altogether satisfactory; and no other opening for him offering itself in England, Clough determined after much hesitation and deliberation to try his fortune as a teacher and writer in America. He sailed in October, 1852, on a steamer on which he had Lowell and Thackeray for fellow passengers. He spent the next eight months at Cambridge, employed in tutoring and in literary work, winning the warm regard of the remarkable group of men of letters who then gave distinction to the society of Cambridge and of Boston, and especially keeping up his friendship with Emerson by frequent visits to Concord. There seemed a fair prospect of success for him in his new career. But his friends at home, deeply attached to him, and ill content that he should leave them, obtained for him an appointment as examiner in the Education Department of the Council Office. The salary would give to him a secure though moderate income. He was the more drawn to accept the place, because shortly before leaving England he had become engaged to be married; and accordingly in July, 1853, he returned home and at once entered on the duties of his office. In June 1854 he married. For the next seven years his life was tranquil, laborious, and happy. The account of these years contained in the beautiful sketch of his life by his wife, which is prefixed to the collection of his 'Letters, Poems and Prose Remains,'[B] gives a picture of Clough's domestic felicity, and of the various interests which engaged him outside of the regular drudgery of official work. His own letters bear witness to the content of his days. He had little leisure for poetry. He was overworked, and in 1860 his health gave way. Leave of absence from the office was given to him. He went to the seashore; he visited the Continent: but though at times he seemed to gain strength, there was no steady recovery. In the autumn of 1861 he went to Italy, accompanied by his wife; he enjoyed the journey, but they had only reached the Lakes when he experienced a touch of fever. They went on to Florence; he became more seriously ill. He began however apparently to recover, but a [Pg 3828]sudden blow of paralysis struck him down, and on the 13th day of November he died.

Among the most original and beautiful of Matthew Arnold's poems is his 'Thyrsis, a Monody,' to commemorate his friend Arthur Hugh Clough. Thyrsis his mate has gone:—

than he ever sought the light that

The lament is as true as it is tender. The singer continues:—

Yes, always visions of the light! But Arnold's usual felicity of discrimination is lacking in this last stanza. The stormy note is not the characteristic note of Clough's mature song, nor does his art betray the overtasked pipe. His pipe indeed is not attuned, as was Arnold's own, to the soft melancholy of regret at leaving behind the happy fields of the past in the quest for the light that shines beyond and across the untraveled and dim waste before them; its tone was less pathetic, but not less clear. The music of each is the song of travelers whose road is difficult, whose goal is uncertain. Their only guide is the fugitive light, now faint, now distinct, which allures them with irresistible compulsion. Their pathways at times diverge; but when most divergent, the notes of their accordant pipes are heard in the same direction.

The memory of Clough remains, with those who had the happiness of knowing him in life, distinct and precious. It is that of one of the highest and purest souls. Sensitive, simple, tender, manly, his figure stands as one of the ideal figures of the past, the image of the true poet, the true friend, the true man. He died too young for his full fame, but not too young for the love which is better than fame.

[Pg 3829]

THERE IS NO GOD

[Pg 3830]

THE LATEST DECALOGUE

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

EASTER DAY

NAPLES, 1849

IT FORTIFIES MY SOUL TO KNOW

SAY NOT, THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT AVAILETH

[Pg 3836]

COME BACK

AS SHIPS BECALMED

[Pg 3838]

THE UNKNOWN COURSE

THE GONDOLA.
View on the Grand Canal in Venice. Photogravure from a Photograph.

THE GONDOLA

THE POET'S PLACE IN LIFE

ON KEEPING WITHIN ONE'S PROPER SPHERE

From 'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich'

[Pg 3842]

CONSIDER IT AGAIN

[Pg 3843]

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

(1772-1834)

BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY

amuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet and philosopher, was born at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, October 21st, 1772. He was the ninth and youngest son of the vicar of the parish,—a man characterized by learning and also by some of its foibles,—under whose care he passed his childhood; but on the death of his father he was sent up to London to be educated at Christ's Hospital, and there spent, in companionship with Lamb, his school days from 1782 to 1791. He went in the latter year to Jesus College Cambridge. His career as an undergraduate was marked by an escapade,—his enlistment in the King's Regiment of Light Dragoons in the winter of 1793-94, from which he was released by the influence of his relatives; and in more important ways by his friendship with Southey, whom he found on a visit to Oxford, and his engagement to Sarah Fricker in the summer of 1794. He had already been attached to another young lady, Mary Evans, with whose family he had been intimate. In December 1794 he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and on October 21st, 1795, he was married. His biography from this point is one of confused and intricate detail, which only a long story could set forth plainly and exactly. Its leading external events were a residence in Germany in 1798-99 and a voyage to Malta, with travel in Sicily and Italy in 1804-6; in its inward development, the turning-points of his life were his first intimacy with the Wordsworths in 1797, during which his best poems were composed; his subjection to the opium habit, with increasing domestic unhappiness, in 1801-2; and his retreat under medical control to Highgate in 1816. He was practically separated from his family from the time of his voyage to Malta. Troubles of many kinds filled all these years, but he had always a power to attract friends who were deeply interested in his welfare, and he was never without admirers and helpers. Before he withdrew to Highgate he had resided first at Stowey in the neighborhood of Tom Poole, and later at Greta Hall near the Wordsworths; but he was often away from home, and after he ceased to be an inmate there, from 1806 to 1816, he led a wandering life, either in lodgings frequently changed, or in visits to his friends. His resources were always small, and[Pg 3844] from the start his friends were his patrons, making up subscriptions, loans, and gifts for him; in 1798 the Wedgwoods gave him a pension of £150 for life, which was soon secured for the support of his family, and in 1812 one-half of this was withdrawn; in 1825 he was granted a royal pension of one hundred guineas, and when this lapsed in 1830 Frere made it up to him. De Quincey had distinguished himself by an act of singular and impulsive generosity to him, upon first acquaintance. He was always cared for, though his indulgence in opium made it difficult for those who knew the fact to assist him directly in a wise way. His pecuniary embarrassment, however, was constant and trying during a great part of his life; his own wretchedness of spirit, under the painful conditions of his bodily state and his moral as well as material position, was very great; but through all these sufferings and trials he maintained sufficient energy to leave behind him a considerable body of literary work. He died July 25th, 1834.

The poetic genius of Coleridge, the highest of his many gifts, found brilliant and fascinating expression. His poems—those in which his fame lives—are as unique as they are memorable; and though their small number, their confined range, and the brief period during which his faculty was exercised with full freedom and power, seem to indicate a narrow vein, yet the remainder of his work in prose and verse leaves an impression of extraordinary and abundant intellectual force. In proportion as his imaginative creations stand apart, the spirit out of which they came must have possessed some singularity: and if the reader is not content with simple aesthetic appreciation of what the gods provide, but has some touch of curiosity leading him to look into the source of such remarkable achievement and its human history, he is at once interested in the personality of the "subtle-souled psychologist," as Shelley with his accurate critical insight first named him; in experiencing the fascination of the poetry one remembers the charm which Coleridge had in life, that quality which arrested attention in all companies and drew men's minds and hearts with a sense of something marvelous in him—"the most wonderful man," said Wordsworth, "that I ever met." The mind and heart of Coleridge, his whole life, have been laid open by himself and his friends and acquaintances without reserve in many volumes of letters and memoirs; it is easy to figure him as he lived and to recover his moods and aspect: but in order to conceive his nature and define its traits, it is necessary to take account especially of his incomplete and less perfect work, of his miscellaneous interests, and those activities which filled and confused his life without having any important share in establishing his fame.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

[Pg 3845]

