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13852	----	LITERARY TASTE: HOW TO FORM IT With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature by ARNOLD BENNETT 1913 CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE AIM CHAPTER II YOUR PARTICULAR CASE CHAPTER III WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC CHAPTER IV WHERE TO BEGIN CHAPTER V HOW TO READ A CLASSIC CHAPTER VI THE QUESTION OF STYLE CHAPTER VII WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR CHAPTER VIII SYSTEM IN READING CHAPTER IX VERSE CHAPTER X BROAD COUNSELS CHAPTER XI AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I CHAPTER XII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II CHAPTER XIII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III CHAPTER XIV MENTAL STOCKTAKING CHAPTER I THE AIM At the beginning a misconception must be removed from the path. Many people, if not most, look on literary taste as an elegant accomplishment, by acquiring which they will complete themselves, and make themselves finally fit as members of a correct society. They are secretly ashamed of their ignorance of literature, in the same way as they would be ashamed of their ignorance of etiquette at a high entertainment, or of their inability to ride a horse if suddenly called upon to do so. There are certain things that a man ought to know, or to know about, and literature is one of them: such is their idea. They have learnt to dress themselves with propriety, and to behave with propriety on all occasions; they are fairly "up" in the questions of the day; by industry and enterprise they are succeeding in their vocations; it behoves them, then, not to forget that an acquaintance with literature is an indispensable part of a self-respecting man's personal baggage. Painting doesn't matter; music doesn't matter very much. But "everyone is supposed to know" about literature. Then, literature is such a charming distraction! Literary taste thus serves two purposes: as a certificate of correct culture and as a private pastime. A young professor of mathematics, immense at mathematics and games, dangerous at chess, capable of Haydn on the violin, once said to me, after listening to some chat on books, "Yes, I must take up literature." As though saying: "I was rather forgetting literature. However, I've polished off all these other things. I'll have a shy at literature now." This attitude, or any attitude which resembles it, is wrong. To him who really comprehends what literature is, and what the function of literature is, this attitude is simply ludicrous. It is also fatal to the formation of literary taste. People who regard literary taste simply as an accomplishment, and literature simply as a distraction, will never truly succeed either in acquiring the accomplishment or in using it half-acquired as a distraction; though the one is the most perfect of distractions, and though the other is unsurpassed by any other accomplishment in elegance or in power to impress the universal snobbery of civilised mankind. Literature, instead of being an accessory, is the fundamental _sine qua non_ of complete living. I am extremely anxious to avoid rhetorical exaggerations. I do not think I am guilty of one in asserting that he who has not been "presented to the freedom" of literature has not wakened up out of his prenatal sleep. He is merely not born. He can't see; he can't hear; he can't feel, in any full sense. He can only eat his dinner. What more than anything else annoys people who know the true function of literature, and have profited thereby, is the spectacle of so many thousands of individuals going about under the delusion that they are alive, when, as a fact, they are no nearer being alive than a bear in winter. I will tell you what literature is! No--I only wish I could. But I can't. No one can. Gleams can be thrown on the secret, inklings given, but no more. I will try to give you an inkling. And, to do so, I will take you back into your own history, or forward into it. That evening when you went for a walk with your faithful friend, the friend from whom you hid nothing--or almost nothing ...! You were, in truth, somewhat inclined to hide from him the particular matter which monopolised your mind that evening, but somehow you contrived to get on to it, drawn by an overpowering fascination. And as your faithful friend was sympathetic and discreet, and flattered you by a respectful curiosity, you proceeded further and further into the said matter, growing more and more confidential, until at last you cried out, in a terrific whisper: "My boy, she is simply miraculous!" At that moment you were in the domain of literature. Let me explain. Of course, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, she was not miraculous. Your faithful friend had never noticed that she was miraculous, nor had about forty thousand other fairly keen observers. She was just a girl. Troy had not been burnt for her. A girl cannot be called a miracle. If a girl is to be called a miracle, then you might call pretty nearly anything a miracle.... That is just it: you might. You can. You ought. Amid all the miracles of the universe you had just wakened up to one. You were full of your discovery. You were under a divine impulsion to impart that discovery. You had a strong sense of the marvellous beauty of something, and you had to share it. You were in a passion about something, and you had to vent yourself on somebody. You were drawn towards the whole of the rest of the human race. Mark the effect of your mood and utterance on your faithful friend. He knew that she was not a miracle. No other person could have made him believe that she was a miracle. But you, by the force and sincerity of your own vision of her, and by the fervour of your desire to make him participate in your vision, did for quite a long time cause him to feel that he had been blind to the miracle of that girl. You were producing literature. You were alive. Your eyes were unlidded, your ears were unstopped, to some part of the beauty and the strangeness of the world; and a strong instinct within you forced you to tell someone. It was not enough for you that you saw and heard. Others had to see and hear. Others had to be wakened up. And they were! It is quite possible--I am not quite sure--that your faithful friend the very next day, or the next month, looked at some other girl, and suddenly saw that she, too, was miraculous! The influence of literature! The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. And the greatest makers of literature are those whose vision has been the widest, and whose feeling has been the most intense. Your own fragment of insight was accidental, and perhaps temporary. _Their_ lives are one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place. Is it nothing to you to learn to understand that the world is not a dull place? Is it nothing to you to be led out of the tunnel on to the hillside, to have all your senses quickened, to be invigorated by the true savour of life, to feel your heart beating under that correct necktie of yours? These makers of literature render you their equals. The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one's capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one's relations with the world. An understanding appreciation of literature means an understanding appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else. Not isolated and unconnected parts of life, but all of life, brought together and correlated in a synthetic map! The spirit of literature is unifying; it joins the candle and the star, and by the magic of an image shows that the beauty of the greater is in the less. And, not content with the disclosure of beauty and the bringing together of all things whatever within its focus, it enforces a moral wisdom by the tracing everywhere of cause and effect. It consoles doubly--by the revelation of unsuspected loveliness, and by the proof that our lot is the common lot. It is the supreme cry of the discoverer, offering sympathy and asking for it in a single gesture. In attending a University Extension Lecture on the sources of Shakespeare's plots, or in studying the researches of George Saintsbury into the origins of English prosody, or in weighing the evidence for and against the assertion that Rousseau was a scoundrel, one is apt to forget what literature really is and is for. It is well to remind ourselves that literature is first and last a means of life, and that the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an enterprise of learning how best to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, people who would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise to eschew literature. They had better, to quote from the finest passage in a fine poem, "sit around and eat blackberries." The sight of a "common bush afire with God" might upset their nerves. CHAPTER II YOUR PARTICULAR CASE The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics of his own tongue is one of distrust--I had almost said, of fear. I will not take the case of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare is "taught" in schools; that is to say, the Board of Education and all authorities pedagogic bind themselves together in a determined effort to make every boy in the land a lifelong enemy of Shakespeare. (It is a mercy they don't "teach" Blake.) I will take, for an example, Sir Thomas Browne, as to whom the average person has no offensive juvenile memories. He is bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne is unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees the _Religio Medici_ in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is "not in his line"; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to be. He reads the introduction, and he glances at the first page or two of the work. He sees nothing but words. The work makes no appeal to him whatever. He is surrounded by trees, and cannot perceive the forest. He puts the book away. If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he will say, "Yes, very fine!" with a feeling of pride that he has at any rate bought and inspected Sir Thomas Browne. Deep in his heart is a suspicion that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne are vain and conceited _poseurs_. After a year or so, when he has recovered from the discouragement caused by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, if he is young and hopeful, repeat the experiment with Congreve or Addison. Same sequel! And so on for perhaps a decade, until his commerce with the classics finally expires! That, magazines and newish fiction apart, is the literary history of the average decent person. And even your case, though you are genuinely preoccupied with thoughts of literature, bears certain disturbing resemblances to the drab case of the average person. You do not approach the classics with gusto--anyhow, not with the same gusto as you would approach a new novel by a modern author who had taken your fancy. You never murmured to yourself, when reading Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ in bed: "Well, I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!" Speaking generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure commensurate with their renown. You peruse them with a sense of duty, a sense of doing the right thing, a sense of "improving yourself," rather than with a sense of gladness. You do not smack your lips; you say: "That is good for me." You make little plans for reading, and then you invent excuses for breaking the plans. Something new, something which is not a classic, will surely draw you away from a classic. It is all very well for you to pretend to agree with the verdict of the elect that _Clarissa Harlowe_ is one of the greatest novels in the world--a new Kipling, or even a new number of a magazine, will cause you to neglect _Clarissa Harlowe_, just as though Kipling, etc., could not be kept for a few days without turning sour! So that you have to ordain rules for yourself, as: "I will not read anything else until I have read Richardson, or Gibbon, for an hour each day." Thus proving that you regard a classic as a pill, the swallowing of which merits jam! And the more modern a classic is, the more it resembles the stuff of the year and the less it resembles the classics of the centuries, the more easy and enticing do you find that classic. Hence you are glad that George Eliot, the Brontës, Thackeray, are considered as classics, because you really _do_ enjoy them. Your sentiments concerning them approach your sentiments concerning a "rattling good story" in a magazine. I may have exaggerated--or, on the other hand, I may have understated--the unsatisfactory characteristics of your particular case, but it is probable that in the mirror I hold up you recognise the rough outlines of your likeness. You do not care to admit it; but it is so. You are not content with yourself. The desire to be more truly literary persists in you. You feel that there is something wrong in you, but you cannot put your finger on the spot. Further, you feel that you are a bit of a sham. Something within you continually forces you to exhibit for the classics an enthusiasm which you do not sincerely feel. You even try to persuade yourself that you are enjoying a book, when the next moment you drop it in the middle and forget to resume it. You occasionally buy classical works, and do not read them at all; you practically decide that it is enough to possess them, and that the mere possession of them gives you a _cachet_. The truth is, you are a sham. And your soul is a sea of uneasy remorse. You reflect: "According to what Matthew Arnold says, I ought to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_. And I am not. Why am I not? Have I got to be learned, to undertake a vast course of study, in order to be perfectly mad about Wordsworth's _Prelude_? Or am I born without the faculty of pure taste in literature, despite my vague longings? I do wish I could smack my lips over Wordsworth's _Prelude_ as I did over that splendid story by H.G. Wells, _The Country of the Blind_, in the _Strand Magazine_!".... Yes, I am convinced that in your dissatisfied, your diviner moments, you address yourself in these terms. I am convinced that I have diagnosed your symptoms. Now the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an agreeable one; if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed. But this does not imply that it is an easy or a brief one. The enterprise of beating Colonel Bogey at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work. A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise your ambition--and so great, so influential an ambition!--by spasmodic and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately. You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and has need of tricky aids, even in the pursuit of happiness. Time will be necessary to you, and time regularly and sacredly set apart. Many people affirm that they cannot be regular, that regularity numbs them. I think this is true of a very few people, and that in the rest the objection to regularity is merely an attempt to excuse idleness. I am inclined to think that you personally are capable of regularity. And I am sure that if you firmly and constantly devote certain specific hours on certain specific days of the week to this business of forming your literary taste, you will arrive at the goal much sooner. The simple act of resolution will help you. This is the first preliminary. The second preliminary is to surround yourself with books, to create for yourself a bookish atmosphere. The merely physical side of books is important--more important than it may seem to the inexperienced. Theoretically (save for works of reference), a student has need for but one book at a time. Theoretically, an amateur of literature might develop his taste by expending sixpence a week, or a penny a day, in one sixpenny edition of a classic after another sixpenny edition of a classic, and he might store his library in a hat-box or a biscuit-tin. But in practice he would have to be a monster of resolution to succeed in such conditions. The eye must be flattered; the hand must be flattered; the sense of owning must be flattered. Sacrifices must be made for the acquisition of literature. That which has cost a sacrifice is always endeared. A detailed scheme of buying books will come later, in the light of further knowledge. For the present, buy--buy whatever has received the _imprimatur_ of critical authority. Buy without any immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! Surround yourself with volumes, as handsome as you can afford. And for reading, all that I will now particularly enjoin is a general and inclusive tasting, in order to attain a sort of familiarity with the look of "literature in all its branches." A turning over of the pages of a volume of Chambers's _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, the third for preference, may be suggested as an admirable and a diverting exercise. You might mark the authors that flash an appeal to you. CHAPTER III WHY A CLASSIC IS A CLASSIC The large majority of our fellow-citizens care as much about literature as they care about aeroplanes or the programme of the Legislature. They do not ignore it; they are not quite indifferent to it. But their interest in it is faint and perfunctory; or, if their interest happens to be violent, it is spasmodic. Ask the two hundred thousand persons whose enthusiasm made the vogue of a popular novel ten years ago what they think of that novel now, and you will gather that they have utterly forgotten it, and that they would no more dream of reading it again than of reading Bishop Stubbs's _Select Charters_. Probably if they did read it again they would not enjoy it--not because the said novel is a whit worse now than it was ten years ago; not because their taste has improved--but because they have not had sufficient practice to be able to rely on their taste as a means of permanent pleasure. They simply don't know from one day to the next what will please them. In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great and universal fame of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority. Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few. Even when a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men. He has always been reinforced by the ardour of the passionate few. And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few. They could not leave him alone; they would not. They kept on savouring him, and talking about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority really did not care very much either way. And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another. These few are always at work. They are always rediscovering genius. Their curiosity and enthusiasm are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored. And, moreover, they are always working either for or against the verdicts of the majority. The majority can make a reputation, but it is too careless to maintain it. If, by accident, the passionate few agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made, and the majority will idly concur: "Ah, yes. By the way, we must not forget that such and such a reputation exists." Without that persistent memory-jogging the reputation would quickly fall into the oblivion which is death. The passionate few only have their way by reason of the fact that they are genuinely interested in literature, that literature matters to them. They conquer by their obstinacy alone, by their eternal repetition of the same statements. Do you suppose they could prove to the man in the street that Shakespeare was a great artist? The said man would not even understand the terms they employed. But when he is told ten thousand times, and generation after generation, that Shakespeare was a great artist, the said man believes--not by reason, but by faith. And he too repeats that Shakespeare was a great artist, and he buys the complete works of Shakespeare and puts them on his shelves, and he goes to see the marvellous stage-effects which accompany _King Lear_ or _Hamlet_, and comes back religiously convinced that Shakespeare was a great artist. All because the passionate few could not keep their admiration of Shakespeare to themselves. This is not cynicism; but truth. And it is important that those who wish to form their literary taste should grasp it. What causes the passionate few to make such a fuss about literature? There can be only one reply. They find a keen and lasting pleasure in literature. They enjoy literature as some men enjoy beer. The recurrence of this pleasure naturally keeps their interest in literature very much alive. They are for ever making new researches, for ever practising on themselves. They learn to understand themselves. They learn to know what they want. Their taste becomes surer and surer as their experience lengthens. They do not enjoy to-day what will seem tedious to them to-morrow. When they find a book tedious, no amount of popular clatter will persuade them that it is pleasurable; and when they find it pleasurable no chill silence of the street-crowds will affect their conviction that the book is good and permanent. They have faith in themselves. What are the qualities in a book which give keen and lasting pleasure to the passionate few? This is a question so difficult that it has never yet been completely answered. You may talk lightly about truth, insight, knowledge, wisdom, humour, and beauty. But these comfortable words do not really carry you very far, for each of them has to be defined, especially the first and last. It is all very well for Keats in his airy manner to assert that beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that that is all he knows or needs to know. I, for one, need to know a lot more. And I never shall know. Nobody, not even Hazlitt nor Sainte-Beuve, has ever finally explained why he thought a book beautiful. I take the first fine lines that come to hand-- The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy-- and I say that those lines are beautiful, because they give me pleasure. But why? No answer! I only know that the passionate few will, broadly, agree with me in deriving this mysterious pleasure from those lines. I am only convinced that the liveliness of our pleasure in those and many other lines by the same author will ultimately cause the majority to believe, by faith, that W.B. Yeats is a genius. The one reassuring aspect of the literary affair is that the passionate few are passionate about the same things. A continuance of interest does, in actual practice, lead ultimately to the same judgments. There is only the difference in width of interest. Some of the passionate few lack catholicity, or, rather, the whole of their interest is confined to one narrow channel; they have none left over. These men help specially to vitalise the reputations of the narrower geniuses: such as Crashaw. But their active predilections never contradict the general verdict of the passionate few; rather they reinforce it. A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an eternal process of rediscovery. A classic does not survive for any ethical reason. It does not survive because it conforms to certain canons, or because neglect would not kill it. It survives because it is a source of pleasure, and because the passionate few can no more neglect it than a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read "the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart before the horse. "The right things" are the right things solely because the passionate few _like_ reading them. Hence--and I now arrive at my point--the one primary essential to literary taste is a hot interest in literature. If you have that, all the rest will come. It matters nothing that at present you fail to find pleasure in certain classics. The driving impulse of your interest will force you to acquire experience, and experience will teach you the use of the means of pleasure. You do not know the secret ways of yourself: that is all. A continuance of interest must inevitably bring you to the keenest joys. But, of course, experience may be acquired judiciously or injudiciously, just as Putney may be reached _via_ Walham Green or _via_ St. Petersburg. CHAPTER IV WHERE TO BEGIN I wish particularly that my readers should not be intimidated by the apparent vastness and complexity of this enterprise of forming the literary taste. It is not so vast nor so complex as it looks. There is no need whatever for the inexperienced enthusiast to confuse and frighten himself with thoughts of "literature in all its branches." Experts and pedagogues (chiefly pedagogues) have, for the purpose of convenience, split literature up into divisions and sub-divisions--such as prose and poetry; or imaginative, philosophic, historical; or elegiac, heroic, lyric; or religious and profane, etc., _ad infinitum_. But the greater truth is that literature is all one--and indivisible. The idea of the unity of literature should be well planted and fostered in the head. All literature is the expression of feeling, of passion, of emotion, caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life. What drives a historian to write history? Nothing but the overwhelming impression made upon him by the survey of past times. He is forced into an attempt to reconstitute the picture for others. If hitherto you have failed to perceive that a historian is a being in strong emotion, trying to convey his emotion to others, read the passage in the _Memoirs_ of Gibbon, in which he describes how he finished the _Decline and Fall_. You will probably never again look upon the _Decline and Fall_ as a "dry" work. What applies to history applies to the other "dry" branches. Even Johnson's Dictionary is packed with emotion. Read the last paragraph of the preface to it: "In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed.... It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed...." And so on to the close: "I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wish to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise." Yes, tranquillity; but not frigid! The whole passage, one of the finest in English prose, is marked by the heat of emotion. You may discover the same quality in such books as Spencer's _First Principles_. You may discover it everywhere in literature, from the cold fire of Pope's irony to the blasting temperatures of Swinburne. Literature does not begin till emotion has begun. There is even no essential, definable difference between those two great branches, prose and poetry. For prose may have rhythm. All that can be said is that verse will scan, while prose will not. The difference is purely formal. Very few poets have succeeded in being so poetical as Isaiah, Sir Thomas Browne, and Ruskin have been in prose. It can only be stated that, as a rule, writers have shown an instinctive tendency to choose verse for the expression of the very highest emotion. The supreme literature is in verse, but the finest achievements in prose approach so nearly to the finest achievements in verse that it is ill work deciding between them. In the sense in which poetry is best understood, all literature is poetry--or is, at any rate, poetical in quality. Macaulay's ill-informed and unjust denunciations live because his genuine emotion made them into poetry, while his _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are dead because they are not the expression of a genuine emotion. As the literary taste develops, this quality of emotion, restrained or loosed, will be more and more widely perceived at large in literature. It is the quality that must be looked for. It is the quality that unifies literature (and all the arts). It is not merely useless, it is harmful, for you to map out literature into divisions and branches, with different laws, rules, or canons. The first thing is to obtain some possession of literature. When you have actually felt some of the emotion which great writers have striven to impart to you, and when your emotions become so numerous and puzzling that you feel the need of arranging them and calling them by names, then--and not before--you can begin to study what has been attempted in the way of classifying and ticketing literature. Manuals and treatises are excellent things in their kind, but they are simply dead weight at the start. You can only acquire really useful general ideas by first acquiring particular ideas, and putting those particular ideas together. You cannot make bricks without straw. Do not worry about literature in the abstract, about theories as to literature. Get at it. Get hold of literature in the concrete as a dog gets hold of a bone. If you ask me where you ought to begin, I shall gaze at you as I might gaze at the faithful animal if he inquired which end of the bone he ought to attack. It doesn't matter in the slightest degree where you begin. Begin wherever the fancy takes you to begin. Literature is a whole. There is only one restriction for you. You must begin with an acknowledged classic; you must eschew modern works. The reason for this does not imply any depreciation of the present age at the expense of past ages. Indeed, it is important, if you wish ultimately to have a wide, catholic taste, to guard against the too common assumption that nothing modern will stand comparison with the classics. In every age there have been people to sigh: "Ah, yes. Fifty years ago we had a few great writers. But they are all dead, and no young ones are arising to take their place." This attitude of mind is deplorable, if not silly, and is a certain proof of narrow taste. It is a surety that in 1959 gloomy and egregious persons will be saying: "Ah, yes. At the beginning of the century there were great poets like Swinburne, Meredith, Francis Thompson, and Yeats. Great novelists like Hardy and Conrad. Great historians like Stubbs and Maitland, etc., etc. But they are all dead now, and whom have we to take their place?" It is not until an age has receded into history, and all its mediocrity has dropped away from it, that we can see it as it is--as a group of men of genius. We forget the immense amount of twaddle that the great epochs produced. The total amount of fine literature created in a given period of time differs from epoch to epoch, but it does not differ much. And we may be perfectly sure that our own age will make a favourable impression upon that excellent judge, posterity. Therefore, beware of disparaging the present in your own mind. While temporarily ignoring it, dwell upon the idea that its chaff contains about as much wheat as any similar quantity of chaff has contained wheat. The reason why you must avoid modern works at the beginning is simply that you are not in a position to choose among modern works. Nobody at all is quite in a position to choose with certainty among modern works. To sift the wheat from the chaff is a process that takes an exceedingly long time. Modern works have to pass before the bar of the taste of successive generations. Whereas, with classics, which have been through the ordeal, almost the reverse is the case. _Your taste has to pass before the bar of the classics_. That is the point. If you differ with a classic, it is you who are wrong, and not the book. If you differ with a modern work, you may be wrong or you may be right, but no judge is authoritative enough to decide. Your taste is unformed. It needs guidance, and it needs authoritative guidance. Into the business of forming literary taste faith enters. You probably will not specially care for a particular classic at first. If you did care for it at first, your taste, so far as that classic is concerned, would be formed, and our hypothesis is that your taste is not formed. How are you to arrive at the stage of caring for it? Chiefly, of course, by examining it and honestly trying to understand it. But this process is materially helped by an act of faith, by the frame of mind which says: "I know on the highest authority that this thing is fine, that it is capable of giving me pleasure. Hence I am determined to find pleasure in it." Believe me that faith counts enormously in the development of that wide taste which is the instrument of wide pleasures. But it must be faith founded on unassailable authority. CHAPTER V HOW TO READ A CLASSIC Let us begin experimental reading with Charles Lamb. I choose Lamb for various reasons: He is a great writer, wide in his appeal, of a highly sympathetic temperament; and his finest achievements are simple and very short. Moreover, he may usefully lead to other and more complex matters, as will appear later. Now, your natural tendency will be to think of Charles Lamb as a book, because he has arrived at the stage of being a classic. Charles Lamb was a man, not a book. It is extremely important that the beginner in literary study should always form an idea of the man behind the book. The book is nothing but the expression of the man. The book is nothing but the man trying to talk to you, trying to impart to you some of his feelings. An experienced student will divine the man from the book, will understand the man by the book, as is, of course, logically proper. But the beginner will do well to aid himself in understanding the book by means of independent information about the man. He will thus at once relate the book to something human, and strengthen in his mind the essential notion of the connection between literature and life. The earliest literature was delivered orally direct by the artist to the recipient. In some respects this arrangement was ideal. Changes in the constitution of society have rendered it impossible. Nevertheless, we can still, by the exercise of the imagination, hear mentally the accents of the artist speaking to us. We must so exercise our imagination as to feel the man behind the book. Some biographical information about Lamb should be acquired. There are excellent short biographies of him by Canon Ainger in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, in Chambers's _Encyclopædia_, and in Chambers's _Cyclopædia of English Literature_. If you have none of these (but you ought to have the last), there are Mr. E.V. Lucas's exhaustive _Life_ (Methuen, 7s. 6d.), and, cheaper, Mr. Walter Jerrold's _Lamb_ (Bell and Sons, 1s.); also introductory studies prefixed to various editions of Lamb's works. Indeed, the facilities for collecting materials for a picture of Charles Lamb as a human being are prodigious. When you have made for yourself such a picture, read the _Essays of Elia_ the light of it. I will choose one of the most celebrated, _Dream Children: A Reverie_. At this point, kindly put my book down, and read _Dream Children_. Do not say to yourself that you will read it later, but read it now. When you have read it, you may proceed to my next paragraph. You are to consider _Dream Children_ as a human document. Lamb was nearing fifty when he wrote it. You can see, especially from the last line, that the death of his elder brother, John Lamb, was fresh and heavy on his mind. You will recollect that in youth he had had a disappointing love-affair with a girl named Ann Simmons, who afterwards married a man named Bartrum. You will know that one of the influences of his childhood was his grandmother Field, housekeeper of Blakesware House, in Hertfordshire, at which mansion he sometimes spent his holidays. You will know that he was a bachelor, living with his sister Mary, who was subject to homicidal mania. And you will see in this essay, primarily, a supreme expression of the increasing loneliness of his life. He constructed all that preliminary tableau of paternal pleasure in order to bring home to you in the most poignant way his feeling of the solitude of his existence, his sense of all that he had missed and lost in the world. The key of the essay is one of profound sadness. But note that he makes his sadness beautiful; or, rather, he shows the beauty that resides in sadness. You watch him sitting there in his "bachelor arm-chair," and you say to yourself: "Yes, it was sad, but it was somehow beautiful." When you have said that to yourself, Charles Lamb, so far as you are concerned, has accomplished his chief aim in writing the essay. How exactly he produces his effect can never be fully explained. But one reason of his success is certainly his regard for truth. He does not falsely idealise his brother, nor the relations between them. He does not say, as a sentimentalist would have said, "Not the slightest cloud ever darkened our relations;" nor does he exaggerate his solitude. Being a sane man, he has too much common-sense to assemble all his woes at once. He might have told you that Bridget was a homicidal maniac; what he does tell you is that she was faithful. Another reason of his success is his continual regard for beautiful things and fine actions, as illustrated in the major characteristics of his grandmother and his brother, and in the detailed description of Blakesware House and the gardens thereof. Then, subordinate to the main purpose, part of the machinery of the main purpose, is the picture of the children--real children until the moment when they fade away. The traits of childhood are accurately and humorously put in again and again: "Here John smiled, as much as to say, 'That would be foolish indeed.'" "Here little Alice spread her hands." "Here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted." "Here John expanded all his eyebrows, and tried to look courageous." "Here John slily deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes." "Here the children fell a-crying ... and prayed me to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother." And the exquisite: "Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be upbraiding." Incidentally, while preparing his ultimate solemn effect, Lamb has inspired you with a new, intensified vision of the wistful beauty of children--their imitativeness, their facile and generous emotions, their anxiety to be correct, their ingenuous haste to escape from grief into joy. You can see these children almost as clearly and as tenderly as Lamb saw them. For days afterwards you will not be able to look upon a child without recalling Lamb's portrayal of the grace of childhood. He will have shared with you his perception of beauty. If you possess children, he will have renewed for you the charm which custom does very decidedly stale. It is further to be noticed that the measure of his success in picturing the children is the measure of his success in his main effect. The more real they seem, the more touching is the revelation of the fact that they do not exist, and never have existed. And if you were moved by the reference to their "pretty dead mother," you will be still more moved when you learn that the girl who would have been their mother is not dead and is not Lamb's. As, having read the essay, you reflect upon it, you will see how its emotional power over you has sprung from the sincere and unexaggerated expression of actual emotions exactly remembered by someone who had an eye always open for beauty, who was, indeed, obsessed by beauty. The beauty of old houses and gardens and aged virtuous characters, the beauty of children, the beauty of companionships, the softening beauty of dreams in an arm-chair--all these are brought together and mingled with the grief and regret which were the origin of the mood. Why is _Dream Children_ a classic? It is a classic because it transmits to you, as to generations before you, distinguished emotion, because it makes you respond to the throb of life more intensely, more justly, and more nobly. And it is capable of doing this because Charles Lamb had a very distinguished, a very sensitive, and a very honest mind. His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly that he was obliged to find relief in imparting his emotions. And his mental processes were so sincere that he could neither exaggerate nor diminish the truth. If he had lacked any one of these three qualities, his appeal would have been narrowed and weakened, and he would not have become a classic. Either his feelings would have been deficient in supreme beauty, and therefore less worthy to be imparted, or he would not have had sufficient force to impart them; or his honesty would not have been equal to the strain of imparting them accurately. In any case, he would not have set up in you that vibration which we call pleasure, and which is super-eminently caused by vitalising participation in high emotion. As Lamb sat in his bachelor arm-chair, with his brother in the grave, and the faithful homicidal maniac by his side, he really did think to himself, "This is beautiful. Sorrow is beautiful. Disappointment is beautiful. Life is beautiful. _I must tell them_. I must make them understand." Because he still makes you understand he is a classic. And now I seem to hear you say, "But what about Lamb's famous literary style? Where does that come in?" CHAPTER VI THE QUESTION OF STYLE In discussing the value of particular books, I have heard people say--people who were timid about expressing their views of literature in the presence of literary men: "It may be bad from a literary point of view, but there are very good things in it." Or: "I dare say the style is very bad, but really the book is very interesting and suggestive." Or: "I'm not an expert, and so I never bother my head about good style. All I ask for is good matter. And when I have got it, critics may say what they like about the book." And many other similar remarks, all showing that in the minds of the speakers there existed a notion that style is something supplementary to, and distinguishable from, matter; a sort of notion that a writer who wanted to be classical had first to find and arrange his matter, and then dress it up elegantly in a costume of style, in order to please beings called literary critics. This is a misapprehension. Style cannot be distinguished from matter. When a writer conceives an idea he conceives it in a form of words. That form of words constitutes his style, and it is absolutely governed by the idea. The idea can only exist in words, and it can only exist in one form of words. You cannot say exactly the same thing in two different ways. Slightly alter the expression, and you slightly alter the idea. Surely it is obvious that the expression cannot be altered without altering the thing expressed! A writer, having conceived and expressed an idea, may, and probably will, "polish it up." But what does he polish up? To say that he polishes up his style is merely to say that he is polishing up his idea, that he has discovered faults or imperfections in his idea, and is perfecting it. An idea exists in proportion as it is expressed; it exists when it is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. A clear idea is expressed clearly, and a vague idea vaguely. You need but take your own case and your own speech. For just as science is the development of common-sense, so is literature the development of common daily speech. The difference between science and common-sense is simply one of degree; similarly with speech and literature. Well, when you "know what you think," you succeed in saying what you think, in making yourself understood. When you "don't know what to think," your expressive tongue halts. And note how in daily life the characteristics of your style follow your mood; how tender it is when you are tender, how violent when you are violent. You have said to yourself in moments of emotion: "If only I could write--," etc. You were wrong. You ought to have said: "If only I could _think_--on this high plane." When you have thought clearly you have never had any difficulty in saying what you thought, though you may occasionally have had some difficulty in keeping it to yourself. And when you cannot express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express, and that what incommodes you is not the vain desire to express, but the vain desire to _think_ more clearly. All this just to illustrate how style and matter are co-existent, and inseparable, and alike. You cannot have good matter with bad style. Examine the point more closely. A man wishes to convey a fine idea to you. He employs a form of words. That form of words is his style. Having read, you say: "Yes, this idea is fine." The writer has therefore achieved his end. But in what imaginable circumstances can you say: "Yes, this idea is fine, but the style is not fine"? The sole medium of communication between you and the author has been the form of words. The fine idea has reached you. How? In the words, by the words. Hence the fineness must be in the words. You may say, superiorly: "He has expressed himself clumsily, but I can _see_ what he means." By what light? By something in the words, in the style. That something is fine. Moreover, if the style is clumsy, are you sure that you can see what he means? You cannot be quite sure. And at any rate, you cannot see distinctly. The "matter" is what actually reaches you, and it must necessarily be affected by the style. Still further to comprehend what style is, let me ask you to think of a writer's style exactly as you would think of the gestures and manners of an acquaintance. You know the man whose demeanour is "always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know that his passions are strong? Because he "gives them away" by some small, but important, part of his demeanour, such as the twitching of a lip or the whitening of the knuckles caused by clenching the hand. In other words, his demeanour, fundamentally, is not calm. You know the man who is always "smoothly polite and agreeable," but who affects you unpleasantly. Why does he affect you unpleasantly? Because he is tedious, and therefore disagreeable, and because his politeness is not real politeness. You know the man who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but who, nevertheless, impresses you with a sense of dignity and force. Why? Because mingled with that awkwardness and so forth _is_ dignity. You know the blunt, rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be affectionate--because there is "something in his tone" or "something in his eyes." In every instance the demeanour, while perhaps seeming to be contrary to the character, is really in accord with it. The demeanour never contradicts the character. It is one part of the character that contradicts another part of the character. For, after all, the blunt man _is_ blunt, and the awkward man _is_ awkward, and these characteristics are defects. The demeanour merely expresses them. The two men would be better if, while conserving their good qualities, they had the superficial attributes of smoothness and agreeableness possessed by the gentleman who is unpleasant to you. And as regards this latter, it is not his superficial attributes which are unpleasant to you; but his other qualities. In the end the character is shown in the demeanour; and the demeanour is a consequence of the character and resembles the character. So with style and matter. You may argue that the blunt, rough man's demeanour is unfair to his tenderness. I do not think so. For his churlishness is really very trying and painful, even to the man's wife, though a moment's tenderness will make her and you forget it. The man really is churlish, and much more often than he is tender. His demeanour is merely just to his character. So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode against his style. You must not say that his style won't let his matter "come out." You must remember the churlish, tender man. The more you reflect, the more clearly you will see that faults and excellences of style are faults and excellences of matter itself. One of the most striking illustrations of this neglected truth is Thomas Carlyle. How often has it been said that Carlyle's matter is marred by the harshness and the eccentricities of his style? But Carlyle's matter is harsh and eccentric to precisely the same degree as his style is harsh and eccentric. Carlyle was harsh and eccentric. His behaviour was frequently ridiculous, if it were not abominable. His judgments were often extremely bizarre. When you read one of Carlyle's fierce diatribes, you say to yourself: "This is splendid. The man's enthusiasm for justice and truth is glorious." But you also say: "He is a little unjust and a little untruthful. He goes too far. He lashes too hard." These things are not the style; they are the matter. And when, as in his greatest moments, he is emotional and restrained at once, you say: "This is the real Carlyle." Kindly notice how perfect the style has become! No harshnesses or eccentricities now! And if that particular matter is the "real" Carlyle, then that particular style is Carlyle's "real" style. But when you say "real" you would more properly say "best." "This is the best Carlyle." If Carlyle had always been at his best he would have counted among the supreme geniuses of the world. But he was a mixture. His style is the expression of the mixture. The faults are only in the style because they are in the matter. You will find that, in classical literature, the style always follows the mood of the matter. Thus, Charles Lamb's essay on _Dream Children_ begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, enlivened by a certain quippishness concerning the children. The style is grave when great-grandmother Field is the subject, and when the author passes to a rather elaborate impression of the picturesque old mansion it becomes as it were consciously beautiful. This beauty is intensified in the description of the still more beautiful garden. But the real dividing point of the essay occurs when Lamb approaches his elder brother. He unmistakably marks the point with the phrase: "_Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone_, I told how," etc. Henceforward the style increases in fervour and in solemnity until the culmination of the essay is reached: "And while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech...." Throughout, the style is governed by the matter. "Well," you say, "of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise. If it were otherwise it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as though he were preaching a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as though he were teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as though he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either an ass or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have disposed of the problem of style so far as it can be disposed of. But what do those people mean who say: "I read such and such an author for the beauty of his style alone"? Personally, I do not clearly know what they mean (and I have never been able to get them to explain), unless they mean that they read for the beauty of sound alone. When you read a book there are only three things of which you may be conscious: (1) The significance of the words, which is inseparably bound up with the thought. (2) The look of the printed words on the page--I do not suppose that anybody reads any author for the visual beauty of the words on the page. (3) The sound of the words, either actually uttered or imagined by the brain to be uttered. Now it is indubitable that words differ in beauty of sound. To my mind one of the most beautiful words in the English language is "pavement." Enunciate it, study its sound, and see what you think. It is also indubitable that certain combinations of words have a more beautiful sound than certain other combinations. Thus Tennyson held that the most beautiful line he ever wrote was: The mellow ouzel fluting in the elm. Perhaps, as sound, it was. Assuredly it makes a beautiful succession of sounds, and recalls the bird-sounds which it is intended to describe. But does it live in the memory as one of the rare great Tennysonian lines? It does not. It has charm, but the charm is merely curious or pretty. A whole poem composed of lines with no better recommendation than that line has would remain merely curious or pretty. It would not permanently interest. It would be as insipid as a pretty woman who had nothing behind her prettiness. It would not live. One may remark in this connection how the merely verbal felicities of Tennyson have lost our esteem. Who will now proclaim the _Idylls of the King_ as a masterpiece? Of the thousands of lines written by him which please the ear, only those survive of which the matter is charged with emotion. No! As regards the man who professes to read an author "for his style alone," I am inclined to think either that he will soon get sick of that author, or that he is deceiving himself and means the author's general temperament--not the author's verbal style, but a peculiar quality which runs through all the matter written by the author. Just as one may like a man for something which is always coming out of him, which one cannot define, and which is of the very essence of the man. In judging the style of an author, you must employ the same canons as you use in judging men. If you do this you will not be tempted to attach importance to trifles that are negligible. There can be no lasting friendship without respect. If an author's style is such that you cannot _respect_ it, then you may be sure that, despite any present pleasure which you may obtain from that author, there is something wrong with his matter, and that the pleasure will soon cloy. You must examine your sentiments towards an author. If when you have read an author you are pleased, without being conscious of aught but his mellifluousness, just conceive what your feelings would be after spending a month's holiday with a merely mellifluous man. If an author's style has pleased you, but done nothing except make you giggle, then reflect upon the ultimate tediousness of the man who can do nothing but jest. On the other hand, if you are impressed by what an author has said to you, but are aware of verbal clumsinesses in his work, you need worry about his "bad style" exactly as much and exactly as little as you would worry about the manners of a kindhearted, keen-brained friend who was dangerous to carpets with a tea-cup in his hand. The friend's antics in a drawing-room are somewhat regrettable, but you would not say of him that his manners were bad. Again, if an author's style dazzles you instantly and blinds you to everything except its brilliant self, ask your soul, before you begin to admire his matter, what would be your final opinion of a man who at the first meeting fired his personality into you like a broadside. Reflect that, as a rule, the people whom you have come to esteem communicated themselves to you gradually, that they did not begin the entertainment with fireworks. In short, look at literature as you would look at life, and you cannot fail to perceive that, essentially, the style is the man. Decidedly you will never assert that you care nothing for style, that your enjoyment of an author's matter is unaffected by his style. And you will never assert, either, that style alone suffices for you. If you are undecided upon a question of style, whether leaning to the favourable or to the unfavourable, the most prudent course is to forget that literary style exists. For, indeed, as style is understood by most people who have not analysed their impressions under the influence of literature, there _is_ no such thing as literary style. You cannot divide literature into two elements and say: This is matter and that style. Further, the significance and the worth of literature are to be comprehended and assessed in the same way as the significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: by the exercise of common-sense. Common-sense will tell you that nobody, not even a genius, can be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions between matter and style is absurd. When there is a superficial contradiction, one of the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of far less importance than the other. If you refer literature to the standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality should count heaviest in your esteem. You will be in no danger of weighing a mere maladroitness of manner against a fine trait of character, or of letting a graceful deportment blind you to a fundamental vacuity. When in doubt, ignore style, and think of the matter as you would think of an individual. CHAPTER VII WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR Having disposed, so far as is possible and necessary, of that formidable question of style, let us now return to Charles Lamb, whose essay on _Dream Children_ was the originating cause of our inquiry into style. As we have made a beginning of Lamb, it will be well to make an end of him. In the preliminary stages of literary culture, nothing is more helpful, in the way of kindling an interest and keeping it well alight, than to specialise for a time on one author, and particularly on an author so frankly and curiously "human" as Lamb is. I do not mean that you should imprison yourself with Lamb's complete works for three months, and read nothing else. I mean that you should regularly devote a proportion of your learned leisure to the study of Lamb until you are acquainted with all that is important in his work and about his work. (You may buy the complete works in prose and verse of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by that unsurpassed expert Mr. Thomas Hutchison, and published by the Oxford University Press, in two volumes for four shillings the pair!) There is no reason why you should not become a modest specialist in Lamb. He is the very man for you; neither voluminous, nor difficult, nor uncomfortably lofty; always either amusing or touching; and--most important--himself passionately addicted to literature. You cannot like Lamb without liking literature in general. And you cannot read Lamb without learning about literature in general; for books were his hobby, and he was a critic of the first rank. His letters are full of literariness. You will naturally read his letters; you should not only be infinitely diverted by them (there are no better epistles), but you should receive from them much light on the works. It is a course of study that I am suggesting to you. It means a certain amount of sustained effort. It means slightly more resolution, more pertinacity, and more expenditure of brain-tissue than are required for reading a newspaper. It means, in fact, "work." Perhaps you did not bargain for work when you joined me. But I do not think that the literary taste can be satisfactorily formed unless one is prepared to put one's back into the affair. And I may prophesy to you, by way of encouragement, that, in addition to the advantages of familiarity with masterpieces, of increased literary knowledge, and of a wide introduction to the true bookish atmosphere and "feel" of things, which you will derive from a comprehensive study of Charles Lamb, you will also be conscious of a moral advantage--the very important and very inspiring advantage of really "knowing something about something." You will have achieved a definite step; you will be proudly aware that you have put yourself in a position to judge as an expert whatever you may hear or read in the future concerning Charles Lamb. This legitimate pride and sense of accomplishment will stimulate you to go on further; it will generate steam. I consider that this indirect moral advantage even outweighs, for the moment, the direct literary advantages. Now, I shall not shut my eyes to a possible result of your diligent intercourse with Charles Lamb. It is possible that you may be disappointed with him. It is--shall I say?--almost probable that you will be disappointed with him, at any rate partially. You will have expected more joy in him than you have received. I have referred in a previous chapter to the feeling of disappointment which often comes from first contacts with the classics. The neophyte is apt to find them--I may as well out with the word--dull. You may have found Lamb less diverting, less interesting, than you hoped. You may have had to whip yourself up again and again to the effort of reading him. In brief, Lamb has not, for you, justified his terrific reputation. If a classic is a classic because it gives _pleasure_ to succeeding generations of the people who are most keenly interested in literature, and if Lamb frequently strikes you as dull, then evidently there is something wrong. The difficulty must be fairly fronted, and the fronting of it brings us to the very core of the business of actually forming the taste. If your taste were classical you would discover in Lamb a continual fascination; whereas what you in fact do discover in Lamb is a not unpleasant flatness, enlivened by a vague humour and an occasional pathos. You ought, according to theory, to be enthusiastic; but you are apathetic, or, at best, half-hearted. There is a gulf. How to cross it? To cross it needs time and needs trouble. The following considerations may aid. In the first place, we have to remember that, in coming into the society of the classics in general and of Charles Lamb in particular, we are coming into the society of a mental superior. What happens usually in such a case? We can judge by recalling what happens when we are in the society of a mental inferior. We say things of which he misses the import; we joke, and he does not smile; what makes him laugh loudly seems to us horseplay or childish; he is blind to beauties which ravish us; he is ecstatic over what strikes us as crude; and his profound truths are for us trite commonplaces. His perceptions are relatively coarse; our perceptions are relatively subtle. We try to make him understand, to make him see, and if he is aware of his inferiority we may have some success. But if he is not aware of his inferiority, we soon hold our tongues and leave him alone in his self-satisfaction, convinced that there is nothing to be done with him. Every one of us has been through this experience with a mental inferior, for there is always a mental inferior handy, just as there is always a being more unhappy than we are. In approaching a classic, the true wisdom is to place ourselves in the position of the mental inferior, aware of mental inferiority, humbly stripping off all conceit, anxious to rise out of that inferiority. Recollect that we always regard as quite hopeless the mental inferior who does not suspect his own inferiority. Our attitude towards Lamb must be: "Charles Lamb was a greater man than I am, cleverer, sharper, subtler, finer, intellectually more powerful, and with keener eyes for beauty. I must brace myself to follow his lead." Our attitude must resemble that of one who cocks his ear and listens with all his soul for a distant sound. To catch the sound we really must listen. That is to say, we must read carefully, with our faculties on the watch. We must read slowly and perseveringly. A classic has to be wooed and is worth the wooing. Further, we must disdain no assistance. I am not in favour of studying criticism of classics before the classics themselves. My notion is to study the work and the biography of a classical writer together, and then to read criticism afterwards. I think that in reprints of the classics the customary "critical introduction" ought to be put at the end, and not at the beginning, of the book. The classic should be allowed to make his own impression, however faint, on the virginal mind of the reader. But afterwards let explanatory criticism be read as much as you please. Explanatory criticism is very useful; nearly as useful as pondering for oneself on what one has read! Explanatory criticism may throw one single gleam that lights up the entire subject. My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches the quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never a violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, but the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures of an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching too great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), while quite ignoring another. They are gross, like the joy of Worcester sauce on the palate. Now, if there is one point common to all classics, it is the absence of exaggeration. The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion. The beauty of a classic is not at all apt to knock you down. It will steal over you, rather. Many serious students are, I am convinced, discouraged in the early stages because they are expecting a wrong kind of pleasure. They have abandoned Worcester sauce, and they miss it. They miss the coarse _tang_. They must realise that indulgence in the _tang_ means the sure and total loss of sensitiveness--sensitiveness even to the _tang_ itself. They cannot have crudeness and fineness together. They must choose, remembering that while crudeness kills pleasure, fineness ever intensifies it. CHAPTER VIII SYSTEM IN HEADING You have now definitely set sail on the sea of literature. You are afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given adequate warning of the dangers and disappointments which await the unwary and the sanguine. The enterprise in which you are engaged is not facile, nor is it short. I think I have sufficiently predicted that you will have your hours of woe, during which you may be inclined to send to perdition all writers, together with the inventor of printing. But if you have become really friendly with Lamb; if you know Lamb, or even half of him; if you have formed an image of him in your mind, and can, as it were, hear him brilliantly stuttering while you read his essays or letters, then certainly you are in a fit condition to proceed and you want to know in which direction you are to proceed. Yes, I have caught your terrified and protesting whisper: "I hope to heaven he isn't going to prescribe a Course of English Literature, because I feel I shall never be able to do it!" I am not. If your object in life was to be a University Extension Lecturer in English literature, then I should prescribe something drastic and desolating. But as your object, so far as I am concerned, is simply to obtain the highest and most tonic form of artistic pleasure of which you are capable, I shall not prescribe any regular course. Nay, I shall venture to dissuade you from any regular course. No man, and assuredly no beginner, can possibly pursue a historical course of literature without wasting a lot of weary time in acquiring mere knowledge which will yield neither pleasure nor advantage. In the choice of reading the individual must count; caprice must count, for caprice is often the truest index to the individuality. Stand defiantly on your own feet, and do not excuse yourself to yourself. You do not exist in order to honour literature by becoming an encyclopædia of literature. Literature exists for your service. Wherever you happen to be, that, for you, is the centre of literature. Still, for your own sake you must confine yourself for a long time to recognised classics, for reasons already explained. And though you should not follow a course, you must have a system or principle. Your native sagacity will tell you that caprice, left quite unfettered, will end by being quite ridiculous. The system which I recommend is embodied in this counsel: Let one thing lead to another. In the sea of literature every part communicates with every other part; there are no land-locked lakes. It was with an eye to this system that I originally recommended you to start with Lamb. Lamb, if you are his intimate, has already brought you into relations with a number of other prominent writers with whom you can in turn be intimate, and who will be particularly useful to you. Among these are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt. You cannot know Lamb without knowing these men, and some of them are of the highest importance. From the circle of Lamb's own work you may go off at a tangent at various points, according to your inclination. If, for instance, you are drawn towards poetry, you cannot, in all English literature, make a better start than with Wordsworth. And Wordsworth will send you backwards to a comprehension of the poets against whose influence Wordsworth fought. When you have understood Wordsworth's and Coleridge's _Lyrical Ballads_, and Wordsworth's defence of them, you will be in a position to judge poetry in general. If, again, your mind hankers after an earlier and more romantic literature, Lamb's _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakspere_ has already, in an enchanting fashion, piloted you into a vast gulf of "the sea which is Shakspere." Again, in Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt you will discover essayists inferior only to Lamb himself, and critics perhaps not inferior. Hazlitt is unsurpassed as a critic. His judgments are convincing and his enthusiasm of the most catching nature. Having arrived at Hazlitt or Leigh Hunt, you can branch off once more at any one of ten thousand points into still wider circles. And thus you may continue up and down the centuries as far as you like, yea, even to Chaucer. If you chance to read Hazlitt on _Chaucer and Spenser_, you will probably put your hat on instantly and go out and buy these authors; such is his communicating fire! I need not particularise further. Commencing with Lamb, and allowing one thing to lead to another, you cannot fail to be more and more impressed by the peculiar suitability to your needs of the Lamb entourage and the Lamb period. For Lamb lived in a time of universal rebirth in English literature. Wordsworth and Coleridge were re-creating poetry; Scott was re-creating the novel; Lamb was re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and others were re-creating criticism. Sparks are flying all about the place, and it will be not less than a miracle if something combustible and indestructible in you does not take fire. I have only one cautionary word to utter. You may be saying to yourself: "So long as I stick to classics I cannot go wrong." You can go wrong. You can, while reading naught but very fine stuff, commit the grave error of reading too much of one kind of stuff. Now there are two kinds, and only two kinds. These two kinds are not prose and poetry, nor are they divided the one from the other by any differences of form or of subject. They are the inspiring kind and the informing kind. No other genuine division exists in literature. Emerson, I think, first clearly stated it. His terms were the literature of "power" and the literature of "knowledge." In nearly all great literature the two qualities are to be found in company, but one usually predominates over the other. An example of the exclusively inspiring kind is Coleridge's _Kubla Khan_. I cannot recall any first-class example of the purely informing kind. The nearest approach to it that I can name is Spencer's _First Principles_, which, however, is at least once highly inspiring. An example in which the inspiring quality predominates is _Ivanhoe_; and an example in which the informing quality predominates is Hazlitt's essays on Shakespeare's characters. You must avoid giving undue preference to the kind in which the inspiring quality predominates or to the kind in which the informing quality predominates. Too much of the one is enervating; too much of the other is desiccating. If you stick exclusively to the one you may become a mere debauchee of the emotions; if you stick exclusively to the other you may cease to live in any full sense. I do not say that you should hold the balance exactly even between the two kinds. Your taste will come into the scale. What I say is that neither kind must be neglected. Lamb is an instance of a great writer whom anybody can understand and whom a majority of those who interest themselves in literature can more or less appreciate. He makes no excessive demand either on the intellect or on the faculty of sympathetic emotion. On both sides of Lamb, however, there lie literatures more difficult, more recondite. The "knowledge" side need not detain us here; it can be mastered by concentration and perseverance. But the "power" side, which comprises the supreme productions of genius, demands special consideration. You may have arrived at the point of keenly enjoying Lamb and yet be entirely unable to "see anything in" such writings as _Kubla Khan_ or Milton's _Comus_; and as for _Hamlet_ you may see nothing in it but a sanguinary tale "full of quotations." Nevertheless it is the supreme productions which are capable of yielding the supreme pleasures, and which _will_ yield the supreme pleasures when the pass-key to them has been acquired. This pass-key is a comprehension of the nature of poetry. CHAPTER IX VERSE There is a word, a "name of fear," which rouses terror in the heart of the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race. The most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word. The most broad-minded will put their backs up against it. The most rash will not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it empty buildings that had been full; and I know that it will scatter a crowd more quickly than a hose-pipe, hornets, or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is to incur solitude, probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as historical examples show. That word is "poetry." The profound objection of the average man to poetry can scarcely be exaggerated. And when I say the average man, I do not mean the "average sensual man"--any man who gets on to the top of the omnibus; I mean the average lettered man, the average man who does care a little for books and enjoys reading, and knows the classics by name and the popular writers by having read them. I am convinced that not one man in ten who reads, reads poetry--at any rate, knowingly. I am convinced, further, that not one man in ten who goes so far as knowingly to _buy_ poetry ever reads it. You will find everywhere men who read very widely in prose, but who will say quite callously, "No, I never read poetry." If the sales of modern poetry, distinctly labelled as such, were to cease entirely to-morrow not a publisher would fail; scarcely a publisher would be affected; and not a poet would die--for I do not believe that a single modern English poet is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. For a country which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that, occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson. And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered man does not truly dislike poetry; he only dislikes it when it takes a certain form. He will read poetry and enjoy it, provided he is not aware that it is poetry. Poetry can exist authentically either in prose or in verse. Give him poetry concealed in prose and there is a chance that, taken off his guard, he will appreciate it. But show him a page of verse, and he will be ready to send for a policeman. The reason of this is that, though poetry may come to pass either in prose or in verse, it does actually happen far more frequently in verse than in prose; nearly all the very greatest poetry is in verse; verse is identified with the very greatest poetry, and the very greatest poetry can only be understood and savoured by people who have put themselves through a considerable mental discipline. To others it is an exasperating weariness. Hence chiefly the fearful prejudice of the average lettered man against the mere form of verse. The formation of literary taste cannot be completed until that prejudice has been conquered. My very difficult task is to suggest a method of conquering it. I address myself exclusively to the large class of people who, if they are honest, will declare that, while they enjoy novels, essays, and history, they cannot "stand" verse. The case is extremely delicate, like all nervous cases. It is useless to employ the arts of reasoning, for the matter has got beyond logic; it is instinctive. Perfectly futile to assure you that verse will yield a higher percentage of pleasure than prose! You will reply: "We believe you, but that doesn't help us." Therefore I shall not argue. I shall venture to prescribe a curative treatment (doctors do not argue); and I beg you to follow it exactly, keeping your nerve and your calm. Loss of self-control might lead to panic, and panic would be fatal. First: Forget as completely as you can all your present notions about the nature of verse and poetry. Take a sponge and wipe the slate of your mind. In particular, do not harass yourself by thoughts of metre and verse forms. Second: Read William Hazlitt's essay "On Poetry in General." This essay is the first in the book entitled _Lectures on the English Poets_. It can be bought in various forms. I think the cheapest satisfactory edition is in Routledge's "New Universal Library" (price 1s. net). I might have composed an essay of my own on the real harmless nature of poetry in general, but it could only have been an echo and a deterioration of Hazlitt's. He has put the truth about poetry in a way as interesting, clear, and reassuring as anyone is ever likely to put it. I do not expect, however, that you will instantly gather the full message and enthusiasm of the essay. It will probably seem to you not to "hang together." Still, it will leave bright bits of ideas in your mind. Third: After a week's interval read the essay again. On a second perusal it will appear more persuasive to you. Fourth: Open the Bible and read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. It is the chapter which begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," and ends, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." This chapter will doubtless be more or less familiar to you. It cannot fail (whatever your particular _ism_) to impress you, to generate in your mind sensations which you recognise to be of a lofty and unusual order, and which you will admit to be pleasurable. You will probably agree that the result of reading this chapter (even if your particular _ism_ is opposed to its authority) is finer than the result of reading a short story in a magazine or even an essay by Charles Lamb. Now the pleasurable sensations induced by the fortieth chapter of Isaiah are among the sensations usually induced by high-class poetry. The writer of it was a very great poet, and what he wrote is a very great poem. Fifth: After having read it, go back to Hazlitt, and see if you can find anything in Hazlitt's lecture which throws light on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading Isaiah. Sixth: The next step is into unmistakable verse. It is to read one of Wordsworth's short narrative poems, _The Brothers_. There are editions of Wordsworth at a shilling, but I should advise the "Golden Treasury" Wordsworth (2s. 6d. net), because it contains the famous essay by Matthew Arnold, who made the selection. I want you to read this poem aloud. You will probably have to hide yourself somewhere in order to do so, for, of course, you would not, as yet, care to be overheard spouting poetry. Be good enough to forget that _The Brothers_ is poetry. _The Brothers_ is a short story, with a plain, clear plot. Read it as such. Read it simply for the story. It is very important at this critical stage that you should not embarrass your mind with preoccupations as to the _form_ in which Wordsworth has told his story. Wordsworth's object was to tell a story as well as he could: just that. In reading aloud do not pay any more attention to the metre than you feel naturally inclined to pay. After a few lines the metre will present itself to you. Do not worry as to what kind of metre it is. When you have finished the perusal, examine your sensations.... Your sensations after reading this poem, and perhaps one or two other narrative poems of Wordsworth, such as _Michael_, will be different from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, or even a very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be so sharp, so clear and piquant, but they will probably be, in their mysteriousness and their vagueness, more impressive. I do not say that they will be diverting. I do not go so far as to say that they will strike you as pleasing sensations. (Be it remembered that I am addressing myself to an imaginary tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being "disturbing." Well, to disturb the spirit is one of the greatest aims of art. And a disturbance of spirit is one of the finest pleasures that a highly-organised man can enjoy. But this truth can only be really learnt by the repetitions of experience. As an aid to the more exhaustive examination of your feelings under Wordsworth, in order that you may better understand what he was trying to effect in you, and the means which he employed, I must direct you to Wordsworth himself. Wordsworth, in addition to being a poet, was unsurpassed as a critic of poetry. What Hazlitt does for poetry in the way of creating enthusiasm Wordsworth does in the way of philosophic explanation. And Wordsworth's explanations of the theory and practice of poetry are written for the plain man. They pass the comprehension of nobody, and their direct, unassuming, and calm simplicity is extremely persuasive. Wordsworth's chief essays in throwing light on himself are the "Advertisement," "Preface," and "Appendix" to _Lyrical Ballads_; the letters to Lady Beaumont and "the Friend" and the "Preface" to the Poems dated 1815. All this matter is strangely interesting and of immense educational value. It is the first-class expert talking at ease about his subject. The essays relating to _Lyrical Ballads_ will be the most useful for you. You will discover these precious documents in a volume entitled _Wordsworth's Literary Criticism_ (published by Henry Frowde, 2s. 6d.), edited by that distinguished Wordsworthian Mr. Nowell C. Smith. It is essential that the student of poetry should become possessed, honestly or dishonestly, either of this volume or of the matter which it contains. There is, by the way, a volume of Wordsworth's prose in the Scott Library (1s.). Those who have not read Wordsworth on poetry can have no idea of the naïve charm and the helpful radiance of his expounding. I feel that I cannot too strongly press Wordsworth's criticism upon you. Between Wordsworth and Hazlitt you will learn all that it behoves you to know of the nature, the aims, and the results of poetry. It is no part of my scheme to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of Wordsworth and Hazlitt. I best fulfil my purpose in urgently referring you to them. I have only a single point of my own to make--a psychological detail. One of the main obstacles to the cultivation of poetry in the average sensible man is an absurdly inflated notion of the ridiculous. At the bottom of that man's mind is the idea that poetry is "silly." He also finds it exaggerated and artificial; but these two accusations against poetry can be satisfactorily answered. The charge of silliness, of being ridiculous, however, cannot be refuted by argument. There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the ridiculous is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely ridiculous. You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the greatest dramatist, not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor can prevent an audience from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment if a cat walks across the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter? Simply because the majority of any audience is artistically childish. This sense of the ridiculous can only be crushed by the exercise of moral force. It can only be cowed. If you are inclined to laugh when a poet expresses himself more powerfully than you express yourself, when a poet talks about feelings which are not usually mentioned in daily papers, when a poet uses words and images which lie outside your vocabulary and range of thought, then you had better take yourself in hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side of the angels or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer sign of imperfect development than the impulse to snigger at what is unusual, naïve, or exuberant. And if you choose to do so, you can detect the cat walking across the stage in the sublimest passages of literature. But more advanced souls will grieve for you. The study of Wordsworth's criticism makes the seventh step in my course of treatment. The eighth is to return to those poems of Wordsworth's which you have already perused, and read them again in the full light of the author's defence and explanation. Read as much Wordsworth as you find you can assimilate, but do not attempt either of his long poems. The time, however, is now come for a long poem. I began by advising narrative poetry for the neophyte, and I shall persevere with the prescription. I mean narrative poetry in the restricted sense; for epic poetry is narrative. _Paradise Lost_ is narrative; so is _The Prelude_. I suggest neither of these great works. My choice falls on Elizabeth Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. If you once work yourself "into" this poem, interesting yourself primarily (as with Wordsworth) in the events of the story, and not allowing yourself to be obsessed by the fact that what you are reading is "poetry"--if you do this, you are not likely to leave it unfinished. And before you reach the end you will have encountered _en route_ pretty nearly all the moods of poetry that exist: tragic, humorous, ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. You will have a comprehensive acquaintance with a poet's mind. I guarantee that you will come safely through if you treat the work as a novel. For a novel it effectively is, and a better one than any written by Charlotte Brontë or George Eliot. In reading, it would be well to mark, or take note of, the passages which give you the most pleasure, and then to compare these passages with the passages selected for praise by some authoritative critic. _Aurora Leigh_ can be got in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.), or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). The indispensable biographical information about Mrs. Browning can be obtained from Mr. J.H. Ingram's short Life of her in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from _Robert Browning_, by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.). This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. Going back to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, Burns, and the Lake School. You might select one of these, and read under his guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed by the conviction that there were four English poets whom I must have continually before me as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton." (A word to the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth to these four. Concurrently with the careful, enthusiastic study of one of the undisputed classics, modern verse should be read. (I beg you to accept the following statement: that if the study of classical poetry inspires you with a distaste for modern poetry, then there is something seriously wrong in the method of your development.) You may at this stage (and not before) commence an inquiry into questions of rhythm, verse-structure, and rhyme. There is, I believe, no good, concise, cheap handbook to English prosody; yet such a manual is greatly needed. The only one with which I am acquainted is Tom Hood the younger's _Rules of Rhyme: A Guide to English Versification_. Again, the introduction to Walker's _Rhyming Dictionary_ gives a fairly clear elementary account of the subject. Ruskin also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms. With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It is not something that can be "got up." CHAPTER X BROAD COUNSELS I have now set down what appear to me to be the necessary considerations, recommendations, exhortations, and dehortations in aid of this delicate and arduous enterprise of forming the literary taste. I have dealt with the theory of literature, with the psychology of the author, and--quite as important--with the psychology of the reader. I have tried to explain the author to the reader and the reader to himself. To go into further detail would be to exceed my original intention, with no hope of ever bringing the constantly-enlarging scheme to a logical conclusion. My aim is not to provide a map, but a compass--two very different instruments. In the way of general advice it remains for me only to put before you three counsels which apply more broadly than any I have yet offered to the business of reading. You have within yourself a touchstone by which finally you can, and you must, test every book that your brain is capable of comprehending. Does the book seem to you to be sincere and true? If it does, then you need not worry about your immediate feelings, or the possible future consequences of the book. You will ultimately like the book, and you will be justified in liking it. Honesty, in literature as in life, is the quality that counts first and counts last. But beware of your immediate feelings. Truth is not always pleasant. The first glimpse of truth is, indeed, usually so disconcerting as to be positively unpleasant, and our impulse is to tell it to go away, for we will have no truck with it. If a book arouses your genuine contempt, you may dismiss it from your mind. Take heed, however, lest you confuse contempt with anger. If a book really moves you to anger, the chances are that it is a good book. Most good books have begun by causing anger which disguised itself as contempt. Demanding honesty from your authors, you must see that you render it yourself. And to be honest with oneself is not so simple as it appears. One's sensations and one's sentiments must be examined with detachment. When you have violently flung down a book, listen whether you can hear a faint voice saying within you: "It's true, though!" And if you catch the whisper, better yield to it as quickly as you can. For sooner or later the voice will win. Similarly, when you are hugging a book, keep your ear cocked for the secret warning: "Yes, but it isn't true." For bad books, by flattering you, by caressing, by appealing to the weak or the base in you, will often persuade you what fine and splendid books they are. (Of course, I use the word "true" in a wide and essential significance. I do not necessarily mean true to literal fact; I mean true to the plane of experience in which the book moves. The truthfulness of _Ivanhoe_, for example, cannot be estimated by the same standards as the truthfulness of Stubbs's _Constitutional History_.) In reading a book, a sincere questioning of oneself, "Is it true?" and a loyal abiding by the answer, will help more surely than any other process of ratiocination to form the taste. I will not assert that this question and answer are all-sufficient. A true book is not always great. But a great book is never untrue. My second counsel is: In your reading you must have in view some definite aim--some aim other than the wish to derive pleasure. I conceive that to give pleasure is the highest end of any work of art, because the pleasure procured from any art is tonic, and transforms the life into which it enters. But the maximum of pleasure can only be obtained by regular effort, and regular effort implies the organisation of that effort. Open-air walking is a glorious exercise; it is the walking itself which is glorious. Nevertheless, when setting out for walking exercise, the sane man generally has a subsidiary aim in view. He says to himself either that he will reach a given point, or that he will progress at a given speed for a given distance, or that he will remain on his feet for a given time. He organises his effort, partly in order that he may combine some other advantage with the advantage of walking, but principally in order to be sure that the effort shall be an adequate effort. The same with reading. Your paramount aim in poring over literature is to enjoy, but you will not fully achieve that aim unless you have also a subsidiary aim which necessitates the measurement of your energy. Your subsidiary aim may be æsthetic, moral, political, religious, scientific, erudite; you may devote yourself to a man, a topic, an epoch, a nation, a branch of literature, an idea--you have the widest latitude in the choice of an objective; but a definite objective you must have. In my earlier remarks as to method in reading, I advocated, without insisting on, regular hours for study. But I both advocate and insist on the fixing of a date for the accomplishment of an allotted task. As an instance, it is not enough to say: "I will inform myself completely as to the Lake School." It is necessary to say: "I will inform myself completely as to the Lake School before I am a year older." Without this precautionary steeling of the resolution the risk of a humiliating collapse into futility is enormously magnified. My third counsel is: Buy a library. It is obvious that you cannot read unless you have books. I began by urging the constant purchase of books--any books of approved quality, without reference to their immediate bearing upon your particular case. The moment has now come to inform you plainly that a bookman is, amongst other things, a man who possesses many books. A man who does not possess many books is not a bookman. For years literary authorities have been favouring the literary public with wondrously selected lists of "the best books"--the best novels, the best histories, the best poems, the best works of philosophy--or the hundred best or the fifty best of all sorts. The fatal disadvantage of such lists is that they leave out large quantities of literature which is admittedly first-class. The bookman cannot content himself with a selected library. He wants, as a minimum, a library reasonably complete in all departments. With such a basis acquired, he can afterwards wander into those special byways of book-buying which happen to suit his special predilections. Every Englishman who is interested in any branch of his native literature, and who respects himself, ought to own a comprehensive and inclusive library of English literature, in comely and adequate editions. You may suppose that this counsel is a counsel of perfection. It is not. Mark Pattison laid down a rule that he who desired the name of book-lover must spend five per cent. of his income on books. The proposal does not seem extravagant, but even on a smaller percentage than five the average reader of these pages may become the owner, in a comparatively short space of time, of a reasonably complete English library, by which I mean a library containing the complete works of the supreme geniuses, representative important works of all the first-class men in all departments, and specimen works of all the men of the second rank whose reputation is really a living reputation to-day. The scheme for a library, which I now present, begins before Chaucer and ends with George Gissing, and I am fairly sure that the majority of people will be startled at the total inexpensiveness of it. So far as I am aware, no such scheme has ever been printed before. CHAPTER XI AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I [For much counsel and correction in the matter of editions and prices I am indebted to my old and valued friend, Charles Young, head of the firm of Lamley & Co., booksellers, South Kensington.] For the purposes of book-buying, I divide English literature, not strictly into historical epochs, but into three periods which, while scarcely arbitrary from the historical point of view, have nevertheless been calculated according to the space which they will occupy on the shelves and to the demands which they will make on the purse: I. From the beginning to John Dryden, or roughly, to the end of the seventeenth century. II. From William Congreve to Jane Austen, or roughly, the eighteenth century. III. From Sir Walter Scott to the last deceased author who is recognised as a classic, or roughly, the nineteenth century. Period III. will bulk the largest and cost the most; not necessarily because it contains more absolutely great books than the other periods (though in my opinion it _does_), but because it is nearest to us, and therefore fullest of interest for us. I have not confined my choice to books of purely literary interest--that is to say, to works which are primarily works of literary art. Literature is the vehicle of philosophy, science, morals, religion, and history; and a library which aspires to be complete must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these branches of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, it cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest is almost nil. On the other hand, I have excluded from consideration:-- i. Works whose sole importance is that they form a link in the chain of development. For example, nearly all the productions of authors between Chaucer and the beginning of the Elizabethan period, such as Gower, Hoccleve, and Skelton, whose works, for sufficient reason, are read only by professors and students who mean to be professors. ii. Works not originally written in English, such as the works of that very great philosopher Roger Bacon, of whom this isle ought to be prouder than it is. To this rule, however, I have been constrained to make a few exceptions. Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_ was written in Latin, but one does not easily conceive a library to be complete without it. And could one exclude Sir Isaac Newton's _Principia_, the masterpiece of the greatest physicist that the world has ever seen? The law of gravity ought to have, and does have, a powerful sentimental interest for us. iii. Translations from foreign literature into English. Here, then, are the lists for the first period: PROSE WRITERS £ s. d. Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_: Temple Classics. 0 1 6 Sir Thomas Malory, _Morte d'Arthur_: Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 Sir Thomas More, _Utopia_: Scott Library 0 1 0 George Cavendish, _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_: New Universal Library. 0 1 0 Richard Hakluyt, _Voyages_: Everyman's Library (8 vols.) 0 8 0 Richard Hooker, _Ecclesiastical Polity_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Francis Bacon, _Works_: Newnes's Thinpaper Classics. 0 2 0 Thomas Dekker, _Gull's Horn-Book_: King's Classics. 0 1 6 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, _Autobiography_: Scott Library. 0 1 0 John Selden, _Table-Talk_: New Universal Library. 0 1 0 Thomas Hobbes, _Leviathan_: New Universal Library. 0 1 0 James Howell, _Familiar Letters_: Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6 Sir Thomas Browne, _Religio Medici_, etc.: Everyman's Library. 0 1 0 Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Living and Holy Dying_: Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6 Izaak Walton, _Compleat Angler_: Everyman's Library. 0 1 0 John Bunyan, _Pilgrim's Progress_: World's Classics. 0 1 0 Sir William Temple, _Essay on Gardens of Epicurus_: King's Classics. 0 1 6 John Evelyn, _Diary_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Samuel Pepys, _Diary_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 _________ £2 1 6 The principal omission from the above list is _The Paston Letters_, which I should probably have included had the enterprise of publishers been sufficient to put an edition on the market at a cheap price. Other omissions include the works of Caxton and Wyclif, and such books as Camden's _Britannia_, Ascham's _Schoolmaster_, and Fuller's _Worthies_, whose lack of first-rate value as literature is not adequately compensated by their historical interest. As to the Bible, in the first place it is a translation, and in the second I assume that you already possess a copy. POETS £ s. d. _Beowulf_, Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 GEOFFREY CHAUCER, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 Nicolas Udall, _Ralph Roister-Doister_: Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 EDMUND SPENSER, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 Thomas Lodge, _Rosalynde_: Caxton Series 0 1 0 Robert Greene, _Tragical Reign of Selimus_: Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 Michael Drayton, _Poems_: Newnes's Pocket Classics 0 8 6 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, _Works_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 Thomas Campion, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Ben Jonson, _Plays_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 John Donne, _Poems_: Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, _Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6 Philip Massinger, _Plays_: Cunningham Edition 0 3 6 Beaumont and Fletcher, _Plays_: a Selection Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 John Ford, _Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6 George Herbert, _The Temple_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 ROBERT HERRICK, _Poems_: Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Edmund Waller, _Poems_: Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Sir John Suckling, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Abraham Cowley, _English Poems_: Cambridge University Press 0 4 6 Richard Crashaw, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Henry Vaughan, _Poems_: Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 Samuel Butler, _Hudibras_: Cambridge University Press 0 4 6 JOHN MILTON, _Poetical Works_: Oxford Cheap Edition 0 2 0 JOHN MILTON, _Select Prose Works_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Andrew Marvell, _Poems_: Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 John Dryden, _Poetical Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 [Thomas Percy], _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Arber's _"Spenser" Anthology_: Oxford University Press 0 2 0 Arber's _"Jonson" Anthology_: Oxford University Press 0 2 0 Arber's _"Shakspere" Anthology_: Oxford University Press 0 2 0 _________ £3 7 6 There were a number of brilliant minor writers in the seventeenth century whose best work, often trifling in bulk, either scarcely merits the acquisition of a separate volume for each author, or cannot be obtained at all in a modern edition. Such authors, however, may not be utterly neglected in the formation of a library. It is to meet this difficulty that I have included the last three volumes on the above list. Professor Arber's anthologies are full of rare pieces, and comprise admirable specimens of the verse of Samuel Daniel, Giles Fletcher, Countess of Pembroke, James I., George Peele, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip Sidney, Drummond of Hawthornden, Thomas Heywood, George Wither, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir William Davenant, Thomas Randolph, Frances Quarles, James Shirley, and other greater and lesser poets. I have included all the important Elizabethan dramatists except John Marston, all the editions of whose works, according to my researches, are out of print. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods talent was so extraordinarily plentiful that the standard of excellence is quite properly raised, and certain authors are thus relegated to the third, or excluded, class who in a less fertile period would have counted as at least second-class. SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PERIOD. £ s. d. 19 prose authors in 36 volumes costing 2 1 6 29 poets in 36 " " 3 7 6 __ __ _________ 48 72 £5 9 0 In addition, scores of authors of genuine interest are represented in the anthologies. The prices given are gross, and in many instances there is a 25 per cent. discount to come off. All the volumes can be procured immediately at any bookseller's. CHAPTER XII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD II After dealing with the formation of a library of authors up to John Dryden, I must logically arrange next a scheme for the period covered roughly by the eighteenth century. There is, however, no reason why the student in quest of a library should follow the chronological order. Indeed, I should advise him to attack the nineteenth century before the eighteenth, for the reason that, unless his taste happens to be peculiarly "Augustan," he will obtain a more immediate satisfaction and profit from his acquisitions in the nineteenth century than in the eighteenth. There is in eighteenth-century literature a considerable proportion of what I may term "unattractive excellence," which one must have for the purposes of completeness, but which may await actual perusal until more pressing and more human books have been read. I have particularly in mind the philosophical authors of the century. PROSE WRITERS. £ s. d. JOHN LOCKE, _Philosophical Works_: Bohn's Edition (2 vols.) 0 7 0 SIR ISAAC NEWTON, _Principia_ (sections 1, 2, and 3): Macmillans 0 12 0 Gilbert Burnet, _History of His Own Time_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 William Wycherley, _Best Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6 WILLIAM CONGREVE, _Best Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6 Jonathan Swift, _Tale of a Tub_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Jonathan Swift, _Gulliver's Travels_: Temple Classics 0 1 6 DANIEL DEFOE, _Robinson Crusoe_: World's Classics 0 1 0 DANIEL DEFOE, _Journal of the Plague Year_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, _Essays_: Scott Library 0 1 0 William Law, _Serious Call_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Lady Mary W. Montagu, _Letters_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 George Berkeley, _Principles of Human Knowledge_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 SAMUEL RICHARDSON, _Clarissa_ (abridged): Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 John Wesley, _Journal_: Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0 HENRY FIELDING, _Tom Jones_: Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 HENRY FIELDING, _Amelia_: Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 HENRY FIELDING, _Joseph Andrews_: Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 David Hume, _Essays_: World's Classics 0 1 0 LAURENCE STERNE, _Tristram Shandy_: World's Classics 0 1 0 LAURENCE STERNE, _Sentimental Journey_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Horace Walpole, _Castle of Otranto_: King's Classics 0 1 6 Tobias Smollett, _Humphrey Clinker_: Routledge's Edition 0 2 0 Tobias Smollett, _Travels through France and Italy_: World's Classics 0 1 0 ADAM SMITH, _Wealth of Nations_: World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Samuel Johnson, _Lives of the Poets_: World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Samuel Johnson, _Rasselas_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 JAMES BOSWELL, _Life of Johnson_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Oliver Goldsmith, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 Henry Mackenzie, _The Man of Feeling_: Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 Sir Joshua Reynolds, _Discourses on Art_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the French Revolution_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Edmund Burke, _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 EDWARD GIBBON, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_: World's Classics (7 vols.) 0 7 0 Thomas Paine, _Rights of Man_: Watts and Co.'s Edition 0 1 0 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, _Plays_: World's Classics 0 1 0 Fanny Burney, _Evelina_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Gilbert White, _Natural History of Selborne_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Arthur Young, _Travels in France_: York Library 0 2 0 Mungo Park, _Travels_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Jeremy Bentham, _Introduction to the Principles of Morals_: Clarendon Press 0 6 6 THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS, _Essay on the Principle of Population_: Ward, Lock's Edition 0 3 0 William Godwin, _Caleb Williams_: Newnes's Edition 0 1 0 Maria Edgeworth, _Helen_: Macmillan's Illustrated Edition 0 2 6 JANE AUSTEN, _Novels_: Nelson's New Century Library (2 vols.) 0 4 0 James Morier, _Hadji Baba_: Macmillan's Illustrated Novels 0 2 6 __________ £5 1 0 The principal omissions here are Jeremy Collier, whose outcry against the immorality of the stage is his slender title to remembrance; Richard Bentley, whose scholarship principally died with him, and whose chief works are no longer current; and "Junius," who would have been deservedly forgotten long ago had there been a contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes to ferret out his identity. POETS. £ s. d. Thomas Otway, _Venice Preserved_: Temple Dramatists 0 1 0 Matthew Prior, _Poems on Several Occasions_: Cambridge English Classics 0 4 6 John Gay, _Poems_: Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 ALEXANDER POPE, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 0 Isaac Watts, _Hymns_: Any hymn-book 0 1 0 James Thomson, _The Seasons_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Charles Wesley, _Hymns_: Any hymn-book 0 1 0 THOMAS GRAY, Samuel Johnson, William Collins, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 James Macpherson (Ossian), _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 THOMAS CHATTERTON, _Poems_: Muses' Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 WILLIAM COWPER, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 WILLIAM COWPER, _Letters_: World's Classics 0 1 0 George Crabbe, _Poems_: Methuen's Little Library 0 1 6 WILLIAM BLAKE, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 William Lisle Bowles, Hartley Coleridge, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 ROBERT BURNS, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 __________ £1 7 0 SUMMARY OF THE PERIOD. 39 prose writers in 60 volumes, costing £5 1 0 18 poets " 18 " " 1 7 0 __ __ __________ 57 78 £6 8 0 CHAPTER XIII AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD III The catalogue of necessary authors of this third and last period being so long, it is convenient to divide the prose writers into Imaginative and Non-imaginative. In the latter half of the period the question of copyright affects our scheme to a certain extent, because it affects prices. Fortunately it is the fact that no single book of recognised first-rate general importance is conspicuously dear. Nevertheless, I have encountered difficulties in the second rank; I have dealt with them in a spirit of compromise. I think I may say that, though I should have included a few more authors had their books been obtainable at a reasonable price, I have omitted none that I consider indispensable to a thoroughly representative collection. No living author is included. Where I do not specify the edition of a book the original copyright edition is meant. PROSE WRITERS: IMAGINATIVE. £ s. d. SIR WALTER SCOTT, _Waverley, Heart of Midlothian, Quentin Durward, Red-gauntlet, Ivanhoe_: Everyman's Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 SIR WALTER SCOTT, _Marmion_, etc.: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 Charles Lamb, _Works in Prose and Verse_: Clarendon Press (2 vols.) 0 4 0 Charles Lamb, _Letters_: Newnes's Thin Paper Classics 0 2 0 Walter Savage Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Walter Savage Landor, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 Leigh Hunt, _Essays and Sketches_: World's Classics 0 1 0 Thomas Love Peacock, _Principal Novels_: New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Mary Russell Mitford, _Our Village_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Michael Scott, _Tom Cringle's Log_: Macmillan's Illustrated Novels 0 2 6 Frederick Marryat, _Mr. Midshipman Easy_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 John Galt, _Annals of the Parish_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Susan Ferrier, _Marriage_: Routledge's edition 0 2 0 Douglas Jerrold, _Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures_: World's Classics 0 1 0 Lord Lytton, _Last Days of Pompeii_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 William Carleton, _Stories_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Charles James Lever, _Harry Lorrequer_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Harrison Ainsworth, _The Tower of London_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 George Henry Borrow, _Bible in Spain, Lavengro_: New Universal Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Lord Beaconsfield, _Sybil, Coningsby_: Lane's New Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 W.M. THACKERAY, _Vanity Fair, Esmond_: Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 W.M. THACKERAY, _Barry Lyndon_, and _Roundabout Papers_, etc.: Nelson's New Century Library 0 2 0 CHARLES DICKENS, _Works_: Everyman's Library (18 vols.) 0 18 0 Charles Reade, _The Cloister and the Hearth_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Anthony Trollope, _Barchester Towers, Framley Parsonage_: Lane's New Pocket Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Charles Kingsley, _Westward Ho!_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Henry Kingsley, _Ravenshoe_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Charlotte Brontë, _Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Professor, and Poems_: World's Classics (4 vols.) 0 4 0 Emily Brontë, _Wuthering Heights_: World's Classics 0 1 0 Elizabeth Gaskell, _Cranford_: World's Classics 0 1 0 Elizabeth Gaskell, _Life of Charlotte Brontë_ 0 2 6 George Eliot, _Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss_: Everyman's Library (3 vols.) 0 3 0 G.J. Whyte-Melville, _The Gladiators_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Alexander Smith, _Dreamthorpe_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 George Macdonald, _Malcolm_ 0 1 6 Walter Pater, _Imaginary Portraits_ 0 6 0 Wilkie Collins, _The Woman in White_ 0 1 0 R.D. Blackmore, _Lorna Doone_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Samuel Butler, _Erewhon_: Fifield's Edition 0 2 6 Laurence Oliphant, _Altiora Peto_ 0 3 6 Margaret Oliphant, _Salem Chapel_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Richard Jefferies, _Story of My Heart_ 0 2 0 Lewis Carroll, _Alice in Wonderland_: Macmillan's Cheap Edition 0 1 0 John Henry Shorthouse, _John Inglesant_: Macmillan's Pocket Classics 0 2 0 R.L. Stevenson, _Master of Ballantrae, Virginibus Puerisque_: Pocket Edition (2 vols.) 0 4 0 George Gissing, _The Odd Women_: Popular Edition (bound) 0 0 7 __________ £5 0 1 Names such as those of Charlotte Yonge and Dinah Craik are omitted intentionally. PROSE WRITERS: NON-IMAGINATIVE. £ s. d. William Hazlitt, _Spirit of the Age_: World's Classics 0 1 0 William Hazlitt, _English Poets and Comic Writers_: Bohn's Library 0 3 6 Francis Jeffrey, _Essays from Edinburgh Review_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Thomas de Quincey, _Confessions of an English Opium-eater_, etc.: Scott Library 0 1 0 Sydney Smith, _Selected Papers_: Scott Library 0 1 0 George Finlay, _Byzantine Empire_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 John G. Lockhart, _Life of Scott_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Agnes Strickland, _Life of Queen Elizabeth_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Hugh Miller, _Old Red Sandstone_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 J.H. Newman, _Apologia pro vita sua_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Lord Macaulay, _History of England_, (3), _Essays_ (2): Everyman's Library (5 vols.) 0 5 0 A.P. Stanley, _Memorials of Canterbury_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 THOMAS CARLYLE, _French Revolution_ (2), _Cromwell_ (3), _Sartor Resartus and Heroes and Hero-Worship_ (1): Everyman's Library (6 vols.) 0 6 0 THOMAS CARLYLE, _Latter-day Pamphlets_: Chapman and Hall's Edition 0 1 0 CHARLES DARWIN, _Origin of Species_: Murray's Edition 0 1 0 CHARLES DARWIN, _Voyage of the Beagle_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 A.W. Kinglake, _Eothen_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 John Stuart Mill, _Auguste Comte and Positivism_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 John Brown, _Horæ Subsecivæ_: World's Classics 0 1 0 John Brown, _Rab and His Friends_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Sir Arthur Helps, _Friends in Council_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Mark Pattison, _Life of Milton_: English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 F.W. Robertson, _On Religion and Life_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Benjamin Jowett, _Interpretation of Scripture_: Routledge's London Library 0 2 6 George Henry Lewes, _Principles of Success in Literature_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Alexander Bain, _Mind and Body_ 0 4 0 James Anthony Froude, _Dissolution of the Monasteries_, etc.: New Universal Library 0 1 0 Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the Rights of Women_: Scott Library 0 1 0 John Tyndall, _Glaciers of the Alps_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Sir Henry Maine, _Ancient Law_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 JOHN RUSKIN, _Seven Lamps_ (1), _Sesame and Lilies_ (1), _Stones of Venice_ (3): George Allen's Cheap Edition (5 vols.) 0 5 0 HERBERT SPENCER, _First Principles_ (2 vols.) 0 2 0 HERBERT SPENCER, _Education_ 0 1 0 Sir Richard Burton, _Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca_: Bohn's Edition (2 vols.) 0 7 0 J.S. Speke, _Sources of the Nile_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Thomas Henry Huxley, _Essays_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 E.A. Freeman, _Europe_: Macmillan's Primers 0 1 0 WILLIAM STUBBS, _Early Plantagenets_ 0 2 0 Walter Bagehot, _Lombard Street_ 0 3 6 Richard Holt Hutton, _Cardinal Newman_ 0 3 6 Sir John Seeley, _Ecce Homo_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 David Masson, _Thomas de Quincey_: English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 John Richard Green, _Short History of the English People_ 0 8 6 Sir Leslie Stephen, _Pope_: English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 Lord Acton, _On the Study of History_ 0 2 6 Mandell Creighton, _The Age of Elizabeth_ 0 2 6 F.W.H. Myers, _Wordsworth_: English Men of Letters Series 0 1 0 __________ £4 10 6 The following authors are omitted, I think justifiably:--Hallam, Whewell, Grote, Faraday, Herschell, Hamilton, John Wilson, Richard Owen, Stirling Maxwell, Buckle, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Hamerton, F.D. Maurice, Henry Sidgwick, and Richard Jebb. Lastly, here is the list of poets. In the matter of price per volume it is the most expensive of all the lists. This is due to the fact that it contains a larger proportion of copyright works. Where I do not specify the edition of a book, the original copyright edition is meant: POETS. £ s. d. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, _Poetical Works_: Oxford Edition 0 3 6 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, _Literary Criticism_: Nowell Smith's Edition 0 2 6 Robert Southey, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 Robert Southey, _Life of Nelson_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 S.T. COLERIDGE, _Poetical Works_: Newnes's Thin Paper Classics 0 2 0 S.T. COLERIDGE, _Biographia Literaria_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 S.T. COLERIDGE, _Lectures on Shakspere_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 JOHN KEATS, _Poetical Works_: Oxford Edition 0 3 6 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, _Poetical Works_: Oxford Edition 0 3 6 LORD BYRON, _Poems_: E. Hartley Coleridge's Edition 0 6 0 LORD BYRON, _Letters_: Scott Library 0 1 0 Thomas Hood, _Poems_: World's Classics 0 1 0 James and Horace Smith, _Rejected Addresses_: New Universal Library 0 1 0 John Keble, _The Christian Year_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 George Darley, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 T.L. Beddoes, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Thomas Moore, _Selected Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 James Clarence Mangan, _Poems_: D.J. O'Donoghue's Edition 0 3 6 W. Mackworth Praed, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 R.S. Hawker, _Cornish Ballads_: C.E. Byles's Edition 0 5 0 Edward FitzGerald, _Omar Khayyam_: Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 P.J. Bailey, _Festus_: Routledge's Edition 0 3 6 Arthur Hugh Clough, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 LORD TENNYSON, _Poetical Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6 ROBERT BROWNING, _Poetical Works_: World's Classics (2 vols.) 0 2 0 Elizabeth Browning, _Aurora Leigh_: Temple Classics 0 1 6 Elizabeth Browning, _Shorter Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 P.B. Marston, _Song-tide_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 Aubrey de Vere, _Legends of St. Patrick_: Cassell's National Library 0 0 6 MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Poems_: Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Essays_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Coventry Patmore, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0 Sydney Dobell, _Poems_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 Eric Mackay, _Love-letters of a Violinist_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0 T.E. Brown, _Poems_ 0 7 6 C.S. Calverley, _Verses and Translations_ 0 1 6 D.G. ROSSETTI, _Poetical Works_ 0 3 6 Christina Rossetti, _Selected Poems_: Golden Treasury Series 0 2 6 James Thomson, _City of Dreadful Night_ 0 3 6 Jean Ingelow, _Poems_: Red Letter Library 0 1 6 William Morris, _The Earthly Paradise_ 0 6 0 William Morris, _Early Romances_: Everyman's Library 0 1 0 Augusta Webster, _Selected Poems_ 0 4 6 W.E. Henley, _Poetical Works_ 0 6 0 Francis Thompson, _Selected Poems_ 0 5 0 __________ £5 7 0 Poets whom I have omitted after hesitation are: Ebenezer Elliott, Thomas Woolner, William Barnes, Gerald Massey, and Charles Jeremiah Wells. On the other hand, I have had no hesitation about omitting David Moir, Felicia Hemans, Aytoun, Sir Edwin Arnold, and Sir Lewis Morris. I have included John Keble in deference to much enlightened opinion, but against my inclination. There are two names in the list which may be somewhat unfamiliar to many readers. James Clarence Mangan is the author of _My Dark Rosaleen_, an acknowledged masterpiece, which every library must contain. T.E. Brown is a great poet, recognised as such by a few hundred people, and assuredly destined to a far wider fame. I have included FitzGerald because _Omar Khayyam_ is much less a translation than an original work. SUMMARY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 83 prose-writers, in 141 volumes, costing £9 10 7 38 poets " 46 " " 5 7 0 __ ___ __________ 121 187 £14 17 7 GRAND SUMMARY OF COMPLETE LIBRARY. Authors. Volumes. Price. 1. To Dryden 48 72 £5 9 0 2. Eighteenth Century 57 78 6 8 0 3. Nineteenth Century 121 187 14 17 7 ___ ___ ________ 226 337 £26 14 7 I think it will be agreed that the total cost of this library is surprisingly small. By laying out the sum of sixpence a day for three years you may become the possessor of a collection of books which, for range and completeness in all branches of literature, will bear comparison with libraries far more imposing, more numerous, and more expensive. I have mentioned the question of discount. The discount which you will obtain (even from a bookseller in a small town) will be more than sufficient to pay for Chambers's _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, three volumes, price 30s. net. This work is indispensable to a bookman. Personally, I owe it much. When you have read, wholly or in part, a majority of these three hundred and thirty-five volumes, _with enjoyment_, you may begin to whisper to yourself that your literary taste is formed; and you may pronounce judgment on modern works which come before the bar of your opinion in the calm assurance that, though to err is human, you do at any rate know what you are talking about. CHAPTER XIV MENTAL STOCKTAKING Great books do not spring from something accidental in the great men who wrote them. They are the effluence of their very core, the expression of the life itself of the authors. And literature cannot be said to have served its true purpose until it has been translated into the actual life of him who reads. It does not succeed until it becomes the vehicle of the vital. Progress is the gradual result of the unending battle between human reason and human instinct, in which the former slowly but surely wins. The most powerful engine in this battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high emotions--and life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas and emotions of genius. Only by conceiving a society without literature can it be clearly realised that the function of literature is to raise the plain towards the top level of the peaks. Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterwards live finely. It is a means of life; it concerns the living essence. Of course, literature has a minor function, that of passing the time in an agreeable and harmless fashion, by giving momentary faint pleasure. Vast multitudes of people (among whom may be numbered not a few habitual readers) utilise only this minor function of literature; by implication they class it with golf, bridge, or soporifics. Literary genius, however, had no intention of competing with these devices for fleeting the empty hours; and all such use of literature may be left out of account. You, O serious student of many volumes, believe that you have a sincere passion for reading. You hold literature in honour, and your last wish would be to debase it to a paltry end. You are not of those who read because the clock has just struck nine and one can't go to bed till eleven. You are animated by a real desire to get out of literature all that literature will give. And in that aim you keep on reading, year after year, and the grey hairs come. But amid all this steady tapping of the reservoir, do you ever take stock of what you have acquired? Do you ever pause to make a valuation, in terms of your own life, of that which you are daily absorbing, or imagine you are absorbing? Do you ever satisfy yourself by proof that you are absorbing anything at all, that the living waters, instead of vitalising you, are not running off you as though you were a duck in a storm? Because, if you omit this mere business precaution, it may well be that you, too, without knowing it, are little by little joining the triflers who read only because eternity is so long. It may well be that even your alleged sacred passion is, after all, simply a sort of drug-habit. The suggestion disturbs and worries you. You dismiss it impatiently; but it returns. How (you ask, unwillingly) can a man perform a mental stocktaking? How can he put a value on what he gets from books? How can he effectively test, in cold blood, whether he is receiving from literature all that literature has to give him? The test is not so vague, nor so difficult, as might appear. If a man is not thrilled by intimate contact with nature: with the sun, with the earth, which is his origin and the arouser of his acutest emotions-- If he is not troubled by the sight of beauty in many forms-- If he is devoid of curiosity concerning his fellow-men and his fellow-animals-- If he does not have glimpses of the nuity of all things in an orderly progress-- If he is chronically "querulous, dejected, and envious"-- If he is pessimistic-- If he is of those who talk about "this age of shams," "this age without ideals," "this hysterical age," and this heaven-knows-what-age-- Then that man, though he reads undisputed classics for twenty hours a day, though he has a memory of steel, though he rivals Porson in scholarship and Sainte Beuve in judgment, is not receiving from literature what literature has to give. Indeed, he is chiefly wasting his time. Unless he can read differently, it were better for him if he sold all his books, gave to the poor, and played croquet. He fails because he has not assimilated into his existence the vital essences which genius put into the books that have merely passed before his eyes; because genius has offered him faith, courage, vision, noble passion, curiosity, love, a thirst for beauty, and he has not taken the gift; because genius has offered him the chance of living fully, and he is only half alive, for it is only in the stress of fine ideas and emotions that a man may be truly said to live. This is not a moral invention, but a simple fact, which will be attested by all who know what that stress is. What! You talk learnedly about Shakespeare's sonnets! Have you heard Shakespeare's terrific shout: Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. And yet, can you see the sun over the viaduct at Loughborough Junction of a morning, and catch its rays in the Thames off Dewar's whisky monument, and not shake with the joy of life? If so, you and Shakespeare are not yet in communication. What! You pride yourself on your beautiful edition of Casaubon's translation of _Marcus Aurelius_, and you savour the cadences of the famous: This day I shall have to do with an idle, curious man, with an unthankful man, a railer, a crafty, false, or an envious man. All these ill qualities have happened unto him, through ignorance of that which is truly good and truly bad. But I that understand the nature of that which is good, that it only is to be desired, and of that which is bad, that it only is truly odious and shameful: who know, moreover, that this transgressor, whosoever he be, is my kinsman, not by the same blood and seed, but by participation of the same reason and of the same divine particle--how can I be hurt?... And with these cadences in your ears you go and quarrel with a cabman! You would be ashamed of your literary self to be caught in ignorance of Whitman, who wrote: Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. And yet, having achieved a motor-car, you lose your temper when it breaks down half-way up a hill! You know your Wordsworth, who has been trying to teach you about: The Upholder of the tranquil soul That tolerates the indignities of Time And, from the centre of Eternity All finite motions over-ruling, lives In glory immutable. But you are capable of being seriously unhappy when your suburban train selects a tunnel for its repose! And the A.V. of the Bible, which you now read, not as your forefathers read it, but with an æsthetic delight, especially in the Apocrypha! You remember: Whatsoever is brought upon thee, take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. And yet you are ready to lie down and die because a woman has scorned you! Go to! You think some of my instances approach the ludicrous? They do. They are meant to do so. But they are no more ludicrous than life itself. And they illustrate in the most workaday fashion how you can test whether your literature fulfils its function of informing and transforming your existence. I say that if daily events and scenes do not constantly recall and utilise the ideas and emotions contained in the books which you have read or are reading; if the memory of these books does not quicken the perception of beauty, wherever you happen to be, does not help you to correlate the particular trifle with the universal, does not smooth out irritation and give dignity to sorrow--then you are, consciously or not, unworthy of your high vocation as a bookman. You may say that I am preaching a sermon. The fact is, I am. My mood is a severely moral mood. For when I reflect upon the difference between what books have to offer and what even relatively earnest readers take the trouble to accept from them, I am appalled (or should be appalled, did I not know that the world is moving) by the sheer inefficiency, the bland, complacent failure of the earnest reader. I am like yourself, the spectacle of inefficiency rouses my holy ire. Before you begin upon another masterpiece, set out in a row the masterpieces which you are proud of having read during the past year. Take the first on the list, that book which you perused in all the zeal of your New Year resolutions for systematic study. Examine the compartments of your mind. Search for the ideas and emotions which you have garnered from that book. Think, and recollect when last something from that book recurred to your memory apropos of your own daily commerce with humanity. Is it history--when did it throw a light for you on modern politics? Is it science--when did it show you order in apparent disorder, and help you to put two and two together into an inseparable four? Is it ethics--when did it influence your conduct in a twopenny-halfpenny affair between man and man? Is it a novel--when did it help you to "understand all and forgive all"? Is it poetry--when was it a magnifying glass to disclose beauty to you, or a fire to warm your cooling faith? If you can answer these questions satisfactorily, your stocktaking as regards the fruit of your traffic with that book may be reckoned satisfactory. If you cannot answer them satisfactorily, then either you chose the book badly or your impression that you _read_ it is a mistaken one. When the result of this stocktaking forces you to the conclusion that your riches are not so vast as you thought them to be, it is necessary to look about for the causes of the misfortune. The causes may be several. You may have been reading worthless books. This, however, I should say at once, is extremely unlikely. Habitual and confirmed readers, unless they happen to be reviewers, seldom read worthless books. In the first place, they are so busy with books of proved value that they have only a small margin of leisure left for very modern works, and generally, before they can catch up with the age, Time or the critic has definitely threshed for them the wheat from the chaff. No! Mediocrity has not much chance of hood-winking the serious student. It is less improbable that the serious student has been choosing his books badly. He may do this in two ways--absolutely and relatively. Every reader of long standing has been through the singular experience of suddenly _seeing_ a book with which his eyes have been familiar for years. He reads a book with a reputation and thinks: "Yes, this is a good book. This book gives me pleasure." And then after an interval, perhaps after half a lifetime, something mysterious happens to his mental sight. He picks up the book again, and sees a new and profound significance in every sentence, and he says: "I was perfectly blind to this book before." Yet he is no cleverer than he used to be. Only something has happened to him. Let a gold watch be discovered by a supposititious man who has never heard of watches. He has a sense of beauty. He admires the watch, and takes pleasure in it. He says: "This is a beautiful piece of bric-à-brac; I fully appreciate this delightful trinket." Then imagine his feelings when someone comes along with the key; imagine the light flooding his brain. Similar incidents occur in the eventful life of the constant reader. He has no key, and never suspects that there exists such a thing as a key. That is what I call a choice absolutely bad. The choice is relatively bad when, spreading over a number of books, it pursues no order, and thus results in a muddle of faint impressions each blurring the rest. Books must be allowed to help one another; they must be skilfully called in to each other's aid. And that this may be accomplished some guiding principle is necessary. "And what," you demand, "should that guiding principle be?" How do I know? Nobody, fortunately, can make your principles for you. You have to make them for yourself. But I will venture upon this general observation: that in the mental world what counts is not numbers but co-ordination. As regards facts and ideas, the great mistake made by the average well-intentioned reader is that he is content with the names of things instead of occupying himself with the causes of things. He seeks answers to the question What? instead of to the question Why? He studies history, and never guesses that all history is caused by the facts of geography. He is a botanical expert, and can take you to where the _Sibthorpia europæa_ grows, and never troubles to wonder what the earth would be without its cloak of plants. He wanders forth of starlit evenings and will name you with unction all the constellations from Andromeda to the Scorpion; but if you ask him why Venus can never be seen at midnight, he will tell you that he has not bothered with the scientific details. He has not learned that names are nothing, and the satisfaction of the lust of the eye a trifle compared to the imaginative vision of which scientific "details" are the indispensable basis. Most reading, I am convinced, is unphilosophical; that is to say, it lacks the element which more than anything else quickens the poetry of life. Unless and until a man has formed a scheme of knowledge, be it a mere skeleton, his reading must necessarily be unphilosophical. He must have attained to some notion of the inter-relations of the various branches of knowledge before he can properly comprehend the branch in which he specialises. If he has not drawn an outline map upon which he can fill in whatever knowledge comes to him, as it comes, and on which he can trace the affinity of every part with every other part, he is assuredly frittering away a large percentage of his efforts. There are certain philosophical works which, once they are mastered, seem to have performed an operation for cataract, so that he who was blind, having read them, henceforward sees cause and effect working in and out everywhere. To use another figure, they leave stamped on the brain a chart of the entire province of knowledge. Such a work is Spencer's _First Principles_. I know that it is nearly useless to advise people to read _First Principles_. They are intimidated by the sound of it; and it costs as much as a dress-circle seat at the theatre. But if they would, what brilliant stocktakings there might be in a few years! Why, if they would only read such detached essays as that on "Manners and Fashion," or "The Genesis of Science" (in a sixpenny volume of Spencer's _Essays_, published by Watts and Co.), the magic illumination, the necessary power of "synthetising" things, might be vouch-safed to them. In any case, the lack of some such disciplinary, co-ordinating measure will amply explain many disastrous stocktakings. The manner in which one single ray of light, one single precious hint, will clarify and energise the whole mental life of him who receives it, is among the most wonderful and heavenly of intellectual phenomena. Some men search for that light and never find it. But most men never search for it. The superlative cause of disastrous stocktakings remains, and it is much more simple than the one with which I have just dealt. It consists in the absence of meditation. People read, and read, and read, blandly unconscious of their effrontery in assuming that they can assimilate without any further effort the vital essence which the author has breathed into them. They cannot. And the proof that they do not is shown all the time in their lives. I say that if a man does not spend at least as much time in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read as he has spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author. If he does not submit himself to intellectual and emotional fatigue in classifying the communicated ideas, and in emphasising on his spirit the imprint of the communicated emotions--then reading with him is a pleasant pastime and nothing else. This is a distressing fact. But it is a fact. It is distressing, for the reason that meditation is not a popular exercise. If a friend asks you what you did last night, you may answer, "I was reading," and he will be impressed and you will be proud. But if you answer, "I was meditating," he will have a tendency to smile and you will have a tendency to blush. I know this. I feel it myself. (I cannot offer any explanation.) But it does not shake my conviction that the absence of meditation is the main origin of disappointing stocktakings. BY THE SAME AUTHOR NOVELS A MAN FROM THE NORTH ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS LEONORA A GREAT MAN SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE WHOM GOD HATH JOINED BURIED ALIVE THE OLD WIVES' TALE THE GLIMPSE HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND CLAYHANGER THE CARD FANTASIAS THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL THE GATES OF WRATH TERESA OF WATLING STREET THE LOOT OF CITIES HUGO THE GHOST THE CITY OF PLEASURE SHORT STORIES TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS BELLES-LETTRES JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN FAME AND FICTION HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR THE REASONABLE LIFE HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY THE HUMAN MACHINE LITERARY TASTE MENTAL EFFICIENCY DRAMA POLITE FARCES CUPID AND COMMONSENSE WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS (IN COLLABORATION WITH EDEN PHILLPOTTS) THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE THE STATUE: A ROMANCE 
32633	----	Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. _The atomic bomb meant, to most people, the end. To Henry Bemis it meant something far different--a thing to appreciate and enjoy._ Time Enough At Last By Lynn Venable For a long time, Henry Bemis had had an ambition. To read a book. Not just the title or the preface, or a page somewhere in the middle. He wanted to read the whole thing, all the way through from beginning to end. A simple ambition perhaps, but in the cluttered life of Henry Bemis, an impossibility. Henry had no time of his own. There was his wife, Agnes who owned that part of it that his employer, Mr. Carsville, did not buy. Henry was allowed enough to get to and from work--that in itself being quite a concession on Agnes' part. Also, nature had conspired against Henry by handing him with a pair of hopelessly myopic eyes. Poor Henry literally couldn't see his hand in front of his face. For a while, when he was very young, his parents had thought him an idiot. When they realized it was his eyes, they got glasses for him. He was never quite able to catch up. There was never enough time. It looked as though Henry's ambition would never be realized. Then something happened which changed all that. Henry was down in the vault of the Eastside Bank & Trust when it happened. He had stolen a few moments from the duties of his teller's cage to try to read a few pages of the magazine he had bought that morning. He'd made an excuse to Mr. Carsville about needing bills in large denominations for a certain customer, and then, safe inside the dim recesses of the vault he had pulled from inside his coat the pocket size magazine. He had just started a picture article cheerfully entitled "The New Weapons and What They'll Do To YOU", when all the noise in the world crashed in upon his ear-drums. It seemed to be inside of him and outside of him all at once. Then the concrete floor was rising up at him and the ceiling came slanting down toward him, and for a fleeting second Henry thought of a story he had started to read once called "The Pit and The Pendulum". He regretted in that insane moment that he had never had time to finish that story to see how it came out. Then all was darkness and quiet and unconsciousness. * * * * * When Henry came to, he knew that something was desperately wrong with the Eastside Bank & Trust. The heavy steel door of the vault was buckled and twisted and the floor tilted up at a dizzy angle, while the ceiling dipped crazily toward it. Henry gingerly got to his feet, moving arms and legs experimentally. Assured that nothing was broken, he tenderly raised a hand to his eyes. His precious glasses were intact, thank God! He would never have been able to find his way out of the shattered vault without them. He made a mental note to write Dr. Torrance to have a spare pair made and mailed to him. Blasted nuisance not having his prescription on file locally, but Henry trusted no-one but Dr. Torrance to grind those thick lenses into his own complicated prescription. Henry removed the heavy glasses from his face. Instantly the room dissolved into a neutral blur. Henry saw a pink splash that he knew was his hand, and a white blob come up to meet the pink as he withdrew his pocket handkerchief and carefully dusted the lenses. As he replaced the glasses, they slipped down on the bridge of his nose a little. He had been meaning to have them tightened for some time. He suddenly realized, without the realization actually entering his conscious thoughts, that something momentous had happened, something worse than the boiler blowing up, something worse than a gas main exploding, something worse than anything that had ever happened before. He felt that way because it was so quiet. There was no whine of sirens, no shouting, no running, just an ominous and all pervading silence. * * * * * Henry walked across the slanting floor. Slipping and stumbling on the uneven surface, he made his way to the elevator. The car lay crumpled at the foot of the shaft like a discarded accordian. There was something inside of it that Henry could not look at, something that had once been a person, or perhaps several people, it was impossible to tell now. Feeling sick, Henry staggered toward the stairway. The steps were still there, but so jumbled and piled back upon one another that it was more like climbing the side of a mountain than mounting a stairway. It was quiet in the huge chamber that had been the lobby of the bank. It looked strangely cheerful with the sunlight shining through the girders where the ceiling had fallen. The dappled sunlight glinted across the silent lobby, and everywhere there were huddled lumps of unpleasantness that made Henry sick as he tried not to look at them. "Mr. Carsville," he called. It was very quiet. Something had to be done, of course. This was terrible, right in the middle of a Monday, too. Mr. Carsville would know what to do. He called again, more loudly, and his voice cracked hoarsely, "Mr. Carrrrsville!" And then he saw an arm and shoulder extending out from under a huge fallen block of marble ceiling. In the buttonhole was the white carnation Mr. Carsville had worn to work that morning, and on the third finger of that hand was a massive signet ring, also belonging to Mr. Carsville. Numbly, Henry realized that the rest of Mr. Carsville was under that block of marble. Henry felt a pang of real sorrow. Mr. Carsville was gone, and so was the rest of the staff--Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Emory and Mr. Prithard, and the same with Pete and Ralph and Jenkins and Hunter and Pat the guard and Willie the doorman. There was no one to say what was to be done about the Eastside Bank & Trust except Henry Bemis, and Henry wasn't worried about the bank, there was something he wanted to do. He climbed carefully over piles of fallen masonry. Once he stepped down into something that crunched and squashed beneath his feet and he set his teeth on edge to keep from retching. The street was not much different from the inside, bright sunlight and so much concrete to crawl over, but the unpleasantness was much, much worse. Everywhere there were strange, motionless lumps that Henry could not look at. Suddenly, he remembered Agnes. He should be trying to get to Agnes, shouldn't he? He remembered a poster he had seen that said, "In event of emergency do not use the telephone, your loved ones are as safe as you." He wondered about Agnes. He looked at the smashed automobiles, some with their four wheels pointing skyward like the stiffened legs of dead animals. He couldn't get to Agnes now anyway, if she was safe, then, she was safe, otherwise ... of course, Henry knew Agnes wasn't safe. He had a feeling that there wasn't anyone safe for a long, long way, maybe not in the whole state or the whole country, or the whole world. No, that was a thought Henry didn't want to think, he forced it from his mind and turned his thoughts back to Agnes. * * * * * She had been a pretty good wife, now that it was all said and done. It wasn't exactly her fault if people didn't have time to read nowadays. It was just that there was the house, and the bank, and the yard. There were the Jones' for bridge and the Graysons' for canasta and charades with the Bryants. And the television, the television Agnes loved to watch, but would never watch alone. He never had time to read even a newspaper. He started thinking about last night, that business about the newspaper. Henry had settled into his chair, quietly, afraid that a creaking spring might call to Agnes' attention the fact that he was momentarily unoccupied. He had unfolded the newspaper slowly and carefully, the sharp crackle of the paper would have been a clarion call to Agnes. He had glanced at the headlines of the first page. "Collapse Of Conference Imminent." He didn't have time to read the article. He turned to the second page. "Solon Predicts War Only Days Away." He flipped through the pages faster, reading brief snatches here and there, afraid to spend too much time on any one item. On a back page was a brief article entitled, "Prehistoric Artifacts Unearthed In Yucatan". Henry smiled to himself and carefully folded the sheet of paper into fourths. That would be interesting, he would read all of it. Then it came, Agnes' voice. "Henrrreee!" And then she was upon him. She lightly flicked the paper out of his hands and into the fireplace. He saw the flames lick up and curl possessively around the unread article. Agnes continued, "Henry, tonight is the Jones' bridge night. They'll be here in thirty minutes and I'm not dressed yet, and here you are ... _reading_." She had emphasized the last word as though it were an unclean act. "Hurry and shave, you know how smooth Jasper Jones' chin always looks, and then straighten up this room." She glanced regretfully toward the fireplace. "Oh dear, that paper, the television schedule ... oh well, after the Jones leave there won't be time for anything but the late-late movie and.... Don't just sit there, Henry, hurrreeee!" Henry was hurrying now, but hurrying too much. He cut his leg on a twisted piece of metal that had once been an automobile fender. He thought about things like lock-jaw and gangrene and his hand trembled as he tied his pocket-handkerchief around the wound. In his mind, he saw the fire again, licking across the face of last night's newspaper. He thought that now he would have time to read all the newspapers he wanted to, only now there wouldn't be any more. That heap of rubble across the street had been the Gazette Building. It was terrible to think there would never be another up to date newspaper. Agnes would have been very upset, no television schedule. But then, of course, no television. He wanted to laugh but he didn't. That wouldn't have been fitting, not at all. He could see the building he was looking for now, but the silhouette was strangely changed. The great circular dome was now a ragged semi-circle, half of it gone, and one of the great wings of the building had fallen in upon itself. A sudden panic gripped Henry Bemis. What if they were all ruined, destroyed, every one of them? What if there wasn't a single one left? Tears of helplessness welled in his eyes as he painfully fought his way over and through the twisted fragments of the city. * * * * * He thought of the building when it had been whole. He remembered the many nights he had paused outside its wide and welcoming doors. He thought of the warm nights when the doors had been thrown open and he could see the people inside, see them sitting at the plain wooden tables with the stacks of books beside them. He used to think then, what a wonderful thing a public library was, a place where anybody, anybody at all could go in and read. He had been tempted to enter many times. He had watched the people through the open doors, the man in greasy work clothes who sat near the door, night after night, laboriously studying, a technical journal perhaps, difficult for him, but promising a brighter future. There had been an aged, scholarly gentleman who sat on the other side of the door, leisurely paging, moving his lips a little as he did so, a man having little time left, but rich in time because he could do with it as he chose. Henry had never gone in. He had started up the steps once, got almost to the door, but then he remembered Agnes, her questions and shouting, and he had turned away. He was going in now though, almost crawling, his breath coming in stabbing gasps, his hands torn and bleeding. His trouser leg was sticky red where the wound in his leg had soaked through the handkerchief. It was throbbing badly but Henry didn't care. He had reached his destination. Part of the inscription was still there, over the now doorless entrance. P-U-B--C L-I-B-R---. The rest had been torn away. The place was in shambles. The shelves were overturned, broken, smashed, tilted, their precious contents spilled in disorder upon the floor. A lot of the books, Henry noted gleefully, were still intact, still whole, still readable. He was literally knee deep in them, he wallowed in books. He picked one up. The title was "Collected Works of William Shakespeare." Yes, he must read that, sometime. He laid it aside carefully. He picked up another. Spinoza. He tossed it away, seized another, and another, and still another. Which to read first ... there were so many. He had been conducting himself a little like a starving man in a delicatessen--grabbing a little of this and a little of that in a frenzy of enjoyment. But now he steadied away. From the pile about him, he selected one volume, sat comfortably down on an overturned shelf, and opened the book. Henry Bemis smiled. There was the rumble of complaining stone. Minute in comparison which the epic complaints following the fall of the bomb. This one occurred under one corner of the shelf upon which Henry sat. The shelf moved; threw him off balance. The glasses slipped from his nose and fell with a tinkle. He bent down, clawing blindly and found, finally, their smashed remains. A minor, indirect destruction stemming from the sudden, wholesale smashing of a city. But the only one that greatly interested Henry Bemis. He stared down at the blurred page before him. He began to cry. THE END 
11483	----	Proofreaders THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LEWIS CARROLL (REV. C. L. DODGSON) BY STUART DODGSON COLLINGWOOD B.A. CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD 1898 TO THE CHILD FRIENDS OF LEWIS CARROLL AND TO ALL WHO LOVE HIS WRITINGS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED PREFACE It is with no undue confidence that I have accepted the invitation of the brothers and sisters of Lewis Carroll to write this Memoir. I am well aware that the path of the biographer is beset with pitfalls, and that, for him, _suppressio veri_ is almost necessarily _suggestio falsi_--the least omission may distort the whole picture. To write the life of Lewis Carroll as it should be written would tax the powers of a man of far greater experience and insight than I have any pretension to possess, and even he would probably fail to represent adequately such a complex personality. At least I have done my best to justify their choice, and if in any way I have wronged my uncle's memory, unintentionally, I trust that my readers will pardon me. My task has been a delightful one. Intimately as I thought I knew Mr. Dodgson during his life, I seem since his death to have become still better acquainted with him. If this Memoir helps others of his admirers to a fuller knowledge of a man whom to know was to love, I shall not have written in vain. I take this opportunity of thanking those who have so kindly assisted me in my work, and first I must mention my old schoolmaster, the Rev. Watson Hagger, M.A., to whom my readers are indebted for the portions of this book dealing with Mr. Dodgson's mathematical works. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Dodgson's relatives, and to all those kind friends of his and others who have aided me, in so many ways, in my difficult task. In particular, I may mention the names of H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany; Miss Dora Abdy; Mrs. Egerton Allen; Rev. F. H. Atkinson; Sir G. Baden-Powell, M.P.; Mr. A. Ball; Rev. T. Vere Bayne; Mrs. Bennie; Miss Blakemore; the Misses Bowman; Mrs. Boyes; Mrs. Bremer; Mrs. Brine; Miss Mary Brown; Mrs. Calverley; Miss Gertrude Chataway; Mrs. Chester; Mr. J. C. Cropper; Mr. Robert Davies; Miss Decima Dodgson; the Misses Dymes; Mrs. Eschwege; Mrs. Fuller; Mr. Harry Furniss; Rev. C. A. Goodhart; Mrs. Hargreaves; Miss Rose Harrison; Mr. Henry Holiday; Rev. H. Hopley; Miss Florence Jackson; Rev. A. Kingston; Mrs. Kitchin; Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker; Mr. F. Madan; Mrs. Maitland; Miss M. E. Manners; Miss Adelaide Paine; Mrs. Porter; Miss Edith Rix; Rev. C. J. Robinson, D.D.; Mr. S. Rogers; Mrs. Round; Miss Isabel Standen; Mr. L. Sergeant; Miss Gaynor Simpson; Mrs. Southwall; Sir John Tenniel; Miss E. Gertrude Thomson; Mrs. Woodhouse; and Mrs. Wyper. For their help in the work of compiling the Bibliographical chapter and some other parts of the book, my thanks are due to Mr. E. Baxter, Oxford; the Controller of the University Press, Oxford; Mr. A. J. Lawrence, Rugby; Messrs. Macmillan and Co., London; Mr. James Parker, Oxford; and Messrs. Ward, Lock and Co., London. In the extracts which I have given from Mr. Dodgson's Journal and Correspondence it will be noticed that Italics have been somewhat freely employed to represent the words which he underlined. The use of Italics was so marked a feature of his literary style, as any one who has read his books must have observed, that without their aid the rhetorical effect, which he always strove to produce, would have been seriously marred. S. DODGSON COLLINGWOOD GUILDFORD, _September_, 1898. CONTENTS PREFACE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER I (1832-1850) Lewis Carroll's forebears--The Bishop of Elphin--Murder of Captain Dodgson--Daresbury--Living in "Wonderland"--Croft--Boyish amusements--His first school--Latin verses--A good report--He goes to Rugby--_The Rectory Umbrella_--"A Lay of Sorrow" CHAPTER II (1850-1860) Matriculation at Christ Church--Death of Mrs. Dodgson--The Great Exhibition--University and College Honours--A wonderful year--A theatrical treat--_Misch-Masch_--_The Train_--_College Rhymes_--His _nom de plume_--"Dotheboys Hall"--Alfred Tennyson--Ordination--Sermons--A visit to Farringford--"Where does the day begin?"--The Queen visits Oxford CHAPTER III (1861-1867) Jowett--Index to "In Memoriam"--The Tennysons--The beginning of "Alice"--Tenniel--Artistic friends--"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"--"Bruno's Revenge"--Tour with Dr. Liddon--Cologne--Berlin architecture--The "Majesty of Justice"--Peterhof--Moscow--A Russian wedding--Nijni--The Troitska Monastery--"Hieroglyphic" writing--Giessen CHAPTER IV (1868-1876) Death of Archdeacon Dodgson--Lewis Carroll's rooms at Christ Church--"Phantasmagoria"--Translations of "Alice"--"Through the Looking-Glass"--"Jabberwocky" in Latin--C.S. Calverley--"Notes by an Oxford Chiel"--Hatfield--Vivisection--"The Hunting of the Snark" CHAPTER V (1877-1883) Dramatic tastes--Miss Ellen Terry--"Natural Science at Oxford"--Mr. Dodgson as an artist--Miss E.G. Thomson--The drawing of children--A curious dream--"The Deserted Parks"--"Syzygies"--Circus children--Row-loving undergraduates--A letter to _The Observer_--Resignation of the Lectureship--He is elected Curator of the Common Room--Dream-music. CHAPTER VI (1883-1887) "The Profits of Authorship"--"Rhyme? and Reason?"--The Common Room Cat--Visit to Jersey--Purity of elections--Parliamentary Representation--Various literary projects--Letters to Miss E. Rix--Being happy--"A Tangled Tale"--Religious arguments--The "Alice" Operetta--"Alice's Adventures Underground"--"The Game of Logic"--Mr. Harry Furniss. CHAPTER VII (1888-1891) A systematic life--"Memoria Technica"--Mr. Dodgson's shyness--"A Lesson in Latin"--The "Wonderland" Stamp-Case--"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"--Princess Alice--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"The night cometh"--"The Nursery 'Alice'"--Coventry Patmore--Telepathy--Resignation of Dr. Liddell--A letter about Logic. CHAPTER VIII (1892-1896) Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship--Bazaars--He lectures to children--A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"--A logical controversy--Albert Chevalier--"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"--"Pillow Problems"--Mr. Dodgson's generosity--College services--Religious difficulties--A village sermon--Plans for the future--Reverence--"Symbolic Logic" CHAPTER IX (1897-1898) Logic-lectures--Irreverent anecdotes--Tolerance of his religious views--A mathematical discovery--"The Little Minister"--Sir George Baden-Powell--Last illness--"Thy will be done"--"Wonderland" at last!--Letters from friends--"Three Sunsets"--"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven" CHAPTER X CHILD FRIENDS Mr. Dodgson's fondness for children--Miss Isabel Standen--Puzzles--"Me and Myself"--A double acrostic--"Father William"--Of drinking healths--Kisses by post--Tired in the face--The unripe plum--Eccentricities--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"Mr. Dodgson is going on _well_" CHAPTER XI THE SAME--_continued._ Books for children--"The Lost Plum-Cake"--"An Unexpected Guest"--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--"Matilda Jane"--Miss Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX FOOTNOTES * * * * * LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LEWIS CARROLL--Frontispiece _From a photograph_. ARCHDEACON DODGSON AS A YOUNG MAN _From a miniature, painted about_ 1826. DARESBURY PARSONAGE, LEWIS CARROLL'S BIRTHPLACE _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. LEWIS CARROLL, AGED 8 _From a silhouette_. MRS. DODGSON, LEWIS CARROLL'S MOTHER _From a silhouette_. CROFT RECTORY; ARCHDEACON DODGSON AND FAMILY IN FOREGROUND _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1856. TOY STATION IN GARDEN AT CROFT _From a photograph_. ARCHBISHOP TAIT _From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_. "THE ONLY SISTER WHO _WOULD_ WRITE TO HER BROTHER" _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. "THE AGE OF INNOCENCE". _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. "THE SCANTY MEAL" _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. "THE FIRST EARRING" _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. ILLUSTRATIONS TO "LAYS OF SORROW," NO. 2 _From drawings by Lewis Carroll_. EXTERIOR OF CHRIST CHURCH _From a photograph_. GRAVE OF ARCHDEACON AND MRS. DODGSON IN CROFT CHURCHYARD _From a photograph_. LEWIS CARROLL, AGED 23 _From a photograph_. ARCHDEACON DODGSON _From a photograph_. ARCHBISHOP LONGLEY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. "ALAS! WHAT BOOTS--" _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. ALFRED TENNYSON _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1857. THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875. BISHOP WILBERFORCE _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860. ALICE LIDDELL AS "THE BEGGAR-CHILD" _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1858. SKETCH FROM ST. LEONARD'S CONCERT-ROOM _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. GEORGE MACDONALD AND HIS DAUGHTER LILY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863. MRS. ROSSETTI AND HER CHILDREN, DANTE GABRIEL, CHRISTINA, AND WILLIAM _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863. LORINA, ALICE, AND EDITH LIDDELL _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. GEORGE MACDONALD _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1870. J. SANT, R.A. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1866. HOLMAN HUNT _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860. SIR JOHN MILLAIS _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1865. CHARLOTTE M. YONGE _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1866. CANON LIDDON _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1867. "INSTANCE OF HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING OF THE DATE 1867" _From a sketch by Lewis Carroll_. SIR JOHN TENNIEL _From a photograph by Bassano_. LEWIS CARROLL'S STUDY AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD _From a photograph_. PROFESSOR FARADAY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860. JUSTICE DENMAN _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1873. LORD SALISBURY AND HIS TWO SONS _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1870. FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM SIR JOHN TENNIEL TO LEWIS CARROLL, DATED JUNE 1, 1870 JOHN RUSKIN _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875. HENRY HOLIDAY IN HIS STUDIO _From a photograph_. LEWIS CARROLL _From a photograph_. ELLEN TERRY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. TOM TAYLOR _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863. KATE TERRY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1865. MISS E. GERTRUDE THOMSON _From a photograph_. DR. LIDDELL _From a photograph by Hill & Saunders_. "RESPONSIONS" _From a photograph by A.T. Shrimpton_. H. FURNISS _From a photograph_. "BALBUS AND THE DRAGON" _From a crayon drawing by the Rev. H.C. Gaye_. MEDLEY OF TENNIEL'S ILLUSTRATIONS IN "ALICE" _From an etching by Miss Whitehead_. FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM H. FURNISS TO LEWIS CARROLL, DATED AUGUST 23, 1886 SYLVIE AND BRUNO _From a drawing by Henry Holiday_. FACSIMILE OF PROGRAMME OF "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" PRODUCED AT THE ROYAL GLOBE THEATRE, DECEMBER 26, 1888. "THE MAD TEA PARTY" _From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_. THE LATE DUKE OF ALBANY _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875. THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH _From a photograph by Hill & Saunders_. THE MECHANICAL "HUMPTY DUMPTY" _From a photograph_. LEWIS CARROLL _From a photograph_. THE CHESTNUTS, GUILDFORD _From a photograph_. LEWIS CARROLL'S GRAVE _From a photograph_. LORINA AND ALICE LIDDELL _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. ALICE LIDDELL _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. XIE KITCHIN _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. XIE KITCHIN AS A CHINAMAN _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_. ALICE AND THE DORMOUSE _From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_. FACSIMILE OF A "LOOKING-GLASS" LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL TO MISS EDITH BALL ARTHUR HUGHES AND HIS DAUGHTER AGNES _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863. "WHAT I LOOK LIKE WHEN I'M LECTURING" _From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_. * * * * * CHAPTER I (1832-1850.) Lewis Carroll's forebears--The Bishop of Elphin--Murder of Captain Dodgson--Daresbury--Living in "Wonderland"--Croft--Boyish amusements--His first school--Latin verses--A good report--He goes to Rugby--_The Rectory Umbrella_--"A Lay of Sorrow." The Dodgsons appear to have been for a long time connected with the north of England, and until quite recently a branch of the family resided at Stubb Hall, near Barnard Castle. In the early part of the last century a certain Rev. Christopher Dodgson held a living in Yorkshire. His son, Charles, also took Holy Orders, and was for some time tutor to a son of the then Duke of Northumberland. In 1762 his patron presented him to the living of Elsdon, in Northumberland, by no means a desirable cure, as Mr. Dodgson discovered. The following extracts from his letters to various members of the Percy family are interesting as giving some idea of the life of a rural clergyman a hundred years ago: I am obliged to you for promising to write to me, but don't give yourself the trouble of writing to this place, for 'tis almost impossible to receive 'em, without sending a messenger 16 miles to fetch 'em. 'Tis impossible to describe the oddity of my situation at present, which, however, is not void of some pleasant circumstances. A clogmaker combs out my wig upon my curate's head, by way of a block, and his wife powders it with a dredging-box. The vestibule of the castle (used as a temporary parsonage) is a low stable; above it the kitchen, in which are two little beds joining to each other. The curate and his wife lay in one, and Margery the maid in the other. I lay in the parlour between two beds to keep me from being frozen to death, for as we keep open house the winds enter from every quarter, and are apt to sweep into bed to me. Elsdon was once a market town as some say, and a city according to others; but as the annals of the parish were lost several centuries ago, it is impossible to determine what age it was either the one or the other. There are not the least traces of the former grandeur to be found, whence some antiquaries are apt to believe that it lost both its trade and charter at the Deluge. ... There is a very good understanding between the parties [he is speaking of the Churchmen and Presbyterians who lived in the parish], for they not only intermarry with one another, but frequently do penance together in a white sheet, with a white wand, barefoot, and in the coldest season of the year. I have not finished the description for fear of bringing on a fit of the ague. Indeed, the ideas of sensation are sufficient to starve a man to death, without having recourse to those of reflection. If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat. I have lost the use of everything but my reason, though my head is entrenched in three night-caps, and my throat, which is very bad, is fortified by a pair of stockings twisted in the form of a cravat. As washing is very cheap, I wear _two_ shirts at a time, and, for want of a wardrobe, I hang my great coat upon my own back, and generally keep on my boots in imitation of my namesake of Sweden. Indeed, since the snow became two feet deep (as I wanted a 'chaappin of Yale' from the public-house), I made an offer of them to Margery the maid, but her legs are too thick to make use of them, and I am told that the greater part of my parishioners are not less substantial, and notwithstanding this they are remarkable for agility. In course of time this Mr. Dodgson became Bishop of Ossory and Ferns, and he was subsequently translated to the see of Elphin. He was warmly congratulated on this change in his fortunes by George III., who said that he ought indeed to be thankful to have got away from a palace where the stabling was so bad. The Bishop had four children, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth Anne, married Charles Lutwidge, of Holmrook, in Cumberland. Two of the others died almost before they had attained manhood. Charles, the eldest son, entered the army, and rose to the rank of captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards. He met with a sad fate while serving his king and country in Ireland. One of the Irish rebels who were supposed to have been concerned in the murder of Lord Kilwarden offered to give himself up to justice if Captain Dodgson would come alone and at night to take him. Though he fully realised the risk, the brave captain decided to trust himself to the honour of this outlaw, as he felt that no chance should be missed of effecting so important a capture. Having first written a letter of farewell to his wife, he set out on the night of December 16, 1803, accompanied by a few troopers, for the meeting-place--an old hut that stood a mile or so from Phillipstown, in King's County. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, he left his men a few hundred yards from the hut to await his return, and advanced alone through the night. A cowardly shot from one of the windows of the cottage ended his noble life, and alarmed the troopers, who, coming up in haste, were confronted with the dead body of their leader. The story is told that on the same night his wife heard two shots fired, and made inquiry about it, but could find out nothing. Shortly afterwards the news came that her husband had been killed just at that time. Captain Dodgson left two sons behind him--Hassard, who, after a brilliant career as a special pleader, became a Master of the Court of Common Pleas, and Charles, the father of the subject of this Memoir. Charles, who was the elder of the two, was born in the year 1800, at Hamilton, in Lanarkshire. He adopted the clerical profession, in which he rose to high honours. He was a distinguished scholar, and took a double first at Christ Church, Oxford. Although in after life mathematics were his favourite pursuit, yet the fact that he translated Tertullian for the "Library of the Fathers" is sufficient evidence that he made good use of his classical education. In the controversy about Baptismal Regeneration he took a prominent part, siding on the question with the Tractarians, though his views on some other points of Church doctrine were less advanced than those of the leaders of the Oxford movement. He was a man of deep piety and of a somewhat reserved and grave disposition, which, however, was tempered by the most generous charity, so that he was universally loved by the poor. In moments of relaxation his wit and humour were the delight of his clerical friends, for he had the rare power of telling anecdotes effectively. His reverence for sacred things was so great that he was never known to relate a story which included a jest upon words from the Bible. In 1830 he married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, by whom he had eleven children, all of whom, except Lewis Carroll, survive. His wife, in the words of one who had the best possible opportunities for observing her character, was "one of the sweetest and gentlest women that ever lived, whom to know was to love. The earnestness of her simple faith and love shone forth in all she did and said; she seemed to live always in the conscious presence of God. It has been said by her children that they never in all their lives remember to have heard an impatient or harsh word from her lips." It is easy to trace in Lewis Carroll's character the influence of that most gentle of mothers; though dead she still speaks to us in some of the most beautiful and touching passages of his works. Not so long ago I had a conversation with an old friend of his; one of the first things she said to me was, "Tell me about his mother." I complied with her request as well as I was able, and, when I had finished my account of Mrs. Dodgson's beautiful character, she said, "Ah, I knew it must have been so; I felt sure he must have had a good mother." On January 27, 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born at Daresbury, of which parish his father was then incumbent. The village of Daresbury is about seven miles from Warrington; its name is supposed to be derived from a word meaning oak, and certainly oaks are very plentiful in the neighbourhood. A canal passes through an outlying part of the parish. The bargemen who frequented this canal were a special object of Mr. Dodgson's pastoral care. Once, when walking with Lord Francis Egerton, who was a large landowner in the district, he spoke of his desire to provide some sort of religious privileges for them. "If I only had £100," he said, "I would turn one of those barges into a chapel," and, at his companion's request, he described exactly how he would have the chapel constructed and furnished. A few weeks later he received a letter from Lord Francis to tell him that his wish was fulfilled, and that the chapel was ready. In this strange church, which is believed to have been the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson conducted service and preached every Sunday evening! [Illustration: Daresbury Parsonage] The parsonage is situated a mile and a half from the village, on the glebe-farm, having been erected by a former incumbent, who, it was said, cared more for the glebe than the parish. Here it was that Charles spent the first eleven years of his life--years of complete seclusion from the world, for even the passing of a cart was a matter of great interest to the children. [Illustration: Lewis Carroll, aged 8.] In this quiet home the boy invented the strangest diversions for himself; he made pets of the most odd and unlikely animals, and numbered certain snails and toads among his intimate friends. He tried also to encourage civilised warfare among earthworms, by supplying them with small pieces of pipe, with which they might fight if so disposed. His notions of charity at this early age were somewhat rudimentary; he used to peel rushes with the idea that the pith would afterwards "be given to the poor," though what possible use they could put it to he never attempted to explain. Indeed he seems at this time to have actually lived in that charming "Wonderland" which he afterwards described so vividly; but for all that he was a thorough boy, and loved to climb the trees and to scramble about in the old marl-pits. One of the few breaks in this very uneventful life was a holiday spent with the other members of his family in Beaumaris. The journey took three days each way, for railroads were then almost unknown; and whatever advantages coaching may have had over travelling in trains, speed was certainly not one of them. Mr. Dodgson from the first used to take an active part in his son's education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was much too young to understand anything about such a difficult subject. The child listened to what his father said, and appeared to think it irrelevant, for he still insisted, "_But_, please, explain!" [Illustration: Mrs. Dodgson] On one occasion Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson went to Hull, to pay a visit to the latter's father, who had been seriously ill. From Hull Mrs. Dodgson wrote to Charles, and he set much store by this letter, which was probably one of the first he had received. He was afraid that some of his little sisters would mess it, or tear it up, so he wrote upon the back, "No one is to touch this note, for it belongs to C. L. D."; but, this warning appearing insufficient, he added, "Covered with slimy pitch, so that they will wet their fingers." The precious letter ran as follows:-- My dearest Charlie, I have used you rather ill in not having written to you sooner, but I know you will forgive me, as your Grandpapa has liked to have me with him so much, and I could not write and talk to him comfortably. All your notes have delighted me, my precious children, and show me that you have not quite forgotten me. I am always thinking of you, and longing to have you all round me again more than words can tell. God grant that we may find you all well and happy on Friday evening. I am happy to say your dearest Papa is quite well--his cough is rather _tickling_, but is of no consequence. It delights me, my darling Charlie, to hear that you are getting on so well with your Latin, and that you make so few mistakes in your Exercises. You will be happy to hear that your dearest Grandpapa is going on nicely--indeed I hope he will soon be quite well again. He talks a great deal and most kindly about you all. I hope my sweetest Will says "Mama" sometimes, and that precious Tish has not forgotten. Give them and all my other treasures, including yourself, 1,000,000,000 kisses from me, with my most affectionate love. I am sending you a shabby note, but I cannot help it. Give my kindest love to Aunt Dar, and believe me, my own dearest Charlie, to be your sincerely affectionate Mama. Among the few visitors who disturbed the repose of Daresbury Parsonage was Mr. Durnford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, with whom Mr. Dodgson had formed a close friendship. Another was Mr. Bayne, at that time head-master of Warrington Grammar School, who used occasionally to assist in the services at Daresbury. His son, Vere, was Charles's playfellow; he is now a student of Christ Church, and the friendship between him and Lewis Carroll lasted without interruption till the death of the latter. The memory of his birthplace did not soon fade from Charles's mind; long afterwards he retained pleasant recollections of its rustic beauty. For instance, his poem of "The Three Sunsets," which first appeared in 1860 in _All the Year Round,_ begins with the following stanzas, which have been slightly altered in later editions:-- I watch the drowsy night expire, And Fancy paints at my desire Her magic pictures in the fire. An island farm, 'mid seas of corn, Swayed by the wandering breath of morn, The happy spot where I was born. Though nearly all Mr. Dodgson's parishioners at Daresbury have passed away, yet there are still some few left who speak with loving reverence of him whose lips, now long silenced, used to speak so kindly to them; whose hands, long folded in sleep, were once so ready to alleviate their wants and sorrows. In 1843 Sir Robert Peel presented him to the Crown living of Croft, a Yorkshire village about three miles south of Darlington. This preferment made a great change in the life of the family; it opened for them many more social opportunities, and put an end to that life of seclusion which, however beneficial it may be for a short time, is apt, if continued too long, to have a cramping and narrowing influence. The river Tees is at Croft the dividing line between Yorkshire and Durham, and on the middle of the bridge which there crosses it is a stone which shows where the one county ends and the other begins. "Certain lands are held in this place," says Lewis in his "Topographical Dictionary," "by the owner presenting on the bridge, at the coming of every new Bishop of Durham, an old sword, pronouncing a legendary address, and delivering the sword to the Bishop, who returns it immediately." The Tees is subject to extraordinary floods, and though Croft Church stands many feet above the ordinary level of the river, and is separated from it by the churchyard and a field, yet on one occasion the church itself was flooded, as was attested by water-marks on the old woodwork several feet from the floor, still to be seen when Mr. Dodgson was incumbent. This church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, is a quaint old building with a Norman porch, the rest of it being of more modern construction. It contains a raised pew, which is approached by a winding flight of stairs, and is covered in, so that it resembles nothing so much as a four-post bedstead. This pew used to belong to the Milbanke family, with which Lord Byron was connected. Mr. Dodgson found the chancel-roof in so bad a state of repair that he was obliged to take it down, and replace it by an entirely new one. The only village school that existed when he came to the place was a sort of barn, which stood in a corner of the churchyard. During his incumbency a fine school-house was erected. Several members of his family used regularly to help in teaching the children, and excellent reports were obtained. The Rectory is close to the church, and stands in the middle of a beautiful garden. The former incumbent had been an enthusiastic horticulturist, and the walls of the kitchen garden were covered with luxuriant fruit-trees, while the greenhouses were well stocked with rare and beautiful exotics. Among these was a specimen of that fantastic cactus, the night-blowing Cereus, whose flowers, after an existence of but a few hours, fade with the waning sun. On the day when this occurred large numbers of people used to obtain Mr. Dodgson's leave to see the curiosity. [Illustration: Croft Rectory] Near the Rectory is a fine hotel, built when Croft was an important posting-station for the coaches between London and Edinburgh, but in Mr. Dodgson's time chiefly used by gentlemen who stayed there during the hunting season. The village is renowned for its baths and medicinal waters. The parish of Croft includes the outlying hamlets of Halnaby, Dalton, and Stapleton, so that the Rector's position is by no means a sinecure. Within the village is Croft Hall, the old seat of the Chaytors; but during Mr. Dodgson's incumbency the then Sir William Chaytor built and lived at Clervaux Castle, calling it by an old family name. Shortly after accepting the living of Croft, Mr. Dodgson was appointed examining chaplain to the Bishop of Ripon; subsequently he was made Archdeacon of Richmond and one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral. Charles was at this time very fond of inventing games for the amusement of his brothers and sisters; he constructed a rude train out of a wheelbarrow, a barrel and a small truck, which used to convey passengers from one "station" in the Rectory garden to another. At each of these stations there was a refreshment-room, and the passengers had to purchase tickets from him before they could enjoy their ride. The boy was also a clever conjuror, and, arrayed in a brown wig and a long white robe, used to cause no little wonder to his audience by his sleight-of-hand. With the assistance of various members of the family and the village carpenter, he made a troupe of marionettes and a small theatre for them to act in. He wrote all the plays himself the most popular being "The Tragedy of King John"--and he was very clever at manipulating the innumerable strings by which the movements of his puppets were regulated. One winter, when the snow lay thick upon the lawn, he traced upon it a maze of such hopeless intricacy as almost to put its famous rival at Hampton Court in the shade. [Illustration: Toy Station in garden at Croft.] When he was twelve years old his father sent him to school at Richmond, under Mr. Tate, a worthy son of that well-known Dr. Tate who had made Richmond School so famous. I am able to give his earliest impressions of school-life in his own words, for one of his first letters home has been fortunately preserved. It is dated August 5th, and is addressed to his two eldest sisters. A boy who has _ten_ brothers and sisters can scarcely be expected to write separate letters to each of them. My dear Fanny and Memy,--I hope you are all getting on well, as also the sweet twins, the boys I think that I like the best, are Harry Austin, and all the Tates of which there are 7 besides a little girl who came down to dinner the first day, but not since, and I also like Edmund Tremlet, and William and Edward Swire, Tremlet is a sharp little fellow about 7 years old, the youngest in the school, I also like Kemp and Mawley. The rest of the boys that I know are Bertram, Harry and Dick Wilson, and two Robinsons, I will tell you all about them when I return. The boys have played two tricks upon me which were these--they first proposed to play at "King of the Cobblers" and asked if I would be king, to which I agreed. Then they made me sit down and sat (on the ground) in a circle round me, and told me to say "Go to work" which I said, and they immediately began kicking me and knocking me on all sides. The next game they proposed was "Peter, the red lion," and they made a mark on a tombstone (for we were playing in the churchyard) and one of the boys walked with his eyes shut, holding out his finger, trying to touch the mark; then a little boy came forward to lead the rest and led a good many very near the mark; at last it was my turn; they told me to shut my eyes well, and the next minute I had my finger in the mouth of one of the boys, who had stood (I believe) before the tombstone with his mouth open. For 2 nights I slept alone, and for the rest of the time with Ned Swire. The boys play me no tricks now. The only fault (tell Mama) that there has been was coming in one day to dinner just after grace. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and sat in a large pew with Mr. Fielding, the church we went to is close by Mr. Tate's house, we did not go in the afternoon but Mr. Tate read a discourse to the boys on the 5th commandment. We went to church again in the evening. Papa wished me to tell him all the texts I had heard preached upon, please to tell him that I could not hear it in the morning nor hardly one sentence of the sermon, but the one in the evening was I Cor. i. 23. I believe it was a farewell sermon, but I am not sure. Mrs. Tate has looked through my clothes and left in the trunk a great many that will not be wanted. I have had 3 misfortunes in my clothes etc. 1st, I cannot find my tooth-brush, so that I have not brushed my teeth for 3 or 4 days, 2nd, I cannot find my blotting paper, and 3rd, I have no shoe-horn. The chief games are, football, wrestling, leap frog, and fighting. Excuse bad writing. Yr affec' brother Charles. _To_ SKEFF [_a younger brother, aged six_]. My dear Skeff,--Roar not lest thou be abolished. Yours, etc.,--. The discomforts which he, as a "new boy," had to put up with from his school-mates affected him as they do not, unfortunately, affect most boys, for in later school days he was famous as a champion of the weak and small, while every bully had good reason to fear him. Though it is hard for those who have only known him as the gentle and retiring don to believe it, it is nevertheless true that long after he left school his name was remembered as that of a boy who knew well how to use his fists in defence of a righteous cause. As was the custom at that time, Charles began to compose Latin verses at a very early age, his first copy being dated November 25, 1844. The subject was evening, and this is how he treated it:-- Phoebus aqua splendet descendens, æquora tingens Splendore aurato. Pervenit umbra solo. Mortales lectos quærunt, et membra relaxant Fessa labore dies; cuncta per orbe silet. Imperium placidum nunc sumit Phoebe corusca. Antris procedunt sanguine ore feræ. These lines the boy solemnly copied into his Diary, apparently in the most blissful ignorance of the numerous mistakes they contained. The next year he wrote a story which appeared in the school magazine. It was called "The Unknown One," so it was probably of the sensational type in which small boys usually revel. Though Richmond School, as it was in 1844, may not compare favourably in every respect with a modern preparatory school, where supervision has been so far "reduced to the absurd" that the unfortunate masters hardly get a minute to themselves from sunrise till long after sunset, yet no better or wiser men than those of the school of Mr. Tate are now to be found. Nor, I venture to think, are the results of the modern system more successful than those of the old one. Charles loved his "kind old schoolmaster," as he affectionately calls him, and surely to gain the love of the boys is the main battle in school-management. The impression he made upon his instructors may be gathered from the following extracts from Mr. Tate's first report upon him: Sufficient opportunities having been allowed me to draw from actual observation an estimate of your son's character and abilities, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that he possesses, along with other and excellent natural endowments, a very uncommon share of genius. Gentle and cheerful in his intercourse with others, playful and ready in conversation, he is capable of acquirements and knowledge far beyond his years, while his reason is so clear and so jealous of error, that he will not rest satisfied without a most exact solution of whatever appears to him obscure. He has passed an excellent examination just now in mathematics, exhibiting at times an illustration of that love of precise argument, which seems to him natural. I must not omit to set off against these great advantages one or two faults, of which the removal as soon as possible is desirable, tho' I am prepared to find it a work of time. As you are well aware, our young friend, while jealous of error, as I said above, where important faith or principles are concerned, is exceedingly lenient towards lesser frailties--and, whether in reading aloud or metrical composition, frequently sets at nought the notions of Virgil or Ovid as to syllabic quantity. He is moreover marvellously ingenious in replacing the ordinary inflexions of nouns and verbs, as detailed in our grammars, by more exact analogies, or convenient forms of his own devising. This source of fault will in due time exhaust itself, though flowing freely at present.... You may fairly anticipate for him a bright career. Allow me, before I close, one suggestion which assumes for itself the wisdom of experience and the sincerity of the best intention. You must not entrust your son with a full knowledge of his superiority over other boys. Let him discover this as he proceeds. The love of excellence is far beyond the love of excelling; and if he should once be bewitched into a mere ambition to surpass others I need not urge that the very quality of his knowledge would be materially injured, and that his character would receive a stain of a more serious description still.... And again, when Charles was leaving Richmond, he wrote: "Be assured that I shall always feel a peculiar interest in the gentle, intelligent, and well-conducted boy who is now leaving us." Although his father had been a Westminster boy, Charles was, for some reason or other, sent to Rugby. The great Arnold, who had, one might almost say, created Rugby School, and who certainly had done more for it than all his predecessors put together, had gone to his rest, and for four years the reins of government had been in the firm hands of Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was Headmaster during the whole of the time Charles was at Rugby, except the last year, during which Dr. Goulburn held that office. Charles went up in February, 1846, and he must have found his new life a great change from his quiet experiences at Richmond. Football was in full swing, and one can imagine that to a new boy "Big-side" was not an unalloyed delight. Whether he distinguished himself as a "dropper," or ever beat the record time in the "Crick" run, I do not know. Probably not; his abilities did not lie much in the field of athletics. But he got on capitally with his work, and seldom returned home without one or more prizes. Moreover, he conducted himself so well that he never had to enter that dreaded chamber, well known to _some_ Rugbeians, which is approached by a staircase that winds up a little turret, and wherein are enacted scenes better imagined than described. [Illustration: Archbishop Tait. _From a photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry_] A schoolboy's letter home is not, usually, remarkable for the intelligence displayed in it; as a rule it merely leads up with more or less ingenuity to the inevitable request for money contained in the postscript. Some of Charles's letters were of a different sort, as the following example shows: Yesterday evening I was walking out with a friend of mine who attends as mathematical pupil Mr. Smythies the second mathematical master; we went up to Mr. Smythies' house, as he wanted to speak to him, and he asked us to stop and have a glass of wine and some figs. He seems as devoted to his duty as Mr. Mayor, and asked me with a smile of delight, "Well Dodgson I suppose you're getting well on with your mathematics?" He is very clever at them, though not equal to Mr. Mayor, as indeed few men are, Papa excepted.... I have read the first number of Dickens' new tale, "Davy Copperfield." It purports to be his life, and begins with his birth and childhood; it seems a poor plot, but some of the characters and scenes are good. One of the persons that amused me was a Mrs. Gummidge, a wretched melancholy person, who is always crying, happen what will, and whenever the fire smokes, or other trifling accident occurs, makes the remark with great bitterness, and many tears, that she is a "lone lorn creetur, and everything goes contrairy with her." I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay's "England" to read. I have seen it however and one passage struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who was one of the seven) and asked him "whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?" He replied, after a moment's thought "I am fully persuaded your majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as innocent in the matter as myself." This was certainly no actual lie, but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very little different from one. The Mr. Mayor who is mentioned in this letter formed a very high opinion of his pupil's ability, for in 1848 he wrote to Archdeacon Dodgson: "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby." Dr. Tait speaks no less warmly:-- My dear Sir,--I must not allow your son to leave school without expressing to you the very high opinion I entertain of him. I fully coincide in Mr. Cotton's estimate both of his abilities and upright conduct. His mathematical knowledge is great for his age, and I doubt not he will do himself credit in classics. As I believe I mentioned to you before, his examination for the Divinity prize was one of the most creditable exhibitions I have ever seen. During the whole time of his being in my house, his conduct has been excellent. Believe me to be, My dear Sir, Yours very faithfully, A.C. TAIT. Public school life then was not what it is now; the atrocious system then in vogue of setting hundreds of lines for the most trifling offences made every day a weariness and a hopeless waste of time, while the bad discipline which was maintained in the dormitories made even the nights intolerable--especially for the small boys, whose beds in winter were denuded of blankets that the bigger ones might not feel cold. Charles kept no diary during his time at Rugby; but, looking back upon it, he writes in 1855:-- During my stay I made I suppose some progress in learning of various kinds, but none of it was done _con amore_, and I spent an incalculable time in writing out impositions--this last I consider one of the chief faults of Rugby School. I made some friends there, the most intimate being Henry Leigh Bennett (as college acquaintances we find fewer common sympathies, and are consequently less intimate)--but I cannot say that I look back upon my life at a Public School with any sensations of pleasure, or that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again. When, some years afterwards, he visited Radley School, he was much struck by the cubicle system which prevails in the dormitories there, and wrote in his Diary, "I can say that if I had been thus secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear." The picture on page 32 was, I believe, drawn by Charles rile he was at Rugby in illustration of a letter received from one of his sisters. Halnaby, as I have said before, was an outlying district of Croft parish. During his holidays he used to amuse himself by editing local magazines. Indeed, they might be called _very local_ magazines, as their circulation was confined to the inmates of Croft Rectory. The first of these, _Useful and Instructive Poetry_, was written about 1845. It came to an untimely end after a six months' run, and was followed at varying intervals by several other periodicals, equally short-lived. In 1849 or 1850, _The Rectory Umbrella_ began to appear. As the editor was by this time seventeen or eighteen years old, it was naturally of a more ambitious character than any of its precursors. It contained a serial story of the most thrilling interest, entitled, "The Walking-Stick of Destiny," some meritorious poetry, a few humorous essays, and several caricatures of pictures in the Vernon Gallery. Three reproductions of these pictures follow, with extracts from the _Umbrella_ descriptive of them. [Illustration: The only sister who _would_ write to her brother, though the table had just "folded down"! The other sisters are depicted "sternly resolved to set off to Halnaby & the Castle," tho' it is yet "early, early morning"--Rembrondt.] THE VERNON GALLERY. As our readers will have seen by the preceding page, we have commenced engraving the above series of pictures. "The Age of Innocence," by Sir J. Reynolds, representing a young Hippopotamus seated under a shady tree, presents to the contemplative mind a charming union of youth and innocence. EDITOR. [Illustration: _"The Scanty Meal."_] We have been unusually[001] successful in our second engraving from the Vernon Gallery. The picture is intended, as our readers will perceive, to illustrate the evils of homoeopathy.[002] This idea is well carried out through the whole picture. The thin old lady at the head of the table is in the painter's best style; we almost fancy we can trace in the eye of the other lady a lurking suspicion that her glasses are not really in fault, and that the old gentleman has helped her to _nothing_ instead of a nonillionth.[003] Her companion has evidently got an empty glass in his hand; the two children in front are admirably managed, and there is a sly smile on the footman's face, as if he thoroughly enjoyed either the bad news he is bringing or the wrath of his mistress. The carpet is executed with that elaborate care for which Mr. Herring is so famed, and the picture on the whole is one of his best. "_The First Ear-ring_" The scene from which this excellent picture is painted is taken from a passage in the autobiography[004] of the celebrated Sir William Smith[005] of his life when a schoolboy: we transcribe the passage: "One day Bill Tomkins[006] and I were left alone in the house, the old doctor being out; after playing a number of pranks Bill laid me a bet of sixpence that I wouldn't pour a bottle of ink over the doctor's cat. _I did it_, but at that moment old Muggles came home, and caught me by the ear as I attempted to run away. My sensations at the moment I shall never forget; _on that occasion I received my first ear-ring_.[007] The only remark Bill made to me, as he paid me the money afterwards was, 'I say, didn't you just howl jolly!'" The engraving is an excellent copy of the picture. [Illustration: Sir D. Wilkie Painter The First Earring. W. Greatbach Engraver. _from the picture in the Vernon Gallery_] The best thing in the _Rectory Umbrella_ was a parody on Lord Macaulay's style in the "Lays of Ancient Rome"; Charles had a special aptitude for parody, as is evidenced by several of the best-known verses in his later books. LAYS OF SORROW. No. 2. Fair stands the ancient[008] Rectory, The Rectory of Croft, The sun shines bright upon it, The breezes whisper soft. From all the house and garden Its inhabitants come forth, And muster in the road without, And pace in twos and threes about, The children of the North. Some are waiting in the garden, Some are waiting at the door, And some are following behind, And some have gone before. But wherefore all this mustering? Wherefore this vast array? A gallant feat of horsemanship Will be performed to-day. To eastward and to westward, The crowd divides amain, Two youths are leading on the steed, Both tugging at the rein; And sorely do they labour, For the steed[009] is very strong, And backward moves its stubborn feet, And backward ever doth retreat, And drags its guides along. And now the knight hath mounted, Before the admiring band, Hath got the stirrups on his feet. The bridle in his hand. Yet, oh! beware, sir horseman! And tempt thy fate no more, For such a steed as thou hast got, Was never rid before! The rabbits[010] bow before thee. And cower in the straw; The chickens[011] are submissive, And own thy will for law; Bullfinches and canary Thy bidding do obey; And e'en the tortoise in its shell Doth never say thee nay. But thy steed will hear no master, Thy steed will bear no stick, And woe to those that beat her, And woe to those that kick![012] For though her rider smite her, As hard as he can hit, And strive to turn her from the yard, She stands in silence, pulling hard Against the pulling bit. And now the road to Dalton Hath felt their coming tread, The crowd are speeding on before, And all have gone ahead. Yet often look they backward, And cheer him on, and bawl, For slower still, and still more slow, That horseman and that charger go, And scarce advance at all. And now two roads to choose from Are in that rider's sight: In front the road to Dalton, And New Croft upon the right. "I can't get by!" he bellows, "I really am not able! Though I pull my shoulder out of joint, I cannot get him past this point, For it leads unto his stable!" Then out spake Ulfrid Longbow,[013] A valiant youth was he, "Lo! I will stand on thy right hand And guard the pass for thee!" And out spake fair Flureeza,[014] His sister eke was she, "I will abide on thy other side, And turn thy steed for thee!" And now commenced a struggle Between that steed and rider, For all the strength that he hath left Doth not suffice to guide her. Though Ulfrid and his sister Have kindly stopped the way, And all the crowd have cried aloud, "We can't wait here all day!" Round turned he as not deigning Their words to understand, But he slipped the stirrups from his feet The bridle from his hand, And grasped the mane full lightly, And vaulted from his seat, And gained the road in triumph,[015] And stood upon his feet. All firmly till that moment Had Ulfrid Longbow stood, And faced the foe right valiantly, As every warrior should. But when safe on terra firma His brother he did spy, "What _did_ you do that for?" he cried, Then unconcerned he stepped aside And let it canter by. They gave him bread and butter,[016] That was of public right, As much as four strong rabbits, Could munch from morn to night, For he'd done a deed of daring, And faced that savage steed, And therefore cups of coffee sweet, And everything that was a treat, Were but his right and meed. And often in the evenings, When the fire is blazing bright, When books bestrew the table And moths obscure the light, When crying children go to bed, A struggling, kicking load; We'll talk of Ulfrid Longbow's deed, How, in his brother's utmost need, Back to his aid he flew with speed, And how he faced the fiery steed, And kept the New Croft Road. [Illustration: Exterior of Christ Church] * * * * * CHAPTER II (1850-1860.) Matriculation at Christ Church--Death of Mrs. Dodgson--The Great Exhibition--University and College Honours--A wonderful year--A theatrical treat--_Misch-Masch--The Train--College Rhymes_--His _nom de plume_--"Dotheboys Hall"--Alfred Tennyson--Ordination--Sermons--A visit to Farringford--"Where does the day begin?"--The Queen visits Oxford. We have traced in the boyhood of Lewis Carroll the beginnings of those characteristic traits which afterwards, more fully developed, gave him so distinguished a position among his contemporaries. We now come to a period of his life which is in some respects necessarily less interesting. We all have to pass through that painful era of self-consciousness which prefaces manhood, that time when we feel so deeply, and are so utterly unable to express to others, or even to define clearly to ourselves, what it is we do feel. The natural freedom of childhood is dead within us; the conventional freedom of riper years is struggling to birth, and its efforts are sometimes ludicrous to an unsympathetic observer. In Lewis Carroll's mental attitude during this critical period there was always a calm dignity which saved him from these absurdities, an undercurrent of consciousness that what seemed so great to him was really very little. On May 23, 1850, he matriculated at Christ Church, the venerable college which had numbered his father's among other illustrious names. A letter from Dr. Jelf, one of the canons of Christ Church, to Archdeacon Dodgson, written when the former heard that his old friend's son was coming up to "the House," contains the following words: "I am sure I express the common feeling of all who remember you at Christ Church when I say that we shall rejoice to see a son of yours worthy to tread in your footsteps." Lewis Carroll came into residence on January 24, 1851. From that day to the hour of his death--a period of forty-seven years--he belonged to "the House," never leaving it for any length of time, becoming almost a part of it. I, for one, can hardly imagine it without him. Though technically "in residence," he had not rooms of his own in College during his first term. The "House" was very full; and had it not been for one of the tutors, the Rev. J. Lew, kindly lending him one of his own rooms, he would have had to take lodgings in the town. The first set of rooms he occupied was in Peckwater Quadrangle, which is annually the scene of a great bonfire on Guy Fawkes' Day, and, generally speaking, is not the best place for a reading man to live in. In those days the undergraduates dining in hall were divided into "messes." Each mess consisted of about half a dozen men, who had a table to themselves. Dinner was served at five, and very indifferently served, too; the dishes and plates were of pewter, and the joint was passed round, each man cutting off what he wanted for himself. In Mr. Dodgson's mess were Philip Pusey, the late Rev. G. C. Woodhouse, and, among others, one who still lives in "Alice in Wonderland" as the "Hatter." Only a few days after term began, Mrs. Dodgson died suddenly at Croft. The shock was a terrible one to the whole family, and especially to her devoted husband. I have come across a delightful and most characteristic letter from Dr. Pusey--a letter full of the kindest and truest sympathy with the Archdeacon in his bereavement. The part of it which bears upon Mrs. Dodgson's death I give in full:-- [Illustration: Grave of Archdeacon and Mrs. Dodgson in Croft Churchyard.] My dear Friend, I hear and see so little and so few persons, that I had not heard of your sorrow until your to-day's letter; and now I but guess what it was: only your language is that of the very deepest. I have often thought, since I had to think of this, how, in all adversity, what God takes away He may give us back with increase. One cannot think that any holy earthly love will cease, when we shall "be like the Angels of God in Heaven." Love here must shadow our love there, deeper because spiritual, without any alloy from our sinful nature, and in the fulness of the love of God. But as we grow here by God's grace will be our capacity for endless love. So, then, if by our very sufferings we are purified, and our hearts enlarged, we shall, in that endless bliss, love more those whom we loved here, than if we had never had that sorrow, never been parted.... Lewis Carroll was summoned home to attend the funeral--a sad interlude amidst the novel experiences of a first term at College. The Oxford of 1851 was in many ways quite unlike the Oxford of 1898. The position of the undergraduates was much more similar to that of schoolboys than is now the case; they were subject to the same penalties--corporal punishment, even, had only just gone out of vogue!--and were expected to work, and to work hard. Early rising then was strictly enforced, as the following extract from one of his letters will show:-- I am not so anxious as usual to begin my personal history, as the first thing I have to record is a very sad incident, namely, my missing morning chapel; before, however, you condemn me, you must hear how accidental it was. For some days now I have been in the habit of, I will not say getting up, but of being called at a quarter past six, and generally managing to be down soon after seven. In the present instance I had been up the night before till about half-past twelve, and consequently when I was called I fell asleep again, and was thunderstruck to find on waking that it was ten minutes past eight. I have had no imposition, nor heard anything about it. It is rather vexatious to have happened so soon, as I had intended never to be late. [Illustration: Lewis Carroll, aged 23.] It was therefore obviously his custom to have his breakfast _before_ going to chapel. I wonder how many undergraduates of the present generation follow the same hardy rule! But then no "impositions" threaten the modern sluggard, even if he neglects chapel altogether. During the Long Vacation he visited the Great Exhibition, and wrote his sister Elizabeth a long account of what he had seen:-- I think the first impression produced on you when you get inside is one of bewilderment. It looks like a sort of fairyland. As far as you can look in any direction, you see nothing but pillars hung about with shawls, carpets, &c., with long avenues of statues, fountains, canopies, etc., etc., etc. The first thing to be seen on entering is the Crystal Fountain, a most elegant one about thirty feet high at a rough guess, composed entirely of glass and pouring down jets of water from basin to basin; this is in the middle of the centre nave, and from it you can look down to either end, and up both transepts. The centre of the nave mostly consists of a long line of colossal statues, some most magnificent. The one considered the finest, I believe, is the Amazon and Tiger. She is sitting on horseback, and a tiger has fastened on the neck of the horse in front. You have to go to one side to see her face, and the other to see the horse's. The horse's face is really wonderful, expressing terror and pain so exactly, that you almost expect to hear it scream.... There are some very ingenious pieces of mechanism. A tree (in the French Compartment) with birds chirping and hopping from branch to branch exactly like life. The bird jumps across, turns round on the other branch, so as to face back again, settles its head and neck, and then in a few moments jumps back again. A bird standing at the foot of the tree trying to eat a beetle is rather a failure; it never succeeds in getting its head more than a quarter of an inch down, and that in uncomfortable little jerks, as if it was choking. I have to go to the Royal Academy, so must stop: as the subject is quite inexhaustible, there is no hope of ever coming to a regular finish. On November 1st he won a Boulter scholarship, and at the end of the following year obtained First Class Honours in Mathematics and a Second in Classical Moderations. On Christmas Eve he was made a Student on Dr. Pusey's nomination, for at that time the Dean and Canons nominated to Studentships by turn. The only conditions on which these old Studentships were held were that the Student should remain unmarried, and should proceed to Holy Orders. No statute precisely defined what work was expected of them, that question being largely left to their own discretion. The eight Students at the bottom of the list that is to say, the eight who had been nominated last--had to mark, by pricking on weekly papers called "the Bills," the attendance at morning and evening chapel. They were allowed to arrange this duty among themselves, and, if it was neglected, they were all punished. This long-defunct custom explains an entry in Lewis Carroll's Diary for October 15, 1853, "Found I had got the prickbills two hundred lines apiece, by not pricking in in the morning," which, I must confess, mystified me exceedingly at first. Another reference to College impositions occurs further on in his Diary, at a time when he was a Lecturer: "Spoke to the Dean about F--, who has brought an imposition which his tutor declares is not his own writing, after being expressly told to write it himself." The following is an extract from his father's letter of congratulation, on his being nominated for the Studentship:-- My dearest Charles,--The feelings of thankfulness and delight with which I have read your letter just received, I must leave to _your conception_; for they are, I assure you, beyond _my expression_; and your affectionate heart will derive no small addition of joy from thinking of the joy which you have occasioned to me, and to all the circle of your home. I say "_you_ have occasioned," because, grateful as I am to my old friend Dr. Pusey for what he has done, I cannot desire stronger evidence than his own words of the fact that you have _won_, and well won, this honour for _yourself_, and that it is bestowed as a matter of _justice_ to _you_, and not of _kindness_ to _me_. You will be interested in reading extracts from his two letters to me--the first written three years ago in answer to one from me, in which I distinctly told him that I neither asked nor expected that he should serve me in this matter, unless my son should fairly reach the standard of merit by which these appointments were regulated. In reply he says-- "I thank you for the way in which you put the application to me. I have now, for nearly twenty years, not given a Studentship to any friend of my own, unless there was no very eligible person in the College. I have passed by or declined the sons of those to whom I was personally indebted for kindness. I can only say that I shall have _very great_ pleasure, if circumstances permit me to nominate your son." In his letter received this morning he says-- "I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's uniform steady and good conduct." The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I am glad that you should have had so soon an evidence so substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated, that it is the "steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good" man, who in the long run wins the race against those who now and then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says, "straight are cold again." [Illustration: Archdeacon Dodgson.] In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral. This appointment necessitated a residence of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr. Erskine was then Dean. A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had very remarkable "clairvoyant" powers; she was able--it was averred--by merely holding in her hand a folded paper containing some words written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character. In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the following description of Lewis Carroll: "Very clever head; a great deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor; diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration; very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much eventuality (or memory of events); fond of deep reading; imaginative, fond, of reading poetry; _may_ compose." Those who knew him well will agree that this was, at any rate, a remarkable coincidence. Longley, afterwards Primate, was then Bishop of Ripon. His charming character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every one else who saw much of him. He was one of the few men whose faces can truly be called _beautiful_; it was a veil through which a soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly. In the early part of 1854 Mr. Dodgson was reading hard for "Greats." For the last three weeks before the examination he worked thirteen hours a day, spending the whole night before the _viva voce_ over his books. But philosophy and history were not very congenial subjects to him, and when the list was published his name was only in the third class. [Illustration: Archbishop Longley.] He spent the Long Vacation at Whitby, reading Mathematics with Professor Price. His work bore good fruit, for in October he obtained First Class Honours in the Final Mathematical School. "I am getting quite tired of being congratulated on various subjects," he writes; "there seems to be no end of it. If I had shot the Dean I could hardly have had more said about it." In another letter dated December 13th, he says: Enclosed you will find a list which I expect you to rejoice over considerably; it will take me more than a day to believe it, I expect--I feel at present very like a child with a new toy, but I daresay I shall be tired of it soon, and wish to be Pope of Rome next.... I have just been to Mr. Price to see how I did in the papers, and the result will I hope be gratifying to you. The following were the sums total for each in the First Class, as nearly as I can remember:-- Dodgson ... ... ... 279 Bosanquet ... ... ... 261 Cookson ... ... ... 254 Fowler ... ... ... 225 Ranken ... ... ... 213 He also said he never remembered so good a set of men in. All this is very satisfactory. I must also add (this is a very boastful letter) that I ought to get the senior scholarship next term.... One thing more I will add, to crown all, and that is, I find I am the next First Class Mathematical Student to Faussett (with the exception of Kitchin who has given up Mathematics), so that I stand next (as Bosanquet is going to leave) for the Lectureship. On December 18th he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and on October 15, 1855, he was made a "Master of the House," in honour of the appointment of the new Dean (Dr. Liddell) who succeeded Dean Gaisford. To be made Master of the House means that a man has all the privileges of a Master of Arts within the walls of Christ Church. But he must be of a certain number of terms' standing, and be admitted in due form by the Vice-Chancellor, before he is a Master of Arts of the University. In this wider sense Mr. Dodgson did not take his Master's degree until 1857. This is anticipating events, and there is much to tell of the year 1855, which was a very eventful one for him. On February 15th he was made Sub-Librarian. "This will add £35 to my income," he writes, "not much towards independence." For he was most anxious to have a sufficient income to make him his own master, that he might enter on the literary and artistic career of which he was already dreaming. On May 14th he wrote in his Diary: "The Dean and Canons have been pleased to give me one of the Bostock scholarships, said to be worth £20 a year--this very nearly raises my income this year to independence. Courage!" His college work, during 1855, was chiefly taking private pupils, but he had, in addition, about three and a half hours a day of lecturing during the last term of the year. He did not, however, work as one of the regular staff of lecturers until the next year. From that date his work rapidly increased, and he soon had to devote regularly as much as seven hours a day to delivering lectures, to say nothing of the time required for preparing them. The following extract from his Journal, June 22, 1855, will serve to show his early love for the drama. The scene is laid at the Princess' Theatre, then at the height of its glory:-- The evening began with a capital farce, "Away with Melancholy," and then came the great play, "Henry VIII.," the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to have. I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery and dresses was ever to be seen on the stage. Kean was magnificent as Cardinal Wolsey, Mrs. Kean a worthy successor to Mrs. Siddons as Queen Catherine, and all the accessories without exception were good--but oh, that exquisite vision of Queen Catherine's! I almost held my breath to watch: the illusion is perfect, and I felt as if in a dream all the time it lasted. It was like a delicious reverie, or the most beautiful poetry. This is the true end and object of acting--to raise the mind above itself, and out of its petty cares. Never shall I forget that wonderful evening, that exquisite vision--sunbeams broke in through the roof, and gradually revealed two angel forms, floating in front of the carved work on the ceiling: the column of sunbeams shone down upon the sleeping queen, and gradually down it floated, a troop of angelic forms, transparent, and carrying palm branches in their hands: they waved these over the sleeping queen, with oh! such a sad and solemn grace. So could I fancy (if the thought be not profane) would real angels seem to our mortal vision, though doubtless our conception is poor and mean to the reality. She in an ecstasy raises her arms towards them, and to sweet slow music, they vanish as marvellously as they came. Then the profound silence of the audience burst at once into a rapture of applause; but even that scarcely marred the effect of the beautiful sad waking words of the Queen, "Spirits of peace, where are ye?" I never enjoyed anything so much in my life before; and never felt so inclined to shed tears at anything fictitious, save perhaps at that poetical gem of Dickens, the death of little Paul. On August 21st he received a long letter from his father, full of excellent advice on the importance to a young man of saving money:-- I will just sketch for you [writes the Archdeacon] a supposed case, applicable to your own circumstances, of a young man of twenty-three, making up his mind to work for ten years, and living to do it, on an Income enabling him to save £150 a year--supposing him to appropriate it thus:-- £ s. d. Invested at 4 per cent. ... ... 100 0 0 Life Insurance of £1,500 ... 29 15 0 Books, besides those bought in ordinary course ... ... ... 20 5 0 _____________ £150 0 0 Suppose him at the end of the ten years to get a Living enabling him to settle, what will be the result of his savings:-- 1. A nest egg of £1,220 ready money, for furnishing and other expenses. 2. A sum of £1,500 secured at his death on payment of a _very much_ smaller annual Premium than if he had then begun to insure it. 3. A useful Library, worth more than £200, besides the books bought out of his current Income during the period.... The picture on the opposite page is one of Mr. Dodgson's illustrations in _Misch-Masch,_ a periodical of the nature of _The Rectory Umbrella_, except that it contained printed stories and poems by the editor, cut out of the various newspapers to which he had contributed them. Of the comic papers of that day _Punch,_ of course, held the foremost place, but it was not without rivals; there was a certain paper called _Diogenes_, then very near its end, which imitated _Punch's_ style, and in 1853 the proprietor of _The Illustrated News_, at that time one of the most opulent publishers in London, started _The Comic Times._ A capable editor was found in Edmund Yates; "Phiz" and other well-known artists and writers joined the staff, and 100,000 copies of the first number were printed. [Illustration: Studies from English Poets II "Alas! What Boots--" Milton's Lucidas.] Among the contributors was Frank Smedley, author of "Frank Fairleigh." Though a confirmed invalid, and condemned to spend most of his days on a sofa, Mr. Smedley managed to write several fine novels, full of the joy of life, and free from the least taint of discontent or morbid feeling. He was one of those men--one meets them here and there--whose minds rise high above their bodily infirmities; at moments of depression, which come to them as frequently, if not more frequently, than to other men, they no doubt feel their weakness, and think themselves despised, little knowing that we, the stronger ones in body, feel nothing but admiration as we watch the splendid victory of the soul over its earthly companion which their lives display. It was through Frank Smedley that Mr. Dodgson became one of the contributors to _The Comic Times_. Several of his poems appeared in it, and Mr. Yates wrote to him in the kindest manner, expressing warm approval of them. When _The Comic Times_ changed hands in 1856, and was reduced to half its size, the whole staff left it and started a new venture, _The Train_. They were joined by Sala, whose stories in _Household Words_ were at that time usually ascribed by the uninitiated to Charles Dickens. Mr. Dodgson's contributions to _The Train_ included the following: "Solitude" (March, 1856); "Novelty and Romancement" (October, 1856); "The Three Voices" (November, 1856); "The Sailor's Wife" (May, 1857); and last, but by no means least, "Hiawatha's Photographing" (December, 1857). All of these, except "Novelty and Romancement," have since been republished in "Rhyme? and Reason?" and "Three Sunsets." The last entry in Mr. Dodgson's Diary for this year reads as follows:-- I am sitting alone in my bedroom this last night of the old year, waiting for midnight. It has been the most eventful year of my life: I began it a poor bachelor student, with no definite plans or expectations; I end it a master and tutor in Ch. Ch., with an income of more than £300 a year, and the course of mathematical tuition marked out by God's providence for at least some years to come. Great mercies, great failings, time lost, talents misapplied--such has been the past year. His Diary is full of such modest depreciations of himself and his work, interspersed with earnest prayers (too sacred and private to be reproduced here) that God would forgive him the past, and help him to perform His holy will in the future. And all the time that he was thus speaking of himself as a sinner, and a man who was utterly falling short of his aim, he was living a life full of good deeds and innumerable charities, a life of incessant labour and unremitting fulfilment of duty. So, I suppose, it is always with those who have a really high ideal; the harder they try to approach it the more it seems to recede from them, or rather, perhaps, it is impossible to be both "the subject and spectator" of goodness. As Coventry Patmore wrote:-- Become whatever good you see; Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view The grace of which you may not be The Subject and spectator too. The reading of "Alton Locke" turned his mind towards social subjects. "If the book were but a little more definite," he writes, "it might stir up many fellow-workers in the same good field of social improvement. Oh that God, in His good providence, may make me hereafter such a worker! But alas, what are the means? Each one has his own _nostrum_ to propound, and in the Babel of voices nothing is done. I would thankfully spend and be spent so long as I were sure of really effecting something by the sacrifice, and not merely lying down under the wheels of some irresistible Juggernaut." He was for some time the editor of _College Rhymes_, a Christ Church paper, in which his poem, "A Sea Dirge" (afterwards republished in "Phantasmagoria," and again in "Rhyme? and Reason?"), first appeared. The following verses were among his contributions to the same magazine:-- I painted her a gushing thing, With years perhaps a score I little thought to find they were At least a dozen more; My fancy gave her eyes of blue, A curly auburn head: I came to find the blue a green, The auburn turned to red. She boxed my ears this morning, They tingled very much; I own that I could wish her A somewhat lighter touch; And if you were to ask me how Her charms might be improved, I would not have them _added to_, But just a few _removed_! She has the bear's ethereal grace, The bland hyena's laugh, The footstep of the elephant, The neck of the giraffe; I love her still, believe me, Though my heart its passion hides; "She is all my fancy painted her," But oh! _how much besides_! It was when writing for _The Train_ that he first felt the need of a pseudonym. He suggested "Dares" (the first syllable of his birthplace) to Edmund Yates, but, as this did not meet with his editor's approval, he wrote again, giving a choice of four names, (1) Edgar Cuthwellis, (2) Edgar U. C. Westhall, (3) Louis Carroll, and (4) Lewis Carroll. The first two were formed from the letters of his two Christian names, Charles Lutwidge; the others are merely variant forms of those names--Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge; Carroll = Carolus = Charles. Mr. Yates chose the last, and thenceforward it became Mr. Dodgson's ordinary _nom de plume_. The first occasion on which he used it was, I believe, when he wrote "The Path of Roses," a poem which appeared in _The Train_ in May, 1856. On June 16th he again visited the Princess's Theatre. This time the play was "A Winter's Tale," and he "especially admired the acting of the little Mamillius, Ellen Terry, a beautiful little creature, who played with remarkable ease and spirit." During the Long Vacation he spent a few weeks in the English Lake District. In spite of the rain, of which he had his full share, he managed to see a good deal of the best scenery, and made the ascent of Gable in the face of an icy gale, which laid him up with neuralgia for some days. He and his companions returned to Croft by way of Barnard Castle, as he narrates in his Diary:-- We set out by coach for Barnard Castle at about seven, and passed over about forty miles of the dreariest hill-country I ever saw; the climax of wretchedness was reached in Bowes, where yet stands the original of "Dotheboys Hall"; it has long ceased to be used as a school, and is falling into ruin, in which the whole place seems to be following its example--the roofs are falling in, and the windows broken or barricaded--the whole town looks plague-stricken. The courtyard of the inn we stopped at was grown over with weeds, and a mouthing idiot lolled against the corner of the house, like the evil genius of the spot. Next to a prison or a lunatic asylum, preserve me from living at Bowes! Although he was anything but a sportsman, he was interested in the subject of betting, from a mathematical standpoint solely, and in 1857 he sent a letter to _Bell's Life_, explaining a method by which a betting man might ensure winning over any race. The system was either to back _every_ horse, or to lay against _every_ horse, according to the way the odds added up. He showed his scheme to a sporting friend, who remarked, "An excellent system, and you're bound to win--_if only you can get people to take your bets_." In the same year he made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose writings he had long intensely admired. He thus describes the poet's appearance:-- A strange shaggy-looking man; his hair, moustache, and beard looked wild and neglected; these very much hid the character of the face. He was dressed in a loosely fitting morning coat, common grey flannel waistcoat and trousers, and a carelessly tied black silk neckerchief. His hair is black; I think the eyes too; they are keen and restless--nose aquiline--forehead high and broad--both face and head are fine and manly. His manner was kind and friendly from the first; there is a dry lurking humour in his style of talking. I took the opportunity [he goes on to say] of asking the meaning of two passages in his poems, which have always puzzled me: one in "Maud"-- Strange that I hear two men Somewhere talking of me; Well, if it prove a girl, my boy Will have plenty; so let it be. He said it referred to Maud, and to the two fathers arranging a match between himself and her. The other was of the poet-- Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. He said that he was quite willing it should bear any meaning the words would fairly bear; to the best of his recollection his meaning when he wrote it was "the hate of the quality hate, &c.," but he thought the meaning of "the quintessence of hatred" finer. He said there had never been a poem so misunderstood by the "ninnies of critics" as "Maud." [Illustration: Alfred Tennyson. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] During an evening spent at Tent Lodge Tennyson remarked, on the similarity of the monkey's skull to the human, that a young monkey's skull is quite human in shape, and gradually alters--the analogy being borne out by the human skull being at first more like the statues of the gods, and gradually degenerating into human; and then, turning to Mrs. Tennyson, "There, that's the second original remark I've made this evening!" Mr. Dodgson saw a great deal of the Tennysons after this, and photographed the poet himself and various members of his family. In October he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, who in after years was always willing to assist him with his valuable advice on any point of artistic criticism. Mr. Dodgson was singularly fortunate in his friends; whenever he was in difficulties on any technical matters, whether of religion, law, medicine, art, or whatever it might be, he always had some one especially distinguished in that branch of study whose aid he could seek as a friend. In particular, the names of Canon King (now Bishop of Lincoln), and Sir James Paget occur to me; to the latter Mr. Dodgson addressed many letters on questions of medicine and surgery--some of them intricate enough, but never too intricate to weary the unfailing patience of the great surgeon. A note in Mr. Dodgson's Journal, May 9, 1857, describes his introduction to Thackeray:-- I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III. in Oxford last night. I was much pleased with what I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out. He seemed delighted with the reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation. The next few years of his life passed quietly, and without any unusual events to break the monotony of college routine. He spent his mornings in the lecture-rooms, his afternoons in the country or on the river--he was very fond of boating--and his evenings in his room, reading and preparing for the next day's work. But in spite of all this outward calm of life, his mind was very much exercised on the subject of taking Holy Orders. Not only was this step necessary if he wished to retain his Studentship, but also he felt that it would give him much more influence among the undergraduates, and thus increase his power of doing good. On the other hand, he was not prepared to live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the impediment of speech from which he suffered would greatly interfere with the proper performance of his clerical duties. [Illustration: The Bishop of Lincoln. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_] The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce, had expressed the opinion that the "resolution to attend theatres or operas was an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders," which discouraged him very much, until it transpired that this statement was only meant to refer to the parochial clergy. He discussed the matter with Dr. Pusey, and with Dr. Liddon. The latter said that "he thought a deacon might lawfully, if he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial duty." And so, with many qualms about his own unworthiness, he at last decided to prepare definitely for ordination. On December 22, 1861, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford. He never proceeded to priest's orders, partly, I think, because he felt that if he were to do so it would be his duty to undertake regular parochial work, and partly on account of his stammering. He used, however, to preach not unfrequently, and his sermons were always delightful to listen to, his extreme earnestness being evident in every word. [Illustration: Bishop Wilberforce. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] "He knew exactly what he wished to say" (I am quoting from an article in _The Guardian_), "and completely forgot his audience in his anxiety to explain his point clearly. He thought of the subject only, and the words came of themselves. Looking straight in front of him he saw, as it were, his argument mapped out in the form of a diagram, and he set to work to prove it point by point, under its separate heads, and then summed up the whole." One sermon which he preached in the University Church, on Eternal Punishment, is not likely to be soon forgotten by those who heard it. I, unfortunately, was not of that number, but I can well imagine how his clear-cut features would light up as he dwelt lovingly upon the mercy of that Being whose charity far exceeds "the measure of man's mind." It is hardly necessary to say that he himself did not believe in eternal punishment, or any other scholastic doctrine that contravenes the love of God. He disliked being complimented on his sermons, but he liked to be told of any good effects that his words had had upon any member of the congregation. "Thank you for telling me that fact about my sermon," he wrote to one of his sisters, who told him of some such good fruit that one of his addresses had borne. "I have once or twice had such information volunteered; and it is a _great_ comfort--and a kind of thing that is _really_ good for one to know. It is _not_ good to be told (and I never wish to be told), 'Your sermon was so _beautiful_.' We shall not be concerned to know, in the Great Day, whether we have preached beautiful sermons, but whether they were preached with the one object of serving God." He was always ready and willing to preach at the special service for College servants, which used to be held at Christ Church every Sunday evening; but best of all he loved to preach to children. Some of his last sermons were delivered at Christ Church, Eastbourne (the church he regularly attended during the Long Vacation), to a congregation of children. On those occasions he told them an allegory--_Victor and Arnion,_ which he intended to publish in course of time--putting all his heart into the work, and speaking with such deep feeling that at times he was almost unable to control his emotion as he told them of the love and compassion of the Good Shepherd. I have dwelt at some length on this side of his life, for it is, I am sure, almost ignored in the popular estimate of him. He was essentially a religious man in the best sense of the term, and without any of that morbid sentimentality which is too often associated with the word; and while his religion consecrated his talents, and raised him to a height which without it he could never have reached, the example of such a man as he was, so brilliant, so witty, so successful, and yet so full of faith, consecrates the very conception of religion, and makes it yet more beautiful. On April 13, 1859, he paid another visit to Tennyson, this time at Farringford. After dinner we retired for about an hour to the smoking-room, where I saw the proof-sheets of the "King's Idylls," but he would not let me read them. He walked through the garden with me when I left, and made me remark an effect produced on the thin white clouds by the moon shining through, which I had not noticed--a ring of golden light at some distance off the moon, with an interval of white between--this, he says, he has alluded to in one of his early poems ("Margaret," vol. i.), "the tender amber." I asked his opinion of Sydney Dobell--he agrees with me in liking "Grass from the Battlefield," and thinks him a writer of genius and imagination, but extravagant. On another occasion he showed the poet a photograph which he had taken of Miss Alice Liddell as a beggar-child, and which Tennyson said was the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen. [Illustration: Alice Liddell as Beggar-child. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] Tennyson told us he had often dreamed long passages of poetry, and believed them to be good at the time, though he could never remember them after waking, except four lines which he dreamed at ten years old:-- May a cock sparrow Write to a barrow? I hope you'll excuse My infantile muse; --which, as an unpublished fragment of the Poet Laureate, may be thought interesting, but not affording much promise of his after powers. He also told us he once dreamed an enormously long poem about fairies, which began with very long lines that gradually got shorter, and ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each! On October 17, 1859, the Prince of Wales came into residence at Christ Church. The Dean met him at the station, and all the dons assembled in Tom Quadrangle to welcome him. Mr. Dodgson, as usual, had an eye to a photograph, in which hope, however, he was doomed to disappointment. His Royal Highness was tired of having his picture taken. During his early college life he used often to spend a few days at Hastings, with his mother's sisters, the Misses Lutwidge. In a letter written from their house to his sister Mary, and dated April 11, 1860, he gives an account of a lecture he had just heard:-- I am just returned from a series of dissolving views on the Arctic regions, and, while the information there received is still fresh in my mind, I will try to give you some of it. In the first place, you may not know that one of the objects of the Arctic expeditions was to discover "the intensity of the magnetic needle." He [the lecturer] did not tell us, however, whether they had succeeded in discovering it, or whether that rather obscure question is still doubtful. One of the explorers, Baffin, "_though_ he did not suffer all the hardships the others did, _yet_ he came to an untimely end (of course one would think in the Arctic regions), _for instance_ (what follows being, I suppose, one of the untimely ends he came to), being engaged in a war of the Portuguese against the Prussians, while measuring the ground in front of a fortification, a cannon-ball came against him, with the force with which cannon-balls in that day _did_ come, and killed him dead on the spot." How many instances of this kind would you demand to prove that he did come to an untimely end? One of the ships was laid up three years in the ice, during which time, he told us, "Summer came and went frequently." This, I think, was the most remarkable phenomenon he mentioned in the whole lecture, and gave _me_ quite a new idea of those regions. On Tuesday I went to a concert at St. Leonard's. On the front seat sat a youth about twelve years of age, of whom the enclosed is a tolerably accurate sketch. He really was, I think, the ugliest boy I ever saw. I wish I could get an opportunity of photographing him. [Illustration: Sketch from St. Leonard's Concert-Room.] The following note occurs in his Journal for May 6th:-- A Christ Church man, named Wilmot, who is just returned from the West Indies, dined in Hall. He told us some curious things about the insects in South America--one that he had himself seen was a spider charming a cockroach with flashes of light; they were both on the wall, the spider about a yard the highest, and the light was like a glow-worm, only that it came by flashes and did not shine continuously; the cockroach gradually crawled up to it, and allowed itself to be taken and killed. A few months afterwards, when in town and visiting Mr. Munroe's studio, he found there two of the children of Mr. George Macdonald, whose acquaintance he had already made: "They were a girl and boy, about seven and six years old--I claimed their acquaintance, and began at once proving to the boy, Greville, that he had better take the opportunity of having his head changed for a marble one. The effect was that in about two minutes they had entirely forgotten that I was a total stranger, and were earnestly arguing the question as if we were old acquaintances." Mr. Dodgson urged that a marble head would not have to be brushed and combed. At this the boy turned to his sister with an air of great relief, saying, "Do you hear _that_, Mary? It needn't be combed!" And the narrator adds, "I have no doubt combing, with his great head of long hair, like Hallam Tennyson's, was _the_ misery of his life. His final argument was that a marble head couldn't speak, and as I couldn't convince either that he would be all the better for that, I gave in." [Illustration: George Macdonald and his daughter Lily. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] In November he gave a lecture at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society on "Where does the Day begin?" The problem, which was one he was very fond of propounding, may be thus stated: If a man could travel round the world so fast that the sun would be always directly above his head, and if he were to start travelling at midday on Tuesday, then in twenty-four hours he would return to his original point of departure, and would find that the day was now called Wednesday--at what point of his journey would the day change its name? The difficulty of answering this apparently simple question has cast a gloom over many a pleasant party. On December 12th he wrote in his Diary:-- Visit of the Queen to Oxford, to the great surprise of everybody, as it had been kept a secret up to the time. She arrived in Christ Church about twelve, and came into Hall with the Dean, where the Collections were still going on, about a dozen men being in Hall. The party consisted of the Queen, Prince Albert, Princess Alice and her intended husband, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, and suite. They remained a minute or two looking at the pictures, and the Sub-Dean was presented: they then visited the Cathedral and Library. Evening entertainment at the Deanery, _tableaux vivants_. I went a little after half-past eight, and found a great party assembled--the Prince had not yet come. He arrived before nine, and I found an opportunity of reminding General Bruce of his promise to introduce me to the Prince, which he did at the next break in the conversation H.R.H. was holding with Mrs. Fellowes. He shook hands very graciously, and I began with a sort of apology for having been so importunate about the photograph. He said something of the weather being against it, and I asked if the Americans had victimised him much as a sitter; he said they had, but he did not think they had succeeded well, and I told him of the new American process of taking twelve thousand photographs in an hour. Edith Liddell coming by at the moment, I remarked on the beautiful _tableau_ which the children might make: he assented, and also said, in answer to my question, that he had seen and admired my photographs of them. I then said that I hoped, as I had missed the photograph, he would at least give me his autograph in my album, which he promised to do. Thinking I had better bring the talk to an end, I concluded by saying that, if he would like copies of any of my photographs, I should feel honoured by his accepting them; he thanked me for this, and I then drew back, as he did not seem inclined to pursue the conversation. A few days afterwards the Prince gave him his autograph, and also chose a dozen or so of his photograph (sic). [Illustration: Mrs. Rossetti and her children Dante Gabriel, Christina, and William. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] * * * * * CHAPTER III (1861-1867) Jowett--Index to "In Memoriam"--The Tennysons--The beginning of "Alice"--Tenniel--Artistic friends--"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"--"Bruno's Revenge"--Tour with Dr. Liddon--Cologne--Berlin architecture--The "Majesty of Justice"--Peterhof--Moscow--A Russian wedding--Nijni--The Troitska Monastery--"Hieroglyphic" writing--Giessen. It is my aim in this Memoir to let Mr. Dodgson tell his own story as much as possible. In order to effect this object I have drawn largely upon his Diary and correspondence. Very few men have left behind them such copious information about their lives as he has; unfortunately it is not equally copious throughout, and this fact must be my apology for the somewhat haphazard and disconnected way in which parts of this book are written. That it is the best which, under the circumstances, I have been able to do needs, I hope, no saying, but the circumstances have at times been too strong for me. Though in later years Mr. Dodgson almost gave up the habit of dining out, at this time of his life he used to do it pretty frequently, and several of the notes in his Diary refer to after-dinner and Common Room stories. The two following extracts will show the sort of facts he recorded:-- _January 2, 1861._--Mr. Grey (Canon) came to dine and stay the night. He told me a curious old custom of millers, that they place the sails of the mill as a Saint Andrew's Cross when work is entirely suspended, thus x, but in an upright cross, thus +, if they are just going to resume work. He also mentioned that he was at school with Dr. Tennyson (father of the poet), and was a great favourite of his. He remembers that Tennyson used to do his school-translations in rhyme. _May 9th._--Met in Common Room Rev. C.F. Knight, and the Hon'ble. F.J. Parker, both of Boston, U.S. The former gave an amusing account of having seen Oliver Wendell Holmes in a fishmonger's, lecturing _extempore_ on the head of a freshly killed turtle, whose eyes and jaws still showed muscular action: the lecture of course being all "cram," but accepted as sober earnest by the mob outside. Old Oxford men will remember the controversies that raged from about 1860 onwards over the opinions of the late Dr. Jowett. In my time the name "Jowett" only represented the brilliant translator of Plato, and the deservedly loved master of Balliol, whose sermons in the little College Chapel were often attended by other than Balliol men, and whose reputation for learning was expressed in the well-known verse of "The Masque of Balliol":-- First come I, my name is Jowett. There's no knowledge but I know it; I am Master of this College; What I don't know isn't knowledge. But in 1861 he was anything but universally popular, and I am afraid that Mr. Dodgson, nothing if not a staunch Conservative, sided with the majority against him. Thus he wrote in his Diary:-- _November 20th._--Promulgation, in Congregation, of the new statute to endow Jowett. The speaking took up the whole afternoon, and the two points at issue, the endowing a _Regius_ Professorship, and the countenancing Jowett's theological opinions, got so inextricably mixed up that I rose to beg that they might be kept separate. Once on my feet, I said more than I at first meant, and defied them ever to tire out the opposition by perpetually bringing the question on (_Mem_.: if I ever speak again I will try to say no more than I had resolved before rising). This was my first speech in Congregation. At the beginning of 1862 an "Index to In Memoriam," compiled by Mr. Dodgson and his sisters, was published by Moxon. Tennyson had given his consent, and the little book proved to be very useful to his admirers. On January 27th Morning Prayer was for the first time read in English at the Christ Church College Service. On the same day Mr. Dodgson moved over into new rooms, as the part of the College where he had formerly lived (Chaplain's Quadrangle) was to be pulled down. During the Easter Vacation he paid another visit to the Tennysons, which he describes as follows:-- After luncheon I went to the Tennysons, and got Hallam and Lionel to sign their names in my album. Also I made a bargain with Lionel, that he was to give me some MS. of his verses, and I was to send him some of mine. It was a very difficult bargain to make; I almost despaired of it at first, he put in so many conditions--first, I was to play a game of chess with him; this, with much difficulty, was reduced to twelve moves on each side; but this made little difference, as I check-mated him at the sixth move. Second, he was to be allowed to give me one blow on the head with a mallet (this he at last consented to give up). I forget if there were others, but it ended in my getting the verses, for which I have written out "The Lonely Moor" for him. Mr. Dodgson took a great interest in occult phenomena, and was for some time an enthusiastic member of the "Psychical Society." It was his interest in ghosts that led to his meeting with the artist Mr. Heaphy, who had painted a picture of a ghost which he himself had seen. I quote the following from a letter to his sister Mary:-- During my last visit to town, I paid a very interesting visit to a new artist, Mr. Heaphy. Do you remember that curious story of a ghost lady (in _Household Words_ or _All the Year Round_), who sat to an artist for her picture; it was called "Mr. H.'s Story," and he was the writer.... He received me most kindly, and we had a very interesting talk about the ghost, which certainly is one of the most curious and inexplicable stories I ever heard. He showed me her picture (life size), and she must have been very lovely, if it is like her (or like it, which ever is the correct pronoun).... Mr. Heaphy showed me a most interesting collection of drawings he has made abroad; he has been about, hunting up the earliest and most authentic pictures of our Saviour, some merely outlines, some coloured pictures. They agree wonderfully in the character of the face, and one, he says, there is no doubt was done before the year 150.... I feel sure from his tone that he is doing this in a religious spirit, and not merely as an artist. On July 4, 1862, there is a very important entry: "I made an expedition _up_ the river to Godstow with the three Liddells; we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church till half-past eight." [Illustration: Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] On the opposite page he added, somewhat later, "On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of 'Alice's Adventures Underground,' which I undertook to write out for Alice." These words need to be supplemented by the verses with which he prefaced the "Wonderland":-- All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict "to begin it"-- In gentler tones Secunda hopes "There will be nonsense in it!" While Tertia interrupts the tale Not _more_ than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast-- And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, "The rest next time"--"It _is_ next time!" The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out-- And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. "Alice" herself (Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) has given an account of the scene, from which what follows is quoted:-- Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was "Prima," I was "Secunda," and "Tertia" was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning of "Alice" was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from all three came the old petition of "Tell us a story," and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us--and perhaps being really tired--Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, "And that's all till next time." "Ah, but it is next time," would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day, perhaps, the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay. "Alice's Adventures Underground" was the original name of the story; later on it became "Alice's Hour in Elfland." It was not until June 18, 1864, that he finally decided upon "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." The illustrating of the manuscript book gave him some trouble. He had to borrow a "Natural History" from the Deanery to learn the correct shapes of some of the strange animals with which Alice conversed; the Mock Turtle he must have evolved out of his inner consciousness, for it is, I think, a species unknown to naturalists. He was lucky enough during the course of the year to see a ceremony which is denied to most Oxford men. When degrees are given, any tradesman who has been unable to get his due from an undergraduate about to be made a Bachelor of Arts is allowed, by custom, to pluck the Proctor's gown as he passes, and then to make his complaint. This law is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; but, on the occasion of this visit of Mr. Dodgson's to Convocation, the Proctor's gown was actually plucked--on account of an unfortunate man who had gone through the Bankruptcy Court. When he promised to write out "Alice" for Miss Liddell he had no idea of publication; but his friend, Mr. George Macdonald, to whom he had shown the story, persuaded him to submit it to a publisher. Messrs. Macmillan agreed to produce it, and as Mr. Dodgson had not sufficient faith in his own artistic powers to venture to allow his illustrations to appear, it was necessary to find some artist who would undertake the work. By the advice of Tom Taylor he approached Mr. Tenniel, who was fortunately well disposed, and on April 5, 1864, the final arrangements were made. [Illustration: George MacDonald. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] The following interesting account of a meeting with Mr. Dodgson is from the pen of Mrs. Bennie, wife of the Rector of Glenfield, near Leicester:-- Some little time after the publication of "Alice's Adventures" we went for our summer holiday to Whitby. We were visiting friends, and my brother and sister went to the hotel. They soon after asked us to dine with them there at the _table d'hôte._ I had on one side of me a gentleman whom I did not know, but as I had spent a good deal of time travelling in foreign countries, I always, at once, speak to any one I am placed next. I found on this occasion I had a very agreeable neighbour, and we seemed to be much interested in the same books, and politics also were touched on. After dinner my sister and brother rather took me to task for talking so much to a complete stranger. I said. "But it was quite a treat to talk to him and to hear him talk. Of one thing I am quite sure, he is a genius." My brother and sister, who had not heard him speak, again laughed at me, and said, "You are far too easily pleased." I, however, maintained my point, and said what great delight his conversation had given me, and how remarkably clever it had been. Next morning nurse took out our two little twin daughters in front of the sea. I went out a short time afterwards, looked for them, and found them seated with my friend of the _table d'hôte_ between them, and they were listening to him, open-mouthed, and in the greatest state of enjoyment, with his knee covered with minute toys. I, seeing their great delight, motioned to him to go on; this he did for some time. A most charming story he told them about sea-urchins and Ammonites. When it was over, I said, "You must be the author of 'Alice's Adventures.'" He laughed, but looked astonished, and said, "My dear Madam, my name is Dodgson, and 'Alice's Adventures' was written by Lewis Carroll." I replied, "Then you must have borrowed the name, for only he could have told a story as you have just done." After a little sparring he admitted the fact, and I went home and proudly told my sister and brother how my genius had turned out a greater one than I expected. They assured me I must be mistaken, and that, as I had suggested it to him, he had taken advantage of the idea, and said he was what I wanted him to be. A few days after some friends came to Whitby who knew his aunts, and confirmed the truth of his statement, and thus I made the acquaintance of one whose friendship has been the source of great pleasure for nearly thirty years. He has most generously sent us all his books, with kind inscriptions, to "Minnie and Doe," whom he photographed, but would not take Canon Bennie or me; he said he never took portraits of people of more than seventeen years of age until they were seventy. He visited us, and we often met him at Eastbourne, and his death was indeed a great loss after so many happy years of friendship with one we so greatly admired and loved. He spent a part of the Long Vacation at Freshwater, taking great interest in the children who, for him, were the chief attraction of the seaside. Every morning four little children dressed in yellow go by from the front down to the beach: they go by in a state of great excitement, brandishing wooden spades, and making strange noises; from that moment they disappear entirely--they are never to be seen _on_ the beach. The only theory I can form is, that they all tumble into a hole somewhere, and continue excavating therein during the day: however that may be, I have once or twice come across them returning at night, in exactly the same state of excitement, and seemingly in quite as great a hurry to get home as they were before to get out. The evening noises they make sound to me very much like the morning noises, but I suppose they are different to them, and contain an account of the day's achievements. His enthusiasm for photography, and his keen appreciation of the beautiful, made him prefer the society of artists to that of any other class of people. He knew the Rossettis intimately, and his Diary shows him to have been acquainted with Millais, Holman Hunt, Sant, Westmacott, Val Prinsep, Watts, and a host of others. Arthur Hughes painted a charming picture to his order ("The Lady with the Lilacs") which used to hang in his rooms at Christ Church. The Andersons were great friends of his, Mrs. Anderson being one of his favourite child-painters. Those who have visited him at Oxford will remember a beautiful girl's head, painted by her from a rough sketch she had once made in a railway carriage of a child who happened to be sitting opposite her. [Illustration: J. Sant. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] His own drawings were in no way remarkable. Ruskin, whose advice he took on his artistic capabilities, told him that he had not enough talent to make it worth his while to devote much time to sketching, but every one who saw his photographs admired them. Considering the difficulties of the "wet process," and the fact that he had a conscientious horror of "touching up" his negatives, the pictures he produced are quite wonderful. Some of them were shown to the Queen, who said that she admired them very much, and that they were "such as the Prince would have appreciated very highly, and taken much pleasure in." [Illustration: Holman Hunt. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] On July 4, 1865, exactly three years after the memorable row up the river, Miss Alice Liddell received the first presentation copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland": the second was sent to Princess Beatrice. The first edition, which consisted of two thousand copies, was condemned by both author and illustrator, for the pictures did not come out well. All purchasers were accordingly asked to return their copies, and to send their names and addresses; a new edition was prepared, and distributed to those who had sent back their old copies, which the author gave away to various homes and hospitals. The substituted edition was a complete success, "a perfect piece of artistic printing," as Mr. Dodgson called it. He hardly dared to hope that more than two thousand copies would be sold, and anticipated a considerable loss over the book. His surprise was great when edition after edition was demanded, and when he found that "Alice," far from being a monetary failure, was bringing him in a very considerable income every year. [Illustration: Sir John Millais. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_] A rough comparison between "Alice's Adventures Underground" and the book in its completed form, shows how slight were the alterations that Lewis Carroll thought it necessary to make. The "Wonderland" is somewhat longer, but the general plan of the book, and the simplicity of diction, which is one of its principal charms, are unchanged. His memory was so good that I believe the story as he wrote it down was almost word for word the same that he had told in the boat. The whole idea came like an inspiration into his mind, and that sort of inspiration does not often come more than once in a lifetime. Nothing which he wrote afterwards had anything like the same amount of freshness, of wit, of real genius. The "Looking-Glass" most closely approached it in these qualities, but then it was only the following out of the same idea. The most ingenuous comparison of the two books I have seen was the answer of a little girl whom Lewis Carroll had asked if she had read them: "Oh yes, I've read both of them, and I think," (this more slowly and thoughtfully) "I think 'Through the Looking-Glass' is more stupid than 'Alice's Adventures.' Don't you think so?" The critics were loud in their praises of "Alice"; there was hardly a dissentient voice among them, and the reception which the public gave the book justified their opinion. So recently as July, 1898, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ conducted an inquiry into the popularity of children's books. "The verdict is so natural that it will surprise no normal person. The winner is 'Alice in Wonderland'; 'Through the Looking-Glass' is in the twenty, but much lower down." "Alice" has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, while one poem, "Father William," has even been turned into Arabic. Several plays have been based upon it; lectures have been given, illustrated by magic-lantern slides of Tenniel's pictures, which have also adorned wall-papers and biscuit-boxes. Mr. Dodgson himself designed a very ingenious "Wonderland" stamp-case; there has been an "Alice" birthday-book; at schools, children have been taught to read out of "Alice," while the German edition, shortened and simplified for the purpose, has also been used as a lesson-book. With the exception of Shakespeare's plays, very few, if any, books are so frequently quoted in the daily Press as the two "Alices." In 1866 Mr. Dodgson was introduced to Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, whose novels had long delighted him. "It was a pleasure I had long hoped for," he says, "and I was very much pleased with her cheerful and easy manners--the sort of person one knows in a few minutes as well as many in many years." [Illustration: C. M. Yonge. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] In 1867 he contributed a story to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ called "Bruno's Revenge," the charming little idyll out of which "Sylvie and Bruno" grew. The creation of Bruno was the only act of homage Lewis Carroll ever paid to boy-nature, for which, as a rule, he professed an aversion almost amounting to terror. Nevertheless, on the few occasions on which I have seen him in the company of boys, he seemed to be thoroughly at his ease, telling them stories and showing them puzzles. I give an extract from Mrs. Gatty's letter, acknowledging the receipt of "Bruno's Revenge" for her magazine:-- I need hardly tell you that the story is _delicious_. It is beautiful and fantastic and childlike, and I cannot sufficiently thank you. I am so _proud_ for _Aunt Judy_ that you have honoured _her_ by sending it here, rather than to the _Cornhill_, or one of the grander Magazines. To-morrow I shall send the Manuscript to London probably; to-day I keep it to enjoy a little further, and that the young ladies may do so too. One word more. Make this one of a series. You may have great mathematical abilities, but so have hundreds of others. This talent is peculiarly your own, and as an Englishman you are almost unique in possessing it. If you covet fame, therefore, it will be (I think) gained by this. Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head. Somewhere about this time he was invited to witness a rehearsal of a children's play at a London theatre. As he sat in the wings, chatting to the manager, a little four-year-old girl, one of the performers, climbed up on his knee, and began talking to him. She was very anxious to be allowed to play the principal part (Mrs. Mite), which had been assigned to some other child. "I wish I might act Mrs. Mite," she said; "I know all her part, and I'd get an _encore_ for every word." During the year he published his book on "Determinants." To those accustomed to regard mathematics as the driest of dry subjects, and mathematicians as necessarily devoid of humour, it seems scarcely credible that "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants," and "Alice in Wonderland" were written by the same author, and it came quite as a revelation to the undergraduate who heard for the first time that Mr. Dodgson of Christ Church and Lewis Carroll were identical. The book in question, admirable as it is in many ways, has not commanded a large sale. The nature of the subject would be against it, as most students whose aim is to get as good a place as possible in the class lists cannot afford the luxury of a separate work, and have to be content with the few chapters devoted to "Determinants" in works on Higher Algebra or the Theory of Equations, supplemented by references to Mr. Dodgson's work which can be found in the College libraries. The general acceptance of the book would be rather restricted by the employment of new words and symbols, which, as the author himself felt, "are always a most unwelcome addition to a science already burdened with an enormous vocabulary." But the work itself is largely original, and its arrangement and style are, perhaps, as attractive as the nature of the subject will allow. Such a book as this has little interest for the general reader, yet, amongst the leisured few who are able to read mathematics for their own sake, the treatise has found warm admirers. In the Summer Vacation of 1867 he went for a tour on the Continent, accompanied by Dr. Liddon, whom I have already mentioned as having been one of his most intimate friends at this time. During the whole of this tour Mr. Dodgson kept a diary, more with the idea that it would help him afterwards to remember what he had seen than with any notion of publication. However, in later years it did occur to him that others might be interested in his impressions and experiences, though he never actually took any steps towards putting them before the public. Perhaps he was wise, for a traveller's diary always contains much information that can be obtained just as well from any guide-book. In the extracts which I reproduce here, I hope that I have not retained anything which comes under that category. [Illustration: Dr. Liddon. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] _July 12th_.--The Sultan and I arrived in London almost at the same time, but in different quarters--_my_ point of entry being Paddington, and _his_ Charing Cross. I must admit that the crowd was greatest at the latter place. Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Liddon met at Dover, and passed the night at one of the hotels there:-- _July 13th_.--We breakfasted, as agreed, at eight, or at least we then sat down and nibbled bread and butter till such time as the chops should be done, which great event took place about half past. We tried pathetic appeals to the wandering waiters, who told us, "They are coming, sir," in a soothing tone, and we tried stern remonstrance, and they then said, "They are coming, sir," in a more injured tone; and after all such appeals they retired into their dens, and hid themselves behind side-boards and dish-covers, and still the chops came not. We agreed that of all virtues a waiter can display, that of a retiring disposition is quite the least desirable.... The pen refuses to describe the sufferings of some of the passengers during our smooth trip of ninety minutes: my own sensations were those of extreme surprise, and a little indignation, at there being no other sensations--it was not for _that_ I paid my money.... We landed at Calais in the usual swarm of friendly natives, offering services and advice of all kinds; to all such remarks I returned one simple answer, _Non!_ It was probably not strictly applicable in all cases, but it answered the purpose of getting rid of them; one by one they left me, echoing the _Non_! in various tones, but all expressive of disgust. At Cologne began that feast of beautiful things which his artistic temperament fitted him so well to enjoy. Though the churches he visited and the ceremonies he witnessed belonged to a religious system widely different from his own, the largeness and generosity of his mind always led him to insist upon that substratum of true devotion--to use a favourite word of his--which underlies all forms of Christianity. We spent an hour in the cathedral, which I will not attempt to describe further than by saying it was the most beautiful of all churches I have ever seen or can imagine. If one could imagine the spirit of devotion embodied in any material form, it would be in such a building. In spite of all the wealth of words that has been expended upon German art, he found something new to say on this most fertile subject:-- The amount of art lavished on the whole region of Potsdam is marvellous; some of the tops of the palaces were like forests of statues, and they were all over the gardens, set on pedestals. In fact, the two principles of Berlin architecture appear to me to be these. On the house-tops, wherever there is a convenient place, put up the figure of a man; he is best placed standing on one leg. Wherever there is room on the ground, put either a circular group of busts on pedestals, in consultation, all looking inwards--or else the colossal figure of a man killing, about to kill, or having killed (the present tense is preferred) a beast; the more pricks the beast has, the better--in fact a dragon is the correct thing, but if that is beyond the artist, he may content himself with a lion or a pig. The beast-killing principle has been carried out everywhere with a relentless monotony, which makes some parts of Berlin look like a fossil slaughter-house. He never missed an opportunity of studying the foreign drama, which was most praiseworthy, as he knew very little German and not a word of Russ:-- At the hotel [at Danzig] was a green parrot on a stand; we addressed it as "Pretty Poll," and it put its head on one side and thought about it, but wouldn't commit itself to any statement. The waiter came up to inform us of the reason of its silence: "Er spricht nicht Englisch; er spricht nicht Deutsch." It appeared that the unfortunate bird could speak nothing but Mexican! Not knowing a word of that language, we could only pity it. _July 23rd._--We strolled about and bought a few photographs, and at 11.39 left for Königsberg. On our way to the station we came across the grandest instance of the "Majesty of Justice" that I have ever witnessed. A little boy was being taken to the magistrate, or to prison (probably for picking a pocket). The achievement of this feat had been entrusted to two soldiers in full uniform, who were solemnly marching, one in front of the poor little urchin and one behind, with bayonets fixed, of course, to be ready to charge in case he should attempt an escape. _July 25th._--In the evening I visited the theatre at Königsberg, which was fairly good in every way, and very good in the singing and some of the acting. The play was "Anno 66," but I could only catch a few words here and there, so have very little idea of the plot. One of the characters was a correspondent of an English newspaper. This singular being came on in the midst of a soldiers' bivouac before Sadowa, dressed very nearly in white--a very long frock-coat, and a tall hat on the back of his head, both nearly white. He said "Morning" as a general remark, when he first came on, but afterwards talked what I suppose was broken German. He appeared to be regarded as a butt by the soldiers, and ended his career by falling into a drum. From Königsberg the travellers went on to St. Petersburg, where they stayed several days, exploring the wonderful city and its environs:-- There is a fine equestrian statue of Peter the Great near the Admiralty. The lower part is not a pedestal, but left shapeless and rough like a real rock. The horse is rearing, and has a serpent coiled about its hind feet, on which, I think, it is treading. If this had been put up in Berlin, Peter would no doubt have been actively engaged in killing the monster, but here he takes no notice of it; in fact, the killing theory is not recognised. We found two colossal figures of lions, which are so painfully mild that each of them is rolling a great ball about like a kitten. _Aug. 1st_.--About half-past ten Mr. Merrilies called for us, and with really remarkable kindness gave up his day to taking us down to Peterhof, a distance of about twenty miles, and showing us over the place. We went by steamer down the tideless, saltless Gulf of Finland; the first peculiarity extends through the Baltic, and the second through a great part of it. The piece we crossed, some fifteen miles from shore to shore, is very shallow, in many parts only six or eight feet deep, and every winter it is entirely frozen over with ice two feet thick, and when this is covered with snow it forms a secure plain, which is regularly used for travelling on, though the immense distance, without means of food or shelter, is dangerous for poorly clad foot passengers. Mr. Merrilies told us of a friend of his who, in crossing last winter, passed the bodies of eight people who had been frozen. We had a good view, on our way, of the coast of Finland, and of Kronstadt. When we landed at Peterhof, we found Mr. Muir's carriage waiting for us, and with its assistance, getting out every now and then to walk through portions where it could not go, we went over the grounds of two imperial palaces, including many little summer-houses, each of which would make a very good residence in itself, as, though small, they were fitted up and adorned in every way that taste could suggest or wealth achieve. For varied beauty and perfect combination of nature and art, I think the gardens eclipse those of Sans Souci. At every corner, or end of an avenue or path, where a piece of statuary could be introduced with effect, there one was sure to find one, in bronze or in white marble; many of the latter had a sort of circular niche built behind, with a blue background to throw the figure into relief. Here we found a series of shelving ledges made of stone, with a sheet of water gliding down over them; here a long path, stretching down slopes and flights of steps, and arched over all the way with trellises and creepers; here a huge boulder, hewn, just as it lay, into the shape of a gigantic head and face, with mild, sphinx-like eyes, as if some buried Titan were struggling to free himself; here a fountain, so artfully formed of pipes set in circles, each set shooting the water higher than those outside, as to form a solid pyramid of glittering spray; here a lawn, seen through a break in the woods below us, with threads of scarlet geraniums running over it, and looking in the distance like a huge branch of coral; and here and there long avenues of trees, lying in all directions, sometimes three or four together side by side, and sometimes radiating like a star, and stretching away into the distance till the eye was almost weary of following them. All this will rather serve to remind me, than to convey any idea, of what we saw. But the beauties of Peterhof were quite eclipsed by the Oriental splendours of Moscow, which naturally made a great impression upon a mind accustomed to the cold sublimity of Gothic architecture at Oxford. We gave five or six hours to a stroll through this wonderful city, a city of white houses and green roofs, of conical towers that rise one out of another like a foreshortened telescope; of bulging gilded domes, in which you see, as in a looking-glass, distorted pictures of the city; of churches which look, outside, like bunches of variegated cactus (some branches crowned with green prickly buds, others with blue, and others with red and white) and which, inside, are hung all round with _eikons_ and lamps, and lined with illuminated pictures up to the very roof; and, finally, of pavement that goes up and down like a ploughed field, and _drojky_-drivers who insist on being paid thirty per cent. extra to-day, "because it is the Empress's birthday."... _Aug. 5th._--After dinner we went by arrangement to Mr. Penny, and accompanied him to see a Russian wedding. It was a most interesting ceremony. There was a large choir, from the cathedral, who sang a long and beautiful anthem before the service began; and the deacon (from the Church of the Assumption) delivered several recitative portions of the service in the most magnificent bass voice I ever heard, rising gradually (I should say by less than half a note at a time if that is possible), and increasing in volume of sound as he rose in the scale, until his final note rang through the building like a chorus of many voices. I could not have conceived that one voice could have produced such an effect. One part of the ceremony, the crowning the married couple, was very nearly grotesque. Two gorgeous golden crowns were brought in, which the officiating priest first waved before them, and then placed on their heads--or rather the unhappy bridegroom had to wear _his_, but the bride, having prudently arranged her hair in a rather complicated manner with a lace veil, could not have hers put on, but had it held above her by a friend. The bridegroom, in plain evening dress, crowned like a king, holding a candle, and with a face of resigned misery, would have been pitiable if he had not been so ludicrous. When the people had gone, we were invited by the priests to see the east end of the church, behind the golden gates, and were finally dismissed with a hearty shake of the hand and the "kiss of peace," of which even I, though in lay costume, came in for a share. One of the objects of the tour was to see the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and here the travellers arrived on August 6th, after a miserable railway journey. Owing to the breaking down of a bridge, the unfortunate passengers had been compelled to walk a mile through drenching rain. We went to the Smernovaya (or some such name) Hotel, a truly villainous place, though no doubt the best in the town. The feeding was very good, and everything else very bad. It was some consolation to find that as we sat at dinner we furnished a subject of the liveliest interest to six or seven waiters, all dressed in white tunics, belted at the waist, and white trousers, who ranged themselves in a row and gazed in a quite absorbed way at the collection of strange animals that were feeding before them. Now and then a twinge of conscience would seize them that they were, after all, not fulfilling the great object of life as waiters, and on these occasions they would all hurry to the end of the room, and refer to a great drawer which seemed to contain nothing but spoons and corks. When we asked for anything, they first looked at each other in an alarmed way; then, when they had ascertained which understood the order best, they all followed his example, which always was to refer to the big drawer. We spent most of the afternoon wandering through the fair, and buying _eikons_, &c. It was a wonderful place. Besides there being distinct quarters for the Persians, the Chinese, and others, we were constantly meeting strange beings with unwholesome complexions and unheard-of costumes. The Persians, with their gentle, intelligent faces, the long eyes set wide apart, the black hair, and yellow-brown skin, crowned with a black woollen fez something like a grenadier, were about the most picturesque we met. But all the novelties of the day were thrown into the shade by our adventure at sunset, when we came upon the Tartar mosque (the only one in Nijni) exactly as one of the officials came out on the roof to utter the muezzin cry, or call to prayers. Even if it had been in no way singular in itself, it would have been deeply interesting from its novelty and uniqueness, but the cry itself was quite unlike anything I have ever heard before. The beginning of each sentence was uttered in a rapid monotone, and towards the end it rose gradually till it ended in a prolonged, shrill wail, which floated overhead through the still air with an indescribably sad and ghostlike effect; heard at night, it would have thrilled one like the cry of the Banshee. This reminds one of the wonderful description in Mr. Kipling's "City of Dreadful Night." It is not generally known that Mr. Dodgson was a fervent admirer of Mr. Kipling's works; indeed during the last few years of his life I think he took more pleasure in his tales than in those of any other modern author. Dr. Liddon's fame as a preacher had reached the Russian clergy, with the result that he and Mr. Dodgson found many doors open to them which are usually closed to travellers in Russia. After their visit to Nijni Novgorod they returned to Moscow, whence, escorted by Bishop Leonide, Suffragan Bishop of Moscow, they made an expedition to the Troitska Monastery. _August 12th_.--A most interesting day. We breakfasted at half-past five, and soon after seven left by railway, in company with Bishop Leonide and Mr. Penny, for Troitska Monastery. We found the Bishop, in spite of his limited knowledge of English, a very conversational and entertaining fellow-traveller. The service at the cathedral had already begun when we reached it, and the Bishop took us in with him, through a great crowd which thronged the building, into a side room which opened into the chancel, where we remained during the service, and enjoyed the unusual privilege of seeing the clergy communicate--a ceremony for which the doors of the chancel are always shut, and the curtains drawn, so that the congregation never witness it. It was a most elaborate ceremony, full of crossings, and waving of incense before everything that was going to be used, but also clearly full of much deep devotion.... In the afternoon we went down to the Archbishop's palace, and were presented to him by Bishop Leonide. The Archbishop could only talk Russian, so that the conversation between him and Liddon (a most interesting one, which lasted more than an hour) was conducted in a very original fashion--the Archbishop making a remark in Russian, which was put into English by the Bishop; Liddon then answered the remark in French, and the Bishop repeated his answer in Russian to the Archbishop. So that a conversation, entirely carried on between two people, required the use of three languages! The Bishop had kindly got one of the theological students, who could talk French, to conduct us about, which he did most zealously, taking us, among other things, to see the subterranean cells of the hermits, in which some of them live for many years. We were shown the doors of two of the inhabited ones; it was a strange and not quite comfortable feeling, in a dark narrow passage where each had to carry a candle, to be shown the low narrow door of a little cellar, and to know that a human being was living within, with only a small lamp to give him light, in solitude and silence day and night. His experiences with an exorbitant _drojky_-driver at St. Petersburg are worthy of record. They remind one of a story which he himself used to tell as having happened to a friend of his at Oxford. The latter had driven up in a cab to Tom Gate, and offered the cabman the proper fare, which was, however, refused with scorn. After a long altercation he left the irate cabman to be brought to reason by the porter, a one-armed giant of prodigious strength. When he was leaving college, he stopped at the gate to ask the porter how he had managed to dispose of the cabman. "Well, sir," replied that doughty champion, "I could not persuade him to go until I floored him." After a hearty breakfast I left Liddon to rest and write letters, and went off shopping, &c., beginning with a call on Mr. Muir at No. 61, Galerne Ulitsa. I took a _drojky_ to the house, having first bargained with the driver for thirty _kopecks_; he wanted forty to begin with. When we got there we had a little scene, rather a novelty in my experience of _drojky_-driving. The driver began by saying "_Sorok_" (forty) as I got out; this was a warning of the coming storm, but I took no notice of it, but quietly handed over the thirty. He received them with scorn and indignation, and holding them out in his open hand, delivered an eloquent discourse in Russian, of which _sorok_ was the leading idea. A woman, who stood by with a look of amusement and curiosity, perhaps understood him. _I_ didn't, but simply held out my hand for the thirty, returned them to the purse and counted out twenty-five instead. In doing this I felt something like a man pulling the string of a shower-bath--and the effect was like it--his fury boiled over directly, and quite eclipsed all the former row. I told him in very bad Russian that I had offered thirty once, but wouldn't again; but this, oddly enough, did not pacify him. Mr. Muir's servant told him the same thing at length, and finally Mr. Muir himself came out and gave him the substance of it sharply and shortly--but he failed to see it in a proper light. Some people are very hard to please. When staying at a friend's house at Kronstadt he wrote:-- Liddon had surrendered his overcoat early in the day, and when going we found it must be recovered from the waiting-maid, who only talked Russian, and as I had left the dictionary behind, and the little vocabulary did not contain _coat_, we were in some difficulty. Liddon began by exhibiting his coat, with much gesticulation, including the taking it half-off. To our delight, she appeared to understand at once--left the room, and returned in a minute with--a large clothes-brush. On this Liddon tried a further and more energetic demonstration; he took off his coat, and laid it at her feet, pointed downwards (to intimate that in the lower regions was the object of his desire), smiled with an expression of the joy and gratitude with which he would receive it, and put the coat on again. Once more a gleam of intelligence lighted up the plain but expressive features of the young person; she was absent much longer this time, and when she returned, she brought, to our dismay, a large cushion and a pillow, and began to prepare the sofa for the nap that she now saw clearly was the thing the dumb gentleman wanted. A happy thought occurred to me, and I hastily drew a sketch representing Liddon, with one coat on, receiving a second and larger one from the hands of a benignant Russian peasant. The language of hieroglyphics succeeded where all other means had failed, and we returned to St. Petersburg with the humiliating knowledge that our standard of civilisation was now reduced to the level of ancient Nineveh. [Illustration: Instance of hieroglyphic writing of the date MDCCCLXVII--Interpretation. "There is a coat here, left in the care of a Russian peasant, which I should be glad to receive from him."] At Warsaw they made a short stay, putting up at the Hotel d'Angleterre:-- Our passage is inhabited by a tall and very friendly grey-hound, who walks in whenever the door is opened for a second or two, and who for some time threatened to make the labour of the servant, who was bringing water for a bath, of no effect, by drinking up the water as fast as it was brought. From Warsaw they went on to Leipzig, and thence to Giessen, where they arrived on September 4th. We moved on to Giessen, and put up at the "Rappe Hotel" for the night, and ordered an early breakfast of an obliging waiter who talked English. "Coffee!" he exclaimed delightedly, catching at the word as if it were a really original idea, "Ah, coffee--very nice--and eggs? Ham with your eggs? Very nice--" "If we can have it broiled," I said. "Boiled?" the waiter repeated, with an incredulous smile. "No, not _boiled_," I explained--"_broiled_." The waiter put aside this distinction as trivial, "Yes, yes, ham," he repeated, reverting to his favourite idea. "Yes, ham," I said, "but how cooked?" "Yes, yes, how cooked," the waiter replied, with the careless air of one who assents to a proposition more from good nature than from a real conviction of its truth. _Sept. 5th_.--At midday we reached Ems, after a journey eventless, but through a very interesting country--valleys winding away in all directions among hills clothed with trees to the very top, and white villages nestling away wherever there was a comfortable corner to hide in. The trees were so small, so uniform in colour, and so continuous, that they gave to the more distant hills something of the effect of banks covered with moss. The really unique feature of the scenery was the way in which the old castles seemed to grow, rather than to have been built, on the tops of the rocky promontories that showed their heads here and there among the trees. I have never seen architecture that seemed so entirely in harmony with the spirit of the place. By some subtle instinct the old architects seem to have chosen both form and colour, the grouping of the towers with their pointed spires, and the two neutral tints, light grey and brown, on the walls and roof, so as to produce buildings which look as naturally fitted to the spot as the heath or the harebells. And, like the flowers and the rocks, they seemed instinct with no other meaning than rest and silence. And with these beautiful words my extracts from the Diary may well conclude. Lewis Carroll's mind was completely at one with Nature, and in her pleasant places of calm and infinite repose he sought his rest--and has found it. [Illustration: Sir John Tenniel. _From a photograph by Bassano_.] * * * * * CHAPTER IV (1868-1876) Death of Archdeacon Dodgson--Lewis Carroll's rooms at Christ Church--"Phantasmagoria"--Translations of "Alice"--"Through the Looking-Glass"--"Jabberwocky" in Latin--C.S. Calverley--"Notes by an Oxford Chiel"--Hatfield--Vivisection--"The Hunting of the Snark." The success of "Alice in Wonderland" tempted Mr. Dodgson to make another essay in the same field of literature. His idea had not yet been plagiarised, as it was afterwards, though the book had of course been parodied, a notable instance being "Alice in Blunderland," which appeared in _Punch_. It was very different when he came to write "Sylvie and Bruno"; the countless imitations of the two "Alice" books which had been foisted upon the public forced him to strike out in a new line. Long before the publication of his second tale, people had heard that Lewis Carroll was writing again, and the editor of a well-known magazine had offered him two guineas a page, which was a high rate of pay in those days, for the story, if he would allow it to appear in serial form. The central idea was, as every one knows, the adventures of a little girl who had somehow or other got through a looking-glass. The first difficulty, however, was to get her through, and this question exercised his ingenuity for some time, before it was satisfactorily solved. The next thing was to secure Tenniel's services again. At first it seemed that he was to be disappointed in this matter; Tenniel was so fully occupied with other work that there seemed little hope of his being able to undertake any more. He then applied to Sir Noel Paton, with whose fairy-pictures he had fallen in love; but the artist was ill, and wrote in reply, "Tenniel is _the_ man." In the end Tenniel consented to undertake the work, and once more author and artist settled down to work together. Mr. Dodgson was no easy man to work with; no detail was too small for his exact criticism. "Don't give Alice so much crinoline," he would write, or "The White Knight must not have whiskers; he must not be made to look old"--such were the directions he was constantly giving. On June 21st Archdeacon Dodgson died, after an illness of only a few days' duration. Lewis Carroll was not summoned until too late, for the illness took a sudden turn for the worse, and he was unable to reach his father's bedside before the end had come. This was a terrible shock to him; his father had been his ideal of what a Christian gentleman should be, and it seemed to him at first as if a cloud had settled on his life which could never be dispelled. Two letters of his, both of them written long after the sad event, give one some idea of the grief which his father's death, and all that it entailed, caused him. The first was written long afterwards, to one who had suffered a similar bereavement. In this letter he said:-- We are sufficiently old friends, I feel sure, for me to have no fear that I shall seem intrusive in writing about your great sorrow. The greatest blow that has ever fallen on _my_ life was the death, nearly thirty years ago, of my own dear father; so, in offering you my sincere sympathy, I write as a fellow-sufferer. And I rejoice to know that we are not only fellow-sufferers, but also fellow-believers in the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, which makes such a parting holy and beautiful, instead of being merely a blank despair. The second was written to a young friend, Miss Edith Rix, who had sent him an illuminated text: My dear Edith,--I can now tell you (what I wanted to do when you sent me that text-card, but felt I could not say it to _two_ listeners, as it were) _why_ that special card is one I like to have. That text is consecrated for me by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have known--the death of my dear father. In those solemn days, when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room, to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then are they glad, because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them into the haven where they would be!" That text will always have, for me, a sadness and a sweetness of its own. Thank you again for sending it me. Please don't mention this when we meet. I can't _talk_ about it. Always affectionately yours, C. L. DODGSON. The object of his edition of Euclid Book V., published during the course of the year, was to meet the requirements of the ordinary Pass Examination, and to present the subject in as short and simple a form as possible. Hence the Theory of Incommensurable Magnitudes was omitted, though, as the author himself said in the Preface, to do so rendered the work incomplete, and, from a logical point of view, valueless. He hinted pretty plainly his own preference for an equivalent amount of Algebra, which would be complete in itself. It is easy to understand this preference in a mind so strictly logical as his. So far as the object of the book itself is concerned, he succeeded admirably; the propositions are clearly and beautifully worked out, and the hints on proving Propositions in Euclid Book V., are most useful. In November he again moved into new rooms at Christ Church; the suite which he occupied from this date to the end of his life was one of the best in the College. Situated at the north-west corner of Tom Quad, on the first floor of the staircase from the entrance to which the Junior Common Room is now approached, they consist of four sitting-rooms and about an equal number of bedrooms, besides rooms for lumber, &c. From the upper floor one can easily reach the flat college roof. Mr. Dodgson saw at once that here was the very place for a photographic studio, and he lost no time in obtaining the consent of the authorities to erect one. Here he took innumerable photographs of his friends and their children, as indeed he had been doing for some time under less favourable conditions. One of his earliest pictures is an excellent likeness of Professor Faraday. [Illustration: Prof. Faraday. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] His study was characteristic of the man; oil paintings by A. Hughes, Mrs. Anderson, and Heaphy proclaimed his artistic tastes; nests of pigeon-holes, each neatly labelled, showed his love of order; shelves, filled with the best books on every subject that interested him, were evidence of his wide reading. His library has now been broken up and, except for a few books retained by his nearest relatives, scattered to the winds; such dispersions are inevitable, but they are none the less regrettable. It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost, so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them, and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should render so much energy and skill fruitless. [Illustration: Lewis Carroll's Study at Christ Church, Oxford.] Lewis Carroll's dining-room has been the scene of many a pleasant little party, for he was very fond of entertaining. In his Diary, each of the dinners and luncheons that he gave is recorded by a small diagram, which shows who his guests were, and their several positions at the table. He kept a _menu_ book as well, that the same people might not have the same dishes too frequently. He sometimes gave large parties, but his favourite form of social relaxation was a _dîner à deux_. At the beginning of 1869 his "Phantasmagoria," a collection of poems grave and gay, was published by Macmillan. Upon the whole he was more successful in humorous poetry, but there is an undeniable dignity and pathos in his more serious verses. He gave a copy to Mr. Justice Denman, with whom he afterwards came to be very well acquainted, and who appreciated the gift highly. "I did not lay down the book," he wrote, "until I had read them [the poems] through; and enjoyed many a hearty laugh, and something like a cry or two. Moreover, I hope to read them through (as the _old man_ said) 'again and again.'" [Illustration: Justice Denman. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] It had been Lewis Carroll's intention to have "Phantasmagoria" illustrated, and he had asked George du Maurier to undertake the work; but the plan fell through. In his letter to du Maurier, Mr. Dodgson had made some inquiries about Miss Florence Montgomery, the authoress of "Misunderstood." In reply du Maurier said, "Miss Florence Montgomery is a very charming and sympathetic young lady, the daughter of the admiral of that ilk. I am, like you, a very great admirer of "Misunderstood," and cried pints over it. When I was doing the last picture I had to put a long white pipe in the little boy's mouth until it was finished, so as to get rid of the horrible pathos of the situation while I was executing the work. In reading the book a second time (knowing the sad end of the dear little boy), the funny parts made me cry almost as much as the pathetic ones." A few days after the publication of "Phantasmagoria," Lewis Carroll sent the first chapter of his new story to the press. "Behind the Looking-Glass and what Alice saw there" was his original idea for its title; it was Dr. Liddon who suggested the name finally adopted. During this year German and French translations of "Alice in Wonderland" were published by Macmillan; the Italian edition appeared in 1872. Henri Bué, who was responsible for the French version, had no easy task to perform. In many cases the puns proved quite untranslatable; while the poems, being parodies on well-known English pieces, would have been pointless on the other side of the Channel. For instance, the lines beginning, "How doth the little crocodile" are a parody on "How doth the little busy bee," a song which a French child has, of course, never heard of. In this case Bué gave up the idea of translation altogether, and, instead, parodied La Fontaine's "Maître Corbeau" as follows:-- Maître Corbeau sur un arbre perché Faisait son nid entre des branches; Il avait relevé ses manches, Car il était très affairé. Maître Renard par là passant, Lui dit: "Descendez donc, compère; Venez embrasser votre frère!" Le Corbeau, le reconnaissant, Lui répondit en son ramage!-- "Fromage." The dialogue in which the joke occurs about "tortoise" and "taught us" ("Wonderland," p. 142) is thus rendered:-- "La maîtresse était une vieille tortue; nous l'appelions chélonée." "Et pourquoi l'appeliez-vous chélonée, si ce n'était pas son nom?" "Parcequ'on ne pouvait s'empêcher de s'écrier en la voyant: Quel long nez!" dit la Fausse-Tortue d'un ton fâché; "vous êtes vraiment bien bornée!" At two points, however, both M. Bué and Miss Antonie Zimmermann, who translated the tale into German, were fairly beaten: the reason for the whiting being so called, from its doing the boots and shoes, and for no wise fish going anywhere without a porpoise, were given up as untranslatable. At the beginning of 1870 Lord Salisbury came up to Oxford to be installed as Chancellor of the University. Dr. Liddon introduced Mr. Dodgson to him, and thus began a very pleasant acquaintance. Of course he photographed the Chancellor and his two sons, for he never missed an opportunity of getting distinguished people into his studio. [Illustration: Lord Salisbury and his two sons. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] In December, seven "Puzzles from Wonderland" appeared in Mrs. Gatty's paper, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_. They had originally been written for the Cecil children, with whom Lewis Carroll was already on the best terms. Meanwhile "Through the Looking-Glass" was steadily progressing--not, however, without many little hitches. One question which exercised Mr. Dodgson very much was whether the picture of the Jabberwock would do as a frontispiece, or whether it would be too frightening for little children. On this point he sought the advice of about thirty of his married lady friends, whose experiences with their own children would make them trustworthy advisers; and in the end he chose the picture of the White Knight on horseback. In 1871 the book appeared, and was an instantaneous success. Eight thousand of the first edition had been taken up by the booksellers before Mr. Dodgson had even received his own presentation copies. The compliments he received upon the "Looking-Glass" would have been enough to turn a lesser man's head, but he was, I think, proof against either praise or blame. I can say with a clear head and conscience [wrote Henry Kingsley] that your new book is the finest thing we have had since "Martin Chuzzlewit." ... I can only say, in comparing the new "Alice" with the old, "this is a more excellent song than the other." It is perfectly splendid, but you have, doubtless, heard that from other quarters. I lunch with Macmillan habitually, and he was in a terrible pickle about not having printed enough copies the other day. Jabberwocky[017] was at once recognised as the best and most original thing in the book, though one fair correspondent of _The Queen_ declared that it was a translation from the German! The late Dean of Rochester, Dr. Scott, writes about it to Mr. Dodgson as follows:-- Are we to suppose, after all, that the Saga of Jabberwocky is one of the universal heirlooms which the Aryan race at its dispersion carried with it from the great cradle of the family? You must really consult Max Müller about this. It begins to be probable that the _origo originalissima_ may be discovered in Sanscrit, and that we shall by and by have a _Iabrivokaveda_. The hero will turn out to be the Sun-god in one of his _Avatars_; and the Tumtum tree the great Ash _Ygdrasil_ of the Scandinavian mythology. In March, 1872, the late Mr. A.A. Vansittart, of Trinity College, Cambridge, translated the poem into Latin elegiacs. His rendering was printed, for private circulation only, I believe, several years later, but will probably be new to most of my readers. A careful comparison with the original shows the wonderful fidelity of this translation:-- "MORS IABROCHII" Coesper[018] erat: tunc lubriciles[019] ultravia circum Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi; Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu; Et profugi gemitus exgrabuêre rathae. O fuge Iabrochium, sanguis meus![020] Ille recurvis Unguibus, estque avidis dentibus ille minax. Ububae fuge cautus avis vim, gnate! Neque unquam Faedarpax contra te frumiosus eat! Vorpali gladio juvenis succingitur: hostis Manxumus ad medium quaeritur usque diem: Jamque via fesso, sed plurima mente prementi, Tumtumiae frondis suaserat umbra moram. Consilia interdum stetit egnia[021] mente revolvens: At gravis in densa fronde susuffrus[022] erat, Spiculaque[023] ex oculis jacientis flammea, tulscam Per silvam venit burbur?[024] Iabrochii! Vorpali, semel atque iterum collectus in ictum, Persnicuit gladio persnacuitque puer: Deinde galumphatus, spernens informe cadaver, Horrendum monstri rettulit ipse caput. Victor Iabrochii, spoliis insignis opimis, Rursus in amplexus, o radiose, meos! O frabiose dies! CALLO clamateque CALLA! Vix potuit laetus chorticulare pater. Coesper erat: tunc lubriciles ultravia circum Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi; Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu; Et profugi gemitus exgrabuêre rathae. A.A.V. JABBERWOCKY. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought-- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe. The story, as originally written, contained thirteen chapters, but the published book consisted of twelve only. The omitted chapter introduced a wasp, in the character of a judge or barrister, I suppose, since Mr. Tenniel wrote that "a _wasp_ in a _wig_ is altogether beyond the appliances of art." Apart from difficulties of illustration, the "wasp" chapter was not considered to be up to the level of the rest of the book, and this was probably the principal reason of its being left out. "It is a curious fact," wrote Mr. Tenniel some years later, when replying to a request of Lewis Carroll's that he would illustrate another of his books, "that with 'Through the Looking-Glass' the faculty of making drawings for book illustration departed from me, and, notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done nothing in that direction since." [Illustration: _Facsimile of a letter from Sir John Tenniel to Lewis Carroll, June_ 1, 1870.] "Through the Looking Glass" has recently appeared in a solemn judgment of the House of Lords. In _Eastman Photographic Materials Company v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks_ (1898), the question for decision was, What constitutes an invented word? A trademark that consists of or contains an invented word or words is capable of registration. "Solio" was the word in issue in the case. Lord Macnaghten in his judgment said, when alluding to the distinguishing characteristics of an invented word: I do not think that it is necessary that it should be wholly meaningless. To give an illustration: your lordships may remember that in a book of striking humour and fancy, which was in everybody's hands when it was first published, there is a collection of strange words where "there are" (to use the language of the author) "two meanings packed up into one word." No one would say that those were not invented words. Still they contain a meaning--a meaning is wrapped up in them if you can only find it out. Before I leave the subject of the "Looking-Glass," I should like to mention one or two circumstances in connection with it which illustrate his reverence for sacred things. In his original manuscript the bad-tempered flower (pp. 28-33) was the passion-flower; the sacred origin of the name never struck him, until it was pointed out to him by a friend, when he at once changed it into the tiger-lily. Another friend asked him if the final scene was based upon the triumphal conclusion of "Pilgrim's Progress." He repudiated the idea, saying that he would consider such trespassing on holy ground as highly irreverent. He seemed never to be satisfied with the amount of work he had on hand, and in 1872 he determined to add to his other labours by studying anatomy and physiology. Professor Barclay Thompson supplied him with a set of bones, and, having purchased the needful books, he set to work in good earnest. His mind was first turned to acquiring medical knowledge by his happening to be at hand when a man was seized with an epileptic fit. He had prevented the poor creature from falling, but was utterly at a loss what to do next. To be better prepared on any future occasion, he bought a little manual called "What to do in Emergencies." In later years he was constantly buying medical and surgical works, and by the end of his life he had a library of which no doctor need have been ashamed. There were only two special bequests in his will, one of some small keepsakes to his landlady at Eastbourne, Mrs. Dyer, and the other of his medical books to my brother. Whenever a new idea presented itself to his mind he used to make a note of it; he even invented a system by which he could take notes in the dark, if some happy thought or ingenious problem suggested itself to him during a sleepless night. Like most men who systematically overtax their brains, he was a poor sleeper. He would sometimes go through a whole book of Euclid in bed; he was so familiar with the bookwork that he could actually see the figures before him in the dark, and did not confuse the letters, which is perhaps even more remarkable. Most of his ideas were ingenious, though many were entirely useless from a practical point of view. For instance, he has an entry in his Diary on November 8, 1872: "I wrote to Calverley, suggesting an idea (which I think occurred to me yesterday) of guessing well-known poems as acrostics, and making a collection of them to hoax the public." Calverley's reply to this letter was as follows:-- My dear Sir,--I have been laid up (or laid down) for the last few days by acute lumbago, or I would have written before. It is rather absurd that I was on the point of propounding to you this identical idea. I realised, and I regret to add revealed to two girls, a fortnight ago, the truth that all existing poems were in fact acrostics; and I offered a small pecuniary reward to whichever would find out Gray's "Elegy" within half an hour! But it never occurred to me to utilise the discovery, as it did to you. I see that it might be utilised, now you mention it--and I shall instruct these two young women not to publish the notion among their friends. This is the way Mr. Calverley treated Kirke White's poem "To an early Primrose." "The title," writes C.S.C. "might either be ignored or omitted. Possibly carpers might say that a primrose was not a rose." Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire! Whose modest form, so delicately fine, Wild Was nursed in whistling storms Rose And cradled in the winds! Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway, And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight, W a R Thee on this bank he threw To mark his victory. In this low vale, the promise of the year, Serene thou openest to the nipping gale, Unnoticed and alone I ncognit O Thy tender elegance. So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms Of chill adversity, in some lone walk Of life she rears her head L owlines S Obscure and unobserved. While every bleaching breeze that on her blows Chastens her spotless purity of breast, And hardens her to bear D isciplin E Serene the ills of life. In the course of their correspondence Mr. Calverley wrote a Shakespearian sonnet, the initial letters of which form the name of William Herbert; and a parody entitled "The New Hat." I reproduce them both. When o'er the world Night spreads her mantle dun, In dreams, my love, I see those stars, thine eyes, Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies, I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray, And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight. Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day; Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night. End, weary day, that art no day to me! Return, fair night, to me the best of days! But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see, Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze! Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair: Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there? THE NEW HAT. My boots had been wash'd, well wash'd, by a shower; But little I car'd about that: What I felt was the havoc a single half-hour Had made with my beautiful Hat. For the Boot, tho' its lustre be dimm'd, shall assume New comeliness after a while; But no art may restore its original bloom, When once it hath fled, to the Tile. I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay And a brown) trotted off with a clatter; The driver look'd round in his humorous way, And said huskily, "Who is your hatter?" I was pleased that he'd noticed its shape and its shine; And, as soon as we reached the "Old Druid," I begged him to drink to its welfare and mine In a glass of my favourite fluid. A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips When the barmaid exclaimed to the master, (He was standing inside with his hands on his hips), "Just look at that gentleman's castor." I laughed, when an organman paus'd in mid-air-- ('Twas an air that I happened to know, By a great foreign _maestro_)--expressly to stare At ze gent wiz _ze joli chapeau_. Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears! How rife with results is a day! That Hat might, with care, have adorned me for years; But one show'r wash'd its beauty away. How I lov'd thee, my Bright One! I pluck in remorse My hands from my pockets and wring 'em: Oh, why did not I, dear, as a matter of course, Ere I purchas'd thee purchase a gingham? C.S. CALVERLEY. Mr. Dodgson spent the last night of the old year (1872) at Hatfield, where he was the guest of Lord Salisbury. There was a large party of children in the house, one of them being Princess Alice, to whom he told as much of the story of "Sylvie and Bruno" as he had then composed. While the tale was in progress Lady Salisbury entered the room, bringing in some new toy or game to amuse her little guests, who, with the usual thoughtlessness of children, all rushed off and left Mr. Dodgson. But the little Princess, suddenly appearing to remember that to do so might perhaps hurt his feelings, sat down again by his side. He read the kind thought which prompted her action, and was much pleased by it. As Mr. Dodgson knew several members of the _Punch_ staff, he used to send up any little incidents or remarks that particularly amused him to that paper. He even went so far as to suggest subjects for cartoons, though I do not know if his ideas were ever carried out. One of the anecdotes he sent to _Punch_ was that of a little boy, aged four, who after having listened with much attention to the story of Lot's wife, asked ingenuously, "Where does salt come from that's _not_ made of ladies?" This appeared on January 3, 1874. The following is one of several such little anecdotes jotted down by Lewis Carroll for future use: Dr. Paget was conducting a school examination, and in the course of his questions he happened to ask a small child the meaning of "Average." He was utterly bewildered by the reply, "The thing that hens lay on," until the child explained that he had read in a book that hens lay _on an average_ so many eggs a year. Among the notable people whom he photographed was John Ruskin, and, as several friends begged him for copies, he wrote to ask Mr. Ruskin's leave. The reply was, "Buy Number 5 of _Fors Clavigera_ for 1871, which will give you your answer." This was not what Mr. Dodgson wanted, so he wrote back, "Can't afford ten-pence!" Finally Mr. Ruskin gave his consent. [Illustration: John Ruskin. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] About this time came the anonymous publication of "Notes by an Oxford Chiel," a collection of papers written on various occasions, and all of them dealing with Oxford controversies. Taking them in order, we have first "The New Method of Evaluation as applied to [_pi_]," first published by Messrs. Parker in 1865, which had for its subject the controversy about the Regius Professorship of Greek. One extract will be sufficient to show the way in which the affair was treated: "Let U = the University, G = Greek, and P = Professor. Then G P = Greek Professor; let this be reduced to its lowest terms and call the result J [i.e., Jowett]." The second paper is called "The Dynamics of a Parti-cle," and is quite the best of the series; it is a geometrical treatment of the contest between Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Gladstone for the representation of the University. Here are some of the "Definitions" with which the subject was introduced:-- _Plain Superficiality_ is the character of a speech, in which any two points being taken, the speaker is found to lie wholly with regard to those two points. _Plain Anger_ is the inclination of two voters to one another, who meet together, but whose views are not in the same direction. When two parties, coming together, feel a Right Anger, each is _said_ to be _complimentary_ to the other, though, strictly speaking, this is very seldom the case. _A surd_ is a radical whose meaning cannot be exactly ascertained. As the "Notes of an Oxford Chiel" has been long out of print, I will give a few more extracts from this paper:-- _On Differentiation._ The effect of Differentiation on a Particle is very remarkable, the first differential being frequently of greater value than the original particle, and the second of less enlightenment. For example, let L = "Leader", S = "Saturday", and then LS = "Leader in the Saturday" (a particle of no assignable value). Differentiating once, we get L.S.D., a function of great value. Similarly it will be found that, by taking the second Differential of an enlightened Particle (_i.e.,_ raising it to the Degree D.D.), the enlightenment becomes rapidly less. The effect is much increased by the addition of a C: in this case the enlightenment often vanishes altogether, and the Particle becomes Conservative. PROPOSITIONS. PROP. I. PR. _To find the value of a given Examiner_. _Example_.--A takes in ten books in the Final Examination and gets a 3rd class; B takes in the Examiners, and gets a 2nd. Find the value of the Examiners in terms of books. Find also their value in terms in which no Examination is held. PROP. II. PR. _To estimate Profit and Loss_. _Example_.--Given a Derby Prophet, who has sent three different winners to three different betting-men, and given that none of the three horses are placed. Find the total loss incurred by the three men (_a_) in money, (_b_) in temper. Find also the Prophet. Is this latter usually possible? PROP. IV. TH. _The end_ (i.e., "_the product of the extremes") justifies_ (i.e., "_is equal to_"--_see Latin "aequus") the means_. No example is appended to this Proposition, for obvious reasons. PROP. V. PR. _To continue a given series._ _Example_.--A and B, who are respectively addicted to Fours and Fives, occupy the same set of rooms, which is always at Sixes and Sevens. Find the probable amount of reading done by A and B while the Eights are on. The third paper was entitled "Facts, Figures, and Fancies." The best thing in it was a parody on "The Deserted Village," from which an extract will be found in a later chapter. There was also a letter to the Senior Censor of Christ Church, in burlesque of a similar letter in which the Professor of Physics met an offer of the Clarendon Trustees by a detailed enumeration of the requirements in his own department of Natural Science. Mr. Dodgson's letter deals with the imaginary requirements of the Mathematical school:-- Dear Senior Censor,--In a desultory conversation on a point connected with the dinner at our high table, you incidentally remarked to me that lobster-sauce, "though a necessary adjunct to turbot, was not entirely wholesome!" It is entirely unwholesome. I never ask for it without reluctance: I never take a second spoonful without a feeling of apprehension on the subject of a possible nightmare. This naturally brings me to the subject of Mathematics, and of the accommodation provided by the University for carrying on the calculations necessary in that important branch of Science. As Members of Convocation are called upon (whether personally, or, as is less exasperating, by letter) to consider the offer of the Clarendon Trustees, as well as every other subject of human, or inhuman, interest, capable of consideration, it has occurred to me to suggest for your consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for carrying on mathematical calculations: in fact, the variable character of the weather in Oxford renders it highly inexpedient to attempt much occupation, of a sedentary nature, in the open air. Again, it is often impossible for students to carry on accurate mathematical calculations in close contiguity to one another, owing to their mutual conversation; consequently these processes require different rooms in which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found to occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and permanently fixed. It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate the following requisites--others might be added as funds permit:-- A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common Measure. To this a small one might be attached for Least Common Multiple: this, however, might be dispensed with. B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising their extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, as their corners are apt to damage others. C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This should be provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which might also be available to the general body of Undergraduates, for the purpose of "keeping Terms." D. A large room, which might be darkened, and fitted up with a magic lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating Decimals in the act of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, fitted with glass doors, for keeping the various Scales of Notation. E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled, for investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to use the expressive language of Euclid, "ever so far." This last process of "continually producing the lines," may require centuries or more; but such a period, though long in the life of an individual, is as nothing in the life of the University. As Photography is now very much employed in recording human expressions, and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical Expressions, a small photographic room would be desirable, both for general use and for representing the various phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of Equilibrium, Resolution, &c., which affect the features during severe mathematical operations. May I trust that you will give your immediate attention to this most important subject? Believe me, Sincerely yours, Mathematicus. Next came "The New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford; a Monograph by D.C.L." On the title-page was a neatly drawn square--the figure of Euclid I. 46--below which was written "East view of the New Belfry, Christ Church, as seen from the meadow." The new belfry is fortunately a thing of the past, and its insolent hideousness no longer defaces Christ Church, but while it lasted it was no doubt an excellent target for Lewis Carroll's sarcasm. His article on it is divided into thirteen chapters. Three of them are perhaps worth quoting:-- §1. _On the etymological significance of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_. The word "Belfry" is derived from the French _bel_, "beautiful, becoming, meet," and from the German _frei_, "free unfettered, secure, safe." Thus, the word is strictly equivalent to "meat-safe," to which the new Belfry bears a resemblance so perfect as almost to amount to coincidence. §4. _On the chief architectural merit of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_. Its chief merit is its simplicity--a simplicity so pure, so profound, in a word, so _simple_, that no other word will fitly describe it. The meagre outline, and baldness of detail, of the present Chapter, are adopted in humble imitation of this great feature. §5. _On the other architectural merits of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_. The Belfry has no other architectural merits. "The Vision of the Three T's" followed. It also was an attack on architectural changes in Christ Church; the general style was a parody of the "Compleat Angler." Last of all came "The Blank Cheque, a Fable," in reference to the building of the New Schools, for the expenses of which it was actually proposed (in 1874), to sign a blank cheque before any estimate had been made, or any plan laid before the University, and even before a committee had been elected to appoint an architect for the work. At the end of 1874 Mr. Dodgson was again at Hatfield, where he told the children the story of Prince Uggug, which was afterwards made a part of "Sylvie and Bruno," though at that time it seems to have been a separate tale. But "Sylvie and Bruno," in this respect entirely unlike "Alice in Wonderland," was the result of notes taken during many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which a grown-up person cannot possibly _invent_. He can only listen to the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard into a connected narrative. During 1875 Mr. Dodgson wrote an article on "Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection," which was refused by the _Pall Mall Gazette_, the editor saying that he had never heard of most of them; on which Mr. Dodgson plaintively notes in his Diary that seven out of the thirteen fallacies dealt with in his essay had appeared in the columns of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. Ultimately it was accepted by the editor of _The Fortnightly Review_. Mr. Dodgson had a peculiar horror of vivisection. I was once walking in Oxford with him when a certain well-known professor passed us. "I am afraid that man vivisects," he said, in his gravest tone. Every year he used to get a friend to recommend him a list of suitable charities to which he should subscribe. Once the name of some Lost Dogs' Home appeared in this list. Before Mr. Dodgson sent his guinea he wrote to the secretary to ask whether the manager of the Home was in the habit of sending dogs that had to be killed to physiological laboratories for vivisection. The answer was in the negative, so the institution got the cheque. He did not, however, advocate the total abolition of vivisection--what reasonable man could?--but he would have liked to see it much more carefully restricted by law. An earlier letter of his to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on the same subject is sufficiently characteristic to deserve a place here. Be it noted that he signed it "Lewis Carroll," in order that whatever influence or power his writings had gained him might tell in the controversy. VIVISECTION AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES. _To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_ Sir,--The letter which appeared in last week's _Spectator_, and which must have saddened the heart of every one who read it, seems to suggest a question which has not yet been asked or answered with sufficient clearness, and that is, How far may vivisection be regarded as a sign of the times, and a fair specimen of that higher civilisation which a purely secular State education is to give us? In that much-vaunted panacea for all human ills we are promised not only increase of knowledge, but also a higher moral character; any momentary doubt on this point which we may feel is set at rest at once by quoting the great crucial instance of Germany. The syllogism, if it deserves the name, is usually stated thus: Germany has a higher scientific education than England; Germany has a lower average of crime than England; _ergo_, a scientific education tends to improve moral conduct. Some old-fashioned logician might perhaps whisper to himself, "Praemissis particularibus nihil probatur," but such a remark, now that Aldrich is out of date, would only excite a pitying smile. May we, then, regard the practice of vivisection as a legitimate fruit, or as an abnormal development, of this higher moral character? Is the anatomist, who can contemplate unmoved the agonies he is inflicting for no higher purpose than to gratify a scientific curiosity, or to illustrate some well-established truth, a being higher or lower, in the scale of humanity, than the ignorant boor whose very soul would sicken at the horrid sight? For if ever there was an argument in favour of purely scientific education more cogent than another, it is surely this (a few years back it might have been put into the mouth of any advocate of science; now it reads like the merest mockery): "What can teach the noble quality of mercy, of sensitiveness to all forms of suffering, so powerfully as the knowledge of what suffering really is? Can the man who has once realised by minute study what the nerves are, what the brain is, and what waves of agony the one can convey to the other, go forth and wantonly inflict pain on any sentient being?" A little while ago we should have confidently replied, "He cannot do it"; in the light of modern revelations we must sorrowfully confess "He can." And let it never be said that this is done with serious forethought of the balance of pain and gain; that the operator has pleaded with himself, "Pain is indeed an evil, but so much suffering may fitly be endured to purchase so much knowledge." When I hear of one of these ardent searchers after truth giving, not a helpless dumb animal, to whom he says in effect, "_You_ shall suffer that _I_ may know," but his own person to the probe and to the scalpel, I will believe in him as recognising a principle of justice, and I will honour him as acting up to his principles. "But the thing cannot be!" cries some amiable reader, fresh from an interview with that most charming of men, a London physician. "What! Is it possible that one so gentle in manner, so full of noble sentiments, can be hardhearted? The very idea is an outrage to common sense!" And thus we are duped every day of our lives. Is it possible that that bank director, with his broad honest face, can be meditating a fraud? That the chairman of that meeting of shareholders, whose every tone has the ring of truth in it, can hold in his hand a "cooked" schedule of accounts? That my wine merchant, so outspoken, so confiding, can be supplying me with an adulterated article? That the schoolmaster, to whom I have entrusted my little boy, can starve or neglect him? How well I remember his words to the dear child when last we parted. "You are leaving your friends," he said, "but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeers!" For all such rose-coloured dreams of the necessary immunity from human vices of educated men the facts in last week's _Spectator_ have a terrible significance. "Trust no man further than you can see him," they seem to say. "Qui vult decipi, decipiatur." Allow me to quote from a modern writer a few sentences bearing on this subject:-- "We are at present, legislature and nation together, eagerly pushing forward schemes which proceed on the postulate that conduct is determined, not by feelings, but by cognitions. For what else is the assumption underlying this anxious urging-on of organisations for teaching? What is the root-notion common to Secularists and Denominationalists but the notion that spread of knowledge is the one thing needful for bettering behaviour? Having both swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has grown up in them the belief that State education will check ill-doing.... This belief in the moralising effects of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is absurd _a priori_.... This faith in lesson-books and readings is one of the superstitions of the age.... Not by precept, though heard daily; not by example, unless it is followed; but only by action, often caused by the related feeling, can a moral habit be formed. And yet this truth, which mental science clearly teaches, and which is in harmony with familiar sayings, is a truth wholly ignored in current educational fanaticisms." There need no praises of mine to commend to the consideration of all thoughtful readers these words of Herbert Spencer. They are to be found in "The Study of Sociology" (pp. 36l-367). Let us, however, do justice to science. It is not so wholly wanting as Mr. Herbert Spencer would have us believe in principles of action--principles by which we may regulate our conduct in life. I myself once heard an accomplished man of science declare that his labours had taught him one special personal lesson which, above all others, he had laid to heart. A minute study of the nervous system, and of the various forms of pain produced by wounds had inspired in him one profound resolution; and that was--what think you?--never, under any circumstances, to adventure his own person into the field of battle! I have somewhere read in a book--a rather antiquated book, I fear, and one much discredited by modern lights--the words, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Truly we read these words with a new meaning in the present day! "Groan and travail" it undoubtedly does still (more than ever, so far as the brute creation is concerned); but to what end? Some higher and more glorious state? So one might have said a few years back. Not so in these days. The _telos teleion_ of secular education, when divorced from religious or moral training, is--I say it deliberately--the purest and most unmitigated selfishness. The world has seen and tired of the worship of Nature, of Reason, of Humanity; for this nineteenth century has been reserved the development of the most refined religion of all--the worship of Self. For that, indeed, is the upshot of it all. The enslavement of his weaker brethren--"the labour of those who do not enjoy, for the enjoyment of those who do not labour"--the degradation of woman--the torture of the animal world--these are the steps of the ladder by which man is ascending to his higher civilisation. Selfishness is the key-note of all purely secular education; and I take vivisection to be a glaring, a wholly unmistakable case in point. And let it not be thought that this is an evil that we can hope to see produce the good for which we are asked to tolerate it, and then pass away. It is one that tends continually to spread. And if it be tolerated or even ignored now, the age of universal education, when the sciences, and anatomy among them, shall be the heritage of all, will be heralded by a cry of anguish from the brute creation that will ring through the length and breadth of the land! This, then, is the glorious future to which the advocate of secular education may look forward: the dawn that gilds the horizon of his hopes! An age when all forms of religious thought shall be things of the past; when chemistry and biology shall be the ABC of a State education enforced on all; when vivisection shall be practised in every college and school; and when the man of science, looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway than his, shall exult in the thought that he has made of this fair green earth, if not a heaven for man, at least a hell for animals. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, Lewis Carroll. _February 10th_. On March 29, 1876, "The Hunting of the Snark" was published. Mr. Dodgson gives some interesting particulars of its evolution. The first idea for the poem was the line "For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see," which came into his mind, apparently without any cause, while he was taking a country walk. The first complete verse which he composed was the one which stands last in the poem:-- In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away-- For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see. The illustrations were the work of Mr. Henry Holiday, and they are thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the poem. Many people have tried to show that "The Hunting of the Snark" was an allegory; some regarding it as being a burlesque upon the Tichborne case, and others taking the Snark as a personification of popularity. Lewis Carroll always protested that the poem had no meaning at all. As to the meaning of the Snark [he wrote to a friend in America], I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I've seen is by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think this fits in beautifully in many ways--particularly about the bathing-machines: when the people get weary of life, and can't find happiness in towns or in books, then they rush off to the seaside, to see what bathing-machines will do for them. [Illustration: Henry Holiday in his Studio. _From a photograph_.] Mr. H. Holiday, in a very interesting article on "The Snark's Significance" (_Academy,_ January 29, 1898), quoted the inscription which Mr. Dodgson had written in a vellum-bound, presentation-copy of the book. It is so characteristic that I take the liberty of reproducing it here:-- Presented to Henry Holiday, most patient of artists, by Charles L. Dodgson, most exacting, but not most ungrateful of authors, March 29, 1876. A little girl, to whom Mr. Dodgson had given a copy of the "Snark," managed to get the whole poem off by heart, and insisted on reciting, it from beginning to end during a long carriage-drive. Her friends, who, from the nature of the case, were unable to escape, no doubt wished that she, too, was a Boojum. During the year, the first public dramatic representation of "Alice in Wonderland" was given at the Polytechnic, the entertainment taking the form of a series of _tableaux_, interspersed with appropriate readings and songs. Mr. Dodgson exercised a rigid censorship over all the extraneous matter introduced into the performance, and put his veto upon a verse in one of the songs, in which the drowning of kittens was treated from the humorous point of view, lest the children in the audience might learn to think lightly of death in the case of the lower animals. [Illustration: Lewis Carroll. _From a photograph_.] * * * * * CHAPTER V (1877-1883) Dramatic tastes--Miss Ellen Terry--"Natural Science at Oxford"--Mr. Dodgson as an artist--Miss E. G. Thomson--The drawing of children--A curious dream--"The Deserted Parks"--"Syzygies"--Circus children--Row-loving undergraduates--A letter to _The Observer_--Resignation of the Lectureship--He is elected Curator of the Common Room--Dream-music. Mr. Dodgson's love of the drama was not, as I have shown, a taste which he acquired in later years. From early college days he never missed anything which he considered worth seeing at the London theatres. I believe he used to reproach himself--unfairly, I think--with spending too much time on such recreations. For a man who worked so hard and so incessantly as he did; for a man to whom vacations meant rather a variation of mental employment than absolute rest of mind, the drama afforded just the sort of relief that was wanted. His vivid imagination, the very earnestness and intensity of his character enabled him to throw himself utterly into the spirit of what he saw upon the stage, and to forget in it all the petty worries and disappointments of life. The old adage says that a man cannot burn the candle at both ends; like most proverbs, it is only partially true, for often the hardest worker is the man who enters with most zest into his recreations, and this was emphatically the case with Mr. Dodgson. Walter Pater, in his book on the Renaissance, says (I quote from rough notes only), "A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Here we have the truer philosophy, here we have the secret of Lewis Carroll's life. He never wasted time on social formalities; he refused to fulfil any of those (so called) duties which involve ineffable boredom, and so his mind was always fresh and ready. He said in one of his letters that he hoped that in the next world all knowledge would not be given to us suddenly, but that we should gradually grow wiser, for the _acquiring_ knowledge was to him the real pleasure. What is this but a paraphrase of another of Pater's thoughts, "Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end." And so, times without number, he allowed himself to be carried away by emotion as he saw life in the mirror of the stage; but, best of all, he loved to see the acting of children, and he generally gave copies of his books to any of the little performers who specially pleased him. On January 13, 1877, he wrote in his Diary:-- Went up to town for the day, and took E-- with me to the afternoon pantomime at the Adelphi, "Goody Two-Shoes," acted entirely by children. It was a really charming performance. Little Bertie Coote, aged ten, was clown--a wonderfully clever little fellow; and Carrie Coote, about eight, was Columbine, a very pretty graceful little thing. In a few years' time she will be just _the_ child to act "Alice," if it is ever dramatised. The harlequin was a little girl named Gilchrist, one of the most beautiful children, in face and figure, that I have ever seen. I must get an opportunity of photographing her. Little Bertie Coote, singing "Hot Codlings," was curiously like the pictures of Grimaldi. It need hardly be said that the little girl was Miss Constance Gilchrist. Mr. Dodgson sent her a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," with a set of verses on her name. Many people object altogether to children appearing on the stage; it is said to be bad for their morals as well as for their health. A letter which Mr. Dodgson once wrote in the _St. James's Gazette_ contains a sufficient refutation of the latter fancy:-- I spent yesterday afternoon at Brighton, where for five hours I enjoyed the society of three exceedingly happy and healthy little girls, aged twelve, ten, and seven. I think that any one who could have seen the vigour of life in those three children--the intensity with which they enjoyed everything, great or small, that came in their way--who could have watched the younger two running races on the Pier, or have heard the fervent exclamation of the eldest at the end of the afternoon, "We _have_ enjoyed ourselves!" would have agreed with me that here, at least, there was no excessive "physical strain," nor any _imminent_ danger of "fatal results"! A drama, written by Mr. Savile Clarke, is now being played at Brighton, and in this (it is called "Alice in Wonderland") all three children have been engaged. They had been acting every night this week, and _twice_ on the day before I met them, the second performance lasting till half-past ten at night, after which they got up at seven next morning to bathe! That such (apparently) severe work should co-exist with blooming health and buoyant spirits seems at first sight a paradox; but I appeal to any one who has ever worked _con amore_ at any subject whatever to support me in the assertion that, when you really love the subject you are working at, the "physical strain" is absolutely _nil_; it is only when working "against the grain" that any strain is felt, and I believe the apparent paradox is to be explained by the fact that a taste for _acting_ is one of the strongest passions of human nature, that stage-children show it nearly from infancy, and that, instead of being miserable drudges who ought to be celebrated in a new "Cry of the Children," they simply _rejoice_ in their work "even as a giant rejoiceth to run his course." Mr. Dodgson's general views on the mission of the drama are well shown by an extract from a circular which he sent to many of his friends in 1882:-- The stage (as every playgoer can testify) is an engine of incalculable power for influencing society; and every effort to purify and ennoble its aims seems to me to deserve all the countenance that the great, and all the material help that the wealthy, can give it; while even those who are neither great nor wealthy may yet do their part, and help to-- "Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be." [Illustration: Ellen Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] I do not know if Mr. Dodgson's suggested amendment of some lines in the "Merchant of Venice" was ever carried out, but it further illustrates the serious view he took of this subject. The hint occurs in a letter to Miss Ellen Terry, which runs as follows:-- You gave me a treat on Saturday such as I have very seldom had in my life. You must be weary by this time of hearing your own praises, so I will only say that Portia was all I could have imagined, and more. And Shylock is superb--especially in the trial-scene. Now I am going to be very bold, and make a suggestion, which I do hope you will think well enough of to lay it before Mr. Irving. I want to see that clause omitted (in the sentence on Shylock)-- That, for this favour, He presently become a Christian; It is a sentiment that is entirely horrible and revolting to the feelings of all who believe in the Gospel of Love. Why should our ears be shocked by such words merely because they are Shakespeare's? In his day, when it was held to be a Christian's duty to force his belief on others by fire and sword--to burn man's body in order to save his soul--the words probably conveyed no shock. To all Christians now (except perhaps extreme Calvinists) the idea of forcing a man to abjure his religion, whatever that religion may be, is (as I have said) simply horrible. I have spoken of it as a needless outrage on religious feeling: but surely, being so, it is a great artistic mistake. Its tendency is directly contrary to the spirit of the scene. We have despised Shylock for his avarice, and we rejoice to see him lose his wealth: we have abhorred him for his bloodthirsty cruelty, and we rejoice to see him baffled. And now, in the very fulness of our joy at the triumph of right over wrong, we are suddenly called on to see in him the victim of a cruelty a thousand times worse than his own, and to honour him as a martyr. This, I am sure, Shakespeare never meant. Two touches only of sympathy does he allow us, that we may realise him as a man, and not as a demon incarnate. "I will not pray with you"; "I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor." But I am sure he never meant our sympathies to be roused in the supreme moment of his downfall, and, if he were alive now, I believe he would cut out those lines about becoming a Christian. No interpolation is needed--(I should not like to suggest the putting in a single word that is not Shakespeare's)--I would read the speech thus:-- That lately stole his daughter: Provided that he do record a gift, Here in the court, &c. And I would omit Gratiano's three lines at Shylock's exit, and let the text stand:-- _Duke_: "Get thee gone, but do it." (_Exit Shylock_.) The exit, in solemn silence, would be, if possible, even grander than it now is, and would lose nothing by the omission of Gratiano's flippant jest.... On January 16th he saw "New Men and Old Acres" at the Court Theatre. The two authors of the pieces, Dubourg and Tom Taylor, were great friends of his. "It was a real treat," he writes, "being well acted in every detail. Ellen Terry was wonderful, and I should think unsurpassable in all but the lighter parts." Mr. Dodgson himself had a strong wish to become a dramatic author, but, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to get his plays produced, he wisely gave up the idea, realising that he had not the necessary constructive powers. The above reference to Miss Ellen Terry's acting is only one out of a countless number; the great actress and he were excellent friends, and she did him many a kindness in helping on young friends of his who had taken up the stage as a profession. [Illustration: Tom Taylor. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] She and her sister, Miss Kate Terry, were among the distinguished people whom he photographed. The first time he saw the latter actress was, I think, in 1858, when she was playing in "The Tempest" at the Princess's. "The gem of the piece," he writes, "was the exquisitely graceful and beautiful Ariel, Miss Kate Terry. Her appearance as a sea-nymph was one of the most beautiful living pictures I ever saw, but this, and every other one in my recollection (except Queen Katherine's dream), were all outdone by the concluding scene, where Ariel is left alone, hovering over the wide ocean, watching the retreating ship. It is an innovation on Shakespeare, but a worthy one, and the conception of a true poet." [Illustration: Kate Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] Mr. Dodgson was a frequent contributor to the daily Press. As a rule his letters appeared in the _St. James's Gazette_, for the editor, Mr. Greenwood, was a friend of his, but the following sarcastic epistle was an exception:-- NATURAL SCIENCE AT OXFORD. _To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_ Sir,--There is no one of the many ingenious appliances of mechanical science that is more appreciated or more successfully employed than the wedge; so subtle and imperceptible are the forces needed for the insertion of its "thin end," so astounding the results which its "thick end" may ultimately produce. Of the former process we shall see a beautiful illustration in a Congregation to be holden at Oxford on the 24th inst., when it will be proposed to grant, to those who have taken the degrees of bachelor and master in Natural Science only, the same voting powers as in the case of the "M.A." degree. This means the omission of one of the two classical languages, Latin and Greek, from what has been hitherto understood as the curriculum of an Oxford education. It is to this "thin end" of the wedge that I would call the attention of our non-residents, and of all interested in Oxford education, while the "thick end" is still looming in the distance. But why fear a "thick end" at all? I shall be asked. Has Natural Science shown any such tendency, or given any reason to fear that such a concession would lead to further demands? In answer to that question, let me sketch, in dramatic fashion, the history of her recent career in Oxford. In the dark ages of our University (some five-and-twenty years ago), while we still believed in classics and mathematics as constituting a liberal education, Natural Science sat weeping at our gates. "Ah, let me in!" she moaned; "why cram reluctant youth with your unsatisfying lore? Are they not hungering for bones; yea, panting for sulphuretted hydrogen?" We heard and we pitied. We let her in and housed her royally; we adorned her palace with re-agents and retorts, and made it a very charnel-house of bones, and we cried to our undergraduates, "The feast of Science is spread! Eat, drink, and be happy!" But they would not. They fingered the bones, and thought them dry. They sniffed at the hydrogen, and turned away. Yet for all that Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (for the modern horse-leech is more prolific than in the days of Solomon), ceased not to plead, "Give, give!" And we gave; we poured forth our wealth like water (I beg her pardon, like H{_2}O), and we could not help thinking there was something weird and uncanny in the ghoul-like facility with which she absorbed it. The curtain rises on the second act of the drama. Science is still weeping, but this time it is for lack of pupils, not of teachers or machinery. "We are unfairly handicapped!" she cries. "You have prizes and scholarships for classics and mathematics, and you bribe your best students to desert us. Buy us some bright, clever boys to teach, and then see what we can do!" Once more we heard and pitied. We had bought her bones; we bought her boys. And now at last her halls were filled--not only with teachers paid to teach, but also with learners paid to learn. And we have not much to complain of in results, except that perhaps she is a little too ready to return on our hands all but the "honour-men"--all, in fact, who really need the helping hand of an educator. "Here, take back your stupid ones!" she cries. "Except as subjects for the scalpel (and we have not yet got the Human Vivisection Act through Parliament) we can do nothing with them!" The third act of the drama is yet under rehearsal; the actors are still running in and out of the green-room, and hastily shuffling on their new and ill-fitting dresses; but its general scope is not far to seek. At no distant day our once timid and tearful guest will be turning up her nose at the fare provided for her. "Give me no more youths to teach," she will say; "but pay me handsomely, and let me think. Plato and Aristotle were all very well in their way; Diogenes and his tub for me!" The allusion is not inappropriate. There can be little doubt that some of the researches conducted by that retiring philosopher in the recesses of that humble edifice were strictly scientific, embracing several distinct branches of entomology. I do not mean, of course, that "research" is a new idea in Oxford. From time immemorial we have had our own chosen band of researchers (here called "professors"), who have advanced the boundaries of human knowledge in many directions. True, they are not left so wholly to themselves as some of these modern thinkers would wish to be, but are expected to give some few lectures, as the outcome of their "research" and the evidence of its reality, but even that condition has not always been enforced--for instance, in the case of the late Professor of Greek, Dr. Gaisford, the University was too conscious of the really valuable work he was doing in philological research to complain that he ignored the usual duties of the chair and delivered no lectures. And, now, what is the "thick end" of the wedge? It is that Latin and Greek may _both_ vanish from our curriculum; that logic, philosophy, and history may follow; and that the destinies of Oxford may some day be in the hands of those who have had no education other than "scientific." And why not? I shall be asked. Is it not as high a form of education as any other? That is a matter to be settled by facts. I can but offer my own little item of evidence, and leave it to others to confirm or to refute. It used once to be thought indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion. Not so many years ago I had the honour of assisting in correcting for the press some pages of the _Anthropological Review_, or some such periodical. I doubt not that the writers were eminent men in their own line; that each could triumphantly prove, to his own satisfaction, the unsoundness of what the others had advanced; and that all would unite in declaring that the theories of a year ago were entirely exploded by the latest German treatise; but they were not able to set forth these thoughts, however consoling in themselves, in anything resembling the language of educated society. In all my experience, I have never read, even in the "local news" of a country paper, such slipshod, such deplorable English. I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds of the day are to be found in the ranks of science. I freely admit that such may be found, but my contention is that _they_ made the science, not the science them; and that in any line of thought they would have been equally distinguished. As a general principle, I do not think that the exclusive study of any _one_ subject is really education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that even a considerable proficiency in Natural Science, taken alone, is so far from proving a high degree of cultivation and great natural ability that it is fully compatible with general ignorance and an intellect quite below par. Therefore it is that I seek to rouse an interest, beyond the limits of Oxford, in preserving classics as an essential feature of a University education. Nor is it as a classical tutor (who might be suspected of a bias in favour of his own subject) that I write this. On the contrary, it is as one who has taught science here for more than twenty years (for mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences) that I beg to sign myself,--Your obedient servant, Charles L. Dodgson, _Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford. May 17th._ I give the above letter because I think it amusing; it must not be supposed that the writer's views on the subject remained the same all through his life. He was a thorough Conservative, and it took a long time to reconcile him to any new departure. In a political discussion with a friend he once said that he was "first an Englishman, and then a Conservative," but however much a man may try to put patriotism before party, the result will be but partially successful, if patriotism would lead him into opposition to the mental bias which has originally made him either a Conservative or a Radical. He took, of course, great pleasure in the success of his books, as every author must; but the greatest pleasure of all to him was to know that they had pleased others. Notes like the following are frequent in his Diary: "_June_ 25_th_.--Spent the afternoon in sending off seventy circulars to Hospitals, offering copies of 'Alice' and the 'Looking-Glass' for sick children." He well deserved the name which one of his admirers gave him--"The man who loved little children." In April, 1878, he saw a performance of "Olivia" at the Court Theatre. "The gem of the piece is Olivia herself, acted by Ellen Terry with a sweetness and pathos that moved some of the audience (nearly including myself) to tears. Her leave-taking was exquisite; and when, in her exile, she hears that her little brother had cried at the mention of her name, her exclamation 'Pet!' was tenderness itself. Altogether, I have not had a greater dramatic treat for a long time. _Dies cretâ notandus_." I see that I have marked for quotation the following brief entries in the Diary:-- _Aug. 4th_ (at Eastbourne).--Went, morning and evening, to the new chapel-of-ease belonging to S. Saviour's. It has the immense advantage of _not_ being crowded; but this scarcely compensates for the vile Gregorian chants, which vex and weary one's ear. _Aug. 17th_.--A very inquisitive person, who had some children with her, found out my name, and then asked me to shake hands with her child, as an admirer of my books: this I did, unwisely perhaps, as I have no intention of continuing the acquaintance of a "Mrs. Leo Hunter." _Dec. 23rd_.--I have been making a plan for work next term, of this kind: Choose a subject (_e.g._, "Circulation," "Journeys of S. Paul," "English Counties") for each week. On Monday write what I know about it; during week get up subject; on Saturday write again; put the two papers away, and six months afterwards write again and compare. As an artist, Mr. Dodgson possessed an intense natural appreciation of the beautiful, an abhorrence of all that is coarse and unseemly which might almost be called hyper-refinement, a wonderfully good eye for form, and last, but not least, the most scrupulous conscientiousness about detail. On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the defects of an amateur. [Illustration: Miss E. Gertrude Thomson.] In 1878 some drawings of Miss E. Gertrude Thomson's excited his keen admiration, and he exerted himself to make her acquaintance. Their first meeting is described so well by Miss Thomson herself in _The Gentlewoman_ for January 29, 1898, that I cannot do better than quote the description of the scene as given there:-- It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C. L. Dodgson." The writer said that he had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see some more of my work. By the same post came a letter from my London publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C. L. Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll." "Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and as one regards a favourite author as almost a personal friend, I felt less restraint than one usually feels in writing to a stranger, though I carefully concealed my knowledge of his identity, as he had not chosen to reveal it. This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful correspondence, and as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a child's fairy-tale book he had written, called "Alice in Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself. By return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-Glass," bound most luxuriously in white calf and gold. And this is the graceful and kindly note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-Glass' as well. There is an incompleteness about giving only one, and besides, the one you bought was probably in red and would not match these. If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child. I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and weariness. Still, no recipient _can_ be more appropriate than one who seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the 'weary mariners' of old-- 'Between the green brink and the running foam White limbs unrobed in a crystal air, Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest To little harps of gold.'" "Do you ever come to London?" he asked in another letter; "if so, will you allow me to call upon you?" Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was in town. One night, coming into my room, after a long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table. "Rev. C. L. Dodgson." Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but just as I was laying it sadly down I spied a small T.O. in the corner. On the back I read that he couldn't get up to my rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one following? I fixed on South Kensington Museum, by the "Schliemann" collection, at twelve o'clock. A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that _I_ had not the ghost of an idea what _he_ was like, nor would _he_ have any better chance of discovering _me!_ The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I sought. Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I heard the high vivacious voices and laughter of children sounding down the corridor. At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his hands, and as I caught sight of the tall slim figure, with the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, "_That's_ Lewis Carroll." He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children; she, after a moment's pause, pointed straight at me. Dropping their hands he came forward, and with that winning smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said simply, "I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?" To which I as frankly smiled, and said, "How did you know me so soon?" "My little friend found you. I told her I had come to meet a young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once. But _I_ knew you before she spoke." This acquaintance ripened into a true, artistic friendship, which lasted till Mr. Dodgson's death. In his first letter to Miss Thomson he speaks of himself as one who for twenty years had found his one amusement in photographing from life--especially photographing children; he also said that he had made attempts ("most unsuccessfully") at drawing them. When he got to know her more intimately, he asked her to criticise his work, and when she wrote expressing her willingness to do so, he sent her a pile of sketch-books, through which she went most carefully, marking the mistakes, and criticising, wherever criticism seemed to be necessary. After this he might often have been seen in her studio, lying flat on his face, and drawing some child-model who had been engaged for his especial benefit. "I _love_ the effort to draw," he wrote in one of his letters to her, "but I utterly fail to please even my own eye--tho' now and then I seem to get somewhere _near_ a right line or two, when I have a live child to draw from. But I have no time left now for such things. In the next life, I do _hope_ we shall not only _see_ lovely forms, such as this world does not contain, but also be able to _draw_ them." But while he fully recognised the limits of his powers, he had great faith in his own critical judgment; and with good reason, for his perception of the beautiful in contour and attitude and grouping was almost unerring. All the drawings which Miss Thomson made for his "Three Sunsets" were submitted to his criticism, which descended to the smallest details. He concludes a letter to her, which contained the most elaborate and minute suggestions for the improvement of one of these pictures, with the following words: "I make all these suggestions with diffidence, feeling that I have _really no_ right at all, as an amateur, to criticise the work of a real artist." The following extract from another letter to Miss Thomson shows that seeking after perfection, that discontent with everything short of the best, which was so marked a feature of his character. She had sent him two drawings of the head of some child-friend of his:-- Your note is a puzzle--you say that "No. 2 would have been still more like if the paper had been exactly the same shade--but I'd no more at hand of the darker colour." Had I given you the impression that I was in a _hurry_, and was willing to have No. 2 _less_ good than it _might_ be made, so long as I could have it _quick?_ If I did, I'm very sorry: I never _meant_ to say a word like it: and, if you had written "I could make it still more like, on darker paper; but I've no more at hand. How long can you wait for me to get some?" I should have replied, "Six weeks, or six _months_, if you prefer it!" I have already spoken of his love of nature, as opposed to the admiration for the morbid and abnormal. "I want you," he writes to Miss Thomson, "to do my fairy drawings from _life_. They would be very pretty, no doubt, done out of your own head, but they will be ten times as valuable if done from life. Mr. Furniss drew the pictures of 'Sylvie' from life. Mr. Tenniel is the only artist, who has drawn for me, who resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he no more needed one than I should need a multiplication-table to work a mathematical problem!" On another occasion he urges the importance of using models, in order to avoid the similarity of features which would otherwise spoil the pictures: "Cruikshank's splendid illustrations were terribly spoiled by his having only _one_ pretty female face in them all. Leech settled down into _two_ female faces. Du Maurier, I think, has only _one_, now. All the ladies, and all the little girls in his pictures look like twin sisters." It is interesting to know that Sir Noel Paton and Mr. Walter Crane were, in Lewis Carroll's opinion, the most successful drawers of children: "There are but few artists who seem to draw the forms of children _con amore_. Walter Crane is perhaps the best (always excepting Sir Noel Paton): but the thick outlines, which he insists on using, seem to take off a good deal from the beauty of the result." He held that no artist can hope to effect a higher type of beauty than that which life itself exhibits, as the following words show:-- I don't quite understand about fairies losing "grace," if too like human children. Of course I grant that to be like some _actual_ child is to lose grace, because no living child is perfect in form: many causes have lowered the race from what God made it. But the _perfect_ human form, free from these faults, is surely equally applicable to men, and fairies, and angels? Perhaps that is what you mean--that the Artist can imagine, and design, more perfect forms than we ever find in life? I have already referred several times to Miss Ellen Terry as having been one of Mr. Dodgson's friends, but he was intimate with the whole family, and used often to pay them a visit when he was in town. On May 15, 1879, he records a very curious dream which he had about Miss Marion ("Polly") Terry:-- Last night I had a dream which I record as a curiosity, so far as I know, in the literature of dreams. I was staying, with my sisters, in some suburb of London, and had heard that the Terrys were staying near us, so went to call, and found Mrs. Terry at home, who told us that Marion and Florence were at the theatre, "the Walter House," where they had a good engagement. "In that case," I said, "I'll go on there at once, and see the performance--and may I take Polly with me?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Terry. And there was Polly, the child, seated in the room, and looking about nine or ten years old: and I was distinctly conscious of the fact, yet without any feeling of surprise at its incongruity, that I was going to take the _child_ Polly with me to the theatre, to see the _grown-up_ Polly act! Both pictures--Polly as a child, and Polly as a woman, are, I suppose, equally clear in my ordinary waking memory: and it seems that in sleep I had contrived to give the two pictures separate individualities. Of all the mathematical books which Mr. Dodgson wrote, by far the most elaborate, if not the most original, was "Euclid and His Modern Rivals." The first edition was issued in 1879, and a supplement, afterwards incorporated into the second edition, appeared in 1885. This book, as the author says, has for its object to furnish evidence (1) that it is essential for the purposes of teaching or examining in Elementary Geometry to employ one text-book only; (2) that there are strong _a priori_ reasons for retaining in all its main features, and especially in its sequence and numbering of Propositions, and in its treatment of Parallels, the Manual of Euclid; and (3) that no sufficient reasons have yet been shown for abandoning it in favour of any one of the modern Manuals which have been offered as substitutes. The book is written in dramatic form, and relieved throughout by many touches in the author's happiest vein, which make it delightful not only to the scientific reader, but also to any one of average intelligence with the slightest sense of humour. Whether the conclusions are accepted in their entirety or not, it is certain that the arguments are far more effective than if the writer had presented them in the form of an essay. Mr. Dodgson had a wide experience as a teacher and examiner, so that he knew well what he was writing about, and undoubtedly the appearance of this book has done very much to stay the hand of the innovator. The scene opens in a College study--time, midnight. Minos, an examiner, is discovered seated between two immense piles of manuscripts. He is driven almost to distraction in his efforts to mark fairly the papers sent up, by reason of the confusion caused through the candidates offering various substitutes for Euclid. Rhadamanthus, another equally distracted examiner, comes to his room. The two men consult together for a time, and then Rhadamanthus retires, and Minos falls asleep. Hereupon the Ghost of Euclid appears, and discusses with Minos the reasons for retaining his Manual as a whole, in its present order and arrangement. As they are mainly concerned with the wants of beginners, their attention is confined to Books I. and II. We must be content with one short extract from the dialogue:-- _Euclid_.--It is, I think, a friend of yours who has amused himself by tabulating the various Theorems which might be enunciated on the single subject of Pairs of Lines. How many did he make them out to be? _Minos_.--About two hundred and fifty, I believe. _Euclid_.--At that rate there would probably be within the limit of my First Book--how many? _Minos_.--A thousand at least. _Euclid_.--What a popular school-book it will be! How boys will bless the name of the writer who first brings out the complete thousand! With a view to discussing and criticising his various modern rivals, Euclid promises to send to Minos the ghost of a German Professor (Herr Niemand) who "has read all books, and is ready to defend any thesis, true or untrue." "A charming companion!" as Minos drily remarks. This brings us to Act II., in which the Manuals which reject Euclid's treatment of Parallels are dealt with one by one. Those Manuals which adopt it are reserved for Act III., Scene i.; while in Scene ii., "The Syllabus of the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching," and Wilson's "Syllabus," come under review. Only one or two extracts need be given, which, it is hoped, will suffice to illustrate the character and style of the book: Act II., Scene v.--Niemand and Minos are arguing for and against Henrici's "Elementary Geometry." _Minos_.--I haven't quite done with points yet. I find an assertion that they never jump. Do you think that arises from their having "position," which they feel might be compromised by such conduct? _Niemand_.--I cannot tell without hearing the passage read. _Minos_.--It is this: "A point, in changing its position on a curve, passes in moving from one position to another through all intermediate positions. It does not move by jumps." _Niemand_.--That is quite true. _Minos_.--Tell me then--is every centre of gravity a point? _Niemand_.--Certainly. _Minos_.--Let us now consider the centre of gravity of a flea. Does it-- _Niemand (indignantly)_.--Another word, and I shall vanish! I cannot waste a night on such trivialities. _Minos_.--I can't resist giving you just _one_ more tit-bit--the definition of a square at page 123: "A quadrilateral which is a kite, a symmetrical trapezium, and a parallelogram is a square!" And now, farewell, Henrici: "Euclid, with all thy faults, I love thee still!" Again, from Act II., Scene vi.:-- _Niemand_.--He (Pierce, another "Modern Rival,") has a definition of direction which will, I think, be new to you. _(Reads.)_ "The _direction of a line_ in any part is the direction of a point at that part from the next preceding point of the line!" _Minos_.--That sounds mysterious. Which way along a line are "preceding" points to be found? _Niemand_.--_Both ways._ He adds, directly afterwards, "A line has two different directions," &c. _Minos_.--So your definition needs a postscript.... But there is yet another difficulty. How far from a point is the "next" point? _Niemand_.--At an infinitely small distance, of course. You will find the matter fully discussed in my work on the Infinitesimal Calculus. _Minos_.--A most satisfactory answer for a teacher to make to a pupil just beginning Geometry! In Act IV. Euclid reappears to Minos, "followed by the ghosts of Archimedes, Pythagoras, &c., who have come to see fair play." Euclid thus sums up his case:-- "'The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,' and all respectable ghosts ought to be going home. Let me carry with me the hope that I have convinced you of the necessity of retaining my order and numbering, and my method of treating Straight Lines, Angles, Right Angles, and (most especially) Parallels. Leave me these untouched, and I shall look on with great contentment while other changes are made--while my proofs are abridged and improved--while alternative proofs are appended to mine--and while new Problems and Theorems are interpolated. In all these matters my Manual is capable of almost unlimited improvement." In Appendices I. and II. Mr. Dodgson quotes the opinions of two eminent mathematical teachers, Mr. Todhunter and Professor De Morgan, in support of his argument. Before leaving this subject I should like to refer to a very novel use of Mr. Dodgson's book--its employment in a school. Mr. G. Hopkins, Mathematical Master in the High School at Manchester, U.S., and himself the author of a "Manual of Plane Geometry," has so employed it in a class of boys aged from fourteen or fifteen upwards. He first called their attention to some of the more prominent difficulties relating to the question of Parallels, put a copy of Euclid in their hands, and let them see his treatment of them, and after some discussion placed before them Mr. Dodgson's "Euclid and His Modern Rivals" and "New Theory of Parallels." Perhaps it is the fact that American boys are sharper than English, but at any rate the youngsters are reported to have read the two books with an earnestness and a persistency that were as gratifying to their instructor as they were complimentary to Mr. Dodgson. In June of the same year an entry in the Diary refers to a proposal in Convocation to allow the University Club to have a cricket-ground in the Parks. This had been proposed in 1867, and then rejected. Mr. Dodgson sent round to the Common Rooms copies of a poem on "The Deserted Parks," which had been published by Messrs. Parker in 1867, and which was afterwards included in "Notes by an Oxford Chiel." I quote the first few lines:-- Museum! loveliest building of the plain Where Cherwell winds towards the distant main; How often have I loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared the scene! How often have I paused on every charm,-- The rustic couple walking arm in arm, The groups of trees, with seats beneath the shade For prattling babes and whisp'ring lovers made, The never-failing brawl, the busy mill, Where tiny urchins vied in fistic skill. (Two phrases only have that dusky race Caught from the learned influence of the place; Phrases in their simplicity sublime, "Scramble a copper!" "Please, sir, what's the time?") These round thy walks their cheerful influence shed; These were thy charms--but all these charms are fled, Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And rude pavilions sadden all thy green; One selfish pastime grasps the whole domain, And half a faction swallows up the plain; Adown thy glades, all sacrificed to cricket, The hollow-sounding bat now guards the wicket; Sunk are thy mounds in shapeless level all, Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball; And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow, Far, far away thy hapless children go. Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay: Athletic sports may flourish or may fade, Fashion may make them, even as it has made; But the broad Parks, the city's joy and pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied! Readers of "Sylvie and Bruno" will remember the way in which the invisible fairy-children save the drunkard from his evil life, and I have always felt that Mr. Dodgson meant Sylvie to be something more than a fairy--a sort of guardian angel. That such an idea would not have been inconsistent with his way of looking at things is shown by the following letter: Ch. Ch., _July_, 1879. My dear Ethel,--I have been long intending to answer your letter of April 11th, chiefly as to your question in reference to Mrs. N--'s letter about the little S--s [whose mother had recently died]. You say you don't see "how they can be guided aright by their dead mother, or how light can come from her." Many people believe that our friends in the other world can and do influence us in some way, and perhaps even "guide" us and give us light to show us our duty. My own feeling is, it _may_ be so: but nothing has been revealed about it. That the angels do so _is_ revealed, and we may feel sure of _that_; and there is a beautiful fancy (for I don't think one can call it more) that "a mother who has died leaving a child behind her in this world, is allowed to be a sort of guardian angel to that child." Perhaps Mrs. N-- believes that. Here are two other entries in the Diary:-- _Aug. 26th_.--Worked from about 9.45 to 6.45, and again from 10.15 to 11.45 (making 101/2 hours altogether) at an idea which occurred to me of finding limits for _pi_ by elementary trigonometry, for the benefit of the circle-squarers. _Dec. 12th_.--Invented a new way of working one word into another. I think of calling the puzzle "syzygies." I give the first three specimens:-- MAN } permanent } entice } Send MAN on ICE. ICE. } ACRE } sacred } credentials } RELY on ACRE. entirely } RELY } PRISM } prismatic } dramatic } Prove PRISM to be ODIOUS. melodrama } melodious } ODIOUS. } In February, 1880, Mr. Dodgson proposed to the Christ Church "Staff-salaries Board," that as his tutorial work was lighter he should have £200 instead of £300 a year. It is not often that a man proposes to cut down _his own_ salary, but the suggestion in this case was intended to help the College authorities in the policy of retrenchment which they were trying to carry out. _May 24th_.--Percival, President of Trin. Coll., who has Cardinal Newman as his guest, wrote to say that the Cardinal would sit for a photo, to me, at Trinity. But I could not take my photography there and he couldn't come to me: so nothing came of it. _Aug. 19th_. [At Eastbourne].--Took Ruth and Maud to the Circus (Hutchinson and Tayleure's--from America). I made friends with Mr. Tayleure, who took me to the tents of horses, and the caravan he lived in. And I added to my theatrical experiences by a chat with a couple of circus children--Ada Costello, aged 9, and Polly (Evans, I think), aged 13. I found Ada in the outer tent, with the pony on which she was to perform--practising vaulting on to it, varied with somersaults on the ground. I showed her my wire puzzle, and ultimately gave it her, promising a duplicate to Polly. Both children seemed bright and happy, and they had pleasant manners. _Sept. 2nd_.--Mrs. H-- took me to Dr. Bell's (the old homoeopathic doctor) to hear Lord Radstock speak about "training children." It was a curious affair. First a very long hymn; then two very long extempore prayers (not by Lord R--), which were strangely self-sufficient and wanting in reverence. Lord R--'s remarks were commonplace enough, though some of his theories were new, but, I think, not true--_e.g.,_ that encouraging emulation in schoolboys, or desiring that they should make a good position in life, was un-Christian. I escaped at the first opportunity after his speech, and went down on the beach, where I made acquaintance with a family who were banking up with sand the feet and legs of a pretty little girl perched on a sand-castle. I got her father to make her stand to be drawn. Further along the beach a merry little mite began pelting me with sand; so I drew _her_ too. _Nov. 16th_.--Thought of a plan for simplifying money-orders, by making the sender fill up two duplicate papers, one of which he hands in to be transmitted by the postmaster--it containing a key-number which the receiver has to supply in _his_ copy to get the money. I think of suggesting this, and my plan for double postage on Sunday, to the Government. _Dec. 19th_.--The idea occurred to me that a game might be made of letters, to be moved about on a chess-board till they form words. A little book, published during this year, "Alice (a dramatic version of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice'), and other Fairy Tales for Children," by Mrs. Freiligrath-Kroeker, was very successful, and, I understand, still has a regular sale. Mr. Dodgson most gladly gave his consent to the dramatisation of his story by so talented an authoress, and shortly afterwards Mrs. Kroeker brought out "Through the Looking-Glass" in a similar form. _Jan._ 17, 1881.--To the Lyceum to see "The Cup" and "The Corsican Brothers." The first is exquisitely put on, and Ellen Terry as Camma is the perfection of grace, and Irving as the villain, and Mr. Terriss as the husband, were very good. But the piece wants substance. _Jan._ 19_th_.--Tried to go to Oxford, but the line is blocked near Didcot, so stayed another night in town. The next afternoon the line was reported clear, but the journey took 5 hours! On the day before the Dean of Ch. Ch. and his family were snowed up for 21 hours near Radley. _March_ 27_th_.--Went to S. Mary's and stayed for Holy Communion, and, as Ffoulkes was alone, I mustered up courage to help him. I read the exhortation, and was pleased to find I did not once hesitate. I think I must try preaching again soon, as he has often begged me to do. _April_ 16_th_.--Mr. Greenwood approves my theory about general elections, and wants me to write on it in the _St. James's Gazette_. (The letter appeared on May 5, 1881.) _May_ 14_th_.--Took the longest walk (I believe) I have ever done--round by Dorchester, Didcot and Abingdon--27 miles--took 8 hours--no blisters, I rejoice to find, and I feel very little tired. _May_ 26_th_.--The row-loving men in College are beginning to be troublesome again, and last night some 30 or 40 of them, aided by out-College men, made a great disturbance, and regularly defied the Censors. I have just been with the other Tutors into Hall, and heard the Dean make an excellent speech to the House. Some two or three will have to go down, and twelve or fifteen others will be punished in various ways. (A later note says): The punishments had to be modified--it turned out that the disturbers were nearly all out-College men. [Illustration 229: DR. Liddell. _From a photograph by Hill & Saunders._] Mr. Dodgson sent a letter to _The Observer_ on this subject:-- Sir,--Your paper of May 29th contains a leading article on Christ Church, resting on so many mis-statements of fact that I venture to appeal to your sense of justice to allow me, if no abler writer has addressed you on the subject, an opportunity of correcting them. It will, I think, be found that in so doing I shall have removed the whole foundation on which the writer has based his attack on the House, after which I may contentedly leave the superstructure to take care of itself. "Christ Church is always provoking the adverse criticism of the outer world." The writer justifies this rather broad generalisation by quoting three instances of such provocation, which I will take one by one. At one time we are told that "The Dean ... neglects his functions, and spends the bulk of his time in Madeira." The fact is that the Dean's absence from England more than twenty years ago during two successive winters was a sad necessity, caused by the appearance of symptoms of grave disease, from which he has now, under God's blessing, perfectly recovered. The second instance occurred eleven years ago, when some of the undergraduates destroyed some valuable statuary in the Library. Here the writer states that the Dean first announced that criminal proceedings would be taken, and then, on discovering that the offenders were "highly connected," found himself "converted to the opinion that mercy is preferable to stern justice, and charity to the strict letter of the law." The facts are that the punishment awarded to the offenders was deliberated on and determined on by the Governing Body, consisting of the Dean, the Canons, and some twenty Senior Students; that their deliberations were most assuredly in no way affected by any thoughts of the offenders being "highly connected"; and that, when all was over, we had the satisfaction of seeing ourselves roundly abused in the papers on both sides, and charged with having been too lenient, and also with having been too severe. The third instance occurred the other night. Some undergraduates were making a disturbance, and the Junior Censor "made his appearance in person upon the scene of riot," and "was contumeliously handled." Here the only statement of any real importance, the alleged assault by Christ Church men on the Junior Censor, is untrue. The fact is that nearly all the disturbers were out-College men, and, though it is true that the Censor was struck by a stone thrown from a window, the unenviable distinction of having thrown it belongs to no member of the House. I doubt if we have one single man here who would be capable of so base and cowardly an act. The writer then gives us a curious account of the present constitution of the House. The Dean, whom he calls "the right reverend gentleman," is, "in a kind of way, master of the College. The Canons, in a vague kind of way, are supposed to control the College." The Senior Students "dare not call their souls their own," and yet somehow dare "to vent their wrath" on the Junior Students. His hazy, mental picture of the position of the Canons may be cleared up by explaining to him that the "control" they exercise is neither more nor less than that of any other six members of the Governing Body. The description of the Students I pass over as not admitting any appeal to actual facts. The truth is that Christ Church stands convicted of two unpardonable crimes--being great, and having a name. Such a place must always expect to find itself "a wide mark for scorn and jeers"--a target where the little and the nameless may display their skill. Only the other day an M.P., rising to ask a question about Westminster School, went on to speak of Christ Church, and wound up with a fierce attack on the ancient House. Shall we blame him? Do we blame the wanton schoolboy, with a pebble in his hand, all powerless to resist the alluring vastness of a barndoor? The essence of the article seems to be summed up in the following sentence: "At Christ Church all attempts to preserve order by the usual means have hitherto proved uniformly unsuccessful, and apparently remain equally fruitless." It is hard for one who, like myself, has lived here most of his life, to believe that this is seriously intended as a description of the place. However, as general statements can only be met by general statements, permit me, as one who has lived here for thirty years and has taught for five-and-twenty, to say that in my experience order has been the rule, disorder the rare exception, and that, if the writer of your leading article has had an equal amount of experience in any similar place of education, and has found a set of young men more gentlemanly, more orderly, and more pleasant in every way to deal with, than I have found here, I cannot but think him an exceptionally favoured mortal.--Yours, &c. Charles L. Dodgson, _Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church_. In July began an amusing correspondence between Mr. Dodgson and a "circle-squarer," which lasted several months. Mr. Dodgson sent the infatuated person, whom we will call Mr. B--, a proof that the area of a circle is less than 3.15 the square of the radius. Mr. B--replied, "Your proof is not in accordance with Euclid, it assumes that a circle may be considered as a rectangle, and that two right lines can enclose a space." He returned the proof, saying that he could not accept any of it as elucidating the exact area of a circle, or as Euclidean. As Mr. Dodgson's method involved a slight knowledge of trigonometry, and he had reason to suspect that Mr. B--was entirely ignorant of that subject, he thought it worth while to put him to the test by asking him a few questions upon it, but the circle-squarer, with commendable prudence, declined to discuss anything not Euclidean. Mr. Dodgson then wrote to him, "taking leave of the subject, until he should be willing to enlarge his field of knowledge to the elements of Algebraical Geometry." Mr. B--replied, with unmixed contempt, "Algebraical Geometry is all moon-shine." _He_ preferred "weighing cardboard" as a means of ascertaining exact truth in mathematical research. Finally he suggested that Mr. Dodgson might care to join in a prize-competition to be got up among the followers of Euclid, and as he apparently wished him to understand that he (Mr. B--) did not think much of his chances of getting a prize, Mr. Dodgson considered that the psychological moment for putting an end to the correspondence had arrived. Meanwhile he was beginning to feel his regular College duties a terrible clog upon his literary work. The Studentship which he held was not meant to tie him down to lectures and examinations. Such work was very well for a younger man; he could best serve "the House" by his literary fame. _July_ 14_th._--Came to a more definite decision than I have ever yet done--that it is about time to resign the Mathematical Lectureship. My chief motive for holding on has been to provide money for others (for myself, I have been many years able to retire), but even the £300 a year I shall thus lose I may fairly hope to make by the additional time I shall have for book-writing. I think of asking the G.B. (Governing Body) next term to appoint my successor, so that I may retire at the end of the year, when I shall be close on fifty years old, and shall have held the Lectureship for exactly 26 years. (I had the Honourmen for the last two terms of 1855, but was not full Lecturer till Hilary, 1856.) _Oct_. 18_th_.--I have just taken an important step in life, by sending to the Dean a proposal to resign the Mathematical Lectureship at the end of this year. I shall now have my whole time at my own disposal, and, if God gives me life and continued health and strength, may hope, before my powers fail, to do some worthy work in writing--partly in the cause of mathematical education, partly in the cause of innocent recreation for children, and partly, I hope (though so utterly unworthy of being allowed to take up such work) in the cause of religious thought. May God bless the new form of life that lies before me, that I may use it according to His holy will! _Oct. 21st_.--I had a note in the evening from the Dean, to say that he had seen the Censors on the subject of my proposed resignation at the end of the year, and that arrangements should be made, as far as could be done, to carry out my wishes; and kindly adding an expression of regret at losing my services, but allowing that I had "earned a right to retirement." So my Lectureship seems to be near its end. _Nov. 30th_.--I find by my Journal that I gave my _first_ Euclid Lecture in the Lecture-room on Monday, January 28, 1856. It consisted of twelve men, of whom nine attended. This morning, I have given what is most probably my _last_: the lecture is now reduced to nine, of whom all attended on Monday: this morning being a Saint's Day, the attendance was voluntary, and only two appeared--E.H. Morris, and G. Lavie. I was Lecturer when the _father_ of the latter took his degree, viz., in 1858. There is a sadness in coming to the end of anything in life. Man's instincts cling to the Life that will never end. _May 30, 1882._--Called on Mrs. R--. During a good part of the evening I read _The Times_, while the party played a round game of spelling words--a thing I will never join in. Rational conversation and _good_ music are the only things which, to me, seem worth the meeting for, for grown-up people. _June 1st._--Went out with Charsley, and did four miles on one of his velocimans, very pleasantly. The velociman was an early and somewhat cumbrous form of tricycle; Mr. Dodgson made many suggestions for its improvement. He never attempted to ride a bicycle, however, but, in accordance with his own dictum, "In youth, try a bicycle, in age, buy a tricycle," confined himself to the three-wheeled variety. [Illustration: XI Oxford types From a photograph by A.T. Shrimpton] _Nov. 8th_.--Whitehead, of Trinity, told us a charming story in Common Room of a father and son. They came up together: the son got into a College--the father had to go to New Inn Hall: the son passed Responsions, while his father had to put off: finally, the father failed in Mods and has gone down: the son will probably take his degree, and may then be able to prepare his father for another try. Among the coloured cartoons in Shrimpton's window at Oxford there used to be, when I was up, a picture which I think referred to this story. _Nov. 23rd._--Spent two hours "invigilating" in the rooms of W.J. Grant (who has broken his collar-bone, and is allowed to do his Greats papers in this way) while he dictated his answers to another undergraduate, Pakenham, who acted as scribe. _Nov. 24th_.--Dined with Fowler (now President of C.C.C.) in hall, to meet Ranken. Both men are now mostly bald, with quite grey hair: yet how short a time it seems since we were undergraduates together at Whitby! (in 1854). _Dec 8th._--A Common Room Meeting. Fresh powers were given to the Wine Committee, and then a new Curator elected. I was proposed by Holland, and seconded by Harcourt, and accepted office with no light heart: there will be much trouble and thought needed to work it satisfactorily, but it will take me out of myself a little, and so may be a real good--my life was tending to become too much that of a selfish recluse. During this year he composed the words of a song, "Dreamland." The air was _dreamed_ by his friend, the late Rev. C. E. Hutchinson, of Chichester. The history of the dream is here given in the words of the dreamer:-- I found myself seated, with many others, in darkness, in a large amphitheatre. Deep stillness prevailed. A kind of hushed expectancy was upon us. We sat awaiting I know not what. Before us hung a vast and dark curtain, and between it and us was a kind of stage. Suddenly an intense wish seized me to look upon the forms of some of the heroes of past days. I cannot say whom in particular I longed to behold, but, even as I wished, a faint light flickered over the stage, and I was aware of a silent procession of figures moving from right to left across the platform in front of me. As each figure approached the left-hand corner it turned and gazed at me, and I knew (by what means I cannot say) its name. One only I recall--Saint George; the light shone with a peculiar blueish lustre on his shield and helmet as he turned and slowly faced me. The figures were shadowy, and floated like mist before me; as each one disappeared an invisible choir behind the curtain sang the "Dream music." I awoke with the melody ringing in my ears, and the words of the last line complete--"I see the shadows falling, and slowly pass away." The rest I could not recall. [Illustration: Dreamland--Facsimile of Words and Music.] DREAMLAND. Words by LEWIS CARROLL. Music by C.E. HUTCHINSON. When midnight mists are creeping And all the land is sleeping Around me tread the mighty dead, And slowly pass away. Lo, warriors, saints, and sages, From out the vanished ages, With solemn pace and reverend face Appear and pass away. The blaze of noonday splendour, The twilight soft and tender, May charm the eye: yet they shall die, Shall die and pass away But here, in Dreamland's centre, No spoiler's hand may enter, These visions fair, this radiance rare, Shall never pass away I see the shadows falling, The forms of eld recalling; Around me tread the mighty dead, And slowly pass away One of the best services to education which Mr. Dodgson performed was his edition of "Euclid I. and II.," which was published in 1882. In writing "Euclid and His Modern Rivals," he had criticised somewhat severely the various substitutes proposed for Euclid, so far as they concerned beginners; but at the same time he had admitted that within prescribed limits Euclid's text is capable of amendment and improvement, and this is what he attempted to do in this book. That he was fully justified is shown by the fact that during the years 1882-1889 the book ran through eight editions. In the Introduction he enumerates, under the three headings of "Additions," "Omissions," and "Alterations," the chief points of difference between his own and the ordinary editions of Euclid, with his reasons for adopting them. They are the outcome of long experience, and the most conservative of teachers would readily accept them. The proof of I. 24, for example, is decidedly better and more satisfactory than the ordinary proof, and the introduction of the definition of "projection" certainly simplifies the cumbrous enunciations of II. 12 and 13. Again, the alternative proof of II. 8, suggested in the Introduction, is valuable, and removes all excuse for omitting this proposition, as is commonly clone. The figures used are from the blocks prepared for the late Mr. Todhunter's well-known edition of Euclid, to which Mr. Dodgson's manual forms an excellent stepping-stone. At the beginning of 1883 he went up to town to see the collection of D. G. Rossetti's pictures in the Burlington Gallery. He was especially struck with "Found," which he thus describes-- A picture of a man finding, in the streets of London, a girl he had loved years before in the days of her innocence. She is huddled up against the wall, dressed in gaudy colours, and trying to turn away her agonised face, while he, holding her wrists, is looking down with an expression of pain and pity, condemnation and love, which is one of the most marvellous things I have ever seen done in painting. _Jan_. 27, 1883 [His birthday].--I cannot say I feel much older at 51 than at 21! Had my first "tasting-luncheon"; it seemed to give great satisfaction. [The object of the Curator's "tasting-luncheon" was, of course, to give members of Common Room an opportunity of deciding what wines should be bought.] _March_ 15_th._--Went up to town to fulfil my promise to Lucy A.--: to take her for her _first_ visit to the theatre. We got to the Lyceum in good time, and the play was capitally acted. I had hinted to Beatrice (Miss Ellen Terry) how much she could add to Lucy's pleasure by sending round a "carte" of herself; she sent a cabinet. She is certainly an adept in giving gifts that gratify. _April_ 23_d_.--Tried another long walk--22 miles, to Besilsleigh, Fyfield, Kingston, Bagpuize, Frilford, Marcham, and Abingdon. The last half of the way was in the face of wind, rain, snow, and hail. Was too lame to go into Hall. * * * * * CHAPTER VI (1883-1887) "The Profits of Authorship"--"Rhyme? and Reason?"--The Common Room Cat--Visit to Jersey--Purity of elections--Parliamentary Representation--Various literary projects--Letters to Miss E. Rix--Being happy--"A Tangled Tale"--Religious arguments--The "Alice" Operetta--"Alice's Adventures Underground"--"The Game of Logic"--Mr. Harry Furniss. In 1883 Lewis Carroll was advised to make a stand against the heavy discount allowed by publishers to booksellers, and by booksellers to the public. Accordingly the following notice began to appear in all his books: "In selling Mr. Lewis Carroll's books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2d. in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent, discount within six months, and 10 per cent, for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent, discount." It was a bold step to take, and elicited some loud expressions of disapproval. "Rather than buy on the terms Mr. Lewis Carroll offers," "A Firm of London Booksellers" wrote in _The Bookseller_ of August 4th, "the trade will do well to refuse to take copies of his books, new or old, so long as he adheres to the terms he has just announced to the trade for their delectation and delight." On the other hand, an editorial, which appeared in the same number of _The Bookseller,_ expressed warm approval of the innovation. To avoid all possible misconceptions, the author fully explained his views in a little pamphlet on "The Profits of Authorship." He showed that the bookseller makes as much profit out of every volume he sells (assuming the buyer to pay the full published price, which he did in those days more readily than he does to-day) as author and publisher together, whereas his share in the work is very small. He does not say much about the author's part in the work--that it is a very heavy one goes without saying--but in considering the publisher's share he says:-- The publisher contributes about as much as the bookseller in time and bodily labour, but in mental toil and trouble a great deal more. I speak with some personal knowledge of the matter, having myself, for some twenty years, inflicted on that most patient and painstaking firm, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., about as much wear and worry as ever publishers have lived through. The day when they undertake a book for me is a _dies nefastus_ for them. From that day till the book is out--an interval of some two or three years on an average--there is no pause in "the pelting of the pitiless storm" of directions and questions on every conceivable detail. To say that every question gets a courteous and thoughtful reply--that they are still outside a lunatic asylum--and that they still regard me with some degree of charity--is to speak volumes in praise of their good temper and of their health, bodily and mental. I think the publisher's claim on the profits is on the whole stronger than the booksellers. "Rhyme? and Reason?" appeared at Christmas; the dedicatory verses, inscribed "To a dear child: in memory of golden summer hours and whispers of a summer sea," were addressed to a little friend of the author's, Miss Gertrude Chataway. One of the most popular poems in the book is "Hiawatha's Photographing," a delicious parody of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." "In an age of imitation," says Lewis Carroll, in a note at the head, "I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy." It is not every one who has read this note who has observed that it is really in the same metre as the poem below it. Another excellent parody, "Atalanta in Camden-Town," exactly hit off the style of that poet who stands alone and unapproached among the poets of the day, and whom Mr. Dodgson used to call "the greatest living master of language." "Fame's Penny Trumpet," affectionately dedicated to all "original researchers" who pant for "endowment," was an attack upon the Vivisectionists, Who preach of Justice--plead with tears That Love and Mercy should abound-- While marking with complacent ears The moaning of some tortured hound. Lewis Carroll thus addresses them:-- Fill all the air with hungry wails-- "Reward us, ere we think or write! Without your gold mere knowledge fails To sate the swinish appetite!" And, where great Plato paced serene, Or Newton paused with wistful eye, Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean And Babel-clamour of the stye! Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise: We will not rob them of their due, Nor vex the ghosts of other days By naming them along with you. They sought and found undying fame: They toiled not for reward nor thanks: Their cheeks are hot with honest shame For you, the modern mountebanks! "For auld lang syne" the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs. Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note. Christ Church, _December_ 21, 1883. Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--Perhaps the shortest day in the year is not _quite_ the most appropriate time for recalling the long dreamy summer afternoons of ancient times; but anyhow if this book gives you half as much pleasure to receive as it does me to send, it will be a success indeed. Wishing you all happiness at this happy season, I am, Sincerely yours, C. L. Dodgson. The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business. The Curatorship seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat--but not until it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to pussy's nerves, and as little as possible to her feelings. On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates. Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had helped him when he was editor of _College Rhymes_. I quote a few lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on matrimony:-- So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery, though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a stranger. A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of life which advancing years forced him to make:-- Wrote to -- (who had invited me to dine) to beg off, on the ground that, in my old age, I find dinner parties more and more fatiguing. This is quite a new departure. I much grudge giving an evening (even if it were not tiring) to bandying small-talk with dull people. The next extract I give does not look much like old age! I called on Mrs. M--. She was out; and only one maid in, who, having come to the gate to answer the bell, found the door blown shut on her return. The poor thing seemed really alarmed and distressed. However, I got a man to come from a neighbouring yard with a ladder, and got in at the drawing-room window--a novel way of entering a friend's house! Oddly enough, almost exactly the same thing happened to him in 1888: "The door blew shut, with the maid outside, and no one in the house. I got the cook of the next house to let me go through their premises, and with the help of a pair of steps got over the wall between the two back-yards." In July there appeared an article in the _St. James's Gazette_ on the subject of "Parliamentary Elections," written by Mr. Dodgson. It was a subject in which he was much interested, and a few years before he had contributed a long letter on the "Purity of Elections" to the same newspaper. I wish I had space to give both in full; as things are, a summary and a few extracts are all I dare attempt. The writer held that there are a great number of voters, and _pari passu_ a great number of constituencies, that like to be on the winning side, and whose votes are chiefly influenced by that consideration. The ballot-box has made it practically impossible for the individual voter to know which is going to be the winning side, but after the first few days of a general election, one side or the other has generally got a more or less decided advantage, and a weak-kneed constituency is sorely tempted to swell the tide of victory. But this is not all. The evil extends further than to the single constituency; nay, it extends further than to a single general election; it constitutes a feature in our national history; it is darkly ominous for the future of England. So long as general elections are conducted as at present we shall be liable to oscillations of political power, like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing violence--one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the other--while the Government of the hour, joyfully hastening to undo all that its predecessors have done, will wield a majority so immense that the fate of every question will be foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no settled principle--an army, whose only marching orders will be "Right about face!" His remedy was that the result of each single election should be kept secret till the general election is over:-- It surely would involve no practical difficulty to provide that the boxes of voting papers should be sealed up by a Government official and placed in such custody as would make it impossible to tamper with them; and that when the last election had been held they should be opened, the votes counted, and the results announced. The article on "Parliamentary Elections" proposed much more sweeping alterations. The opening paragraph will show its general purport:-- The question, how to arrange our constituencies and conduct our Parliamentary elections so as to make the House of Commons, as far as possible, a true index of the state of opinion in the nation it professes to represent, is surely equal in importance to any that the present generation has had to settle. And the leap in the dark, which we seem about to take in a sudden and vast extension of the franchise, would be robbed of half its terrors could we feel assured that each political party will be duly represented in the next Parliament, so that every side of a question will get a fair hearing. The axioms on which his scheme was based were as follows:-- (1) That each Member of Parliament should represent approximately the same number of electors. (2) That the minority of the two parties into which, broadly speaking, each district may be divided, should be adequately represented. (3) That the waste of votes, caused by accidentally giving one candidate more than he needs and leaving another of the same party with less than he needs, should be, if possible, avoided. (4) That the process of marking a ballot-paper should be reduced to the utmost possible simplicity, to meet the case of voters of the very narrowest mental calibre. (5) That the process of counting votes should be as simple as possible. Then came a precise proposal. I do not pause to compare it in detail with the suggestions of Mr. Hare, Mr. Courtney, and others:-- I proceed to give a summary of rules for the method I propose. Form districts which shall return three, four, or more Members, in proportion to their size. Let each elector vote for one candidate only. When the poll is closed, divide the total number of votes by the number of Members to be returned _plus_ one, and take the next greater integer as "quota." Let the returning officer publish the list of candidates, with the votes given for each, and declare as "returned" each that has obtained the quota. If there are still Members to return, let him name a time when all the candidates shall appear before him; and each returned Member may then formally assign his surplus votes to whomsoever of the other candidates he will, while the other candidates may in like manner assign their votes to one another. This method would enable each of the two parties in a district to return as many Members as it could muster "quotas," no matter how the votes were distributed. If, for example, 10,000 were the quota, and the "reds" mustered 30,000 votes, they could return three Members; for, suppose they had four candidates, and that A had 22,000 votes, B 4,000, C 3,000, D 1,000, A would simply have to assign 6,000 votes to B and 6,000 to C; while D, being hopeless of success, would naturally let C have his 1,000 also. There would be no risk of a seat being left vacant through two candidates of the same party sharing a quota between them--an unwritten law would soon come to be recognised--that the one with fewest votes should give place to the other. And, with candidates of two opposite parties, this difficulty could not arise at all; one or the other could always be returned by the surplus votes of his party. Some notes from the Diary for March, 1885, are worth reproducing here:-- _March_ 1_st_.--Sent off two letters of literary importance, one to Mrs. Hargreaves, to ask her consent to my publishing the original MS. of "Alice" in facsimile (the idea occurred to me the other day); the other to Mr. H. Furniss, a very clever illustrator in _Punch_, asking if he is open to proposals to draw pictures for me. The letter to Mrs. Hargreaves, which, it will be noticed, was earlier in date than the short note already quoted in this chapter, ran as follows:-- My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--I fancy this will come to you almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of silence, and yet those years have made no difference that I can perceive in _my_ clearness of memory of the days when we _did_ correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man's failing memory is as to recent events and new friends, (for instance, I made friends, only a few weeks ago, with a very nice little maid of about twelve, and had a walk with her--and now I can't recall either of her names!), but my mental picture is as vivid as ever of one who was, through so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of child-friends since your time, but they have been quite a different thing. However, I did not begin this letter to say all _that_. What I want to ask is, Would you have any objection to the original MS. book of "Alice's Adventures" (which I suppose you still possess) being published in facsimile? The idea of doing so occurred to me only the other day. If, on consideration, you come to the conclusion that you would rather _not_ have it done, there is an end of the matter. If, however, you give a favourable reply, I would be much obliged if you would lend it me (registered post, I should think, would be safest) that I may consider the possibilities. I have not seen it for about twenty years, so am by no means sure that the illustrations may not prove to be so awfully bad that to reproduce them would be absurd. There can be no doubt that I should incur the charge of gross egoism in publishing it. But I don't care for that in the least, knowing that I have no such motive; only I think, considering the extraordinary popularity the books have had (we have sold more than 120,000 of the two), there must be many who would like to see the original form. Always your friend, C.L. Dodgson. The letter to Harry Furniss elicited a most satisfactory reply. Mr. Furniss said that he had long wished to illustrate one of Lewis Carroll's books, and that he was quite prepared to undertake the work ("Sylvie and Bruno"). [Illustration: H. Furniss. _From a photograph_.] Two more notes from the Diary, referring to the same month follow:-- _March 10th_.--A great Convocation assembled in the theatre, about a proposed grant for Physiology, opposed by many (I was one) who wish restrictions to be enacted as to the practice of vivisection for research. Liddon made an excellent speech against the grant, but it was carried by 412 to 244. _March 29th_.--Never before have I had so many literary projects on hand at once. For curiosity, I will here make a list of them. (1) Supplement to "Euclid and Modern Rivals." (2) 2nd Edition of "Euc. and Mod. Rivals." (3) A book of Math. curiosities, which I think of calling "Pillow Problems, and other Math. Trifles." This will contain Problems worked out in the dark, Logarithms without Tables, Sines and angles do., a paper I am now writing on "Infinities and Infinitesimals," condensed Long Multiplication, and perhaps others. (4) Euclid V. (5) "Plain Facts for Circle-Squarers," which is nearly complete, and gives actual proof of limits 3.14158, 3.14160. (6) A symbolical Logic, treated by my algebraic method. (7) "A Tangled Tale." (8) A collection of Games and Puzzles of my devising, with fairy pictures by Miss E.G. Thomson. This might also contain my "Mem. Tech." for dates; my "Cipher-writing" scheme for Letter-registration, &c., &c. (9) Nursery Alice. (10) Serious poems in "Phantasmagoria." (11) "Alice's Adventures Underground." (12) "Girl's Own Shakespeare." I have begun on "Tempest." (13) New edition of "Parliamentary Representation." (14) New edition of Euc. I., II. (15) The new child's book, which Mr. Furniss is to illustrate. I have settled on no name as yet, but it will perhaps be "Sylvie and Bruno." I have other shadowy ideas, _e.g._, a Geometry for Boys, a vol. of Essays on theological points freely and plainly treated, and a drama on "Alice" (for which Mr. Mackenzie would write music): but the above is a fair example of "too many irons in the fire!" A letter written about this time to his friend, Miss Edith Rix, gives some very good hints about how to work, all the more valuable because he had himself successfully carried them out. The first hint was as follows:-- When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it, _stop_, you will only hurt yourself by going on. Put it aside till the next morning; and if _then_ you can't make it out, and have no one to explain it to you, put it aside entirely, and go back to that part of the subject which you _do_ understand. When I was reading Mathematics for University honours, I would sometimes, after working a week or two at some new book, and mastering ten or twenty pages, get into a hopeless muddle, and find it just as bad the next morning. My rule was _to begin the book again_. And perhaps in another fortnight I had come to the old difficulty with impetus enough to get over it. Or perhaps not. I have several books that I have begun over and over again. My second hint shall be--Never leave an unsolved difficulty _behind_. I mean, don't go any further in that book till the difficulty is conquered. In this point, Mathematics differs entirely from most other subjects. Suppose you are reading an Italian book, and come to a hopelessly obscure sentence--don't waste too much time on it, skip it, and go on; you will do very well without it. But if you skip a _mathematical_ difficulty, it is sure to crop up again: you will find some other proof depending on it, and you will only get deeper and deeper into the mud. My third hint is, only go on working so long as the brain is _quite_ clear. The moment you feel the ideas getting confused leave off and rest, or your penalty will be that you will never learn Mathematics _at all_! Two more letters to the same friend are, I think, deserving of a place here:-- Eastbourne, _Sept_. 25, 1885. My dear Edith,--One subject you touch on--"the Resurrection of the Body"--is very interesting to me, and I have given it much thought (I mean long ago). _My_ conclusion was to give up the _literal_ meaning of the _material_ body altogether. _Identity_, in some mysterious way, there evidently is; but there is no resisting the scientific fact that the actual _material_ usable for _physical_ bodies has been used over and over again--so that each atom would have several owners. The mere solitary fact of the existence of _cannibalism_ is to my mind a sufficient _reductio ad absurdum_ of the theory that the particular set of atoms I shall happen to own at death (changed every seven years, they say) will be mine in the next life--and all the other insuperable difficulties (such as people born with bodily defects) are swept away at once if we accept S. Paul's "spiritual body," and his simile of the grain of corn. I have read very little of "Sartor Resartus," and don't know the passage you quote: but I accept the idea of the material body being the "dress" of the spiritual--a dress needed for material life. Ch. Ch., _Dec_. 13, 1885. Dear Edith,--I have been a severe sufferer from _Logical_ puzzles of late. I got into a regular tangle about the "import of propositions," as the ordinary logical books declare that "all _x_ is _z_" doesn't even _hint_ that any _x_'s exist, but merely that the qualities are so inseparable that, if ever _x_ occurs, _z_ must occur also. As to "some _x_ is _z_" they are discreetly silent; and the living authorities I have appealed to, including our Professor of Logic, take opposite sides! Some say it means that the qualities are so connected that, if any _x_'s _did_ exist, some _must_ be _z_--others that it only means compatibility, _i.e.,_ that some _might_ be _z_, and they would go on asserting, with perfect belief in their truthfulness, "some boots are made of brass," even if they had all the boots in the world before them, and knew that _none_ were so made, merely because there is no inherent impossibility in making boots of brass! Isn't it bewildering? I shall have to mention all this in my great work on Logic--but _I_ shall take the line "any writer may mean exactly what he pleases by a phrase so long as he explains it beforehand." But I shall not venture to assert "some boots are made of brass" till I have found a pair! The Professor of Logic came over one day to talk about it, and we had a long and exciting argument, the result of which was "_x -x_"--a magnitude which you will be able to evaluate for yourself. C. L. Dodgson. As an example of the good advice Mr. Dodgson used to give his young friends, the following letter to Miss Isabel Standen will serve excellently:-- Eastbourne, _Aug_. 4, 1885. I can quite understand, and much sympathise with, what you say of your feeling lonely, and not what you can honestly call "happy." Now I am going to give you a bit of philosophy about that--my own experience is, that _every_ new form of life we try is, just at first, irksome rather than pleasant. My first day or two at the sea is a little depressing; I miss the Christ Church interests, and haven't taken up the threads of interest here; and, just in the same way, my first day or two, when I get back to Christ Church, I miss the seaside pleasures, and feel with unusual clearness the bothers of business-routine. In all such cases, the true philosophy, I believe, is "_wait_ a bit." Our mental nerves seem to be so adjusted that we feel _first_ and most keenly, the _dis_-comforts of any new form of life; but, after a bit, we get used to them, and cease to notice them; and _then_ we have time to realise the enjoyable features, which at first we were too much worried to be conscious of. Suppose you hurt your arm, and had to wear it in a sling for a month. For the first two or three days the discomfort of the bandage, the pressure of the sling on the neck and shoulder, the being unable to use the arm, would be a constant worry. You would feel as if all comfort in life were gone; after a couple of days you would be used to the new sensations, after a week you perhaps wouldn't notice them at all; and life would seem just as comfortable as ever. So my advice is, don't think about loneliness, or happiness, or unhappiness, for a week or two. Then "take stock" again, and compare your feelings with what they were two weeks previously. If they have changed, even a little, for the better you are on the right track; if not, we may begin to suspect the life does not suit you. But what I want _specially_ to urge is that there's no use in comparing one's feelings between one day and the next; you must allow a reasonable interval, for the _direction of_ change to show itself. Sit on the beach, and watch the waves for a few seconds; you say "the tide is coming in "; watch half a dozen successive waves, and you may say "the last is the lowest; it is going out." Wait a quarter of an hour, and compare its _average_ place with what it was at first, and you will say "No, it is coming in after all." ... With love, I am always affectionately yours, C. L. Dodgson. The next event to chronicle in Lewis Carroll's Life is the publication, by Messrs. Macmillan, of "A Tangled Tale," a series of mathematical problems which had originally appeared in the _Monthly Packet_. In addition to the problems themselves, the author added their correct solutions, with criticisms on the solutions, correct or otherwise, which the readers of the _Monthly Packet_ had sent in to him. With some people this is the most popular of all his books; it is certainly the most successful attempt he ever made to combine mathematics and humour. The book was illustrated by Mr. A.B. Frost, who entered most thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. One of his pictures, "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon," is irresistibly comic. A short quotation will better enable the reader to understand the point of the joke:-- Balbus was waiting for them at the hotel; the journey down had tried him, he said; so his two pupils had been the round of the place, in search of lodgings, without the old tutor who had been their inseparable companion from their childhood. They had named him after the hero of their Latin exercise-book, which overflowed with anecdotes about that versatile genius--anecdotes whose vagueness in detail was more than compensated by their sensational brilliance. "Balbus has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus--sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written, "Rashness in Speculation "--sometimes of encouragement, as in the words, "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"--and sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as "Prudence," which was all he could extract from the touching record that "Balbus, having scorched the tail of the dragon, went away." His pupils liked the short morals best, as it left them more room for marginal illustrations, and in this instance they required all the space they could get to exhibit the rapidity of the hero's departure. Balbus and his pupils go in search of lodgings, which are only to be found in a certain square; at No. 52, one of the pupils supplements the usual questions by asking the landlady if the cat scratches:-- The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to make sure the cat was not listening. "I will not deceive you, gentlemen," she said. "It _do_ scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers! It'll never do it," she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words of some written agreement between herself and the cat, "without you pulls its whiskers!" "Much may be excused in a cat so treated," said Balbus as they left the house and crossed to No. 70, leaving the landlady curtesying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing--"Not without you pulls its whiskers!" [Illustration: _From a crayon drawing by the Rev. H.C. Gaye_.] They secure one room at each of the following numbers--the square contains 20 doors on each side--Nine, Twenty-five, Fifty-two, and Seventy-three. They require three bedrooms and one day-room, and decide to take as day-room the one that gives them the least walking to do to get to it. The problem, of course, is to discover which room they adopted as the day-room. There are ten such "knots" in the book, and few, if any of them, can be untied without a good deal of thought. Owing, probably, to the strain of incessant work, Mr. Dodgson about this period began to be subject to a very peculiar, yet not very uncommon, optical delusion, which takes the form of seeing moving fortifications. Considering the fact that he spent a good twelve hours out of every twenty-four in reading and writing, and that he was now well over fifty years old, it was not surprising that nature should begin to rebel at last, and warn him of the necessity of occasional rest. Some verses on "Wonderland" by "One who loves Alice," appeared in the Christmas number of _Sylvia's Home Journal_, 1885. They were written by Miss M.E. Manners, and, as Lewis Carroll himself admired them, they will, I think, be read with interest:-- WONDERLAND. How sweet those happy days gone by, Those days of sunny weather, When Alice fair, with golden hair, And we--were young together;-- When first with eager gaze we scann'd The page which told of Wonderland. On hearthrug in the winter-time We lay and read it over; We read it in the summer's prime, Amidst the hay and clover. The trees, by evening breezes fann'd, Murmured sweet tales of Wonderland. We climbed the mantelpiece, and broke The jars of Dresden china; In Jabberwocky tongue we spoke, We called the kitten "Dinah!" And, oh! how earnestly we planned To go ourselves to Wonderland. The path was fringed with flowers rare, With rainbow colours tinted; The way was "up a winding stair," Our elders wisely hinted. We did not wish to understand _Bed_ was the road to Wonderland. We thought we'd wait till we should grow Stronger as well as bolder, But now, alas! full well we know We're only growing older. The key held by a childish hand, Fits best the door of Wonderland. Yet still the Hatter drinks his tea, The Duchess finds a moral, And Tweedledum and Tweedledee Forget in fright their quarrel. The Walrus still weeps on the sand, That strews the shores of Wonderland. And other children feel the spell Which once we felt before them, And while the well-known tale we tell, We watch it stealing o'er them: Before their dazzled eyes expand The glorious realms of Wonderland. Yes, "time is fleet," and we have gained Years more than twice eleven; Alice, dear child, hast thou remained "Exactually" seven? With "proper aid," "two" could command Time to go back in Wonderland. Or have the years (untouched by charms), With joy and sorrow laden, Rolled by, and brought unto thy arms A dainty little maiden? Another Alice, who shall stand By thee to hear of Wonderland. Carroll! accept the heartfelt thanks Of children of all ages, Of those who long have left their ranks, Yet still must love the pages Written by him whose magic wand Called up the scenes of Wonderland. Long mayst thou live, the sound to hear Which most thy heart rejoices, Of children's laughter ringing clear, And children's merry voices, Until for thee an angel-hand Draws back the veil of Wonderland. One Who Loves "Alice." Three letters, written at the beginning of 1886 to Miss Edith Rix, to whom he had dedicated "A Tangled Tale," are interesting as showing the deeper side of his character:-- Guildford, _Jan_. 15, 1886. My dear Edith,--I have been meaning for some time to write to you about agnosticism, and other matters in your letter which I have left unnoticed. And yet I do not know, much as what you say interests me, and much as I should like to be of use to any wandering seeker after truth, that I am at all likely to say anything that will be new to you and of any practical use. The Moral Science student you describe must be a beautiful character, and if, as you say, she lives a noble life, then, even though she does not, as yet, see any God, for whose sake she can do things, I don't think you need be unhappy about her. "When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee," is often supposed to mean that Nathanael had been _praying_, praying no doubt ignorantly and imperfectly, but yet using the light he had: and it seems to have been accepted as faith in the Messiah. More and more it seems to me (I hope you won't be _very_ much shocked at me as an ultra "Broad" Churchman) that what a person _is_ is of more importance in God's sight than merely what propositions he affirms or denies. _You_, at any rate, can do more good among those new friends of yours by showing them what a Christian _is_, than by telling them what a Christian _believes_.... I have a deep dread of argument on religious topics: it has many risks, and little chance of doing good. You and I will never _argue_, I hope, on any controverted religious question: though I do hope we may see the day when we may freely _speak_ of such things, even where we happen to hold different views. But even then I should have no inclination, if we did differ, to conclude that my view was the right one, and to try to convert you to it.... Now I come to your letter dated Dec. 22nd, and must scold you for saying that my solution of the problem was "quite different _to_ all common ways of doing it": if _you_ think that's good English, well and good; but _I_ must beg to differ to you, and to hope you will _never_ write me a sentence similar from this again. However, "worse remains behind"; and if you deliberately intend in future, when writing to me about one of England's greatest poets, to call him "Shelly," then all I can say is, that you and I will have to quarrel! Be warned in time. C. L. Dodgson. CH. Ch., _Jan_. 26, 1886. My Dear Edith,--I am interested by what you say of Miss--. You will know, without my saying it, that if she, or any other friend of yours with any troubles, were to like to write to me, I would _very_ gladly try to help: with all my ignorance and weakness, God has, I think, blessed my efforts in that way: but then His strength is made perfect in weakness.... Ch. Ch., _Feb_. 14, 1886. My Dear Edith,... I think I've already noticed, in a way, most of the rest of that letter--except what you say about learning more things "after we are dead." _I_ certainly like to think that may be so. But I have heard the other view strongly urged, a good deal based on "then shall we know even as we are known." But I can't believe that that means we shall have _all_ knowledge given us in a moment--nor can I fancy it would make me any happier: it is the _learning_ that is the chief joy, here, at any rate.... I find another remark anent "pupils"--a bold speculation that my 1,000 pupils may really "go on" in the future life, till they _have_ really outstripped Euclid. And, please, what is _Euclid_ to be doing all that time? ... One of the most dreadful things you have ever told me is your students' theory of going and speaking to any one they are interested in, without any introductions. This, joined with what you say of some of them being interested in "Alice," suggests the horrid idea of their some day walking into this room and beginning a conversation. It is enough to make one shiver, even to think of it! Never mind if people do say "Good gracious!" when you help old women: it _is_ being, in some degree, both "good" _and_ "gracious," one may hope. So the remark wasn't so inappropriate. I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment--like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect. C. L. Dodgson. The "Alice" operetta, which Mr. Dodgson had despaired of, was at last to become a reality. Mr. Savile Clarke wrote on August 28th to ask his leave to dramatise the two books, and he gladly assented. He only made one condition, which was very characteristic of him, that there should be "no _suggestion_ even of coarseness in libretto or in stage business." The hint was hardly necessary, for Mr. Savile Clarke was not the sort of man to spoil his work, or to allow others to spoil it, by vulgarity. Several alterations were made in the books before they were suitable for a dramatic performance; Mr. Dodgson had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters, which the Walrus and the Carpenter had devoured. He also completed "Tis the voice of the lobster," so as to make it into a song. It ran as follows:-- Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare "You have baked me too brown: I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And talks with the utmost contempt of the shark; But when the tide rises, and sharks are around, His words have a timid and tremulous sound. I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie: The panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, And the owl had the dish for his share of the treat. When the plate was divided, the owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: But the panther obtained both the fork and the knife, So, when _he_ lost his temper, the owl lost its life. The play, for the first few weeks at least, was a great success. Some notes in Mr. Dodgson's Diary which relate to it, show how he appreciated Mr. Savile Clarke's venture:-- _Dec. 30th._--To London with M--, and took her to "Alice in Wonderland," Mr. Savile Clarke's play at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. The first act (Wonderland) goes well, specially the Mad Tea Party. Mr. Sydney Harcourt is a capital Hatter, and little Dorothy d'Alcourt (æt. 61/2) a delicious Dormouse. Phoebe Carlo is a splendid Alice. Her song and dance with the Cheshire Cat (Master C. Adeson, who played the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance") was a gem. As a whole the play seems a success. _Feb_. 11, 1887.--Went to the "Alice" play, where we sat next a chatty old gentleman, who told me that the author of "Alice" had sent Phoebe Carlo a book, and that she had written to him to say that she would do her very best, and further, that he is "an Oxford man"--all which I hope I received with a sufficient expression of pleased interest. Shortly before the production of the play, a Miss Whitehead had drawn a very clever medley-picture, in which nearly all Tenniel's wonderful creations--the Dormouse, the White Knight, the Mad Hatter, &c.--appeared. This design was most useful as a "poster" to advertise the play. After the London run was over, the company made a tour of the provinces, where it met with a fair amount of success. [Illustration: Medley of Tenniel's Illustrations in "Alice." _From an etching by Miss Whitehead; used as a theatrical advertisement_.] At the end of 1886, "Alice's Adventures Underground," a facsimile of the original MS. book, afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with thirty-seven illustrations by the author, was published by Macmillan & Co. A postscript to the Preface stated that any profits that might arise from the book would be given to Children's Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children. Shortly before the book came out, Lewis Carroll wrote to Mrs. Hargreaves, giving a description of the difficulties that he had encountered in producing it:-- Christ Church, Oxford, _November_ 11, 1886. My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--Many thanks for your permission to insert "Hospitals" in the Preface to your book. I have had almost as many adventures in getting that unfortunate facsimile finished, _Above_ ground, as your namesake had _Under_ it! First, the zincographer in London, recommended to me for photographing the book, page by page, and preparing the zinc-blocks, declined to undertake it unless I would entrust the book to _him_, which I entirely refused to do. I felt that it was only due to you, in return for your great kindness in lending so unique a book, to be scrupulous in not letting it be even _touched_ by the workmen's hands. In vain I offered to come and reside in London with the book, and to attend daily in the studio, to place it in position to be photographed, and turn over the pages as required. He said that could not be done because "other authors' works were being photographed there, which must on no account be seen by the public." I undertook not to look at _anything_ but my own book; but it was no use: we could not come to terms. Then -- recommended me a certain Mr. X--, an excellent photographer, but in so small a way of business that I should have to _prepay_ him, bit by bit, for the zinc-blocks: and _he_ was willing to come to Oxford, and do it here. So it was all done in my studio, I remaining in waiting all the time, to turn over the pages. But I daresay I have told you so much of the story already. Mr. X-- did a first-rate set of negatives, and took them away with him to get the zinc-blocks made. These he delivered pretty regularly at first, and there seemed to be every prospect of getting the book out by Christmas, 1885. On October 18, 1885, I sent your book to Mrs. Liddell, who had told me your sisters were going to visit you and would take it with them. I trust it reached you safely? Soon after this--I having prepaid for the whole of the zinc-blocks--the supply suddenly ceased, while twenty-two pages were still due, and Mr. X-- disappeared! My belief is that he was in hiding from his creditors. We sought him in vain. So things went on for months. At one time I thought of employing a detective to find him, but was assured that "all detectives are scoundrels." The alternative seemed to be to ask you to lend the book again, and get the missing pages re-photographed. But I was most unwilling to rob you of it again, and also afraid of the risk of loss of the book, if sent by post--for even "registered post" does not seem _absolutely_ safe. In April he called at Macmillan's and left _eight_ blocks, and again vanished into obscurity. This left us with fourteen pages (dotted up and down the book) still missing. I waited awhile longer, and then put the thing into the hands of a solicitor, who soon found the man, but could get nothing but promises from him. "You will never get the blocks," said the solicitor, "unless you frighten him by a summons before a magistrate." To this at last I unwillingly consented: the summons had to be taken out at--(that is where this aggravating man is living), and this entailed two journeys from Eastbourne--one to get the summons (my _personal_ presence being necessary), and the other to attend in court with the solicitor on the day fixed for hearing the case. The defendant didn't appear; so the magistrate said he would take the case in his absence. Then I had the new and exciting experience of being put into the witness-box, and sworn, and cross-examined by a rather savage magistrate's clerk, who seemed to think that, if he only bullied me enough, he would soon catch me out in a falsehood! I had to give the magistrate a little lecture on photo-zincography, and the poor man declared the case was so complicated he must adjourn it for another week. But this time, in order to secure the presence of our slippery defendant, he issued a warrant for his apprehension, and the constable had orders to take him into custody and lodge him in prison, the night before the day when the case was to come on. The news of _this_ effectually frightened him, and he delivered up the fourteen negatives (he hadn't done the blocks) before the fatal day arrived. I was rejoiced to get them, even though it entailed the paying a second time for getting the fourteen blocks done, and withdrew the action. The fourteen blocks were quickly done and put into the printer's hands; and all is going on smoothly at last: and I quite hope to have the book completed, and to be able to send you a very special copy (bound in white vellum, unless you would prefer some other style of binding) by the end of the month. Believe me always, Sincerely yours, C. L. Dodgson. "The Game of Logic" was Lewis Carroll's next book; it appeared about the end of February, 1887. As a method of teaching the first principles of Logic to children it has proved most useful; the subject, usually considered very difficult to a beginner, is made extremely easy by simplification of method, and both interesting and amusing by the quaint syllogisms that the author devised, such as-- No bald person needs a hair-brush; No lizards have hair; Therefore[1] No lizard needs a hair brush. Caterpillars are not eloquent; Jones is eloquent; Jones is not a caterpillar. Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, "Sylvie and Bruno," were being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll to the most minute criticism--hyper-criticism, perhaps, occasionally. A few instances of the sort of criticisms he used to make upon Mr. Furniss's work may be interesting; I have extracted them from a letter dated September 1, 1887. It will be seen that when he really admired a sketch he did not stint his praise:-- (1) "Sylvie helping beetle" [p. 193]. A quite charming composition. (3) "The Doctor" and "Eric." (Mr. Furniss's idea of their appearance). No! The Doctor won't do _at all!_ He is a smug London man, a great "ladies' man," who would hardly talk anything but medical "shop." He is forty at least, and can have had no love-affair for the last fifteen years. I want him to be about twenty-five, powerful in frame, poetical in face: capable of intelligent interest in any subject, and of being a passionate lover. How would you draw King Arthur when he first met Guinevere? Try _that_ type. Eric's attitude is capital: but his face is a little too near to the ordinary "masher." Please avoid _that_ inane creature; and please don't cut his hair short. That fashion will be "out" directly. (4) "Lady Muriel" (head); ditto (full length); "Earl." I don't like _either_ face of Lady Muriel. I don't think I could talk to her; and I'm quite sure I couldn't fall in love with her. Her dress ("evening," of course) is very pretty, I think. I don't like the Earl's face either. He is proud of his title, very formal, and one who would keep one "at arm's length" always. And he is too prodigiously tall. I want a gentle, genial old man; with whom one would feel at one's ease in a moment. (8) "Uggug becoming Porcupine" ("Sylvie and Bruno, Concluded," page 388), is exactly my conception of it. I expect this will be one of the most effective pictures in the book. The faces of the people should express intense _terror_. (9) "The Professor" is altogether _delightful_. When you get the text, you will see that you have hit the very centre of the bull's-eye. [A sketch of "Bruno"]. No, no! Please don't give us the (to my mind) very ugly, quite modern costume, which shows with such cruel distinctness a podgy, pot-bellied (excuse the vulgarism) boy, who couldn't run a mile to save his life. I want Bruno to be _strong_, but at the same time light and active--with the figure of one of the little acrobats one sees at the circus--not "Master Tommy," who habitually gorges himself with pudding. Also that dress I dislike very much. Please give him a short tunic, and _real_ knickerbockers--not the tight knee-breeches they are rapidly shrinking to. Very truly yours, C. L. Dodgson. By Mr. Furniss's kind permission I am enabled to give an example of the other side of the correspondence, one of his letters to Mr. Dodgson, all the more interesting for the charming little sketch which it contains. With respect to the spider, Mr. Dodgson had written: "Some writer says that the full face of a spider, as seen under a magnifying-glass, is very striking." [Illustration: _Facsimile of a letter from H. Furniss to Lewis Carroll, August 23, 1886_.] [Illustration: Sylvie and Bruno. _From a drawing by Henry Holiday_.] * * * * * CHAPTER VII (1888-1891) A systematic life--"Memoria Technica"--Mr. Dodgson's shyness--"A Lesson in Latin"--The "Wonderland" Stamp-Case--"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"--Princess Alice--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"The night cometh"--"The Nursery 'Alice'"--Coventry Patmore--Telepathy--Resignation of Dr. Liddell--A letter about Logic. An old bachelor is generally very precise and exact in his habits. He has no one but himself to look after, nothing to distract his attention from his own affairs; and Mr. Dodgson was the most precise and exact of old bachelors. He made a précis of every letter he wrote or received from the 1st of January, 1861, to the 8th of the same month, 1898. These précis were all numbered and entered in reference-books, and by an ingenious system of cross-numbering he was able to trace a whole correspondence, which might extend through several volumes. The last number entered in his book is 98,721. He had scores of green cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled, in which he kept his various papers. These boxes formed quite a feature of his study at Oxford, a large number of them being arranged upon a revolving bookstand. The lists, of various sorts, which he kept were innumerable; one of them, that of unanswered correspondents, generally held seventy or eighty names at a time, exclusive of autograph-hunters, whom he did not answer on principle. He seemed to delight in being arithmetically accurate about every detail of life. He always rose at the same early hour, and, if he was in residence at Christ Church, attended College Service. He spent the day according to a prescribed routine, which usually included a long walk into the country, very often alone, but sometimes with another Don, or perhaps, if the walk was not to be as long as usual, with some little girl-friend at his side. When he had a companion with him, he would talk the whole time, telling delightful stories, or explaining some new logical problem; if he was alone, he used to think out his books, as probably many another author has done and will do, in the course of a lonely walk. The only irregularity noticeable in his mode of life was the hour of retiring, which varied from 11 p.m. to four o'clock in the morning, according to the amount of work which he felt himself in the mood for. He had a wonderfully good memory, except for faces and dates. The former were always a stumbling-block to him, and people used to say (most unjustly) that he was intentionally short-sighted. One night he went up to London to dine with a friend, whom he had only recently met. The next morning a gentleman greeted him as he was walking. "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Dodgson, "but you have the advantage of me. I have no remembrance of having ever seen you before this moment." "That is very strange," the other replied, "for I was your host last night!" Such little incidents as this happened more than once. To help himself to remember dates, he devised a system of mnemonics, which he circulated among his friends. As it has never been published, and as some of my readers may find it useful, I reproduce it here. My "Memoria Technica" is a modification of Gray's; but, whereas he used both consonants and vowels to represent digits, and had to content himself with a syllable of gibberish to represent the date or whatever other number was required, I use only consonants, and fill in with vowels _ad libitum,_ and thus can always manage to make a real word of whatever has to be represented. The principles on which the necessary 20 consonants have been chosen are as follows:-- 1. "b" and "c," the first two consonants in the alphabet. 2. "d" from "duo," "w" from "two." 3. "t" from "tres," the other may wait awhile. 4. "f" from "four," "q" from "quattuor." 5. "l" and "v," because "l" and "v" are the Roman symbols for "fifty" and "five." 6. "s" and "x" from "six." 7. "p" and "m" from "septem." 8. "h" from "huit," and "k" from the Greek "okto." 9. "n" from "nine"; and "g" because it is so like a "9." 0. "z" and "r" from "zero." There is now one consonant still waiting for its digit, viz., "j," and one digit waiting for its consonant, viz., "3," the conclusion is obvious. The result may be tabulated thus:-- |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |0 | |b |d |t |f |l |s |p |h |n |z | |c |w |j |q |v |x |m |k |g |r | When a word has been found, whose last consonants represent the number required, the best plan is to put it as the last word of a rhymed couplet, so that, whatever other words in it are forgotten, the rhyme will secure the only really important word. Now suppose you wish to remember the date of the discovery of America, which is 1492; the "1" may be left out as obvious; all we need is "492." Write it thus:-- 4 9 2 f n d q g w and try to find a word that contains "f" or "q," "n" or "g," "d" or "w." A word soon suggests itself--"found." The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the following couplet will soon be evolved:-- "Columbus sailed the world around, Until America was F O U N D." If possible, invent the couplets for yourself; you will remember them better than any others. _June_, 1888. The inventor found this "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course, had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done. The couplet for St. John's College ran as follows:-- "They must have a bevel To keep them so LEVEL." The allusion is to the beautiful lawns, for which St. John's is famous. In his power of remembering anecdotes, and bringing them out just at the right moment, Mr. Dodgson was unsurpassed. A guest brought into Christ Church Common Room was usually handed over to him to be amused. He was not a good man to tell a story to--he had always heard it before; but as a _raconteur_ I never met his equal. And the best of it was that his stories never grew--except in number. One would have expected that a mind so clear and logical and definite would have fought shy of the feminine intellect, which is generally supposed to be deficient in those qualities; and so it is somewhat surprising to find that by far the greater number of his friends were ladies. He was quite prepared to correct them, however, when they were guilty of what seemed to him unreasoning conduct, as is shown by the following extract from a letter of his to a young lady who had asked him to try and find a place for a governess, without giving the latter's address:-- Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any business-matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write to me, asking me to look out for a place for a French governess in whom he was interested, I should be sure to admire the care with which he would give me _her name in full_--(in extra-legible writing if it were an unusual name)--as well as her address. Some of my friends are not men of business. So many such requests were addressed to him that at one time he had a circular letter printed, with a list of people requiring various appointments or assistants, which he sent round to his friends. In one respect Lewis Carroll resembled the stoic philosophers, for no outward circumstance could upset the tranquillity of his mind. He lived, in fact, the life which Marcus Aurelius commends so highly, the life of calm contentment, based on the assurance that so long as we are faithful to ourselves, no seeming evils can really harm us. But in him there was one exception to this rule. During an argument he was often excited. The war of words, the keen and subtle conflict between trained minds--in this his soul took delight, in this he sought and found the joy of battle and of victory. Yet he would not allow his serenity to be ruffled by any foe whom he considered unworthy of his steel; he refused to argue with people whom he knew to be hopelessly illogical--definitely refused, though with such tact that no wound was given, even to the most sensitive. He was modest in the true sense of the term, neither overestimating nor underrating his own mental powers, and preferring to follow his own course without regarding outside criticism. "I never read anything about myself or my books," he writes in a letter to a friend; and the reason he used to give was that if the critics praised him he might become conceited, while, if they found fault, he would only feel hurt and angry. On October 25, 1888, he wrote in his Diary: "I see there is a leader in to-day's _Standard_ on myself as a writer; but I do not mean to read it. It is not healthy reading, I think." He hated publicity, and tried to avoid it in every way. "Do not tell any one, if you see me in the theatre," he wrote once to Miss Marion Terry. On another occasion, when he was dining out at Oxford, and some one, who did not know that it was a forbidden subject, turned the conversation on "Alice in Wonderland," he rose suddenly and fled from the house. I could multiply instances of this sort, but it would be unjust to his memory to insist upon the morbid way in which he regarded personal popularity. As compared with self-advertisement, it is certainly the lesser evil; but that it _is_ an evil, and a very painful one to its possessor, Mr. Dodgson fully saw. Of course it had its humorous side, as, for instance, when he was brought into contact with lion-hunters, autograph-collectors, _et hoc genus omne_. He was very suspicious of unknown correspondents who addressed questions to him; in later years he either did not answer them at all, or used a typewriter. Before he bought his typewriter, he would get some friend to write for him, and even to sign "Lewis Carroll" at the end of the letter. It used to give him great amusement to picture the astonishment of the recipients of these letters, if by any chance they ever came to compare his "autographs." On one occasion the secretary of a "Young Ladies' Academy" in the United States asked him to present some of his works to the School Library. The envelope was addressed to "Lewis Carroll, Christ Church," an incongruity which always annoyed him intensely. He replied to the Secretary, "As Mr. Dodgson's books are all on Mathematical subjects, he fears that they would not be very acceptable in a school library." Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Fourth-class of the Girl's Latin School at Boston, U.S., started a magazine, and asked him if they might call it _The Jabberwock._ He wrote in reply:-- Mr. Lewis Carroll has much pleasure in giving to the editors of the proposed magazine permission to use the title they wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit." Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of much excited discussion." Whether this phrase will have any application to the projected periodical, it will be for the future historian of American literature to determine. Mr. Carroll wishes all success to the forthcoming magazine. From that time forward he took a great interest in the magazine, and thought very well of it. It used, I believe, to be regularly supplied to him. Only once did he express disapproval of anything it contained, and that was in 1888, when he felt it necessary to administer a rebuke for what he thought to be an irreverent joke. The sequel is given in the following extract from _The Jabberwock_ for June, 1888:-- A FRIEND WORTH HAVING. _The Jabberwock_ has many friends, and perhaps a few (very few, let us hope) enemies. But, of the former, the friend who has helped us most on the road to success is Mr. Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," &c. Our readers will remember his kind letter granting us permission to use the name "Jabberwock," and also giving the meaning of that word. Since then we have received another letter from him, in which he expresses both surprise and regret at an anecdote which we published in an early number of our little paper. We would assure Mr. Carroll, as well as our other friends, that we had no intention of making light of a serious matter, but merely quoted the anecdote to show what sort of a book Washington's diary was. But now a third letter from our kind friend has come, enclosing, to our delight, a poem, "A Lesson in Latin," the pleasantest Latin lesson we have had this year. The first two letters from Mr. Carroll were in a beautiful literary hand, whereas the third is written with a typewriter. It is to this fact that he refers in his letter, which is as follows:-- "29, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, LONDON, _May_ 16, 1888. Dear Young Friends,--After the Black Draught of serious remonstrance which I ventured to send to you the other day, surely a Lump of Sugar will not be unacceptable? The enclosed I wrote this afternoon on purpose for you. I hope you will grant it admission to the columns of _The Jabberwock_, and not scorn it as a mere play upon words. This mode of writing, is, of course, an American invention. We never invent new machinery here; we do but use, to the best of our ability, the machines you send us. For the one I am now using, I beg you to accept my best thanks, and to believe me Your sincere friend, Lewis Carroll." Surely we can patiently swallow many Black Draughts, if we are to be rewarded with so sweet a Lump of Sugar! The enclosed poem, which has since been republished in "Three Sunsets," runs as follows: A LESSON IN LATIN. Our Latin books, in motley row, Invite us to the task-- Gay Horace, stately Cicero; Yet there's one verb, when once we know, No higher skill we ask: This ranks all other lore above-- We've learned "amare" means "to love"! So hour by hour, from flower to flower, We sip the sweets of life: Till ah! too soon the clouds arise, And knitted brows and angry eyes Proclaim the dawn of strife. With half a smile and half a sigh, "Amare! Bitter One!" we cry. Last night we owned, with looks forlorn, "Too well the scholar knows There is no rose without a thorn "-- But peace is made! we sing, this morn, "No thorn without a rose!" Our Latin lesson is complete: We've learned that Love is "Bitter-sweet" Lewis Carroll. In October Mr. Dodgson invented a very ingenious little stamp-case, decorated with two "Pictorial Surprises," representing the "Cheshire Cat" vanishing till nothing but the grin was left, and the baby turning into a pig in "Alice's" arms. The invention was entered at Stationers' Hall, and published by Messrs. Emberlin and Son, of Oxford. As an appropriate accompaniment, he wrote "Eight or Nine Wise Words on Letter-Writing," a little booklet which is still sold along with the case. The "Wise Words," as the following extracts show, have the true "Carrollian" ring about them:-- Some American writer has said "the snakes in this district may be divided into one species--the venomous." The same principle applies here. Postage-stamp-cases may be divided into one species--the "Wonderland." Since I have possessed a "Wonderland-Stamp-Case," Life has been bright and peaceful, and I have used no other. I believe the Queen's Laundress uses no other. My fifth Rule is, if your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed or make your reply distinctly less severe: and, if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards "making up" the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly _more_ friendly. If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than _three-eighths_ of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go _five-eighths_ of the way--why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! Which is like the Irishman's remonstrance to his gad-about daughter: "Shure, you're _always_ goin' out! You go out _three_ times for wanst that you come in!" My sixth Rule is, _don't try to have the last word!_ How many a controversy would be nipped in the bud, if each was anxious to let the _other_ have the last word! Never mind how telling a rejoinder you leave unuttered: never mind your friend's supposing that you are silent from lack of anything to say: let the thing drop, as soon as it is possible without discourtesy: remember "Speech is silvern, but silence is golden"! (N.B. If you are a gentleman, and your friend a lady, this Rule is superfluous: _you won't get the last word!_) Remember the old proverb, "Cross-writing makes cross-reading." "The _old_ proverb?" you say inquiringly. "_How_ old?" Well, not so _very_ ancient, I must confess. In fact, I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know, "old" is a _comparative_ term. I think you would be _quite_ justified in addressing a chicken, just out of the shell, as "old boy!" _when compared_ with another chicken that was only half-out! The pamphlet ends with an explanation of Lewis Carroll's method of using a correspondence-book, illustrated by a few imaginary pages from such a compilation, which are very humorous. [Illustration: _Facsimile of programme of "Alice in Wonderland_."] At the end of the year the "Alice" operetta was again produced at the Globe Theatre, with Miss Isa Bowman as the heroine. "Isa makes a delightful Alice," Mr. Dodgson writes, "and Emsie [a younger sister] is wonderfully good as Dormouse and as Second Ghost [of an oyster!], when she sings a verse, and dances the Sailor's Hornpipe." [Illustration: "The Mad Tea-Party." _From a photograph by Elliott & Fry_.] The first of an incomplete series, "Curiosa Mathematica," was published for Mr. Dodgson by Messrs. Macmillan during the year. It was entitled "A New Theory of Parallels," and any one taking it up for the first time might be tempted to ask, Is the author serious, or is he simply giving us some _jeu d'esprit?_ A closer inspection, however, soon settles the question, and the reader, if mathematics be his hobby, is carried irresistibly along till he reaches the last page. The object which Mr. Dodgson set himself to accomplish was to prove Euclid I. 32 without assuming the celebrated 12th Axiom, a feat which calls up visions of the "Circle-Squarers." The work is divided into two parts: Book I. contains certain Propositions which require no disputable Axiom for their proof, and when once the few Definitions of "amount," &c., have become familiar it is easy reading. In Book II. the author introduces a new Axiom, or rather "Quasi-Axiom"--for it's _self-evident_ character is open to dispute. This Axiom is as follows:-- In any Circle the inscribed equilateral Tetragon (Hexagon in editions 1st and 2nd) is greater than any one of the Segments which lie outside it. Assuming the truth of this Axiom, Mr. Dodgson proves a series of Propositions, which lead up to and enable him to accomplish the feat referred to above. At the end of Book II. he places a proof (so far as finite magnitudes are concerned) of Euclid's Axiom, preceded by and dependent on the Axiom that "If two homogeneous magnitudes be both of them finite, the lesser may be so multiplied by a finite number as to exceed the greater." This Axiom, he says, he believes to be assumed by every writer who has attempted to prove Euclid's 12th Axiom. The proof itself is borrowed, with slight alterations, from Cuthbertson's "Euclidean Geometry." In Appendix I. there is an alternative Axiom which may be substituted for that which introduces Book II., and which will probably commend itself to many minds as being more truly axiomatic. To substitute this, however, involves some additions and alterations, which the author appends. Appendix II. is headed by the somewhat startling question, "Is Euclid's Axiom true?" and though true for finite magnitudes--the sense in which, no doubt, Euclid meant it to be taken--it is shown to be not universally true. In Appendix III. he propounds the question, "How should Parallels be defined?" Appendix IV., which deals with the theory of Parallels as it stands to-day, concludes with the following words:-- I am inclined to believe that if ever Euclid I. 32 is proved without a new Axiom, it will be by some new and ampler definition of the _Right Line_--some definition which shall connote that mysterious property, which it must somehow possess, which causes Euclid I. 32 to be true. Try _that_ track, my gentle reader! It is not much trodden as yet. And may success attend your search! In the Introduction, which, as is frequently the case, ought to be read _last_ in order to be appreciated properly, he relates his experiences with two of those "misguided visionaries," the circle-squarers. One of them had selected 3.2 as the value for "_pi_," and the other proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that it is correctly represented by 3! The Rev. Watson Hagger, to whose kindness, as I have already stated in my Preface, my readers are indebted for the several accounts of Mr. Dodgson's books on mathematics which appear in this Memoir, had a similar experience with one of these "cranks." This circle-squarer selected 3.125 as the value for "_pi_," and Mr. Hagger, who was fired with Mr. Dodgson's ambition to convince his correspondent of his error, failed as signally as Mr. Dodgson did. The following letter is interesting as showing that, strict Conservative though he was, he was not in religious matters narrow-minded; he held his own opinions strongly, but he would never condemn those of other people. He saw "good in everything," and there was but little exaggeration, be it said in all reverence, in the phrase which an old friend of his used in speaking of him to me: "Mr. Dodgson was as broad--as broad as _Christ_." Christ Church, Oxford, _May_ 4, 1889. Dear Miss Manners,--I hope to have a new book out very soon, and had entered your name on the list of friends to whom copies are to go; but, on second thoughts, perhaps you might prefer that I should send it to your little sister (?) (niece) Rachel, whom you mentioned in one of your letters. It is to be called "The Nursery Alice," and is meant for very young children, consisting of coloured enlargements of twenty of the pictures in "Alice," with explanations such as one would give in showing them to a little child. I was much interested by your letter, telling me you belong to the Society of Friends. Please do not think of _me_ as one to whom a "difference of creed" is a bar to friendship. My sense of brother- and sisterhood is at least broad enough to include _Christians_ of all denominations; in fact, I have one valued friend (a lady who seems to live to do good kind things) who is a Unitarian. Shall I put "Rachel Manners" in the book? Believe me, very sincerely yours, C. L. Dodgson. From June 7th to June 10th he stayed at Hatfield. Once at luncheon [he writes] I had the Duchess (of Albany) as neighbour and once at breakfast, and had several other chats with her, and found her very pleasant indeed. Princess Alice is a sweet little girl. Her little brother (the Duke of Albany) was entirely fascinating, a perfect little prince, and the picture of good-humour. On Sunday afternoon I had a pleasant half-hour with the children [Princess Alice, the Duke of Albany, Honorable Mabel Palmer, Lady Victoria Manners, and Lord Haddon], telling them "Bruno's Picnic" and folding a fishing-boat for them. I got the Duchess's leave to send the little Alice a copy of the "Nursery Alice," and mean to send it with "Alice Underground" for herself. Towards the end of the year Lewis Carroll had tremendously hard work, completing "Sylvie and Bruno." For several days on end he worked from breakfast until nearly ten in the evening without a rest. At last it was off his hands, and for a month or so he was (comparatively) an idle man. Some notes from his Diary, written during this period, follow:-- _Nov. 17th._--Met, for first time, an actual believer in the "craze" that buying and selling are wrong (!) (he is rather 'out of his mind'). The most curious thing was his declaration that he himself _lives_ on that theory, and never buys anything, and has no money! I thought of railway travelling, and ventured to ask how he got from London to Oxford? "On a bicycle!" And how he got the bicycle? "It was given him!" So I was floored, and there was no time to think of any other instances. The whole thing was so new to me that, when he declared it to be _un-Christian_, I quite forgot the text, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." _Dec. 19th._--Went over to Birmingham to see a performance of "Alice" (Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker's version) at the High School. I rashly offered to tell "Bruno's Picnic" afterwards to the little children, thinking I should have an audience of 40 or 50, mostly children, instead of which I had to tell it from the stage to an audience of about 280, mostly older girls and grown-up people! However, I got some of the children to come on the stage with me, and the little Alice (Muriel Howard-Smith, æt. 11) stood by me, which made it less awful. The evening began with some of "Julius Caesar" in German. This and "Alice" were really capitally acted, the White Queen being quite the best I have seen (Miss B. Lloyd Owen). I was introduced to Alice and a few more, and was quite sorry to hear afterwards that the other performers wanted to shake hands. The publication of "Sylvie and Bruno" marks an epoch in its author's life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and sentiments which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite purpose; it would be more true to say with several definite purposes. For this very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two "Alice" books undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no unity in the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian and the philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is a noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right, without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting neglected truths. [Illustration: The Late Duke of Albany. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] Of course the story has other features, delightful nonsense not surpassed by anything in "Wonderland," childish prattle with all the charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of readers who have been scared by the religious arguments and political discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have never discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as Alice when you get to know her. Perhaps the sentiment of the following poem, sent to Lewis Carroll by an anonymous correspondent, may also explain why some of "Alice's" lovers have given "Sylvie" a less warm welcome:-- TO SYLVIE. Ah! Sylvie, winsome, wise and good! Fain would I love thee as I should. But, to tell the truth, my dear,-- And Sylvie loves the truth to hear,-- Though fair and pure and sweet thou art, Thine elder sister has my heart! I gave it her long, long ago To have and hold; and well I know, Brave Lady Sylvie, thou wouldst scorn To accept a heart foresworn. Lovers thou wilt have enow Under many a greening bough-- Lovers yet unborn galore, Like Alice all the wide world o'er; But, darling, I am now too old To change. And though I still shall hold Thee, and that puckling sprite, thy brother, Dear, I cannot _love_ another: In this heart of mine I own _She_ must ever reign alone! _March_, 1890. N.P. I do not know N.P.'s name and address, or I should have asked leave before giving publicity to the above verses. If these words meet his eye, I hope he will accept my most humble apologies for the liberty I have taken. At the beginning of 1894 a Baptist minister, preaching on the text, "No man liveth to himself," made use of "Sylvie and Bruno" to enforce his argument. After saying that he had been reading that book, he proceeded as follows: A child was asked to define charity. He said it was "givin' away what yer didn't want yerself." This was some people's idea of self-sacrifice; but it was not Christ's. Then as to serving others in view of reward: Mr. Lewis Carroll put this view of the subject very forcibly in his "Sylvie and Bruno"--an excellent book for youth; indeed, for men and women too. He first criticised Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue (which was said to be "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness,") and then turned to such hymns as the following:-- Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, _Repaid a thousandfold shall be_, Then gladly will we give to Thee, Giver of all! Mr. Carroll's comment was brief and to the point. He said: "Talk of Original _Sin_! Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God?" ["Sylvie and Bruno," Part i., pp. 276, 277.] Of course it was quite true, as Mr. Carroll pointed out, that our good deeds would be rewarded; but we ought to do them because they were _good_, and not because the reward was great. In the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno," Lewis Carroll alluded to certain editions of Shakespeare which seemed to him unsuitable for children; it never seemed to strike him that his words might be read by children, and that thus his object very probably would be defeated, until this fact was pointed out to him in a letter from an unknown correspondent, Mr. J.C. Cropper, of Hampstead. Mr. Dodgson replied as follows:-- Dear Sir,--Accept my best thanks for your thoughtful and valuable suggestion about the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno." The danger you point out had not occurred to me (I suppose I had not thought of _children_ reading the Preface): but it is a very real one, and I am very glad to have had my attention called to it. Believe me, truly yours, Lewis Carroll. Mathematical controversy carried on by correspondence was a favourite recreation of Mr. Dodgson's, and on February 20, 1890, he wrote:-- I've just concluded a correspondence with a Cambridge man, who is writing a Geometry on the "Direction" theory (Wilson's plan), and thinks he has avoided Wilson's (what _I_ think) fallacies. He _hasn't_, but I can't convince him! My view of life is, that it's next to impossible to convince _anybody_ of _anything_. The following letter is very characteristic. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might," was Mr. Dodgson's rule of life, and, as the end drew near, he only worked the harder:-- Christ Church, Oxford, _April_ 10, 1890. My dear Atkinson,--Many and sincere thanks for your most hospitable invitation, and for the very interesting photo of the family group. The former I fear I must ask you to let me defer _sine die_, and regard it as a pleasant dream, not _quite_ hopeless of being some day realised. I keep a list of such pleasant possibilities, and yours is now one of ten similar kind offers of hospitality. But as life shortens in, and the evening shadows loom in sight, one gets to _grudge any_ time given to mere pleasure, which might entail the leaving work half finished that one is longing to do before the end comes. There are several books I _greatly_ desire to get finished for children. I am glad to find my working powers are as good as they ever were. Even with the mathematical book (a third edition) which I am now getting through the press, I think nothing of working six hours at a stretch. There is one text that often occurs to me, "The night cometh, when no man can work." Kindest regards to Mrs. Atkinson, and love to Gertrude. Always sincerely yours, C. L. Dodgson. For the benefit of children aged "from nought to five," as he himself phrased it, Lewis Carroll prepared a nursery edition of "Alice." He shortened the text considerably, and altered it so much that only the plot of the story remained unchanged. It was illustrated by the old pictures, coloured by Tenniel, and the cover was adorned by a picture designed by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson. As usual, the Dedication takes the form of an anagram, the solution of which is the name of one of his later child-friends. "_The Nursery 'Alice,_'" was published by Macmillan and Co., in March, 1890. On August 18th the following letter on the "Eight Hours Movement" appeared in _The Standard:_-- Sir,--Supposing it were the custom, in a certain town, to sell eggs in paper bags at so much per bag, and that a fierce dispute had arisen between the egg vendors and the public as to how many eggs each bag should be understood to contain, the vendors wishing to be allowed to make up smaller bags; and supposing the public were to say, "In future we will pay you so much per egg, and you can make up bags as you please," would any ground remain for further dispute? Supposing that employers of labour, when threatened with a "strike" in case they should decline to reduce the number of hours in a working day, were to reply, "In future we will pay you so much per hour, and you can make up days as you please," it does appear to me--being, as I confess, an ignorant outsider--that the dispute would die out for want of a _raison d'être_, and that these disastrous strikes, inflicting such heavy loss on employers and employed alike, would become things of the past. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Lewis Carroll. The remainder of the year was uneventful; a few notes from his Diary must represent it here:-- _Oct. 4th._--Called on Mr. Coventry Patmore (at Hastings), and was very kindly received by him, and stayed for afternoon tea and dinner. He showed me some interesting pictures, including a charming little drawing, by Holman Hunt, of one of his daughters when three years old. He gave me an interesting account of his going, by Tennyson's request, to his lodging to look for the MS. of "In Memoriam," which he had left behind, and only finding it by insisting on going upstairs, in spite of the landlady's opposition, to search for it. Also he told me the story (I think I have heard it before) of what Wordsworth told his friends as the "one joke" of his life, in answer to a passing carter who asked if he had seen his wife. "My good friend, I didn't even know you had a wife!" He seems a very hale and vigorous old man for nearly seventy, which I think he gave as his age in writing to me. _Oct. 31st._--This morning, thinking over the problem of finding two squares whose sum is a square, I chanced on a theorem (which seems _true_, though I cannot prove it), that if x² + y² be even, its half is the sum of two squares. A kindred theorem, that 2(x² + y²) is always the sum of two squares, also seems true and unprovable. _Nov. 5th.--_I have now proved the above two theorems. Another pretty deduction from the theory of square numbers is, that any number whose square is the sum of two squares, is itself the sum of two squares. I have already mentioned Mr. Dodgson's habit of thinking out problems at night. Often new ideas would occur to him during hours of sleeplessness, and he had long wanted to hear of or invent some easy method of taking notes in the dark. At first he tried writing within oblongs cut out of cardboard, but the result was apt to be illegible. In 1891 he conceived the device of having a series of squares cut out in card, and inventing an alphabet, of which each letter was made of lines, which could be written along the edges of the squares, and dots, which could be marked at the corners. The thing worked well, and he named it the "Typhlograph," but, at the suggestion of one of his brother-students, this was subsequently changed into "Nyctograph." He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne, attending service every Sunday at Christ Church, according to his usual rule. _Sept._ 6, 1891.--At the evening service at Christ Church a curious thing happened, suggestive of telepathy. Before giving out the second hymn the curate read out some notices. Meanwhile I took my hymn-book, and said to myself (I have no idea _why_), "It will be hymn 416," and I turned to it. It was not one I recognised as having ever heard; and, on looking at it, I said, "It is very prosaic; it is a very unlikely one"--and it was really startling, the next minute, to hear the curate announce "Hymn 416." In October it became generally known that Dean Liddell was going to resign at Christmas. This was a great blow to Mr. Dodgson, but little mitigated by the fact that the very man whom he himself would have chosen, Dr. Paget, was appointed to fill the vacant place. The old Dean was very popular in College; even the undergraduates, with whom he was seldom brought into contact, felt the magic of his commanding personality and the charm of his gracious, old-world manner. He was a man whom, once seen, it was almost impossible to forget. [Illustration: The Dean of Christ Church. _From a photograph by Hill & Saunders._] Shortly before the resignation of Dr. Liddell, the Duchess of Albany spent a few days at the Deanery. Mr. Dodgson was asked to meet her Royal Highness at luncheon, but was unable to go. Princess Alice and the little Duke of Albany, however, paid him a visit, and were initiated in the art of making paper pistols. He promised to send the Princess a copy of a book called "The Fairies," and the children, having spent a happy half-hour in his rooms, returned to the Deanery. This was one of the days which he "marked with a white stone." He sent a copy of "The Nursery 'Alice'" to the little Princess Alice, and received a note of thanks from her, and also a letter from her mother, in which she said that the book had taught the Princess to like reading, and to do it out of lesson-time. To the Duke he gave a copy of a book entitled "The Merry Elves." In his little note of thanks for this gift, the boy said, "Alice and I want you to love us both." Mr. Dodgson sent Princess Alice a puzzle, promising that if she found it out, he would give her a "golden chair from Wonderland." At the close of the year he wrote me a long letter, which I think worthy of reproducing here, for he spent a long time over it, and it contains excellent examples of his clear way of putting things. _To S.D. Collingwood._ Ch. Ch., Oxford, _Dec_. 29, 1891. My Dear Stuart,--(Rather a large note-sheet, isn't it? But they do differ in size, you know.) I fancy this book of science (which I have had a good while, without making any use of it), may prove of some use to you, with your boys. [I was a schoolmaster at that time.] Also this cycling-book (or whatever it is to be called) may be useful in putting down engagements, &c., besides telling you a lot about cycles. There was no use in sending it to _me; my _cycling days are over. You ask me if your last piece of "Meritt" printing is dark enough. I think not. I should say the rollers want fresh inking. As to the _matter_ of your specimen--[it was a poor little essay on killing animals for the purpose of scientific recreations, _e.g._, collecting butterflies]--I think you _cannot_ spend your time better than in trying to set down clearly, in that essay-form, your ideas on any subject that chances to interest you; and _specially_ any theological subject that strikes you in the course of your reading for Holy Orders. It will be most _excellent_ practice for you, against the time when you try to compose sermons, to try thus to realise exactly what it is you mean, and to express it clearly, and (a much harder matter) to get into proper shape the _reasons_ of your opinions, and to see whether they do, or do not, tend to prove the conclusions you come to. You have never studied technical Logic, at all, I fancy. [I _had_, but I freely admit that the essay in question proved that I had not then learnt to apply my principles to practice.] It would have been a great help: but still it is not indispensable: after all, it is only the putting into rules of the way in which _every_ mind proceeds, when it draws valid conclusions; and, by practice in careful thinking, you may get to know "fallacies" when you meet with them, without knowing the formal _rules_. At present, when you try to give _reasons_, you are in considerable danger of propounding fallacies. Instances occur in this little essay of yours; and I hope it won't offend your _amour propre_ very much, if an old uncle, who has studied Logic for forty years, makes a few remarks on it. I am not going to enter _at all_ on the subject-matter itself, or to say whether I agree, or not, with your _conclusions_: but merely to examine, from a logic-lecturer's point of view, your _premisses_ as relating to them. (1) "As the lower animals do not appear to have personality or individual existence, I cannot see that any particular one's life can be very important," &c. The word "personality" is very vague: I don't know what you mean by it. If you were to ask yourself, "What test should I use in distinguishing what _has_, from what has _not_, personality?" you might perhaps be able to express your meaning more clearly. The phrase "individual existence" is clear enough, and is in direct logical contradiction to the phrase "particular one." To say, of anything, that it has _not_ "individual existence," and yet that it _is_ a "particular one," involves the logical fallacy called a "contradiction in terms." (2) "In both cases" (animal and plant) "death is only the conversion of matter from one form to another." The word "form" is very vague--I fancy you use it in a sort of _chemical_ sense (like saying "sugar is starch in another form," where the change in nature is generally believed to be a rearrangement of the very same atoms). If you mean to assert that the difference between a live animal and a dead animal, _i.e.,_ between animate and sensitive matter, and the same matter when it becomes inanimate and insensitive, is a mere rearrangement of the same atoms, your premiss is intelligible. (It is a bolder one than any biologists have yet advanced. The most sceptical of them admits, I believe, that "vitality" is a thing _per se. _However, that is beside my present scope.) But this premiss is advanced to prove that it is of no "consequence" to kill an animal. But, granting that the conversion of sensitive into insensitive matter (and of course _vice versa_) is a mere change of "form," and _therefore_ of no "consequence"; granting this, we cannot escape the including under this rule all similar cases. If the _power_ of feeling pain, and the _absence_ of that power, are only a difference of "form," the conclusion is inevitable that the _feeling_ pain, and the _not_ feeling it, are _also_ only a difference in form, _i.e.,_ to convert matter, which is _not_ feeling pain, into matter _feeling_ pain, is only to change its "form," and, if the process of "changing form" is of no "consequence" in the case of sensitive and insensitive matter, we must admit that it is _also_ of no "consequence" in the case of pain-feeling and _not_ pain-feeling matter. This conclusion, I imagine, you neither intended nor foresaw. The premiss, which you use, involves the fallacy called "proving too much." The best advice that could be given to you, when you begin to compose sermons, would be what an old friend once gave to a young man who was going out to be an Indian judge (in India, it seems, the judge decides things, without a jury, like our County Court judges). "Give _your decisions_ boldly and clearly; they will probably be _right_. But do _not_ give your _reasons: they_ will probably be _wrong"_ If your lot in life is to be in a _country_ parish, it will perhaps not matter _much_ whether the reasons given in your sermons do or do not prove your conclusions. But even there you _might_ meet, and in a town congregation you would be _sure_ to meet, clever sceptics, who know well how to argue, who will detect your fallacies and point them out to those who are _not_ yet troubled with doubts, and thus undermine _all_ their confidence in your teaching. At Eastbourne, last summer, I heard a preacher advance the astounding argument, "We believe that the Bible is true, because our holy Mother, the Church, tells us it is." I pity that unfortunate clergyman if ever he is bold enough to enter any Young Men's Debating Club where there is some clear-headed sceptic who has heard, or heard of, that sermon. I can fancy how the young man would rub his hands, in delight, and would say to himself, "Just see me get him into a corner, and convict him of arguing in a circle!" The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity. When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill them with miserable doubts. So my advice to you, as a young theological student, is "Sift your reasons _well_, and, before you offer them to others, make sure that they prove your conclusions." I hope you won't give this letter of mine (which it has cost me some time and thought to write) just a single reading and then burn it; but that you will lay it aside. Perhaps, even years hence, it may be of some use to you to read it again. Believe me always Your affectionate Uncle, C. L. Dodgson. * * * * * CHAPTER VIII (1892-1896) Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship--Bazaars--He lectures to children--A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"--A logical controversy--Albert Chevalier--"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"--"Pillow Problems"--Mr. Dodgson's generosity--College services--Religious difficulties--A village sermon--Plans for the future--Reverence--"Symbolic Logic." At Christ Church, as at other Colleges, the Common Room is an important feature. Open from eight in the morning until ten at night, it takes the place of a club, where the "dons" may see the newspapers, talk, write letters, or enjoy a cup of tea. After dinner, members of High Table, with their guests if any are present, usually adjourn to the Common Room for wine and dessert, while there is a smoking-room hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, and below are cellars, with a goodly store of choice old wines. The Curator's duties were therefore sufficiently onerous. They were doubly so in Mr. Dodgson's case, for his love of minute accuracy greatly increased the amount of work he had to do. It was his office to select and purchase wines, to keep accounts, to adjust selling price to cost price, to see that the two Common Room servants performed their duties, and generally to look after the comfort and convenience of the members. "Having heard," he wrote near the end of the year 1892, "that Strong was willing to be elected (as Curator), and Common Room willing to elect him, I most gladly resigned. The sense of relief at being free from the burdensome office, which has cost me a large amount of time and trouble, is very delightful. I was made Curator, December 8, 1882, so that I have held the office more than nine years." The literary results of his Curatorship were three very interesting little pamphlets, "Twelve Months in a Curatorship, by One who has tried it"; "Three years in a Curatorship, by One whom it has tried"; and "Curiosissima Curatoria, by 'Rude Donatus,'" all printed for private circulation, and couched in the same serio-comic vein. As a logician he naturally liked to see his thoughts in print, for, just as the mathematical mind craves for a black-board and a piece of chalk, so the logical mind must have its paper and printing-press wherewith to set forth its deductions effectively. A few extracts must suffice to show the style of these pamphlets, and the opportunity offered for the display of humour. In the arrangement of the prices at which wines were to be sold to members of Common Room, he found a fine scope for the exercise of his mathematical talents and his sense of proportion. In one of the pamphlets he takes old Port and Chablis as illustrations. The original cost of each is about 3s. a bottle; but the present value of the old Port is about 11s. a bottle. Let us suppose, then, that we have to sell to Common Room one bottle of old Port and three of Chablis, the original cost of the whole being 12s., and the present value 20s. These are our data. We have now two questions to answer. First, what sum shall we ask for the whole? Secondly, how shall we apportion that sum between the two kinds of wine? The sum to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question, he goes on to say-- We have, as so often happens in the lives of distinguished premiers, three courses before us: (1) to charge the _present_ value for each kind of wine; (2) to put on a certain percentage to the _original_ value of each kind; (3) to make a compromise between these two courses. Course 1 seems to me perfectly reasonable; but a very plausible objection has been made to it--that it puts a prohibitory price on the valuable wines, and that they would remain unconsumed. This would not, however, involve any loss to our finances; we could obviously realise the enhanced values of the old wines by selling them to outsiders, if the members of Common Room would not buy them. But I do not advocate this course. Course 2 would lead to charging 5s. a bottle for Port and Chablis alike. The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room cellar, which would be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the tariff. Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle. "You ought to consider the _original_ value only," I have been told. "You ought to regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the advantages of its enhanced value. You cannot fairly ask him for more than what you need to refill the bins with Port, _plus_ the percentage thereon needed to meet the contingent expenses." I have listened to such arguments, but have never been convinced that the course is just. It seems to me that the 8s. additional value which the bottle of Port has acquired, is the property of _Common Room_, and that Common Room has the power to give it to whom it chooses; and it does not seem to me fair to give it all to the Port-drinker. What merit is there in preferring Port to Chablis, that could justify our selling the Port-drinker his wine at less than half what he would have to give outside, and charging the Chablis-drinker five-thirds of what he would have to give outside? At all events, I, as a Port-drinker, do not wish to absorb the whole advantage, and would gladly share it with the Chablis-drinker. The course I recommend is Course 3, which is a compromise between 1 and 2, its essential principle being to sell the new wines _above_ their value, in order to be able to sell the old _below_ their value. And it is clearly desirable, as far as possible, to make the reductions _where they will be felt,_ and the additions _where they will not be felt._ Moreover it seems to me that reduction is most felt where it _goes down to the next round sum,_ and an addition in the reverse case, _i.e.,_ when it _starts from a round sum._ Thus, if we were to take 2d. off a 5s. 8d. wine, and add it to a 4s. 4d.--thus selling them at 5s. 6d. and 4s. 6d. the reduction would be welcomed, and the addition unnoticed; and the change would be a popular one. The next extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could approach this tremendous subject of wine:-- The consumption of Madeira (B) has been during the past year, zero. After careful calculation I estimate that, if this rate of consumption be steadily maintained, our present stock will last us an infinite number of years. And although there may be something monotonous and dreary in the prospect of such vast cycles spent in drinking second-class Madeira, we may yet cheer ourselves with the thought of how economically it can be done. To assist the Curator in the discharge of his duties, there was a Wine Committee, and for its guidance a series of rules was drawn up. The first runs as follows: "There shall be a Wine Committee, consisting of five persons, including the Curator, whose duty it shall be to assist the Curator in the management of the cellar." "Hence," wrote Mr. Dodgson, "logically it is the bounden duty of the Curator 'to assist himself.' I decline to say whether this clause has ever brightened existence for me--or whether, in the shades of evening, I may ever have been observed leaving the Common Room cellars with a small but suspicious-looking bundle, and murmuring, 'Assist thyself, assist thyself!'" Every Christmas at Christ Church the children of the College servants have a party in the Hall. This year he was asked to entertain them, and gladly consented to do so. He hired a magic lantern and a large number of slides, and with their help told the children the three following stories: (1) "The Epiphany"; (2) "The Children Lost in the Bush"; (3) "Bruno's Picnic." I have already referred to the services held in Christ Church for the College servants, at which Mr. Dodgson used frequently to preach. The way in which he regarded this work is very characteristic of the man. "Once more," he writes, "I have to thank my Heavenly Father for the great blessing and privilege of being allowed to speak for Him! May He bless my words to help some soul on its heavenward way." After one of these addresses he received a note from a member of the congregation, thanking him for what he had said. "It is very sweet," he said, "to get such words now and then; but there is danger in them if more such come, I must beg for silence." During the year Mr. Dodgson wrote the following letter to the Rev. C.A. Goodhart, Rector of Lambourne, Essex:-- Dear Sir,--Your kind, sympathising and most encouraging letter about "Sylvie and Bruno" has deserved a better treatment from me than to have been thus kept waiting more than two years for an answer. But life is short; and one has many other things to do; and I have been for years almost hopelessly in arrears in correspondence. I keep a register, so that letters which I intend to answer do somehow come to the front at last. In "Sylvie and Bruno" I took courage to introduce what I had entirely avoided in the two "Alice" books--some reference to subjects which are, after all, the _only_ subjects of real interest in life, subjects which are so intimately bound up with every topic of human interest that it needs more effort to avoid them than to touch on them; and I felt that such a book was more suitable to a clerical writer than one of mere fun. I hope I have not offended many (evidently I have not offended _you_) by putting scenes of mere fun, and talk about God, into the same book. Only one of all my correspondents ever guessed there was more to come of the book. She was a child, personally unknown to me, who wrote to "Lewis Carroll" a sweet letter about the book, in which she said, "I'm so glad it hasn't got a regular wind-up, as it shows there is more to come!" There is indeed "more to come." When I came to piece together the mass of accumulated material I found it was quite _double_ what could be put into one volume. So I divided it in the middle; and I hope to bring out "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" next Christmas--if, that is, my Heavenly Master gives me the time and the strength for the task; but I am nearly 60, and have no right to count on years to come. In signing my real name, let me beg you not to let the information go further--I have an _intense_ dislike to personal publicity; and, the more people there are who know nothing of "Lewis Carroll" save his books, the happier I am. Believe me, sincerely yours, Charles L. Dodgson. I have made no attempt to chronicle all the games and puzzles which Lewis Carroll invented. A list of such as have been published will be found in the Bibliographical chapter. He intended to bring out a book of "Original Games and Puzzles," with illustrations by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson. The MS. was, I believe, almost complete before his death, and one, at least, of the pictures had been drawn. On June 30th he wrote in his Diary, "Invented what I think is a new kind of riddle. A Russian had three sons. The first, named Rab, became a lawyer; the second, Ymra, became a soldier; the third became a sailor. What was his name?" The following letter written to a child-friend, Miss E. Drury, illustrates Lewis Carroll's hatred of bazaars:-- Ch. Ch., Oxford, _Nov_. 10, 1892. My dear Emmie,--I object to _all_ bazaars on the general principle that they are very undesirable schools for young ladies, in which they learn to be "too fast" and forward, and are more exposed to undesirable acquaintances than in ordinary society. And I have, besides that, special objections to bazaars connected with charitable or religious purposes. It seems to me that they desecrate the religious object by their undesirable features, and that they take the reality out of all charity by getting people to think that they are doing a good action, when their true motive is amusement for themselves. Ruskin has put all this far better than I can possibly do, and, if I can find the passage, and find the time to copy it, I will send it you. But _time_ is a very scarce luxury for me! Always yours affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. In his later years he used often to give lectures on various subjects to children. He gave a series on "Logic" at the Oxford Girls' High School, but he sometimes went further afield, as in the following instance:-- Went, as arranged with Miss A. Ottley, to the High School at Worcester, on a visit. At half-past three I had an audience of about a hundred little girls, aged, I should think, from about six to fourteen. I showed them two arithmetic puzzles on the black-board, and told them "Bruno's Picnic." At half-past seven I addressed some serious words to a second audience of about a hundred elder girls, probably from fifteen to twenty--an experience of the deepest interest to me. The illustration on the next page will be best explained by the following letter which I have received from Mr. Walter Lindsay, of Philadelphia, U.S.:-- Phila., _September_ 12, 1898. Dear Sir,--I shall be very glad to furnish what information I can with respect to the "Mechanical Humpty Dumpty" which I constructed a few years ago, but I must begin by acknowledging that, in one sense at least, I did not "invent" the figure. The idea was first put into my head by an article in the _Cosmopolitan_, somewhere about 1891, I suppose, describing a similar contrivance. As a devoted admirer of the "Alice" books, I determined to build a Humpty Dumpty of my own; but I left the model set by the author of the article mentioned, and constructed the figure on entirely different lines. In the first place, the figure as described in the magazine had very few movements, and not very satisfactory ones at that; and in the second place, no attempt whatever was made to reproduce, even in a general way, the well-known appearance of Tenniel's drawing. Humpty, when completed, was about two feet and a half high. His face, of course, was white; the lower half of the egg was dressed in brilliant blue. His stockings were grey, and the famous cravat orange, with a zigzag pattern in blue. I am sorry to say that the photograph hardly does him justice; but he had travelled to so many different places during his career, that he began to be decidedly out of shape before he sat for his portrait. [Illustration: The Mechanical "Humpty Dumpty." _From a photograph._] When Humpty was about to perform, a short "talk" was usually given before the curtain rose, explaining the way in which the Sheep put the egg on the shelf at the back of the little shop, and how Alice went groping along to it. And then, just as the explanation had reached the opening of the chapter on Humpty Dumpty, the curtain rose, and Humpty was discovered, sitting on the wall, and gazing into vacancy. As soon as the audience had had time to recover, Alice entered, and the conversation was carried on just as it is in the book. Humpty Dumpty gesticulated with his arms, rolled his eyes, raised his eyebrows, frowned, turned up his nose in scorn at Alice's ignorance, and smiled from ear to ear when he shook hands with her. Besides this, his mouth kept time with his words all through the dialogue, which added very greatly to his life-like appearance. The effect of his huge face, as it changed from one expression to another, was ludicrous in the extreme, and we were often obliged to repeat sentences in the conversation (to "go back to the last remark but one") because the audience laughed so loudly over Humpty Dumpty's expression of face that they drowned what he was trying to say. The funniest effect was the change from the look of self-satisfied complacency with which he accompanied the words: "The king has promised me--" to that of towering rage when Alice innocently betrays her knowledge of the secret. At the close of the scene, when Alice has vainly endeavoured to draw him into further conversation, and at last walks away in disgust, Humpty loses his balance on the wall, recovers himself, totters again, and then falls off backwards; at the same time a box full of broken glass is dropped on the floor behind the scenes, to represent the "heavy crash," which "shook the forest from end to end";--and the curtain falls. Now, as to how it was all done. Humpty was made of barrel hoops, and covered with stiff paper and muslin. His eyes were round balls of rags, covered with muslin, drawn smoothly, and with the pupil and iris marked on the front. These eyes were pivoted to a board, fastened just behind the eye-openings in the face. To the eyeballs were sewed strong pieces of tape, which passed through screw-eyes on the edges of the board, and so down to a row of levers which were hinged in the lower part of the figure. One lever raised both eyes upward, another moved them both to the left, and so on. The eyebrows were of worsted and indiarubber knitted together. They were fastened at the ends, and raised and lowered by fine white threads passing through small holes in the face, and also operated by levers. The arms projected into the interior of the machine, and the gestures were made by moving the short ends inside. The right hand contained a spring clothes-pin, by which he was enabled to hold the note-book in which Alice set down the celebrated problem-- 365 1 ___ 364 The movement of the mouth, in talking, was produced by a long tape, running down to a pedal, which was controlled by the foot of the performer. And the smile consisted of long strips of red tape, which were drawn out through slits at the corners of the mouth by means of threads which passed through holes in the sides of the head. The performer--who was always your humble servant--stood on a box behind the wall, his head just reaching the top of the egg, which was open all the way up the back. At the lower end of the figure, convenient to the hands of the performer, was the row of levers, like a little keyboard; and by striking different chords on the keys, any desired expression could be produced on the face. Of course, a performance of this kind without a good Alice would be unutterably flat; but the little girl who played opposite to Humpty, Miss Nellie K---, was so exactly the counterpart of Alice, both in appearance and disposition, that most children thought she was the original, right out of the book. Humpty still exists, but he has not seen active life for some years. His own popularity was the cause of his retirement; for having given a number of performances (for Charity, of course), and delighted many thousands of children of all ages, the demands upon his time, from Sunday-schools and other institutions, became so numerous that the performers were obliged to withdraw him in self-defence. He was a great deal of trouble to build, but the success he met with and the pleasure he gave more than repaid me for the bother; and I am sure that any one else who tries it will reach the same conclusion. Yours sincerely, Walter Lindsay. At the beginning of 1893 a fierce logical battle was being waged between Lewis Carroll and Mr. Cook Wilson, Professor of Logic at Oxford. The Professor, in spite of the countless arguments that Mr. Dodgson hurled at his head, would not confess that he had committed a fallacy. On February 5th the Professor appears to have conceded a point, for Mr. Dodgson writes: "Heard from Cook Wilson, who has long declined to read a paper which I sent January 12th, and which seems to me to prove the fallacy of a view of his about Hypotheticals. He now offers to read it, if _I_ will study a proof he sent, that another problem of mine had contradictory _data_. I have accepted his offer, and studied and answered his paper. So I now look forward hopefully to the result of his reading mine." The hopes which he entertained were doomed to be disappointed; the controversy bore no fruits save a few pamphlets and an enormous amount of correspondence, and finally the two antagonists had to agree to differ. As a rule Mr. Dodgson was a stern opponent of music-halls and music-hall singers; but he made one or two exceptions with regard to the latter. For Chevalier he had nothing but praise; he heard him at one of his recitals, for he never in his life entered a "Variety Theatre." I give the passage from his Diary:-- Went to hear Mr. Albert Chevalier's Recital. I only knew of him as being now recognised as _facile princeps_ among music-hall singers, and did not remember that I had seen him twice or oftener on the stage--first as "Mr. Hobbs" in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and afterwards as a "horsy" young man in a _matinée_ in which Violet Vanbrugh appeared. He was decidedly _good_ as an actor; but as a comic singer (with considerable powers of pathos as well) he is quite first-rate. His chief merit seems to be the earnestness with which he throws himself into the work. The songs (mostly his own writing) were quite inoffensive, and very funny. I am very glad to be able to think that his influence on public taste is towards refinement and purity. I liked best "The Future Mrs. 'Awkins," with its taking tune, and "My Old Dutch," which revealed powers that, I should think, would come out grandly in Robsonian parts, such as "The Porter's Knot." "The Little Nipper" was also well worth hearing. Mr. Dodgson's views on Sunday Observance were old-fashioned, but he lived up to them, and did not try to force them upon people with whose actions he had no concern. They were purely matters of "private opinion" with him. On October 2nd he wrote to Miss E.G. Thomson, who was illustrating his "Three Sunsets":-- Would you kindly do _no_ sketches, or photos, for _me_, on a Sunday? It is, in _my_ view (of _course_ I don't condemn any one who differs from me) inconsistent with keeping the day holy. I do _not_ hold it to be the Jewish "Sabbath," but I _do_ hold it to be "the Lord's Day," and so to be made very distinct from the other days. In December, the Logical controversy being over for a time, Mr. Dodgson invented a new problem to puzzle his mathematical friends with, which was called "The Monkey and Weight Problem." A rope is supposed to be hung over a wheel fixed to the roof of a building; at one end of the rope a weight is fixed, which exactly counterbalances a monkey which is hanging on to the other end. Suppose that the monkey begins to climb the rope, what will be the result? The following extract from the Diary illustrates the several possible answers which may be given:-- Got Professor Clifton's answer to the "Monkey and Weight Problem." It is very curious, the different views taken by good mathematicians. Price says the weight goes _up_, with increasing velocity; Clifton (and Harcourt) that it goes _up_, at the same rate as the monkey; while Sampson says that it goes _down_. On December 24th Mr. Dodgson received the first twelve copies of "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded," just about four years after the appearance of the first part of the story. In this second volume the two fairy children are as delightful as ever; it also contains what I think most people will agree to be the most beautiful poem Lewis Carroll ever wrote, "Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are cheeping?" (p. 305). In the preface he pays a well-deserved compliment to Mr. Harry Furniss for his wonderfully clever pictures; he also explains how the book was written, showing that many of the amusing remarks of Bruno had been uttered by real children. He makes allusion to two books, which only his death prevented him from finishing--"Original Games and Puzzles," and a paper on "Sport," viewed from the standpoint of the humanitarian. From a literary point of view the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno" lacks unity; a fairy tale is all very well, and a novel also is all very well, but the combination of the two is surely a mistake. However, the reader who cares more for the spirit than the letter will not notice this blemish; to him "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" will be interesting and helpful, as the revelation of a very beautiful personality. You have made everything turn out just as I should have chosen [writes a friend to whom he had sent a copy], and made right all that disappointed me in the first part. I have not only to thank you for writing an interesting book, but for writing a helpful one too. I am sure that "Sylvie and Bruno" has given me many thoughts that will help me all life through. One cannot know "Sylvie" without being the better for it. You may say that "Mister Sir" is not consciously meant to be yourself, but I cannot help feeling that he is. As "Mister Sir" talks, I hear your voice in every word. I think, perhaps, that is why I like the book so much. I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Furniss, bearing upon the subject of "Sylvie and Bruno," and Lewis Carroll's methods of work. The letter runs as follows:-- I have illustrated stories of most of our leading authors, and I can safely say that Lewis Carroll was the only one who cared to understand the illustrations to his own book. He was the W. S. Gilbert for children, and, like Gilbert producing one of his operas, Lewis Carroll took infinite pains to study every detail in producing his extraordinary and delightful books. Mr. Gilbert, as every one knows, has a model of the stage; he puts up the scenery, draws every figure, moves them about just as he wishes the real actors to move about. Lewis Carroll was precisely the same. This, of course, led to a great deal of work and trouble, and made the illustrating of his books more a matter of artistic interest than of professional profit. I was _seven years_ illustrating his last work, and during that time I had the pleasure of many an interesting meeting with the fascinating author, and I was quite repaid for the trouble I took, not only by his generous appreciation of my efforts, but by the liberal remuneration he gave for the work, and also by the charm of having intercourse with the interesting, if somewhat erratic genius. A book very different in character from "Sylvie and Bruno," but under the same well-known pseudonym, appeared about the same time. I refer to "Pillow Problems," the second part of the series entitled "Curiosa Mathematica." "Pillow Problems thought out during wakeful hours" is a collection of mathematical problems, which Mr. Dodgson solved while lying awake at night. A few there are to which the title is not strictly applicable, but all alike were worked out mentally before any diagram or word of the solution was committed to paper. The author says that his usual practice was to write down the _answer_ first of all, and afterwards the question and its solution. His motive, he says, for publishing these problems was not from any desire to display his powers of mental calculation. Those who knew him will readily believe this, though they will hardly be inclined to accept his own modest estimate of those powers. Still the book was intended, not for the select few who can scale the mountain heights of advanced mathematics, but for the much larger class of ordinary mathematicians, and they at least will be able to appreciate the gifted author, and to wonder how he could follow so clearly in his head the mental diagrams and intricate calculations involved in some of these "Pillow Problems." His chief motive in publishing the book was to show how, by a little determination, the mind "can be made to concentrate itself on some intellectual subject (not necessarily mathematics), and thus banish those petty troubles and vexations which most people experience, and which--unless the mind be otherwise occupied--_will_ persist in invading the hours of night." And this remedy, as he shows, serves a higher purpose still. In a paragraph which deserves quoting at length, as it gives us a momentary glimpse of his refined and beautiful character, he says:-- Perhaps I may venture for a moment to use a more serious tone, and to point out that there are mental troubles, much worse than mere worry, for which an absorbing object of thought may serve as a remedy. There are sceptical thoughts, which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith: there are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls: there are unholy thoughts, which torture with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most helpful ally. That "unclean spirit" of the parable, who brought back with him seven others more wicked than himself, only did so because he found the chamber "swept and garnished," and its owner sitting with folded hands. Had he found it all alive with the "busy hum" of active _work_, there would have been scant welcome for him and his seven! It would have robbed the book of its true character if Lewis Carroll had attempted to improve on the work done in his head, and consequently we have the solutions exactly as he worked them out before setting them down on paper. Of the Problems themselves there is not much to be said here; they are original, and some of them (e.g., No. 52) expressed in a style peculiarly the author's own. The subjects included in their range are Arithmetic, Algebra, Pure Geometry (Plane), Trigonometry, Algebraic Geometry, and Differential Calculus; and there is one Problem to which Mr. Dodgson says he "can proudly point," in "Transcendental Probabilities," which is here given: "A bag contains two counters, as to which nothing is known except that each is either black or white. Ascertain their colour without taking them out of the bag." The answer is, "One is black and the other white." For the solution the reader is referred to the book itself, a study of which will well repay him, apart from the chance he may have of discovering some mistake, and the consequent joy thereat! A few extracts from the Diary follow, written during the early part of 1894:-- _Feb._ 1_st.--Dies notandus._ As Ragg was reading Prayers, and Bayne and I were the only M.A.'s in the stalls, I tried the experiment of going to the lectern and reading the lesson. I did not hesitate much, but feel it too great a strain on the nerves to be tried often. Then I went to the Latin Chapel for Holy Communion. Only Paget (Dean) and Dr. Huntley came: so, for the first time in my recollection, it had to be given up. Then I returned to my rooms, and found in _The Standard_ the very important communication from Gladstone denying the rumour that he has decided upon resigning the Premiership, but admitting that, owing to failing powers, it may come at any moment. It will make a complete change in the position of politics! Then I got, from Cook Wilson, what I have been so long trying for--an accepted transcript of the fallacious argument over which we have had an (apparently) endless fight. I think the end is near, _now_. _Feb._ 4_th._--The idea occurred to me that it might be a pleasant variation in Backgammon to throw _three_ dice, and choose any two of the three numbers. The average quality of the throws would be much raised. I reckon that the chance of "6, 6" would be about two and a half what it now is. It would also furnish a means, similar to giving points in billiards, for equalising players: the weaker might use three dice, the other using two. I think of calling it "Thirdie Backgammon." _March_ 31_st._--Have just got printed, as a leaflet, "A Disputed Point in Logic"--the point Professor Wilson and I have been arguing so long. This paper is wholly in his own words, and puts the point very clearly. I think of submitting it to all my logical friends. "A Disputed Point in Logic" appeared also, I believe, in _Mind_, July, 1894. This seems a fitting place in which to speak of a side of Mr. Dodgson's character of which he himself was naturally very reticent--his wonderful generosity. My own experience of him was of a man who was always ready to do one a kindness, even though it put him to great expense and inconvenience; but of course I did not know, during his lifetime, that my experience of him was the same as that of all his other friends. The income from his books and other sources, which might have been spent in a life of luxury and selfishness, he distributed lavishly where he saw it was needed, and in order to do this he always lived in the most simple way. To make others happy was the Golden Rule of his life. On August 31st he wrote, in a letter to a friend, Miss Mary Brown: "And now what am I to tell you about myself? To say I am quite well 'goes without saying' with me. In fact, my life is so strangely free from all trial and trouble that I cannot doubt my own happiness is one of the talents entrusted to me to 'occupy' with, till the Master shall return, by doing something to make other lives happy." In several instances, where friends in needy circumstances have written to him for loans of money, he has answered them, "I will not _lend_, but I will _give_ you the £100 you ask for." To help child-friends who wanted to go on the stage, or to take up music as a profession, he has introduced them to leading actors and actresses, paid for them having lessons in singing from the best masters, sent round circulars to his numerous acquaintances begging them to patronise the first concert or recital. In writing his books he never attempted to win popularity by acceding to the prejudices and frailties of the age--his one object was to make his books useful and helpful and ennobling. Like the great Master, in whose steps he so earnestly strove to follow, he "went about doing good." And one is glad to think that even his memory is being made to serve the same purpose. The "Alice" cots are a worthy sequel to his generous life. Even Mr. Dodgson, with all his boasted health, was not absolutely proof against disease, for on February 12, 1895, he writes:-- Tenth day of a rather bad attack of influenza of the ague type. Last night the fever rose to a great height, partly caused by a succession of _five_ visitors. One, however, was of my own seeking--Dean Paget, to whom I was thankful to be able to tell all I have had in my mind for a year or more, as to our Chapel services _not_ being as helpful as they could be made. The chief fault is extreme _rapidity_. I long ago gave up the attempt to say the Confession at that pace; and now I say it, and the Lord's Prayer, close together, and never hear a word of the Absolution. Also many of the Lessons are quite unedifying. On July 11th he wrote to my brother on the subject of a paper about Eternal Punishment, which was to form the first of a series of essays on Religious Difficulties:-- I am sending you the article on "Eternal Punishment" as it is. There is plenty of matter for consideration, as to which I shall be glad to know your views. Also if there are other points, connected with religion, where you feel that perplexing difficulties exist, I should be glad to know of them in order to see whether I can see my way to saying anything helpful. But I had better add that I do not want to deal with any such difficulties, _unless_ they tend to affect _life. Speculative_ difficulties which do not affect conduct, and which come into collision with any of the principles which I intend to state as axioms, lie outside the scope of my book. These axioms are:-- (1) Human conduct is capable of being _right_, and of being _wrong_. (2) I possess Free-Will, and am able to choose between right and wrong. (3) I have in some cases chosen wrong. (4) I am responsible for choosing wrong. (5) I am responsible to a person. (6) This person is perfectly good. I call them axioms, because I have no _proofs_ to offer for them. There will probably be others, but these are all I can think of just now. The Rev. H. Hopley, Vicar of Westham, has sent me the following interesting account of a sermon Mr. Dodgson preached at his church:-- In the autumn of 1895 the Vicar of Eastbourne was to have preached my Harvest Sermon at Westham, a village five miles away; but something or other intervened, and in the middle of the week I learned he could not come. A mutual friend suggested my asking Mr. Dodgson, who was then in Eastbourne, to help me, and I went with him to his rooms. I was quite a stranger to Mr. Dodgson; but knowing from hearsay how reluctant he usually was to preach, I apologised and explained my position--with Sunday so near at hand. After a moment's hesitation he consented, and in a most genial manner made me feel quite at ease as to the abruptness of my petition. On the morrow he came over to my vicarage, and made friends with my daughters, teaching them some new manner of playing croquet [probably Castle Croquet], and writing out for them puzzles and anagrams that he had composed. The following letter was forwarded on the Saturday:-- "7, Lushington Road, Eastbourne, _September_ 26, 1895. Dear Mr. Hopley,--I think you will excuse the liberty I am taking in asking you to give me some food after the service on Sunday, so that I may have no need to catch the train, but can walk back at leisure. This will save me from the worry of trying to conclude at an exact minute, and you, perhaps, from the trouble of finding short hymns, to save time. It will not, I hope, cause your cook any trouble, as my regular rule here is _cold_ dinner on Sundays. This not from any "Sabbatarian" theory, but from the wish to let our _employés_ have the day _wholly_ at their own disposal. I beg Miss Hopley's acceptance of the enclosed papers-- (puzzles and diagrams.) Believe me, very truly yours, C.L. Dodgson." On Sunday our grand old church was crowded, and, although our villagers are mostly agricultural labourers, yet they breathlessly listened to a sermon forty minutes long, and apparently took in every word of it. It was quite extempore, in very simple words, and illustrated by some delightful and most touching stories of children. I only wish there had been a shorthand-writer there. In the vestry after service, while he was signing his name in the Preachers' Book, a church officer handed him a bit of paper. "Mr. Dodgson, would you very kindly write your name on that?" "Sir!" drawing himself up sternly--"Sir, I never do that for any one"--and then, more kindly, "You see, if I did it for one, I must do it for all." An amusing incident in Mr. Dodgson's life is connected with the well-known drama, "Two Little Vagabonds." I give the story as he wrote it in his Diary:-- _Nov._ 28_th.--Matinée_ at the Princess's of "Two Little Vagabonds," a very sensational melodrama, capitally acted. "Dick" and "Wally" were played by Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, whom I guess to be about fifteen and twelve. Both were excellent, and the latter remarkable for the perfect realism of her acting. There was some beautiful religious dialogue between "Wally" and a hospital nurse-- most reverently spoken, and reverently received by the audience. _Dec._ 17_th._--I have given books to Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, and have heard from them, and find I was entirely mistaken in taking them for children. Both are married women! The following is an extract from a letter written in 1896 to one of his sisters, in allusion to a death which had recently occurred in the family:-- It is getting increasingly difficult now to remember _which_ of one's friends remain alive, and _which_ have gone "into the land of the great departed, into the silent land." Also, such news comes less and less as a shock, and more and more one realises that it is an experience each of _us_ has to face before long. That fact is getting _less_ dreamlike to me now, and I sometimes think what a grand thing it will be to be able to say to oneself, "Death is _over_ now; there is not _that_ experience to be faced again." I am beginning to think that, if the _books I_ am still hoping to write are to be done _at all,_ they must be done _now_, and that I am _meant_ thus to utilise the splendid health I have had, unbroken, for the last year and a half, and the working powers that are fully as great as, if not greater, than I have ever had. I brought with me here (this letter was written from Eastbourne) the MS., such as it is (very fragmentary and unarranged) for the book about religious difficulties, and I meant, when I came here, to devote myself to that, but I have changed my plan. It seems to me that _that_ subject is one that hundreds of living men could do, if they would only try, _much_ better than I could, whereas there is no living man who could (or at any rate who would take the trouble to) arrange and finish and publish the second part of the "Logic." Also, I _have_ the Logic book in my head; it will only need three or four months to write out, and I have _not_ got the other book in my head, and it might take years to think out. So I have decided to get Part ii. finished _first_, and I am working at it day and night. I have taken to early rising, and sometimes sit down to my work before seven, and have one and a half hours at it before breakfast. The book will be a great novelty, and will help, I fully believe, to make the study of Logic _far_ easier than it now is. And it will, I also believe, be a help to religious thought by giving _clearness_ of conception and of expression, which may enable many people to face, and conquer, many religious difficulties for themselves. So I do really regard it as work for _God_. Another letter, written a few months later to Miss Dora Abdy, deals with the subject of "Reverence," which Mr. Dodgson considered a virtue not held in sufficient esteem nowadays:-- My Dear Dora,--In correcting the proofs of "Through the Looking-Glass" (which is to have "An Easter Greeting" inserted at the end), I am reminded that in that letter (I enclose a copy), I had tried to express my thoughts on the very subject we talked about last night--the relation of _laughter_ to religious thought. One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another, but the _sort_ of meaning I want to convey to other minds is that while the laughter of _joy_ is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of _mockery_, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising _wit_. That is the spirit which has spoiled, for me, the beauty of some of the Bible. Surely there is a deep meaning in our prayer, "Give us an heart to love and _dread_ Thee." We do not mean _terror_: but a dread that will harmonise with love; "respect" we should call it as towards a human being, "reverence" as towards God and all religious things. Yours affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. In his "Game of Logic" Lewis Carroll introduced an original method of working logical problems by means of diagrams; this method he superseded in after years for a much simpler one, the method of "Subscripts." In "Symbolic Logic, Part i." (London: Macmillan, 1896) he employed both methods. The Introduction is specially addressed "to Learners," whom Lewis Carroll advises to read the book straight through, without _dipping_. This Rule [he says] is very desirable with other kinds of books--such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course. Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into vol. iii. first, just to see how the story ends; and perhaps it _is_ as well just to know that all ends _happily_--that the much persecuted lovers _do_ marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot, and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the rich uncle in India (_Qu._ Why in _India? Ans._ Because, somehow, uncles never _can_ get rich anywhere else) dies at exactly the right moment--before taking the trouble to read vol i. This, I say, is _just_ permissible with a _novel_, where vol. iii. has a _meaning_, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story; but with a _scientific_ book, it is sheer insanity. You will find the latter part _hopelessly_ unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course. * * * * * CHAPTER IX (1897-1898) Logic-lectures--Irreverent anecdotes--Tolerance of his religious views--A mathematical discovery--"The Little Minister" Sir George Baden-Powell--Last illness--"Thy will be done"--"Wonderland" at last!--Letters from friends "Three Sunsets"--"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." The year 1897, the last complete year which he was destined to spend, began for Mr. Dodgson at Guildford. On January 3rd he preached in the morning at the beautiful old church of S. Mary's, the church which he always attended when he was staying with his sisters at the Chestnuts. On the 5th he began a course of Logic Lectures at Abbot's Hospital. The Rev. A. Kingston, late curate of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's Parishes, Guildford, had requested him to do this, and he had given his promise if as many as six people could be got together to hear him. Mr. Kingston canvassed the town so well that an audience of about thirty attended the first lecture. [Illustration: Lewis Carroll. _From a photograph._] A long Sunday walk was always a feature of Mr. Dodgson's life in the vacations. In earlier years the late Mr. W. Watson was his usual companion at Guildford. The two men were in some respects very much alike; a peculiar gentleness of character, a winning charm of manner which no one could resist, distinguished them both. After Mr. Watson's death his companion was usually one of the following Guildford clergymen: the Rev. J.H. Robson, LL.D., the Rev. H.R. Ware, and the Rev. A. Kingston. On the 26th Mr. Dodgson paid a visit to the Girls' High School, to show the pupils some mathematical puzzles, and to teach the elder ones his "Memoria Technica." On the 28th he returned to Oxford, so as to be up in time for term. I have said that he always refused invitations to dinner; accordingly his friends who knew of this peculiarity, and wished to secure him for a special evening, dared not actually invite him, but wrote him little notes stating that on such and such days they would be dining at home. Thus there is an entry in his Journal for February 10th: "Dined with Mrs. G--(She had not sent an 'invitation'--only 'information')." His system of symbolic logic enabled him to work out the most complex problems with absolute certainty in a surprisingly short time. Thus he wrote on the 15th: "Made a splendid logic-problem, about "great-grandsons" (modelled on one by De Morgan). My method of solution is quite new, and I greatly doubt if any one will solve the Problem. I have sent it to Cook Wilson." On March 7th he preached in the University Church, the first occasion on which he had done so:-- There is now [he writes] a system established of a course of six sermons at S. Mary's each year, for University men _only_, and specially meant for undergraduates. They are preached, preceded by a few prayers and a hymn, at half-past eight. This evening ended the course for this term: and it was my great privilege to preach. It has been the most formidable sermon I have ever had to preach, and it is a _great_ relief to have it over. I took, as text, Job xxviii. 28, "And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom"--and the prayer in the Litany "Give us an heart to love and dread thee." It lasted three-quarters of an hour. One can imagine how he would have treated the subject. The views which he held on the subject of reverence were, so at least it appears to me, somewhat exaggerated; they are well expressed in a letter which he wrote to a friend of his, during the year, and which runs as follows:-- Dear--, After changing my mind several times, I have at last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so. The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on very sacred subjects-- remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if made by _grown-up people_, but which are assumed to be innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they are therefore innocent when _repeated_ by a grown-up person. The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your supposing that I regard such repetition as always _wrong_ in any grown-up person. Let me assure you that I do _not_ so regard it. I am always willing to believe that those who repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be wrong in _me_, is not necessarily so in _them_. So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself. The hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel sure you will kindly spare me such in future. One further remark. There are quantities of such anecdotes going about. I don't in the least believe that 5 per cent. of them were ever said by _children_. I feel sure that most of them are concocted by people who _wish_ to bring sacred subjects into ridicule--sometimes by people who _wish_ to undermine the belief that others have in religious truths: for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs _unreal_ than by learning to associate them with ludicrous ideas. Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this. Sincerely yours, C.L. Dodgson. The entry in the Diary for April 11th (Sunday) is interesting:-- Went my eighteen-mile round by Besilsleigh. From my rooms back to them again, took me five hours and twenty-seven minutes. Had "high tea" at twenty minutes past seven. This entails only leaving a plate of cold meat, and gives much less trouble than hot dinner at six. Dinner at six has been my rule since January 31st, when it began--I then abandoned the seven o'clock Sunday dinner, of which I entirely disapprove. It has prevented, for two terms, the College Servants' Service. On May 12th he wrote:-- As the Prince of Wales comes this afternoon to open the Town Hall, I went round to the Deanery to invite them to come through my rooms upon the roof, to see the procession arrive.... A party of about twenty were on my roof in the afternoon, including Mrs. Moberly, Mrs. Driver, and Mrs. Baynes, and most, if not all, of the children in Christ Church. Dinner in Hall at eight. The Dean had the Prince on his right, and Lord Salisbury on his left. My place was almost _vis-à-vis_ with the Prince. He and the Dean were the only speakers. We did not get out of Hall till nearly ten. In June he bought a "Whiteley Exerciser," and fixed it up in his rooms. One would have thought that he would have found his long walks sufficient exercise (an eighteen-mile round was, as we have seen, no unusual thing for him to undertake), but apparently it was not so. He was so pleased with the "Exerciser," that he bought several more of them, and made presents of them to his friends. As an instance of his broad-mindedness, the following extract from his Diary for June 20th is interesting. It must be premised that E--was a young friend of his who had recently become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and that their place of worship in Oxford is dedicated to S. Aloysius. I went with E-- to S. Aloysius. There was much beauty in the service, part of which consisted in a procession, with banner, all round the church, carrying the Host, preceded by a number of girls in white, with veils (who had all had their first communion that morning), strewing flowers. Many of them were quite little things of about seven. The sermon (by Father Richardson) was good and interesting, and in a very loyal tone about the Queen. A letter he wrote some years before to a friend who had asked him about his religious opinions reveals the same catholicity of mind:-- I am a member of the English Church, and have taken Deacon's Orders, but did not think fit (for reasons I need not go into) to take Priest's Orders. My dear father was what is called a "High Churchman," and I naturally adopted those views, but have always felt repelled by the yet higher development called "Ritualism." But I doubt if I am fully a "High Churchman" now. I find that as life slips away (I am over fifty now), and the life on the other side of the great river becomes more and more the reality, of which _this_ is only a shadow, that the petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to slip away as well--leaving only the great truths which all Christians believe alike. More and more, as I read of the Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us--our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another--we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows. Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to--that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially say, "I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary." He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne as usual, frequently walking over to Hastings, which is about twenty miles off. A good many of his mornings were spent in giving lectures and telling stories at schools. A letter to the widow of an old college friend reveals the extraordinary sensitiveness of his nature:-- 2, Bedford Well Road, Eastbourne, _August_ 2, 1897. My Dear Mrs. Woodhouse,--Your letter, with its mournful news, followed me down here, and I only got it on Saturday night; so I was not able to be with you in thought when the mortal remains of my dear old friend were being committed to the ground; to await the time when our Heavenly Father shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and when you and I shall once more meet the loved ones from whom we are, for a little while only--what a little while even a long human life lasts!--parted in sorrow, yet _not_ sorrowing as those without hope. You will be sure without words of mine, that you have my true and deep sympathy. Of all the friends I made at Ch. Ch., your husband was the very _first_ who spoke to me--across the dinner-table in Hall. That is forty-six years ago, but I remember, as if it were only yesterday, the kindly smile with which he spoke.... September 27th and 28th are marked in his Diary "with a white stone":-- _Sept. 27th.--Dies notandus._ Discovered rule for dividing a number by 9, by mere addition and subtraction. I felt sure there must be an analogous one for 11, and found it, and proved first rule by algebra, after working about nine hours! _Sept. 28th.--Dies cretâ notandus._ I have actually _superseded_ the rules discovered yesterday! My new rules require to ascertain the 9-remainder, and the 11-remainder, which the others did _not_ require; but the new ones are much the quickest. I shall send them to _The Educational Times_, with date of discovery. On November 4th he wrote:-- Completed a rule for dividing a given number by any divisor that is within 10 of a power of 10, either way. The _principle_ of it is not my discovery, but was sent me by Bertram Collingwood--a rule for dividing by a divisor which is within 10 of a power of 10, _below_ it. My readers will not be surprised to learn that only eight days after this he had superseded his rule:-- An inventive morning! After waking, and before I had finished dressing, I had devised a new and much neater form in which to work my Rules for Long Division, and also decided to bring out my "Games and Puzzles," and Part iii. of "Curiosa Mathematica," in _Numbers_, in paper covers, paged consecutively, to be ultimately issued in boards. On November 20th he spent the day in London, with the object of seeing "The Little Minister" at the Haymarket. "A beautiful play, beautifully acted," he calls it, and says that he should like to see it "again and again." He especially admired the acting of Mrs. Cyril Maude (Miss Winifred Emery) as Lady Babbie. This was the last theatrical performance he ever witnessed. He apparently kept rough notes for his Diary, and only wrote it up every few weeks, as there are no entries at all for 1898, nor even for the last week of 1897. The concluding page runs as follows:-- _Dec. (W.) 10 a.m._--I am in my large room, with no fire, and open window--temperature 54 degrees. _Dec. 17 (F.)._--Maggie [one of his sisters], and our nieces Nella and Violet, came to dinner. _Dec. 19 (Sun.)._--Sat up last night till 4 a.m., over a tempting problem, sent me from New York, "to find 3 equal rational-sided rt.-angled _triangles_." I found _two_, whose sides are 20, 21, 29; 12, 35, 37; but could not find _three_. _Dec. 23(Th.)._--I start for Guildford by the 2.7 today. As my story of Lewis Carroll's life draws near its end, I have received some "Stray Reminiscences" from Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P., which, as they refer to several different periods of time, are as appropriate here as in any other part of the book. The Rev. E.H. Dodgson, referred to in these reminiscences, is a younger brother of Lewis Carroll's; he spent several years of his life upon the remote island of Tristan d'Acunha, where there were only about seventy or eighty inhabitants besides himself. About once a year a ship used to call, when the island-folk would exchange their cattle for cloth, corn, tea, &c., which they could not produce themselves. The island is volcanic in origin, and is exposed to the most terrific gales; the building used as a church stood at some distance from Mr. Dodgson's dwelling, and on one occasion the wind was so strong that he had to crawl on his hands and knees for the whole distance that separated the two buildings. My first introduction (writes Sir George Baden-Powell) to the author of "Through the Looking-Glass" was about the year 1870 or 1871, and under appropriate conditions! I was then coaching at Oxford with the well-known Rev. E. Hatch, and was on friendly terms with his bright and pretty children. Entering his house one day, and facing the dining-room, I heard mysterious noises under the table, and saw the cloth move as if some one were hiding. Children's legs revealed it as no burglar, and there was nothing for it but to crawl upon them, roaring as a lion. Bursting in upon them in their strong-hold under the table, I was met by the staid but amused gaze of a reverend gentleman. Frequently afterwards did I see and hear "Lewis Carroll" entertaining the youngsters in his inimitable way. We became friends, and greatly did I enjoy intercourse with him over various minor Oxford matters. In later years, at one time I saw much of him, in quite another _rôle_--namely that of ardent sympathy with the, as he thought, ill-treated and deserted islanders of Tristan d'Acunha. His brother, it will be remembered, had voluntarily been left at that island with a view to ministering to the spiritual and educational needs of the few settlers, and sent home such graphic accounts and urgent demands for aid, that "Lewis Carroll" spared no pains to organise assistance and relief. At his instance I brought the matter before Government and the House of Commons, and from that day to this frequent communication has been held with the islanders, and material assistance has been rendered them--thanks to the warm heart of "Lewis Carroll." On December 23, 1897, as the note in his Diary states, he went down, in accordance with his usual custom, to Guildford, to spend Christmas with his sisters at the Chestnuts. He seemed to be in his ordinary health, and in the best of spirits, and there was nothing to show that the end was so near. [Illustration: The Chestnuts, Guildford. _From a photograph._] At Guildford he was hard at work upon the second part of his "Symbolic Logic," spending most of the day over this task. This book, alas! he was not destined to finish, which is the more to be regretted as it will be exceedingly difficult for any one else to take up the thread of the argument, even if any one could be found willing to give the great amount of time and trouble which would be needed. On January 5th my father, the Rev. C.S. Collingwood, Rector of Southwick, near Sunderland, died after a very short illness. The telegram which brought Mr. Dodgson the news of this contained the request that he would come at once. He determined to travel north the next day--but it was not to be so. An attack of influenza, which began only with slight hoarseness, yet enough to prevent him from following his usual habit of reading family prayers, was pronounced next morning to be sufficiently serious to forbid his undertaking a journey. At first his illness seemed a trifle, but before a week had passed bronchial symptoms had developed, and Dr. Gabb, the family physician, ordered him to keep his bed. His breathing rapidly became hard and laborious, and he had to be propped up with pillows. A few days before his death he asked one of his sisters to read him that well-known hymn, every verse of which ends with 'Thy Will be done.' To another he said that his illness was a great trial of his patience. How great a trial it must have been it is hard for us to understand. With the work he had set himself still uncompleted, with a sense of youth and joyousness, which sixty years of the battle of life had in no way dulled, Lewis Carroll had to face death. He seemed to know that the struggle was over. "Take away those pillows," he said on the 13th, "I shall need them no more." The end came about half-past two on the afternoon of the 14th. One of his sisters was in the room at the time, and she only noticed that the hard breathing suddenly ceased. The nurse, whom she summoned, at first hoped that this was a sign that he had taken a turn for the better. And so, indeed, he had--he had passed from a world of incompleteness and disappointment, to another where God is putting his beautiful soul to nobler and grander work than was possible for him here, where he is learning to comprehend those difficulties which used to puzzle him so much, and where that infinite Love, which he mirrored so wonderfully in his own life, is being revealed to him "face to face." In accordance with his expressed wish, the funeral was simple in the extreme--flowers, and flowers only, adorned the plain coffin. There was no hearse to drag it up the steep incline that leads to the beautiful cemetery where he lies. The service was taken by Dean Paget and Canon Grant, Rector of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's, Guildford. The mourners who followed him in the quiet procession were few--but the mourners who were not there, and many of whom had never seen him--who shall tell _their_ number? After the grave had been filled up, the wreaths which had covered the coffin were placed upon it. Many were from "child-friends" and bore such inscriptions as "From two of his child-friends"--"To the sweetest soul that ever looked with human eyes," &c. Then the mourners left him alone there--up on the pleasant downs where he had so often walked. A marble cross, under the shadow of a pine, marks the spot, and beneath his own name they have engraved the name of "Lewis Carroll," that the children who pass by may remember their friend, who is now--himself a child in all that makes childhood most attractive--in that "Wonderland" which outstrips all our dreams and hopes. I cannot forbear quoting from Professor Sanday's sermon at Christ Church on the Sunday after his death:-- The world will think of Lewis Carroll as one who opened out a new vein in literature, a new and a delightful vein, which added at once mirth and refinement to life.... May we not say that from our courts at Christ Church there has flowed into the literature of our time a rill, bright and sparkling, health-giving and purifying, wherever its waters extend? [Illustration: Lewis Carroll's grave. _From a photograph._] On the following Sunday Dean Paget, in the course of a sermon on the "Virtue of Simplicity," said:-- We may differ, according to our difference of taste or temperament, in appraising Charles Dodgson's genius; but that that great gift was his, that his best work ranks with the very best of its kind, this has been owned with a recognition too wide and spontaneous to leave room for doubt. The brilliant, venturesome imagination, defying forecast with ever-fresh surprise; the sense of humour in its finest and most naïve form; the power to touch with lightest hand the undercurrent of pathos in the midst of fun; the audacity of creative fancy, and the delicacy of insight--these are rare gifts; and surely they were his. Yes, but it was his simplicity of mind and heart that raised them all, not only in his work but in his life, in all his ways, in the man as we knew him, to something higher than any mere enumeration of them tells: that almost curious simplicity, at times, that real and touching child-likeness that marked him in all fields of thought, appearing in his love of children and in their love of him, in his dread of giving pain to any living creature, in a certain disproportion, now and then, of the view he took of things--yes, and also in that deepest life, where the pure in heart and those who become as little children see the very truth and walk in the fear and love of God. Some extracts from the numerous sympathetic letters received by Mr. Dodgson's brothers and sisters will show how greatly his loss was felt. Thus Canon Jelf writes:-- It was quite a shock to me to see in the paper to-day the death of your dear, good brother, to whom we owe so much of the brightening of our lives with pure, innocent fun. Personally I feel his loss very much indeed. We were together in old Ch. Ch. days from 1852 onwards; and he was always such a loyal, faithful friend to me. I rejoice to think of the _serious_ talks we had together--of the grand, brave way in which he used the opportunities he had as a man of humour, to reach the consciences of a host of readers--of his love for children--his simplicity of heart--of his care for servants--his spiritual care for them. Who can doubt that he was fully prepared for a change however sudden--for the one clear call which took him away from us? Yet the world seems darker for his going; we can only get back our brightness by realising Who gave him all his talent, all his mirth of heart--the One who never leaves us. In deep sympathy, Yours very sincerely, George E. Jelf. P.S.--When you have time tell me a little about him; he was so dear to me. Mr. Frederic Harrison writes as follows:-- The occasional visits that I received from your late brother showed me a side of his nature which to my mind was more interesting and more worthy of remembrance even than his wonderful and delightful humour--I mean his intense sympathy with all who suffer and are in need. He came to see me several times on sundry errands of mercy, and it has been a lesson to me through life to remember his zeal to help others in difficulty, his boundless generosity, and his inexhaustible patience with folly and error. My young daughter, like all young people in civilised countries, was brought up on his beautiful fancies and humours. But for my part I remember him mainly as a sort of missionary to all in need. We all alike grieve, and offer you our heartfelt sympathy. I am, faithfully yours, Frederic Harrison. His old friend and tutor. Dr. Price, writes:-- ... I feel his removal from among us as the loss of an old and dear friend and pupil, to whom I have been most warmly attached ever since he was with me at Whitby, reading mathematics, in, I think, 1853--44 years ago! And 44 years of uninterrupted friendship .... I was pleased to read yesterday in _The Times_ newspaper the kindly obituary notice: perfectly just and true; appreciative, as it should be, as to the unusual combination of deep mathematical ability and taste with the genius that led to the writing of "Alice's Adventures." Only the other day [writes a lady friend] he wrote to me about his admiration for my dear husband, and he ended his letter thus: "I trust that when _my_ time comes, I may be found, like him, working to the last, and ready for the Master's call"--and truly so he was. A friend at Oxford writes:-- Mr. Dodgson was ever the kindest and gentlest of friends, bringing sunshine into the house with him. We shall mourn his loss deeply, and my two girls are quite overcome with grief. All day memories of countless acts of kindness shown to me, and to people I have known, have crowded my mind, and I feel it almost impossible to realise that he has passed beyond the reach of our gratitude and affection. The following are extracts from letters written by some of his "child-friends," now grown up:-- How beautiful to think of the track of light and love he has left behind him, and the amount of happiness he brought into the lives of all those he came in contact with! I shall never forget all his kindness to us, from the time he first met us as little mites in the railway train, and one feels glad to have had the privilege of knowing him. One of Mr. Dodgson's oldest "child-friends" writes:-- He was to me a dear and true friend, and it has been my great privilege to see a good deal of him ever since I was a tiny child, and especially during the last two years. I cannot tell you how much we shall miss him here. Ch. Ch. without Mr. Dodgson will be a strange place, and it is difficult to realise it even while we listen to the special solemn anthems and hymns to his memory in our cathedral. One who had visited him at Guildford, writes:-- It must be quite sixteen years now since he first made friends with my sister and myself as children on the beach at Eastbourne, and since then his friendship has been and must always be one of my most valued possessions. It culminated, I think, in the summer of 1892--the year when he brought me to spend a very happy Sunday at Guildford. I had not seen him before, that year, for some time; and it was then, I think, that the childish delight in his kindness, and pride in his friendship, changed into higher love and reverence, when in our long walks over the downs I saw more and more into the great tenderness and gentleness of his nature. Shortly after Mr. Dodgson's death, his "Three Sunsets" was published by Messrs. Macmillan. The twelve "Fairy Fancies," which illustrate it, were drawn by Miss E. G. Thomson. Though they are entirely unconnected with the text, they are so thoroughly in accordance with the author's delicate refinement, and so beautiful in themselves, that they do not strike one as inappropriate. Some of the verses are strangely in keeping with the time at which they are published. I could not see, for blinding tears, The glories of the west: A heavenly music filled my ears, A heavenly peace my breast. "Come unto me, come unto me-- All ye that labour, unto me-- Ye heavy-laden, come to me-- And I will give you rest." One cannot read this little volume without feeling that the shadow of some disappointment lay over Lewis Carroll's life. Such I believe to have been the case, and it was this that gave him his wonderful sympathy with all who suffered. But those who loved him would not wish to lift the veil from these dead sanctities, nor would any purpose be served by so doing. The proper use of sympathy is not to weep over sorrows that are over, and whose very memory is perhaps obliterated for him in the first joy of possessing new and higher faculties. Before leaving the subject of this book, I should like to draw attention to a few lines on "woman's mission," lines full of the noblest chivalry, reminding one of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King":-- In the darkest path of man's despair, Where War and Terror shake the troubled earth, Lies woman's mission; with unblenching brow To pass through scenes of horror and affright Where men grow sick and tremble: unto her All things are sanctified, for all are good. Nothing so mean, but shall deserve her care: Nothing so great, but she may bear her part. No life is vain: each hath his place assigned: Do thou thy task, and leave the rest to God. Of the unpublished works which Mr. Dodgson left behind him, I may mention "Original Games and Puzzles"; "Symbolic Logic, Part ii.," and a portion of a mathematical book, the proofs of which are now in the hands of the Controller of the Oxford University Press. I will conclude this chapter with a poem which appeared in _Punch_ for January 29th, a fortnight after Lewis Carroll's death. It expresses, with all the grace and insight of the true poet, what I have tried, so feebly and ineffectually, to say:-- LEWIS CARROLL. _Born_ 1832. _Died January_ 14, 1898. Lover of children! Fellow-heir with those Of whom the imperishable kingdom is! Beyond all dreaming now your spirit knows The unimagined mysteries. Darkly as in a glass our faces look To read ourselves, if so we may, aright; You, like the maiden in your faërie book-- You step behind and see the light! The heart you wore beneath your pedant's cloak Only to children's hearts you gave away; Yet unaware in half the world you woke The slumbering charm of childhood's day. We older children, too, our loss lament, We of the "Table Round," remembering well How he, our comrade, with his pencil lent Your fancy's speech a firmer spell. Master of rare woodcraft, by sympathy's Sure touch he caught your visionary gleams, And made your fame, the dreamer's, one with his. The wise interpreter of dreams. Farewell! But near our hearts we have you yet, Holding our heritage with loving hand, Who may not follow where your feet are set Upon the ways of Wonderland.[025] [Illustration: Lorina and Alice Liddell. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] * * * * * CHAPTER X CHILD FRIENDS Mr. Dodgson's fondness for children--Miss Isabel Standen--Puzzles--"Me and Myself"--A double acrostic--"Father William"--Of drinking healths--Kisses by post--Tired in the face--The unripe plum--Eccentricities--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"Mr. Dodgson is going on _well_." This chapter, and the next will deal with Mr. Dodgson's friendships with children. It would have been impossible to arrange them in chronological sequence in the earlier part of this book, and the fact that they exhibit a very important and distinct side of his nature seems to justify me in assigning them a special and individual position. For the contents of these two chapters, both my readers and myself owe a debt of gratitude to those child-friends of his, without whose ever-ready help this book could never have been written. From very early college days began to emerge that beautiful side of Lewis Carroll's character which afterwards was to be, next to his fame as an author, the one for which he was best known--his attitude towards children, and the strong attraction they had for him. I shall attempt to point out the various influences which led him in this direction; but if I were asked for one comprehensive word wide enough to explain this tendency of his nature, I would answer unhesitatingly--Love. My readers will remember a beautiful verse in "Sylvie and Bruno"; trite though it is, I cannot forbear to quote it-- Say, whose is the skill that paints valley and hill, Like a picture so fair to the sight? That flecks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow, Till the little lambs leap with delight? 'Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold, Though 'tis sung by the angels above, In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear, And the name of the secret is Love! That "secret"--an open secret for him--explains this side of his character. As _he_ read everything in its light, so it is only in its light that _we_ can properly understand _him_. I think that the following quotation from a letter to the Rev. F. H. Atkinson, accompanying a copy of "Alice" for his little daughter Gertrude, sufficiently proves the truth of what I have just stated:-- Many thanks to Mrs. Atkinson and to you for the sight of the tinted photograph of your Gertrude. As you say, the picture speaks for itself, and I can see exactly what sort of a child she is, in proof of which I send her my love and a kiss herewith. It is possible I may be the first (unseen) gentleman from whom she has had so ridiculous a message; but I can't say she is the first unseen child to whom I have sent one! I think the most precious message of the kind I ever got from a child I never saw (and never shall see in this world) was to the effect that she liked me when she read about Alice, "but please tell him, whenever I read that Easter letter he sent me I _do_ love him!" She was in a hospital, and a lady friend who visited there had asked me to send the letter to her and some other sick children. And now as to the secondary causes which attracted him to children. First, I think children appealed to him because he was pre-eminently a teacher, and he saw in their unspoiled minds the best material for him to work upon. In later years one of his favourite recreations was to lecture at schools on logic; he used to give personal attention to each of his pupils, and one can well imagine with what eager anticipation the children would have looked forward to the visits of a schoolmaster who knew how to make even the dullest subjects interesting and amusing. Again, children appealed to his æsthetic faculties, for he was a keen admirer of the beautiful in every form. Poetry, music, the drama, all delighted him, but pictures more than all put together. I remember his once showing me "The Lady with the Lilacs," which Arthur Hughes had painted for him, and how he dwelt with intense pleasure on the exquisite contrasts of colour which it contained--the gold hair of a girl standing out against the purple of lilac-blossom. But with those who find in such things as these a complete satisfaction of their desire for the beautiful he had no sympathy; for no imperfect representations of life could, for him, take the place of life itself, life as God has made it--the babbling of the brook, the singing of the birds, the laughter and sweet faces of the children. And yet, recognising, as he did, what Mr. Pater aptly terms "the curious perfection of the human form," in man, as in nature, it was the soul that attracted him more than the body. His intense admiration, one might almost call it adoration, for the white innocence and uncontaminated spirituality of childhood emerges most clearly in "Sylvie and Bruno." He says very little of the personal beauty of his heroine; he might have asked, with Mr. Francis Thompson-- How can I tell what beauty is her dole, Who cannot see her countenance for her soul? So entirely occupied is he with her gentleness, her pity, her sincerity, and her love. Again, the reality of children appealed strongly to the simplicity and genuineness of his own nature. I believe that he understood children even better than he understood men and women; civilisation has made adult humanity very incomprehensible, for convention is as a veil which hides the divine spark that is in each of us, and so this strange thing has come to be, that the imperfect mirrors perfection more completely than the perfected, that we see more of God in the child than in the man. And in those moments of depression of which he had his full share, when old age seemed to mock him with all its futility and feebleness, it was the thought that the children still loved him which nerved him again to continue his life-work, which renewed his youth, so that to his friends he never seemed an old man. Even the hand of death itself only made his face look more boyish--the word is not too strong. "How wonderfully young your brother looks!" were the first words the doctor said, as he returned from the room where Lewis Carroll's body lay, to speak to the mourners below. And so he loved children because their friendship was the true source of his perennial youth and unflagging vigour. This idea is expressed in the following poem--an acrostic, which he wrote for a friend some twenty years ago:-- Around my lonely hearth, to-night, Ghostlike the shadows wander: Now here, now there, a childish sprite, Earthborn and yet as angel bright, Seems near me as I ponder. Gaily she shouts: the laughing air Echoes her note of gladness-- Or bends herself with earnest care Round fairy-fortress to prepare Grim battlement or turret-stair-- In childhood's merry madness! New raptures still hath youth in store: Age may but fondly cherish Half-faded memories of yore-- Up, craven heart! repine no more! Love stretches hands from shore to shore: Love is, and shall not perish! His first child-friend, so far as I know, was Miss Alice Liddell, the little companion whose innocent talk was one of the chief pleasures of his early life at Oxford, and to whom he told the tale that was to make him famous. In December, 1885, Miss M.E. Manners presented him with a little volume, of which she was the authoress, "Aunt Agatha Ann and Other Verses," and which contained a poem (which I quoted in Chapter VI.), about "Alice." Writing to acknowledge this gift, Lewis Carroll said:-- Permit me to offer you my sincere thanks for the very sweet verses you have written about my dream-child (named after a real Alice, but none the less a dream-child) and her Wonderland. That children love the book is a very precious thought to me, and, next to their love, I value the sympathy of those who come with a child's heart to what I have tried to write about a child's thoughts. Next to what conversing with an angel _might_ be--for it is hard to imagine it--comes, I think, the privilege of having a real child's thoughts uttered to one. I have known some few _real_ children (you have too, I am sure), and their friendship is a blessing and a help in life. [Illustration: Alice Liddell. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] It is interesting to note how in "Sylvie and Bruno" his idea of the thoughts of a child has become deeper and more spiritual. Yet in the earlier tale, told "all in a golden afternoon," to the plash of oars and the swish of a boat through the waters of Cherwell or Thames, the ideal child is strangely beautiful; she has all Sylvie's genuineness and honesty, all her keen appreciation of the interest of life; only there lacks that mysterious charm of deep insight into the hidden forces of nature, the gentle power that makes the sky "such a darling blue," which almost links Sylvie with the angels. Another of Lewis Carroll's early favourites was Miss Alexandra (Xie) Kitchin, daughter of the Dean of Durham. Her father was for fifteen years the Censor of the unattached members of the University of Oxford, so that Mr. Dodgson had plenty of opportunities of photographing his little friend, and it is only fair to him to say that he did not neglect them. It would be futile to attempt even a bare list of the children whom he loved, and who loved him; during forty years of his life he was constantly adding to their number. Some remained friends for life, but in a large proportion of cases the friendship ended with the end of childhood. To one of those few, whose affection for him had not waned with increasing years, he wrote:-- I always feel specially grateful to friends who, like you, have given me a child-friendship and a woman-friendship. About nine out of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get ship-wrecked at the critical point, "where the stream and river meet," and the child-friends, once so affectionate, become uninteresting acquaintances, whom I have no wish to set eyes on again. [Illustration: Xie Kitchin. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] These friendships usually began all very much in the same way. A chance meeting on the sea-shore, in the street, at some friend's house, led to conversation; then followed a call on the parents, and after that all sorts of kindnesses on Lewis Carroll's part, presents of books, invitations to stay with him at Oxford, or at Eastbourne, visits with him to the theatre. For the amusement of his little guests he kept a large assortment of musical-boxes, and an organette which had to be fed with paper tunes. On one occasion he ordered about twelve dozen of these tunes "on approval," and asked one of the other dons, who was considered a judge of music, to come in and hear them played over. In addition to these attractions there were clock-work bears, mice, and frogs, and games and puzzles in infinite variety. One of his little friends, Miss Isabel Standen, has sent me the following account of her first meeting with him:-- We met for the first time in the Forbury Gardens, Reading. He was, I believe, waiting for a train. I was playing with my brothers and sisters in the Gardens. I remember his taking me on his knee and showing me puzzles, one of which he refers to in the letter (given below. This puzzle was, by the way, a great favourite of his; the problem is to draw three interlaced squares without going over the same lines twice, or taking the pen off the paper), which is so thoroughly characteristic of him in its quaint humour:-- "The Chestnuts, Guildford, _August _22, 1869. My Dear Isabel,--Though I have only been acquainted with you for fifteen minutes, yet, as there is no one else in Reading I have known so long, I hope you will not mind my troubling you. Before I met you in the Gardens yesterday I bought some old books at a shop in Reading, which I left to be called for, and had not time to go back for them. I didn't even remark the name of the shop, but I can tell _where_ it was, and if you know the name of the woman who keeps the shop, and would put it into the blank I have left in this note, and direct it to her I should be much obliged ... A friend of mine, called Mr. Lewis Carroll, tells me he means to send you a book. He is a _very_ dear friend of mine. I have known him all my life (we are the same age) and have _never_ left him. Of course he was with me in the Gardens, not a yard off--even while I was drawing those puzzles for you. I wonder if you saw him? Your fifteen-minute friend, C.L. Dodgson. Have you succeeded in drawing the three squares?" Another favourite puzzle was the following--I give it in his own words:-- A is to draw a fictitious map divided into counties. B is to colour it (or rather mark the counties with _names_ of colours) using as few colours as possible. Two adjacent counties must have _different_ colours. A's object is to force B to use as _many_ colours as possible. How many can he force B to use? One of his most amusing letters was to a little girl called Magdalen, to whom he had given a copy of his "Hunting of the Snark":-- Christ Church, _December_ 15, 1875. My dear Magdalen,--I want to explain to you why I did not call yesterday. I was sorry to miss you, but you see I had so many conversations on the way. I tried to explain to the people in the street that I was going to see you, but they wouldn't listen; they said they were in a hurry, which was rude. At last I met a wheelbarrow that I thought would attend to me, but I couldn't make out what was in it. I saw some features at first, then I looked through a telescope, and found it was a countenance; then I looked through a microscope, and found it was a face! I thought it was father like me, so I fetched a large looking-glass to make sure, and then to my great joy I found it was me. We shook hands, and were just beginning to talk, when myself came up and joined us, and we had quite a pleasant conversation. I said, "Do you remember when we all met at Sandown?" and myself said, "It was very jolly there; there was a child called Magdalen," and me said, "I used to like her a little; not much, you know--only a little." Then it was time for us to go to the train, and who do you think came to the station to see us off? You would never guess, so I must tell you. They were two very dear friends of mine, who happen to be here just now, and beg to be allowed to sign this letter as your affectionate friends, Lewis Carroll and C.L. Dodgson. Another child-friend, Miss F. Bremer, writes as follows:-- Our acquaintance began in a somewhat singular manner. We were playing on the Fort at Margate, and a gentleman on a seat near asked us if we could make a paper boat, with a seat at each end, and a basket in the middle for fish! We were, of course, enchanted with the idea, and our new friend--after achieving the feat--gave us his card, which we at once carried to our mother. He asked if he might call where we were staying, and then presented my elder sister with a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," inscribed "From the Author." He kindly organised many little excursions for us--chiefly in the pursuit of knowledge. One memorable visit to a light house is still fresh in our memories. It was while calling one day upon Mrs. Bremer that he scribbled off the following double acrostic on the names of her two daughters-- DOUBLE ACROSTIC--FIVE LETTERS. Two little girls near London dwell, More naughty than I like to tell. 1. Upon the lawn the hoops are seen: The balls are rolling on the green. T ur F 2. The Thames is running deep and wide: And boats are rowing on the tide. R ive R 3. In winter-time, all in a row, The happy skaters come and go. I c E 4. "Papa!" they cry, "Do let us stay!" He does not speak, but says they may. N o D 5. "There is a land," he says, "my dear, Which is too hot to skate, I fear." A fric A At Margate also he met Miss Adelaide Paine, who afterwards became one of his greatest favourites. He could not bear to see the healthy pleasures of childhood spoiled by conventional restraint. "One piece of advice given to my parents," writes Miss Paine, "gave me very great glee, and that was not to make little girls wear gloves at the seaside; they took the advice, and I enjoyed the result." _Apropos_ of this I may mention that, when staying at Eastbourne, he never went down to the beach without providing himself with a supply of safety-pins. Then if he saw any little girl who wanted to wade in the sea, but was afraid of spoiling her frock, he would gravely go up to her and present her with a safety-pin, so that she might fasten up her skirts out of harm's way. Tight boots were a great aversion of his, especially for children. One little girl who was staying with him at Eastbourne had occasion to buy a new pair of boots. Lewis Carroll gave instructions to the bootmaker as to how they were to be made, so as to be thoroughly comfortable, with the result that when they came home they were more useful than ornamental, being very nearly as broad as they were long! Which shows that even hygienic principles may be pushed too far. The first meeting with Miss Paine took place in 1876. When Lewis Carroll returned to Christ Church he sent her a copy of "The Hunting of the Snark," with the following acrostic written in the fly-leaf:-- 'A re you deaf, Father William?' the young man said, 'D id you hear what I told you just now? E xcuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head L ike a blundering, sleepy old cow! A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town, I s my friend, so I beg to remark: D o you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down E ntitled "The Hunt of the Snark?"' 'P ack it up in brown paper!' the old man cried, 'A nd seal it with olive-and-dove. I command you to do it!' he added with pride, 'N or forget, my good fellow, to send her beside E aster Greetings, and give her my love.' This was followed by a letter, dated June 7, 1876:-- My dear Adelaide,--Did you try if the letters at the beginnings of the lines about Father William would spell anything? Sometimes it happens that you can spell out words that way, which is very curious. I wish you could have heard him when he shouted out "Pack it up in brown paper!" It quite shook the house. And he threw one of his shoes at his son's head (just to make him attend, you know), but it missed him. He was glad to hear you had got the book safe, but his eyes filled with tears as he said, "I sent _her_ my love, but she never--" he couldn't say any more, his mouth was so full of bones (he was just finishing a roast goose). Another letter to Miss Paine is very characteristic of his quaint humour:-- Christ Church, Oxford, _March_ 8, 1880. My dear Ada,--(Isn't that your short name? "Adelaide" is all very well, but you see when one's _dreadfully_ busy one hasn't time to write such long words--particularly when it takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it--and even then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase--where it has been for months and months, and has got all covered with dust--so one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting it--and when one _has_ made out at last which is dictionary and which is dust, even _then_ there's the job of remembering which end of the alphabet "A" comes--for one feels pretty certain it isn't in the _middle_--then one has to go and wash one's hands before turning over the leaves--for they've got so thick with dust one hardly knows them by sight--and, as likely as not, the soap is lost, and the jug is empty, and there's no towel, and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things--and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake of soap--so, with all this bother, I hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, "My dear Ada"). You said in your last letter you would like a likeness of me: so here it is, and I hope you will like it--I won't forget to call the next time but one I'm in Wallington. Your very affectionate friend, Lewis Carroll. It was quite against Mr. Dodgson's usual rule to give away photographs of himself; he hated publicity, and the above letter was accompanied by another to Mrs. Paine, which ran as follows:-- I am very unwilling, usually, to give my photograph, for I don't want people, who have heard of Lewis Carroll, to be able to recognise him in the street--but I can't refuse Ada. Will you kindly take care, if any of your ordinary acquaintances (I don't speak of intimate friends) see it, that they are _not_ told anything about the name of "Lewis Carroll"? He even objected to having his books discussed in his presence; thus he writes to a friend:-- Your friend, Miss--was very kind and complimentary about my books, but may I confess that I would rather have them ignored? Perhaps I am too fanciful, but I have somehow taken a dislike to being talked to about them; and consequently have some trials to bear in society, which otherwise would be no trials at all.... I don't think any of my many little stage-friends have any shyness at all about being talked to of their performances. _They_ thoroughly enjoy the publicity that I shrink from. The child to whom the three following letters were addressed, Miss Gaynor Simpson, was one of Lewis Carroll's Guildford friends. The correct answer to the riddle propounded in the second letter is "Copal":-- _December_ 27, 1873. My dear Gaynor,--My name is spelt with a "G," that is to say "_Dodgson_." Any one who spells it the same as that wretch (I mean of course the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons) offends me _deeply_, and _for ever!_ It is a thing I _can_ forget, but _never can forgive! _If you do it again, I shall call you "'aynor." Could you live happy with such a name? As to dancing, my dear, I _never_ dance, unless I am allowed to do it _in my own peculiar way. _There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed. The last house I tried it in, the floor broke through. But then it was a poor sort of floor--the beams were only six inches thick, hardly worth calling beams at all: stone arches are much more sensible, when any dancing, _of my peculiar kind_, is to be done. Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoölogical Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight. Give any message from me to Amy that you think will be most likely to surprise her, and, believe me, Your affectionate friend, Lewis Carroll. My dear Gaynor,--So you would like to know the answer to that riddle? Don't be in a hurry to tell it to Amy and Frances: triumph over them for a while! My first lends its aid when you plunge into trade. _Gain_. Who would go into trade if there were no gain in it? My second in jollifications-- _Or_ [The French for "gold"--] Your jollifications would be _very_ limited if you had no money. My whole, laid on thinnish, imparts a neat finish To pictorial representations. _Gaynor_. Because she will be an ornament to the Shakespeare Charades--only she must be "laid on thinnish," that is, _there musn't be too much of her._ Yours affectionately, C. L. Dodgson. My dear Gaynor,--Forgive me for having sent you a sham answer to begin with. My first--_Sea_. It carries the ships of the merchants. My second--_Weed_. That is, a cigar, an article much used in jollifications. My whole--_Seaweed_. Take a newly painted oil-picture; lay it on its back on the floor, and spread over it, "thinnish," some wet seaweed. You will find you have "finished" that picture. Yours affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. Lewis Carroll during the last fifteen years of his life always spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne; in earlier times, Sandown, a pleasant little seaside resort in the Isle of Wight, was his summer abode. He loved the sea both for its own sake and because of the number of children whom he met at seaside places. Here is another "first meeting"; this time it is at Sandown, and Miss Gertrude Chataway is the narrator:-- I first met Mr. Lewis Carroll on the sea-shore at Sandown in the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1875, when I was quite a little child. We had all been taken there for change of air, and next door there was an old gentlemen--to me at any rate he seemed old--who interested me immensely. He would come on to his balcony, which joined ours, sniffing the sea-air with his head thrown back, and would walk right down the steps on to the beach with his chin in air, drinking in the fresh breezes as if he could never have enough. I do not know why this excited such keen curiosity on my part, but I remember well that whenever I heard his footstep I flew out to see him coming, and when one day he spoke to me my joy was complete. Thus we made friends, and in a very little while I was as familiar with the interior of his lodgings as with our own. I had the usual child's love for fairy-tales and marvels, and his power of telling stories naturally fascinated me. We used to sit for hours on the wooden steps which led from our garden on to the beach, whilst he told the most lovely tales that could possibly be imagined, often illustrating the exciting situations with a pencil as he went along. One thing that made his stories particularly charming to a child was that he often took his cue from her remarks--a question would set him off on quite a new trail of ideas, so that one felt that one had somehow helped to make the story, and it seemed a personal possession It was the most lovely nonsense conceivable, and I naturally revelled in it. His vivid imagination would fly from one subject to another, and was never tied down in any way by the probabilities of life. To _me_ it was of course all perfect, but it is astonishing that _he_ never seemed either tired or to want other society. I spoke to him once of this since I have been grown up, and he told me it was the greatest pleasure he could have to converse freely with a child, and feel the depths of her mind. He used to write to me and I to him after that summer, and the friendship, thus begun, lasted. His letters were one of the greatest joys of my childhood. I don't think that he ever really understood that we, whom he had known as children, could not always remain such. I stayed with him only a few years ago, at Eastbourne, and felt for the time that I was once more a child. He never appeared to realise that I had grown up, except when I reminded him of the fact, and then he only said, "Never mind: you will always be a child to me, even when your hair is grey." Some of the letters, to which Miss Chataway refers in these reminiscences, I am enabled, through her kindness, to give below:-- Christ Church, Oxford, _October_ 13, 1875. My dear Gertrude,--I never give birthday _presents_, but you see I _do_ sometimes write a birthday _letter_: so, as I've just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind--but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like _that_, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got _no health at all_! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for _her_ to drink _his_ health." And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!... Your loving friend, Lewis Carroll. Christ Church, Oxford, _Dec_. 9, 1875. My dear Gertrude,--This really will _not_ do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "_Extra weight_, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two _pounds_, when I think it should be _pence_). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman--it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!" "Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni--" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean _that_. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not _much_ good, certainly," I said, rather sadly. "Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. _I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!"_ That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other _very_ few more letters--"Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like _that_ doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send _many_." So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave. I sometimes wish I was back on the shore at Sandown; don't you? Your loving friend, Lewis Carroll. Why is a pig that has lost its tail like a little girl on the sea-shore? Because it says, "I should like another tale, please!" Christ Church, Oxford, _July_ 21, 1876. My dear Gertrude,--Explain to me how I am to enjoy Sandown without _you_. How can I walk on the beach alone? How can I sit all alone on those wooden steps? So you see, as I shan't be able to do without you, you will have to come. If Violet comes, I shall tell her to invite you to stay with her, and then I shall come over in the Heather-Bell and fetch you. If I ever _do_ come over, I see I couldn't go back the same day, so you will have to engage me a bed somewhere in Swanage; and if you can't find one, I shall expect _you_ to spend the night on the beach, and give up your room to _me_. Guests of course must be thought of before children; and I'm sure in these warm nights the beach will be quite good enough for _you_. If you _did_ feel a little chilly, of course you could go into a bathing-machine, which everybody knows is _very_ comfortable to sleep in--you know they make the floor of soft wood on purpose. I send you seven kisses (to last a week) and remain Your loving friend, Lewis Carroll. Christ church, Oxford, _October_ 28, 1876. My dearest Gertrude,--You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine, for I'm tired." He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!" I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the _face_." He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your _nose_ that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he nose a great deal." I said, "No; it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the _hair_." Then he looked rather grave, and said, "_Now_ I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the piano-forte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the _hair_: it's more about the nose and chin." Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much. Do you think that it's in the lips?" "Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!" Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses." "Well," I said, "I did give _one_ kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine." "Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only _one_?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times." Then the doctor said, "You must not give her _any_ more till your lips are quite rested again." "But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more." Then he looked so grave that the tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box." Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to _some_ little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe, or if any are lost on the way. Reading Station, _April_ 13, 1878. My dear Gertrude,--As I have to wait here for half an hour, I have been studying Bradshaw (most things, you know, ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails), and the result is that it seems I could come, any day next week, to Winckfield, so as to arrive there about one; and that, by leaving Winckfield again about half-past six, I could reach Guildford again for dinner. The next question is, _How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick?_ Now do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is, _How much less?_ These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a _wink_ in _ink_: but there _may_ be _ink_ in a _wink_"--but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick--and whether you are at home--and whether you get my letter--and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up person--and whether you're going to the seaside next summer--and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know. I send you 10,000,000 kisses, and remain. Your loving friend, C. L. Dodgson. The Chestnuts, Guildford, _April_ 19, 1878. My dear Gertrude,--I'm afraid it's "no go"--I've had such a bad cold all the week that I've hardly been out for some days, and I don't think it would be wise to try the expedition this time, and I leave here on Tuesday. But after all, what does it signify? Perhaps there are ten or twenty gentlemen, all living within a few miles of Rotherwick, and any one of them would do just as well! When a little girl is hoping to take a plum off a dish, and finds that she can't have that one, because it's bad or unripe, what does she do? Is she sorry, or disappointed? Not a bit! She just takes another instead, and grins from one little ear to the other as she puts it to her lips! This is a little fable to do you good; the little girl means _you_--the bad plum means _me_--the other plum means some other friend--and all that about the little girl putting plums to her lips means--well, it means--but you know you can't expect _every bit_ of a fable to mean something! And the little girl grinning means that dear little smile of yours, that just reaches from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other! Your loving friend, C.L. Dodgson. I send you 4-3/4 kisses. The next letter is a good example of the dainty little notes Lewis Carroll used to scribble off on any scrap of paper that lay to his hand:-- Chestnuts, Guildford, _January_ 15, 1886. Yes, my child, if all be well, I shall hope, and you may fear, that the train reaching Hook at two eleven, will contain Your loving friend, C.L. Dodgson. Only a few years ago, illness prevented him from fulfilling his usual custom of spending Christmas with his sisters at Guildford. This is the allusion in the following letter:-- My dear old Friend,--(The friendship is old, though the child is young.) I wish a very happy New Year, and many of them, to you and yours; but specially to you, because I know you best and love you most. And I pray God to bless you, dear child, in this bright New Year, and many a year to come. ... I write all this from my sofa, where I have been confined a prisoner for six weeks, and as I dreaded the railway journey, my doctor and I agreed that I had better not go to spend Christmas with my sisters at Guildford. So I had my Christmas dinner all alone, in my room here, and (pity me, Gertrude!) it wasn't a Christmas dinner at all--I suppose the cook thought I should not care for roast beef or plum pudding, so he sent me (he has general orders to send either fish and meat, or meat and pudding) some fried sole and some roast mutton! Never, never have I dined before, on Christmas Day, without _plum pudding_. Wasn't it sad? Now I think you must be content; this is a longer letter than most will get. Love to Olive. My clearest memory of her is of a little girl calling out "Good-night" from her room, and of your mother taking me in to see her in her bed, and wish her good-night. I have a yet clearer memory (like a dream of fifty years ago) of a little bare-legged girl in a sailor's jersey, who used to run up into my lodgings by the sea. But why should I trouble you with foolish reminiscences of _mine_ that _cannot_ interest you? Yours always lovingly, C. L. Dodgson. It was a writer in _The National Review_ who, after eulogising the talents of Lewis Carroll, and stating that _he_ would never be forgotten, added the harsh prophecy that "future generations will not waste a single thought upon the Rev. C.L. Dodgson." If this prediction is destined to be fulfilled, I think my readers will agree with me that it will be solely on account of his extraordinary diffidence about asserting himself. But such an unnatural division of Lewis Carroll, the author, from the Rev. C.L. Dodgson, the man, is forced in the extreme. His books are simply the expression of his normal habit of mind, as these letters show. In literature, as in everything else, he was absolutely natural. To refer to such criticisms as this (I am thankful to say they have been very few) is not agreeable; but I feel that it is owing to Mr. Dodgson to do what I can to vindicate the real unity which underlay both his life and all his writings. Of many anecdotes which might be adduced to show the lovable character of the man, the following little story has reached me through one of his child-friends:-- My sister and I [she writes] were spending a day of delightful sightseeing in town with him, on our way to his home at Guildford, where we were going to pass a day or two with him. We were both children, and were much interested when he took us into an American shop where the cakes for sale were cooked by a very rapid process before your eyes, and handed to you straight from the cook's hands. As the preparation of them could easily be seen from outside the window, a small crowd of little ragamuffins naturally assembled there, and I well remember his piling up seven of the cakes on one arm, and himself taking them out and doling them round to the seven hungry little youngsters. The simple kindness of his act impressed its charm on his child-friends inside the shop as much as on his little stranger friends outside. It was only to those who had but few personal dealings with him that he seemed stiff and "donnish"; to his more intimate acquaintances, who really understood him, each little eccentricity of manner or of habits was a delightful addition to his charming and interesting personality. That he was, in some respects, eccentric cannot be denied; for instance he hardly ever wore an overcoat, and always wore a tall hat, whatever might be the climatic conditions. At dinner in his rooms small pieces of cardboard took the place of table-mats; they answered the purpose perfectly well, he said, and to buy anything else would be a mere waste of money. On the other hand, when purchasing books for himself, or giving treats to the children he loved, he never seemed to consider expense at all. He very seldom sat down to write, preferring to stand while thus engaged. When making tea for his friends, he used, in order, I suppose, to expedite the process, to walk up and down the room waving the teapot about, and telling meanwhile those delightful anecdotes of which he had an inexhaustible supply. Great were his preparations before going a journey; each separate article used to be carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper all to itself, so that his trunks contained nearly as much paper as of the more useful things. The bulk of the luggage was sent on a day or two before by goods train, while he himself followed on the appointed day, laden only with his well-known little black bag, which he always insisted on carrying himself. He had a strong objection to staring colours in dress, his favourite combination being pink and grey. One little girl who came to stay with him was absolutely forbidden to wear a red frock, of a somewhat pronounced hue, while out in his company. At meals he was very abstemious always, while he took nothing in the middle of the day except a glass of wine and a biscuit. Under these circumstances it is not very surprising that the healthy appetites of his little friends filled him with wonder, and even with alarm. When he took a certain one of them out with him to a friend's house to dinner, he used to give the host or hostess a gentle warning, to the mixed amazement and indignation of the child, "Please be careful, because she eats a good deal too much." Another peculiarity, which I have already referred to, was his objection to being invited to dinners or any other social gatherings; he made a rule of never accepting invitations. "Because you have invited me, therefore I cannot come," was the usual form of his refusal. I suppose the reason of this was his hatred of the interference with work which engagements of this sort occasion. He had an extreme horror of infection, as will appear from the following illustration. Miss Isa Bowman and her sister, Nellie, were at one time staying with him at Eastbourne, when news came from home that their youngest sister had caught the scarlet fever. From that day every letter which came from Mrs. Bowman to the children was held up by Mr. Dodgson, while the two little girls, standing at the opposite end of the room, had to read it as best they could. Mr. Dodgson, who was the soul of honour, used always to turn his head to one side during these readings, lest he might inadvertently see some words that were not meant for his eyes. Some extracts from letters of his to a child-friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, follow: _November_ 30, 1879. I have been awfully busy, and I've had to write _heaps_ of letters--wheelbarrows full, almost. And it tires me so that generally I go to bed again the next minute after I get up: and sometimes I go to bed again a minute _before_ I get up! Did you ever hear of any one being so tired as _that?_... _November_ 7, 1882. My dear E--, How often you must find yourself in want of a pin! For instance, you go into a shop, and you say to the man, "I want the largest penny bun you can let me have for a halfpenny." And perhaps the man looks stupid, and doesn't quite understand what you mean. Then how convenient it is to have a pin ready to stick into the back of his hand, while you say, "Now then! Look sharp, stupid!"... and even when you don't happen to want a pin, how often you think to yourself, "They say Interlacken is a very pretty place. I wonder what it looks like!" (That is the place that is painted on this pincushion.) When you don't happen to want either a pin or pictures, it may just remind you of a friend who sometimes thinks of his dear little friend E--, and who is just now thinking of the day he met her on the parade, the first time she had been allowed to come out alone to look for him.... _December_ 26, 1886. My dear E--, Though rushing, rapid rivers roar between us (if you refer to the map of England, I think you'll find that to be correct), we still remember each other, and feel a sort of shivery affection for each other.... _March_ 31, 1890. I _do_ sympathise so heartily with you in what you say about feeling shy with children when you have to entertain them! Sometimes they are a real _terror_ to me--especially boys: little girls I can now and then get on with, when they're few enough. They easily become "de trop." But with little _boys_ I'm out of my element altogether. I sent "Sylvie and Bruno" to an Oxford friend, and, in writing his thanks, he added, "I think I must bring my little boy to see you." So I wrote to say "_don't_," or words to that effect: and he wrote again that he could hardly believe his eyes when he got my note. He thought I doted on _all_ children. But I'm _not_ omnivorous!--like a pig. I pick and choose.... You are a lucky girl, and I am rather inclined to envy you, in having the leisure to read Dante--_I_ have never read a page of him; yet I am sure the "Divina Commedia" is one of the grandest books in the world--though I am _not_ sure whether the reading of it would _raise_ one's life and give it a nobler purpose, or simply be a grand poetical treat. That is a question you are beginning to be able to answer: I doubt if _I_ shall ever (at least in this life) have the opportunity of reading it; my life seems to be all torn into little bits among the host of things I want to do! It seems hard to settle what to do _first. One_ piece of work, at any rate, I am clear ought to be done this year, and it will take months of hard work: I mean the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno." I fully _mean_, if I have life and health till Xmas next, to bring it out then. When one is close on sixty years old, it seems presumptuous to count on years and years of work yet to be done.... She is rather the exception among the hundred or so of child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too: and _that_ it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow when we meet!... _January_ 1, 1895. ... You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November. But what of that? You have access to the daily papers. Surely you can find out negatively, that I am all right! Go carefully through the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr. Dodgson is going on _well_." * * * * * CHAPTER XI (THE SAME--_continued_.) Books for children--"The Lost Plum-Cake"--"An Unexpected Guest"--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--"Matilda Jane"--Miss Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege. Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent him from taking a great interest in children's books and their writers. He had very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recommending a story to his friends. His cousin, Mrs. Egerton Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him some years ago:-- Dear Georgie,--_Many_ thanks. The book was at Ch. Ch. I've done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, namely, _waited to read it_. I've read it _right through_! In fact, I found it very refreshing, when jaded with my own work at "Sylvie and Bruno" (coming out at Xmas, I hope) to lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of "Evie." I like it very much: and am so glad to have helped to bring it out. It would have been a real loss to the children of England, if you had burned the MS., as you once thought of doing.... [Illustration: Xie Kitchin as a Chinaman. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.] The very last words of his that appeared in print took the form of a preface to one of Mrs. Allen's tales, "The Lost Plum-Cake," (Macmillan & Co., 1898). So far as I know, this was the only occasion on which he wrote a preface for another author's book, and his remarks are doubly interesting as being his last service to the children whom he loved. No apology, then, is needed for quoting from them here:-- Let me seize this opportunity of saying one earnest word to the mothers in whose hands this little book may chance to come, who are in the habit of taking their children to church with them. However well and reverently those dear little ones have been taught to behave, there is no doubt that so long a period of enforced quietude is a severe tax on their patience. The hymns, perhaps, tax it least: and what a pathetic beauty there is in the sweet fresh voices of the children, and how earnestly they sing! I took a little girl of six to church with me one day: they had told me she could hardly read at all--but she made me find all the places for her! And afterwards I said to her elder sister "What made you say Barbara couldn't read? Why, I heard her joining in, all through the hymn!" And the little sister gravely replied, "She knows the _tunes_, but not the _words_." Well, to return to my subject--children in church. The lessons, and the prayers, are not wholly beyond them: often they can catch little bits that come within the range of their small minds. But the sermons! It goes to one's heart to see, as I so often do, little darlings of five or six years old, forced to sit still through a weary half-hour, with nothing to do, and not one word of the sermon that they can understand. Most heartily can I sympathise with the little charity-girl who is said to have written to some friend, "I think, when I grows up, I'll never go to church no more. I think I'se getting sermons enough to last me all my life!" But need it be so? Would it be so _very_ irreverent to let your child have a story-book to read during the sermon, to while away that tedious half-hour, and to make church-going a bright and happy memory, instead of rousing the thought, "I'll never go to church no more"? I think not. For my part, I should love to see the experiment tried. I am quite sure it would be a success. My advice would be to _keep_ some books for that special purpose. I would call such books "Sunday-treats"--and your little boy or girl would soon learn to look forward with eager hope to that half-hour, once so tedious. If I were the preacher, dealing with some subject too hard for the little ones, I should love to see them all enjoying their picture-books. And if _this_ little book should ever come to be used as a "Sunday-treat" for some sweet baby reader, I don't think it could serve a better purpose. Lewis Carroll. Miss M.E. Manners was another writer for children whose books pleased him. She gives an amusing account of two visits which he paid to her house in 1889:-- _An Unexpected Guest._ "Mr. Dobson wants to see you, miss." I was in the kitchen looking after the dinner, and did not feel that I particularly wished to see anybody. "He wants a vote, or he is an agent for a special kind of tea," thought I. "I don't know him; ask him to send a message." Presently the maid returned-- "He says he is Mr. Dodgson, of Oxford." "Lewis Carroll!" I exclaimed; and somebody else had to superintend the cooking that day. My apologies were soon made and cheerfully accepted. I believe I was unconventional enough to tell the exact truth concerning my occupation, and matters were soon on a friendly footing. Indeed I may say at once that the stately college don we have heard so much about never made his appearance during our intercourse with him. He did not talk "Alice," of course; authors don't generally _talk_ their books, I imagine; but it was undoubtedly Lewis Carroll who was present with us. A portrait of Ellen Terry on the wall had attracted his attention, and one of the first questions he asked was, "Do you ever go to the theatre?" I explained that such things were done, occasionally, even among Quakers, but they were not considered quite orthodox. "Oh, well, then you will not be shocked, and I may venture to produce my photographs." And out into the hall he went, and soon returned with a little black bag containing character portraits of his child-friends, Isa and Nellie Bowman. "Isa used to be Alice until she grew too big," he said. "Nellie was one of the oyster-fairies, and Emsie, the tiny one of all, was the Dormouse." "When 'Alice' was first dramatised," he said, "the poem of the 'Walrus and the Carpenter' fell rather flat, for people did not know when it was finished, and did not clap in the right place; so I had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters to sing, which made it all right." [Illustration: Alice and the Dormouse. _From a photograph by Elliott & Fry_.] He was then on his way to London, to fetch Isa to stay with him at Eastbourne. She was evidently a great favourite, and had visited him before. Of that earlier time he said:-- "When people ask me why I have never married, I tell them I have never met the young lady whom I could endure for a fortnight--but Isa and I got on so well together that I said I should keep her a month, the length of the honeymoon, and we didn't get tired of each other." Nellie afterwards joined her sister "for a few days," but the days spread to some weeks, for the poor little dormouse developed scarlet fever, and the elder children had to be kept out of harm's way until fear of infection was over. Of Emsie he had a funny little story to tell. He had taken her to the Aquarium, and they had been watching the seals coming up dripping out of the water. With a very pitiful look she turned to him and said, "Don't they give them any towels?" [The same little girl commiserated the bear, because it had got no tail.] Asked to stay to dinner, he assured us that he never took anything in the middle of the day but a glass of wine and a biscuit; but he would be happy to sit down with us, which he accordingly did and kindly volunteered to carve for us. His offer was gladly accepted, but the appearance of a rather diminutive piece of neck of mutton was somewhat of a puzzle to him. He had evidently never seen such a joint in his life before, and had frankly to confess that he did not know how to set about carving it. Directions only made things worse, and he bravely cut it to pieces in entirely the wrong fashion, relating meanwhile the story of a shy young man who had been asked to carve a fowl, the joints of which had been carefully wired together beforehand by his too attentive friends. The task and the story being both finished, our visitor gazed on the mangled remains, and remarked quaintly: "I think it is just as well I don't want anything, for I don't know where I should find it." At least one member of the party felt she could have managed matters better; but that was a point of very little consequence. A day or two after the first call came a note saying that he would be taking Isa home before long, and if we would like to see her he would stop on the way again. Of course we were only too delighted to have the opportunity, and, though the visit was postponed more than once, it did take place early in August, when he brought both Isa and Nellie up to town to see a performance of "Sweet Lavender." It is needless to remark that we took care, this time, to be provided with something at once substantial and carvable. The children were bright, healthy, happy and childlike little maidens, quite devoted to their good friend, whom they called "Uncle"; and very interesting it was to see them together. But he did not allow any undue liberties either, as a little incident showed. He had been describing a particular kind of collapsible tumbler, which you put in your pocket and carried with you for use on a railway journey. "There now," he continued, turning to the children, "I forgot to bring it with me after all." "Oh Goosie," broke in Isa; "you've been talking about that tumbler for days, and now you have forgotten it." He pulled himself up, and looked at her steadily with an air of grave reproof. Much abashed, she hastily substituted a very subdued "Uncle" for the objectionable "Goosie," and the matter dropped. The principal anecdote on this occasion was about a dog which had been sent into the sea after sticks. He brought them back very properly for some time, and then there appeared to be a little difficulty, and he returned swimming in a very curious manner. On closer inspection it appeared that he had caught hold of his own tail by mistake, and was bringing it to land in triumph. This was told with the utmost gravity, and though we had been requested beforehand not to mention "Lewis Carroll's" books, the temptation was too strong. I could not help saying to the child next me-- "That was like the Whiting, wasn't it?" Our visitor, however, took up the remark, and seemed quite willing to talk about it. "When I wrote that," he said, "I believed that whiting really did have their tails in their mouths, but I have since been told that fishmongers put the tail through the eye, not in the mouth at all." He was not a very good carver, for Miss Bremer also describes a little difficulty he had--this time with the pastry: "An amusing incident occurred when he was at lunch with us. He was requested to serve some pastry, and, using a knife, as it was evidently rather hard, the knife penetrated the d'oyley beneath--and his consternation was extreme when he saw the slice of linen and lace he served as an addition to the tart!" It was, I think, through her connection with the "Alice" play that Mr. Dodgson first came to know Miss Isa Bowman. Her childish friendship for him was one of the joys of his later years, and one of the last letters he wrote was addressed to her. The poem at the beginning of "Sylvie and Bruno" is an acrostic on her name-- Is all our Life, then, but a dream, Seen faintly in the golden gleam Athwart Times's dark, resistless stream? Bowed to the earth with bitter woe, Or laughing at some raree-show, We flutter idly to and fro. Man's little Day in haste we spend, And, from the merry noontide, send No glance to meet the silent end. Every one has heard of Lewis Carroll's hatred of interviewers; the following letter to Miss Manners makes one feel that in some cases, at least, his feeling was justifiable:-- If your Manchester relatives ever go to the play, tell them they ought to see Isa as "Cinderella"--she is evidently a success. And she has actually been "interviewed" by one of those dreadful newspapers reporters, and the "interview" is published with her picture! And such rubbish he makes her talk! She tells him that something or other was "tacitly conceded": and that "I love to see a great actress give expression to the wonderful ideas of the immortal master!" (N.B.--I never let her talk like that when she is with _me_!) Emsie recovered in time to go to America, with her mother and Isa and Nellie: and they all enjoyed the trip much; and Emsie has a London engagement. Only once was an interviewer bold enough to enter Lewis Carroll's _sanctum_. The story has been told in _The Guardian_ (January 19, 1898), but will bear repetition:-- Not long ago Mr. Dodgson happened to get into correspondence with a man whom he had never seen, on some question of religious difficulty, and he invited him to come to his rooms and have a talk on the subject. When, therefore, a Mr. X-- was announced to him one morning, he advanced to meet him with outstretched hand and smiles of welcome. "Come in Mr. X--, I have been expecting you." The delighted visitor thought this a promising beginning, and immediately pulled out a note-book and pencil, and proceeded to ask "the usual questions." Great was Mr. Dodgson's disgust! Instead of his expected friend, here was another man of the same name, and one of the much-dreaded interviewers, actually sitting in his chair! The mistake was soon explained, and the representative of the Press was bowed out as quickly as he had come in. It was while Isa and one of her sisters were staying at Eastbourne that the visit to America was mooted. Mr. Dodgson suggested that it would be well for them to grow gradually accustomed to seafaring, and therefore proposed to take them by steamer to Hastings. This plan was carried out, and the weather was unspeakably bad--far worse than anything they experienced in their subsequent trip across the Atlantic. The two children, who were neither of them very good sailors, experienced sensations that were the reverse of pleasant. Mr. Dodgson did his best to console them, while he continually repeated, "Crossing the Atlantic will be much worse than this." However, even this terrible lesson on the horrors of the sea did not act as a deterrent; it was as unsuccessful as the effort of the old lady in one of his stories: "An old lady I once knew tried to check the military ardour of a little boy by showing him a picture of a battlefield, and describing some of its horrors. But the only answer she got was, 'I'll be a soldier. Tell it again!'" The Bowman children sometimes came over to visit him at Oxford, and he used to delight in showing them over the colleges, and pointing out the famous people whom they encountered. On one of these occasions he was walking with Maggie, then a mere child, when they met the Bishop of Oxford, to whom Mr. Dodgson introduced his little guest. His lordship asked her what she thought of Oxford. "I think," said the little actress, with quite a professional _aplomb,_ "it's the best place in the Provinces!" At which the Bishop was much amused. After the child had returned to town, the Bishop sent her a copy of a little book called "Golden Dust," inscribed "From W. Oxon," which considerably mystified her, as she knew nobody of that name! Another little stage-friend of Lewis Carroll's was Miss Vera Beringer, the "Little Lord Fauntleroy," whose acting delighted all theatre-goers eight or nine years ago. Once, when she was spending a holiday in the Isle of Man, he sent her the following lines:-- There was a young lady of station, "I love man" was her sole exclamation; But when men cried, "You flatter," She replied, "Oh! no matter, Isle of Man is the true explanation." Many of his friendships with children began in a railway carriage, for he always took about with him a stock of puzzles when he travelled, to amuse any little companions whom chance might send him. Once he was in a carriage with a lady and her little daughter, both complete strangers to him. The child was reading "Alice in Wonderland," and when she put her book down, he began talking to her about it. The mother soon joined in the conversation, of course without the least idea who the stranger was with whom she was talking. "Isn't it sad," she said, "about poor Mr. Lewis Carroll? He's gone mad, you know." "Indeed," replied Mr. Dodgson, "I had never heard that." "Oh, I assure you it is quite true," the lady answered. "I have it on the best authority." Before Mr. Dodgson parted with her, he obtained her leave to send a present to the little girl, and a few days afterwards she received a copy of "Through the Looking-Glass," inscribed with her name, and "From the Author, in memory of a pleasant journey." When he gave books to children, he very often wrote acrostics on their names on the fly-leaf. One of the prettiest was inscribed in a copy of Miss Yonge's "Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe," which he gave to Miss Ruth Dymes:-- R ound the wondrous globe I wander wild, U p and down-hill--Age succeeds to youth-- T oiling all in vain to find a child H alf so loving, half so dear as Ruth. In another book, given to her sister Margaret, he wrote:-- M aidens, if a maid you meet A lways free from pout and pet, R eady smile and temper sweet, G reet my little Margaret. A nd if loved by all she be R ightly, not a pampered pet, E asily you then may see 'Tis my little Margaret. Here are two letters to children, the one interesting as a specimen of pure nonsense of the sort which children always like, the other as showing his dislike of being praised. The first was written to Miss Gertrude Atkinson, daughter of an old College friend, but otherwise unknown to Lewis Carroll except by her photograph:-- My dear Gertrude,--So many things have happened since we met last, really I don't know _which_ to begin talking about! For instance, England has been conquered by William the Conqueror. We haven't met since _that_ happened, you know. How did you like it? Were you frightened? And one more thing has happened: I have got your photograph. Thank you very much for it. I like it "awfully." Do they let you say "awfully"? or do they say, "No, my dear; little girls mustn't say 'awfully'; they should say 'very much indeed'"? I wonder if you will ever get as far as Jersey? If not, how _are_ we to meet? Your affectionate friend, C.L. Dodgson. From the second letter, to Miss Florence Jackson, I take the following extract:-- I have two reasons for sending you this fable; one is, that in a letter you wrote me you said something about my being "clever"; and the other is that, when you wrote again you said it again! And _each_ time I thought, "Really, I _must_ write and ask her _not_ to say such things; it is not wholesome reading for me." The fable is this. The cold, frosty, bracing air is the treatment one gets from the world generally--such as contempt, or blame, or neglect; all those are very wholesome. And the hot dry air, that you breathe when you rush to the fire, is the praise that one gets from one's young, happy, rosy, I may even say _florid_ friends! And that's very bad for me, and gives pride--fever, and conceit--cough, and such-like diseases. Now I'm sure you don't want me to be laid up with all these diseases; so please don't praise me _any_ more! The verses to "Matilda Jane" certainly deserve a place in this chapter. To make their meaning clear, I must state that Lewis Carroll wrote them for a little cousin of his, and that Matilda Jane was the somewhat prosaic name of her doll. The poem expresses finely the blind, unreasoning devotion which the infant mind professes for inanimate objects:-- Matilda Jane, you never look At any toy or picture-book; I show you pretty things in vain, You must be blind, Matilda Jane! I ask you riddles, tell you tales, But all our conversation fails; You never answer me again, I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane! Matilda, darling, when I call You never seem to hear at all; I shout with all my might and main, But you're _so_ deaf, Matilda Jane! Matilda Jane, you needn't mind, For though you're deaf, and dumb, and blind, There's some one loves you, it is plain, And that is _me_, Matilda Jane! In an earlier chapter I gave some of Mr. Dodgson's letters to Miss Edith Rix; the two which follow, being largely about children, seem more appropriate here:-- My dear Edith,--Would you tell your mother I was aghast at seeing the address of her letter to me: and I would much prefer "Rev. C.L. Dodgson, Ch. Ch., Oxford." When a letter comes addressed "Lewis Carroll, Ch. Ch.," it either goes to the Dead Letter Office, or it impresses on the minds of all letter-carriers, &c., through whose hands it goes, the very fact I least want them to know. Please offer to your sister all the necessary apologies for the liberty I have taken with her name. My only excuse is, that I know no other; and how _am_ I to guess what the full name is? It _may_ be Carlotta, or Zealot, or Ballot, or Lotus-blossom (a very pretty name), or even Charlotte. Never have I sent anything to a young lady of whom I have a more shadowy idea. Name, an enigma; age, somewhere between 1 and 19 (you've no idea how bewildering it is, alternately picturing her as a little toddling thing of 5, and a tall girl of 15!); disposition--well, I _have_ a fragment of information on _that_ question--your mother says, as to my coming, "It must be when Lottie is at home, or she would never forgive us." Still, I _cannot_ consider the mere fact that she is of an unforgiving disposition as a complete view of her character. I feel sure she has some other qualities besides. Believe me, Yrs affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. My dear child,--It seems quite within the bounds of possibility, if we go on long in this style, that our correspondence may at last assume a really friendly tone. I don't of course say it will actually do so--that would be too bold a prophecy, but only that it may tend to shape itself in that direction. Your remark, that slippers for elephants _could_ be made, only they would not be slippers, but boots, convinces me that there is a branch of your family in _Ireland_. Who are (oh dear, oh dear, I am going distracted! There's a lady in the opposite house who simply sings _all_ day. All her songs are wails, and their tunes, such as they have, are much the same. She has one strong note in her voice, and she knows it! I _think_ it's "A natural," but I haven't much ear. And when she gets to that note, she howls!) they? The O'Rixes, I suppose? About your uninteresting neighbours, I sympathise with you much; but oh, I wish I had you here, that I might teach you _not_ to say "It is difficult to visit one's district regularly, like every one else does!" And now I come to the most interesting part of your letter-- May you treat me as a perfect friend, and write anything you like to me, and ask my advice? Why, _of course_ you may, my child! What else am I good for? But oh, my dear child-friend, you cannot guess how such words sound to _me_! That any one should look up to _me_, or think of asking _my_ advice--well, it makes one feel humble, I think, rather than proud--humble to remember, while others think so well of me, what I really _am_, in myself. "Thou, that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" Well, I won't talk about myself, it is not a healthy topic. Perhaps it may be true of _any_ two people, that, if one could see the other through and through, love would perish. I don't know. Anyhow, I like to _have_ the love of my child-friends, tho' I know I don't deserve it. Please write as freely as _ever_ you like. I went up to town and fetched Phoebe down here on Friday in last week; and we spent _most_ of Saturday upon the beach--Phoebe wading and digging, and "as happy as a bird upon the wing" (to quote the song she sang when first I saw her). Tuesday evening brought a telegram to say she was wanted at the theatre next morning. So, instead of going to bed, Phoebe packed her things, and we left by the last train, reaching her home by a quarter to 1 a.m. However, even four days of sea-air, and a new kind of happiness, did her good, I think. I am rather lonely now she is gone. She is a very sweet child, and a thoughtful child, too. It was very touching to see (we had a little Bible-reading every day: I tried to remember that my little friend had a soul to be cared for, as well as a body) the far-away look in her eyes, when we talked of God and of heaven--as if her angel, who beholds His face continually, were whispering to her. Of course, there isn't _much_ companionship possible, after all, between an old man's mind and a little child's, but what there is is sweet--and wholesome, I think. Three letters of his to a child-friend, Miss Kathleen Eschwege, now Mrs. Round, illustrate one of those friendships which endure: the sort of friendship that he always longed for, and so often failed to secure:-- [Illustrations and: Facsimile of a "Looking-Glass Letter" from Lewis Carroll to Miss Edith Ball.] Ch. Ch., Oxford, _October_ 24, 1879. My dear Kathleen,--I was really pleased to get your letter, as I had quite supposed I should never see or hear of you again. You see I knew only your Christian name--not the ghost of a surname, or the shadow of an address--and I was not prepared to spend my little all in advertisements--"If the young lady, who was travelling on the G.W. Railway, &c." --or to devote the remainder of my life to going about repeating "Kathleen," like that young woman who came from some foreign land to look for her lover, but only knew that he was called "Edward" (or "Richard" was it? I dare say you know History better than I do) and that he lived in England; so that naturally it took her some time to find him. All I knew was that _you_ could, if you chose, write to me through Macmillan: but it is three months since we met, so I was _not_ expecting it, and it was a pleasant surprise. Well, so I hope I may now count you as one of my child-friends. I am fond of children (except boys), and have more child-friends than I could possibly count on my fingers, even if I were a centipede (by the way, _have_ they fingers? I'm afraid they're only feet, but, of course, they use them for the same purpose, and that is why no other insects, _except centipedes_, ever succeed in doing _Long Multiplication_), and I have several not so very far from you--one at Beckenham, two at Balham, two at Herne Hill, one at Peckham--so there is every chance of my being somewhere near you _before the year_ 1979. If so, may I call? I am _very_ sorry your neck is no better, and I wish they would take you to Margate: Margate air will make _any_ body well of _any_ thing. It seems you have already got my two books about "Alice." Have you also got "The Hunting of the Snark"? If not, I should be very glad to send you one. The pictures (by Mr. Holiday) are pretty: and you needn't read the verses unless you like. How do you pronounce your surname? "esk-weej"? or how? Is it a German name? If you can do "Doublets," with how many links do you turn KATH into LEEN? With kind remembrances to your mother, I am Your affectionate friend, Charles L. Dodgson (_alias_ "Lewis Carroll"). Ch. Ch., Oxford, _January_ 20, 1892. My dear Kathleen,--Some months ago I heard, from my cousin, May Wilcox, that you were engaged to be married. And, ever since, I have cherished the intention of writing to offer my congratulations. Some might say, "Why not write _at once?"_ To such unreasoning creatures, the obvious reply is, "When you have bottled some peculiarly fine Port, do you usually begin to drink it _at once?"_ Is not that a beautiful simile? Of course, I need not remark that my congratulations are like fine old Port--only finer, and _older!_ Accept, my dear old friend, my _heartiest_ wishes for happiness, of all sorts and sizes, for yourself, and for him whom you have chosen as your other self. And may you love one another with a love second only to your love for God--a love that will last through bright days and dark days, in sickness and in health, through life and through death. A few years ago I went, in the course of about three months, to the weddings of three of my old child-friends. But weddings are not very exhilarating scenes for a miserable old bachelor; and I think you'll have to excuse me from attending _yours_. However, I have so far concerned myself in it that I actually _dreamed_ about it a few nights ago! I dreamed that you had had a photograph done of the wedding-party, and had sent me a copy of it. At one side stood a group of ladies, among whom I made out the faces of Dolly and Ninty; and in the foreground, seated in a boat, were two people, a gentleman and a lady I _think_ (could they have been the bridegroom and the bride?) engaged in the natural and usual occupation for a riverside picnic--pulling a Christmas cracker! I have no idea what put such an idea into my head. _I_ never saw crackers used in such a scene! I hope your mother goes on well. With kindest regards to her and your father, and love to your sisters--and to yourself too, if HE doesn't object!--I am, Yours affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. P.S.--I never give wedding-presents; so please regard the enclosed as an _unwedding_ present. Ch. Ch., Oxford, _December_ 8, 1897. My dear Kathleen,--Many thanks for the photo of yourself and your _fiancé_, which duly reached me January 23, 1892. Also for a wedding-card, which reached me August 28, 1892. Neither of these favours, I fear, was ever acknowledged. Our only communication since, has been, that on December 13, 1892, I sent you a biscuit-box adorned with "Looking-Glass" pictures. This _you_ never acknowledged; so I was properly served for my negligence. I hope your little daughter, of whose arrival Mrs. Eschwege told me in December, 1893, has been behaving well? How quickly the years slip by! It seems only yesterday that I met, on the railway, a little girl who was taking a sketch of Oxford! Your affectionate old friend, C.L. Dodgson. The following verses were inscribed in a copy of "Alice's Adventures," presented to the three Miss Drurys in August, 1869:-- _To three puzzled little girls, from the Author._ Three little maidens weary of the rail, Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale, Three little hands held out in readiness, For three little puzzles very hard to guess. Three pairs of little eyes, open wonder-wide, At three little scissors lying side by side. Three little mouths that thanked an unknown Friend, For one little book, he undertook to send. Though whether they'll remember a friend, or book, or day-- In three little weeks is very hard to say. He took the same three children to German Reed's entertainment, where the triple bill consisted of "Happy Arcadia," "All Abroad," and "Very Catching." A few days afterwards he sent them "Phantasmagoria," with a little poem on the fly-leaf to remind them of their treat:-- Three little maids, one winter day, While others went to feed, To sing, to laugh, to dance, to play, More wisely went to--Reed. Others, when lesson-time's begun, Go, half inclined to cry, Some in a walk, some in a run; But _these_ went in a--Fly. I give to other little maids A smile, a kiss, a look, Presents whose memory quickly fades, I give to these--a Book. _Happy Arcadia _may blind, While _all abroad,_ their eyes; At home, this book (I trust) they'll find A _very catching_ prize. The next three letters were addressed to two of Mr. Arthur Hughes' children. They are good examples of the wild and delightful nonsense with which Lewis Carroll used to amuse his little friends:-- My dear Agnes,--You lazy thing! What? I'm to divide the kisses myself, am I? Indeed I won't take the trouble to do anything of the sort! But I'll tell _you_ how to do it. First, you must take _four_ of the kisses, and--and that reminds me of a very curious thing that happened to me at half-past four yesterday. Three visitors came knocking at my door, begging me to let them in. And when I opened the door, who do you think they were? You'll never guess. Why, they were three cats! Wasn't it curious? However, they all looked so cross and disagreeable that I took up the first thing I could lay my hand on (which happened to be the rolling-pin) and knocked them all down as flat as pan-cakes! "If _you_ come knocking at _my_ door," I said, "_I_ shall come knocking at _your_ heads." "That was fair, wasn't it?" Yours affectionately, Lewis Carroll. My dear Agnes,--About the cats, you know. Of course I didn't leave them lying flat on the ground like dried flowers: no, I picked them up, and I was as kind as I could be to them. I lent them the portfolio for a bed--they wouldn't have been comfortable in a real bed, you know: they were too thin--but they were _quite_ happy between the sheets of blotting-paper--and each of them had a pen-wiper for a pillow. Well, then I went to bed: but first I lent them the three dinner-bells, to ring if they wanted anything in the night. You know I have _three_ dinner-bells--the first (which is the largest) is rung when dinner is _nearly_ ready; the second (which is rather larger) is rung when it is quite ready; and the third (which is as large as the other two put together) is rung all the time I am at dinner. Well, I told them they might ring if they happened to want anything--and, as they rang _all_ the bells _all_ night, I suppose they did want something or other, only I was too sleepy to attend to them. In the morning I gave them some rat-tail jelly and buttered mice for breakfast, and they were as discontented as they could be. They wanted some boiled pelican, but of course I knew it wouldn't be good _for_ them. So all I said was "Go to Number Two, Finborough Road, and ask for Agnes Hughes, and if it's _really_ good for you, she'll give you some." Then I shook hands with them all, and wished them all goodbye, and drove them up the chimney. They seemed very sorry to go, and they took the bells and the portfolio with them. I didn't find this out till after they had gone, and then I was sorry too, and wished for them back again. What do I mean by "them"? Never mind. How are Arthur, and Amy, and Emily? Do they still go up and down Finborough Road, and teach the cats to be kind to mice? I'm _very_ fond of all the cats in Finborough Road. Give them my love. Who do I mean by "them"? Never mind. Your affectionate friend, Lewis Carroll. [Illustration: Arthur Hughes and his daughter Agnes. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._] My dear Amy,--How are you getting on, I wonder, with guessing those puzzles from "Wonderland"? If you think you've found out any of the answers, you may send them to me; and if they're wrong, I won't tell you they're right! You asked me after those three cats. Ah! The dear creatures! Do you know, ever since that night they first came, they have _never left me?_ Isn't it kind of them? Tell Agnes this. She will be interested to hear it. And they _are_ so kind and thoughtful! Do you know, when I had gone out for a walk the other day, they got _all_ my books out of the bookcase, and opened them on the floor, to be ready for me to read. They opened them all at page 50, because they thought that would be a nice useful page to begin at. It was rather unfortunate, though: because they took my bottle of gum, and tried to gum pictures upon the ceiling (which they thought would please me), and by accident they spilt a quantity of it all over the books. So when they were shut up and put by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again in any of them! However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn't angry. I gave them each a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that, and made dreadful faces. But, of course, as it was given them as a treat, they had to drink it. One of them has turned black since: it was a white cat to begin with. Give my love to any children you happen to meet. Also I send two kisses and a half, for you to divide with Agnes, Emily, and Godfrey. Mind you divide them fairly. Yours affectionately, C.L. Dodgson. The intelligent reader will make a discovery about the first of the two following letters, which Miss Maggie Cunningham, the "child-friend" to whom both were addressed, perhaps did not hit upon at once. Mr. Dodgson wrote these two letters in 1868:-- Dear Maggie,--I found that _the friend, _that the little girl asked me to write to, lived at Ripon, and not at Land's End--a nice sort of place to invite to! It looked rather suspicious to me--and soon after, by dint of incessant inquiries, I found out that _she_ was called Maggie, and lived in a Crescent! Of course I declared, "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will _not_ address her, that's flat! So do not expect me to flatter." Well, I hope you will soon see your beloved Pa come back--for consider, should you be quite content with only Jack? Just suppose they made a blunder! (Such things happen now and then.) Really, now, I shouldn't wonder if your "John" came home again, and your father stayed at school! A most awkward thing, no doubt. How would you receive him? You'll say, perhaps, "you'd turn him out." That would answer well, so far as concerns the boy, you know--but consider your Papa, learning lessons in a row of great inky schoolboys! This (though unlikely) might occur: "Haly" would be grieved to miss him (don't mention it to _her_). No _carte_ has yet been done of me, that does real justice to my _smile_; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one. However, I'll consider if I will or not--meanwhile, I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing. The merest sketch, you will allow--yet still I think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand. Have you read my fairy tale in _Aunt Judy's Magazine?_ If you have you will not fail to discover what I mean when I say "Bruno yesterday came to remind me that _he_ was my god-son!"--on the ground that I "gave him a name"! Your affectionate friend, C.L. Dodgson. P.S.--I would send, if I were not too shy, the same message to "Haly" that she (though I do not deserve it, not I!) has sent through her sister to me. My best love to yourself--to your Mother my kindest regards--to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred. I think that is all. [Illustration: What I look like when I'm Lecturing. _From a drawing, by Lewis Carroll._] My dear Maggie,--I am a very bad correspondent, I fear, but I hope you won't leave off writing to me on that account. I got the little book safe, and will do my best about putting my name in, if I can only manage to remember what day my birthday is--but one forgets these things so easily. Somebody told me (a little bird, I suppose) that you had been having better photographs done of yourselves. If so, I hope you will let me buy copies. Fanny will pay you for them. But, oh Maggie, how _can_ you ask for a better one of me than the one I sent! It is one of the best ever done! Such grace, such dignity, such benevolence, such--as a great secret (please don't repeat it) the _Queen_ sent to ask for a copy of it, but as it is against my rule to give in such a case, I was obliged to answer-- "Mr. Dodgson presents his compliments to her Majesty, and regrets to say that his rule is never to give his photograph except to _young_ ladies." I am told she was annoyed about it, and said, "I'm not so old as all that comes to!" and one doesn't like to annoy Queens; but really I couldn't help it, you know. I will conclude this chapter with some reminiscences of Lewis Carroll, which have been kindly sent me by an old child-friend of his, Mrs. Maitland, daughter of the late Rev. E.A. Litton, Rector of Naunton, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College and Vice-Principal of Saint Edmund's Hall:-- To my mind Oxford will be never quite the same again now that so many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have "gone over to the great majority." Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced on the old wainscotted wall, have we--father and I--chatted over the old Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we all had together in Long Wall Street. I was a nervous, thin, remarkably ugly child then, and for some years I was left almost entirely to the care of Mary Pearson, my own particular attendant. I first remember Mr. Dodgson when I was about seven years old, and from that time until we went to live in Gloucestershire he was one of my most delightful friends. I shall never forget how Mr. Dodgson and I sat once under a dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, and how he told me, for the first time, Hans Andersen's story of the "Ugly Duckling." I cannot explain the charm of Mr. Dodgson's way of telling stories; as he spoke, the characters seemed to be real flesh and blood. This particular story made a great impression upon me, and interested me greatly, as I was very sensitive about my ugly little self. I remember his impressing upon me that it was better to be good and truthful and to try not to think of oneself than to be a pretty, selfish child, spoiled and disagreeable; and, after telling me this story, he gave me the name of "Ducky." "Never mind, little Ducky," he used often to say, "perhaps some day you will turn out a swan." I always attribute my love for animals to the teaching of Mr. Dodgson: his stories about them, his knowledge of their lives and histories, his enthusiasm about birds and butterflies enlivened many a dull hour. The monkeys in the Botanical Gardens were our special pets, and when we fed them with nuts and biscuits he seemed to enjoy the fun as much as I did. Every day my nurse and I used to take a walk in Christ Church Meadows, and often we would sit down on the soft grass, with the dear old Broad Walk quite close, and, when we raised our eyes, Merton College, with its walls covered with Virginian creeper. And how delighted we used to be to see the well-known figure in cap and gown coming, so swiftly, with his kind smile ready to welcome the "Ugly Duckling." I knew, as he sat beside me, that a book of fairy tales was hidden in his pocket, or that he would have some new game or puzzle to show me--and he would gravely accept a tiny daisy-bouquet for his coat with as much courtesy as if it had been the finest hot-house _boutonnière_. Two or three times I went fishing with him from the bank near the Old Mill, opposite Addison's Walk, and he quite entered into my happiness when a small fish came wriggling up at the end of my bent pin, just ready for the dinner of the little white kitten "Lily," which he had given me. My hair was a great trouble to me, as a child, for it would tangle, and Mary was not too patient with me, as I twisted about while she was trying to dress it. One day I received a long blue envelope addressed to myself, which contained a story-letter, full of drawings, from Mr. Dodgson. The first picture was of a little girl--with her hat off and her tumbled hair very much in evidence--asleep on a rustic bench under a big tree by the riverside, and two birds, holding what was evidently a very important conversation, above in the branches, their heads on one side, eyeing the sleeping child. Then there was a picture of the birds flying up to the child with twigs and straw in their beaks, preparing to build their nest in her hair. Next came the awakening, with the nest completed, and the mother-bird sitting on it; while the father-bird flew round the frightened child. And then, lastly, hundreds of birds--the air thick with them--the child fleeing, small boys with tin trumpets raised to their lips to add to the confusion, and Mary, armed with a basket of brushes and combs, bringing up the rear! After this, whenever I was restive while my hair was being arranged, Mary would show me the picture of the child with the nest on her head, and I at once became "as quiet as a lamb." I had a daily governess, a dear old soul, who used to come every morning to teach me. I disliked particularly the large-lettered copies which she used to set me; and as I confided this to Mr. Dodgson, he came and gave me some copies himself. The only ones which I can remember were "Patience and water-gruel cure gout" (I always wondered what "gout" might be) and "Little girls should be seen and not heard" (which I thought unkind). These were written many times over, and I had to present the pages to him, without one blot or smudge, at the end of the week. One of the Fellows of Magdalen College at that time was a Mr. Saul, a friend of my father's and of Mr. Dodgson, and a great lover of music--his rooms were full of musical instruments of every sort. Mr. Dodgson and father and I all went one afternoon to pay him a visit. At that time he was much interested in the big drum, and we found him when we arrived in full practice, with his music-book open before him. He made us all join in the concert. Father undertook the 'cello, and Mr. Dodgson hunted up a comb and some paper, and, amidst much fun and laughter, the walls echoed with the finished roll, or shake, of the big drum--a roll that was Mr. Saul's delight. My father died on August 27, 1897, and Mr. Dodgson on January 14, 1898. And we, who are left behind in this cold, weary world can only hope we may some day meet them again. Till then, oh! Father, and my dear old childhood's friend, _requiescalis in pace!_ * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY "NOTES ON THE FIRST TWO BOOKS OF EUCLID." 1860 Oxford: Parker. 8vo. 6d "PHOTOGRAPHS." (?)1860 (Printed for private circulation; a list of negatives taken by the Rev. C. L. Dodgson.) Pp. 4, 4to "A SYLLABUS OF PLANE ALGEBRAICAL GEOMETRY," 1860 systematically arranged, with formal definitions, postulates, and axioms. By Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Part I. Containing Points, Right Lines, Rectilinear Figures, Pencils and Circles. Oxford: Parker. Pp. xvi + 164, 8vo. Cloth, paper label. 5s "RULES FOR COURT CIRCULAR." 1860 (A new game, invented by the Rev. C.L. Dodgson.) Pp. 4. (Reprinted in 1862). "THE FORMUL� OF PLANE TRIGONOMETRY," 1861 printed with symbols (instead of words) to express the "goniometrical ratios." By Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Oxford: Parker. Pp. 19, 4to. Stitched, 1s. "NOTES ON THE FIRST PART OF ALGEBRA." 1861 Oxford: Parker. 8vo. 6d "INDEX TO 'IN MEMORIAM.'" 1862 [Suggested and edited by the Rev. C.L. Dodgson; much of the actual work of compilation was done by his sisters] London: Moxon. "THE ENUNCIATIONS OF EUCLID, Books I. and II." 1863 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "GENERAL LIST OF (MATHEMATICAL) SUBJECTS, AND 1863 CYCLE FOR WORKING EXAMPLES." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "CROQU�T CASTLES." 1863 (A new game invented by the Rev. C.L. Dodgson). London(?) Pp. 4. (Reprinted, with additions and alterations, in 1866 at Oxford.) "THE NEW EXAMINATION STATUTE." 1864 (A letter to the Vice-Chancellor.) Pp. 2, 4 to. Oxford. "A GUIDE TO THE MATHEMATICAL STUDENT IN READING, 1864 REVIEWING, AND WORKING EXAMPLES." By Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Part I. Pure Mathematics. Oxford: Parker. Two leaves and pp. 27, 8vo. Stitched, 1s. "THE DYNAMICS OF A PARTI-CLE, with an Excursus on 1865 the New Method of Evaluation as applied to pi." Oxford: Vincent. Pp. 28, 8vo. (Three editions). "ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND." By Lewis 1865 Carroll, with forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. London: Macmillan. Pp. 192, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 6s. The 1st edition (recalled) was printed in Oxford, and is very rare; all subsequent editions (1865 onwards) by Richard Clay in London. Now in its 86th thousand. [People's Edition, price 2s. 6d.; first published in 1887. Now in its 70th thousand.] "CONDENSATION OF DETERMINANTS," being a new and 1866 brief method for computing their arithmetical values. By the Rev. C.L. Dodgson. From "The Proceedings of the Royal Society, No. 84, 1866." London: Taylor and Francis. Pp. 8, 8vo. "AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON DETERMINANTS." 1867 London: Macmillan. (Printed in Oxford.) Pp. viii + 143, 4to. Cloth. 10s. 6d. "THE FIFTH BOOK OF EUCLID TREATED ALGEBRAICALLY, 1868 SO FAR AS IT RELATES TO COMMENSURABLE MAGNITUDES." With notes. By Charles L. Dodgson. Oxford and London: Parker. Two leaves and pp. 37, 8vo. In wrapper, 1s. 6d. "ALGEBRAICAL FORMUL� FOR RESPONSIONS." 1868 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "THE TELEGRAPH CIPHER." (?)1868 (Invented, in 1868, by the Rev. C.L. Dodgson.) "PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS." 1869 By Lewis Carroll. London: Macmillan. (Printed in Oxford.) Pp. viii + 202, small 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. "AVENTURES D'ALICE AU PAYS DE MERVEILLES." 1869 Par Lewis Carroll, ouvrage illustré de 42 vignettes par John Tenniel. Traduit de l'anglais, par H. Bué. London: Macmillan. Pp. 196, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 6s. (Now in its 2nd thousand.) "ALICE'S ABENTEUER IM WUNDERLAND." Von Lewis 1869 Carroll, mit zweiundvierzig Illustrationen von John Tenniel. Uebersetzt von Antonie Zimmermann. London: Macmillan. Pp. 178, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 6s. "GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY." 1870 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "ALGEBRAICAL FORMUL� AND RULES." 1870 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "ARITHMETICAL FORMUL� AND RULES." 1870 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "TO ALL CHILD READERS OF 'ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN 1871 WONDERLAND.'" Pp. 4 "THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND 1871 THERE." By Lewis Carroll. With fifty illustrations by John Tenniel. London: Macmillan. Pp. 224., cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 6s. Now in its 61st thousand [People's edition. Price 2s. 6d. First published in 1887. Now in its 46th thousand.] "LE AVVENTURE D'ALICE NEL PAESE DELLA MERAVIGLIE." 1872 Per Lewis Carroll. Tradotte dall'inglese da T. Pietrocòla-Rossetti. Con 42 vignette di Giovanni Tenniel. London: Macmillan. Pp. 189, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 6s. CIRCULAR TO HOSPITALS OFFERING COPIES OF THE TWO 1872 "ALICE" BOOKS. London: Macmillan. "SYMBOLS, &c., TO BE USED IN EUCLID, 1872 Books I. and II." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "NUMBER OF PROPOSITIONS IN EUCLID." Oxford: 1872 Printed at the University Press. "THE NEW BELFRY OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD." A 1872 Monograph. By D.C.L. Oxford: Parker. Pp. 2 + 31, cr. 8vo. In wrapper. 6d. (Five editions.) "ENUNCIATIONS, EUCLID, I.-VI." 1873 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "OBJECTIONS, SUBMITTED TO THE GOVERNING BODY of 1873 Christ Church, Oxford, against certain proposed alterations in the Great Quadrangle." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. Pp. 4, 4to. [Printed for Private Circulation.] "THE VISION OF THE THREE T's." A Threnody. By the 1873 Author of "The New Belfry." Oxford. Parker. Pp. 37 + 3, 8vo. In wrapper, 9d. (Three editions.) "A DISCUSSION OF THE VARIOUS MODES OF PROCEDURE IN 1873 CONDUCTING ELECTIONS." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "EUCLID, BOOK V. PROVED ALGEBRAICALLY," so far as 1874 it relates to Commensurable Magnitudes. To which is prefixed a summary of all the necessary algebraical operations, arranged in order of difficulty. By Charles L. Dodgson. Oxford: Parker. Pp. viii + 62, 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. "SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE BEST METHOD OF TAKING VOTES, 1874 where more than two Issues are to be voted on." Oxford: Hall and Stacy. Pp. 8, 8vo. "THE BLANK CHEQUE." A Fable. By the Author of "The 1874 New Belfry," and "The Vision of The Three T's" Oxford: Parker. Pp. 14 + 2, cr. 8vo. In wrapper. 4d. "PRELIMINARY ALGEBRA, AND EUCLID Book V." 1874 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "THE DYNAMICS OF A PARTI-CLE." 1874 Oxford: Parker. Pp. 24, cr. 8vo. In wrapper. 6d. "THE NEW METHOD OF EVALUATION AS APPLIED TO pi." 1874 Oxford: Parker. Pp. 16, cr. 8vo. In wrapper. 4d. "FACTS, FIGURES, AND FANCIES," relating to the 1874 Elections to the Hebdomadal Council, the Offer of the Clarendon Trustees, and the Proposal to convert the Parks into Cricket-Grounds. Oxford: Parker. Pp. 29 + 3, cr. 8vo. In wrapper. 8d. "NOTES BY AN OXFORD CHIEL." 1874 Oxford: Parker. Cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. [This book consists of the following six pamphlets bound together--"The New Method of Evaluation," "The Dynamics of a Particle," "Facts, Figures, and Fancies," "The New Belfry," "The Vision of the Three T's," and "The Blank Cheque."] "EXAMPLES IN ARITHMETIC." 1874 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "EUCLID, BOOKS I. and II." Edited by Charles L. 1875 Dodgson. Oxford: Parker. Diagram, Title, Preface, and pp. 102, cr. 8vo. Cloth. [The book was circulated privately among Mathematical friends for hints. "Not yet published" was printed above title.] "THE PROFESSORSHIP OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY." 1876 (Three leaflets.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "A METHOD OF TAKING VOTES OF MORE THAN TWO 1876 ISSUES." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. Pp. 20, cr. 8vo. [A note on the title-page runs as follows: "As I hope to investigate this subject further, and to publish a more complete pamphlet on the subject, I shall feel greatly obliged if you will enter in this copy any remarks that occur to you, and return it to me any time before--"] LETTER AND QUESTIONS TO HOSPITALS. Oxford: 1876 Printed at the University Press. "AN EASTER GREETING." [Reprinted in London, by 1876 Macmillan & Co., in 1880.] "FAME'S PENNY TRUMPET." Not published. 1876 Oxford: Baxter. Pp. 4, 4to. [Afterwards published in "Rhyme? and Reason?"] "THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK." An Agony, in Eight 1876 Fits. By Lewis Carroll. With nine illustrations by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan. Pp. xi + 83, 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 4s.. 6d. "THE RESPONSIONS OF HILARY TERM, 1877." 1877 (A letter to the Vice-Chancellor.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "A CHARADE." (Written with a cyclostyle.) Pp. 4. 1878 "WORD-LINKS." (A game, afterwards called 1878 "DOUBLETS," invented by the Rev. C.L. Dodgson.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. Pp. 4, 8vo.[There is also a form written with a cyclostyle.] "DOUBLETS." A Word-Puzzle. By Lewis Carroll. 1879 London: Macmillan. Pp. 73, 8vo. Cloth. 2s. (2nd edition, 1880.) "EUCLID AND HIS MODERN RIVALS." 1879 London: Macmillan. 8vo. Cloth. 6s. (2nd edition, 1885. Pp. xxxi + 275.) "DOUBLETS." A Word-Puzzle. By Lewis Carroll. 1880 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. Pp. 8. 8vo. [This Puzzle appeared in Vanity Fair, April 19, 1879.] "LETTER FROM MABEL TO EMILY." To illustrate common 1880 errors in letter-writing. (Written with a cyclostyle.) "LIZE'S AVONTUREN IN HET WONDERLAND." (?)1881 Naar het Engelsch. [A Dutch version of "Alice in Wonderland."] Nijmegen. 4to. "ON CATCHING COLD." (A pamphlet, consisting of 1881 extracts from two books by Dr. Inman.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "JABBERWOCKY." (Lewis Carroll's Poem, with A.A. 1881 Vansittart's Latin rendering.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. NOTICE RE CONCORDANCE TO "IN MEMORIAM." 1881 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "LANRICK." A Game for Two Players. 1881 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. A CIRCULAR ABOUT THE "SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ART." 1882 Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "AN ANALYSIS OF THE RESPONSIONS-LISTS FROM 1882 MICHAELMAS, 1873, to Michaelmas, 1881." Oxford: Printed at the University Press. CIRCULAR ASKING FOR SUGGESTIONS FOR A GIRLS' 1882 EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. Oxford: Printed at the University Press. [Two different forms, one pp. 2, the other pp. 4.] "EUCLID, BOOKS I. and II." 1882 London: Macmillan. Printed in Oxford. Pp. xi + 108. 8vo. Cloth. 2s. [Seven editions were subsequently published.] "DREAMLAND." A Song. Words by Lewis Carroll; music 1882 by Rev. C. E. Hutchinson. Oxford: Printed at the University Press. "MISCHMASCH." (A game invented by the Rev. C. L. 1882 Dodgson.) Oxford: Printed at the University Press. Two editions. "RHYME? AND REASON?" By Lewis Carroll. With 1883 sixty-five illustrations by Arthur B. Frost, and nine by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan. Pp. xii + 214, cr. 8vo. Cloth, 7s. (Now in its 6th thousand.) [This book is a reprint, with a few additions, of "The Hunting of the Snark," and of the comic portions of "Phantasmagoria and Other Poems."] "LAWN TENNIS TOURNAMENTS: THE TRUE METHOD OF 1883 ASSIGNING PRIZES, with a Proof of the Fallacy of the Present Method." London: Macmillan. Printed in Oxford. 8vo. "RULES FOR RECKONING POSTAGE." 1883 Oxford: Baxter. "TWELVE MONTHS IN A CURATORSHIP." 1884 By One who has tried it. Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 52, 8vo SUPPLEMENT TO DITTO. 1884 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 8, 8vo POSTSCRIPT TO DITTO. 1884 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 2, 8vo. "CHRISTMAS GREETINGS." 1884 London: Macmillan. "THE PROFITS OF AUTHORSHIP." By Lewis Carroll. 1884 London: Macmillan. 8vo. 6d. "THE PRINCIPLES OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION." 1884 London: Harrison. Pp. 56, 8vo. (Reprinted in 1885.) SUPPLEMENT TO DITTO. 1885 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 8, 8vo. Two editions. POSTSCRIPT TO SUPPLEMENT TO DITTO. 1885 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, 8vo. Two editions. SUPPLEMENT TO FIRST EDITION OF "EUCLID AND HIS 1885 MODERN RIVALS." London: Macmillan. 8vo. 1s "A TANGLED TALE." By Lewis Carroll. With six 1885 illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. London: Macmillan. Printed in Oxford. Pp. 152, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 4s. 6d. (Now in its 4th thousand.) [First appeared in Monthly Packet, April, 1882-November, 1884. There are also separate reprints of each "Knot," and of the Answers to "Knots" I. and II.] "PROPOSED PROCURATORIAL CYCLE." 1885 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, 4to. "THE PROCURATORIAL CYCLE. FURTHER REMARKS." 1885 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 3, 4to. "SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE ELECTION OF PROCTORS." 1885 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, 4to. (Reprinted, with additions, in 1886) "ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND." By Lewis 1886 Carroll. With thirty-seven illustrations by the author. London: Macmillan. Pp. viii + 95, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 4s. (Now in its 4th thousand.) [This book is a facsimile of the original Manuscript story, afterwards developed into "Alice in Wonderland."] "THREE YEARS IN A CURATORSHIP." 1886 By one whom it has tried. Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 32, cr. 8vo. "REMARKS ON THE REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE." 1886 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 8, cr. 8vo. "REMARKS ON MR. SAMPSON'S PROPOSAL." 1886 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, cr. 8vo. "OBSERVATIONS ON MR. SAMPSON'S PROPOSAL." 1889 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 12, 8vo. "FIRST PAPER ON LOGIC." 1886 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 2, 8vo. "FOURTH PAPER ON LOGIC." 1886 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 3, 8vo. "FIFTH PAPER ON LOGIC." 1887 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, 8vo. "SIXTH PAPER ON LOGIC." 1887 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, 8vo. "QUESTIONS IN LOGIC." 1887 Oxford: Printed by E. Baxter. Pp. 4, fcap. fol. "ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND; AND THROUGH THE 1887 LOOKING-GLASS." People's editions, 1 vol. London: Macmillan. Cr. 8vo. Cloth. 4s. 6d. "THE GAME OF LOGIC." By Lewis Carroll. 1887 London: Macmillan. Pp. 96, cr. 8vo. Cloth. 3s. "CURIOSA MATHEMATICA, Part I. A New Theory of 1888 Parallels." By C. L. Dodgson. London: Macmillan. Pp. 75. 8vo. Cloth. 2s. (Reprinted in 1889, 1890, and 1895.) "MEMORIA TECHNICA." [Written with a cyclostyle.] 1888 Pp. 4 "CIRCULAR BILLIARDS FOR TWO PLAYERS." Invented, in (?)1889 1889, by Lewis Carroll. Two editions "SYLVIE AND BRUNO." By Lewis Carroll. With 1889 forty-six illustrations by Harry Furniss. London: Macmillan. Pp. xxiii + 400, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. (Now in its 13th thousand.) [The picture on p. 77 was drawn by Miss Alice Havers.] "THE NURSERY 'ALICE.'" Containing twenty coloured 1890 enlargements from Tenniel's illustrations to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." With text adapted to nursery readers by Lewis Carroll. The cover designed and coloured by E. Gertrude Thomson. London: Macmillan. Pp. 56, 4to. Boards. 4s. (Now in its 11th thousand.) "EIGHT OR NINE WISE WORDS ABOUT LETTER-WRITING." 1890 By Lewis Carroll. Oxford: Emberlin and Son. (Now in its 5th edition.) [This pamphlet is sold with the "Wonderland" Postage-Stamp Case, published by Messrs. Emberlin and Son.] "THE STRANGER CIRCULAR." (A leaflet sent by Mr. 1890 Dodgson to people who wrote to him about his "Lewis Carroll" books, addressing the envelope to Rev. C. L. Dodgson.) Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. CIRCULAR, asking friends to send addresses of 1890 stationers likely to sell the "Wonderland" Postage-Stamp Case. Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. CIRCULAR SENT TO VARIOUS HOSPITALS, offering free 1890 copies of Lewis Carroll's books. Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. LIST OF INSTITUTIONS to which above was to be sent. 1890 Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. CIRCULAR, ADDRESSED TO THE GOVERNING BODY OF 1891 CHRIST CHURCH, Oxford, about the proposal to invite M.A.'s to dine at High Table. "A POSTAL PROBLEM." June, 1891. 1891 DITTO, Supplement. 1891 A CIRCULAR ABOUT RESIGNATION OF CURATORSHIP. 1892 Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. A CIRCULAR ABOUT "UNPARLIAMENTARY" WORDS 1892 used by some competitors in the "Syzygies" competition in The Lady. Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. "CURIOSISSIMA CURATORIA." By 'Rude Donatus.' 1892 (A Pamphlet sent to all resident members of Christ Church Common Room.) Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. "EIGHTH PAPER ON LOGIC." 1892 Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. [A revised version of one page was printed in same year.] "NINTH PAPER ON LOGIC." 1892 Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. "NOTES TO LOGIC PAPERS EIGHT AND NINE." 1892 Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. "CURIOSA MATHEMATICA, Part III. PILLOW PROBLEMS," 1893 thought out during wakeful hours, by C. L. Dodgson. London, Macmillan: Printed in Oxford. Pp. xvii + 109, 8vo. Cloth, 1st and 2nd editions. (Reprinted in 1894, 1895.) "SYZYGIES AND LANRICK." By Lewis Carroll. 1893 London: The Lady office. Pp. 26. 6d. "SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED." By Lewis Carroll. 1893 With forty-six illustrations by Harry Furniss. London: Macmillan. Pp. xxi + 423, cr. 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. 7s.6d. (Now in its 3rd thousand.) [The picture on p. 409 was drawn by Miss Alice Havers.] "A DISPUTED POINT IN LOGIC." 1894 "WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES." (Reprinted 1894 from Mind, December, 1894.) Pp. 4. "A FASCINATING MENTAL RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG." (?)1895 (A circular about Symbolic Logic, signed "Lewis Carroll.") "RESIDENT WOMEN-STUDENTS." 1896 (A circular, signed "Charles L Dodgson.") Oxford: Printed by Sheppard. "SYMBOLIC LOGIC. Part I. Elementary." By Lewis 1896 Carroll. London: Macmillan. Pp. xxxi + 192, cr. 8vo. Cloth. 2s. (Now in its 4th edition.) "THREE SUNSETS AND OTHER POEMS." By Lewis Carroll. 1898 With twelve Fairy-Fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson. London: Macmillan. Pp. 68, fcap. 4to. Cloth, gilt edges. 4s. [This book is a reprint, with additions, of the serious portions of "Phantasmagoria and Other Poems."] "TO MY CHILD-FRIEND." (A poem, reprinted in "The No date Game of Logic.") Pp. 2 "THE ALPHABET-CIPHER." No date * * * * * INDEX A Abdy, Miss Dora, Albany, The Duchess of, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Alice's Adventures Underground," "Alice" Operetta, The, Alice, Princess, "Alice, The Nursery," Allen, Mrs. Egerton, Anderson, Mrs., Atkinson, Miss G., Atkinson, Rev. F. H., B Baden-Powell, Sir George, Bayne, Rev. T. Vere, Bennie, Mrs., "Blank Cheque, The," Bowman, Miss Isa, Bremer, Miss, "Bruno's Revenge," C Calverley, C. S., Chataway, Miss G., Chevalier, Albert, Circle-squarers, _College Rhymes,_ College Servants, _Comic Times, The,_ Cook Wilson, Professor, Croft, Cunningham, Miss M., D Daresbury, "Deserted Parks, The," "Determinants, An Elementary Treatise On," Dodgson, Archdeacon, Dodgson, Captain, Dodgson, Mrs., "Dotheboys Hall," "Dreamland," Drury, Miss Dymes, Miss "Dynamics of a Parti-cle, The" E Egerton, Lord Francis Elphin, The Bishop of Elsdon Eschwege, Miss K. Eternal Punishment "Euclid and His Modern Rivals" "Euclid, Books I. and II." "Euclid, Book V." Exhibition, The Great F "Facts, Figures, and Fancies" Freiligrath Kroeker, Mrs. Frost, A.B. Furniss, Harry G "Game of Logic, The" Gatty, Mrs. General Elections H Harrison, Frederic Holiday, Henry Hopley, Rev. H. Hughes, Arthur Hughes, Miss Agnes "Hunting of the Snark, The" Hutchinson, Rev. C.E. J _Jabberwock, The_ Jackson, Miss F. Jelf, Canon Jowett, Dr. K Kean, Mrs. Kingsley, Henry Kitchin, Miss Alexandra (Xie) L "Lays of Sorrow" Liddell, Dr. Liddell, Miss Alice Liddon, Canon "Little Minister, The" Longley, Archbishop M Macdonald, George Maitland, Mrs. Manners, Miss M.E. Maurier, George du Mechanical "Humpty Dumpty," The "Memoria Technica" _Misch-Masch_ Moscow N Natural Science "New Belfry, The" "New Method of Evaluation, The" "New Theory of Parallels, The" Nijni Novgorod "Notes by an Oxford Chiel" P Paget, Dean Paget, Sir James Paine, Miss Adelaide Patmore, Coventry Paton, Sir Noel "Phantasmagoria" "Pillow Problems" Potsdam Price, Professor "Profits of Authorship, The" Pusey, Dr. R _Rectory Umbrella, The_ "Rhyme? and Reason?" Richmond Rix, Miss Edith Rugby Ruskin, John S Salisbury, The Marquis of St. Petersburg Sanday, Professor Simpson, Miss Gaynor Smedley, Frank Standen, Miss Isabel "Sylvie and Bruno" "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" "Symbolic Logic, Part I." "Syzygies" T Tait, Archbishop "Tangled Tale, A" Taylor, Tom Tenniel, Sir John Tennyson, Alfred Terry, Miss Ellen Terry, Miss Kate Thackeray, W.M. Thomson, Miss E.G. "Three Sunsets" "Through the Looking-Glass" _Train, The_ "Twelve Months in a Curatorship" V Vansittart, A.A. "Vision of The Three T's, The" Vivisection W Wilberforce, Bishop "Wise Words on Letter-Writing" "Wonderland" Stamp-Case, The Woodhouse, Rev. G.C. Y Yates, Edmund Yonge, Miss Charlotte M. * * * * * FOOTNOTES. [Footnote 001: Perhaps an incorrect expression, as it was only the second attempt.] [Footnote 002: The science of taking medicine in infinitely small doses.] [Footnote 003: 1 _________________________ 1000000000000000000000000 ] [Footnote 004: A Man's history of his own life.] [Footnote 005: The author of "The Bandy-legged Butterfly."] [Footnote 006: Afterwards President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.] [Footnote 007: Or a pulling by the ear.] [Footnote 008: This Rectory has been supposed to have been built in the time of Edward VI., but recent discoveries clearly assign its origin to a much earlier period. A stone has been found in an island formed by the river Tees on which is inscribed the letter "A," which is justly conjectured to stand for the name of the great King Alfred, in whose reign this house was probably built.] [Footnote 009: The poet entreats pardon for having represented a donkey under this dignified name.] [Footnote 010: With reference to these remarkable animals see "Moans from the Miserable," page 12.] [Footnote 011: A full account of the history and misfortunes of these interesting creatures may be found in the first "Lay of Sorrow," page 36.] [Footnote 012: It is a singular fact that a donkey makes a point of returning any kicks offered to it.] [Footnote 013: This valiant knight, besides having a heart of steel and nerves of iron, has been lately in the habit of carrying a brick in his eye.] [Footnote 014: She was sister to both.] [Footnote 015: The reader will probably be at a loss to discover the nature of this triumph, as no object was gained, and the donkey was obviously the victor; on this point, however, we are sorry to say, we can offer no good explanation.] [Footnote 016: Much more acceptable to a true knight than "corn-land" which the Roman people were so foolish as to give to their daring champion, Horatius.] [Footnote 017: Lewis Carroll composed this poem while staying with his cousins, the Misses Wilcox, at Whitburn, near Sunderland. To while away an evening the whole party sat down to a game of verse-making, and "Jabberwocky" was his contribution.] [Footnote 018: Coesper from coena and vesper.] [Footnote 019: Lubriciles, from lubricus and graciles. See the commentary in "Humpty Dumpty's square," which will also explain ultravia, and, if it requires explanation, moestenui.] [Footnote 020: Sanguis meus: Verg. Aen. vi. 836--"Projice tela manu, sanguis meus!"] [Footnote 021: Egnia: "muffish"--segnis; therefore "uffish" = egnis. This is a conjectural analogy, but I can suggest no better solution.] [Footnote 022: Susuffrus: "whiffling," susurrus: "whistling."] [Footnote 023: Spicula: see the picture.] [Footnote 024: Burbur: apparently a labial variation of murmur, stronger but more dissonant.] [Footnote 025: This poem is reproduced here by the kind permission of the proprietors of Punch.] 