The intellectual precocity which is the leading trait of Coleridge's boyhood, in the familiar portrait of "the inspired charity-boy" drawn by Lamb from schoolboy memories, is not unusual in a youth of genius; but the omnivorousness of knowledge which he then displayed continued into his manhood. He consumed vast quantities of book-learning. It is a more remarkable characteristic that from the earliest period in which he comes into clear view, he was accustomed to give out his ideas with freedom in an inexhaustible stream of talk. The activity of his mind was as phenomenal as its receptivity. In his college days, too, he was fanatical in all his energies. The remark of Southey after Shelley's visit to him, that here was a young man who was just what he himself had been in his college days, is illustrative; for if Southey was then inflamed with radicalism, Coleridge was yet more deeply infected and mastered by that wild fever of the revolutionary dawn. The tumult of Coleridge's mind, its incessant action, the lack of discipline in his thought, of restraint in his expression, of judgment in his affairs, are all important elements in his character at a time which in most men would be called the formative period of manhood, but which in him seems to have been intensely chaotic; what is most noticeable, however, is the volume of his mental energy. He expressed himself, too, in ways natural to such self-abundance. He was always a discourser, if the name may be used, from the London days at the "Salutation and the Cat" of which Lamb tells, saying that the landlord was ready to retain him because of the attraction of his conversation for customers; and as he went on to the more set forms of such monologue, he became a preacher without pay in Unitarian chapels, a journalist with unusual capacity for ready and sonorous writing in the press, a composer of whole periodicals such as his ventures The Watchman and The Friend, and a lecturer using only slight notes as the material of his remarks upon literature, education, philosophy, theology, or whatever the subject might be. In all these methods of expression which he took up one after the other, he merely talked in an ample way upon multifarious topics; in the conversation, sermon, leading article, written discourse, or flowing address, he was master of a swelling and often brilliant volubility, but he had neither the certainty of the orator nor the unfailing distinction of the author; there was an occasional and impromptu quality, a colloquial and episodical manner, the style of the irresponsible speaker. In his earlier days especially, the dominant note in Coleridge's whole nature was excitement. He was always animated, he was often violent, he was always without the principle of control. Indeed, a weakness of moral power seems to have been congenital, in the sense that he was not permanently bound by a practical sense of[Pg 3846] duty nor apparently observant of what place duty has in real life. There was misdirection of his affairs from the time when they came into his own hands; there was impulsiveness, thoughtlessness, a lack of judgment which augured ill for him; and in its total effect this amounted to folly. His intoxication with the scheme known as Pantisocracy, by which he with Southey and a few like-minded projectors were to found a socialistic community on the banks of the Susquehanna, is the most obvious comment on his practical sense. But his marriage, with the anecdotes of its preliminaries (one of which was that in those colloquies with Lamb at the London tavern, so charmingly described by his boon companion, he had forgotten his engagement or was indifferent to it), more strikingly exemplifies the irresponsible course of his life, more particularly as it proved to be ill-sorted, full of petty difficulties and makeshift expedients, and in the end a disastrous failure. A radical social scheme and an imprudent marriage might have fallen to his share of human folly, however, without exciting remark, if in other ways or at a later time he had exhibited the qualities which would allow one to dismiss these matters as mere instances of immaturity; but wherever Coleridge's reasonable control over himself or his affairs is looked to, it appears to have been feeble. On the other hand, the constancy of his excitement is plain. It was not only mental, but physical. He was, as a young man, full of energy and capable of a good deal of hard exercise; he had animal spirits, and Wordsworth describes him as "noisy" and "gamesome," as one who

and from several passages of his own writing, which are usually disregarded, the evidence of a spirit of rough humor and fun is easily obtained. The truth is that Coleridge changed a great deal in his life; he felt himself to be very different in later years from what he was in the time when to his memory even he was a sort of glorified spirit: and this earlier Coleridge had many traits which are ignored sometimes, as Carlyle ignored them, and are sometimes remembered rather as idealizations of his friends in their affectionate thoughts of him, but in any event are irreconcilable with the figure of the last period of his life.

It has been suggested that there was something of disease or at least of ill health in Coleridge always, and that it should be regarded as influencing his temperament. Whether it were so or not, the plea itself shows the fact. If excitement was the dominant note, as has been said, in his whole nature, it could not exist without a physical basis and accompaniment; and his bodily state appears to have been[Pg 3847] often less one of animation than of agitation, and his correspondence frequently discloses moods that seem almost frantic. In the issue, under stress of pain and trouble, he became an opium-eater; but his physical nature may fairly be described as predisposed to such states as lead to the use of opium and also result from its use, with the attendant mental moods. His susceptibility to sensuous impressions, to a voluptuousness of the entire being, together with a certain lassitude and languor, lead to the same conclusion, which thus seems to be supported on all sides,—that Coleridge was, in his youth and early manhood, fevered through all his intellectual and sensuous nature, and deficient on the moral and practical sides in those matters that related to his personal affairs. It is desirable to bring this out in plain terms, because in Coleridge it is best to acknowledge at once that his character was, so far as our part—the world's part—in him is concerned, of less consequence than his temperament; a subtler and more profound thing than character, though without moral meaning. It is not unfair to say, since literature is to be regarded most profitably as the expression of human personality, that with Coleridge the modern literature of temperament, as it has been lately recognized in extreme phases, begins; not that temperament is a new thing in the century now closing, nor that it has been without influence hitherto, but that now it is more often considered, and has in fact more often been, an exclusive ground of artistic expression. The temperament of Coleridge was one of diffused sensuousness physically, and of abnormal mental moods,—moods of weakness, languor, collapse, of visionary imaginative life with a night atmosphere of the spectral, moonlit, swimming, scarcely substantial world; and the poems he wrote, which are the contributions he made to the world's literature, are based on this temperament, like some Fata Morgana upon the sea. The apparent exclusion of reality from the poems in which his genius was most manifest finds its analogue in the detachment of his own mind from the moral, the practical, the usual in life as he led it in his spirit; and his work of the highest creative sort, which is all there is to his enduring fame, stands amid his prose and verse composition of a lower sort like an island in the waste of waters. This may be best shown, perhaps, by a gradual approach through his cruder to his more perfect compositions.

The cardinal fact in Coleridge's genius is that notwithstanding his immense sensuous susceptibilities and mental receptivity, and the continual excitement of his spirit, he never rose into the highest sphere of creative activity except for the brief period called his annus mirabilis, when his great poems were written; and with this is the further related fact that in him we witness the spectacle of the[Pg 3848] imaginative instinct overborne and supplanted by the intellectual faculty exercising its speculative and critical functions; and in addition, one observes in his entire work an extraordinary inequality not only of treatment, but also of subject-matter. In general, he was an egoistic writer. His sensitiveness to nature was twofold: in the first place he noticed in the objects and movements of nature evanescent and minute details, and as his sense of beauty was keen, he saw and recorded truly the less obvious and less common loveliness in the phenomena of the elements and the seasons, and this gave distinction to his mere description and record of fact; in the second place he often felt in himself moods induced by nature, but yet subjective,—states of his own spirit, which sometimes deepened the charm of night, for example, by his enjoyment of its placid aspects, and sometimes imparted to the external world a despair reflected from his personal melancholy. In his direct treatment of nature, however, as Mr. Stopford Brooke points out, he seldom achieves more than a catalogue of his sensations, which though touched with imaginative detail are never lifted and harmonized into lyrical unity; though he can moralize nature in Wordsworth's fashion, when he does so the result remains Wordsworth's and is stamped with that poet's originality; and in his own original work Coleridge never equaled either the genius of Shelley, who can identify nature with himself, or the charm of Tennyson, who can at least parallel nature's phenomena with his own human moods. Coleridge would not be thought of as a poet of nature, except in so far as he describes what he observes in the way of record, or gives a metaphysical interpretation to phenomena. This is the more remarkable because he had to an eminent degree that intellectual power, that overmastering desire of the mind, to rationalize the facts of life. It was this quality that made him a philosopher, an analyst, a critic on the great lines of Aristotle, seeking to impose an order of ethics and metaphysics on all artistic productions. But in those poems in which he describes nature directly and without metaphysical thought, there is no trace of anything more than a sensuous order of his own perceptions. Beautiful and often unique as his nature poems are, they are not creative. They are rather in the main autobiographic; and it is surprising to notice how large a proportion of his verse is thus autobiographic, not in those phases of his own life which may be, or at least are thought of as representative of human life in the mass, but which are personal, such as the lines written after hearing Wordsworth read the 'Prelude,' or those entitled 'Dejection.' When his verse is not confined to autobiographic expression, it is often a product of his interest in his friends or in his family. What is not personal in it, of this sort, is apt to be domestic or social.

[Pg 3849]

If we turn from the poems of nature to those concerned with man, a similar shallowness, either of interest or of power, appears. He was in early years a radical; he was stirred by the Revolution in France, and he was emotionally charged with the ideas of the time,—ideas of equality, fraternity, and liberty. But this interest died out, as is shown by his political verse. He had none but a social and a philosophical interest in any case. Man, the individual, did not at any time attract him. There was nothing dramatic in his genius, in the narrow and exact sense: he did not engage his curiosity or his philosophy in individual fortunes. It results from this limitation that his verse lacks human interest of the dramatic kind. The truth was that he was interested in thought rather than in deeds, in human nature rather than in its concrete pity and terror. Thus he did not seize on life itself as the material of his imagination and reflection. In the case of man as in the case of nature he gives us only an egoistic account, telling us of his own private fortune, his fears, pains, and despairs, but only as a diary gives them; as he did not transfer his nature impressions into the world of creative art, so he did not transfer his personal experiences into that world.

What has been said would perhaps be accepted, were it not for the existence of those poems, 'The Ancient Mariner,' 'Christabel,' 'Kubla Khan,' which are the marvelous creations of his genius. In these it will be said there is both a world of nature new created, and a dramatic method and interest. It is enough for the purpose of the analysis if it be granted that nowhere else in Coleridge's work, except in these and less noticeably in a few other instances, do these high characteristics occur. The very point which is here to be brought out is that Coleridge applied that intellectual power, that overmastering desire of the mind to rationalize the phenomena of life, which has been mentioned as his great mental trait,—that he applied this faculty with different degrees of power at different times, so that his poetry falls naturally into higher and inferior categories; in the autobiographic verse, in the political and dramatic verse which forms so large a part of his work, it appears that he did not have sufficient feeling or exercise sufficient power to raise it out of the lower levels of composition; in his great works of constructive and impersonal art, of moral intensity or romantic beauty and fascination, he did so exercise the creative imagination as to make these of the highest rank, or at least one of them.

'The Ancient Mariner,' apart from its many minor merits, has this distinction in Coleridge's work,—it is a poem of perfect unity. 'Christabel' is a fragment, 'Kubla Khan' is a glimpse; and though the 'Ode to France,' 'Love, Youth, and Age,' and possibly a few other short pieces, have this highest artistic virtue of unity, yet in[Pg 3850] them it is of a simpler kind. 'The Ancient Mariner,' on the other hand, is a marvel of construction in that its unity is less complex than manifold; it exists, however the form be examined. In the merely external sense, the telling of the tale to the Wedding Guest, with the fact that the wedding is going on, gives it unity; in the merely internal sense, the moral lesson of the salvation of the slayer of the albatross by the medium of love felt toward living things, subtly yet lucidly worked out as the notion is, gives it unity; but in still other ways, as a story of connected and consequential incidents with a plot, a change of fortune, a climax, and the other essentials of this species of tale-telling, it has unity; and if its conception either of the physical or the ethical world be analyzed, these too—and these are the fundamental things—are found consistent wholes. It nevertheless remains true that this system of nature as a vitalized but not humanized mode of life, with its bird, its spirit, its magical powers, is not the nature that we know or believe to be,—it is a modern presentation of an essentially primitive and animistic belief; and similarly this system of human life,—if the word human can be applied to it, with its dead men, its skeleton ship, its spirit sailors, its whole miracle of spectral being,—is not the life we know or believe to be: it is an incantation, a simulacrum. It may still be true therefore that the imaginative faculty of Coleridge was not applied either to nature or human life, in the ordinary sense. And this it is that constitutes the uniqueness of the poem, and its wonderful fascination. Coleridge fell heir, by the accidents of time and the revolutions of taste, to the ballad style, its simplicity, directness, and narrative power; he also was most attracted to the machinery of the supernatural, the weird, the terrible, almost to the grotesque and horrid, as these literary motives came into fashion in the crude beginnings of romanticism in our time; his subtle mind, his fine senses, his peculiar susceptibility to the mystic and shadowy in nature,—as shown by his preference of the moonlight, dreamy, or night aspects of real nature, to its brilliant beauties in the waking world,—gave him ease and finesse in the handling of such subject-matter; and he lived late enough to know that all this eerie side of human experience and imaginative capacity, inherited from primeval ages but by no means yet deprived of plausibility, could be effectively used only as an allegoric or scenic setting of what should be truth to the ethical sense; he combined one of the highest lessons of advanced civilization, one of the last results of spiritual perception,—the idea of love toward life in any form,—with the animistic beliefs and supernatural fancies of the crude ages of the senses. This seems to be the substantial matter; and in this he was, to repeat Shelley's phrase, the "subtle-souled[Pg 3851] psychologist." The material of his imagination, on the sensuous side, was of the slightest: it was the supernaturalism of the romantic movement, somewhat modified by being placed in connection with the animal world; and he put this to use as a means of illustrating spiritual truth. He thus became the first of those who have employed the supernatural in our recent literature without losing credence for it, as an allegory of psychological states, moral facts, or illusions real to the eye that sees them and having some logical relation to the past of the individual; of such writers Hawthorne and Poe are eminent examples, and both of them, it may be remarked, are writers in whom temperament rather than character is the ground of their creative work. The intimate kinship between imagination so directed and the speculative philosophical temper is plain to see. In 'Christabel' on the other hand, the moral substance is not apparent: the place filled by the moral ideas which are the centres of the narrative in 'The Ancient Mariner,' is taken here by emotional situations; but the supernaturalism is practically the same in both poems, and in both is associated with that mystery of the animal world to man, most concentrated and vivid in the fascination ascribed traditionally to the snake, which is the animal motive in 'Christabel' as the goodness of the albatross in the 'The Ancient Mariner.' In these poems the good and the bad omens that ancient augurs minded are made again dominant over men's imagination. Such are the signal and unique elements in these poems, which have besides that wealth of beauty in detail, of fine diction, of liquid melody, of sentiment, thought, and image, which belong only to poetry of the highest order, and which are too obvious to require any comment. 'Kubla Khan' is a poem of the same kind, in which the mystical effect is given almost wholly by landscape; it is to 'The Ancient Mariner' and 'Christabel' what protoplasm is to highly organized cells.

If it be recognized then that the imagery of Coleridge in the characteristic parts of these cardinal poems is as pure allegory, is as remote from nature or man, as is the machinery of fairy-land and chivalry in Spenser, for example, and he obtains credibility by the psychological and ethical truth presented in this imagery, it is not surprising that his work is small in amount; for the method is not only a difficult one, but the poetic machinery itself is limited and meagre. The poverty of the subject-matter is manifest, and the restrictions to its successful use are soon felt. It may well be doubted whether 'Christabel' would have gained by being finished. In 'The Ancient Mariner' the isolation of the man is a great advantage; if there had been any companion for him, the illusion could not have been entire: as it is, what he experiences has the wholeness and truth within itself of a dream, or of a madman's world,—there is no[Pg 3852] standard of appeal outside of his own senses and mind, no real world; but in 'Christabel' the serpentine fable goes on in a world of fact and action, and as soon as the course of the story involved this fable in the probabilities and actual occurences of life, it might well be that the tale would have turned into one of simple enchantment and magic, as seems likely from what has been told of its continuation; certainly it could not have equaled the earlier poem, or have been in the same kind with it, unless the unearthly magic, the spell, were finally completely dissolved into the world of moral truth as is the case with 'The Ancient Mariner.' Coleridge found it still more impossible to continue 'Kubla Khan.' It seems a fair inference to conclude that Coleridge's genius, however it suffered from the misfortunes and ills of his life, was in these works involved in a field, however congenial, yet of narrow range and infertile in itself. In poetic style it is to be observed that he kept what he had gained; the turbid diction of the earlier period never came back to trouble him, and the cadences he had formed still gave their music to his verse. The change, the decline, was not in his power of style; it was in his power of imagination, if at all, but the fault may have laid in the capacities of the subject-matter. A similar thing certainly happened in his briefer ballad poetry, in that of which 'Love,' 'The Three Graces,' 'Alice Du Clos,' and 'The Dark Ladie,' are examples; the matter there, the machinery of the romantic ballad, was no longer capable of use; that sort of literature was dead from the exhaustion of its motives. The great 'Ode to France,' in which he reached his highest point of eloquent and passionate expression, seems to mark the extinction in himself of the revolutionary impulse. On the whole, while the excellence of much of the remainder of his verse, even in later years, is acknowledged, and its originality in several instances, may it not be that in his greatest work Coleridge came to an end because of an impossibility in the kind itself? The supernatural is an accessory rather than a main element in the interpretation of life which literary genius undertakes; Coleridge so subordinates it here by making it contributory to a moral truth; but such a practice would seem to be necessarily incidental to a poet who was also so intellectual as Coleridge, and not to be adopted as a permanent method of self-expression.