12244	----	IN THE NAME OF THE BODLEIAN AND OTHER ESSAYS By AUGUSTINE BIRRELL HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE _'Peace be with the soul of that charitable and courteous author who for the common benefit of his fellow-authors introduced the ingenious way of miscellaneous writing.'_--LORD SHAFTESBURY. LONDON 1906 AUTHOR'S NOTE The first paper appeared in the _Outlook_, New York, the one on Mr. Bradlaugh in the _Nineteenth Century_, and some of the others at different times in the _Speaker_. 3, NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN. CONTENTS I. 'IN THE NAME OF THE BODLEIAN' II. BOOKWORMS III. CONFIRMED READERS IV. FIRST EDITIONS V. GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY VI. LIBRARIANS AT PLAY VII. LAWYERS AT PLAY VIII. THE NON-JURORS IX. LORD CHESTERFIELD X. THE JOHNSONIAN LEGEND XI. BOSWELL AS BIOGRAPHER XII. OLD PLEASURE GARDENS XIII. OLD BOOKSELLERS XIV. A FEW WORDS ABOUT COPYRIGHT IN BOOKS XV. HANNAH MORE ONCE MORE XVI. ARTHUR YOUNG XVII. THOMAS PAINE XVIII. CHARLES BRADLAUGH XIX. DISRAELI _EX RELATIONE_ SIR WILLIAM FRASER XX. A CONNOISSEUR XXI. OUR GREAT MIDDLE CLASS XXII. TAR AND WHITEWASH XXIII. ITINERARIES XXIV. EPITAPHS XXV. 'HANSARD' XXVI. CONTEMPT OF COURT XXVII. 5 EDWARD VII., CHAPTER 12 'IN THE NAME OF THE BODLEIAN' With what feelings, I wonder, ought one to approach in a famous University an already venerable foundation, devoted by the last will and indented deed of a pious benefactor to the collection and housing of books and the promotion of learning? The Bodleian at this moment harbours within its walls well-nigh half a million of printed volumes, some scores of precious manuscripts in all the tongues, and has become a name famous throughout the whole civilized world. What sort of a poor scholar would he be whose heart did not beat within him when, for the first time, he found himself, to quote the words of 'Elia,' 'in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley'? Grave questions these! 'The following episode occurred during one of Calverley's (then Blayds) appearances at "Collections," the Master (Dr. Jenkyns) officiating. _Question_: "And with what feelings, Mr. Blayds, ought we to regard the decalogue?" Calverley who had no very clear idea of what was meant by the decalogue, but who had a due sense of the importance both of the occasion and of the question, made the following reply: "Master, with feelings of devotion, mingled with awe!" "Quite right, young man; a very proper answer," exclaimed the Master.'[A] [Footnote A: _Literary Remains of C.S. Calverley_, p. 31.] 'Devotion mingled with awe' might be a very proper answer for me to make to my own questions, but possessing that acquaintance with the history of the most picturesque of all libraries which anybody can have who loves books enough to devote a dozen quiet hours of rumination to the pages of Mr. Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, second edition, Oxford, 'at the Clarendon Press, 1890,' I cannot honestly profess to entertain in my breast, with regard to it, the precise emotions which C.S.C. declared took possession of him when he regarded the decalogue. A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love; but devotion and awe are plants hard to rear in our harsh climate; besides, can it be well denied that there is something in a huge collection of the ancient learning, of mediaeval folios, of controversial pamphlets, and in the thick black dust these things so woefully collect, provocative of listlessness and enervation and of a certain Solomonic dissatisfaction? The two writers of modern times, both pre-eminently sympathetic towards the past, who have best described this somewhat melancholy and disillusioned frame of mind are both Americans: Washington Irving, in two essays in _The Sketch-Book_, 'The Art of Bookmaking' and 'The Mutability of Literature'; and Nathaniel Hawthorne, in many places, but notably in that famous chapter on 'The Emptiness of Picture Galleries,' in _The Marble Faun_. It is perhaps best not to make too great demands upon our slender stock of deep emotions, not to rhapsodize too much, or vainly to pretend, as some travellers have done, that to them the collections of the Bodleian, its laden shelves and precious cases, are more attractive than wealth, fame, or family, and that it was stern Fate that alone compelled them to leave Oxford by train after a visit rarely exceeding twenty-four hours in duration. Sir Thomas Bodley's Library at Oxford is, all will admit, a great and glorious institution, one of England's sacred places; and springing, as it did, out of the mind, heart, and head of one strong, efficient, and resolute man, it is matter for rejoicing with every honest gentleman to be able to observe how quickly the idea took root, how well it has thriven, by how great a tradition it has become consecrated, and how studiously the wishes of the founder in all their essentials are still observed and carried out. Saith the prophet Isaiah, 'The liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things he shall stand.' The name of Thomas Bodley still stands all the world over by the liberal thing he devised. A few pages about this 'second Ptolemy' will be grudged me by none but unlettered churls. He was a west countryman, an excellent thing to be in England if you want backing through thick and thin, and was born in Exeter on March 2nd, 1544--a most troublesome date. It seems our fate in the old home never to be for long quit of the religious difficulty--which is very hard upon us, for nobody, I suppose, would call the English a 'religious' people. Little Thomas Bodley opened his eyes in a land distracted with the religious difficulty. Listen to his own words; they are full of the times: 'My father, in the time of Queen Mary, being noted and known to be an enemy to Popery, was so cruelly threatened and so narrowly observed by those that maliced his religion, that for the safeguard of himself and my mother, who was wholly affected as my father, he knew no way so secure as to fly into Germany, where after a while he found means to call over my mother with all his children and family, whom he settled for a time in Wesel in Cleveland. (For there, there were many English which had left their country for their conscience and with quietness enjoyed their meetings and preachings.) From thence he removed to the town of Frankfort, where there was in like sort another English congregation. Howbeit we made no longer tarriance in either of these two towns, for that my father had resolved to fix his abode in the city of Geneva.' Here the Bodleys remained 'until such time as our Nation was advertised of the death of Queen Mary and the succession of Elizabeth, with the change of religion which caused my father to hasten into England.' In Geneva young Bodley and his brothers enjoyed what now would be called great educational advantages. Small creature though he was, he yet attended, so he says, the public lectures of Chevalerius in Hebrew, Bersaldus in Greek, and of Calvin and Beza in Divinity. He had also 'domestical teachers,' and was taught Homer by Robert Constantinus, who was the author of a Greek lexicon, a luxury in those days. On returning to England, Bodley proceeded, not to Exeter College, as by rights he should have done, but to Magdalen, where he became a 'reading man,' and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1563. The next year he shifted his quarters to Merton, where he gave public lectures on Greek. In 1566 he became a Master of Arts, took to the study of natural philosophy, and three years later was Junior Proctor. He remained in residence until 1576, thus spending seventeen years in the University. In the last-mentioned year he obtained leave of absence to travel on the Continent, and for four years he pursued his studies abroad, mastering the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. Some short time after his return home he obtained an introduction to Court circles and became an Esquire to Queen Elizabeth, who seems to have entertained varying opinions about him, at one time greatly commending him and at another time wishing he were hanged--an awkward wish on Tudor lips. In 1588 Bodley married a wealthy widow, a Mrs. Ball, the daughter of a Bristol man named Carew. As Bodley survived his wife and had no children, a good bit of her money remains in the Bodleian to this day. Blessed be her memory! Nor should the names of Carew and Ball be wholly forgotten in this connection. From 1588 to 1596 Bodley was in the diplomatic service, chiefly at The Hague, where he did good work in troublesome times. On being finally recalled from The Hague, Bodley had to make up his mind whether to pursue a public life. He suffered from having too many friends, for not only did Burleigh patronize him, but Essex must needs do the same. No man can serve two masters, and though to be the victim of the rival ambitions of greater men than yourself is no uncommon fate, it is a currish one. Bodley determined to escape it, and to make for himself after a very different fashion a name _aere perennius_. 'I resolved thereupon to possess my soul in peace all the residue of my days, to take my full farewell of State employments, to satisfy my mind with the mediocrity of worldly living that I had of mine own, and so to retire me from the Court.' But what was he to do? 'Whereupon, examining exactly for the rest of my life what course I might take, and having sought all the ways to the wood to select the most proper, I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the Library door in Oxford, being thoroughly persuaded that in my solitude and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined waste) to the publick use of students.' It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action. Bodley proceeds to state the four qualifications he felt himself to possess to do this great bit of work: first, the necessary knowledge of ancient and modern tongues and of 'sundry other sorts of scholastical literature'; second, purse ability; third, a great store of honourable friends; and fourth, leisure. Bodley's description of the state of the old library as lying in every part ruined and in waste was but too true. Richard of Bury, the book-loving Bishop of Durham, seems to have been the first donor of manuscripts on anything like a large scale to Oxford, but the library he founded was at Durham College, which stood where Trinity College now stands, and was in no sense a University library. The good Bishop, known to all book-hunters as the author of the _Philobiblon_, died in 1345, but his collection remained intact, subject to rules he had himself laid down, until the dissolution of the monasteries, when Durham College, which was attached to a religious house, was put up for sale, and its library, like so much else of good learning at this sad period, was dispersed and for the most part destroyed. Bodley's real predecessor, the first begetter of a University library, was Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, who in 1320 prepared a chamber above a vaulted room in the north-east corner of St. Mary's Church for the reception of the books he intended to bestow upon his University. When the Bishop of Worcester (as a matter of fact, he had once been elected Archbishop of Canterbury; but that is another story, as Laurence Sterne has said) died in 1327, it was discovered that he had by his will bequeathed his library to Oxford, but he was insolvent! No rich relict of a defunct Ball was available for a Bishop in those days. The executors found themselves without sufficient estate to pay for their testator's funeral expenses, even then the first charge upon assets. They are not to be blamed for pawning the library. A good friend redeemed the pledge, and despatched the books--all, of course, manuscripts--to Oxford. For some reason or another Oriel took them in, and, having become their bailee, refused to part with them, possibly and plausibly alleging that the University was not in a position to give a valid receipt. At Oriel they remained for ten years, when all of a sudden the scholars of the University, animated by their notorious affection for sound learning and a good 'row,' took Oriel by storm, and carried off the books in triumph to Bishop Cobham's room, where they remained in chests unread for thirty years. In 1367 the University by statute ratified and confirmed its title to the books, and published regulations for their use, but the quarrel with Oriel continued till 1409, when the Cobham Library was for the first time properly furnished and opened as a place for study and reference. The librarian of the old Cobham Library had an advantage over Mr. Nicholson, the Bodley librarian of to-day. Being a clerk in Holy Orders before the time when, in Bodley's own phrase, already quoted, we 'changed' our religion, he was authorized by the University to say masses for the souls of all dead donors of books, whether by gifts _inter vivos_ or by bequest. The first great benefactor of Cobham's Library was Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the youngest son of Henry IV., and perhaps the most 'pushful' youngest son in our royal annals. Though a dissipated and unprincipled fellow, he lives in history as 'the good Duke Humphrey,' because he had the sense to patronize learning, collect manuscripts, and enrich Universities. He began his gifts to Oxford as early, so say some authorities, as 1411, and continued his donations of manuscripts with such vivacity that the little room in St. Mary's could no longer contain its riches. Hence the resolution of the University in 1444 to build a new library over the Divinity School. This new room, which was completed in 1480, forms now the central portion of that great reading-room so affectionately remembered by thousands of still living students. Duke Humphrey's Library, as the new room was popularly called, continued to flourish and receive valuable accessions of manuscripts and printed books belonging to divinity, medicine, natural science, and literature until the ill-omened year 1550. Oxford has never loved Commissioners revising her statutes and reforming her schools, but the Commissioners of 1550 were worse than prigs, worse even than Erastians: they were barbarians and wreckers. They were deputed by King Edward VI., 'in the spirit of the Reformation,' to make an end of the Popish superstition. Under their hands the library totally disappeared, and for a long while the tailors and shoemakers and bookbinders of Oxford were well supplied with vellum, which they found useful in their respective callings. It was a hard fate for so splendid a collection. True it is that for the most part the contents of the library had been rescued from miserable ill-usage in the monasteries and chapter-houses where they had their first habitations, but at last they had found shelter over the Divinity School of a great University. There at least they might hope to slumber. But our Reformers thought otherwise. The books and manuscripts being thus dispersed or destroyed, a prudent if unromantic Convocation exposed for sale the wooden shelves, desks, and seats of the old library, and so made a complete end of the whole concern, thus making room for Thomas Bodley. On February 23, 1597/8, Thomas Bodley sat himself down in his London house and addressed to the Vice-Chancellor of his University a certain famous letter: 'SIR, 'Altho' you know me not as I suppose, yet for the farthering of an offer of evident utilitie to your whole University I will not be too scrupulous in craving your assistance. I have been alwaies of a mind that if God of his goodness should make me able to do anything for the benefit of posteritie, I would shew some token of affiction that I have ever more borne to the studies of good learning. I know my portion is too slender to perform for the present any answerable act to my willing disposition, but yet to notify some part of my desire in that behalf I have resolved thus to deal. Where there hath been heretofore a public library in Oxford which you know is apparent by the room itself remaining and by your statute records, I will take the charge and cost upon me to reduce it again to its former use and to make it fit and handsome with seats and shelves and desks and all that may be needful to stir up other mens benevolence to help to furnish it with books. And this I purpose to begin as soon as timber can be gotten to the intent that you may be of some speedy profit of my project. And where before as I conceive it was to be reputed but a store of books of divers benefactors because it never had any lasting allowance for augmentation of the number or supply of books decayed, whereby it came to pass that when those that were in being were either wasted or embezzled, the whole foundation came to ruin. To meet with that inconvenience, I will so provide hereafter (if God do not hinder my present design) as you shall be still assured of a standing annual rent to be disbursed every year in buying of books, or officers stipends and other pertinent occasions, with which provision and some order for the preservation of the place and the furniture of it from accustomed abuses, it may perhaps in time to come prove a notable treasure for the multitude of volumes, an excellent benefit for the use and ease of students, and a singular ornament of the University.' The letter does not stop here, but my quotation has already probably wearied most of my readers, though for my own part I am not ashamed to confess that I seldom tire of retracing with my own hand the _ipsissima verba_ whereby great and truly notable gifts have been bestowed upon nations or Universities or even municipalities for the advancement of learning and the spread of science. Bodley's language is somewhat involved, but through it glows the plain intention of an honest man. Convocation, we are told, embraced the offer with wonderful alacrity, and lost no time in accepting it in good Latin. From February, 1598, to January, 1613 (when he died), Bodley was happy with as glorious a hobby-horse as ever man rode astride upon. Though Bodley, in one of his letters, modestly calls himself a mere 'smatterer,' he was, as indeed he had the sense to recognise, excellently well fitted to be a collector of books, being both a good linguist and personally well acquainted with the chief cities of the Continent and with their booksellers. He was thus able to employ well-selected agents in different parts of Europe to buy books on his account, which it was his pleasure to receive, his rapture to unpack, his pride to despatch in what he calls 'dry-fats'--that is, weather-tight chests--to Dr. James, the first Bodley librarian. Despite growing and painful infirmities (stone, ague, dropsy), Bodley never even for a day dismounted his hobby, but rode it manfully to the last. Nor had he any mean taint of nature that might have grudged other men a hand in the great work. The more benefactors there were, the better pleased was Bodley. He could not, indeed--for had he not been educated at Geneva and attended the Divinity Lectures of Calvin and Beza?--direct Dr. James to say masses for the souls of such donors of money or books as should die, but he did all a poor Protestant can do to tempt generosity: he opened and kept in a very public place in the library a great register-book, containing the names and titles of all benefactors. Bodley was always on the look-out for gifts and bequests from his store of honourable friends; and in the case of Sir Henry Savile he even relaxed the rule against lending books from the library, because, as he frankly admits to Dr. James, he had hopes (which proved well founded) that Sir Henry would not forget his obligations to the Bodleian. The library was formally opened on November 8, 1602, and then contained some 2,000 volumes. Two years later its founder was knighted by King James, who on the following June directed letters patent to be issued styling the library by the founder's name and licensing the University to hold land in mortmain for its maintenance. The most learned and by no means the most foolish of our Kings, this same James I., visited the Bodleian in May, 1605. Sir Thomas was not present. There it was that the royal pun was made that the founder's name should have been Godly and not Bodley. King James handled certain old manuscripts with the familiarity of a scholar, and is reported to have said, I doubt not with perfect sincerity, that were he not King James he would be an University man, and that were it his fate at any time to be a captive, he would wish to be shut up in the Bodleian and to be bound with its chains, consuming his days amongst its books as his fellows in captivity. Indeed, he was so carried away by the atmosphere of the place as to offer to present to the Bodleian whatever books Sir Thomas Bodley might think fit to lay hands upon in any of the royal libraries, and he kept this royal word so far as to confirm the gift under the Privy Seal. But there it seems to have stopped, for the Bodleian does not contain any volumes traceable to this source. The King's librarians probably obstructed any such transfer of books. Authors seem at once to have recognised the importance of the library, and to have made presentation copies of their works, and in 1605 we find Bacon sending a copy of his _Advancement of Learning_ to Bodley, with a letter in which he said: 'You, having built an ark to save learning from deluge, deserve propriety [ownership] in any new instrument or engine whereby learning should be improved or advanced.' The most remarkable letter Bodley ever wrote, now extant, is one to Bacon; but it has no reference to the library, only to the Baconian philosophy. We do not get many glimpses of Bodley's habits of life or ways of thinking, but there is no difficulty in discerning a strenuous, determined, masterful figure, bent during his later years, perhaps tyrannously bent, on effecting his object. He was not, we learn from a correspondent, 'hasty to write but when the posts do urge him, saying there need be no answer to your letters till more leisure breed him opportunity.' 'Words are women, deeds are men,' is another saying of his which I reprint without comment. By an indenture dated April 20, 1609, Bodley, after reciting how he had, out of his zealous affection to the advancement of learning, lately erected upon the ruins of the old decayed library of Oxford University 'a most ample, commodious, and necessary building, as well for receipt and conveyance of books as for the use and ease of students, and had already furnished the same with excellent writers on all sorts of sciences, arts, and tongues, not only selected out of his own study and store, but also of others that were freely conferred by many other men's gifts,' proceeded to grant to trustees lands and hereditaments in Berkshire and in the city of London for the purpose of forming a permanent endowment of his library; and so they, or the proceeds of sale thereof, have remained unto this day. Sir Thomas Bodley died on January 20, 1613, his last days being soothed by a letter he received from the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University condoling his sickness and signifying how much the Heads of Houses, etc., prayed for his recovery. A cynical friend--not much of a friend, as we shall see--called John Chamberlain, was surprised to observe what pleasure this assurance gave to the dying man. 'Whereby,' writes Chamberlain to Sir Ralph Winwood, 'I perceive how much fair words work, as well upon wise men as upon others, for indeed it did affect him very much.' Bodley was rather put out in his last illness by the refusal of a Cambridge doctor, Batter, to come to see him, the doctor saying: 'Words cannot cure him, and I can do nothing else for him.' There is an occasional curtness about Cambridge men that is hard but not impossible to reconcile with good feeling. Bodley's will gave great dissatisfaction to some of his friends, including this aforesaid John Chamberlain, and yet, on reading it through, it is not easy to see any cause for just complaint. Bodley's brother did not grumble, there were no children, Lady Bodley had died in 1611, and everybody who knew the testator must have known that the library would be (as it was) the great object of his bounty. What annoyed Chamberlain seems to be that, whilst he had (so he says, though I take leave to doubt it) put down Bodley for some trifle in his will, Bodley forgot to mention Chamberlain in his. There is always a good deal of human nature exhibited on these occasions. I will transcribe a bit of one of this gentleman's grumbling letters, written, one may be sure, with no view to publication, the day after Bodley's death: 'Mr. Gent came to me this morning as it were to bemoan himself of the little regard hath been had of him and others, and indeed for ought I hear there is scant anybody pleased, but for the rest it were no great matter if he had had more consideration or commiseration where there was most need. But he was so carried away with the vanity and vain-glory of his library, that he forgot all other respects and duties, almost of Conscience, Friendship, or Good-nature, and all he had was too little for that work. To say the truth I never did rely much upon his conscience, but I thought he had been more real and ingenuous. I cannot learn that he hath given anything, no, not a good word nor so much as named any old friend he had, but Mr. Gent and Thos. Allen, who like a couple of Almesmen must have his best and second gown, and his best and second cloak, but to cast a colour or shadow of something upon Mr. Gent, he says he forgives him all he owed him, which Mr. Gent protests is never a penny. I must intreat you to pardon me if I seem somewhat impatient on his [_i.e._, Gent's] behalf, who hath been so servile to him, and indeed such a perpetual servant, that he deserved a better reward. Neither can I deny that I have a little indignation for myself that having been acquainted with him for almost forty years, and observed and respected him so much, I should not be remembered with the value of a spoon, or a mourning garment, whereas if I had gone before him (as poor a man as I am), he should not have found himself forgotten.'[A] [Footnote A: _Winwood's Memorials_, vol. iii., p. 429.] Bodley did no more by his will, which is dated January 2, 1613, and is all in his own handwriting, than he had bound himself to do in his lifetime, and I feel as certain as I can feel about anything that happened nearly 300 years ago, that Mr. Gent, of Gloucester Hall, did owe Bodley money, though, as many another member of the University of Oxford has done with his debts, he forgot all about it. The founder of the Bodleian was buried with proper pomp and circumstance in the chapel of Merton College on March 29, 1613. Two Latin orations were delivered over his remains, one, that of John Hales (the ever-memorable), a Fellow of Merton, being of no inconsiderable length. After all was over, those who had mourning weeds or 'blacks' retired, with the Heads of Houses, to the refectory of Merton and had a funeral dinner bestowed upon them, 'amounting to the sum of £100,' as directed by the founder's will. The great foundation of Sir Thomas Bodley has, happily for all of us, had better fortune than befell the generous gifts of the Bishops of Durham and Worcester. The Protestant layman has had the luck, not the large-minded prelates of the old religion. Even during the Civil War Bodley's books remained uninjured, at all events by the Parliament men. 'When Oxford was surrendered [June 24, 1646], the first thing General Fairfax did was to set a good guard of soldiers to preserve the Bodleian Library. 'Tis said there was more hurt done by the Cavaliers [during their garrison] by way of embezzling and cutting of chains of books than there was since. He was a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care that noble library had been utterly destroyed, for there were ignorant senators enough who would have been contented to have it so' (see Macray, p. 101). Oliver Cromwell, while Lord Protector, presented to the library twenty-two Greek manuscripts he had purchased, and, what is more, when Bodley's librarian refused the Lord Protector's request to allow the Portugal Ambassador to borrow a manuscript, sending instead of the manuscript a copy of the statutes forbidding loans, Oliver commended the prudence of the founder, and subsequently made the donation just mentioned. A great wave of generosity towards this foundation was early noticeable. The Bodleian got hold of men's imaginations. In those days there were learned men in all walks of life, and many more who, if not learned, were endlessly curious. The great merchants of the city of London instructed their agents in far lands to be on the look-out for rare things, and transmit them home to find a resting-place in Bodley's buildings. All sorts of curiosities found their way there--crocodiles, whales, mummies, and black negro-boys in spirits. The Ashmolean now holds most of them; the negro-boy has been conveniently lost. In 1649 the total of 2,000 printed books had risen to more than 12,000--viz., folios, 5,889; quartos, 2,067; octavos, 4,918; whilst of manuscripts there were 3,001. One of the first gifts in money came from Sir Walter Raleigh, who in 1605 gave £50, whilst among the early benefactors of books and manuscripts it were a sin not to name the Earl of Pembroke, Archbishop Laud (one of the library's best friends), Robert Burton (of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_), Sir Kenelm Digby, John Selden, Lord Fairfax, Colonel Vernon, and Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. No nobler library exists in the world than the Bodleian, unless it be in the Vatican at Rome. The foundation of Sir Thomas Bodley, though of no antiquity, shines with unrivalled splendour in the galaxy of Oxford 'Amidst the stars that own another birth.' I must not say, being myself a Cambridge man, that the Bodleian dominates Oxford, yet to many an English, American, and foreign traveller to that city, which, despite railway-stations and motor-cars and the never-ending villas and perambulators of the Banbury Road, still breathes the charm of an earlier age, the Bodleian is the pulsing heart of the University. Colleges, like ancient homesteads, unless they are yours, never quite welcome you, though ready enough to receive with civility your tendered meed of admiration. You wander through their gardens, and pace their quadrangles with no sense of co-ownership; not for you are their clustered memories. In the Bodleian every lettered heart feels itself at home. Bodley drafted with his own hand the first statutes or rules to be observed in his library. Speaking generally, they are wise rules. One mistake, indeed, he made--a great mistake, but a natural one. Let him give his own reasons: 'I can see no good reason to alter my rule for excluding such books as Almanacks, Plays, and an infinite number that are daily printed of very unworthy matters--handling such books as one thinks both the Keeper and Under-Keeper should disdain to seek out, to deliver to any man. Haply some plays may be worthy the keeping--but hardly one in forty.... This is my opinion, wherein if I err I shall err with infinite others; and the more I think upon it, the more it doth distaste me that such kinds of books should be vouchsafed room in so noble a library.'[A] [Footnote A: See correspondence in _Reliquiae Bodleianae_, London, 1703.] 'Baggage-books' was the contemptuous expression elsewhere employed to describe this 'light infantry' of literature--_Belles Lettres_, as it is now more politely designated. One play in forty is liberal measure, but who is to say out of the forty plays which is the one worthy to be housed in a noble library? The taste of Vice-Chancellors and Heads of Houses, of keepers and under-keepers of libraries--can anybody trust it? The Bodleian is entitled by imperial statutes to receive copies of all books published within the realm, yet it appears, on the face of a Parliamentary return made in 1818, that this 'noble library' refused to find room for Ossian, the favourite poet of Goethe and Napoleon, and labelled Miss Edgeworth's _Parent's Assistant_ and Miss Hannah More's _Sacred Dramas_ 'Rubbish.' The sister University, home though she be of nearly every English poet worth reading, rejected the _Siege of Corinth_, though the work of a Trinity man; would not take in the _Thanksgiving Ode_ of Mr. Wordsworth, of St. John's College; declined Leigh Hunt's _Story of Rimini_; vetoed the _Headlong Hall_ of the inimitable Peacock, and, most wonderful of all, would have nothing to say to Scott's _Antiquary_, being probably disgusted to find that a book with so promising a title was only a novel. Now this is altered, and everything is collected in the Bodleian, including, so I am told, Christmas-cards and bills of fare. Bodley's rule has proved an expensive one, for the library has been forced to buy at latter-day prices 'baggage-books' it could have got for nothing. Another ill-advised regulation got rid of duplicates. Thus, when the third Shakespeare Folio appeared in 1664, the Bodleian disposed of its copy of the First Folio. However, this wrong was righted in 1821, when, under the terms of Edmund Malone's bequest, the library once again became the possessor of the edition of 1623. Quite lately the original displaced Folio has been recovered. Against lending books Bodley was adamant, and here his rule prevails. It is pre-eminently a wise one. The stealing of books, as well as the losing of books, from public libraries is a melancholy and ancient chapter in the histories of such institutions; indeed, there is too much reason to believe that not a few books in the Bodleian itself were stolen to start with. But the long possession by such a foundation has doubtless purged the original offence. In the National Library in Paris is at least one precious manuscript which was stolen from the Escurial. There are volumes in the British Museum on which the Bodleian looks with suspicion, and _vice versa_. But let sleeping dogs lie. Bodley would not give the divines who were engaged upon a bigger bit of work even than his library--the translation of the Bible into that matchless English which makes King James's version our greatest literary possession--permission to borrow 'the one or two books' they wished to see. Bodley's Library has sheltered through three centuries many queer things besides books and strangely-written manuscripts in old tongues; queerer things even than crocodiles, whales, and mummies--I mean the librarians and sub-librarians, janitors, and servants. Oddities many of them have been. Honest old Jacobites, non-jurors, primitive thinkers, as well as scandalously lazy drunkards and illiterate dogs. An old foundation can afford to have a varied experience in these matters. One of the most original of these originals was the famous Thomas Hearne, an 'honest gentleman'--that is, a Jacobite--and one whose collections and diaries have given pleasure to thousands. He was appointed janitor in 1701, and sub-librarian in 1712, but in 1716, when an Act of Parliament came into operation which imposed a fine of £500 upon anyone who held any public office without taking the oath of allegiance to the Hanoverians, Hearne's office was taken away from him; but he shared with his King over the water the satisfaction of accounting himself still _de jure_, and though he lived till 1735, he never failed each half-year to enter his salary and fees as sub-librarian as being still unpaid. He was perhaps a little spiteful and vindictive, but none the less a fine old fellow. I will write down as specimens of his humour a prayer of his and an apology, and then leave him alone. His prayer ran as follows: 'O most gracious and merciful Lord God, wonderful in Thy Providence, I return all possible thanks to Thee for the care Thou hast always taken of me. I continually meet with most signal instances of this Thy Providence, and one act yesterday, _when I unexpectedly met with three old manuscripts_, for which in a particular manner I return my thanks, beseeching Thee to continue the same protection to me, a poor helpless sinner, and that for Jesus Christ his sake' (_Aubrey's Letters_, i. 118). His apology, which I do not think was actually published, though kept in draft, was after this fashion: 'I, Thomas Hearne, A.M. of the University of Oxford, having ever since my matriculation followed my studies with as much application as I have been capable of, and having published several books for the honour and credit of learning, and particularly for the reputation of the foresaid University, am very sorry that by my declining to say anything but what I knew to be true in any of my writings, and especially in the last book I published entituled, &c, I should incur the displeasure of any of the Heads of Houses, and as a token of my sorrow for their being offended at truth, I subscribe my name to this paper and permit them to make what use of it they please.' Leaping 140 years, an odd tale is thus lovingly recorded of another sub-librarian, the Rev. A. Hackman, who died in 1874: 'During all the time of his service in the library (thirty-six years) he had used as a cushion in his plain wooden armchair a certain vellum-bound folio, which by its indented side, worn down by continual pressure, bore testimony to the use to which it had been put. No one had ever the curiosity to examine what the book might be, but when, after Hackman's departure from the library, it was removed from its resting-place of years, some amusement was caused by finding that the chief compiler of the last printed catalogue had omitted from his catalogue the volume on which he sat, of which, too, though of no special value, there was no other copy in the library' (Macray, p. 388A). The spectacle in the mind's eye of this devoted sub-librarian and sound divine sitting on the vellum-bound folio for six-and-thirty years, so absorbed in his work as to be oblivious of the fact that he had failed to include in what was his _magnum opus_, the Great Catalogue, the very book he was sitting upon, tickles the midriff. Here I must bring these prolonged but wholly insufficient observations to a very necessary conclusion. Not a word has been said of the great collection of bibles, or of the unique copies of the Koran and the Talmud and the _Arabian Nights_, or of the Dante manuscripts, or of Bishop Tanner's books (many bought on the dispersion of Archbishop Sancroft's great library), which in course of removal by water from Norwich to Oxford fell into the river and remained submerged for twenty hours, nor of many other splendid benefactions of a later date. One thing only remains, not to be said, but to be sent round--I mean the hat. Ignominious to relate, this glorious foundation stands in need of money. Shade of Sir Thomas Bodley, I invoke thy aid to loosen the purse-strings of the wealthy! The age of learned and curious merchants, of high-spirited and learning-loving nobles, of book-collecting bishops, of antiquaries, is over. The Bodleian cannot condescend to beg. It is too majestical. But I, an unauthorized stranger, have no need to be ashamed. Especially rich is this great library in _Americana_, and America suggests multi-millionaires. The rich men of the United States have been patriotically alive to the first claims of their own richly endowed universities, and long may they so continue; but if by any happy chance any one of them should accidentally stumble across an odd million or even half a million of dollars hidden away in some casual investment he had forgotten, what better thing could he do with it than send it to this, the most famous foundation of his Old Home? It would be acknowledged by return of post in English and in Latin, and the donor's name would be inscribed, not indeed (and this is a regrettable lapse) in that famous old register which Bodley provided should always be in a prominent place in his library, but in the Annual Statement of Accounts now regularly issued. To be associated with the Bodleian is to share its fame and partake of the blessing it has inherited. 'The liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things he shall stand.' BOOKWORMS Great is bookishness and the charm of books. No doubt there are times and seasons in the lives of most reading men when they rebel against the dust of libraries and kick against the pricks of these monstrously accumulated heaps of words. We all know 'the dark hour' when the vanity of learning and the childishness of merely literary things are brought home to us in such a way as almost to avail to put the pale student out of conceit with his books, and to make him turn from his best-loved authors as from a friend who has outstayed his welcome, whose carriage we wish were at the door. In these unhappy moments we are apt to call to mind the shrewd men we have known, who have been our blithe companions on breezy fells, heathery moor, and by the stream side, who could neither read nor write, or who, at all events, but rarely practised those Cadmean arts. Yet they could tell the time of day by the sun, and steer through the silent night by the stars; and each of them had--as Emerson, a very bookish person, has said--a dial in his mind for the whole bright calendar of the year. How racy was their talk; how wise their judgments on men and things; how well they did all that at the moment seemed worth doing; how universally useful was their garnered experience--their acquired learning! How wily were these illiterates in the pursuit of game--how ready in an emergency! What a charm there is about out-of-door company! Who would not sooner have spent a summer's day with Sir Walter's humble friend, Tom Purday, than with Mr. William Wordsworth of Rydal Mount! It is, we can only suppose, reflections such as these that make country gentlemen and farmers the sworn foes they are of education and the enemies of School Boards. I only indicate this line of thought to condemn it. Such temptations come from below. Great, we repeat, is bookishness and the charm of books. Even the writings, the ponderous writings, of that portentous parson, the Rev. T.F. Dibdin, with all their lumbering gaiety and dust-choked rapture over first editions, are not hastily to be sent packing to the auction-room. Much red gold did they cost us, these portly tomes, in bygone days, and on our shelves they shall remain till the end of our time, unless our creditors intervene--were it only to remind us of years when our enthusiasms were pure though our tastes may have been crude. Some years ago Mr. Blades, the famous printer and Caxtonist, published in vellum covers a small volume which he christened _The Enemies of Books_. It made many friends, and now a revised and enlarged version in comely form, adorned with pictures, and with a few prefatory words by Dr. Garnett, has made its appearance. Mr. Blades himself has left this world for a better one, where--so piety bids us believe--neither fire nor water nor worm can despoil or destroy the pages of heavenly wisdom. But the book-collector must not be caught nursing mere sublunary hopes. There is every reason to believe that in the realms of the blessed the library, like that of Major Ponto, will be small though well selected. Mr. Blades had, as his friend Dr. Garnett observes, a debonair spirit--there was nothing fiery or controversial about him. His attitude towards the human race and its treatment of rare books was rather mournful than angry. For example, under the head of 'Fire,' he has occasion to refer to that great destruction of books of magic which took place at Ephesus, to which St. Luke has called attention in his Acts of the Apostles. Mr. Blades describes this holocaust as righteous, and only permits himself to say in a kind of undertone that he feels a certain mental disquietude and uneasiness at the thought of the loss of more than £18,000 worth of books, which could not but have thrown much light (had they been preserved) on many curious questions of folk-lore. Personally, I am dead against the burning of books. A far worse, because a corrupt, proceeding, was the scandalously horrid fate that befell the monastic libraries at our disgustingly conducted, even if generally beneficent, Reformation. The greedy nobles and landed gentry, who grabbed the ancient foundations of the old religion, cared nothing for the books they found cumbering the walls, and either devoted them to vile domestic uses or sold them in shiploads across the seas. It may well be that the monks--fine, lusty fellows!--cared more for the contents of their fish-ponds than of their libraries; but, at all events, they left the books alone to take their chance--they did not rub their boots with them or sell them at the price of old paper. A man need have a very debonair spirit who does not lose his temper over our blessed Reformation. Mr. Blades, on the whole, managed to keep his. Passing from fire, Mr. Blades has a good deal to say about water, and the harm it has been allowed to do in our collegiate and cathedral libraries. With really creditable composure he writes: 'Few old libraries in England are now so thoroughly neglected as they were thirty years ago. The state of many of our collegiate and cathedral libraries was at that time simply appalling. I could mention many instances--one especially--where, a window having been left broken for a long time, the ivy had pushed through and crept over a row of books, each of which was worth hundreds of pounds. In rainy weather the water was conducted as by a pipe along the tops of the books, and soaked through the whole.' Ours is indeed a learned Church. Fancy the mingled amazement and dismay of the Dean and Chapter when they were informed that all this mouldering literary trash had 'boodle' in it. 'In another and a smaller collection the rain came through on to a bookcase through a sky-light, saturating continually the top shelf, containing Caxtons and other English books, one of which, although rotten, was sold soon after by permission of the Charity Commissioners for £200.' Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! How impertinent has been their interference with the loving care and guardianship of the Lord's property by His lawfully consecrated ministers! By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief. Very little seems known of the creature, though the purchaser of Mr. Blades's book becomes the owner of a life-size portrait of the miscreant in one, at all events, of his many shapes. Mr. Birdsall, of Northampton, sent Mr. Blades, in 1879, by post, a fat little worm he had found in an old volume. Mr. Blades did all, and more than all, that could be expected of a humane man to keep the creature alive, actually feeding him with fragments of Caxtons and seventeenth-century literature; but it availed not, for in three weeks the thing died, and as the result of a post-mortem was declared to be _Aecophera pseudopretella_. Some years later Dr. Garnett, who has spent a long life obliging men of letters, sent Mr. Blades two Athenian worms, which had travelled to this country in a Hebrew Commentary; but, lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their deaths they were not far divided. Mr. Blades, at least, mourned their loss. The energy of bookworms, like that of men, greatly varies. Some go much farther than others. However fair they may start on the same folio, they end very differently. Once upon a time 212 worms began to eat their way through a stout folio printed in the year 1477, by Peter Schoeffer, of Mentz. It was an ungodly race they ran, but let me trace their progress. By the time the sixty-first page was reached all but four had given in, either slinking back the way they came, or perishing _en route_. By the time the eighty-sixth page had been reached but one was left, and he evidently on his last legs, for he failed to pierce his way through page 87. At the other end of the same book another lot of worms began to bore, hoping, I presume, to meet in the middle, like the makers of submarine tunnels, but the last survivor of this gang only reached the sixty ninth page from the end. Mr. Blades was of opinion that all these worms belonged to the _Anobium pertinax_. Worms have fallen upon evil days, for, whether modern books are readable or not, they have long since ceased to be edible. The worm's instinct forbids him to 'eat the china clay, the bleaches, the plaster of Paris, the sulphate of barytes, the scores of adulterants now used to mix with the fibre.' Alas, poor worm! Alas, poor author! Neglected by the _Anobium pertinax_, what chance is there of anyone, man or beast, a hundred years hence reaching his eighty-seventh page! Time fails me to refer to bookbinders, frontispiece collectors, servants and children, and other enemies of books; but the volume I refer to is to be had of the booksellers, and is a pleasant volume, worthy of all commendation. Its last words set me thinking; they are: 'Even a millionaire will ease his toils, lengthen his life, and add 100 per cent. to his daily pleasures, if he becomes a bibliophile; while to the man of business with a taste for books, who through the day has struggled in the battle of life, with all its irritating rebuffs and anxieties, what a blessed season of pleasurable repose opens upon him as he enters his sanctum, where every article wafts him a welcome and every book is a personal friend!' As for the millionaire, I frankly say I have no desire his life should be lengthened, and care nothing about adding 100 per cent. to his daily pleasures. He is a nuisance, for he has raised prices nearly 100 per cent. We curse the day when he was told it was the thing to buy old books; and, if he must buy old books, why is he not content with the works of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson, and Flavius Josephus, that learned Jew? But it is not the millionaire who set me thinking; it is the harassed man of business; and what I am wondering is, whether, in sober truth and earnestness, it is possible for him, as he shuts his library door and finds himself inside, to forget his rebuffs and anxieties--his maturing bills and overdue argosies--and to lose himself over a favourite volume. The 'article' that wafts him welcome I take to be his pipe. That he will put the 'article' into his mouth and smoke it I have no manner of doubt; my dread is lest, in ten minutes' time, the book should have dropt into his lap and the man's eyes be staring into the fire. But for a' that, and a' that--great is bookishness and the charm of books. CONFIRMED READERS Dr. Johnson is perhaps our best example of a confirmed reader. Malone once found him sitting in his room roasting apples and reading a history of Birmingham. This staggered even Malone, who was himself a somewhat far-gone reader. 'Don't you find it rather dull?' he ventured to inquire. 'Yes,' replied the Sage, 'it is dull.' Malone's eyes then rested on the apples, and he remarked he supposed they were for medicine. 'Why, no,' said Johnson; 'I believe they are only there because I wanted something to do. I have been confined to the house for a week, and so you find me roasting apples and reading the history of Birmingham.' This anecdote pleasingly illustrates the habits of the confirmed reader. Nor let the worldling sneer. Happy is the man who, in the hours of solitude and depression, can read a history of Birmingham. How terrible is the story Welbore Ellis told of Robert Walpole in his magnificent library, trying book after book, and at last, with tears in his eyes, exclaiming: 'It is all in vain: I cannot read!' Edmund Malone, the Shakespearian commentator and first editor of _Boswell's Johnson_, was as confirmed a reader as it is possible for a book-collector to be. His own life, by Sir James Prior, is full of good things, and is not so well known as it should be. It smacks of books and bookishness. Malone, who was an Irishman, was once, so he would have us believe, deeply engaged in politics; but he then fell in love, and the affair, for some unknown reason, ending unhappily, his interest ceased in everything, and he was driven as a last resource to books and writings. Thus are commentators made. They learn in suffering what they observe in the margin. Malone may have been driven to his pursuits, but he took to them kindly, and became a vigorous and skilful book-buyer, operating in the market both on his own behalf and on that of his Irish friends with great success. His good fortune was enormous, and this although he had a severely restricted notion as to price. He was no reckless bidder, like Mr. Harris, late of Covent Garden, who, just because David Garrick had a fine library of old plays, was determined to have one himself at whatever cost. In Malone's opinion half a guinea was a big price for a book. As he grew older he became less careful, and in 1805, which was seven years before his death, he gave Ford, a Manchester bookseller, £25 for the Editio Princeps of _Venus and Adonis_. He already had the edition of 1596--a friend had given it him--bound up with Constable's and Daniel's Sonnets and other rarities, but he very naturally yearned after the edition of 1593. He fondly imagined Ford's copy to be unique: there he was wrong, but as he died in that belief, and only gave £25 for his treasure, who dare pity him? His copy now reposes in the Bodleian. He secured Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) and the first edition of the _Rape of Lucrece_ for two guineas, and accounted half a crown a fair average price for quarto copies of Elizabethan plays. Malone was a truly amiable man, of private fortune and endearing habits. He lived on terms of intimacy with his brother book-collectors, and when they died attended the sale of their libraries and bid for his favourite lots, grumbling greatly if they were not knocked down to him. At Topham Beauclerk's sale in 1781, which lasted nine days, Malone bought for Lord Charlemont 'the pleasauntest workes of George Gascoigne, Esquire, with the princely pleasures at Kenilworth Castle, 1587.' He got it cheap (£1 7s.), as it wanted a few leaves, which Malone thought he had; but to his horror, when it came to be examined, it was found to want eleven more leaves than he had supposed. 'Poor Mr. Beauclerk,' he writes, 'seems never to have had his books examined or collated, otherwise he would have found out the imperfections.' Malone was far too good a book-collector to suggest a third method of discovering a book's imperfections--namely, reading it. Beauclerk's library only realized £5,011, and as the Duke of Marlborough had a mortgage upon it of £5,000, there must have been after payment of the auctioneer's charges a considerable deficit. But Malone was more than a book-buyer, more even than a commentator: he was a member of the Literary Club, and the friend of Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke. On July 28, 1789, he went to Burke's place, the Gregories, near Beaconsfield, with Sir Joshua, Wyndham, and Mr. Courtenay, and spent three very agreeable days. The following extract from the recently published Charlemont papers has interest: 'As I walked out before breakfast with Mr. Burke, I proposed to him to revise and enlarge his admirable book on the _Sublime and Beautiful_, which the experience, reading, and observation of thirty years could not but enable him to improve considerably. But he said the train of his thoughts had gone another way, and the whole bent of his mind turned from such subjects, and that he was much fitter for such speculations at the time he published that book than now.' Between the Burke of 1758 and the Burke of 1789 there was a difference indeed, but the forcible expressions, 'the train of my thoughts' and 'the whole bent of my mind,' serve to create a new impression of the tremendous energy and fertile vigour of this amazing man. The next day the party went over to Amersham and admired Mr. Drake's trees, and listened to Sir Joshua's criticisms of Mr. Drake's pictures. This was a fortnight after the taking of the Bastille. Burke's hopes were still high. The Revolution had not yet spoilt his temper. Amongst the Charlemont papers is an amusing tale I do not remember having ever seen before of young Philip Stanhope, the recipient of Lord Chesterfield's famous letters: 'When at Berne, where he passed some of his boyhood in company with Harte and the excellent Mr., now Lord, Eliott (Heathfield of Gibraltar), he was one evening invited to a party where, together with some ladies, there happened to be a considerable number of Bernese senators, a dignified set of elderly gentlemen, aristocratically proud, and perfect strangers to fun. These most potent, grave, and reverend signors were set down to whist, and were so studiously attentive to the game, that the unlucky brat found little difficulty in fastening to the backs of their chairs the flowing tails of their ample periwigs and in cutting, unobserved by them, the tyes of their breeches. This done, he left the room, and presently re-entered crying out, "Fire! Fire!" The affrighted burgomasters suddenly bounced up, and exhibited to the amazed spectators their senatorial heads and backs totally deprived of ornament or covering.' Young Stanhope was no ordinary child. There is a completeness about this jest which proclaims it a masterpiece. One or other of its points might have occurred to anyone, but to accomplish both at once was to show real distinction. Sir William Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield's brother, felt no surprise at his nephew's failure to acquire the graces. 'What,' said he, 'could Chesterfield expect? His mother was Dutch, he was educated at Leipsic, and his tutor was a pedant from Oxford.' Papers which contain anecdotes of this kind carry with them their own recommendation. We hear on all sides complaints--and I hold them to be just complaints--of the abominable high prices of English books. Thirty shillings, thirty-six shillings, are common prices. The thing is too barefaced. His Majesty's Stationery Office set an excellent example. They sell an octavo volume of 460 closely but well-printed pages, provided with an excellent index, for one shilling and elevenpence. There is not much editing, but the quality of it is good. If anyone is confined to his room, even as Johnson was when Malone found him roasting apples and reading a history of Birmingham, he cannot do better than surround himself with the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; they will cost him next to nothing, tell him something new on every page, revive a host of old memories and scores of half-forgotten names, and perhaps tempt him to become a confirmed reader. FIRST EDITIONS This is an age of great publicity. Not only are our streets well lighted, but also our lives. The cosy nooks and corners, crannies, and dark places where, in old-fashioned days, men hugged their private vices without shamefacedness have been swept away as ruthlessly as Seven Dials. All the questionable pursuits, fancies, foibles of silly, childish man are discussed grimly and at length in the newspapers and magazines. Our poor hobby-horses are dragged out of the stable, and made to show their shambling paces before the mob of gentlemen who read with ease. There has been much prate lately of as innocent a foible as ever served to make men self-forgetful for a few seconds of time--the collecting of first editions. Somebody hard up for 'copy' denounced this pastime, and made merry over a _virtuoso's_ whim. Somebody else--Mr. Slater, I think it was--thought fit to put in a defence, and thereupon a dispute arose as to why men bought first editions dear when they could buy last editions cheap. Brutal, domineering fellows bellowed their complete indifference to Shakespeare's Quartos till timid _dilettanti_ turned pale and fled. The fact, of course, is that in such a dispute as this there is but one thing to do--namely, to persuade the Attorney-General of the day to enter up a _nolle prosequi_, and for him who collects first editions to go on collecting. There is nothing to be serious about in the matter. It is not literature. Some of the greatest lovers of letters who have ever lived--Dr. Johnson, for example, and Thomas de Quincey and Carlyle--have cared no more for first editions than I do for Brussels sprouts. You may love Moliere with a love surpassing your love of woman without any desire to beggar yourself in Paris by purchasing early copies of the plays. You may be perfectly content to read Walton's _Lives_ in an edition of 1905, if there is one; and as for _Robinson Crusoe_ and _Gulliver_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_--are they not eternal favourites, and just as tickling to the fancy in their nineteenth-century dress as in their eighteenth? The whole thing is but a hobby--but a paragraph in one chapter of the vast, but most agreeable, history of human folly. If John Doe is blankly indifferent to Richard Roe's Elizabethan dramatists, it is only fair to remember how sublime is Richard's contempt for John's collection of old musical instruments. If these gentlemen are wise they will discuss, when they meet, the weather, or the Death Duties, or some other extraneous subject, and leave their respective hobbies in the stable. Never mind what your hobby is--books, prints, drawings, china, scarabaei, lepidoptera--keep it to yourself and for those like-minded with you. Sweet indeed is the community of interest, delightful the intercourse which a common foible begets; but correspondingly bitter and distressful is the forced union of nervous zeal and pitiless indifference. Spare us the so-called friends who come and gape and stare and go! What is more painful than the chatter of the connoisseur as it falls upon the long ears of the ignoramus! Collecting is a secret sin--the great pushing public must be kept out. It is sheer madness to puff and praise your hobby, and to invite Dick, Tom, and Harry to inspect your stable: such conduct is to invite rebuff, to expose yourself to just animadversion. Keep the beast in its box. This is my first advice to the hobby-hunter. My second piece of advice is equally important, particularly at the present time, when the world is too much with us, and it is this--never convert a taste into a trade. The moment you become a tradesman you cease to be a hobbyist. When the love of money comes in at the window the love of books runs out at the door. There has been of late years a good deal of sham book-collecting. The morals of the Stock Exchange have corrupted even the library. Sordid souls have been induced by wily second-hand booksellers to buy books for no other reason than because the price demanded was a high one. This is the very worst possible reason for buying a book. Whether it is ever wise to buy a book, as Aulus Gellius used to do, simply because it is cheap, and regardless of its condition, is a debatable point, but to buy one dear at the mere bidding of a bookseller is to debase yourself. The result of this ungodly traffic has been to enlarge for the moment the circle of book-buyers by including in it men with commercial instincts, sham hobbyists. But these impostors have been lately punished in the only way they could be punished--namely, in their pockets--by a heavy fall of prices. The stuff they were induced to buy has not, and could not, maintain its price, and the shops are now full of the volumes which, seven or ten years ago, fetched fancy sums. If a young book-collector does but bear in mind the two bits of advice I have proffered him, he may safely be bidden godspeed and congratulated on his choice of a hobby, for it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the cheapest he could have chosen. Even without means to acquire the treasures of a Quaritch or a Pickering, he may yet derive infinite delight from the perusal of the many hundreds of catalogues that now weekly issue from the second-hand booksellers in town and country. He may write an imaginary letter, ordering the books he has previously selected from the catalogue, and then he has only to forget to post it to avoid all disagreeable consequences. The constant turnover of old books is amazing. There seems no rest in this world even for folios and quartos. The first edition of old Burton's _Anatomy_, printed at Oxford in a small quarto in 1621, rises to the surface as a rule no less than four times a year; so, too, does Coryat's _Crudities_, hastily gobbled up in five months' travels in France, Savoy, Italy, Germany, etc., 1611. What a seething, restless place this world is, to be sure! The constant recurrence of copies of the same books is almost startling. Hardly a year passes but every book of first-rate importance and interest is knocked down to the highest bidder. No doubt there are still old libraries where, buried in dust and cobwebs, the folios and quartos lie undisturbed; but to turn the pages or examine the index of _Book Prices Current_ is to have a vision before your eyes of whole regiments of books passing and repassing across the stage amidst the loud cries of auctioneers and the bidding of booksellers. In the auction-mart taste is pretty steady. The old favourites hold their own. Every now and again an immortal joins their ranks. Puffing and pretension may win the ear of the outside public, and extort praise from the press, but inside the rooms of a Sotheby, a Puttick, or a Hodgson, these foolish persons count for nothing, and their names are seldom heard. Were an author to turn the pages of _Book Prices Current_, he could hardly fail, as he there read the names of famous men of old, to breathe the prayer, 'May my books some day be found forming part of this great tidal wave of literature which is for ever breaking on Earth's human shores!' But the vanity of authors is endless, and their prayers are apt to be but empty things. GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven; but between times--and it is of those I speak--it is otherwise. Mr. Thomas Greenwood, in a most meritorious work on Public Libraries, supplies figures which show that, without counting pamphlets (which are books gone wrong) or manuscripts (which are books _in terrorem_), there are at this present moment upwards of 71,000,000 printed books in bindings in the several public libraries of Europe and America. To estimate the number and extent of private libraries in those countries is impossible. In many large houses there are no books at all--which is to make ignorance visible; whilst in many small houses there are, or seem to be, nothing else--which is to make knowledge inconvenient; yet as there are upwards of 280,000,000 of inhabitants of Europe and America, I cannot greatly err if a passion for round numbers drives me to the assertion that there are at least 300,000,000 books in these countries, not counting bibles and prayer-books. It is a poor show! Russia is greatly to blame, her European population of 88,000,000 being so badly provided for that it brings down the average. Were Russia left out in the cold, we might, were our books to be divided amongst our population _per capita_, rely upon having two volumes apiece. This would not afford Mr. Gosse (the title of one of whose books I have stolen) much material for gossip, particularly as his two books might easily chance to be duplicates. There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector, and there is no collector, not even that basest of them all, the Belial of his tribe, the man who collects money, whose love of private property is intenser, whose sense of the joys of ownership is keener than the book-collector's. Mr. William Morris once hinted at a good time coming, when at almost every street corner there would be a public library, where beautiful and rare books will be kept for citizens to examine. The citizen will first wash his hands in a parochial basin, and then dry them on a parochial towel, after which ritual he will walk in and stand _en queue_ until it comes to be his turn to feast his eye upon some triumph of modern or some miracle of old typography. He will then return to a bookless home proud and satisfied, tasting of the joy that is in widest commonalty spread. Alas! he will do nothing of the kind, not, at least, if he is one of those in whom the old Adam of the bookstalls still breathes. A public library must always be an abomination. To enjoy a book, you must own it. 'John Jones his book,' that is the best bookplate. I have never admired the much-talked-of bookplate of Grolier, which, in addition to his own name, bore the ridiculous advice _Et Amicorum_. Fudge! There is no evidence that Grolier ever lent any man a book with his plate in it. His collection was dispersed after his death, and then sentimentalists fell a-weeping over his supposed generosity. It would be as reasonable to commend the hospitality of a dead man because you found amongst his papers a vast number of unposted invitations to dinner upon a date he long outlived. Sentiment is seldom in place, but on a bookplate it is peculiarly odious. To paste in each book an invitation to steal it, as Grolier seems to have done, is foolish; but so also is it to invoke, as some book-plates do, curses upon the heads of all subsequent possessors--as if any man who wanted to add a volume to his collection would be deterred by such braggadocio. But this is a digression. Public libraries can never satisfy the longings of book-collectors any more than can the private libraries of other people. Whoever really cared a snap of his fingers for the contents of another man's library, unless he is known to be dying? It is a humorous spectacle to watch one book-collector exhibiting his stores to another. If the owner is a gentleman, as he usually is, he affects indifference--'A poor thing,' he seems to say, 'yet mine own'; whilst the visitor, if human, as he always is, exhibits disgust. If the volume proffered for the visitor's examination is a genuine rarity, not in his own collection, he surlily inquires how it was come by; whilst if it is no great thing, he testily expresses his astonishment it should be thought worth keeping, and this although he has the very same edition at home. On the other hand, though actual visits to other men's libraries rarely seem to give pleasure, the perusal of the catalogues of such libraries has always been a favourite pastime of collectors; but this can be accounted for without in any way aspersing the truth of the general statement that the only books a lover of them takes pleasure in are his own. Mr. Gosse's recent volume, _Gossip in a Library_, is a very pleasing example of the pleasure taken by a book-hunter in his own books. Just as some men and more women assume your interest in the contents of their nurseries, so Mr. Gosse seeks to win our ears as he talks to us about some of the books on his shelves. He has secured my willing attention, and is not likely to be disappointed of a considerable audience. We live in vocal times, when small birds make melody on every bough. The old book-collectors were a taciturn race--the Bindleys, the Sykeses, the Hebers. They made their vast collections in silence; their own tastes, fancies, predilections, they concealed. They never gossiped of their libraries; their names are only preserved to us by the prices given for their books after their deaths. Bindley's copy fetched £3 10s., Sykes' £4 15s. Thus is the buyer of to-day tempted to his doom, forgetful of the fact that these great names are only quoted when the prices realized at their sales were less than those now demanded. But solacing as is the thought of those grave, silent times, indisposed as one often is for the chirpy familiarities of this present, it is, or it ought to be, a pious, and therefore pleasant, reflection that there never was a time when more people found delight in book-hunting, or were more willing to pay for and read about their pastime than now. Rich people may, no doubt, still be met with who think it a serious matter to buy a book if it cost more than 3s. 9d. It was recently alleged in an affidavit made by a doctor in lunacy that for a well-to-do bachelor to go into the Strand, and in the course of the same morning spend £5 in the purchase of 'old books,' was a ground for belief in his insanity and for locking him up. These, however, are but vagaries, for it is certain that the number of people who will read a book like Mr. Gosse's steadily increases. This is its justification, and it is a complete one. It can never be wrong to give pleasure. To talk about books is better than to read about them, but, as a matter of hard fact, the opportunities life affords of talking about books are very few. The mood and the company seldom coincide; when they do, it is delightful, but they seldom do. Mr. Gosse's book ought not to be read in a fierce, nagging spirit which demands, What is the good of this? or, Who cares for that? His talk, it must be admitted, is not of masterpieces. The books he takes down are--in some instances, at all events--sad trash. Smart's poems, for example, in an edition of 1752, which does not contain the 'David,' is not a book which, viewed baldly and by itself, can be honestly described as worth reading. This remark is not prompted by jealousy, for I have the book myself, and seldom fail to find the list of subscribers interesting, for, among many other famous names, it contains those of 'Mr. Gray, Peter's College, Cambridge,' 'Mr. Samuel Richardson, editor of _Clarissa_, two books,' and 'Mr. Voltaire, Historiographer of France.' There are various Johnsons among the subscribers, but not Samuel, who apparently would liefer pray with Kit Smart than buy his poetry, thereby showing the doctor's usual piety and good sense.[A] [Footnote A: 'He insisted on people praying with him, and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as with anyone else.'] Although the nagging spirit before referred to is to be deprecated, it is sometimes amusing to lose your temper with your own hobby. If a book-collector ever does this, he longs to silence whole libraries of bad authors. ''Tis an inglorious acquist,' says Joseph Glanvill in his famous _Vanity of Dogmatizing_--I quote from the first edition, 1661, though the second is the rarer--'to have our heads or volumes laden as were Cardinal Campeius his mules, with old and useless luggage.' ''Twas this vain idolizing of authors,' Glanvill had just before observed, 'which gave birth to that silly vanity of _impertinent citations_, and inducing authority in things neither requiring nor deserving it.' In the same strain he proceeds, 'Methinks 'tis a pitiful piece of knowledge that can be learnt from an _Index_ and a poor ambition to be rich in the inventory of another's Treasure. To boast a _Memory_ (the most that these pedants can aim at) is but an humble ostentation. 'Tis better to own a Judgment, though but with a _Curta Supellex_ of coherent notions, than a _Memory_ like a sepulchre furnished with a load of broken and discarnate bones.' Thus far the fascinating Glanvill, whose mode of putting things is powerful. There are times when the contemplation of huge libraries wearies, and when even the names of Bindley and Sykes fail to please. Dr. Johnson's library sold at Christie's for £247 9s. Let those sneer who dare. It was Johnson, not Bindley, who wrote the _Lives of the Poets_. But, of course, no sensible man ever really quarrels with his hobby. A little petulance every now and again variegates the monotony of routine. Mr. Gosse tells us in his book that he cannot resist Restoration comedies. The bulk of them he knows to be as bad as bad can be. He admits they are not literature--whatever that may mean--but he intends to go on collecting them all the same till the inevitable hour when Death collects him. This is the true spirit; herein lies happiness, which consists in being interested in something, it does not much matter what. In this spirit let me take up Mr. Gosse's book again, and read what he has to tell about _Pharamond; or, the History of France. A Fam'd Romance. In Twelve Parts_, or about Mr. John Hopkins' collection of poems, printed by Thomas Warren for Bennet Bunbury at the Blue Anchor, in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1700. The Romance is dull, and as it occupies more than 1,100 folio pages may be pronounced tedious, and the poetry is bad, but as I do not seriously intend ever to read a line of either the Romance or the poetry, this is no great matter. LIBRARIANS AT PLAY No man of feeling will grudge the librarians of the universe their annual outing. Their pursuits are not indeed entirely sedentary, since at times they have to climb tall ladders, but of exercise they must always stand in need, and as for air, the exclusively bookish atmosphere is as bad for the lungs as it is for the intellectuals. In 1897 the Second International Library Conference met in London, attended several concerts, was entertained by the Marchioness of Bute and Lady Lubbock; visited Lambeth Palace and Stafford and Apsley Houses; witnessed a special performance of Irving's _Merchant of Venice_; were elected honorary members of the City Liberal, Junior Athaeneum, National Liberal, and Savage Clubs; and, generally speaking, enjoyed themselves after the methods current during that period. They also read forty-six papers, which now alone remain a stately record of their proceedings. I have lately spent a pleasant afternoon musing over these papers. Their variety is endless, and the dispositions of mind displayed by these librarians are wide as the poles asunder. Some of them babble like babies, others are evidently austere scholars; some are gravely bent on the best methods of classifying catalogues, economizing space, and sorting borrowers' cards; others, scorning such mechanical details, bid us regard libraries, and consequently librarians, as the primary factors in human evolution. 'Where,' asks Mr. Ernest Cushing Richardson, the librarian of Princetown University, New Jersey, U.S.A., 'lies the germ of the library?' He answers his own question after the following convincing fashion: 'At the point where a definitely formed concept from another's mind is placed beside one's own idea for integration, the result being a definite new form, including the substance of both.' The pointsman who presides over this junction is the librarian. The young woman of whom Mr. Matthews, the well-known librarian of Bristol, tells us, who, being a candidate for the post of assistant librarian, boldly pronounced Rider Haggard to be the author of the _Idylls of the King_, Southey of _The Mill on the Floss_, and Mark Twain of _Modern Painters_, undoubtedly placed her own ideas at the service of Bristol alongside the preconceived conceptions of Mr. Matthews; but she was rejected all the same. To speak seriously, who are librarians, and whence come they in such numbers? Of Bodley's librarian we have heard, and all the lettered world honours the name of Richard Garnett, late keeper of the printed books at the British Museum. But beyond these and half a dozen others a great darkness prevails. This ignorance is well illustrated by a pleasing anecdote told at the Conference by Mr. MacAlister: 'Only the day before yesterday, on the Calais boat, I was introduced to a world-famed military officer who, when he understood I had some connection with the Library Association, exclaimed: "Why, you're just the man I want! I have been anxious of late about my man, old Atkins. You see the old boy, with a stoop, sheltering behind the funnel. Poor old beggar! quite past his work, but as faithful as a dog. It has just occurred to me that if you could shove him into some snug library in the country, I'd be awfully grateful to you. His one fault is a fondness for reading, and so a library would be just the thing."' The usual titled lady also turned up at the Conference. This time she was recommending her late cook for the post of librarian, alleging on her behalf the same strange trait of character--her fondness for reading. Here, of course, one recalls Mark Pattison's famous dictum, 'The librarian who reads is lost,' about which there is much to be said, both _pro_ and _con_; but we must not be put off our inquiry, which is: Who are these librarians, and whence come they? They are the custodians of the 70,000,000 printed books (be the numbers a little more or less) in the public libraries of the Western world, and they come from guarding their treasures. They deserve our friendliest consideration. If occasionally their enthusiasm provokes a smile, it is, or should be, of the kindliest. When you think of 70,000,000 books, instinctively you wish to wash your hands. Nobody knows what dust is who has not divided his time between the wine-cellar and the library. The work of classification, of indexing, of packing away, must be endless. Great men have arisen who have grappled with these huge problems. We read respectfully of Cutter's rules, which are to the librarian even as Kepler's laws to the astronomer. We have also heard of Poole's index. We bow our heads. Both Cutter and Poole are Americans. The parish of St. Pancras has just, by an overwhelming majority, declined to have a free library, and consequently a librarian. Brutish St. Pancras! Libraries are obviously of two kinds: those intended for popular use and those meant for the scholar. The ordinary free library, in the sense of Mr. Ewart's Act of Parliament of 1850, is a popular library where a wearied population turns for distraction. Fiction plays a large part. In some libraries 80 per cent. of the books in circulation are novels. Hence Mr. Goldwin Smith's splenetic remark, 'People have no more right to novels than to theatre-tickets out of the taxes.' Quite true; no more they have--or to public gardens or to beautiful pictures or to anything save to peep through the railings and down the areas of Mr. Gradgrind's fine new house in Park Lane. When we are considering popular libraries, it does not do to expect too much of tired human nature. This popular kind of library was well represented--perhaps a little over-represented, at the Conference. All our American cousins are not Cutters and Pooles. There was Mr. Crunden, who keeps the public library at St. Louis, U.S.A. He is all against dull text-books. As a boy he derived his inspiration from Sargent's _Standard Speaker_, and the interesting sketch he gives us of his education makes us wonder whether amidst his multitudinous reading he ever encountered Newman's marvellous description and handling of the young and over-read Mr. Brown, which is to be found under the heading 'Elementary Studies' in _Lectures and Essays on University Subjects_. I shuddered just a little on reading in Mr. Crunden's paper of the boy who, before he was nine, had read Bulfinch's _Age of Chivalry_ and _Age of Charlemagne_, Bryant's _Translation of the 'Iliad'_, a prose translation of the _Odyssey_, Malory's _King Arthur, and several other versions of the Arthurian legend_, Prescott's _Peru and Mexico_, Macaulay's _Lays_, Longfellow's _Hiawatha_ and _Miles Standish_, the Jungle Books, and other books too numerous to mention. A famous list, but perilously long. Mr. Crunden supports his case for varied reading by quotations from all quarters--Dr. William T. Harris, President Eliot, Professor Mackenzie, Charles Dudley Warner, Sir John Lubbock--but their scraps of wisdom or of folly do not remove my uneasiness about the digestion of the little boy who, before he was nine years old, had (not content with Malory) read several versions of the Arthurian legend! Ladies make excellent librarians, and have tender hearts for children, and so we find a paper written by a lady librarian, entitled _Books that Children Like_. She quotes some interesting letters from children: 'I like books about ancient history and books about knights, also stories of adventure, and mostly books with a deep plot and mystery about them.' 'I do not like _Gulliver's Travels_, because I think they are silly.' 'I read _Little Men_. I did not like this book.' 'I like _Ivanhoe_, by Scott, better than any.' 'My favourite books are _Tom Sawyer_, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, and _Scudder's American History_. I like Tom Sawyer because he was so jolly, Uncle Tom because he was so faithful, and Nathan Hale because he was so brave.' These are unbought verdicts no wise man will despise. All this is popular enough. But the unpopular library must not be overlooked, for, after all, libraries are for the learned. We must not let the babes and sucklings, or the weary seamstress or badgered clerk, or even the working-man, ride rough-shod over Salmasius and Scaliger. In the papers of Mr. Garnett, Mr. Pollard, Mr. Dziatzko, Mr. Cutter, and others, the less popular and nobler side of the library is duly exhibited. My anxiety about these librarians, who are beginning to be a profession by themselves, is how they are to be paid. That librarians must live is at least as obvious in their case as in that of any other class. They must also, if they are to be of any use, be educated. In 1878 the late Mr. Robert Harrison, who for many years led a grimy life in the London Library, advocated £250 as a minimum annual salary for a competent librarian. But, as Mr. Ogle, of Bootle, pertinently asked at the Conference, 'Are his views yet accepted?' We fear not. Mr. Ogle courageously proceeds: 'The fear of a charge of trades unionism has long kept librarians silent, but this matter is one of public importance, and affects educational progress. A School-Board rate of 6d. or 1s. is willingly paid to teach our youth to read. Shall an additional 2d. be grudged to turn that reading talent into right and safe channels, where it may work for the public welfare and economy?' _Festina lente_, good Mr. Ogle, I beseech you. That way fierce controversy and, it may be, disaster lies. Do not stir the Philistine within us. The British nation is still savage under the skin. It has no real love for books, libraries, or librarians. In its hidden heart it deems them all superfluous. Anger it, and it may in a fit of temper sweep you all away. The loss of our free librarians would indeed be grievous. Never again could they meet in conference and read papers full of quaint things and odd memories. What, for example, can be more amusing than Mr. Cowell's reminiscences of forty years' library work in Liverpool, of the primitive days when a youthful Dicky Sam (for so do the inhabitants of that city call themselves) mistook the _Flora of Liverpool_ for a book either about a ship or a heroine? He knows better now. And what shall we say of the Liverpool brushmaker who, at a meeting of the library committee, recited a poem in praise of woman, containing the following really magnificent line?-- 'The heart that beats fondest is found in the stays.' There is nothing in Roscoe or Mrs. Hemans (local bards) one half so fine. Long may librarians live and flourish! May their salaries increase, if not by leaps and bounds, yet in steady proportions. Yet will they do well to remember that books are not everything. LAWYERS AT PLAY That dreary morass, that Serbonian bog, the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, has been lately lit up as by the flickering light of a will-o'-the-wisp, by the almost simultaneous publication of an imaginary charge delivered to an equally imaginary jury by a judge of no less eminence than the late Lord Penzance (that tough Erastian) and of the still bolder _jeu d'esprit_, _A Report of the Trial of an Issue in Westminster Hall_, June 20, 1627, which is the work of the unbridled fancy of His Honour Judge Willis, late Treasurer of the Inner Temple, and a man most intimately acquainted with the literature of the seventeenth century. Neither production of these playful lawyers, clothed though they be in the garb of judicial procedure, is in the least likely to impress the lay mind with that sense of 'impartiality' or 'indifference' which is supposed to be an attribute of justice, or, indeed, with anything save the unfitness of the machinery of an action at law for the determination of any matter which invokes the canons of criticism and demands the arbitrament of a well-informed and lively taste. Lord Penzance, who favours the Baconians, made no pretence of impartiality, and says outright in his preface that his readers 'must not expect to find in these pages an equal and impartial leaning of the judge alternately to the case of both parties, as would, I hope, be found in any judicial summing-up of the evidence in a real judicial inquiry.' And, he adds, 'the form of a summing-up is only adopted for convenience, but it is in truth very little short of an argument for the plaintiffs, _i.e._, the Baconians.' Why any man, judge or no judge, who wished to prepare an argument on one side of a question should think fit to cast that argument for convenience' sake in the form of a judicial summing-up of both sides is, and must remain, a puzzle. Judge Willis, who is a Shakespearean, bold and unabashed, is not content with a mere summing-up, but, with a gravity and wealth of detail worthy of De Foe, has presented us with what purports to be a verbatim report of so much of the proceedings in a suit of Hall _v._ Russell as were concerned with the trial before a jury of the simple issue--whether William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, 'the testator in the cause of _Hall v. Russell_,' was the author of the plays in the Folio of 1623. We are favoured with the names of counsel employed, who snarl at one another with such startling verisimilitude, whilst the remarks that fall from the bench do so with such naturalness, that it is perhaps not surprising, or any very severe reflection upon his literary _esprit_, that a member of the Bar, having heard Judge Willis deliver his lecture in the Inner Temple Hall, repaired next day to the library to study at his leisure the hitherto unnoted case of _Hall v. Russell_. Ten witnesses are put in the box to prove the affirmative--that Shakespeare was the author of the plays. Mr. Blount and M. Jaggard, the publishers of the Folio, give a most satisfactory account of the somewhat crucial point--how they came by the manuscripts, with all the amendments and corrections, and pass lightly over the fact that those manuscripts had disappeared. 'Rare Ben Jonson' in the witness-box is a masterpiece of dramatic invention; he demolishes Bacon's advocate with magnificent vitality. John Selden makes a stately witness, and Francis Meres a very useful one. Generally speaking, the weakest part in these interesting proceedings is the cross-examination. I have heard the learned judge do better in old days. No witnesses are called for the Baconians, though all the writings of the great philosopher were put in for what they were worth. The Lord Chief Justice, who seems to have been a friend of Shakespeare's, sums up dead in his favour, and the jury (with whose names we are not supplied, which is a pity--Bunyan or De Foe would have given them to us), after a short absence, a quarter of an hour, return a Shakespearean verdict, which of course ought by rights to make the whole question _res judicata_. But it has done nothing of the kind. Could we really ask Blount and Jaggard how they came by the manuscripts, and who made the corrections, and did we believe their replies, why, then a stray Baconian here and there might reluctantly abandon his strange fancy; but as _Hall v. Russell_ is Judge Willis's joke, it will convert no Baconians any more than Dean Sherlock's once celebrated _Trial of the Witnesses_ compels belief in the Resurrection. The question in reality is a compound one. Did Shakespeare write the plays? If yes, the matter is at rest. If no--who did? If an author can be found--Bacon or anyone else--well and good. If no author can be found--Anon. wrote them--a conclusion which need terrify no one, since the plays would still remain within our reach, and William Shakespeare, apart from the plays, is very little to anybody who has not written his life. But this is not the form the controversy has assumed. The anti-Shakespeareans are to a man Baconians, and fondly imagine that if only Will Shakespeare were put out of the way their man must step into the vacant throne. Lord Penzance in charging his jury told them that those of their number 'who had studied the writings of Bacon' and were 'keenly alive to his marvellous mental powers' would probably have 'no difficulty,' if once satisfied that the author they were seeking after was _not_ Shakespeare, in finding as a fact that he _was_ Bacon. But suppose James Spedding had been on that jury, and, rising in his place, had spoken as follows: 'My Lord,--If any man has ever studied the writings of Bacon, I have. For twenty-five years I have done little else. If any man is keenly alive to his marvellous mental powers, I am that man. I am also deeply read in the plays attributed to Shakespeare, and I think I am in a condition to say that, whoever was the real author, it was _not_ Bacon.' That this is exactly what Spedding would have said we know from the letter he wrote on the subject to Mr. Holmes, reprinted in _Essays and Discussions_, and it completely upsets the whole scheme of arrangement of Lord Penzance's summing-up, which proceeds on the easy footing that the more difficulties you throw in Shakespeare's path the smoother becomes Bacon's. That there are difficulties in Shakespeare's path, some things very hard to explain, must be admitted. Lord Penzance makes the most of these. It is, indeed, a most extraordinary thing that anybody should have had the mother-wit to write the plays traditionally assigned to Shakespeare. Where did he get it from? How on earth did the plays get themselves written? Where, when, and how did the author pick up his multifarious learnings? Lord Penzance, good, honest man, is simply staggered by the extent of the play-wright's information. The plays, so he says, 'teem with erudition,' and can only have been written by someone who had the classics at his finger-ends, modern languages on the tip of his tongue--by someone who had travelled far and read deeply; and, above all, by a man who had spent at least a year in a conveyancer's chambers! And yet, when this has been said, would Lord Penzance have added that the style and character of the playwright is the style and character of a really learned man of his period! Can anything less like such a style be imagined? Once genius is granted, heaven-born genius, a mother-wit beyond the dreams of fancy, and then plain humdrum men, ordinary judicial intelligences, will do well to be on their guard against it. 'Beware--beware! he is fooling thee.' Shakespeare's genius has simply befooled Lord Penzance. Seafaring men, after reading _The Tempest_, are ready to maintain that its author must have been for at least a year before the mast. As for Shakespeare's law, which has taken in so many matter-of-fact practitioners, one can now refer to Ben Jonson's evidence in _Hall v. Russell_, where that great dramatist has no difficulty in showing that if none but a lawyer could have written Shakespeare's plays, a lawyer alone could have preached Thomas Adams's sermons. Judge Willis's profound knowledge of sound old divinity has served him here in good stead. The fact is it is simply impossible to exaggerate the quick-wittedness and light-heartedness of a great literary genius. The absorbing power, the lightning-like faculty of apprehension, the instant recognition of the uses to which any fact or fancy can be put, the infinite number and delicacy of the mental feelers, thrust out in all directions, which belong to the creative brain and keep it in tremulous and restless activity, are quite enough so to differentiate the possessor of these endowments from his fellow mortals as to make comparison impossible. Shakespeare the actor was by the common consent of his enemies one of the deftest fellows that ever made use of other men's materials--'Convey, the wise it call.' I will again quote Spedding: 'If Shakespeare was not trained as a scholar or a man of science, neither do the works attributed to him show traces of trained scholarship or scientific education. Given the _faculties_, you will find that all the acquired knowledge, art, and dexterity which the Shakespearean plays imply were easily attainable by a man who was labouring in his vocation and had nothing else to do.' I greatly prefer this cool judgment of a scholar deeply read in Elizabethan lore to Lord Penzance's heated and almost breathless admiration for the 'teeming erudition' of the plays. Lord Penzance likewise displays a very creditable non-acquaintance with the disposition of authors one to another. He is quite shocked at the callousness of Shakespeare's contemporaries to Shakespeare if he were indeed the author of the Quartos which bore his name in his lifetime. But as it cannot be suggested that in, say, 1600 it was generally known that Shakespeare was not the author of these plays, it is hard to see how his contemporaries can be acquitted of indifference to his prodigious superiority over themselves. Authors, however, never take this view. Shakespeare's contemporaries thought him a mighty clever fellow and no more. Why, even Wordsworth was well persuaded he could write like Shakespeare had he been so minded. Mr. Arnold remained all his life honestly indifferent to and sceptical about the fame of both Tennyson and Browning. Great living lawyers and doctors do not invariably idolize each other, nor do the lawyers and doctors in a small way of business always speak well of those in a big way. The poets and learned critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Dryden, Pope, Johnson--looked upon Shakespeare with an indulgent eye, as a great but irregular genius, after much the same fashion as did the old sea-dogs of Nelson's day regard the hero of Trafalgar. 'Do not criticise him too harshly,' said Lord St. Vincent; 'there can only be one Nelson.' These are not the real difficulties, though they seem to have pressed somewhat heavily on Lord Penzance. The circumstances attendant upon the publication of the Folio of 1623 are undoubtedly puzzling. Shakespeare died in 1616, leaving behind him more than forty plays circulating in London and more or less associated with his name. His will, a most elaborate document, does not contain a single reference to his literary life or labours. Seven years after his death the Folio appears, which contains twenty-six plays out of the odd forty just referred to, and ten extra plays which had never before been in print, and about six of which there is a very scanty Shakespearean tradition. Of the twenty-six old plays, seventeen had been printed in small Quartos, possibly surreptitiously, in Shakespeare's lifetime, but the Folio does not reprint from these Quartos, but from enlarged, amended, and enormously improved copies. Messrs. Heminge and Condell, the editor of this priceless treasure, the First Folio, wrote a long-winded dedication to Lords Pembroke and Montgomery, which contains but one pertinent passage, in which they ask their readers to believe that it had been the office of the editors to collect and publish the author's 'mere writings,' he being dead, and to offer them, not 'maimed and deformed,' in surreptitious and stolen copies, but 'cured and perfect of their limbs and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them, who as he was a happie imitator of Nature was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.' From whose custody did those 'papers' come? Where had they been all the seven years? Of what did they consist? If in truth unblotted, all the seventeen Quartos as well as the new plays must have been printed from fair manuscript copies. From whom were these unblotted copies received, and what became of them? The silence of these players is irritating and perplexing,--though, possibly, the explanation of the mystery, were it forthcoming, would be, as often happens, of the simplest. It may be that these unblotted copies were in the theatre library all the time. Whether these interrogatories, now unanswerable, raise doubts in the mind of sufficient potency to destroy the tradition of centuries, and to prevent us from sharing the conviction of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, and Johnson that Shakespeare was the author of Shakespeare's plays must be left for individual consideration. But, however destructive these doubts may prove, they do not go a yard of the way to let in Bacon. Once more I will quote Spedding, for he, of all the moderns, by virtue of his taste and devouring studies, is the best qualified to speak: 'Aristotle was an extraordinary man. Plato was an extraordinary man. That two men each severally so extraordinary should have been living at the same time in the same place was a very extraordinary thing. But would it diminish the wonder to suppose the two to be one? So I say of Bacon and Shakespeare. That a human being possessed of the faculties necessary to make a Shakespeare should exist is extraordinary. That a human being possessed of the necessary faculties to make Bacon should exist is extraordinary. That two such human beings should have been living in London at the same time was more extraordinary still. But that one man should have existed possessing the faculties and opportunities necessary to make _both_ would have been the most extraordinary thing of all' (see Spedding's _Essays and Discussions_, 1879, pp. 371, 372). 'Great writers, especially being contemporary, have many features in common, but if they are really great writers they write naturally, and nature is always individual. I doubt whether there are five lines together to be found in Bacon which could be mistaken for Shakespeare, or five lines in Shakespeare which could be mistaken for Bacon, by one who was familiar with their several styles and practised in such observations' (_Ibid._, p. 373). THE NON-JURORS To anyone blessed or cursed with an ironical humour the troublesome history of the Church of England since the Reformation cannot fail to be an endless source of delight. It really is exciting. Just a little more of Calvin and of Beza, half a dozen words here, or Cranmer's pencil through a single phrase elsewhere; a 'quantum suff.' of the men 'that allowed no Eucharistic sacrifice,' and away must have gone beyond recall the possibility of the Laudian revival and all that still appertains thereunto. We must have lost the 'primitive' men, the Kens, the Wilsons, the Knoxes, the Kebles, the Puseys. On the other hand, but for the unfaltering language of the Articles, the hearty tone of the Homilies, and the agreeable readiness of both sides to curse the Italian impudence of the Bishop of Rome and all his 'detestable enormities,' our Anglican Church history could never have been enriched with the names or sweetened by the memories of the Romaines, the Flavels, the Venns, the Simeons, and of many thousand unnamed saints who finished their course in the fervent faith of Evangelicalism. But on what a thread it has always hung! An ill-considered Act of Parliament, an amendment hastily accepted by a pestered layman at midnight, a decision in a court of law, a Jerusalem Bishoprick, a passage in an early Father, an ancient heresy restudied, and off to Rome goes a Newman or a Manning, whilst a Baptist Noel finds his less romantic refuge in Protestant Dissent. Schism is for ever in the air. Disruption a lively possibility. It has always been a ticklish business belonging to the Church of England, unless you can muster up enough courage to be a frank Erastian, and on the rare occasions when you attend your parish church handle the Book of Common Prayer with all the reverence due to a schedule to an Act of Parliament. Among the many noticeable humours of the present situation is the tone adopted by an average Churchman like Canon Overton to the Non-Jurors. When the late Mr. Lathbury published his admirable _History of the Non-Jurors_,[A] he had to prepare himself for a very different public of Churchmen and Churchwomen than will turn over Canon Overton's agreeable pages.[B] In 1845 the average Churchman, after he had conquered the serious initial difficulty of comprehending the Non-Juror's position, was only too apt to consider him a fool for his pains. 'It has been the custom,' wrote Mr. Lathbury, 'to speak of the Non-Jurors as a set of unreasonable men, and should I succeed in any measure in correcting those erroneous impressions, I shall feel that my labour has not been in vain.' But in 1902, as Canon Overton is ready enough to perceive, 'their position is a little better understood.' The well-nigh 'fools' are all but 'confessors.' [Footnote A: _A History of the Non-Jurors_. By Thomas Lathbury. London: Pickering, 1845.] [Footnote B: _The Non-Jurors_. By J.H. Overton, D.D. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1902, 16s.] The early history of the Non-Jurors is as fascinating and as fruitful as their later history is dull, melancholy, and disappointing. Nobody will deny that the Bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church of England who refused to take the oaths to William and Mary and George I., when tendered to them, were amply justified in the Court of Conscience. They were ridiculed by the politicians of the day for their supersensitiveness; but what were they to do? If they took the oaths, they apostalized from the faith they had once professed. Before the Revolution it was the faith of all High Churchmen--part of the _deposition_ they had to guard--that the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience was Gospel truth, primitive doctrine, and a chief 'characteristic' of the Anglican Church. The saintly John Kettlewell, in his tractate, _Christianity: a Doctrine of the Cross, or Passive Obedience under any Pretended Invasion of Legal Rights and Liberties_ (1696), makes this perfectly plain; and when Ken came to compose his famous will, wherein he declared that he died in the Communion of the Church of England, 'as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross,' the good Bishop did not mean what many a pious soul in later days has been edified by thinking he did mean, the doctrine of the Atonement, but that of passive obedience, which was the Non-Juror's cross. It is sad to think a doctrine dear to so many saintly men, maintained with an erudition so vast and exemplified by sacrifices so great, should have disappeared in the vortex of present-day conflict. It may some day reappear in Convocation. Kettlewell, who was a precise writer and accurate thinker, defined sovereignty as supremacy. 'Kings,' he said, 'can be no longer sovereigns, but subjects, if they have any superiors'; and he points out with much acumen that the best security under a sovereign 'which sovereignty allows' is that the Kings and Ministers are accountable and liable for breach of law as well as others. Kettlewell, had he lived long enough, might have come to transfer his idea of sovereignty to Kings, Lords, and Commons speaking through an Act of Parliament, and if so, he would have urged _active obedience_ to its enactments, when not contrary to conscience, and _passive obedience_ if they were so contrary. Therefore, were he alive to-day, and did he think it contrary to conscience (as he easily might) to pay a school-rate for an 'undenominational' school, he would not draw a cheque for the amount, but neither would he punch the bailiff's head who came to seize his furniture. Kettlewell's treatise is well worth reading. Its last paragraph is most spirited. There could be no doubt about it. The High Church party were bound hand and foot to the doctrine of the Cross--_i.e._, passive obedience to the Lord's Anointed. Whoever else might actively resist or forsake the King, they could not without apostasy. But the Revolution of 1688 was not content to pierce the High Churchmen through one hand. Not only did the Revolution require the Church to forswear its King, but also to see its spiritual fathers deprived and intruders set in their places without even the semblance of any spiritual authority. If it was hard to have James II. a fugitive in foreign lands and Dutch William in Whitehall, it was perhaps even harder to see Sancroft expelled from Lambeth, and the Erastian and latitudinarian Tillotson, who was prepared to sacrifice even episcopacy for peace, usurping the title of Archbishop of Canterbury. After all, no man, not even a Churchman, can serve two masters. The loyalty of a High Churchman to the throne is always subject to his loyalty to the Church, and at the Revolution he was wounded in both houses. When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and established what was then unblushingly called 'the new religion,' the whole Anglican Hierarchy, with the paltry exception of the Bishop of Llandaff, refused the oaths of supremacy, and were superseded. In a little more than 100 years the Protestant Bench was bombarded with a heart-searching oath--this time of allegiance. Opinion was divided; the point was not so clear as in 1559. The Archbishop of York and his brethren of London, Lincoln, Bristol, Winchester, Rochester, Llandaff and St. Asaph, Carlisle and St. David's, swore to bear true allegiance to Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Bath and Wells, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough, Worcester, Chichester, and Chester refused to swear anything of the kind, and were consequently, in pursuance of the terms of an Act of Parliament, and of an Act of Parliament only, deprived of their ecclesiastical preferments. They thus became the first Non-Jurors, and were long, except two who died before actual sentence of exclusion, affectionately known and piously venerated in all High Church homes as 'the Deprived Fathers.' Who can doubt that they were right, holding the faith they did? Yet Englishmen do not take kindly to martyrdom, and some of the Bishops were strangely puzzled. The excellent Ken, who, like Keble, was an Englishman first and a Catholic afterwards (in other words, no true Catholic at all), when told that James was ready to give Ireland to France, as nearly as possible conformed, so angry was he with the Lord's Anointed; and even the fiery Leslie, one of our most agreeable writers, was always ready to forgive those pious, peaceful souls who thought it no sin, though great sorrow, to comply with the demands of Caesar, but still managed to retain their old Church and King principles. Leslie reserved his wrath for the Tillotsons and the Tenisons and the Burnets, who first, to use his own words, swallowed 'the morsels of usurpation' and then dressed them up 'with all the gaudy and ridiculous flourishes that an Apostate eloquence can put upon them.' The early Non-Jurors included among their number a very large proportion of holy, learned, and primitive-minded men. At least 400 of the general body of the clergy refused the oaths and accepted for themselves and those dependent on them lives of poverty and seclusion. They were from the beginning an unpopular body. They were not Puritans, they were not Deists, they were not Presbyterians, they would not go to their parish churches; and yet they vehemently objected to being called Papists. What troublesome people! Five of the deprived fathers, including the Primate, had known what it was, when they defied their Sovereign, to be the idols of the mob; but when they adhered to his fallen cause they were deprived of their sees, and sent packing from their palaces without a single growl of popular discontent. Oblivion was their portion, even as it was of their Roman Catholic predecessors at the time of the Reformation. The Archbishop of Canterbury, when turned out of Lambeth by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench to make way for Tillotson, retired to his native village in Fressingfield, where he did not attend the parish church, nor would allow any but non-juring clergy to perform Divine service in his presence. Dr. Sancroft (who was a book-lover, and had designed a binding of his own) died on November 24, 1693, and the epitaph, of his own composition, on his tombstone may still be read with profit by time-servers of all degrees and denominations, cleric and lay, in Parliament and out of it. All the deprived Bishops, so Mr. Lathbury assures us, were in very narrow circumstances, and of Turner, of Ely, Mr. Lathbury very properly writes: 'This man who, by adhering to the new Sovereign, and taking the oath, might have ended his day amidst an abundance of earthly blessings, was actually sustained in his declining years by the bounty of those who sympathized with him in his distresses.' Bishop Turner died in 1700. Despite this distressing and most genuine poverty, the reader of old books will not infrequently come across traces of many happy and well-spent hours during which these poor Non-Jurors managed 'to fleet the time' in their own society, for they were, many of them, men of the most varied tastes and endowed with Christian tempers; whilst their writings exhibit, as no other writings of the period do, the saintliness and devotion which are supposed to be among the 'notes' of the Catholic Church. Two better men than Kettlewell and Dodwell are nowhere to be found, and as for vigorous writing, where is Charles Leslie to be matched? So long as the deprived fathers continued to live, the schism--for complete schism it was between 'the faithful remnant of the Church of England' and the Established Church--was on firm ground. But what was to happen when the last Bishop died? Dodwell, who, next to Hickes, seems to have dominated the Non-Juring mind, did not wish the schism to continue after the death of the deprived Bishops; for though he admitted that the prayers for the Revolution Sovereigns would be 'unlawful prayers,' to which assent could not properly be given, he still thought that communion with the Church of England was possible. Hickes thought otherwise, and Hickes, it must not be forgotten, though only known to the world and even to Non-Jurors generally, as the deprived Dean of Worcester, was in sober truth and reality Bishop of Thetford, having been consecrated a Suffragan Bishop under that title by the deprived Bishops of Norwich, Peterborough, and Ely, at Southgate, in Middlesex, on February 24, 1693, in the Bishop of Peterborough's lodgings. At the same time the accomplished Thomas Wagstaffe was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Ipswich, though he continued to earn his living as a physician all the rest of his days. These were clandestine consecrations, for even so well-tried and whole-hearted a Non-Juror as Thomas Hearne, of Oxford, knew nothing about them, though a great friend of both the new Bishops, until long years had sped. It would be idle at this distance of time, and having regard to the events which have happened since February, 1693, to consider the nice questions how far the Act of Henry VIII. relating to the appointment of suffragans could have any applicability to such consecrations, or what degree of Episcopal authority was thereby conferred, or for how long. As things turned out, Ken proved the longest liver of the deprived fathers. The good Bishop died at Longleat, one of the few great houses which sheltered Non-Jurors, on March 19, 1711. But before his death he had made cession of his rights to his friend Hooper, who on the violent death of Kidder, the intruding revolution Bishop, had been appointed by Queen Anne, who had wished to reinstate Ken, to Bath and Wells. It was the wish of Ken that the schism should come to an end on his death. It did nothing of the kind, though some very leading Non-Jurors, including the learned Dodwell and Nelson, rejoined the main body of the Church, saving all just exceptions to the 'unlawful prayers.' Bishop Wagstaffe died in 1712, leaving Bishop Hickes alone in his glory, who in 1713, assisted by two Scottish Bishops, consecrated Jeremy Collier, Samuel Hawes, and Nathaniel Spinckes, Bishops of 'the faithful remnant.' Hickes died in 1715, and the following year the great and hugely learned Thomas Brett became a Bishop, as also did Henry Gawdy. Then, alas! arose a schism which rent the faithful remnant in twain. It was about a great subject, the Communion Service. Collier and Brett were in favour of altering the Book of Common Prayer so as to restore it to the First Book of King Edward VI., which provided for (1) The mixed chalice; (2) prayers for the faithful departed; (3) prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost on the consecrated elements; (4) the Oblatory Prayer, offering the elements to the Father as symbols of His Son's body and blood. This side of the controversy became known as 'The Usagers,' whilst those Non-Jurors, headed by Bishop Spinckes, who held by King Charles's Prayer-Book, were called 'the Non-Usagers.' The discussion lasted long, and was distinguished by immense learning and acumen. The Usagers may be said to have carried the day, for after the controversy had lasted fourteen years, in 1731 Timothy Mawman was consecrated a Bishop by three Bishops, two of whom were 'Usagers' and one a 'Non-Usager.' But in the meantime what had become of the congregations committed to their charge? Never large, they had dwindled almost entirely away. The last regular Bishop was Robert Gordon, who was consecrated in 1741 by Brett, Smith, and Mawman. Gordon, who was an out-and-out Jacobite, died in 1779. I have not even mentioned the name of perhaps the greatest of the Non-Jurors, William Law, nor that of Carte, an historian, the fruits of whose labour may still be seen in other men's orchards. The whole story, were it properly told, would prove how hard it is in a country like England, where nobody really cares about such things, to run a schism. But who knows what may happen to-morrow? LORD CHESTERFIELD 'Buy good books and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.' So wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, that highly-favoured and much bewritten youth, on March 19, 1750, and his words have been chosen with great cunning by Mr. Charles Strachey as a motto for his new edition of these famous letters.[A] [Footnote A: Published by Methuen and Co. in 2 vols.] The quotation is full of the practical wisdom, but is at the same time--so much, at least, an old book-collector may be allowed to say--a little suggestive of the too-well-defined limitations of their writer's genius and character. Lord Chesterfield is always clear and frequently convincing, yet his wisdom is that of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and not only never points in the direction of the Celestial City, but seldom displays sympathy with any generous emotion or liberal taste. Yet as we have nobody like him in the whole body of our literature, we can welcome even another edition--portable, complete, and cheap--of his letters to his son with as much enthusiasm as is compatible with the graces, and with the maxim, so dear to his lordship's heart, _Nil admirari!_ What, I have often wondered, induced Lord Chesterfield to write this enormously long and troublesome series of letters to a son who was not even his heir? Their sincerity cannot be called in question. William Wilberforce did not more fervently desire the conversion to God of his infant Samuel than apparently did Lord Chesterfield the transformation of his lumpish offspring into 'the all-accomplished man' he wished to have him. 'All this,' so the father writes in tones of fervent pleading--'all this you may compass if you please. You have the means, you have the opportunities; employ them, for God's sake, while you may, and make yourself the all-accomplished man I wish to have you. It entirely depends upon the next two years; they are the decisive ones' (Letter CLXXVII.). It is the very language of an evangelical piety applied to the manufacture of a worldling. But what promoted the anxiety? Was it natural affection--a father's love? If it was, never before or since has that world-wide and homely emotion been so concealed. There is a detestable, a forbidding, an all-pervading harshness of tone throughout this correspondence that seems to banish affection, to murder love. Read Letter CLXXVIII., and judge for yourselves. I will quote a passage: 'The more I love you now from the good opinion I have of you, the greater will be my indignation if I should have reason to change it. Hitherto you have had every possible proof of my affection, because you have deserved it, but when you cease to deserve it you may expect every possible mark of my resentment. To leave nothing doubtful upon this important point, I will tell you fairly beforehand by what rule I shall judge of your conduct: by Mr. Harte's account.... If he complains you must be guilty, and I shall not have the least regard for anything you may allege in your own defence.' Ugh! what a father! Lord Chesterfield despised the Gospels, and made little of St. Paul; yet the New Testament could have taught him something concerning the nature of a father's love. His language is repulsive, repugnant, and yet how few fathers have taken the trouble to write 400 educational letters of great length to their sons! All one can say is that Chesterfield's letters are without natural affection: 'If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, and no man ever loved.' If affection did not dictate these letters, what did? Could it be ambition? So astute a man as Chesterfield, who was kept well informed as to the impression made by his son, could hardly suppose it likely that the boy would make a name for himself, and thereby confer distinction upon the family of which he was an irregular offshoot. A respectable diplomatic career, with an interval in the House of Commons, was the most that so clear-sighted a man could anticipate for the young Stanhope. Was it literary fame for himself? This, of course, assumes that subsequent publication was contemplated by the writer. The dodges and devices of authors are well-nigh infinite and quite beyond conjecture, and it is, of course, possible that Lord Chesterfield kept copies of these letters, which bear upon their faces evidence of care and elaboration. It is not to be supposed for a moment that he ever forgot he had written them. It is hard to believe he never inquired after them and their whereabouts. Great men have been known to write letters which, though they bore other addresses, were really intended for their biographers. It would not have been surprising if Lord Chesterfield wrote these letters intending some day to publish them, but not only is there no warrant for such an opinion, but the opposite is clearly established. It is, no doubt, odd that the son should have carefully preserved more than 400 letters written to him during a period beginning with his tenderest years and continuing whilst he was travelling on the Continent. It seems almost a miracle. What made the son treasure them so carefully? Did he look forward to being his father's biographer? Hardly so at the age of ten, or even twenty. Biographies were not then what they have since become. No doubt in the middle of the eighteenth century letters were more treasured than they are to-day, and young Stanhope's friends may also have thought it wise to encourage him to preserve documentary evidence of the great interest taken in him by his father. None the less, I think the preservation of this correspondence is in the circumstances a most extraordinary though well-established fact. The son died in 1768 of a dropsy at Avignon, and the news was communicated to the Earl by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, of whose existence he was previously unaware. Two grandsons accompanied her. It was a shock; but 'les manières nobles et aisées, la tournure d'un homme de condition, le ton de la bonne compagnie, les grâces le je ne scais quoi qui plaît,' came to Lord Chesterfield's assistance, and he received his son's widow, who was not a pleasing person, and her two boys with kindness and good feeling, and provided for them quite handsomely by his will. The Earl died in 1773, in his seventy-ninth year, and thereupon Mrs. Stanhope, who was in possession of all the original letters addressed to her late husband, carried her wares to market, and made a bargain with Mr. Dodsley for their publication, she to receive £1,575. Mr. Dodsley advertised the forthcoming work, and on that the Earl's executors, relying upon the well-known case of Pope _v._ Curl, decided by Lord Hardwicke in 1741, filed their bill against Mrs. Stanhope, seeking an injunction to restrain publication. The widow put in her sworn Answer, in which she averred that she had, on more occasions than one, mentioned publication to the Earl, and that he, though recovering from her certain written characters of eminent contemporaries, had seemed quite content to let her do what she liked with the letters, only remarking that there was too much Latin in them. The executors seem to have moved for what is called an interim injunction--that is, an injunction until trial of the cause, and, from the report in _Ambler_, it appears that Lord Apsley (a feeble creature) granted such an injunction, but recommended the executors to permit the publication if, on seeing a copy of the correspondence, they saw no objection to it. In the result the executors gave their consent, and the publication became an authorized one, so much so that Dodsley was able to obtain an interdict in the Scotch Court preventing a certain Scotch bookseller, caller McFarquhar, from reprinting the letters in Edinburgh. Whether the executors believed Mrs. Stanhope's story, or saw no reason to object to the publication of the letters, I do not know, but it is clear that the opposition was a half-hearted one. It would be hasty to assume that Lord Chesterfield wrote these letters with any intention of publication, and I am therefore left without being able to suggest any strong reason for their existence. A restless, itching pen, perhaps, accounts for them. Some men find a pleasure in writing, even at great length; others, of whom Carlyle was one, though they hate the labour, are yet compelled by some fierce necessity to blacken paper. At all events, we have Lord Chesterfield's letters, and, having them, they will always have readers, for they are readable. That the letters are full of wit and wisdom and sound advice is certain. Mr. Strachey, in his preface, seems to be under the impression that in the popular estimate Chesterfield is reckoned an elegant trifler, a man of no serious account. What the popular or vulgar estimate of Chesterfield may be it would be hard to determine, nor is it of the least importance, for no one who knows about Lord Chesterfield can possibly entertain any such opinion. How it came about that so able and ambitious a man made so poor a thing out of life, and failed so completely, is puzzling at first, though a little study would, I think, make the reasons of Chesterfield's failure plain enough. To prove by extracts from the Letters how wise a man Chesterfield was would be easy, but tiresome; to exhibit him in a repulsive character would be equally easy, but spiteful. I prefer to leave him alone, and to content myself with but one quotation, which has a touch of both wisdom and repulsiveness: 'Consult your reason betimes. I do not say it will always prove an unerring guide, for human reason is not infallible, but it will prove the least erring guide that you can follow. Books and conversation may assist it, but adopt neither blindly and implicitly; try both by that best rule God has given to direct us--reason. Of all the truths do not decline that of thinking. The host of mankind can hardly be said to think; their prejudices are almost all adoptive; and in general I believe it is better that it should be so, as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated as they are. We have many of these useful prejudices in this country which I should be very sorry to see removed. The good Protestant conviction that the Pope is both Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon is a more effectual preservative against Popery than all the solid and unanswerable arguments of Chillingworth.' THE JOHNSONIAN LEGEND The ten handsome volumes which the indefatigable and unresting zeal of Dr. Birkbeck Hill, and the high spirit of the Clarendon Press, have edited, arranged, printed, and published for the benefit of the world and the propagation of the Gospel according to Dr. Johnson are pleasant things to look upon. I hope the enterprise has proved remunerative to those concerned, but I doubt it. The parsimony of the public in the matter of books is pitiful. The ordinary purse-carrying Englishman holds in his head a ready-reckoner or scale of charges by which he tests his purchases--so much for a dinner, so much for a bottle of champagne, so much for a trip to Paris, so much for a pair of gloves, and so much for a book. These ten volumes would cost him £4 9s. 3d. 'Whew! What a price for a book, and where are they to be put, and who is to dust them?' Idle questions! As for room, a bicycle takes more room than 1,000 books; and as for dust, it is a delusion. You should never dust books. There let it lie until the rare hour arrives when you want to read a particular volume; then warily approach it with a snow-white napkin, take it down from its shelf, and, withdrawing to some back apartment, proceed to cleanse the tome. Dr. Johnson adopted other methods. Every now and again he drew on huge gloves, such as those once worn by hedgers and ditchers, and then, clutching his folios and octavos, he banged and buffeted them together until he was enveloped in a cloud of dust. This violent exercise over, the good doctor restored the volumes, all battered and bruised, to their places, where, of course, the dust resettled itself as speedily as possible. Dr. Johnson could make books better than anybody, but his notions of dusting them were primitive and erroneous. But the room and the dust are mere subterfuges. The truth is, there is a disinclination to pay £4 9s. 3d. for the ten volumes containing the complete Johnsonian legend. To quarrel with the public is idiotic and most un-Johnsonian. 'Depend upon it, sir,' said the Sage, 'every state of society is as luxurious as it can be.' We all, a handful of misers excepted, spend more money than we can afford upon luxuries, but what those luxuries are to be is largely determined for us by the fashions of our time. If we do not buy these ten volumes, it is not because we would not like to have them, but because we want the money they cost for something we want more. As for dictating to men how they are to spend their money, it were both a folly and an impertinence. These ten volumes ended Dr. Hill's labours as an editor of _Johnson's Life and Personalia_, but did not leave him free. He had set his mind on an edition of the _Lives of the Poets_. This, to the regret of all who knew him either personally or as a Johnsonian, he did not live to see through the press. But it is soon to appear, and will be a storehouse of anecdote and a miracle of cross-references. A poet who has been dead a century or two is amazing good company--at least, he never fails to be so when Johnson tells us as much of his story as he can remember without undue research, with that irony of his, that vast composure, that humorous perception of the greatness and the littleness of human life, that make the brief records of a Spratt, a Walsh, and a Fenton so divinely entertaining. It is an immense testimony to the healthiness of the Johnsonian atmosphere that Dr. Hill, who breathed it almost exclusively for a quarter of a century and upwards, showed no symptoms either of moral deterioration or physical exhaustion. His appetite to the end was as keen as ever, nor was his temper obviously the worse. The task never became a toil, not even a tease. 'You have but two subjects,' said Johnson to Boswell: 'yourself and myself. I am sick of both.' Johnson hated to be talked about, or to have it noticed what he ate or what he had on. For a hundred years now last past he has been more talked about and noticed than anybody else. But Dr. Hill never grew sick of Dr. Johnson. The _Johnsonian Miscellanies_[A] open with the _Prayers and Meditations_, first published by the Rev. Dr. Strahan in 1785. Strahan was the Vicar of Islington, and into his hands at an early hour one morning Dr. Johnson, then approaching his last days, put the papers, 'with instructions for committing them to the press and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' This promise the doctor was not able to keep, and shortly after his death his reverend friend published the papers just as they were put into his hands. One wonders he had the heart to do it, but the clerical mind is sometimes strangely insensitive to the privacy of thought. But, as in the case of most indelicate acts, you cannot but be glad the thing was done. The original manuscript is at Pembroke College, Oxford. In these _Prayers and Meditations_ we see an awful figure. The _solitary_ Johnson, perturbed, tortured, oppressed, in distress of body and of mind, full of alarms for the future both in this world and the next, teased by importunate and perplexing thoughts, harassed by morbid infirmities, vexed by idle yet constantly recurring scruples, with an inherited melancholy and a threatened sanity, is a gloomy and even a terrible picture, and forms a striking contrast to the social hero, the triumphant dialectician of Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, and Madame D'Arblay. Yet it is relieved by its inherent humanity, its fellowship and feeling. Dr. Johnson's piety is delightfully full of human nature--far too full to please the poet Cowper, who wrote of the _Prayers and Meditations_ as follows: 'If it be fair to judge of a book by an extract, I do not wonder that you were so little edified by Johnson's Journal. It is even more ridiculous than was poor Rutty's of flatulent memory. The portion of it given us in this day's paper contains not one sentiment worth one farthing, except the last, in which he resolves to bind himself with no more unbidden obligations. Poor man! one would think that to pray for his dead wife and to pinch himself with Church fasts had been almost the whole of his religion.' [Footnote A: Two volumes. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1897.] It were hateful to pit one man's religion against another's, but it is only fair to Dr. Johnson's religion to remember that, odd compound as it was, it saw him through the long struggle of life, and enabled him to meet the death he so honestly feared like a man and a Christian. The _Prayers and Meditations_ may not be an edifying book in Cowper's sense of the word; there is nothing triumphant about it; it is full of infirmities and even absurdities; but, for all that, it contains more piety than 10,000 religious biographies. Nor must the evidence it contains of weakness be exaggerated. Beset with infirmities, a lazy dog, as he often declared himself to be, he yet managed to do a thing or two. Here, for example, is an entry: '29, EASTER EVE (1777). 'I rose and again prayed with reference to my departed wife. I neither read nor went to church, yet can scarcely tell how I have been hindered. I treated with booksellers on a bargain, but the time was not long.' Too long, perhaps, for Johnson's piety, but short enough to enable the booksellers to make an uncommon good bargain for the _Lives of the Poets_. 'As to the terms,' writes Mr. Dilly, 'it was left entirely to the doctor to name his own; he mentioned 200 guineas; it was immediately agreed to.' The business-like Malone makes the following observation on the transaction: 'Had he asked 1,000, or even 1,500, guineas the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it.' Dr. Johnson, though the son of a bookseller, was the least tradesman-like of authors. The bargain was bad, but the book was good. A year later we find this record: 'MONDAY, _April_ 20 (1778). 'After a good night, as I am forced to reckon, I rose seasonably and prayed, using the collect for yesterday. In reviewing my time from Easter, 1777, I find a very melancholy and shameful blank. So little has been done that days and months are without any trace. My health has, indeed, been very much interrupted. My nights have been commonly not only restless but painful and fatiguing.... I have written a little of the _Lives of the Poets_, I think, with all my usual vigour. I have made sermons, perhaps, as readily as formerly. My memory is less faithful in retaining names, and, I am afraid, in retaining occurrences. Of this vacillation and vagrancy of mind I impute a great part to a fortuitous and unsettled life, and therefore purpose to spend my life with more method. 'This year the 28th of March passed away without memorial. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each other. I did not forget thee yesterday. Couldst thou have lived! I am now, with the help of God, to begin a new life.' Dr. Hill prints an interesting letter of Mr. Jowett's, in which occur the following observations: 'It is a curious question whether Boswell has unconsciously misrepresented Johnson in any respect. I think, judging from the materials, which are supplied chiefly by himself, that in one respect he has. He has represented him more as a sage and philosopher in his conduct as well as his conversation than he really was, and less as a rollicking "King of Society." The gravity of Johnson's own writings tends to confirm this, as I suspect, erroneous impression. His religion was fitful and intermittent; and when once the ice was broken he enjoyed Jack Wilkes, though he refused to shake hands with Hume. I was much struck with a remark of Sir John Hawkins (excuse me if I have mentioned this to you before): "He was the most humorous man I ever knew."' Mr. Jowett's letter raises some nice points--the Wilkes and Hume point, for example. Dr. Johnson hated both blasphemy and bawd, but he hated blasphemy most. Mr. Jowett shared the doctor's antipathies, but very likely hated bawd more than he did blasphemy. But, as I have already said, the point is a nice one. To crack jokes with Wilkes at the expense of Boswell and the Scotch seems to me a very different thing from shaking hands with Hume. But, indeed, it is absurd to overlook either Johnson's melancholy piety or his abounding humour and love of fun and nonsense. His _Prayers and Meditations_ are full of the one, Boswell and Mrs. Thrale and Madame D'Arblay are full of the other. Boswell's _Johnson_ has superseded the 'authorized biography' by Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. Hill did well to include in these _Miscellanies_ Hawkins' inimitable description of the memorable banquet given at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, in the spring of 1751, to celebrate the publication of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's first novel. What delightful revelry! what innocent mirth! prolonged though it was till long after dawn. Poor Mrs. Lennox died in distress in 1804, at the age of eighty-three. Could Johnson but have lived he would have lent her his helping hand. He was no fair-weather friend, but shares with Charles Lamb the honour of being able to unite narrow means and splendid munificence. I must end with an anecdote: 'Henderson asked the doctor's opinion of _Dido_ and its author. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "I never did the man an injury. Yet he would read his tragedy to me."' BOSWELL AS BIOGRAPHER Boswell's position in English literature cannot be disputed, nor can he ever be displaced from it. He has written our greatest biography. That is all. Theorize about it as much as you like, account for it how you may, the fact remains. 'Alone I did it.' There has been plenty of theorizing. Lord Macaulay took the subject in hand and tossed it up and down for half a dozen pages with a gusto that drove home to many minds the conviction, the strange conviction, that our greatest biography was written by one of the very smallest men that ever lived, 'a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect'--by a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb; by one 'who, if he had not been a great fool, would never have been a great writer.' So far Macaulay, _anno Domini_ 1831, in the vigorous pages of the _Edinburgh Review_. A year later appears in _Fraser's Magazine_ another theory by another hand, not then famous, Mr. Thomas Carlyle. I own to an inordinate affection for Mr. Carlyle as 'literary critic' As philosopher and sage, he has served our turn. We have had the fortune, good or bad, to outlive him; and our sad experience is that death makes a mighty difference to all but the very greatest. The sight of the author of _Sartor Resartus_ in a Chelsea omnibus, the sound of Dr. Newman's voice preaching to a small congregation in Birmingham, kept alive in our minds the vision of their greatness--it seemed then as if that greatness could know no limit; but no sooner had they gone away, than somehow or another one became conscious of some deficiency in their intellectual positions--the tide of human thought rushed visibly by them, and it became plain that to no other generation would either of these men be what they had been to their own. But Mr. Carlyle as literary critic has a tenacious grasp, and Boswell was a subject made for his hand. 'Your Scottish laird, says an English naturalist of those days, may be defined as the hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known.' Carlyle knew the type well enough. His general description of Boswell is savage: 'Boswell was a person whose mean or bad qualities lay open to the general eye, visible, palpable to the dullest. His good qualities, again, belonged not to the time he lived in; were far from common then; indeed, in such a degree were almost unexampled; not recognisable, therefore, by everyone; nay, apt even, so strange had they grown, to be confounded with the very vices they lay contiguous to and had sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and good liver, gluttonously fond of whatever would yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic character, is undeniable enough. That he was vain, heedless, a babbler, had much of the sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio, curiously spiced, too, with an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb; that he gloried much when the tailor by a court suit had made a new man of him; that he appeared at the Shakespeare Jubilee with a riband imprinted "Corsica Boswell" round his hat, and, in short, if you will, lived no day of his life without saying and doing more than one pretentious ineptitude, all this unhappily is evident as the sun at noon. The very look of Boswell seems to have signified so much. In that cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph over his weaker fellow-creatures, partly to snuff up the smell of coming pleasure and scent it from afar, in those big cheeks, hanging like half-filled wine-skins, still able to contain more, in that coarsely-protruded shelf mouth, that fat dew-lapped chin; in all this who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous imbecility enough? The underpart of Boswell's face is of a low, almost brutish character.' This is character-painting with a vengeance. Portrait of a Scotch laird by the son of a Scotch peasant. Carlyle's Boswell is to me the very man. If so, Carlyle's paradox seems as great as Macaulay's, for though Carlyle does not call Boswell a great fool in plain set terms, he goes very near it. But he keeps open a door through which he effects his escape. Carlyle sees in Bozzy 'the old reverent feeling of discipleship, in a word, hero-worship.' 'How the babbling Bozzy, inspired only by love and the recognition and vision which love can lend, epitomizes nightly the words of Wisdom, the deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so, little by little, unconsciously works together for us a whole "Johnsoniad"--a more free, perfect, sunlit and spirit-speaking likeness than for many centuries has been drawn by man of man.' This I think is a little overdrawn. That Boswell loved Johnson, God forbid I should deny. But that he was inspired only by love to write his life, I gravely question. Boswell was, as Carlyle has said, a greedy man--and especially was he greedy of fame--and he saw in his revered friend a splendid subject for artistic biographic treatment. Here is where both Macaulay and Carlyle are, as I suggest, wrong. Boswell was a fool, but only in the sense in which hundreds of great artists have been fools; on his own lines, and across his own bit of country, he was no fool. He did not accidentally stumble across success, but he deliberately aimed at what he hit. Read his preface and you will discover his method. He was as much an artist as either of his two famous critics. Where Carlyle goes astray is in attributing to discipleship what was mainly due to a dramatic sense. However, theories are no great matter. Our means of knowledge of James Boswell are derived mainly from himself; he is his own incriminator. In addition to the life there is the Corsican tour, the Hebrides tour, the letters to Erskine and to Temple, and a few insignificant occasional publications in the shape of letters to the people of Scotland, etc. With these before him it is impossible for any biographer to approach Bozzy in a devotional attitude; he was all Carlyle calls him. Our sympathies are with his father, who despised him, and with his son, who was ashamed of him. It is indeed strange to think of him staggering, like the drunkard he was, between these two respectable and even stately figures--the Senator of the Court of Justice and the courtly scholar and antiquary. And yet it is to the drunkard humanity is debtor. Respectability is not everything. Boswell had many literary projects and ambitions, and never intended to be known merely as the biographer of Johnson. He proposed to write a life of Lord Kames and to compose memoirs of Hume. It seems he did write a life of Sir Robert Sibbald. He had other plans in his head, but dissipation and a steadily increasing drunkenness destroyed them all. As inveterate book-hunter, I confess to a great fancy to lay hands on his _Dorando: A Spanish Tale_, a shilling book published in Edinburgh during the progress of the once famous Douglas case, and ordered to be suppressed as contempt of court after it had been through three editions. It is said, probably hastily, that no copy is known to exist--a dreary fate which, according to Lord Macaulay, might have attended upon the _Life of Johnson_ had the copyright of that work become the property of Boswell's son, who hated to hear it mentioned. It is not, however, very easy to get rid of any book once it is published, and I do not despair of reading _Dorando_ before I die. OLD PLEASURE GARDENS[A] [Footnote A: _Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century_, by Warwick Wroth, F.S.A., assisted by Arthur Edgar Wroth. London: Macmillan and Co.] This is an honest book, disfigured by no fine writing or woeful attempts to make us dance round may-poles with our ancestors. Terribly is our good language abused by the swell-mob of stylists, for whom it is certainly not enough that Chatham's language is their mother's tongue. May the Devil fly away with these artists; though no sooner had he done so than we should be 'wae' for auld Nicky-ben. Mr. Wroth, of the British Museum, and his brother, Mr. Arthur Wroth, are above such vulgar pranks, and never strain after the picturesque, but in the plain garb of honest men carry us about to the sixty-four gardens where the eighteenth-century Londoner, his wife and family--the John Gilpins of the day--might take their pleasure either sadly, as indeed best befits our pilgrim state, or uproariously to deaden the ear to the still small voice of conscience--the pangs of slighted love, the law's delay, the sluggish step of Fortune, the stealthy strides of approaching poverty, or any other of the familiar incidents of our mortal life. The sixty-two illustrations which adorn the book are as honest as the letterpress. There is a most delightful Morland depicting a very stout family indeed regaling itself _sub tegmine fagi_. It is called a 'Tea Party.' A voluminous mother holds in her roomy lap a very fat baby, whose back and neck are full upon you as you stare into the picture. And what a jolly back and innocent neck it is! Enough to make every right-minded woman cry out with pleasure. Then there is the highly respectable father stirring his cup and watching with placid content a gentleman in lace and ruffles attending to the wife, whilst the two elder children play with a wheezy dog. In these pages we can see for ourselves the British public--God rest its soul!--enjoying itself. This honest book is full of _la bourgeoisie_. The rips and the painted ladies occasionally, it is true, make their appearance, but they are reduced to their proper proportions. The Adam and Eve Tea Gardens, St. Pancras, have a somewhat rakish sound, calculated to arrest the jaded attention of the debauchee, but what has Mr. Wroth to tell us about them? 'About the beginning of the present century it could still be described as an agreeable retreat, "with enchanting prospects"; and the gardens were laid out with arbours, flowers, and shrubs. Cows were kept for making syllabubs, and on summer afternoons a regular company met to play bowls and trap-ball in an adjacent field. One proprietor fitted out a mimic squadron of frigates in the garden, and the long-room was used a good deal for beanfeasts and tea-drinking parties' (p. 127). What a pleasant place! Syllabubs! How sweet they sound! Nobody worried then about diphtheria; they only died of it. Mimic frigates, too! What patriotism! These gardens are as much lost as those of the Hesperides. A cemetery swallowed them up--the cemetery which adjoins the old St. Pancras Churchyard. The Tavern, shorn of its amenities, a mere drink-shop, survived as far down the century as 1874, soon after which date it also disappeared. Hornsey Wood House has a name not unknown in the simple annals of tea-drinking. It is now part of Finsbury Park, but in the middle of the last century its long-room 'on popular holydays, such as Whit Sunday, might be seen crowded as early as nine or ten in the morning with a motley assemblage eating rolls and butter and drinking tea at an extravagant price.' 'Hone remembered the old Hornsey Wood House as it stood embowered, and seeming a part of the wood. It was at that time kept by two sisters--Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Collier--and these aged dames were usually to be found before their door on a seat between two venerable oaks, wherein swarms of bees hived themselves.' What a picture is this of these vanished dames! Somewhere, I trust, they are at peace. 'And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore.' A more raffish place was the Dog and Duck in St. George's Fields, which boasted mineral springs, good for gout, stone, king's evil, sore eyes, and inveterate cancers. Considering its virtue, the water was a cheap liquor, for a dozen bottles could be had at the spa for a shilling. The Dog and Duck, though at last it exhibited depraved tastes, was at one time well conducted. Miss Talbot writes about it to Mrs. Carter, and Dr. Johnson advised his Thralia to try the waters. It was no mean place, but boasted a breakfast-room, a bowling-green, and a swimming-bath 200 feet long and 100 feet (nearly) broad. Mr. Wroth narrates the history of its fall with philosophical composure. In the hands of one Hedger the decencies were disregarded, and thieves made merry where once Miss Talbot sipped bohea. One of its frequenters, Charlotte Shaftoe, is said to have betrayed seven of her intimates to the gallows. Few visitors' lists could stand such a strain as Miss Shaftoe put upon hers. In 1799 the Dog and Duck was suppressed, and Bethlehem Hospital now reigns in its stead. 'The Peerless Pool' has a Stevensonian sound. It was a dangerous pond behind Old Street, long known as 'The Parlous or Perilous Pond' 'because divers youth by swimming therein have been drowned.' In 1743 a London jeweller called Kemp took it in hand, turned it into a pleasure bath, and renamed it, happily enough, 'The Peerless Pool.' It was a fine open-air bath, 170 feet long, more than 100 feet broad, and from 3 to 5 feet deep. 'It was nearly surrounded by trees, and the descent was by marble steps to a fine gravel bottom, through which the springs that supplied the pool came bubbling up.' Mr. Kemp likewise constructed a fish-pond. The enterprise met with success, and anglers, bathers, and at due seasons skaters, flocked to 'The Peerless Pool.' Hone describes how every Thursday and Saturday the boys from the Bluecoat School were wont to plunge into its depths. You ask its fate. It has been built over. Peerless Street, the second main turning on the left of the City Road just beyond Old Street in coming from the City, is all that is left to remind anyone of the once Parlous Pool, unless, indeed, it still occasionally creeps into a cellar and drowns cockroaches instead of divers youths. The Three Hats, Highbury Barn, Hampstead Wells, are not places to be lightly passed over. In Mr. Wroth's book you may read about them and trace their fortunes--their fallen fortunes. After all, they have only shared the fate of empires. Of the most famous London gardens--Marylebone, Ranelagh, and, greatest of them all, Vauxhall--Mr. Wroth writes at, of course, a becoming length. Marylebone Gardens, when at their largest, comprised about 8 acres. Beaumont Street, part of Devonshire Street and of Devonshire Place and Upper Wimpole Street, now occupy their site. Music was the main feature of Marylebone. A band played in the evening. Vocalists at different times drew crowds. Masquerades and fireworks appeared later in the history of the gardens, which usually were open three nights of the week. Dr. Johnson's turbulent behaviour, on the occasion of one of his frequent visits, will easily be remembered. Marylebone, at no period, says Mr. Wroth, attained the vogue of Ranelagh or the universal popularity of Vauxhall. In 1776 the gardens were closed, and two years later the builders began to lay out streets. Ranelagh is, perhaps, the greatest achievement of the eighteenth century. Its Rotunda, built in 1741, is compared by Mr. Wroth to the reading-room of the British Museum. No need to give its dimensions; only look at the print, and you will understand what Johnson meant when he declared that the _coup d'oeil_ of Ranelagh was the finest thing he had ever seen. The ordinary charge for admission was half a crown, which secured you tea or coffee and bread-and-butter. The gardens were usually open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the amusements were music, tea-drinking, walking, and talking. Mr. Wroth quotes a Frenchman, who, after visiting Ranelagh in 1800, calls it 'le plus insipide lieu d'amusement que l'on ait pu imaginer,' and even hints at Dante's Purgatory. An earlier victim from Gaul thus records his experience of Ranelagh: 'On s'ennui avec de la mauvaise musique, du thé et du beurre.' So true is it that the cheerfulness you find anywhere is the cheerfulness you have brought with you. However, despite the Frenchman, good music and singing were at times to be heard at Ranelagh. The nineteenth century would have nothing to do with Ranelagh, and in 1805 it was pulled down. The site now belongs to Chelsea Hospital. Cuper's Gardens lacked the respectability of Marylebone and the style of Ranelagh, but they had their vogue during the same century. They were finely situated on the south side of the Thames opposite Somerset House. Cuper easily got altered into Cupid; and when on the death of Ephraim Evans in 1740 the business came to be carried on by his widow, a comely dame who knew a thing or two, it proved to be indeed a going concern. But the new Licensing Bill of 1752 destroyed Cupid's Garden, and Mrs. Evans was left lamenting and wholly uncompensated. Of Vauxhall Mr. Wroth treats at much length, and this part of his book is especially rich in illustrations. Every lover of Old London and old times and old prints should add Mr. Wroth's book to his library. OLD BOOKSELLERS There has just been a small flutter amongst those who used to be called stationers or text-writers in the good old days, before printing was, and when even Peers of the Realm (now so highly educated) could not sign their names, or, at all events, preferred not to do so--booksellers they are now styled--and the question which agitates them is discount. Having mentioned this, one naturally passes on. No great trade has an obscurer history than the book trade. It seems to lie choked in mountains of dust which it would be suicidal to disturb. Men have lived from time to time of literary skill--Dr. Johnson was one of them--who had knowledge, extensive and peculiar, of the traditions and practices of 'the trade,' as it is proudly styled by its votaries; but nobody has ever thought it worth his while to make record of his knowledge, which accordingly perished with him, and is now irrecoverably lost. In old days booksellers were also publishers, frequently printers, and sometimes paper-makers. Jacob Tonson not only owned Milton's _Paradise Lost_--for all time, as he fondly thought, for little did he dream of the fierce construction the House of Lords was to put upon the Copyright Act of Queen Anne--not only was Dryden's publisher, but also kept shop in Chancery Lane, and sold books across the counter. He allowed no discount, but, so we are told, 'spoke his mind upon all occasions, and flattered no one,' not even glorious John. For a long time past the trades of bookselling and book-publishing have been carried on apart. This has doubtless rid booksellers of all the unpopularity which formerly belonged to them in their other capacity. This unpopularity is now heaped as a whole upon the publishers, who certainly need not dread the doom awaiting those of whom the world speaks well. A tendency of the two trades to grow together again is perhaps noticeable. For my part, I wish they would. Some publishers are already booksellers, but the books they sell are usually only new books. Now it is obvious that the true bookseller sells books both old and new. Some booksellers are occasional publishers. May each usurp--or, rather, reassume--the business of the other, whilst retaining his own! The world, it must be admitted, owes a great deal of whatever information it possesses about the professions, trades, and occupations practised and carried on in its midst to those who have failed in them. Prosperous men talk 'shop,' but seldom write it. The book that tells us most about booksellers and bookselling in bygone days is the work of a crack-brained fellow who published and sold in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., and died in 1733 in great poverty and obscurity. I refer to John Dunton, whose _Life and Errors_ in the edition in two volumes edited by J.B. Nichols, and published in 1818, is a common book enough in the second-hand shops, and one which may be safely recommended to everyone, except, indeed, to the unfortunate man or woman who is not an adept in the art, craft, or mystery of skipping. The book will strangely remind the reader of Amory's _Life of John Buncle_--those queer volumes to which many a reader has been sent by Hazlitt's intoxicating description of them in his _Round Table_, and a few perhaps by a shy allusion contained in one of the essays of Elia. The real John Dunton has not the boundless spirits of the fictitious John Buncle; but in their religious fervour, their passion for flirtation, their tireless egotism, and their love of character-sketching, they greatly resemble one another. It is this last characteristic that imparts real value to Dunton's book, and makes it, despite its verbiage and tortuosity, throb with human interest. For example, he gives us a short sketch of no less than 135 then living London booksellers in this style: 'Mr. Newton is full of kindness and good-nature. He is affable and courteous in trade, and is none of those men of forty whose religion is yet to chuse, for his mind (like his looks) is serious and grave; and his neighbours tell me his understanding does not improve too fast for his practice, for he is not religious by start or sally, but is well fixed in the faith and practice of a Church of England man--and has a handsome wife into the bargain.' Most of the 135 booksellers were good men, according to Dunton, but not all. 'Mr. Lee in Lombard Street. Such a pirate, such a cormorant was never before. Copies, books, men, shops, all was one. He held no propriety right or wrong, good or bad, till at last he began to be known; and the booksellers, not enduring so ill a man among them, spewed him out, and off he marched to Ireland, where he acted as _felonious Lee_ as he did in London. And as Lee lived a thief, so he died a hypocrite; for being asked on his death-bed if he would forgive Mr. C. (that had formerly wronged him), "Yes," said Lee, "if I die, I forgive him; but if I happen to live, I am resolved to be revenged on him."' The Act of Union destroyed the trade of these pirates, but their felonious editions of eighteenth-century authors still abound. Mr. Gladstone, I need scarcely say, was careful in his Home Rule Bill (which was denounced by thousands who never read a line of it) to withdraw copyright from the scope of action of his proposed Dublin Parliament. There are nearly eleven hundred brief character-sketches in Dunton's book, of all sorts and kinds, but with a preference for bookish people, divines, both of the Establishment and out of it, printers and authors. Sometimes, indeed, the description is short enough, and tells one very little. To many readers, references so curt to people of whom they never heard, and whose names are recorded nowhere else, save on their mouldering grave-stones, may seem tedious and trivial, but for others they will have a strange fascination. Here are a few examples: 'Affable _Wiggins_. His conversation is general but never impertinent. 'The kind and golden _Venables_. He is so good a man, and so truly charitable, he that will write of him, must still write more. 'Mr. _Bury_--my old neighbour in Redcross Street. He is a plain honest man, sells the best coffee in all the neighbourhood, and lives in this world like a spiritual stranger and pilgrim in a foreign country. 'Anabaptist (alias _Elephant_) _Smith_. He was a man of great sincerity and happy contentment in all circumstances of life.' If an affection for passages of this kind be condemned as trivial, and akin to the sentimentalism of the man in Calverley's poem who wept over a box labelled 'This side up,' I will shelter myself behind Carlyle, who was evidently deeply moved, as his review of Boswell's Johnson proves, by the life-history of Mr. F. Lewis, 'of whose birth, death, and whole terrestrial _res gestae_ this only, and, strange enough, this actually, survives--"Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society. _Stat_ PARVI _hominis umbra_."' On that peg Carlyle's imagination hung a whole biography. Dunton, who was the son of the Rector of Aston Clinton, was apprenticed, about 1675, to a London bookseller. He had from the beginning a great turn both for religion and love. He, to use his own phrase, 'sat under the powerful ministry of Mr. Doolittle.' 'One Lord's day, and I remember it with sorrow, I was to hear the Rev. Mr. Doolittle, and it was then and there the beautiful Rachel Seaton gave me that fatal wound.' The first book Dunton ever printed was by the Rev. Mr. Doolittle, and was of an eminently religious character. 'One Lord's Day (and I am very sensible of the sin) I was strolling about just as my fancy led me, and, stepping into Dr. Annesley's meeting-place--where, instead of engaging my attention to what the Doctor said, I suffered both my mind and eyes to run at random--I soon singled out a young lady that almost charmed me dead; but, having made my inquiries, I found to my sorrow she was pre-engaged.' However, Dunton was content with the elder sister, one of the three daughters of Dr. Annesley. The one he first saw became the wife of the Reverend Samuel Wesley, and the mother of John and Charles. The third daughter is said to have been married to Daniel De Foe. As soon as he was out of his apprenticeship, Dunton set up business as a publisher and bookseller. He says grimly enough: 'A man should be well furnished with an honest policy if he intends to set out to the world nowadays. And this is no less necessary in a bookseller than in any other tradesman, for in that way there are plots and counter-plots, and a whole army of hackney authors that keep their grinders moving by the travail of their pens. These gormandizers will eat you the very life out of a _copy_ so soon as ever it appears, for as the times go, _Original_ and _Abridgement_ are almost reckoned as necessary as man and wife.' The mischief to which Dunton refers was permitted by the stupidity of the judges, who refused to consider an abridgment of a book any interference with its copyright. Some learned judges have, indeed, held that an abridger is a benefactor, but as his benefactions are not his own, but another's, a shorter name might be found for him. The law on the subject is still uncertain. Dunton proceeds: 'Printing was now the uppermost in my thoughts, and hackney authors began to ply me with _specimens_ as earnestly and with as much passion and concern as the watermen do passengers with _Oars_ and _Scullers_. I had some acquaintance with this generation in my apprenticeship, and had never any warm affection for them, in regard I always thought their great concern lay more in _how much a sheet_, than in any generous respect they bore to the _Commonwealth of Learning_; and indeed the learning itself of these gentlemen lies very often in as little room as their honesty, though they will pretend to have studied for six or seven years in the Bodleian Library, to have turned over the Fathers, and to have read and digested the whole compass both of human and ecclesiastic history, when, alas! they have never been able to understand a single page of St. Cyprian, and cannot tell you whether the Fathers lived before or after Christ.' Yet of one of this hateful tribe Dunton is able to speak well. He declares Mr. Bradshaw to have been the best accomplished hackney author he ever met with. He pronounces his style incomparably fine. He had quarrelled with him, but none the less he writes: 'If Mr. Bradshaw is yet alive, I here declare to the world and to him that I freely forgive him what he owes, both in money and books, if he will only be so kind as to make me a visit. But I am afraid the worthy gentleman is dead, for he was wretchedly overrun with melancholy, and the very blackness of it reigned in his countenance. He had certainly performed wonders with his pen, had not his poverty pursued him and almost laid the necessity upon him to be unjust.' All hackney authors were not poor. Some of the compilers and abridgers made what even now would be considered by popular novelists large sums. Scotsmen were very good at it. Gordon and Campbell became wealthy men. If authors had a turn for politics, Sir Robert Walpole was an excellent paymaster. Arnall, who was bred an attorney, is stated to have been paid £11,000 in four years by the Government for his pamphlets. 'Come, then, I'll comply. Spirit of Arnall, aid me while I lie!' It cannot have been pleasant to read this, but then Pope belonged to the opposition, and was a friend of Lord Bolingbroke, and would consequently say anything. There is not a more interesting and artless autobiography to be read than William Hutton's, the famous bookseller and historian of Birmingham. Hutton has been somewhat absurdly called the English Franklin. He is not in the least like Franklin. He has none of Franklin's supreme literary skill, and he was a loving, generous, and tender-hearted man, which Franklin certainly was not. Hutton's first visit to London was paid in 1749. He walked up from Nottingham, spent three days in London, and then walked back to Nottingham. The jaunt, if such an expression is applicable, cost him eleven shillings less fourpence. Yet he paid his way. The only money he spent to gain admission to public places was a penny to see Bedlam. Interesting, however, as is Hutton's book, it tells us next to nothing about book-selling, except that in his hands it was a prosperous undertaking. A FEW WORDS ABOUT COPYRIGHT IN BOOKS Copyright, which is the exclusive liberty reserved to an author and his assigns of printing or otherwise multiplying copies of his book during certain fixed periods of time, is a right of modern origin. There is nothing about copyright in Justinian's compilations. It is a mistake to suppose that books did not circulate freely in the era of manuscripts. St. Augustine was one of the most popular authors that ever lived. His _City of God_ ran over Europe after a fashion impossible to-day. Thousands of busy hands were employed, year out and year in, making copies for sale of this famous treatise. Yet Augustine had never heard of copyright, and never received a royalty on sales in his life. The word 'copyright' is of purely English origin, and came into existence as follows: The Stationers' Company was founded by royal charter in 1556, and from the beginning has kept register-books, wherein, first, by decrees of the Star Chamber, afterwards by orders of the Houses of Parliament, and finally by Act of Parliament, the titles of all publications and reprints have had to be entered prior to publication. None but booksellers, as publishers were then content to be called, were members of the Stationers' Company, and by the usage of the Company no entries could be made in their register-books except in the names of members, and thereupon the book referred to in the entry became the 'copy' of the member or members who had caused it to be registered. By virtue of this registration the book became, in the opinion of the Stationers' Company, the property _in perpetuity_ of the member or members who had effected the registration. This was the 'right' of the stationer to his 'copy.' Copyright at first is therefore not an author's, but a bookseller's copyright. The author had no part or lot in it unless he chanced to be both an author and a bookseller, an unusual combination in early days. The author took his manuscript to a member of the Stationers' Company, and made the best bargain he could for himself. The stationer, if terms were arrived at, carried off the manuscript to his Company and registered the title in the books, and thereupon became, in his opinion, and in that of his Company, the owner, at common law, in perpetuity of his 'copy.' The stationers, having complete control over their register-books, made what entries they chose, and all kinds of books, even Homer and the Classics, became the 'property' of its members. The booksellers, nearly all Londoners, respected each other's 'copies,' and jealously guarded access to their registers. From time to time there were sales by auction of a bookseller's 'copies,' but the public--that is, the country booksellers, for there were no other likely buyers--were excluded from the sale-room. A great monopoly was thus created and maintained by the trade. There was never any examination of title to a bookseller's copy. Every book of repute was supposed to have a bookseller for its owner. Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ was Mr. Ponder's copy, Milton's _Paradise Lost_ Mr. Tonson's copy, _The Whole Duty of Man_ Mr. Eyre's copy, and so on. The thing was a corrupt and illegal trade combination. The expiration of the Licensing Act, and the consequent cessation of the penalties it inflicted upon unlicensed printing, exposed the proprietors of 'copies' to an invasion of their rights, real or supposed, and in 1703, and again in 1706 and 1709, they applied to Parliament for a Bill to protect them against the 'ruin' with which they alleged themselves to be threatened.[A] [Footnote A: What the booksellers wanted was not to be left to their common law remedy--_i.e._, an action of trespass on the case--but to be supplied with penalties for infringement, and especially with the right to seize and burn unauthorized editions.] In 1710 they got what they asked for in the shape of the famous Statute of Queen Anne, the first copyright law in the world. A truly English measure, ill considered and ill drawn, which did the very last thing it was meant to do--viz., destroy the property it was intended to protect. By this Act, in which the 'author' first makes his appearance actually in front of the 'proprietor,' it was provided that, _in case of new books_, the author and his assigns should have the sole right of printing them for fourteen years, and if at the end of that time the author was still alive, a second term of fourteen years was conceded. In the case of _existing books_, there was to be but one term--viz., twenty-one years, from August 10, 1710. Registration at the Stationers' Company was still required, but nothing was said as to who might make the entries, or into whose names they were to be made. Then followed the desired penalties for infringement. The booksellers thought the terms of years meant no more than that the penalties were to be limited by way of experiment to those periods. Many years flew by before the Stationers' Company discovered the mischief wrought by the statute they had themselves promoted. To cut a long matter short, it was not until 1774 that the House of Lords decided that, whether there ever had been a perpetuity in literary property at common law or not, it was destroyed by the Act of Queen Anne, and that from and after the passing of that law neither author, assignee, nor proprietor of 'copy' had any exclusive right of multiplication, save for and during the periods of time the statute created. It was a splendid fight--a Thirty Years' War. Great lawyers were fee'd in it; luminous and lengthy judgments were delivered. Mansfield was a booksellers' man; Thurlow ridiculed the pretensions of the Trade. It can be read about in _Boswell's Johnson_ and in Campbell's _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_. The authors stood supinely by, not contributing a farthing towards the expenses. It was a booksellers' battle, and the booksellers were beaten, as they deserved to be. All this is past history, in which the modern money-loving, motoring author takes scant pleasure. Things are on a different footing now. The Act of 1842 has extended the statutory periods of protection. The perpetuity craze is over. A right in perpetuity to reprint Frank Fustian's novel or Tom Tatter's poem would not add a penny to the present value of the copyright of either of those productions. In business short views must prevail. An author cannot expect to raise money on his hope of immortality. Milton's publisher, good Mr. Symonds, probably thought, if he thought about it at all, that he was buying _Paradise Lost_ for ever when he registered it as his 'copy' in the books of his Company; but into the calculations he made to discover how much he could afford to give the author posterity did not and could not enter. How was Symonds to know that Milton's fame was to outlive Cleveland's or Flatman's? How many of the books published in 1905 would have any copyright cash value in A.D. 2000? I do not pause for a reply. The modern author need have no quarrel with the statutory periods fixed by the Act of 1842,[A] though common-sense has long since suggested that a single term, the author's life and thirty or forty years after, should be substituted for the alternative periods named in the Act. [Footnote A: Author's life _plus_ seven years, or forty-two years from date of publication, whichever term is the longer. The great objection to the second term is that an author's books go out of copyright at different dates, and the earlier editions go out first.] What the modern author alone desiderates is a big, immediate, and protected market. The United States of America have been a great disappointment to many an honest British author. In the wicked old days when the States took British books without paying for them they used to take them in large numbers, but now that they have turned honest and passed a law allowing the British author copyright on certain terms, they have in great measure ceased to take; for, by the strangest of coincidences, no sooner were British novels, histories, essays, and the like, protected in America, than there sprang up in the States themselves, novelists, historians, and essayists, not only numerous enough to supply their own home markets, but talented enough to cross the Atlantic in large numbers and challenge us in our own. Such a reward for honesty was not contemplated. International copyright and the Convention of Berne are things to be proud of and rejoice over. As the first chapter in a Code of Public European Law, they may mark the beginning of a time of settled peace, order, and disarmament, but they have not yet enriched a single author, though hereafter possibly an occasional novelist or play-wright may prosper greatly under their provisions. The copyright question is now at last really a settled question, save in a single aspect of it. What, if anything, should be done in the case of those authors, few in number, whose literary lives prove longer than the period of statutory protection? Should any distinction in law be struck between a Tennyson and a Tupper? between--But why multiply examples? There is no need to be unnecessarily offensive. The law and practice of to-day give the meat that remains on the bones of the dead author after the expiration of the statutory period of protection to the Trade. Any publisher who likes to bring out an edition can do so, though by doing so he does not gain any exclusive rights. A brother publisher may compete with him. As a result the public is usually well served with cheap editions of those non-copyright authors whose works are worth reprinting the moment the copyright expires. Some lovers of justice, however, think that it is unnecessary all at once to endow the Trade with these windfalls, and that if an author's family, or his or their assignees, were prepared to publish cheap editions immediately after the expiration of the usual period of protection, they ought to be allowed to do so for a further period of, say, forty years. If they failed within a reasonable time either to do so themselves or to arrange for others to do so, this extended period should lapse. Were this to be the law nobody could say that it was unfair; but it is never likely to be the law. It would take time for discussion, and now there is no time left in which to discuss anything in Parliament. A much-needed Copyright Bill has been in draft for years, has been mentioned in Queen's and King's speeches, but it has never been read even a first time. If it ever is read a first time, its only chance of becoming law will be if it is taken in a lump, as it stands, without consideration or amendment. To such a pass has legislation been reduced in this country! This draft Bill does not contain any provision for specially protecting the families of authors whose works long outlive their mortal lives. It makes no invidious distinctions. It leaves all the authors to hang together, the quick and the dead. Perhaps this is the better way. HANNAH MORE ONCE MORE I have been told by more than one correspondent, and not always in words of urbanity, that I owe an apology to the manes of Miss Hannah More, whose works I once purchased in nineteen volumes for 8s. 6d., and about whom in consequence I wrote a page some ten years ago.[A] [Footnote A: See _Collected Essays_, ii. 255.] To be accused of rudeness to a lady who exchanged witticisms with Dr. Johnson, soothed the widowed heart of Mrs. Garrick, directed the early studies of Macaulay, and in the spring of 1815 presented a small copy of her _Sacred Dramas_ to Mr. Gladstone, is no light matter. To libel the dead is, I know, not actionable--indeed, it is impossible; but evil-speaking, lying, and slandering are canonical offences from which the obligation to refrain knows no limits of time or place. I have often felt uneasy on this score, and never had the courage, until this very evening, to read over again what in the irritation of the moment I had been tempted to say about Miss Hannah More, after the outlay upon her writings already mentioned. Eight shillings and sixpence is, indeed, no great sum, but nineteen octavo volumes are a good many books. Yet Richardson is in nineteen volumes in Mangin's edition, and Swift is in nineteen volumes in Scott's edition, and glorious John Dryden lacks but a volume to make a third example. True enough; yet it will, I think, be granted me that you must be very fond of an author, male or female, if nineteen octavo volumes, all his or hers, are not a little irritating and provocative of temper. Think of the room they take! As for selling them, it is not so easy to sell nineteen volumes of a stone-dead author, particularly if you live three miles from a railway-station and do not keep a trap. Elia, the gentle Elia, as it is the idiotic fashion to call a writer who could handle his 'maulies' in a fray as well as Hazlitt himself, has told us how he could never see well-bound books he did not care about, but he longed to strip them so that he might warm his ragged veterans in their spoils. My copy of _Hannah More_ was in full calf, but never once did it occur to me--though I, too, have many a poor author with hardly a shirt to his back shivering in the dark corners of the library--to strip her of her warm clothing. And yet I had to do something, and quickly too, for sorely needed was Miss More's shelf. So I buried the nineteen volumes in the garden. 'Out of sight, out of mind,' said I cheerfully, stamping them down. This has hardly proved to be the case, for though Hannah More is incapable of a literary resurrection, and no one of her nineteen volumes has ever haunted my pillow, exclaiming, 'Think how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth,' nevertheless, I have not been able to get quite rid of an uneasy feeling that I was rude to her ten years ago in print--not, indeed, so rude as was her revered friend Dr. Johnson 126 years ago to her face; but then, I have not the courage to creep under the gabardine of our great Moralist. When, accordingly, I saw on the counters of the trade the daintiest of volumes, hailing, too, from the United States, entitled _Hannah More_,[A] and perceived that it was a short biography and appreciation of the lady on my mind, I recognised that my penitential hour had at last come. I took the little book home with me, and sat down to read, determined to do justice and more than justice to the once celebrated mistress of Cowslip Green and Barley Wood. [Footnote A: _Hannah More_, by Marian Harland. New York and London: G.P. Putnam.] Miss Harland's preface is most engaging. She reminds a married sister how in the far-off days of their childhood in a Southern State their Sunday reading, usually confined or sought to be confined, to 'bound sermons and semi-detached tracts,' was enlivened by the _Works of Hannah More_. She proceeds as follows: 'At my last visit to you I took from your bookshelves one of a set of volumes in uniform binding of full calf, coloured mellowly by the touch and the breath of fifty odd years. They belonged to the dear old home library.... The leaves of the book I held fell apart at _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_.' I leave my readers to judge how uncomfortable these innocent words made me: 'The usher took six hasty strides As smit with sudden pain.' I knew that set of volumes, their distressing uniformity of binding, their full calf. Their very fellows lie mouldering in an East Anglian garden, mellow enough by this time and strangely coloured. Circumstances alter cases. Miss Harland thinks that if the life of Charlotte Brontë's mother had been mercifully spared, the authoress of _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette_ might have grown up more like Hannah More than she actually did. Perhaps so. As I say, circumstances alter cases, and if the works of Hannah More had been in my old home library, I might have read _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_ and _The Search after Happiness_ of a Sunday, and found solace therein. But they were not there, and I had to get along as best I could with the _Pilgrim's Progress_, stories by A.L.O.E., the crime-stained page of Mrs. Sherwood's _Tales from the Church Catechism_, and, 'more curious sport than that,' the _Bible in Spain_ of the never-sufficiently-bepraised George Borrow. What, however, is a little odd about Miss Harland's enthusiasm for Hannah More's writings is that it expires with the preface. _There_, indeed, it glows with a beautiful light: 'And _The Search after Happiness!_ You cannot have forgotten all of the many lines we learned by heart on Sunday afternoons in the joyful spring-time when we were obliged to clear the pages every few minutes of yellow jessamine bells and purple Wistaria petals flung down by the warm wind.' This passage lets us into the secret. I suspect in sober truth both Miss Harland and her sister have long since forgotten all the lines in _The Search after Happiness_, but what they have never forgotten, what they never can forget, are the jessamine bells and the Wistaria petals, yellow and purple, blown about in the warm winds that visited their now desolate and forsaken Southern home. Less beautiful things than jessamine and Wistaria, if only they clustered round the house where you were born, are remembered when the lines of far better authors than Miss Hannah More have gone clean out of your head: 'As life wanes, all its cares and strife and toil Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, The morning swallows with their songs like words-- All these seem dear, and only worth our thoughts.' Thus the youthful Browning in his marvellous _Pauline_. The same note is struck after a humbler and perhaps more moving fashion in the following simple strain of William Allingham: 'Four ducks on a pond, A grass-bank beyond; A blue sky of spring, White clouds on the wing; How little a thing To remember for years-- To remember with tears!' If this be so--and who, looking into his own heart, but must own that so it is?--it explains how it comes about that as soon as Miss Harland finished her preface, got away from her childhood and began her biography, she has so little to tell us about Miss More's books, and from that little the personal note of enjoyment is entirely wanting. Indeed, though a pious soul, she occasionally cannot restrain her surprise how such ponderous commonplaces ever found a publisher, to say nothing of a reader. 'Such books as Miss More's,' she says, 'would to-day in America fall from the press like a stone into the depths of the sea of oblivion, creating no more sensation upon the surface than the bursting of a bubble in mid-Atlantic.' And again: 'That Hannah More was a power for righteousness in her long generation we must take upon the testimony of her best and wisest contemporaries.' However good may be your intentions, it seems hard to avoid being rude to this excellent lady. I confess I never liked her love story. Anything more cold-blooded I never read. I am not going to repeat it. Why should I? It is told at length in Miss More's authorized biography in four volumes by William Roberts, Esq. I saw a copy yesterday exposed for sale in New Oxford Street, price 1s. Miss Harland also tells the tale, not without chuckling. I refer the curious to her pages. Then there are those who can never get rid of the impression that Hannah More 'fagged' her four sisters mercilessly; but who can tell? Some people like being fagged. Precisely _when_ Miss More bade farewell to what in later life she was fond of calling her gay days, when she wrote dull plays and went to stupid Sunday parties, one finds it hard to discover, but at no time did it ever come home to her that she needed repentance herself. She seems always thinking of the sins and shortcomings of her neighbours, rich and poor. Sometimes, indeed, when deluged with flattery, she would intimate that she was a miserable sinner, but that is not what I mean. She concerned herself greatly with the manners of the great, and deplored their cards and fashionable falsehoods. John Newton, captain as he had been of a slaver, saw the futility of such pin-pricks: 'The fashionable world,' so he wrote to Miss More, 'by their numbers form a phalanx not easily impressible, and their habits of life are as armour of proof which renders them not easily vulnerable. Neither the rude club of a boisterous Reformer nor the pointed, delicate weapons of the authoress before me can overthrow or rout them.' But Miss More never forgot to lecture the rich or to patronize the poor. _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_ is an impossible book, and I do not believe Miss Harland has read it; but as for the famous _Shepherd_, we are never allowed to forget how Mr. Wilberforce declared a few years before his death, to the admiration of the religious world, that he would rather present himself in heaven with _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_ in his hand than with--what think you?--_Peveril of the Peak_! The bare notion of such a proceeding on anybody's part is enough to strike one dumb with what would be horror, did not amazement swallow up every other feeling. What rank Arminianism! I am sure the last notion that ever would have entered the head of Sir Walter was to take _Peveril_ to heaven. But whatever may be thought of the respective merits of Miss More's nineteen volumes and Sir Walter's ninety-eight, there is no doubt that Barley Wood was as much infested with visitors as ever was Abbotsford. Eighty a week! 'From twelve o'clock until three each day a constant stream of carriages and pedestrians filled the evergreen bordered avenue leading from the Wrington village road.' Among them came Lady Gladstone and W.E.G., aged six, the latter carrying away with him the _Sacred Dramas_, to be preserved during a long life. Miss More was a vivacious and agreeable talker, who certainly failed to do herself justice with her pen. Her health was never good, yet, as she survived thirty-five of her prescribing physicians, her vitality must have been great. Her face in Opie's portrait is very pleasant. If I was rude to her ten years ago, I apologize and withdraw; but as for her books, I shall leave them where they are--buried in a cliff facing due north, with nothing between them and the Pole but leagues upon leagues of a wind-swept ocean. ARTHUR YOUNG The name of Arthur Young is a familiar one to all readers of that history which begins with the forebodings of the French Revolution. Thousands of us learnt to be interested in him as the 'good Arthur,' 'the excellent Arthur,' of Thomas Carlyle, a writer who had the art of making not only his own narrative, but the sources of it, attractive. Even 'Carrion-Heath,' in the famous introductory chapter to the _Cromwell_, is invested with a kind of charm, whilst in the stormy firmament of the _French Revolution_ the star of Arthur Young twinkles with a mild effulgency. The autobiography of such a man could hardly fail to be interesting.[A] The 'good Arthur' was born in 1741, the younger son of a small 'squarson' who inherited from his father the manor of Bradfield Combust, in Suffolk, but held the living of Thames Ditton. Here he made the acquaintance of the Onslow family, and Speaker Onslow was one of Arthur's godfathers. The Rev. Dr. Young died in 1759, much in debt. The Bradfield property had been settled for life on his wife, who had brought her husband some fortune, and to the manor-house she retired to economize. [Footnote A: _The Autobiography of Arthur Young_. Edited by M. Betham Edwards. Smith, Elder and Co.] Arthur's education had been muddled; and an attempt to make a merchant of him having fallen through, he found himself, on his father's death, aged eighteen, 'without education, profession, or employment,' and his whole fortune, during his mother's life, consisting of a copyhold farm of 20 acres, producing as many pounds. In these circumstances, to think of literature was well-nigh inevitable, and, in 1762, the autobiography tells us: 'I set on foot a periodical publication, entitled the _Universal Museum_, which came out monthly, printed with glorious imprudence on my own account. I waited on Dr. Johnson, who was sitting by the fire so half-dressed and slovenly a figure as to make me stare at him. I stated my plan, and begged that he would favour me with a paper once a month, offering at the same time any remuneration that he might name.' Here we see dimly prefigured a modern editor prematurely soliciting the support of Great Names. But the Cham of literature, himself the son of a bookseller, would have none of it. '"No, sir," he replied; "such a work would be sure to fail if the booksellers have not the property, and you will lose a great deal of money by it." '"Certainly, sir," I said, "if I am not fortunate enough to induce authors of real talent to contribute." '"No, sir, you are mistaken; such authors will not support such a work, nor will you persuade them to write in it. You will purchase disappointment by the loss of your money, and I advise you by all means to give up the plan." 'Somebody was introduced, and I took my leave.' The _Universal Museum_, none the less, appeared, but after five numbers Young 'procured a meeting of ten or a dozen booksellers, and had the luck and address to persuade them to take the whole scheme upon themselves.' He then calmly adds, 'I believe no success ever attended it.' It was, indeed, 100 years before its time. Literature abandoned, Young took one of his mother's farms. 'I had no more idea of farming than of physic or divinity,' nor did he, man of European reputation as a farmer though he soon became, ever make farming pay. He had an itching pen, and after four years' farming (1763-1766) he published the result of his experience. Never, surely, before has an author spoken of his first-born as in the autobiography Young speaks of this publication: 'And the circumstance which perhaps of all others in my life I most deeply regretted and considered as a sin of the blackest dye was the publishing of my experience during these four years, which, speaking as a farmer, was nothing but ignorance, folly, presumption, and rascality.' None the less, it was writing this rascally book that seems to have given him the idea of those agricultural tours which were to make his name famous throughout the world. His Southern tour was in 1767, his Northern in 1768, and his Eastern in 1770. The subject he specially illuminated in these epoch-making books was the rotation of crops, though he occasionally diverged upon deep-ploughing and kindred themes. The tours excited, for the first time, the agricultural spirit of Great Britain, and their author almost at once became a celebrated man. In 1765 Young married the wrong woman, and started upon a career of profound matrimonial discomfort, and even misery; a blunt, truthful writer, he makes no bones about it. It was an unhappy marriage from its beginning in 1765 to its end in 1815. Young himself, though by no means vivacious in this autobiography, where he frankly complains of himself as having no more wit than a fig, was a very popular person with all classes and both sexes. He was an enormous diner-out, and his authority as an agriculturist, united to his undeniable charm as a companion, threw open to him all the great places in the country. But his finances were a perpetual trouble. On carrot seeds and cabbages he was an authority, but from 1766-1775 his income never exceeded £300 a year. He had an excellent mother, whom he dearly loved, and who with the characteristic bluntness of the family bade him think less about carrots and more about his Creator. 'You may call all this rubbish if you please, but a time will come when you will be convinced whose notions are rubbish, yours or mine.' And the old lady was quite right, as mothers so frequently turn out to be. In 1778 Young went over to Ireland as agent to Lord Kingsborough. He got £500 down, and was to have an annual salary of £500 and a house. Young soon got to work, and became anxious to persuade his employer to let his lands direct to the occupying cottar, and so get rid of the middlemen. This did not suit a certain Major Thornhill, a relative and leaseholder, and thereupon a pretty plot was hatched. Lady K. had a Catholic governess, a Miss Crosby, upon whom it was thought my lord occasionally cast the eye of partiality, whilst Arthur himself got on very well with her ladyship, who was heard to pronounce him to be, as he was, 'one of the most lively, agreeable fellows.' Out of these materials the Major and his helpmeet concocted a double plot--namely, to make the lord jealous of the steward, and the lady jealous of the governess, and to cause both lord and lady respectively to believe that the steward was deeply engaged both in abetting the amour of the lord and the governess, and in prosecuting his own amour with the lady. The result was that both governess and steward got notice to quit; but--and this is very Irish--both went off with life annuities, the governess with one of £50 per annum, and the steward with one of £72, and, what is still more odd, we find Young at the end of his life in receipt of his annuity. They were an expensive couple, these two. In 1780 Young published his _Irish Tour_, which was immediately successful and popular in both kingdoms. In it he attacked the bounty paid on the land-carriage of corn to Dublin. The bounty was, in the session of Parliament next after the publication of Young's book, reduced by one-half, and soon given up entirely. Young maintains that this saved Ireland £80,000 a year. Nobody seems to have said 'Thank you.' In May, 1783, was born the child 'Bobbin,' whose death, fourteen years later, was to change the current of Young's life. The following year Arthur Young paid his first visit to France, confining himself, however, to Calais and its neighbourhood, and in the same year his mother died, and, by an arrangement with his eldest brother, 'this patch of landed property,' as Young calls Bradfield, descended upon him. His first famous journey in France was made between May and November, 1787, and cost the marvellously small sum of £118 15s. 2d. His second and third French journeys were made in July, 1788, and in June, 1789. The third was the longest, and extended into 1790. Three years later Young was appointed, by Pitt, Secretary of the then Board of Agriculture. A melancholy account is given by Young of a visit he paid Burke at Gregory's in 1796. Young drove there in the chariot of his fussy chief, Sir John Sinclair, to discover what Burke's intentions might be as to an intended publication of his relating to the price of labour. The account, which occupies four pages, is too long for quotation. It concludes thus: 'I am glad once more to have seen and conversed with the man who I hold to possess the greatest and most brilliant gifts of any penman of the age in which he lived. Whose conversation has often fascinated me, whose eloquence has charmed; whose writings have delighted and instructed the world; whose name will without question descend to the latest posterity. But to behold so great a genius, so deepened with melancholy, stooping with infirmity of body, feeling the anguish of a lacerated mind, and sinking to the grave under accumulated misery--to see all this in a character I venerate, and apparently without resource or comfort, wounded every feeling of my soul, and I left him the next day almost as low-spirited as himself.' But Young himself was soon to pass into the same Valley of the Shadow, not so much of Death as of Joyless Life. His beloved and idolized Bobbin died on July 14, 1797. She seems to have been a wise little maiden, to whom her father wrote most affectionate letters, full of rather unsuitable details, political and financial and otherwise, and not scrupling to speak of the child's mother in a disagreeable manner. Bobbin replies with delightful composure to these worrying letters: 'I have just got six of the most beautiful little rabbits you ever saw; they skip about so prettily you can't think, and I shall have some more in a few weeks. Having had so much physic, I am right down tired of it. I take it still twice a day--my appetite is better. What can you mind politics so for? I don't think about them.--Well, good-bye, and believe me, dear papa, your dutiful Daughter.' After poor little Bobbin's death, it happened to Arthur Young even as his mother foretold. Carrots and crops and farming tours hastily retreat, and we find the eminent agriculturist busying himself, with the same seriousness and good faith he had devoted to the rotation of the crops, with the sermons and treatises of Clarke and Jortin and Secker and Tillotson, etc., and all to discover what had become of his dear little Bobbin. His outlook upon the world was changed--the great parties at Petworth, at Euston, at Woburn struck him differently; the huge irreligion of the world filled him as for the first time with amazement and horror: 'How few years are passed since I should have pushed on eagerly to Woburn! This time twelve months I dined with the Duke on Sunday--the party not very numerous, but chiefly of rank--the entertainment more splendid than usual there. He expects me to-day, but I have more pleasure in resting, going twice to church, and eating a morsel of cold lamb at a very humble inn, than partaking of gaiety and dissipation at a great table which might as well be spread for a company of heathens as English lords and men of fashion.' It is all mighty fine calling this religious hypochondria and depression of spirits. It is one of the facts of life. Young stuck to his post, and did his work, and quarrelled with his wife to the end, or nearly so. He cannot have been so lively and agreeable a companion as of old, for we find him in November, 1806, at Euston, endeavouring to impress on the Duke of Grafton that by his tenets he had placed himself entirely under the covenant of works, and that he must be tried for them, and that 'I would not be in such a situation for ten thousand worlds. He was mild and more patient than I expected.' Perhaps, after all, Carlyle was not so far wrong when he praised our aristocracy for their 'politeness.' In 1808 Young became blind. In 1815 his wife died. In 1820 he died himself, leaving behind him seven packets of manuscript and twelve folio volumes of correspondence. Young's great work, _Travels during the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789, undertaken more particularly with a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France_, published in 1792, is one of those books which will always be a great favourite with somebody. It will outlive eloquence and outstay philosophy. It contains some famous passages. THOMAS PAINE Proverbs are said to be but half-truths, but 'give a dog a bad name and hang him' is a saying almost as veracious as it is felicitous; and to no one can it possibly be applied with greater force than to Thomas Paine, the rebellious staymaker, the bankrupt tobacconist, the amazing author of _Common-sense_, _The Rights of Man_, and _The Age of Reason_. Until quite recently Tom Paine lay without the pale of toleration. No circle of liberality was constructed wide enough to include him. Even the scouted Unitarian scouted Thomas. He was 'the infamous Paine,' 'the vulgar atheist.' Whenever mentioned in pious discourse it was but to be waved on one side as thus: 'No one of my hearers is likely to be led astray by the scurrilous blasphemies of Paine.' I can well remember when an asserted intimacy with the writings of Paine marked a man from his fellows and invested him in children's minds with a horrid fascination. The writings themselves were only to be seen in bookshops of evil reputation, and, when hastily turned over with furtive glances, proved to be printed in small type and on villainous paper. For a boy to have bought them and taken them inside a decent home would have been to run the risk of fierce wrath in this life and the threat of it in the next. If ever there was a hung dog, his name was Tom Paine. But History is, as we know, for ever revising her records. None of her judgments are final. A life of Thomas Paine, in two portly and well-printed volumes, with gilt tops, wide margins, spare leaves at the end, and all the other signs and tokens of literary respectability, has lately appeared. No President, no Prime Minister--nay, no Bishop or Moderator--need hope to have his memoirs printed in better style than are these of Thomas Paine, by Mr. Moncure D. Conway. Were any additional proof required of the complete resuscitation of Paine's reputation, it might be found in the fact that his life _is_ in two volumes, though it would have been far better told in one. Mr. Conway believes implicitly in Paine--not merely in his virtue and intelligence, but that he was a truly great man, who played a great part in human affairs. He will no more admit that Paine was a busybody, inflated with conceit and with a strong dash of insolence, than he will that Thomas was a drunkard. That Paine's speech was undoubtedly plain and his nose undeniably red is as far as Mr. Conway will go. If we are to follow the biographer the whole way, we must not only unhang the dog, but give him sepulture amongst the sceptred Sovereigns who rule us from their urns. Thomas Paine was born at Thetford, in Norfolk, in January, 1737, and sailed for America in 1774, then being thirty-seven years of age. Up to this date he was a rank failure. His trade was staymaking, but he had tried his hand at many things. He was twice an Excise officer, but was twice dismissed the service, the first time for falsely pretending to have made certain inspections which, in fact, he had not made, and the second time for carrying on business in an excisable article--tobacco, to wit--without the leave of the Board. Paine had married the tobacconist's business, but neither the marriage nor the business prospered; the second was sold by auction, and the first terminated by mutual consent. Mr. Conway labours over these early days of his hero very much, but he can make nothing of them. Paine was an Excise officer at Lewes, where, so Mr. Conway reminds us, 'seven centuries before Paine opened his office in Lewes, came Harold's son, possibly to take charge of the Excise as established by Edward the Confessor, just deceased.' This device of biographers is a little stale. The Confessor was guiltless of the Excise. Paine's going to America was due to Benjamin Franklin, who made Paine's acquaintance in London, and, having the wit to see his ability, recommended him 'as a clerk or assistant-tutor in a school or assistant-surveyor.' Thus armed, Paine made his appearance in Philadelphia, where he at once obtained employment as editor of an intended periodical called the _Pennsylvanian Magazine or American Museum_, the first number of which appeared in January, 1775. Never was anything luckier. Paine was, without knowing it, a born journalist. His capacity for writing on the spur of the moment was endless, and his delight in doing so boundless. He had no difficulty for 'copy', though in those days contributors were few. He needed no contributors. He was 'Atlanticus'; he was 'Vox Populi'; he was 'Aesop.' The unsigned articles were also mostly his. Having at last, after many adventures and false starts, found his vocation, Paine stuck to it. He spent the rest of his days with a pen in his hand, scribbling his advice and obtruding his counsel on men and nations. Both were usually of excellent quality. Paine was also happy in the moment of his arrival in America. The War of Independence was imminent, and in April, 1775, occurred 'the massacre of Lexington.' The Colonists were angry, but puzzled. They hardly knew what they wanted. They lacked a definite opinion to entertain and a cry to asseverate. Paine had no doubts. He hated British institutions with all the hatred of a civil servant who has had 'the sack.' In January, 1776, he published his pamphlet _Common-sense_, which must be ranked with the most famous pamphlets ever written. It is difficult to wade through now, but even _The Conduct of the Allies_ is not easy reading, and yet between Paine and Swift there is a great gulf fixed. The keynote of _Common-sense_ was separation once and for ever, and the establishment of a great Republic of the West. It hit between wind and water, had a great sale, and made its author a personage and, in his own opinion, a divinity. Paine now became the penman of the rebels. His series of manifestoes, entitled _The Crisis_, were widely read and carried healing on their wings, and in 1777 he was elected Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Charles Lamb once declared that Rousseau was a good enough Jesus Christ for the French, and he was capable of declaring Tom Paine a good enough Milton for the Yankees. However that may be, Paine was an indefatigable and useful public servant. He was a bad gauger for King George, but he was an admirable scribe for a revolution conducted on constitutional principles. To follow his history through the war would be tedious. What Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of money. This was in 1784. Three years afterwards Thomas visited England, where he kept good company and was very usefully employed engineering, for which excellent pursuit he would appear to have had great natural aptitude. Blackfriars Bridge had just tumbled down, and it was Paine's laudable ambition to build its successor in iron. But the Bastille fell down as well as Blackfriars Bridge, and was too much for Paine. As Mr. Conway beautifully puts it: 'But again the Cause arose before him; he must part from all--patent interests, literary leisure, fine society--and take the hand of Liberty undowered, but as yet unstained. He must beat his bridge-iron into a key that shall unlock the British Bastille, whose walls he sees steadily closing around the people.' 'Miching mallecho--this means mischief;' and so it proved. Burke is responsible for the _Rights of Man_. This splendid sentimentalist published his _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ in November, 1790. Paine immediately sat down in the Angel, Islington, and began his reply. He was not unqualified to answer Burke; he had fought a good fight between the years 1775 and 1784. Mr. Conway has some ground for his epigram, 'where Burke had dabbled, Paine had dived.' There is nothing in the _Rights of Man_ which would now frighten, though some of its expressions might still shock, a lady-in-waiting; but to profess Republicanism in 1791 was no joke, and the book was proclaimed and Paine prosecuted. Acting upon the advice of William Blake (the truly sublime), Paine escaped to France, where he was elected by three departments to a seat in the Convention, and in that Convention he sat from September, 1792, to December, 1793, when he was found quarters in the Luxembourg Prison. This invitation to foreigners to take part in the conduct of the French Revolution was surely one of the oddest things that ever happened, but Paine thought it natural enough so far, at least, as he was concerned. He could not speak a word of French, and all his harangues had to be translated and read to the Convention by a secretary, whilst Thomas stood smirking in the Tribune. His behaviour throughout was most creditable to him. He acted with the Girondists, and strongly opposed and voted against the murder of the King. His notion of a revolution was one by pamphlet, and he shrank from deeds of blood. His whole position was false and ridiculous. He really counted for nothing. The members of the Convention grew tired of his doctrinaire harangues, which, in fact, bored them not a little; but they respected his enthusiasm and the part he had played in America, whither they would gladly he had returned. Who put him in prison is a mystery. Mr. Conway thinks it was the American Minister in Paris, Gouverneur Morris. He escaped the guillotine, and was set free after ten months' confinement. All this time Washington had not moved a finger in behalf of the author of _Common-sense_ and _The Crisis_. Amongst Paine's papers this epigram was found: 'ADVICE TO THE STATUARY WHO IS TO EXECUTE THE STATUE OF WASHINGTON. Take from the mine the coldest, hardest stone; It needs no fashion--it is Washington. But if you chisel, let the stroke be rude, And on his heart engrave--"Ingratitude."' This is hard hitting. So far we have only had the Republican Paine, the outlaw Paine; the atheist Paine has not appeared. He did so in the _Age of Reason_, first published in 1794-1795. The object of this book was religious. Paine was a vehement believer in God and in the Divine government of the world, but he was not, to put it mildly, a Bible Christian. Nobody now is ever likely to read the _Age of Reason_ for instruction or amusement. Who now reads even Mr. Greg's _Creed of Christendom_, which is in effect, though not in substance, the same kind of book? Paine was a coarse writer, without refinement of nature, and he used brutal expressions and hurled his vulgar words about in a manner certain to displease. Still, despite it all, the _Age of Reason_ is a religious book, though a singularly unattractive one. Paine remained in France advocating all kinds of things, including a descent on England, the abduction of the Royal Family, and a Free Constitution. Napoleon sought him out, and assured him that he (Napoleon) slept with the _Rights of Man_ under his pillow. Paine believed him. In 1802 Paine returned to America, after fifteen years' absence. 'Thou stricken friend of man,' exclaims Mr. Conway in a fine passage, 'who hast appealed from the God of Wrath to the God of Humanity, see in the distance that Maryland coast which early voyagers called Avalon, and sing again your song when first stepping on that shore twenty-seven years ago.' The rest of Paine's life was spent in America without distinction or much happiness. He continued writing to the last, and died bravely on the morning of June 8, 1809. The Americans did not appreciate Paine's theology, and in 1819 allowed Cobbett to carry the bones of the author of _Common-sense_ to England, where--'as rare things will,' so, at least, Mr. Browning sings--they vanished. Nobody knows what has become of them. As a writer Paine has no merits of a lasting character, but he had a marvellous journalistic knack for inventing names and headings. He is believed to have concocted the two phrases 'The United States of America' and 'The Religion of Humanity.' Considering how little he had read, his discourses on the theory of government are wonderful, and his views generally were almost invariably liberal, sensible, and humane. What ruined him was an intolerable self-conceit, which led him to believe that his own productions superseded those of other men. He knew off by heart, and was fond of repeating, his own _Common-sense_ and the _Rights of Man_. He was destitute of the spirit of research, and was wholly without one shred of humility. He was an oddity, a character, but he never took the first step towards becoming a great man. CHARLES BRADLAUGH[A] [Footnote A: _Charles Bradlaugh: A Record of His Life and Work_. By his daughter, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner. Two vols. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894.] Mr. Bradlaugh was a noticeable man, and his life, even though it appears in the unwelcome but familiar shape of two octavo volumes, is a noticeable book. It is useless to argue with biographers; they, at all events, are neither utilitarians nor opportunists, but idealists pure and simple. What is the good of reminding them, being so majestical, of Guizot's pertinent remark, 'that if a book is unreadable it will not be read,' or of the older saying, 'A great book is a great evil'? for all such observations they simply put on one side as being, perhaps, true for others, but not for them. Had _Mr. Bradlaugh's Life_ been just half the size it would have had, at least, twice as many readers. The pity is all the greater because Mrs. Bonner has really performed a difficult task after a noble fashion and in a truly pious spirit. Her father's life was a melancholy one, and it became her duty as his biographer to break a silence on painful subjects about which he had preferred to say nothing. His reticence was a manly reticence; though a highly sensitive mortal, he preferred to put up with calumny rather than lay bare family sorrows and shame. His daughter, though compelled to break this silence, has done so in a manner full of dignity and feeling. The ruffians who in times past slandered the moral character of Bradlaugh will not probably read his life, nor, if they did, would they repent of their baseness. The willingness to believe everything evil of an adversary is incurable, springing as it does from a habit of mind. It was well said by Mr. Mill: 'I have learned from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result.' Now that Mr. Bradlaugh is dead, no purpose is served by repeating false accusations as to his treatment of his wife, or of his pious brother, or as to his disregard of family ties; but the next atheist who crops up must not expect any more generous treatment than Bradlaugh received from that particularly odious class of persons of whom it has been wittily said that so great is their zeal for religion, they have never time to say their prayers. Mr. Bradlaugh will, I suppose, be hereafter described in the dictionaries of biography as 'Freethinker and Politician.' Of the politician there is here no need to speak. He was a Radical of the old-fashioned type. When he first stood for Northampton in 1868, his election address was made up of tempting dishes, which afterwards composed Mr. Chamberlain's famous but unauthorized programme of 1885, with minority representation thrown in. Unpopular thinkers who have been pelted with stones by Christians, slightly the worse for liquor, are apt to think well of minorities. Mr. Bradlaugh's Radicalism had an individualistic flavour. He thought well of thrift, thereby incurring censure. Mr. Bradlaugh's politics are familiar enough. What about his freethinking? English freethinkers may be divided into two classes--those who have been educated and those who have had to educate themselves. The former class might apply to their own case the language once employed by Dr. Newman to describe himself and his brethren of the Oratory: 'We have been nourished for the greater part of our lives in the bosom of the great schools and universities of Protestant England; we have been the foster foster-sons of the Edwards and Henries, the Wykehams and Wolseys, of whom Englishmen are wont to make so much; we have grown up amid hundreds of contemporaries, scattered at present all over the country in those special ranks of society which are the very walk of a member of the legislature.' These first-class free-thinkers have an excellent time of it, and, to use a fashionable phrase, 'do themselves very well indeed.' They move freely in society; their books lie on every table; they hob-a-nob with Bishops; and when they come to die, their orthodox relations gather round them, and lay them in the earth 'in the sure and certain hope'--so, at least, priestly lips are found willing to assert--'of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.' And yet there was not a dogma of the Christian faith in which they were in a position to profess their belief. The free-thinkers of the second class, poor fellows! have hitherto led very different lives. Their foster-parents have been poverty and hardship; their school education has usually terminated at eleven; all their lives they have been desperately poor; alone, unaided, they have been left to fight the battle of a Free Press. Richard Carlile, as honourable a man as most, and between whose religious opinions and (let us say) Lord Palmerston's there was probably no difference worth mentioning, spent nine out of the fifty-two years of his life in prison. Attorney-Generals, and, indeed, every degree of prosecuting counsel have abused this kind of free-thinker, not merely with professional impunity, but amidst popular applause. Judges, speaking with emotion, have exhibited the utmost horror of atheistical opinions, and have railed in good set terms at the wretch who has been dragged before them, and have then, at the rising of the court, proceeded to their club and played cards till dinner-time with a first-class free-thinker for partner. This is natural and easily accounted for, but we need not be surprised if, in the biographies of second-class freethinkers, bitterness is occasionally exhibited towards the well-to-do brethren who decline what Dr. Bentley, in his Boyle Lectures, called 'the public odium and resentment of the magistrate.' Mr. Bradlaugh was a freethinker of the second class. His father was a solicitor's clerk on a salary which never exceeded £2 2s. a week; his mother had been a nursery-maid; and he himself was born in 1833 in Bacchus Walk, Hoxton. At seven he went to a national school, but at eleven his school education ended, and he became an office-boy. At fourteen he was a wharf-clerk and cashier to a coal-merchant. His parents were not much addicted to church-going, but Charles was from the first a serious boy, and became at a somewhat early age a Sunday-school teacher at St. Peter's, Hackney Road. The incumbent, in order to prepare him for Confirmation, set him to work to extract the Thirty-nine Articles out of the four Gospels. Unhappy task, worthy to be described by the pen of the biographer of John Sterling. The youthful wharfinger could not find the Articles in the Gospels, and informed the Rev. J.G. Packer of the fact. His letter conveying this intelligence is not forthcoming, and probably enough contained offensive matter, for Mr. Packer seems at once to have denounced young Bradlaugh as one engaged in atheistical inquiries, to have suspended him from the Sunday-school, to have made it very disagreeable for him at home and with his employer, and to have wound up by giving him three days to change his views or to lose his place. Mr. Packer has been well abused, but it has never been the fashion to treat youthful atheists with much respect. When Coleridge confided to the Rev. James Boyer that he (S.T. Coleridge) was inclined to atheism, the reverend gentleman had him stripped and flogged. Mr. Packer, however, does seem to have been too hasty, for Bradlaugh did not formally abandon his beliefs until some months after his suspension. He retired for a short season, and studied Hebrew under Mr. James Savage, of Circus Street, Marylebone. He emerged an unbeliever, aged sixteen. Expelled from his wharf, he sold coal on commission, but his principal, if not his only customer, the wife of a baker, discovering that he was an infidel, gave him no more orders, being afraid, so she said, that her bread would smell of brimstone. In 1850 Bradlaugh published his first pamphlet, _A Few Words on the Christian Creed_, and dedicated it to the unhappy Mr. Packer. But starvation stared him in the face, and in the same year he enlisted in the 7th Dragoon Guards, and spent the next three years in Ireland, where he earned a good character, and on more occasions than one showed that adroitness for which he was afterwards remarkable. In October, 1853, his mother and sister with great difficulty raised the £30 necessary to buy his discharge, and Bradlaugh returned to London, not only full grown, but well fed. Had he not taken the Queen's shilling he never would have lived to fight the battle he did. He became a solicitor's clerk on a miserably small pay, and took to lecturing as 'Iconoclast.' In 1855 he was married at St. Philip's Church, Stepney. His lectures and discussions began to assume great proportions, and covered more than twenty years of his life. Terribly hard work they were. Profits there were none, or next to none. Few men have endured greater hardships. In 1860 the _National Reformer_ was started, and his warfare in the courts began. In 1868 he first stood for Northampton, which he unsuccessfully contested three times. In April, 1880, he was returned to Parliament, and then began the famous struggle with which the constitutional historian will have to deal. After this date the facts are well known. Bradlaugh died on January 30, 1891. His life was a hard one from beginning to end. He had no advantages. Nobody really helped him or influenced him or mollified him. He had never either money or repose; he had no time to travel, except as a propagandist, no time to acquire knowledge for its own sake; he was often abused but seldom criticised. In a single sentence, he was never taught the extent of his own ignorance. His attitude towards the Christian religion and the Bible was a perfectly fair one, and ought not to have brought down upon him any abuse whatever. There are more ways than one of dealing with religion. It may be approached as a mystery or as a series of events supported by testimony. If the evidence is trustworthy, if the witnesses are irreproachable, if they submit successfully to examination and cross-examination, then, however remarkable or out of the way may be the facts to which they depose, they are entitled to be believed. This is a mode of treatment with which we are all familiar, whether as applied to the Bible or to the authority of the Church. Nobody is expected to believe in the authority of the Church until satisfied by the exercise of his reason that the Church in question possesses 'the notes' of a true Church. This was the aspect of the question which engaged Bradlaugh's attention. He was critical, legal. He took objections, insisted on discrepancies, cross-examined as to credibility, and came to the conclusion that the case for the supernatural was not made out. And this he did not after the first-class fashion in the study or in octavo volumes, but in the street. His audiences were not Mr. Mudie's subscribers, but men and women earning weekly wages. The coarseness of his language, the offensiveness of his imagery, have been greatly exaggerated. It is now a good many years since I heard him lecture in a northern town on the Bible to an audience almost wholly composed of artisans. He was bitter and aggressive, but the treatment he was then experiencing accounted for this. As an avowed atheist he received no quarter, and he might fairly say with Wilfred Osbaldistone, 'It's hard I should get raps over the costard, and only pay you back in make-believes.' It was not what Bradlaugh said, but the people he said it to, that drew down upon him the censure of the magistrate, and (unkindest cut of all) the condemnation of the House of Commons. Of all the evils from which the lovers of religion do well to pray that their faith may be delivered, the worst is that it should ever come to be discussed across the floor of the House of Commons. The self-elected champions of the Christian faith who then ride into the lists are of a kind well calculated to make Piety hide her head for very shame. Rowdy noblemen, intemperate country gentlemen, sterile lawyers, cynical but wealthy sceptics who maintain religion as another fence round their property, hereditary Nonconformists whose God is respectability and whose goal a baronetcy, contrive, with a score or two of bigots thrown in, to make a carnival of folly, a veritable devil's dance of blasphemy. The debates on Bradlaugh's oath-taking extended over four years, and will make melancholy reading for posterity. Two figures, and two figures only, stand out in solitary grandeur, those of a Quaker and an Anglican--Bright and Gladstone. The conclusion which an attentive reading of Mr. Bradlaugh's biography forces upon me is that in all probability he was the last freethinker who will be exposed, for many a long day (it would be more than usually rash to write 'ever'), to pains and penalties for uttering his unbelief. It is true the Blasphemy Laws are not yet repealed; it may be true for all I know that Christianity is still part and parcel of the common law; it is possibly an indictable offence to lend _Literature and Dogma_ and _God and the Bible_ to a friend; but, however these things may be, Mr. Bradlaugh's stock-in-trade is now free of the market-place, where just at present, at all events, its price is low. It has become pretty plain that neither the Fortress of Holy Scripture nor the Rock of Church Authority is likely to be taken by storm. The Mystery of Creation, the unsolvable problem of matter, continue to press upon us more heavily than ever. Neither by Paleys nor by Bradlaughs will religion be either bolstered up or pulled down. Sceptics and Sacramentarians must be content to put up with one another's vagaries for some time to come. Indeed, the new socialists, though at present but poor theologians (one hasty reading of _Lux Mundi_ does not make a theologian), are casting favourable eyes upon Sacramentarianism, deeming it to have a distinct flavour of Collectivism. Calvinism, on the other hand, is considered repulsively individualistic, being based upon the notion that it is the duty of each man to secure his own salvation. But whether Bradlaugh was the last of his race or not, he was a brave man whose life well deserves an honourable place amongst the biographies of those Radicals who have suffered in the cause of Free-thought, and into the fruits of whose labours others have entered. DISRAELI _EX RELATIONE_ SIR WILLIAM FRASER The late Sir William Fraser was not, I have been told, a popular person in that society about which he thought so much, and his book, _Disraeli and His Day_, did not succeed in attracting much of the notice of the general reader, and failed, so I, at least, have been made to understand, to win a verdict of approval from the really well informed. I consider the book a very good one, in the sense of being valuable. Whatever your mood may be, that of the moralist, cynic, satirist, humourist, whether you love, pity, or despise your fellow-man, here is grist for your mill. It feeds the mind. Although in form the book is but a stringing together of stories, incidents, and aphorisms, still the whole produces a distinct effect. To state what that effect is would be, I suppose, the higher criticism. It is not altogether disagreeable; it is decidedly amusing; it is clever and somewhat contemptible. Sir William Fraser was a baronet who thought well of his order. He desiderated a tribunal to determine the right to the title, and he opined that the courtesy prefix of 'Honourable,' which once, it appears, belonged to baronets, should be restored to them. Apart from these opinions, ridiculous and peculiar, Sir William Fraser stands revealed in this volume as cast in a familiar mould. The words 'gentleman,' 'White's,' 'Society,' often flow from his pen, and we may be sure were engraven on his heart. He had seen a world wrecked. When he was young, so he tells his readers, the world consisted of at least three, and certainly not more than five, hundred persons who were accustomed night after night during the season to make their appearance at a certain number of houses, which are affectionately enumerated. A new face at any one of these gatherings immediately attracted attention, as, indeed, it is easy to believe it would. 'Anything for a change,' as somebody observes in _Pickwick_. This is the atmosphere of the book, and Sir William breathes in it very pleasantly. Endowed by Nature with a retentive memory and a literary taste, active if singular, he may be discovered in his own pages moving up and down, in and out of society, supplying and correcting quotations, and gratifying the vanity of distinguished authors by remembering their own writings better than they did themselves. The book makes one clearly comprehend what a monstrous clever fellow the rank and file of the Tory party must have felt Sir William Fraser to be. This, however, is only background. In the front of the picture we have the mysterious outlines, the strange personality, struggling between the bizarre and the romantic, of 'the Jew,' as big George Bentinck was ever accustomed to denominate his leader. Sir William Fraser's Disraeli is a very different figure from Sir Stafford Northcote's. The myth about the pocket Sophocles is rudely exploded. Sir William is certain that Disraeli could not have construed a chapter of the Greek Testament. He found such mythology as he required where many an honest fellow has found it before him--in Lemprière's Dictionary. His French accent, as Sir William records it, was most satisfactory, and a conclusive proof of his _bonâ-fides_. Disraeli, it is clear, cared as little for literature as he did for art. He admired Gray, as every man with a sense for epithet must; he studied Junius, whose style, so Sir William Fraser believes, he surpassed in his 'Runnymede' letters. Sir William Fraser kindly explains the etymology of this strange word 'Runnymede,' as he also does that of 'Parliament,' which he says is '_Parliamo mente_' (Let us speak our minds). Sir William clearly possessed the learning denied to his chief. Beyond apparently imposing upon Sir Stafford Northcote, Disraeli himself never made any vain pretensions to be devoted to pursuits for which he did not care a rap. He once dreamt of an epic poem, and his early ambition urged him a step or two in that direction, but his critical faculty, which, despite all his monstrosities of taste, was vital, restrained him from making a fool of himself, and he forswore the muse, puffed the prostitute away, and carried his very saleable wares to another market, where his efforts were crowned with prodigious success. Sir William Fraser introduces his great man to us as observing, in reply to a question, that revenge was the passion which gives pleasure the latest. A man, he continued, will enjoy that when even avarice has ceased to please. As a matter of fact, Disraeli himself was neither avaricious nor revengeful, and, as far as one can judge, was never tempted to be either. This is the fatal defect of almost all Disraeli's aphorisms: they are dead words, whilst the words of a true aphorism have veins filled with the life of their utterer. Nothing of this sort ever escaped the lips of our modern Sphinx. If he had any faiths, any deep convictions, any rooted principles, he held his tongue about them. He was, Sir William tells us, an indolent man. It is doubtful whether he ever did, apart from the preparation and delivery of his speeches, what would be called by a professional man a hard day's work in his life. He had courage, wit, insight, instinct, prevision, and a thorough persuasion that he perfectly understood the materials he had to work upon and the tools within his reach. Perhaps no man ever gauged more accurately or more profoundly despised that 'world' Sir William Fraser so pathetically laments. For folly, egotism, vanity, conceit, and stupidity, he had an amazing eye. He could not, owing to his short sight, read men's faces across the floor of the House, but he did not require the aid of any optic nerve to see the petty secrets of their souls. His best sayings have men's weaknesses for their text. Sir William's book gives many excellent examples. One laughs throughout. Sir William would have us believe that in later life Disraeli clung affectionately to dulness--to gentle dulness. He did not want to be surrounded by wits. He had been one himself in his youth, and he questioned their sincerity. It would almost appear from passages in the book that Disraeli found even Sir William Fraser too pungent for him. Once, we are told, the impenetrable Prime Minister quailed before Sir William's reproachful oratory. The story is not of a cock and a bull, but of a question put in the House of Commons by Sir William, who was snubbed by the Home Secretary, who was cheered by Disraeli. This was intolerable, and accordingly next day, being, as good luck would have it, a Friday, when, as all men and members know, 'it is in the power of any member to bring forward any topic he may choose,' Sir William naturally chose the topic nearest to his heart, and 'said a few words on my wrongs.' 'During my performance I watched Disraeli narrowly. I could not see his face, but I noticed that whenever I became in any way disagreeable--in short, whenever my words really bit--they were invariably followed by one movement. Sitting as he always did with his right knee over his left, whenever the words touched him he moved the pendant leg twice or three times, then curved his foot upwards. I could observe no other sign of emotion, but this was distinct. Some years afterwards, on a somewhat more important occasion at the Conference at Berlin, a great German philosopher, Herr ----, went to Berlin on purpose to study Disraeli's character. He said afterwards that he was most struck by the more than Indian stoicism which Disraeli showed. To this there was one exception. "Like all men of his race, he has one sign of emotion which never fails to show itself--the movement of the leg that is crossed over the other, and of the foot!" The person who told me this had never heard me hint, nor had anyone, that I had observed this peculiar symptom on the earlier occasion to which I have referred.' Statesmen of Jewish descent, with a reputation for stoicism to preserve, would do well to learn from this story not to swing their crossed leg when tired. The great want about Mr. Disraeli is something to hang the countless anecdotes about him upon. Most remarkable men have some predominant feature of character round which you can build your general conception of them, or, at all events, there has been some great incident in their lives for ever connected with their names, and your imagination mixes the man and the event together. Who can think of Peel without remembering the Corn Laws and the reverberating sentence: 'I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, for less honourable motives, clamours for Protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abode of those whose lot it is to labour and to earn their daily bread with the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.' But round what are our memories of Disraeli to cluster? Sir William Fraser speaks rapturously of his wondrous mind and of his intellect, but where is posterity to look for evidences of either? Certainly not in Sir William's book, which shows us a wearied wit and nothing more. Carlyle once asked, 'How long will John Bull permit this absurd monkey'--meaning Mr. Disraeli--'to dance upon his stomach?' The question was coarsely put, but there is nothing in Sir William's book to make one wonder it should have been asked. Mr. Disraeli lived to offer Carlyle the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and that, in Sir William's opinion, is enough to dispose of Carlyle's vituperation; but, after all, the Grand Cross is no answer to anything except an application for it. A great many other people are made to cross Sir William Fraser's stage. His comments upon them are lively, independent, and original. He liked Cobden and hated Bright. The reason for this he makes quite plain. He thinks he detected in Cobden a deprecatory manner--a recognition of the sublime truth that he, Richard Cobden, had not been half so well educated as the mob of Tories he was addressing. Bright, on the other band, was fat and rude, and thought that most country gentlemen and town-bred wits were either fools or fribbles. This was intolerable. Here was a man who not only could not have belonged to the 'world,' but honestly did not wish to, and was persuaded--the gross fellow--that he and his world were better in every respect than the exclusive circles which listened to Sir William Fraser's _bon mots_ and tags from the poets. Certainly there was nothing deprecatory about John Bright. He could be quite as insolent in his way as any aristocrat in his. He had a habit, we are told, of slowly getting up and walking out of the House in the middle of Mr. Disraeli's speeches, and just when that ingenious orator was leading up to a carefully prepared point, and then immediately returning behind the Speaker's chair. If this is true, it was perhaps rude, but nobody can deny that it is a Tory dodge of indicating disdain. What was really irritating about Mr. Bright was that his disdain was genuine. He did think very little of the Tory party, and he did not care one straw for the opinion of society. He positively would not have cared to have been made a baronet. Sir William Fraser seems to have been really fond of Disraeli, and the very last time he met his great man in the Carlton Club he told him a story too broad to be printed. The great man pronounced it admirable, and passed on his weary way. A CONNOISSEUR It must always be rash to speak positively about human nature, whose various types of character are singularly tough, and endure, if not for ever, for a very long time; yet some types do seem to show signs of wearing out. The connoisseur, for example, here in England is hardly what he was. He has specialized, and behind him there is now the bottomless purse of the multi-millionaire, who buys as he is bidden, and has no sense of prices. If the multi-millionaire wants a thing, why should he not have it? The gaping mob, penniless but appreciative, looks on and cheers his pluck. Mr. Frederick Locker, about whom I wish to write a few lines, was an old-world connoisseur, the shy recesses of whose soul Addison might have penetrated in the page of a _Spectator_--and a delicate operation it would have been. My father-in-law was only once in the witness-box. I had the felicity to see him there. It was a dispute about the price of a picture, and in the course of his very short evidence he hazarded the opinion that the grouping of the figures (they were portraits) was in bad taste. The Judge, the late Mr. Justice Cave, an excellent lawyer of the old school, snarled out, 'Do you think you could explain to _me_ what is taste?' Mr. Locker surveyed the Judge through the eye-glass which seemed almost part of his being, with a glance modest, deferential, deprecatory, as if suggesting 'Who am _I_ to explain anything to _you_?' but at the same time critical, ironical, and humorous. It was but for one brief moment; the eyeglass dropped, and there came the mournful answer, as from a man baffled at all points: 'No, my lord; I should find it impossible!' The Judge grunted a ready, almost a cheerful, assent. Properly to describe Mr. Locker, you ought to be able to explain both to judge and jury what you mean by taste. He sometimes seemed to me to be _all_ taste. Whatever subject he approached--was it the mystery of religion, or the moralities of life, a poem or a print, a bit of old china or a human being--whatever it might be, it was along the avenue of taste that he gently made his way up to it. His favourite word of commendation was _pleasing_, and if he ever brought himself to say (and he was not a man who scattered his judgments, rather was he extremely reticent of them) of a man, and still more of a woman, that he or she was _unpleasing_, you almost shuddered at the fierceness of the condemnation, knowing, as all Locker's intimate friends could not help doing, what the word meant to him. 'Attractive' was another of his critical instruments. He meets Lord Palmerston, and does not find him 'attractive' (_My Confidences_, p. 155). This is a temperament which when cultivated, as it was in Mr. Locker's case, by a life-long familiarity with beautiful things in all the arts and crafts, is apt to make its owner very susceptible to what some stirring folk may not unjustly consider the trifles of life. Sometimes Locker might seem to overlook the dominant features, the main object of the existence, either of a man or of some piece of man's work, in his sensitively keen perception of the beauty, or the lapse from beauty, of some trait of character or bit of workmanship. This may have been so. Mr. Locker was more at home, more entirely his own delightful self, when he was calling your attention to some humorous touch in one of Bewick's tail-pieces, or to some plump figure in a group by his favourite Stothard than when handling a Michael Angelo drawing or an amazing Blake. Yet, had it been his humour, he could have played the showman to Michael Angelo and Blake at least as well as to Bewick, Stothard, or Chodowiecki. But a modesty, marvellously mingled with irony, was of the very essence of his nature. No man expatiated less. He never expounded anything in his born days; he very soon wearied of those he called 'strong' talkers. His critical method was in a conversational manner to direct your attention to something in a poem or a picture, to make a brief suggestion or two, perhaps to apply an epithet, and it was all over, but your eyes were opened. Rapture he never professed, his tones were never loud enough to express enthusiasm, but his enjoyment of what he considered good, wherever he found it--and he was regardless of the set judgments of the critics--was most intense and intimate. His feeling for anything he liked was fibrous: he clung to it. For all his rare books and prints, if he liked a thing he was very tolerant of its _format_. He would cut a drawing out of a newspaper, frame it, hang it up, and be just as tender towards it as if it were an impression with the unique _remarque_. Mr. Locker had probably inherited his virtuoso's whim from his ancestors. His great-grandfather was certified by Johnson in his life of Addison to be a gentleman 'eminent for curiosity and literature,' and though his grandfather, the Commodore, who lives for ever in our history as the man who taught Nelson the lesson that saved an Empire--'Lay a Frenchman close, and you will beat him'--was no collector, his father, Edward Hawke Locker, though also a naval man, was not only the friend of Sir Walter Scott, but a most judicious buyer of pictures, prints, and old furniture. Frederick Locker was born in 1821, in Greenwich Hospital, where Edward Hawke Locker was Civil Commissioner. His mother was the daughter of one of the greatest book-buyers of his time, a man whose library it took nine days to disperse--the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, the friend and opponent of George Washington, an ecclesiastic who might have been first Bishop of Edinburgh, but who died a better thing, the Vicar of Epsom. Frederick Locker grew up among pretty things in the famous hospital. Water-colours by Lawrence, Prout, Girtin, Turner, Chinnery, Paul Sandby, Cipriani, and other masters; casts after Canova; mezzotints after Sir Joshua; Hogarth's famous picture of David Garrick and his wife, now well hung in Windsor Castle, were about him, and early attracted his observant eye. Yet the same things were about his elder brother Arthur, an exceedingly clever fellow, who remained quite curiously impervious to the impressiveness of pretty things all his days. Locker began collecting on his own account after his marriage, in 1850, to a daughter of Lord Byron's enemy, the Lord Elgin, who brought the marbles from Athens to Bloomsbury. His first object, at least so he thought, was to make his rooms pretty. From the beginning of his life as a connoisseur he spared himself no pains, often trudging miles, when not wanted at the Admiralty Office, in search of his prey. If any mercantile-minded friend ever inquired what anything had cost, he would be answered with a rueful smile, 'Much shoe leather.' He began with old furniture, china, and bric-à-brac, which ere long somewhat inconveniently filled his small rooms. Prices rose, and means in those days were as small as the rooms. No more purchases of Louis Seize and blue majolica and Palissy ware could be made. Drawings by the old masters and small pictures were the next objects of the chase. Here again the long purses were soon on his track, and the pursuit had to be abandoned, but not till many treasures had been garnered. Last of all he became a book-hunter, beginning with little volumes of poetry and the drama from 1590 to 1610; and as time went on the boundaries expanded, but never so as to include black letter. I dare not say Mr. Locker had all the characteristics of a great collector, or that he was entirely free from the whimsicalities of the tribe of connoisseurs, but he was certainly endowed with the chief qualifications for the pursuit of rarities, and remained clear of the unpleasant vices that so often mar men's most innocent avocations. Mr. Locker always knew what he wanted and what he did not want, and never could be persuaded to take the one for the other; he did not grow excited in the presence of the quarry; he had patience to wait, and to go on waiting, and he seldom lacked courage to buy. He rode his own hobby-horse, never employing experts as buyers. For quantity he had no stomach. He shrank from numbers. He was not a Bodleian man; he had not the sinews to grapple with libraries. He was the connoisseur throughout. Of the huge acquisitiveness of a Heber or a Huth he had not a trace. He hated a crowd, of whatsoever it was composed. He was apt to apologize for his possessions, and to depreciate his tastes. As for boasting of a treasure, he could as easily have eaten beef at breakfast. So delicate a spirit, armed as it was for purposes of defence with a rare gift of irony and a very shrewd insight into the weaknesses and noisy falsettos of life, was sure to be misunderstood. The dull and coarse witted found Locker hard to make out. He struck them as artificial and elaborate, perhaps as frivolous, and yet they felt uneasy in his company lest there should be a lurking ridicule behind his quiet, humble demeanour. There was, indeed, always an element of mockery in Locker's humility. An exceedingly spiteful account of him, in which it is asserted that 'most of his rarest books are miserable copies' (how book-collectors can hate one another!), ends with the reluctant admission: 'He was eminently a gentleman, however, and his manners were even courtly, yet virile.' Such extorted praise is valuable. I can see him now before me, with a nicely graduated foot-rule in his delicate hand, measuring with grave precision the height to a hair of his copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719), for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was taller or shorter than one being vaunted for sale in a bookseller's catalogue just to hand. His face, one of much refinement, was a study, exhibiting alike a fixed determination to discover the exact truth about the copy and a humorous realization of the inherent triviality of the whole business. Locker was a philosopher as well as a connoisseur. The Rowfant Library has disappeared. Great possessions are great cares. 'But ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats, water-thieves, and land-thieves--I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of waters, winds and rocks.' To this list the nervous owner of rare books must add fire, that dread enemy of all the arts. It is often difficult to provide stabling for dead men's hobby-horses. It were perhaps absurd in a world like this to grow sentimental over a parcel of old books. Death, the great unbinder, must always make a difference. Mr. Locker's poetry now forms a volume of the _Golden Treasury Series_. The _London Lyrics_ are what they are. They have been well praised by good critics, and have themselves been made the subject of good verse. 'Apollo made one April day A new thing in the rhyming way; Its turn was neat, its wit was clear, It wavered 'twixt a smile and tear. Then Momus gave a touch satiric, And it became a _London Lyric_.' AUSTIN DOBSON. In another copy of verses Mr. Dobson adds: 'Or where discern a verse so neat, So well-bred and so witty-- So finished in its least conceit, So mixed of mirth and pity?' 'Pope taught him rhythm, Prior ease, Praed buoyancy and banter; What modern bard would learn from these? Ah, _tempora mutantur_!' Nothing can usefully be added to criticism so just, so searching, and so happily expressed. Some of the _London Lyrics_ have, I think, achieved what we poor mortals call immortality--a strange word to apply to the piping of so slender a reed, to so slight a strain--yet 'In small proportions we just beauties see.' It is the simplest strain that lodges longest in the heart. Mr. Locker's strains are never precisely _simple_. The gay enchantment of the world and the sense of its bitter disappointments murmur through all of them, and are fatal to their being simple, but the unpretentiousness of a _London Lyric_ is akin to simplicity. His relation to his own poetry was somewhat peculiar. A critic in every fibre, he judged his own verses with a severity he would have shrunk from applying to those of any other rhyming man. He was deeply dissatisfied, almost on bad terms, with himself, yet for all that he was convinced that he had written some very good verses indeed. His poetry meant a great deal to him, and he stood in need of sympathy and of allies against his own despondency. He did not get much sympathy, being a man hard to praise, for unless he agreed with your praise it gave him more pain than pleasure. I am not sure that Mr. Dobson agrees with me, but I am very fond of Locker's paraphrase of one of Clément Marot's _Epigrammes_; and as the lines are redolent of his delicate connoisseurship, I will quote both the original (dated 1544) and the paraphrase: 'DU RYS DE MADAME D'ALLEBRET 'Elle a très bien ceste gorge d'albastre, Ce doulx parler, ce cler tainct, ces beaux yeulx: Mais en effect, ce petit rys follastre, C'est à mon gré ce qui lui sied le mieulx; Elle en pourroit les chemins et les lieux Où elle passé à plaisir inciter; Et si ennuy me venoit contrister Tant que par mort fust ma vie abbatue, Il me fauldroit pour me resusciter Que ce rys la duguel elle me tue.' 'How fair those locks which now the light wind stirs! What eyes she has, and what a perfect arm! And yet methinks that little laugh of hers-- That little laugh--is still her crowning charm. Where'er she passes, countryside or town, The streets make festa and the fields rejoice. Should sorrow come, as 'twill, to cast me down, Or Death, as come he must, to hush my voice, Her laugh would wake me just as now it thrills me-- That little, giddy laugh wherewith she kills me.' 'Tis the very laugh of Millamant in _The Way of the World_! 'I would rather,' cried Hazlitt, 'have seen Mrs. Abington's Millamant than any Rosalind that ever appeared on the stage.' Such wishes are idle. Hazlitt never saw Mrs. Abington's Millamant. I have seen Miss Ethel Irving's Millamant, _dulce ridentem_, and it was that little giddy laugh of hers that reminded me of Marot's Epigram and of Frederick Locker's paraphrase. So do womanly charms endure from generation to generation, and it is one of the duties of poets to record them. In 1867 Mr. Locker published his _Lyra Elegantiarun. A Collection of Some of the Best Specimens of Vers de Société and Vers d'Occasion in the English Languages by Deceased Authors_. In his preface Locker gave what may now be fairly called the 'classical' definition of the verses he was collecting. '_Vers de société_ and _vers d'occasion_ should' (so he wrote) 'be short, elegant, refined and fanciful, not seldom distinguished by heightened sentiment, and often playful. The tone should not be pitched high; it should be idiomatic and rather in the conversational key; the rhythm should be crisp and sparkling, and the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish and completeness; for however trivial the subject-matter may be--indeed, rather in proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition and perfection of execution should be strictly enforced. The definition may be further illustrated by a few examples of pieces, which, from the absence of some of the foregoing qualities, or from the excess of others, cannot be properly regarded as _vers de société_, though they may bear a certain generic resemblance to that species of poetry. The ballad of "John Gilpin," for example, is too broadly and simply ludicrous; Swift's "Lines on the Death of Marlborough," and Byron's "Windsor Poetics," are too savage and truculent; Cowper's "My Mary" is far too pathetic; Herrick's lyrics to "Blossoms" and "Daffodils" are too elevated; "Sally in our Alley" is too homely and too entirely simple and natural; while the "Rape of the Lock," which would otherwise be one of the finest specimens of _vers de société_ in any language, must be excluded on account of its length, which renders it much too important.' I have made this long quotation because it is an excellent example of Mr. Locker's way of talking about poets and poetry, and of his intimate, searching, and unaffected criticism. _Lyra Elegantiarum_ is a real, not a bookseller's collection. Mr. Locker was a great student of verse. There was hardly a stanza of any English poet, unless it was Spenser, for whom he had no great affection, which he had not pondered over and clearly considered as does a lawyer his cases. He delighted in a complete success, and grieved over any lapse from the fold of metrical virtue, over any ill-sounding rhyme or unhappy expression. The circulation of _Lyra Elegantiarum_ was somewhat interfered with by a 'copyright' question. Mr. Locker had a great admiration for Landor's short poems, and included no less than forty-one of them, which he chose with the utmost care. Publishers are slow to perceive that the best chance of getting rid of their poetical wares (and Landor was not popular) is to have attention called to the artificer who produced them. The Landorian publisher objected, and the _Lyra_ had to be 'suppressed'--a fine word full of hidden meanings. The second-hand booksellers, a wily race, were quick to perceive the significance of this, and have for more than thirty years obtained inflated prices for their early copies, being able to vend them as possessing the _Suppressed Verses_. There is a great deal of Locker in this collection. To turn its pages is to renew intercourse with its editor. In 1879 another little volume instinct with his personality came into existence and made friends for itself. He called it _Patchwork_, and to have given it any other name would have severely taxed his inventiveness. It is a collection of stories, of _ana_, of quotations in verse and prose, of original matter, of character-sketches, of small adventures, of table-talk, and of other things besides, if other things, indeed, there be. If you know _Patchwork_ by heart you are well equipped. It is intensely original throughout, and never more original than when its matter is borrowed. Readers of _Patchwork_ had heard of Mr. Creevey long before Sir Herbert Maxwell once again let that politician loose upon an unlettered society. The book had no great sale, but copies evidently fell into the hands of the more judicious of the pressmen, who kept it by their sides, and every now and again 'Waled a portion with judicious care' for quotation in their columns. The _Patchwork_ stories thus got into circulation one by one. Kind friends of Mr. Locker's, who had been told, or had discovered for themselves, that he was somewhat of a wag, would frequently regale him with bits of his own _Patchwork_, introducing them to his notice as something they had just heard, which they thought he would like--murdering his own stories to give him pleasure. His countenance on such occasions was a _rendezvous_ of contending emotions, a battlefield of rival forces. Politeness ever prevailed, but it took all his irony and sad philosophy to hide his pain. _Patchwork_ is such a good collection of the kind of story he liked best that it was really difficult to avoid telling him a story that was _not_ in it. I made the blunder once myself with a Voltairean anecdote. Here it is as told in _Patchwork_: 'Voltaire was one day listening to a dramatic author reading his comedy, and who said, "Ici le chevalier rit!" He exclaimed: "Le chevalier est _bien_ heureux!"' I hope I told it fairly well. He smiled sadly, and said nothing, not even _Et tu, Brute_! In 1886 Mr. Locker printed for presentation a catalogue of his printed books, manuscripts, autograph letters, drawings, and pictures. Nothing of his own figures in this catalogue, and yet in a very real sense the whole is his. Most of the books are dispersed, but the catalogue remains, not merely as a record of rareties and bibliographical details dear to the collector's heart, but as a token of taste. Just as there is, so Wordsworth reminds us, 'a spirit in the woods,' so is there still, brooding over and haunting the pages of the 'Rowfant Catalogue,' the spirit of true connoisseurship. In the slender lists of Locker's 'Works' this book must always have a place. Frederick Locker died at Rowfant on May 30, 1895, leaving behind him, carefully prepared for the press, a volume he had christened _My Confidences: An Autographical Sketch addressed to My Descendants_. In due course the book appeared, and was misunderstood at first by many. It cut a strange, outlandish figure among the crowd of casual reminiscences it externally resembled. Glancing over the pages of _My Confidences_, the careless library subscriber encountered the usual number of names of well-known personages, whose appearance is supposed by publishers to add sufficient zest to reminiscences to secure for them a sale large enough, at any rate, to recoup the cost of publication. Yet, despite these names, Mr. Locker's book is completely unlike the modern memoir. Beneath a carefully-constructed, and perhaps slightly artificially maintained, frivolity of tone, the book is written in deadly earnest. Not for nothing did its author choose as one of the mottoes for its title-page, 'Ce ne sont mes gestes que j'écrie; c'est moy.' It may be said of this book, as of Senancour's _Oberman_: 'A fever in these pages burns; Beneath the calm they feign, A wounded human spirit turns Here on its bed of pain.' The still small voice of its author whispers through _My Confidences_. Like Montaigne's _Essays_, the book is one of entire good faith, and strangely uncovers a personality. As a tiny child Locker was thought by his parents to be very like Sir Joshua Reynolds' picture of Puck, an engraving of which was in the home at Greenwich Hospital, and certainly Locker carried to his grave more than a suspicion of what is called Puckishness. In _My Confidences_ there are traces of this quality. Clearly enough the author of _London Lyrics_, the editor of _Lyra Elegantiarum_, of _Patchwork_, and the whimsical but sincere compiler of _My Confidences_ was more than a mere connoisseur, however much connoisseurship entered into a character in which taste played so dominant a part. Stronger even than taste was his almost laborious love of kindness. He really took too much pains about it, exposing himself to rebuffs and misunderstandings; but he was not without his rewards. All down-hearted folk, sorrowful, disappointed people, the unlucky, the ill-considered, the _mésestimés_--those who found themselves condemned to discharge uncongenial duties in unsympathetic society, turned instinctively to Mr. Locker for a consolation, so softly administered that it was hard to say it was intended. He had friends everywhere, in all ranks of life, who found in him an infinity of solace, and for his friends there was nothing he would not do. It seemed as if he could not spare himself. I remember his calling at my chambers one hot day in July, when he happened to have with him some presents he was in course of delivering. Among them I noticed a bust of Voltaire and an unusually lively tortoise, generally half-way out of a paper bag. Wherever he went he found occasion for kindness, and his whimsical adventures would fill a volume. I sometimes thought it would really be worth while to leave off the struggle for existence, and gently to subside into one of Lord Rowton's homes in order to have the pleasure of receiving in my new quarters a first visit from Mr. Locker. How pleasantly would he have mounted the stair, laden with who knows what small gifts?--a box of mignonette for the window-sill, an old book or two, as likely as not a live kitten, for indeed there was never an end to the variety or ingenuity of his offerings! How felicitous would have been his greeting! How cordial his compliments! How abiding the sense of his unpatronizing friendliness! But it was not to be. One can seldom choose one's pleasures. In his _Patchwork_ Mr. Locker quotes Gibbon's encomium on Charles James Fox. Anyone less like Fox than Frederick Locker it might be hard to discover, but fine qualities are alike wherever they are found lodged; and if Fox was as much entitled as Locker to the full benefit of Gibbon's praise, he was indeed a good fellow. 'In his tour to Switzerland Mr. Fox gave me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel and even to envy the happiness of my situation, while I admired the powers of a superior man as they are blended in his character with the softness and simplicity of a child. _Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempted from the taint of malevolence, vanity, and falsehood._' OUR GREAT MIDDLE CLASS The republication of Mr. Arnold's _Friendship's Garland_ after an interval of twenty-seven years may well set us all a-thinking. Here it is, in startling facsimile--the white covers, destined too soon to become black, the gilt device, the familiar motto. As we gazed upon it, we found ourselves exclaiming, so vividly did it recall the past: 'It is we, it is we, who have changed.' _Friendship's Garland_ was a very good joke seven-and-twenty years ago, and though some of its once luminous paint has been rubbed off, and a few of its jests have ceased to effervesce, it is a good joke still. Mr. Bottle's mind, qua mind; the rowdy Philistine Adolescens Leo, Esq.; Dr. Russell, of the _Times_, mounting his war-horse; the tale of how Lord Lumpington and the Rev. Esau Hittall got their degrees at Oxford; and many another ironic thrust which made the reader laugh 'while the hair was yet brown on his head,' may well make him laugh still, 'though his scalp is almost hairless, and his figure's grown convex.' Since 1871 we have learnt the answer to the sombre lesson, 'What is it to grow old?' But, thank God! we can laugh even yet. The humour and high spirits of _Friendship's Garland_ were, however, but the gilding of a pill, the artificial sweetening of a nauseous draught. In reality, and joking apart, the book is an indictment at the bar of _Geist_ of the English people as represented by its middle class and by its full-voiced organ, the daily press. Mr. Arnold invented Arminius to be the mouthpiece of this indictment, the traducer of our 'imperial race,' because such blasphemies could not artistically have been attributed to one of the number. He made Arminius a Prussian because in those far-off days Prussia stood for Von Humboldt and education and culture, and all the things Sir Thomas Bazley and Mr. Miall were supposed to be without. Around the central figure of Arminius the essentially playful fancy of Mr. Arnold grouped other figures, including his own. What an old equity draughtsman would call 'the charging parts' of the book consist in the allegations that the Government of England had been taken out of the hands of an aristocracy grown barren of ideas and stupid beyond words, and entrusted to a middle class without noble traditions, wretchedly educated, full of _Ungeist_, with a passion for clap-trap, only wanting to be left alone to push trade and make money; so ignorant as to believe that feudalism can be abated without any heroic Stein, by providing that in one insignificant case out of a hundred thousand, land shall not follow the feudal law of descent; without a single vital idea or sentiment or feeling for beauty or appropriateness; well persuaded that if more trade is done in England than anywhere else, if personal independence is without a check, and newspaper publicity unbounded, that is, by the nature of things, to be great; misled every morning by the magnificent _Times_ or the 'rowdy' _Telegraph_; desperately prone to preaching to other nations, proud of being able to say what it likes, whilst wholly indifferent to the fact that it has nothing whatever to say. Such, in brief, is the substance of this most agreeable volume. Its message was lightly treated by the grave and reverend seigniors of the State. The magnificent _Times_, the rowdy _Telegraph_, continued to preach their gospels as before; but for all that Mr. Arnold found an audience fit, though few, and, of course, he found it among the people he abused. The barbarians, as he called the aristocracy, were not likely to pay heed to a professor of poetry. Our working classes were not readers of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ or purchasers of four-and-sixpenny tracts bound in white cloth. No; it was the middle class, to whom Mr. Arnold himself belonged, who took him to honest hearts, stuck his photograph upon their writing-tables, and sounded his praises so loudly that his fame even reached the United States of America, where he was promptly invited to lecture, an invitation he accepted. But for the middle classes Mr. Arnold would have had but a poor time of it. They did not mind being insulted; they overlooked exaggeration; they pardoned ignorance--in a word, they proved teachable. Yet, though meek in spirit, they have not yet inherited the earth; indeed, there are those who assert that their chances are gone, their sceptre for ever buried. It is all over with the middle-class. Tuck up its muddled head! Tie up its chin! A rabble of bad writers may now be noticed pushing their vulgar way along, who, though born and bred in the middle classes, and disfigured by many of the very faults Mr. Arnold deplored, yet make it a test of their membership, an 'open sesame' to their dull orgies, that all decent, sober-minded folk, who love virtue, and, on the whole, prefer delicate humour to sickly lubricity, should be labelled 'middle class.' Politically, it cannot but be noticed that, for good or for ill, the old middle-class audience no longer exists in its integrity. The crowds that flocked to hear Cobden and Bright, that abhorred slavery, that cheered Kossuth, that hated the income-tax, are now watered down by a huge population who do not know, and do not want to know, what the income-tax is, but who do want to know what the Government is going to do for them in the matter of shorter hours, better wages, and constant employment. Will the rabble, we wonder, prove as teachable as the middle class? Will they consent to be told their faults as meekly? Will they buy the photograph of their physician, or heave half a brick at him? It remains to be seen. In the meantime it would be a mistake to assume that the middle class counts for nothing, even at an election. As to ideas, have we got any new ones since 1871? 'To be consequent and powerful,' says Arminius, 'men must be bottomed on some vital idea or sentiment which lends strength and certainty to their action.' There are those who tell us that we have at last found this vital idea in those conceptions of the British Empire which Mr. Chamberlain so vigorously trumpets. To trumpet a conception is hardly a happy phrase, but, as Mr. Chamberlain plays no other instrument, it is forced upon me. Would that we could revive Arminius, to tell us what he thinks of our new Ariel girdling the earth with twenty Prime Ministers, each the choicest product of a self-governing and deeply-involved colony. Is it a vital or a vulgar idea? Is it merely a big theory or really a great one? Is it the ornate beginning of a Time, or but the tawdry ending of a period? At all events, it is an idea unknown to Arminius von Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, and we ought to be, and many are, thankful for it. TAR AND WHITEWASH I am, I confess it, hard to please. If a round dozen of Bad Women, all made in England too, does not satisfy me, what will? What ails the fellow at them? Yet was I at first dissatisfied, and am, therefore, glad to notice that whilst I was demurring and splitting hairs the great, generous public was buying the _Lives of Twelve Bad Women_, by Arthur Vincent, and putting it into a second edition. This is as it should be. When the excellent Dean Burgon dubbed his dozen biographies _Twelve Good Men_, it probably never occurred to him that the title suggested three companion volumes; but so it did, and two of them, _Twelve Bad Men_ and _Twelve Bad Women_, have made their appearance. I still await, with great patience, _Twelve Good Women_. Twelve was the number of the Apostles. Had it not been, one might be tempted to ask, Why twelve? But as there must be some limit to bookmaking, there is no need to quarrel with an arithmetical limit. My criticism upon the Dean's dozen was that they were not by any means, all of them, conspicuously good men; for, to name one only, who would call old Dr. Routh, the President of Magdalen, a particularly good man? In a sense, all Presidents, Provosts, Principals, and Masters of Colleges are good men--in fact, they must be so by the statutes--but to few of them are given the special notes of goodness. Dr. Routh was a remarkable man, a learned man, perhaps a pious man--undeniably, when he came to die, an old man--but he was no better than his colleagues. This weakness of classification has run all through the series, and it is my real quarrel with it. I do not understand the principle of selection. I did not understand the Dean's test of goodness, nor do I understand Mr. Seccombe's or Mr. Vincent's test of badness. What do we mean by a good man or a bad one, a good woman or a bad one? Most people, like the young man in the song, are 'not very good, nor yet very bad.' We move about the pastures of life in huge herds, and all do the same things, at the same times, and for the same reasons. 'Forty feeding like one.' Are we mean? Well, we have done some mean things in our time. Are we generous? Occasionally we are. Were we good sons or dutiful daughters? We have both honoured and dishonoured our parents, who, in their turn, had done the same by theirs. Do we melt at the sight of misery? Indeed we do. Do we forget all about it when we have turned the corner? Frequently that is so. Do we expect to be put to open shame at the Great Day of Judgment? We should be terribly frightened of this did we not cling to the hope that amidst the shocking revelations then for the first time made public our little affairs may fail to attract much notice. Judged by the standards of humanity, few people are either good or bad. 'I have not been a great sinner,' said the dying Nelson; nor had he--he had only been made a great fool of by a woman. Mankind is all tarred with the same brush, though some who chance to be operated upon when the brush is fresh from the barrel get more than their share of the tar. The biography of a celebrated man usually reminds me of the outside of a coastguardsman's cottage--all tar and whitewash. These are the two condiments of human life--tar and whitewash--the faults and the excuses for the faults, the passions and pettinesses that make us occasionally drop on all fours, and the generous aspirations that at times enable us, if not to stand upright, at least to adopt the attitude of the kangaroo. It is rather tiresome, this perpetual game of French and English going on inside one. True goodness and real badness escape it altogether. A good man does not spend his life wrestling with the Powers of Darkness. He is victor in the fray, and the most he is called upon to do is every now and again to hit his prostrate foe a blow over the costard just to keep him in his place. Thus rid of a perpetual anxiety, the good man has time to grow in goodness, to expand pleasantly, to take his ease on Zion. You can see in his face that he is at peace with himself--that he is no longer at war with his elements. His society, if you are fond of goodness, is both agreeable and medicinal; but if you are a bad man it is hateful, and you cry out with Mr. Love-lust in Bunyan's Vanity Fair: 'Away with him. I cannot endure him; he is for ever condemning my way.' Not many of Dean Burgon's biographies reached this standard. The explanation, perhaps, is that the Dean chiefly moved in clerical circles where excellence is more frequently to be met with than goodness. In the same way a really bad man is one who has frankly said, 'Evil, be thou my good.' Like the good man, though for a very different reason, the bad one has ceased to make war with the devil. Finding a conspiracy against goodness going on, the bad man joins it, and thus, like the good man, is at peace with himself. The bad man is bent upon his own way, to get what he wants, no matter at what cost. Human lives! What do they matter? A woman's honour! What does that matter? Truth and fidelity! What are they? To know what you want, and not to mind what you pay for it, is the straight path to fame, fortune, and hell-fire. Careers, of course, vary; to dominate a continent or to open a corner shop as a pork-butcher's, plenty of devilry may go to either ambition. Also, genius is a rare gift. It by no means follows that because you are a bad man you will become a great one; but to be bad, and at the same time unsuccessful, is a hard fate. It casts a little doubt upon a man's badness if he does not, at least, make a little money. It is a poor business accompanying badness on to a common scaffold, or to see it die in a wretched garret. That was one of my complaints with Mr. Seccombe's Twelve Bad Men. Most of them came to violent ends. They were all failures. But I have kept these twelve ladies waiting a most unconscionable time. Who are they? There are amongst them four courtesans: Alice Perrers, one of King Edward III.'s misses; Barbara Villiers, one of King Charles II.'s; Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, who had to be content with a royal Duke; and Mrs. Con Phillips. Six members of the criminal class: Alice Arden, Moll Cutpurse, Jenny Diver, Elizabeth Brownrigg, Elizabeth Canning, and Mary Bateman; and only two ladies of title, Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, and Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston. Of these twelve bad women one-third were executed, Alice Arden being burnt at Canterbury, Jenny Diver and Elizabeth Brownrigg being hung at Tyburn, and Mary Bateman suffering the same fate at Leeds. Elizabeth Canning was sentenced to seven years' transportation, and, indeed, if their biographers are to be believed, all the other ladies made miserable ends. There is nothing triumphant about their badness. Even from the point of view of this world they had better have been good. In fact, squalor is the badge of the whole tribe. Some of them, probably--Elizabeth Brownrigg, for example--were mad. This last-named poor creature bore sixteen children to a house-painter and plasterer, and then became a parish mid-wife, and only finally a baby-farmer. Her cruelty to her apprentices had madness in every detail. To include her in this volume was wholly unnecessary. She lives but in George Canning's famous parody on Southey's sonnet to the regicide Marten. With those sentimentalists who maintain that all bad people are mad I will have no dealings. It is sheer nonsense; lives of great men all remind us it is sheer nonsense. Some of our greatest men have been infernal scoundrels--pre-eminently bad men--with nothing mad about them, unless it be mad to get on in the world and knock people about in it. _Twelve Bad Women_ contains much interesting matter, but, on the whole, it is depressing. It seems very dull to be bad. Perhaps the editor desired to create this impression; if so, he has succeeded. Hannah More had fifty times more fun in her life than all these courtesans and criminals put together. The note of jollity is entirely absent. It was no primrose path these unhappy women traversed, though that it led to the everlasting bonfire it were unchristian to doubt. The dissatisfaction I confessed to at the beginning returns upon me as a cloud at the end; but, for all that, I rejoice the book is in a second edition, and I hope soon to hear it is in a third, for it has a moral tendency. ITINERARIES Anyone who is teased by the notion that it would be pleasant to be remembered, in the sense of being read, after death, cannot do better to secure that end than compose an Itinerary and leave it behind him in manuscript, with his name legibly inscribed thereon. If an honest bit of work, noting distances, detailing expenses, naming landmarks, moors, mountains, harbours, docks, buildings--indeed, anything which, as lawyers say, savours of realty--and but scantily interspersed with reflections, and with no quotations, why, then, such a piece of work, however long publication may be delayed--and a century or two will not matter in the least--cannot fail, whenever it is printed, to attract attention, to excite general interest and secure a permanent hold in every decent library in the kingdom. Time cannot stale an Itinerary. _Iter, Via, Actus_ are words of pith and moment. Stage-coaches, express trains, motor-cars, have written, or are now writing, their eventful histories over the face of these islands; but, whatever changes they have made or are destined to make, they have left untouched the mystery of the road, although for the moment the latest comer may seem injuriously to have affected its majesty. The Itinerist alone among authors is always sure of an audience. No matter where, no matter when, he has but to tell us how he footed it and what he saw by the wayside, and we must listen. How can we help it? Two hundred years ago, it may be, this Itinerist came through our village, passed by the wall of our homestead, climbed our familiar hill, and went on his way; it is perhaps but two lines and a half he can afford to give us, but what lines they are! How different with sermons, poems, and novels! On each of these is the stamp of the author's age; sentiments, fashions, thoughts, faiths, phraseology, all worn out--cold, dirty grate, where once there was a blazing fire. Cheerlessness personified! Leland's anti-Papal treatise in forty-five chapters remains in learned custody--a manuscript; a publisher it will never find. We still have Papists and anti-Papists; in this case the fire still blazes, but the grates are of an entirely different construction. Leland's treatise is out of date. But his _Itinerary_ in nine volumes, a favourite book throughout the eighteenth century, which has graced many a bookseller's catalogue for the last hundred years, and seldom without eliciting a purchaser--Leland's _Itinerary_ is to-day being reprinted under the most able editorship. The charm of the road is irresistible. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful book, with a great tradition behind it and a future still before it; but it has not escaped the ravages of time, and I would, now, at all events, gladly exchange it for Oliver Goldsmith's _Itinerary through Germany with a Flute_! Vain authors, publisher's men, may write as they like about _Shakespeare's_ country, or _Scott's_ country, or _Carlyle's_ country, or _Crockett's_ country, but-- 'Oh, good gigantic smile of the brown old earth!' the land laughs at the delusions of the men who hurriedly cross its surface. 'Rydal and Fairfield are there,-- In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead. So it is, so it will be for aye, Nature is fresh as of old, Is lovely, a mortal is dead.' These reflections, which by themselves would be enough to sink even an Itinerary, seemed forced upon me by the publication of _A Journey to Edenborough in Scotland by Joseph Taylor, Late of the Inner Temple, Esquire_. This journey was made two hundred years ago in the Long Vacation of 1705, but has just been printed from the original manuscript, under the editorship of Mr. William Cowan, by the well-known Edinburgh bookseller, Mr. Brown, of Princes Street, to whom all lovers of things Scottish already owe much. Nobody can hope to be less known than this our latest Itinerist, for not only is he not in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, but it is at present impossible to say which of two Joseph Taylors he was. The House of the Winged Horse has ever had Taylors on its roll, the sign of the Middle Temple, a very fleecy sheep, being perhaps unattractive to the clan, and in 1705 it so happened that not only were there two Taylors, but two Joseph Taylors, entitled to write themselves 'of the Inner Temple, Esquire.' Which was the Itinerist? Mr. Cowan, going by age, thinks that the Itinerist can hardly have been the Joseph Taylor who was admitted to the Inn in 1663, as in that case he must have been at least fifty-eight when he travelled to Edinburgh. For my part, I see nothing in the _Itinerary_ to preclude the possibility of its author having attained that age at the date of its composition. I observe in the _Itinerary_ references which point to the Itinerist being a Kentish man, and he mentions more than once his 'Cousin D'aeth.' Research among the papers of the D'aeths of Knowlton Court, near Dover, might result in the discovery which of these two Taylors really was the Itinerist. As nothing else is at present known about either, the investigation could probably be made without passion or party or even religious bias. It might be best begun by Mr. Cowan telling us in whose custody he found the manuscript, and how it came there. These statements should always be made when old manuscripts are first printed. The journey began on August 2, 1705. The party consisted of Mr. Taylor and his two friends, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Sloman. They travelled on horseback, and often had difficulties with the poor beast that carried their luggage. They reached Edinburgh in the evening of August 31, and left it on their return journey on September 8, and got home on the 25th of the same month. The _Itinerary_ concludes as follows: 'Thus we spent almost 2 months in a Journy of many 100 miles, sometimes thro' very charming Countryes, and at other times over desolate and Barren Mountaines, and yet met with no particular misfortune in all the Time.' I may say at once of these three Itinerists--Mr. Taylor, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Sloman--that they appear to have been thoroughly commonplace, well behaved, occasionally hilarious Englishmen, ready to endure whatever befell them, if unavoidable; accustomed to take their ease in their inn and to turn round and look at any pretty woman they might chance to meet on their travels. Their first experience of what the Itinerist calls 'the prodigies of Nature,' 'at once an occasion both of Horrour and Admiration,' was in the Peak Country 'described in poetry by the ingenious Mr. Cotton.' This part of the world they 'did' with something of the earnestness of the modern tourist. But I hardly think they enjoyed themselves. The 'prodigious' caverns and strange petrifactions shocked them; 'nothing can be more terrible or shocking to Nature.' Mam Tor, with its 1,710 feet, proved very impressive, 'a vast high mountain reaching to the very clouds.' This gloom of the Derbyshire hills and stony valleys was partially dispelled for our travellers by a certain 'fair Gloriana' they met at Buxton, with whom they had great fun, 'so much the greater, because we never expected such heavenly enjoyments in so desolate a country.' If it be on susceptibilities of this nature that Mr. Cowan rests his case for thinking that the Itinerist can hardly have attained 'the blasted antiquity' of fifty-eight, we must think Mr. Cowan a trifle hasty, or a very young man, perhaps under forty, which is young for an editor. After describing, somewhat too much like an auctioneer, the splendours of Chatsworth, 'a Paradise in the deserts of Arabia,' the Itinerist proceeds on his way north through Nottingham to Belvoir Castle, where 'my Lord Rosses Gentleman (to whom Mr. Harrison was recommended) entertained us by his Lordship's command with good wine and the best of malt liquors which the cellar abounds with'; the pictures in the Long Gallery were shown them by 'my Lord himself.' At Doncaster, 'a neat market-town which consists only in one long street,' they had some superlative salmon just taken out of the river. By Knaresborough Spaw, where they drank the waters and had icy cold baths, and dined at the ordinary with a parson whose conversation startled the propriety of the Templar, the travellers made their way to York, and for the first and last time a few pages of _Guide Book_ are improperly introduced. Then on to Scarborough. 'The next morning early we left Scarborough and travelled through a dismall road, particularly near Robins Hood Bay; we were obliged to lead our horses, and had much ado to get down a vast craggy mountain which lyes within a quarter of a mile of it. The Bay is about a mile broad, and inhabited by poor fishermen. We stopt to taste some of their liquor and discourse with them. They told us the French privateers came into the Very Bay and took 2 of their Vessels but the day before, which were ransom'd for £25 a piece. We saw a great many vessels lying upon the Shore, the masters not daring to venture out to sea for fear of undergoing the same fate.' We boast too readily of our inviolate shores. A curious description is given of the Duke of Buckingham's alum works near Whitby. The travellers then procured a guide, and traversed 'the vast moors which lye between Whitby and Gisborough.' The civic magnificence of Newcastle greatly struck our travellers, who, happier than their modern successors, were able to see the town miles off. The Itinerist quotes with gusto the civic proverb that the men of Newcastle pay nothing for the Way, the Word, or the Water, 'for the Ministers of Religion are maintained, the streets paved, and the Conduits kept up at the publick charge.' A disagreeable account is given of the brutishness of the people employed in the salt works at Tynemouth. At Berwick the travellers got into trouble with the sentry, but the mistake was rectified with the captain of the guard over '2 bowles of punch, there being no wine in the town.' Scotland was now in sight, and the travellers became grave, as befitted the occasion. They were told that the journey that lay before them was extremely dangerous, that 'twould be difficult to escape with their lives, much less (ominous words) without 'the distemper of the country.' But Mr. Taylor, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Sloman were as brave as Mr. Pickwick, and they would on. 'Yet notwithstanding all these sad representations, we resolv'd to proceed and stand by one another to the last.' What the Itinerists thought of Scotland when they got there is not for me to say. I was once a Scottish member. They arrived in Edinburgh at a great crisis in Scottish history. They saw the Duke of Argyll, as Queen Anne's Lord High Commissioner, go to the Parliament House in this manner: 'First a coach and six Horses for his Gentlemen, then a Trumpet, then his own coach with six white horses, which were very fine, being those presented by King William to the Duke of Queensbury, and by him sold to the Duke of Argyle for £300; next goes a troop of Horse Guards, cloathed like my Lord of Oxford's Regiment, but the horses are of several colours; and the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State, and the Lord Chief Justice Clerk, and other officers of State close the cavalcade in coaches and six horses. Thus the Commissioner goes and returns every day.' The Itinerists followed the Duke and his procession into the Parliament House, and heard debated the great question--the greatest of all possible questions for Scotland--whether this magnificence should cease, whether there should be an end of an auld sang--in short, whether the proposed Act of Union should be proceeded with. By special favour, our Itinerists had leave to stand upon the steps of the throne, and witnessed a famous fiery and prolonged debate, the Duke once turning to them and saying, _sotto voce_, 'It is now deciding whether England and Scotland shall go together by the ears.' How it was decided we all know, and that it was wisely decided no one doubts; yet, when we read our Itinerist's account of the Duke's coach and horses, and the cavalcade that followed him, and remember that this was what happened every day during the sitting of the Parliament, and must not be confounded with the greater glories of the first day of a Parliament, when every member, be he peer, knight of the shire, or burgh member, had to ride on horseback in the procession, it is impossible not to feel the force of Miss Grisel Dalmahoy's appeal in the _Heart of Midlothian_, she being an ancient sempstress, to Mr. Saddletree, the harness-maker: 'And as for the Lords of States ye suld mind the riding o' the Parliament in the gude auld time before the Union. A year's rent o' mony a gude estate gaed for horse-graith and harnessing, forby broidered robes and foot-mantles that wad hae stude by their lane with gold and brocade, and that were muckle in my ain line.' The graphic account of a famous debate given by, Taylor is worth comparing with the _Lockhart Papers_ and Hill Burton. The date is a little troublesome. According to our Itinerist, he heard the discussion as to whether the Queen or the Scottish Parliament should nominate the Commissioners. Now, according to the histories, this all-important discussion began and ended on September 1, but our Itinerist had only arrived in Edinburgh the night before the first, and gives us to understand that he owed his invitation to be present to the fact that whilst in Edinburgh he and his friends had had the honour to have several lords and members of Parliament to dine, and that these guests informed him 'of the grand day when the Act was to be passed or rejected.' The Itinerist's account is too particular--for he gives the result of the voting--to admit of any possibility of a mistake, and he describes how several of the members came afterwards to his lodgings, and, so he writes, 'embraced us with all the outward marks of love and kindness, and seemed mightily pleased at what was done, and told us we should now be no more English and Scotch, but Brittons.' In the matter of nomenclature, at all events, the promises of the Union have not been carried out. After September 1 the Parliament did not meet till the 4th, when an Address was passed to the Queen, but apparently without any repetition of debate. So it really is a little difficult to reconcile the dates. Perhaps Itinerists are best advised to keep off public events. How our travellers escaped the 'national distemper' and journeyed home by Ecclefechan, Carlisle, Shap Fell, Liverpool, Chester, Coventry, and Warwick must be read in the _Journey_ itself, which, though it only occupies 182 small pages, is full of matter and even merriment; in fact, it is an excellent itinerary. EPITAPHS Epitaphs, if in rhyme, are the real literature of the masses. They need no commendation and are beyond all criticism. A Cambridge don, a London bus-driver, will own their charm in equal measure. Strange indeed is the fascination of rhyme. A commonplace hitched into verse instantly takes rank with Holy Scripture. This passion for poetry, as it is sometimes called, is manifested on every side; even tradesmen share it, and as the advertisements in our newspapers show, are willing to pay small sums to poets who commend their wares in verse. The widow bereft of her life's companion, the mother bending over an empty cradle, find solace in thinking what doleful little scrag of verse shall be graven on the tombstone of the dead. From the earliest times men have sought to squeeze their loves and joys, their sorrows and hatreds, into distichs and quatrains, and to inscribe them somewhere, on walls or windows, on sepulchral urns and gravestones, as memorials of their pleasure or their pain. 'Hark! how chimes the passing bell-- There's no music to a knell; All the other sounds we hear Flatter and but cheat our ear.' So wrote Shirley the dramatist, and so does he truthfully explain the popularity of the epitaph as distinguished from the epigram. Who ever wearies of Martial's 'Erotion'?-- 'Hic festinata requiescit Erotion umbra, Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems. Quisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli Manibus exiguis annua justa dato. Sic lare perpetuo, sic turba sospite, solus Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua'-- so prettily Englished by Leigh Hunt: 'Underneath this greedy stone Lies little sweet Erotion, Whom the Fates with hearts as cold Nipped away at six years old. Those, whoever thou may'st be, That hast this small field after me, Let the yearly rites be paid To her little slender shade; So shall no disease or jar Hurt thy house or chill thy Lar, But this tomb be here alone The only melancholy stone.' Our English epitaphs are to be found scattered up and down our country churchyards--'uncouth rhymes,' as Gray calls them, yet full of the sombre philosophy of life. They are fast becoming illegible, worn out by the rain that raineth every day, and our prim, present-day parsons do not look with favour upon them, besides which--to use a clumsy phrase--besides which most of our churchyards are now closed against burials, and without texts there can be no sermons: 'I'll stay and read my sermon here, And skulls and bones shall be my text. * * * * Here learn that glory and disgrace, Wisdom and Folly, pass away, That mirth hath its appointed space, That sorrow is but for a day; That all we love and all we hate, That all we hope and all we fear, Each mood of mind, each turn of fate, Must end in dust and silence here.' The best epitaphs are the grim ones. Designed, as epitaphs are, to arrest and hold in their momentary grasp the wandering attention and languid interest of the passer-by, they must hit him hard and at once, and this they can only do by striking some very responsive chord, and no chords are so immediately responsive as those which relate to death and, it may be, judgment to come. Mr. Aubrey Stewart, in his interesting _Selection of English Epigrams and Epitaphs_, published by Chapman and Hall, quotes an epitaph from a Norfolk churchyard which I have seen in other parts of the country. The last time I saw it was in the Forest of Dean. It is admirably suited for the gravestone of any child of very tender years, say four: 'When the Archangel's trump shall blow And souls to bodies join, Many will wish their lives below Had been as short as mine.' It is uncouth, but it is warranted to grip. Frequently, too, have I noticed how constantly the attention is arrested by Pope's well-known lines from his magnificent 'Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady,' which are often to be found on tombstones: 'So peaceful rests without a stone and name What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame. How loved, how honoured once avails thee not, To whom related or by whom begot. A heap of dust alone remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be.' I wish our modern poetasters who deny Pope's claim to be a poet no worse fate than to lie under stones which have engraved upon them the lines just quoted, for they will then secure in death what in life was denied them--the ear of the public. Next to the grim epitaph, I should be disposed to rank those which remind the passer-by of his transitory estate. In different parts of the country--in Cumberland and Cornwall, in Croyland Abbey, in Llangollen Churchyard, in Melton Mowbray--are to be found lines more or less resembling the following: 'Man's life is like unto a winter's day, Some break their fast and so depart away, Others stay dinner then depart full fed, The longest age but sups and goes to bed. O reader, there behold and see As we are now, so thou must be.' The complimentary epitaph seldom pleases. To lie like a tombstone has become a proverb. Pope's famous epitaph on Newton: 'Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.' is hyperbolical and out of character with the great man it seeks to honour. It was intended for Westminster Abbey. I rejoice at the preference given to prose Latinity. The tender and emotional epitaphs have a tendency to become either insipid or silly. But Herrick has shown us how to rival Martial: 'UPON A CHILD THAT DIED. Here she lies a pretty bud Lately made of flesh and blood; Who as soon fell fast asleep As her little eyes did peep. Give her strewings, but not stir The earth that lightly covers her.' Mr. Dodd, the editor of the admirable volume called _The Epigrammatists_, published in Bohn's Standard Library, calls these lines a model of simplicity and elegance. So they are, but they are very vague. But then the child was very young. Erotion, one must remember, was six years old. Ben Jonson's beautiful epitaph on S.P., a child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, beginning, 'Weep with me all you that read This little story; And know for whom the tear you shed Death's self is sorry,' is fine poetry, but it is not life or death as plain people know those sober realities. The flippant epitaph is always abominable. Gay's, for example: 'Life is a jest, and all things show it. I thought so once, but now I know it.' But _does_ he know it? Ay, there's the rub! The note of Christianity is seldom struck in epitaphs. There is a deep-rooted paganism in the English people which is for ever bubbling up and asserting itself in the oddest of ways. Coleridge's epitaph for himself is a striking exception: 'Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast, Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seemed he. O lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C, That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death! Mercy for praise--to be forgiven for fame, He ask'd and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.' 'HANSARD' 'Men are we, and must mourn when e'en the shade of that which once was great has passed away.' This quotation--which, in obedience to the prevailing taste, I print as prose--was forced upon me by reading in the papers an account of some proceedings in a sale-room in Chancery Lane last Tuesday,[A] when the entire stock and copyright of _Hansard's Parliamentary History and Debates_ were exposed for sale, and, it must be added, to ridicule. Yet 'Hansard' was once a name to conjure with. To be in it was an ambition--costly, troublesome, but animating; to know it was, if not a liberal education, at all events almost certain promotion; whilst to possess it for your very own was the outward and visible sign of serious statesmanship. No wonder that unimaginative men still believed that _Hansard_ was a property with money in it. Is it not the counterpart of Parliament, its dark and majestic shadow thrown across the page of history? As the pious Catholic studies his _Acta Sanctorum_, so should the constitutionalist love to pore over the _ipsissima verba_ of Parliamentary gladiators, and read their resolutions and their motions. Where else save in the pages of _Hansard_ can we make ourselves fully acquainted with the history of the Mother of Free Institutions? It is, no doubt, dull, but with the soberminded a large and spacious dulness like that of _Hansard's Debates_ is better than the incongruous chirpings of the new 'humourists.' Besides, its dulness is exaggerated. If a reader cannot extract amusement from it the fault is his, not _Hansard's_. But, indeed, this perpetual talk of dulness and amusement ought not to pass unchallenged. Since when has it become a crime to be dull? Our fathers were not ashamed to be dull in a good cause. We are ashamed, but without ceasing to be dull. [Footnote A: March 8, 1902.] But it is idle to argue with the higgle of the market. 'Things are what they are,' said Bishop Butler in a passage which has lost its freshness; that is to say, they are worth what they will fetch. 'Why, then, should we desire to be deceived?' The test of truth remains undiscovered, but the test of present value is the auction mart. Tried by this test, it is plain that _Hansard_ has fallen upon evil days. The bottled dreariness of Parliament is falling, falling, falling. An Elizabethan song-book, the original edition of Gray's _Elegy_, or _Peregrine Pickle_, is worth more than, or nearly as much as, the 458 volumes of _Hansard's Parliamentary Debates_. Three complete sets were sold last Tuesday; one brought £110, the other two but £70 each. And yet it is not long ago since a _Hansard_ was worth three times as much. Where were our young politicians? There are serious men on both sides of the House. Men of their stamp twenty years ago would not have been happy without a _Hansard_ to clothe their shelves with dignity and their minds with quotations. But these young men were not bidders. As the sale proceeded, the discredit of _Hansard_ became plainer and plainer. For the copyright, including, of course, the goodwill of the name--the right to call yourself 'Hansard' for years to come--not a penny was offered, and yet, as the auctioneer feelingly observed, only eighteen months ago it was valued at £60,000. The cold douche of the auction mart may brace the mind, but is apt to lower the price of commodities of this kind. Then came incomplete and unbound sets, with doleful results. For forty copies of the 'Indian Debates' for 1889 only a penny a copy was offered. It was rumoured that the bidder intended, had he been successful, to circulate the copies amongst the supporters of a National Council for India; but his purpose was frustrated by the auctioneer, who, mindful of the honour of the Empire, sorrowfully but firmly withdrew the lot, and proceeded to the next, amidst the jeers of a thoroughly demoralized audience. But this subject why pursue? It is, for the reason already cited at the beginning, a painful one. The glory of _Hansard_ has departed for ever. Like a new-fangled and sham religion, it began in pride and ended in a police-court, instead of beginning in a police-court and ending in pride, which is the now well-defined course of true religion. The fact that nobody wants _Hansard_ is not necessarily a rebuff to Parliamentary eloquence, yet these low prices jump with the times and undoubtedly indicate an impatience of oratory. We talk more than our ancestors, but we prove our good faith by doing it very badly. We have no Erskines at the Bar, but trials last longer than ever. There are not half a dozen men in the House of Commons who can make a speech, properly so called, but the session is none the shorter on that account. _Hansard's Debates_ are said to be dull to read, but there is a sterner fate than reading a dull debate: you may be called upon to listen to one. The statesmen of the time must be impervious to dulness; they must crush the artist within them to a powder. The new people who have come bounding into politics and are now claiming their share of the national inheritance are not orators by nature, and will never become so by culture; but they mean business, and that is well. Caleb Garth and not George Canning should be the model of the virtuous politician of the future. CONTEMPT OF COURT The late Mr. Carlyle has somewhere in his voluminous but well-indexed writings a highly humorous and characteristic passage in which he, with all his delightful gusto, dilates upon the oddity of the scene where a withered old sinner perched on a bench, quaintly attired in red turned up with ermine, addresses another sinner in a wooden pew, and bids him be taken away and hung by the neck until he is dead; and how the sinner in the pew, instead of indignantly remonstrating with the sinner on the bench, 'Why, you cantankerous old absurdity, what are you about taking my life like that?' usually exhibits signs of great depression, and meekly allows himself to be conducted to his cell, from whence in due course he is taken and throttled according to law. This situation described by Carlyle is doubtless mighty full of humour; but, none the less, were any prisoner at the bar to adopt Craigenputtock's suggestion, he would only add to the peccadillo of murder the grave offence of contempt of court, which has been defined 'as a disobedience to the court, an opposing or despising the authority, justice, and dignity thereof.' The whole subject of Contempt is an interesting and picturesque one, and has been treated after an interesting and picturesque yet accurate and learned fashion by a well-known lawyer, in a treatise[A] which well deserves to be read not merely by the legal practitioner, but by the student of constitutional law and the nice observer of our manners and customs. [Footnote A: _Contempt of Court, etc._ By J.F. Oswald, Q.C. London: William Clowes and Sons, Limited.] An ill-disposed person may exhibit contempt of court in divers ways--for example, he may scandalize the the court itself, which may be done not merely by the extreme measure of hurling missiles at the presiding judge, or loudly contemning his learning or authority, but by ostentatiously reading a newspaper in his presence, or laughing uproariously at a joke made by somebody else. Such contempts, committed as they are _in facie curiae_, are criminal offences, and may be punished summarily by immediate imprisonment without the right of appeal. It speaks well both for the great good sense of the judges and for the deep-rooted legal instincts of our people that such offences are seldom heard of. It would be impossible nicely to define what measure of freedom of manners should be allowed in a court of justice, which, as we know, is neither a church nor a theatre, but, as a matter of practice, the happy mean between an awe-struck and unmanly silence and free-and-easy conversation is well preserved. The practising advocate, to avoid contempt and obtain, if instructed so to do, a hearing, must obey certain sumptuary laws, for not only must he don the horsehair wig, the gown, and bands of his profession, but his upper clothing must be black, nor should his nether garment be otherwise than of sober hue. Mr. Oswald reports Mr. Justice Byles as having once observed to the late Lord Coleridge whilst at the Bar: 'I always listen with little pleasure to the arguments of counsel whose legs are encased in light gray trousers.' The junior Bar is growing somewhat lax in these matters. Dark gray coats are not unknown, and it was only the other day I observed a barrister duly robed sitting in court in a white waistcoat, apparently oblivious of the fact that whilst thus attired no judge could possibly have heard a word he said. However, as he had nothing to say, the question did not arise. It is doubtless the increasing Chamber practice of the judges which has occasioned this regrettable laxity. In Chambers a judge cannot summarily commit for contempt, nor is it necessary or customary for counsel to appear before him in robes. Some judges object to fancy waistcoats in Chambers, but others do not. The late Sir James Bacon, who was a great stickler for forensic propriety, and who, sitting in court, would not have allowed a counsel in a white waistcoat to say a word, habitually wore one himself when sitting as vacation judge in the summer. It must not be supposed that there can be no contempt out of court. There can. To use bad language on being served with legal process is to treat the court from whence such process issued with contempt. None the less, considerable latitude of language on such occasions is allowed. How necessary it is to protect the humble officers of the law who serve writs and subpoenas is proved by the case of one Johns, who was very rightly committed to the Fleet in 1772, it appearing by affidavit that he had compelled the poor wretch who sought to serve him with a subpoena to devour both the parchment and the wax seal of the court, and had then, after kicking him so savagely as to make him insensible, ordered his body to be cast into the river. No amount of irritation could justify such conduct. It is no contempt to tear up the writ or subpoena in the presence of the officer of the court, because, the service once lawfully effected, the court is indifferent to the treatment of its stationery; but such behaviour, though lawful, is childish. To obstruct a witness on his way to give evidence, or to threaten him if he does give evidence, or to tamper with the jury, are all serious contempts. In short, there is a divinity which hedges a court of justice, and anybody who, by action or inaction, renders the course of justice more difficult or dilatory than it otherwise would be, incurs the penalty of contempt. Consider, for example, the case of documents and letters. Prior to the issue of a writ, the owner of documents and letters may destroy them, if he pleases--the fact of his having done so, if litigation should ensue on the subject to which the destroyed documents related, being only matter for comment--but the moment a writ is issued the destruction by a defendant of any document in his possession relating to the action is a grave contempt, for which a duchess was lately sent to prison. There is something majestic about this. No sooner is the aid of a court of law invoked than it assumes a seizin of every scrap of writing which will assist it in its investigation of the matter at issue between the parties, and to destroy any such paper is to obstruct the court in its holy task, and therefore a contempt. To disobey a specific order of the court is, of course, contempt. The old Court of Chancery had a great experience in this aspect of the question. It was accustomed to issue many peremptory commands; it forbade manufacturers to foul rivers, builders so to build as to obstruct ancient lights, suitors to seek the hand in matrimony of its female wards, Dissenting ministers from attempting to occupy the pulpits from which their congregations had by vote ejected them, and so on through almost all the business of this mortal life. It was more ready to forbid than to command; but it would do either if justice required it. And if you persisted in doing what the Court of Chancery told you not to do, you were committed; whilst if you refused to do what it had ordered you to do, you were attached; and the difference between committal and attachment need not concern the lay mind. To pursue the subject further would be to plunge into the morasses of the law where there is no footing for the plain man; but just a word or two may be added on the subject of punishment for contempt. In old days persons who were guilty of contempt _in facie curiae_ had their right hands cut off, and Mr. Oswald prints as an appendix to his book certain clauses of an Act of Parliament of Henry VIII. which provide for the execution of this barbarous sentence, and also (it must be admitted) for the kindly after-treatment of the victim, who was to have a surgeon at hand to sear the stump, a sergeant of the poultry with a cock ready for the surgeon to wrap about the stump, a sergeant of the pantry with bread to eat, and a sergeant of the cellar with a pot of red wine to drink. Nowadays the penalty for most contempts is costs. The guilty party in order to purge his contempt has to pay all the costs of a motion to commit and attach. The amount is not always inconsiderable, and when it is paid it would be idle to apply to the other side for a pot of red wine. They would only laugh at you. Our ancestors had a way of mitigating their atrocities which robs the latter of more than half their barbarity. Costs are an unmitigable atrocity. 5 EDWARD VII., CHAPTER 12 The appearance of this undebated Act of Parliament in the attenuated volume of the Statutes of 1905 almost forces upon sensitive minds an unwelcome inquiry as to what is the attitude proper to be assumed by an emancipated but trained intelligence towards a decision of the House of Lords, sitting judicially as the highest (because the last) Court of Appeal. So far as the _parties_ to the litigation are concerned, the decision, if of a final character, puts an end to the _lis_. Litigation must, so at least it has always been assumed, end somewhere, and in these realms it ends with the House of Lords. Higher you cannot go, however litigiously minded. In the vast majority of appeal cases a final appeal not only ends the _lis_, but determines once for all the rights of the parties to the subject-matter. The successful litigant leaves the House of Lords quieted in his possession or restored to what he now knows to be his own, conscious of a victory, final and complete; whilst the unsuccessful litigant goes away exceeding sorrowful, knowing that his only possible revenge is to file his petition in bankruptcy. This, however, is not always so. In August, 1904, the House of Lords decided in a properly constituted _lis_ that a particular ecclesiastical body in Scotland, somewhat reduced in numbers, but existent and militant, was entitled to certain property held in trust for the use and behoof of the Free Church of Scotland. There is no other way of holding property than by a legal title. Sometimes that title has been created by an Act of Parliament, and sometimes it is a title recognised by the general laws and customs of the realm, but a legal title it has got to be. Titles are never matters of rhetoric, nor are they _jure divino_, or conferred in answer to prayer; they are strictly legal matters, and it is the very particular business of courts of law, when properly invoked, to recognise and enforce them. In the case I have in mind there were two claimants to the subject-matter--the Free Church and the United Free Church--and the House of Lords, after a great argle-bargle, decided that the property in question belonged to the Free Church. Thereupon the expected happened. A hubbub arose in Scotland and elsewhere, and in consequence of the hubbub an Act of Parliament has somewhat coyly made its appearance in the Statute Book (5 Edward VII., chapter 12) appointing and authorizing Commissioners to take away from the successful litigant a certain portion of the property just declared to be his, and to give it to the unsuccessful litigant. The reasons alleged for taking away by statute from the Free Church some of the property that belongs to it are that the Free Church is not big enough to administer satisfactorily all the property it possesses; and that the State may reasonably refuse to allow a religious body to have more property than it can in the opinion of State-appointed Commissioners usefully employ in the propagation of its religion. Let the reasons be well noted. They have made their appearance before in history. These were the reasons alleged by Henry VIII. for the suppression of the smaller monasteries. The State, having made up its mind to take away from the Free Church so much of its property as the Commissioners may think it cannot usefully administer, then proceeds, by this undebated Act of Parliament, to give the overplus to the unsuccessful litigant, the United Free Church. Why to them? It will never do to answer this question by saying because it is always desirable to return lost property to its true owner, since so to reply would be to give the lie direct to a decision of the Final Court of Appeal on a question of property. In the eye--I must not write the blind eye--of the law, this parliamentary gift to the United Free Church is not a _giving back_ but an _original free gift_ from the State by way of endowment to a particular denomination of Presbyterian dissenters. In theory the State could have done what it liked with so much of the property of the Free Church as that body is not big enough to spend upon itself. It might, for example, have divided it between Presbyterians generally, or it might have left it to the Free Church to say who was to be the disponee of its property. As a matter of hard fact, the State had no choice in the matter. It could not select, or let the Free Church select, the object of its bounty. The public sense (a vague term) demanded that the United Free Church should not be required to abide by the decision of the House of Lords, but should have given to it whatever property could, under any decent pretext of public policy and by Act of Parliament, be taken away from the Free Church. If the pretext of the inability of the Free Church to administer its own estate had not been forthcoming, some other pretext must and would have been discovered. Having regard, then, to 5 Edward VII., chapter 12, how ought one to feel towards the decision of the House of Lords in the Scottish Churches case? In public life you can usually huddle up anything, if only all parties, for reasons, however diverse, of their own, are agreed upon what is to be done. Like many another Act of Parliament, 5 Edward VII., chapter 12, was bought with a sum of money. Nobody, not even Lord Robertson, really wanted to debate or discuss it, least of all to discover the philosophy of it. But in an essay you can huddle up nothing. At all hazards, you must go on. This is why so many essayists have been burnt alive. _First_.--Was the decision wrong? 'Yes' or 'No.' If it was right-- _Second_.--Was the law, in pursuance of which the decision was given, so manifestly unjust as to demand, not the alteration of the law for the future, but the passage through Parliament, _ex post facto_, of an Act to prevent the decision from taking effect between the parties according to its tenour? _Third_.--Supposing the decision to be right, and the law it expounded just and reasonable in general, was there anything in the peculiar circumstances of the successful litigant, and in the sources from which a considerable portion of the property was derived, to justify Parliamentary interference and the provisions of 5 Edward VII., chapter 12? _Number Three_, being the easiest way out of the difficulty, has been adopted. The _decision_ remains untouched, the _law_ it expounds remains unaltered--nothing has gone, except the _order_ of the Final Court giving effect to the untouched decision and to the unaltered law. _That_ has been tampered with for the reasons suggested in _Number Three_. John Locke was fond of referring questions to something he called 'the bulk of mankind'--an undefinable, undignified, unsalaried body, of small account at the beginning of controversies, but all-powerful at their close. My own belief is that eventually 'the bulk of mankind' will say bluntly that the House of Lords went wrong in these cases, and that the Act of Parliament was hastily patched up to avert wrong, and to do substantial justice between the parties. If asked, What can 'the bulk of mankind' know about law? I reply, with great cheerfulness, 'Very little indeed.' But suppose that the application of law to a particular _lis_ requires precise and full knowledge of all that happened during an ecclesiastical contest, and, in addition, demands a grasp of the philosophy of religion, and the ascertainment of true views as to the innate authority of a church and the development of doctrine, would there be anything very surprising if half a dozen eminent authorities in our Courts of Law and Equity were to go wrong? Between a frank admission of an incomplete consideration of a complicated and badly presented case and such blunt _ex post facto_ legislation as 5 Edward VII., chapter 12, I should have preferred the former. The Act is what would once have been called a dangerous precedent. To-day precedents, good or bad, are not much considered. If we want to do a thing, we do it, precedent or no precedent. So far we have done so very little that the question has hardly arisen. If our Legislature ever reassumes activity under new conditions, and in obedience to new impulses, it may be discovered whether bad precedents are dangerous or not. THE END 
16579	----	CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: BENTLEY HOUSE NEW YORK. TORONTO, BOMBAY CALCUTTA. MADRAS: MACMILLAN TOKYO: MARUZEN COMPANY LTD All rights reserved Copyrighted in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam's Sons All rights reserved On The Art of Reading By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1939 TO H. F. S. and H. M. C. First edition 1920 reprinted 1920,1921 Pocket edition 1924 reprinted 1925, 1928, 1933, 1939 PREFACE The following twelve lectures have this much in common with a previous twelve published in 1916 under the title "On the Art of Writing"--they form no compact treatise but present their central idea as I was compelled at the time to enforce it, amid the dust of skirmishing with opponents and with practical difficulties. They cover--and to some extent, by reflection, chronicle--a period during which a few friends, who had an idea and believed in it, were fighting to establish the present English Tripos at Cambridge. In the end we carried our proposals without a vote: but the opposition was stiff for a while; and I feared, on starting to read over these pages for press, that they might be too occasional and disputatious. I am happy to think that, on the whole, they are not; and that the reader, though he may wonder at its discursiveness, will find the argument pretty free from polemic. Any one who has inherited a library of 17th century theology will agree with me that, of all dust, the ashes of dead controversies afford the driest. And after all, and though it be well worth while to strive that the study of English (of our own literature, and of the art of using our own language, in speech or in writing, to the best purpose) shall take an honourable place among the Schools of a great University, that the other fair sisters of learning shall Ope for thee their queenly circle ... it is not in our Universities that the general redemption of English will be won; nor need a mistake here or there, at Oxford or Cambridge or London, prove fatal. We make our discoveries through our mistakes: we watch one another's success: and where there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve. A youth who can command means to enter a University can usually command some range in choosing which University it shall be. If Cambridge cannot supply what he wants, or if our standard of training be low in comparison with that of Oxford, or of London or of Manchester, the pressure of neglect will soon recall us to our senses. _The real battle for English lies in our Elementary Schools, and in the training of our Elementary Teachers._ It is there that the foundations of a sound national teaching in English will have to be laid, as it is there that a wrong trend will lead to incurable issues. For the poor child has no choice of Schools, and the elementary teacher, whatever his individual gifts, will work under a yoke imposed upon him by Whitehall. I devoutly trust that Whitehall will make the yoke easy and adaptable while insisting that the chariot must be drawn. I foresee, then, these lectures condemned as the utterances of a man who, occupying a Chair, has contrived to fall betwixt two stools. My thoughts have too often strayed from my audience in a University theatre away to remote rural class-rooms where the hungry sheep look up and are not fed; to piteous groups of urchins standing at attention and chanting "The Wreck of the Hesperus" in unison. Yet to these, being tied to the place and the occasion, I have brought no real help. A man has to perform his task as it comes. But I must say this in conclusion. Could I wipe these lectures out and re-write them in hope to benefit my countrymen in general, I should begin and end upon the text to be found in the twelfth and last--that a liberal education is not an appendage to be purchased by a few: that Humanism is, rather, a _quality_ which can, and should, condition all our teaching; which can, and should, be impressed as a character upon it all, from a poor child's first lesson in reading up to a tutor's last word to his pupil on the eve of a Tripos. ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH July 7, 1920. CONTENTS LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY II APPREHENSION VERSUS COMPREHENSION III CHILDREN'S READING (I) IV " " (II) V ON READING FOR EXAMINATIONS VI ON A SCHOOL OF ENGLISH VII THE VALUE OF GREEK AND LATIN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE VIII ON READING THE BIBLE (I) IX " " (II) X " " (III) XI OF SELECTION XI ON THE USE OF MASTERPIECES INDEX LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916 I In the third book of the "Ethics", and in the second chapter, Aristotle, dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily, through ignorance, instances 'the man who did not know a subject was forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries,' and 'the man who only meant to show how it worked, like the fellow who let off the catapult' ([Greek: e deixai Boulemos apheinai, os o ton katapelten]). I feel comfortably sure, Gentlemen, that in a previous course of lectures "On the Art of Writing", unlike Aeschylus, I divulged no mysteries: but I am troubled with speculations over that man and the catapult, because I really was trying to tell you how the thing worked; and Aristotle, with a reticence which (as Horace afterwards noted) may lend itself to obscurity, tells us neither what happened to that exponent of ballistics, nor to the engine itself, nor to the other person. My discharge, such as it was, at any rate provoked another Professor (_emeritus,_ learned, sagacious, venerable) to retort that the true business of a Chair such as this is to instruct young men how to _read_ rather than how to write. Well, be it so. I accept the challenge. I propose in this and some ensuing lectures to talk of the Art and Practice of Reading, particularly as applied to English Literature: to discuss on what ground and through what faculties an Author and his Reader meet: to enquire if, or to what extent, Reading of the best Literature can be taught; and supposing it to be taught, if or to what extent it can be examined upon; with maybe an interlude or two, to beguile the way. II The first thing, then, to be noted about the reading of English (with which alone I am concerned) is that for Englishmen it has been made, by Act of Parliament, compulsory. The next thing to be noted is that in our schools and Colleges and Universities it has been made, by Statute or in practice, all but impossible. The third step is obvious--to reconcile what we cannot do with what we must: and to that aim I shall, under your patience, direct this and the following lecture. I shall be relieved at all events, and from the outset, of the doubt by which many a Professor, here and elsewhere, has been haunted: I mean the doubt whether there really _is_ such a subject as that of which he proposes to treat. Anything that requires so much human ingenuity as reading English in an English University _must_ be an art. III But I shall be met, of course, by the question 'How is the reading of English made impossible at Cambridge?' and I pause here, on the edge of my subject, to clear away that doubt. It is no fault of the University. The late Philip Gilbert Hamerton, whom some remember as an etcher, wrote a book which he entitled (as I think, too magniloquently) "The Intellectual Life." He cast it in the form of letters--'To an Author who kept very Irregular Hours,' 'To a Young Etonian who thought of becoming a Cotton-spinner,' 'To a Young Gentleman who had firmly resolved never to wear anything but a Grey Coat' (but Mr Hamerton couldn't quite have meant that). 'To a Lady of High Culture who found it difficult to associate with persons of her Own Sex,' 'To a Young Gentleman of Intellectual Tastes, who, without having as yet any Particular Lady in View, had expressed, in a General Way, his Determination to get Married: The volume is well worth reading. In the first letter of all, addressed 'To a Young Man of Letters who worked Excessively,' Mr Hamerton fishes up from his memory, for admonishment, this salutary instance: A tradesman, whose business affords an excellent outlet for energetic bodily activity, told me that having attempted, in addition to his ordinary work, to acquire a foreign language which seemed likely to be useful to him, he had been obliged to abandon it on account of alarming cerebral symptoms. This man has immense vigour and energy, but the digestive functions, in this instance, are sluggish. However, when he abandoned study, the cerebral inconveniences disappeared, and have never returned since. IV Now we all know, and understand, and like that man: for the simple reason that he is every one of us. You or I (say) have to take the Modern Languages Tripos, Section A (English), in 1917[1]. First of all (and rightly) it is demanded of us that we show an acquaintance, and something more than a bowing acquaintance, with Shakespeare. Very well; but next we have to write a paper and answer questions on the outlines of English Literature from 1350 to 1832--almost 500 years--, and next to write a paper and show particular knowledge of English Literature between 1700 and 1785--eighty-five years. Next comes a paper on passages from selected English verse and prose writings --the Statute discreetly avoids calling them literature--between 1200 and 1500, exclusive of Chaucer; with questions on language, metre, literary history and literary criticism: then a paper on Chaucer with questions on language, metre, literary history and literary criticism: lastly a paper on writing in the Wessex dialect of Old English, with questions on the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, language, metre and literary history. Now if you were to qualify yourself for all this as a scholar should, and in two years, you would certainly deserve to be addressed by Mr Hamerton as 'A Young Man of Letters who worked Excessively'; and to work excessively is not good for anyone. Yet, on the other hand, you are precluded from using, for your 'cerebral inconveniences,' the heroic remedy exhibited by Mr Hamerton's enterprising tradesman, since on that method you would not attain to the main object of your laudable ambition, a Cambridge degree. But the matter is very much worse than your Statute makes it out. Take one of the papers in which some actual acquaintance with Literature is required the Special Period from 1700 to 1785; then turn to your "Cambridge History of English Literature", and you will find that the mere bibliography of those eighty-five years occupies something like five or six hundred pages--five or six hundred pages of titles and authors in simple enumeration! The brain reels; it already suffers 'cerebral inconveniences.' But stretch the list back to Chaucer, back through Chaucer to those alleged prose writings in the Wessex dialect, then forward from 1785 to Wordsworth, to Byron, to Dickens, Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, Meredith, even to this year in which literature still lives and engenders; and the brain, if not too giddy indeed, stands as Satan stood on the brink of Chaos-- Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith He had to cross-- and sees itself, with him, now plumbing a vast vacuity, and anon nigh-foundered, 'treading the crude consistence.' The whole business of reading English Literature in two years, to _know_ it in any reputable sense of the word--let alone your learning to write English--is, in short, impossible. And the framers of the Statute, recognising this, have very sensibly compromised by setting you to work on such things as 'the Outlines of English Literature'; which are not Literature at all but are only what some fellow has to say about it, hastily summarising his estimates of many works, of which on a generous computation he has probably read one-fifth; and by examining you on (what was it all?) 'language, metre, literary history and literary criticism,' which again are not Literature, or at least (as a Greek would say in his idiom) escape their own notice being Literature. For English Literature, as I take it, is _that which sundry men and women have written memorably in English about Life._ And so I come to my subject--the art of reading _that,_ which is Literature. V I shall take leave to leap into it over another man's back, or, rather over two men's backs. No doubt it has happened to many of you to pick up in a happy moment some book or pamphlet or copy of verse which just says the word you have unconsciously been listening for, almost craving to speak for yourself, and so sends you off hot-foot on the trail. And if you have had that experience, it may also have happened to you that, after ranging, you returned on the track 'like faithful hound returning,' in gratitude, or to refresh the scent; and that, picking up the book again, you found it no such wonderful book after all, or that some of the magic had faded by process of the change in yourself which itself had originated. But the word was spoken. Such a book--pamphlet I may call it, so small it was--fell into my hands some ten years ago; "The Aims of Literary Study"--no very attractive title--by Dr Corson, a distinguished American Professor (and let me say that, for something more than ten--say for twenty--years much of the most thoughtful as well as the most thorough work upon English comes to us from America). I find, as I handle again the small duodecimo volume, that my own thoughts have taken me a little wide, perhaps a little astray, from its suggestions. But for loyalty's sake I shall start just where Dr Corson started, with a passage from Browning's, "A Death in the Desert," supposed (you will remember)-- Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene narrating the death of St John the Evangelist, John of Patmos; the narrative interrupted by this gloss: [This is the doctrine he was wont to teach, How divers persons witness in each man, Three souls which make up one soul: _first,_ to wit, A soul of each and all the bodily parts, Seated therein, which works, and is _What Does,_ And has the use of earth, and ends the man Downward: but, tending upward for advice, Grows into, and again is grown into By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, Useth the first with its collected use, And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,--is _What Knows_: Which, duly tending upward in its turn, Grows into, and again is grown into By the last soul, that uses both the first, Subsisting whether they assist or no, And, constituting man's self, is _What Is_-- And leans upon the former (Mark the word, Gentlemen; '_leans_ upon the former'--leaning back, as it were felt by him, on this very man who had leaned on Christ's bosom, being loved) And leans upon the former, makes it play, As that played off the first: and, tending up, Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man Upward in that dread point of intercourse, Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him. _What Does, What Knows, What Is;_ three souls, one man. I give the glossa of Theotypas.] _What Does, What Knows, What Is_--there is no mistaking what Browning means, nor in what degrees of hierarchy he places this, that, and the other.... Does it not strike you how curiously men to-day, with their minds perverted by hate, are inverting that order?--all the highest value set on _What Does--What Knows_ suddenly seen to be of importance, but only as important in feeding the guns, perfecting explosives, collaring trade--all in the service of _What Does,_ of 'Get on or Get Out,' of 'Efficiency'; no one stopping to think that 'Efficiency' is--must be--a relative term! Efficient for what?--for _What Does, What Knows_ or perchance, after all, for _What Is_? No! banish the humanities and throw everybody into practical science: not into that study of natural science, which can never conflict with the 'humanities' since it seeks discovery for the pure sake of truth, or charitably to alleviate man's lot-- Sweetly, rather, to ease, loose and bind As need requires, this frail fallen humankind ... --but to invent what will be commercially serviceable in besting your neighbour, or in gassing him, or in slaughtering him neatly and wholesale. But still the whisper (not ridiculous in its day) will assert itself, that _What Is_ comes first, holding and upheld by God; still through the market clamour for a 'Business Government' will persist the voice of Plato murmuring that, after all, the best form of government is government by good men: and the voice of some small man faintly protesting 'But I don't want to be governed by business men; because I know them and, without asking much of life, I have a hankering to die with a shirt on my back.' VI But let us postpone _What Is_ for a moment, and deal with _What Does_ and _What Knows._ They too, of course, have had their oppositions, and the very meaning of a University such as Cambridge--its _fons,_ its _origo,_ its [Greek: to ti en einai]-- was to assert _What Knows_ against _What Does_ in a medieval world pranced over by men-at-arms, Normans, English, Burgundians, Scots. Ancillary to Theology, which then had a meaning vastly different from its meaning to-day, the University tended as portress of the gate of knowledge--of such knowledge as the Church required, encouraged, or permitted--and kept the flag of intellectual life, as I may put it, flying above that gate and over the passing throngs of 'doers' and mailed-fisters. The University was a Seat of Learning: the Colleges, as they sprang up, were Houses of Learning. But note this, which in their origin and still in the frame of their constitution differentiates Oxford and Cambridge from all their ancient sisters and rivals. These two (and no third, I believe, in Europe) were corporations of Teachers, existing for Teachers, governed by Teachers. In a Scottish University the students by vote choose their Rector: but here or at Oxford no undergraduate, no Bachelor, counts at all in the government, both remaining alike _in statu pupillari_ until qualified as Masters-- _Magistri._ Mark the word, and mark also the title of one who obtained what in those days would be the highest of degrees (but yet gave him no voting strength above a Master). He was a Professor-'Sanctae Theologiae Professor.' To this day every country clergyman who comes up to Cambridge to record his _non-placet,_ does so by virtue of his capacity to teach what he learned here--in theory, that is. Scholars were included in College foundations on a sort of pupil-teacher-supply system: living in rooms with the lordly masters, and valeting them for the privilege of 'reading with' them. We keep to this day the pleasant old form of words. Now for various reasons--one of which, because it is closely germane to my subject, I shall particularly examine--Oxford and Cambridge, while conserving almost intact their medieval frame of government, with a hundred other survivals which Time but makes, through endurance, more endearing, have, insensibly as it were, and across (it must be confessed) intervals of sloth and gross dereliction of duty, added a new function to the cultivation of learning--that of furnishing out of youth a succession of men capable of fulfilling high offices in Church and State. Some may regret this. I think many of us must regret that a deeper tincture of learning is not required of the average pass-man, or injected into him perforce. But speaking roughly about fact, I should say that while we elders up here are required-- nay, presumed to _know_ certain things, we aim that our young men shall be of a certain kind; and I see no cause to disown a sentence in the very first lecture I had the honour of reading before you--'The man we are proud to send forth from our Schools will be remarkable less for something he can take out of his wallet and exhibit for knowledge, than for _being_ something, and that something recognisable for a man of unmistakable intellectual breeding, whose trained judgment we can trust to choose the better and reject the worse.' The reasons which have led our older Universities to deflect their functions (whether for good or ill) so far from their first purpose are complicated if not many. Once admit young men in large numbers, and youth (I call any Dean or Tutor to witness) must be compromised with; will construe the laws of its seniors in its own way, now and then breaking them; and will inevitably end, by getting something of its own way.. The growth of gymnastic, the insensible gravitation of the elderly towards Fenner's--there to snatch a fearful joy and explain that the walk was good for them; the Union and other debating societies; College rivalries; the festivities of May Week; the invasion of women students: all these may have helped. But I must dwell discreetly on one compelling and obvious cause--the increased and increasing unwieldiness of Knowledge. And that is the main trouble, as I guess. VII Let us look it fair in the face: because it is the main practical difficulty with which I propose that, in succeeding lectures, we grapple. Against Knowledge I have, as the light cynic observed of a certain lady's past, only one serious objection--that there is so much of it. There is indeed so much of it that if with the best will in the world you devoted yourself to it as a mere scholar, you could not possibly digest its accumulated and still accumulating stores. As Sir Thomas Elyot wrote in the 16th century (using, you will observe, the very word of Mr Hamerton's energetic but fed-up tradesman), 'Inconveniences always doe happen by ingurgitation and excessive feedings.' An old schoolmaster and a poet--Mr James Rhoades, late of Sherborne-- comments in words which I will quote, being unable to better them: This is no less true of the mind than of the body. I do not know that a well-informed man, as such, is more worthy of regard than a well-fed one. The brain, indeed, is a nobler organ than the stomach, but on that very account is the less to be excused for indulging in repletion. The temptation, I confess, is greater, because for the brain the banquet stands ever spread before our eyes, and is, unhappily, as indestructible as the widow's meal and oil. Only think what would become of us if the physical food, by which our bodies subsist, instead of being consumed by the eater, was passed on intact by every generation to the next, with the superadded hoards of all the ages, the earth's productive power meanwhile increasing year by year beneath the unflagging hand of Science, till, as Comus says, she would be quite surcharged with her own weight And strangled with her waste fertility. Should we rather not pull down our barns, and build smaller, and make bonfires of what they would not hold? And yet, with regard to Knowledge, the very opposite of this is what we do. We store the whole religiously, and that though not twice alone, as with the bees in Virgil, but scores of times in every year, is the teeming produce gathered in. And then we put a fearful pressure on ourselves and others to gorge of it as much as ever we can hold. _Facit indignatio versus._ My author, gathering heat, puts it somewhat dithyrambically: but there you have it, Gentlemen. If you crave for Knowledge, the banquet of Knowledge grows and groans on the board until the finer appetite sickens. If, still putting all your trust in Knowledge, you try to dodge the difficulty by specialising, you produce a brain bulging out inordinately on one side, on the other cut flat down and mostly paralytic at that: and in short so long as I hold that the Creator has an idea, of a man, so long shall I be sure that no uneven specialist realises it. The real tragedy of the Library at Alexandria was not that the incendiaries burned immensely, but that they had neither the leisure nor the taste to discriminate. VIII The old schoolmaster whom I quoted just now goes on: I believe, if the truth were known, men would be astonished at the small amount of learning with which a high degree of culture is compatible. In a moment of enthusiasm I ventured once to tell my 'English set' that if they could really master the ninth book of "Paradise Lost", so as to rise to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue of that alone, become highly cultivated men.... More and more various learning might raise them to the same height by different paths, but could hardly raise them higher. Here let me interpose and quote the last three lines of that Book--three lines only; simple, unornamented, but for every man and every woman who have dwelt together since our first parents, in mere statement how wise! Thus they in mutual accusation spent The fruitless hours, _but neither self-condemning;_ And of their vain contest appear'd no end. A parent afterwards told me (my schoolmaster adds) that his son went home and so buried himself in the book that food and sleep that day had no attraction for him. Next morning, I need hardly say, the difference in his appearance was remarkable: he had outgrown all his intellectual clothes. The end of this story strikes me, I confess, as rapid, and may be compared with that of the growth of Delian Apollo in the Homeric hymn; but we may agree that, in reading, it is not quantity so much that tells, as quality and thoroughness of digestion. IX _What Does--What Knows--What Is...._ I am not likely to depreciate to you the value of _What Does,_ after spending my first twelve lectures up here, on the art and practice of Writing, encouraging you to _do_ this thing which I daily delight in trying to do: as God forbid that anyone should hint a slightening word of what our sons and brothers are doing just now, and doing for us! But Peace being the normal condition of man's activity, I look around me for a vindication of what is noblest in _What Does_ and am content with a passage from George Eliot's poem "Stradivarius", the gist of which is that God himself might conceivably make better fiddles than Stradivari's, but by no means certainly; since, as a fact, God orders his best fiddles of Stradivari. Says the great workman, 'God be praised, Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song.' Then Naldo: ''Tis a pretty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less.' But he: ''Twere purgatory here to make them ill; And for my fame--when any master holds 'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, He will be glad that Stradivari lived, Made violins, and made them of the best. The masters only know whose work is good: They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help Him.' 'What! Were God At fault for violins, thou absent?' 'Yes; He were at fault for Stradivari's work.' 'Why, many hold Giuseppe's violins As good as thine.' 'May be: they are different. His quality declines: he spoils his hand With over-drinking. But were his the best, He could not work for two. My work is mine, And heresy or not, if my hand slacked I should rob God--since He is fullest good-- Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say, not God Himself can make man's best Without best men to help him.... 'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel.' So much then for _What Does_: I do not depreciate it. X Neither do I depreciate--in Cambridge, save the mark!--_What Knows._ All knowledge is venerable; and I suppose you will find the last vindication of the scholar's life at its baldest in Browning's "A Grammarian's Funeral": Others mistrust and say, 'But time escapes: Live now or never!' He said, 'What's time? Leave Now for dog and apes! Man has Forever.' Back to his book then; deeper drooped his head: Calculus racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him.... So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business--let it be!-- Properly based Oun-- Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews! Here's the top-peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live but Know-- Bury this man there. Nevertheless Knowledge is not, cannot be, everything; and indeed, as a matter of experience, cannot even be counted upon to educate. Some of us have known men of extreme learning who yet are, some of them, uncouth in conduct, others violent and overbearing in converse, others unfair in controversy, others even unscrupulous in action--men of whom the sophist Thrasymachus in Plato's "Republic" may stand for the general type. Nay, some of us will subscribe with the old schoolmaster whom I will quote again, when he writes: To myself personally, as an exception to the rule that opposites attract, a very well-informed person is an object of terror. His mind seems to be so full of facts that you cannot, as it were, see the wood for the trees; there is no room for perspective, no lawns and glades for pleasure and repose, no vistas through which to view some towering hill or elevated temple; everything in that crowded space seems of the same value: he speaks with no more awe of "King Lear" than of the last Cobden prize essay; he has swallowed them both with the same ease, and got the facts safe in his pouch; but he has no time to ruminate because he must still be swallowing; nor does he seem to know what even Macbeth, with Banquo's murderers then at work, found leisure to remember--that good digestion must wait on appetite, if health is to follow both: Now that may be put a trifle too vivaciously, but the moral is true. Bacon tells us that reading maketh a full man. Yes, and too much of it makes him too full. The two words of the Greek upon knowledge remain true, that the last triumph of Knowledge is _Know Thyself._ So Don Quixote repeats it to Sancho Panza, counselling him how to govern his Island: First, O son, thou hast to fear God, for in fearing Him is wisdom, and being wise thou canst not err. But secondly thou hast to set thine eyes on what thou art, endeavouring to _know thyself--which is the most difficult_ _knowledge that can be conceived._ But to know oneself is to know that which alone can know _What Is._ So the hierarchy runs up. XI _What Does, What Knows, What Is...._ I have happily left myself no time to-day to speak of _What Is_: happily, because I would not have you even approach it towards the end of an hour when your attention must be languishing. But I leave you with two promises, and with two sayings from which as this lecture took its start its successors will proceed. The first promise is, that _What Is,_ being the spiritual element in man, is the highest object of his study. The second promise is that, nine-tenths of what is worthy to be called Literature being concerned with this spiritual element, for that it should be studied, from firstly up to ninthly, before anything else. And my two quotations are for you to ponder: (1) This, first: That all spirit is mutually attractive, as all matter is mutually attractive, is an ultimate fact beyond which we cannot go.... Spirit to spirit--as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. (2) And this other, from the writings of an obscure Welsh clergyman of the 17th century: You will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars. [Footnote 1: The reader will kindly turn back to p.1, and observe the date at the head of this lecture. At that time I was engaged against a system of English teaching which I believed to be thoroughly bad. That system has since given place to another, which I am prepared to defend as a better.] LECTURE II APPREHENSION VERSUS COMPREHENSION WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1916 I Let us attempt to-day, Gentlemen, picking up the scent where we left at the conclusion of my first lecture, to hunt the Art of Reading (as I shall call it), a little further on the line of common-sense; then to cast back and chase on a line somewhat more philosophical. If these lines run wide and refuse to unite, we shall have made a false cast: if they converge and meet, we shall have caught our hare and may proceed, in subsequent lectures, to cook him. Well, the line of common-sense has brought us to this point-- that, man and this planet being such as they are, for a man to read all the books existent on it is impossible; and, if possible, would be in the highest degree undesirable. Let us, for example, go back quite beyond the invention of printing and try to imagine a man who had read all the rolls destroyed in the Library of Alexandria by successive burnings. (Some reckon the number of these MSS at 700,000.) Suppose, further, this man to be gifted with a memory retentive as Lord Macaulay's. Suppose lastly that we go to such a man and beg him to repeat to us some chosen one of the fifty or seventy lost, or partially lost, plays of Euripides. It is incredible that he could gratify us. There was, as I have said, a great burning at Alexandria in 47 B.C., when Caesar set the fleet in the harbour on fire to prevent its falling into the hands of the Egyptians. The flames spread, and the great library stood but 400 yards from the quayside, with warehouses full of books yet closer. The last great burning was perpetrated in A.D. 642. Gibbon quotes the famous sentence of Omar, the great Mohammedan who gave the order: 'If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed,' and goes on: The sentence was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was their incredible multitude that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel.... The tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. Of the consequence he writes: Perhaps the church and seat of the patriarchs might be enriched with a repository of books: but, if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the more valuable libraries, which have been involved in the ruin of the Roman empire; but, when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are the object of my surprise. Many curious and interesting facts are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory; the teachers of ancient knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and compared the writings of their predecessors; nor can it fairly be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages. I certainly do not ask you to subscribe to all that. In fact when Gibbon asks us to remember gratefully 'that the mischances of time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage of antiquity had adjudged the first place of genius and glory,' I submit with all respect that he talks nonsense. Like the stranger in the temple of the sea-god, invited to admire the many votive garments of those preserved out of shipwreck, I ask 'at ubi sunt vestimenta eorum qui post vota nuncupata perierunt?'-- or in other words 'Where are the trousers of the drowned?' 'What about the "Sthenoboea" of Euripides, the "Revellers" of Ameipsias-- to which, as a matter of simple fact, what you call the suffrage of antiquity did adjudge the first prize, above Aristophanes' best?' But of course he is equally right to this extent, that the fire consumed a vast deal of rubbish: solid tons more than any man could swallow,--let be, digest--'read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.' And that was in A.D. 642, whereas we have arrived at 1916. Where would our voracious Alexandrian be to-day, with all the literature of the Middle Ages added to his feast and on top of that all the printed books of 450 years? 'Reading,' says Bacon, 'maketh a Full Man.' Yes, indeed! Now I am glad that sentence of Bacon falls pat here, because it gives me, turning to his famous Essay "Of Studies", the reinforcement of his great name for the very argument which I am directing against the fallacy of those teachers who would have you use 'manuals' as anything else than guides to your own reading or perspectives in which the authors are set out in the comparative eminence by which they claim priority of study or indicate the proportions of a literary period. Some of these manuals are written by men of knowledge so encyclopaedic that (if it go with critical judgment) for these purposes they may be trusted. But to require you, at your stage of reading, to have even the minor names by heart is a perversity of folly. For later studies it seems to me a more pardonable mistake, but yet a mistake, to hope that by the employ of separate specialists you can get even in 15 or 20 volumes a perspective, a proportionate description, of what English Literature really is. But worst of all is that Examiner, who--aware that you must please him, to get a good degree, and being just as straight and industrious as anyone else--assumes that in two years you have become expert in knowledge that beats a lifetime, and, brought up against the practical impossibility of this assumption, questions you--not on a little selected first-hand knowledge--but on massed information which at the best can be but derivative and second-hand. Now hear Bacon. Studies serve for Delight-- (Mark it,--he puts delight first) Studies serve for Delight, for Ornament, and for Ability. Their Chiefe use for Delight, is in Privatenesse and Retiring[1]; for Ornament, is in Discourse; and for Ability, is in the Judgement and Disposition of Businesse.... To spend too much Time in Studies is Sloth; to use them too much for Ornament is Affectation; to make judgement wholly by their Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. They perfect Nature, and are perfected by Experience: for Naturall Abilities are like Naturall Plants, they need Proyning by Study. And Studies themselves doe give forth Directions too much at Large, unless they be bounded in by experience. Again, he says: Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested: that is, some Bookes are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read but not Curiously; and some Few are to be read wholly, and with Diligence and Attention. Some Bookes also may be read by Deputy, and Extracts made of them by Others. But that would be onely in the lesse important Arguments, and the Meaner Sort of Bookes: else distilled Bookes are like Common distilled Waters, Flashy Things. So you see, Gentlemen, while pleading before you that Reading is an Art--that its best purpose is not to accumulate Knowledge but to produce, to educate, such-and-such a man--that 'tis a folly to bite off more than you can assimilate--and that with it, as with every other art, the difficulty and the discipline lie in selecting out of vast material, what is fit, fine, applicable--I have the great Francis Bacon himself towering behind my shoulder for patron. Some would push the argument further than--here and now, at any rate--I choose to do, or perhaps would at all care to do. For example, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, whom I quoted to you three weeks ago, instances in his book "The Intellectual Life" an accomplished French cook who, in discussing his art, comprised the whole secret of it under two heads--the knowledge of the mutual influences of ingredients, and the judicious management of heat: Amongst the dishes for which my friend had a deserved reputation was a certain _gâteau de foie_ which had a very exquisite flavour. The principal ingredient, not in quantity but in power, was the liver of a fowl; but there were several other ingredients also, and amongst these a leaf or two of parsley. He told me that the influence of the parsley was a good illustration of his theory about his art. If the parsley were omitted, the flavour he aimed at was not produced at all; but, on the other hand, if the quantity of the parsley was in the least excessive, then the _gâteau_ instead of being a delicacy for gourmets became an uneatable mess. Perceiving that I was really interested in the subject, he kindly promised a practical evidence of his doctrine, and the next day intentionally spoiled the dish by a trifling addition of parsley. He had not exaggerated the consequences; the delicate flavour entirely departed, and left a nauseous bitterness in its place, like the remembrance of an ill-spent youth. I trust that none of you are in a position to appreciate the full force of this last simile; and, for myself, I should have taken the chef's word for it, without experiment. Mr Hamerton proceeds to draw his moral: There is a sort of intellectual chemistry which is quite as marvellous as material chemistry and a thousand times more difficult to observe. One general truth may, however, be relied upon.... It is true that everything we learn affects the _whole_ character of the mind. Consider how incalculably important becomes the question of _proportion_ in our knowledge, and how that which we are is dependent as much upon our ignorance as our science. What we call ignorance is only a smaller proportion-- what we call science only a larger. Here the argument begins to become delicious: The larger quantity is recommended as an unquestionable good, but the goodness of it is entirely dependent _on the mental product that we want._ Aristocracies have always instinctively felt this, and have decided that a gentleman ought not to know too much of certain arts and sciences. The character which they had accepted as their ideal would have been destroyed by indiscriminate additions to those ingredients of which long experience had fixed the exact proportions.... The last generation of the English country aristocracy was particularly rich in characters whose unity and charm was dependent upon the limitations of their culture, and which would have been entirely altered, perhaps not for the better, by simply knowing a science or a literature that was dosed to them. If anything could be funnier than that, it is that it is, very possibly, true. Let us end our quest-by-commonsense, for the moment, on this; that to read all the books that have been written---in short to keep pace with those that are being written--is starkly impossible, and (as Aristotle would say) about what is impossible one does not argue. We _must_ select. Selection implies skilful practice. Skilful practice is only another term for Art. So far plain common-sense leads us. On this point, then, let us set up a rest and hark back. II Let us cast back to the three terms of my first lecture--_What does, What knows, What is._ I shall here take leave to recapitulate a brief argument much sneered at a few years ago when it was still fashionable to consider Hegel a greater philosopher than Plato. Abbreviating it I repeat it, because I believe in it yet to-day, when Hegel (for causes unconnected with pure right and wrong) has gone somewhat out of fashion for a while. As the tale, then, is told by Plato, in the tenth book of "The Republic", one Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian, was slain in battle; and ten days afterwards, when they collected the dead for burial, his body alone showed no taint of corruption. His relatives, however, bore it off to the funeral pyre; and on the twelfth day, lying there, he returned to life, and he told them what he had seen in the other world. Many wonders he related concerning the dead, for example, with their rewards and punishments: but what had impressed him as most wonderful of all was the great spindle of Necessity, reaching up to Heaven, with the planets revolving around it in graduated whorls of width and spread: yet all concentric and so timed that all complete the full circle punctually together--'The Spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the rim of each whorl sits perched a Siren who goes round with it, hymning a single note; the eight notes together forming one harmony.' Now as--we have the divine word for it--upon two great commandments hang all the law and the prophets, so all religions, all philosophies, hang upon two steadfast and faithful beliefs; the first of which Plato would show by the above parable. It is, of course, that the stability of the Universe rests upon ordered motion--that the 'firmament' above, around, beneath, stands firm, continues firm, on a balance of active and tremendous forces somehow harmoniously composed. Theology asks 'by What?' or 'by Whom?' Philosophy inclines rather to ask 'How?' Natural Science, allowing that for the present these questions are probably unanswerable, contents itself with mapping and measuring what it can of the various forces. But all agree about the harmony; and when a Galileo or a Newton discovers a single rule of it for us, he but makes our assurance surer. For uncounted centuries before ever hearing of Gravitation men knew of the sun that he rose and set, of the moon that she waxed and waned, of the tides that they flowed and ebbed, all regularly, at times to be predicted; of the stars that they swung as by clockwork around the pole. Says the son of Sirach: At the word of the Holy One they will stand in due order, And they will not faint in their watches. So evident is this calculated harmony that men, seeking to interpret it by what was most harmonious in themselves or in their human experience, supposed an actual Music of the Spheres inaudible to mortals: Plato as we see (who learned of Pythagoras) inventing his Octave of Sirens, perched on the whorls of the great spindle and intoning as they spin. Dante (Chaucer copying him in "The Parlement of Fowls") makes the spheres nine: and so does Milton: then listen I To the celestial _Sirens_ harmony, That sit upon the nine infolded Sphears, And sing to those that hold the vital shears, And turn the Adamantine spindle round On which the fate of gods and men is wound. Such sweet compulsion doth in musick lie To lull the daughters of _Necessity_, And keep unsteady Nature to her law, And the low world in measur'd motion draw After the heavenly tune.... If the sceptical mind object to the word _law_ as begging the question and postulating a governing intelligence with a governing will--if it tell me that when revolted Lucifer uprose in starlight-- and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank. Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law-- he was merely witnessing a series of predictable or invariable recurrences, I answer that he may be right, it suffices for my argument that they _are_ recurrent, are invariable, can be predicted. Anyhow the Universe is not Chaos (if it were, by the way, we should be unable to reason about it at all). It stands and is renewed upon a harmony: and what Plato called 'Necessity' is the Duty--compulsory or free as you or I can conceive it--the Duty of all created things to obey that harmony, the Duty of which Wordsworth tells in his noble Ode. Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong: And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. III Now the other and second great belief is, that the Universe, the macrocosm, cannot be apprehended at all except as its rays converge upon the eye, brain, soul of Man, the microcosm: on you, on me, on the tiny percipient centre upon which the immense cosmic circle focuses itself as the sun upon a burning-glass--and he is not shrivelled up! Other creatures, he notes, share in his sensations; but, so far as he can discover, not in his percipience --or not in any degree worth measuring. So far as he can discover, he is not only a bewildered actor in the great pageant but 'the ring enclosing all,' the sole intelligent spectator. Wonder of wonders, it is all meant for _him_! I doubt if, among men of our nation, this truth was ever more clearly grasped than by the Cambridge Platonists who taught your forerunners of the 17th century. But I will quote you here two short passages from the work of a sort of poor relation of theirs, a humble Welsh parson of that time, Thomas Traherne-- unknown until the day before yesterday--from whom I gave you one sentence in my first lecture. He is speaking of the fields and streets that were the scene of his childhood: Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born are the best unto this day, wherein I can see the Universe.... The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me.... Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die.... The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars; and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. Then: News from a foreign country came, As if my treasure and my wealth lay there; So much it did my heart inflame, 'Twas wont to call my Soul into mine ear; Which thither went to meet The approaching sweet, And on the threshold stood To entertain the unknown Good.... What sacred instinct did inspire My Soul in childhood with a hope to strong? What secret force moved my desire To expect new joys beyond the seas, so young? Felicity I knew Was out of view, And being here alone, I saw that happiness was gone From me! For this I thirsted absent bliss, And thought that sure beyond the seas, Or else in something near at hand-- I knew not yet (since naught did please I knew) my Bliss did stand. But little did the infant dream That all the treasures of the world were by: And that himself was so the cream And crown of all which round about did lie. Yet thus it was: the Gem, The Diadem, The Ring enclosing all That stood upon this earthly ball, The Heavenly Eye, Much wider than the sky, Wherein they all included were, The glorious Soul, that was the King Made to possess them, did appear A small and little thing! And then comes the noble sentence of which I promised you that it should fall into its place: You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars. Man in short--you, I, any one of us--the heir of it all! _Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes deos!_ Our best privilege to sing our short lives out in tune with the heavenly concert--and if to sing afterwards, then afterwards! IV But how shall Man ever attain to understand and find his proper place in this Universe, this great sweeping harmonious circle of which nevertheless he feels himself to be the diminutive focus? His senses are absurdly imperfect. His ear cannot catch any music the spheres make; and moreover there are probably neither spheres nor music. His eye is so dull an instrument that (as Blanco White's famous sonnet reminds us) he can neither see this world in the dark, nor glimpse any of the scores of others until it falls dark: If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? Yet the Universal Harmony is meaningless and nothing to man save in so far as _he_ apprehends it: and lacking him (so far as he knows) it utterly lacks the compliment of an audience. Is all the great orchestra designed for nothing but to please its Conductor? Yes, if you choose: but no, as I think. And here my other quotation: That all spirit is mutually attractive, as all matter is mutually attractive, is an ultimate fact.... Spirit to spirit-- as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. Yes and, all spirit being mutually attractive, far more than this! I preach to you that, through help of eyes that are dim, of ears that are dull, by instinct of something yet undefined--call it soul--it wants no less a name--Man has a native impulse and attraction and yearning to merge himself in that harmony and be one with it: a spirit of adoption (as St Paul says) whereby we cry _Abba, Father!_ And because ye are Sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying _Abba, Father._ That is to say, we know we have something within us correspondent to the harmony, and (I make bold to say) unless we have deadened it with low desires, worthy to join in it. Even in his common daily life Man is for ever seeking after harmony, in avoidance of chaos: he cultivates habits by the clock, he forms committees, governments, hierarchies, laws, constitutions, by which (as he hopes) a system of society will work in tune. But these are childish imitations, underplay on the great motive: The Kingdom of God is within you. Quid aliud est anima quam Deus in corpore humano hospitans? V Gentlemen, you may be thinking that I have brought you a long way round, that the hour is wearing late, and that we are yet far from the prey we first hunted on the line of common-sense. But be patient for a minute or two, for almost we have our hand on the animal. If the Kingdom of God, or anything correspondent to it, be within us, even in such specks of dust as we separately are, why that, and that only, can be the light by which you or I may hope to read the Universal: that, and that only, deserves the name of '_What Is_.' Nay, I can convince you in a moment. Let me recall a passage of Emerson quoted by me on the morning I first had the honour to address an audience in Cambridge: It is remarkable (says he) that involuntarily we always read as superior beings. Universal history, the poets, the romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures ... anywhere make us feel that we intrude, that this is for better men; but rather is it true that in their grandest strokes we feel most at home. All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself. It is remarkable, as Emerson says; and yet, as we now see, quite simple. A learned man may patronise a less learned one: but the Kingdom of God cannot patronise the Kingdom of God, the larger the smaller. There _are_ large and small. Between these two mysteries of a harmonious universe and the inward soul are granted to live among us certain men whose minds and souls throw out filaments more delicate than ours, vibrating to far messages which they bring home, to report them to us; and these men we call prophets, poets, masters, great artists, and when they write it, we call their report literature. But it is by the spark in us that we read it: and not all the fire of God that was in Shakespeare can dare to patronise the little spark in me. If it did, I can see--with Blake--the angelic host throw down their spears And water heaven with their tears. VI To nurse that spark, common to the king, the sage, the poorest child--to fan, to draw up to a flame, to 'educate' _What Is_--to recognise that it is divine, yet frail, tender, sometimes easily tired, easily quenched under piles of book-learning--to let it run at play very often, even more often to let it rest in what Wordsworth calls a wise passiveness passive--to use a simile of Coventry Patmore--as a photographic plate which finds stars that no telescope can discover, simply by waiting with its face turned upward--to mother it, in short, as wise mothers do their children--this is what I mean by the Art of Reading. For all great Literature, I would lastly observe, is gentle towards that spirit which learns of it. It teaches by _apprehension_ not by _comprehension_--which is what many philosophers try to do, and, in trying, break their jugs and spill the contents. Literature understands man and of what he is capable. Philosophy, on the other hand, may not be 'harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,' but the trouble with most of its practitioners is that they try to _comprehend_ the Universe. Now the man who could comprehend the Universe would _ipso facto_ comprehend God, and be _ipso facto_ a Super-God, able to dethrone him, and in the arrogance of his intellectual conceit full ready to make the attempt. [Footnote 1: Do you remember, by the by, Samuel Rogers's lines on Lady Jane Grey? They have always seemed to me very beautiful: Like her most gentle, most unfortunate, Crown'd but to die--who in her chamber sate Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown, And every ear and every heart was won, And all in green array were chasing down the sun!] LECTURE III CHILDREN'S READING (I) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1917 I have often wished, Gentlemen, that some more winning name could be found for the thing we call Education; and I have sometimes thought wistfully that, had we made a better thing of it, we should long ago have found a more amiable, a blither, name. For after all it concerns the child; and is it quite an accident that, weaning him away from lovely things that so lovelily call themselves 'love,' 'home,' 'mother,' we can find no more alluring titles for the streets into which we entrap him than 'Educational Facilities,' 'Local Examinations,' 'Preceptors,' 'Pedagogues,' 'Professors,' 'Matriculations,' 'Certificates,' 'Diplomas,' 'Seminaries,' Elementary or Primary, and Secondary Codes,' 'Continuation Classes,' 'Reformatories,' 'Inspectors,' 'Local Authorities,' 'Provided' and 'Non-Provided,' 'Denominational' and 'Undenominational,' and 'D.Litt.' and 'Mus. Bac.'? Expressive terms, no doubt!--but I ask with the poet Who can track A Grace's naked foot amid them all? Take even such words as should be perennially beautiful by connotation-words such as 'Academy,' 'Museum.' Does the one (O, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy!") call up visions of that green lawn by Cephissus, of its olives and plane trees and the mirrored statues among which Plato walked and held discourse with his few? Does the other as a rule invite to haunts (O God! O Montreal!) where you can be secure of communion with Apollo and the Nine? Answer if the word Academy does not first call up to the mind some place where small boys are crammed, the word Museum some place where bigger game are stuffed? And yet 'academy,' 'museum,' even 'education' are sound words if only we would make the things correspond with their meanings. The meaning of 'education' is a leading out, a drawing-forth; not an _imposition_ of something on somebody--a catechism or an uncle-- upon the child; but an eliciting of what is within him. Now, if you followed my last lecture, we find that which is within him to be no less, potentially, than the Kingdom of God. I grant that this potentiality is, between the ages of four and sixteen, not always, perhaps not often, evident. The boy--in Bagehot's phrase 'the small apple-eating urchin whom we know'-- has this in common with the fruit for which he congenitally sins, that his very virtues in immaturity are apt, setting the teeth on edge, to be mistaken for vices. A writer, to whom I shall recur, has said: If an Englishman who had never before tasted an apple were to eat one in July, he would probably come to the conclusion that it was a hard, sour, indigestible fruit, `conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity,' fit only to be consigned to perdition (on a dust heap or elsewhere). But if the same man were to wait till October and then eat an apple from the same tree, he would find that the sourness had ripened into wholesome and refreshing acidity; the hardness into firmness of fibre which, besides being pleasant to the palate, makes the apple 'keep' better than any other fruit; the indigestibility into certain valuable dietetic qualities, and so on.... In other words--trench, manure, hoe and water around your young tree, and patiently allow the young fruit to develop of its own juice from the root; your own task being, as the fruit forms, but to bring in all you can of air and sunshine upon it. It must, as every mother and nurse knows, be coaxed to realise itself, to develop, to grow from its individual root. It may be coaxed and trained. But the main secret lies in encouraging it to grow, and, to that end, in pouring sunshine upon it and hoeing after each visitation of tears parentally induced. Every child wants to grow. Every child wants to learn. During his first year or so of life he fights for bodily nutriment, almost ferociously. From the age of two or thereabouts he valiantly essays the conquest of articulate speech, using it first to identify his father or his mother amid the common herd of Gentiles; next, to demand a more liberal and varied dietary; anon, as handmaid of his imperious will to learn. This desire, still in the nursery, climbs--like dissolution in Wordsworth's sonnet--from low to high: from a craving to discover experimentally what the stomach will assimilate and what reject, up to a kingly debonair interest in teleology. Our young gentleman is perfectly at ease in Sion. He wants to know why soldiers are (or were) red, and if they were born so; whence bread and milk is derived, and would it be good manners to thank the neat cow for both; why mamma married papa, and--that having been explained and thoughtfully accepted as the best possible arrangement--still thoughtfully, not in the least censoriously, 'why the All-Father has not married yet?' He falls asleep weighing the eligibility of various spinsters, church-workers, in the parish. His brain teeming with questions, he asks them of impulse and makes his discoveries with joy. He passes to a school, which is supposed to exist for the purpose of answering these or cognate questions even before he asks them: and behold, he is not happy! Or, he is happy enough at play, or at doing in class the things that should not be done in class: his master writes home that he suffers in his school work 'from having always more animal spirits than are required for his immediate purposes.' What is the trouble? You cannot explain it by home-sickness: for it attacks day boys alike with boarders. You cannot explain it by saying that all true learning involves 'drudgery,' unless you make that miserable word a mendicant and force it to beg the question. 'Drudgery' is _what you feel to be drudgery_-- Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and th' action fine. --and, anyhow, this child learned one language--English, a most difficult one--eagerly. Of the nursery through which I passed only one sister wept while learning to read, and that was over a scholastic work entitled "Reading Without Tears." Do you know a chapter in Mr William Canton's book "The Invisible Playmate" in which, as Carlyle dealt in "Sartor Resartus" with an imaginary treatise by an imaginary Herr Teufelsdröckh, as Matthew Arnold in "Friendship's Garland" with the imaginary letters of an imaginary Arminius (Germany in long-past happier days lent the world these playful philosophical spirits), so the later author invents an old village grandpapa, with the grandpapa-name of Altegans and a prose-poem printed in scarecrow duodecimo on paper-bag pages and entitled "Erster Schulgang," 'first school-going,' or 'first day at school'? The poem opens with a wonderful vision of children; delightful as it is unexpected; as romantic in presentment as it is commonplace in fact. All over the world--and all under it too, when their time comes--the children are trooping to school. The great globe swings round out of the dark into the sun; there is always morning somewhere; and for ever in this shifting region of the morning-light the good Altegans sees the little ones afoot--- shining companies and groups, couples and bright solitary figures; for they all seem to have a soft heavenly light about them. He sees them in country lanes and rustic villages; on lonely moorlands ... he sees them on the hillsides ... in the woods, on the stepping-stones that cross the brook in the glen, along the seacliffs and on the water-ribbed sands; trespassing on the railway lines, making short cuts through the corn, sitting in the ferry-boats; he sees them in the crowded streets of smoky cities, in small rocky islands, in places far inland where the sea is known only as a strange tradition. The morning-side of the planet is alive with them: one hears their pattering footsteps everywhere. And as the vast continents sweep `eastering out of the high shadow which reaches beyond the moon' ... and as new nations with _their_ cities and villages, their fields, woods, mountains and sea-shores, rise up into the morning-side, lo! fresh troops, and still fresh troops, and yet again fresh troops of these school-going children of the dawn. What are weather and season to this incessant panorama of childhood? The pigmy people trudge through the snow on moor and hill-side; wade down flooded roads; are not to be daunted by wind or rain, frost or the white smother of 'millers and bakers at fisticuffs.' Most beautiful picture of all, he sees them travelling schoolward by the late moonlight which now and again in the winter months precedes the tardy dawn. That vision strikes me as being poetically true as well as delightful: by which I mean that it is not sentimental: we know that it ought to be true, that in a world well-ordered according to our best wishes for it, it would be _naturally_ true. It expresses the natural love of Age, brooding on the natural eager joy of children. But that natural eager joy is just what our schools, in the matter of reading, conscientiously kill. In this matter of reading-of children's reading--we stand, just now, or halt just now, between two ways. The parent, I believe, has decisively won back to the right one which good mothers never quite forsook. There was an interval, lasting from the early years of the last century until midway in Queen Victoria's reign and a little beyond, when children were mainly brought up on the assumption of natural vice. They might adore father and mother, and yearn to be better friends with papa: but there was the old Adam, a quickening evil spirit; there were his imps always in the way, confound them! I myself lived, with excellent grandparents, for several years on pretty close terms with Hell and an all-seeing Eye; until I grew so utterly weary of both that I have never since had the smallest use for either. Some of you may have read, as a curious book, the agreeable history called "The Fairchild Family," in which Mr Fairchild leads his naughty children afield to a gallows by a cross-road and seating them under the swinging corpse of a malefactor, deduces how easily they may come to this if they go on as they have been going. The authors of such monitory or cautionary tales understood but one form of development, the development of Original Sin. You stole a pin and proceeded, by fatal steps, to the penitentiary; you threw a stick at a pheasant, turned poacher, shot a gamekeeper and ended on the gallows. You were always Eric and it was always Little by Little with you.... Stay! memory preserves one gem from a Sunday school dialogue, one sharp-cut intaglio of childhood springing fully armed from the head of Satan: Q. Where hast thou been this Sabbath morning? A. I have been coursing of the squirrel. Q. Art not afraid so to desecrate the Lord's Day with idle sport? A. By no means: for I should tell you that I am an Atheist. I forget what happened to that boy: but doubtless it was, as it should have been, something drastic. The spell of prohibition, of repression, lies so strong upon these authors that when they try to break away from it, to appeal to something better than fear in the child, and essay to amuse, they become merely silly. For an example in verse: If Human Beings only knew What sorrows little birds go through, I think that even boys Would never think it sport or fun To stand and fire a frightful gun For nothing but the noise. For another (instructional and quite a good _memoria technica_ so far as it goes): William and Mary came next to the throne: When Mary died, there was William alone. Now for a story of incident.--It comes from the book "Reading Without Tears," that made my small sister weep. She did not weep over the story, because she did not claim to be an angel. Did you ever hear of the donkey that went into the sea with the little cart?... A lady drove the cart down to the beach. She had six children with her. Three little ones sat in the cart by her side. Three bigger girls ran before the cart. When they came to the beach the lady and the children got out. Very good so far. It opens like the story of Nausicaa ["Odyssey," Book vi, lines 81-86]. The lady wished the donkey to bathe its legs in the sea, to make it strong and clean. But the donkey did not like to go near the sea. So the lady bound a brown shawl over its eyes, and she bade the big girls lead it close to the waves. Suddenly a big wave rushed to the land. The girls started back to avoid the wave, and they let go the donkey's rein. The donkey was alarmed by the noise the girls made, and it went into the sea, not knowing where it was going because it was not able to see. The girls ran screaming to the lady, crying out, 'The donkey is in the sea!' There it was, going further and further into the sea, till the cart was hidden by the billows. The donkey sank lower and lower every moment, till no part of it was seen but the ears; for the brown shawl was over its nose and mouth. Now the children began to bawl and to bellow! But no one halloed so loud as the little boy of four. His name was Merty. He feared that the donkey was drowned.... Two fishermen were in a boat far away. They said 'We hear howls and shrieks on the shore. Perhaps a boy or girl is drowning. Let us go and save him: So they rowed hard, and they soon came to the poor donkey, and saw its ears peeping out of the sea. The donkey was just going to sink when they lifted it up by the jaws, and seized the bridle and dragged it along. The children on the shore shouted aloud for joy. The donkey with the cart came safe to land. The poor creature was weak and dripping wet. The fishermen unbound its eyes, and said to the lady, 'We cannot think how this thing came to be over its eyes.' The lady said she wished she had not bound up its eyes, and she gave the shillings in her purse to the fishermen who had saved her donkey. Now every child knows that a donkey may change into a Fairy Prince: that is a truth of imagination. But to be polite and say nothing of the lady, every child knows that so donkey would be ass enough to behave as in this narrative. And the good parents who, throughout the later 18th century and the 19th, inflicted this stuff upon children, were sinning against the light. Perrault's Fairy Tales, and Madame D'Aulnoy's were to their hand in translations; "Le Cabinet des Fées", which includes these and M. Galland's "Arabian Nights" and many another collection of delectable stories, extends on my shelves to 41 volumes (the last volume appeared during the fury of the French Revolution!). The brothers Grimm published the first volume of their immortal tales in 1812, the second in 1814. A capital selection from them, charmingly rendered, was edited by our Edgar Taylor in 1823; and drew from Sir Walter Scott a letter of which some sentences are worth our pondering. He writes: There is also a sort of wild fairy interest in [these tales] which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good-boy stories which have been in later years composed for them. In the latter case their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks ... and the moral always consists in good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success. Truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred histories of Jemmy Goodchild. Few nowadays, I doubt, remember Gammer Grethel. She has been ousted by completer, maybe far better, translations of the Grimms' "Household Tales". But turning back, the other day, to the old volume for the old sake's sake (as we say in the West) I came on the Preface--no child troubles with a Preface--and on these wise words: Much might be urged against that too rigid and philosophic (we might rather say, unphilosophic) exclusion of works of fancy and fiction from the libraries of children which is advocated by some. Our imagination is surely as susceptible of improvement by exercise as our judgment or our memory. And that admirable sentence, Gentlemen, is the real text of my discourse to-day. I lay no sentimental stress upon Wordsworth's Ode and its doctrine that 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy.' It was, as you know, a favourite doctrine with our Platonists of the 17th century: and critics who trace back the Ode "Intimations of Immortality" to Henry Vaughan's Happy those early days, when I Shined in my Angel-infancy. might connect it with a dozen passages from authors of that century. Here is one from "Centuries of Meditations" by that poor Welsh parson, Thomas Traherne, whom I quoted to you the other day: Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born are the best unto this day, wherein I can see the Universe. By the Gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I remember them till now.... Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child. And here is another from John Earle's Character of 'A Child' in his "Microcosmography": His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember; and sighs to see what innocence he has out-liv'd. He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse: the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got Eternity without a burthen, and exchang'd but one Heaven for another. Bethinking me again of 'the small apple-eating urchin whom we know,' I suspect an amiable fallacy in all this: I doubt if when he scales an apple-bearing tree which is neither his own nor his papa's he does so under impulse of any conscious yearning back to Hierusalem, his happy home, Where trees for evermore bear fruit. At any rate, I have an orchard, and he has put up many excuses, but never yet that he was recollecting Sion. Still the doctrine holds affinity with the belief which I firmly hold and tried to explain to you with persuasion last term: that, boy or man, you and I, the microcosms, do--sensibly, half-sensibly, or insensibly--yearn, through what we feel to be best in us, to 'join up' with the greater harmony; that by poetry or religion or whatnot we have that within us which craves to be drawn out, 'e-ducated,' and linked up. Now the rule of the nursery in the last century rested on Original Sin, and consequently and quite logically tended not to educate, but to repress. There are no new fairy-tales of the days when your grandmothers wore crinolines--I know, for I have searched. Mothers and nurses taught the old ones; the Three Bears still found, one after another, that 'somebody has been sleeping in my bed'; Fatima continued to call 'Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?' the Wolf to show her teeth under her nightcap and snarl out (O, great moment!) 'All the better to eat you with, my dear.' But the Evangelicals held field. Those of our grandfathers and grandmothers who understood joy and must have had fairies for ministers--those of our grandmothers who played croquet through hoop with a bell and practised Cupid's own sport archery--those of our grandfathers who wore jolly peg-top trousers and Dundreary whiskers, and built the Crystal Palace and drove to the Derby in green-veiled top-hats with Dutch dolls stuck about the brim--_tot circa unum caput tumultuantes deos_--and those splendid uncles who used to descend on the old school in a shower of gold-- half-a-sovereign at the very least--all these should have trailed fairies with them in a cloud. But in practice the evangelical parent held the majority, put away all toys but Noah's Ark on Sundays, and voted the fairies down. I know not who converted the parents. It may have been that benefactor of Europe, Hans Christian Andersen, born at Odensee in Denmark in April 1805. He died, near Copenhagen, in 1875, having by a few months outlived his 70th birthday. I like to think that his genius, a continuing influence over a long generation, did more than anything else to convert the parents. The schools, always more royalist than the King, professionally bleak, professionally dull, professionally repressive rather than educative, held on to a tradition which, though it had to be on the sly, every intelligent mother and nurse had done her best to evade. The schools made a boy's life penitential on a system. They discovered athletics, as a safety-valve for high spirits they could not cope with, and promptly made that safety-valve compulsory! They went on to make athletics a religion. Now athletics are not properly a religious exercise, and their meaning evaporates as soon as you enlist them in the service of repression. They are being used to do the exact opposite of that for which God meant them. Things are better now: but in those times how many a boy, having long looked forward to it, rejoiced in his last day at school? I know surely enough what must be in your minds at this point: I am running up my head hard against the doctrine of Original Sin, against the doctrine that in dealing with a child you are dealing with a 'fallen nature,' with a human soul 'conceived in sin,' unregenerate except by repression; and therefore that repression and more repression _must_ be the only logical way with your Original Sinners. Well, then, I am. I have loved children all my life; studied them in the nursery, studied them for years--ten or twelve years intimately--in elementary schools. I know for a surety, if I have acquired any knowledge, that the child is a 'child of God' rather than a 'Child of wrath'; and here before you I proclaim that to connect in any child's mind the Book of Joshua with the Gospels, to make its Jehovah identical in that young mind with the Father of Mercy of whom Jesus was the Son, to confuse, as we do in any school in this land between 9.5 and 9.45 a.m., that bloodthirsty tribal deity whom the Hohenzollern family invokes with the true God the Father, is a blasphemous usage, and a curse. But let me get away to milder heresies. If you will concede for a moment that the better way with a child is to draw out, to _educate,_ rather than to repress, what is in him, let us observe what he instinctively wants. Now first, of course, he wants to eat and drink, and to run about. When he passes beyond these merely animal desires to what we may call the instinct of growth in his soul, how does he proceed? I think Mr Holmes, whom I have already quoted, very fairly sets out these desires as any grown-up person can perceive them. The child desires (1) to talk and to listen; (2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word); (3) to draw, paint and model; (4) to dance and sing; (5) to know the why of things (6) to construct things. Now I shall have something to say by and by on the amazing preponderance in this list of those instincts which Aristotle would have called _mimetic._ This morning I take only the least imitative of all, the desire to know the why of things. Surely you know, taking only this, that the master-key admitting a child to all, or almost all, palaces of knowledge is his ability to _read._ When he has grasped that key of his mother-tongue he can with perseverance unlock all doors to all the avenues of knowledge. More--he has the passport to heavens unguessed. You will perceive at once that what I mean here by 'reading' is the capacity for silent reading, taking a book apart and mastering it; and you will bear in mind the wonder that I preached to you in a previous lecture--that great literature never condescends, that what yonder boy in a corner reads of a king is happening to _him._ Do you suppose that in an elementary school one child in ten reads thus? Listen to a wise ex-inspector, whose words I can corroborate of experience: The first thing that strikes the visitor who enters an ordinary elementary school while a reading lesson is in progress is that the children are not reading at all, in the accepted sense of the word. They are not reading to themselves, not studying, not mastering the contents of the book, not assimilating the mental and spiritual nutriment that it may be supposed to contain. They are standing up one by one and reading aloud to their teacher. Ah! but I have seen far worse than that. I have visited and condemned rural schools where the practice was to stand a class up--- say a class of thirty children--and make them read in unison: which meant, of course, that the front row chanted out the lesson while the back rows made inarticulate noises. I well remember one such exhibition, in a remote country school on the Cornish hills, and having my attention arrested midway by the face of a girl in the third row. She was a strikingly beautiful child, with that combination of bright auburn, almost flaming, hair with dark eyebrows, dark eyelashes, dark eyes, which of itself arrests your gaze, being so rare; and those eyes seemed to challenge me half scornfully and ask, 'Are you really taken in by all this?' Well, I soon stopped the performance and required each child to read separately: whereupon it turned out that, in the upper standards of this school of 70 or 80 children, one only-- this disdainful girl--could get through half a dozen easy sentences with credit. She read well and intelligently, being accustomed to read to herself, at home. I daresay that this bad old method of block-reading is dead by this time. Reading aloud and _separately_ is excellent for several purposes. It tests capacity: it teaches correct pronunciation by practice, as well as the mastery of difficult words: it provides a good teacher with frequent opportunities of helping the child to understand what he reads. But as his schooling proceeds he should be accustomed more and more to read to himself: for that, I repeat, is the master-key. LECTURE IV CHILDREN'S READING (II) WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1917 I In our talk, Gentlemen, about Children's Reading we left off upon a list, drawn up by Mr Holmes in his book 'What Is, and What Might Be,' of the things that, apart from physical nourishment and exercise, a child instinctively desires. He desires (1) to talk and to listen; (2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word); (3) to draw, paint and model; (4) to dance and sing; (5) to know the why of things; (6) to construct things. Let us scan through this catalogue briefly, in its order. No. (1). _To talk and to listen_--Mr Holmes calls this _the communicative instinct._ Every child wants to talk with those about him, or at any rate with his chosen ones--his parents, brothers, sisters, nurse, governess, gardener, boot-boy (if he possess these last)--with other children, even if his dear papa is poor: to tell them what he has been doing, seeing, feeling: and to listen to what they have to tell him. Nos. (2), (3), (4). _To act_--our author calls this the 'dramatic instinct': _to draw, paint and model_--this the 'artistic instinct'--_to dance and sing_--this the 'musical instinct.' But obviously all these are what Aristotle would call 'mimetic' instincts: 'imitative' (in a sense I shall presently explain); even as No. (2)--acting--like No. (1)--talking and listening--comes of craving for sympathy. In fact, as we go on, you will see that these instincts overlap and are not strictly separable, though we separate them just now for convenience. No. (5). _To know the why of things_--the 'inquisitive instinct.' This, being the one which gives most trouble to parents, parsons, governesses, conventional schoolmasters--to all grown-up persons who pretend to know what they don't and are ashamed to tell what they do--is of course the most ruthlessly repressed. 'The time is come,' the Infant said, 'To talk of many things: Of babies, storks and cabbages And-- --having studied the Evangelists' Window facing the family pew-- And whether cows have wings.' The answer, in my experience, is invariably stern, and 'in the negative': in tolerant moments compromising on 'Wait, like a good boy, and see.' But we singled out this instinct and discussed it in our last lecture. No. (6). _To construct things_--the 'constructive instinct.' I quote Mr Holmes here: After analysis comes synthesis. The child pulls his toys to pieces in order that he may, if possible, reconstruct them. The ends that he sets before himself are those which Comte Set before the human race--_savoir pour prévoir, afin de pouvoir: induire pour déduire, afin de construire._ The desire to make things, to build things up, to control ways and means, to master the resources of nature, to put his knowledge of her laws and facts to practical use, is strong in his soul. Give him a box of bricks, and he will spend hours in building and rebuilding houses, churches.... Set him on a sandy shore with a spade and a pail, and he will spend hours in constructing fortified castles with deep encircling moats. Again obviously this constructive instinct overlaps with the imitative ones. Construction, for example, enters into the art of making mud-pies and has also been applied in the past to great poetry. If you don't keep a sharp eye in directing this instinct, it may conceivably end in an "Othello" or in a "Divina Commedia." II Without preaching on any of the others, however, I take three of the six instincts scheduled by Mr Holmes--the three which you will allow to be almost purely imitative. They are: Acting, Drawing, painting, modelling, Dancing and singing. Now let us turn to the very first page of Aristotle's "Poetics," and what do we read? Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and dithyrambic poetry, and the greater part of the music of the flute and of the lyre, are all, in general, modes of imitation.... For as their are persons who represent a number of things by colours and drawings, and others vocally, so it is with the arts above mentioned. They all imitate by rhythm, language, harmony, singly or combined. Even dancing (he goes on) imitates character, emotion and action, by rhythmical movement. Now, having touched on mud-pies, let me say a few words upon these aesthetic imitative instincts of acting, dancing, singing before I follow Aristotle into his explanation of the origin of Poetry, which I think we may agree to be the highest subject of our Art of Reading and to hold promise of its highest reward. Every wise mother sings or croons to her child and dances him on her knee. She does so by sure instinct, long before the small body can respond or his eyes--always blue at first and unfathomably aged--return her any answer. It lulls him into the long spells of sleep so necessary for his first growth. By and by, when he has found his legs, he begins to skip, and even before he has found articulate speech, to croon for himself. Pass a stage, and you find him importing speech, drama, dance, incantation, into his games with his playmates. Watch a cluster of children as they enact "Here we go gathering nuts in May"-- eloquent line: it is just what they are doing!--or "Here come three Dukes a-riding," or "Fetch a pail of water," or "Sally, Sally Waters": Sally, Sally Waters, Sitting in the sand, Rise, Sally--rise, Sally, For a young man. Suitor presented, accepted [I have noted, by the way, that this game is more popular with girls than with boys]; wedding ceremony hastily performed--so hastily, it were more descriptive to say 'taken for granted'--within the circle; the dancers, who join hands and resume the measure, chanting Now you are married, we wish you joy-- First a girl and then a boy --the order, I suspect, dictated by exigencies of rhyme rather than of Eugenics, as Dryden confessed that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. And yet I don't know; for the incantation goes on to redress the balance in a way that looks scientific: Ten years after, son and daughter, And now-- [Practically!] And now, Miss Sally, come out of the water. The players end by supplying the applause which, in these days of division of labour, is commonly left to the audience. III Well, there you have it all: acting, singing, dancing, choral movement--enlisted ancillary to the domestic drama: and, when you start collecting evidence of these imitative instincts blent in childhood the mass will soon amaze you and leave you no room to be surprised that many learned scholars, on the supposition that uncivilised man is a child more or less--and at least so much of child that one can argue through children's practice to his--have found the historical origin of Poetry itself in these primitive performances: 'communal poetry' as they call it. I propose to discuss with you (may be neat term) in a lecture not belonging to this 'course' the likelihood that what we call specifically 'the Ballad,' or 'Ballad Poetry,' originated thus. Here is a wider question. Did all Poetry develop out of this, historically, as a process in time and in fact? These scholars (among whom I will instance one of the most learned--Dr Gummere) hold that it did: and I may take a passage from Dr Gummere's "Beginnings of Poetry" (p. 95) to show you how they call in the practice of savage races to support their theory. The Botocudos of South America are-- according to Dr Paul Ehrenreich who has observed them[1]--an ungentlemanly tribe, 'very low in the social scale.' The Botocudos are little better than a leaderless horde, and pay scant respect to their chieftain; they live only for their immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the morrow, still less for the past. No traditions, no legends, are abroad to tell them of their forbears. They still use gestures to express feeling and ideas; while the number of words which imitate a given sound `is extraordinarily great' An action or an object is named by imitating the sound peculiar to it; and sounds are doubled to express greater intensity.... To speak is _aõ_; to speak loudly or to sing, is _aõ-aõ._ And now for their aesthetic life, their song, dance, poetry, as described by this accurate observer. 'On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night round the camp fire for a dance. Men and women alternating ... form a circle; each dancer lays his arms about the necks of his two neighbours, and the entire ring begins to turn to the right or to the left, while all the dancers stamp strongly and in rhythm the foot that is advanced, and drag after it the other foot. Now with drooping heads they press closer and closer together; now they widen the circle. Throughout the dance resounds a monotonous song to which they stamp their feet. Often one can hear nothing but a continually repeated _kalanî aha!_...Again, however, short improvised songs, in which we are told the doings of the day, the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as "Good hunting," or "Now we have something to eat," or "Brandy is good."' 'As to the aesthetic value' of these South American utterances, Dr Gummere asks in a footnote, 'how far is it inferior to the sonorous commonplaces of our own verse--say "The Psalm of Life?"' I really cannot answer that question. Which do you prefer, Gentlemen?--'Life is real, life is earnest,' or 'Now we have something to eat'? I must leave you to settle it with the Food Controller. The Professor goes on: 'Now and then, too, an individual begins a song, and is answered by the rest in chorus.... _They never sing without dancing, never dance without singing, and have but one word to express both song and dance._' As the unprejudiced reader sees [Dr Gummere proceeds] this clear and admirable account confirms the doctrine of early days revived with fresh ethnological evidence in the writings of Dr Brown and of Adam Smith, that dance, poetry and song were once a single and inseparable function, and is in itself fatal to the idea of rhythmic prose, of solitary recitation, as foundations of poetry.... All poetry is communal, holding fast to the rhythm of consent as to the one sure fact. IV Now I should tell you, Gentlemen, that I hold such utterances as this last--whatever you may think of the utterances of the Botocudos--to be exorbitant: that I distrust all attempts to build up (say) "Paradise Lost" historically from the yells and capers of recondite savages. 'Life is real, life is earnest' may be no better aesthetically (I myself think it a little better) than 'Now we have something to eat' 'Brandy is good' may rival Pindar's [Greek: Arioton men udor], and indeed puts what it contains of truth with more of finality, less of provocation (though Pindar at once follows up [Greek: Arioton men udor] with exquisite poetry): but you cannot--truly you cannot--exhibit the steps which lead up from 'Brandy is good' to such lines as Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine. I bend over the learned page pensively, and I seem to see a Botocudo Professor--though not high 'in the social scale,' they may have such things--visiting Cambridge on the last night of the Lent races and reporting of its inhabitants as follows: They pay scant heed to their chiefs: they live only for their immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the morrow. On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night round the camp fire for a dance. Each dancer lays his arms about the necks of his two neighbours, stamping strongly with one foot and dragging the other after it. Now with drooping heads they press closer and closer together; now they widen the circle. Often one can hear nothing but a continually repeated _kalanî aha,_ or again one hears short improvised songs in which we are told the doings of the day, the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as 'Good hunting,' 'Good old--'[naming a tribal God], or in former times '_Now_ we shall be but a short while,' or '_Woemma!_' Now and then, too, an individual begins a song and is answered by the rest in chorus--such as For he is an estimable person Beyond possibility of gainsaying. The chorus twice repeats this and asseverates that they are following a custom common to the flotilla, the expeditionary force, and even their rude seats of learning. And Dr Gummere, or somebody else, comments: 'As the unprejudiced reader will see, this clear and admirable account confirms our hypothesis that in communal celebration we have at once the origin and model of three poems, "The Faerie Queene," "Paradise Lost" and "In Memoriam," recorded as having been composed by members of this very tribe.' Although we have been talking of instincts, we are not concerned here with the steps by which the child, or the savage, following an instinct attains to _write_ poetry; but, more modestly, with the instinct by which the child _likes_ it, and the way in which he can be best encouraged to read and improve this natural liking. Nor are we even concerned here to define Poetry. It suffices our present purpose to consider Poetry as the sort of thing the poets write. But obviously if we find a philosopher discussing poetry without any reference to children, and independently basing it upon the very same imitative instincts which we have noted in children, we have some promise of being on the right track. V So I return to Aristotle. Aristotle (I shall in fairness say) does not anticipate Dr Gummere, to contradict or refute him; he may even be held to support him incidentally. But he sticks to business, and this is what he says ("Poetics," C. IV): Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, and these natural causes. First the instinct to imitate is implanted in man from his childhood, and in this he differs from other animals, being the most imitative of them all. Man gets his first learning through imitation, and all men delight in seeing things imitated. This is clearly shown by experience.... To imitate, then, being instinctive in our nature, so too we have an instinct for harmony and rhythm, metre being manifestly a species of rhythm: and man, being born to these instincts and little by little improving them, out of his early improvisations created Poetry. Combining these two instincts, with him, we arrive at _harmonious imitation._ Well and good. But what is it we imitate in poetry?-- noble things or mean things? After considering this, putting mean things aside as unworthy, and voting for the nobler--which must at the same time be true, since without truth there can be no real nobility--Aristotle has to ask `In what way true? True to ordinary life, with its observed defeats of the right by the wrong? or true, as again instinct tells good men it should be, _universally_?' So he arrives at his conclusion that a true thing is not necessarily truth of fact in a world where truth in fact is so often belied or made meaningless--not the record that Alcibiades went somewhere and suffered something--but truth to the Universal, the superior demand of our conscience. In such a way only we know that "The Tempest" or "Paradise Lost" or "The Ancient Mariner" or "Prometheus Unbound" can be truer than any police report. Yet we know that they are truer in essence, and in significance, since they appeal to eternal verities--since they imitate the Universal--whereas the police report chronicles (faithfully, as in duty bound, even usefully in its way) events which may, nay must, be significant somehow but cannot at best be better to us than phenomena, broken ends and shards. VI I return to the child. Clearly in obeying the instinct which I have tried to illustrate, he is searching to realise himself; and, as educators, we ought to help this effort--or, at least, not to hinder it. Further, if we agree with Aristotle, in this searching to realise himself through imitation, what will the child most nobly and naturally imitate? He will imitate what Aristotle calls 'the Universal,' the superior demand. And does not this bring us back to consent with what I have been preaching from the start in this course--that to realise ourselves in _What Is_ not only in degree transcends mere knowledge and activity, _What Knows_ and _What Does,_ but transcends it in kind? It is not only what the child unconsciously longs for: it is that for which (in St Paul's words) 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now'; craving for this (I make you the admission) as emotionally, as the heart may be thrilled, the breast surge, the eyes swell with tears, at a note drawn from the violin: feeling that somewhere, beyond reach, we have a lost sister, and she speaks to our soul. VII Who, that has been a child, has not felt this surprise of beauty, the revelation, the call of it? The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion ... --yes, or a rainbow on the spray against a cliff; or a vista of lawns between descending woods; or a vision of fish moving in a pool under the hazel's shadow? Who has not felt the small surcharged heart labouring with desire to express it? I preach to you that the base of all Literature, of all Poetry, of all Theology, is one, and stands on one rock: _the very highest Universal Truth is something so simple that a child may understand it._ This, surely, was in Jesus' mind when he said `I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' For as the Universe is one, so the individual human souls, that apprehend it, have no varying values intrinsically, but one equal value. They vary but in power to apprehend, and this may be more easily hindered than helped by the conceit begotten of finite knowledge. I shall even dare to quote of this Universal Truth, the words I once hardily put into the mouth of John Wesley concerning divine Love: 'I see now that if God's love reach up to every star and down to every poor soul on earth, it must be vastly simple; so simple that all dwellers on Earth may be assured of it--as all who have eyes may be assured of the planet shining yonder at the end of the street--and so vast that all bargaining is below it, and they may inherit it without considering their deserts.' I believe this to be strictly and equally true of the appeal which Poetry makes to each of us, child or man, in his degree. As Johnson said of Gray's "Elegy," it 'abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.' It exalts us through the best of us, by telling us something new yet not strange, something that we _recognise,_ something that we too have known, or surmised, but had never the delivering speech to tell. 'There is a pleasure in poetic pains,' says Wordsworth: but, Gentlemen, if you have never felt the travail, yet you have still to understand the bliss of deliverance. VIII If, then, you consent with me thus far in theory, let us now drive at practice. You have (we will say) a class of thirty or forty in front of you. We will assume that they know _a-b, ab,_ can at least spell out their words. You will choose a passage for them, and you will not (if you are wise) choose a passage from "Paradise Lost": your knowledge telling you that "Paradise Lost" was written, late in his life, by a great _virtuoso,_ and older men (of whom I, sad to say, am one) assuring you that to taste the Milton of "Paradise Lost" a man must have passed his thirtieth year. You take the early Milton: you read out this, for instance, from "L'Allegro": Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.... Go on: just read it to them. They won't know who Hebe was, but you can tell them later. The metre is taking hold of them (in my experience the metre of "L'Allegro" can be relied upon to grip children) and anyway they can see `Laughter holding both his sides': they recognise it as if they saw the picture. Go on steadily: Come, and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew-- Do not pause and explain what a Nymph is, or why Liberty is the 'Mountain Nymph'! Go on reading: the Prince has always to break through briers to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake. Go on with the incantation, calling him, persuading him, that he is the Prince and she is worth it. Go on reading-- Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreprovéd pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night, From his watch-towre in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise. At this point--still as you read without stopping to explain, the child certainly feels that he is being led to something. He knows the lark: but the lark's 'watch-towre'--he had never thought of that: and 'the dappled dawn'-yes that's just _it,_ now he comes to think: Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweet-briar or the vine Or the twisted eglantine; While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of Darkness thin; And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerily rouse the slumbering Morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill: Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedgerow elms on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state, Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman, near at hand, Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his sithe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Don't stop (I say) to explain that Hebe was (for once) the legitimate daughter of Zeus and, as such, had the privilege to draw wine for the gods. Don't even stop, just yet, to explain who the gods were. Don't discourse on amber, otherwise ambergris; don't explain that 'gris' in this connexion doesn't mean 'grease'; don't trace it through the Arabic into Noah's Ark; don't prove its electrical properties by tearing up paper into little bits and attracting them with the mouth-piece of your pipe rubbed on your sleeve. Don't insist philologically that when every shepherd 'tells his tale' he is not relating an anecdote but simply keeping tally of his flock. Just go on reading, as well as you can; and be sure that when the children get the thrill of it, for which you wait, they will be asking more questions, and pertinent ones, than you are able to answer. IX This advice, to be sure, presupposes of the teacher himself some capacity of reading aloud, and reading aloud is not taught in our schools. In our Elementary Schools, in which few of the pupils contemplate being called to Holy Orders or to the Bar, it is practised, indeed, but seldom taught as an art. In our Secondary and Public Schools it is neither taught nor practised: as I know to my cost--and you, to yours, Gentlemen, on whom I have had to practise. But let the teacher take courage. First let him read a passage 'at the long breath'--as the French say--aloud, and persuasively as he can. Now and then he may pause to indicate some particular beauty, repeating the line before he proceeds. But he should be sparing of these interruptions. When Laughter, for example, is already 'holding both his sides' it cannot be less than officious, a work of supererogation, to stop and hold them for him; and he who obeys the counsel of perfection will read straight to the end and then recur to particular beauties. Next let him put up a child to continue with the tale, and another and another, just as in a construing class. While the boy is reading, the teacher should _never_ interrupt: he should wait, and return afterwards upon a line that has been slurred or wrongly emphasised. When the children have done reading he should invite questions on any point they have found puzzling: it is with the operation of poetry on _their_ minds that his main business lies. Lastly, he may run back over significant points they have missed. 'And is that all the method?'-Yes, that is all the method. 'So simple as that?'-Yes, even so simple as that, and (I claim) even so wise, seeing that it just lets the author--Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton or Coleridge--have his own way with the young plant--just lets them drop 'like the gentle rain from heaven,' and soak in. The moving Moon went up the sky, And no where did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside. Do you really want to chat about _that_? Cannot you trust it? The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip-- Till clomb above the eastern bar The hornéd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip. _Must_ you tell them that for the Moon to hold a star anywhere within her circumference is an astronomical impossibility? Very well, then; tell it. But tell it afterwards, and put it away quietly. For the quality of Poetry is not strained. Let the rain soak; then use your hoe, and gently; and still trust Nature; by which, I again repeat to you, all spirit attracts all spirit as inevitably as all matter attracts all matter. 'Strained.' I am glad that memory flew just here to the word of Portia's: for it carries me on to a wise page of Dr Corson's, and a passage in which, protesting against the philologers who cram our children's handbooks with irrelevant information that but obscures what Chaucer or Shakespeare _mean,_ he breaks out in Chaucer's own words: Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde, And turnen substaunce into accident! (Yes, and make the accident the substance!)--as he insists that the true subject of literary study is the author's meaning; and the true method a surrender of the mind to that meaning, with what Wordsworth calls 'a wise passiveness': The eye--it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will. Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness. Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking? X I have been talking to-day about children; and find that most of the while I have been thinking, if but subconsciously, of poor children. Now, at the end, you may ask 'Why, lecturing here at Cambridge, is he preoccupied with poor children who leave school at fourteen and under, and thereafter read no poetry?'...Oh, yes! I know all about these children and the hopeless, wicked waste; these with a common living-room to read in, a father tired after his day's work, and (for parental encouragement) just the two words 'Get out!' A Scots domine writes in his log: I have discovered a girl with a sense of humour. I asked my qualifying class to draw a graph of the attendance at a village kirk. 'And you must explain away any rise or fall,' I said. Margaret Steel had a huge drop one Sunday, and her explanation was 'Special Collection for Missions.' Next Sunday the Congregation was abnormally large: Margaret wrote 'Change of Minister.'... Poor Margaret! When she is fourteen, she will go out into the fields, and in three years she will be an ignorant country bumpkin. And again: Robert Campbell (a favourite pupil) left the school to-day. He had reached the age-limit.... Truly it is like death: I stand by a new made grave, and I have no hope of a resurrection. Robert is dead. Precisely because I have lived on close terms with this, and the wicked waste of it, I appeal to you who are so much more fortunate than this Robert or this Margaret and will have far more to say in the world, to think of them--how many they are. I am not sentimentalising. When an Elementary Schoolmaster spreads himself and tells me he looks upon every child entering his school as a potential Lord Chancellor, I answer that, as I expect, so I should hope, to die before seeing the world a Woolsack. Jack cannot ordinarily be as good as his master; if he were, he would be a great deal better. You have given Robert a vote, however, and soon you will have to give it to Margaret. Can you not give them also, in their short years at school, something to sustain their souls in the long Valley of Humiliation? Do you remember this passage in "The Pilgrim's Progress"--as the pilgrims passed down that valley? Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a Boy feeding his Father's Sheep. The Boy was in very mean Cloaths, but of a very fresh and well-favoured Countenance, and as he sate by himself he Sung. Hark, said Mr Greatheart, to what the Shepherd's Boy saith. Well, it was a very pretty song, about Contentment. He that is down need fear no fall He that is low, no Pride: He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his Guide. But I care less for its subject than for the song. Though life condemn him to live it through in the Valley of Humiliation, I want to hear the Shepherd Boy singing. [Footnote 1: The reference given is _Zeitschr. f. Ethnologie_, XIX. 30 ff.] LECTURE V ON READING FOR EXAMINATIONS WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 1917 I You, Gentlemen, who so far have followed with patience this course of lectures, advertised, maybe too ambitiously, as 'On the Art of Reading,' will recall to your memory, when I challenge it across the intervals of Vacation, that three propositions have been pretty steadily held before you. The _first_: (bear me out) that, man's life being of the length it is, and his activities multifarious as they are, out of the mass of printed matter already loaded and still being shot upon this planet, he _must_ make selection. There is no other way. The _second_: that--the time and opportunity being so brief, the mass so enormous, and the selection therefore so difficult--he should select the books that are best for him, and take them _absolutely,_ not frittering his time upon books written about and around the best: that--in their order, of course--the primary masterpieces shall come first, and the secondary second, and so on; and mere chat about any of them last of all. My _third_ proposition (perhaps more discutable) has been that, the human soul's activities being separated, so far as we can separate them, into _What Does, What Knows, What Is_--to _be_ such-and-such a man ranks higher than either _knowing_ or _doing_ this, that, or the other: that it transcends all man's activity upon phenomena, even a Napoleon's: all his housed store of knowledge, though it be a Casaubon's or a Mark Pattison's: that only by learning to _be_ can we understand or reach, as we have an instinct to reach, to our right place in the scheme of things: and that, any way, all the greatest literature commands this instinct. To be Hamlet--to feel yourself Hamlet--is more important than killing a king or even knowing all there is to be known about a text. Now most of us have been Hamlet, more or less: while few of us, I trust, have ever murdered a monarch: and still fewer, perhaps, can hope to know all that is to be known of the text of the play. But for value, Gentlemen, let us not rank these three achievements by order of their rarity. Shakespeare means us to feel--to _be_--Hamlet. That is all: and from the play it is the best we can get. II Now in talking to you, last term, about children I had perforce to lay stress on the point that, with all this glut of literature, the mass of children in our commonwealth who leave school at fourteen go forth starving. But you are happier. You are happier, not in having your selection of reading in English done for you at school (for you have in the Public Schools scarce any such help): but happier (1) because the time of learning is so largely prolonged, and (2) because this most difficult office of sorting out from the mass what you should read as most profitable has been tentatively performed for you by us older men for your relief. For example, those of you-'if any,' as the Regulations say--who will, a week or two hence, be sitting for Section A of the Medieval and Modern Languages Tripos, have been spared, all along, the laborious business of choosing what you should read or read with particular attention for the good of your souls. Is Chaucer your author? Then you will have read (or ought to have read) "The Parlement of Fowls," the "Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales, "The Knight's Tale," "The Man of Law's Tale," "The Nun Priest's Tale," "The Doctor's Tale," "The Pardoner's Tale" with its Prologue, "The Friar's Tale." You were not dissuaded from reading "Troilus;" you were not forbidden to read all the Canterbury Tales, even the naughtiest; but the works that I have mentioned have been 'prescribed' for you. So, of Shakespeare, we do not discourage you (at all events, intentionally) from reading "Macbeth," "Othello," "As You Like It," "The Tempest," any play you wish. In other years we 'set' each of these in its turn. But for this Year of Grace we insist upon "King John," "The Merchant of Venice," "King Henry IV, Part I," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Hamlet," "King Lear," 'certain specified works'--and so on, with other courses of study. Why is this done? Be fair to us, Gentlemen. We do it not only to accommodate the burden to your backs, to avoid overtaxing one-and-a-half or two years of study; not merely to guide you that you do not dissipate your reading, that you shall --with us, at any rate--know where you are. We do it chiefly, and honestly--you likewise being honest--to give you each year, in each prescribed course, a sound nucleus of knowledge, out of which, later, your minds can reach to more. We are not, in the last instance, praiseworthy or blameworthy for your range. I think, perhaps, too little of a man's _range_ in his short while here between (say) nineteen and twenty-two. For anything I care, the kernel may be as small as you please. To plant it wholesome, for a while to tend it wholesome, then to show it the sky and that it is wide--not a hot-house, nor a brassy cupola over a man, but an atmosphere shining up league on league; to reach the moment of saying 'All this now is yours, if you have the perseverance as I have taught you the power, _coelum nactus es, hoc exorna_': this, even in our present Tripos, we endeavour to do. III All very well. But, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning asked, Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers? 'Yes,' I hear you ingeminate; 'but what about Examinations? We thank you, sirs, for thus relieving and guiding us: we acknowledge your excellent intentions. But in practice you hang up a bachelor's gown and hood on a pole, and right under and just in front of it you set the examination-barrier. For this in practice we run during three years or so, and to this all the time you are exhorting, directing us--whether you mean it or not, though we suspect that you cannot help yourselves.' Yes; and, as labouring swimmers will turn their eyes even to a little boat in the offing, I hear you pant 'This man at all events--always so insistent that good literature teaches _What Is_ rather than _What Knows_--will bring word that we may float on our backs, bathe, enjoy these waters and be refreshed, instead of striving through them competitive for a goal. He _must_ condemn literary examinations, nine-tenths of which treat Literature as matter of Knowledge merely.' IV I am sorry, Gentlemen: I cannot bring you so much of comfort as all that. I have a love of the past which, because it goes down to the roots, has sometimes been called Radicalism: I could never consent with Bacon's gibe at antiquity as _pessimum augurium,_ and Examinations have a very respectable antiquity. Indeed no University to my knowledge has ever been able in the long run to do without them: and although certain Colleges--King's College here, and New College at Oxford--for long persevered in the attempt, the result was not altogether happy, and in the end they have consigned with custom. Of course Universities have experimented with the _process._ Let me give you two or three ancient examples, which may help you to see (to vary Wordsworth) that though 'the Form decays, the function never dies.' (1) I begin with most ancient Bologna, famous for Civil Law. At Bologna the process of graduation--of admission to the _jus docendi,_ 'right to teach'--consisted of two parts, the Private Examination and the Public (_conventus_): The private Examination was the real test of competence, the so-called public Examination being in practice a mere ceremony. Before admission to each of these tests the candidate was presented by the Consiliarius of his Nation to the Rector for permission to enter it, and swore that he had complied with all the statutable conditions, that he would give no more than the statutable fees or entertainments to the Rector himself, the Doctor, or his fellow-students, and that he would obey the Rector. Within a period of eight days before the Examination the candidate was presented by 'his own' Doctor or by some other Doctor or by two Doctors to the Archdeacon, the presenting Doctor being required to have satisfied himself by private examination of his presentee's fitness. Early on the morning of the Examination, after attending a Mass of the Holy Ghost, the candidate appeared before the assembled College and was assigned by one of the Doctors present two passages (_puncta_) in the Civil or Canon Law as the case might be. He then retired to his house to study the passages, in doing which it would appear that he had the assistance of the presenting Doctor. Later in the day the Doctors were summoned to the Cathedral, or some other public building, by the Archdeacon, who presided over but took no active part in the ensuing examination. The candidate was then introduced to the Archdeacon and Doctors by the presenting Doctor or Promotor as he was styled. The Prior of the College then administered a number of oaths in which the candidate promised respect to that body and solemnly renounced all the rights of which the College had succeeded in robbing all Doctors of other Colleges not included in its ranks. The candidate then gave a lecture or exposition of the two prepared passages: after which he was examined upon them by two of the Doctors appointed by the College. Other Doctors might ask supplementary questions of Law (which they were required to swear that they had not previously communicated to the candidate) arising more indirectly out of the passages selected, or might suggest objections to the answers. With a tender regard for the feelings of their comrades at this 'rigorous and tremendous Examination' (as they style it) the Statutes required the Examiner to treat the examinee as _his own son._ But, knowing what we do of parental discipline in the Middle Ages, we need not take this to enjoin a weak excess of leniency. The Examination concluded, the votes of the Doctors present were taken by ballot and the candidate's fate determined by the majority, the decision being announced by the Archdeacon. (2) Let us pass to the great and famous University of Paris. At Paris In 1275, if not earlier, a preliminary test (or 'Responsions') was instituted to ascertain the fitness of those who wanted to take part in the public performance. At these 'Responsions' which took place in the December before the Lent in which the candidate was to determine, he had to dispute in Grammar and Logic with a Master. If this test was passed in a satisfactory manner, the candidate was admitted to the _Examen Baccalariandorum,_ Examination for the Baccalaureate, which was conducted by a board of Examiners appointed by each Nation for its own candidates. The duty of the Examiners was twofold, firstly to ascertain by inspecting the _schedules_ given by his Masters that the candidate had completed the necessary residence and attended Lectures in the prescribed subjects, and secondly to examine him in the contents of his books. If he passed this Examination, he was admitted to determine. Determination was a great day in the student's University life. It retained much of its primitive character of a student's festivity. It was not, it would seem, till the middle of the fifteenth century that the student's Master was required to be officially present at it. The Speech-day of a Public School if combined with considerably more than the license of the Oxford Encaenia or degree day here in May week would perhaps be the nearest modern equivalent of these medieval exhibitions of rising talent. Every effort was made to attract to the Schools as large an audience as possible, not merely of Masters or fellow-students, but if possible of ecclesiastical dignitaries and other distinguished persons. The friends of a Determiner who was not successful in drawing a more distinguished audience, would run out into the streets and forcibly drag chance passers-by into the School. Wine was provided at the Determiner's expense in the Schools: and the day ended in a feast [given in imitation of the Master's Inception-banquets], even if dancing or torch-light processions were forborne in deference to authority. I may add here in parenthesis that the thirstiness, always so remarkable in the medieval man whether it make him strange to you or help to ingratiate him as a human brother, seems to have followed him even into the Tripos. 'It was not only after a University exercise,' says the historian (Rashdall, Vol. II, p. 687), 'but during its progress that the need of refreshment was apt to be felt.... Many Statutes allude--some by way of prohibition, but not always--to the custom of providing wine for the Examiners or Temptator [good word] before, during, or after the Examination. At Heidelberg the Dean of the Faculty might order in drinks, the candidate not. At Leipsic the candidate is forbidden to treat [_facere propinam_] the Examiners _before_ the Examination: which seems sound. At Vienna (medical school) he is required to spend a florin "_pro confectionibus_".' V Now when we come to England--that is, to Oxford and Cambridge, which ever had queer ways of their own--we find, strange to say, for centuries no evidence at all of any kind of examination. As for _competitive_ examinations like the defunct Mathematical and Classical Triposes here--with Senior Wranglers, Wooden Spoons and what lay between--of all European Universities, Louvain alone used the system and may have invented it. At Louvain the candidates for the Mastership were placed in three classes, in each of which the names were arranged in order of merit. The first class were styled _Rigorosi_ (Honour-men), the second _Transibiles_ (Pass-men), the third _Gratiosi_ (Charity-passes); while a fourth class, not publicly announced, contained the names of those who could not be passed on any terms. '_Si autem (quod absit!),_' says the Statute, '_aliqui inveniantur refutabiles, erant de quarto ordine._' 'These competitive examinations'--I proceed in the historian's words--'contributed largely to raise Louvain to the high position as a place of learning and education which it retained before the Universities were roused from their 15th century torpor by the revival of Learning.' Pope Adrian VI was one of its famous _Primuses,_ and Jansen another. The College which produced a _Primus_ enjoyed three days' holiday, during which its bell was rung continuously day and night. At Oxford and Cambridge (I repeat) we find in their early days no trace of any examination at all. To be sure--and as perhaps you know--the first archives of this University were burned in the 'Town and Gown' riots of 1381 by the Townsmen, whose descendants Erasmus describes genially as 'combining the utmost rusticity with the utmost malevolence.' But no student will doubt that Cambridge used pretty much the same system as Oxford, and the system was this:--When a candidate presented himself before the Chancellor for a License in Arts, he had to swear that he had heard certain books[1], and nine Regent Masters (besides his own Master, who presented him) were required to depose to their knowledge (_de scientia_) of his sufficiency: and five others to their credence (_de credulitate_), says the Statute. Only in the School of Theology was no room allowed to credulity: there all the Masters had to depose 'of their knowledge,' and one black ball excluded. VI Well, you may urge that this method has a good deal to be said for it. I will go some way to meet you too: but first you must pay me the compliment of supposing me a just man. Being a just man, and there also being presumed in me some acquaintance with English Literature--not indeed much--not necessarily much--but enough to distinguish good writing from bad or, at any rate, real writing from sham, and at least to have an inkling of what these poets and prose-writers were trying to do--why then I declare to you that, after two years' reading with a man and talk with him about literature, I should have a far better sense of his industry, of his capacity, of his performance and (better) of his promise, than any examination is likely to yield me. In short I could sign him up for a first, second or third class, or as _refutabilis,_ with more accuracy and confidence than I could derive from taking him as a stranger and pondering his three or four days' performance in a Tripos. For some of the best men mature slowly: and some, if not most, of the best writers write slowly because they have a conscience; and the most original minds are just those for whom, in a _literary_ examination, it is hardest to set a paper. But the process (you will admit) might be invidious, might lend itself to misunderstanding, might conceivably even lead to re-imposition of an oath forbidding the use of a knife or other sharp implement. And among Colleges rivalry is not altogether unknown; and dons, if unlike other men in outward aspect, sometimes resemble them in frailty; and in short I am afraid we shall have to stick to the old system for a while longer. I am sorry, Gentlemen: but you see how it works. VII Yet--and I admit it--the main objection abides: that, while Literature deals with _What Is_ rather than with _What Knows,_ Examinations by their very nature test mere Knowledge rather than anything else: that in the hands of a second-rate examiner they tend to test knowledge alone, or what passes for knowledge: and that in the very run of this world most examiners will be second-rate men: which, if we remind ourselves that they receive the pay of fifth-rate ones is, after all, considerably better than we have a right to expect. We are dealing, mind you, with _English_ Literature--our own literature. In examining upon a foreign literature we can artfully lay our stress upon Knowledge and yet neither raise nor risk raising the fatal questions 'What is it all _about_?' 'What is it, and why is it _it_?'-since merely to translate literally a chorus of the "Agamemnon," or an ode of Pindar's, or a passage from Dante or Molière is a creditable performance; to translate either well is a considerable feat; and to translate either perfectly is what you can't do, and the examiner knows you can't do, and you know the examiner can't do, and the examiner knows you know he can't do. But when we come to a fine thing in our own language--to a stanza from Shelley's "Adonais" for instance: He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. what can you do with _that_? How can you examine on _that_? Well, yes, you can request the candidate, to 'Write a short note on the word _calumny_ above,' or ask 'From what is it derived?' 'What does he know of "Blackwood's Magazine?"' 'Can he quote any parallel allusion in Byron?' You can ask all that: but you are not getting within measurable distance of _it._ Your mind is not even moving on the right plane. Or let me turn back to some light and artless Elizabethan thing--say to the Oenone duet in Peele's "Arraignment of Paris": _Oenone._ Fair and fair and twice so fair, As fair as any may be: The fairest shepherd on our green, A love for any lady. _Paris_ Fair and fair and twice so fair, As fair as any may be: Thy love is fair for thee alone, And for no other lady. _Oenone._ My love is fair, my love is gay, As fresh as bin the flowers in May, And of my love my roundelay, My merry merry merry roundelay Concludes with Cupid's curse: They that do change old love for new, Pray gods they change for worse.... My love can pipe, my love can sing, My love can many a pretty thing, And of his lovely praises ring My merry merry merry roundelays 'Amen' to Cupid's curse: They that do change old love for new Pray gods they change for worse. _Ambo._ Fair and fair and twice so fair, As fair as any may be: The fairest shepherd on our green, A love for any lady.... How can anyone examine on _that_? How can anyone solemnly explain, in a hurry, answering one of five or six questions selected from a three hours' paper, just why and how that hits him? And yet, if it hit him not, he is lost. If even so simple a thing as that--a thing of silly sooth--do not hit him, he is all unfit to traffic with literature. VIII You see how delicate a business it is. Examination in Literature, being by its very nature so closely tied down to be a test of _Knowledge,_ can hardly, save when used by genius, with care, be any final test of that which is better than Knowledge, of that which is the crown of all scholarship, of _understanding._ But do not therefore lose heart, even in your reading for strict purposes of examination. Our talk is of reading. Let me fetch you some comfort from the sister and correlative, but harder, art of writing. I most potently believe that the very best writing, in verse or in prose, can only be produced in moments of high excitement, or rather (as I should put it) in those moments of still and solemn awe into which a noble excitement lifts a man. Let me speak only of prose, of which you may more cautiously allow this than of verse. I think of St Paul's glorious passage, as rendered in the Authorised Version, concluding the 15th chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. First, as you know, comes the long, swaying, scholastic, somewhat sophisticated argument about the evidence of resurrection; about the corn, 'that which thou sowest,' the vivification, the change in vivification, and the rest. All this, almost purely argumentative, should be read quietly, with none of the _bravura_ which your prize reader lavishes on it. The argument works up quietly--at once tensely and sinuously, but very quietly--to conviction. Then comes the hush; and then the authoritative voice speaking out of it, awful and slow, 'Behold, I shew you a mystery' ... and then, all the latent emotion of faith taking hold and lifting the man on its surge, 'For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible' ... and so, incorruption tolling down corruption, the trumpet smashes death underfoot in victory: until out of the midst of tumult, sounds the recall; sober, measured, claiming the purified heart back to discipline. 'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.' I think of that triumphant passage. I think of the sentences with which Isaak Walton ends his life of Donne. I think of the last pages of Motley's "Dutch Republic," with its eulogy on William the Silent so exquisitely closing: As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets. I think of two great prose passages in Thackeray's "Esmond"; of Landor's "Dream of Boccaccio" ... and so on: and I am sure that, in prose or in verse, the best that man can utter flows from him either in moments of high mental excitement or in the hush of that _Altitudo_ to which high excitement lifts him. But, first now, observe how all these passages--and they are the first I call to mind--rise like crests on a large bulk of a wave --St Paul's on a labouring argument about immortality; Motley's at the conclusion of a heavy task. Long campaigning brings the reward of Harry Esmond's return to Castlewood, long intrigue of the author's mind with his characters closes that febrile chapter in which Harry walks home to break the news of the death of the Duke of Hamilton--in the early morning through Kensington, where the newsboys are already shouting it: The world was going to its business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them.... So day and night pass away, and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of the courier now galloping on the north road to inform him, who was Earl of Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart, beating but a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent. And on top of this let me assure you that in writing, or learning to write, solid daily practice is the prescription and 'waiting upon inspiration' a lure. These crests only rise on the back of constant labour. Nine days, according to Homer, Leto travailed with Apollo: but he was Apollo, lord of Song. I _know_ this to be true of ordinary talent: but, supposing you all to be geniuses, I am almost as sure that it holds of genius. Listen to this: Napoleon I used to say that battles were won by the sudden flashing of an idea through the brain of a commander at a certain critical instant. The capacity for generating this sudden electric spark was military genius.... Napoleon seems always to have counted upon it, always to have believed that when the critical moment arrived the wild confusion of the battlefield would be illuminated for him by that burst of sudden flame. But if Napoleon had been ignorant of the prosaic business of his profession, _to which he attended more closely than any other commander,_ would these moments of supreme clearness have availed him, or would they have come to him at all? My author thinks not: and I am sure he is right. So, in writing, only out of long preparation can come the truly triumphant flash: and I ask you to push this analogy further, into the business of reading, even of reading for examination. You learn to discipline yourselves, you acquire the art of marshalling, of concentrating, driving your knowledge upon a point: and--for you are young--that point is by no means the final point. Say that it is only an examination, and silly at that. Still you have been learning the art, you have been training yourself to be, for a better purpose, effective. IX Yet, and when this has been granted, the crucial question abides and I must not shirk it 'you say that the highest literature deals with _What Is_ rather than with _What Knows._ It is all very fine to assure us that testing our knowledge _about_ Literature and _around_ Literature, and on this side or that side of Literature, is healthy for us in some oblique way: but can you examiners examine, or can you not, on Literature in what you call its own and proper category of _What Is_?' So I hear the question--the question which beats and has beaten, over and over again, good men trying to construct Schools of English in our Universities. With all sense of a responsibility, of a difficulty, that has lain on my mind for these five years, I answer, Gentlemen, 'Yes, we ought: yes, we can: and yes, we will.' But, for the achievement, we teachers must first know how to teach. When that is learned, Examination will come as a consequent, easy, almost trivial matter. I will, for example-- having already allowed how _hard_ it is to examine on literature --take the difficulty at its very extreme. I will select a piece of poetry, and the poet shall be Keats--on whom, if on any one, is felt the temptation to write gush and loose aesthetic chatter. A pupil comes to read with me, and I open at the famous "Ode to a Grecian Urn." (1) We read it through together, perhaps twice; at the second attempt getting the emphasis right, and some, at any rate, of the modulations of voice. So we reach a working idea of the Ode and what Keats meant it to be. (2) We then compare it with his other Odes, and observe that it is (a) regular in stanza form, (b) in spite of its outburst in the 3rd stanza--'More happy love! more happy, happy love' etc.-- much severer in tone than, e.g., the "Ode to a Nightingale" or the "Ode to Psyche," (c) that the emotion is not luscious, but simple, (d) that this simplicity is Hellenic, so far as Keats can compass it, and (e) eminently well-suited to its subject, which is a carven urn, gracious but severe of outline; a moment of joy caught by the sculptor and arrested, for time to perpetuate; yet --and this is the point of the Ode--conveying a sense that innocent gaiety is not only its own excuse, but of human things one of the few eternal--and eternal just because it is joyous and fleeting. (3) Then we go back and compare this kind of quiet immortal beauty with the passionate immortality hymned in the "Nightingale Ode" Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down... with all the rest of that supreme stanza: from which (with some passages my reading supplies to illustrate the difference) we fall to contrasting the vibrating thrill of the "Nightingale" with the happy grace of the "Grecian Urn" and, allowing each to be appropriate, dispute for a while, perhaps, over the merits of classical calm and romantic thrill. (4) From this we proceed to examine the Ode in detail line by line: which examination brings up a whole crowd of questions, such as (a) We have a thought enounced in the first stanza. Does the Ode go on to develop and amplify it, as an Ode should? Or does Pegasus come down again and again on the prints from which he took off? If he do this, and the action of the Ode be dead and unprogressive, is the defect covered by beauty of language? Can such defect ever be so covered? (b) Lines 15 and 16 anticipate lines 21-24, which are saying the same thing and getting no forwarder. (c) We come to the lines What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? with the answering lines And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. and we note Sir Sidney Colvin's suggestion that this breaks in upon an arrest of art as though it were an arrest on reality: and remember that he raised a somewhat similar question over "The Nightingale"; and comparing them, discuss truth of emotion against truth of reality. We come to the last stanza and lament 'O Attic shape! Fair attitude' for its jingle: but note how the poet recovers himself and brings the whole to a grand close. I have, even yet, mentioned but a few of the points. For one, I have omitted its most beautiful vowel-play, on which teacher and pupil can dwell and learn together. And heaven forbid that as a teacher I should _insist_ even on half of those I have indicated. A teacher, as I hold, should watch for what his pupil divines of his own accord; but if, trafficking with works of inspiration, he have no gift to catch that inspiration nor power to pass it on, then I say 'Heaven help him! but he has no valid right on earth to be in the business.' And if a teacher have all these chances of teaching--mind you, of _accurate_ teaching--supplied him by a single Ode of Keats, do you suppose we cannot set in an Examination paper one intelligent question upon it, in its own lawful category? Gentlemen, with the most scrupulous tenderness for aged and even decrepit interests, we have been trying to liberate you from certain old bad superstitions and silently laying the stones of a new School of English, which we believe to be worthy even of Cambridge. Our proposals are before the University. Should they be passed, still everything will depend on the loyalty of its teachers to the idea; and on that enthusiasm which I suppose to be the nurse of all studies and know to be the authentic cherishing nurse of ours. We may even have conceded too much to the letter, but we have built and built our trust on the spirit 'which maketh alive.' [Footnote 1: Why had he to swear this under pain of excommunication, when the lecturer could so easily keep a roll-call? But the amount of oathtaking in a medieval University was prodigious. Even College servants were put on oath for their duties: Gyps invited their own damnation, bed-makers kissed the book. Abroad, where examinations were held, the Examiner swore not to take a bribe, the Candidate neither to give one, nor, if unsuccessful, to take his vengeance on the Examiner with a knife or other sharp instrument. At New College, Oxford, the matriculating undergraduate was required to swear in particular not to dance in the College Chapel.] LECTURE VI ON A SCHOOL OF ENGLISH WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1917 I It is now, Gentlemen, five years less a term since, feeling (as they say of other offenders) my position acutely, I had the honour of reading an Inaugural before this University and the impudence to loose, in the course of it, a light shaft against a phrase in the very Ordinance defining the duties of this Chair. 'It shall be the duty of the Professor,' says the Ordinance, 'to deliver courses of lectures on English Literature from the age of Chaucer onwards, and otherwise to promote, so far as may be in his power, the study in the University of the subject of English Literature.' That was the phrase at which I glanced--'the subject of English Literature'; and I propose that we start to-day, for reasons that will appear, by subjecting this subject to some examination. II 'The _Subject_ of English Literature.' Surely--for a start--there is no such thing; or rather, may we not say that everything is, has been or can be, a subject of English Literature? Man's loss of Paradise has been a subject of English Literature, and so has been a Copper Coinage in Ireland, and so has been Roast Sucking-pig, and so has been Holy Dying, and so has been Mr Pepys's somewhat unholy living, and so have been Ecclesiastical Polity, The Grail, Angling for Chub, The Wealth of Nations, The Sublime and the Beautiful, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Prize-Fights, Grecian Urns, Modern Painters, Intimations of Immortality in early Childhood, Travels with a Donkey, Rural Rides and Rejected Addresses--_all_ these have been subjects of English Literature: as have been human complots and intrigues as wide asunder as "Othello" and "The School for Scandal"; persons as different as Prometheus and Dr Johnson, Imogen and Moll Flanders, Piers the Plowman and Mr Pickwick; places as different as Utopia and Cranford, Laputa and Reading Gaol. "Epipsychidion" is literature: but so is "A Tale of a Tub." Listen, for this is literature: If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion, in north, and south, so that he hath winter and summer together in his dominions, so large an extent east and west as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgement together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons[1]. But listen again, for this also is literature: A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness: A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly: A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part. Here again is literature: When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth ... The reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. [BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.] Of a bridal, this is literature: Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in! But so also is Suckling's account of a wedding that begins I tell thee, Dick, where I have been. This is literature: And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; As rivers of water in a dry place, As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. But so is this literature: One circle cannot touch another circle on the outside at more points than one. For, if it be possible, let the circle ACK touch the circle ABC at the points A, C. Join AC. Then because the two points A, C are in the circumference of the circle ACK the line which joins them falls within that circle. But the circle ACK is without the circle ABC. Therefore the straight line AC is without the circle ABC. But because the two points A, C are in the circumference of ABC therefore the straight line AC falls within that circle. _Which is absurd._ Therefore one circle cannot touch another on the outside at more points than one. All thoughts, as well as all passions, all delights _votum, timor, ira, voluptas_-- whatsoever, in short, engages man's activity of soul or body, may be deemed the subject of literature and is transformed into literature by process of recording it in memorable speech. It is so, it has been so, and God forbid it should ever not be so! III Now this, put so, is (you will say) so extremely, obvious that it must needs hide a fallacy or at best a quibble on a word. I shall try to show that it does not: that it directly opposes plain truth to a convention accepted by the Ordinance, and that the fallacy lies in that convention. A convention may be defined as something which a number of men have agreed to accept in lieu of the truth and to pass off for the truth upon others: I was about to add, preferably when they can catch them young: but some recent travel in railway trains and listening to the kind of stuff men of mature years deliver straight out of newspapers for the products of their own digested thought have persuaded me that the ordinary man is as susceptible at fifty, sixty, or even seventy as at any earlier period of growth, and that the process of incubation is scarcely less rapid. I am not, to be sure, concerned to deny that there may be conventions useful enough to society, serving it to maintain government, order, public and private decency, or the commerce on which it must needs rest to be a civilised society at all-- commerce of food, commerce of clothing, and so on, up to commerce in knowledge and ideas. Government itself--any form of it--is a convention; marriage is a convention; money of course is a convention, and the alphabet itself I suppose to contain as many conventions as all the old Courts of Love and Laws of Chivalry put together, and our English alphabet one tremendous fallacy, that twenty-six letters, separately or in combination are capable of symbolising all the sounds produced by an Englishman's organs of speech, let alone the sounds he hears from foreigners, dogs, guns, steam-engines, motor-horns and other friends and enemies to whom we deny the franchise. Also of course it ignores the whole system of musical notes--another convention--which yet with many of the older bards could hardly be separated from the words they used, though now only the words survive and as literature. IV But every convention has a fallacy somewhere at the root; whether it be useful and operative, as many a legal fiction is operative, for good; or senile, past service yet tyrannous by custom, and so pernicious; or merely foolish, as certain artistic conventions are traceable, when a Ruskin comes to judgment, back to nothing better than folly: and it becomes men of honest mind, in dealing with anything recognisable as a convention, to examine its accepted fallacy, whether it be well understood or ill understood; beneficent or pernicious or merely foolish or both foolish and pernicious: and this is often most handily done by tracing its history. Now I shall assume that the framers of the Ordinance regulating the duties of this Chair knew well enough, of their own reading, that English Literature deals with a vast variety of subjects: and that, if any piece of writing miss to deal with its particular subject, so closely that theme and treatment can scarcely be separated, by so much will it be faulty as literature. Milton is fairly possessed with the story of Man's fall, Boswell possessed with Johnson, Shelley with hatred of tyranny in all its manifestations, Mill again with the idea of Liberty: and it is only because we had knowledge presented to us at an age when we thought more attentively of apples, that we still fail to recognise in Euclid and Dr Todhunter two writers who are excellent because possessed with a passion for Geometry. I infer, then, that the framers of the Ordinance, when they employed this phrase 'the study of the subject of English Literature,' knew well enough that no such thing existed in nature, but adopted the convention that English Literature could be separated somehow from its content and treated as a subject all by itself, for teaching purposes: and, for purposes of examination, could be yoked up with another subject called English Language, as other Universities had yoked it. V I believe the following to be a fair account of how these examinations in English Language and Literature came to pass, and how a certain kind of student came to pass these Examinations. At any rate since the small revolution has happened in my life-time and most of it since I was able to observe, the account here is drawn from my own observation and may be checked and corrected by yours. Thirty-five or forty years ago--say in the late seventies or early eighties--some preparatory schools, and others that taught older boys but ranked below the great Public Schools in repute, taught so much of English Literature as might be comprised, at a rough calculation, in two or three plays of Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Aldis Wright; a few of Bacon's Essays, Milton's early poems, Stopford Brooke's little primer, a book of extracts for committal to memory, with perhaps Chaucer's "Prologue" and a Speech of Burke. In the great Public Schools _no_ English Literature was studied, save in those which had invented 'Modern Sides,' to prepare boys specially for Woolwich or Sandhurst or the Indian Civil Service; for entrance to which examinations were held on certain prescribed English Classics, and marks mainly given for acquaintance with the editors' notes. In the Universities, the study of English Classics was not officially recognised at all. Let us not hastily suppose that this neglect of English rested wholly on unreason, or had nothing to say for itself. Teachers and tutors of the old Classical Education (as it was called) could plead as follows: 'In the first place,' they would say, 'English Literature is too _easy_ a study. Our youth, at School or University, starts on his native classics with a liability which in any foreign language he has painfully to acquire. The voices that murmured around his cradle, the voice of his nurse, of his governess, of the parson on Sundays; the voices of village boys, stablemen, gamekeepers and farmers--friendly or unfriendly--of callers, acquaintances, of the children he met at Children's Parties; the voices that at the dinner-table poured politics or local gossip into the little pitcher with long ears--all these were English voices speaking in English: and all these were all the while insensibly leading him up the slope from the summit of which he can survey the promised land spread at his feet as a wide park; and he holds the key of the gates, to enter and take possession. Whereas,' the old instructors would continue, 'with the classics of any foreign language we take him at the foot of the steep ascent, spread a table before him (_mensa, mensa, mensam_ ...) and coax or drive him up with variations upon amo, "I love" or [Greek: tupto], "I beat," until he, too, reaches the summit and beholds the landscape: But O, what labour! O Prince, what pain!' Now so much of truth, Gentlemen, as this plea contains was admitted last term by your Senate, in separating the English Tripos, in which a certain linguistic familiarity may be not rashly presumed of the student, from the Foreign Language Triposes, divided into two parts, of which the first will more suspiciously test his capacity to construe the books he professes to have studied. I may return to this and to the alleged _easiness_ of studies in a School of English. Let us proceed just now with the reasoned plea for neglect. These admirable old schoolmasters and dons would have hesitated, maybe, to say flatly with Dogberry that 'to write and read comes by nature ... and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity.' But in practice their system so worked, and in some of the Public Schools so works to this day. Let me tell you that just before the war an undergraduate came to me from the Sixth Form of one of the best reputed among these great schools. He wished to learn to write. He wished (poor fellow) to write me an essay, if I would set him a subject. He had never written an essay at school. 