From whatever cause, the fact was that Coleridge ceased to create in poetry, and fell back on that fluent, manifold, voluminous faculty he possessed of absorbing and giving out ideas in vast quantities, as it were by bulk. He attended especially to the theory of art as he found it illustrated in the greatest poets, and he popularized among literary men a certain body of doctrine regarding criticism, its growth and methods; and in later years he worked out metaphysical[Pg 3853] theological views which he inculcated in ways which won for him recognition as a practical influence in contemporary church opinion. In these last years of his lecturing and discoursing in private, the figure he makes is pathetic, though Carlyle describes it with a grim humor, as any one may read in the 'Life of Sterling': over against that figure should be set the descriptions of the young Coleridge by Dorothy Wordsworth and Lamb; and after these perhaps the contrast which Coleridge himself draws between his spirit and his body may enable a reader to fuse the two—youth and age—into one. Whatever were the weaknesses of his nature and the trials of his life, of which one keeps silent, he was deeply loved by friends of many different minds, who if they grew cold, had paid at least once this tribute to the charm, the gentleness, and the delight of his human companionship.

KUBLA KHAN

[Pg 3855]

THE ALBATROSS

From 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

[Pg 3858]

DEJECTION: AN ODE

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.

THE THREE TREASURES

[Pg 3862]

TO A GENTLEMAN

Composed on the Night after His Recitation of a Poem On the Growth of an Individual Mind

[Pg 3865]

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

On the Twenty-fourth Stanza in Her 'Passage over Mount Gothard'

THE PAINS OF SLEEP

SONG, BY GLYCINE

[Pg 3869]

YOUTH AND AGE

[Pg 3870]

PHANTOM OR FACT?

[Pg 3871]

WILLIAM COLLINS

(1721-1759)

here is much to inspire regretful sympathy in the short life of William Collins. He was born at Chichester, and received his education at Winchester College and at Magdalen College, Oxford. A delicate, bookish boy, he had every stimulus toward a literary career. With a fine appreciation of beauty in all forms of art, and a natural talent for versification, he wrote poems of much promise when very young. His 'Persian Eclogues' appeared when he was only seventeen. Then Collins showed his impatient spirit and fickleness of purpose by deserting his work at Oxford and going to London with the intention of authorship. His head was full of brilliant schemes,—too full; for with him as with most people, conception was always easier than execution. But finding it far more difficult to win fame than he anticipated, he had not courage to persevere, and fell into dissipated, extravagant ways which soon exhausted his small means.

William Collins

In 1746 he published the 'Odes, Descriptive and Allegorical,' his most characteristic work. They were never widely read, and it took the public some time to appreciate their lyric fervor, their exquisite imagery, and their musical verse. In spite of occasional obscurities induced by careless treatment, they are among the finest of English odes. His love for nature and sympathy with its calmer aspects is very marked. Speaking of the 'Ode to Evening,' Hazlitt says that "the sounds steal slowly over the ear like the gradual coming on of evening itself." According to Swinburne, the 'Odes' do not contain "a single false note." "Its grace and vigor, its vivid and pliant dexterity of touch," he says of the 'Ode to the Passions,' "are worthy of their long inheritance of praise."

But the inheritance did not come at once, although Collins has always received generous praise from fellow poets. His mortified self-love resented lack of success. With a legacy bequeathed him by an uncle he bought his book back from the publisher Millar, and the unsold impressions he burned in "angry despair."

[Pg 3872]

Meantime he went on planning works quite beyond his power of execution. He advertised 'Proposals for a History of the Revival of Learning,' which he never wrote. He began several tragedies, but his indolent genius would not advance beyond devising the plots. As he was always wasteful and dissipated, he was continually in debt. In spite of his unusual gifts, he had not the energy and self-control necessary for adequate literary expression. Dr. Johnson, who admired and tried to befriend him, found a bailiff prowling around the premises when he went to call. At his instigation a bookseller advanced money to get Collins out of London, for which in return he was to translate Aristotle's 'Poetics' and to write a commentary. Probably he never fulfilled the agreement. Indeed, he had some excuse. "A man doubtful of his dinners, or trembling at a creditor, is not disposed to abstract meditation or remote inquiries," comments Dr. Johnson.

Collins was always weak of body, and when still a young man was seized by mental disease. Weary months of despondency were succeeded by madness, until he was, as Dr. Wharton describes it, with "every spark of imagination extinguished, and with only the faint traces of memory and reason left." Then the unhappy poet was taken to Chichester and cared for by a sister. There he who had loved music so passionately hated the cathedral organ in his madness, and when he heard it, howled in distress.

Among the best examples of his verse, besides the poems already mentioned, are the 'Dirge to Cymbeline,' 'Ode to Fear,' and the 'Ode on the Poetical Character,' which Hazlitt calls "the best of all."

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

[Pg 3873]

THE PASSIONS

[Pg 3876]

TO EVENING

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON

[Pg 3879]

WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS

(1824-1889)

ilkie Collins has proved that the charm of a story does not necessarily depend upon the depiction of character or an appeal to the sympathies. As he said:—"I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story." He also aspired to draw living men and women, in which he was less successful. Count Fosco, Miss Gwilt, Armadale, Laura Fairlie, and others, are indeed distinct; but the interest centres not on them but on the circumstances in which they are involved. This is the main reason why the critics, even in admiring his talent, speak of Collins with faint depreciation, as certainly not one of the greatest novelists of the century, although holding a place of his own which forces recognition. For novel-readers have delighted in his many volumes in spite of the critics, and there is a steady demand for the old favorites. Translated into French, Italian, Danish, and Russian, many of them continue to inspire the same interest in foreign lands.

Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins, born January 8th, 1824, did not show any special precocity in boyhood and youth. He probably learned much more from his self-guided reading than from his schooling at Highbury, especially after his acquisition of French and Italian during two years in Italy in his early teens. The influences about him were strongly artistic. His father, William Collins, was distinguished as a landscape painter. The well-known portrait painter Mrs. Carpenter was his aunt, and the distinguished Scotch artist David Wilkie his godfather. But human action and emotion interested him more than art. He was very young when he expressed a desire to write, and perpetrated blank verse which justified his father in vigorous opposition to his adoption of authorship as a profession. So, his school days ended, he presented the not unusual figure of a bright young Englishman who must earn his bread, yet had no particular aptitude for doing it. He tried business first, and became articled clerk with a City house[Pg 3880] in the tea trade. But the work was uncongenial; and after a few unsatisfactory years he fell in with his father's views, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn and in due time admitted to the bar, although he never practiced law.