'Indeed,' said I, 'and there is no reason why you should, if by "essay" you mean some little treatise about "Patriotism" or "A Day in the Country." I will choose you no such subject nor any other upon any book which you have never read. Tell me, what is your Tripos?' He said 'the History Tripos.' 'Then,' said I, 'since History provides quite a large number of themes, choose one and I will try to correct your treatment of it, without offence to your opinions or prejudice to your facts.' 'But,' he confessed, 'at So-and-so'--naming the great Public School--'we never _wrote_ out an account of anything, or set down our opinions on anything, to be corrected. We just construed and did sums: And when he brought me his first attempt, behold, it was so. He could not construct a simple sentence, let alone putting two sentences together; while, as for a paragraph, it lay beyond his farthest horizon. In short, here was an instance ready to hand for any cheap writer engaged to decry the old Classical Education. What would the old schoolmasters plead in excuse? Why this, as I suggest--'You cite an extreme instance. But, while granting English Literature to be great, we would point out that an overwhelming majority of our best writers have modelled their prose and verse upon the Greek and Roman classics, either directly or through tradition. Now we have our own language _gratis,_ so to speak. Let us spend our pains, then, in acquiring Latin and Greek, and the tradition. So shall we most intimately enjoy our own authors; and so, if we wish to write, we shall have at hand the clues they followed, the models they used.' Now I have as you know, Gentlemen, a certain sympathy with this plea, or with a part of it: nor can so much of truth as its argument contains be silenced by a 'What about Shakespeare?' or a 'What about Bunyan?' or a 'What about Burns?' I believe our imaginary pleader for the Classics could put up a stout defence upon any of those names. To choose the forlornest hope of the three, I can hear him demonstrating, to his own satisfaction if not to yours, that Bunyan took his style straight out of the Authorised Version of our Bible; which is to say that he took it from the styles of forty-seven scholars, _plus_ Tyndale's, _plus_ Coverdale's, _plus_ Cranmer's--the scholarship of fifty scholars expressed and blended. But, as a theory, the strict classical argument gives itself away, as well by its intolerance as by its obvious distrust of the genius of our own wonderful language. I have in these five years, and from this place, Gentlemen, counselled you to seek back ever to those Mediterranean sources which are the well-heads of our civilisation: but always (I hope) on the understanding that you use them with a large liberty. They are effete for us unless we add and mingle freely the juice of our own natural _genius._ And in practice the strict classical theory, with its implied contempt of English, has been disastrous: disastrous not only with the ordinary man--as with my Sixth Form boy who could not put two sentences together, and had read no English authors; but disastrous even to highly eminent scholars. Listen, pray, to this passage from one of them, Frederick Paley, who condescended (Heaven knows why) to turn the majestic verse of Pindar into English Prose-- _From the VIIIth Isthmian:_ And now that we are returned from great sorrows, let us not fall into a dearth of victories, nor foster griefs; but as we have ceased from our tiresome troubles, we will publicly indulge in a sweet roundelay. _From the IVth Pythian:_ It had been divinely predicted to Pelias, that he should die by the doughty sons of Aeolus and an alarming oracle had come to his wary mind, delivered at the central point of tree-clad mother-earth, 'that he must by all means hold in great caution the man with one shoe, when he shall have come from a homestead on the hills.' And he accordingly came in due time, armed with two spears, a magnificent man. The dress he wore was of a double kind, the national costume of the Magnesians.... Nor as yet had the glossy clusters of his hair been clipped away, but dangled brightly adown his back. Forward he went at once and took his stand among the people.... Him then they failed to recognise: but some of the reverent-minded went so far as to say, 'Surely this cannot be Apollo!' It needs no comment, I think. Surely _this_ cannot be Apollo! Frederick Paley flourished--if the word be not exorbitant for so demure a writer--in the middle of the last century (he was born in the year of Waterloo and died in the year after Queen Victoria's first jubilee). Well, in that period there grew up a race of pioneers who saw that English Literature--that proud park and rolling estate--lay a tangled, neglected wilderness for its inheritors, and set themselves bravely to clear broad ways through it. Furnivall and Skeat, Aldis Wright, Clark, Grosart, Arber, Earle, Hales, Morris, Ellis and the rest--who can rehearse these names now but in deepest respect? Oh, believe me, Gentlemen! they were wonderful fighters in a cause that at first seemed hopeless. If I presume to speak of foibles to-day, you will understand that I do so because, lightly though I may talk to you at times, I have a real sense of the responsibilities of this Chair. I worship great learning, which they had: I loathe flippant detraction of what is great; I have usually a heart for men-against-odds and the unpopular cause. But these very valiant fighters had, one and all, some very obvious foibles: and because, in the hour of success, these foibles came to infect the whole teaching of English in this country, and to infect it fatally for many years, I shall dare to point them out. VI (a) To begin with, then, these valiant fighters, intent on pushing their cause to the front, kept no sense of proportion. All their geese were swans, and "Beowulf" a second "Iliad." I think it scarcely too much to say that, of these men, all so staunch in fighting for the claims of English Literature, not one (with the exception of Dr Hales) appears to have had any critical judgment whatever, apart from the rhyme, verse and inflectional tests on which they bestowed their truly priceless industry. Criticism, as Sainte-Beuve, Matthew Arnold or Pater understood and practised it, they merely misprized. (b) I think it was of true scholarly desire to vindicate English Literature from the charge of being 'too easy,' that--as their studies advanced--they laid more and more stress on Middle-English and Old English writings than on what our nations of England and Scotland have written since they learned to write. I dare to think also that we may attribute to this dread of 'easiness' their practice of cumbering simple texts with philological notes; on which, rather than on the text, we unhappy students were carefully examined. For an example supplied to Dr Corson--I take those three lines of Cowper's "Task" (Bk I, 86-88): Thus first necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury th' accomplish'd SOFA last. Now in these three lines the word '_accomplish'd_' is the only one that needs even the smallest explanation. 'But,' says Dr Corson, 'in two different editions of "The Task" in my library, prepared for the use of the young, no explanation is given of it, but in both the Arabic origin of 'sofa' is given. In one the question is asked what other words in English have been derived from the Arabic.' ('Abracadabra' would be my little contribution.) (c) These valiant fighters--having to extol what Europe had, wrongly enough, forgotten to count among valuable things--turned aggressively provincial, parted their beards in the Anglo-Saxon fashion; composed long sentences painfully innocent of any word not derivable from Anglo-Saxon, sentences in which the 'impenetrability of matter' became the 'un-go-throughsomeness of stuff (but that may have happened in a parody), and in general comported themselves like the Anglo-Saxons they claimed for their forbears; rightly enough for anything anyone cared, but wrongly enough for the rest of us who had no yearning toward that kinship and went on spelling Alfred with an A. (d) They were--I suppose through opposition--extremely irascible men; like farmers. Urbanity was the last note in their gamut, the City--_urbs quam dicunt Romam_--the last of places in their ken. There was no engaging them in dialectic, an Athenian art which they frankly despised. If you happened to disagree with them, their answer was a sturdy Anglo-Saxon brick. If you politely asked your way to Puddlehampton, and to be directed to Puddlehampton's main objects of interest, the answer you would get (see "Notes and Queries" _passim_) would be, 'Who is this that comes out of Nowhere, enquiring for Puddlehampton, unacquainted with Stubbs? Is it possible at this time of day that the world can contain anyone ignorant of the published Transactions of the Wiltshire Walking Club, Vol. III, p. 159--"Puddlehampton, its Rise and Decline, with a note on Vespasian?"' (e) These pioneers--pushing the importance of English, but occupied more and more with origins and with bad authors, simply could not see the vital truth; that English Literature is a continuing thing, ten times more alive to-day than it was in the times they studied and belauded. The last word upon them is that not a man of them could write prose in the language they thrust on our study. To them, far more than to the old classical scholars, English was a shut book: a large book, but closed and clasped, material to heighten a desk for schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. But schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, like chickens and curses, come home to roost. Once set up your plea for a Tripos of English Language and Literature on the lower plea that it will provide for what _they_ call a 'felt want,' and sooner or later you give English Language and Literature into _their_ hands, and then you get the fallacy full-flowered into a convention. English Literature henceforth is a 'subject,' divorced from life: and what they have made of it, let a thousand handbooks and so-called histories attest. But this world is not a wilderness of class-rooms. English Language? They cannot write it, at all events. They do not (so far as I can discover) try to write it. They talk and write about it; how the poor deceased thing outgrew infantile ailments, how it was operated on for _umlaut,_ how it parted with its vermiform appendix and its inflexions one by one, and lost its vowel endings in muted e's. And they went and told the sexton, And the sexton toll'd the bell. But when it comes to _writing_; to keeping bright the noble weapon of English, testing its poise and edge, feeling the grip, handing it to their pupils with the word, 'Here is the sword of your fathers, that has cloven dragons. So use it, that we who have kept it bright may be proud of you, and of our pains, and of its continuing valiance':--why, as I say, they do not even _try._ Our unprofessional forefathers, when they put pen to paper, did attempt English prose, and not seldom achieved it. But take up any elaborate History of English Literature and read, and, as you read, ask yourselves, 'How can one of the rarest delights of life be converted into _this_? What has happened to merry Chaucer, rare Ben Jonson, gay Steele and Prior, to Goldsmith, Jane Austen, Charles Lamb?' All, all are gone, the old familiar faces! gone into the professional stock-pot! And the next news is that these cooks, of whom Chaucer wrote prophetically Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde, And turnen substaunce into accident! have formed themselves into professional Associations to protect 'the study of the subject of English Literature' and bark off any intruder who would teach in another way than theirs. VII But I say to you that Literature is not, and should not be, the preserve of any priesthood. To write English, so as to make Literature, may be _hard._ But English Literature is _not_ a mystery, _not_ a Professors' Kitchen. And the trouble lies, not in the harm professionising does to schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, but in the harm it does 'in widest commonalty spread' among men and women who, as Literature was written for them, addressed to them, ought to find in it, all their lives through, a retirement from mean occupations, a well of refreshment, sustainment in the daily drudgery of life, solace in calamity, an inmate by the hearth, ever sociable, never intrusive--to be sought and found, to be found and dropped at will: Men, when their affairs require, Must themselves at whiles retire; Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk, And not ever sit and talk-- to be dropped at will and left without any answering growl of moroseness; to be consulted again at will and found friendly. For this is the trouble of _professionising_ Literature. We exile it from the business of life, in which it would ever be at our shoulder, to befriend us. Listen, for example, to an extract from a letter written, a couple of weeks ago, by somebody in the Charity Commission: Sir, With reference to previous correspondence in this matter, I am to say that in all the circumstances of this case the Commissioners are of the opinion that it would be desirable that a public enquiry in connection with the Charity should be held in the locality. And the man--very likely an educated man--having written _that,_ very likely went home and read Chaucer, Dante, or Shakespeare, or Burke for pleasure! That is what happens when you treat literature as a 'subject,' separable from life and daily practice. VIII I declare to you that Literature was _not_ written for schoolmasters, nor for schoolmistresses. I would not exchange it for a wilderness of schoolmasters. It should be delivered from them, who, with their silly _Ablauts_ and 'tendencies,' can themselves neither read nor write. For the proof? Having the world's quintessential store of mirth and sharp sorrow, wit, humour, comfort, farce, comedy, tragedy, satire; the glories of our birth and state, piled all at their elbows, only one man of the crowd--and he M. Jusserand, a Frenchman--has contrived to draw out of the mass one interesting well-written history of the 'subject.' IX Is there, then, no better way? Yes there is a better way: for the French have it, with their language and literature. In France, as Matthew Arnold noted, a generation ago, the ordinary journey-man work of literature is done far better and more conscientiously than with us. In France a man feels it almost a personal stain, an unpatriotic _lâche,_ to write even on a police-order anything so derogatory to the tradition of his language as our Cabinet Ministers read out as answers to our House of Commons. I am told that many a Maire in a small provincial town in N.E. France, even when overwhelmed--_accablé_--with the sufferings of his town-folk, has truly felt the iron enter into his soul on being forced to sign a document written out for him in the invaders' French. Cannot we treat our noble inheritance of literature and language as scrupulously, and with as high a sense of their appertaining to our national honour, as a Frenchman cherishes _his_ language, _his_ literature? Cannot we study to leave our inheritance---as the old Athenian put it temperately, 'not worse but a little better than we found it'? I think we can, and should. I shall close to-day, Gentlemen, with the most modest of perorations. In my first lecture before you, in January 1913, I quoted to you the artist in "Don Quixote" who, being asked what animal he was painting, answered diffidently 'That is as it may turn out.' The teaching of our language and literature is, after all, a new thing and still experimental. The main tenets of those who, aware of this, have worked on the scheme for a School of English in Cambridge, the scheme recently passed by your Senate and henceforth to be in operation, are three:-- _The first._ That literature cannot be divorced from life: that (for example) you cannot understand Chaucer aright, unless you have the background, unless you know the kind of men for whom Chaucer wrote and the kind of men whom he made speak; that is the _national_ side with which all our literature is concerned. _The second._ Literature being so personal a thing, you cannot understand it until you have some personal under-standing of the men who wrote it. Donne is Donne; Swift, Swift; Pope, Pope; Johnson, Johnson; Goldsmith, Goldsmith; Charles Lamb, Charles Lamb; Carlyle, Carlyle. Until you have grasped those men, as men, you cannot grasp their writings. That is the _personal_ side of literary study, and as necessary as the other. _The third._ That the writing and speaking of English is a living art, to be practised and (if it may be) improved. That what these great men have done is to hand us a grand patrimony; that they lived to support us through the trial we are now enduring, and to carry us through to great days to come. So shall our sons, now fighting in France, have a language ready for the land they shall recreate and repeople. [Footnote 1: Donne's _Sermon II preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day, in the Evening._ 1624.] LECTURE VII THE VALUE OF GREEK AND LATIN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1918 I I have promised you, Gentlemen, for to-day some observations on _The Value of Greek and Latin in English Literature_: a mild, academic title, a _camouflage_ title, so to say; calculated to shelter us for a while from the vigilance of those hot-eyed reformers who, had I advertised _The Value of Greek and Latin in English Life_ might even now be swooping from all quarters of the sky on a suggestion that these dry bones yet were flesh: for the eyes I dread are not only red and angry, but naturally microscopic--and that indeed, if they only knew it, is their malady. Yet 'surely' groaned patient job, 'there _is_ a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen!' You, at any rate, know by this time that wherever these lectures assert literature they assert life, perhaps even too passionately, allowing neither the fact of death nor the possibility of divorce. II But let us begin with the first word, '_Value_'--'The _Value_ of Greek and Latin in English Literature.' What do I mean by 'Value'? Well, I use it, generally, in the sense of 'worth'; but with a particular meaning, or shade of meaning, too. And, this particular meaning is not the particular meaning intended (as I suppose) by men of commerce who, on news of a friend's death, fall a-musing and continue musing until the fire kindles, and they ask 'What did So-and-so die worth?' or sometimes, more wisely than they know, 'What did poor old So-and-so die worth?' or again, more colloquially, 'What did So-and-so "cut up" for?' Neither is it that which more disinterested economists used to teach; men never (I fear me) loved, but anyhow lost awhile, who for my green unknowing youth, at Thebes or Athens--growing older I tend to forget which is, or was, which--defined the Value of a thing as its 'purchasing power' which the market translates into 'price.' For--to borrow a phrase which I happened on, the other day, with delight, in the Introduction to a translation of Lucian--there may be forms of education less paying than the commercial and yet better worth paying for; nay, above payment or computation in price[1]. No: the particular meaning I use to-day is that which artists use when they talk of painting or of music. To see things, near or far, in their true perspective and proportions; to judge them through distance; and fetching them back, to reproduce them in art so proportioned comparatively, so rightly adjusted, that they combine to make a particular and just perspective: that is to give things their true _Values._ Suppose yourself reclining on a bank on a clear day, looking up into the sky and watching the ascent of a skylark while you listen to his song. That is a posture in which several poets of repute have placed themselves from time to time: so we need not be ashamed of it. Well, you see the atmosphere reaching up and up, mile upon mile. There are no milestones planted there. But, wave on wave perceptible, the atmosphere stretches up through indeterminate distances; and according as your painter of the sky can translate these distances, he gives his sky what is called _Value._ You listen to the skylark's note rising, spiral by spiral, on 'the very jet of earth': As up he wings the spiral stair, A song of light, and pierces air With fountain ardour, fountain play, To reach the shining tops of day: and you long for the musical gift to follow up and up the delicate degrees of distance and thread the notes back as the bird ascending drops them--on a thread, as it were, of graduated beads, half music and half dew: That was the chirp of Ariel You heard, as overhead it flew, The farther going more to dwell And wing our green to wed our blue; But whether note of joy, or knell, Not his own Father-singer knew; Nor yet can any mortal tell, Save only how it shivers through; The breast of us a sounded shell, The blood of us a lighted dew. Well in music, in painting, this graduating which gives right proportion and, with proportion, a sense of distance, of atmosphere, is called _Value._ Let us, for a minute or two, assay this particular meaning of Value upon life and literature, and first upon life, or, rather upon one not negligible facet of life. I suppose that if an ordinary man of my age were asked which has better helped him to bear the burs of life--religion or a sense of humour--he would, were he quite honest, be gravelled for an answer. Now the best part of a sense of humour, as you know without my telling you, consists in a sense of proportion; a habit, abiding and prompt at command, of seeing all human, affairs in their just perspective, so that its happy possessor at once perceives anything odd or distorted or overblown to be an excrescence, a protuberance, a swelling, literally a _humour_: and the function of Thalia, the Comic Spirit, as you may read in Meredith's "Essay on Comedy," is just to prick these humours. I will but refer you to Meredith's "Essay," and here cite you the words of an old schoolmaster: It would seem to be characteristic of the same mind to appreciate the beauty of ideas in just proportion and harmonious relation to each other, and the absurdity of the same ideas when distorted or brought into incongruous juxtaposition. The exercise of this sense of humour ... compels the mind to form a picture to itself, accompanied by pleasurable emotion; and what is this but setting the imagination to work, though in topsy-turvy fashion? Nay, in such a case, imagination plays a double part, since it is only by instantaneous comparison with ideal fitness and proportion that it can grasp at full force the grotesqueness of their contraries[2]. Let us play with an example for one moment. A child sees such an excrescence, such an offence upon proportion, in an immoderately long nose. He is apt to call attention to it on the visage of a visitor: it intrigues him in Perrault's 'Prince Charming' and many a fairy tale: it amuses him in Lear's "Book of Nonsense": There was an old man with a Nose, Who said 'If you choose to suppose That my nose is too long You are certainly wrong'-- This old man he detects as lacking sense of proportion, sense of humour. Pass from the child to the working-man as we know him. A few weeks ago, a lady--featured, as to nose, on the side of excess--was addressing a North Country audience on the Economic Position of Women after the War. Said she, 'There won't be men to go round.' Said a voice 'Eh, but they'll _have to,_ Miss!' Pass from this rudimentary criticism to high talent employed on the same subject, and you get "Cyrano de Bergerac." Pass to genius, to Milton, and you find the elephant amusing Adam and Eve in Paradise, and doing his best: the unwieldy elephant, To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed His lithe proboscis. Milton, like the elephant, jokes with difficulty, but he, too, is using all his might. I have illustrated, crudely enough, how a sense of things in their right values will help us on one side of our dealings with life. But truly it helps us on every side. This was what Plato meant when he said that a philosopher must see things as they relatively are within his horizon--[Greek: o synoptikos dialektikos]. And for this it was that an English poet praised Sophocles as one Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole. And this of course is what Dean Inge meant when, the other day, in a volume of "Cambridge Essays on Education," he reminded us, for a sensible commonplace, that 'The wise man is he who knows the relative values of things.' IV Applying this to literature, I note, but shall not insist here on the fact--though fact it is--that the Greek and Roman 'classical' writers (as we call them) laid more stress than has ever been laid among the subsequent tribes of men upon the desirability of getting all things into proportion, of seeing all life on a scale of relative values. And the reason I shall not insist on this is simply that better men have saved me the trouble. I propose this morning to discuss the value of the classics to students of English literature from, as the modern phrase goes, a slightly different angle. Reclining and looking up into that sky which is not too grandiose an image for our own English Literature, you would certainly not wish, Gentlemen, to see it as what it is not--as a cloth painted on the flat. No more than you would choose the sky overarching your life to be a close, hard, copper vault, would you choose this literature of ours to resemble such a prison. I say nothing, for the moment, of the thrill of comparing ours with other constellations--of such a thrill as Blanco White's famous sonnet imagines in Adam's soul when the first night descended on Eden and Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! Creation widen'd in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal'd Within thy beams, O sun!... No: I simply picture you as desiring to realise _our own_ literature, its depths and values, mile above mile deeper and deeper shining, with perchance a glimpse of a city celestial beyond, or at whiles, on a ladder of values, of the angels--the messengers--climbing and returning. V Well, now, I put it to you that without mental breeding, without at least some sense of ancestry, an Englishman can hardly have this perception of value, this vision. I put to you what I posited in an earlier course of lectures, quoting Bagehot, that while a knowledge of Greek and Latin is not necessary to a writer of English, he should at least have a firm conviction that those two languages existed. I refer you to a long passage which, in one of those lectures, I quoted from Cardinal Newman to the effect that for the last 3000 years the Western World has been evolving a human society, having its bond _in a common civilisation_--a society to which (let me add, by way of footnote) Prussia today is firmly, though with great difficulty, being tamed. There are, and have been, other civilisations in the world --the Chinese, for instance; a huge civilisation, stationary, morose, to us unattractive; 'but _this_ civilisation,' says Newman, 'together with the society which is its creation and its home, is so distinctive and luminous in its character, so imperial in its extent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without rival upon the face of the earth, that the association may fitly assume for itself the title of "Human Society," and its civilisation the abstract term "Civilisation".' He goes on: Looking, then, at the countries which surround the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, I see them to be, from time immemorial, the seat of an association of intellect and mind such as deserves to be called the Intellect and Mind of the Human Kind. But I must refer you to his famous book "The Idea of a University" to read at length how Newman, in that sinuous, sinewy, Platonic style of his, works it out--the spread, through Rome, even to our shores, of the civilisation which began in Palestine and Greece. VI I would press the point more rudely upon you, and more particularly, than does Newman. And first, for Latin-- I waive that Rome occupied and dominated this island during 400 years. Let that be as though it had never been. For a further 1000 years and more Latin remained the common speech of educated men throughout Europe: the 'Universal Language.' Greek had been smothered by the Turk. Through all that time--through the most of what we call Modern History, Latin reigned everywhere. Is this a fact to be ignored by any of you who would value 'values'? Here are a few particulars, by way of illustration. More wrote his "Utopia," Bacon wrote all the bulk of his philosophical work, in Latin; Newton wrote his "Principia" in Latin. Keble's Lectures on Poetry (if their worth and the name of Keble may together save me from bathos) were delivered in Latin. Our Vice-Chancellor, our Public Orator still talk Latin, securing for it what attention they can: nor have The bigots of this iron time _Yet_ call'd their harmless art a crime. But there is a better reason why you should endeavour to understand the value of Latin in our literature; a filial reason. Our fathers built their great English prose, as they built their oratory, upon the Latin model. Donne used it to construct his mighty fugues: Burke to discipline his luxuriance. Says Cowper, it were Praise enough for any private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. Well then, here is a specimen of Chatham's language: from his speech, Romanly severe, denouncing the Government of the day for employing Red Indians in the American War of Independence. He is addressing the House of Lords: I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church--I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this noble lord [Lord Suffolk] frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleet: against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion--the _Protestant religion_--of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition, if these more than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us--to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage---against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war!--hell-hounds, I say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of America, and we improve on the inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity.... My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles. That was Chatham. For Wolfe--he, as you know, was ever reading the classics even on campaign: as Burke again carried always a Virgil in his pocket. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Moreover can we separate Chatham's Roman morality from Chatham's language in the passage I have just read? No: we cannot. No one, being evil, can speak good things with that weight; _'for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.'_ We English (says Wordsworth) We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake.... You may criticise Chatham's style as too consciously Ciceronian. But has ever a Parliamentary style been invented which conveys a nobler gravity of emotion? `Buskined'?--yes: but the style of a man. 'Mannered'?--yes, but in the grand manner. 'Conscious'?-- yes, but of what? Conscious of the dignity a great man owes to himself, and to the assembly he addresses. He conceives that assembly as 'the British Senate'; and, assuming, he communicates that high conception. The Lords feel that they are listening as Senators, since it is only thus a Senate should be addressed, as nothing less than a Senate should be addressed thus. Let me read you a second passage; of _written_ prose: Laodameia died; Helen died; Leda, the beloved of Jupiter, went before. It is better to repose in the earth betimes than to sit up late; better, than to cling pertinaciously to what we feel crumbling under us, and to protract an inevitable fall. We may enjoy the present while we are insensible of infirmity and decay: but the present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. There are no fields of amaranth on this aide of the grave; there are no voices, O Rhodopè! that are not soon mute, however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last[3]. Latin--all Latin--down to its exquisite falling close! And I say to you, Gentlemen, that passages such as these deserve what Joubert claimed of national monuments, _Ce sont les crampons qui unissent une génération à une autre. Conservez ce qu'ont vu vos pères,_ 'These are the clamps that knit one generation to another. Cherish those things on which your fathers' eyes have looked.' _Abeunt studia in mores._ If, years ago, there had lacked anything to sharpen my suspicion of those fork-bearded professors who derived our prose from the stucco of Anglo-Saxon prose, it would have been their foolish deliberate practice of composing whole pages of English prose without using one word derivative from Latin or Greek. Esau, when he sold his birthright, had the excuse of being famished. These pedants, with a full board, sought frenetically to give it away-- board and birthright. _'So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality'_ --almost, I say, these men had deserved to have a kind of speech more to their taste read over their coffins. VII What, in the next place, can I say of Greek, save that, as Latin gave our fathers the model of prose, Greek was the source of it all, the goddess and genius of the well-head? And, casting about to illustrate, as well as may be, what I mean by this, I hit on a minor dialogue of Plato, the "Phaedrus," and choose you a short passage in Edward FitzGerald's rendering: When Socrates and Phaedrus have discoursed away the noon-day under the plane trees by the Ilissus, they rise to depart toward the city. But Socrates (pointing perhaps to some images of Pan and other sylvan deities) says it is not decent to leave their haunts without praying to them, and he prays: 'O auspicious Pan, and ye other deities of this place, grant to me to become beautiful _inwardly,_ and that all my outward goods may prosper my inner soul. Grant that I may esteem wisdom the only riches, and that I may have so much gold as temperance can handsomely carry. 'Have we yet aught else to pray for, Phaedrus? For myself I seem to have prayed enough.' _Phaedrus_: 'Pray as much for me also: for friends have all in common.' _Socrates_: 'Even so be it. Let us depart' To this paternoster of Socrates, reported more than four centuries before Christ taught the Lord's Prayer, let me add an attempted translation of the lines that close Homer's hymn to the Delian Apollo. Imagine the old blind poet on the beach chanting to the islanders the glorious boast of the little island--how it of all lands had harboured Leto in her difficult travail; how she gave birth to the Sun God; how the immortal child, as the attendant goddesses touched his lips with ambrosia, burst his swaddling bands and stood up, sudden, a god erect: But he, the Sun-God, did no sooner taste That food divine than every swaddling band Burst strand by strand, And burst the belt above his panting waist-- All hanging loose About him as he stood and gave command: 'Fetch me my lyre, fetch me my curving bow! And, taught by these, shall know All men, through me, the unfaltering will of Zeus!' So spake the unshorn God, the Archer bold, And turn'd to tread the ways of Earth so wide; While they, all they, had marvel to behold How Delos broke in gold Beneath his feet, as on a mountain-side Sudden, in Spring, a tree is glorified And canopied with blossoms manifold. But he went swinging with a careless stride, Proud, in his new artillery bedight, Up rocky Cynthus, and the isles descried-- All his, and their inhabitants--for wide, Wide as he roam'd, ran these in rivalry To build him temples in many groves: And these be his, and all the isles he loves, And every foreland height, And every river hurrying to the sea. But chief in thee, Delos, as first it was, is his delight. Where the long-robed Ionians, each with mate And children, pious to his altar throng, And, decent, celebrate His birth with boxing-match and dance and song: So that a stranger, happening them among, Would deem that these Ionians have no date, Being ageless, all so met; And he should gaze And marvel at their ways, Health, wealth, the comely face On man and woman--envying their estate-- And yet _You_ shall he least be able to forget, You maids of Delos, dear ones, as ye raise The hymn to Phoebus, Leto, Artemis, In triune praise, Then slide your song back upon ancient days And men whose very name forgotten is., And women who have lived and gone their ways: And make them live agen, Charming the tribes of men, Whose speech ye mock with pretty mimicries So true They almost woo The hearer to believe he's singing too! Speed me, Apollo: speed me, Artemis! And you, my dears, farewell! Remember me Hereafter if, from any land that is, Some traveller question ye-- 'Maidens, who was the sweetest man of speech Fared hither, ever chanted on this beach?' I you beseech Make answer to him, civilly-- 'Sir, he was just a blind man, and his home In rocky Chios. But his songs were best, And shall be ever in the days to come.' Say that: and as I quest In fair wall'd cities far, I'll tell them there (They'll list, for 'twill be true) Of Delos and of you. But chief and evermore my song shall be Of Prince Apollo, lord of Archery. God of the Silver Bow, whom Leto bare-- Leto, the lovely-tress'd. Did time permit, I might quote you a chorus of Aeschylus, a passage from Thucydides or from Aristotle, to illustrate Gibbon's saying that the Greek language 'gave a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of metaphysics.' But there it is, and it has haunted our literature; at first filtering through Latin, at length breaking from Constantinople in flood and led to us, to Oxford and Cambridge, by Erasmus, by Grocyn: Thee, that lord of splendid lore Orient from old Hellas' shore. To have a sense of Greek, too, is to own a corrective of taste. I quote another old schoolmaster here--a dead friend, Sidney Irwin: What the Greeks disliked was extravagance, caprice, boastfulness, and display of all kinds.... The Greeks _hated_ all monsters. The quaint phrase in the "Odyssey" about the Queen of the Laestrygones--'She was tall as a mountain, and they hated her'--would have seemed to them most reasonable.... To read Greek is to have a perpetual witness to the virtue of pruning--of condensing--a perpetual protest against all that crowds, and swells, and weakens the writer's purpose. To forget this is but to 'confound our skill in covetousness.' We cannot all be writers ... but we all wish to have good taste, and good taste is born of a generous caution about letting oneself go. I say _generous,_ for caution is seldom generous--but it is a generous mood which is in no haste to assert itself. To consider the thing, the time, the place, the person, and to take yourself and your own feelings _only fifth_ is to be armour-proof against bad taste. VIII They tell us that Greek is going, here. Well, I hold no brief for compulsory Greek; and I shall say but one word on it. I put it, rather idly, to a vote in a Cambridge Combination Room, the other day, and was amazed to find how the votes were divided. The men of science were by no means unanimous. They owned that there was much to be said even for compulsory Greek, if only Greek had been intelligently taught. And with that, of course, I agree: for to learn Greek is, after all, a baptism into a noble cult. The Romans knew _that._ I believe that, even yet, if the schools would rebuild their instruction in Greek so as to make it interesting, as it ought to be, from the first, we should oust those birds who croak and chatter upon the walls of our old Universities. I find the following in FitzGerald's "Polonius": An old ruinous tower which had harboured innumerable jackdaws, sparrows, and bats, was at length repaired. When the masons left it, the jackdaws, sparrows, and bats came back in search of their old dwellings. But these were all filled up. 'Of what use now is this great building?' said they, 'come let us forsake this useless stone-heap: And the beauty of this little apologue is that you can read it either way. IX But, although a student of English Literature be ignorant of Greek and Latin as languages, may he not have Greek and Latin literature widely opened to him by intelligent translations? The question has often been asked, but I ask it again. May not _some_ translations open a door to him by which he can see them through an atmosphere, and in that atmosphere the authentic ancient gods walking: so that returning upon English literature he may recognise them there, too, walking and talking in a garden of values? The highest poetical speech of any one language defies, in my belief, translation into any other. But Herodotus loses little, and North is every whit as good as Plutarch. Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more! Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never Suppose that rendered thus: I enjoin upon the adult female population ([Greek: gynaikes]), not once but twice, that there be from this time forward, a total cessation of sighing. The male is, and has been, constantly addicted to inconstancy, treading the ocean and the mainland respectively with alternate feet. That, more or less, is what Paley did upon Euripides, and how would you like it if a modern Greek did it upon Shakespeare? None the less I remember that my own first awed surmise of what Greek might mean came from a translated story of Herodotus--the story of Cleobis and Biton--at the tail of an old grammar-book, before I had learnt the Greek alphabet; and I am sure that the instinct of the old translators was sound; that somehow (as Wordsworth says somewhere) the present must be balanced on the wings of the past and the future, and that as you stretch out the one you stretch out the other to strength. X There is no derogation of new things in this plea I make specially to you who may be candidates in our School of English. You may remember my reading to you in a previous lecture that liberal poem of Cory's invoking the spirit of 'dear divine Comatas,' that Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek. Well, I would have your minds, as you read our literature, reach back to that Dorian shepherd through an atmosphere--his made ours--as through veils, each veil unfolding a value. So you will recognise how, from Chaucer down, our literature has panted after the Mediterranean water-brooks. So through an atmosphere you will link (let me say) Collins's "Ode to Evening," or Matthew Arnold's "Strayed Reveller" up to the 'Pervigilium Veneris,' Mr Sturge Moore's "Sicilian Vine-dresser" up to Theocritus, Pericles' funeral oration down to Lincoln's over the dead at Gettysburg. And as I read you just now some part of an English oration in the Latin manner, so I will conclude with some stanzas in the Greek manner. They are by Landor--a proud promise by a young writer, hopeful as I could wish any young learner here to be. The title-- _Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra_ Tanagra! think not I forget Thy beautifully storied streets; Be sure my memory bathes yet In clear Thermodon, and yet greets The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy, Whose sunny bosom swells with joy When we accept his matted rushes Upheav'd with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes. A gift I promise: one I see Which thou with transport wilt receive, The only proper gift for thee, Of which no mortal shall bereave In later times thy mouldering walls, Until the last old turret falls; A crown, a crown from Athens won, A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son. There may be cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, And look ungently on the Muse; But ever shall those cities rue The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies. Sweetly where cavern'd Dirce flows Do white-arm'd maidens chaunt my lay, Flapping the while with laurel-rose The honey-gathering tribes away; And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues Lisp your Corinna's early songs; To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. O let thy children lean aslant Against the tender mother's knee, And gaze into her face, and want To know what magic there can be In words that urge some eyes to dance, While others as in holy trance Look up to heaven: be such my praise! Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays. [Footnote 1: The Works of Lucian of Samosata: translated by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Introduction, p. xxix). Oxford, Clarendon Press.] [Footnote 2: "The Training of the Imagination": by James Rhoades. London, John Lane, 1900.] [Footnote 3: Landor: "�sop and Rhodopè."] LECTURE VIII ON READING THE BIBLE (I) WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918 I '_Read not to Contradict and Confute,_' says Bacon of Studies in general: and you may be the better disposed, Gentlemen, to forgive my choice of subject to-day if in my first sentence I rule _that_ way of reading the Bible completely out of court. You may say at once that, the Bible being so full of doctrine as it is, and such a storehouse for exegesis as it has been, this is more easily said than profitably done. You may grant me that the Scriptures in our Authorised Version are part and parcel of English Literature (and more than part and parcel); you may grant that a Professor of English Literature has therefore a claim, if not an obligation, to speak of them in that Version; you may-- having granted my incessant refusal to disconnect our national literature from our national life, or to view them as disconnected--accept the conclusion which plainly flows from it; that no teacher of English can pardonably neglect what is at once the most majestic thing in our literature and by all odds the most spiritually living thing we inherit; in our courts at once superb monument and superabundant fountain of life; and yet you may discount beforehand what he must attempt. For (say you) if he attempt the doctrine, he goes straight down to buffeted waters so broad that only stout theologians can win to shore; if, on the other hand, he ignore doctrine, the play is "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out. He reduces our Bible to 'mere literature,' to something 'belletristic,' pretty, an artifice, a flimsy, a gutted thing. II Now of all ways of dealing with literature that happens to be the way we should least admire. By that way we disassociate literature from life; 'what they said' from the men who said it and meant it, not seldom at the risk of their lives. My pupils will bear witness in their memories that when we talk together concerning poetry, for example, by 'poetry' we mean 'that which the poets wrote,' or (if you like) 'the stuff the poets wrote'; and their intelligence tells them, of course, that anyone who in the simple proposition 'Poets wrote Poetry' connects an object with a subject by a verb does not, at any rate, intend to sunder what he has just been at pains, however slight, to join together: he may at least have the credit, whether he be right or wrong, of asserting his subject and his object to be interdependent. Take a particular proposition--John Milton wrote a poem called "Paradise Lost." You will hardly contest the truth of that: but what does it mean? Milton wrote the story of the Fall of Man: he told it in some thousands of lines of decasyllabic verse unrhymed; he measured these lines out with exquisite cadences. The object of our simple sentence includes all these, and this much beside: that he wrote the total poem and made it what it is. Nor can that object be fully understood--literature being, ever and always, so personal a thing--until we understand the subject, John Milton-- what manner of man he was, and how on earth, being such a man, he contrived to do it. We shall never _quite_ know that: but it is important we should get as near as we can. Of the Bible this is yet more evident, it being a translation. Isaiah did not write the cadences of his prophecies, as we ordinary men of this country know them: Christ did not speak the cadences of the Parables or of the Sermon on the Mount, as we know them. These have been supplied by the translators. By all means let us study them and learn to delight in them; but Christ did not suffer for his cadences, still less for the cadences invented by Englishmen almost 1600 years later; and Englishmen who went to the stake did not die for these cadences. They were Lollards and Reformers who lived too soon to have heard them; they were Catholics of the `old profession' who had either never heard or, having heard, abhorred them. These men were cheerful to die for the _meaning_ of the Word and for its _authorship_-- because it was spoken by Christ. III There is in fact, Gentlemen, no such thing as 'mere literature.' Pedants have coined that contemptuous term to express a figmentary concept of their own imagination or--to be more accurate, an hallucination of wrath--having about as much likeness to a _vera causa_ as had the doll which (if you remember) Maggie Tulliver used to beat in the garret whenever, poor child, the world went wrong with her somehow. The thoughts, actions and passions of men became literature by the simple but difficult process of being recorded in memorable speech; but in that process neither the real thing recorded nor the author is evacuated. _Belles lettres, Fine Art_ are odious terms, for which no clean-thinking man has any use. There is no such thing in the world as _belles lettres_; if there were, it would deserve the name. As for _Fine Art,_ the late Professor Butcher bequeathed to us a translation of Aristotle's "Poetics" with some admirable appendixes--the whole entitled "Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art." Aristotle never in his life had a theory of Fine Art as distinct from other art: nor (I wager) can you find in his discovered works a word for any such thing. Now if Aristotle had a concept of `fine' art as distinguished from other art, he was man enough to find a name for it. His omission to do anything of the sort speaks for itself. So you should beware of any teacher who would treat the Bible or any part of it as 'fine writing,' mere literature. IV Let me, having said this, at once enter a _caveat,_ a qualification. Although men do not go to the stake for the cadences, the phrases of our Authorised Version, it remains true that these cadences, these phrases, have for three hundred years exercised a most powerful effect upon their emotions. They do so by association of ideas by the accreted memories of our race enwrapping connotation around a word, a name--say the name _Jerusalem,_ or the name _Sion_: And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. It must be known to you, Gentlemen, that these words can affect men to tears who never connect them in thought with the actual geographical Jerusalem; who connect it in thought merely with a quite different native home from which they are exiles. Here and there some one man may feel a similar emotion over Landor's Tanagra, think not I forget.... But the word Jerusalem will strike twenty men twentyfold more poignantly: for to each it names the city familiar in spirit to his parents when they knelt, and to their fathers before them: not only the city which was his nursery and yet lay just beyond the landscape seen from its window; its connotation includes not only what the word 'Rome' has meant, and ever must mean, to thousands on thousands setting eyes for the first time on _The City_: but it holds, too, some hint of the New Jerusalem, the city of twelve gates before the vision of which St John fell prone: Ah, my sweet home, Hierusalem, Would God I were in thee! Thy Gardens and thy gallant walks Continually are green: There grows such sweet and pleasant flowers As nowhere else are seen. Quite through the streets with pleasant sound The flood of Life doth flow; Upon whose banks on every side The wood of Life doth grow.... Our Lady sings Magnificat With tones surpassing sweet: And all the virgins bear their part, Sitting about her feet. Hierusalem, my happy home, Would God I were in thee! Would God my woes were at an end, Thy joys that I might see! You cannot (I say) get away from these connotations accreted through your own memories and your fathers'; as neither can you be sure of getting free of any great literature in any tongue, once it has been written. Let me quote you a passage from Cardinal Newman [he is addressing the undergraduates of the Catholic University of Dublin]: How real a creation, how _sui generis,_ is the style of Shakespeare, or of the Protestant Bible and Prayer Book, or of Swift, or of Pope, or of Gibbon, or of Johnson! [I pause to mark how just this man can be to his great enemies. Pope was a Roman Catholic, you will remember; but Gibbon was an infidel.] Even were the subject-matter without meaning, though in truth the style cannot really be abstracted from the sense, still the style would, on _that_ supposition, remain as perfect and original a work as Euclid's "Elements" or a symphony of Beethoven. And, like music, it has seized upon the public mind: and the literature of England is no longer a mere letter, printed in books and shut up in libraries, but it is a living voice, which has gone forth in its expressions and its sentiments into the world of men, which daily thrills upon our ears and syllables our thoughts, which speaks to us through our correspondents and dictates when we put pen to paper. Whether we will or no, the phraseology of Shakespeare, of the Protestant formularies, of Milton, of Pope, of Johnson's Table-talk, and of Walter Scott, have become a portion of the vernacular tongue, the household words, of which perhaps we little guess the origin, and the very idioms of our familiar conversation.... So tyrannous is the literature of a nation; it is too much for us. We cannot destroy or reverse it.... We cannot make it over again. It is a great work of man, when it is no work of God's.... We cannot undo the past. English Literature will ever _have been_ Protestant. V I am speaking, then, to hearers who would read not to contradict and confute; who have an inherited sense of the English Bible; and who have, even as I, a store of associated ideas, to be evoked by any chance phrase from it; beyond this, it may be, nothing that can be called scholarship by any stretch of the term. Very well, then: my first piece of advice _on reading the Bible_ is that you do it. I have, of course, no reason at all to suppose or suggest that any member of this present audience omits to do it. But some general observations are permitted to an occupant of this Chair: and, speaking generally, and as one not constitutionally disposed to lamentation [in the book we are discussing, for example, I find Jeremiah the contributor least to my mind], I do believe that the young read the Bible less, and enjoy it less--probably read it less, because they enjoy it less--than their fathers did. The Education Act of 1870, often in these days too sweepingly denounced, did a vast deal of good along with no small amount of definite harm. At the head of the harmful effects must (I think) be set its discouragement of Bible reading; and this chiefly through its encouraging parents to believe that they could henceforth hand over the training of their children to the State, lock, stock and barrel. You all remember the picture in Burns of "The Cotter's Saturday Night": The chearfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride. His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care, And 'Let us worship God !' he says, with solemn air. But you know that the sire bred on the tradition of 1870, and now growing grey, does nothing of that sort on a Saturday night: that, Saturday being tub-night, he inclines rather to order the children into the back-kitchen to get washed; that on Sunday morning, having seen them off to a place of worship, he inclines to sit down and read, in place of the Bible, his Sunday newspaper: that in the afternoon he again shunts them off to Sunday-school. Now--to speak first of the children--it is good for them to be tubbed on Saturday night; good for them also, I dare say, to attend Sunday-school on the following afternoon; but not good in so far as they miss to hear the Bible read by their parents and Pure religion breathing household laws. 'Pure religion'?--Well perhaps that begs the question: and I dare say Burns' cotter when he waled 'a portion with judicious care,' waled it as often as not--perhaps oftener than not--to contradict and confute; that often he contradicted and confuted very crudely, very ignorantly. But we may call it simple religion anyhow, sincere religion, parental religion, household religion: and for a certainty no 'lessons' in day-school or Sunday-school have, for tingeing a child's mind, an effect comparable with that of a religion pervading the child's home, present at bedside and board:-- Here a little child I stand, Heaving up my either hand; Cold as paddocks the they be, Here I lift them up to Thee; For a benison to fall On our meat and on us all. Amen. --permeating the house, subtly instilled by the very accent of his father's and his mother's speech. For the grown man ... I happen to come from a part of England [Ed.: Cornwall] where men, in all my days, have been curiously concerned with religion and are yet so concerned; so much that you can scarce take up a local paper and turn to the correspondence column but you will find some heated controversy raging over Free Will and Predestination, the Validity of Holy Orders, Original Sin, Redemption of the many or the few: Go it Justice, go it Mercy! Go it Douglas, go it Percy! But the contestants do not write in the language their fathers used. They seem to have lost the vocabulary, and to have picked up, in place of it, the jargon of the Yellow Press, which does not tend to clear definition on points of theology. The mass of all this controversial stuff is no more absurd, no more frantic, than it used to be: but in language it has lost its dignity with its homeliness. It has lost the colouring of the Scriptures, the intonation of the Scriptures, the Scriptural _habit._ If I turn from it to a passage in Bunyan, I am conversing with a man who, though he has read few other books, has imbibed and soaked the Authorised Version into his fibres so that he cannot speak but Biblically. Listen to this: As to the situation of this town, it lieth just between the two worlds, and the first founder, and builder of it, so far as by the best, and most authentic records I can gather, was one Shaddai; and he built it for his own delight. He made it the mirror, and glory of all that he made, even the Top-piece beyond anything else that he did in that country: yea, so goodly a town was Mansoul, when first built, that it is said by some, the Gods at the setting up thereof, came down to see it, and sang for joy.... The wall of the town was well built, yea so fast and firm was it knit and compact together, that had it not been for the townsmen themselves, they could not have been shaken, or broken for ever. Or take this: Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a Boy feeding his Father's Sheep. The Boy was in very mean Cloaths, but of a very fresh and well-favoured Countenance, and as he sate by himself he Sung.... Then said their Guide, Do you hear him? I will dare to say, that this Boy lives a merrier Life, and wears more of that Herb called Heart's-ease in his Bosom, than he that is clad in Silk and Velvet. I choose ordinary passages, not solemn ones in which Bunyan is consciously scriptural. But you cannot miss the accent. That is Bunyan, of course; and I am far from saying that the labouring men among whom I grew up, at the fishery or in the hayfield, talked with Bunyan's magic. But I do assert that they had something of the accent; enough to be _like,_ in a child's mind, the fishermen and labourers among whom Christ found his first disciples. They had the large simplicity of speech, the cadence, the accent. But let me turn to Ireland, where, though not directly derived from our English Bible, a similar scriptural accent survives among the peasantry and is, I hope, ineradicable. I choose two sentences from a book of 'Memories' recently written by the survivor of the two ladies who together wrote the incomparable 'Irish R.M.' The first was uttered by a small cultivator who was asked why his potato-crop had failed: 'I couldn't hardly say' was the answer. 'Whatever it was, God spurned them in a boggy place.' Is that not the accent of Isaiah? He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country. The other is the benediction bestowed upon the late Miss Violet Martin by a beggar-woman in Skibbereen: Sure ye're always laughing! That ye may laugh in the sight of the Glory of Heaven! VI But one now sees, or seems to see, that we children did, in our time, read the Bible a great deal, if perforce we were taught to read it in sundry bad ways: of which perhaps the worst was that our elders hammered in all the books, all the parts of it, as equally inspired and therefore equivalent. Of course this meant among other things that they hammered it all in literally: but let us not sentimentalise over that. It really did no child any harm to believe that the universe was created in a working week of six days, and that God sat down and looked at it on Sunday, and behold it was very good. A week is quite a long while to a child, yet a definite division rounding off a square job. The bath-taps at home usually, for some unexplained reason, went wrong during the week-end: the plumber came in on Monday and carried out his tools on Saturday at mid-day. These little analogies really do (I believe) help the infant mind, and not at all to its later detriment. Nor shall I ask you to sentimentalise overmuch upon the harm done to a child by teaching him that the bloodthirsty jealous Jehovah of the Book of Joshua is as venerable (being one and the same unalterably, 'with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning') as the Father 'the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy,' revealed to us in the Gospel, invoked for us at the Eucharist. I do most seriously hold it to be fatal if we grow up and are fossilised in any such belief. (Where have we better proof than in the invocations which the family of the Hohenzollerns have been putting up, any time since August 1914--and for years before--to this bloody identification of the Christian man's God with Joshua's?) My simple advice is that you not only read the Bible early but read it again and again: and if on the third or fifth reading it leave you just where the first left you--if you still get from it no historical sense of a race _developing_ its concept of God--well then, the point of the advice is lost, and there is no more to be said. But over this business of teaching the Book of Joshua to children I am in some doubt. A few years ago an Education Committee, of which I happened to be Chairman, sent ministers of religion about, two by two, to test the religious instruction given in Elementary Schools. Of the two who worked around my immediate neighbourhood, one was a young priest of the Church of England, a medievalist with an ardent passion for ritual; the other a gentle Congregational minister, a mere holy and humble man of heart. They became great friends in the course of these expeditions, and they brought back this report--'It is positively wicked to let these children grow up being taught that there is no difference in value between Joshua and St Matthew: that the God of the Lord's Prayer is the same who commanded the massacre of Ai.' Well, perhaps it is. Seeing how bloodthirsty old men can be in these days, one is tempted to think that they can hardly be caught too young and taught decency, if not mansuetude. But I do not remember, as a child, feeling any horror about it, or any difficulty in reconciling the two concepts. Children _are_ a bit bloodthirsty, and I observe that two volumes of the late Captain Mayne Reid--"The Rifle Rangers," and "The Scalp Hunters"--have just found their way into The World's Classics and are advertised alongside of Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies" and the "De Imitatione Christi." I leave you to think this out; adding but this for a suggestion: that as the Hebrew outgrew his primitive tribal beliefs, so the bettering mind of man casts off the old clouts of primitive doctrine, he being in fact better than his religion. You have all heard preachers trying to show that Jacob was a better fellow than Esau somehow. You have all, I hope, rejected every such explanation. Esau was a gentleman: Jacob was not. The instinct of a young man meets that wall, and there is no passing it. Later, the mind of the youth perceives that the writer of Jacob's history has a tribal mind and supposes throughout that for the advancement of his tribe many things are permissible and even admirable which a later and urbaner mind rejects as detestably sharp practice. And the story of Jacob becomes the more valuable to us historically as we realise what a hero he is to the bland chronicler. VII But of another thing, Gentlemen, I am certain: that we were badly taught in that these books, while preached to us as equivalent, were kept in separate compartments. We were taught the books of Kings and Chronicles as history. The prophets were the Prophets, inspired men predicting the future which they only did by chance, as every inspired man does. Isaiah was never put into relation with his time at all; which means everything to our understanding of Isaiah, whether of Jerusalem or of Babylon. We ploughed through Kings and Chronicles, and made out lists of rulers, with dates and capital events. Isaiah was all fine writing about nothing at all, and historically we were concerned with him only to verify some far-fetched reference to the Messiah in this or that Evangelist. But there is not, never has been, really fine literature--like Isaiah--composed about nothing at all: and in the mere matter of prognostication I doubt if such experts as Zadkiel and Old Moore have anything to fear from any School of Writing we can build up in Cambridge. But if we had only been taught to read Isaiah concurrently with the Books of the Kings, what a fire it would have kindled among the dry bones of our studies! Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field. Scholars, of course, know the political significance of that famous meeting. But if we had only known it; if we had only been taught what Assyria was--with its successive monarchs Tiglath- pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib; and why Syria and Israel and Egypt were trying to cajole or force Judah into alliance; what a difference (I say) this passage would have meant to us! VIII I daresay, after all, that the best way is not to bother a boy too early and overmuch with history; that the best way is to let him ramp at first through the Scriptures even as he might through "The Arabian Nights": to let him take the books as they come, merely indicating, for instance, that Job is a great poem, the Psalms great lyrics, the story of Ruth a lovely idyll, the Song of Songs the perfection of an Eastern love-poem. Well and what then? He will certainly get less of "The Cotter's Saturday Night" into it, and certainly more of the truth of the East. There he will feel the whole splendid barbaric story for himself: the flocks of Abraham and Laban: the trek of Jacob's sons to Egypt for corn: the figures of Rebekah at the well, Ruth at the gleaning, and Rispah beneath the gibbet: Sisera bowing in weariness: Saul--great Saul--by the tent-prop with the jewels in his turban: All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. Or consider--to choose one or two pictures out of the tremendous procession--consider Michal, Saul's royal daughter: how first she is given in marriage to David to be a snare for him; how loving him she saves his life, letting him down from the window and dressing up an image on the bed in his place: how, later, she is handed over to another husband Phaltiel, how David demands her back, and she goes: And her husband (Phaltiel) went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then said Abner unto him, Go, return. And he returned. Or, still later, how the revulsion takes her, Saul's daughter, as she sees David capering home before the ark, and how her affection had done with this emotional man of the ruddy countenance, so prone to weep in his bed: And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter-- Mark the three words-- Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. The whole story goes into about ten lines. Your psychological novelist nowadays, given the wit to invent it, would make it cover 500 pages at least. Or take the end of David in the first two chapters of the First Book of Kings, with its tale of Oriental intrigues, plots, treacheries, murderings in the depths of the horrible palace wherein the old man is dying. Or read of Solomon and his ships and his builders, and see his Temple growing (as Heber put it) like a tall palm, with no sound of hammers. Or read again the end of Queen Athaliah: And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people into the temple of the Lord.-- And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets: And Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried Treason, Treason.--But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges.... --And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king's house: and there was she slain. Let a youngster read this, I say, just as it is written; and how the true East--sound, scent, form, colour--pours into the narrative!--cymbals and trumpets, leagues of sand, caravans trailing through the heat, priest and soldiery and kings going up between them to the altar; blood at the foot of the steps, blood everywhere, smell of blood mingled with spices, sandal-wood, dung of camels! Yes, but how--if you will permit the word--how the _enjoyment_ of it as magnificent literature might be enhanced by a scholar who would condescend to whisper, of his knowledge, the magical word here or there, to the child as he reads! For an instance.-- No child--no grown man with any sense of poetry--can deny his ear to the Forty-fifth Psalm; the one that begins 'My heart is inditing a good matter,' and plunges into a hymn of royal nuptials. First (you remember) the singing-men, the sons of Korah, lift their chant to the bridegroom, the King: Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty ... And in thy majesty ride prosperously. Or as we hear it in the Book of Common Prayer: Good luck have thou with thine honour... because of the word of truth, of meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.... All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia: out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. Anon they turn to the Bride: Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house.... The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. For whom (wonders the young reader, spell-bound by this), for what happy bride and bridegroom was this glorious chant raised? Now suppose that, just here, he has a scholar ready to tell him what is likeliest true--that the bridegroom was Ahab--that the bride, the daughter of Sidon, was no other than Jezebel, and became what Jezebel now is--with what an awe of surmise would two other passages of the history toll on his ear? And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood.... And when he (Jehu) was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel ... so that (men) shall not say, This is Jezebel. In another lecture, Gentlemen, I propose to take up the argument and attempt to bring it to this point. 'How can we, having this incomparable work, _necessary_ for study by all who would write English, bring it within the ambit of the English Tripos and yet avoid offending the experts?' LECTURE IX ON READING THE BIBLE (II) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1918 I We left off last term, Gentlemen, upon a note of protest. We wondered why it should be that our English Version of the Bible lies under the ban of school-masters, Boards of Studies, and all who devise courses of reading and examinations in English Literature: that among our `prescribed books' we find Chaucer's "Prologue," we find "Hamlet," we find "Paradise Lost," we find Pope's "Essay on Man," again and again, but "The Book of Job" never; "The Vicar of Wakefield" and Gray's "Elegy" often, but "Ruth" or "Isaiah," "Ecclesiasticus" or "Wisdom" never. I propose this morning: (1) to enquire into the reasons for this, so far as I can guess and interpret them; (2) to deal with such reasons as we can discover or surmise; (3) to suggest to-day, some simple first aid: and in another lecture, taking for experiment a single book from the Authorised Version, some practical ways of including it in the ambit of our new English Tripos. This will compel me to be definite: and as definite proposals invite definite objections, by this method we are likeliest to know where we are, and if the reform we seek be realisable or illusory. II I shall ask you then, first, to assent with me, that the Authorised Version of the Holy Bible is, as a literary achievement, one of the greatest in our language; nay, with the possible exception of the complete works of Shakespeare, the very greatest. You will certainly not deny this. As little, or less, will you deny that more deeply than any other book--more deeply even than all the writings of Shakespeare--far more deeply--it has influenced our literature. Here let me repeat a short passage from a former lecture of mine (May 15, 1913, five years ago). I had quoted some few glorious sentences such as: Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.... So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality ... and having quoted these I went on: When a nation has achieved this manner of diction, these rhythms for its dearest beliefs, a literature is surely established.... Wyclif, Tyndale, Coverdale and others before the forty-seven had wrought. The Authorised Version, setting a seal on all, set a seal on our national style.... It has cadences homely and sublime, yet so harmonises them that the voice is always one. Simple men--holy and humble men of heart like Isaak Walton and Bunyan--have their lips touched and speak to the homelier tune. Proud men, scholars --Milton, Sir Thomas Browne--practise the rolling Latin sentence; but upon the rhythms of our Bible they, too, fall back--'The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs.' 'Acquaint thyself with the Choragium of the stars.' 'There is nothing immortal but immortality.' The precise man Addison cannot excel one parable in brevity or in heavenly clarity: the two parts of Johnson's antithesis come to no more than this 'Our Lord has gone up to the sound of a trump; with the sound of a trump our Lord has gone up.' The Bible controls its enemy Gibbon as surely as it haunts the curious music of a light sentence of Thackeray's. It is in everything we see, hear, feel, because it is in us, in our blood. If that be true, or less than gravely overstated: if the English Bible hold this unique place in our literature; if it be at once a monument, an example and (best of all) a well of English undefiled, no stagnant water, but quick, running, curative, refreshing, vivifying; may we not agree, Gentlemen, to require the weightiest reason why our instructors should continue to hedge in the temple and pipe the fountain off in professional conduits, forbidding it to irrigate freely our ground of study? It is done so complacently that I do not remember to have met one single argument put up in defence of it; and so I am reduced to guess-work. What can be the justifying reason for an embargo on the face of it so silly and arbitrary, if not senseless? III Does it reside perchance in some primitive instinct of _taboo_; of a superstition of fetish-worship fencing off sacred things as unmentionable, and reinforced by the bad Puritan notion that holy things are by no means to be enjoyed? If so, I begin by referring you to the Greeks and their attitude towards the Homeric poems. We, of course, hold the Old Testament more sacred than Homer. But I very much doubt if it be more sacred to us than the Iliad and the Odyssey were to an old Athenian, in his day. To the Greeks--and to forget this is the fruitfullest source of error in dealing with the Tragedians or even with Aristophanes--to the Greeks, their religion, such as it was, mattered enormously. They built their Theatre upon it, as we most certainly do not; which means that it had sunk into their daily life and permeated their enjoyment of it, as our religion certainly does not affect _our_ life to enhance it as amusing or pleasurable. We go to Church on Sunday, and write it off as an observance; but if eager to be happy with a free heart, we close early and steal a few hours from the working-day. We antagonise religion and enjoyment, worship and holiday. Nature being too strong for any convention of ours, courtship has asserted itself as permissible on the Sabbath, if not as a Sabbatical institution. Now the Greeks were just as much slaves to the letter of their Homer as any Auld Licht Elder to the letter of St Paul. No one will accuse Plato of being overfriendly to poetry. Yet I believe you will find in Plato some 150 direct citations from Homer, not to speak of allusions scattered broadcast through the dialogues, often as texts for long argument. Of these citations and allusions an inordinate number seem to us laboriously trivial-- that is to say, unless we put ourselves into the Hellenic mind. On the other hand Plato uses others to enforce or illustrate his profoundest doctrines. For an instance, in "Phaedo" (§ 96) Socrates is arguing that the soul cannot be one with the harmony of the bodily affections, being herself the master-player who commands the strings: '--almost always' [he says] opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life, sometimes more violently with the pains of medicine and gymnastic; then again more gently;-- threatening, and also reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself; as Homer in the Odyssey represents Odysseus doing in the words [Greek: stethos de plexas kradien enipape mutho: tetlathi de, kradie; kai kynteron allo pot etles] He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart: Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured. Do you think [asks Socrates] that Homer wrote this under the idea that the soul is a harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a nature which should lead and master them--herself a far diviner thing than any harmony? A Greek, then, will use Homer--_his_ Bible--minutely on niceties of conduct or broadly on first principles of philosophy or religion. But equally, since it is poetry all the time to him, he will take--or to instance particular writers, Aristotle and the late Greek, Longinus will take--a single hexameter to illustrate a minute trick of style or turn of phrase, as equally he will choose a long passage or the whole "Iliad," the whole "Odyssey," to illustrate a grand rule of poetic construction, a first principle of aesthetics. For an example--'Herein,' says Aristotle, starting to show that an Epic poem must have Unity of Subject--'Herein, to repeat what we have said before, we have a further proof of Homer's superiority to the rest. He did not attempt to deal even with the Trojan War in its entirety, though it was a whole story with a definite beginning, middle and end-- feeling apparently that it was too long a story to be taken in at one view or else over-complicated by variety of incidents.' And as Aristotle takes the "Iliad"--_his_ Bible--to illustrate a grand rule of poetical construction, so the late writer of his tradition--Longinus--will use it to exhibit the core and essence of poetical sublimity; as in his famous ninth chapter, of which Gibbon wrote: The ninth chapter ... {of the [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] or "De Sublimitate" of Longinus} is one of the finest monuments of antiquity. Till now, I was acquainted only with two ways of criticising a beautiful passage: the one, to show, by an exact anatomy of it, the distinct beauties of it, and whence they sprung; the other, an idle exclamation, or a general encomium, which leaves nothing behind it. Longinus has shown me that there is a third. He tells me his own feelings upon reading it; and tells them with so much energy, that he communicates them. I almost doubt which is more sublime, Homer's Battle of the Gods, or Longinus's Apostrophe to Terentianus upon it. Well, let me quote you, in translation, a sentence or two from this chapter, which produced upon Gibbon such an effect as almost to anticipate Walter Pater's famous definition, 'To feel the virtue of the poet, of the painter, to disengage it, to set it forth--these are the three stages of the critic's duty.' 'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows: _Sublimity is the echo of a great soul._' 'Sublimity is the echo of a great soul.'--It was worth repeating too--was it not? For it is not possible that men with mean and servile ideas and aims prevailing throughout their lives should produce anything that is admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we expect to fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are deep and grave.... Hear how magnificently Homer speaks of the higher powers: 'As far as a man seeth with his eyes into the haze of distance as he sitteth upon a cliff of outlook and gazeth over the wine-dark sea, even so far at a bound leap the neighing horses of the Gods.' 'He makes' [says Longinus] 'the vastness of the world the measure of their leap.' Then, after a criticism of the Battle of the Gods (too long to be quoted here) he goes on: Much superior to the passages respecting the Battle of the Gods are those which represent the divine nature as it really is--pure and great and undefiled; for example, what is said of Poseidon. Her far-stretching ridges, her forest-trees, quaked in dismay, And her peaks, and the Trojans' town, and the ships of Achaia's array, Beneath his immortal feet, as onward Poseidon strode. Then over the surges he drave: leapt, sporting before the God, Sea-beasts that uprose all round from the depths, for their king they knew, And for rapture the sea was disparted, and onward the car-steeds flew[1]. Then how does Longinus conclude? Why, very strangely--very strangely indeed, whether you take the treatise to be by that Longinus, the Rhetorician and Zenobia's adviser, whom the Emperor Aurelian put to death, or prefer to believe it the work of an unknown hand in the first century. The treatise goes on: Similarly, the legislator of the Jews [Moses], no ordinary man, having formed and expressed a worthy conception of the might of the Godhead, writes at the very beginning of his Laws, 'God said'--What? 'Let there be light, and there was light' IV So here, Gentlemen, you have Plato, Aristotle, Longinus--all Greeks of separate states--men of eminence all three, and two of surpassing eminence, all three and each in his time and turn treating Homer reverently as Holy Writ and yet enjoying it liberally as poetry. For indeed the true Greek mind had no thought to separate poetry from religion, as to the true Greek mind reverence and liberty to enjoy, with the liberty of mind that helps to enjoy, were all tributes to the same divine thing. They had no professionals, no puritans, to hedge it off with a _taboo_: and so when the last and least of the three, Longinus, comes to _our_ Holy Writ--the sublime poetry in which Christendom reads its God--his open mind at once recognises it as poetry and as sublime. 'God said, Let there be light: and there was light.' If Longinus could treat this as sublime poetry, why cannot we, who have translated and made it ours? V Are we forbidden on the ground that our Bible is directly inspired? Well, inspiration, as Sir William Davenant observed and rather wittily proved, in his Preface to "Gondibert," 'is a dangerous term.' It is dangerous mainly because it is a relative term, a term of degrees. You may say definitely of some things that the writer was inspired, as you may certify a certain man to be mad--that is, so thoroughly and convincingly mad that you can order him under restraint. But quite a number of us are (as they say in my part of the world) 'not exactly,' and one or two of us here and there at moments may have a touch even of inspiration. So of the Bible itself: I suppose that few nowadays would contend it to be all inspired _equally._ 'No' you may say, 'not all equally: but all of it _directly,_ as no other book is.' To that I might answer, 'How do you _know_ that direct inspiration ceased with the Revelation of St John the Divine, and closed the book? It may be: but how do you know, and what authority have you to say that Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," for example, or Browning's great Invocation of Love was not directly inspired? Certainly the men who wrote them were rapt above themselves: and, if not directly, Why indirectly, and how?' But I pause on the edge of a morass, and spring back to firmer ground. Our Bible, as we have it, is a translation, made by forty-seven men and published in the year 1611. The original--and I am still on firm ground because I am quoting now from "The Cambridge History of English Literature"--'either proceeds from divine inspiration, as some will have it, or, according to others, is the fruit of the religious genius of the Hebrew race. From either point of view the authors are highly gifted individuals' [!]-- highly gifted individuals, who, notwithstanding their diversities, and the progressiveness observable in their representations of the nature of God, are wonderfully consistent in the main tenor of their writings, and serve, in general, for mutual confirmation and illustration. In some cases, this may be due to the revision of earlier productions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive conceptions into a degree of conformity with maturer and profounder views; but, even in such cases, the earlier conception often lends itself, without wrenching, to the deeper interpretation and the completer exposition. The Bible is not distinctively an intellectual achievement. In all earnest I protest that to write about the Bible in such a fashion is to demonstrate inferentially that it has never quickened you with its glow; that, whatever your learning, you have missed what the unlearned Bunyan, for example, so admirably caught--the true _wit_ of the book. The writer, to be sure, is dealing with the originals. Let us more humbly sit at the feet of the translators. 'Highly gifted individuals,' or no, the sort of thing the translators wrote was 'And God said, Let there be light,' 'A sower went forth to sow,' 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took,' 'The wages of sin is death,' 'The trumpet shall sound,' 'Jesus wept,' 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' Let me quote you for better encouragement, as well as for relief, a passage from Matthew Arnold on the Authorised Version: The effect of Hebrew poetry can be preserved and transferred in a foreign language as the effect of other great poetry cannot. The effect of Homer, the effect of Dante, is and must be in great measure lost in a translation, because their poetry is a poetry of metre, or of rhyme, or both; and the effect of these is not really transferable. A man may make a good English poem with the matter and thoughts of Homer and Dante, may even try to reproduce their metre, or rhyme: but the metre and rhyme will be in truth his own, and the effect will be his, not the effect of Homer or Dante. Isaiah's, on the other hand, is a poetry, as is well known, of parallelism; it depends not on metre and rhyme, but on a balance of thought, conveyed by a corresponding balance of sentence; and the effect of this can be transferred to another language.... Hebrew poetry has in addition the effect of assonance and other effects which cannot perhaps be transferred; but its main effect, its effect of parallelism of thought and sentence, can. I take this from the preface to his little volume in which Arnold confesses that his 'paramount object is to get Isaiah enjoyed.' VI Sundry men of letters besides Matthew Arnold have pleaded for a literary study of the Bible, and specially of our English Version, that we may thereby enhance our enjoyment of the work itself and, through this, enjoyment and understanding of the rest of English Literature, from 1611 down. Specially among these pleaders let me mention Mr F. B. Money-Coutts (now Lord Latymer) and a Cambridge man, Dr R. G. Moulton, now Professor of Literary Theory and Interpretation in the University of Chicago. Of both these writers I shall have something to say. But first and generally, if you ask me why all their pleas have not yet prevailed, I will give you my own answer--the fault as usual lies in ourselves--in our own tameness and incuriosity. There is no real trouble with the _taboo_ set up by professionals and puritans, if we have the courage to walk past it as Christian walked between the lions; no real tyranny we could not overthrow, if it were worth while, with a push; no need at all for us to `wreathe our sword in myrtle boughs.' What tyranny exists has grown up through the quite well-meaning labours of quite well-meaning men: and, as I started this lecture by saying, I have never heard any serious reason given why we should not include portions of the English Bible in our English Tripos, if we choose. Nos te, Nos facimus, Scriptura, deam. Then why don't we choose? To answer this, we must (I suggest) seek somewhat further back. The Bible--that is to say the body of the old Hebrew Literature clothed for us in English--comes to us in our childhood. But how does it come? Let me, amplifying a hint from Dr Moulton, ask you to imagine a volume including the great books of our own literature all bound together in some such order as this: "Paradise Lost," Darwin's "Descent of Man," "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," Walter Map, Mill "On Liberty," Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," "The Annual Register," Froissart, Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," "Domesday Book," "Le Morte d'Arthur," Campbell's "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," Boswell's "Johnson," Barbour's "The Bruce," Hakluyt's "Voyages," Clarendon, Macaulay, the plays of Shakespeare, Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," "The Faerie Queene," Palgrave's Golden Treasury, Bacon's Essays, Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads," FitzGerald's "Omar Khayyàm," Wordsworth, Browning, "Sartor Resartus," Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Burke's "Letters on a Regicide Peace," "Ossian," "Piers Plowman," Burke's "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," Quarles, Newman's "Apologia", Donne's Sermons, Ruskin, Blake, "The Deserted Village," Manfred, Blair's "Grave," "The Complaint of Deor," Bailey's "Festus," Thompson's "Hound of Heaven." Will you next imagine that in this volume most of the author's names are lost; that, of the few that survive, a number have found their way into wrong places; that Ruskin for example is credited with "Sartor Resartus," that "Laus Veneris" and "Dolores" are ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, "The Anatomy of Melancholy" to Charles II; and that, as for the titles, these were never invented by the authors, but by a Committee? Will you still go on to imagine that all the poetry is printed as prose; while all the long paragraphs of prose are broken up into short verses, so that they resemble the little passages set out for parsing or analysis in an examination paper? This device, as you know, was first invented by the exiled translators who published the Geneva Bible (as it is called) in 1557; and for pulpit use, for handiness of reference, for 'waling a portion,' it has its obvious advantages: but it is, after all and at the best, a very primitive device: and, for my part, I consider it the deadliest invention of all for robbing the book of outward resemblance to literature and converting it to the aspect of a gazetteer--a _biblion a-biblion,_ as Charles Lamb puts it. Have we done? By no means. Having effected all this, let us pepper the result over with italics and numerals, print it in double columns, with a marginal gutter on either side, each gutter pouring down an inky flow of references and cross references. Then, and not till then, is the outward disguise complete--so far as you are concerned. It remains only then to appoint it to be read in Churches, and oblige the child to get selected portions of it by heart on Sundays. But you are yet to imagine that the authors themselves have taken a hand in the game: that the later ones suppose all the earlier ones to have been predicting all the time in a nebulous fashion what they themselves have to tell, and indeed to have written mainly with that object: so that Macaulay and Adam Smith, for example, constantly interrupt the thread of their discourse to affirm that what they tell us must be right because Walter Map or the author of "Piers Plowman" foretold it ages before. Now a grown man--that is to say, a comparatively unimpressionable man--that is again to say, a man past the age when to enjoy the Bible is priceless--has probably found out somehow that the word prophet does not (in spite of vulgar usage) mean 'a man who predicts.' He has experienced too many prophets of that kind-- especially since 1914--and he respects Isaiah too much to rank Isaiah among them. He has been in love, belike; he has read the Song of Solomon: he very much doubts if, on the evidence, Solomon was the kind of lover to have written that Song, and he is quite certain that when the lover sings to his beloved: Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. --he knows, I say, that this is not a description of the Church and her graces, as the chapter-heading audaciously asserts. But he is lazy; too lazy even to commend the Revised Version for striking Solomon out of the Bible, calling the poem The Song of Songs, omitting the absurd chapter-headings, and printing the poetry as poetry ought to be printed. The old-fashioned arrangement was good enough for him. Or he goes to church on Christmas Day and listens to a first lesson, of which the old translators made nonsense, and, in two passages at least, stark nonsense. But, again, the old nonsense is good enough for him; soothing in fact. He is not even quite sure that the Bible, looking like any other book, ought to be put in the hands of the young. In all this I think he is wrong. I am sure he is wrong if our contention be right, that the English Bible should be studied by us all for its poetry and its wonderful language as well as for its religion--the religion and the poetry being in fact inseparable. For then, in Euripides' phrase, we should clothe the Bible in a dress through which its beauty might best shine. VII If you ask me How? I answer--first begging you to bear in mind that we are planning the form of the book for our purpose, and that other forms will be used for other purposes--that we should start with the simplest alterations, such as these: (1) The books should be re-arranged in their right order, so far as this can be ascertained (and much of it has been ascertained). I am told, and I can well believe, that this would at a stroke clear away a mass of confusion in strictly Biblical criticism. But that is not my business. I know that it would immensely help our _literary_ study. (2) I should print the prose continuously, as prose is ordinarily and properly printed: and the poetry in verse lines, as poetry is ordinarily and properly printed. And I should print each on a page of one column, with none but the necessary notes and references, and these so arranged that they did not tease and distract the eye. (3) This arrangement should be kept, whether for the Tripos we prescribe a book in the Authorised text or in the Revised. As a rule, perhaps--or as a rule for some years to come--we shall probably rely on the Authorised Version: but for some books (and I instance "Job") we should undoubtedly prefer the Revised. (4) With the verse we should, I hold, go farther even than the Revisers. As you know, much of the poetry in the Bible, especially of such as was meant for music, is composed in stanzaic form, or in strophe and anti-strophe, with prelude and conclusion, sometimes with a choral refrain. We should print these, I contend, in their proper form, just as we should print an English poem in its proper form. I shall conclude to-day with a striking instance of this, with four strophes from the 107th Psalm, taking leave to use at will the Authorised, the Revised and the Coverdale Versions. Each strophe, you will note, has a double refrain. As Dr Moulton points out, the one puts up a cry for help, the other an ejaculation of praise after the help has come. Each refrain has a sequel verse, which appropriately changes the motive and sets that of the next stanza: (i) They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, Their soul fainted in them. _Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,_ _And he delivered them out of their distresses._ He led them forth by a straight way, That they might go to a city of habitation. _Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,_ _And for his wonderful works to the children of men!_ For he satisfieth the longing soul, And filleth the hungry soul with goodness. (ii) Such as sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, Being bound in affliction and iron; Because they rebelled against the words of God, And contemned the counsel of the most High: Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; They fell down, and there was none to help. _Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,_ _And he saved them out of their distresses._ He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, And brake their bands in sunder. _Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,_ _And for his wonderful works to the children of men!_ For he hath broken the gates of brass, And cut the bars of iron in sunder. (iii) Fools because of their transgression, And because of their iniquities, are afflicted, Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; And they draw near unto death's door. _Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,_ _And he saveth them out of their distresses._ He sendeth his word and healeth them, And delivereth them from their destructions. _Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,_ _And for his wonderful works to the children of men!_ And let them offer the sacrifices of thanksgiving, And declare his works with singing: (iv) They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, Which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, They go down again to the depths; Their soul melteth away because of trouble. They reel to and fro, And stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits' end. _Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,_ _And he bringeth them out of their distresses._ He maketh the storm a calm, So that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; So he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be. _Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,_ _And for his wonderful works to the children of men!_ Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people, And praise him in the seat of the elders! [Footnote 1: I borrow the verse and in part the prose of Professor W. Rhys Roberts' translation.] LECTURE X ON READING THE BIBLE (III) MONDAY, MAY 6, 1918 I My task to-day, Gentlemen, is mainly practical: to choose a particular book of Scripture and show (if I can) not only that it deserves to be enjoyed, in its English rendering, as a literary masterpiece, because it abides in that dress, an indisputable classic for us, as surely as if it had first been composed in English; but that it can, for purposes of study, serve the purpose of any true literary school of English as readily, and as usefully, as the Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" or "Hamlet" or "Paradise Lost." I shall choose "The Book of Job" for several reasons, presently to be given; but beg you to understand that, while taking it for a striking illustration, I use it but to illustrate; that what may be done with "Job" may, in degree, be done with "Ruth," with "Esther," with the "Psalms," "The Song of Songs," "Ecclesiastes;" with Isaiah of Jerusalem, Ezekiel, sundry of the prophets; even with St Luke's Gospel or St Paul's letters to the Churches. My first reason, then, for choosing "Job" has already been given. It is the most striking illustration to be found. Many of the Psalms touch perfection as lyrical strains: of the ecstacy of passion in love I suppose "The Song of Songs" to express the very last word. There are chapters of Isaiah that snatch the very soul and ravish it aloft. In no literature known to me are short stories told with such sweet austerity of art as in the Gospel parables--I can even imagine a high and learned artist in words, after rejecting them as divine on many grounds, surrendering in the end to their divine artistry. But for high seriousness combined with architectonic treatment on a great scale; for sublimity of conception, working malleably within a structure which is simple, severe, complete, having a beginning, a middle and an end; for diction never less than adequate, constantly right and therefore not seldom superb, as theme, thought and utterance soar up together and make one miracle, I can name no single book of the Bible to compare with "Job." My second reason is that the poem, being brief, compendious and quite simple in structure, can be handily expounded; "Job" is what Milton precisely called it, 'a brief model.' And my third reason (which I must not hide) is that two writers whom I mentioned in my last lecture Lord Latymer and Professor R. G. Moulton--have already done this for me. A man who drives at practice must use the tools other men have made, so he use them with due acknowledgment; and this acknowledgment I pay by referring you to Book II of Lord Latymer's "The Poet's Charter,' and to the analysis of "Job" with which Professor Moulton introduces his "Literary Study of the Bible.' II But I have a fourth reason, out of which I might make an apparent fifth by presenting it to you in two different ways. Those elders of you who have followed certain earlier lectures 'On the Art of Writing' may remember that they set very little store upon metre as a dividing line between poetry and prose, and no store at all upon rhyme. I am tempted to-day to go farther, and to maintain that, the larger, the sublimer, your subject is, the more impertinent rhyme becomes to it: and that this impertinence increases in a sort of geometrical progression as you advance from monosyllabic to dissyllabic and on to trisyllabic rhyme. Let me put this by a series of examples. We start with no rhyme at all: Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first born! Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity. We feel of this, as we feel of a great passage in "Hamlet" or "Lear," that here is verse at once capable of the highest sublimity and capable of sustaining its theme, of lifting and lowering it at will, with endless resource in the slide and pause of the caesura, to carry it on and on. We feel it to be adequate, too, for quite plain straightforward narrative, as in this passage from "Balder Dead": But from the hill of Lidskialf Odin rose, The throne, from which his eye surveys the world; And mounted Sleipner, and in darkness rode To Asgard. And the stars came out in heaven, High over Asgard, to light home the King. But fiercely Odin gallop'd, moved in heart; And swift to Asgard, to the gate, he came. And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rang Along the flinty floor of Asgard streets, And the Gods trembled on their golden beds-- Hearing the wrathful Father coming home-- For dread, for like a whirlwind, Odin came. And to Valhalla's gate he rode, and left Sleipner; and Sleipner went to his own stall: And in Valhalla Odin laid him down. Now of rhyme he were a fool who, with Lycidas, or Gray's "Elegy," or certain choruses of "Prometheus Unbound," or page after page of Victor Hugo in his mind, should assert it to be in itself inimical, or a hindrance, or even less than a help, to sublimity; or who, with Dante in his mind, should assert it to be, in itself, any bar to continuous and sustained sublimity. But languages differ vastly in their wealth of rhyme, and differ out of any proportion to their wealth in words: English for instance being infinitely richer than Italian in vocabulary, yet almost ridiculously poorer in dissyllabic, or feminine rhymes. Speaking generally, I should say that in proportion to its wonderful vocabulary, English is poor even in single rhymes; that the words 'love,' 'truth,' 'God,' for example, have lists of possible congeners so limited that the mind, hearing the word 'love,' runs forward to match it with 'dove' or 'above' or even with 'move': and this gives it a sense of arrest, of listening, of check, of waiting, which alike impedes the flow of Pope in imitating Homer, and of Spenser in essaying a sublime and continuous story of his own. It does well enough to carry Chaucer over any gap with a 'forsooth as I you say' or 'forsooth as I you tell': but it does so at a total cost of the sublime. And this (I think) was really at the back of Milton's mind when in the preface to "Paradise Lost" he championed blank verse against 'the jingling sound of like endings.' But when we pass from single rhymes to double, of which Dante had an inexhaustible store, we find the English poet almost a pauper; so nearly a pauper that he has to achieve each new rhyme by a trick--which tricking is fatal to rapture, alike in the poet and the hearer. Let me instance a poem which, planned for sublimity, keeps tumbling flat upon earth through the inherent fault of the machine--I mean Myers's "St Paul"--a poem which, finely conceived, pondered, worked and re-worked upon in edition after edition, was from the first condemned (to my mind) by the technical bar of dissyllabic rhyme which the poet unhappily chose. I take one of its most deeply felt passages--that of St Paul protesting against his conversion being taken for instantaneous, wholly accounted for by the miraculous vision related in the "Acts of the Apostles": Let no man think that sudden in a minute All is accomplished and the work is done;-- Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun. Oh the regret, the struggle and the failing! Oh the days desolate and useless years! Vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing! Stings of my shame and passion of my tears! How have I seen in Araby Orion, Seen without seeing, till he set again, Known the night-noise and thunder of the lion, Silence and sounds of the prodigious plain! How have I knelt with arms of my aspiring Lifted all night in irresponsive air, Dazed and amazed with overmuch desiring, Blank with the utter agony of prayer! 'What,' ye will say, `and thou who at Damascus Sawest the splendour, answeredst the Voice; So hast thou suffered and canst dare to ask us, Paul of the Romans, bidding us rejoice?' You cannot say I have instanced a passage anything short of fine. But do you not feel that a man who is searching for a rhyme to Damascus has not really the time to cry 'Abba, father'? Is not your own rapture interrupted by some wonder 'How will he bring it off'? And when he has searched and contrived to `ask us,' are we responsive to the ecstacy? Has he not--if I may employ an Oriental trope for once--let in the chill breath of cleverness upon the garden of beatitude? No man can be clever and ecstatic at the same moment[1]. As for triple rhymes--rhymes of the comedian who had a lot o' news with many curious facts about the square on the hypotenuse, or the cassiowary who ate the missionary on the plains of Timbuctoo, with Bible, prayer-book, hymn-book too--they are for the facetious, and removed, as far as geometrical progression can remove them, from any "Paradise Lost" or "Regained." It may sound a genuine note, now and then: Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! Oh, it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, Home she had none! But not often: and, I think, never but in lyric. III So much, then, for rhyme. We will approach the question of metre, helped or unhelped by rhyme, in another way; and a way yet more practical. When Milton (determined to write a grand epic) was casting about for his subject, he had a mind for some while to attempt the story of "Job." You may find evidence for this in a MS preserved here in Trinity College Library. You will find printed evidence in a passage of his "Reason of Church Government": 'Time serves not now,' he writes, 'and perhaps I might seem too profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief model ...' Again, we know "Job" to have been one of the three stories meditated by Shelley as themes for great lyrical dramas, the other two being the madness of Tasso and "Prometheus Unbound." Shelley never abandoned this idea of a lyrical drama on Job; and if Milton abandoned the idea of an epic, there are passages in "Paradise Lost" as there are passages in "Prometheus Unbound" that might well have been written for this other story. Take the lines Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet Mortality my sentence, and be earth Insensible! how glad would lay me down As in my mother's lap! There I should rest And sleep secure;... What is this, as Lord Latymer asks, but an echo of Job's words?-- For now should I have lien down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest: With kings and counsellers of the earth, Which built desolate places for themselves ... There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary be at rest. There is no need for me to point out how exactly, though from two nearly opposite angles, the story of Job would hit the philosophy of Milton and the philosophy of Shelley to the very heart. What is the story of the afflicted patriarch but a direct challenge to a protestant like Milton (I use the word in its strict sense) to justify the ways of God to man? It is the very purpose, in sum, of the "Book of Job," as it is the very purpose, in sum, of "Paradise Lost": and since both poems can only work out the justification by long argumentative speeches, both poems lamentably fail as real solutions of the difficulty. To this I shall recur, and here merely observe that _qui s' excuse s' accuse_: a God who can only explain himself by the help of long-winded scolding, or of long-winded advocacy, though he employ an archangel for advocate, has given away the half of his case by the implicit admission that there are two sides to the question. And when we have put aside the poetical ineptitude of a Creator driven to apology, it remains that to Shelley the Jehovah who, for a sort of wager, allowed Satan to torture Job merely for the game of testing him, would be no better than any other tyrant; would be a miscreant Creator, abominable as the Zeus of the "Prometheus Unbound." Now you may urge that Milton and Shelley dropped Job for hero because both felt him to be a merely static figure: and that the one chose Satan, the rebel angel, the other chose Prometheus the rebel Titan, because both are active rebels, and as epic and drama require action, each of these heroes makes the thing move; that Satan and Prometheus are not passive sufferers like Job but souls as quick and fiery as Byron's Lucifer: Souls who dare use their immortality-- Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him that His evil is not good. Very well, urge this: urge it with all your might. All the while you will be doing just what I desire you to do, using "Job" alongside "Prometheus Unbound" and "Paradise Lost" as a comparative work of literature. But, if you ask me for my own opinion why Milton and Shelley dropped their intention to make poems on the "Book of Job," it is that they no sooner tackled it than they found it to be a magnificent poem already, and a poem on which, with all their genius, they found themselves unable to improve. I want you to realise a thing most simple, demonstrable by five minutes of practice, yet so confused by conventional notions of what poetry is that I dare say it to be equally demonstrable that Milton and Shelley discovered it only by experiment. Does this appear to you a bold thing to say of so tremendous an artist as Milton? Well, of course it would be cruel to quote in proof his paraphrases of Psalms cxiv and cxxxvi: to set against the Authorised Version's When Israel went out of Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language such pomposity as When the blest seed of Terah's faithful son After long toil their liberty had won-- or against O give thanks.... To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever such stuff as Who did the solid earth ordain To rise above the watery plain; _For his mercies aye endure,_ _Ever faithful, ever sure._ Who, by his all-commanding might, Did fill the new-made world with light; _For his mercies aye endure,_ _Ever faithful, ever sure._ verses yet further weakened by the late Sir William Baker for "Hymns Ancient and Modern." It were cruel, I say, to condemn these attempts as little above those of Sternhold and Hopkins, or even of those of Tate and Brady: for Milton made them at fifteen years old, and he who afterwards consecrated his youth to poetry soon learned to know better. And yet, bearing in mind the passages in "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" which paraphrase the Scriptural narrative, I cannot forbear the suspicion that, though as an artist he had the instinct to feel it, he never quite won to _knowing_ the simple fact that the thing had already been done and surpassingly well done: he, who did so much to liberate poetry from rhyme--he--even he who in the grand choruses of "Samson Agonistes" did so much to liberate it from strict metre never quite realised, being hag-ridden by the fetish that rides between two panniers, the sacred and the profane, that this translation of "Job" already belongs to the category of poetry, _is_ poetry, already above metre, and in rhythm far on its way to the insurpassable. If rhyme be allowed to that greatest of arts, if metre, is not rhythm above both for her service? Hear in a sentence how this poem uplifts the rhythm of the Vulgate: _Ecce, Deus magnus vincens scientiam nostram; numerus annorum_ _ejus inestimabilis!_ But hear, in a longer passage, how our English rhythm swings and sways to the Hebrew parallels: Surely there is a mine for silver, And a place for gold which they refine. Iron is taken out of the earth, And brass is molten out of the stone. _Man_ setteth an end to darkness, And searcheth out to the furthest bound The stones of thick darkness and of the shadow of death. He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn; They are forgotten of the foot _that passeth by_; They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. The atones thereof are the place of sapphires, And it hath dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knoweth, Neither hath the falcon's eye seen it: The proud beasts have not trodden it, Nor hath the fierce lion passed thereby. He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock; He overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out channels among the rocks; And his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the streams that they trickle not; And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light. But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; Neither is it found in the land of the living. The deep saith, It is not in me: And the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, With the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it: Neither shall the exchange thereof be jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal: Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, Neither shall it be valued with pure gold. Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, And kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and Death say, We have heard a rumour thereof with our ears. God understandeth the way thereof, And he knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, And seeth under the whole heaven; To make a weight for the wind; Yea, he meteth out the waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, And a way for the lightning of the thunder: Then did he see it, and declare it; He established it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, _that_ is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding. Is that poetry? Surely it is poetry. Can you improve it with the embellishments of rhyme and strict scansion? Well, sundry bold men have tried, and I will choose, for your judgment, the rendering of a part of the above passage by one who is by no means the worst of them--a hardy anonymous Scotsman. His version was published at Falkirk in 1869: His hand on the rock the adventurer puts, And mountains entire overturns by the roots; New rivers in rocks are enchased by his might, And everything precious revealed to his sight; The floods from o'er-flowing he bindeth at will, And the thing that is hid bringeth forth by his skill. But where real wisdom is found can he shew? Or the place understanding inhabiteth? No! Men know not the value, the price of this gem; 'Tis not found in the land of the living with them. It is not in me, saith the depth; and the sea With the voice of an echo, repeats, Not in me. (I have a suspicion somehow that what the sea really answered, in its northern vernacular, was 'Me either.') Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place Understanding hath chosen, since this is the case?... Enough! This not only shows how that other rendering can be spoilt even to the point of burlesque by an attempt, on preconceived notions, to embellish it with metre and rhyme, but it also hints that parallel verse will actually resent and abhor such embellishment even by the most skilled hand. Yet, I repeat, our version of "Job" is poetry undeniable. What follows? Why, it follows that in the course of studying it as literature we have found experimentally settled for us--and on the side of freedom--a dispute in which scores of eminent critics have taken sides: a dispute revived but yesterday (if we omit the blank and devastated days of this War) by the writers and apostles of _vers libres._ 'Can there be poetry without metre?' 'Is free verse a true poetic form?' Why, our "Book of Job" being poetry, unmistakable poetry, of course there can, to be sure it is. These apostles are butting at an open door. Nothing remains for them but to go and write _vers libres_ as fine as those of "Job" in our English translation. Or suppose even that they write as well as M. Paul Fort, they will yet be writing ancestrally, not as innovators but as renewers. Nothing is done in literature by arguing whether or not this or that be possible or permissible. The only way to prove it possible or permissible is to go and do it: and then you are lucky indeed if some ancient writers have not forestalled you. IV Now for another question (much argued, you will remember, a few years ago) 'Is there--can there be--such a thing as a Static Theatre, a Static Drama?' Most of you (I daresay) remember M. Maeterlinck's definition of this and his demand for it. To summarise him roughly, he contends that the old drama--the traditional, the conventional drama-- lives by action; that, in Aristotle's phrase, it represents men doing, [Greek: prattontas], and resolves itself into a struggle of human wills--whether against the gods, as in ancient tragedy, or against one another, as in modern. M. Maeterlinck tells us-- There is a tragic element in the life of every day that is far more real, far more penetrating, far more akin to the true self that is in us, than is the tragedy that lies in great adventure.... It goes beyond the determined struggle of man against man, and desire against desire; it goes beyond the eternal conflict of duty and passion. Its province is rather to reveal to us how truly wonderful is the mere act of living, and to throw light upon the existence of the soul, self-contained in the midst of ever-restless immensities; to hush the discourse of reason and sentiment, so that above the tumult may be heard the solemn uninterrupted whisperings of man and his destiny. To the tragic author [he goes on, later], as to the mediocre painter who still lingers over historical pictures, it is only the violence of the anecdote that appeals, and in his representation thereof does the entire interest of his work consist.... Indeed when I go to a theatre, I feel as though I were spending a few hours with my ancestors, who conceived life as though it were something that was primitive, arid and brutal.... I am shown a deceived husband killing his wife, a woman poisoning her lover, a son avenging his father, a father slaughtering his children, murdered kings, ravished virgins, imprisoned citizens--in a word all the sublimity of tradition, but alas how superficial and material! Blood, surface-tears and death! What can I learn from creatures who have but one fixed idea, who have no time to live, for that there is a rival, a mistress, whom it behoves them to put to death? M. Maeterlinck does not (he says) know if the Static Drama of his craving be impossible. He inclines to think--instancing some Greek tragedies such as "Prometheus" and "Choephori"--that it already exists. But may we not, out of the East--the slow, the stationary East--fetch an instance more convincing? V The Drama of Job opens with a "Prologue" in the mouth of a Narrator. There was a man in the land of Uz, named Job; upright, God-fearing, of great substance in sheep, cattle and oxen; blest also with seven sons and three daughters. After telling of their family life, how wholesome it is, and pious, and happy-- The Prologue passes to a Council held in Heaven. The Lord sits there, and the sons of God present themselves each from his province. Enters Satan (whom we had better call the Adversary) from his sphere of inspection, the Earth, and reports. The Lord specially questions him concerning Job, pattern of men. The Adversary demurs. 'Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not set a hedge about his prosperity? But put forth thy hand and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face.' The Lord gives leave for this trial to be made (you will recall the opening of "Everyman"): So, in the midst of his wealth, a messenger came to job and says-- The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: and the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have taken them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: and, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped; and he said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. So the Adversary is foiled, and Job has not renounced God. A second Council is held in Heaven; and the Adversary, being questioned, has to admit Job's integrity, but proposes a severer test: Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face. Again leave is given: and the Adversary smites job with the most hideous and loathsome form of leprosy. His kinsfolk (as we learn later) have already begun to desert and hold aloof from him as a man marked out by God's displeasure. But now he passes out from their midst, as one unclean from head to foot, and seats himself on the ash-mound--that is, upon the Mezbele or heap of refuse which accumulates outside Arab villages. 'The dung,' says Professor Moulton, `which is heaped upon the Mezbele of the Hauran villages is not mixed with straw, which in that warm and dry land is not needed for litter, and it comes mostly from solid-hoofed animals, as the flocks and oxen are left over-night in the grazing places. It is carried in baskets in a dry state to this place ... and usually burnt once a month.... The ashes remain.... If the village has been inhabited for centuries the Mezbele reaches a height far overtopping it. The winter rains reduce it into a compact mass, and it becomes by and by a solid hill of earth.... The Mezbele serves the inhabitants for a watchtower, and in the sultry evenings for a place of concourse, because there is a current of air on the height. There all day long the children play about it; and there the outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun has warmed.' Here, then, sits in his misery 'the forsaken grandee'; and here yet another temptation comes to him--this time not expressly allowed by the Lord. Much foolish condemnation (and, I may add, some foolish facetiousness) has been heaped on Job's wife. As a matter of fact she is _not_ a wicked woman--she has borne her part in the pious and happy family life, now taken away: she has uttered no word of complaint though all the substance be swallowed up and her children with it. But now the sight of her innocent husband thus helpless, thus incurably smitten, wrings, through love and anguish and indignation, this cry from her: Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die. But Job answered, soothing her: Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? So the second trial ends, and Job has sinned not with his lips. But now comes the third trial, which needs no Council in Heaven to decree it. Travellers by the mound saw this figure seated there, patient, uncomplaining, an object of awe even to the children who at first mocked him; asked this man's history; and hearing of it, smote on their breasts, and made a token of it and carried the news into far countries: until it reached the ears of Job's three friends, all great tribesmen like himself--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. These three made an appointment together to travel and visit Job. 'And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept.' Then they went up and sat down opposite him on the ground. But the majesty of suffering is silent: Here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.... No, not a word.... And, with the grave courtesy of Eastern men, they too are silent: So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great. The Prologue ends. The scene is set. After seven days of silence the real drama opens. VI Of the drama itself I shall attempt no analysis, referring you for this to the two books from which I have already quoted. My purpose being merely to persuade you that this surpassing poem can be studied, and ought to be studied, as literature, I shall content myself with turning it (so to speak) once or twice in my hand and glancing one or two facets at you. To begin with, then, you will not have failed to notice, in the setting out of the drama, a curious resemblance between "Job" and the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus. The curtain in each play lifts on a figure solitary, tortured (for no reason that seems good to us) by a higher will which, we are told, is God's. The chorus of Sea-nymphs in the opening of the Greek play bears no small resemblance in attitude of mind to job's three friends. When job at length breaks the intolerable silence with Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man child conceived. he uses just such an outburst as Prometheus: and, as he is answered by his friends, so the Nymphs at once exclaim to Prometheus Seest thou not that thou hast sinned? But at once, for anyone with a sense of comparative literature, is set up a comparison between the persistent West and the persistent East; between the fiery energising rebel and the patient victim. Of these two, both good, one will dare everything to release mankind from thrall; the other will submit, and justify himself--mankind too, if it may hap--by submission. At once this difference is seen to give a difference of form to the drama. Our poem is purely static. Some critics can detect little individuality in Job's three friends, to distinguish them. For my part I find Eliphaz more of a personage than the other two; grander in the volume of his mind, securer in wisdom; as I find Zophar rather noticeably a mean-minded greybeard, and Bildad a man of the stand-no-nonsense kind. But, to tell the truth, I prefer not to search for individuality in these men: I prefer to see them as three figures with eyes of stone almost expressionless. For in truth they are the conventions, all through,--the orthodox men--addressing Job, the reality; and their words come to this: Thou sufferest, therefore must have sinned. All suffering is, must be a judgment upon sin. Else God is not righteous. They are statuesque, as the drama is static. The speeches follow one another, rising and falling, in rise and fall magnificently and deliberately eloquent. Not a limb is seen to move, unless it be when job half rises from the dust in sudden scorn of their conventions: No doubt but _ye_ are the people, And wisdom shall die with you! or again Will ye speak unrighteously for God, And talk deceitfully for him? Will _ye_ respect _his_ person? Will _ye_ contend for God? Yet--so great is this man, who has not renounced and will not renounce God, that still and ever he clamours for more knowledge of Him. Still getting no answer, he lifts up his hands and calls the great Oath of Clearance; in effect 'If I have loved gold overmuch, hated mine enemy, refused the stranger my tent, truckled to public opinion': If my land cry out against me, And the furrows thereof weep together; If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, Or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life: Let thistles grow instead of wheat, And cockle instead of barley. With a slow gesture he covers his face: The words of Job are ended. VII They are ended: even though at this point (when the debate seems to be closed) a young Aramaean Arab, Elihu, who has been loitering around and listening to the controversy, bursts in and delivers his young red-hot opinions. They are violent, and at the same time quite raw and priggish. Job troubles not to answer: the others keep a chilling silence. But while this young man rants, pointing skyward now and again, we see, we feel--it is most wonderfully conveyed--as clearly as if indicated by successive stage-directions, a terrific thunder-storm gathering; a thunder-storm with a whirlwind. It gathers; it is upon them; it darkens them with dread until even the words of Elihu dry on his lips: If a man speak, surely he shall be swallowed up. It breaks and blasts and confounds them; and out of it the Lord speaks. Now of that famous and marvellous speech, put by the poet into the mouth of God, we may say what may be said of all speeches put by man into the mouth of God. We may say, as of the speeches of the Archangel in "Paradise Lost" that it is argument, and argument, by its very nature, admits of being answered. But, if to make God talk at all be anthropomorphism, here is anthropomorphism at its very best in its effort to reach to God. There is a hush. The storm clears away; and in this hush the voice of the Narrator is heard again, pronouncing the Epilogue. Job has looked in the face of God and reproached him as a friend reproaches a friend. Therefore his captivity was turned, and his wealth returned to him, and he begat sons and daughters, and saw his sons' sons unto the fourth generation. So Job died, being old and full of years. VIII Structurally a great poem; historically a great poem; philosophically a great poem; so rendered for us in noble English diction as to be worthy in any comparison of diction, structure, ancestry, thought! Why should we not study it in our English School, if only for purpose of comparison? I conclude with these words of Lord Latymer: There is nothing comparable with it except the "Prometheus Bound" of Aeschylus. It is eternal, illimitable ... its scope is the relation between God and Man. It is a vast liberation, a great gaol-delivery of the spirit of Man; nay, rather a great Acquittal. [Footnote 1: It is fair to say that Myers cancelled the Damascus stanza in his final edition.] LECTURE XI OF SELECTION WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1918 I Let us hark back, Gentlemen, to our original problem, and consider if our dilatory way have led us to some glimpse of a practical solution. We may re-state it thus: Assuming it to be true, as men of Science assure us, that the weight of this planet remains constant, and is to-day what it was when mankind carelessly laid it on the shoulders of Atlas; that nothing abides but it goes, that nothing goes but in some form or other it comes back; you and I may well indulge a wonder what reflections upon this astonishing fact our University Librarian, Mr Jenkinson, takes to bed with him. A copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom is--or I had better say, should be--deposited with him. Putting aside the question of what he has done to deserve it, he must surely wonder at times from what other corners of the earth Providence has been at pains to collect and compact the ingredients of the latest new volume he handles for a moment before fondly committing it to the cellars. 'Locked up, not lost.' Or, to take it in reverse--When the great library of Alexandria went up in flames, doubtless its ashes awoke an appreciable and almost immediate energy in the crops of the Nile Delta. The more leisurable process of desiccation, by which, under modern storage, the components of a modern novel are released to fresh unions and activities admits, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, a wide solution, and was just the question to tease that good man. Can we not hear him discussing it? 'To be but pyramidally extant is a fallacy in duration.... To burn the bones of the King of Edom for lime seems no irrational ferity: but to store the back volumes of Mr Bottomley's "John Bull" a passionate prodigality.' II Well, whatever the perplexities of our Library we may be sure they will never break down that tradition of service, help and courtesy which is, among its fine treasures, still the first. But we have seen that Mr Jenkinson's perplexities are really but a parable of ours: that the question, What are we to do with all these books accumulating in the world? really _is_ a question: that their mere accumulation really _does_ heap up against us a barrier of such enormous and brute mass that the stream of human culture must needs be choked and spread into marsh unless we contrive to pipe it through. That a great deal of it is meant to help--that even the most of it is well intentioned--avails not against the mere physical obstacle of its mass. If you consider an Athenian gentleman of the 5th century B.C. connecting (as I always preach here) his literature with his life, two things are bound to strike you: the first that he was a man of leisure, somewhat disdainful of trade and relieved of menial work by a number of slaves; the second, that he was surprisingly unencumbered with books. You will find in Plato much about reciters, actors, poets, rhetoricians, pleaders, sophists, public orators and refiners of language, but very little indeed about books. Even the library of Alexandria grew in a time of decadence and belonged to an age not his. Says Jowett in the end: He who approaches him in the most reverent spirit shall reap most of the fruit of his wisdom; he who reads him by the light of ancient commentators will have the least understanding of him. We see him [Jowett goes on] with the eye of the mind in the groves of the Academy, or on the banks of the Ilissus, or in the streets of Athens, alone or walking with Socrates, full of those thoughts which have since become the common possession of mankind. Or we may compare him to a statue hid away in some temple of Zeus or Apollo, no longer existing on earth, a statue which has a look as of the God himself. Or we may once more imagine him following in another state of being the great company of heaven which he beheld of old in a vision. So, 'partly trifling but with a certain degree of seriousness,' we linger around the memory of a world which has passed away. Yes, 'which has passed away,' and perhaps with no token more evident of its decease than the sepulture of books that admiring generations have heaped on it! III In a previous lecture I referred you to the beautiful opening and the yet more beautiful close of the "Phaedrus." Let us turn back and refresh ourselves with that Dialogue while we learn from it, in somewhat more of detail, just what a book meant to an Athenian: how fresh a thing it was to him and how little irksome. Phaedrus has spent his forenoon listening to a discourse by the celebrated rhetorician Lysias on the subject of Love, and is starting to cool his head with a stroll beyond the walls of the city, when he encounters Socrates, who will not let him go until he has delivered up the speech with which Lysias regaled him, or, better still, the manuscript, 'which I suspect you are carrying there in your left hand under your cloak.' So they bend their way beside Ilissus towards a tall plane tree, seen in the distance. Having reached it, they recline. 'By Hera,' says Socrates, 'a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents! This clearing, with the agnus castus in high bloom and fragrant, and the stream beneath the tree so gratefully cool to our feet! Judging from the ornaments and statues, I think this spot must be sacred to Acheloüs and the Nymphs. And the breeze, how deliciously charged with balm! and all summer's murmur in the air, shrilled by the chorus of the grasshoppers! But the greatest charm is this knoll of turf,--positively a pillow for the head. My dear Phaedrus, you have been a delectable guide.' 'What an incomprehensible being you are, Socrates,' returns Phaedrus. 'When you are in the country, as you say, you really are like some stranger led about by a guide. Upon my word, I doubt if you ever stray beyond the gates save by accident.' 'Very true, my friend: and I hope you will forgive me for the reason--which is, that I love knowledge, and my teachers are the men who dwell in the city, not the trees or country scenes. Yet I do believe you have found a spell to draw me forth, like a hungry cow before whom a bough or a bunch of fruit is waved. For only hold up before me in like manner a book, and you may lead me all round Attica and over the wide world.' So they recline and talk, looking aloft through that famous pure sky of Attica, mile upon mile transparent; and their discourse (preserved to us) is of Love, and seems to belong to that atmosphere, so clear it is and luminously profound. It ends with the cool of the day, and the two friends arise to depart. Socrates looks about him. 'Should we not, before going, offer up a prayer to these local deities?' 'By all means,' Phaedrus agrees. _Socrates_ (praying): 'Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, grant me beauty in the inward soul, and that the outward and inward may be at one! May I esteem the wise to be the rich; and may I myself have that quantity of gold which a temperate man, and he only, can carry.... Anything more? That prayer, I think, is enough for me.' _Phaedrus._ 'Ask the same for me, Socrates. Friends, methinks, should have all things in common.' _Socrates._ 'Amen, then.... Let us go.' Here we have, as it seems to me, a marriage, without impediment, of wisdom and beauty between two minds that perforce have small acquaintance with books: and yet, with it, Socrates' confession that anyone with a book under his cloak could lead him anywhere by the nose. So we see that Hellenic culture at its best was independent of book-learning, and yet craved for it. IV When our own Literature awoke, taking its origin from the proud scholarship of the Renaissance, an Englishman who affected it was scarcely more cumbered with books than our Athenian had been, two thousand years before. It was, and it remained, aristocratic: sparingly expensive of its culture. It postulated, if not a slave population, at least a proletariat for which its blessings were not. No one thought of making a fortune by disseminating his work in print. Shakespeare never found it worth while to collect and publish his plays; and a very small sense of history will suffice to check our tears over the price received by Milton for "Paradise Lost." We may wonder, indeed, at the time it took our forefathers to realise--or, at any rate, to employ--the energy that lay in the printing-press. For centuries after its invention mere copying commanded far higher prices than authorship[1]. Writers gave 'authorised' editions to the world sometimes for the sake of fame, often to justify themselves against piratical publishers, seldom in expectation of monetary profit. Listen, for example, to Sir Thomas Browne's excuse for publishing "Religio Medici" (1643): Had not almost every man suffered by the press or were not the tyranny thereof become universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint: but in times wherein I have lived to behold the highest perversion of that excellent invention, the name of his Majesty defamed, the honour of Parliament depraved, the writings of both depravedly, anticipatively, counterfeitly imprinted; complaints may seem ridiculous in private persons; and men of my condition may be as incapable of affronts, as hopeless of their reparations. And truly had not the duty I owe unto the importunity of friends, and the allegiance I must ever acknowledge unto truth, prevailed with me; the inactivity of my disposition might have made these sufferings continual, and time that brings other things to light, should have satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion. But because things evidently false are not only printed, but many things of truth most falsely set forth, in this latter I could not but think myself engaged. For though we have no power to redress the former, yet in the other, the reparation being within our selves, I have at present represented unto the world a full and intended copy of that piece, which was most imperfectly and surreptitiously published before. This I confess, about seven years past, with some others of affinity thereto, for my private exercise and satisfaction, I had at leisurable hours composed; which being communicated unto one, it became common unto many, and was by transcription successively corrupted, untill it arrived in a most depraved copy at the press ... [2] V The men of the 18th century maintained the old tradition of literary exclusiveness, but in a somewhat different way and more consciously. I find, Gentlemen, when you read with me in private, that nine out of ten of you dislike the 18th century and all its literary works. As for the Women students, they one and all abominate it. You do not, I regret to say, provide me with reasons much more philosophical than the epigrammatist's for disliking Doctor Fell. May one whose time of life excuses perhaps a detachment from passion attempt to provide you with one? If so, first listen to this from Mr and Mrs Hammond's book "The Village Labourer," 1760-1832: A row of 18th century houses, or a room of normal 18th century furniture, or a characteristic piece of 18th century literature, conveys at once a sensation of satisfaction and completeness. The secret of this charm is not to be found in any special beauty or nobility of design or expression, but simply in an exquisite fitness. The 18th century mind was a unity, an order. All literature and art that really belong to the 18th century are the language of a little society of men and women who moved within one set of ideas; who understood each other; who were not tormented by any anxious or bewildering problems; who lived in comfort, and, above all things, in composure. The classics were their freemasonry. There was a standard for the mind, for the emotions, for taste: there were no incongruities. When you have a society like this, you have what we roughly call a civilisation, and it leaves its character and canons in all its surroundings and in its literature. Its definite ideas lend themselves readily to expression. A larger society seems an anarchy in contrast: just because of its escape into a greater world it seems powerless to stamp itself in wood or stone; it is condemned as an age of chaos and mutiny, with nothing to declare. You do wrong, I assure you, in misprising these men of the 18th century. They reduced life, to be sure: but by that very means they saw it far more _completely_ than do we, in this lyrical age, with our worship of 'fine excess.' Here at any rate, and to speak only of its literature, you have a society fencing that literature around--I do not say by forethought or even consciously--but in effect fencing its literature around, to keep it in control and capable of an orderly, a nice, even an exquisite cultivation. Dislike it as you may, I do not think that any of you, as he increases his knowledge of the technique of English Prose, yes, and of English Verse (I do not say of English Poetry) will deny his admiration to the men of the 18th century. The strength of good prose resides not so much in the swing and balance of the single sentence as in the marshalling of argument, the orderly procession of paragraphs, the disposition of parts so that each finds its telling, its proper, place; the adjustment of the means to the end; the strategy which brings its full force into action at the calculated moment and drives the conclusion home upon an accumulated sense of _justice._ I do not see how any student of 18th century literature can deny its writers--Berkeley or Hume or Gibbon--Congreve or Sheridan--Pope or Cowper--Addison or Steele or Johnson--Burke or Chatham or Thomas Paine--their meed for this, or, if he be an artist, even his homage. But it remains true, as your instinct tells you, and as I have admitted, that they achieved all this by help of narrow and artificial boundaries. Of several fatal exclusions let me name but two. In the first place, they excluded the Poor; imitating in a late age the Athenian tradition of a small polite society resting on a large and degraded one. Throughout the 18th century--and the great Whig families were at least as much to blame for this as the Tories--by enclosure of commons, by grants, by handling of the franchise, by taxation, by poor laws in result punitive though intended to be palliative, the English peasantry underwent a steady process of degradation into serfdom: into a serfdom which, during the first twenty years of the next century, hung constantly and precariously on the edge of actual starvation. The whole theory of culture worked upon a principle of double restriction; of restricting on the one hand the realm of polite knowledge to propositions suitable for a scholar and a gentleman, and, on the other, the numbers of the human family permitted to be either. The theory deprecated enthusiasm, as it discountenanced all ambition in a poor child to rise above what Sir Spencer Walpole called 'his inevitable and hereditary lot'--to soften which and make him acquiescent in it was, with a Wilberforce or a Hannah More, the last dream of restless benevolence. VI Also these 18th century men fenced off the whole of our own Middle English and medieval literature--fenced off Chaucer and Dunbar, Malory and Berners--as barbarous and 'Gothic.' They treated these writers with little more consideration than Boileau had thought it worth while to bestow on Villon or on Ronsard-- _enfin Malherbe_! As for Anglo-Saxon literature, one may, safely say that, save by Gray and a very few others, its existence was barely surmised. You may or may not find it harder to forgive them that they ruled out moreover a great part of the literature of the preceding century as offensive to urbane taste, or as they would say, 'disgusting.' They disliked it mainly, one suspects, as one age revolts from the fashion of another--as some of you, for example, revolt from the broad plenty of Dickens (Heaven forgive you) or the ornament of Tennyson. Some of the great writers of that age definitely excluded God from their scheme of things: others included God fiercely, but with circumscription and limitation. I think it fair to say of them generally that they hated alike the mystical and the mysterious, and, hating these, could have little commerce with such poetry as Crashaw's and Vaughan's or such speculation as gave ardour to the prose of the Cambridge Platonists. Johnson's famous attack, in his "Life of Cowley," upon the metaphysical followers of Donne ostensibly assails their literary conceits, but truly and at bottom rests its quarrel against an attitude of mind, in respect of which he lived far enough removed to be unsympathetic yet near enough to take denunciation for a duty. Johnson, to put it vulgarly, had as little use for Vaughan's notion of poetry as he would have had for Shelley's claim that it feeds on the aëreal kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses, and we have only to set ourselves back in Shelley's age and read (say) the verse of Frere and Canning in "The Anti-Jacobin," to understand how frantic a lyrist--let be how frantic a political figure--Shelley must have appeared to well-regulated minds. VII All this literature which our forefathers excluded has come back upon us: and concurrently we have to deal with the more serious difficulty (let us give thanks for it) of a multitude of millions insurgent to handsel their long-deferred heritage. I shall waste no time in arguing that we ought not to wish to withhold it, because we cannot if we would. And thus the problem becomes a double one, of _distribution_ as well as of _selection._ Now in the first place I submit that this _distribution_ should be free: which implies that our _selection_ must be confined to books and methods of teaching. There must be no picking and choosing among the recipients, no appropriation of certain forms of culture to certain 'stations of life' with a tendency, conscious or unconscious, to keep those stations as stationary as possible. Merely by clearing our purpose to this extent we shall have made no inconsiderable advance. For even the last century never quite got rid of its predecessor's fixed idea that certain degrees of culture were appropriate to certain stations of life. With what gentle persistence it prevails, for example, in Jane Austen's novels; with what complacent rhetoric in Tennyson (and in spite of Lady Clara Vere de Vere)! Let me remind you that by allowing an idea to take hold of our animosity we may be as truly `possessed' by it as though it claimed our allegiance. The notion that culture may be drilled to march in step with a trade or calling endured through the Victorian age of competition and possessed the mind not only of Samuel Smiles who taught by instances how a bright and industrious boy might earn money and lift himself out of his 'station,' but of Ruskin himself, who in the first half of "Sesame and Lilies," in the lecture "Of Kings' Treasuries," discussing the choice of books, starts vehemently and proceeds at length to denounce the prevalent passion for self-advancement--of rising above one's station in life--quite as if it were the most important thing, willy-nilly, in talking of the choice of books. Which means that, to Ruskin, just then, it was the most formidable obstacle. Can we, at this time of day, do better by simply turning the notion out of doors? Yes, I believe that we can: and upon this _credo_: _I believe that while it may grow--and grow infinitely--with increase of learning, the grace of a liberal education, like the grace of Christianity, is so catholic a thing--so absolutely above being trafficked, retailed, apportioned, among `stations in life'--that the humblest child may claim it by indefeasible right, having a soul._ _Further, I believe that Humanism is, or should he, no decorative appanage, purchased late in the process of education, within the means of a few: but a quality, rather, which should, and can, condition all teaching, from a child's first lesson in Reading: that its unmistakable hall-mark can be impressed upon the earliest task set in an Elementary School._ VIII I am not preaching red Radicalism in this: I am not telling you that Jack is as good as his master: if he were, he would be a great deal better; for he would understand Homer (say) as well as his master, the child of parents who could afford to have him taught Greek. As Greek is commonly taught, I regret to say, whether they have learnt it or not makes a distressingly small difference to most boys' appreciation of Homer. Still it does make a vast difference to some, and should make a vast difference to all. And yet, if you will read the passage in Kinglake's "Eöthen" in which he tells--in words that find their echo in many a reader's memory--of his boyish passion for Homer--and if you will note that the boy imbibed his passion, after all, through the conduit of Pope's translation--you will acknowledge that, for the human boy, admission to much of the glory of Homer's realm does not depend upon such mastery as a boy of fifteen or sixteen possesses over the original. But let me quote you a few sentences: I, too, loved Homer, but not with a scholar's love. The most humble and pious among women was yet so proud a mother that she could teach her first-born son no Watts's hymns, no collects for the day; she could teach him in earliest childhood no less than this--to find a home in his saddle, and to love old Homer, and all that old Homer sung. True it is, that the Greek was ingeniously rendered into English, the English of Pope even, but not even a mesh like that can screen an earnest child from the fire of Homer's battles. I pored over the "Odyssey" as over a story-book, hoping and fearing for the hero whom yet I partly scorned. But the "Iliad"--line by line I clasped it to my brain with reverence as well as with love.... The impatient child is not grubbing for beauties, but pushing the siege; the women vex him with their delays, and their talking ... but all the while that he thus chafes at the pausing of the action, the strong vertical light of Homer's poetry is blazing so full upon the people and things of the "Iliad," that soon to the eyes of the child they grow familiar as his mother's shawl.... It was not the recollection of school nor college learning, but the rapturous and earnest reading of my childhood, which made me bend forward so longingly to the plains of Troy. IX It is among the books then, and not among the readers, that we must do our selecting. But how? On what principle or principles? Sometime in the days of my youth, a newspaper, "The Pall Mall Gazette," then conducted by W. T. Stead, made a conscientious effort to solve the riddle by inviting a number of eminent men to compile lists of the Hundred Best Books. Now this invitation rested on a fallacy. Considering for a moment how personal a thing is Literature, you will promptly assure yourselves that there is--there can be--no such thing as the Hundred Best Books. If you yet incline to toy with the notion, carry it on and compile a list of the Hundred Second-best Books: nay, if you will, continue until you find yourself solemnly, with a brow corrugated by responsibility, weighing the claims (say) of Velleius Paterculus, Paul and Virginia and Mr Jorrocks to admission among the Hundred Tenth-best Books. There is, in fact no positive hierarchy among the classics. You cannot appraise the worth of Charles Lamb against the worth of Casaubon: the worth of Hesiod against the worth of Madame de Sévigné: the worth of Théophile Gautier against the worth of Dante or Thomas Hobbes or Macchiavelli or Jane Austen. They all wrote with pens, in ink, upon paper: but you no sooner pass beyond these resemblances than your comparison finds itself working in impari materia. Also why should the Best Books be 100 in number, rather than 99 or 199? And under what conditions is a book a Best Book? There are moods in which we not only prefer Pickwick to the Rig-Vedas or Sakuntalà, but find that it does us more good. In our day again I pay all respect to Messrs Dent's "Everyman's Library." It was a large conception vigorously planned. But, in the nature of things, Everyman is going to arrive at a point beyond which he will find it more and more difficult to recognise himself: at a point, let us say, when Everyman, opening a new parcel, starts to doubt if, after all, it wouldn't be money in his pocket to be Somebody Else. X And yet, may be, "The Pall Mall Gazette" was on the right scent. For it was in search of masterpieces: and, however we teach, our trust will in the end repose upon masterpieces, upon the great classics of whatever Language or Literature we are handling: and these, in any language are neither enormous in number and mass, nor extraordinarily difficult to detect, nor (best of all) forbidding to the reader by reason of their own difficulty. Upon a selected few of these--even upon three, or two, or one--we may teach at least a surmise of the true delight, and may be some measure of taste whereby our pupil will, by an inner guide, be warned to choose the better and reject the worse when we turn him loose to read for himself. To this use of masterpieces I shall devote my final lecture. [Footnote 1: Charles Reade notes this in "The Cloister and the Hearth," chap. LXI.] [Footnote 2: The loose and tautologous style of this Preface is worth noting. Likely enough Browne wrote it in a passion that deprived him of his habitual self-command. One phrase alone reveals the true Browne--that is, Browne true to himself: 'and time that brings other things to light, should have satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion.'] LECTURE XII ON THE USE OF MASTERPIECES WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1918 I I do not think, Gentlemen, that we need to bother ourselves today with any definition of a 'classic,' or of the _stigmata_ by which a true classic can be recognised. Sainte-Beuve once indicated these in a famous discourse, "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique": and it may suffice us that these include Universality and Permanence. Your true classic is _universal,_ in that it appeals to the catholic mind of man. It is doubly _permanent_: for it remains significant, or acquires a new significance, after the age for which it was written and the conditions under which it was written, have passed away; and it yet keeps, undefaced by handling, the original noble imprint of the mind that first minted it--or shall we say that, as generation after generation rings the coin, it ever returns the echo of its father-spirit? But for our purpose it suffices that in our literature we possess a number of works to which the title of classic cannot be refused. So let us confine ourselves to these, and to the question, How to use them? II Well, to begin with, I revert to a point which I tried to establish in my first lecture; and insist with all my strength that the first obligation we owe to any classic, and to those whom we teach, and to ourselves, is to treat it _absolutely_: not for any secondary or derivative purpose, or purpose recommended as useful by any manual: but at first solely to interpret the meaning which its author intended: that in short we should _trust_ any given masterpiece for its operation, on ourselves and on others. In that first lecture I quoted to you this most wise sentence: That all spirit is mutually attractive, as all matter is mutually attractive, is an ultimate fact, and consenting to this with all my heart I say that it matters very little for the moment, or even for a considerable while, that a pupil does not perfectly, or even nearly, understand all he reads, provided we can get the attraction to seize upon him. He and the author between them will do the rest: our function is to communicate and trust. In what other way do children take the ineffaceable stamp of a gentle nurture than by daily attraction to whatsoever is beautiful and amiable and dignified in their home? As there, so in their reading, the process must be gradual of acquiring an inbred monitor to reject the evil and choose the good. For it is the property of masterpieces that they not only raise you to despise low joys, low Gains; Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains: they are not only as Lamb wrote of the Plays of Shakespeare 'enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach you courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity'; but they raise your gorge to defend you from swallowing the fifth-rate, the sham, the fraudulent. _Abeunt studia in mores._ I cannot, for my part, conceive a man who has once incorporated the "Phaedo" or the "Paradiso" or "Lear" in himself as lending himself for a moment to one or other of the follies plastered in these late stern times upon the firm and most solid purpose of this nation--the inanities, let us say, of a Baby-Week. Or, for a more damnable instance, I think of you and me with Marvell's great Horatian Ode sunk in our minds, standing to-day by the statue of Charles I that looks down Whitehall: telling ourselves of 'that memorable scene' before the Banqueting House, remembering amid old woes all the glory of our blood and state, recollecting what is due even to ourselves, standing on the greatest site of our capital, and turning to see it degraded, as it has been for a week, to a vulgar raree-show. Gentlemen, I could read you many poor ill-written letters from mothers whose sons have died for England, to prove to you we have not deserved _that,_ or the sort of placard with which London has been plastered, Dum domus �neae Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet. Great enterprises (as we know) and little minds go ill together. Someone veiled the statue. That, at least, was well done. I have not the information--nor do I want it--to make even a guess who was responsible for this particular outrage. I know the sort of man well enough to venture that he never had a liberal education, and, further, that he is probably rather proud of it. But he may nevertheless own some instinct of primitive kindliness: and I wish he could know how he afflicts men of sensitiveness who have sons at the War. III Secondly, let us consider what use we can make of even one selected classic. I refer you back to the work of an old schoolmaster, quoted in my first lecture: I believe, if the truth were known, men would be astonished at the small amount of learning with which a high degree of culture is compatible. In a moment of enthusiasm I ventured once to tell my 'English set' that if they could really master the ninth book of "Paradise Lost," so as to rise to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue of that alone, become highly cultivated men.... More and more various learning might raise them to the same height by different paths, but could hardly raise them higher. I beg your attention for the exact words: 'to rise to the height of its great argument and _incorporate all its beauties in themselves._' There you have it--'to incorporate.' Do you remember that saying of Wordsworth's, casually dropped in conversation, but preserved for us by Hazlitt?--'It is in the highest degree unphilosophic to call language or diction the dress of our thoughts.... It is the _incarnation_ of our thoughts.' Even so, I maintain to you, the first business of a learner in literature is to get complete hold of some undeniable masterpiece and incorporate it, incarnate it. And, I repeat, there are a few great works for you to choose from: works approved for you by ancient and catholic judgment. IV But let us take something far simpler than the Ninth Book of "Paradise Lost" and more direct than any translated masterpiece can be in its appeal; something of high genius, written in our mother tongue. Let us take "The Tempest." Of "The Tempest" we may say confidently: (1) that it is a literary masterpiece: the last most perfect 'fruit of the noblest tree in our English Forest'; (2) that its story is quite simple; intelligible to a child: (its basis in fact is fairy-tale, pure and simple--as I tried to show in a previous lecture); (3) that in reading it--or in reading "Hamlet," for that matter-- the child has no sense at all of being patronised, of being 'written down to.' And this has the strongest bearing on my argument. The great authors, as Emerson says, never condescend. Shakespeare himself speaks to a slip of a boy, and that boy feels that he _is_ Ferdinand; (4) that, though Shakespeare uses his loftiest, most accomplished and, in a sense, his most difficult language: a way of talking it has cost him a life-time to acquire, in line upon line inviting the scholar's, prosodist's, poet's most careful study; that language is no bar to the child's enjoyment: but rather casts about the whole play an aura of magnificence which, with the assistant harmonies, doubles and redoubles the spell. A child no more resents this because it is strange than he objects to read in a fairytale of robbers concealed in oil-jars or of diamonds big as a roc's egg. When will our educators see that what a child depends on is imagination, that what he demands of life is the wonderful, the glittering, possibility? Now if, putting all this together and taking confidence from it, we boldly launch a child upon "The Tempest" we shall come sooner or later upon passages that _we_ have arrived at finding difficult. We shall come, for example, to the Masque of Iris, which Iris, invoking Ceres, thus opens: Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and pease; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatched with stover, them to keep: Thy banks with pionèd and twillèd brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims-- To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom-groves, Whose shadow the dismisséd bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard; And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky hard, Where thou thyself dost air--the Queen o' th' sky, Whose watry arch and messenger am I, Bids thee leave these.... The passage is undeniably hard for any child, even when you have paused to explain who Ceres is, who Iris, who the Queen o' the sky, and what Iris means by calling herself 'her watery arch and messenger.' The grammatical structure not only stands on its head but maintains that posture for an extravagant while. Naturally (or rather let us say, ordinarily) it would run, 'Ceres, the Queen o' the sky bids thee leave--thy rich leas, etc.' But, the lines being twelve-and-a-half in number, we get no hint of there being any grammatical subject until it bursts on us in the second half of line eleven, while the two main verbs and the object of one of them yet linger to be exploded in the last half-line, 'Bids thee leave these.' And this again is as nothing to the difficulties of interpretation. 'Dismisséd bachelor' may be easy; 'pole-clipt vineyard' is certainly not, at first sight. 'To make cold nymphs chaste crowns.' What cold nymphs? You have to wait for another fifty odd lines before being quite sure that Shakespeare means Naiads (and 'What are Naiads?' says the child) --'temperate nymphs': You nymphs, called Naiads, of the windring brooks, With your sedged crowns... --and if the child demand what is meant by 'pionèd and twillèd brims,' you have to answer him that nobody knows. These difficulties--perhaps for you, certainly for the young reader or listener--are reserved delights. My old schoolmaster even indulges this suspicion--'I never can persuade myself that Shakespeare would have passed high in a Civil Service Examination on one of his own plays.' At any rate you don't _begin_ with these difficulties: you don't (or I hope you don't) read the notes first: since, as Bacon puts it, 'Studies teach not their own use.' As for the child, he is not '_grubbing_ for beauties'; he magnificently ignores what he cannot for the moment understand, being intent on _What Is,_ the heart and secret of the adventure. He _is_ Ferdinand (I repeat) and the isle is 'full of voices.' If these voices were all intelligible, why then, as Browning would say, 'the less Island it.' V I have purposely exhibited "The Tempest" at its least tractable. Who will deny that _as a whole_ it can be made intelligible even to very young children by the simple process of reading it with them intelligently? or that the mysteries such a reading leaves unexplained are of the sort to fascinate a child's mind and allure it? But if this be granted, I have established my contention that the Humanities should not be treated as a mere crown and ornament of education; that they should inform every part of it, from the beginning, in every school of the realm: that whether a child have more education or less education, what he has can be, and should be, a 'liberal education' throughout. Matthew Arnold, as every one knows, used to preach the use of these masterpieces as prophylactics of taste. I would I could make you feel that they are even more necessary to us. The reason why?--The reason is that every child born in these Islands is born into a democracy which, apart from home affairs, stands committed to a high responsibility for the future welfare and good governance of Europe. For three centuries or so it has held rule over vast stretches of the earth's surface and many millions of strange peoples: while its obligations towards the general civilisation of Europe, if not intermittent, have been tightened or relaxed, now here, now there, by policy, by commerce, by dynastic alliances, by sudden revulsions or sympathies. But this War will leave us bound to Europe as we never have been: and, whether we like it or not, no less inextricably bound to foe than to friend. Therefore, I say, it has become important, and in a far higher degree than it ever was before the War, that our countrymen grow up with a sense of what I may call the _soul_ of Europe. And nowhere but in literature (which is `memorable speech')--or at any rate, nowhere so well as in literature--can they find this sense. VI There was, as we have seen, a time in Europe, extending over many centuries, when mankind dwelt under the preoccupation of making literature, and still making more of it. The 5th century B.C. in Athens was such a time; and if you will you may envy, as we all admire, the men of an age when to write at all was tantamount to asserting genius; the men who, in Newman's words, `deserve to be Classics, both because of what they do and because they can do it.' If you envy--while you envy--at least remember that these things often paid their price; that the "Phaedo," for example, was bought for us by the death of Socrates. Pass Athens and come to Alexandria: still men are accumulating books and the material for books; threshing out the Classics into commentaries and grammars, garnering books in great libraries. There follows an age which interrupts this hive-like labour with sudden and insensate destruction. German tribes from the north, Turkish from the east, break in upon the granaries and send up literature in flames; the Christian Fathers from Tertullian to Gregory the Great (I regret to say) either heartily assisting or at least warming their benedictory hands at the blaze: and so thoroughly they do their work that even the writings of Aristotle, the Philosopher, must wait for centuries as 'things silently gone out of mind or things violently destroyed' (to borrow Wordsworth's fine phrase) and creep back into Europe bit by bit, under cover of Arabic translations. The scholars set to work and begin rebuilding: patient, indefatigable, anonymous as the coral insects at work on a Pacific atoll-building, building, until on the near side of the gulf we call the Dark Age, islets of scholarship lift themselves above the waters: mere specks at first, but ridges appear and connect them: and, to first seeming, sterile enough: Nec Cereri opportuna seges, nec commoda Baccho-- but as they join and become a _terra firma,_ a thin soil gathers on them God knows whence: and, God knows whence, the seed is brought, 'it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain.' There is a price, again, for this resurrection: but how nobly, how blithely paid you may learn, without seeking recondite examples, from Cuthbert's famous letter describing the death of Bede. Compare that story with that of the last conversation of Socrates; and you will surely recognise that the two men are brothers born out of time; that Bede's work has been a legacy; that his life has been given to recreating--not scholarship merely nor literature merely--but, through them both, something above them both--the soul of Europe. And this may or may not lead you on to reflect that beyond our present passions, and beyond this War, in a common sanity Europe (and America with her) will have to discover that common soul again. But eminent spirits such as Bede's are, by their very eminence, less representative of the process--essentially fugitive and self-abnegatory--than the thousands of copyists who have left no name behind them. Let me read you a short paragraph from "The Cambridge History of English Literature," Chapter 11, written, the other day, by one of our own teachers: The cloister was the centre of life in the monastery, and in the cloister was the workshop of the patient scribe. It is hard to realise that the fair and seemly handwriting of these manuscripts was executed by fingers which, on winter days, when the wind howled through the cloisters, must have been numbed by icy cold. It is true that, occasionally, little carrels or studies in the recesses of the windows were screened off from the main walk of the cloister, and, sometimes, a small room or cell would be partitioned off for the use of a single scribe. The room would then be called the Scriptorium, but it is unlikely that any save the oldest and most learned of the community were afforded this luxury. In these scriptoria of various kinds the earliest annals and chronicles in the English language were penned, in the beautiful and painstaking forms in which we know them. If you seek testimony, here are the _ipsissima verba_ of a poor monk of Wessobrunn endorsed upon his MS: The book which you now see was written in the outer seats of the cloister. While I wrote I froze: and what I could not write by the beams of day I finished by candlelight. We might profitably spend--but to-day cannot spare--a while upon the pains these men of the Middle Ages took to accumulate books and to keep them. The chained volumes in old libraries, for example, might give us a text for this as well as start us speculating why it is that, to this day, the human conscience incurably declines to include books with other portable property covered by the Eighth Commandment. Or we might follow several of the early scholars and humanists in their passionate chasings across Europe, in and out of obscure monasteries, to recover the lost MSS of the classics: might tell, for instance, of Pope Nicholas V, whose birth-name was Tommaso Parentucelli, and how he rescued the MSS from Constantinople and founded the Vatican Library: or of Aurispa of Sicily who collected two hundred and thirty-eight for Florence: or the story of the _editio princeps_ of the Greek text of Homer. Or we might dwell on the awaking of our literature, and the trend given to it, by men of the Italian and French renaissance; or on the residence of Erasmus here, in this University, with its results. VII But I have said enough to make it clear that, as we owe so much of our best to understanding Europe, so the need to understand Europe lies urgently to-day upon large classes in this country; and that yet, in the nature of things, these classes can never enjoy such leisure as our forefathers enjoyed to understand what I call the soul of Europe, or at least to misunderstand it _upon acquaintance._ Let me point out further that within the last few months we have doubled the difficulty at a stroke by sharing the government of our country with women and admitting them to Parliament. It beseems a great nation to take great risks: to dare them is at once a sign and a property of greatness: and for good or ill--but for limitless good as we trust--our country has quietly made this enterprise amid the preoccupations of the greatest War in its annals. Look at it as you will--let other generations judge it as they will--it stands a monument of our faith in free self-government that in these most perilous days we gave and took so high a guerdon of trust in one another. But clearly it implies that all the women of this country, down to the small girls entering our elementary schools, must be taught a great many things their mothers and grandmothers--happy in their generation--were content not to know[1]. It cannot be denied, I think, that in the long course of this War, now happily on the point of a victorious conclusion, we have suffered heavily through past neglect and present nescience of our literature, which is so much more European, so much more catholic, a thing than either our politics or our national religion: that largely by reason of this neglect and this nescience our statesmen have again and again failed to foresee how continental nations would act through failing to understand their minds; and have almost invariably, through this lack of sympathetic understanding, failed to interpret us to foreign friend or foe, even when (and it was not often) they interpreted us to ourselves. I note that America--a country with no comparable separate tradition of literature--has customarily chosen men distinguished by the grace of letters for ambassadors to the Court of St James--Motley, Lowell, Hay, Page, in our time: and has for her President a man of letters--and a Professor at that!--whereas, even in these critical days, Great Britain, having a most noble cause and at least half-a-hundred writers and speakers capable of presenting it with dignity and so clearly that no neutral nation could mistake its logic, has by preference entrusted it to stunt journalists and film-artistes. If in these later days you have lacked a voice to interpret you in the great accent of a Chatham, the cause lies in past indifference to that literary tradition which is by no means the least among the glories of our birth and state. VIII Masterpieces, then, will serve us as prophylactics of taste, even from childhood; and will help us, further, to interpret the common mind of civilisation. But they have a third and yet nobler use. They teach us to lift our own souls. For witness to this and to the way of it I am going to call an old writer for whom, be it whim or not, I have an almost 18th century reverence--Longinus. No one exactly knows who he was; although it is usual to identify him with that Longinus who philosophised in the court of the Queen Zenobia and was by her, in her downfall, handed over with her other counsellors to be executed by Aurelian: though again, as is usual, certain bold bad men affirm that, whether he was this Longinus or not, the treatise of which I speak was not written by any Longinus at all but by someone with a different name, with which they are unacquainted. Be this as it may, somebody wrote the treatise and its first editor, Francis Robertello of Basle, in 1554 called him Dionysius Longinus; and so shall I, and have done with it, careless that other MSS than that used by Robertello speak of Dionysius or Longinus. Dionysius Longinus, then, in the 3rd century A.D.--some say in the 1st: it is no great matter--wrote a little book [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] commonly cited as "Longinus on the Sublime." The title is handy, but quite misleading, unless you remember that by 'Sublimity' Longinus meant, as he expressly defines it, 'a certain distinction and excellence in speech.' The book, thus recovered, had great authority with critics of the 17th and 18th centuries. For the last hundred years it has quite undeservedly gone out of vogue. It is (I admit) a puzzling book, though quite clear in argument and language: pellucidly clear, but here and there strangely modern, even hauntingly modern, if the phrase may be allowed. You find yourself rubbing your eyes over a passage more like Matthew Arnold than something of the 3rd century: or you come without warning on a few lines of 'comparative criticism,' as we call it --an illustration from Genesis--'God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light' used for a specimen of the exalted way of saying things. Generally, you have a sense that this author's lineage is mysterious after the fashion of Melchisedek's. Well, to our point--Longinus finds that the conditions of lofty utterance are five: of which the first is by far the most important. And this foremost condition is innate: you either have it or you have not. Here it is: 'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows: _"Sublimity is the echo of a great soul."_ Hence even a bare idea sometimes, by itself and without a spoken word will excite admiration, just because of the greatness of soul implied. Thus the silence of Ajax in the underworld is great and more sublime than words.' You remember the passage, how Odysseus meets that great spirit among the shades and would placate it, would 'make up' their quarrel on earth now, with carneying words: 'Ajax, son of noble Telamon, wilt thou not then, even in death forget thine anger against me over that cursed armour.... Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus: he laid thy doom on thee. Nay, come hither, O my lord, and hear me and master thine indignation: So I spake, but he answered me not a word, but strode from me into the Darkness, following the others of the dead that be departed. Longinus goes on: It is by all means necessary to point this out--that the truly eloquent must be free from base and ignoble (or ill-bred) thoughts. For it is not possible that men who live their lives with mean and servile aims and ideas should produce what is admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we expect to fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are dignified. Believe this and it surely follows, as concave implies convex, that by daily converse and association with these great ones we take their breeding, their manners, earn their magnanimity, make ours their gifts of courtesy, unselfishness, mansuetude, high seated pride, scorn of pettiness, wholesome plentiful jovial laughter. He that of such a height hath built his mind, And rear'd the dwelling of his soul so strong As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolvèd powers, nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey! And with how free an eye doth he look down Upon these lower regions of turmoil! Where all the storms of passions mainly beat On flesh and blood; where honour, power, renown, Are only gay afflictions, golden toil; Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet As frailty doth; and only great doth seem To little minds, who do it so esteem.... Knowing the heart of man is set to be The centre of this world, about the which These revolutions of disturbances Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery Predominate; whose strong effects are such As he must bear, being powerless to redress; And that, unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man![2] IX If the exhortation of these verses be somewhat too high and stoical for you, let me return to Longinus and read you, from his concluding chapter, a passage you may find not inapposite to these times, nor without a moral: 'It remains' [he says] 'to clear up, my dear Terentianus, a question which a certain philosopher has recently mooted. I wonder,' he says, 'as no doubt do many others, how it happens that in our time there are men who have the gift of persuasion to the utmost extent, and are well fitted for public life, and are keen and ready, and particularly rich in all the charms of language, yet there no longer arise really lofty and transcendent natures unless it be quite peradventure. So great and world-wide a dearth of high utterance attends our age. Can it be,' he continued, 'we are to accept the common cant that democracy is the nursing mother of genius, and that great men of letters flourish and die with it? For freedom, they say, has the power to cherish and encourage magnanimous minds, and with it is disseminated eager mutual rivalry and the emulous thirst to excel. Moreover, by the prizes open under a popular government, the mental faculties of orators are perpetually practised and whetted, and as it were, rubbed bright, so that they shine free as the state itself. Whereas to-day,' he went on, 'we seem to have learnt as an infant-lesson that servitude is the law of life; being all wrapped, while our thoughts are yet young and tender, in observances and customs as in swaddling clothes, bound without access to that fairest and most fertile source of man's speech (I mean Freedom) so that we are turned out in no other guise than that of servile flatterers. And servitude (it has been well said) though it be even righteous, is the cage of the soul and a public prison-house.' But I answered him thus.--'It is easy, my good sir, and characteristic of human nature, to gird at the age in which one lives. Yet consider whether it may not be true that it is less the world's peace that ruins noble nature than this war illimitable which holds our aspirations in its fist, and occupies our age with passions as with troops that utterly plunder and harry it. The love of money and the love of pleasure enslave us, or rather, as one may say, drown us body and soul in their depths. For vast and unchecked wealth marches with lust of pleasure for comrade, and when one opens the gate of house or city, the other at once enters and abides. And in time these two build nests in the hearts of men, and quickly rear a progeny only too legitimate: and the ruin within the man is gradually consummated as the sublimities of his soul wither away and fade, and in ecstatic contemplation of our mortal parts we omit to exalt, and come to neglect in nonchalance, that within us which is immortal.' I had a friend once who, being in doubt with what picture to decorate the chimney-piece in his library, cast away choice and wrote up two Greek words--[Greek: PSYCHES 'IATREION]; that is, the hospital--the healing-place--of the soul. [Footnote 1: 'Well! ... my education is at last finished: indeed it would be strange, if, after five years' hard application, anything were left incomplete. Happily that is all over now; and I have nothing to do, but to exercise my various accomplishments. 'Let me see!--as to French, I am mistress of that, and speak it, if possible, with more fluency than English. Italian I can read with ease, and pronounce very well: as well at least, and better, than any of my friends; and that is all one need wish for in Italian. Music I have learned till I am perfectly sick of it. But ... it will be delightful to play when we have company. I must still continue to practise a little;--the only thing, I think, that I need now to improve myself in. And then there are my Italian songs! which everybody allows I sing with taste, and as it is what so few people can pretend to, I am particularly glad that I can. 'My drawings are universally admired; especially the shells and flowers; which are beautiful, certainly; besides this, I have a decided taste in all kinds of fancy ornaments. 'And then my dancing and waltzing! in which our master himself owned that he could take me no further! just the figure for it certainly; it would be unpardonable if I did not excel. 'As to common things, geography, and history, and poetry, and philosophy, thank my stars, I have got through them all! so that I may consider myself not only perfectly accomplished, but also thoroughly well-informed. 'Well, to be sure, how much have I fagged through--; the only wonder is that one head can contain it all.' I found this in a little book "Thoughts of Divines and Philosophers," selected by Basil Montagu. The quotation is signed 'J. T.' I cannot trace it, but suspect Jane Taylor.] [Footnote 2: Samuel Daniel, "Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland."] INDEX "Acts of the Apostles, The," 165 Addison, Joseph, 146, 192 "Adonais," Shelley's, 79 Adrian VI, Pope, 77 Aeschylus, 1, 121, 179, 183 "Aesop and Rhodopè," Landor's 117 "Agamemnon, The," 79 "Aims of Literary Study, The," 6 "Allegro,L'," 62, 63, 64 Ameipsias, 21 "Anatomy of Melancholy," Burton's, 155 "Ancient Mariner, The," 59 Andersen, Hans Christian, 46 "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The," 154 "Annual Register, The," 155 "Anti-Jacobin, The," 194 "Apologia," Newman's, 155 "Arabian Nights," M. Galland's, 43 "Arabian Nights, The," 139 Arber, 99 Aristophanes, 21, 147 Aristotle, 1, 25, 48, 51, 52, 58, 59, 60, 121, 129, 148, 150, 174, 207 Arnold, Matthew, 38, 99, 104, 124, 153, 205, 213 "Arraignment of Paris," Peele's, 80 "As You Like It," 71 Aulnoy, Madame D', 43 Aurispa, 209 Austen, Jane, 102, 194, 197 Bacon, Francis 21, 22, 23, 73, 94, 114, 126, 155, 205 Bagehot, Walter, 36, 113 Bailey, Philip James, 155 Baker, Sir William, 170 "Balder Dead" 163 Ballad. The, 55 Barboar, John, 155 Bede, 207. 209 Beethoven, 139 "Beginnings of Poetry," Dr Gummere's, 55, 56, 58 "Beowulf,". 99 Berkeley, George, 191 Berners, 193 "Bible, The," 97, 126 et seq. "Bible, The Geneva," 155 "Blackwood's Magazine," 80 Blair, Robert, 155 Blake, William, 33, 155 Boileau, 193 Bologna, University of, 73 "Book of Nonsense," Lear's, 111 Boswell, James, 93, 155 Bottomley, Horatio, 185 Brady, Nicholas, 170 Brooke, Stopford, 94 Brown, Dr John, 56 Browne, Sir Thomas, 145, 185, 189, 190 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 72 Browning, Robert, 5, 6, 7, 15, 152, 155, 205 "Bruce, The," Barbour's, 155 Bunyan, John, 97, 134, 135, 145, 152 Burke, Edmund, 94, 104, 116, 155, 192 Burns, Robert, 97, 132, 133 Burton, Robert, 155 Butcher, Professor, 129 Byron, Lord, 5, 80, 168 "Cabinet des Fées, Le," 43 "Cambridge Essays on Education," Inge's essay in, 112 "Cambridge History of English Literature, The," 5, 152, 208 Cambridge Platonists, The, 29, 193 Cambridge, University of, 1, 2 et seq., 57, 76, 77, 87, 88, 105, 121, 209 Campbell, John, 155 Canning, 193 "Canterbury Tales, The," 71, 161 "Canterbury Tales, The Prologue to the," 71, 94, 144, 161 Canton, William, 38 Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 38, 106 Casaubon, 70, 197 "Centuries of Meditations," Thomas Traherne's, 44 Chatham, Earl of, 115, 116, 192, 211 Chaucer, 4, 27, 65, 66, 71, 88, 94, 102, 164, 105, 124, 144, 164, 193 Chicago, University of, 154 "Choephori," 175 "Chronicles, Book of," 138 Clarendon, Lord, 155 Clark, William George, 94, 99 "Cloister and the Hearth, The," Charles Reade's, 189 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 65 Collins, William, 124 Colvin, Sir Sidney, 86 "Complaint of Deor, The," 155 Comte, Auguste, 51 Congreve, William, 192 "Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra," Landor's, 124, 125 "Corinthians, St Paul's First Epistle to the," 81, 82 Corson, Dr, 6, 66, 100 Cory, William (Johnson), 123 "Cotter's Saturday Night, The," Burns's, 132, 139 Coverdale, Miles, 97,145, 158 Cowper, William, 100, 115, 192 Cranmer, Thomas, 97 Crashaw, Richard, 193 Cuthbert, 207 "Cyrano de Bergerac," 111 Daniel, Samuel, 215 Dante, 27, 79, 104, 153, 164. 197 Darwin, Charles, 154 Davenant, Sir William, 151 "Death in the Desert, A," Browning's, 6, 7 "Descent of Man," Darwin's, 154 "Deserted Village, The," 155 Dickens, Charles, 5, 193 Dionysius, 212 "Divina Commedia," 52 "Doctor's Tale, The," 71 "Dolores," Swinburne's, 155 "Domesday Book," 155 "Don Quixote," 105 Donne, John, 82, 89, 105, 114, 155, 193 "Dream of Boccaccio," Landor's, 82 Dryden, John, 54 Dublin, University of, 131 Dunbar, William, 193 "Dutch Republic," Motley's, 82 Earle, John, 44, 49 "Ecclesiastes," 161 "Ecclesiastical Polity," Richard Hooker's, 155 "Ecclesiasticus" 144 Education, 35 et seq. Ehrenreich, Dr Paul, 55 "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," Gray's, 61, 144, 164 Eliot, George, 14 Ellis, A. J., 99 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 11 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 33, 203 "Eöthen," Kinglake's, 196 "Epipsychidion," Shelley's, 89 "Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland," Samuel Daniel's, 214, 215 Erasmus, 121, 209 "Erster Schulgang," 39 "Esmond," Thackeray's, 82, 83 "Essay on Comedy," Meredith's, 110 "Essay on Man," Pope's, 144 "Essays," Bacon's, 94, 155 "Esther," 161 "Ethics," Aristotle's, 1 Euclid, 93, 131 Euripides, 19, 21, 123, 157 "Everyman," 176 "Everyman's Library," 198 Ezekiel, 161 "Faerie Queene, The," 155 "Fairchild Family, The," 40 "Festus," Bailey's, 155 "Fetch a pail of water," 53 Fitzgerald, Edward, 118, 122, 155 Fort, Paul, 174 Fowler, F. G., 108 Fowler, H. W., 108 Franklin, Benjamin, 90 Frere, J. H., 193 "Friar's Tale, The," 71 "Friendship's Garland," Matthew Arnold's, 38 Froissart, 155 Furnivall, 99 Galileo, 27 Galland, M., 43 "Gammer Grethel," 43 Gautier, Théophile, 197 "Genesis, Book of," 213 "Geneva Bible, The," 155 Gibbon, Edward, 20, 21, 121, 131, 146, 149, 192 "Golden Treasury," Palgrave's, 155 Goldsmith, Oliver, 102, 105 "Gondibert," Sir William Davenant's, 151 "Grammarian's Funeral, A," Browning's, 15 Grave, Robert Blair's, 155 Gray, Thomas, 61, 144, 164 Gregory the Great, 207 Grimm, the brothers, 43 Grocyn, 121 Grosart, Alexander Balloch, 99 Gummere, Dr, 55, 56, 58 Hakluyt, Richard, 155 Hales, Dr, 99 Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 3, 41 11, 23, 24 "Hamlet," 71, 127, 144, 161, 163, 203 Hammond, Mr, 190 Hammond, Mrs, 190 Hay, 211 Hazlitt, William, 202 Hegel, 25, 26 Heidelberg, University of, 76 "Here Come Three Dukes a riding," 53 "Here we go Gathering Nuts in May," 53 Herodotus, 123 Hesiod, 197 Hobbes, Thomas, 197 Holmes, Mr, 47, 50, 51, 52 Homer, 83, 118, 146 147, 148, 149, 153, 164, 167, 195, 196 Hooker, Richard, 155 Hopkins, John, 170 Horace, 1 "Hound of Heaven, The," Thompson's, 155 "Household Tales," the Grimms; 43 Hugo, Victor, 164 Hume, David, 192 "Hymns Ancient and Modern," 170 "Idea of a University, The," Newman's, 114 "Iliad, The," 99, 147, 148 "Imitatione Christi, De," 138 "In Memoriam," Tennyson's, 58 Inge, Dean, 112 "Intellectual Life, The," Hamerton's, 3, 4, 23, 24 "Intimations of Immortality," Wordsworth's, 44 "Invisible Playmate, The," William Canton's, 38 "Irish R.M., The Adventures of an," Somerville's and Ross's, 135 Irwin, Sidney, 121 Isaiah, 138, 153, 156, 161 "Isaiah, Book of," 138, 144, 153, 161 "Isthmian Odes," Pindar's, 98 Jansen, 77, Jenkinson, Mr, 184, 185 Job, 166, 167, 168, 175 et seq. "Job, Book of," 139, 144, 161 et seq. "John Bull," Bottomley's, 185 John, St, of Patmos, 7, 130, 151 Johnson, Samuel, 61, 89, 93, 105, 131, 146, 192, 193 Jonson, Ben, 102 "Joshua, Book of," 47, 136, 137 Joubert, 117 Jowett, Benjamin, 186 Jusserand, J. J., 104 Keats, John, 84, 85, 87 Keble, John, 114 "King Henry IV," Part I, 71 "King John," 71 "King Lear," 16, 71, 163, 201 Kinglake, Alexander William, 196 "Kings, Book of," 138, 139, 141 "Kings' Treasuries, Of," Ruskin's, 195 "Knight's Tale, The," 71 Lamb, Charles, 102, 106, 156, 197, 200 Landor, Walter Savage, 82, 117, 124, 130 Latymer, Lord (F. B. Money-Coutts), 154, 162, 167, 183 Laus Veneris, Swinburne's, 155 Lear, Edward, 111 "Lectures on Poetry," Keble's, 114 Leipsic, University of, 76 "Letters on a Regicide Peace," Burke's, 155 "Life of Cowley," Johnson's, 193 "Life of Johnson," Boswell's, Lincoln, Abraham, 124 "Literary Study of the Bible," Moulton's, 162 "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," John Campbell's, 155 Longinus, 148, 149, 150, 151, 212 et seq. "Longinus on the Sublime," 149, 150, 212 et seq. Louvain, University of, 76 Lowell, James Russell, 211 Lucian, 108 "Luke, Gospel of St," 161 Lycidas, 164 Macaulay, Lord, 19, 155, 156 "Macbeth," 71 Macchiavelli, 197 Maeterlinck, 174, 175 Malherbe, 193 Malory, Sir Thomas, 193 "Man of Law's Tale, The," 71 "Manfred," 155 Map, Walter, 155, 156 Martin, Violet, 136 Marvell, Andrew, 201 "Matthew, Gospel of St," 137 "Memories, Irish," Somerville's and Ross's, 135 "Merchant of Venice, The," 71 Meredith, George, 5, 110 "Microcosmography," John Earle's, 44 Mill, John Stuart, 93, 155 Milton, John, 27, 62, 65, 93, 94, 111, 127, 131, 145, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 188 Molière, 79 Money-Coutts, F. B. (Lord Latymer), 154, 162, 167, 183 Montagu, Basil, 211 Moore, Sturge, 124 More, Hannah, 192 More, Sir Thomas, 114 Morris, Richard, 99 "Morte d'Arthur, Le," 155 Motley, 82, 211 Moulton, Dr R. G., 154, 158, 162, 177 "Much Ado About Nothing," 71 Myers, F. W. H., 165, 166 Newman, John Henry, 113, 114, 131, 155, 206 Newton, Sir Isaac, 27, 114 Nicholas V, Pope (Tommaso Parentucelli), 209 North, Sir Thomas, 123 "Notes and Queries," 101 "Nun Priest's Tale, The," 71 "Ode to a Grecian Urn," Keats's, 85,86 "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats's, 85, 86 "Ode to Evening," Collins's, 124 "Ode to Psyche," Keats's, 85 "Odyssey, The," 42, 147, 148 "Of Studies," Bacon's, 21, 22, 23 Omar, 20 "Omar Khayyàm," FitzGerald's, 155 "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill's, 155 "On the Art of Writing," 1 "Ossian," 155 "Othello," 52, 71, 89 Oxford, University of, 9, 73, 75, 76, 77, 121 Page, 211 Paine, Thomas, 192 Paley, Frederick, 98, 123 Palgrave, Francis Turner, 15 5 "Pall Mall Gazette, The," 197, 198 "Paradise Lost," 56, 58, 59, 62, 127, 144, 154, 161, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 182, 188, 202 "Paradise Regained," 166, 170 "Paradiso, The," 201 "Pardoner's Tale, The," 71 Parentucelli Tommaso (Pope Nicholas V), 209 Paris, University of, 74, 75 "Parlement of Fowls, The," 27, 71 Pater, Walter, 99, 149 Patmore, Coventry, 33 Pattison, Mark, 70 Paul, St, 32, 60, 81, 82, 147, 161, 165 Peele, 80 Pericles, 124 Perrault, 43, 110 "Pervigilium Veneris, The," 124 "Phaedo, The," 147, 148, 201, 206 "Phaedrus, The," 118, 186 "Piers Ploughman," 155, 156 "Pilgrim's Progress, The," 68 Pindar, 57, 79, 98 Plato, 8, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 111, 118, 147, 150, 185 Plutarch, 123 "Poems and Ballads," Swinburne's, 155 "Poet's Charter, The," Lord Latymer's (Money-Coutts), 162 "Poetics," Aristotle's, 52, 58, 59, 129 "Polonius," FitzGerald's, 122 Pope, Alexander, 105, 131, 144, 164, 192, 196 "Prince Charming," Perrault's, 111 "Principia," Newton's, 114 Prior, Matthew, 102 "Prometheus Bound," Aeschylus's, 175, 179, 180, 183 "Prometheus Unbound," Shelley's, 59, 155, 164, 167, 168, 169 "Psalm of Life, The," 56 "Psalm cvii," 158, 159, 160 "Psalm cxiv," Milton's Paraphrase of, 169, "Psalm cxxxvi," Milton's Paraphrase of, 169, 170 "Psalms, The," 139, 144 142, 161 Pythagoras, 27 "Pythian Odes," Pindar's, 98 Quarles, Francis, 155 Rashdall, Hastings, 76 Reade, Charles, 189 "Reading without Tears," 38, 41 "Reason of Church Government," Milton's, 167 Reid, Captain Mayne, 138 "Religio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne's, 189, 190 "Republic," Plato's, 16, 26 "Revelation of St John the Divine, The," 151 "Revellers," Ameipsias's, 21 Rhoades, James, 11, 110, 202, 205 "Rifle Rangers, The," Mayne Reid's, 138 Roberts, Prof. W. Rhys, 150 Ronsard, 193 Ruskin, John, 93, 138, 155, 195 "Ruth," 139, 161 "Sally, Sally Waters," 53 Sainte-Beuve, 99, 199 "St Paul," Myers's, 165, 166 "Samson Agonistes," 170 "Sartor Resartus," Carlyle's, 38, 155 "Scalp Hunters, The," Mayne Reid's, 138 "School for Scandal, The," 89 Scott, Sir Walter, 43, 131 "Sermon on the Mount, The," 128 "Sermon II preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day, in the Evening." 1624, Donne's, 89 "Sermons," Donne's, 155 "Sesame and Lilies," Ruskin's, 138, 195 Sévigné, Madame de, 197 Shakespeare, William, 4, 33, 65, 66, 70, 71, 94, 97, 104, 116, 123, 131, 145, 155, 200, 203, 204, 205 Shelley, 79, 155, 167, 168, 169, 193, 194 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 192 "Sicilian Vine-Dresser, The," Sturge Moore's, 124 Skeat, Walter W., 99 Smiles, Samuel, 194 Smith, Adam, 56, 155, 156 Socrates, 118, 147, 148, 186, 187, 188, 206, 207 Solomon, 156, 157 "Song of Songs," 139, 156, 157, 161 Sophocles, 111 Spenser, 164 Stead, W. T., 197 Steele, Sir Richard, 102, 192 Sternhold, Thomas, 170 "Sthenoboea," Euripides's, 21 "Stradivarius," George Eliot's, 14 "Strayed Reveller," Matthew Arnold's, 124 Stubbs, 101 "Sublimitate, De," Longinus's, 149 Suckling, Sir John, 90 Swift, Jonathan, 105, 131 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 155 "Table Talk," Johnson's, 131 "Tale of a Tub, A," 89 "Task, The," Cowper's, 100 Tasso, 167 Tate, Nahum, 170 Taylor, Edgar, 43 Taylor, Jane, 211 "Tempest, The," 59, 71, 202, 203, 204, 205 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 5, 193, 194 Tertullian, 207 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 82, 146 Theocritus, 124 Thompson, Francis, 155 "Thoughts of Divines and Philosophers," Basil Montagu's, 211 "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," Burke's, 155 Thucydides, 121 "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth's, 152 Todhunter, Dr, 93 Traherne, Thomas, 29, 44 "Training of the Imagination, The," Rhoades's, 110 "Troilus," 71 Tyndale, William, 97, 145 "Utopia," More's, 114 Vaughan, Henry, 193 "Vicar of Wakefield, The," 144 Vienna, medical school of, 76 "Village Labourer, The," Mr and Mrs Hammond's, 190, 191 Villon, 193 Virgil, 12, 116, 167 "Voyages," Hakluyt's, 155 "Vulgate, The," 170 Walpole, Sir Spencer, 192 Walton, Isaak, 82, 145 "Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith's, 155 Wesley, John, 61 Wessobrunn, 208 "What is and What Might Be," Holmes's, 50, 51, 52 White, Blanco, 31, 112 Wilberforce, 192 "Wisdom, Book of," 144 Wolfe, General, 116 Wordsworth, William, 5, 28, 33, 37, 44, 61, 66, 73, 116, 123, 152, 155, 202, 207 "World's Classics, The," 138 Wright, Aldis, 94, 99 Wyclif, 145 Zadkiel, 139 Zenobia, 212 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY W. LEWIS. M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