He continued writing for amusement, however, producing sketches and stories valuable as training. On his father's death he prepared a biography of that artist in two volumes (1848), which was considered a just as well as a loving appreciation. His first novel, however, was rejected by every publisher to whom he submitted it. His second, 'Antonina,' a story of the fall of Rome, was mediocre. He was about twenty-six when he met Charles Dickens, then a man of forty, at the height of his fame, and with the kindliest feeling for younger writers still struggling for recognition. Dickens, whose own work was always prompted by sympathetic intuition, and to whom character development came more easily than ingenious plots, cordially admired Collins's skill in devising and explaining the latter. He invited the younger man to become collaborator upon Household Words, and thus initiated a warm friendship which lasted until his own death. Encouraged by him, Collins essayed drama and wrote 'The Light-House,' played at Gadshill by distinguished amateurs, Dickens himself among them. At first thought, his would seem an essentially dramatic talent, and several of his novels have been successfully dramatized. But the very cleverness and intricacy of his situations make them unsuited to the stage. They are too difficult of comprehension to be taken in at a glance by an average audience, in the swift passage of stage action.

It was also the influence of Dickens which inspired Collins to attempt social reform. In 'Man and Wife' he tries to show the injustice of Scotch marriage laws; in 'The New Magdalen,' the possible regeneration of fallen women; in 'Heart and Science,' the abuses of vivisection; and other stories are incumbered with didactic purpose. Mr. Swinburne comments upon this aspect of his career in a jocular couplet—

But in all "tendency" novels it is not the discussion of problems that makes them live; and Wilkie Collins, like others, survives by purely literary qualities. Soon after his death the critic of the Spectator gave the following capable summary of his peculiar method:—

"He was a literary chess player of the first force, with power of carrying his plan right through the game and making every move tell. His method was to introduce a certain number of characters, set before them a well-defined object, such as the discovery of a secret, the re-vindication of a[Pg 3881] fortune, the tracking of a crime, or the establishment of a doubted marriage, and then bring in other characters to resist or counterplot their efforts. Each side makes moves, almost invariably well-considered and promising moves; the counter-moves are equally good; the interest goes on accumulating till the looker-on—the reader is always placed in that attitude—is rapt out of himself by strained attention; and then there is a sudden and totally unexpected mate. It is chess which is being played; and in the best of all his stories, the one which will live for years,—'The Moonstone,'—the pretense that it is anything else is openly disregarded."

This analysis however must not be too narrowly construed, as petty critics often do, to mean that the only interest in Mr. Collins's novels is that of disentangling the plot. If this were so, no one would read them more than once; while in fact the best of them are eminently readable again and again. This shallow judgment evidently galled the novelist himself, and 'The New Magdalen' in one aspect was a throwing-down of the gauntlet to the critics; for in it he tells the plot page by page, almost paragraph by paragraph, as he goes along, and even far in advance of the story, yet it is one of the most fascinating of his novels. He proved that he could do admirably what they said he could not do at all—make people read his story with breathless absorption when they knew its end long before they came to it; and it was as interesting backward as forward. 'No Name' is in some sort a combination of the two methods,—a revelation of the end, with perpetual interest in the discovery of means.

'The Moonstone' and 'The Woman in White' are unquestionably his masterpieces. In both he throws light upon a complex plot by means of his favorite expedient of letters and diaries written by different characters, who thus take the reader into their confidence and bewilder him with conflicting considerations, until the author comes forward with an ingenious and lucid solution. 'The Moonstone,' however, is immensely superior in matter even to its fellow; its plot is better (in one place 'The Woman in White' comes to a dead wall which the author calmly ignores and goes on), and some passages are worth reading over and over for pure pathos or description. Mr. Collins was in fact, aside from his special gift, a literary artist of no mean power, even if not the highest: with an eye for salient effects, a skill in touching the more obvious chords of emotion, a knowledge of life and books, that enrich his stories with enough extraneous wealth to prolong their life for many years, and some of them perhaps for generations.

[Pg 3882]

THE SLEEP-WALKING

From 'The Moonstone'

Two o'clock A.M.—The experiment has been tried. With what result I am now to describe.

At eleven o'clock I rang the bell for Betteredge and told Mr. Blake that he might at last prepare himself for bed.... I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him to remove the medicine chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.

The order seemed to take him completely by surprise. He looked as if he suspected me of some occult design on Miss Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said, "what my young lady and the medicine chest have got to do with each other?"

"Stay in the sitting-room and you will see."

Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to superintend me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine chest was included in the proceedings.

"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to taking Mr. Bruff into this part of the business?"

"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to accompany me down-stairs."

Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine chest without another word. I went back into Mr. Blake's room, and knocked at the door of communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his papers in his hand—immersed in Law, impenetrable to Medicine.

"I am sorry to disturb you," I said. "But I am going to prepare the laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you to be present and to see what I do."

"Yes," said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riveted on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me. "Anything else?"

"I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me administer the dose."

"Anything else?"

"One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of remaining in Mr. Blake's room to see what happens."[Pg 3883]

"Oh, very good!" said Mr. Bruff. "My room or Mr. Blake's room,—it doesn't matter which; I can go on with my papers anywhere. Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing that amount of common-sense into the proceedings?"

Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the lawyer, speaking from his bed.

"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest in what you are going to do?" he asked. "Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination than a cow!"

"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer. With that reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping his papers in his hand.

We found Miss Verinder pale and agitated, restlessly pacing her sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood Betteredge, on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff sat down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on the spot.

Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her one all-absorbing interest—the interest in Mr. Blake.

"How is he now?" she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of temper? Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do no harm?"

"Quite sure. Come and see me measure it out."

"One moment. It is past eleven now. How long will it be before anything happens?"

"It is not easy to say. An hour, perhaps."

"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year?"

"Certainly."

"I shall wait in my bedroom—just as I did before. I shall keep the door a little way open. It was a little way open last year. I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it moves I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way on my birthday night. And it must all happen again in the same way, mustn't it?"

"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?"

"In his interests I can do anything!" she answered fervently.

One look at her face told me I could trust her. I addressed myself again to Mr. Bruff.

"I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment," I said.[Pg 3884]

"Oh, certainly!" He got up with a start—as if I had disturbed him at a particularly interesting place—and followed me to the medicine chest. There, deprived of the breathless excitement incidental to the practice of his profession, he looked at Betteredge and yawned wearily.

Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water which she had taken from a side table. "Let me pour out the water," she whispered; "I must have a hand in it!"

I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured the laudanum into a glass. "Fill it till it is three parts full," I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder. I then directed Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest, informing him that I had done with it now. A look of unutterable relief overspread the old servant's countenance. He had evidently suspected me of a medical design on his young lady!

After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder seized a moment—while Betteredge was locking the chest and while Mr. Bruff was looking back at his papers—and slyly kissed the rim of the medicine glass. "When you give it to him," whispered the charming girl, "give it to him on that side."

I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Diamond from my pocket and gave it to her.

"You must have a hand in this too," I said. "You must put it where you put the Moonstone last year."

She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock Diamond into the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied on the birthday night. Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding, under protest, as he had witnessed everything else. But the strong dramatic interest which the experiment was now assuming proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for Betteredge's capacity of self-restraint. His hand trembled as he held the candle, and he whispered anxiously, "Are you sure, miss, it's the right drawer?"

I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in my hand. At the door I stood to address a last word to Miss Verinder.

"Don't be long in putting out the lights," I said.

"I will put them out at once," she answered. "And I will wait in my bedroom with only one candle alight."

She closed the sitting-room door behind us. Followed by Bruff and Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake's room.[Pg 3885]

We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed, and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum that night. In the presence of the two witnesses I gave him the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down again quietly and wait.

His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave a good open space on either side of it. On one side I drew the curtains completely, and in the part of the room thus screened from his view I placed Mr. Bruff and Betteredge to wait for the result. At the bottom of the bed I half drew the curtains, and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that I might let him see me or not see me, just as the circumstances might direct. Having already been informed that he always slept with a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted candles on a little table at the head of the bed, where the glare of the light would not strike on his eyes. The other candle I gave to Mr. Bruff; the light in this instance being subdued by the screen of the chintz curtains. The window was open at the top so as to ventilate the room. The rain fell softly; the house was quiet. It was twenty minutes past eleven by my watch when the preparations were completed, and I took my place on the chair set apart at the bottom of the bed.

Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being as deeply interested in them as ever. But looking toward him now, I saw certain signs and tokens which told me that the Law was beginning to lose its hold on him at last. The suspended interest of the situation in which we were now placed was slowly asserting its influence even on his unimaginative mind. As for Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had become in his case mere empty words. He forgot that I was performing a conjuring trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he forgot that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that I had not read 'Robinson Crusoe' since I was a child. "For the Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me, "tell us when it will begin to work."

"Not before midnight," I whispered back. "Say nothing and sit still."

Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with me, without a struggle to save himself. He answered by a wink![Pg 3886]

Looking next toward Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as ever in his bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the laudanum had not begun to assert itself yet. To tell him in his present humor that the more he fidgeted and wondered the longer he would delay the result for which we were now waiting, would have been simply useless. The wiser course to take was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind by leading him insensibly to think of something else.

With this view I encouraged him to talk to me, contriving so to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead him back again to the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening,—the subject of the Diamond. I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall; and to the expected appearance of the Indians at the house on the evening of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in referring to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake himself had told me a few hours since. In this way I set him talking on the subject with which it was now vitally important to fill his mind—without allowing him to suspect that I was making him talk for a purpose. Little by little he became so interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the bed. His mind was far away from the question of the opium at the all-important time when his eyes first told me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold upon his brain.

I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve when the premonitory symptoms of the working of the laudanum first showed themselves to me.

At this time no unpracticed eye would have detected any change in him. But as the minutes of the new morning wore away, the swiftly subtle progress of the influence began to show itself more plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed in his eyes; the dew of a steady perspiration began to glisten on his face. In five minutes more the talk which he still kept up with me failed in coherence. He held steadily to the subject of the Diamond; but he ceased to complete his sentences. A little later the sentences dropped to single words. Then there was an interval of silence. Then he sat up in bed. Then, still busy with the subject of the Diamond, he began to talk again—not to me but to himself. That change told me the first stage in[Pg 3887] the experiment was reached. The stimulant influence of the opium had got him.

The time now was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The next half-hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he would or would not get up from his bed and leave the room.

In the breathless interest of watching him—in the unutterable triumph of seeing the first result of the experiment declare itself in the manner, and nearly at the time, which I had anticipated—I had utterly forgotten the two companions of my night vigil. Looking toward them now, I saw the Law (as represented by Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor. Mr. Bruff himself was looking eagerly through a crevice left in the imperfectly drawn curtains of the bed. And Betteredge, oblivious of all respect for social distinctions, was peeping over Mr. Bruff's shoulder.

They both started back on finding that I was looking at them, like two boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault. I signed to them to take off their boots quietly, as I was taking off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the chance of following him, it was vitally necessary to follow him without noise.

Ten minutes passed—and nothing happened.

Then he suddenly threw the bedclothes off him. He put one leg out of bed. He waited.

"I wish I had never taken it out of the bank," he said to himself. "It was safe in the bank."

My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furiously. The doubt about the safety of the Diamond was once more the dominant impression in his brain! On that one pivot the whole success of the experiment turned. The prospect thus suddenly opened before me was too much for my shattered nerves. I was obliged to look away from him, or I should have lost my self-control.

There was another interval of silence.

When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out of his bed, standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his eyes were now contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of the candle as he moved his head slowly to and fro. He was thinking; he was doubting; he spoke again.

"How do I know?" he said. "The Indians may be hidden in the house."

He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room. He turned,—waited,—came back to the bed.[Pg 3888]

"It's not even locked up," he went on. "It's in the drawer of her cabinet. And the drawer doesn't lock."

He sat down on the side of the bed. "Anybody might take it," he said.

He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words. "How do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house."

He waited again. I drew back behind the half-curtain of the bed. He looked about the room, with the vacant glitter in his eyes. It was a breathless moment. There was a pause of some sort. A pause in the action of the opium? a pause in the action of the brain? Who could tell? Everything depended now on what he did next.

He laid himself down again on the bed!

A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the sedative action of the opium was making itself felt already? It was not in my experience that it should do this. But what is experience where opium is concerned? There are probably no two men in existence on whom the drug acts in exactly the same manner. Was some constitutional peculiarity in him feeling the influence in some new way? Were we to fail, on the very brink of success?

No! He got up again very abruptly. "How the devil am I to sleep," he said, "with this on my mind?"

He looked at the light burning on the table at the head of his bed. After a moment he took the candle in his hand.

I blew out the second candle burning behind the closed curtains. I drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if their lives depended on it.

We waited—seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden from him by the curtains.

The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved suddenly. The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the candle in his hand.

He opened the bedroom door and went out.

We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down the stairs. We followed him along the second corridor. He never looked back; he never hesitated.

He opened the sitting-room door and went in, leaving it open behind him.

The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on large old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was[Pg 3889] opened between the door and the post. I signed to my two companions to look through this, so as to keep them from showing themselves. I placed myself—outside the door also—on the opposite side. A recess in the wall was at my left hand, in which I could instantly hide myself if he showed any signs of looking back into the corridor.

He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his hand; he looked about him,—but he never looked back.

I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom standing ajar. She had put out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the room. She kept back in the dark; not a word, not a movement escaped her.

It was now ten minutes past one. I heard through the silence the soft drip of the rain, and the tremulous passage of the night air through the trees.

After waiting irresolute for a minute or more in the middle of the room, he moved to the corner near the window where the Indian cabinet stood.

He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened and shut one drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand he took the candle from the top of the cabinet.

He walked back a few steps toward the middle of the room and stood still again.

Thus far he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he had gone back then, to his bed-chamber? Would he show us what he had done with the Diamond when he had returned to his own room?

His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action which he had not performed when he was under the influence of the opium for the first time. He put the candle down on a table and wandered on a little toward the farther end of the room. There was a sofa here. He leaned heavily on the back of it with his left hand—then roused himself and returned to the middle of the room. I could now see his eyes.[Pg 3890] They were getting dull and heavy; the glitter in them was fast dying out.

The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder's self-control. She advanced a few steps,—then stopped again. Mr. Bruff and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me for the first time. The prevision of a coming disappointment was impressing itself on their minds as well as on mine. Still, so long as he stood where he was, there was hope. We waited in unutterable expectation to see what would happen next.

The next event was decisive. He let the mock Diamond drop out of his hand.

It fell on the floor, before the doorway—plainly visible to him and to every one. He made no effort to pick it up; he looked down at it vacantly, and as he looked, his head sank on his breast. He staggered—roused himself for an instant—walked back unsteadily to the sofa—and sat down on it. He made a last effort; he tried to rise, and sank back. His head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then twenty-five minutes past one o'clock. Before I had put my watch back in my pocket he was asleep.

It was over now. The sedative influence had got him; the experiment was at an end.

I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and Betteredge that they might follow me. There was no fear of disturbing him. We were free to move and speak.

"The first thing to settle," I said, "is the question of what we are to do with him. He will probably sleep for the next six or seven hours at least. It is some distance to carry him back to his own room. When I was younger I could have done it alone. But my health and strength are not what they were—I am afraid I will have to ask you to help me."

Before they could answer, Miss Verinder called to me softly. She met me at the door of her room with a light shawl and with the counterpane from her own bed.

"Do you mean to watch him while he sleeps?" she asked.

"Yes. I am not sure enough of the action of the opium in this case, to be willing to leave him alone."

She handed me the shawl and the counterpane.

"Why should you disturb him?" she whispered. "Make his bed on the sofa. I can shut my door and keep in my room."[Pg 3891]

It was infinitely the simplest and the safest way of disposing of him for the night. I mentioned the suggestion to Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, who both approved of my adopting it. In five minutes I had laid him comfortably on the sofa, and had covered him lightly with the counterpane and the shawl. Miss Verinder wished us good-night and closed the door. At my request we three then drew round the table in the middle of the room, on which the candle was still burning, and on which writing materials were placed.

"Before we separate," I began, "I have a word to say about the experiment which has been tried to-night. Two distinct objects were to be gained by it. The first of these objects was to prove that Mr. Blake entered this room and took the Diamond last year, acting unconsciously and irresponsibly, under the influence of opium. After what you have both seen, are you both satisfied so far?"

They answered me in the affirmative, without a moment's hesitation.

"The second object," I went on, "was to discover what he did with the Diamond after he was seen by Miss Verinder to leave her sitting-room with the jewel in his hand on the birthday night. The gaining of this object depended, of course, on his still continuing exactly to repeat his proceedings of last year. He has failed to do that; and the purpose of the experiment is defeated accordingly. I can't assert that I am not disappointed at the result—but I can honestly say that I am not surprised by it. I told Mr. Blake from the first that our complete success in this matter depended on our completely reproducing in him the physical and moral conditions of last year; and I warned him that this was the next thing to a downright impossibility. We have only partially reproduced the conditions, and the experiment has been only partially successful in consequence. It is also possible that I may have administered too large a dose of laudanum. But I myself look upon the first reason that I have given as the true reason why we have to lament a failure, as well as to rejoice over a success."

After saying those words I put the writing materials before Mr. Bruff, and asked him if he had any objection, before we separated for the night, to draw out and sign a plain statement of what he had seen. He at once took the pen, and produced the statement with the fluent readiness of a practiced hand.[Pg 3892]

"I owe you this," he said, signing the paper, "as some atonement for what passed between us earlier in the evening. I beg your pardon, Mr. Jennings, for having doubted you. You have done Franklin Blake an inestimable service. In our legal phrase, you have proved your case."

Betteredge's apology was characteristic of the man.

"Mr. Jennings," he said, "when you read 'Robinson Crusoe' again (which I strongly recommend you to do), you will find that he never scruples to acknowledge it when he turns out to have been in the wrong. Please to consider me, sir, as doing what Robinson Crusoe did on the present occasion." With those words he signed the paper in his turn.

Mr. Bruff took me aside as we rose from the table.

"One word about the Diamond," he said. "Your theory is that Franklin Blake hid the Moonstone in his room. My theory is that the Moonstone is in the possession of Mr. Luker's bankers in London. We won't dispute which of us is right. We will only ask, which of us is in a position to put his theory to the test first?"

"The test in my case," I answered, "has been tried to-night, and has failed."

"The test in my case," rejoined Mr. Bruff, "is still in process of trial. For the last two days I have had a watch set for Mr. Luker at the bank; and I shall cause that watch to be continued until the last day of the month. I know that he must take the Diamond himself out of his bankers' hands, and I am acting on the chance that the person who has pledged the Diamond may force him to do this by redeeming the pledge. In that case I may be able to lay my hand on the person. And there is a prospect of our clearing up the mystery exactly at the point where the mystery baffles us now! Do you admit that, so far?"

I admitted it readily.

"I am going back to town by the ten o'clock train," pursued the lawyer. "I may hear, when I get back, that a discovery has been made—and it may be of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin Blake at hand to appeal to if necessary. I intend to tell him, as soon as he wakes, that he must return with me to London. After all that has happened, may I trust to your influence to back me?"

"Certainly!" I said.[Pg 3893]

Mr. Bruff shook hands with me and left the room. Betteredge followed him out.

I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved since I had laid him down and made his bed,—he lay locked in a deep and quiet sleep.

While I was still looking at him I heard the bedroom door softly opened. Once more Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold in her pretty summer dress.

"Do me a last favor," she whispered. "Let me watch him with you."

I hesitated—not in the interest of propriety; only in the interest of her night's rest. She came close to me and took my hand.

"I can't sleep; I can't even sit still in my own room," she said. "Oh, Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit and look at him! Say yes! Do!"

Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!

She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent ecstasy of happiness till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her eyes and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and never did a single stitch of it. It lay in her lap—she was not even able to look away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought of my own youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked love at me. In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for relief, and wrote in it what is written here.

So we kept our watch together in silence,—one of us absorbed in his writing; the other absorbed in her love.

Hour after hour he lay in deep sleep. The light of the new day grew and grew in the room, and still he never moved.

Toward six o'clock I felt the warning which told me that my pains were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little while. I said I would go up-stairs and fetch another pillow for him out of his room. It was not a long attack this time. In a little while I was able to venture back and let her see me again.

I found her at the head of the sofa when I returned. She was just touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright smile and a charming color in her face. "You would have done it," she whispered, "in my place!"...[Pg 3894]

It is just eight o'clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.

Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed herself that when his eyes first open they must open upon her face.

Shall I leave them together?

Yes!

COUNT FOSCO

From 'The Woman in White'

He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he married a tigress instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes as his wife does; I should have held my tongue when he looked at me as she holds hers.

I am almost afraid to confess it even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days he has made his way straight into my favorable estimation; and how he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell.

It absolutely startles me, now he is in my mind, to find how plainly I see him! how much more plainly than I see Sir Percival, or Mr. Fairlie, or Walter Hartright, or any other absent person of whom I think, with the one exception of Laura herself. I can hear his voice as if he was speaking at this moment. I know what his conversation was yesterday, as well as if I was hearing it now. How am I to describe him? There are peculiarities in his personal appearance, his habits, and his amusements, which I should blame in the boldest terms or ridicule in the most merciless manner, if I had seen them in another man. What is it that makes me unable to blame them or to ridicule them in him?

For example, he is immensely fat. Before this time, I have always especially disliked corpulent humanity. I have always maintained that the popular notion of connecting excessive grossness of size and excessive good-humor as inseparable allies was equivalent to declaring either that no people but amiable people ever get fat, or that the accidental addition of so many pounds of flesh has a directly favorable influence over the dis[Pg 3895]position of the person on whose body they accumulate. I have invariably combated both these absurd assertions by quoting examples of fat people who were as mean, vicious, and cruel as the leanest and worst of their neighbors. I have asked whether Henry the Eighth was an amiable character? whether Pope Alexander the Sixth was a good man? whether Mr. Murderer and Mrs. Murderess Manning were not both unusually stout people? whether hired nurses, proverbially as cruel a set of women as are to be found in all England, were not, for the most part, also as fat a set of women as are to be found in all England?—and so on through dozens of other examples, modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low. Holding these strong opinions on the subject with might and main, as I do at this moment, here nevertheless is Count Fosco, as fat as Henry the Eighth himself, established in my favor at one day's notice, without let or hindrance from his own odious corpulence. Marvelous indeed!

Is it his face that has recommended him?

It may be his face. He is a most remarkable likeness, on a large scale, of the great Napoleon. His features have Napoleon's magnificent regularity; his expression recalls the grandly calm immovable power of the Great Soldier's face. This striking resemblance certainly impressed me, to begin with; but there is something in him besides the resemblance, which has impressed me more. I think the influence I am now trying to find is in his eyes. They are the most unfathomable gray eyes I ever saw; and they have at times a cold, clear, beautiful, irresistible glitter in them, which forces me to look at him, and yet causes me sensations, when I do look, which I would rather not feel. Other parts of his face and head have their strange peculiarities. His complexion, for instance, has a singular sallow-fairness, so much at variance with the dark-brown color of his hair that I suspect the hair of being a wig; and his face, closely shaven all over, is smoother and freer from all marks and wrinkles than mine, though (according to Sir Percival's account of him) he is close on sixty years of age. But these are not the prominent personal characteristics which distinguish him, to my mind, from all the other men I have ever seen. The marked peculiarity which singles him out from the rank and file of humanity lies entirely, so far as I can tell at present, in the extraordinary expression and extraordinary power of his eyes.[Pg 3896]

His manner, and his command of our language, may also have assisted him in some degree to establish himself in my good opinion. He has that quiet deference, that look of pleased attentive interest, in listening to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a woman, which say what we may, we can none of us resist. Here too his unusual command of the English language necessarily helps him. I had often heard of the extraordinary aptitude which many Italians show in mastering our strong hard Northern speech, but until I saw Count Fosco I had never supposed it possible that any foreigner could have spoken English as he speaks it. There are times when it is almost impossible to detect by his accent that he is not a countryman of our own; and as for fluency, there are very few born Englishmen who can talk with as few stoppages and repetitions as the Count. He may construct his sentences more or less in the foreign way; but I have never yet heard him use a wrong expression, or hesitate for a moment in his choice of words.

All the smallest characteristics of this strange man have something strikingly original and perplexingly contradictory in them. Fat as he is, and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any of us women; and more than that, with all his look of unmistakable mental firmness and power, he is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us. He starts at chance noises as inveterately as Laura herself. He winced and shuddered yesterday when Sir Percival beat one of the spaniels, so that I felt ashamed of my own want of tenderness and sensibility by comparison with the Count.

The relation of this last incident reminds me of one of his most curious peculiarities, which I have not yet mentioned—his extraordinary fondness for pet animals.

Some of these he has left on the Continent; but he has brought with him to this house a cockatoo, two canary-birds, and a whole family of white mice. He attends to all the necessities of these strange favorites himself, and he has taught the creatures to be surprisingly fond of him and familiar with him. The cockatoo, a most vicious and treacherous bird toward every one else, absolutely seems to love him. When he lets it out of its cage it hops on to his knee, and claws its way up his great big body, and rubs its topknot against his sallow double chin in[Pg 3897] the most caressing manner imaginable. He has only to set the doors of the canaries' cage open, and to call them; and the pretty little cleverly trained creatures perch fearlessly on his hand, mount his fat outstretched fingers one by one when he tells them to "go up-stairs," and sing together as if they would burst their throats with delight when they get to the top finger. His white mice live in a little pagoda of gayly painted wire-work, designed and made by himself. They are almost as tame as the canaries, and they are perpetually let out, like the canaries. They crawl all over him, popping in and out of his waistcoat, and sitting in couples, white as snow, on his capacious shoulders. He seems to be even fonder of his mice than of his other pets; smiles at them, and kisses them, and calls them all sorts of endearing names. If it be possible to suppose an Englishman with any taste for such childish interests and amusements as these, that Englishman would certainly feel rather ashamed of them, and would be anxious to apologize for them in the company of grown-up people. But the Count apparently sees nothing ridiculous in the amazing contrast between his colossal self and his frail little pets. He would blandly kiss his white mice and twitter to his canary-birds amidst an assembly of English fox-hunters, and would only pity them as barbarians when they were all laughing their loudest at him.

It seems hardly credible while I am writing it down, but it is certainly true that this same man, who has all the fondness of an old maid for his cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of an organ-boy in managing his white mice, can talk, when anything happens to rouse him, with a daring independence of thought, a knowledge of books in every language, and an experience of society in half the capitals of Europe, which would make him the prominent personage of any assembly in the civilized world. This trainer of canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for white mice, is (as Sir Percival himself has told me) one of the first experimental chemists living, and has discovered among other wonderful inventions a means of petrifying the body after death, so as to preserve it, as hard as marble, to the end of time. This fat, indolent, elderly man, whose nerves are so finely strung that he starts at chance noises, and winces when he sees a house spaniel get a whipping, went into the stable-yard the morning after his arrival, and put his hand on the head of a chained bloodhound—a beast so[Pg 3898] savage that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of his reach. His wife and I were present, and I shall not forget the scene that followed, short as it was.

"Mind that dog, sir," said the groom; "he flies at everybody!" "He does that, my friend," replied the Count quietly, "because everybody is afraid of him. Let us see if he flies at me." And he laid his plump yellow-white fingers, on which the canary-birds had been perching ten minutes before, upon the formidable brute's head, and looked him straight in the eyes. "You big dogs are all cowards," he said, addressing the animal contemptuously, with his face and the dog's within an inch of each other. "You would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward. You would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise unawares—anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to fly at. You could throttle me at this moment, you mean miserable bully; and you daren't so much as look me in the face, because I'm not afraid of you. Will you think better of it, and try your teeth in my fat neck? Bah! not you!" He turned away, laughing at the astonishment of the men in the yard; and the dog crept back meekly to his kennel. "Ah! my nice waistcoat!" he said pathetically. "I am sorry I came here. Some of that brute's slobber has got on my pretty clean waistcoat." Those words express another of his incomprehensible oddities. He is as fond of fine clothes as the veriest fool in existence, and has appeared in four magnificent waistcoats already—all of light garish colors and all immensely large, even for him—in the two days of his residence at Blackwater Park.

His tact and cleverness in small things are quite as noticeable as the singular inconsistencies in his character, and the childish triviality of his ordinary tastes and pursuits.

I can see already that he means to live on excellent terms with all of us during the period of his sojourn in this place. He has evidently discovered that Laura secretly dislikes him (she confessed as much to me when I pressed her on the subject), but he has also found out that she is extravagantly fond of flowers. Whenever she wants a nosegay he has got one to give her, gathered and arranged by himself; and greatly to my amusement, he is always cunningly provided with a duplicate, composed of exactly the same flowers, grouped in exactly the same[Pg 3899] way, to appease his icily jealous wife, before she can so much as think herself aggrieved. His management of the Countess (in public) is a sight to see. He bows to her; he habitually addresses her as "my angel"; he carries his canaries to pay her little visits on his fingers, and to sing to her; he kisses her hand when she gives him his cigarettes; he presents her with sugar-plums in return, which he puts into her mouth playfully, from a box in his pocket. The rod of iron with which he rules her never appears in company—it is a private rod and is always kept up-stairs.

His method of recommending himself to me is entirely different. He flatters my vanity by talking to me as seriously and sensibly as if I was a man. Yes! I can find him out when I am away from him; I know he flatters my vanity, when I think of him up here in my own room—and yet when I go down-stairs and get into his company again he will blind me again, and I shall be flattered again, just as if I had never found him out at all! He can manage me as he manages his wife and Laura, as he manages the bloodhound in the stable yard, as he manages Sir Percival himself every hour in the day. "My good Percival! how I like your rough English humor!"—"My good Percival! how I enjoy your solid English sense!" He puts the rudest remarks Sir Percival can make on his effeminate tastes and amusements quietly away from him in that manner—always calling the baronet by his Christian name; smiling at him with the calmest superiority; patting him on the shoulder; and bearing with him benignantly, as a good-humored father bears with a wayward son.

The interest which I really cannot help feeling in this strangely original man has led me to question Sir Percival about his past life.

Sir Percival either knows little, or will tell me little about it. He and the Count first met many years ago, at Rome, under the dangerous circumstances to which I have alluded elsewhere. Since that time they have been perpetually together, in London, in Paris, and in Vienna—but never in Italy again; the Count having, oddly enough, not crossed the frontiers of his native country for years past. Perhaps he has been made the victim of some political persecution? At all events, he seems to be patriotically anxious not to lose sight of any of his own countrymen who may happen to be in England. On the evening of[Pg 3900] his arrival, he asked how far we were from the nearest town, and whether we knew of any Italian gentlemen who might happen to be settled there. He is certainly in correspondence with people on the Continent, for his letters have all sorts of odd stamps on them; and I saw one for him this morning, waiting in his place at the breakfast-table, with a huge official-looking seal on it. Perhaps he is in correspondence with his government? And yet that is hardly to be reconciled, either, with my other idea that he may be a political exile.

How much I seem to have written about Count Fosco! And what does it all amount to?—as poor dear Mr. Gilmore would ask in his impenetrable business-like way. I can only repeat that I do assuredly feel, even on this short acquaintance, a strange, half-willing, half-unwilling liking for the Count. He seems to have established over me the same sort of ascendency which he has evidently gained over Sir Percival. Free and even rude as he may occasionally be in his manner toward his fat friend, Sir Percival is nevertheless afraid, as I can plainly see, of giving any serious offense to the Count. I wonder whether I am afraid too? I certainly never saw a man, in all my experience, whom I should be so sorry to have for an enemy. Is this because I like him, or because I am afraid of him? Chi sa?—as Count Fosco might say in his own language. Who knows?

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