13430	----	Proofreading Team. A LIBRARIAN'S OPEN SHELF ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph.D. 1920 PREFACE The papers here gathered together represent the activities of a librarian in directions outside the boundaries of his professional career, although the influences of it may be detected in them here and there. Except for those influences they have little connection and the transition of thought and treatment from one to another may occasionally seem violent. It may, however, serve to protect the reader from the assaults of monotony. A.E.B. CONTENTS DO READERS READ? (_The Critic_, July, 1901, p. 67-70) WHAT MAKES PEOPLE READ? (_The Book Lover_, January, 1904, p. 12-16) THE PASSING OF THE POSSESSIVE; A STUDY OF BOOK TITLES (_The Book Buyer_, June, 1897, p. 500-1) SELECTIVE EDUCATION (_Educational Review_, November, 1907, p. 365-73) THE USES OF FICTION Read before the American Library Association, Asheville Conference, May 28, 1907. (_A.L.A. Bulletin_, July, 1907, p. 183-7) THE VALUE OF ASSOCIATION Delivered before the Library Associations of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, October 9-18, 1907. (_Library Journal_, January, 1908, p. 3-9) MODERN EDUCATIONAL METHODS (_Notes and News_, Montclair, N.J., July, 1908) SOME ECONOMIC FEATURES OF LIBRARIES Read at the opening of the Chestnut Hill Branch, Philadelphia Free Library, January 22, 1909. (_Library Journal_, February, 1909, p. 48-52) SIMON NEWCOMB: AMERICA'S FOREMOST ASTRONOMER (_Review of Reviews_, August, 1909, p. 171-4) THE COMPANIONSHIP OF BOOKS Read before the Pacific Northwest Library Association, June, 1910. (_P.N.W.L.A. Proceedings_, 1910, p. 8-23) ATOMIC THEORIES OF ENERGY Read before the St. Louis Academy of Science. (_The Monist_, October, 1912, p. 580-5) THE ADVERTISEMENT OF IDEAS (_Minnesota Library Notes and News_, December, 1912, p. 190-7) THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, THE PUBLIC SCHOOL, AND THE SOCIAL CENTER MOVEMENT Read before the National Education Association. (_N.E.A. Proceedings_, 1912, p. 240-5) THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF VIOLENCE (_St. Louis Mirror_, July 18, 1913) THE ART OF RE-READING HISTORY AND HEREDITY Read before the New England Society of St. Louis. (_New England Society of St. Louis_. _Proceedings_, 29th year, p. 13-20) WHAT THE FLAG STANDS FOR A Flag Day address in St. Peter's church, St. Louis. (_St. Louis Republic_, June 15, 1914) THE PEOPLE'S SHARE IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY Read before the Chicago Women's Club, January 6, 1915. (_Library Journal_, April, 1915, p. 227-32) SOME TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN THOUGHT Read before the New York Library Association at Squirrel Inn, Haines Falls, September 28, 1915. (_Library Journal_, November, 1915, p. 771-7) DRUGS AND THE MAN A Commencement address to the graduating class of the School of Pharmacy, St. Louis, May 19, 1915. (_Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association_, August, 1915, p. 915-22) HOW THE COMMUNITY EDUCATES ITSELF Read before the American Library Association, Asbury Park, N.J., June 27, 1916. (_Library Journal_, August, 1916, p. 541-7) CLUBWOMEN'S READING (_The Bookman_, January-March, 1915, p. 515-21, 642-7, 64-70) BOOKS FOR TIRED EYES (_Yale Review_, January, 1917, p. 358-68) THE MAGIC CASEMENT Read before the Town and Gown Club, St. Louis. A WORD TO BELIEVERS Address at the closing section of the Church School of Religious Instruction. INDEX A LIBRARIAN'S OPEN SHELF ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS DO READERS READ? Those who are interested in the proper use of our libraries are asking continually, "What do readers read?" and the tables of class-percentages in the annual reports of those institutions show that librarians are at least making an attempt to satisfy these queries. But a question that is still more fundamental and quite as vital is: Do readers read at all? This is not a paradox, but a common-sense question, as the following suggestive little incident will show. The librarian-in-charge of a crowded branch circulating-library in New York City had occasion to talk, not long ago, to one of her "star" borrowers, a youth who had taken out his two good books a week regularly for nearly a year and whom she had looked upon as a model--so much so that she had never thought it necessary to advise with him regarding his reading. In response to a question this lad made answer somewhat as follows: "Yes, ma'am, I'm doing pretty well with my reading. I think I should get on nicely if I could only once manage to read a book through; but somehow I can't seem to do it." This boy had actually taken to his home nearly a hundred books, returning each regularly and borrowing another, without reading to the end of a single one of them. That this case is not isolated and abnormal, but is typical of the way in which a large class of readers treat books, there is, as we shall see, only too much reason to believe. The facts are peculiarly hard to get at. At first sight there would seem to be no way to find out whether the books that our libraries circulate have been read through from cover to cover, or only half through, or not at all. To be sure, each borrower might be questioned on the subject as he returned his book, but this method, would be resented as inquisitorial, and after all there would be no certainty that the data so gathered were true. By counting the stamps on the library book-card or dating-slip we can tell how many times a book has been borrowed, but this gives us no information about whether it has or has not been read. Fortunately for our present purpose, however, many works are published in a series of volumes, each of which is charged separately, and an examination of the different slips will tell us whether or not the whole work has been read through by all those who borrowed it. If, for instance in a two-volume work each volume has gone out twenty times, twenty borrowers either have read it through or have stopped somewhere in the second volume, while if the first volume is charged twenty times and the second only fourteen, it is certain that six of those who took out the first volume did not get as far as the second. In works of more than two volumes we can tell with still greater accuracy at what point the reader's interest was insufficient to carry him further. Such an investigation has been made of all works in more than one volume contained in seven branches of the Brooklyn Public Library, and with very few exceptions it has been found that each successive volume in a series has been read by fewer persons than the one immediately preceding. What is true of books in more than one volume is presumably also true, although perhaps in a less degree, of one-volume works, although we have no means of showing it directly. Among the readers of every book, then, there are generally some who, for one reason or other, do not read it to the end. Our question, "Do readers read?" is thus answered in the negative for a large number of cases. The supplementary question, "Why do not readers read?" occurs at once, but an attempt to answer it would take us rather too deeply into psychology. Whether this tendency to leave the latter part of books unread is increasing or not we can tell only by repeating the present investigation at intervals of a year or more. The probability is that it is due to pure lack of interest. For some reason or other, many persons begin to read books that fail to hold their attention. In a large number of cases this is doubtless due to a feeling that one "ought to read" certain books and certain classes of books. A sense of duty carries the reader part way through his task, but he weakens before he has finished it. This shows how necessary it is to stimulate one's general interest in a subject before advising him to read a book that is not itself calculated to arouse and sustain that interest. Possibly the modern newspaper habit, with its encouragement of slipshod reading, may play its part in producing the general result, and doubtless a careful detailed investigation would reveal still other partial causes, but the chief and determining cause must be lack of interest. And it is to be feared that instead of taking measures to arouse a permanent interest in good literature, which would in itself lead to the reading of standard works and would sustain the reader until he had finished his task, we have often tried to replace such an interest by a fictitious and temporary stimulus, due to appeals to duty, or to that vague and confused idea that one should "improve one's mind," unaccompanied by any definite plan of ways and means. There is no more powerful moral motor than duty, but it loses its force when we try to apply it to cases that lie without the province of ethics. The man who has no permanent interest in historical literature, and who is impelled to begin a six-volume history because he conceives it to be his "duty" to read it, is apt to conclude, before he has finished the second volume, that his is a case where inclination (or in this instance disinclination) is the proper guide. As a matter of fact, the formation of a cultivated and permanent taste for good reading is generally a matter of lifelong education. It must be begun when the child reads his first book. An encouraging sign for the future is the care that is now taken in all good libraries to supervise the reading of children and to provide for them special quarters and facilities. A somewhat disheartening circumstance, on the other hand, is the multiplication of annotated and abbreviated children's editions of all sorts of works that were read by the last generation of children without any such treatment. This kind of boned chicken may be very well for the mental invalid, but the ordinary child prefers to separate his meat from the "drumstick" by his own unaided effort, and there is no doubt that it is better for him to do so. In the following table, the average circulation of first volumes, second volumes, etc., is given for each of seven classes of works. The falling off from volume to volume is noticeable in each class. It is most marked in science, and least so, as might be expected, in fiction. Yet it is remarkable that there should be any falling off at all in fiction. The record shows that the proportion of readers who cannot even read to the end of a novel is relatively large. These are doubtless the good people who speak of Dickens as "solid reading" and who regard Thackeray with as remote an eye as they do Gibbon. For such "The Duchess" furnishes good mental pabulum, and Miss Corelli provides flights into the loftier regions of philosophy. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. CLASS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII IX. X. XI. XII. History 10.1 6.9 4.9 4.4 4.6 4.3 2.5 2.8 1.0 0.5 1.0 3.0 Biography 7.2 5.1 3.0 2.3 1.6 1.0 1.6 1.2 1.0 2. Travel 9.2 7.9 Literature 7.3 5.9 3.5 3.8 5.3 6.6 19.0 15.0 21.0 Arts 4.7 3.7 3.0 Sciences 5.2 2.7 1.5 Fiction 22.0 18.9 15.8 16. 26. 16. The figures in the table, as has been stated, are averages, and the number of cases averaged decreases rapidly as we reach the later volumes, because, of course, the number of works that run beyond four or five volumes is relatively small. Hence the figures for the higher volumes are irregular. Any volume may have been withdrawn separately for reference without any intention of reading its companions. Among the earlier volumes such use counts for little, owing to the large number of volumes averaged, while it may and does make the figures for the later volumes irregular. Thus, under History the high number in the twelfth column represents one-twelfth volume of Froude, which was taken out three times, evidently for separate reference, as the eleventh was withdrawn but once. Furthermore, apart from this irregularity, the figures for the later volumes are relatively large, for a work in many volumes is apt to be a standard, and although its use falls rapidly from start to finish enough readers persevere to the end to make the final averages compare unduly well with the initial ones where the high use of the same work is averaged in with smaller use of dozens of other first and second volumes. That the falling off from beginning to end in such long works is much more striking than would appear from the averages alone may be seen from the following records of separate works in numerous volumes: VOLUMES I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X HISTORY Grote, "Greece" 11 6 5 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 Bancroft, "United States" 22 10 6 8 10 8 Hume, "England" 24 7 5 2 1 1 Gibbon, "Rome" 38 12 7 3 4 6 Motley, "United Netherlands" 7 1 1 1 Prescott, "Ferdinand and Isabella" 20 4 2 Carlyle, "French Revolution" 18 10 8 McCarthy, "Our Own Times" 27 8 11 BIOGRAPHY Bourienne, "Memoirs of Napoleon" 19 18 9 7 Longfellow's "Life" 6 4 2 Nicolay and Hay, "Lincoln" 6 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 Carlyle, "Frederick the Great" 7 3 2 2 2 FICTION Dumas, "Vicomte de Bragelonne" 31 30 24 22 21 16 Dumas, "Monte Cristo" 27 17 18 Dickens, "Our Mutual Friend" 5 4 1 0 Stowe, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 37 24 Of course, these could be multiplied indefinitely. They are sufficiently interesting apart from all comment. One would hardly believe without direct evidence that of thirty-one persons who began one of Dumas's romances scarcely half would read it to the end, or that not one of five persons who essayed Dickens's "Mutual Friend" would succeed in getting through it. Those who think that there can be no pathos in statistics are invited to ponder this table deeply. Can anyone think unmoved of those two dozen readers who, feeling impelled by desire for an intellectual stimulant to take up Hume, found therein a soporific instead and fell by the wayside? A curious fact is that the tendency to attempt to "begin at the beginning" is so strong that it sometimes extends to collected works in which there is no sequence from volume to volume. Thus we have the following: Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Chaucer, "Poetical Works" 38 9 5 Milton, "Poetical Works" 19 8 Longfellow, "Poetical Works" 14 15 2 10 3 3 Emerson, "Essays" 48 13 Ward, "English Poets" 13 2 6 There are of course exceptions to the rule that circulation decreases steadily from volume to volume. Here are a few: Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. I. II. III. IV. Fiske, "Old Virginia" 26 24 Spears, "History of the Navy" 44 39 36 36 Andrews, "Last Quarter Century" 8 8 Kennan, "Siberia" 15 13 In the case of the two-volume works the interest-sustaining power may not always be as great as would appear, because when the reader desires it, two volumes are given out as one; but the stamps on the dating-slips show that this fact counted for little in the present instances. I would not assume that the inferences in the present article are of any special value. The statistical facts are the thing. So far as I know, no one has called attention to them before, and they are certainly worthy of all interest and attention. WHAT MAKES PEOPLE READ? Does the reading public read because it has a literary taste or for some other reason? In the case of the public library, for instance, does a man start with an overwhelming desire to read or study books and is he impelled thereby to seek out the place where he may most easily and best obtain them? Or is he primarily attracted to the library by some other consideration, his love for books and reading acting only in a secondary manner? The New York Public Library, for instance, carries on the registry books of its circulating department nearly 400,000 names, and in the course of a year nearly 35,000 new applications are made for the use of its branch libraries, scattered over different parts of the city. What brings these people to the library? This is no idle question. The number of library users, large as it is, represents too small a fraction of our population. If it is a good thing to provide free reading matter for our people--and every large city in the country has committed itself to the truth of this proposition--we should certainly try to see that what we furnish is used by all who need it. Hence an examination into the motives that induce people to make their first use of a free public library may bring out information that is not only interesting but useful. To this end several hundred regular users of the branches of the New York Public Library were recently asked this question directly, and the answers are tabulated and discussed below. In each of sixteen branch libraries the persons interrogated numbered forty--ten each of men, women, boys and girls. Thirty answers have been thrown out for irrelevancy or defectiveness. The others are classified in the following table: A B C D E F G H I J K L Totals Men 6 64 10 .. .. .. 37 20 3 1 9 4 154 Boys 38 63 28 .. 4 3 9 6 5 .. .. 3 159 Women 12 67 14 4 .. .. 20 21 2 1 2 5 148 Girls 33 69 34 .. .. .. 5 3 3 .. .. 2 149 Total 89 263 86 4 4 3 71 50 13 2 11 14 610 Col. A: Sent or Told by Teacher Col. B: Sent or Told by Friend Col. C: Sent or Told by Relative Col. D: Sent or Told by Clergyman Col. E: Sent or Told by Library Assistant Col. F: Through Reading Room Col. G: Saw Building Col. H: Saw Sign Col. I: Saw Library Books Col. J: Saw Bulletin Col. K: Saw Article in Paper Col. L: Sought Library It will be seen that the vast majority of those questioned were led to the library by some circumstance other than the simple desire to find a place where books could be obtained. Of more than six hundred persons whose answers are here recorded only fourteen found the library as the result of a direct search for it prompted by a desire to read. In a majority of the other cases, of course, perhaps in all of them, the desire to read had its part, but this desire was awakened by hearing a mention of the library or by seeing it or something connected with it. These determining circumstances fall into two classes, those that worked through the ear and those that operated through the eye. Those who _heard_ of the library in some way numbered 449, while those who _saw_ it or something connected with it were only 147--an interesting fact, especially as we are told by psychologists that apprehension and memory through sight are of a higher type than the same functions where exercised through hearing. Probably, however, this difference was dependent on the fact that the thing heard was in most cases a direct injunction or a piece of advice, while the thing seen did not act with similar urgency. There are some surprises in the table. For instance, only four persons were sent directly to libraries by persons employed therein. Doubtless the average library assistant wishes to get as far from "shop" as possible in her leisure hours, but it is still disappointing to find that those who are employed in our libraries exercise so little influence in bringing persons to use them. The same thing is true of the influence of reading rooms. In many of the branch libraries in New York there are separate reading rooms to which others than card-holders in the library are admitted, and one of the chief arguments for this has been that the user of such a room, having become accustomed to resort to the library building, would be apt to use the books. Apparently, however, such persons are in the minority. No less disappointing is the slight influence of the clergy. Only four persons report this as a determining influence and these were all women connected with a branch which was formerly the parish library of a New York church. The influence of the press, too, seems to amount to little, in spite of the fact that the newspapers in New York have freely commented on the valuable work of the branch libraries and have called attention to it both in the news and editorial columns whenever occasion offered. Do the readers of library books in New York shun the public-press, or do they pay scant heed to what they read therein? Another somewhat noteworthy fact is that of the 449 persons who sought the library by advice of some one, only 89 were sent by teachers. But perhaps this is unfair. Of 265 boys and girls who thus came to the library, only 71 were sent by teachers. This is a larger percentage, but it is still not so large as we might expect. The difference between adults and children comes out quite strikingly in a few instances. We should have foreseen this of course in the case of advice by teachers, which was reported by 71 children and only 18 adults as a reason for visiting the library. Here we should not have expected this reason to be given by adults at all. Doubtless these were chiefly young men and women who had used the library since their school-days. In like manner the advice or injunction of relatives was more patent with children than with adults, the proportion here being 62 to 24. This probably illustrates the power of parental injunction. In another case the difference comes out in a wholly unexpected way. Of the 71 persons who reported that they were attracted to the library by seeing the buildings, 57 were adults and only 14 children. The same is true of those who were led in by seeing a sign, who numbered 41 adults to only 9 children. This seems to show either that adults are more observant or that children are more diffident in following out an impulse of this kind. It completely negatives the ordinary impression among librarians, at least in New York, where it has been believed that the sight of a library building, especially where the work going on inside is visible from the street, is a potent attraction to the young. Some of the new branch buildings in New York have even been planned with a special view to the exercise of this kind of attraction. The small number of persons who were attracted by printed matter, in library or general publications, were entirely adults. The one instance where age seems to exercise no particular influence is that of the advice of friends, by which old and young alike seem to have profited. The influence of sex does not appear clearly, although among those who followed the injunction of relatives the women and girls are slightly in the majority, and the four who were sent by clergymen were all women. Of those who were attracted by the buildings 46 were male and 25 female, which may mean that men are somewhat more observant or less diffident than women. A few of those questioned relate their experiences at some length. Says one boy: "A boy friend of mine said he belonged to this library and he found some very good books here. He asked me if I wanted to join; I said yes. He told me I would have to get a reference. I got one, and joined this library." Another one reports: "I saw a boy in the street and asked him where he was going. He said he was going to the library. I asked him what the library was and he told me; so I came up here and have been coming ever since." Critical judgment is shown by some of the young people. One boy says: "I heard all the other boys saying it was a good library and that the books were better kept than in a majority of libraries." A girl says that friends "told her what nice books were in this library." In one case a boy's brother "told him he could get the best books here for his needs." The combination of man and book seems to be very attractive. One child "saw a boy in school with a book, telling what a boy should know about electricity; I wanted to read that book and joined the library." Others "followed a crowd of little boys with books"; "saw children taking books out of the building and asked them about joining"; "saw a boy carrying books and asked if there was a library in the neighborhood." A woman "saw a child with a library book in the park and asked her for the address of the library." Sometimes the book alone does the work, as shown by the following laconic report: "Found a book in the park; took it to the library; joined it." A cause of sorrow to many librarians who have decided ideas regarding literature for children will be the report of a boy who exclaimed: "Horatio Alger did it!" On being asked to explain, he said that a friend had brought one of Alger's books to his house and that he was thereby attracted to the library. Among those who were brought in by relatives are children who were first carried by their mothers to the library as infants and so grew naturally into its use. Sometimes the influence works upward instead of downward, for several adults report that their children brought them to the library or induced them to visit it. One man reports that he "got married and his wife induced him to come." Some of the reasons given are curious. A few are unconnected with the use of books. One girl came to the library because "it was a very handy library"; another, because she "saw it was a nice place to come to on a rainy day." Still another frankly avows that "it was the fad among the boys and girls of our neighborhood; we used to meet at the library." A postman reported that he entered the library first in the line of his duty, but was attracted by it and began to take out books. A clergyman had his attention called to the library by requests from choir-boys that he should sign their application blanks; afterwards thinking that he might find books there for his own reading, he became a regular user. One user came first to the library to see an exhibition of pictures of old New York. A recent importation says: "When I came from Paris I found all my cousins speaking English; 'well,' they said, 'go to the library and take books'"--a process that doubtless did its share toward making an American of the new arrival. In another case, the Americanizing process has not yet reached the stage where the user's English is altogether intelligible. He says: "Because I like to read the book. I ask the bakery lady to my reference and I sing my neam" [sign my name?]. Here are some examples of recently acquired elegance in diction that are almost baboo-like in their hopelessness: "Because it interest about the countries that are far away. It gives knowledge to many of the people in this country." "So as to obtain knowledge from them and by reading books find out how the great men were in their former days and all about them and the world and its people." It will be seen that the last two writers were among those who misunderstood our questions and told why they read books rather than how they were first led to the use of a library. These reports are far from possessing merely a passing interest for the curious. For the public librarian, whose wish it is to reach as large a proportion of the public as possible, they are full of valuable hints. They emphasize, for instance, the urgent necessity of winning the good will of the public, and they forcibly remind us that this is of more value in gaining a foothold for the library than columns of notices in the papers or thousands of circulars or cards distributed in the neighborhood. It is even more potent than a beautiful building. Attractive as this is, its value as an influence to secure new readers is vastly less than a reputation for hospitality and helpfulness. In looking over the figures one rather disquieting thought cannot be kept down. If the good will of the public is so potent in increasing the use of the library, the ill will of the same public must be equally potent in the opposite direction. Some of those who are satisfied with us and our work are here put on record. How about the dissatisfied? A record of these might be even more interesting, for it would point out weaknesses to be strengthened and errors to be avoided--but that, as Kipling says, "is another story." THE PASSING OF THE POSSESSIVE: A STUDY OF BOOK-TITLES If there is one particular advantage possessed by the Teutonic over the Romance languages in idiomatic clearness and precision it is that conferred by their ownership of a possessive case, almost the sole remaining monument to the fact that our ancestors spoke an inflected tongue. That we should still be able to speak of "the baker's wife's dog" instead of "the dog of the wife of the baker" certainly should be regarded by English-speaking people as a precious birthright. Yet, there are increasing evidences of a tendency to discard this only remaining case-ending and to replace its powerful backbone with the comparatively limp and cartilaginous preposition. This tendency has not yet appeared so much in our spoken as in our written language, and even here only in the most formal parts of it. It is especially noticeable in the diction of the purely formal title and heading. That the reader may have something beyond an unsupported assertion that this is the case, I purpose to offer in evidence the titles of some recent works of fiction, and to make a brief statistical study of them. The titles were taken from the adult fiction lists in the Monthly Bulletins of the New York Free Circulating Library from November, 1895, to March, 1897, inclusive, and are all such titles as contain a possessive, whether expressed by the possessive case or by the preposition "of" with the objective. Some titles are included in which the grammatical relation is slightly different, but all admit the alternative of the case-ending "'s" or "of" followed by the objective case. Of the 101 titles thus selected, 41 use the possessive case and 60 the objective with the preposition. This proportion is in itself sufficiently suggestive, but it becomes still more so by comparing it with the corresponding proportion among a different set of titles. For this purpose 101 fiction titles were selected, just as they appeared in alphabetical order, from a library catalogue bearing the date 1889; only those being taken, as before, that contain a possessive. Of these 101, 71 use the possessive case and 30 the objective with "of." In other words, where eight years ago nearly three-quarters of such titles used the possessive case, now only two-fifths use it, a proportionate reduction of nearly one-half. The change appears still more striking when we study the titles a little more closely. Of those in the earlier series there is not one that is not good, idiomatic English as it stands, whichever form is used; we may even say that there is not one that would not be made less idiomatic by a change to the alternative form. Among the recent titles, however, while the forms using the possessive case are all better as they are, of the 60 titles that use the objective with "of" only 22 would be injured by a change, and the reason why 8 of these are better as they are is simply that change would destroy euphony. Among these eight are "The Indiscretion of the Duchess," "The Flight of a Shadow," "The Secret of Narcisse," etc., where the more idiomatic forms, "The Duchess's Indiscretion," "Narcisse's Secret," "A Shadow's Flight," etc., are certainly not euphonic. Of the others, 8 would not be injured by a change, and no less than 30 would be improved from the standpoint of idiomatic English. It may be well to quote these thirty titles. They are: "The Shadow of Hilton Fernbrook," "The Statement of Stella Maberly," "The Shadow of John Wallace," "The Banishment of Jessop Blythe," "The Desire of the Moth," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," "The Damnation of Theron Ware," "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler," "The Daughter of a Stoic," "The Lament of Dives," "The Heart of Princess Osra," "The Death of the Lion," "The Vengeance of James Vansittart," "The Wife of a Vain Man," "The Crime of Henry Vane," "The Son of Old Harry," "The Honour of Savelli," "The Life of Nancy," "The Story of Lawrence Garthe," "The Marriage of Esther," "The House of Martha," "Tales of an Engineer," "Love-letters of a Worldly Woman," "The Way of a Maid," "The Soul of Pierre," "The Day of Their Wedding," "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," "The Hand of Ethelberta," "The Failure of Sibyl Fletcher," "The Love-affairs of an Old Maid." Of course, in such a division as this, much must depend on individual judgment and bias. Probably no two persons would divide the list in just the same way, but it is my belief that the general result in each case would be much the same. To me the possessive in every one of the above-quoted titles would have been more idiomatic, thus: "Hilton Fernbrook's Shadow," "Stella Maberly's Statement," "John Wallace's Shadow," "Morrice Buckler's Courtship," "A Stoic's Daughter," "Henry Vane's Crime," etc., etc. In one case, at least, this fact has been recognized by a publisher, for "The Vengeance of James Vansittart," whose title is included in the list given above, has appeared in a later edition as "James Vansittart's Vengeance"--a palpable improvement. I shall not discuss the cause of this change in the use of the possessive, though it seems to me an evident Gallicism, nor shall I open the question of whether it is a mere passing fad or the beginning of an actual alteration in the language. However this may be, it seems undeniable that there is an actual and considerable difference in the use of the possessive to-day and its use ten years ago, at least in formal titles and headings. I have confined myself to book-titles, because that is the department where the tendency presents itself to me most clearly; but it may be seen on street signs, in advertisements, and in newspaper headings. It is not to be found yet in the spoken language, at least it is not noticeable there, but it would be decidedly unsafe to prophesy that it will never appear there. Ten years from now we may hear about "the breaking of the arm of John Smith" and "the hat of Tom," without a thought that these phrases have not been part of our idiomatic speech since Shakespeare's time. SELECTIVE EDUCATION[1] [1] Read before the Schoolmen of New York. Since Darwin called attention to the role of what he named "natural selection" in the genesis and preservation of species, and since his successors, both followers and opponents, have added to this many other kinds of selection that are continually operative, it has become increasingly evident that from one standpoint we may look on the sum of natural processes, organic and inorganic, as a vast selective system, as the result of which things are as they are, whether the results are the positions of celestial bodies or the relative places of human beings in the intellectual or social scale. The exact constitution of the present population of New York is the result of a great number of selective acts, some regular, others more or less haphazard. Selection is no less selection because it occurs by what we call chance--for chance is only our name for the totality of trivial and unconsidered causes. When, however, we count man and man's efforts in the sum of natural objects and forces, we have to reckon with his intelligence in these selective processes. I desire to call attention to the place that they play in educative systems and in particular to the way in which they may be furthered or made more effective by books, especially by public collections of books. When we think of any kind of training as it affects the individual, we most naturally regard it as changing that individual, as making him more fit, either for life in general or for some special form of life's activities. But when we think of it as affecting a whole community or a whole nation, we may regard it as essentially a selective process. In a given community it is not only desirable that a certain number of men should be trained to do a specified kind of work, but it is even more desirable that these should be the men that are best fitted to do this work. When Mr. Luther Burbank brings into play the selection by means of which he achieves his remarkable results in plant breeding he gets rid of the unfit by destruction, and as all are unfit for the moment that do not advance the special end that he has in view, he burns up plants--new and interesting varieties perhaps--by the hundred thousand. We cannot destroy the unfit, nor do we desire to do so, for from the educational point of view unfitness is merely bad adjustment. There is a place for every man in the world and it is the educator's business to see that he reaches it, if not by formative, then by selective processes. This selection is badly made in our present state of civilization. It depends to a large extent upon circumstances remote from the training itself--upon caprice, either that of the person to be trained or of his parents, upon accidents of birth or situation, upon a thousand irrelevant things; but in every case there are elements present in the training itself that aid in determining it. A young man begins to study medicine, and he finds that his physical repulsion for work in the dissecting-room can not be overcome. He abandons the study and by doing so eliminates an unfit person. A boy who has no head for figures enters a business college. He can not get his diploma, and the community is spared one bad bookkeeper. Certainly in some instances, possibly in all, technical and professional schools that are noted for the excellence of their product are superior not so much because they have better methods of training, but because their material is of better quality, owing to selection exercised either purposely, or automatically, or perhaps by some chance. The same is true of colleges. Of two institutions with the same curriculum and equally able instructors, the one with the widest reputation will turn out the best graduates because it attracts abler men from a wider field. This is true even in such a department as athletics. To him that hath shall be given. This is purely an automatic selective effect. It would appear desirable to dwell more upon selective features in educational training, to ascertain what they are in each case and how they work, and to control and dispose them with more systematic care. Different minds will always attach different degrees of importance to natural and acquired fitness, but probably all will agree that training bestowed upon the absolutely unfit is worse than useless, and that there are persons whose natural aptitudes are so great that upon them a minimum of training will produce a maximum effect. Such selective features as our present educational processes possess, the examination, for instance, are mostly exclusive; they aim to bar out the unfit rather than to attract the fit. Here is a feature on which some attention may well be fixt. How do these considerations affect the subject of general education? Are we to affirm that arithmetic is only for the born mathematician and Latin for the born linguist, and endeavor to ascertain who these may be? Not so; for here we are training not experts but citizens. Discrimination here must be not in the quality but in the quantity of training. We may divide the members of any community into classes according as their formal education--their school and college training--has lasted one, two, three, four, or more years. There has been a selection here, but it has operated, in general, even more imperfectly than in the case of special training. Persons who are mentally qualified to continue their schooling to the end of a college course, and who by so doing would become more useful members of the community, are obliged to be content with two or three years in the lower grades, while others, who are unfitted for the university, are kept at it until they take, or fail to take, the bachelor's degree. An ideal state of things, of course, would be to give each person the amount of general education for which he is fitted and then stop. This would be difficult of realization even if financial considerations did not so often interfere. But at least we may keep in view the desirability of preventing too many misfits and of insisting, so far as possible, on any selective features that we may discover in present systems. For instance, a powerful selective feature is the attractiveness of a given course of study to those who are desired to pursue it. If we can find a way, for example, to make our high school courses attractive to those who are qualified to take them, while at the same time rendering them very distasteful to those who are not so qualified, we shall evidently have taken a step in the right direction. It is clear that both parts of this prescription must be taken together or there is no true selection. Much has been done of late years toward making educational courses of all kinds interesting and attractive, but it is to be feared that their attractiveness has been such as to appeal to the unfit as well as to the fit. If we sugar-coat our pills indiscriminately and mix them with candy, many will partake who need another kind of medicine altogether. We must so arrange things that the fit will like while the unfit dislike, and for this purpose the less sugar-coating the better. This is no easy problem and it is intended merely to indicate it here, not to propose a general solution. The one thing to which attention should be directed is the role that may be and is played by the printed book in selective education. There is more or less effort to discredit books as educative tools and to lay emphasis on oral instruction and manual training. We need not decry these, but, it must be remembered that after all the book contains the record of man's progress; we may tell how to do a thing, and show how to do it, but we shall never do it in a better way or explain the why and wherefore, and surely transmit that ability and that explanation to posterity, without the aid of a stable record of some kind. If we are sure that our students could and would pick out only what they needed, as a wild animal picks his food in the woods, we might go far toward solving our problem, by simply turning them loose in a collection of books. Some people have minds that qualify them to profit by such "browsing," and some of these have practically educated themselves in a library. Even in the more common cases where formal training is absolutely necessary, access to other books than text-books is an aid to selection both qualitative and quantitative. Books may serve as samples. To take an extreme case, a boy who had no knowledge whatever of the nature of law or medicine would certainly not be competent to choose between them in selecting a profession, and a month spent in a library where there were books on both subjects would certainly operate to lessen his incompetence. Probably it would not be rash to assert that with free access to books, under proper guidance, both before and during a course of training, the persons who begin that course will include more of the fit and those who finish it will include less of the unfit, than without such access. Let us consider one or two concrete examples. A college boy has the choice of several different courses. He knows little of them, but thinks that one will meet his needs. He elects it and finds too late that he is wasting his time. Another boy, whose general reading has been sufficient to give him some superficial knowledge of the subject-matter in all the courses, sees clearly which will benefit him, and profits by that knowledge. Again, a boy, full of the possibilities that would lead him to appreciate the best in literature, has gained his knowledge of it from a teacher who looks upon a literary masterpiece only as something to be dissected. The student has been disgusted instead of inspired, and his whole life has been deprived of one of the purest and most uplifting of all influences. Had he been brought up in a library where he could make literary friends and develop literary enthusiasms, his course with the dry as dust teacher would have been only an unpleasant incident, instead of the wrecking of a part of his intellectual life. Still again, a boy on a farm has vague aspirations. He knows that he wants a broader horizon, to get away from his cramped environment--that is about all. How many boys, impelled by such feelings, have gone out into the world with no clear idea of what they are fitted to do, or even what they really desire! To how many others has the companionship of a few books meant the opening of a peep-hole, thru which, dimly perhaps, but none the less really, have been descried definite possibilities, needs, and opportunities! To all of these youths books have been selective aids merely--they have added little or nothing to the actual training whose extent and character they have served to point out. Such cases, which it would be easy to multiply, illustrate the value of books in the selective functions of training. To assert that they exercise such a function is only another way of saying that a mind orients itself by the widest contact with other minds. There are other ways of assuring this contact, and these should not be neglected; but only thru books can it approach universality both in space and in time. How else could we know exactly what Homer and St. Augustine and Descartes thought and what Tolstoi and Lord Kelvin and William James, we will say, are even now thinking? It has scarcely been necessary to say all this to convince you of the value of books as aids to education; but it is certainly interesting to find that in an examination of the selective processes in education, we meet with our old friends in such an important role. A general collection of books, then, constitutes an important factor in the selective part of an education. Where shall we place this collection? I venture to say that altho every school must have a library to aid in the formative part of its training, the library as a selective aid should be large and central and should preferably be at the disposal of the student not only during the period of his formal training, but before and after it. This points to the public library, and to close cooperation between it and the school, rather than to the expansion of the classroom library. This is, perhaps, not the place to dispute the wisdom of our Board of Education in developing classroom libraries, but it may be proper to put in a plea for confining them to books that bear more particularly on the subjects of instruction. The general collection of books should be outside of the school, because the boy is destined to spend most of his life outside of the school. His education by no means ends with his graduation. The agents that operate to develop and change him will be at work so long as he lives, and it is desirable that the book should be one of these. If he says good-by to the book when he leaves school, that part of his training is likely to be at an end. If he uses, in connection with, and parallel to, his formal education a general collection of books outside of the school, he will continue to use it after he leaves school. And even so far as the special classroom library is concerned, it must be evident that a large general collection of books that may be drawn upon freely is a useful supplement. For the teacher's professional use, the larger the collection at his disposal the better. A sum of money spent by the city in improving and making adequate the pedagogical section of its public library, particularly in the department of circulation, will be expended to greater advantage than many times the amount devoted to a large number of small collections on the same subjects in schools. These are the considerations that have governed the New York Public Library in its effort to be of assistance to the teachers and pupils in the public schools of the city. Stated formally, these efforts manifest themselves in the following directions: (1) The making of library use continuous from the earliest possible age, thru school life and afterwards; (2) Cooperation with the teacher in guiding and limiting the child's reading during the school period; (3) Aid within the library in the preparation of school work; (4) The supplementing of classroom libraries by the loan of books in quantity; (5) The cultivation of personal relations between library assistants and teachers in their immediate neighborhood; (6) The furnishing of accurate and up-to-date information to schools regarding the library's resources and its willingness to place them at the school's disposal; (7) The increase of the library's circulation collection along lines suggested and desired by teachers; (8) The granting of special privileges to teachers and special students who use the library for purposes of study. Toward the realization of these aims three departments are now cooperating, each of them in charge of an expert in his or her special line of work. (1) The children's rooms in the various libraries, now under the direction of an expert supervisor. (2) The traveling library office. (3) The division of school work, with an assistant in each branch, under skilled headquarters superintendence. When our plans, which are already in good working order, are completely carried out, we shall be able to guarantee to every child guidance in his reading up to and thru his school course, with direction in a line of influence that will make him a user of books thruout his life and create in him a feeling of attachment to the public library as the home and dispenser of books and as a permanent intellectual refuge from care, trouble, and material things in general, as well as a mine of information on all subjects that may benefit or interest him. Some of the obstacles to the immediate realization of our plans in full may be briefly stated as follows: (1) Lack of sufficient funds. With more money we could buy more books, pay higher salaries, and employ more persons. The assistants in charge of children's rooms should be women of the highest culture and ability, and it is difficult to secure proper persons at our present salaries. Assistants in charge of school work must be persons of tact and quickness of perception, and they should have no other work to do; whereas at present we are obliged to give this work to library assistants in addition to their ordinary routine duties, to avoid increasing our staff by about forty assistants, which our appropriation does not permit. (2) Misunderstanding on the part of the public, and also to some extent on the part of teachers, of our aims, ability, and attitude. This I am glad to say is continually lessening. We can scarcely expect that each of our five hundred assistants should be thoroly imbued with the spirit of helpfulness toward the schools or even that they should perfectly understand what we desire and aim to do. Nor can we expect that our wish to aid should be appreciated by every one of fifty thousand teachers or a million parents. This will come in time. (3) A low standard of honesty on the part of certain users of the library. It is somewhat disheartening to those who are laboring to do a public service to find that some of those whom they are striving to benefit, look upon them merely as easy game. To prevent this and at the same time to withstand those who urge that such misuse of the library should be met by the withdrawal of present privileges and facilities uses up energy that might otherwise be directed toward the improvement of our service. Now, like the intoxicated man, we sometimes refuse invitations to advance because it is "all we can do to stay where we are." Here is an opportunity for all the selective influences that we may bring to bear, and unfortunately the library can have but little part in these. Have I wandered too far from my theme? The good that a public library may do, the influence that it may exert, and the position that it may assume in a community, depend very largely on the ability and tact with which it is administered and the resources at its disposal. Its public services may be various, but probably there is no place in which it may be of more value than side by side with the public school; and I venture to think that this is the case largely because education to be complete must select as well as train, must compel the fit to step forward and the unfit to retire, and must do this, not only at the outset of a course of training but continuously thruout its duration. We speak of a student being "put thru the mill," and we must not forget that a mill not only grinds and stamps into shape but also sifts and selects. A finished product of a given grade is always such not only by virtue of formation and adaptation but also by virtue of selection. In human training one of the most potent of these selective agencies is the individual will, and to train that will and make it effective in the right direction there is nothing better than constant association with the records of past aims and past achievements. This must be my excuse for saying so much of libraries in general, and of one library in particular, in an address on what I have ventured to give the name of Selective Education. THE USES OF FICTION[2] [2] Read before the American Library Association, Asheville Conference, May 28, 1907. Literature is becoming daily more of a dynamic and less of a static phenomenon. In other days the great body of written records remained more or less stable and with its attendant body of tradition did its work by a sort of quiet pressure on that portion of the community just beneath it--on a special class peculiarly subject to its influence. To-day we have added to this effect that of a moving multitude of more or less ephemeral books, which appear, do their work, and pass on out of sight. They are light, but they make up for their lack of weight by the speed and ease with which they move. Owing to them the use of books is becoming less and less limited to a class, and more and more familiar to the masses. The book nowadays is in motion. Even the classics, the favorites of other days, have left their musty shelves and are moving out among the people. Where one man knew and loved Shakespeare a century ago, a thousand know and love him to-day. The literary blood is circulating and in so doing is giving life to the body politic. In thus wearing itself out the book is creating a public appreciation that makes itself felt in a demand for reprinting, hence worthy books are surer of perpetuation in this swirling current than they were in the old time reservoir. But besides these books whose literary life is continuous, though their paper and binding may wear out, there are other books that vanish utterly. By the time that the material part of them needs renewing, the book itself has done its work. Its value at that moment is not enough, or is not sufficiently appreciated, to warrant reprinting. It drops out of sight and its place is taken by another, fresh from the press. This part of our moving literature is what is called ephemeral, and properly so; but no stigma necessarily attaches to the name. In the first place, it is impossible to draw a line between the ephemeral and the durable. "One storm in the world's history has never cleared off," said the wit--"the one we are having now." Yet the conditions of to-day, literary as well as meteorological, are not necessarily lasting. We are accustomed to regard what we call standard literature as necessarily the standard of innumerable centuries to come, forgetful of the fact that other so-called standards have "had their day and ceased to be." Some literature lasts a century, some a year, some a week; where shall we draw the line below which all must be condemned as ephemeral? Is it not possible that all literary work that quickly achieves a useful purpose and having achieved it passes at once out of sight, may really count for as much as one that takes the course of years to produce its slow results? The most ephemeral of all our literary productions--the daily paper--is incalculably the most influential, and its influence largely depends on this dynamic quality that has been noted--the penetrative power of a thing of light weight moving at a high speed. And this penetrative power effective literature must have to-day on account of the vastly increased mass of modern readers. Reading is no longer confined to a class, it is well-nigh universal, in our own country, at least. And the habit of mind of the thoughtful and intent reader is not an affair of one generation but of many. New readers are young readers, and they have the characteristics of intellectual youth. Narrative--the recapitulation of one's own or someone else's experience, the telling of a story--is the earliest form in which artistic effort of any kind is appreciated. The pictorial art that appeals to the young or the ignorant is the kind that tells a story--perhaps historical painting on enormous canvasses, perhaps the small genre picture, possibly something symbolic or mythological; but at any rate it must embody a narrative, whether it is that of the signing of a treaty, a charge of dragoons, a declaration of love or the feeding of chickens. The same is true of music. The popular song tells something, almost without exception. Even in instrumental music, outside of dance rhythms, whose suggestion of the delights of bodily motion is a reason of their popularity, the beginner likes program music of some kind, or at least its suggestion. So it is in literature. With those who are intellectually young, whether young in years or not, the narrative form of expression is all in all. It is, of course, in all the arts, a most important mode, even in advanced stages of development. We shall never be able to do without narrative in painting, sculpture, music and poetry; but wherever, in a given community, the preference for this form of expression in any art is excessive, we may be sure that appreciation of that form of art is newly aroused. This is an interesting symptom and a good sign. To be sure, apparent intellectual youth may be the result of intellectual decadence; there is a second as well as a first childhood, but it is not difficult to distinguish between them. In general, if a large proportion of those in a community who like to look at pictures, prefer such as "tell a story," this fact, if the number of the appreciative is at the same time increasing, means a newly stimulated interest in art. And similarly, if a large proportion of those persons who enjoy reading prefer the narrative forms of literature, while at the same time their total numbers are on the increase, this surely indicates a newly aroused interest in books. And this is precisely the situation in which we find ourselves to-day. A very large proportion of the literature that we circulate is in narrative form--how large a proportion I daresay few of us realize. Not only all the fiction, adult and juvenile, but all the history, biography and travel, a large proportion of literature and periodicals, some of the sciences, including all reports of original research, and a lesser proportion of the arts, philosophy and religion, are in this form. It may be interesting to estimate the percentage of narrative circulated by a large public library, and I have attempted this in the case of the New York public library for the year ending July 1, 1906. Class Per cent. Estimated per Fiction cent. of narrative Juvenile 26 Adult 32 ........... 58 58 History ................. 6 6 Biography ............... 3 3 Travel .................. 3 3 Literature .............. 7 3 Periodicals ............. 4 2 Sciences ................ 9 3 Arts .................... 3 1 Philos. & Relig. ........ 2 1 Foreign ................. 5 4 --- -- 100 84 In other words, if my estimates are not too much out of the way--and I have tried to be conservative--only 16 per cent. of our whole circulation, and 38 per cent. of our non-fiction, is non-narrative, despite the fact that our total fiction percentage is low. I attach little importance in this regard to any distinction between true and fictitious narrative, people who read novels do not enjoy them simply because the subject matter is untrue. They enjoy the books because they are interesting. In fact, in most good fiction, little beside the actual sequence of the events in the plot and the names of the characters is untrue. The delineation of character, the descriptions of places and events and the statements of fact are intended to be true, and the further they depart from truth the less enjoyable they are. Indeed, when one looks closely into the matter, the dividing line between what we call truth and fiction in narrative grows more and more hazy. In pictorial art we do not attempt to make it at all. Our museums do not classify their pictures into true and imaginary. Our novels contain so much truth and our other narrative works so much fiction, that it is almost as difficult to draw the line in the literary as it is in the pictorial arts. And in any case objections to a work of fiction, as well as commendations, must be based on considerations apart from this classification. To represent a fictitious story as real or an imaginary portrait as a true one is, of course, a fault, but the story and the portrait may both be of the highest excellence when the subjects are wholly imaginary. It should be noted that the crime of false representation, when committed with success, removes a work from library classification as fiction and places it in one of the other classes. Indeed, it is probable that much more lasting harm is done by false non-fiction than by fiction. The reader, provided he uses literature temperately, has much less need to beware of the novel, which he reads frankly for entertainment, than of the history full of "things that are not so," of the biased biography, of science "popularized" out of all likeness to nature, of absurd theories in sociology or cosmology, of silly and crude ideas masquerading as philosophy, of the out-and-out falsehood of fake travellers and pseudo-naturalists. In what has gone before it has been assumed that the reader is temperate. One may read to excess either in fiction or non-fiction, and the result is the same; mental over-stimulation, with the resulting reaction. One may thus intoxicate himself with history, psychology or mathematics--the mathematics-drunkard is the worst of all literary debauchees when he does exist--and the only reason why fiction-drunkenness is more prevalent is that fiction is more attractive to the average man. We do not have to warn the reader against over-indulgence in biography or art-criticism, any more than we have to put away the vichy bottle when a bibulous friend appears, or forbid the children to eat too many shredded-wheat biscuits. Fiction has the fatal gift of being too entertaining. The novel-writer must be interesting or he fails; the historian or the psychologist does not often regard it as necessary--unless he happens to be a Frenchman. But with this danger of literary surfeit or over-stimulation, I submit that the librarian has nothing to do; it is beyond his sphere, at least in so far as he deals with the adult reader. We furnish parks and playgrounds for our people; we police them and see that they contain nothing harmful, but we cannot guarantee that they will not be used to excess--that a man may not, for example, be so enraptured with the trees and the squirrels that he will give up to their contemplation time that should be spent in supporting his family. So in the library we may and do see that harmful literature is excluded, but we cannot be expected to see that books which are not in themselves injurious are not sometimes used to excess. I venture to suggest that very much of our feeling of disquietude about the large use of fiction in the public library and elsewhere arises from our misapprehension of something that must always force itself upon the attention in a state of society where public education and public taste are on the increase. In this case the growth will necessarily be uneven in different departments of knowledge and taste, and in different localities; so that discrepancies frequently present themselves. We may observe, for instance, a quietly and tastefully dressed woman reading, we will say, Laura Jean Libbey. We are disconcerted, and the effect is depressing. But the discrepancy may arise in either of two ways. If we have here a person formerly possessing good taste both in dress and reading, whose taste in the latter regard has deteriorated, we certainly have cause for sadness; but if, as is much more likely, we have one who had formerly bad taste of both kinds and whose taste in dress has improved, we should rather rejoice. The argument is the same whether the change has taken place in the same generation or in more than one. Our masses are moving upward and the progress along the more material lines is often more rapid than in matters of the intellect. Or, on the contrary, intellectual progress may be in advance of manners. Such discrepancies are frequently commented upon by foreign travelers in the United States, who almost invariably misinterpret them in the same way. Can we blame them, when we make the same mistake ourselves? M. Jules Huret, in his recent interesting book "En Amerique," notes frequently the lapses in manners and taste of educated persons among us. He describes, for instance, the bad table-manners of a certain clergyman. His thought is evidently, "How shocking that a clergyman should act in this way!" But we might also put it: "How admirable that professional education in this country is so easily obtained that one of a class in which such manners prevail can secure it! How encouraging that he should desire to enter the ministry and succeed in doing so!" These are extreme standpoints; we need of course endorse neither of them. But when I find that on the upper west side of New York, where the patrons of our branch libraries are largely the wives and daughters of business men with good salaries, whose general scale of living is high, the percentage of fiction circulated is unduly great, I do not say, as I am tempted to do "How surprising and how discouraging that persons of such apparent cultivation should read nothing but fiction, and that not of the highest grade!" I say rather: "What an evidence it is of our great material prosperity that persons in an early stage of mental development, as evidenced by undue preference for narrative in literature, are living in such comfort or even luxury!" Is not this the right way to look at it? I confess that I can see no reason for despairing of the American people because it reads more fiction than it used to read, so long as this is for the same reason that a ten year old boy reads more stories than a baby. Intellectual youth is at least an advance over mental infancy so long as it is first childhood--not second. It is undoubtedly our duty, as it is our pleasure, to help these people to grow, but we cannot force them, and should not try. Complete growth may take several generations. And even when full stature has been obtained, literature in its narrative modes, though not so exclusively as now, will still be loved and read. Romance will always serve as the dessert in the feast of reason--and we should recollect that sugar is now highly regarded as a food. It is a producer of energy in easily available form, and, thinking on some such novels as "Uncle Tom," "Die Waffen nieder" and shall we say "The jungle"? we realize that this thing is a parable, which the despiser of fiction may well read as he runs. THE VALUE OF ASSOCIATION[3] [3] An address delivered before the Library Associations of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, October 9-18, 1907. Man is a gregarious animal; he cannot think, act, or even exist except in certain relations to others of his kind. For a complete description of those relations we must go to a treatise on sociology; our present subject is a very brief consideration of certain groups of individuals, natural or voluntary, and the application of the laws that govern such groups to the voluntary associations with which we are all familiar in library work. Men have joined together to effect certain things that they could not accomplish singly, ever since two savages found that they could lift a heavy log or stone together, when neither one could manage it alone. Until recently the psychology of human groups has received little study. Le Bon, in his book on "The Crowd," gives the modern treatment of it. A group of persons does not think and act precisely as each of its component individuals would think or act. The very act of association, loose as it may be, introduces a new factor. Even the two savages lifting the log do not work together precisely as either would have worked singly. Their co-operation affects their activity; and both thought and action may likewise be affected in larger groupings even by the mere proximity of the individuals of the group, where there is no stronger bond. But although the spirit that collectively animates a group of men cannot be calculated by taking an arithmetical sum, it does depend on that possessed by each individual in the group, and more particularly on what is common to them all and on the nature of the bonds that connect them. Even a chance group of persons previously unconnected and unrelated is bound together by feelings common to all humanity and may be appealed to collectively on such grounds. The haphazard street crowd thrills with horror at the sight of a baby toddling in front of a trolley-car and shouts with joy when the motorman stops just in time. But the same crowd, if composed of newly-arrived Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks, would fail utterly to respond to some patriotic appeal that might move an American crowd profoundly. You may sway a Methodist congregation with a tale of John Wesley that would leave Presbyterians or Episcopalians cold. Try a Yale mob with "Boola" and then play the same tune at Princeton, and watch the effect. Thus, the more carefully our group is selected the more particular and definite are the motives that we can bring to bear in it, and the more powerful will its activities be along its own special lines. The mob in the street may be roused by working on elemental passions--so roused it will kill or burn, but you cannot excite in it enthusiasm for Dante's Inferno, or induce it to contribute money or labor toward the preparation of a new annotated edition. To get such enthusiasm and stimulate such action you must work upon a body of men selected and brought together for this very purpose. Besides this, we must draw a distinction between natural and artificial groups. The group brought together by natural causes and not by man's contriving is generally lower in the scale of civilization when it acts collectively than any one of its components. This is the case with a mob, a tribe, even a municipal group. But an artificial or selected group, where the grouping is for a purpose and has been specially effected with that end in view may act more intelligently, and be, so far as its special activities are concerned, more advanced in the scale of progress than its components as individuals. There is the same difference as between a man's hand and a delicate tool. The former is the result of physical evolution only; the latter of evolution into which the brain of man has entered as a factor. The tool is not as good for "all round" use as the hand; but to accomplish its particular object it is immeasurably superior. If, then, we are to accomplish anything by taking advantage of the very peculiar crowd or group psychology--owing to which a collected body of men may feel as a group and act as a group, differently from the way in which any one of its components would feel or act--we must see that our group is properly selected and constituted. This does not mean that we are to go about and choose individuals, one by one, by the exercise of personal judgment. Such a method is generally inferior and unnecessary. If we desire to separate the fine from the coarse grains in a sand-pile we do not set to work with a microscope to measure them, grain by grain; we use a sieve. The sieve will not do to separate iron filings from copper filings of exactly the same size, but here a magnet will do the business. And so separation or selection can almost always be accomplished by choosing an agency adapted to the conditions; and such agencies often act automatically without the intervention of the human will. In a voluntary association formed to accomplish a definite purpose we have a self-selected group. Such a body may be freely open to the public, as all our library clubs and associations practically are; yet it is still selective, for no one would care to join it who is not in some way interested in its objects. On the other hand, the qualifications for membership may be numerous and rigid, in which case the selection is more limited. The ideal of efficiency in an association is probably reached when the body is formed for a single definite purpose and the terms of admission are so arranged that each of its members is eager above all things to achieve its end and is specially competent to work for it, the purpose of the grouping being merely to attain the object more surely, thoroughly and rapidly. A good example is a thoroughly trained military organization, all of whose members are enthusiastic in the cause for which the body is fighting--a band of patriots, we will say--or perhaps a band of brigands, for what we have been saying applies to evil as well as to good associations. The most efficient of such bodies may be very temporary, as when three persons, meeting by chance, unite to help each other over a wall that none of them could scale by himself, and, having reached the other side, separate again. The more clearly cut and definite the purpose the less the necessity of retaining the association after its accomplishment. The more efficient the association the sooner its aims are accomplished and the sooner it is disbanded. Such groups or bodies, by their very nature are affairs of small detail and not of large and comprehensive purpose. As they broaden out into catholicity they necessarily lose in efficiency. And even when they are accomplishing their aims satisfactorily the very largeness of those aims, the absence of sharp outline and clear definition, frequently gives rise to complaint. I know of clubs and associations that are doing an immense amount of good, in some cases altering for the better the whole intellectual or moral tone of a community, but that are the objects of criticism because they do not act in matters of detail. "Why don't they do something?" is the constant cry. And "doing something," as you may presently discover, is carrying on some small definite, relatively unimportant activity that is capable of clear description and easily fixes the attention, while the greater services, to the public and to the individual, of the association's quiet influences pass unnoticed. The church that has driven out of business one corner-saloon gets more praise than the one that has made better men and women of a whole generation in one neighborhood; the police force that catches one sensational murderer is more applauded than the one that has made life and property safe for years in its community by quiet, firm pressure. There is no reason of course, why the broader and the more definite activities may not be united, to some degree, in one organization. Either smaller groups with related aims may federate for the larger purpose, or the larger may itself be the primary group, and may subdivide into sections each with its specified object. Both these plans or a combination of the two may be seen in many of our large organizations, and it is this combination that seems finally to have been selected as the proper form of union for the libraries and the librarians of the United States. We have a large organization which, as it has grown more and more unwieldy, has been subdivided into smaller specialized sections without losing its continuity for its broader and perhaps vaguer work. At the same time, specialized bodies with related aims have been partially or wholly absorbed, until, by processes partly of subdivision and partly of accretion, we have a body capable of dealing alike with the general and the special problems of library work. It should not be forgotten, however, that its success in dealing with both kinds of problems is still conditioned by the laws already laid down. The general association, as it grows larger, will be marked less and less by the enthusiasm of the specialist, will be less and less efficient, will move more slowly, will deliver its opinions with reticence and will hesitate to act upon them. The smaller constituent bodies will be affected by none of these drawbacks, but their purposes appeal to the few and their actions, though more energetic, will often seem to the majority of the larger group devoid of meaning. This is, of course, the case with the National Educational Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and hosts of similar bodies here and abroad. To state the difficulty is merely to confess that all attempts hitherto have failed to form a group that is at once comprehensive, powerful and efficient, both in the larger matters with which it deals and in details. Probably the most successful attempt of this kind is formulated in the Constitution of the United States itself and is being carried on in our country from day to day, yet successful as it is, our history is witness, and the daily press testifies, that the combination of general and local governments has its weak points and is dependent for its smooth working on the cordial consent and forbearance of the governed. This is true also of smaller combinations. In our own organization it is easy to find fault, it is easy to discover points of friction; only by the cordial effort of every member to minimize these points can such an organization begin to accomplish its aims. Failure is much more apt to be due to lack of appreciation of this fact than to any defect in the machinery of organization. This being the case we are thrown back upon consideration of the membership of our institution. How should it be selected and how constituted? The constitution of the association says that "Any person or institution engaged in library work may become a member by paying the annual dues, and others after election by the executive board." We have thus two classes of members, those by their own choice and those by election. The annual lists of members do not record the distinction, but among those in the latest list we find 24 booksellers, 17 publishers, 5 editors, 9 school and college officials, 8 government employees not in libraries, and 24 wives and relatives of other members, while in the case of 132 persons no qualification is stated in the list. We have or have had as our associates, settlement workers, lawyers, lecturers, indexers, binders, and so on almost indefinitely. Our membership is thus freely open to librarians, interpreting this word very broadly, and to any others that we may desire to have with us, which means, practically, any who have sufficient interest in library work to come to the meetings. We must, therefore, be classed with what may be called the "open" as opposed to the "closed" professional or technical associations. The difference may be emphasized by a reference to two well-known New York clubs, the Players and the Authors. These organizations would appear by their names to be composed respectively of actors and writers. The former, however, admits also to membership persons interested in the drama, which may mean little or much, while the Authors Club, despite repeated efforts to broaden it out in the same way, has insisted on admitting none but _bona fide_ authors. In advocacy of the first plan it may be said that by adopting it the Players has secured larger membership, embracing many men of means. Its financial standing is better and it is enabled to own a fine club house. On the other hand, the Authors has a small membership, and owns practically no property, but makes up in _esprit de corps_ what it lacks in these other respects. It is another phase of the question of specialization that we have already considered. The larger and broader body has certain advantages, the smaller and more compact, certain others. We have, doubtless been right in deciding, or rather in accepting what circumstances seem to have decided for us, that our own association shall be of the larger and less closely knit type, following the analogy of the National Educational Association and the various associations for the advancement of science, American, British and French, rather than that of the Society of Civil Engineers, for instance, or the various learned academies. Our body has thus greater general but less special influence, just as on a question of general scientific policy a petition from the American association might carry greater weight, whereas on a question of engineering it would be incomparably inferior to an opinion of the civil engineers. There is in this country, it is true, a general scientific body of limited membership--the National Academy of Sciences, which speaks both on general and special questions with expert authority. In the formation of the American Library Institute it was sought to create some such special body of librarians, but it is too soon to say whether or not that expectation is to be fulfilled. The fact remains that in the American Library Association we are committed to very nearly the broadest plan of organization and work that is possible. We are united only by our connection with library work or our interest in its success, and are thus limited in our discussions and actions as a body to the most general problems that may arise in this connection, leaving the special work to our sections and affiliated societies, which are themselves somewhat hampered by our size in the treatment of the particular subjects that come before them, inasmuch as they are not separate groups whose freedom of action no one can call in question. In illustration of the limitations of a general body of the size and scope of our Association, I may perhaps be allowed to adduce the recent disagreement among librarians regarding the copyright question, or rather regarding the proper course to be followed in connection with the conference on that question called by the Librarian of Congress. It will be remembered that this conference was semi-official and was due to the desire of members of Congress to frame a bill that should be satisfactory to the large number of conflicting interests involved. To this conference our Association was invited to send, and did send, delegates. It is obvious that if these and all the other delegates to the conference had simply held out for the provisions most favorable to themselves no agreement would have been possible and the objects of the conference would have been defeated. Recognizing this, all the bodies and interests represented worked from the beginning to secure an agreement, striving only that it should be such as would represent a minimum of concession on all sides. This view was shared by the delegates of this Association. The law as it stood was, it is true, most favorable to libraries in its provisions regarding importation, and the retention of these provisions might have been facilitated by withdrawal from the conference and subsequent opposition to whatever new bill might have been framed. But the delegates assumed that they were appointed to confer, not to withdraw, and that if the Association had desired to hold aloof from the conference that result would have been best attained by appointing no delegates at all. The Association's delegates accordingly joined with their fellows in the spirit of compromise to agree on such a bill as might be least unacceptable to all, and the result was a measure slightly, but only slightly, less favorable to libraries than the existing law. With the presentation of this bill to the proper committees of Congress, and a formal statement that they approved it on behalf of the Association, the duties of the delegates ended. And here begins to appear the applicability of this chapter from library history to what has preceded. The action of the delegates was officially that of the Association. But it was disapproved by very many members of the Association on the ground that it seemed likely to result in lessening the importation privilege of libraries. Whether these dissidents were in a majority or not it seemed impossible to say. The Association's legislative body, the Council, twice refused to disapprove or instruct the delegates, thus tacitly approving their action, but the dissidents asserted that the Council, in this respect, did not rightly reflect the opinion of the Association. The whole situation was an instructive illustration of the difficulty of getting a large body of general scope to act on a definite, circumscribed question, or even of ascertaining its opinion or its wishes regarding such action. Recognizing this, the dissidents properly and wisely formed a separate association with a single end in view--the retention of present library importation privileges, and especially the defeat of the part of the bill affecting such privileges as drafted in the conference. The efforts of this body have been crowned with success in that the bill as reported by the committee contains a modified provision acceptable to the dissidents. Thus a relatively small body formed for a definite purpose has quickly accomplished that purpose, while the objects of the larger body have been expressed but vaguely, and so far as they have been definitely formulated have failed of accomplishment. There is a lesson in this both for our own association and for others. It must not be assumed, however, that limitation of action along the lines I have indicated means weakness of organization. On the contrary, foreign observers have generally testified to the exceptional strength and efficiency of societies and groups of all kinds in this country. It may be interesting to quote here what a recent French writer on the United States has to say of the part played by associations of all kinds in our national life. And, in passing, he who is proud of his country nowadays should read what is said of her by French and German, and even English writers. The muck-raking is all on this side of the water. The writer from whom I quote, M. Paul de Rousiers, author of "La Vie Américaine," does not commend without discrimination, which makes what he has to say of more value. He notes at the outset that "the spirit of free association is widely extended in the United States, and it produces results of surprising efficiency." There are two motives for association, he thinks, the consciousness of weakness, which is generally operative abroad, and the consciousness of strength, which is our motive here. He says: The need of association comes generally from the conscience of one's own feebleness or indolence.... When such people join they add together their incapacities; hence the failure of many societies formed with great eclat. On the contrary, when men accustomed to help themselves without depending on their neighbors form an association, it is because they really find themselves facing a common difficulty ... such persons add their capacities; they form a powerful union of capables, the only one that has force. Hence the general success of American associations. The radical difference in the motives for association here and in the old world was noted long ago by De Tocqueville, who says: European societies are naturally led to introduce into their midst military customs and formulas.... The members of such associations respond to a word of command like soldiers in a campaign; they profess the dogma of passive obedience, or rather, by uniting, they sacrifice entirely, at a single stroke, their judgment and free will.... In American associations, on the other hand, individual independence finds its part; as in society every man moves at the same time toward the same goal, but all are not forced to go by the same road. No one sacrifices his will or his reason, but applies them both toward the success of the common enterprise. Commenting on this, De Rousiers goes on: This is not to say that the discipline necessary to the pursuit of the common end is less exact than with us. As far as I can judge, the members of an American association, on the contrary, take their obligations more seriously than we, and precisely because they have undertaken them very freely, without being forced into them by environment or fashion, and also because the heads of the association have not sought to make it serve their own interests. In fine, their discipline is strong, but it is applied only to one precise object; it may thus subsist intact and without tyranny, despite the most serious divergences of view among the members regarding objects foreign to its aim. These happy conditions--this large and concrete mind, joined to the effective activity of the Americans, have given rise to a multitude of groups that are rendering the greatest service. De Rousiers enlarges on this point at great length and gives many illustrations. He returns to it even when he appears to have gone on to other subjects. In an account of a visit to a militia encampment in Massachusetts, where he was inclined at the outset to scoff at the lack of formal military training, but finally became enthusiastic over the individual efficiency and interest of the militiamen, he ends by saying: What I have seen here resembles what I have seen everywhere throughout the United States; each organism, each individual, preserves all its freedom, as far as it can; hence the limited and special character of the public authorities, to whom little is left to do. This doubtless detracts from the massed effects that we are in the habit of producing; we are apt to think that this kind of liberty is only disorder; but individual efforts are more energetic and when they converge toward a single end, by spontaneous choice of each will, their power is incalculable. This it is that makes the strength of America. An interesting and satisfactory summary. There is, however, another way of looking at it. A well-known scientific man recently expressed to me his conviction that an "American" association of any kind is destined to failure, whether it be of scientific men, commercial travellers or plumbers. By "American" here he meant continental in extent. There may thus be, according to this view, a successful Maine hotel-keeper's association, a New York bar association, or a Pennsylvania academy of fine arts, but no such body truly representative of the whole United States. Many such organizations are "American" or "National" in name only; for instance, the "American" Academy of Sciences, which is a Boston institution, or the "National" Academy of Fine Arts, which belongs to New York City. Many bodies have attempted to obviate this trouble by the creation of local sections in different parts of the country, and the newly-formed Society of Illuminating Engineers has, I understand, in mind the organization of perfectly co-ordinate bodies in various parts of the country, without any attempt to create a central body having headquarters at a definite place. This is somewhat as if the American Library Association should consist of the federated state associations, perhaps with a council consisting of a single representative from each. It would seem to be a workable and rather attractive plan. We may remind ourselves again that the United States itself is the classic example of an American association, and that it has been fairly successful by adopting this very system. Our recognition of the necessity of local divisions in our own association and of close affiliation with the various state bodies is shown by the recent resolution of the council providing for sectional meetings and by the presence at this and several other state meetings in the present month of an official representative of the American Library Association. That these, or similar means of making our national body continental in something more than name are necessary we may freely admit. Possibly it may take some years of experimentation, ending perhaps in appropriate constitutional revision, to hit upon the best arrangement. Too much centralization is bad; but there must be some centralization. We must have our capital and our legislative and administrative machinery, as the United States has at Washington. For legislative purposes our Washington is a shifting one. It is wherever the Association may hold its annual meeting and wherever the Council may convene in the interim. For such administrative and executive purposes as require a fixed location, our Washington is for the present in Boston. Next year it may be elsewhere; but whether it shall remain there or move to some other place would seem to be a matter of small importance. Wherever it may be, it will be inaccessible to a large majority of American librarians. If immediate accessibility is a requisite, therefore, some of its functions may and should be divided. It may not be too much to look forward to a sectional headquarters in every state in the Union, related perhaps to the general headquarters somewhat as branch libraries to a central library, or, perhaps, carried on under the auspices of the state associations. At any rate, it is encouraging to reflect that we are not insensible to the obstacles in the way of making our own, or any other association truly American in scope, and are experimenting toward obviating them. All these considerations appear to me to lead to one conclusion--the duty of every librarian to become and remain a member of the American Library Association. I do not desire to dwell on the direct advantages that membership offers--these are not few, and they are sufficiently obvious. Possibly most of those who are likely to be affected by them are already members of the Association. I would recommend for consideration higher grounds than these. Instead of asking the question, "What is there in it for me?" I should inquire, "What is there in it for other people?" How will it benefit the general status of library work, the general standing of librarians in the community, the influence of libraries on those who use or ought to use them--these and a hundred other elements of progress that are closely bound up with the success of library effort, but that may not add to the welfare of any one individual. There seems to be no doubt that the answers to these questions all point toward increased membership. As we have chosen to work along the broader lines and by the energy of mass rather than that of velocity--with the sledge-hammer rather than the rifle bullet--it is surely our duty to make that mass as efficient and as impressive as possible, which means that it must be swelled to the largest possible proportions. Large membership may be efficient in two ways, by united weight and by pervasiveness. An army is powerful in the first way. Ten thousand men concentrated in one spot may strike a sledge-hammer blow and carry all before them. Yet the same ten thousand men may police a great city without even seeing one another. Scattered about on different beats they are everywhere. Every block or two one meets a patrol and the sense of security that they give is overwhelming. It is in this way, it seems to me, that large membership in the American Library Association may be effective. We meet together but once a year, and even then we do not bring out our full force. We have no intention of marching on Washington _en masse_ to secure legislation or even of forcing our trustees to raise salaries by a general library strike. But if we can make it an unusual thing for a librarian not to be a member of the American Library Association; if wherever one goes he meets our members and recognizes what they stand for, then, it seems to me, public opinion of librarians and librarianship is sure to rise. Our two savages, who band together for a few moments to lift a log, become by that act of association marked men among their fellows; the mere fact that they have intelligence enough to work together for any purpose raises them above the general level. It is not alone that increasing numbers, strength, and influence make for the glory of the Association itself; the most successful bodies of this kind are those that exalt, not themselves but the professions, localities or ideals that they represent. It is because increasing our numbers and scattering our membership throughout the land will increase the influence of the library and strengthen the hands of those who work in it that I believe such increase a worthy object of our effort. Associations and societies come and go, form and disband; they are no more immortal than the men and women that compose them. Yet an association, like a man, should seek to do the work that lies before it with all its strength, and to keep that strength at its maximum of efficiency. So doing, it may rest content that, be its accomplishment large or small, its place in the history of human endeavor is worthy and secure. MODERN EDUCATIONAL METHODS Those who complain that the average of general education has been lowered are both right and wrong--right literally and wrong in the general impression that they give. It is undoubtedly true that among young persons with whom an educated adult comes intellectually in contact the average of culture is lower than it was twenty years ago. This is not, however, because the class of persons who were well educated then are to-day less well trained, but rather because the class has been recruited from the ignorant classes, by the addition of persons who were not educated at all then, or educated very slightly, and who are now receiving a higher, though still inadequate degree of training. In other words the average of education among all persons in the community is higher, but the average among educated persons is lower, because the educated class has been enlarged by the addition of large numbers of slightly educated persons. This phenomenon is common to all stages of progress in all sorts of things. It is true, for instance, in the general advance of the world in civilization. The average degree of appreciation of art among persons who know anything of art at all is less, for instance, than in the days of ancient Greece, because the class of art-lovers throughout the world is vastly larger and includes a very large number of persons whose appreciation of art is slight and crude. There is, nevertheless, a greater total amount of love for art, and a higher average of art education, taking into account the world's entire population, than there was then. Let us state the case mathematically: If, of one thousand persons, ten have a hundred dollars each and the rest nothing, a gift of five dollars each to five hundred others will raise the average amount owned by each of the thousand, but will greatly lower the average amount held by the property owners in the group, who will now number 510, instead of ten. "How do you demonstrate all this?" will probably be asked. I do not know of any statistical data that will enable it to be proved directly, but it is certain that education is becoming more general, which must increase the number of partly educated persons having an imperfect educational background--a lack of ancestral training and home influence. Thus, among the persons with whom the educated adult comes in contact, he necessarily meets a larger number of individuals than formerly who betray lack of education in speech, writing or taste; and he wrongly concludes that the schools are not doing their work properly. If the schools were not doing their work properly, we should have direct statistical evidence of it, and all the direct evidence I have seen goes to show that the schools are accomplishing more to-day and accomplishing it by better methods, than ever before. Similarly, I believe that the totality of teaching ability in the profession has increased. The conspicuous failures are persons who are unfit to be teachers and who have been drafted into service because of our sudden increase in educational plant. The result in some cases has been a curious aberration in disciplinary methods--a freakishness that is inseparable from any sudden advance such as we are making. Our schools can and will advance much further in personnel, methods and results; but they are by no means on the downward path now. One way in which they may do better work is by greater appreciation of their selective as well as their training function. Suppose we have twenty bushels of raspberries and the same quantity of potatoes to be prepared for food. Our present educational methods are a good deal like those of a cook who should try to make the whole into either jam or Saratoga chips, or should divide the lot in some arbitrary way unrelated to their fitness for one or the other operation. We are giving in our educational institutions many degrees and many kinds of training without proper selection of the persons to whom the training is to be applied. Selection must be and is made, of course, but it is made on arbitrary lines, or for reasons unrelated to fitness. One boy's education lasts ten years, and another's two, not because the former is fitted to profit by a longer period of training, but because his father happens to have money and inclination to give it to him. One young man studies medicine and another goes into business, not because these are the careers for which they are specially fitted, but because one thinks that the prefix "Doctor" would look well in front of his name and the other has a maternal uncle in the dry-goods trade. I am not so foolish as to think that selection of this kind could ever be made with unerring accuracy, but I do assert that an effort should be made to effect it in a greater degree through our regular educational institutions and to leave it less to chance. Our present methods are like those of wild nature, which scatters seeds broadcast in the hope that some may settle on favoring soil, rather than those of the skilled cultivator, who sees that seed and soil are fitted for each other. In this and other particulars I look for great improvement in our educational methods; but I do not think that, except in local and unessential particulars, here and there, they are now retrograding. SOME ECONOMIC FEATURES OF LIBRARIES[4] [4] Read at the opening of the Chestnut Hill Branch, Philadelphia Free Library, January 22, 1909. Of the three great divisions of economics--production, distribution and consumption--the library has to do chiefly with the second, and it is as a distributor of literature that I desire to speak of it, although it has its share both in the production and consumption of books--more briefly, in the writing and reading of them. Much writing of books is done wholly in libraries and by their aid, and much reading is done therein. These functions I pass by with this brief notice. A library distributes books. So does a bookseller. The functions of these two distributors, however, should differ somewhat as do those of the two producers of books--the author and the publisher. The author creates the soul of the book and the publisher gives it a body. The former produces the immaterial, possibly the eternal, part and the latter merely the material part. Likewise, in our distribution we librarians should lay stress upon what is in the book, upon the production of the author rather than on that of the publisher, though we may not neglect the latter. We are, however, eminently distributors of ideas rather than of mere merchandise, and in so far as we lay stress on the material side of the book--important as this is--and neglect what is in it, we are but traders in books and not librarians. Among many of the great distributors of ideas--the magazine, the newspaper, the school--it is becoming increasingly difficult to find any that do not feel what I may call an anti-civic tendency. They have come to be supported largely by other agencies than the public, and they are naturally controlled by those agencies. As for the public, it has become accustomed to paying less than cost for what it gets along these lines, and is thus becoming intellectually pauperized. It is no more possible to distribute ideas at a profit, as a commercial venture, nowadays, than it would have been to run a circus, with an admission fee, in Imperial Rome. Thus a literary magazine is possible only because it is owned by some publisher who uses it as an advertising medium. He can afford to sell it to the public for less than cost; the public would leave a publication sold at a fair profit severely alone, hence such a venture is impossible. A scientific magazine in like manner must have some one to back it--a firm of patent-office brokers or a scientific society. The daily papers depend almost wholly on their advertisements; the public would not buy a simple compilation of the day's news at a fair profit. Even our great institutions of higher education give their students more than the latter pay for; the student is getting part of his tuition for nothing. A college that depends wholly on tuition fees for its support is soon left without students. Thus all these disseminators of ideas are not dependent on the persons to whom they distribute those ideas, for whose interest it is that the ideas shall be good and true and selected with discrimination. They depend rather for support on outside bodies of various kinds and so tend to be controlled by them--bodies whose interests do not necessarily coincide with those of the public. This is not true of material things. Their distributors still strive to please the public, for it is by the public that they are supported. If the public wants raspberry jam, raspberry jam it gets; and if, being aroused, it demands that this shall be made out of raspberries instead of apples, dock-seeds and aniline, it ultimately has its way. But if the department store were controlled by some outside agency, benevolent or otherwise, which partly supported it and enabled it to sell its wares below cost, then if this controlling agency willed that we should eat dock-seeds and aniline--dock-seeds and aniline we should doubtless eat. Not that the controlling powers in all these instances are necessarily malevolent. The publisher who owns a literary magazine may honestly desire that it shall be fearlessly impartial. The learned body that runs a scientific periodical may be willing to admit to its pages a defense of a thesis that it has condemned in one of its meetings; the page-advertiser in a great daily may be able to see his pet policy attacked in its editorial columns without yielding to the temptation to bring pressure to bear; the creator of an endowed university may view with equanimity an attack by one of its professors on the methods by which he amassed his wealth. All these things may be; we know in fact that they have been and that they are. But unfortunately we all know of cases where the effect of outside control has been quite the contrary. The government of a benevolent despot, we are told, would be ideal; but alas! rules for making a despot benevolent and for ensuring that he and his successors shall remain so, are not yet formulated. We have fallen back on the plan of fighting off the despot--good though he may possibly be; would that we could also abolish the non-civic control of the disseminators of ideas! Are there, then, no disseminators of ideas free from interference? Yes, thank heaven, there are at least two--the public school and the public library. Of these, the value of academic freedom to the public school is slight, because the training of the very young is of its nature subject little to the influences of which we have spoken. There is little opportunity, during a grammar school or high school course, to influence the mind in favor of particular government policies and particular theories in science or literature or art. This opportunity comes later. And it is later that the public library does its best work. Supported by the public it has no impulse and no desire to please anyone else. No suspicion of outside control hangs over it. It receives gifts; but they are gifts to the public, held by the public, not by outsiders. It is tax-supported, and the public pays cost price for what it gets--no more and no less. The community has the power of abolishing the whole system in the twinkling of an eye. The library's power in an American municipality lies in the affections of those who use and profit by it. It holds its position by love. No publisher may say to it: "Buy my books, not those of my rival"; no scientist may forbid it to give his opponent a hearing; no religious body may dictate to it; no commercial influence may throw a blight over it. It is untrammeled. How long is it to remain thus? That is for its owners, the public, to say. I confess that I feel uneasy when I realize how little the influence of the public library is understood by those who might try to wield that influence, either for good or for evil. Occasionally an individual tries to use it sporadically--the poet who tries to secure undying fame by distributing free copies of his verses to the libraries, the manufacturer who gives us an advertisement of his product in the guise of a book, the enthusiast who runs over our shelf list to see whether the library is well stocked with works on his fad--socialism or Swedenborgianism, or the "new thought." But, so far, there has been no concerted, systematic effort on the part of classes or bodies of men to capture the public library, to dictate its policy, to utilize its great opportunities for influencing the public mind. When this ever comes, as it may, we must look out! So far as my observation goes, the situation--even the faintest glimmering of it--is far from dawning on most of these bodies. Most individuals, when the policy of the library suits them not, exhaust their efforts in an angry kick or an epistolary curse; they never even think of trying to change that policy, even by argument. Most of them would rather write a letter to a newspaper, complaining of a book's absence, than to ask the librarian to buy it. Organizations--civil, religious, scientific, political, artistic--have usually let us severely alone, where their influence, if they should come into touch with the library, would surely be for good--would be exerted along the line of morality, of more careful book selection, of judicial mindedness instead of one-sidedness. Let us trust that influences along this line--if we are to have influences at all--may gain a foothold before the opposite forces--those of sordid commercialism, of absurdities, of falsities, of all kinds of self-seeking--find out that we are worth their exploitation. When it comes, as I expect it will some day--this general realization of what only a few now understand--that the public library is worth trying to influence and to exploit, our trouble will be that we shall be without any machinery at all to receive it, to take care of it, to direct the good into proper channels and to withstand the evil. We are occasionally annoyed and disconcerted now by the infinitesimal amount of it that we see; we wish people would mind their own business; we detest meddlers; we should be able to do more work if it were not for the bores--and so on. But what--what in heaven's name shall we do with the deluge when it comes? With what dam shall we withstand it; through what sluices shall we lead it; into what useful turbines shall we direct it? These things are worth pondering. For the present then, this independence of the library as a distributor may be regarded as one of its chief economic advantages. Another is its power as a leveler, and hence as an adjunct of democracy. Democracy is a result, not a cause, of equality. It is natural in a community whose members resemble each other in ability, modes of thought and mental development, just as it is unthinkable where great natural differences, racial or otherwise, exist. If we wish to preserve democracy, therefore, we must first maintain our community on something like a level. And we must level it up, not down; for although a form of democracy may exist temporarily among individuals equally ignorant or degraded, the advent of a single person more advanced in the scale of ability, quickly transforms it into absolutism. Similar inequalities may result in an aristocratic régime. The reason why England, with its ancient aristocracy, on the whole, is so democratic, is that its commoners are constantly recruited by the younger sons of its nobility, so that the whole body politic is continually stirred and kept more homogeneous than on the continent, where all of a noble's sons and daughters are themselves noble. This stirring or levelling process may be effected in many ways and along many lines, but in no way better than by popular education, as we have well understood in this country. This is why our educational system is a bulwark of our form of government, and this is why the public library--the only continuous feature of that system, exercising its influence from earliest childhood to most advanced age--is worth to the community whatever it may cost in its most improved form. There are enough influences at work to segregate classes in our country, and they come to us ready-made from other countries; we may be thankful that the public library is helping to make Americans of our immigrants and to make uniformly cultivated and well-informed Americans of us all. Another interesting light on the functions of the printed page, and hence of the library, is shown by the recent biological theory that connects the phenomena of heredity with those of habit and memory. The inheritance of ancestral characteristics, according to this view, may be described as racial memory. To illustrate, we may take an interesting study of a family of Danish athletes, recently made and published in France. The members of this family, adults and children, men and women, have all been gymnasts for over three hundred years--no one of them would think of adopting any other means of gaining a livelihood. It seems certain to the scientific men who have been conducting the investigation, that not only the physical ability to become an acrobat, but also the mental qualities that contribute so much to success in this occupation--pride in the acrobatic pre-eminence of the family, courage, love of applause, and so on--have been handed down from one generation to another, and that it has cost each generation less time and effort to acquire its skill than its predecessor. In other words, we are told, members of this family are born with certain predispositions--latent ancestral memories, we may say, of the occupations of previous generations. To make these effective, it is necessary only to awaken them, and this may be done simply by the sight of other persons performing gymnastic feats. These they learn in weeks, where others, without such ancestral memories, would require months or years. Evidently this may be applied much more widely than to mere physical skill. Few of us can boast of gymnastic ancestry, but all of us have inherited predispositions and have ancestral memories that make it easier for us to learn certain things and to choose certain courses than we should find it without them. Some of these are good; some bad. Some are useful; some injurious. It is necessary only to awaken them to set going a train of consequences; if not awakened, they may remain permanently dormant. How important, therefore, are the suggestions that may serve as such awakeners; how necessary to bring forward the useful, and to banish the injurious ones! Now of all possible agencies that may bring these predispositions into play--that may awaken our ancestral memories, if you choose to adopt this theory--I submit that the book stands at the very head. For it is itself a racial record; it may contain, in the form best suited to awaken our predispositions, the very material which, long ages ago, was instrumental in handing those predispositions down to us. It is in tune with our latent memories, and it may set them vibrating more vigorously than any merely contemporary agency. Does this not place in a new and interesting light the library and the books of which it is composed? We have learned to respect them as the records of the race and to recognize their value as teachers and their power as energizers; in addition we now see that they may act as fingers on invisible mental triggers. A slight impulse--altogether trivial compared with its effect--and off goes the gun. The discharge may carry a line to a wrecked ship, or it may sink her with all on board. We frequently hear it said of some book whose tendency is bad: "Well, it can't hurt me, anyway; I'm immune." Are you quite sure? Have you gone quite to the bottom of those ancestral memories of yours, and are you certain that there are none that such a book may rouse, to your harm? On the other hand, does this not explain much that has always interested the librarian; for instance, the vast popularity of fairy tales, especially those that date back to our racial infancy? I need dwell no further on the economic importance of the book as viewed from this standpoint. But it has also a function almost diametrically opposed to that which we have just considered; besides harking back to what is oldest it looks forward to what is newest. It may stir us by awakening dim racial recollections; but it may also thrill us by adding to the store of what is already in the mind. In fact, we like to assimilate new ideas, to think new thoughts, to do new acts; we like to read or hear something that we could not have produced ourselves. When we are young and ignorant, therefore, we like music or art or literature that appears trivial to us as we grow older and have developed our own creative powers. A poem that is no better than one a man might dash off himself he likes no longer; he prefers to be confronted with something that is above and beyond his own powers, though not above his comprehension. Thus, as he grows, his zone of enjoyment shifts upward, and the library covers the whole moving field. When Solomon John Peterkin, pen in hand, sat down to write a book, he discovered that he hadn't anything to say. Happy lad! He had before him all literature as a field of enjoyment, for all, apparently, was beyond his creative efforts. Do those of you who are musicians remember when you first apprehended the relations between the tonic and the dominant chords? I have heard a small boy at a piano play these alternately for hours. Such a performance is torture to you and me; it is the sweetest harmony to him, because it is new and has just come into his sphere of creative power. When he is thoroughly satisfied that he can produce the effect at will, he abandons it for something newer and a little higher. The boy who discovers, without being told, that the dominant chord, followed by the tonic, produces a certain musical effect, is doing something that for him is on a par with Wagner's searching the piano for those marvellous effects of his that are often beyond technical explanation. The child who reads what you think is a trivial book, re-reads it, and reads others like it, is doing this same thing in the domain of literature--he is following the natural course that will bring him out at the top after a while. When we distribute books, then, we distribute ideas, not only actual, but potential. A book has in it not only the ideas that lie on its surface, but millions of others that are tied to these by invisible chords, of which we have touched on but a few--the invisible ancestral memories of centuries ago, the foretastes of future thoughts in our older selves and our posterity of centuries hence. When we think of it, it is hard to realize that a book has not a soul. Gerald Stanley Lee, in his latest book, a collection of essays on millionaires, sneers at the efforts of the rich mill owners to improve their employees by means of libraries. Life in a modern mill, he thinks, is so mechanical as to dull all the higher faculties. "Andrew Carnegie," he says (and he apparently uses the name merely as that of a type), "has been taking men's souls away and giving them paper books." Now the mills may be soul-deadening--possibly they are, though it is hard to benumb a soul--but I will venture to say that for every soul that Mr. Carnegie, or anyone else, has taken away, he has created, awakened and stimulated a thousand by contact with that almost soul--that near-soul--that resides in books. Mr. Lee's books may be merely paper; mine have paper and ink only for their outer garb; their inner warp and woof is of the texture of spirit. This is why I rejoice when a new library is opened. I thank God for its generous donor. I clasp hands with the far-reaching municipality that accepts and supports it. I wish good luck to the librarians who are to care for it and give it dynamic force; I congratulate the public whose privilege it is to use it and to profit by it. SIMON NEWCOMB: AMERICA'S FOREMOST ASTRONOMER Among those in all parts of the world whose good opinion is worth having, Simon Newcomb was one of the best known of America's great men. Astronomer, mathematician, economist, novelist, he had well-nigh boxed the compass of human knowledge, attaining eminence such as is given to few to reach, at more than one of its points. His fame was of the far-reaching kind,--penetrating to remote regions, while that of some others has only created a noisy disturbance within a narrow radius. Best and most widely known as an astronomer, his achievements in that science were not suited for sensational exploitation. He discovered no apple-orchards on the moon, neither did he dispute regarding the railways on the planet Venus. His aim was to make still more exact our knowledge of the motions of the bodies constituting what we call the solar system, and his labors toward this end, begun more than thirty years ago, he continued almost until the day of his death. Conscious that his span of life was measured by months and in the grip of what he knew to be a fatal disease, he yet exerted himself with all his remaining energy to complete his monumental work on the motion of the moon, and succeeded in bringing it to an end before the final summons came. His last days thus had in them a cast of the heroic, not less than if, as the commander of a torpedoed battleship, he had gone down with her, or than if he had fallen charging at the head of a forlorn hope. It is pleasant to think that such a man was laid to rest with military honors. The accident that he was a retired professor in the United States Navy may have been the immediate cause of this, but its appropriateness lies deeper. Newcomb saw the light not under the Stars and Stripes, but in Nova Scotia, where he was born, at the town of Wallace on March 12, 1835. His father, a teacher, was of American descent, his ancestors having settled in Canada in 1761. After studying with his father and teaching for some little time in his native province he came to the United States while yet a boy of eighteen, and while teaching in Maryland in 1854-'56 was so fortunate as to attract, by his mathematical ability, the attention of two eminent American scientific men, Joseph Henry and Julius Hilgard, who secured him an appointment as computer on the Nautical Almanac. The date of this was 1857, and Newcomb had thus, at his death, been in Government employ for fifty-two years. As the work of the almanac was then carried on in Cambridge, Mass., he was enabled to enter the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, where he graduated in 1858 and where he pursued graduate studies for three years longer. On their completion in 1861 he was appointed a professor of mathematics in the United States Navy, which office he held till his death. This appointment, made when he was twenty-six years old,--scarcely more than a boy,--is a striking testimony to his remarkable ability as a mathematician, for of practical astronomy he still knew little. One of his first duties at Washington was to supervise the construction of the great 26-inch equatorial just authorized by Congress and to plan for mounting and housing it. In 1877 he became senior professor of mathematics in the navy, and from that time until his retirement as a Rear Admiral in 1897 he had charge of the Nautical Almanac office, with its large corps of naval and civilian assistants, in Washington and elsewhere. In 1884 he also assumed the chair of mathematics and astronomy in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and he had much to to do, in an advisory capacity, with the equipment of the Lick Observatory and with testing and mounting its great telescope, at that time the largest in the world. To enumerate his degrees, scientific honors, and medals would tire the reader. Among them were the degree of LL.D. from all the foremost universities, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1874, the great gold Huygens medal of the University of Leyden, awarded only once in twenty years, in 1878, and the Schubert gold medal of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. The collection of portraits of famous astronomers at the Observatory of Pulkowa contains his picture, painted by order of the Russian Government in 1887. He was, of course, a member of many scientific societies, at home and abroad, and was elected in 1869 to our own National Academy of Sciences, becoming its vice-president in 1883. In 1893 he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France,--the first native American since Benjamin Franklin to be so chosen. Newcomb's most famous work as an astronomer,--that which gained him world-wide fame among his brother astronomers,--was, as has been said, too mathematical and technical to appeal to the general public among his countrymen, who have had to take his greatness, in this regard, on trust. They have known him at first hand chiefly as author or editor of popular works such as his "Popular Astronomy" (1877); of his text-books on astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus; of his books on political economy, which science he was accustomed to call his "recreation"; and of magazine articles on all sorts of subjects not omitting "psychical research," which was one of the numerous by-paths into which he strayed. He held at one time the presidency of the American Society for Psychical Research. The technical nature of his work in mathematical astronomy,--his "profession," as he called it, in distinction to his "recreations" and minor scientific amusements,--may be seen from the titles of one or two of his papers: "On the Secular Variations and Mutual Relations of the Orbits of the Asteroids" (1860); "Investigation of the Orbit of Neptune, with General Tables of Its Motion" (1867); "Researches on the Motion of the Moon" (1876); and so on. Of this work Professor Newcomb himself says, in his "Reminiscences of an Astronomer" (Boston, 1903), that it all tended toward one result,--the solution of what he calls "the great problem of exact astronomy," the theoretical explanation of the observed motions of the heavenly bodies. If the universe consisted of but two bodies,--say, the sun and a planet,--the motion would be simplicity itself; the planet would describe an exact ellipse about the sun, and this orbit would never change in form, size, or position. With the addition of only one more body, the problem at once becomes so much more difficult as to be practically insoluble; indeed, the "problem of the three bodies" has been attacked by astronomers for years without the discovery of any general formula to express the resulting motions. For the actually existing system of many planets with their satellites and countless asteroids, only an approximation is possible. The actual motions as observed and measured from year to year are most complex. Can these be completely accounted for by the mutual attractions of the bodies, according to the law of gravitation as enunciated by Sir Isaac Newton? In Newcomb's words, "Does any world move otherwise than as it is attracted by other worlds?" Of course, Newcomb has not been the only astronomer at work on this problem, but it has been his life-work and his contributions to its solution have been very noteworthy. It is difficult to make the ordinary reader understand the obstacles in the way of such a determination as this. Its two elements are, of course, the mapping out of the lines in which the bodies concerned actually do move and the calculations of the orbits in which they ought to move, if the accepted laws of planetary motion are true. The first involves the study of thousands of observations made during long years by different men in far distant lands, the discussion of their probable errors, and their reduction to a common standard. The latter requires the use of the most refined methods of mathematical analysis; it is, as Newcomb says, "of a complexity beyond the powers of ordinary conception." In works on celestial mechanics a single formula may fill a whole chapter. This problem first attracted Newcomb's attention when a young man at Cambridge, when by analysis of the motions of the asteroids he showed that the orbits of these minor planets had not, for several hundred thousand years past, intersected at a single point, and that they could not, therefore, have resulted, during that period, from the explosion of a single large body, as had been supposed. Later, when Newcomb's investigations along this line had extended to the major planets and their satellites, a curious anomaly in the moon's motion made it necessary for him to look for possible observations made long before those hitherto recorded. The accepted tables were based on observations extending back as far as 1750, but Newcomb, by searching the archives of European observatories, succeeded in discovering data taken as early as 1660, not, of course, with such an investigation as this in view, but chiefly out of pure scientific curiosity. The reduction of such observations, especially as the old French astronomers used apparent time, which was frequently in error by quarter of an hour or so, was a matter of great difficulty. The ancient observer, having no idea of the use that was to be made of his work, had supplied no facilities for interpreting it, and "much comparison and examination was necessary to find out what sort of an instrument was used, how the observations were made, and how they should be utilized for the required purpose." The result was a vastly more accurate lunar theory than had formerly been obtained. During the period when Newcomb was working among the old papers of the Paris Observatory, the city, then in possession of the Communists, was beset by the national forces, and his studies were made within hearing of the heavy siege guns, whose flash he could even see by glancing through his window. Newcomb's appointment as head of the Nautical Almanac office greatly facilitated his work on the various phases of this problem of planetary motions. Their solution was here a legitimate part of the routine work of the office, and he had the aid of able assistants,--such men as G.W. Hill, who worked out a large part of the theory of Jupiter and Saturn, and Cleveland Keith, who died in 1896, just as the final results of his work were being combined. In connection with this work Professor Newcomb strongly advocated the unification of the world's time by the adoption of an international meridian, and also international agreement upon a uniform system of data for all computations relating to the fixed stars. The former still hangs fire, owing to mistaken "patriotism"; the latter was adopted at an international conference held in Paris in 1896, but after it had been carried into effect in our own Nautical Almanac, professional jealousies brought about a modification of the plan that relegated the improved and modernized data to an appendix. Professor Newcomb's retirement from active service made the continuance of his great work on an adequate scale somewhat problematical, and his data on the moon's motion were laid aside for a time until a grant from the newly organized Carnegie Institution in 1903 enabled him to employ the necessary assistance, and the work has since gone forward to completion. What is the value of such work, and why should fame be the reward of him who pursues it successfully? Professor Newcomb himself raises this question in his "Reminiscences," and without attempting to answer it directly he notes that every civilized nation supports an observatory at great annual expense to carry on such research, besides which many others are supported by private or corporate contributions. Evidently the consensus of public opinion must be that the results are worth at least a part of what they cost. The question is included in the broader one of the value of all research in pure science. Speaking generally, the object of this is solely to add to the sum of human knowledge, although not seldom some application to man's physical needs springs unexpectedly from the resulting discoveries, as in the case of the dynamo or that of wireless telegraphy. Possibly a more accurate description of the moon's motion is unlikely to bring forth any such application, but those who applaud the achievements of our experts in mathematical astronomy would be quick to deny that their fame rests on any such possibility. Passing now to Professor Newcomb's "recreation," as he called, it,--political economy, we may note that his contributions to it were really voluminous, consisting of papers, popular articles and several books, including "The A B C of Finance" (1877) and "Principles of Political Economy" (1886). Authorities in the science never really took these as seriously as they deserved, possibly because they regarded Professor Newcomb as scarcely orthodox. Some of his distinctions, however, are of undoubted value and will live; for instance, that between the fund and the flux of wealth, on which he insists in his treatises on finance. As to Professor Newcomb's single excursion into fiction, a romance entitled "His Wisdom the Defender," it is perhaps sufficient to say that, like everything he attempted, it is at least worth notice. It is a sort of cross between Jules Verne and Bulwer Lytton's "Coming Race." Professor Newcomb's mind was comprehensive in its activity. One might have thought that an intellect occupied to the last in carrying out one of the most stupendous tasks ever attempted by a mathematical astronomer would have had little time or little energy left for other things; but Newcomb took his rest and pleasure in popular articles and interviews. Only a short time before his death he published an essay on aeronautics that attracted wide attention, drawing the conclusions that the aeroplane can never be of much use either as a passenger-carrier or in war, but that the dirigible balloon may accomplish something within certain lines, although it will never put the railways and steamships out of business. In particular, he treated with unsparing ridicule the panic fear of an aerial invasion that so lately seized upon our transatlantic cousins. Personally, Newcomb was an agreeable companion and a faithful friend. His success was due largely to his tenacity of purpose. The writer's only personal contact with him came through the "Standard Dictionary,"--of whose definitions in physical science Newcomb had general oversight. On one occasion he came into the office greatly dissatisfied with the definition that we had framed for the word "magnet."--a conception almost impossible to define in any logical way. We had simply enumerated the properties of the thing,--a course which in the absence of authoritative knowledge of their causes was the only rational procedure. But Newcomb's mind demanded a logical treatment, and though he must have seen from the outset that this was a forlorn hope, his tenacity of purpose kept him, pencil in hand, writing and erasing alternately for an hour or more. Finally he confessed that he could do no better than the following pair of definitions,--"_Magnet_, a body capable of exerting magnetic force," and "_Magnetic Force_, the force exerted by a magnet." With a hearty laugh at this beautiful _circulus in definiendo_ he threw down his pencil, and the imperfect and illogical office definition was accepted. Logical as he was, however, he was in no sense bound by convention. His economics, as has been said, was often unorthodox, and even in his mathematical text-books he occasionally shocked the hide-bound. I well remember an interesting discussion among members of the Yale mathematical faculty just after the appearance of Newcomb's text-book of geometry, in which he was unsparingly condemned by some because he assumed in certain elementary demonstrations that geometrical figures could be removed from the paper, turned over and laid down again,--the so-called "method of superposition," now generally regarded as quite allowable. Of course, a figure can be treated in this way only in imagination and for this season, probably, the method was not employed by Euclid. Its use, however, leads always to true results, as anyone may see; and it was quite characteristic of Professor Newcomb that he should have taken it up, not having the fear of the Greek geometers before him. Such was Newcomb; it will be long before American science sees his equal. Mathematical genius is like an automobile,--it is looked upon in two opposing fashions as one has it or has it not. A noted educator not long ago announced his belief that the possession of a taste for mathematics is an exact index of the general intellectual powers. Not much later, another eminent teacher asserted that mathematical ability is an exotic,--that one may, and often does, possess it who is in other respects practically an imbecile. This is scarcely a subject in which a single illustration decides, but surely Newcomb's career justifies the former opinion rather than the latter; the amount and kind of his mental abilities along all lines seemed to run parallel to his mathematical genius, to resemble it in quantity and in kind. The great volumes of astronomical tables without which no astronomer may now venture upon a computation are his best monument; yet the general reader will longer remember, perhaps, the lucid expositor, the genial essayist, the writer of one of the most readable autobiographies of our day. THE COMPANIONSHIP OF BOOKS[5] [5] Read before the Pacific Northwest Library Association, June, 1910. Are books fitted to be our companions? That depends. You and I read them with pleasure; others do not care for them; to some the reading of any book at all is as impossible as the perusal of a volume in Old Slavonic would be to most of us. These people simply do not read at all. To a suggestion that he supplement his usual vacation sports by reading a novel, a New York police captain--a man with a common school education--replied, "Well, I've never read a book yet, and I don't think I'll begin now." Here was a man who had never read a book, who had no use for books, and who could get along perfectly well without them. He is not a unique type. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens might as well be quite illiterate, so far as the use that they make of their ability to read is concerned. These persons are not all uneducated; they possess and are still acquiring much knowledge, but since leaving school they have acquired it chiefly by personal experience and by word of mouth. Is it possible that they are right? May it be that to read books is unnecessary and superfluous? There has been some effort of late to depreciate the book--to insist on its inadequacy and on the impracticality of the knowledge that it conveys. "Book-learning" has always been derided more or less by so-called "practical men". A recent series of comic pictures in the newspapers makes this clear. It is about "Book-taught Bilkins". Bilkins tries to do everything by a book. He raises vegetables, builds furniture, runs a chicken farm, all by the directions contained in books, and meets with ignominious failure. He makes himself, in fact, very ridiculous in every instance and thousands of readers laugh at him and his absurd books. They inwardly resolve, doubtless, that they will be practical and will pay no attention to books. Are they right? Is the information contained in books always useless and absurd, while that obtained by experience or by talking to one's neighbor is always correct and valuable? Many of our foremost educators are displeased with the book. They are throwing it aside for the lecture, for laboratory work, for personal research and experiment. Does this mean that the book, as a tool of the teacher, will have to go? What it all certainly does mean is that we ought to pause a minute and think about the book, about what it does and what it can not do. This means that we ought to consider a little the whole subject of written as distinguished from spoken language. Why should we have two languages--as we practically do--one to be interpreted by the ear and the other by the eye? Could we or should we abandon either? What are the advantages and what the limitations of each? We are so accustomed to looking upon the printed page, to reading newspapers, books, and advertisements, to sending and receiving letters, written or typewritten, that we are apt to forget that all this is not part of the natural order, except in the sense that all inventions and creations of the human brain are natural. Written language is a conscious invention of man; spoken language is a development, shaped by his needs and controlled by his sense of what is fitting, but not at the outset consciously devised. We are apt to think of written language as simply a means of representing spoken language to the eye; but it is more than this; originally, at least in many cases, it was not this at all. The written signs represented not sounds, but ideas themselves; if they were intended to correspond directly with anything, it was with the rude gestures that signified ideas and had nothing to do with their vocal expression. It was not until later that these written symbols came to correspond to vocal sounds and even to-day they do so imperfectly; languages that are largely phonetic are the exception. The result is, as I have said, that we have two languages--a spoken and a written. What we call reading aloud is translation from the written to the spoken tongue; while writing from dictation is translation from the spoken to the written. When we read, as we say, "to ourselves," we sometimes, if we are not skilful, pronounce the spoken words under our breath, or at least form them with our vocal organs. You all remember the story of how the Irishman who could not read made his friend stop up his ears while reading a letter aloud, so that he might not hear it. This anecdote, like all good comic stories, has something in it to think about. The skilful reader does not even imagine the spoken words as he goes. He forgets, for the moment, the spoken tongue and translates the written words and phrases directly into the ideas for which they stand. A skilful reader thus takes in the meaning of a phrase, a sentence, even of a paragraph, at a glance. Likewise the writer who sets his own thoughts down on paper need not voice them, even in imagination; he may also forget all about the spoken tongue and spread his ideas on the page at first hand. This is not so common because one writes slower than he speaks, whereas he reads very much faster. The swift reader could not imagine that he was speaking the words, even if he would; the pace is too incredibly fast. Our written tongue, then, has come to be something of a language by itself. In some countries it has grown so out of touch with the spoken tongue that the two have little to do with each other. Where only the learned know how to read and write, the written language takes on a learned tinge; the popular spoken tongue has nothing to keep it steady and changes rapidly and unsystematically. Where nearly all who speak the language also read and write it, as in our own country, the written tongue, even in its highest literary forms, is apt to be much more familiar and colloquial, but at the same time the written and the spoken tongue keep closer together. Still, they never accurately correspond. When a man "talks like a book," or in other words, uses such language that it could be printed word for word and appear in good literary form, we recognize that he is not talking ordinary colloquial English--not using the normal spoken language. On the other hand, when the speech of a southern negro or a down-east Yankee is set down in print, as it so often is in the modern "dialect story," we recognize at once that although for the occasion this is written language, it is not normal literary English. It is most desirable that the two forms of speech shall closely correspond, for then the written speech gets life from the spoken and the spoken has the written for its governor and controller; but it is also desirable that each should retain more or less individuality, and fortunately it is almost impossible that they should not do so. We must not forget, therefore, that our written speech is not merely a way of setting down our spoken speech in print. This is exactly what our friends the spelling reformers appear to have forgotten. The name that they have given to what they propose to do, indicates this clearly. When a word as written and as spoken have drifted apart, it is usually the spoken word that has changed. Reform, therefore, would be accomplished by restoring the old spoken form. Instead of this, it is proposed to change the written form. In other words, the two languages are to be forced together by altering that one of them that is by its essence the most immutable. Where the written word has been corrupted as in spelling "guild" for "gild," the adoption of the simpler spelling is a reform; otherwise, not. Now is the possession of two languages, a spoken and a written, an advantage or not? With regard to the spoken tongue, the question answers itself. If we were all deaf and dumb, we could still live and carry on business, but we should be badly handicapped. On the other hand, if we could neither read nor write, we should simply be in the position of our remote forefathers or even of many in our own day and our own land. What then is the reasons for a separate written language, beyond the variety thereby secured, by the use of two senses, hearing and sight, instead of only one? Evidently the chief reason is that written speech is eminently fitted for preservation. Without the transmittal of ideas from one generation to another, intellectual progress is impossible. Such transmittal, before the invention of writing, was effected solely by memory. The father spoke to the son, and he, remembering what was said, told it, in turn, to the grandson. This is tradition, sometimes marvellously accurate, but often untrustworthy. And as it is without check, there is no way of telling whether a given fact, so transmitted, is or is not handed down faithfully. Now we have the phonograph for preserving and accurately reproducing spoken language. If this had been invented before the introduction of written language, we might never have had the latter; as it is, the device comes on the field too late to be a competitor with the book in more than a very limited field. For preserving particular voices, such as those of great men, or for recording intonation and pronunciation, it fills a want that writing and printing could never supply. For the long preservation of ideas and their conveyance to a human mind, written speech is now the indispensable vehicle. And, as has been said, this is how man makes progress. We learn in two ways: by undergoing and reflecting on our own experiences and by reading and reflecting on those of others. Neither of these ways is sufficient in itself. A child bound hand and foot and confined in a dark room would not be a fit subject for instruction, but neither would he reach a high level if placed on a desert island far from his kind and forced to rely solely on his own experiences. The experiences of our forebears, read in the light of our own; the experiences of our forebears, used as a starting-point from which we may move forward to fresh fields--these we must know and appreciate if we are to make progress. This means the book and its use. Books may be used in three ways--for information, for recreation, for inspiration. There are some who feel inclined to rely implicitly on the information that is to be found in books--to believe that a book can not lie. This is an unfortunate state of mind. The word of an author set down in print is worth no more than when he gives it to us in spoken language--no more and no less. There was, to be sure, a time when the printed word implied at least care and thoughtfulness. It is still true that the book implies somewhat more of this than the newspaper, but the difference between the two is becoming unfortunately less. Now a wrong record, if it purports to be a record of facts, is worse than none at all. The man who desires to know the distance between two towns in Texas and is unable to find it in any book of reference may obtain it at the cost of some time and trouble; but if he finds it wrongly recorded, he accepts the result and goes away believing a lie. If we are to use books for information, therefore, it is of the utmost consequence that we know whether the information is correct or not. A general critical evaluation of all literature, even on this score alone, without going into the question of literary merit, is probably beyond the possibilities, although it has been seriously proposed. Some partial lists we have, and a few lists of those lists, so that we may know where to get at them. There are many books about books, especially in certain departments of history, technology, or art, but no one place to which a man may go, before he begins to read his book, to find out whether he may believe what he reads in it. This is a serious lack, especially as there is more than one point of view. Books that are of high excellence as literature may not be at all accurate. How shall the boy who hears enthusiastic praise of Prescott's histories and who is spellbound when he reads them know that the results of recent investigation prove that those histories give a totally incorrect idea of Mexico and Peru? How is the future reader of Dr. Cook's interesting account of the ascent of Mount McKinley to know that it has been discredited? And how is he to know whether other interesting and well-written histories and books of travel have not been similarly proved inaccurate? At present, there is no way except to go to one who knows the literature of the subject, or to read as many other books on the subject as can be obtained, weighing one against the other and coming to one's own conclusions. Possibly the public library may be able to help. Mr. Charles F. Lummis of the Los Angeles library advocates labelling books with what he calls "Poison Labels" to warn the reader when they are inaccurate or untrustworthy. Most librarians have hesitated a little to take so radical a step as this, not so much from unwillingness to assume the duty of warning the public, as from a feeling that they were not competent to undertake the critical evaluation of the whole of the literature of special subjects. The librarian may know that this or that book is out of date or not to be depended on, but there are others about which he is not certain or regarding which he must rely on what others tell him. And he knows that expert testimony is notoriously one-sided. It is this fear of acting as an advocate instead of as a judge that has generally deterred the librarian from labelling his books with notes of advice or warning. There is, however, no reason why the librarian should take sides in the matter. He may simply point out to the reader that there are other books on the same subject, written from different points of view, and he may direct attention to these, letting the reader draw his own conclusions. There is probability that the public library in the future will furnish information and guidance of this kind about books, more than it has done in the past. And here it may be noted in passing that the library is coming out of its shell. It no longer holds itself aloof, taking good care of its books and taking little care of the public that uses them. It is coming to realize that the man and the book are complementary, that neither is much without the other, and that to bring them together is its duty. It realizes also that a book is valuable, not because it is so much paper and ink and thread and leather, but because it records and preserves somebody's ideas. It is the projection of a human mind across space and across time and where it touches another human mind those minds have come into contact just as truly and with as valuable results as if the bodies that held them stood face to face in actual converse. This is the miracle of written speech--a miracle renewed daily in millions of places with millions of readers. We have, in the modern library, the very best way of perpetuating such relations as this and of ensuring that such as are preserved shall be worth preserving. When the ancients desired to make an idea carry as far as possible, they saw to the toughness and strength of the material object constituting the record; they cut it in stone or cast it in metal, forgetting that all matter is in a state of continual flux and change; it is the idea only that endures. Stone and metal will both one day pass away and unless some one sees fit to copy the inscription on a fresh block or tablet, the record will be lost. It is, then, only by continual renewal of its material basis that a record in written language can be made to last, and there is no reason why this renewal should not take place every few years, as well as every few centuries. There is even an advantage in frequent renewal; for this ensures that the value of the record shall be more frequently passed upon and prevents the preservation of records that are not worth keeping. This preservation by frequent renewal is just what is taking place with books; we make them of perishable materials; if we want to keep them, we reprint them; otherwise they decay and are forgotten. We should not forget that by this plan the reader is usually made the judge of whether a book is worth keeping. Why do we preserve by continual reprinting Shakespeare and Scott and Tennyson and Hawthorne? The reprinting is done by publishers as a money-making scheme. It is profitable to them because there is a demand for those authors. If we cease to care for them and prefer unworthy writers, Shakespeare and Scott will decay and be forgotten and the unworthy ones will be preserved. Thus a great responsibility is thrown upon readers; so far they have judged pretty well. Just now, however, we are confining ourselves to the use of books for information; and here there is less preservation than elsewhere. Especially in science, statements and facts quickly become out of date; here it is not the old but the new that we want--the new based on the accurate and enduring part of the old. Before we leave this part of the subject it may be noted that many persons have no idea of the kinds of information that may be obtained from books. Even those who would unhesitatingly seek a book for data in history, art, or mathematics would not think of going to books for facts on plumbing, weaving, or shoe-making, for methods of shop-window decoration or of display-advertising, for special forms of bookkeeping suitable for factories or for stock-farms--for a host of facts relating to trades, occupations, and business in general. Yet there are books about all these things--not books perhaps to read for an idle hour, but books full of meat for them who want just this kind of food. If Book-taught Bilkins fails, after trying to utilize what such books have taught him, it is doubtless because he has previously failed to realize that books plus experience, or, to put it differently, the recorded experience of others plus our own is better than either could be separately. And the same is true of information that calls for no physical action to supplement it. Books plus thought--the thoughts of others plus our own--are more effective in combination than either could be by itself. Reading should provoke thought; thought should suggest more reading, and so on, until others' thoughts and our own have become so completely amalgamated that they are our personal intellectual possessions. But we may not read for information at all--recreation may be what we are after. Do not misunderstand me. Many persons have an idea that if one reads to amuse himself he must necessarily read novels. I think most highly of good novels. Narrative is a popular form of literary expression; it is used by those who wish to instruct as well as to amuse. One may obtain plenty of information from novels--often in a form nowhere else available. If we want exact statement, statistical or otherwise, we do not go to fiction for it; but if we wish to obtain what is often more important--accurate and lasting general impressions of history, society, or geography, the novel is often the only place where these may be had. Likewise, one may amuse himself with history, travel, science, or art--even with mathematics. The last is rarely written primarily to amuse, although we have such a title as "Mathematical recreations," but there are plenty of non-fiction books written for entertainment and one may read for entertainment any book whatever. The result depends not so much on the book or its contents as on the reader. Recreation is now recognized as an essential part of education. And just as physical recreation consists largely in the same muscular movements that constitute work, only in different combinations and with different ends in view, so mental recreation consists of intellectual exercise with a similar variation of combinations and aims. Somebody says that "play is work that you don't have to do". So reading for amusement may closely resemble study--the only difference is that it is purely voluntary. Here again, however, the written language is only an intermediary; we have as before, the contact of two minds--only here it is often the lighter contact of good-fellowship. And one who reads always for such recreation is thus like the man who is always bandying trivialities, story-telling, and jesting--an excellent, even a necessary, way of passing part of one's time, but a mistaken way of employing all of it. The best kind of recreation is gently stimulating, but stimulation may rise easily to abnormality. There are fiction drunkards just as there are persons who take too much alcohol or too much coffee. In fact, if one is so much absorbed by the ideas that he is assimilating that the process interferes with the ordinary duties of life, he may be fairly sure that it is injuring him. If one loves coffee or alcohol, or even candy, so dearly that one can not give it up, it is time to stop using it altogether. If a reader is so fond of an exciting story that he can not lay it aside, so that he sits up late at night reading it, or if he can not drop it from his mind when he does lay it aside, but goes on thinking about the deadly combat between the hero and Lord William Fitz Grouchy when he ought to be studying his lessons or attending to his business, it is time to cut out fiction altogether. This advice has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the fiction. It will not do simply to warn the habitual drunkard that he must be careful to take none but the best brands; he must drop alcohol altogether. If you are a fiction drunkard, enhanced quality will only enslave you further. This sort of use is no more recreation in the proper sense of the word than is gambling, or drinking to excess, or smoking opium. And now we come to a use of books that is more important--lies more at the root of things--than their use for either information or recreation--their use for inspiration. One may get help and inspiration along with the other two--reading about how to make a box may inspire a boy to go out and make one himself. It is this kind of thing that should be the final outcome of every mental process. Nothing that goes on in the brain is really complete until it ends in a motor stimulus. The action, it is true, may not follow closely; it may be the result of years of mental adjustment; it may even take place in another body from the one where it originated. The man who tells us how to make a box, and tells it so fascinatingly that he sets all his readers to box-making, presumably has made boxes with his own hands, but there may be those who are fitted to inspire action in others rather than to undertake it themselves. And the larger literature of inspiration is not that which urges to specific deeds like box-making, or even to classes of deeds, like caring for the sick or improving methods of transportation; rather does it include in its scope all good thoughts and all good actions. It makes better men and women of those who read it; it is revolutionary and evolutionary at the same time, in the best sense of both words. What will thus inspire me, do you ask? It would be easy to try to tell you; it would also be easy to fail. Many have tried and failed. This is a deeply personal matter. I can not tell what book, or what passage in a book, will touch the magic spring that shall make your life useful instead of useless, that shall start your thoughts and your deeds climbing up instead of grovelling or passively waiting. Only search will reveal it. The diamond-miner who expects to be directed to the precise spot where he will find a gem will never pick one up. Only he who seeks, finds. There are, however, places to look and places to avoid. The peculiar clay in which diamonds occur is well known to mineralogists. He who runs across it, looks for diamonds, though he may find none. But he who hunts for them on the rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshire or the sea-sands of Florida is doing a foolish thing--although even there he may conceivably pick up one that has been dropped by accident. So you may know where it is best to go in your search for inspiration from books, for we know where seekers in the past have most often found it. He who could read the Bible or Shakespeare without finding some of it is the exception. It may be looked for in the great poets--Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Milton, Hugo, Keats, Goethe; or the great historians--Tacitus, Herodotus, Froissart, Macaulay, Taine, Bancroft; or in the great travellers from Sir John Mandeville down, or in biographies like Boswell's life of Johnson, or in books of science--Laplace, Lagrange, Darwin, Tyndall, Helmholtz; in the lives of the great artists; in the great novels and romances--Thackeray, Balzac, Hawthorne, Dickens, George Eliot. Yet each and all of these may leave you cold and you may pick up your gem in some out-of-the-way corner where neither you nor anyone else would think of looking for it. Did you ever see a car-conductor fumbling about in the dark with the trolley pole, trying to hit the wire? While he is pulling it down and letting it fly up again, making fruitless dabs in the air, the car is dark and motionless; in vain the motorman turns his controller, in vain do the passengers long for light. But sooner or later the pole strikes the wire; down it flows the current that was there all the time up in the air; in a jiffy the car is in motion and ablaze with light. So your search for inspiration in literature may be long and unsuccessful; you are dark and motionless. But the life-giving current from some great man's brain is flowing through some book not far away. One day you will make the connection and your life will in a trice be filled with light and instinct with action. And before we leave this subject of inspiration, let us dwell for a moment on that to be obtained from one's literary setting in general--from the totality of one's literary associations and impressions, as distinguished from that gained from some specific passage or idea. It has been said that it takes two to tell the truth; one to speak and one to listen. In like manner we may say that two persons are necessary to a great artistic interpretation--one to create and one to appreciate. And of no art is this more true than it is of literature. The thought that we are thus cooperating with Shakespeare and Schiller and Hugo in bringing out the full effect of their deathless conceptions is an inspiring one and its consideration may aid us in realizing the essential oneness of the human race, so far as its intellectual life is concerned. Would you rather be a citizen of the United States than, we will say, of Nicaragua? You might be as happy, as well educated, as well off, there as here. Why do you prefer your present status? Simply and solely because of associations and relationships. If this is sentiment, as it doubtless is, it is the kind of sentiment that rules the world--it is in the same class as friendship, loyalty, love of kin, affection for home. The links that bind us to the past and the threads that stretch out into the future are more satisfactory to us here in the United States, with the complexity of its interests for us, than they would be in Nicaragua, or Guam, or Iceland. Then of what country in the realm of literature do you desire to be a citizen? Of the one where Shakespeare is king and where your familiar and daily speech is with the great ones of this earth--those whose wise, witty, good, or inspiring words, spoken for centuries past, have been recorded in books? Or would you prefer to dwell with triviality and banality--perhaps with Laura Jean Libbey or even with Mary J. Holmes, and those a little better than these--or a little worse. I am one of those who believe in the best associations, literary as well as social. And associations may have their effect even if they are apparently trivial or superficial. When the open-shelf library was first introduced we were told that one of its chief advantages was that it encouraged "browsing"--the somewhat aimless rambling about and dipping here and there into a book. Obviously this can not be done in a closed-shelf library. But of late it has been suggested, in one quarter or another, that although this may be a pleasant occupation to some, or even to most, it is not a profitable one. Opponents of the open shelf of whom there are still one or two, here and there, find in this conclusion a reason for negativing the argument in its favor, while those of its advocates who accept this view see in it only a reason for basing that argument wholly on other grounds. Now those of us who like a thing do not relish being told that it is not good for us. We feel that pleasure was intended as an outward sign of benefits received and although it may in abnormal conditions deceive us, we are right in demanding proof before distrusting its indications. When the cow absorbs physical nutriment by browsing, she does so without further reason than that she likes it. Does the absorber of mental pabulum from books argue wrongly from similar premises? Many things are hastily and wrongly condemned because they do not achieve certain results that they were not intended to achieve. And in particular, when a thing exists in several degrees or grades, some one of those grades is often censured, although good in itself, because it is not a grade or two higher. Obviously everything depends on what is required. When a shopper wants just three yards of cloth, she would be foolish to buy four. She would, of course, be even more foolish to imagine that, if she really wished four, three would do just as well. But if a man wants to go to the eighth story of a building, he should not be condemned because he does not mount to the ninth; if he wishes a light lunch, he should not be found fault with for not ordering a seven-course dinner. And yet we continually hear persons accused of "superficiality" who purposely and knowingly acquire some slight degree of knowledge of a subject instead of a higher degree. And others are condemned, we will say, for reading for amusement when they might have read for serious information, without inquiring whether amusement, in this instance, was not precisely what they needed. It may be, therefore, that browsing is productive of some good result, and that it fails to effect some other, perhaps some higher, result which its critics have wrongly fixed upon as the one desirable thing in this connection. When a name embodies a figure of speech, we may often learn something by following up the figure to see how far it holds good. What does an animal do, and what does it not do, when it "browses"? In the first place it eats food--fresh, growing food; but, secondly, it eats this food by cropping off the tips of the herbage, not taking much at once, and again, it moves about from place to place, eating now here and now there and then making selection, from one motive or another, but presumably following the dictates of its own taste or fancy. What does it not do? First, it does not, from choice, eat anything bad. Secondly, it does not necessarily consume all of its food in this way. If it finds a particularly choice spot, it may confine its feeding to that spot; or, if its owner sees fit, he may remove it to the stable, where it may stand all day and eat what he chooses to give it. The benefits of browsing are, first, the nourishment actually derived from the food taken, coupled with the fact that it is taken in small quantities, and in great variety; and secondly, the knowledge of good spots, obtained from the testing of one spot after another, throughout the whole broad pasture. Now I submit that our figure of speech holds good in all these particulars. The literary "browser" partakes of his mental food from books and is thereby nourished and stimulated; he takes it here and there in brief quantities, moving from section to section and from shelf to shelf, selecting choice morsels of literature as fancy may dictate. He does not, if he is a healthy reader, absorb voluntarily anything that will hurt him, and this method of literary absorption does not preclude other methods of mental nourishment. He may like a book so much that he proceeds to devour it whole, or his superiors in knowledge may remove him to a place where necessary mental food is administered more or less forcibly. And having gone so far with our comparison, we shall make no mistake if we go a little further and say that the benefits of browsing to the reader are twofold, as they are to the material feeder--the absorption of actual nutriment in his own wilful, wayward manner--a little at a time and in great variety; and the knowledge of good reading obtained from such a wide testing of the field. Are not these real benefits, and are they not desirable? I fear that our original surmise was correct and that browsing is condemned not for what it does, but because it fails to do something that it could not be expected to do. Of course, if one were to browse continuously he would be unable to feed in any other way. Attendance upon school or the continuous reading of any book whatever would be obviously impossible. To avoid misunderstanding, therefore, we will agree at this point that whatever may be said here in commendation of browsing is on condition that it be occasional and not excessive and that the normal amount of continuous reading and study proceed together with it. Having settled, therefore, that browsing is a good thing when one does not occupy one's whole time with it, let us examine its advantages a little more in detail. First: about the mental nourishment that is absorbed in browsing; the specific information, the appreciation of what is good, the intellectual stimulation--not that which comes from reading suggested or guided by browsing, but from the actual process itself. I have heard it strenuously denied that any such absorption occurs; the bits taken are too small, the motion of the browser is too rapid, the whole process is too desultory. Let us see. In the first place a knowledge of authors and titles and of the general character of their works is by no means to be despised. I heard the other day of a presumably educated woman who betrayed in a conversation her ignorance of Omar Khayyam--not lack of acquaintance with his works, but lack of knowledge that such a person had ever existed. If at some period in her life she had held in her hand a copy of "The Rubaiyat," and had glanced at its back, without even opening it, how much embarrassment she might have been spared! And if, in addition, she had glanced within for just ten seconds and had discovered that he wrote poetry in stanzas of four lines each, she would have known as much about Omar as do many of those who would contemptuously scoff at her ignorance. With so brief effort may we acquire literary knowledge sufficient to avoid embarrassment in ordinary conversation. Browsing in a good library, if the browser has a memory, will soon equip him with a wide range of knowledge of this kind. Nor is such knowledge to be sneered at as superficial. It is all that we know, or need to know, about scores of authors. One may never study higher mathematics, but it may be good for him to know that Lagrange was a French author who wrote on analytical mechanics, that Euclid was a Greek geometer, and that Hamilton invented quaternions. All this and vastly more may be impressed on the mind by an hour in the mathematical alcove of a library of moderate size. And it will do no harm to a boy to know that Benvenuto Cellini wrote his autobiography, even if the inevitable perusal of the book is delayed for several years, or that Felicia Hemans, James Thomson, and Robert Herrick wrote poetry, independently of familiarity with their works, or that "Lamia" is not something to eat or "As you like it" a popular novel. Information of this kind is almost impossible to acquire from lists or from oral statement, whereas a moment's handling of a book in the concrete may fix it in the mind for good and all. So far, we have not supposed that even a word of the contents has been read. What, now, if a sentence, a stanza, a paragraph, a page, passes into the brain through the eye? Those who measure literary effect by the thousand words or by the hour are making a great mistake. The lightning flash is over in a fraction of a second, but in that time it may reveal a scene of beauty, may give the traveller warning of the fatal precipice, or may shatter the farmer's home into kindling wood. Intellectual lightning may strike the "browser" as he stands there book in hand before the shelf. A word, a phrase, may sear into his brain--may turn the current of his whole life. And even if no such epoch-making words meet his eye, in how brief a time may he read, digest, appreciate, some of the gems of literature! Leigh Hunt's "Jennie kissed me" would probably take about thirty seconds; on a second reading he would have it by heart--the joy of a life-time. How many meaty epigrams would take as long? The whole of Gray's "Elegy" is hardly beyond the browser's limit. In an editorial on the Harvard Classics in the "Chicago evening post", (April 22), we read, "the cultural tabloid has very little virtue;... to gain everything that a book has to give one must be submerged in it, saturated and absorbed". This is very much like saying, "there is very little nourishment in a sandwich; to get the full effect of a luncheon you must eat everything on the table". It is a truism to say that you can not get everything in a book without reading all of it; but it by no means follows that the virtue of less than the whole is negligible. So much for the direct effect of what one may thus take in, bit by bit. The indirect effect is even more important. For by sampling a whole literature, as he does, he not only gets a bird's-eye view of it, but he finds out what he likes and what he dislikes; he begins to form his taste. Are you afraid that he will form it wrong? I am not. We are assuming that the library where he browses is a good one; here is no chance of evil, only a choice between different kinds of good. And even if the evil be there, it is astonishing how the healthy mind will let it slip and fasten eagerly on the good. Would you prefer a taste fixed by someone who tells the browser what he ought to like? Then that is not the reader's own taste at all, but that of his informant. We have too much of this sort of thing--too many readers without an atom of taste of their own who will say, for instance, that they adore George Meredith, because some one has told them that all intellectual persons do so. The man who frankly loves George Ade and can yet see nothing in Shakespeare may one day discover Shakespeare. The man who reads Shakespeare merely because he thinks he ought to is hopeless. But what a triumph, to stand spell-bound by the art of a writer whose name you never heard, and then discover that he is one of the great ones of the world! Nought is comparable to it except perhaps to pick out all by yourself in the exhibition the one picture that the experts have chosen for the museum or to be able to say you liked olives the first time you tasted them. Who are your favorites? Did some one guide you to them or did you find them yourselves? I will warrant that in many cases you discovered them and that this is why you love them. I discovered DeQuincey's romances, Praed's poetry, Béranger in French, Heine in German, "The Arabian nights", Molière, Irving's "Alhambra," hundreds of others probably. I am sure that I love them all far more than if some one had told me they were good books. If I had been obliged to read them in school and pass an examination on them, I should have hated them. The teacher who can write an examination paper on Gray's "Elegy", would, I firmly believe, cut up his grandmother alive before the physiology class. And next to the author or the book that you have discovered yourself comes the one that the discoverer himself--your boy or girl friend--tells you about. _He_ knows a good thing--_she_ knows it! No school nonsense about that; no adult misunderstanding. I found out Poe that way, and Thackeray's "Major Gahagan", and many others. To go back to our old illustration and consider for a moment not the book but the mind, the personality whose ideas it records, such association with books represents association with one's fellowmen in society--at a reception, in school or college, at a club. Some we pass by with a nod, with some we exchange a word; sometimes there is a warm handgrasp; sometimes a long conversation. No matter what the mental contact may be, it has its effects--we are continually gaining knowledge, making new friends, receiving fresh inspiration. The complexion of this kind of daily association determines the cast of one's mind, the thoroughness of his taste, the usefulness or uselessness of what he does. A man is known by the company he keeps, because that company forms him; he gets from it what becomes brain of his brain and soul of his soul. And no less is he formed by his mental associations with the good and the great of all ages whom he meets in books and who talk to him there. More rather than less; for into a book the writer puts generally what is best in him, laying aside the pettiness, the triviality, the downright wickedness that may have characterized him in the flesh. I have often heard the comment from one who had met face to face a writer whose work he loved--"Oh! he disappointed me so!" How disappointed might we be with Thackeray, with Dickens, even with Shakespeare, could we meet them in the flesh! Now they can not disappoint us, for we know only what they have left on record--the best, the most enduring part, purified from what is gross and earthly. In and among such company as this it is your privilege to live and move, almost without money and without price. Thank God for books; let them be your friends and companions through life--for information, for recreation, but above all for inspiration. ATOMIC THEORIES OF ENERGY[6] [6] Read before the St. Louis Academy of Science. A theory involving some sort of a discrete or discontinuous structure of energy has been put forward by Prof. Max Planck of the University of Berlin. The various aspects of this theory are discussed and elaborated by the late M. Henri Poincaré in a paper entitled "L'Hypothèse des Quanta," published in the _Revue Scientifique_ (Paris, Feb. 21, 1912). A paper in which a discontinuous or "atomic" structure of energy was suggested was prepared by the present writer fifteen years ago but remains unpublished for reasons that will appear later. Although he has no desire to put in a claim of priority and is well aware that failure to publish would put any such claim out of court, it seems to him that in connection with present radical developments in physical theory the paper, together with some correspondence relating thereto, has historical interest. Planck's theory was suggested by thermodynamical considerations. In the paper now to be quoted the matter was approached from the standpoint of a criterion for determining the identity of two portions of matter or of energy. The paper is as follows: _Some Consideration on the Identity of Definite Portions of Energy_ It has been remarked recently that physicists are now divided into two opposing schools according to the way in which they view the subject of energy, some regarding it as a mere mathematical abstraction and others looking upon it as a physical entity, filling space and continuously migrating by definite paths from one place to another. It may be added that there are numerous factions within these two parties; for instance, not all of those who consider energy to be something more than a mere mathematical expression would maintain that a given quantity of it retains its identity just as a given quantity of matter does. In fact a close analysis would possibly show that opinions are graded very closely and continuously from a view hardly differing from that of Lagrange, who clearly saw and freely used the mathematical considerations involving energy before the word had been invented or its physical meaning developed, up to that stated recently in its extreme form by Professor Ostwald, who would replace what he terms a mechanical theory of the universe by an "energetical" theory, and would dwell exclusively on energy as opposed to its vehicles. Differences of opinion of this sort very frequently reduce to differences of definition, and in this case the meaning of the word "identity" or some similar word or phrase has undoubtedly much to do with the view that is taken of the matter. It may be interesting, for instance, to look for a moment at our ideas of the identity of matter and the extent to which they are influenced by the accepted theory of its constitution. Very few persons would hesitate to admit that the matter that now constitutes the universe is identical in amount with that which constituted it one million years ago, and that any given portion of that matter is identical with an equal amount of matter that then existed, although the situations of the parts of that portion might be and probably were widely different in the two classes. To assert this is of course a very different thing from asserting that the identity of the two portions or any parts thereof could have been practically shown by following them during all their changes of location or state. That cannot be done even in the case of some simple changes that are effected in a fraction of a second. For instance, if water from the pail A be mixed with water from the pail B there is no possible way of telling which pail any given portion of the mixture came from or in what proportions, yet it is certain that such portion is identical with a portion of equal mass that recently occupied part of one or both pails. How far our certainty as to this is influenced by our ideas regarding the ultimate constitution of the water is worthy of investigation. All who accept the molecular theory, for instance, will regard our inability to trace the elements of a mixture as due to purely physical limitations. A set of Maxwell's "demons" if bidden to watch the molecules of the water in pail A, one demon being assigned to each molecule, would be able to tell us at any time the precise proportions of any given part of the mixture. But if we should not accept the molecular theory and believe for instance, that water is a continuum, absolutely homogeneous, no matter how small portions of it be selected, then our demons would be as powerless as we ourselves now are to trace the constituents in the mixture. We are now in a position to ask the question: Is the matter in a mixture of two continua identical with that of its constituents? The identity certainly seems of a different kind or degree from that which obtains in the first case, for there is no part, however small, that was derived from one pail alone. The mixture is something more than a mere juxtaposition of elements each of which has retained its identity; it is now of such nature that no part of it is identical with any part of A alone or of B alone, nor of A+B, where the sign + denotes simple juxtaposition. It is identical, to be sure, with a perfect mixture of certain parts of A and B, but this is simply saying that it is identical with what it is now, that is, with itself, not with something that went before. Probably no one now believes that water or any other kind of matter is a continuum, but the bearing of what has been said may be seen when we remember that this is precisely the present stage of our belief regarding energy. No one, so far as I know, has ventured to suggest what may be termed a molecular theory of energy, a somewhat remarkable fact when we consider the control now exercised over all thought in physics by molecular theories of matter. While we now believe, for instance, that a material body, say a crystal, can by no possibility increase continuously in mass, but must do so step by step, the minimum mass of matter that can be added being the molecule, we believe on the contrary that the energy possessed by the same body can and may increase with absolutely perfect continuity, being hampered by no such restriction. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss whether we have grounds for belief that there is such a thing as a minimum quantity, or atom, of energy, that does not separate into smaller parts, no matter what changes it undergoes. Suffice it to say that there appears to be no _a priori_ absurdity in such an idea. At first sight both matter and energy appear non-molecular in structure. But we have been forced to look upon the gradual growth of a crystal as a step-by-step process, and we may some day, by equally cogent considerations, be forced to regard the gradual increase of energy of an accelerating body as also a step-by-step process, although the discontinuity is as invisible to the eye in the latter case as in the former. Without following this out any farther, however, the point may be here emphasized that it is hardly possible for one who, like the majority of physicists, regards matter as molecular and energy as a continuum, to hold the same ideas regarding the identity of the two. Efforts to show that definite portions of energy, like definite portions of matter, retain their identity have hitherto been made chiefly on the lines of a demonstration that energy travels by definite and continuous paths in space just as matter does. This is very well, but it would appear to be necessary to supplement it with evidence to show that the lines representing these paths do not form at their intersections continuous blurs that not only forbid any practical attempt at identification on emergence, but make it doubtful whether we can in any true sense call the issuing path identical with the entering one. Otherwise the identity of energy can be admitted to be only that kind of identity that could be preserved by matter if its molecular structure did not exist. One who can admit that this sort of identity is the same sort that can be preserved by molecular matter may be able to hold the identity of energy in the present state of the evidence, but the present attitude of physicists would seem to show that, whether they realize the connection of the two subjects or not, they cannot take this view. In other words, modern views of the identity of matter seem closely connected with modern views of its structure, and the same connection will doubtless hold good for energy. Regarding the probable success of an attempt to prove that energy has a "structure" analogous to the molecular structure of matter, any prediction would doubtless be rash just now. The writer has been unable, up to the present time, to disprove the proposition, but the subject is one of corresponding importance to that of the whole molecular theory of matter and should not be entered upon lightly. * * * * * The writer freely acknowledges at present that the illustrations in the foregoing are badly chosen and some of the statements are too strong, but it still represents essentially his ideas on the subject. No reputable scientific journal would undertake to publish it. The paper was then sent to Prof. J. Willard Gibbs of Yale, and elicited the following letter from him: "NEW HAVEN, JUNE 2, 1897. "MY DEAR MR. BOSTWICK: "I regret that I have allowed your letter to lie so long unanswered. It was in fact not very easy to answer, and when one lays a letter aside to answer, the weeks slip away very fast. "I do not think that you state the matter quite right in regard to the mixture of fluids if they were continuous. The mixing of water as I regard it would be like this, if it were continuous and not molecular. Suppose you should take strips of white and red glass and heat them until soft and twist them together. Keep on drawing them out and doubling them up and twisting them together. It would soon require a microscope to distinguish the red and white glass, which would be drawn out into thinner and thinner filaments if the matter were continuous. But it would be always only a matter of optical power to distinguish perfectly the portion of red and white glass. The stirring up of water from two pails would not really mix them but only entangle filaments from the pails. "To come to the case of energy. All our ideas concerning energy seem to require that it is capable of gradual increase. Thus the energy due to velocity can increase continuously if velocity can. Since the energy is as the square of the velocity, if the velocity can only increase discontinuously by equal increments, the energy of the body will increase by unequal increments in such a way as to make the exchange of energy between bodies a very awkward matter to adjust. "But apart from the question of the increase of energy by discontinuous increments, the question of relative and absolute motion makes it very hard to give a particular position to energy, since the 'energy' we speak of in any case is not one quantity but may be interpreted in a great many ways. Take the important case of two equal elastic balls. One, moving, strikes the other at rest, we say, and gives it nearly all its energy. But we have no right to call one ball at rest and we can not say (as anything absolute) which of the balls has lost and which has gained energy. If there is such a thing as absolute energy of motion it is something entirely unknowable to us. Take the solar system, supposed isolated. We may take as our origin of coordinates the center of gravity of the system. Or we may take an origin with respect to which the center of gravity of the solar system has any (constant) velocity. The kinetic energy of the earth, for example, may have any value whatever, and the principle of the conservation of energy will hold in any case for the whole solar system. But the shifting of energy from one planet to another will take place entirely differently when we estimate the energies with reference to different origins. "It does not seem to me that your ideas fit in with what we know about nature. If you ask my advice, I should not advise you to try to publish them. "At best you would be entering into a discussion (perhaps not in bad company) in which words would play a greater part than precise ideas. "This is the way I feel about it. "I remain, "Yours faithfully, "J.W. GIBBS." Professor Gibbs's criticism of the illustration of water-mixture is evidently just. Another might well have been used where the things mixed are not material--for instance, the value of money deposited in a bank. If A and B each deposits $100 to C's credit and C then draws $10, there is evidently no way of determining what part of it came from A and what from B. The structure of "value", in other words, is perfectly continuous. Professor Gibbs's objections to an "atomic" theory of the structure of energy are most interesting. The difficulties that it involves are not overstated. In 1897 they made it unnecessary, but since that time considerations have been brought forward, and generally recognized, which may make it necessary to brave those difficulties. Planck's theory was suggested by the apparent necessity of modifying the generally accepted theory of statistical equilibrium involving the so called "law of equipartition," enunciated first for gases and extended to liquids and solids. In the first place the kinetic theory fixes the number of degrees of freedom of each gaseous molecule, which would be three for argon, for instance, and five for oxygen. But what prevents either from having the six degrees to which ordinary mechanical theory entitles it? Furthermore, the oxygen spectrum has more than five lines, and the molecule must therefore vibrate in more than five modes. "Why," asks Poincaré, "do certain degrees of freedom appear to play no part here; why are they, so to speak, 'ankylosed'?" Again, suppose a system in statistical equilibrium, each part gaining on an average, in a short time, exactly as much as it loses. If the system consists of molecules and ether, as the former have a finite number of degrees of freedom and the latter an infinite number, the unmodified law of equipartition would require that the ether should finally appropriate all energy, leaving none of it to the matter. To escape this conclusion we have Rayleigh's law that the radiated energy, for a given wave length, is proportional to the absolute temperature, and for a given temperature is in inverse ratio to the fourth power of the wave-length. This is found by Planck to be experimentally unverifiable, the radiation being less for small wave-lengths and low temperatures, than the law requires. Still again, the specific heats of solids, instead of being sensibly constant at all temperatures, are found to diminish rapidly in the low temperatures now available in liquid air or hydrogen and apparently tend to disappear at absolute zero. "All takes place," says Poincaré, "as if these molecules lost some of their degrees of freedom in cooling--as if some of their articulations froze at the limit." Planck attempts to explain these facts by introducing the idea of what he calls "quanta" of energy. To quote from Poincaré's paper: "How should we picture a radiating body? We know that a Hertz resonator sends into the ether Hertzian waves that are identical with luminous waves; an incandescent body must then be regarded as containing a very great number of tiny resonators. When the body is heated, these resonators acquire energy, start vibrating and consequently radiate. "Planck's hypothesis consists in the supposition that each of these resonators can acquire or lose energy only by abrupt jumps, in such a way that the store of energy that it possesses must always be a multiple of a constant quantity, which he calls a 'quantum'--must be composed of a whole number of quanta. This indivisible unit, this quantum, is not the same for all resonators; it is in inverse ratio to the wave-length, so that resonators of short period can take in energy only in large pieces, while those of long period can absorb or give it out by small bits. What is the result? Great effort is necessary to agitate a short-period resonator, since this requires at least a quantity of energy equal to its quantum, which is great. The chances are, then, that these resonators will keep quiet, especially if the temperature is low, and it is for this reason that there is relatively little short-wave radiation in 'black radiation'... The diminution of specific-heats is explained similarly: When the temperature falls, a large number of vibrators fall below their quantum and cease to vibrate, so that the total energy diminishes faster than the old theories require." Here we have the germs of an atomic theory of energy. As Poincaré now points out, the trouble is that the quanta are not constant. In his study of the matter he notes that the work of Prof. Wilhelm Wien, of Würzburg, leads by theory to precisely the conclusion announced by Planck that if we are to hold to the accepted ideas of statistical equilibrium the energy can vary only by quanta inversely proportional to wave-length. The mechanical property of the resonators imagined by Planck is therefore precisely that which Wien's theory requires. If we are to suppose atoms of energy, therefore, they must be variable atoms. There are other objections which need not be touched upon here, the whole theory being in a very early stage. To quote Poincaré again: "The new conception is seductive from a certain standpoint: for some time the tendency has been toward atomism. Matter appears to us as formed of indivisible atoms; electricity is no longer continuous, not infinitely divisible. It resolves itself into equally-charged electrons; we have also now the magneton, or atom of magnetism. From this point of view the quanta appear as _atoms_ of _energy_. Unfortunately the comparison may not be pushed to the limit; a hydrogen atom is really invariable.... The electrons preserve their individuality amid the most diverse vicissitudes, is it the same with the atoms of energy? We have, for instance, three quanta of energy in a resonator whose wave-length is 3; this passes to a second resonator whose wave-length is 5; it now represents not 3 but 5 quanta, since the quantum of the new resonator is smaller and in the transformation the number of atoms and the size of each has changed." If, however, we replace the atom of energy by an "atom of action," these atoms may be considered equal and invariable. The whole study of thermodynamic equilibrium has been reduced by the French mathematical school to a question of probability. "The probability of a continuous variable is obtained by considering elementary independent domains of equal probability.... In the classic dynamics we use, to find these elementary domains, the theorem that two physical states of which one is the necessary effect of the other are equally probable. In a physical system if we represent by _q_ one of the generalized coordinates and by _p_ the corresponding momentum, according to Liouville's theorem the domain [double integral]_dpdq_, considered at given instant, is invariable with respect to the time if _p_ and _q_ vary according to Hamilton's equations. On the other hand _p_ and _q_ may, at a given instant take all possible values, independent of each other. Whence it follows that the elementary domain is infinitely small, of the magnitude _dpdq_.... The new hypothesis has for its object to restrict the variability of _p_ and _q_ so that these variables will only change by jumps.... Thus the number of elementary domains of probability is reduced and the extent of each is augmented. The hypothesis of quanta of action consists in supposing that these domains are all equal and no longer infinitely small but finite and that for each [double integral]_dpdq_ equals _h_, _h_ being a constant." Put a little less mathematically, this simply means that as energy equals action multiplied by frequency, the fact that the quantum of energy is proportional to the frequency (or inversely to the wave-length as stated above) is due simply to the fact that the quantum of action is constant--a real atom. The general effect on our physical conceptions, however, is the same: we have a purely discontinuous universe--discontinuous not only in matter but in energy and the flow of time. M. Poincaré thus puts it: "A physical system is susceptible only of a finite number of distinct states; it leaps from one of these to the next without passing through any continuous series of intermediate states." He notes later: "The universe, then, leaps suddenly from one state to another; but in the interval it must remain immovable, and the divers instants during which it keeps in the same state can no longer be discriminated from one another; we thus reach a conception of the discontinuous variation of time--the atom of _time_." I quote in conclusion, Poincaré's final remarks: "The present state of the question is thus as follows: the old theories, which hitherto seemed to account for all the known phenomena, have met with an unexpected obstacle. Seemingly a modification becomes necessary. A hypothesis has presented itself to M. Planck's mind, but so strange a one that one is tempted to seek every means of escaping it; these means, however, have been sought vainly. The new theory, however, raises a host of difficulties, many of which are real and not simply illusions due to the indolence of our minds, unwilling to change their modes of thought.... "Is discontinuity to reign through out the physical universe, and is its triumph definitive? Or rather shall we find that it is but apparent and hides a series of continuous processes?... To try to give an opinion just now on these questions would only be to waste ink." It only remains to call attention again to the fact that this conception of the discontinuity of energy, the acceptance of which Poincaré says would be "the most profound revolution that natural philosophy has undergone since Newton" was suggested by the present writer fifteen years ago. Its reception and serious consideration by one of the first mathematical physicists of the world seems a sufficient justification of its suggestion then as a legitimate scientific hypothesis. THE ADVERTISEMENT OF IDEAS Writing is a device for the storage of ideas--the only device for this purpose prior to the invention of the phonograph, and not now likely to be generally superseded. A book consists of stored ideas; sometimes it is like a box, from which the contents must be lifted slowly and with more or less toil; sometimes like a storage battery where one only has to make the right kind of contact to get a discharge. At any rate, if we want people to use books or to use them more, or to use them better, or to use a different kind from that which they now use, we must lose sight for a moment of the material part of the book, which is only the box or the lead and acid of the storage battery, and fix our attention on the stored ideas, which are what everybody wants--everybody, that is, except those who collect books as curiosities. The subject of this lecture is thus only library advertising, about which we have heard a good deal of late, but we shall try to confine its applications to this inner or ideal substance which it is our special business as librarians to purvey. And first, in considering the matter, it may be worth while to say a word about advertising in general. Practically an advertisement is an announcement by somebody who has something to distribute. Announcements of this kind may be classified, it seems to me, as economic, uneconomic and illegitimate. The most elementary form is that of the person who tells you where you can get something that you want--a simple statement that someone is a barber or an inn-keeper, or gives music lessons, or has shoes for sale. This may be accompanied by an effort to show that the goods offered are of specially good quality or have some feature that makes them particularly desirable, either to consumers in general or to those of a certain class. This is all surely economic, so long as nothing but the truth is told. Next we have an effort not only to supply existing wants and to direct them into some particular channel, but to create a new field, to make people realize a lack previously not felt; in other words to make people want something that they need. This may be done simply by exhibiting or describing the article or it may require long and skillful presentation of the matter. All this is still economic. But it requires only a step to carry us across the line. Next the enthusiastic advertiser strives to make someone want that which he does not need. As may be seen, the line here is difficult to determine, but this sort of advertising is surely not economic. So long as the thing not needed is not really injurious, however, the advertising cannot be called illegitimate. It is simply uneconomic. The world would be better off without it, but we may look for its abolition only to the increase of good judgment and intelligence among consumers. When an attempt however, is made to cause a man to want something that is really injurious, then the act becomes illegitimate and should be prevented. Another class of illegitimate advertising is that which would be perfectly allowable if it were truthful and becomes objectionable only because its representations are false. It may be ostensibly of any of the types noted above. As we have already noted, the material objects distributed by the librarian are valued not for their physical characteristics but for a different reason altogether, the fact that they contain stored ideas. Ideas which, according to some, are merely the relative positions of material particles in the brain, and which are indisputably accompanied and conditioned by such positions, here subsist in the form of peculiar and visible arrangements of particles of printer's ink upon paper, which are capable under certain conditions of generating in the human brain ideas precisely similar to those that gave them birth. And although the book cannot think for itself, but must merely preserve the idea intrusted to it, without change, it is vastly superior in stability to the brain that gave it birth, so that thousands of years after that brain has mouldered into dust it is capable of reproducing the original ideas in a second brain where they may germinate and bear fruit. How familiar all this is, and yet how perennially wonderful! The miracle of it is sufficient excuse for this digression. Now books, beside this modern form of distribution by loan, are widely distributed commercially both by loan and by sale, and especially in the latter form advertisement is now very extensively used in connection with the distribution. In fact we have all the different types specified above--economic, uneconomic and illegitimate, both through misrepresentation and the harmful character of the subject matter. The reason for all illegitimate forms of advertising is of course not a desire to misrepresent or to do harm per se, but to make money, the profit to the distributor being proportioned to the amount of distribution done and not at all dependent on its economic value. Distribution by public officers is of course not open to this objection, nor are the distributors subject to temptation, since their compensation does not depend on the amount of distribution. If they are capable and interested, furthermore, they are particularly desirous to increase the economic value of the work that they are doing. Since this is so and since the danger of uneconomic or harmful forms of advertising is thus reduced to a minimum, there would seem to be special reason why the economic forms should be employed very freely. But the fact is that they have been used sparingly, and by some librarians shunned altogether. Let us see what library advertising of the economic types may mean. In the first place it means telling those who want books where they may get them. This simple task is rarely performed completely or satisfactorily. It is astonishing how many inhabitants of a large town do not even know where the public library is. Everyone realizes this who has ever tried to find a public library in a strange place. I once asked repeatedly of passers-by in a crowded city street a block distant from a library (in this case not architecturally conspicuous) before finding one who knew its whereabouts; in another city I inquired in vain of a conductor who passed the building every few hours in his car. In the latter case the library was a beautiful structure calculated to move the curiosity of a less stolid citizen. In New York inquiry would probably cause you to reach the nearest branch library, anything more remote than that being beyond the local intelligence. Sometimes I think we had better drop all our far-reaching plans for civic betterment and devote our time for a few years to causing citizens, lettered and unlettered alike to memorize some such simple formula as this: "There is a Public Library. It is on Blank street. We may borrow books there, free." You will notice that I have inserted in this formula one item of information that pertains to use, not location. For of those who know of the existence and location of the Public Library there are many whose ideas of its contents and their uses, and of the conditions and value of such uses, are limited and crude. The advertising that succeeds in bettering this state of things is surely doing an economic service. All these things the self-respecting citizen should know. But beyond and above all this there is the final economic service of advertising--the causing a man to want that which he needs but does not yet desire. Every man, woman and child in every town and village needs books in some shape, degree, form or substance. And yet the proportion of those who desire them is yet outrageously small, though encouragingly on the increase. Here no memorizing of a formula, even could we compass it, could suffice. This kind of advertising means the realization of something lacking in a life. Is the awakening of such a realization too much for us? Are we to stand by and see our neighbors all about us awakening to the undoubted fact that they need telephones in their houses, and electric runabouts, and mechanical fans in hot weather, and pianolas, and new kinds of breakfast food, while we despair of awakening them to their needs of books--quite as undoubted? Are we to admit that personal gain, which was the victorious motive that spurred on the commercial advertisers in these and countless other instances, is to be counted more mighty than the desire to do a service to our fellowmen and to fulfill the duties of our positions--which should spur us on? I am not foolish enough to suppose that by placarding the fences with the words "Books! Books!" as the patent medicine man does with "Curoline! Curoline!" we shall make any progress. The patent medicine man is right; he wants to excite curiosity and familiarize the public with the name of his nostrum. They all know what a book is--and alas the name is not even unknown and mysterious--would that it were! It calls up in many minds associations which, if we are to be successful we must combat, overthrow, and replace by others. To many--sad it is to say it--a book is an abhorrent thing; to more still, it is a thing of absolute indifference. To some a book is merely a collection of things, having no ascertainable relationships, that one is required to memorize; to others it is a collection of statements, difficult to understand, out of which the meaning must be extracted by hard study; to very few indeed does the book appear to be what it really is--a message from another mind. People will go to a seance and listen with thrills to the silliest stuff purporting to proceed from Plato or Daniel Webster or Abraham Lincoln, when in the Public Library, a few blocks away are important and authentic messages from those same persons, to which they have never given heed. Such a message derives interest and significance from circumstances outside itself. Very few books create their own atmosphere unaided. They presuppose a system of abilities, opinions, prejudices, likes and dislikes, intellectual connections and what not, that is little less than appalling, if we try to follow it up. Dislike of books or indifference toward them is often simply the result of a lack of these things or of some component part of them. We must supply what is lacking if we are to arouse a desire for books in those who do not yet possess it. I say that such a labor is difficult enough to interest him whose pleasure it is to essay hard tasks; it is noble enough to attract him who loves his fellow-man; success in it is rare enough and glorious enough to stimulate him who likes to succeed where others have failed. Advertising may be good or bad, noble or ignoble, right or wrong, according to what is advertised and our methods of advertising it. He who would scorn to announce the curative powers of bottled spring-water and pink aniline dye; he who regards it as a commonplace task to urge upon the spendthrift public the purchase of unnecessary gloves and neckties, may well feel a thrill of satisfaction and of anticipation in the task of advertising ideas and of persuading the unheeding citizen to appropriate what he has been accustomed to view with indifference. To get at the root of the matter, let us inquire why it is that so many persons do not care for books. We may divide them, I think, into two classes--those who do not care, or appear not to care for ideas at all, whether stored in books or not; and those who do care for ideas but who either do not easily get them out of storage or do not realize that they can be and are stored in books. Absolute carelessness of ideas is, it seems to me, rather apparent than real. It exists only in the idiot. There are those to be sure that care about a very limited range of ideas; but about some ideas they always care. We must, in our advertisement of ideas, bear this in mind--the necessity of offering to each that which he considers it worth his while to take. If I were asked what is the most fundamentally interesting subject to all classes, I should unhesitatingly reply "philosophy." Not, perhaps, the philosophy of the schools, but the individual philosophy that every man and woman has, and that is precisely alike in no two of us. I have heard a tiny boy, looking up suddenly from his play, ask "Why do we live?" This and its correlative "Why do we die?" Whence come we and whither do we go? What is the universe and what are our relations to it--these questions in some form have occurred to everyone who thinks at all. They are discussed around the stove at the corner grocery, in the logging camp, on the ranch, in clubs and at boarding-house tables. Sometimes they take a theological turn--free will, the origin and purpose of evil, and so on. I do not purpose to give here a catalogue of the things in which an ordinary man is interested, and I have said this only to remind you that his interest may be vivid even in connection with subjects usually considered abstruse. This interest in ideas we may call the library's raw material; anything that tends to create it, to broaden it, to extend it to new fields and to direct it into paths that are worth while is making it possible for the library to do better and wider work--is helping on its campaign of publicity. This establishes a web of connecting fibers between the library and all human activity. The man who is getting interested in his work, debaters at a labor union, students at school and college, the worker for civic reform, the poetic dreamer--all are creating a demand for ideas that makes it easier for the library to advertise them. Those who object to some of the outside work done by modern libraries should try to look at the whole matter from this standpoint. The library is taking its place as a public utility with other public utilities. Its relations with them are becoming more evident; the ties between them are growing stronger. As in all cases of such growth it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify the boundaries between them, so fast and so thoroughly do the activities of each reach over these lines and interpenetrate those of the others. And unless there is actual wasteful duplication of work, we need not bother about our respective spheres. These activities are all human; they are mutually interesting and valuable. A library need be afraid of doing nothing that makes for the spread of interest in ideas, so long as it is not neglecting its own particular work of the collection, preservation and distribution of ideas as stored in books, and is not duplicating others' work wastefully. When we observe those who are already interested in ideas, however, we find that not all are interested in them as they are stored up in books. Some of these cannot read; their number is small with us and growing smaller; we may safely leave the schools to deal with them. Others can read, but they do not easily apprehend ideas through print. Some of these must read aloud so that they may get the sound of the words, before these really mean anything to them. These persons need practice in reading. They get it now largely through the newspapers, but their number is still large. A person in this condition may be intellectually somewhat advanced. He may be able to discuss single-tax with some acumen, for instance. It is a mistake to suppose that because a person understands a subject or likes a thing and is able to talk well about it, he will enjoy and appreciate a book on that subject or thing. It may be as difficult for him to get at the meat of it as if it were a half-understood foreign tongue. You who know enough French to buy a pair of gloves or sufficient German to inquire the way to the station, may tackle a novel in the original and realize at once the hazy degree of such a person's apprehension. He may stick to it and become an easy reader, but on the other hand your well-meant publicity efforts may place in his hands a book that will simply discourage and ultimately repel him, sending him to join the army of those to whom no books appeal. Next we find those who understand how to read and to read with ease, but to whom books--at any rate certain classes of books--are not interesting. Now interest in a subject may be so great that one will wade through the driest literature about it, but such interest belongs to the few--not to the many. I have come to the conclusion that more readers have had their interest killed or lessened by books than have had it aroused or stimulated. This is a proportion that it is our business as librarians to reverse. More of this unfortunate and heart-breaking, interest-killing work than I like to think of goes on in school. Not necessarily; for the name of those is legion who have had their eyes opened to the beauties of literature by good teachers. This makes it all the more maddening when we think how many poor teachers, or good teachers with mistaken methods, or indifferent teachers, have succeeded in associating with books in the minds of their pupils simply burdensome tasks--the gloom and heaviness of life rather than its joy and lightness. Such boys and girls will no more touch a book after leaving school than you or I would touch a scorpion after one had stung us. Perhaps it is useless to try to change this; possibly it is none of our business, though we have already seen that there are reasons to the contrary. But we can better matters, and we are daily bettering them, by our work with children. If a child has once learned to love books and to associate them powerfully with something else than a burdensome task, then the labors of the unskillful teachers will create no dislike of the book but only of the teacher and his methods; while those of the good teacher will be a thousand times more fruitful than otherwise. So much for the ways in which interesting books are sometimes made uninteresting. Now for the books that are uninteresting _per se_--and how many there are! When a man has something to distribute commercially for personal gain, the thing that he tries above all to do is to interest his public--to make them want what he has to sell. His success or failure in doing this, means the success or failure of his whole enterprise. He does not decide what kind of an entertainment his clients ought to attend and then try to make them go to it, or what kind of neckties they ought to wear and then try to make them wear them. Of ten promoters, if nine proceeded on this principle and one on the plan of offering something attractive and interesting, who would succeed? It is one of the marvels of all time that this never seems to have occurred to writers of books. We are almost forced to conclude that they do not care whether their volumes are read or not. In only one class of books, as a rule, do the writers endeavor to interest the reader first and foremost; you all know that I refer to fiction. What is the result? The writers of fiction are the ones read by the public. More fiction is read, as you very well know, than all the other classes of literature put together. The library that is able to show a fiction percentage of 60, points to it with pride, while there are plenty with percentages between 70 and 80. Now this is all to the credit of the fiction writers. I refuse to believe that their readers are any more fundamentally interested in the subjects of which they treat than in others. They simply follow the line of least resistance. They want something interesting to read and they know from experience where to go for it. Of course this brings on abuses. Writers use illegitimate methods to arouse interest--appeals perhaps, to unworthy instincts. We need not discuss that here, but simply focus our attention on the fact that writers of fiction always try to be interesting because they must; while writers of history, travel, biography and philosophy do not usually try, because they think it unnecessary. This is simply a survival. It used to be true that readers of these subjects read them because of their great antecedent interest in them--an interest so great that interesting methods of presentation became unnecessary. No one cared about the masses, still less about what they might or might not read. Things are changed now; we are trying to advertise stored ideas to persons unfamiliar with them and we are suddenly awakening to the fact that our stock is not all that it should be. We need history, science and travel fascinatingly presented--at least as interestingly as the fiction-writer presents his subjects. This is by no means impossible, because it has been done, in a few instances. We are by no means in the position of the Irishman who didn't know whether or not he could play the piano, because he had never tried. Some of our authors have tried--and succeeded. No one after William James can say that philosophy cannot be made interesting to the ordinary reader. Tyndall showed us long ago that physics could interest the unlearned, and there are similarly interesting writers on history and travel--more perhaps in these two classes than any other. But it remains true that the vast majority of non-fiction books do not attract, and were not written with the aim of attracting, the ordinary reader such as the libraries are now trying to reach. The result is that the fiction writers are usurping the functions of these uninteresting scribes and are putting history, science, economics, biology, medicine--all sorts of subjects, into fictional form--a sufficient answer to any who may think that the subjects themselves, as distinguished from the manner in which they are presented, are calculated to repel the ordinary reader. Fiction is thus becoming, if it has not already become, the sole form of literary expression, so far as the ordinary reader is concerned. This is interesting; it justifies the large stock of fiction in public libraries and the large circulation of that stock. It does not follow that it is commendable or desirable. For one thing it places truth and falsehood precisely on the same plane. The science or the economics in a good novel may be bad and that in a poor novel may be good. Then again, it dilutes the interesting matter with triviality. It is right that those who want to know how and when and under what circumstances Edwin and Angelina concluded to get married should have an opportunity of doing so, but it is obviously unfair that the man who likes the political discussions put into the mouth of Edwin's uncle, or the clever descriptions of country-life incident to the courtship, should be burdened with information of this sort, in which he has little interest. To those who are interested in the increase of non-fiction percentages I would therefore say: devise some means of working upon the authors. These gentry are yet ignorant of the existence of a special library public. Some day they will wake up, and then fiction will be relieved from the burden that oppresses it at present--of carrying most of the interesting philosophy, religion, history and social science, in addition to doing its own proper work. Meanwhile the librarian, who is interested in advertising ideas, must do what he can with his material. There is still a saving remnant of interesting non-fiction, and there is a goodly body of readers whose antecedent interest in certain subjects is great enough to attract them to almost any book on those subjects. I have purposely avoided the discussion here of the details of library publicity, which has been well done elsewhere; but I cannot refrain from expressing my opinion that the ordinary work of the library and its stock of books if properly displayed, are more effective than any other means that can be used for the purpose. From a series of articles entitled "How to Start Libraries in Small Towns" by A.M. Pendleton, I quote the following, which appears in The Library Journal for May 13, 1877: "Plant it [the library] among the people, where its presence will be seen and felt,... Other things being equal, it is better to have it upon the first floor, so that passers-by will see its goodly array of books and be tempted to inspect them." Excellent advice; we might take it if we had not built our libraries as far away from the street as possible and lifted them up on as high a pedestal as our money would buy. Who, passing by a modern library building, branch or central, can by any possibility see through the windows enough of the interior to tell whether it is a library rather than a postoffice, a bank, or an office? Before moving into its new home the St. Louis Public Library occupied temporarily a business building having a row of six large plate-glass windows on one side, directly on the sidewalk, enabling passers-by to see clearly all that went on in the adult lending-delivery room. The effect on the circulation was noteworthy. During the last months of our occupancy we went further and utilized each of the windows for a book display. This was in charge of a special committee of the staff, and its results were beyond expectation. In one window we had a shelfful of current books, open to attractive pictures, with a sign reminding wayfarers that they might be taken out by cardholders and that cards were free. In another we had standard works, without pictures, but open at attractive pages. In another we had children's books; in another, open reference or art books in a dust-proof case--and so on. Each of these windows was seldom without its contingent of gazers, and the direct effect on library circulation was noticed by all. At the end of the year we moved into our great million-and-a-half-dollar building; and beautiful as it is--satisfactory as are its arrangements--we have had--alas--to give up our show windows. We can, it is true, have show cases in the great entrance hall, but we want to attract outsiders, not insiders. Some of our enthusiastic staff want to build permanent show cases on the sidewalk. What we may possibly do is to rent real show windows opposite. What we do not desire, is to abandon our publicity plan altogether. But when, oh when, shall we have libraries (branches at any rate, if our main buildings must be monumental) that will throw themselves open to the public eye, luring in the wayfarer to the joys of reading, as the commercial window does to the delights of gumdrops or neckties? One of the greatest steps ever taken toward the advertisement of ideas was the adoption, on a large scale, of the open shelf. This throws the books of a library, or many of them, open to public inspection and handling; it encourages "browsing"--the somewhat aimless rambling about and dipping here and there into a volume. If we are to present ideas to our would-be readers in great variety, hoping that among them there may be toothsome bait, surely there could be no better way than this. The only trouble is that it appeals only to those who are already sufficiently interested in stored ideas to enter the library. We must remember, however, that by our method of sending out books for home use we are making a great open-shelf of the whole city. While the number of volumes in any one place may be small, the books are constantly changing so that the non-reader has a good chance of seeing in his friend's house something that may attract him. That this may affect the use of the library it is essential that he who sees a library book on the table or in the hands of a fellow passenger on a car must be able to recognize its source at once, so that, if attracted, he may be led thither by the suggestion. Nothing is better for this purpose than the library seal, placed on the book where all may see it; and that all may recognize it, it should also be used wherever possible, in connection with the library--on letter heads, posters, lists, pockets and cards, so that the public association between its display and the work of the library shall become strong. This making the whole outstanding supply of circulating books an agency in our publicity scheme for ideas is evidently more effective as the books better fit and satisfy their users; for in that case we have an unpaid agent with each book. The adaptation of book to user helps our advertisement of ideas, and that in turn aids us in adapting book to user. When a dynamo starts, the newly arisen current makes the field stronger and that in turn increases the current. Only here we must have just a little residual magnetism in the field magnet to start the whole process. In the library's work the residual magnetism is represented by the latent interest in ideas that is present in every community. And I can do no better, in closing, than to emphasize the fact that everything that advertises ideas, even if totally unconnected with their recorded form in books, helps the library and pushes forward its work. Itself a product of the great extension of intellectual activity to classes in which it was formerly bounded by narrow limits, the library is bound to widen those limits wherever they can be stretched, and every movement of them reacts to help it. Surely advertisement on its part is an evangel--a bearing of good intellectual tidings into the darkness. We are spiritualistic mediums in the best sense--the bearers of authentic messages from all the good and great of past or present time; only with us, no turning on of the light, no publicity however glaring, will break the spell or do otherwise than aid, for whether we succeed or fail, whether we live or die, those messages, recorded as they are in books, will stand while humanity remains. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, THE PUBLIC SCHOOL, AND THE SOCIAL CENTER MOVEMENT[7] [7] Read before the National Education Association. The center of a geometrical figure is important, not for its size and content, but for its position--not for what it is in itself, but for its relations to the other elements of the figure. And words used with derived meanings are used best when their original significations are kept in mind. The business center of a city does not contain all of that city's commercial activity; when we speak of the church as a religious center, we do not mean that there is to be no religious activity in the home or in other walks of life; as for the center of population of a large and populous country, it may be out in the prairie where neither man nor his dwellings are to be seen. All these centers are what they are because of certain relationships. It is so with a social center. But social relationships cover a wide field. The relationships of business, of religion, even of mere co-existence, are all social. May we have a center for so wide a range of activities? Even the narrower relations of business or of religion tend to form subsidiary groups and to multiply subsidiary centers. In a large city we may have not only a general business center but centers of the real estate business, of the hardware or textile trades, and so on. Our religious affiliations condense into denominational centers. In the district of a large city where newly arrived foreign immigrants gather, you will be shown the group of blocks where the Poles or the Hungarians have segregated themselves from the rest, and even within these, the houses where dwell families from a particular province or even from one definite city or village. Man is social but he is socially clannish, and the broadest is not so much he who refuses to recognize these clan or caste relationships as he who enters into the largest number of them--he who keeps in touch with his childhood home, has a wide acquaintance among those of his own religious faith and of his chosen business or profession, keeps up his old college friendships, is interested in collecting coins or paintings and knows all the other collectors, is active in civic and charitable societies, takes an interest in education and educators, and so on. The social democracy that should succeed in abolishing all these groups or leveling them--that should recognize no relationships but the broader ones that underly all human effort and feeling--the touches of nature that make the whole world kin--would be barren indeed. We cannot spare these fundamentals; we could not get rid of them if we would; but civilization advances by building upon them, and to do away with these additions would be like destroying a city to get at its foundation, in the vain hope of securing some wide-reaching result in economics or aesthetics. Occupying a foremost place among these groupings is the large division embracing our educational activities. And these are social not only in the broad sense, but also in the narrower. The intercourse of student with student in the school and even of reader with reader in the library, especially in such departments as the children's room, is so obviously that of society that we need dwell on it no further. This intercourse, while a necessary incident of education in the mass, is only an incident. It is sufficiently obtrusive, however, to make it evident that any use of school or library building for social purposes is fit and proper. There is absolutely nothing new nor strange about such use. In places that cannot afford separate buildings for these purposes, the same edifice has often served for church, schoolhouse, public library, and as assembly room for political meetings, amateur theatricals, and juvenile debating societies. The propriety of all this has never been questioned and it is difficult to see why it should not be as proper in a town of 500,000 inhabitants as in one of 500. The incidence of the cost is a matter of detail. Why should such purely social use of these educational buildings--always common in small towns--have been allowed to fall into abeyance in the larger ones? It is hard to say; but with the recent great improvements in construction, the building of schools and libraries that are models of beauty, comfort, and convenience, there has arisen a not unnatural feeling in the public that all this public property should be put to fuller use. Why should children be forced to dance on the street or in some place of sordid association when comfortable and convenient halls in library or school are closed and unoccupied? Why should the local debating club, the mothers' meeting--nay, why should the political ward meeting be barred out? Side by side with this trend of public opinion there has been an awakening realization on the part of many connected with these institutions that they themselves might benefit by such extended use. Probably this realization has come earlier and more fully to the library, because its educational function is directed so much more upon adults. The library is coming to be our great continuation school--an institution of learning with an infinity of purely optional courses. It may open its doors to any form of adult social activity. There are forms of activity proper to a social center that require special apparatus or equipment. These may be furnished in a building erected for the purpose, as are the Chicago fieldhouses. Here we have swimming-pools, gymnasiums for men and for women, and all the rest of it. A branch library is included and some would house the school also under the same roof. We may have to wait long for the general adoption of such a composite social center. Our immediate problem is to supply an immediate need by using means directly at our disposal. And it is remarkable how many kinds of neighborhood activity may take place in a room unprovided with any special equipment. A brief glance over our own records for only a few months past enables me to classify them roughly as athletic or outdoor, purely social, educational, debating, political, labor, musical, religious, charitable or civic, and expository, besides many that defy or elude classification. The athletic or outdoor organizations include the various turning or gymnastic clubs and the Boy and Girl Scouts; the social organizations embrace dancing-classes, "welfare" associations, alumni and graduate clubs of schools and colleges, and dramatic clubs; the educational, which are very numerous, reading circles, literary clubs galore, free classes in chemistry, French, psychology, philosophy, etc., and all such organizations as the Jewish Culture Club, the Young People's Ethical Society, the Longan Parliamentary Class, and the Industrial and Business Women's Educational leagues. Religious bodies are parish meetings, committees of mission boards, and such organizations as the Theosophical Society; charitable or civic activities include the National Conference of Day Nurseries, the Central Council of Civic Agencies, the W.C.T.U., playground rehearsals for the Child Welfare Exhibit, and the Business Men's Association; and the Advertising Men's League; musical organizations embrace St. Paul's Musical Assembly, the Tuesday Choral Club, etc. Among exhibitions are local affairs such as wild flower shows, an exhibit of bird-houses, collections from the Educational Museum, the Civil League's Municipal Exhibit, selected screens from the Child Welfare Exhibit, and the prize-winners from the St. Louis Art Exhibit held in the art room of our central library. Then we have the Queen Hedwig Branch, the Clay School Picnic Association, the Aero Club, the Lithuanian Club, the Philotechne Club, the Fathers' Club, and the United Spanish War Veterans. I trust you will not call upon me to explain the objects of some of these, as such a demand might cause me embarrassment--not because their aims are unworthy, but because these are skilfully obscured by their names. If anyone believes that there is a limit to the capacity of the human race for forming groups and subgroups on a moment's notice, for any reason or for no reason at all, I would refer him to our assembly room and clubroom records; and he would find, I think, that these are typical of every large library offering the use of such rooms somewhat freely. It will be noted that the library takes no part in organizing or operating any of these activities; it does not have to do so. The successful leader is he who repairs to a hill and raises his standard, knowing that at sight of it followers will flock around him. When you drop a tiny crystal into a solution, the atoms all rush to it naturally: there is no effort or compulsion except that of the aptitudes that their Creator has implanted in them. So it is with all centers, business or religious or social. No one instituted a campaign to locate the business center of a city at precisely such a square or corner. Things aggregate, and the point to which they tend is their center; they make it, it does not make them. The leader on a hill is a leader because he has followers; without them he would be but a lone warrior. The school or the library that says proudly to itself, "Go to; I will be a social center," may find itself in the same lonely position. It can offer an opportunity: that is all. It can offer houseroom to clubs, organizations, and groups of all kinds, whether permanent or temporary, large or small, but its usefulness as a social center depends largely on the existence of these and on their desire for a meeting place. We have in St. Louis six branch libraries with assembly rooms and clubrooms--in all a dozen or so. I have before me the calendar for a single week and I find 55 engagements, running from 24 at one branch down thru 13, 8, 6, and 3 to one. If I had before me only the largest number I should conclude that branch libraries as social centers were a howling success; if only the smallest, I should say that they were dismal failures. Why the difference? For the same reason that the leader who displays his standard may or may not be surrounded with eager "flocking" followers. There may be no one within earshot, or they may have no stomach for the war, or they may not be interested in the cause that he represents. Or again, he may not shout loud or persuasively enough, or his standard may not be attractive enough in form or color, or mounted on a sufficiently high staff. I have said that all we can offer is opportunity; to change our figure, we can furnish the drinking-fountain--thirst must bring the horse to it. But we must not forget that we offer our opportunity in vain unless we are sure that everyone who might grasp it realizes our offer and what it means. Here is the chance for personal endeavor. If the young people in a neighborhood continue to hold their social meetings over a saloon when the branch library or the school is perfectly willing to offer its assembly room, it is pretty certain that they do not understand that offer, or that they mistrust its sincerity, or that there is something wrong that might be remedied by personal effort. In the one of our branches that is most used by organizations there is this personal touch. But I should hesitate to say that the others do not have it too. There are plenty of organizations near this busiest library and there are no other good places for them to meet. In the neighborhood of some other branches there are other meeting-places, and elsewhere, perhaps, the social instinct is not so strong, or at any rate the effort to organize is lacking. Should the librarian step out and attempt to stimulate this social instinct and to guide this organizing effort? There is room for difference of opinion here. Personally I think that he should not do it directly and officially as a librarian. He may do it quietly and unobtrusively like any other private citizen, but he needs all his efforts, all his influence, to bring the book and the reader together in his community. Sometimes by doing this he can be doing the other too, and he can always do it vicariously. He should bear in mind that the successful man is not he who does everything himself, but he who can induce others to do things--to do them in his way and to direct them toward his ends. Even in the most sluggish, the most indifferent community there are these potential workers with enthusiasms that need only to be awakened to be let loose for good. The magic key is often in the librarian's girdle, and his free offer of house room and sympathy, with good literature thrown in, will always be of powerful assistance in this kind of effort. He will seldom need to do more than to make clear the existence and the nature of the opportunity that he offers. I know that there are some librarians and many more teachers who hesitate to open their doors in any such way as this; who are afraid that the opportunities offered will be misused or that the activities so sheltered will be misjudged by the public. It has shocked some persons that a young people's dancing-class has been held, under irreproachable auspices, in one of our branch libraries; others have been grieved to see that political ward meetings have taken place in them, and that some rather radical political theories have been debated there. These persons forget that a library never takes sides. It places on its shelves books on the Civil War from the standpoint of both North and South, histories of the great religious controversies by both Catholics and Protestants, ideas and theories in science and philosophy from all sides and at all angles. It may give room at one time to a young people's dancing-class and at another to a meeting of persons who condemn dancing. Its walls may echo one day to the praises of our tariff system and on another to fierce denunciations of it. These things are all legitimate and it is better that they should take place in a library or a school building than in a saloon or even in a grocery store. The influence of environment is gently pervasive. I may be wrong, but I cannot help thinking that it is easier to be a gentleman in a library, whether in social meeting or in political debate, than it is in some other places. In one of our branches there meets a club of men who would be termed anarchists by some people. The branch librarian assures me that the brand of anarchism that they profess has grown perceptibly milder since they have met in the library. It is getting to be literary, academic, philosophic. Nourished in a saloon, with a little injudicious repression, it might perhaps have borne fruit of bombs and dynamite. In this catholicity I cannot help thinking that the library as an educational institution is a step ahead of the school. Most teachers would resent the imputation of partisanship on the part of the school, and yet it is surely partisan--in some ways rightly and inevitably so. One cannot well explain both sides of any question to a child of six and leave its decision to his judgment. This is obvious; and yet I cannot help thinking that there is one-sided teaching of children who are at least old enough to know that there is another side, and that the one-sided teaching of two-sided subjects might be postponed in some cases until two-sided information would be possible and proper. Where a child is taught one side and finds out later that there is another, his resentment is apt to be bitter; it spoils the educational effect of much that he was taught and injures the influence of the institution that taught him. My resentment is still strong against the teaching that hid from me the southern viewpoint concerning slavery and secession, the Catholic viewpoint of what we Protestants call the Reformation--dozens of things omitted from textbooks on dozens of subjects because they did not happen to meet the approval of the textbook compiler. I am no less an opponent of slavery--I am no less a Protestant--because I know the other side, but I think I am a better man for knowing it, and I think it a thousand pities that there are thousands of our fellow citizens, on all sides of all possible lines, from whom our educative processes have hid even the fact that there is another side. This question, as I have said, does not affect the library, and fortunately need not affect it. And as we are necessarily two-sided in our book material so we can open our doors to free social or neighborhood use without bothering our heads about whether the users are Catholics, Protestants, or Jews; Democrats, Republicans, or Socialists; Christian Scientists or suffragists. The library hands our suffrage and anti-suffrage literature to its users with the same smile, and if it hands the anti-suffrage books to the suffragist, and vice versa, both sides are certainly the better for it. I have tried to make it clear in what I have said that in this matter of social activity, public institutions should go as far as they can in furnishing facilities without taking upon themselves the burden of administration. I believe fully in municipal ownership of all kinds of utilities, but rarely in municipal operation. Municipal ownership safeguards the city, and private or corporate operation avoids the numerous objections to close municipal control of detail. So the library authorities may retain sufficient control of these social activities by the power that they have of admitting them to the parts of the buildings provided for them, or of excluding them at any time. These activities themselves are better managed by voluntary bodies, and, as I have said, there is no indication that the formation of such bodies is on the wane. The establishment and operation of a musical or athletic club, a debating society, or a Boy Scouts company, are surely quite as educational as the activities themselves in which their members engage. Do not let us arrogate to ourselves such opportunities as these. I should be inclined to take this attitude also with regard to the public playgrounds, were they not somewhat without the province of this paper; and I take it very strongly with regard to the public school. Throw open the school buildings as soon as you can, and as freely as you can to every legitimate form of social activity, but let your relationship to this activity be like that of the center to the circle--in it and of it, but embracing no part of its areal content. So, I am convinced, will it be best for all of us--for ourselves, the administrators of public property, and for the public, the owning body which is now demanding that it should not be barred out by its servants from that property's freest and fullest use. THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF VIOLENCE The peace propaganda has suffered much from the popular impression that many of those engaged in it are impractical enthusiasts who are assuming the possibility of doing away with passions and prejudices incident to our very humanity, and of bringing about an ideal reign of love and good will. Whether this impression is or is not justified we need not now inquire. It is the impression itself that is injuring the cause of peace, and will continue to injure it until it is removed. It may at least be lessened by allowing the mind to dwell for a time on another aspect of the subject in which the regime of peace that would follow the discontinuance of all settlement of disputes by violence will appear to consist not so much in the total disappearance of violence from the earth as in the use of it for a different purpose, namely, the preservation of the peaceful status quo, by a systematic and lawful use of force, or at any rate, the readiness to employ it. A state of peace, whether between individuals or nations, whether without or within a regime of law, always partakes of the nature of an armed truce: under one regime, however, the arms are borne by the possible contestants themselves; under the other, by the community whose members they are. If there is a resort to arms, violence ensues under both regimes; in both cases it tends ultimately to restore peace, but the action is more certain and more systematic when the violence is exerted by the community. These laws may apply indifferently to a community of individuals or to one of nations. The most cogent and the most valid argument at the disposal of the peace advocate is the fact that we no longer allow the individual to take the law into his own hand, and that logically we should equally prohibit the nation from doing so. This is unanswerable, but its force has been greatly weakened by the assumption, which it requires no great astuteness to find unwarranted, that the settlement of individual quarrels by individual force has resulted from--or at least resulted in--the discontinuance of violence altogether, or in the dawn of a general era of good-will, man to man. On the contrary, it is very doubtful whether there is less violence to-day than there would be if the operation of law were suspended altogether; the difference, is that the violence has shifted its incidence and altered its aim--it is civic and social and no longer individual. If we are to introduce the regime of law among nations as among individuals, our first step must be similarly to shift the incidence of violence. In so doing we may not decrease it, we may, indeed, increase it--but we shall none the less be taking that step in the only possible direction to achieve our purpose. Among individuals, custom, crystallizing into law, generally precedes the enforcement of that law by the community. Hence, a somewhat elaborate code may exist side by side with the settlement of disputes, under that code, by personal combat. We have among nations such a code, and we yet admit the settlement of disputes by war, because the incidence of violence has not yet completely shifted. We have established a tribunal to act, in certain cases, on behalf of the community of nations, but we have not yet given that tribunal complete jurisdiction and we have given it no power whatever to enforce its decrees. It is on this latter point that I desire to dwell. In a community of individuals, there are two ways of using violence to enforce law--by the professional police force and by the posse of citizens. The former is more effective, but the latter is often readier and more certain in particular instances, especially in primitive communities. To give it force we must have readiness on the part of every citizen to respond to a call from the proper officer, and ability to do effective service, especially by the possession of arms and skill in their use. These requisites are not generally found in more advanced communities. In like manner, the decrees of an international tribunal might be enforced either by the creation of an international army or by calling upon as many of the nations as necessary to aid in coercing the non-law-abiding member of the international community. Each nation is already armed and ready. Whatever may be thought of the ultimate possibility of an international army, it must be evident that the principle of the posse must serve us at the outset. An international army would always consist in part of members of the nation to be coerced, whereas, in selecting a posse those furthest in race and in sympathy from the offender might always be chosen, just as members of a hostile clan would make up the best posse to arrest a Highlander for sheep-stealing. Moreover, the posse has been used internationally more than once, as when decrees have been pronounced by a general European Congress and some particular nation or nations have been charged with their execution. When a frontier community that has been a law unto itself gets its first sheriff, the earliest visible result is not impossibly a sudden increase, instead of a decrease, of violence. There is a war of the community, represented by the sheriff and the good citizens, against all the bad ones. Even so it may be expected that among the first results of an effective agreement to enforce the decrees of an international tribunal, would be an exceptionally great and violent war. Sooner or later some nation would be sure to take issue with an unpopular decree and refuse to obey it. This would probably be one of the larger and more powerful nations, for a weaker power would not proceed to such lengths in protest. Not improbably other nations might join the protesting power. The result would be a war; it might even be the world war that we have been fearing for a generation. It might conceivably be the greatest and the bloodiest war that the world has yet seen. Yet it would be far the most glorious war of history, for it would be a struggle on behalf of law and order in the community of nations--a fight to uphold that authority by whose exercise alone may peace be assured to the world. The man who shudders at the prospect of such a war, who wants peace, but is unwilling to fight for it, should cease his efforts on behalf of a universal agreement among nations, for there is no general agreement without power to quell dissension. This is not the place to discuss the details of an international agreement to enforce the decrees of an international tribunal. It may merely be said that if the most powerful and intelligent communities of men that have ever existed cannot devise machinery to do what puny individuals have long been successfully accomplishing, they had better disband and coalesce in universal anarchy. My object here is neither to propose plans nor to discuss details, but merely to point out that not the abandonment, but the systematization of violence is the goal of a rational peace propaganda, and that when this is once acknowledged and universally realized, an important step will have been taken toward winning over a class of persons who now oppose a world-peace as impractical and impossible. These persons disapprove of disarmament: and from the point of view here advocated, a general disarmament would be the last thing to be desired. The possible member of a posse must bear arms to be effective. Armaments may have to be limited and controlled by international decree, but to disarm a nation would be as criminal and foolish as it would be to take away all weapons from the law-abiding citizens of a mining town as a preliminary to calling upon them to assist in the arrest of a notorious band of outlaws. Again: a common objection to the peace propaganda is that without war we shall have none of the heroic virtues that war calls into being. This objection fails utterly when we consider that what we shall get under a proper international agreement is not the abolition of war, but simply an assurance that when there is a war it will be one in which every good citizen can take at once the part of international law and order--a contest between the law and the law-breaker, and not one in which both contestants are equally lawless. Thus the profession of arms will still be an honorable one--it will, in fact, be much more honorable than it is to-day, when it may at any moment be prostituted to the service of greed or commercialism. THE ART OF RE-READING "I have nothing to read," said a man to me once. "But your house seems to be filled with books." "O, yes; but I've read them already." What should we think of a man who should complain that he had no friends, when his house was thronged daily with guests, simply because he had seen and talked with them all once before? Such a man has either chosen badly, or he is himself at fault. "Hold fast that which is good" says the Scripture. Do not taste it once and throw it away. To get at the root of this matter we must go farther back than literature and inquire what it has in common with all other forms of art to compel our love and admiration. Now, a work of art differs from any other result of human endeavor in this--that its effect depends chiefly on the way in which it is made and only secondarily upon what it is or what it represents. Were this not true, all statues of Apollo or Venus would have the same art-value; and you or I, if we could find a tree and a hill that Corot had painted, would be able to produce a picture as charming to the beholder as his. The way in which a thing is done is, of course, always important, but its importance outside of the sphere of art differs from that within. The way in which a machine is constructed makes it good or bad, but the thing that is aimed at here is the useful working of the machine, toward which all the skill of the maker is directed. What the artist aims at is not so much to produce a likeness of a god or a picture of a tree, as to produce certain effects in the person who looks at his complete work; and this he does by the way in which he performs it. The fact that a painting represents certain trees and hills is here only secondary; the primary fact is what the artist has succeeded in making the on-looker feel. While Sorolla is painting a group of children on the beach, I may take a kodak picture of the same group. My photograph may be a better likeness than Sorolla's picture, but it has no art-value. Why? Because it was made mechanically, whereas Sorolla put into his picture something of himself, making it a unique thing, incapable of imitation or of reproduction. The man who has a message, one of those pervasive, compelling messages that are worth while, naturally turns to art. He chooses his subject not as an end, but as a vehicle, and he makes it speak his message by his method of treatment, conveying it to his public more or less successfully in the measure of his skill. We have been speaking of the representative arts of painting and sculpture, but the same is true of art in any form. In music, not a representative art, in spite of the somewhat grotesque claims of so-called program music, the method of the composer is everything, or at least his subject is so vague and immaterial that no one would think of exalting it as an end in itself. There is, however, an art in which the subject stands forth so prominently that even those who love the art itself are continually in danger of forgetting the subject's secondary character. I mean the art of literature. Among the works of written speech the boundaries of art are much more ill-defined than they are elsewhere. There is, to be sure, as much difference between Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark" and Todhunter's "Trigonometry" as there is between the Venus de Milo and a battleship; and I conceive that the difference is also of precisely the same kind, being that by which, as we have seen above, we may always discriminate between a work of art and one of utility. But where art-value and utility are closely combined, as they are most frequently in literature, it is, I believe, more difficult to divide them mentally and to dwell on their separate characteristics, than where the work is a concrete object. This is why we hear so many disputes about whether a given work does or does not belong to the realm of "pure literature," and it is also the reason why, as I have said, some, even among those who love literature, are not always ready to recognize its nature as an art, or mistakenly believe that in so far as its art-value is concerned, the subject portrayed is of primary importance--is an aim in itself instead of being a mere vehicle for the conveyance of an impression. Take, if you please, works which were intended by their authors as works of utility, but have survived as works of art in spite of themselves, such as Walton's "Compleat Angler" and White's "Natural History of Selborne." Will anyone maintain that the subject-matter of those books has much to do with their preservation, or with the estimation in which they are now held? Nay; we may even be so bold as to enter the field of fiction and to assert that those fictional works that have purely literary value are loved not for the story they tell, but for the way in which the author tells it and for the effect that he thereby produces on the reader. I conceive that pure literature is an art, subject to the rules that govern all art, and that its value depends primarily on the effect produced on the reader--the message conveyed--by the way in which the writer has done his work, the subject chosen being only his vehicle. Where a man who has something to say looks about for means to say it worthily, he may select a tale, a philosophical disquisition, a familiar essay, a drama or a lyric poem. He may choose badly or well, but in any case it is his message that matters. My excuse for dwelling on this matter must be that unless I have carried you with me thus far what I am about to say will have no meaning, and I had best fold my papers, make my bow, and conclude an unprofitable business. For my subject is re-reading, the repetition of a message; and the message that we would willingly hear repeated is not that of utility but of emotion. It is the word that thrills the heart, nerves the arm, and puts new life into the veins, not that which simply conveys information. The former will produce its effect again and again, custom can not stale it. The latter, once delivered, has done its work. I see two messengers approaching; one, whom I have sent to a library to ascertain the birth-date of Oliver Cromwell, tells me what it is and receives my thanks. The other tells me that one dear to my heart, long lying at death's door, is recovering. My blood courses through my veins; my nerves tingle; joy suffuses me where gloom reigned before. I cry out; I beg the bearer of good tidings to tell them again and again; I keep him by me, so that I may ask him a thousand questions, bringing out his message in a thousand variant forms. But do I turn to the other and say, "O, that blessed date! was Cromwell truly born thereon? Let me, I pray, hear you recite it again and again!" I trow, not. The message that we desire to hear again is the one that produces its effect again and again; and that is the message of feeling, the message of art--not that of mere utility. This is so true that I conceive we may use it as a test of art-value. The great works of literature do not lose their effect on a single reading. One makes response to them the hundredth time as he did the first. Their appeal is so compelling that there is no denying it--no resisting it. There are snatches of poetry--and of prose, too--that we have by heart; that we murmur to ourselves again and again, sure that the response which never failed will come again, thrilling the whole organism with its pathos, uplifting us with the nobility of its appeal, warming us with its humor. There is a little sequence of homely verse that never fails to bring the tears to my eyes. I have tested myself with it under the most unfavorable circumstances. In the midst of business, amid social jollity, in the mental dullness of fatigue, I have stopped and repeated to myself those three verses. So quickly acts the magic of the author's skill that the earlier verses grip the fibers of my mind and twist them in such fashion that I feel the pathos of the last lines just as I felt them for the first time, years ago. You might all tell similar stories. I believe that this is a characteristic of good literature, and that all of it will bear reading, and re-reading, and reading again. But I hear someone say, "Do you mean to tell me that those three little verses that bring the tears to your eyes, will bring them also to mine and my neighbor's? I might listen to them appreciatively but dry-eyed; my neighbor might not care for them enough to re-read them once. All about us we see this personal equation in the appreciation of literature. Unless you are prepared, then, to maintain that literature may be good for one and bad for another, your contention will scarcely hold water." Even so, brother. The messenger who told me of the safety of my dear one did not thrill your heart as he did mine. She was dear to me, not to you, and the infinitely delicate yet powerful chain of conditions and relations that operated between the messenger's voice and my emotional nature did not connect him with yours. Assuredly, the message that reaches one man may not reach another. It may even reach a man in his youth and fall short in manhood, or vice versa. It may be good for him and inoperative on all the rest of the world. We estimate literature, it is true, by the universality of its appeal or by the character of the persons whom alone that appeal reaches. The message of literature as art may thus be to the crowd or to a select few. I could even imagine intellect and feeling of such exquisite fineness, such acknowledged superiority, that appeal to it alone might be enough to fix the status of a work of art, though it might leave all others cold. Still, in general I believe, that the greatest literature appeals to the greatest number and to the largest number of types. I believe that there are very few persons to whom Shakespeare, properly presented, will not appeal. In him, nevertheless, the learned and those of taste also delight. There are authors like Walter Pater who are a joy to the few but do not please the many. There are others galore, whom perhaps it would be invidious to name, who inspire joy in the multitude but only distaste in the more discriminating. We place Pater above these, just as we should always put quality above quantity; but I place Shakespeare vastly higher, because his appeal is to the few and the many at once. But we must, I think, acknowledge that an author whose value may not appeal to others may be great to one reader; that his influence on that reader may be as strong for good as if it were universal instead of unique. We may not place such a writer in the Walhalla, but I beseech you, do not let us tear him rudely from the one or two to whom he is good and great. Do not lop off the clinging arms at the elbow, but rather skilfully present some other object of adoration to the intent that they may voluntarily untwine and enfold this new object more worthily. The man who desires to own books but who can afford only a small and select library can not do better than to make his selection on this basis--to get together a collection of well-loved books any one of which would give him pleasure in re-reading. Why should a man harbor in his house a book that he has read once and never cares to read again? Why should he own one that he will never care to read at all? We are not considering the books of the great collectors, coveted for their rarity or their early dates, for their previous ownership or the beauty of their binding--for any reason except the one that makes them books rather than curiosities. These collections are not libraries in the intellectual or the literary sense. Three well thumbed volumes in the attic of one who loves them are a better library for him than those on which Pierpont Morgan spent his millions. This advice, it will be noted, implies that the man has an opportunity to read the book before he decides whether to buy it or not. Here is where the Public Library comes in. Some regard the Public Library as an institution to obviate all necessity of owning books. It should rather be regarded from our present standpoint as an institution to enable readers to own the books that they need--to survey the field and make therefrom a proper and well-considered selection. That it has acted so in the past, none may doubt; it is the business of librarians to see that this function is emphasized in the future. The bookseller and the librarian are not rivals, but co-workers. Librarians complain of the point of view of those publishers and dealers who regard every library user as a lost customer. He is rather, they say, in many cases a customer won--a non-reader added to the reading class--a possible purchaser of books. But have not librarians shared somewhat this mistaken and intolerant attitude? How often do we urge our readers to become book-owners? How often do we give them information and aid directed toward this end? The success of the Christmas book exhibitions held in many libraries should be a lesson to us. The lists issued in connection with these almost always include prices, publishers' names, and other information intended especially for the would-be purchaser. But why should we limit our efforts to the holiday season? True, every librarian does occasionally respond to requests for advice in book-selection and book-purchase, but the library is not yet recognized as the great testing field of the would-be book owner; the librarian is not yet hailed as the community's expert adviser in the selection and purchase of books, as well as its book guardian and book distributor. That this may be and should be, I believe. It will be if the librarian wills it. Are we straying from our subject? No; for from our present standpoint a book bought is a book reread. My ideal private library is a room, be it large or small, lined with books, every one of which is the owner's familiar friend, some almost known by heart, others re-read many times, others still waiting to be re-read. But how about the man whose first selection for this intimate personal group would be a complete set of the works of George Ade? Well, if that is his taste, let his library reflect it. Let a man be himself. That there is virtue in merely surrounding oneself with the great masters of literature all unread and unloved, I can not see. Better acknowledge your poor taste than be a hypocrite. The librarian can not force the classics down the unwilling throats of those who do not care for them and are perhaps unfitted to appreciate them. There has been entirely too much of this already and it has resulted disastrously. Surely, a sane via media is possible, and we may agree that a man will never like Eschylus, without assuring him that Eschylus is an out-of-date old fogy, while on the other hand we may acknowledge the greatness of Homer and Milton without trying to force them upon unwilling and incompetent readers. After all it is not so much a question of Milton versus George Ade, as it is of sanity and wholesomeness against vulgarity and morbidity. And if I were to walk through one city and behold collections of this latter sort predominating and then through another, where my eyes were gladdened with evidences of good taste, of love for humor that is wholesome, sentiment that is sane, verse that is tuneful and noble, I should at once call on the public librarian and I should say to him, "Thou art the man!" The literary taste of your community is a reflection of your own as shown forth in your own institution--its collection of books, the assistants with which you have surrounded yourself, your attitude and theirs through you toward literature and toward the public. But, someone asks, suppose that I am so fortunate and so happy as to sit in the midst of such a group of friendly authors; how and how often shall I re-read? Shall I traverse the group every year? He who speaks thus is playing a part; he is not the real thing. Does the young lover ask how and how often he shall go to see his sweetheart? Try to see whether you can keep him away! The book-lover reopens his favorite volume whenever he feels like it. Among the works on his shelves are books for every mood, every shade of varying temper and humor. He chooses for the moment the friend that best corresponds to it, or it may be, the one that may best woo him away from it. It may be that he will select none of them, but occupy himself with a pile of newcomers, some of whom may be candidates for admission to the inner group. The whole thing--the composition of his library, his attitude toward it, the books that he re-reads oftenest, the favorite passages that he loves, that he scans fondly with his eye while yet he can repeat them by heart, his standards of admission to his inner circle--all is peculiarly and personally his own. There is no other precisely like it, just as there is no other human being precisely like its owner. There is as much difference between this kind of a library and some that we have seen as there is between a live, breathing creature with a mind and emotions and aspirations, and a wax figure in the Eden Musee. Thus every book lover re-reads his favorites in a way of his own, just as every individual human being loves or hates or mourns or rejoices in a way of his own. One can no more describe these idiosyncrasies than he can write a history of all the individuals in the world, but perhaps, in the manner of the ethnological or zoological classifier, it may interest us to glance at the types of a few genera or species. And first, please note that re-reading is the exact repetition of a dual mental experience, so far at least as one of the minds is concerned. It is a replica of mind-contact, under conditions obtainable nowhere else in this world and of such nature that some of them seem almost to partake of other-worldliness. My yesterday's interview with Smith or Jones, trivial as it is, I can not repeat. Smith can not remember what he said, and even if he could, he could not say it to me in the same way and to the same purpose. But my interview with Plato--with Shakespeare, with Emerson; my talk with Julius Caesar, with Goethe, with Lincoln! I can duplicate it once, twice, a hundred times. My own mind--one party to the contact--may change, but Plato's or Lincoln's is ever the same; they speak no "various language" like Byrant's nature, but are like that great Author of Nature who has taken them to Himself, in that in them "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." To realize that these men may speak to me today, across the abyss of time, and that I can count on the same message tomorrow, next year and on my death bed, in the same authentic words, producing the same effect, assures me that somewhere, somehow, a miracle has been wrought. I have said that one of the minds that come thus into contact changes not, while the other, the reader's, is alterable. This gives him a sort of standard by which he can measure or at least estimate, the changes that go on within him, the temporary ones due to fluctuations in health, strength or temper, the progressive ones due to natural growth or to outside influences. In his "Introduction to Don Quixote," Heine tells us how that book, the first that he ever read, was his mental companion through life. In that first perusal knowing not "how much irony God had interwoven into the world," he looked upon the luckless knight as a real hero of romance and wept bitterly when his chivalry and generosity met with ingratitude and violence. A little later, when the satire dawned upon his comprehension, he could not bear the book. Still later he read it with contemptuous laughter at the poor knight. But when in later life, he lay racked on a bed of pain his attitude of sympathy returned. "Dulcinea del Toboso," he says "is still the most beautiful woman in the world; although I lie stretched upon the earth, helpless and miserable, I will never take back that assertion. I can not do otherwise. On with your lances, ye Knights of the Silver Moon; ye disguised barbers!" So every reader's viewpoint shifts with the years. Our friend who welcomes George Ade to his inner sanctuary may find as the years go on that his reaction to that contact has altered. I should not recommend that the author be then be cast into outer darkness. Once a favorite, always a favorite, for old sake's sake even if not for present power and influence. Our private libraries will hold shelf after shelf of these old-time favorites--milestones on the intellectual track over which we have wearily or joyously traveled. There will always be a warm spot in my heart and a nook on my private shelf for Oliver Optic and Horatio Alger. Though I bar them from my library (I mean my Library with a big L) I have no right to exclude them from my private collection of favorites, for once I loved them. I scarcely know why or how. If there had been in those far-off days of my boyhood, children's libraries and children's librarians, I might not have known them; as it is, they are incidents in my literary past that can not be blinked, shameful though they may be. The re-reading of such books as these is interesting because it shows us how far we have traveled since we counted them among our favorites. Then there is the book that, despite its acknowledged excellence, the reader would not perhaps admit to his inner circle if he read it now for the first time. It holds its place largely on account of the glamour with which his youth invested it. It thrills him now as it thrilled him then, but he half suspects that the thrill is largely reminiscent. I sometimes fancy that as I re-read Ivanhoe and my heart leaps to my mouth when the knights clash at Ashby, the propulsive power of that leap had its origin in the emotions of 1870 rather than those of 1914. And when some of Dickens' pathos--that death-bed of Paul Dombey for instance--brings the tears again unbidden to my eyes, I suspect, though I scarcely dare to put my suspicion into words, that the salt in those tears is of the vintage of 1875. I am reading Arnold Bennett now and loving him very dearly when he is at his best; but how I shall feel about him in 1930 or how I might feel if I could live until 2014, is another question. Then there is the book that, scarce comprehended or appreciated when it was first read, but loved for some magic of expression or turn of thought, shows new beauties at each re-reading, unfolding like an opening rose and bringing to view petals of beauty, wit, wisdom and power that were before unsuspected. This is the kind of book that one loves most to re-read, for the growth that one sees in it is after all in oneself--not in the book. The gems that you did not see when you read it first were there then as they are now. You saw them not then and you see them now, for your mental sight is stronger--you are more of a man now than you were then. Not that all the changes of the years are necessarily for the better. They may be neither for better nor for worse. As the moving train hurries us onward we may enjoy successively the beauties of canyon, prairie and lake, admiring each as we come to it without prejudice to what has gone before. In youth we love only bright colors and their contrasts--brilliant sunsets and autumn foliage; in later life we come to appreciate also the more delicate tints and their gradations--a prospect of swamp-land and distant lake or sea on a gray day; a smoky town in the fog; the tender dove colors of early dawns. So in youth we eagerly read of blood and glory and wild adventure; Trollope is insufferably dull. Jane Austen is for old maids; even such a gem as Cranford we do not rate at its true value. But in after life how their quiet shades and tints come out! There is no glory in them, no carnage, no combat; but there is charm and fascination in the very slowness of their movement, the shortness of their range, their lack of intensity, the absence of the shrill, high notes and the tremendous bases. Then there is the re-reading that accuses the reader of another kind of change--a twist to the right or the left, a cast in the mental eye, or perhaps the correction of such a cast. The doctrines in some book seemed strange to you once--almost abhorrent; you are ready to accept them now. Is it because you then saw through a glass darkly and now more clearly? Or is your vision darker now than it was? Your rereading apprizes you that there has been a change of some sort. Perhaps you must await corroborative testimony before you decide what its nature has been. Possibly you read today without a blush what your mind of twenty years ago would have been shocked to meet. Are you broader-minded or just hardened? These questions are disquieting, but the disturbance that they cause is wholesome, and I know of no way in which they can be raised in more uncompromising form than by re-reading an old favorite, by bringing the alterable fabric of your living, growing and changing mind into contact with the stiff, unyielding yardstick of an unchangeable mental record--the cast of one phase of a master mind that once was but has passed on. Here I can not help saying a word of a kind of re-reading that is not the perusal of literature at all with most of us--the re-reading of our own words, written down in previous years--old letters, old lectures, articles--books, perhaps, if we chance to be authors. Of little value, perhaps, to others, these are of the greatest interest to ourselves because instead of measuring our minds by an outside standard they enable us to set side by side two phases of our own life--the ego of 1892, perhaps, and that of 1914. How boyish that other ego was; how it jumped to conclusions; how ignorant it was and how self-confident! And yet, how fresh it was; how quickly responsive to new impressions; how unspoiled; how aspiring! If you want to know the changes that have transformed the mind that was into the very different one that now is, read your own old letters. I have tried to show you that pure literature is an art and like other arts depends primarily upon manner and only secondarily upon matter. That the artist, who in this case is the author, uses his power to influence the reader usually through his emotions or feelings and that its effects to a notable extent, are not marred by repetition. That on this account all good literature may be re-read over and over, and that the pleasure derived from such re-reading is a sign that a book is peculiarly adapted in some way to the reader. Finally, that one's private library, especially if its size be limited, may well consist of personal favorites, often re-read. When the astronomer Kepler had reduced to simple laws the complicated motions of the planets he cried out in ecstacy: "O God! now think I Thy thoughts after Thee!" Thus when a great writer of old time has been vouchsafed a spark of the divine fire we may think his divine thoughts after him by re-reading. And Shakespeare tells us in that deathless speech of Portia's, that since mercy is God's attribute we may by exercising it become like God. Thus, by the mere act of tuning our brains to think the thoughts that the Almighty has put into the minds of the good and the great, may it not be that our own thoughts may at the last come to be shaped in the same mould? "Old wine, old friends, old books," says the old adage; and of the three the last are surely the most satisfying. The old wine may turn to vinegar; old friends may forget or forsake us; but the old book is ever the same. What would the old man do without it? And to you who are young I would say--you may re-read, you first must read. Choose worthy books to love. As for those who know no book long enough either to love or despise it--who skim through good and bad alike and forget page ninety-nine while reading page 100, we may simply say to them, in the words of the witty Frenchman, "What a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!" HISTORY AND HEREDITY[8] [8] Read before the New England Society of St. Louis. In one of his earlier books, Prof. Hugo Munsterberg cites the growing love for tracing pedigrees as evidence of a dangerous American tendency toward aristocracy. There are only two little things the matter with this--the fact and the inference from it. In the first place, we Americans have always been proud of our ancestry and fond of tracing it; and in the second place, this fondness is akin, not to aristocracy but to democracy. It is not the purpose of this paper to prove this thesis in detail, so I will merely bid you note that aristocratic pedigree-tracers confine themselves to one line, or to a few lines. Burke will tell you that one of the great-great-grandfathers of the present Lord Foozlem was the First Baron; he is silent about his great-grandfather, the tinker, and his great-grandfather, the pettifogging country lawyer. Americans are far more apt to push their genealogical investigations in all directions, because they are prompted by a legitimate curiosity rather than by desire to prove a point, American genealogical research is biological, while that of Europe is commercial. An obvious advantage of interest in our ancestors is that it ought to make history a more vital thing to us; for to them, history was merely current events in which they took part, or which, at least, they watched. This linking up of our personal ancestral lines with past events is done too seldom. Societies like the New England Society are doing it, and it is for this reason that I have chosen to bring the subject briefly before you. It has been noted that our historical notions of the Civil War are now, and are going to be in the future, more just and less partisan than those of the Revolution. This is not because we are nearer the Civil War; for nearness often tends to confuse historical ideas rather than to clear them up. It is because the descendants of those who fought on both sides are here with us, citizens of our common country, intermarrying and coming into contact in a thousand ways. We are not likely to ignore the Southern standpoint regarding the rights of secession and the events of the struggle so long as the sons and daughters of Confederate soldiers live among us. Nor shall we ever forget the Northern point of view while the descendants of those who fought with Grant and Sherman are our friends and neighbors. It is otherwise with the Revolution. We are the descendants only of those who fought on one side. Of the others, part went back to their homes in England, the rest, our old neighbors and friends, we despoiled of their lands and drove across our northern border with execrations, to make new homes in a new land and view us with a hatred that has not yet passed away. If you doubt it, discuss the American Revolution for fifteen minutes with one of the United Empire Loyalists of Toronto. It will surprise you to know that your patriot ancestors were thieves, blacklegs and scoundrels. I do not believe that they were; but possibly they were not the impossible archangels of the school histories. Of one thing I am sure; that if the descendants of those who fought against us in '76 had been left to mingle with our own people, the historical recollections of the struggle would have been surer and truer on both sides than they are today. Here is a case where ancestry has perverted history, but simply because there has been an unnatural segregation of descendants. Let me note another where we have absolutely forgotten our ancestral predilections and have gone over to the other side, simply because the other side made the records. When we read a Roman account of encounters between the legions and the northern tribes, where do we place ourselves in imagination, as readers? Always with the Roman legions. But our place is not there; it is with our hardy and brave forefathers, fighting to defend their country and their firesides against the southern intruders. How many teachers of history try to utilize race-consciousness in their pupils to make them attain a clearer knowledge of what it all meant? Should we not be proud that we are of the blood of men who withstood the self-styled rulers of the world and won their freedom and their right to shape their own personal and civic development? I should like to see a book tracing the history and development of an imaginary Anglo-Saxon American line of ancestry, taking it from the forests of Northern Germany across to Britain, through the Norman conquest and down the stream of subsequent English history across seas to America--through savage wars and Revolution, perhaps across the Alleghenies, to settle finally in the great West. I would try to make the reader realize that here was no fairy tale--no tale of countries and races with which we have naught to do, but the story of our own fathers, whose features and whose characteristics, physical and mental, have been transmitted by heredity to us, their sons and daughters of the year 1913. It is unfortunate perhaps, for our perceptions of racial continuity, that we are rovers by disposition. Who runs across the sea, says the Latin poet, changes his sky but not his mind. True enough, but it is difficult for some of us to realize it. It is hard for some of us to realize that our emigrant ancestors were the same men and women when they set foot on these shores as when they left the other side some weeks before. Our trans-Atlantic cousins labor under the same difficulties, for they assure us continually that we are a "new" country. We have, they say, the faults and the advantages of "youth." It would be interesting to know at just what point in the passage the education and the habits and the prejudices of the incoming Englishman dropped off. Change of environment works wonders with habits and even with character; we must of course recognize that; but it certainly does not make of the mind a _tabula rasa_, on which the fresh surroundings may absolutely work their will. I must say that our migrations within the limits of our own continent have not been productive of so much forgetfulness. I have been struck, for instance, since I came to St. Louis, with what I may call the source-consciousness of our western population. Everyone, whether he is particularly interested in genealogy or not, knows that his people came from Vermont or Virginia or Pennsylvania. He may not be able to trace his ancestry, or even to name his great-grandfather; but with the source of that ancestry he is always acquainted. I believe this to be the case throughout the Middle West. From this point of view the population is not so well mixed as it is in the East. No one in Massachusetts or Connecticut can point out to you, offhand, the families that came from particular counties in England. And yet in England, a migration from one county to another is always recognized and remembered. A cousin of mine, visiting on an English estate, was casually informed by his host, "Our family are newcomers in this county. We moved in only about 300 years ago." From this point of view we are all newcomers in America. It is to be hoped that as the years go on, the elements of our western population will not so thoroughly lose sight of their sources as have the Easterners. It is not likely that they will, for those sources are more accessible. We have Virginia families who still keep up friendly intercourse with the old stock; Vermont families who spend each summer on the old homestead; and so on. The New Englander did not and could not keep up similar relations with Old England. Even the Southerner, who did it for a time, had to drop it. Our inter-communication with Europe has grown enormously in volume, but little of it, if any, is due to continuous ancestral interest, although a revived general interest has sprung up and is to be commended. I fear, however, that the greater part of this interest in sources, where it exists, is very far from an intelligent connection with the body of historical fact. When a man is proud of the fact that an ancestor took part in the famous Boston Tea Party, has he taken any pains to ascertain what actually took place on that occasion? If he claims descent from Pocahontas, can he tell us just how much of what we currently believe of her is fact and how much is myth? If he knows that his family came from Cheshire, England, and was established and well-known there for centuries, what does he know of the history of Cheshire and of the connection of his ancestors with it? Our interest, when it exists, is concentrated too much on trivial happenings. We know and boast that an ancestor came over in the Mayflower without knowing of the family doings before and after that event. Of course, connection with some one picturesque event serves to stimulate the imagination and focus the interest, but these events should serve as starting points for investigation rather than resting points where interest begins and ends. Historical students are beginning to realize that it is not enough to know about the battle of Hastings without understanding the causes and forces that led to it and proceeded from it, and the daily lives and thoughts of those who took part in it, from captain to spearman. This failure to link up family history with general history is responsible for many sad losses of historical material. Many persons do not understand the value of old letters and diaries; many who do, keep them closely in the family archives where they are unknown and unappreciated. Old letters containing material that bears in any way on the events, customs or life of the time, should be turned over to the local historical society. If they contain private matter, seal up the packet and require that it shall remain sealed for a century, if you wish; but do not burn it. The feeling that destroys such documents is simply evidence that we are historically valuing the individual and the family above the community, just as we still are in so many other fields of thought. I cannot tolerate the idea that we shall ultimately think only in terms of the common good; the smaller units, the man, the family must not lose their influence, but the connection between them and the general welfare must be better understood and more generally recognized; and this must be done, in the first place, in all that relates to their historical records and to our historical consciousness. Ancestral feeling should, in this way, always be historical, not individual. A man is right to be personally proud of his own achievements, but it is difficult to see how he can properly take the same kind of pride in that of others, whether related to him by blood or not. But there are other kinds of legitimate pride--family pride, racial pride, group pride of all sorts, where the feeling is not personal. If any member of a family, a profession or any association, has so conducted himself that credit is gained for the whole body, it is proper that this kind of group pride should be felt by each member of the body, and in the case of a family, where the bond is one of blood, the group feeling should be stronger and the group pride, if it is proper to feel it at all, may be of peculiar strength, provided it be carefully distinguished from the pride due to personal achievement. And when the member of the family in whom one takes pride is an ancestor, this means, as I have said, that feeling should be historical, not individual. And anything that tends to lift our interest from the individual to the historical plane--to make us cease from congratulating ourselves personally on some connection with the good and great and substitute a feeling of group pride shared in common by some body to which we all belong, is acting toward this desirable end. The body may be a family; it may be the community or the state; it may be as broad as humanity itself, for we may all be proud of the world's greatest. Or it may be a body like our own, formed to cherish the memories of forebears in some particular line of endeavor, in some particular place or at some particular era. Our ancestry is part of our history; so long as our regard for it is properly interwoven with our historical sense, no one can properly charge us with laying the foundation for aristocracy. We are rather making true democracy possible, for such is the case only when the elements of a community are closely united by ties of blood, interest and knowledge--by pride in those who have gone before and by determination that the standard set by these men and women of old shall be worthily upheld. WHAT THE FLAG STANDS FOR[9] [9] An address on Flag Day made in St. Peter's Church, St. Louis. The most important things in the world are ideas. We are so familiar with the things that are the material embodiment of ideas--buildings, roads, vehicles and machines--that we are prone to forget that without the ideas that gave them birth all these would be impossible. A house is a mass of wood, stone and metal, but all these substances, collected in a pile, do not suffice to make a house. A locomotive is made of steel and brass, but although the ancient Romans had both the metal and the alloy, they had no locomotives. The vital thing about the house--the thing that differentiates it from other masses of the same materials--is the idea--the plan--that was in the architect's mind while wood and stone and iron were still in forest, quarry and mine. The vital thing about the locomotive is the builder's idea or plan, which he derived, in turn, from the inventor. The reason why there were no locomotives in ancient Rome is that in those days the locomotive had not yet been invented, and when we say this we refer not to the materials, which the Romans had in abundance, but to the idea or plan of the locomotive. So it is with the whole material world about us. The things that result, not from man's activities, but from the operations of nature, are no exceptions; for, if we are Christians, we believe that the idea or plan of a man, or a horse, or a tree, was in the mind of the great architect, the great machinist, before the world began, and that this idea is the important thing about each. A man, a house, an engine--these are ideas that lead to things that we can feel, and see and hear. But there are other ideas that have nothing of the kind to correspond to them--I mean such ideas as charity, manliness, religion and patriotism--what sometimes are called abstract qualities. These are real things and their ideas are even more important than the others, but we cannot see nor feel them. Now, man likes to use his senses, and it is for this reason that he is fond of using for these abstract ideas, symbols that he can see and feel. We of St. Louis should appreciate this to the full just now, for we have just set before the world the greatest assemblage of symbolic images and acts, portraying our pride in the past and our hope and confidence for the future, that any city on this earth ever has been privileged to present or to witness.[10] Whether we were actors or spectators; whether we camped with the Indians, marched with De Soto or La Salle and felled the forests of early St. Louis with Laclede and Chouteau, or whether we were part of that great host on the hillside, we can say no longer that we do not understand the importance of the idea, or the value and cogency of the visible symbols that fix it in the memory and grip it to the heart. [10] The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis, 1915. The Church of Christ always has understood and used this property of the visible and tangible symbol to enforce the claims of the abstract idea. We revere the cross, not because there is anything in its shape or substance to make us venerate it, but because it is the symbol of the Christian religion--of all that it has done for the world in the past and all that it may do in the future. That is why we love and honor the flag--not because it is a piece of cloth bearing certain figures and colors, but because it is to us the symbol of all that our country has meant to our fathers; all it means to us and all that it may mean to our children, generation after generation. A nation's flag did not always mean all this to those who gazed upon it. In very old times the flag was for the soldier alone and had no more meaning for the ordinary citizen than a helmet or a spear. When the soldier saw it uplifted in the thick of the battle he rallied to it. Then the flag became the personal emblem of a king or a prince, whether in battle or not; then it was used to mark what belonged to the government of a country. It is still so used in many parts of Europe, where the display of a flag on a building marks it as government property, as our flag does when it is used on a post office or a custom-house. Nowhere but in our own country is the flag used as the general symbol of patriotic feeling and displayed alike by soldier and citizen, by Government office and private dwelling. So it comes about that the stars and stripes means to us all that his eagles did to the Roman soldier; all that the great Oriflamme did to the medieval Frenchman; all that the Union Jack now means to the Briton or the tri-color to the Frenchman--and more, very much more, beside. What ideas, then, does the flag stand for? First, it stands for union. It was conceived in union, it was dipped in blood to preserve union, and for union it still stands. Its thirteen stripes remind us of that gallant little strip of united colonies along the Atlantic shore that threw down the gage of battle to Britain a century and a half ago. Its stars are symbols of the wider union that now is. Both may be held to signify the great truth that in singleness of purpose among many there is effective strength that no one by himself can hope to achieve. Our union of States was formed in fear of foreign aggression; we have need of it still though our foes be of our own household. If we are ever to govern our cities properly, hold the balance evenly betwixt capital and labor, develop our great natural resources without undue generosity on the one hand or parsimony on the other--solve the thousand and one problems that rise to confront us on every hand--we shall never accomplish these things by struggling singly--one man at a time or even one State at a time, but by concerted, united effort, the perfect union of which our flag is a symbol, and which we need to-day even more than we did in 1776 or 1861. We stand on the threshold of an effort to alter our city government. Whether that effort should or should not succeed, every citizen must decide for himself, with the aid of such intelligence and judgment as it has pleased God to give him. But if he should decide in its favor, be certain that his individual vote at the polls will go a very little way toward bringing his desires to pass. We are governed by majorities, and a majority is a union of many. He who would win must not only vote, but work. Our flag, with its assemblages of stripes and stars, is a perpetual reminder that by the union of the many, and not merely by the rectitude of the individual, are policies altered and charters changed. Again, our flag stands for love. It is a beautiful flag and it stands for a beautiful land. We all love what is our own, if we are normal men and women--our families, our city, our country. They are all beautiful to us, and it is right that they should be. I confess that the movement that has for its motto "See America First" has my hearty sympathy. Not that the Rockies or the Sierras are necessarily more beautiful than the Alps or the Missouri fairer than the Danube; we should have no more to do here with comparisons than the man who loves his children. He does not, before deciding that he will love them, compare them critically with his neighbors'. If we do not love the Grand Canyon and the Northern Rockies, the wild Sierras and the more peaceful beauties of the Alleghenies or the Adirondacks, simply because leaving these all unseen we prefer the lakes and mountains of foreign lands, we are like a man who should desert his own children, whom he had never seen, to pass his time at a moving-picture show, because he believed that he saw there faces and forms more fair than those of his own little ones. When we sing in our hymn of "America" I love thy rocks and rills Thy woods and templed hills, we should be able to do it from the heart. It is indeed fitting that we should love our country, and thrill when we gaze at the old flag that symbolizes that love. Does this mean that when our country makes an error we are to shut our eyes to it? Does it require us to call wrong right and black white? There is a sentiment with which you are all familiar, "My country, may she ever be right; but, right or wrong, my country!" Understood aright, these are the noblest and truest of words, but they are commonly misinterpreted, and they have done much harm. To love and stand by a friend who has done wrong is a fine thing; but it would be very different to abet him in his wrong-doing and assure him that he had done right. We may dearly love a son or a brother who is the worst of sinners, without joining him in sin or persuading him that he is righteous. So we may say, "Our country, right or wrong" without forfeiting the due exercise of our judgment in deciding whether she is right or wrong, or the privilege of exerting our utmost power to make her do right. If she is fighting for an unrighteous cause, we should not go over to the enemy, but we should do our best to make her cease and to make amends for the wrong she has done. Another thing for which the flag stands is freedom or liberty. We all are familiar with the word. It means different things to different persons. When hampering conditions press hard upon a man, all that he thinks of for the moment is to be rid of them. Without them he deems that he will be free. The freedom of which our fathers thought, for which they fought and which they won, was freedom from government by what had become to them a foreign power. The freedom that the black man longed for in the sixties was freedom from slavery. To-day men and women living in intolerable industrial conditions are panting for freedom--the freedom that seems to them just now more desirable than aught else in the world. All this the flag stands for, but it stands for much more. Under its folds we are entitled to live our own lives in the fullest way compatible with the exercise of the same privilege by others. This includes political freedom, industrial freedom, social freedom and all the rest. Despite much grumbling and some denials, I believe that it is all summed up under political freedom, and that we have it all, though we may not always take advantage of it. The people who groan under an industrial yoke do so because they do not choose to exert the power given them by law, under the flag, to throw it off. The boss-ridden city is boss-ridden only because it is satisfied to be so. The generation that is throttled by trusts and monopolies may at any time effect a peaceful revolution. The flag gives us freedom, but even a man's eternal salvation cannot be forced upon him against his will. Another thing for which the flag stands is justice--the "square deal," as it is called by one of our Presidents. To every man shall come sooner or later, under its folds, that which he deserves. This means largely "hands off," and is but one of the aspects of freedom, or liberty, since if we do not interfere with a man, what happens to him is a consequence of what he is and what he does. If we oppress him, or interfere with him, he gets less than he merits; and if, on the contrary we coddle him and give him privileges, he may get more than his due. Give a man opportunity and a free path and he will achieve what is before him in the measure of his strength. That the American Flag stands for all this, thousands will testify who have left their native shores to live under its folds and who have contributed here to the world's progress what the restraints and injustice of the old world forbade then to give. This sense of the removal of bonds, of sudden release and the entry into free space, is well put by a poet of our own, Henry Van Dyke, when he sings, So it's home again, and home again, America for me! My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be, In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars, Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack: The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back, But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free-- We love our land for what she is and what she is to be. Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me! I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea, To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. Finally, the flag stands for the use of physical force where it becomes necessary. This simple statement of facts will grieve many good people, but to omit it would be false to the truth and dishonorable to the flag that we honor today. Its origin, as we have seen, was in its service as a rallying point in battle. We are still battling, and we still need it. And at times our contests still inevitably take the physical form. One may earnestly pray for peace; one may even pay his dues to the Peace Society and still realize that to preserve peace we may have to use the sword. Northward, across the Canadian border, good men[11] are striving even now to keep us in peace and to assure peace to a neighbor severely torn by internal conflict. Can any of us doubt that our good friend and fellow-citizen--nay, can anyone doubt that our neighbors of the Southern Continent--are doing their best to save human lives, to preserve our young men and the young men of Mexico to build and operate machines, to raise crops and to rebuild and beautify cities, instead of sending them to fill soldiers' graves, as our bravest and best did in the "sixties?" And yet, should they succeed, as God grant they may, who can doubt that what will give strength and effect to their decisions will be the possibility of force, exerted in a righteous cause, symbolized by the flag? Who can be sorry that back of the flag there are earnest men; nay, that there are ships there, and guns? One need not be a Jingo; one can hate war and love peace with all one's heart and yet rejoice that the flag symbolizes authority--the ability to back up a decision without which the mind itself cannot decide in calmness and impartiality. [11] United States and "A-B-C" Commissions on the State of Mexico. Surely, to say that the flag stands for the exertion of force, is only to say that it stands for peace; for it is by force only, or by the possibility of it, that peace is assured and maintained. These are a few of the many things for which our flag of the Stars and Stripes stands. We are right to doff our hats when it passes; we are right to love it and to reverence it, for in so doing we are reverencing union, patriotism, liberty and justice. That it shall never become an empty symbol; that it shall never wave over a land disunited, animated by hate, shackled by indifference and feebleness, permeated by injustice, unable to exert that salutary strength which alone can preserve peace without and within--this is for us to see and for our children and grandchildren. We must not only exercise that "eternal vigilance" of which the fathers spoke, but we must be eternally ready, eternally active. The Star-Spangled Banner! Long may it wave over a land whose sons and daughters are both free and brave--free because they are brave, and brave because they are free, and both because they are true children of that eternal father without whom both freedom and bravery are but empty names. THE PEOPLE'S SHARE IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY[12] [12] Read before the Chicago Woman's Club. January 6, 1915. The change that has come over the library in the last half century may be described, briefly but comprehensively, by saying that it has become predominantly a social institution; that is, that its primary concern is now with the service that it may render to society--to the people. Books, of course, were always intended to be read, and a library would have no meaning were it never to be used; yet in the old libraries the collection and preservation of the books was primary and their use secondary, whereas the modern institution exists primarily for public service, the collection of the books, their preservation, and whatever is done to them being directed to this end. To a social institution--a family, a school, a club, a church or a municipality--the persons constituting it, maintaining it, or served by it are all-important. A family without parents and children, a school without pupils, a club without members, a church with no congregation, a city without citizens--all are unthinkable. We may better realize the change in our conception of the public library by noting that it has taken its place among bodies of this type. A modern library with no readers is unthinkable; it is no library, as we now understand the word; though it be teeming with books, housed in a palace, well cataloged and properly manned. It is no longer possible to question this view of the library as a social institution--a means of rendering general service to the widest public. We have to deal not with theories of what the library ought to be, but, with facts indicating what it actually is; and we have only to look about us to realize that the facts give the fullest measure of support to what I have just said. The library is a great distributing agency, the commodities in which it deals being ideas and its customers the citizens at large, who pay, through the agency of taxation, for what they receive. This democratic and civic view of the public library's functions, however, does not commend itself to those who are not in sympathy with democratic ideals. In a recent address, a representative librarian refers to it as "the commercial traveler theory" of the library. The implication, of course, is that it is an ignoble or unworthy theory. I have no objection to accepting the phrase, for in my mind it has no such connotation. The commercial traveler has done the world service which the library should emulate rather than despise. He is the advance guard of civilization. To speak but of our own country and of its recent years, he is responsible for much of our improvement in transit facilities and hotel accommodations. Personally, he is becoming more and more acceptable. The best of our educated young men are going into commerce, and in commerce to-day no one can reach the top of the ladder who has not proved his efficiency "on the road." Would that we could place men of his type at the head of all our libraries! We need not think, however, that there is anything new in the method of distribution by personal travel. Homer employed it when he wished his heroic verse to reach the great body of his countrymen. By personal travel he took it to the cross-roads--just as the distributor of food and clothing and labor-saving appliances does to-day; just as we librarians must do if we are to democratize all literature as Homer democratized a small part of it. Homer, if you choose to say so, adopted the "commercial-traveler theory" of literary distribution; but I prefer to say that the modern public library, in laying stress on the necessity of distributing its treasures and in adopting the measures that have proved effective in other fields, is working on the Homeric method. Now, without the people to whom he distributed his wares, Homer would have been dead long ago. He lives because he took his wares to his audience. And without its public, as we have already said, the public library, too, would soon pass into oblivion. It must look to the public for the breath of life, for the very blood in its veins, for its bone and sinew. What, then, is the part that the community may play in increasing the efficiency of a public institution like the public library? Such an institution is, first of all, a medium through which the community does something for itself. The community employs and supports it, and at the same time is served by it. To use another homely illustration, which I am sure will not please those who object to comparing great things with small, this type of relationship is precisely what we find in domestic service. A cook or a housemaid has a dual relation to the mistress of the house, who is at the same time her employer and the person that she directly serves. This sort of relation does not obtain, for instance, in the case of a railroad employe, who is responsible to one set of persons and serves another. The public library is established and maintained by a given community in order that it may perform certain service for that same community directly. It seems to me that this dual relationship ought to make for efficiency. If it does not, it is because its existence and significance are not always realized. The cook knows that if she does not cook to suit her mistress she will lose her job--the thing works almost automatically. If the railroad employe does not serve the public satisfactorily there is no such immediate reaction, although I do not deny that the public displeasure may ultimately reach the railroad authorities and through them the employe. In most public institutions the reaction is necessarily somewhat indirect. The post office is a public institution, but public opinion must act on it generally through the channels of Congressional legislation, which takes time. Owing to this fact, very few postmen, for instance, realize that the persons to whom they deliver letters are also their employers. In all libraries the machinery of reaction is not the same. In St. Louis, for instance, the library receives the proceeds of a tax voted directly by the people; in New York City it receives an appropriation voted by the Board of Apportionment, whose members are elected by the people. The St. Louis Public Library is therefore one step nearer the control of the people than the New York Public Library. If we could imagine the management of either library to become so objectionable as to make its abolition desirable, a petition for a special election could remove public support in St. Louis very soon. In New York the matter might have to become an issue in a general election, at which members of a Board of Apportionment should be elected under pledge to vote against the library's appropriation. Nevertheless, in both cases there is ultimate popular control. Owing to this dual relation, the public can promote the efficiency of the library in two ways--by controlling it properly and by its attitude toward the service that is rendered. Every member of the public, in fact, is related to the library somewhat as a railway stockholder, riding on a train, is related to the company. He is at once boss and beneficiary. Let us see first what the public can do for its library through its relation of control. Besides the purse-strings, which we have seen are sometimes held directly by the public and sometimes by its elected representatives, we must consider the governing board of the institution--its trustees or directors. These may be elected by the people or appointed by an elected officer, such as the mayor, or chosen by an elected body, such as the city council or the board of education. Let us take the purse-strings first. Does your public library get enough public money to enable it to do the work that it ought to do? What is the general impression about this in the community? What does the library board think? What does the librarian think? What do the members of his staff say? What has the library's annual report to say about it? It is not at all a difficult matter for the citizen to get information on this subject and to form his own opinion regarding it. Yet it is an unusual thing to find a citizen who has either the information or a well-considered opinion. The general impression always seems to be that the library has plenty of money--rather more, in fact, than it can legitimately use. It is probably well for the library, under these circumstances, that the public control of its purse-strings is indirect. If the citizens of an average American city had to go to the polls annually and vote their public library an appropriation, I am sure that most libraries would have to face a very material reduction of their income. The trouble about this impression is that it is gained without knowledge of the facts. If a majority of the citizens, understanding how much work a modern public library is expected to do and how their own library does it, should deliberately conclude that its management was extravagant, and that its expenditure should be cut down, the minority would have nothing to do, as good citizens, but submit. The citizens have nothing to say as directly as this, but the idea, so generally held, that libraries are well off, does operate in the long run to limit library appropriations and to prevent the library from doing much useful work that it might do and ought to do. It is then, every citizen's business, as I conceive it, to inform himself or herself of the work that the public library is doing, of that which it is leaving undone, and of the possibilities of increased appropriations. If the result is a realization that the library appropriation is inadequate, that realization should take the form of a statement that will sooner or later reach the ears, and tend to stimulate the action, of those directly responsible. And it should, above all, aid in the formation of a sound public opinion. Ours is, we are told, a government of public opinion. Such government will necessarily be good or bad as public opinion is based on matured judgment or only on fleeting impressions. Inadequacy of support is responsible for more library delinquency than the average citizen imagines. Many a librarian is deservedly condemned for the unsatisfactory condition of his institution when his fault is not, as his detractors think, failure to see what should be done, or lack of ability to do it, so much as inability to raise funds to do it with. This is doubtless a fault, and its possessor should suffer, but how about the equally guilty accessories? How about the city authorities who have failed to vote the library adequate support? How about the board of trustees who have accepted such a situation without protest? And what is more to our purpose here, how about the citizens who have limited their efforts to pointing out the cracks in the edifice, with not a bit of constructive work in propping it up and making possible its restoration to strength and soundness? In conversation with a friend, not long ago, I referred to the financial limitations of our library's work, and said that we could add to it greatly and render more acceptable service if our income were larger. He expressed great surprise, and said: "Why, I thought you had all the money you want; your income must be all of $100,000 a year." Now, our income actually is about $250,000, but how could I tell him that? I judiciously changed the subject. Let us look next, if you please, at the library board and examine some of its functions. There appears to be much public misapprehension of the duties of this body, and such misapprehension assumes various and opposing forms. Some appear to think that the librarian is responsible for all that is done in the library and that his board is a perfunctory body. Others seem to believe that the board is the direct administrative head of the library, in all of its working details and that the librarian is its executive in the limited sense of doing only those things that he is told to do. Unfortunately there are libraries that are operated in each of these ways, but neither one relationship nor the other, nor any modification of either, is the ideal one between a librarian and his board. The board is supreme, of course, but it is a body of non-experts who have employed an expert to bring about certain results. They ought to know what they want, and what they have a right to expect, and if their expert does not give them this, the relation between him and them should terminate; but if they are men of sense they will not attempt to dictate methods or supervise details. They are the delegated representatives of the great public, which owns the library and operates it for a definite purpose. It is this function of the board as the representative of the public that should be emphasized here. Has the public a definite idea of what it wants from the public library, and of what is reasonable for it to ask? If so, is it satisfied that it is represented by a board that is of the same mind? The citizens may be assured that the composition of the library board rests ultimately upon its will. If the board is elective, this is obvious; if appointive, the appointing officer or body would hardly dare to go counter to the expressed desire of the citizens. What has been said above may be put into a very few words. The public library is public property, owned and controlled by the citizens. Every citizen, therefore, should be interested in setting standards for it and playing his part toward making it conform to them--in seeing that its governing body represents him in also recognizing those standards and trying to maintain them--in laboring for such a due apportionment of the public funds as shall not make an attempt to live up to such standards a mere farce. So much for the things that the citizen can and should do in his capacity of library boss. His possibilities as a beneficiary are still more interesting and valuable. Perhaps you remember the story of the man who attempted to board the warship and, on being asked his business, replied, "I'm one of the owners." One version of the tale then goes on to relate how the sailor thus addressed picked up a splinter from the deck, and, handing it to the visitor, remarked: "Well, I guess that's about your share. Take it and get out!" I have always sympathized with the sailor rather than with his visitor. Most of us librarians have had experiences with these bumptious "owners" of public property. The fact has already been noted that in a case like this the citizen is both an owner and a beneficiary. He has duties and privileges in both capacities, but he sometimes acts the owner in the wrong place. The man on the warship was doubtless an owner, but at that particular moment he was only a visitor, subject to whatever rules might govern visitors; and he should have acted as such. Every citizen is a part owner of the public library; he should never forget that fact. We have seen how he may effectively assert his ownership and control. But when he enters the library to use it his role is that of beneficiary, and he should act as such. He may so act and at the same time be of the greatest service to the institution which he, as a member of the public, has created and is maintaining. I know of no way in which a man may show his good citizenship or the reverse--may either demonstrate his ability and willingness to live and work in community harness, or show that he is fit for nothing but individual wild life in the woods--better than in his use of such a public institution as a library. The man who cannot see that what he gets from such an institution must necessarily be obtained at the price of sacrifice--that others in the community are also entitled to their share, and that sharing always means yielding--that man has not yet learned the first lesson in the elements of civic virtue. And when one sees a thousand citizens, each of whom would surely raise his voice in protest if the library were to waste public money by buying a thousand copies of the latest novel, yet find fault with the library because each cannot borrow it before all the others, one is tempted to wonder whether we really have here a thousand bad citizens or whether their early education in elementary arithmetic has been neglected. Before the present era there were regulations in all institutions that seemed to be framed merely to exasperate--to put the public in its place and chasten its spirit. There are now no such rules in good libraries. He who thinks there are may find that there is a difference of opinion between him and those whom he has set in charge of the library regarding what is arbitrary and what is necessary; but at any rate he will discover that the animating spirit of modern library authority is to give all an equal share in what it has to offer, and to restrain one man no more than is necessary to insure to his brother the measure of privilege to which all are equally entitled. Another way in which the citizen, in his capacity of the library's beneficiary, can aid it and improve its service is his treatment of its administrators. Librarians are very human: they react quickly and surely to praise or blame, deserved or undeserved. Blame is what they chiefly get. Sometimes they deserve it and sometimes not. But the occasions on which some citizen steps in and says, "Well done, good and faithful servant," are rare indeed. The public servant has to interpret silence as praise; so sure is he that the least slip will be caught and condemned by a vigilant public. No one can object to discriminating criticism; it is a potent aid to good administration. Mere petulant fault-finding, however, especially if based on ignorance or misapprehension, does positive harm. And a little discriminating praise, now and then, is a wonderful stimulant. No service is possible without the men and women who render it; and the quality of service depends, more than we often realize, on the spirit and temper of a staff--something that is powerfully affected, either for good or for evil, by public action and public response. Years ago, at a branch library in a distant city, a reader stood at the counter and complained loudly because the library would not send her a postal reserve notice unless she defrayed the cost, which was one cent. The assistant to whom she was talking had no option in the matter and was merely enforcing a rule common, so far as I know, to all American public libraries; but she had to bear the brunt of the reader's displeasure, which she did meekly, as it was all in the day's work. The time occupied in this useless business spelled delay to half a dozen other readers, who were waiting their turn. Finally, one of them, a quiet little old lady in black, spoke up as follows: "Some of us hereabouts think that we owe a great debt of gratitude to this library. Its assistants have rendered service to us that we can never repay. I am glad to have an opportunity to do something in return, and it therefore gives me pleasure to pay the cent about which you are taking up this young lady's time, and ours." So saying, she laid the coin on the desk and the line moved on. I have always remembered these two points of view as typical of two kinds of library users. Their respective effects on the temper and work of a library staff need, I am sure, no explanation. In what I have said, which is such a small fraction of what might be said, that I am almost ashamed to offer it to you, I have in truth only been playing the variations on one tune, which is--Draw closer to the library, as it is trying to draw closer to you. There is no such thing, physicists tell us, as a one-sided force. Every force is but one aspect of a stress, which includes also an equal and opposing force. Any two interacting things in this world are either approaching each other or receding from each other. So it should be with library and public. A forward movement on the one hand should necessarily involve one to meet it. The peculiarity of our modern temper is our hunger for facts--our confidence that when the facts are known we shall find a way to deal with them, and that until the facts are known we shall not be able to act--not even to think. Our ancestors thought and acted sometimes on premises that seem to us frightfully flimsy--they tried, as Dean Swift painted them in his immortal satire, to get sunbeams from cucumbers. There are some sunbeam-chasers among us to-day, but even they recognize the need of real cucumbers to start with; the imaginary kind will not do. I recently heard a great teacher of medicine say that the task of the modern physician is merely to ascertain the facts on which the intelligent public is to act. How different that sounds from the dicta of the medicine of a past generation! It is the same everywhere: we are demanding an accurate survey--an ascertainment of the facts in any field in which action, based on inference and judgment, is seen to be necessary. Now the library is nothing more nor less than a storehouse of recorded facts. It is becoming so more truly and more fully every day, thereby adjusting itself to the modern temper of which I have already spoken. The library and its users are coming more closely together, in sympathy, in aims and in action, than ever before--partly a result and partly a justification for that Homeric method of popularizing it which has been characterized and condemned as commercial. The day when the librarian, or the professor, or the clergyman could retire into his tower and hold aloof from the vulgar herd is past. The logical result of such an attitude is now being worked out on the continent of Europe. Not civilizations, as some pessimists are lamenting, but the forces antagonistic to civilization are there destroying one another, and there is hope that a purified democracy will arise from the wreckage. May our American civilization never have to run the gantlet of such a terrible trial! Meanwhile, there can be no doubt that the hope for the future efficiency of all our public institutions, including the library, lies in the success of democracy, and that depends on the existence and improvement of the conditions in whose absence democracy necessarily fails. Foremost among these is the homogeneity of the population. The people among whom democracy succeeds must have similar standards, ideas, aims and abilities. Democracy may exist in a pack of wolves, but not in a group that is half wolves and half men. Either the wolves will kill the men or the men the wolves. This is an extreme case, but it is true in general that in a community made up of irreconcilable elements there can be no true democracy. And the same oneness of vision and purpose that conduces to the success of democracy will also bring to perfection such great democratic institutions as the library, which have already borne such noteworthy fruit among us just because we are homogeneous beyond all other nations on the earth. And here progress is by action and reaction, as we see it so often in the world. The unity of aims and abilities that makes democracy and democratic institutions possible is itself facilitated and increased by the work of those institutions. The more work the library does, the more its ramifications multiply, and the further they extend, the more those conditions are favored that make the continuance of the library possible. In working for others, it is working for itself, and every additional bit of strength and sanity that it takes on does but enable it to work for others the more. And if the democracy whose servant it is will but realize that it has grown up as a part of that American system to which we are all committed--to which we owe all that we are and in which we must place all our hopes for the future--then neither democracy nor library will have aught to fear. Democracy will have its "true and laudable" service from the library, and the library in its turn will have adequate sympathy, aid and support from the people. It is no accident that I make this appeal for sympathy and aid to a club composed of women. The bonds between the modern public library and the modern woman's club have been particularly strong in this country. The two institutions have grown up together, making their way against suspicion, contempt and hostility, aided by the same public demand, and now, when both are recognized as elements in the intellectual strength of our nation, they are rendering mutual service. The club turns to the library daily. Hitherto the library has turned to the club only in some emergency--a bill to be passed, an appropriation to be made, an administration to be purified. I have tried to show you how, apart from these great services, which no one would think of minimizing, the women of this country, as citizens, can uphold the hands of the library daily. Ours is a government of public opinion, and in the formation of that opinion there is no more powerful element than the sentiment of our women, especially when organized in such bodies as yours. "To be aristocratic in taste and democratic in service," says Bliss Perry, "is the privilege and glory of the public library." In appealing thus to both your aristocracy and your democracy, I feel, then, that I have not gone astray. SOME TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN THOUGHT[13] [13] Read before the New York Library Association at Squirrel Inn, Haines Falls, September 28, 1915. The modern American mind, like modern America, itself, is a melting pot. We are taking men and women of all races and fusing them into Americans. In the same way we are taking points of view, ideas, standards and modes of action from whatever source we find them, combining them and fusing them into what will one day become American thoughts and standards. We are thus combining the most varied and opposing things--things that it would seem impossible to put together. Take our modern American tendency in government, for instance. Could there be two things more radically different than despotism and democracy?--the rule of the one and the rule of the many? And yet I believe that we are taking steps toward a very successful combination of the two. Such a combination is essentially ancient. No despotism can hold its own without the consent of the governed. That consent may be unwilling and sooner or later it is then withheld, with the result that a revolution takes place and the despot loses his throne--the oldest form of the recall. Every despotism is thus tempered by revolution, and Anglo-Saxon communities have been ready to exercise such a privilege on the slightest sign that a despotic tendency was creeping into their government. It is not remarkable, then, that our own Federal government, which is essentially a copy of the British government of its day, should have incorporated this feature of the recall, which in England had just passed from its revolutionary to its legal stage. It was beginning to be recognized then that a vote of the people's representatives could recall a monarch, and the English monarchy is now essentially elective. But to make assurance doubly sure, the British government, in its later evolution, has been practically separated from the monarch's person, and any government may be simply overthrown or "recalled" by a vote of lack of confidence in the House of Commons, followed, if need be, by a defeat in a general election. We have not yet adopted this feature. Our President is still the head of our government, and he and all other elected Federal officers serve their terms out, no matter whether the people have confidence in them or not. But the makers of our Constitution improved on the British government as they found it. They made the term of the executive four years instead of life and systematized the "recall" by providing for impeachment proceedings--a plan already recognized in Britain in the case of certain administrative and judicial officers. As it stands at present we have a temporary elective monarch with more power, even nominally, than most European constitutional monarchs and more actually than many so-called absolute monarchs such as the Czar or the Sultan. In case he should abuse the power that we have given him, he may be removed from office after due trial, by our elected representatives. In following out these ideas in later years, we are gradually evolving a form of government that is both more despotic and more democratic. We are combining the legislative and executive power in the hands of a few persons, hampering them very little in their exercise of it, and making it possible to recall them by direct vote of the body of citizens that elected them. I think we may describe the tendency of public thought in governmental matters as a tendency toward a despotism under legalized democratic control. It may be claimed, I think, that the best features of despotism and democracy may thus be utilized, with a minimum of the evils of each. It was believed by the ancients, and we frequently see it stated today, that the ideal government would be government by a perfectly good despot. This takes the citizens into account only as persons who are governed, and not as persons who govern or help to govern. It is pleasant, perhaps, to have plenty of servants to wait upon one, but surely health, physical, mental and moral, waits on him who does most things for himself. I once heard Lincoln Steffens say: "What we want is not 'Good Government'; it is _Self_-Government." But is it not possible to get the advantage of government by a few, with its possibilities of continuous policy and its freedom from "crowd-psychology," with its skillful utilization of expert knowledge, while admitting the public to full knowledge of what is going on, and full ultimate control of it? We evidently think so, and our present tendencies are evidence that we are attempting something of the kind. Our belief seems to be that if we elect our despot and are able to recall him we shall have to keep tab on him pretty closely, and that the knowledge of statecraft that will thus be necessary to us will be no less than if we personally took part in legislation and administration--probably far more than if we simply went through the form of delegating our responsibilities and then took no further thought, as most of us have been accustomed to do. Whether this is the right view or not--whether it is workable--the future will show; I am here discussing tendencies, not their ultimate outcome. But it would be too much to expect that this or any other eclectic policy should be pleasing to all. "The real problem of collectivism," says Walter Lippmann, "is the difficulty of combining popular control with administrative power.... The conflict between democracy and centralized authority ... is the line upon which the problems of collectivism will be fought out." In selecting elements from both despotism and democracy we are displeasing the adherents of both. There is too much despotism in the plan for one side and too much democracy for the other. We constantly hear the complaint that concentrated responsibility with popular control is too despotic, and at the same time the criticism that it is too democratic. To put your city in the hands of a small commission, perhaps of a city manager, seems to some to be a return to monarchy; and so perhaps it is. To give Tom, Dick and Harry the power to unseat these monarchs at will is said to be dangerously socialistic; and possibly it is. Only it is possible that by combining these two poisons--this acid and this alkali--in the same pill, we are neutralizing their harmful qualities. At any rate this would seem to be the idea on which we are now proceeding. We may now examine the effects of this tendency toward eclecticism in quite a different field--that of morals. Among the settlers of our country were both Puritans and Cavaliers--representatives in England of two moral standards that have contended there for centuries and still exist there side by side. We in America are attempting to mix them with some measure of success. This was detected by the German lady of whom Mr. Bryce tells in his "American Commonwealth," who said that American women were "_furchtbar frei und furchtbar fromm_"--frightfully free and frightfully pious! In other words they are trying to mix the Cavalier and Puritan standards. Of course those who do not understand what is going on think that we are either too free or too pious. We are neither; we are trying to give and accept freedom in cases where freedom works for moral efficiency and restraint where restraint is indicated. We have not arrived at a final standard. We may not do so. This effort at mixture, like all our others, may fail; but there appears to be no doubt that we are making it. To take an obvious instance, I believe that we are trying, with some success, to combine ease of divorce with a greater real regard for the sanctity of marriage. We have found that if marriage is made absolutely indissoluble, there will be greater excuse for disregarding the marriage vow than if there are legal ways of dissolving it. Americans are shocked at Europeans when they allude in ordinary conversation to infractions of the moral code that they treat as trivial. They on the other hand are shocked when we talk of divorce for what they consider insufficient causes. In the former case we seem to them "frightfully pious"; in the latter, "frightfully free." They are right; we are both; it is only another instance of our tendency towards eclecticism, this time in moral standards. In some directions we find that this tendency to eclecticism is working toward a combination not of two opposite things, but of a hundred different ones. Take our art for instance, especially as manifested in our architecture. A purely native town in Italy, Arabia, or Africa, or Mexico, has its own atmosphere; no one could mistake one for the other any more than he could mistake a beaver dam for an ant hill or a bird's nest for a woodchuck hole. But in an American city, especially where we have enough money to let our architects do their utmost, we find streets where France, England, Italy, Spain, Holland, Arabia and India all stand elbow to elbow, and the European visitor knows not whether to laugh or to make a hasty visit to his nerve-specialist. It seems all right to us, and it _is_ all right from the standpoint of a nation that is yet in the throes of eclecticism. And our other art--painting, sculpture, music--it is all similarly mixed. Good of its kind, often; but we have not yet settled down to the kind that we like best--the kind in which we are best fitted to do something that will live through the ages. We used to think for instance that in music the ordinary diatonic major scale, with its variant minor, was a fact of nature. We knew vaguely that the ancient Greeks had other scales, and we knew also that the Chinese and the Arabs had scales so different that their music was generally displeasing to us. But we explained this by saying that our scale was natural and right and that the others were antiquated, barbaric and wrong. Now we are opening our arms to the exotic scales and devising a few of our own. We have the tonal and the semi-tonal scales and we are trying to make use of the Chinese, Arabic and Hindu modes. We are producing results that sound very odd to ears that are attuned to the old-fashioned music, but our eclecticism here as elsewhere is cracking the shell of prejudice and will doubtless lead to some good end, though perhaps we can not see it yet. How about education? In the first place there are, as I read the history of education, two main methods of training youth--the individual method and the class method. No two boys or girls are alike; no two have like reactions to the same stimulus. Each ought to have a separate teacher, for the methods to be employed must be adapted especially to the material on which we have to work. This means a separate tutor for every child. On the other hand, the training that we give must be social--must prepare for life with and among one's fellow beings, otherwise it is worthless. This means training in class, with and among other students, where each mind responds not to the teacher's alone but to those of its fellow pupils. Here are two irreconcilable requirements. In our modern systems of education we are trying to respond to them as best we may, teaching in class and at the same time giving each pupil as much personal attention as we can. The tutorial system, now employed in Princeton University, is an interesting example of our efforts as applied to the higher education. At the same time, eclecticism in our choice of subjects is very manifest, and at times our success here seems as doubtful as our mixture of architectural styles. In the old college days, not so very long ago, Latin, Greek, and mathematics made up the curriculum. Now our boys choose from a thousand subjects grouped in a hundred courses. In our common schools we have introduced so many new subjects as to crowd the curriculum. Signs of a reaction are evident. I am alluding to the matter here only as another example of our modern passion for wide selection and for the combination of things that apparently defy amalgamation. What of religion? Prof. George E. Woodberry, in his interesting book on North Africa, says in substance that there are only two kinds of religion, the simple and the complex. Mohammedanism he considers a simple religion, like New England Puritanism, with which he thinks it has points in common. Both are very different from Buddhism, for instance. Accepting for the moment his classification I believe that the facts show an effort to combine the two types in the United States. Many of the Christian denominations that Woodberry would class as "simple"--those that began with a total absence of ritual, are becoming ritualized. Creeds once simple are becoming complicated with interpretation and comment. On the other hand we may see in the Roman Catholic Church and among the so-called "High Church" Episcopalians a disposition to adopt some of the methods that have hitherto distinguished other religious bodies. Consider, for example, some of the religious meetings held by the Paulist Fathers in New York, characterized by popular addresses and the singing of simple hymns. As another example of the eclectic spirit of churches in America we may point to the various efforts at combination or unity, with such results as the Federation of the Churches of Christ in America--an ambitious name, not yet justified by the facts--the proposed amalgamation of several of the most powerful Protestant bodies in Canada, and the accomplished fact of the University of Toronto--an institution whose constituent colleges are controlled by different religious denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church. I may also mention the present organization of the New York Public Library, many of whose branch libraries were contributions from religious denominations, including the Jews, the Catholics and the Episcopalians. All these now work together harmoniously. I know of nothing of this kind on any other continent, and I think we shall be justified in crediting it to the present American tendency to eclecticism. Turn for a moment to philosophy. What is the philosophical system most widely known at present as American? Doubtless the pragmatism of William James. No one ever agreed with anyone else in a statement regarding philosophy, and I do not expect you to agree with me in this; but pragmatism seems to me essentially an eclectic system. It is based on the character of results. Is something true or false? I will tell you when I find out whether it works practically or not. Is something right or wrong? I rely on the same test. Now it seems to me that this is the scheme of the peasant in later Rome, who was perfectly willing to appeal to Roman Juno or Egyptian Isis or Phoenician Moloch, so long as he got what he wanted. If a little bit of Schopenhauer works, and some of Fichte; a piece of Christianity and a part of Vedantism, it is all grist to the mill of pragmatism. Any of it that works must of necessity be right and true. I am not criticizing this, or trying to controvert it; I am merely asserting that it leads to eclecticism; and this, I believe, explains its vogue in the United States. It would be impossible to give, in the compass of a brief address, a list of all the domains in which this eclecticism--this tendency to select, combine and blend--has cropped out among us Americans of today. I have reserved for the last that in which we are particularly interested--the Public Library, in which we may see it exemplified in an eminent degree. The public library in America has blossomed out into a different thing, a wider thing, a combination of more different kinds of things, than in any other part of the world. Foreign librarians and foreign library users look at us askance. They wonder at the things we are trying to combine under the activities of one public institution; they shudder at our extravagance. They wonder that our tax-payers do not rebel when they are compelled to foot the bills for what we do. But the taxpayers do not seem to mind. They frequently complain, but not about what we are doing. What bothers them is that we do not try to do more. When we began timidly to add branch libraries to our system they asked us why we did not build and equip them faster; when we placed a few books on open shelves they demanded that we treat our whole stock in the same way; when we set aside a corner for the children they forced us to fit up a whole room and to place such a room in every building, large or small. We have responded to every such demand. Each response has cost money and the public has paid the bill. Apparently librarians and public are equally satisfied. We should not be astonished, for this merely shows that the library is subject to the same laws and tendencies as all other things American. Hence it comes about that whereas in a large library a century ago there were simply stored books with no appliances to do anything but keep them safe, we now find in library buildings all sorts of devices to facilitate the quick and efficient use of the books both in the building and in the readers' homes, together with other devices to stimulate a desire to use books among those who have not yet felt it; to train children to use and love books; to interest the public in things that will lead to the use of books. This means that many of the things in a modern library seem to an old-fashioned librarian and an old-fashioned reader like unwarranted extensions or even usurpations. In our own Central building you will find collections of postal cards and specimens of textile fabrics, an index to current lectures, exhibitions and concerts, a public writing-room, with free note-paper and envelopes, a class of young women studying to be librarians, meeting places for all sorts of clubs and groups, civic, educational, social, political and religious; a bindery in full operation, a photographic copying-machine; lunch-rooms and rest-rooms for the staff; a garage, with an automobile in it, a telephone switchboard, a paintshop, a carpenter-shop, and a power-plant of considerable capacity. Not one of these things I believe, would you have found in a large library fifty years ago. And yet the citizens of St. Louis seem to be cheerful and are not worrying over the future. We are eclectic, but we are choosing the elements of our blend with some discretion and we have been able, so far, to relate them all to books, to the mental activities that are stimulated by books and that produce more books, to the training that instils into the rising generation a love for books. The book is still at the foundation of the library, even if its walls have received some architectural embellishment of a different type. When anyone objects to the introduction into the library of what the colleges call "extra-curriculum activities," I prefer to explain and justify it in this larger way, rather than to take up each activity by itself and discuss its reasonableness--though this also may be undertaken with the hope of success. In developing as it has done, the Library in the United States of America has not been simply obeying some law of its own being; it has been following the whole stream of American development. You can call it a drift if you like; but the Library has not been simply drifting. The swimmer in a rapid stream may give up all effort and submit to be borne along by the current, or he may try to get somewhere. In so doing, he may battle with the current and achieve nothing but fatigue, or he may use the force of the stream, as far as he may, to reach his own goal. I like to think that this is what many American institutions are doing, our libraries among them. They are using the present tendency to eclecticism in an effort toward wider public service. When, in a community, there seems to be a need for doing some particular thing, the library, if it has the equipment and the means, is doing that thing without inquiring too closely whether there is logical justification for linking it with the library's activities rather than with some others. Note, now, how this desirable result is aided by our prevailing American tendency toward eclecticism. Suppose precisely the same conditions to obtain in England, or France, or Italy, the admitted need for some activity, the ability of the library and the inability of any other institution, to undertake it. I submit that the library would be extremely unlikely to move in the matter, simply from the lack of the tendency that we are discussing. That tendency gives a flexibility, almost a fluidity, which under a pressure of this kind, yields and ensures an outlet for desirable energy along a line of least resistance. The Englishman and the American, when they are arguing a case of this kind, assume each the condition of affairs that obtains in his own land--the rigidity on the one hand, the fluidity on the other. They assume it without stating it or even thoroughly understanding it, and the result is that neither can understand the conclusions of the other. The fact is that they are both right. I seriously question whether it would be right or proper for a library in a British community to do many of the things that libraries are doing in American communities. I may go further and say that the rigidity of British social life would make it impossible for the library to achieve these things. But it is also true that the fluidity of American social life makes it equally impossible for the library to withstand the pressure that is brought to bear on it here. To yield is in its case right and proper and a failure of response would be wrong and improper. It is usually assumed by the British critic of American libraries that their peculiarities are due to the temperament of the American librarian. We make a similar assumption when we discuss British libraries. I do not deny that the librarians on both sides have had something to do with it, but the determining factor has been the social and temperamental differences between the two peoples. Americans are fluid, experimental, eclectic, and this finds expression in the character of their institutions and in the way these are administered and used. Take if you please the reaction of the library on the two sides of the water to the inevitable result of opening it to home-circulation--the necessity of knowing whether a given book is or is not on the shelves. The American response was to open the shelves, the British, to create an additional piece of machinery--the indicator. These two results might have been predicted in advance by one familiar with the temper of the two peoples. It has shown itself in scores of instances, in the front yards of residences, for instance--walled off in England and open to the street in the United States. I shall be reminded, I suppose, that there are plenty of open shelves in English libraries and that the open shelf is gaining in favor. True; England is becoming "Americanized" in more respects than this one. But I am speaking of the immediate reaction to the stimulus of popular demand, and this was as I have stated it. In each case the reaction, temporarily at least, satisfied the demand; showing that the difference was not of administrative habit alone, but of community feeling. This rapid review of modern American tendencies, however confusing the impression that it may give, will at any rate convince us, I think, of one thing--the absurdity of objecting to anything whatever on the ground that it is un-American. We are the most receptive people in the world. We "take our good things where we find them," and what we take becomes "American" as soon as it gets into our hands. And yet, if anything new does not happen to suit any of us, the favorite method of attack is to denounce it as "un-American." Pretty nearly every element of our present social fabric has been thus denounced, at one time or another, and as it goes on changing, every change is similarly attacked. The makers of our Constitution were good conservative Americans--much too conservative, some of our modern radicals say--yet they provided for altering that Constitution, and set absolutely no limits on the alterations that might be made, provided that they were made in the manner specified in the instrument. We can make over our government into a monarchy tomorrow, if we want, or decree that no one in Chicago shall wear a silk hat on New Year's Day. It was recently the fashion to complain that the amendment of the Constitution has become so difficult as to be now practically a dead letter. And yet we have done so radical a thing as to change absolutely the method of electing senators of the United States; and we did it as easily and quietly as buying a hat--vastly more easily than changing a cook. The only obstacle to changing our Constitution, no matter how radically and fundamentally, is the opposition of the people themselves. As soon as they want the change, it comes quickly and simply. Changes like these are not un-American if the American people like them well enough to make them. They, and they alone, are the judges of what peculiarities they shall adopt as their own customs and characteristics. So that when we hear that this or that is un-American, we may agree only in so far as it is not yet an American characteristic. That we do not care for it today is no sign that we may not take up with it tomorrow, and it is no legitimate argument against our doing so, if we think proper. And now what does this all mean? The pessimist will tell us, doubtless, that it is a sign of decadence. It does remind us a little of the later days of the Roman empire when the peoples of the remotest parts of the known world, with their arts, customs and manners, were all to be found in the imperial city--when the gods of Greece, Syria and Egypt were worshipped side by side with those of old Rome, where all sorts of exotic art, philosophy, literature and politics took root and flourished. That is usually regarded as a period of decadence, and it was certainly a precursor of the empire's fall. When we consider that it was contemporaneous with great material prosperity and with the spread of luxury and a certain loosening of the moral fiber, such as we are experiencing in America today, we can not help feeling a little perturbed. Yet there is another way of looking at it. A period of this sort is often only a period of readjustment. The Roman empire as a political entity went out of existence long ago, but Rome's influence on our art, law, literature and government is still powerful. Her so-called "fall" was really not a fall but a changing into something else. In fact, if we take Bergson's view-point--which it seems to me is undoubtedly the true one, the thing we call Rome was never anything else but a process of change. At the time of which we speak the visible part of the change was accelerated--that is all. In like manner each one of you as an individual is not a fixed entity. You are changing every instant and the reality about you is the change, not what you see with the eye or photograph with the camera--that is merely a stage through which you pass and in which you do not stay--not for the thousand millionth part of the smallest recognizable instant. So our current American life and thought is not something that stands still long enough for us to describe it. Even as we write the description it has changed to another phase. And the phenomena of transition just now are particularly noticeable--that is all. We may call them decadent or we may look upon them as the beginnings of a new and more glorious national life. "The size and intricacy which we have to deal with," says Walter Lippmann, "have done more than anything else, I imagine, to wreck the simple generalizations of our ancestors." This is quite true, and so, in place of simplicity we are introducing complexity, very largely by selection and combination of simple elements evolved in former times to fit earlier conditions. Whether organic relations can be established among these elements, so that there shall one day issue from the welter something well-rounded, something American, fitting American conditions and leading American aspirations forward and upward, is yet on the knees of the gods. We, the men and women of America, and may I not say, we, the Librarians of America, can do much to direct the issue. DRUGS AND THE MAN[14] [14] A Commencement address to the graduating class of the School of Pharmacy, St. Louis, May 19, 1915. The graduation of a class of technically trained persons is an event of special moment. When we send forth graduates from our schools and colleges devoted to general education, while the thought of failure may be disquieting or embarrassing, we know that no special danger can result, except to the man who has failed. The college graduate who has neglected his opportunities has thrown away a chance, but he is no menace to his fellows. Affairs take on a different complexion in the technical or professional school. The poorly trained engineer, physician or lawyer, is an injury to the community. Failure to train an engineer may involve the future failure of a structure, with the loss of many lives. Failure to train a doctor means that we turn loose on the public one who will kill oftener than he will cure. Failure to train a lawyer means wills that can be broken, contracts that will not hold, needless litigation. Congressman Kent, of California, has coined a satisfactory word for this sort of thing--he calls it "mal-employment." Unemployment is a bad thing. We have seen plenty of it here during the past winter. But Kent says, and he is right, that malemployment is a worse thing. All these poor engineers and doctors and lawyers are busily engaged, and every thing on the surface seems to be going on well. But as a matter of fact, the world would be better off if each one of them should stop working and never do another stroke. It would pay the community to support them in idleness. I have always considered pharmacy to be one of the occupations in which malemployment is particularly objectionable. If you read Homer badly it affects no one but yourself. If you think Vera Cruz is in Italy and that the Amazon River runs into the Arctic Ocean, your neighbor is as well off as before; but if you are under the impression that strychnine is aspirin, you have failed in a way that is more than personal. I am dwelling on these unpleasant possibilities partly for the reason that the Egyptians displayed a skeleton at their banquets--because warnings are a tonic to the soul--but also because, if we are to credit much that we see in general literature, including especially the daily paper and the popular magazine, _all_ druggists are malemployed. And if it would really be better for the community that you should not enter upon the profession for which you have been trained, now, of course, is the time for you to know it. There seems to be a widespread impression--an assumption--that the day of the drug is over--that the therapeutics of the future are to be concerned along with hygiene and sanitation, with physical exercise, diet, and mechanical operations. The very word "drug" has come to have an objectionable connection that did not belong to it fifty years ago. Even some of the druggists themselves, it seems to me, are a little ashamed of the drug part of their occupation. Their places of business appear to be news-agencies, refreshment parlors, stationery stores--the drugs are "on the side," or rather in the rear. Sometimes, I am told, the proprietors of these places know nothing at all about pharmacy, but employ a prescription clerk who is a capable pharmacist. Here the druggist has stepped down from his former position as the manager of a business and has become a servant. All of which looks to me as if the pharmacist himself might be beginning to accept the valuation that some people are putting upon his services to the community. Now these things affect me, not as a physician nor as a pharmacist, for I am neither, but they do touch me as a student of physics and chemistry and as one whose business and pleasure it has been for many years to watch the development of these and other sciences. The fact that I am addressing you this evening may be taken, I suppose, as evidence that you may be interested in this point of view. The action of most substances on the human organism is a function of their chemical constitution. Has that chemical constitution changed? It is one of the most astonishing discoveries of our age that many, perhaps all, substances undergo spontaneous disintegration, giving rise to the phenomena now well known as "radio-activity." No substances ordinarily known and used in pharmacy, however, possess this quality in measurable degree, and we have no reason to suppose that the alkaloids, for instance, or the salts of potash or iron, differ today in any respect from those of a century ago. How about the other factor in the reaction--the human organism and its properties? That our bodily properties have changed in the past admits of no doubt. We have developed up to the point where we are at present. Here, however, evolution seems to have left us, and it is now devoting its attention exclusively to our mental and moral progress. Judging from what is now going on upon the continent of Europe, much remains to be accomplished. But there is no reason to believe that if Caesar or Hannibal had taken a dose of opium, or ipecac, or aspirin, the effect would have been different from that experienced today by one of you. This is what a physicist or a chemist would expect. If the action of a drug on the organism is chemical, and if neither the drug nor the organism has changed, the action must be the same. If we still desire to bring about the action and if there is no better way to do it, we must use the drug, and there is still need for the druggist. As a matter of fact, the number of drugs at your disposal today is vastly greater than ever before, largely owing to the labor, and the ingenuity, of the analytical chemist. And there are still great classes of compounds of whose existence the chemist is assured, but which he has not even had time to form, much less to investigate. Among these may lurk remedies more valuable than any at our disposal today. It does not look, at any rate, as if the druggist were going to be driven out of business from lack of stock, whether we regard quantity or variety. To what, then, must we attribute the growth of the feeling that the treatment of disease by the administration of drugs is on the decline? From the standpoint of a layman it seems to be due to two facts, or at least to have been strongly affected by them: (1) The discovery and rapid development of other therapeutic measures, such as those dependent on surgical methods, or on the use of immunizing serums, or on manipulations such as massage, or on diet, or even on mental suggestion; and (2) the very increase in the number and variety of available drugs alluded to above, which has introduced to the public many new and only partially tried substances, the results of whose use has often been unexpectedly injurious, including a considerable number of new habit-forming drugs whose ravages are becoming known to the public. The development of therapeutic measures that are independent of drugs has been coincident with popular emancipation from the mere superstition of drug-administration. The older lists of approved remedies were loaded with items that had no curative properties at all, except by suggestion. They were purely magical--the thumb-nails of executed criminals, the hair of black cats, the ashes of burned toads and so on. Even at this moment your pharmacopoeia contains scores of remedies that are without effect or that do not produce the effects credited to them. I am relying on high therapeutical authority for this statement. Now when the sick man is told by his own physician to discard angleworm poultices, and herbs plucked in the dark of the moon, on which he had formerly relied, it is any wonder that he has ended by being suspicious also of calomel and ipecac, with which they were formerly classed? And when the man who believed that he received benefit from some of these magical remedies is told that the result was due to auto-suggestion, is it remarkable that he should fall an easy prey next day to the Christian Scientist who tells him that the effects of calomel and ipecac are due to nothing else than this same suggestion? The increased use and undoubted value of special diets, serums, aseptic surgery, baths, massage, electrical treatment, radio-therapeutics, and so on, makes it easy for him to discard drugs altogether, and further, it creates, even among those who continue to use drugs, an atmosphere favorable to the belief that they are back numbers, on the road to disuse. Just here comes in the second factor to persuade the layman, from what has come under his own observation, that drugs are injurious, dangerous, even fatal. Newly discovered chemical compounds with valuable properties, have been adopted and used in medicine before the necessary time had elapsed to disclose the fact that they possessed also other properties, more elusive than the first, but as potent for harm as these were for good. Many were narcotics or valuable anesthetics, local or otherwise, which have proved to be the creators of habits more terrible than the age-long enemies of mankind, alcohol and opium. When the man whose wife takes a coal-tar derivative for headache finds that it stills her heart forever, the incident affects his whole opinion of drugs. When the patient for whom one of the new drugs has been prescribed by a practitioner without knowledge of his idiosyncrasies reacts to it fatally, it is slight consolation to his survivors that his case is described in print under the heading, "A Curious Case of Umptiol Poisoning." When a mother sees her son go to the bad by taking cocaine, or heroin, or some other drug of whose existence she was ignorant a dozen years ago, she may be pardoned for believing that all drugs, or at least all newly discovered drugs, are tools of the devil. And this feeling is intensified by one of our national faults--the tendency to jump at conclusions, to overdo things, to run from one evil to its opposite, without stopping at the harmless mean. We think we are brighter and quicker than the Englishman or the German. They think we are more superficial. Whatever name you give the quality it causes us to "catch on" sooner, to work a good thing to death more thoroughly and to drop it more quickly for something else, than any other known people, ancient or modern. Somebody devises a new form of skate roller that makes roller-skating a good sport. We find it out before anyone else and in a few months the land is plastered from Maine to California with huge skating halls or sheds. Everybody is skating at once and the roar of the rollers resounds across the oceans. We skate ourselves out in a year or two, and then the roar ceases, the sheds decay and roller-skating is once more a normal amusement. Then someone invents the safety bicycle, and in a trice all America, man, woman and child, is awheel. And we run this good horse to death, and throw his body aside in our haste to discover something new. Shortly afterward someone invents a new dance, or imports it from Spanish America, and there is hardly time to snap one's finger before we are all dancing, grandparents and children, the cook in the kitchen and the street-cleaner on the boulevard. We display as little moderation in our therapeutics. We can not get over the idea that a remedy of proved value in a particular case may be good for all others. Our proprietary medicines will cure everything from tuberculosis to cancer. If massage has relieved rheumatism, why should it not be good also for typhoid? The Tumtum Springs did my uncle's gout so much good; why doesn't your cousin try them for her headaches? And even so, drugs must be all good or bad. Many of us remember the old household remedies, tonics or laxatives or what not, with which the children were all dosed at intervals, whether they were ill or not. That was in the days when all drugs were good: when one "took something" internally for everything that happened to him. Now the pendulum has swung to the other side--that is all. If we can ever settle down to the rational way of regarding these things, we shall discover, what sensible medical men have always known, and what druggists as well as mere laymen can not afford to neglect, that there is no such thing as a panacea, and that all rational therapeutics is based on common sense study of the disease--finding out what is the cause and endeavoring to abate that cause. The cause may be such that surgery is indicated, or serum, or regulation of diet, or change of scene. It may obviously indicate the administration of a drug. I once heard a clever lawyer in a poisoning case, in an endeavor to discredit a physician, whom we shall call Dr. Jones, tell the following anecdote: (Dr. Jones, who had been called in when the victim was about to expire, had recommended the application of ice). Said the lawyer: "A workman was tamping a charge of blasting-powder with a crowbar, when the charge went off prematurely and the bar was driven through the unfortunate man's body, so that part of it protruded on either side: A local physician was summoned, and after some study he pronounced as follows: 'Now, if I let that bar stay there, you'll die. If I pull it out, you'll die. But I'll give you a pill that may melt it where it is!' In this emergency," the lawyer went on to say, "Dr. Jones doubtless would have prescribed _ice_." Now the pill to melt the crowbar may stand for our former excessive and absurd regard for drugs. The application of ice in the same emergency may likewise represent a universal resort to hydrotherapy. Neither of them is logical. There is place for each, but there are emergencies that can not be met with either. Still, to abandon one method of treatment simply because additional methods have proved to be valuable, would be as absurd as to give up talking upon the invention of writing or to prohibit the raising of corn on land that will produce wheat. No: we shall doubtless continue to use drugs and we shall continue to need the druggist. What can he do to make his business more valued and respected, more useful to the public and more profitable to himself? For there can be no doubt that he will finally succeed in attaining all these desirable results together, or fail in all. Here and there we may find a man who is making a fortune out of public credulity and ignorance, or, on the other hand, one who is giving the public more service than it pays for and ruining himself in the process; but in general and on the average personal and public interest run pretty well hand in hand. Henry Ford makes his millions because he is producing something that the people want. St. Jacob's Oil, once the most widely advertised nostrum on the continent, cost its promoters a fortune because there was nothing in it that one might not find in some other oil or grease. What then, I repeat, must the pharmacist do to succeed, personally and professionally? I welcome this opportunity to tell you what I think. My advice comes from the outside--often the most valuable source. I have so little to do with pharmacy, either as a profession or as a business that I stand far enough away to get a bird's-eye view. And if you think that any advice, based on this view, is worthless, it will be a consolation to all of us to realize that no force on earth can compel you to take it. It is doubtless too late to lament or try to resist the course of business that has gone far to turn the pharmacy into a department store. But let me urge you not to let this tendency run wild. There are side-lines that belong properly to pharmacy, such as all those pertaining to hygiene or sanitation; to the toilet, to bodily refreshment. I do not see why one should not expect to find at his pharmacist's, soap, or tooth-brushes, or sponges. I do not see why the thirsty man should not go there for mineral water as well as the dyspeptic for pills. But I fail to see the connection between pharmacy and magazines, or stationery or candy. By selling these the druggist puts himself at once into competition with the department stores. There can be no doubt about who will win out in any such competition as that. But I believe there is still a place in the community for any special line of business if its proprietor sticks to his specialty and makes himself a recognized expert in it. The department store spreads itself too thin--there is no room for intensive development at any point of its vast expanse. Its general success is due to this very fact. I am not now speaking of the rural community where there is room only for one general store selling everything that the community needs. But my statement holds good for the city and the large town. Let me illustrate by an instance in which we librarians are professionally interested--the book store. Once every town had its book-store. Now they are rare. We have few such stores even in a city of the size of St. Louis. Every department store has its book-section. They are rarely satisfactory. Everybody is lamenting the disappearance of the old book-store, with its old scholarly proprietor who knew books and the book-market; who loved books and the book-business. Quarts of ink have been wasted in trying to account for his disappearance. The Public Library, for one thing, has been blamed for it. I have no time now to disprove this, though it is very clear to me that libraries help the book trade instead of hindering it. I shall simply give you my version of the trouble. The book-dealer disappeared, as soon as he entered into competition with the department store. He put in side lines of toys, and art supplies, and cameras and candy. He began to spread himself thin and had no time for expert concentration on his one specialty. Thus he lost his one advantage over the department store--his strength in the region where it was weak; and of course he succumbed. If you will think for a moment of the special businesses that have survived the competition of the department store, you will see that they are precisely the ones that have resisted this temptation to spread themselves and have been content to remain experts. Look at the men's furnishing stores. Would they have survived if they had begun to sell cigars and lawn-mowers? Look at the retail shoe stores, the opticians, the cigar stores, the bakers, the meat markets, the confectioners, the restaurants of all grades! They have all to compete with the department stores, but their customers realize that they have something to offer that can be offered by no department store--expert service in one line, due to some one's life-long training, experience and devotion to the public. I do not want the pharmacist to go the way of the book dealers. Already some of the department stores include drug departments. I do not see how these can be as good as independent pharmacies. But I do not see the essential difference between a drug department in a store that sells also cigars and stationery and confectionery, and a so-called independent pharmacy that also distributes these very things. I am assuming that the druggist is an expert. That is the object of our colleges of pharmacy, as I understand the matter. As a librarian I want to deal with a book man who knows more of the book business than I do. I want to ask his advice and be able to rely on it. When I have printing to be done, I like to give it to a man who knows more about the printed page than I do. When I buy bread, or shoes, or a house, or a farm I like to deal with recognized experts in these articles. How much more when I am purchasing substances where expert knowledge will turn the balance between life and death. I have gossiped with pharmacists enough to know that all physicians do not avoid incompatibles in their prescriptions, and that occasionally a combination falls into the prescription clerk's hands, which, if made up as he reads it would produce a poisonous compound, or perhaps even an explosive mixture. Two heads are better than one, and if my physician ever makes a mistake of this kind I look to my pharmacist to see that it shall not reach the practical stage. I recognize the great value and service of the department store, but I do not go there for my law or medicine; neither do I care to resort thither for my pharmacy. I want our separate drug stores to persist, and I want them to remain in charge of experts. And when the store deals in other things than purely therapeutic preparations--which I have already said I think probably unavoidable,--I want it to present the aspect of a pharmacy that deals also in toilet preparations and mineral water, not of an establishment for dispensing soda-water and soap, where one may have a prescription filled on the side, in an emergency. And when the emergency does arise, I should have the pharmacy respond to it. It is the place where we naturally look in an emergency--the spot to which the victim of an accident is carried directly--the one where the lady bends her steps when she feels that she is going to faint. In hundreds of cases the drug store is our only standby, and it should be the druggist's business to see that it never fails us. There are pharmacies where a telephone message brings an unfailing response; there are others to which one would as soon think of sending an inquiry regarding a Biblical quotation. To which type, do you think, will the public prefer to resort? Then there are those little courtesies that no retail business is obliged to offer, but that the public has been accustomed to expect from the druggist--the cashing of checks, the changing of bills, the furnishing of postage stamps, the consultation of the city directory. There can be no reason for resorting to a drug store for all these favors except that the pharmacist has an enviable reputation as the man who is most likely to grant them. And yet I begin to hear druggists complaining of the results of this reputation, of which they ought to be proud; I see them pointing out that there is no profit on postage stamps and no commission for changing a bill. They intimate, further, that although it may be proper for them to put themselves out for regular customers, it is absurd for strangers to ask for these courtesies. I marvel when I hear these sentiments. If this popular impression regarding the courtesy of the druggist did not exist, it would be worth the expenditure of vast sums and the labor of a lifetime to create it. To deliberately undo it would be as foolish as to lock the door in the face of customers. I do not believe that in St. Louis the pharmaceutical profession is generally averse to a reputation for generous public service, and I base my belief on some degree of personal knowledge. The St. Louis Public Library operates about sixty delivery stations in various parts of the city. These stations are all in drug stores. The work connected with them, though light, is by no means inconsiderable, and yet not one of the druggists who undertake it charges the library a cent for his space or his services. Doubtless they expect a return from the increased attractiveness of their places to the public. I hope that they get it and I believe that they do. At any rate we have evidence here of the pharmacist's belief that the bread of public service, cast upon the waters, will sooner or later return. You will notice that I am saying nothing about advertising. One would think from the pharmaceutical papers, with which I am not unfamiliar, that the druggist's chief end was to have a sensational show window of some kind. These things are not unimportant, but I do not dwell on them because I believe that if a druggist realizes the importance of his profession; if he makes himself a recognized expert in it; if he sticks to it and magnifies it; if he makes his place indispensable to the community around him, the first point to which the citizens resort for help in an emergency, an unfailing center of courtesy and favor--he may fill his window with toilet soap, or monkeys, or with nothing at all--there will still be a trodden path up to his door. Gentlemen, you have chosen as your life work a profession that I believe to be indispensable to human welfare--one of enviable tradition and honor and with standing and reputation in the community that set it apart, in some degree from all others. And while I would not have you neglect the material success that it may bring you, I would urge you to expect this as a result rather than strive for it as an immediate end. I would have you labor to maintain and develop the special knowledge that you have gained in this institution, to hold up the standard of courtesy and helpfulness under which you can best do public service, confident that if you do these things, business standing and financial success will also be added unto you. HOW THE COMMUNITY EDUCATES ITSELF[15] [15] Read before the American Library Association, Asbury Park, N.J., June 27, 1916. In endeavoring to distinguish between self-education and education by others, one meets with considerable difficulty. If a boy reads Mill's "Political Economy'" he is surely educating himself; but if after reading each chapter he visits a class and answers certain questions propounded for the purpose of ascertaining whether he has read it at all, or has read it understandingly, then we are accustomed to transfer the credit for the educative process to the questioner, and say that the boy has been educated at school or college. As a matter of fact, I think most of us are self-educated. Not only is most of what an adult knows and can do, acquired outside of school, but in most of what he learned even there he was self-taught. His so-called teachers assigned tasks to him and saw that he performed them. If he did not, they subjected him to discipline. Once or twice in a lifetime most of us have run up against a real teacher--a man or a woman that really played a major part in shaping our minds as they now are--our stock of knowledge, our ways of thought, our methods of doing things. These men have stood and are still standing (though they may have joined the great majority long ago) athwart the stream of sensation as it passes through us, and are determining what part shall be stored up, and where; what kind of action shall ultimately result from it. The influence of a good teacher spreads farther and lasts longer than that of any other man. If his words have been recorded in books it may reach across the seas and down the ages. There is another reason why the distinction between school education and self-education breaks down. If the boy with whom we began had any teacher at all it was John Stuart Mill, and this man was his teacher whether or not his reading of the book was prescribed and tested in a class-room. I would not have you think that I would abolish schools and colleges. I wish we had more of the right kind, but the chief factor in educative acquirement will still be the pupil. So when the community educates itself, as it doubtless does and as it must do, it simply continues a process with which it has always been familiar, but without control, or under its own control. Of all the things that we learn, control is the most vital. What we are is the sum of those things that we do not repress. We begin without self-repression and have to be controlled by others. When we learn to exercise control ourselves, it is right that even our education should revert wholly to what it has long been in greater part--a voluntary process. This does not mean that at this time the pupil abandons guidance. It means that he is free to choose his own guides and the place and method of using them. Some rely wholly on experience; others are wise enough to see that life is too short and too narrow to acquire all that we need, and they set about to make use also of that acquired by others. Some of these wiser ones use only their companions and acquaintances; others read books. The wisest are opportunists; they make use of all these methods as they have occasion. Their reading does not make them avoid the exchange of ideas by conversation, nor does the acquirement of ideas in either way preclude learning daily by experience, or make reflection useless or unnecessary. He who lives a full life acquires ideas as he may, causes them to combine, change and generate in his own mind, and then translates them into action of some kind. He who omits any of these things cannot be said to have really lived. He cannot, it is true, fail to acquire ideas unless he is an idiot; but he may fail to acquire them broadly, and may even make the mistake of thinking that he can create them in his own mind. He may, however, acquire fully and then merely store without change or combination; that is, he may turn his brain into a warehouse instead of using it as a factory. And the man who has acquired broadly and worked over his raw material into a product of his own, may still stop there and never do anything. Our whole organism is subsidiary to action and he who stops short of it has surely failed to live. Our educative processes, so far, have dwelt heavily on acquirement, somewhat lightly on mental assimilation and digestion, and have left action almost untouched. In these two latter respects, especially, is the community self-educated. The fact that I am saying this here, and to you, is a sufficient guaranty that I am to lay some emphasis on the part played by books in these self-educative processes. A book is at once a carrier and a tool; it transports the idea and plants it. It is a carrier both in time and in space--the idea that it implants may be a foreign idea, or an ancient idea, or both. Either of its functions may for the moment be paramount; a book may bring to you ideas whose implantation your brain resists, or it may be used to implant ideas that are already present, as when an instructor uses his own text book. Neither of these two cases represents education in the fullest sense. You will notice that I have not yet defined education. I do not intend to try, for my time is limited. But in the course of my own educative processes, which I trust are still proceeding, the tendency grows stronger and stronger to insist on an intimate connection with reality in all education--to making it a realization that we are to do something and a yearning to be able to do it. The man who has never run up against things as they are, who has lived in a world of moonshine, who sees crooked and attempts what is impossible and what is useless--is he educated? I used to wonder what a realist was. Now that I am becoming one myself I begin dimly to understand. He certainly is not a man devoid of ideals, but they are real ideals, if you will pardon the bull. I believe that I am in goodly company. The library as I see it has also set its face toward the real. What else is meant by our business branches, our technology rooms, our legislative and municipal reference departments? They mean that slow as we may be to respond to community thought and to do our part in carrying on community education, we are vastly more sensitive than the school, which still turns up its nose at efforts like the Gary system; than the stage, which still teaches its actors to be stagy instead of natural; even than the producers of the very literature that we help to circulate, who rarely know how even to represent the conversation of two human beings as it really is. And when a great new vehicle of popular artistic expression arises, like the moving picture, those who purvey it spend their millions to build mock cities instead of to reproduce the reality that it is their special privilege to be able to show. And they hire stage actors to show off their staginess on the screen--staginess that is a thousand times more stagy because its background is of waving foliage and glimmering water, instead of the painted canvas in front of which it belongs. The heart of the community is right. Its heroine is Mary Pickford. It rises to realism as one man. The little dog who cannot pose, and who pants and wags his tail on the screen as he would anywhere else, elicits thunderous applause. The baby who puckers up its face and cries, oblivious of its environment, is always a favorite. But the trend of all this, these institutions cannot see. We librarians are seeing it a little more clearly. We may see it--we shall see it, more clearly still. The self-education of a community often depends very closely on bonds of connection already established between the minds of that community's individual members. Sometimes it depends on a sudden connection made through the agency of a single event of overwhelming importance and interest. Let me illustrate what I mean by connection of this kind. For many years it was my duty to cross the Hudson river twice daily on a crowded ferry-boat, and it used to interest me to watch the behavior of the crowds under the influence of simple impulses affecting them all alike. I am happy to say that I never had an opportunity of observing the effect of complex impulses such as those of panic terror. I used particularly to watch, from the vantage point of a stairway whence I could look over their heads, the behavior of the crowd standing in the cabin just before the boat made its landing. Each person in the crowd stood still quietly, and the tendency was toward a loose formation to ensure comfort and some freedom of movement. At the same time each was ready and anxious to move forward as soon as the landing should be made. Only those in front could see the bow of the ferryboat; the others could see nothing but the persons directly in front of them. When those in the front rank saw that the landing was very near they began to move forward; those just behind followed suit and so on to the rear. The result was that I saw a wave of compression, of the same sort as a sound-wave in air, move through the throng. The individual motions were forward but the wave moved backward. No better example of a wave of this kind could be devised. Now the actions and reactions between the air-particles in a sound wave are purely mechanical. Not so here. There was neither pushing nor pulling of the ordinary kind. Each person moved forward because his mind was fixed on moving forward at the earliest opportunity, and because the forward movement of those just in front showed him that now was the time and the opportunity. The physical link, if there was one, properly speaking, between one movement and another was something like this: A wave of light, reflected from the body of the man in front, entered the eye of the man just behind, where it was transformed into a nerve impulse that readied the brain through the optic nerve. Here it underwent complicated transformations and reactions whose nature we can but surmise, until it left the brain as a motor impulse and caused the leg muscles to contract, moving their owner forward. All this may or may not have taken place within the sphere of consciousness; in the most cases it had happened so often that it had been relegated to that of unconscious cerebration. I have entered into so much detail because I want to make it clear that a connection may be established between members of a group, even so casual a group as that of persons who happen to cross on the same ferry boat, that is so real and compelling, that its results simulate those of physical forces. In thin case the results were dependent on the existence in the crowd of one common bond of interest. They all wanted to leave the ferry boat as soon as possible, and by its bow. If some of them had wanted to stay on the boat and go back with it, or if it had been a river steamboat where landings were made from several gangways in different parts of the boat the simple wave of compression that I saw would not have been set up. In like manner the ordinary influences that act on men's minds tend in all sorts of directions and their results are not easily traced. Occasionally, however, there occurs some event so great that it turns us all in the same direction and establishes a common network of psychical connections. Such an event fosters community education. We have lately witnessed such a phenomenon in the sudden outbreak of the great European War. Probably no person in the community as we librarians know it remained unaffected by this event. In most it aroused some kind of a desire to know what was going on. It was necessary that most of us should know a little more than we did of the differences in racial temperament and aim among the inhabitants of the warring nations, of such movements as Pan-Slavism and Pan-Germanism, of the recent political history of Europe, of modern military tactics and strategy, of international law, of geography, of the pronunciation of foreign placenames, of the chemistry of explosives--of a thousand things regarding which we had hitherto lacked the impulse to inform ourselves. This sort of thing is going on in a community every day, but here was a catastrophe setting in motion a mighty brain-wave that had twisted us all in one direction. Notice now what a conspicuous role our public libraries play in phenomena of this kind. In the first place, the newspaper and periodical press reflects at once the interest that has been aroused. Where man's unaided curiosity would suggest one question it adds a hundred others. Problems that would otherwise seem simple enough now appear complex--the whole mental interest is intensified. At the same time there is an attempt to satisfy the questions thus raised. The man who did not know about the Belgian treaty, or the possible use of submarines as commerce-destroyers, has all the issues put before him with at least an attempt to settle them. This service of the press to community education would be attempted, but it would not be successfully rendered, without the aid of the public library, for it has come to pass that the library is now almost the only non-partisan institution that we possess; and community education, to be effective, must be non-partisan. The press is almost necessarily biassed. The man who is prejudiced prefers the paper or the magazine that will cater to his prejudices, inflame them, cause him to think that they are reasoned results instead of prejudices. If he keeps away from the public library he may succeed in blinding himself; if he uses it he can hardly do so. He will find there not only his own side but all the others; if he has the ordinary curiosity that is our mortal heritage he cannot help glancing at the opinions of others occasionally. No man is really educated who does not at least know that another side exists to the question on which he has already made up his mind--or had it made up for him. Further, no one is content to stop with the ordinary periodical literature. The flood of books inspired by this war is one of the most astonishing things about it. Most libraries are struggling to keep up with it in some degree. Very few of these books would be within the reach of most of us were it not for the library. I beg you to notice the difference in the reaction of the library to this war and that of the public school as indicative of the difference between formal educative processes, as we carry them on, and the self-education of the community. I have emphasized the freedom of the library from bias. The school is necessarily biassed--perhaps properly so. You remember the story of the candidate for a district school who, when asked by an examining committee-man whether the earth was round or flat, replied, "Well, some says one and some t'other. I teach either round or flat, as the parents wish." Now, there are books that maintain the flatness of the earth, and they properly find a place on the shelves of large public libraries. Those who wish to compare the arguments pro and con are at liberty to do so. Even in such a _res adjudicata_ as this the library takes no sides. But in spite of the obliging school candidate, the school cannot proceed in this way. The teaching of the child must be definite. And there are other subjects, historical ones for instance, in which the school's attitude may be determined by its location, its environment, its management. When it is a public school and its controlling authority is really trying to give impartial instruction there are some subjects that must simply be skipped, leaving them to be covered by post-scholastic community education. This is the school's limitation. Only the policy of caution is very apt to be carried too far. Thus we find that in the school the immense educational drive of the European War has not been utilized as it has in the community at large. In some places the school authorities have erected a barrier against it. So far as they are concerned the war has been non-existent. This difference between the library and the school appears in such reports as the following from a branch librarian: "Throughout the autumn and most of the winter we found it absolutely impossible to supply the demand for books about the war. Everything we had on the subject or akin to it--books, magazines, pamphlets--were in constant use. Books of travel and history about the warring countries became popular--things that for years had been used but rarely became suddenly vitally interesting. "I have been greatly interested by the fact that the high school boys and girls never ask for anything about the war. Not once during the winter have I seen in one of them a spark of interest in the subject. It seems so strange that it should be necessary to keep them officially ignorant of this great war because the grandfather of one spoke French and of another German." Another librarian says: "The war again has naturally stimulated an interest in maps. With every turn in military affairs, new ones are issued and added to our collection. These maps, as received, have been exhibited for short periods upon screens and they have never lacked an appreciative line of spectators, representing all nationalities." One noticeable effect of the war in libraries has been to stimulate the marking of books, periodicals and newspapers by readers, especially in periodical rooms. Readers with strong feelings cannot resist annotating articles or chapters that express opinions in which they cannot concur. Pictures of generals or royalties are especially liable to defacement with opprobrious epithets. This feeling extends even to bulletins. Libraries receive strenuous protests against the display of portraits and other material relating to one of the contesting parties without similar material on the other side to offset it. "Efforts to be strictly neutral have not always met with success, some readers apparently regarding neutrality as synonymous with suppression of everything favorable to the opposite side. One library reports that the display of an English military portrait called forth an energetic protest because it was not balanced by a German one." Such manifestations as these are merely symptoms. The impulse of the war toward community education is a tremendous one and it is not strange that it should find an outlet in all sorts of odd ways. The German sympathizer who would not ordinarily think of objecting to the display of an English portrait, and in fact would probably not think of examining it closely enough to know whether it was English or Austrian, has now become alert. His alertness makes him open to educative influences, but it may also show itself in such ways as that just noted. Keeping the war out of the schools is of course a purely local phenomenon, to be deprecated where it occurs. The library can do its part here also. "G. Stanley Hall believes that the problem of teaching the war is how to utilize in the very best way the wonderful opportunity to open, see and feel the innumerable and vital lessons involved." Commenting on this a children's librarian says: "The unparalleled opportunity offered to our country, and the new complex problems presented by these new conditions should make the children's librarian pause and take heed. "Can we do our part toward using the boy's loyalty to his gang or his nine, his love of his country, his respect for our flag, his devotion to our heroes, in developing a sense of human brotherhood which alone can prevent or delay in the next generation another such catastrophe as the one we face to-day?" Exclusion of the war from the schools is partly the outcome of the general attitude of most of our schoolmen, who object to the teaching of a subject as an incidental. Arithmetic must be studied for itself alone. To absorb it as a by-product of shop-work, as is done in Gary, is inadmissible. But it is also a result of the fear that teaching the war at all would necessarily mean a partisan teaching of it--a conclusion which perhaps we cannot condemn when we remember the partisan instruction in various other subjects for which our schools are responsible. Again, this exclusion is doubtless aided by the efforts of some pacifists, who believe that, ostrich-like, we should hide our heads in the sand, to avoid acknowledging the existence of something we do not like. "Why war?" asks a recent pamphlet. Why, indeed? But we may ask in turn "Why fire?" "Why flood?" I cannot answer these questions, but it would be foolish to act as if the scourges did not exist. Nay, I hasten to insure myself against them, though the possibility that they will injure me is remote. This ultra-pacifist attitude has gone further than school education and is trying to put the lid on community education also. Objection, for instance, has been made to an exhibit of books, prints and posters about the war, which was displayed in the St. Louis Public Library for nearly two months. We intended to let it stand for about a week, but the public would not allow this. The community insists on self-education even against the will of its natural allies. The contention that we are cultivating the innate blood-thirstiness of our public, I regard as absurd. What can we do toward generating or taking advantage of other great driving impulses toward community education? Must we wait for the horrors of a great war to teach us geography, industrial chemistry and international law? Is it necessary to burn down a house every time we want to roast a pig? Certainly not. But just as one would not think of bringing on any kind of a catastrophe in order to utilize its shock for educational purposes, so also I doubt very much whether we need concern ourselves about the initiation of any impulse toward popular education. These impulses exist everywhere in great number and variety and we need only to select the right one and reinforce it. Attempts to generate others are rarely effective. When we hear the rich mellow tone of a great organ pipe, it is difficult to realize that all the pipe does is to reinforce a selected tone among thousands of indistinguishable noises made by the air rushing through a slit and striking against an edge. Yet this is the fact. These incipient impulses permeate the community all about us; all we have to do is to select one, feed it and give it play and we shall have an "educational movement." This fact is strongly impressed upon anyone working with clubs. If it is desired to foster some movement by means of an organization, it is rarely necessary to form one for the purpose. Every community teems with clubs, associations and circles. All that is needed is to capture the right one and back it up. Politicians well understand this art of capture and use it often for evil purposes. In the librarian's hands it becomes an instrument for good. Better than to offer a course of twenty lectures under the auspices of the library is it to capture a club, give it house-room, and help it with its program. I am proud of the fact that in fifteen public rooms in our library, about four thousand meetings are held in the course of the year; but I am inclined to be still prouder of the fact that not one of these is held formally under the auspices of the library or is visibly patronized by it. To go back to our thesis, all education is self-education; we can only select, guide and strengthen, but when we have done these things adequately, we have done a very great work indeed. What is true of assemblies and clubs is also true of the selection and use of books. A book purchased in response to a demand is worth a dozen bought because the librarian thinks the library ought to have them. The possibilities of free suggestion by the community are, it seems to me, far from realized, yet even as it is, I believe that librarians have an unexampled opportunity of feeling out promising tendencies in this great flutter of educational impulses all about us, and so of selecting the right ones and helping them on. Almost while I have been writing this I have been visited by a delegate from the foundrymen's club--an organization that wants more books on foundry practice and wants them placed together in a convenient spot. Such a visit is of course a heaven-sent opportunity and I suppose I betrayed something of my pleasure in my manner. My visitor said, "I am so glad you feel this way about it; we have been meaning for some time to call on you, but we were in doubt about how we should be received." Such moments are humiliating to the librarian. Great heavens! Have we advertised, discussed, talked and plastered our towns with publicity, only to learn at last that the spokesman of a body of respectable men, asking legitimate service, rather expects to be kicked downstairs than otherwise when he approaches us? Is our publicity failing in quantity or in quality? Whatever may be the matter, it is in response to demands like this that the library must play its part in community education. Here as elsewhere it is the foundrymen who are the important factors--their attitude, their desires, their capabilities. Our function is that of the organ pipe--to pick out the impulse, respond to it and give it volume and carrying power. The community will educate itself whether we help or not. It is permeated by lines of intelligence as the magnetic field is by lines of force. Thrust in a bit of soft iron and the force-lines will change their direction in order to pass through the iron. Thrust a book into the community field, and its lines of intelligence will change direction in order to take in the contents of the book. If we could map out the field we should see great masses of lines sweeping through our public libraries. All about us we see men who tell us that they despair of democracy; that at any rate, whatever its advantages, democracy can never be "efficient." Efficient for what? Efficiency is a relative quality, not absolute. A big German howitzer would be about as inefficient a tool as could be imagined, for serving an apple-pie. Beside, democracy is a goal; we have not reached it yet; we shall never reach it if we decide that it is undesirable. The path toward it is the path of Nature, which leads through conflicts, survivals, and modifications. Part of it is the path of community education, which I believe to be efficient in that it is leading on toward a definite goal. Part of Nature is man, with his desires, hopes and abilities. Some men, and many women, are librarians, in whom these desires and hopes have definite aims and in whom the corresponding abilities are more or less developed. We are all thus cogs in Nature's great scheme for community education; let us be intelligent cogs, and help the movement on instead of hindering it. CLUBWOMEN'S READING I--_The Malady_ A well-dressed woman entered the Art Department of a large public library. "Have you any material on the Medici?" she asked the custodian. "Yes; just what kind of material do you want?" "Stop a minute," cried the woman, extending a detaining hand; "before you get me anything, just tell me what they are!" Librarians are trained not to laugh. No one could have detected the ghost of a smile on this one's face as she lifted the "M" volume of a cyclopedia from a shelf and placed it on the table before the seeker after knowledge. "There; that will tell you," she said, and returned to her work. Not long afterward she was summoned by a beckoning finger. "I can't tell from this book," said the perplexed student, "whether the Medici were a family or a race of people." The Art Librarian tried to untie this knot, but it was not long before another presented itself. "This book doesn't explain," said the troubled investigator, "whether the Medici were Florentines or Italians." Still without a quiver, the art assistant emitted the required drop of information. "Shan't I get you something more now?" she asked. "Oh, no; this will be quite sufficient," and taking out pencil and paper the inquirer began to write rapidly with the cyclopedia propped before her. Presently, when the Art Librarian looked up, her guest had disappeared. But she was on hand the next morning. "May I see that book again?" she asked sweetly. "There are some words here in my copy that I can't quite make out." On another occasion a reader, of the same sex, wandered into the reading-room and began to gaze about her with that peculiar sort of perplexed aimlessness that librarians have come to recognise instinctively as an index to the wearer's state of mind. "Have you anything on American travels?" she asked. "Do you mean travels in America, or travels by Americans in foreign countries?" "Well; I don't know--exactly." "Do you want books like Dickens's _American Notes_, that give a foreigner's impression of this country?" "Ye-es--possibly." "Or books like Hawthorne's _Note Book_, telling how a foreign country appears to an American?" "We-ell; perhaps." "Are you following a programme of reading?" "Yes." "May I see it? That may give me a clue." "I haven't a copy here." "Can you give me the name of the person or committee who made it?" "Oh, I _made_ it _myself_." This was a "facer"; the librarian seemed to have brought up against a stone wall, but she waited, knowing that a situation, unlike a knot, will sometimes untie itself. The seeker after knowledge also waited for a time. Then she broke out animatedly: "Why, I just wanted American travels, don't you know? Funny little stories and things about the sort of Americans that go abroad with a bird-cage!" Just what books were given to her I do not know; but in due time her interesting paper before the Olla Podrida Club was properly noticed in the local papers. In another case a perplexed club-woman came to a library for aid in making a programme of reading. "Have you some ideas about the subject you want to take up?" asked the reference assistant. "Well, we had thought of England, or perhaps Scotland; and some of us would like the Elizabethan Period." The assistant, after some faithful work, produced a list of books and articles on each of these somewhat comprehensive subjects and sent them to the reader for selection. "Which did you finally take?" she asked when the inquirer next visited the library. "Oh, they were so good, we decided to use all of them this year!" The writer is no pessimist. These stories which are as true, word for word, as any tales not taken down by a stenographer (and far more so than some that are) seemed to throw the persons who told them into a sort of dumb despair, but I hastened to reassure them. I pointed out that the inquirers after knowledge had, beyond all doubt, obtained some modicum of what they wanted. If the lady in the first tale, for instance, had mistakenly supposed that the Medici were a new kind of dance or something to eat, she surely has been disabused. And her cyclopedia article was probably as well written as most of its kind, so that a literal transcript of it could have done no harm either to the copyist or to her clubmates. And the paper on "American Travels," and the combined lists on England, Scotland and the Elizabethan Period; did not those who laboured on them, or with them, acquire information in the process? Most assuredly! Still, I must confess that, in advancing these arguments, I feel somewhat like an _advocatus diaboli_. It is all very well to treat the puzzled clubwoman as a joke. When a man slips on a banana-peel and goes down, we may laugh at his plight; but suppose the whole crowd of passers-by began to pitch and slide and tumble! Should we not think that some horrible epidemic had laid its hand on us? The ladies with their Medici and their Travels are not isolated instances. Ask the librarians; they know, but in countless instances they do not tell, for fear of casting ridicule upon the hundreds of intelligent clubwomen whom they are proud to help. In many libraries there is a standing rule against repeating or discussing the errors and slips of the public, especially to the ever hungry reporter. I break this rule here with equanimity, and even with a certain degree of hope, for my object is to awaken my readers to the knowledge that part of the reading public is suffering from a malady of some kind. Later I may try my hand at diagnosis and even at therapeutics. And I am taking as an illustration chiefly the reading done by women's clubs, not because men do not do reading of the same kind, or because it is not done by individuals as well as by groups; but because, just at the present time, women in general, and clubwomen in particular, seem especially likely to be attacked by the disease. It must be remembered also that I am writing from the standpoint of the public library, and I here make humble acknowledgement of the fact that many things in the educational field, both good and bad, go on quite outside of that institution and beyond its ken. The intellectual bonds between the library and the woman's club have always been close. Many libraries are the children of such clubs; many clubs have been formed in and by libraries. If any mistakes are being made in the general policies and programmes of club reading, the librarian would naturally be the first to know it, and he ought to speak out. He does know it, and his knowledge should become public property at once. But, I repeat, although the trouble is conspicuous in connection with the reading of women's clubs, it is far more general and deeply rooted than this. The malady's chief symptom, which is well known to all librarians, is a lack of correspondence between certain readers and the books that they choose. Reading, like conversation, is the meeting of two minds. If there is no contact, the process fails. If the cogs on the gearwheels do not interact, the machine can not work. If the reader of a book on algebra does not understand arithmetic; if he tackles a philosophical essay on the representative function without knowing what the phrase means; if he tries to read a French book without knowing the language, his mind is not fitted for contact with that of the writer, and the mental machinery will not move. In the early days of the Open Shelf, before librarians had realised the necessity of copious assignments to "floor duty," and before there were children's librarians, I saw in a branch library a small child staggering under the weight of a volume of Schaff's _History of the Christian Church_, which he had taken from the shelves and was presenting at the desk to be charged. "You are not going to read that, are you?" said the desk assistant. "It isn't for me; it's for me big brudder." "What did your big brother ask you to get?" "Oh, a Physiology!" Nowadays, our well-organised children's rooms make such an occurrence doubtful with the little ones, but apparently there is much of it with adults. Too much of our reading--I should rather say our attempts at reading--is of this character. Such attempts are the result of a tendency to regard the printed page as a fetich--to think that if one knows his alphabet and can call the printed words one after another as his eye runs along the line, some unexplained good will result, or at least that he has performed a praiseworthy act, has "accumulated merit" somehow or somewhere, like a Thibetan with his prayer-wheel. It is probably a fact that if a man should meet you in the street and say, "In beatific repentance lies jejune responsibility," you would stare at him and pass him by, or perhaps flee from him as from a lunatic; whereas if you saw these words printed in a book you might gravely study them to ascertain their meaning, or still worse, might succeed in reading your own meaning into them. The words I have strung together happen to have no meaning, but the result would be the same if they meant something that was hidden from the reader by his inability to understand them, no matter what the cause of that inability might be. This malady is doubtless spontaneous in some degree, and dependent on failings of the human mind that we need not discuss here, but there are signs that it is being fostered, spread, and made more acute by special influences. Probably our educational methods are not altogether blameless. The boy who trustfully approached a Reference Librarian and said, "I have to write a composition on what I saw between home and school; have you got a book about that?" had doubtless been taught that he must look in a book for everything. The conscientious teacher who was now trying to separate him from his notion may have been the very one who, perhaps unconsciously, had instilled it; if so, her fault had thus returned to plague her. The boy or girl who comes to attach a sacredness or a wizardry to the book in itself will naturally believe, after a little, that whether he understands what is in it matters little--and this is the malady of which we have been complaining. A college teacher of the differential calculus, in a time now happily long past, when a pupil timidly inquired the reason for this or that, was wont to fix the interrogator with his eye and say, "Sir; it is so because the book says so!" Even in more recent days a well-known university teacher, accustomed to use his own text-book, used to say when a student had ventured to vary its classic phraseology, "It can not be expressed better than in the words of the book!?" These instances, of course, are taken from the dark ages of education, but even to-day I believe that a false idea of the value of a printed page merely as print--not as the record of a mind, ready to make contact with the mind of a reader--has impressed itself too deeply on the brains of many children at an age when such impressions are apt to be durable. Not that the schools are especially at fault; we have all played our part in this unfortunate business. It might all fade, at length; we all know that many good teachings of our childhood do vanish; why should not the bad ones occasionally follow suit? But now come in all the well-meaning instructors of the adult--the Chautauquans, the educational extensionists, the lecturers, the correspondence schools, the advisers of reading, the makers of booklists, the devisers of "courses." They deepen the fleeting impression and increase its capacity for harm, while varying slightly the mechanism that produced it. As the child grows into a man, his childish idea that a book will produce a certain effect independently of what it contains is apt to yield a little to reason. The new influences, some of which I have named above, do not attempt directly to combat this dawning intelligence; they utilise it to complete the mental discomfiture of their victims. They admit the necessity of comprehending the contents of the book, but they persuade the reader that such comprehension is easier than it really is. And they often administer specially concocted tabloids that convince one that he knows more than he really does. Thus the unsuspecting adult goes on reading what he does not understand, not now thinking that it does not matter, but falsely persuaded that he has become competent to understand. Every one of the agencies that I have named aims to do good educational work; every one is competent to do such work; nearly every one does much of it. I am finding fault with them only so far as they succeed in persuading readers that they are better educated than they really are. In this respect such agencies are precisely on a par with the proprietary medicine that is an excellent laxative or sudorific, but is offered also as a cure for tuberculosis or cancer. I once heard the honoured head of a famous body that does an enormous amount of work of this sort deliver an _apologia_, deserving of all attention, in which he complained that his institution had been falsely accused of superficiality. It was, he said, perfectly honest in what it taught. If its pupils thought that the elementary knowledge they were gaining was comprehensive and thorough, that was their fault--not his. And vet, at that moment, the institution was posing before its pupils as a "university" and using the forms and nomenclature of such a body to strengthen the idea in their minds. We cannot acquit it, or any of the agencies like it, of complicity in the causation of the malady whose symptoms we are discussing. It is not the fault of the women's clubs that they have fallen into line in such an imposing procession as this. Their formation and work constitute one of the most interesting and important manifestations of the present feminist movement. Their rôle in it is partly social, partly educational; and as they consist of adults, elementary education is of course excluded from their programme. We therefore find them committed, perhaps unconsciously, to the plan of required or recommended reading, in a form that has long been the bane of our educational systems both in school and out. One of the corner-stones of this system is the idea that the acquisition of information is valuable in itself, no matter what may be the relationship between it and the acquiring mind, or what use of it may be made in the future. According to this idea, if a woman can once get into her head that the Medici were a family and not "a race of people," it matters little that she is unfitted to comprehend why they are worth reading about at all, or that the fact has nothing to do with what she has ever done or is likely to be called upon to do in the future. That the members of these clubs are willing to pursue knowledge under these hampering conditions is of course a point in their favour, so far as it goes. A desire for knowledge is never to be despised, even when it is not entertained for its own sake. And a secondary desire may often be changed into a primary one, if the task is approached in the right way. The possibility of such a transformation is a hopeful feature of the present situation. The reading that is done by women in connection with club work is of several different types. In the simplest organisations, which are reading clubs pure and simple, a group of books, roughly equal in number to the membership, is taken and passed around until each person has read them all. There is no connection between them, and each volume is selected simply on some one's statement that it is a "good book." A step higher is the club where the books are on one general subject, selected by some one who has been asked to prescribe a "course of reading." By easy gradations we arrive at the final stage, where the reading is of the nature of investigation and its outcome is an essay. A subject is decided on at the beginning of the season. The programme committee selects several phases of it and assigns each to a member, who prepares her essay and reads it to the club at one of the stated meetings. In this case the reading to be done in preparation for writing the essay may or may not be guided by the committee. In many cases, where the local public library cooperates actively with the clubs, a list may be made out by the librarian and perhaps printed, with due acknowledgment, in the club's year book. No one can doubt, in looking over typical programmes and lists among the thousands that represent the annual reading of the women's clubs throughout the United States, that a serious and sustained effort is being made to introduce the intellect, as an active factor, into the lives of thousands of women--lives where hitherto it has played little part, whether they are millionaires or near paupers, workers or idlers. With this aim there must be frill measure of sympathy, but I fear we can commend it only in the back-handed fashion in which a great authority on sociology recently commended the Socialists. "If sympathy with what they are trying to do, as opposed to the way in which they are trying to do it, makes one a Socialist," said the Professor, "then I am a Socialist." Here also we may sympathise with the aim, but the results are largely dependent on the method; and that method is the offspring of ignorance and inefficiency. The results may be summed up in one word--superficiality. I have elsewhere warned readers not to think that this word means simply a slight knowledge of a subject. A slight knowledge is all that most of us possess, or need to possess, about most subjects. I know a little about Montenegro for instance--something of its origin and relationships, its topography, the names and characteristics of a city or two, the racial and other peculiarities of its inhabitants. Yet I should cut a poor figure indeed in an examination on Montenegrin history, geography or government. Is my knowledge "superficial"? It could not properly be so stigmatised unless I should pose as an authority on Montenegro, or unless my opportunities to know about the country had been so great that failure to take advantage of them should argue mental incapacity. The trouble with the reading-lists and programmes of our women's clubs, inherited in some degree from our general educational methods, is that they emphasise their own content and ignore what they do not contain, to such an extent that those who use them remain largely in ignorance of the fact that the former bears a very small proportion indeed to the latter. It was once my duty to act as private tutor in algebra and geometry to a young man preparing for college. He was bright and industrious, but I found that he was under the impression that when he had gone to the end of his text-books in those two subjects he would have mastered, not only all the algebra and geometry, but all the mathematics, that the world held in store. And when this story has been told in despair to some very intelligent persons they have commented: "Well, there isn't much more, is there?" The effort of the text-book writer, as well as that of the maker of programmes, lists, and courses, appears to have been to produce what he calls a "well-rounded" effect; in other words, to make the student think that the whole subject--in condensed form perhaps, but still the whole--lies within what he has turned out. Did you ever see a chemistry that gave, or tried to give, an idea of the world of chemical knowledge that environs its board cover? One has to become a Newton before he feels, with that sage, like a child, playing on the sands, with the great, unexplored ocean of knowledge stretching out before him. Most students are rather like ducks in a barn-yard puddle, quite sure that they are familiar with the whole world and serene in that knowledge. Most writers of text-books would indignantly deny that this criticism implies a fault. It is none of their business, they would say, to call attention to what is beyond their scope. So be it. Unfortunately, every one feels in the same way and so the horizon of our women's clubs is that of the puddle instead of the ocean. It is a most interesting fact in this connection that there exist certain organisations which make a business of furnishing clubwomen with information for their papers. I have heard this service described as a "godsend," to clubs in small places where there are no libraries, or where the libraries are poorly equipped with books and _personnel_. But, if I am correctly informed, the service does not stop with the supply of raw material; it goes on to the finished product, and the perplexed lady who is required to read a paper on "Melchisedek" or on "Popular Errors Regarding the Theory of Groups," may for an adequate fee, or possibly even for an inadequate one, obtain a neatly typewritten manuscript on the subject, ready to read. This sort of thing is not at all to be wondered at. It has gone on since the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen's sermons, the orations and official papers of statesmen. Whenever a man is confronted with an intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and widespread enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the supply on a commercial basis. What interests us in the present case is the fact that its existence in the woman's club affords an instant clue to the state of mind of many of its members. They have this in common with the plagiarising pupil, clergyman, or statesman--they are called upon to do something in which they have only a secondary interest. The minister who reads a sermon on the text "Thou Shalt Not Steal," and considers that the fact that he has paid five dollars for it will absolve him from the charge of inconsistency, does not--cannot--feel any desire to impress his congregation with a desire for right living--he wants only to hold his job. The university student who, after ascertaining that there is no copyable literature in the Library on "Why I Came to College," pays a classmate a dollar to give this information to the Faculty, cares nothing about the question; but he does care to avoid discipline. So the clubwoman who reads a purchased essay on "Ireland in the Fourteenth Century," has not the slightest interest in the subject; but she does want to remain a member of her club, in good and regular standing. It is the same substitution of adventitious for natural motives and stimuli that works intellectual havoc from the mother's knee up to the Halls of Congress. When I assert boldly that at the present time the majority of vague and illogical readers are women, and that women's clubs are responsible for much of that kind of reading, I shall doubtless incur the displeasure of the school of feminists who seem bent on minimising the differences between the two sexes. Obvious physical differences they have not been able to explain away, and to deny that corresponding mental differences exist is to shut one's eyes to all the teachings of modern physiology. The mental life is a function, not of the brain alone, but of the whole nervous system of which the brain is but the principal ganglion. Cut off a man's legs, and you have removed something from his mental, as well as from his physical equipment. That men and women should have minds of the same type is a physiological impossibility. A familiar way of stating the difference is to say that in the man's mind reason predominates, in the woman's, intuition. There is doubtless something to be said for this statement of the distinction, but it is objectionable because it is generally interpreted to mean--quite unnecessarily--that a woman's mind is inferior to a man's--a distinction about as foolish as it would be to say the negative electricity is inferior to positive, or cold to heat. The types are in most ways supplementary, and a combination of the two has always been a potent intellectual force--one of the strongest arguments for marriage as an institution. When we try to do the work of the world with either type alone we have generally made a mess of it. And the outcome seems to make it probable that the female type is especially prone to become the prey of fallacies like that which has brought about the present flood of useless, or worse than useless, reading. I shall doubtless be asked whether I assert that one type of mind belongs always to the man and one to the woman. By no means. I do not even lay emphasis on the necessity of naming the two types "male" and "female." All I say is that the types exist--with those intermediate cases that always bother the classifier--and that the great majority of men possess one type and the great majority of women the other. It is possible that differences of training may have originated or at least emphasised the types; it is possible that future training may obliterate the lines that separate them, but I do not believe it. I am even afraid of trying the experiment, for there is reason to believe that its success in the mental field might react unfavourably on those physical differences on which the future of the race depends. We may have gone too far in this direction already; else why the feverish anxiety of the girls' colleges to prove that their graduates are marrying and bearing children? The fact is that the problem of the education of the sexes is not yet solved. Educating one sex alone didn't work; neither, I believe, does the present plan of educating both alike, whether in the same institution, or separately. II--_A Diagnosis_ Reading, like conversation, is, or ought to be, a contact between two minds. The difference is that while one may talk only with his contemporaries and neighbours one may read the words of a writer far distant both in time and space. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the printed word has become a fetish, but fetishes of any kind are not in accordance with the spirit of the age, and their veneration should be discouraged. Reading in which the contact of minds is of secondary importance, or even cuts no figure at all, is meaningless and valueless. In a previous paper, reasons have been given for believing that reading of this kind is peculiarly prevalent among the members of women's clubs. The value of these organisations is so great, and the services that they have rendered to women, and through them to the general cause of social betterment, are so evident, that it seems well worth while to examine the matter a little more closely, and to complete a diagnosis based on the study of the symptoms that have already presented themselves. As most of the reading done in connection with clubs is in preparation for the writing and reading of papers, we may profitably, perhaps, direct our attention to this phase of the subject. Most persons will agree, probably, that the average club paper is not notably worth while. It is written by a person not primarily and vitally interested in the subject, and it is read to an assemblage most of whom are similarly devoid of interest--the whole proceeding being more or less perfunctory. Could it be expected that reading done in connection with such a performance should be valuable? This is worth pondering, because it is a fact that almost all the vital informative literature that is produced at first hand sees the light in connection with clubs and associations--bodies that publish journals, "transactions" or "proceedings" for the especial purpose of printing the productions of their members. This literature, for the most part, does not come to the notice of the general reader. The ordinary books on the technical subjects of which it treats are not raw material, but a manufactured product--compilations from the original sources. And the pity of it is that very many of them, often the best of them from a purely literary point of view, are so unsatisfactory, viewed from the point of view of accomplishment. They do not do what they set out to do; they are full of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, interpolations and omissions. It is the old story; those who know won't tell and the task is assumed by those who are eminently able to tell, but don't know. The scientific expert despises the public, which is forced to get its information through glib but ignorant expounders. This is a digression, but it may serve to illuminate the situation, which is that the authoritative literature of special subjects sees the light almost wholly in the form of papers, read before clubs and associations. Evidently there is nothing in the mere fact that a paper is to be read before a club, to make it trivial or valueless. Yet how much that is of value to the world first saw the light in a paper read before a woman's club? How much original thought, how much discovery, how much invention, how much inspiration, is put into their writing and emanates from their reading? There must be a fundamental difference of some kind between the constitution and the methods of these two kinds of clubs. A study of this difference will throw light on the kind of reading that must be done in connection with each and may explain, in great part, why the reading done for women's club-papers is what it is. A scientific or technical society exists largely for the purpose of informing its members of the original work that is being done by each of them. When anyone has accomplished such work or has made such progress that he thinks an account of what he has done would be interesting, he sends a description of it to the proper committee, which decides whether it shall be read and discussed at a meeting, or published in the Proceedings, or both, or neither. The result depends on the size of the membership, on its activity, and on the value of its work. It may be that the programme committee has an embarrassment of riches from which to select, or that there is poverty instead. But in no case does it arrange a programme. The Physical Society, if that is its name and subject, does not decide that it will devote the meetings of the current season to a consideration of Radio-activity and assign to specified members the reading of papers on Radio-active springs, the character of Radium Emanation, and so on. If it did, it would doubtless get precisely the same results that we are complaining of in the case of the Woman's Club. A man whose specialty is thermodynamics might be told off to prepare a paper on Radio-active Elements in Rocks--a subject in which he is not interested. He could have nothing new nor original to say on the subject and his paper would be a mere compilation. It would not even be a good compilation, for his interest and his skill would lie wholly in another direction. The good results that the society does get are wholly dependent on the fact that each writer is full of new information that he desires, above all things, to communicate to his fellow-members. In the preparation of such a paper, one needs, of course, to read, and often to read widely. Much of the reading will be done in connection with the work described, or even before it is begun. No one wishes to undertake an investigation that has already been made by someone else, and so the first thing that a competent investigator does is to survey his field and ascertain what others have accomplished in it. This task is by no means easy, for such information is often hidden in journals and transactions that are difficult to reach, and the published indexes of such material, though wonderfully advanced on the road toward perfection in the past twenty years, have yet far to travel before they reach it. Not only the writer's description of what he has done or ascertained, but the character of the work itself; the direction it takes--the inferences that he draws from it, will be controlled and coloured by what he reads of others' work. And even if he finds it easy to ascertain what has been done and to get at the published accounts and discussions of it, the mass may be so great that he has laid out for him a course of reading that may last many months. But mark the spirit with which he attacks it! He is at work on something that seems to him supremely worth while. He is labouring to find out truth, to dissipate error, to help his fellow-men to know something or to do something. The impulse to read, and to read much and thoroughly, is so powerful that it may even need judicious repression. The difference between this kind of reading and that done in the preparation of a paper to fill a place in a set programme hardly needs emphasis. The preparation of papers for professional and technical societies has been dwelt upon at such length, because I see no reason why the impulse to reading that it furnishes cannot also be placed at the disposal of the woman's club; and I shall have some suggestions toward this end in a future article. Meanwhile, I shall doubtless be told that it is unfair to compare the woman's club, with its didactic aim, and the scientific association of trained and interested investigators. It is true that we have plenty of clubs--some of men alone, some of both sexes--whose object is to listen to interesting and instructive papers on a set subject, often forming part of a pre-arranged programme. These, however, need our attention here only so far as the papers are prepared by members of the club, and in this case they are in precisely the same class as the woman's club. In many cases, however, the paper is merely the excuse for a social gathering, perhaps at a dinner or a luncheon. Of course if the paper or lecture is by an expert invited to give it, the case falls altogether outside of the region that we are exploring. I am condemning here all clubs, formed for an avowed educational or cultural purpose, that adopt set programmes and assign the subjects to their own members. I am deploring the kind of reading to which this leads, the kind of papers that are prepared in this way, and the kind of thought and action that are the inevitable outcome. It would seem that the women's clubs now form an immense majority of all organisations of this kind and that there are reasons for warning women that they are specially prone to this kind of mistake. The diversity of interests of the average man, the wideness of his contacts--the whole tradition of his sex--tends to minimise the injury that may be done to him, intellectually and spiritually, by anything of this kind. The very fact that he is the woman's inferior spiritually, and in many cases, in intellect, also--although probably not at the maximum--relieves him, in great part, of the odium attaching to the error that has been described. Women are becoming keenly alive to the deficiencies of their sex-tradition; they are trying to broaden their intellectual contacts--that is the great modern feminist movement. Some of those who are active in it are making two mistakes--they are ignoring the differences between the sexes and they are trying to substitute revolution for evolution. In this latter error they are in very good company--hardly one of the great and the good has not made it, at some time and in some way. Revolution is always the outcome of a mistake. The mistake may be antecedent and irrevocable, and the revolution therefore necessary, but this is rarely the case. The revolutionist runs a risk common to all who are in a hurry--he may break the object of his attention instead of moving it. When he wants to hand you a dish he hits it with a ball-bat. Taking a reasonable amount of time is better in the long run. That there is no royal road to knowledge has long been recognised. The trouble with most of us is that we have interpreted this to mean that the acquisition of knowledge must always be a distasteful process. On the contrary, the vivid interest that is the surest guide to knowledge is also the surest smoother of the path. Given the interest that lures the student on, and he will spend years in surmounting rocks and breaking through thorny jungles, realising their difficulties perhaps, but rejoicing the more when those difficulties prove no obstacles. The fact that the first step toward accomplishment is to create an interest has long been recognised, but attempts have been made too often to do it by devious ways, unrelated to the matter in hand. Students have been made to study history or algebra by offering prizes to the diligent and by threatening the slothful with punishment. More indirect rewards and punishments abound in all our incitements to effort and need not be mentioned here. They may often be effective, but the further removed they are from direct personal interest in the subject, the weaker and the less permanent is the result. You may offer a boy a dollar to learn certain facts in English history, but those facts will not be fixed so well or so lastingly in his mind as those connected with his last year's trip to California, which he remembers easily without offer of reward or threat of punishment. The interest in the facts gathered by reading in connection with the average club paper is merely the result of a desire to remain in good standing by fulfilling the duties of membership; and these duties may be fulfilled with slight effort and no direct interest, as we have already seen. If interest were present even at the inception of the programme, something would be gained; but in too many cases it is not. The programme committee must make some kind of a programme, but what it is to be they know little and care less. Two women recently entered a branch library and asked the librarian, who was busy charging books at the desk, what two American dramatists she considered "foremost." This was followed by the request, "Please tell me the two best plays of each of them." A few minutes later the querists returned and asked the same question about English dramatists, and still later about German, Russian, Italian and Spanish writers of the drama. Each time they eagerly wrote down the information and then retired to the reading-room for a few minutes' consultation. Finally they propounded a question that was beyond the librarian's knowledge, and then she asked why they wanted to know. "We are making out the programme for our next year's study course in the Blank Club," was the answer. "But you mustn't take my opinion as final," protested the scandalised librarian. "You ought to read up everything you can find about dramatists. I may have left out the most important ones." "This will do nicely," said the club-woman, as she folded her sheets of paper. And it did--whether nicely or not deponent saith not? but it certainly constituted the club programme. On another occasion a clubwoman entered the library and said with an air of importance, "I want your material on Susanna H. Brown." The librarian had never heard of Susanna, but experience had taught her modesty and also a certain degree of guile, so she merely said, "What do you want to know about her, particularly?" "Our club wishes to discuss her contributions to American literature." Now the Brown family has been active in letters, from Charles Brockden down to Alice, but no one seems to know of Susanna H. The librarian contrived to put off the matter until she could make some investigations of her own, but, all the resources of the central reference room proving unequal to the task, she timidly asked the clubwoman, at her next visit, to solve the problem. "Oh, we don't know who Susanna H. Brown was; that is why we came to you for information!" "But where did you find the name?" "Well, I don't know exactly; but one of our members, in a conversation with some one who knows a lot about literature--I forget just who it was--was told that Susanna H. Brown had rendered noteworthy services to American literature. We've got to find out, for her name is already printed on the programme!" I don't know what was said of Miss, or Mrs. Brown at the meeting; but my opinion is that this particular item on the programme had to be omitted. Another lady entered a library abruptly and said "I want your books on China." "Do you mean the country of that name? or are you looking up porcelain?" First perplexity and then dismay spread over the lady's face. "Why, I don't know," she faltered. "The program just said China!" A university professor was once asked by one of these program committees for a list of references on German folklore--a subject to which it had decided that its club should devote the current season. The list, as furnished, proved rather stiff, and the astonished professor received forthwith the following epistle (quoted from memory): "DEAR PROFESSOR-- "Thank you so much for the folk-lore; but we have changed our minds and have decided to study the Chicago Drainage Canal instead." This hap-hazard method of programme-making is not confined to club papers, as the following anecdote will show: An officer of a woman's club entered a library and said that she thought it would be nice to vary the usual literary programme by the introduction of story-telling, and she asked for aid from the library staff. It was a busy season and as the librarian hesitated the clubwoman added hastily that the whole programme need not occupy more than half an hour. "We want the very simplest things, told in a few words, so that it will really be no trouble at all." Pressed to be more specific, she went on: "Well--no story must take more than three minutes, and we want Little Nell, Louis IX, Moses in the Bulrushes, the Princes in the Tower, Cinderella, Jack and the Bean Stalk, the Holy Night and Louis XI. "You see that allowing three minutes apiece would bring them all within twenty-four minutes--less than half an hour, just as I said. "And--oh, yes! we want the storyteller to sit on a platform, and just in front of her we will pose a group of little girls, all in white frocks. Won't that be nice?" The making of programmes has in many cases been influenced by the fact that some subjects are considered more "high-toned" than others. The drama is at present a particularly high-toned subject. The fine arts are always placed in the first class. Apparently anything closely related to the personal lives, habits and interests of those concerned is under a ban. The fine arts, for instance, are not recognised as including the patterns of wall-paper or curtains, or the decoration of plates or cups. Copying from one programme to another is a common expedient. The making of these programmes betrays, all through its processes and their inevitable result, lack of originality, blind adherence to models, unquestioning imitation of something that has gone before. I do not believe these to be sex-characteristics, and there are signs that the sex is growing out of them. If they are not sex characteristics they must be the results of education, for ordinary heredity would quickly equalise the sexes in this respect. I have already stated my belief that the physical differences between the sexes are necessarily accompanied by mental differences, and I think it probable that the characteristics noted above, although not proper to sex, spring from the fact that we are expecting like results from the same educational treatment of unlike minds. When we have learned how to vary our treatment of these minds so as to produce like results--in those cases where we want the results to be alike, as in the present instance--we shall have solved the problem of education, so far as it affects sex-differences. It has long been recognised that whenever woman does show a deviation from standards she is apt to deviate far and erratically. So far, however, she has shown no marked tendency so to deviate in the arts and a very slight one in the sciences. There have been lately some marked instances of her upward deviation in the field of science. In literature, no age has been wanting in great woman writers, though there have been few of them. I look eventually to see woman physicists as eminent as Helmholtz and Kelvin, woman painters as great as Raphael and Velasquez, woman musicians as able as Bach and Beethoven. That we have had none yet I believe to be solely the fault of inadequate education. Of this inadequacy our imitative, arbitrary and uninspiring club programmes are a part--the very fact that our clubwomen pin their faith to programmes of any kind is a consequence of it. The substitution of something else for these programmes, with the accompanying change in the interests and reading of clubwomen, will be one step toward the rationalisation of education--for all processes of this kind are essentially educative. We need not despair of finding ultimately the exact differences in method which, applied in the education of the sexes, will minimise such of the present mental differences as we desire to obliterate. Problems of this sort are solved usually by the discovery of some automatic process. In this case the key to such a process is the fact that the mental differences between the sexes manifest themselves in differences of interest. Every parent of boys and girls knows that these differences begin early to show themselves. We have been too prone to disregard them and to substitute a set of imagined differences that do not really exist. We go about the moral training of the boy and the girl in precisely the same way, although their moral points of view and susceptibilities differ in degree and kind; and then we marvel that we do not get precisely similar moral products. But we assume that there is some natural objection to the climbing of trees by girls, while it is all right for boys--an imaginary distinction that has caused tears and heart-burnings. We are outgrowing this particular imaginary distinction, and some others like it. Possibly we may also outgrow our systems of co-education, so far as this means the subjection of the male and the female mind to exactly the same processes of training. The training of the sexes in the same institution, with its consequent mental contact between them, has nothing to do with this, necessarily, and has advantages that cannot be overlooked. Whatever we do in school, our subsequent education, which goes on at least as long as we inhabit this world, must be in and through social contact, men and women together. But if each sex is not true to itself and does not live its own life, the results cannot be satisfactory. Reactions that are sought in an effort made by women to conform their instincts, aspirations and mental processes to those of men will be feeble or perverted, just as they would be if men should seek a similar distortion. The remedy is to let the woman's mind swing into the channel of least resistance, just as the man's always has done. Then the clubs, and the clubwomen, their exercises, their papers and their preparatory reading will all be released from the constraint that is now pinching them and pinning them down and will bud and blossom and grow up to normal and valuable fruition. We have started with the fact that the reading done by the members of women's clubs, especially in connection with club papers, is often trivial, superficial, devoid of intelligence and lacking in judgment. Treating this as a symptom; we have, I think, traced the cause to a total lack of interest due to arbitrary, perfunctory and unintelligent programme-making. The disease may be diagnosed, I think, as acute programitis and the physician is in a position to consider what therapeutic measures may be indicated. We shall endeavor to prescribe some simple remedies. III--_The Remedy_ When we have once discovered the cause of a malady, we may proceed in two ways to combat it; either we may destroy the cause or we may render the possible victims immune. To put it a little differently, we may eliminate either of the two elements whose conjunction causes the disease. To grow weeds, there must co-exist their seeds and a favourable soil. They may be exterminated either by killing the seeds or sterilising the soil. Either of these methods may be used in dealing with the disease that prevails among readers, or, if you prefer the other metaphor, with the rank vegetation that has choked the fertile soil of their minds, making any legitimate mental crop impossible. We have seen that the conditions favorable to the disease are a lack of interest and a fallacious idea that there is something inherent in the printed page _per se_ that makes its perusal valuable whether the reader is interested or not--somewhat as a charm is supposed to work even when it is in a language that the user does not understand. We are considering only the form of the disease that affects clubwomen, and this we have diagnosed as _programitis_--the imposition of a set programme of work--which, as an exciting cause, operates on the mental soil prepared by indifference and fetichism to produce the malady from which so many are now suffering. I think physicians will generally agree that where the exciting cause can be totally removed that method of dealing with the disease is far more effective than any attempt to secure immunity. I believe that in most cases it is so in the present instance. In other words, my prescription is the abandonment, in nine cases out of ten, of the set programme, and the substitution of something that is interesting primarily to each individual concerned. This is no new doctrine. Listen to William James: Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists. The two associated objects grow, as it were, together: the interesting portion sheds its quality over the whole; and thus things not interesting in their own right borrow an interest which becomes as real and as strong as that of any natively interesting thing.... If we could recall for a moment our whole individual history, we should see that our professional ideals and the zeal they inspire are due to nothing but the slow accretion of one mental object to another, traceable backward from point to point till we reach the moment when, in the nursery or in the schoolroom, some little story told, some little object shown, some little operation witnessed, brought the first new object and new interest within our ken by associating it with some one of those primitively there. The interest now suffusing the whole system took its rise in that little event, so insignificant to us now as to be entirely forgotten. As the bees in swarming cling to one another in layers till the few are reached whose feet grapple the bough from which the swarm depends; so with the objects of our thinking--they hang to each other by associated links, but the original source of interest in all of them is the native interest which the earliest one once possessed. If we are to exorcise this spirit of indifference that has settled down like a miasma upon clubdom we must find James's original germ of interest--the twig upon which our cluster of bees is ultimately to hang. Here we may introduce two axioms: Everyone is deeply interested in something; few are supremely interested in the same thing. I shall not attempt to prove these, and what I shall have to say will be addressed only to those who can accept them without proof. But I am convinced that illustrations will occur at once to everyone. Who has not seen the man or woman, the boy or girl who, apparently stupid, indifferent and able to talk only in monosyllables, is suddenly shocked into interest and volubility by the mere chance mention of some subject of conversation--birds, or religion, or Egyptian antiquities, or dolls, or skating, or Henry the Eighth? There are millions of these electric buttons for galvanising dumb clay into mental and spiritual life, and no one of them is likely to act upon more than a very few in a given company--the theory of chances is against it. That is why no possible programme could be made that would fit more than a very small portion of a given club. We have seen that many club-programmes are made with an irreducible minimum of intelligence; but even a programme committee with superhuman intellect and angelic goodwill could never compass the solution of such a problem as this. Nor will it suffice to abandon the general programme and endeavour to select for each speaker the subject that he would like best to study and expound. No one knows what these subjects are but the owners of the hearts that love them. We have seen how the scientific and technical societies manage the matter and how well they succeed. They appoint a committee whose duty it is to receive contributions and to select the worthiest among those presented. The matter then takes care of itself. These people are all interested in something. They are finding out things by experimentation or thought; by induction or deduction. It is the duty and the high pleasure of each to tell his fellows of his discoveries. It is in this way that the individual gives of his best to the race--the triumph of the social instinct over selfishness. As this sort of intellectual profit-sharing becomes more and more common, the reign of the social instinct will extend and strengthen. To do one's part toward such an end ought to be a pleasure, and this is one reason why this course is commended here to the women's clubs. Everyone, I repeat, is deeply interested in something. I am not talking of idiots; there are no such in women's clubs. I have been telling some odd stories of clubwomen, in which they are represented as doing and saying idiotic things. These stories are all true, and if one should take the time to collect and print others, I do not suppose, as the sacred writer says, "that all the world could contain the books that should be written." Things quite as idiotic as these that I have reported are said and done in every city and every hamlet of these United States every day in the year and every hour in the day--except possibly between three and five A.M., and sometimes even then. Yet those who say and do these things are not idiots. When your friend Brown is telling you his pet anecdote for the thirty-fifth time, or when Smith insists that you listen to a recital of the uninteresting accomplishments of his newly-arrived infant, you may allow your thoughts to wander and make some inane remark, yet you are not an idiot. You are simply not interested. You are using most of your mind in another direction and it is only with what is left of it that you hear Brown or Smith and talk to him. Brown or Smith is not dealing with your personality as a whole, but with a residuum. And this is what is the matter with the clubwomen who read foolishly and ask foolish questions in libraries. They are residual personalities. Not being at all interested in the matter in hand, they are devoting to it only a minimum part of their brains; and what they do and say is comparable with the act of the perambulating professor, who, absorbed in mathematical calculation, lifted his hat to the cow. The professor was perhaps pardonable, for his mind was not wandering--it was suffering, on the contrary, from excessive concentration--but it was not concentrated on the cow. In the case of the clubwomen, the role of the cow is played by the papers that they are preparing, while, in lieu of the mathematical problems, we have a variety of really absorbing subjects, more or less important, over which their minds are wandering. What we must do is to capture these wandering minds, and this we can accomplish only by enlisting their own knowledge of what interests them. If you would realise the difference between the mental processes of a mere residue and those of the whole personality when its vigour is concentrated on one subject, listen first to one of those perfunctory essays, culled from a collection of cyclopædias, and then hear a whole woman throw her whole self into something. Hear her candid opinion of some person or thing that has fallen below her standard! Hear her able analysis of the case at law between her family and the neighbours! Hear her make a speech on woman suffrage--I mean when it is really to her the cause of causes; there are those who take it up for other reasons, as the club-women do their papers, with not dissimilar results. In all these cases clearness of presentation, weight of invective, keenness of analysis spring from interest. None of these women, if she has a feminine mind, treats these things as a man would. We men are very apt to complain of the woman's mental processes, for the same reason that narrow "patriots" always suspect and deride the methods of a foreigner, simply because they are strange and we do not understand them. But what we are compelled to think of the results is shown by the fact that when we are truly wise we are apt to seek the advice and counsel of the other sex and to act upon it, even when we cannot fathom the processes by which it was reached. All the more reason this why the woman should be left to herself and not forced to model her club paper on the mental processes of a man, used with many necessary elisions and sometimes with very bad workmanship, in the construction of the cyclopædia article never intended to be employed for any such purpose. Perhaps we can never make the ordinary clubwoman talk like Susan B. Anthony, or Anna Shaw, or Beatrice Hale, or Fola La Follette; any more than we can put into the mouth of the ordinary business man the words of Lincoln, or John B. Gough, or Phillips Brooks, or Raymond Robins--but get somehow into the weakest of either sex the impulses, the interests, the energies that once stood or now stand behind the utterances of any one of these great Americans, and see if the result is not something worth while! An appreciative critic of the first paper in this series, writing in _The Yale Alumni Weekly_, gives it as his opinion that these readers are in the first stage of their education--that of "initial intellectual interest." He says: "Curiosity, then suspicion, come later to grow into individual intellectual judgment." I wish I could agree that what we have diagnosed as a malady is only an early stage of something that is ultimately to develop into matured judgment. But the facts seem clearly to show that, far from possessing "initial intellectual interest," these readers are practically devoid of any kind of interest whatever, properly speaking. Such as they have is not proper to the subject, but simply due to the fact that they desire to retain their club membership, to fulfil their club duties, and to act in general as other women do in other clubs. To go back to our recent simile, it is precisely the same interest that keeps you listening, or pretending to listen, to a bore, while you are really thinking of something else. If you were free to follow your impulses, you would insult the bore, or throw him downstairs, or retreat precipitately. You are inhibited by your sense of propriety and your recognition of what is due to a fellow-man, no matter how boresome he may be. The clubwoman doubtless has a strong impulse to throw the encyclopædia out of the window, or to insult the librarian (occasionally she does) or even to resign from the club. She is prevented, in like manner, by her sense of propriety, and often, too, we must admit, by a real, though rudimentary, desire for knowledge. But such inhibitions cannot develop into judgment. They are merely negative, while the interest that has a valuable outcome is positive. Another thing that we shall do well to remember is that no condition or relation one of whose elements or factors is the human mind can ever be properly considered apart from that mind. Shakespeare's plays would seem to be fairly unalterable. Shakespeare is dead and cannot change them, and they have been written down in black and white this many a year. But the real play, so far as it makes any difference to us to-day, is not in the books; or, at least, the book is but one of its elements. It is the effect produced upon the auditor, and of this a very important element is the auditor's mental and spiritual state. Considered from this standpoint, Shakespeare's plays have been changing ever since they were written. Environment, physical and mental, has altered; the language has developed; the plain, ordinary talk of Shakespeare's time now seems to us quaint and odd; every-day allusions have become cryptic. It all "ain't up to date," to quote the Cockney's complaint about it. Probably no one to-day can under any circumstances get the same reaction to a play of Shakespeare as that of his original audience, and probably no one ever will. Anecdotes possess a sort of centripetal force; tales illustrative of the matter at hand have been flying to me from all parts of the country. From the Pacific Northwest comes this, which seems pertinent just here. A good clubwoman, who had been slaving all day over a paper on Chaucer, finally at its close threw down her pen and exclaimed, "Oh, dear! I wish Chaucer were _dead_!" She had her wish in more senses than the obvious one. Not only has Chaucer's physical body long ago given up its substance to earth and air, but his works have to be translated for most readers of the present day; his language is fast becoming as dead as Latin or Greek. But, worse still, his very spirit was dead, so far as its reaction on her was concerned. Poetry, to you and me, is what we make of it; and what do you suppose our friend from Oregon was making of Chaucer? Our indifference, our failure to react, is thus more far-reaching than its influence on ourselves--it is, in some sense, a sin against the immortal souls of those who have bequeathed their spiritual selves to the world in books. And this sin the clubs are, in more cases than I care to think, forcing deliberately upon their members. A well-known cartoonist toiled long in early life at some uncongenial task for a pittance. Meanwhile he drew pictures for fun, and one day a journalist, seeing one of his sketches, offered him fifty dollars for it--the salary of many days. "And when," said the cartoonist, "I found I could get more money by playing than by working, I swore I would never work again--and I haven't." When we can all play--do exactly what we like--and keep ourselves and the world running by it, then the Earthly Paradise will be achieved. But, meanwhile, cannot we realize that these clubwomen will accomplish more if we can direct and control their voluntary activity, backed by their whole mental energy, than when they devote some small part of their minds to an uncongenial task, dictated by a programme committee? I shall doubtless be reminded that the larger clubs are now generally divided into sections, and that membership in these sections is supposed to be dictated by interest. This is a step in the right direction, but it is an excessively short one. The programme, with all its vicious accompaniments and lamentable results, persists. What I have said and shall say applies as well to an art or a domestic science section as to a club _in toto_. To bring down the treatment to a definite prescription, let us suppose that the committee in charge of a club's activities, instead of marking out a definite programme for the season, should simply announce that communications on subjects of personal interest to the members, embodying some new and original thought, method, idea, device, or mode of treatment, would be received, and that the best of these would be read and discussed before the club, after which some would appear in print. No conditions would be stated, but it would be understood that such features as length and style, as well as subject matter, would be considered in selecting the papers to be read. Above all, it would be insisted that no paper should be considered that was merely copied from anything, either in substance or idea. It is, of course, possible to constitute a paper almost entirely of quotations and yet so to group and discuss these that the paper becomes an original contribution to thought; but mere parrot-like repetition of ascertained facts, or of other people's thoughts, should not be tolerated. Right here the first obstacle would be encountered. Club members, accustomed to be assigned for study subjects like "The Metope of the Parthenon" or "The True Significance of Hyperspace," will not easily comprehend that they are really desired to put briefly on paper original ideas about something that they know at first hand. Mrs. Jones makes better sponge cake than any one in town; the fact is known to all her friends. If sponge cake is a desirable product, why should not the woman who has discovered the little knack that turns failure into success, and who is proud of her ability and special knowledge, tell her club of it, instead of laboriously copying from a book--or, let us say, from two or three books--some one else's compilation of the facts ascertained at second or third hand by various other writers on "The Character of the Cid"? Why should not Mrs. Smith, who was out over night in the blizzard of 1888, recount her experiences, mental as well as physical? Why should not Miss Robinson, who collects coins and differs from the accepted authorities regarding the authenticity of certain of her specimens, tell why and how and all about it? Why should not the member who is crazy about begonias and the one who thinks she saw Uncle Hiram's ghost, and she who has read and re-read George Meredith, seeing beauties in him that no one else ever detected--why should not one and all give their fellows the benefit of the really valuable special knowledge that they have acquired through years of interested thinking and talking and doing? But there will be trouble, as I have said. The thing, simple as it is, would be too unaccustomed to comprehend. And then a real article in a real cyclopædia by a real writer is Information with a big "I." My little knowledge about making quince jelly, or darning stockings, or driving an auto, or my thoughts about the intellectual differences between Dickens and Thackeray, or my personal theories of conduct, or my reasons for preferring hot-water heat to steam--these are all too trivial to mention; is it possible that you want me to write them down on paper? It may thus happen that when the committee opens its mail it may find--nothing. What, then? Logically, I should be forced to say: Well, if none of your members is interested enough in anything to have some original information to tell about it, disband your club. What is the use of it? Even three newsboys, when they meet on the street corner, begin at once to interchange ideas. Where are yours? Possibly this would be too drastic. It might be better to hold a meeting, state the failure, and adjourn for another trial. It might be well to repeat this several times, in the hope that the fact that absence of original ideas means no proceedings might soak in and germinate. If this does not work, it might be possible to fight the devil with fire, by going back to the programme method so far as to assign definitely to members subjects in which they are known to be deeply interested. This, in fact, is the second method of treatment mentioned at the outset, namely, the endeavour to secure immunity where the germ cannot be exterminated. We shall probably never be able to rid the world of the _bacillus tuberculosis_; the best we can do is to keep as clear of it as we can and to strengthen our powers of resistance to it. So, if we cannot kill the programme all at once, let us strive to make it innocuous and to minimise its evil effects on its victims. Let us suppose, now, that in one way or another, it is brought about that every club member who reads a paper is reporting the result of some personal experience in which her interest is vivid--some discovery, acquisition, method, idea, criticism or appreciation that is the product of her own life and of the particular, personal way in which she has lived it. What a result this will have on that woman's reading--on what she does before she writes her paper and on what she goes through after it! If her interest is as vivid as we assume it to be, she will not be content to recount her own experiences without comparing them with those of others. And after her paper has been read and the comment and criticism of other interested members have been brought out--of some, perhaps, whose interest she had never before suspected, then she will feel a fresh impulse to search for new accounts and to devour them. There is no longer anything perfunctory about the matter. She can no longer even trust the labour of looking up her references to others. She becomes an investigator; she feels something of the joy of those who add to the sum of human knowledge. And lo! the problem of clubwomen's reading is solved! The wandering mind is captured; the inane residuum is abolished by union with the rest to form a normal, intelligent whole. No more idiotic questions, no more cyclopædia-copying, no more wool-gathering programmes. Is it too much to expect? Alas, we are but mortal! I trust it has been made sufficiently clear that I think meanly neither of the intellectual ability of women nor of the services of women's clubs. The object of these papers is to give the former an opportunity to assert itself, and the latter a chance to profit by the assertion. The woman's club of the future should be a place where original ideas, fed and directed by interested reading, are exchanged and discussed. Were I writing of men's clubs, I should point out to them the same goal. And then, perhaps, we may look forward to a time when a selected group of men and women may come together and talk of things in which they both, as men and women, are interested. When this happens, I trust that in the discussion we shall not heed the advice of some modern feminists and forget that we are as God made us. Why should each man talk to a woman "as if she were another man"? I never heard it advised that each woman should talk to each man "as if he were another woman"; but I should resent it if I did. Why shut our eyes to the truth? I trust that I have not been talking to the club-women "as if they were men"; I am sure I have not meant to do so. They are not men; they have their own ways, and those ways should be developed and encouraged. We have had the psychology of race, of the crowd and of the criminal; where is the investigator who has studied the Psychology of Woman? When she (note the pronoun) has arrived, let us make her president of a woman's club. It is with diffidence that I have outlined any definite procedure, because, after all, the precise manner in which the treatment should be applied will depend, of course, on the club concerned. To prescribe for you most effectively, your physician should be an intimate friend. He should have known you from birth--better still, he should have cared for your father and your grandfather before you. Otherwise, he prescribes for an average man; and you may be very far from the average. The drug that he administers to quiet your nerves may act on your heart and give you the smothers--it might conceivably quiet you permanently. Then the doctor would send to his medical journal a note on "A Curious Case of Umptiol Poisoning," but you would still be dead, even if all his readers should agree with him. I have no desire to bring about casualties of this kind. Let those who know and love each particular club devote themselves to the task of applying my treatment to it in a way that will involve a minimum shock to its nerves and a minimum amount of interference with its metabolic processes. It will take time. Rome was not built in a day, and a revolution in clubdom is not going to be accomplished over night. I have prescribed simple remedies--too simple, I am convinced, to be readily adopted. What could be simpler than to advise the extermination of all germ diseases by killing off the germs? Any physician will tell you that this method is the very acme of efficiency; yet, the germs are still with us, and bid fair to spread suffering and death over our planet for many a long year to come. So I am not sanguine that we shall be able all at once to kill off the programmes. All that may be expected is that at some distant day the simplicity and effectiveness of some plan of the sort will begin to commend itself to clubwomen. If, then, some lover of the older literature will point out the fact that, back in 1915, the gloomy era when fighting hordes were spreading blood and carnage over the fair face of Europe, an obscure and humble librarian, in the pages of THE BOOKMAN, pointed out the way to sanity, I shall be well content. BOOKS FOR TIRED EYES The most distinctive thing about a book is the possibility that someone may read it. Is this a truism? Evidently not; for the publishers, who print books, and the libraries, which store and distribute them, have never thought it worth their while to collect and record information bearing on this possibility. In the publisher's or the bookseller's advertising announcements, as well as on the catalogue cards stored in the library's trays, the reader may ascertain when and where the book was published, the number of pages, and whether it contains plates or maps; but not a word of the size or style of type in which it is printed. Yet on this depends the ability of the reader to use the book for the purpose for which it was intended. The old-fashioned reader was a mild-mannered gentleman. If he could not read his book because it was printed in outrageously small type, he laid it aside with a sigh, or used a magnifying lens, or persisted in his attempts with the naked eye until eyestrain, with its attendant maladies, was the result. Lately however, the libraries have been waking up, and their readers with them. The utilitarian side of the work is pushed to the front; and the reader is by no means disposed to accept what may be offered him, either in the content of the book or its physical make-up. The modern library must adapt itself to its users, and among other improvements must come an attempt to go as far as possible in making books physiologically readable. Unfortunately the library cannot control the output of books, and must limit itself to selection. An experiment in such selection is now in progress in the St. Louis Public Library. The visitor to that library will find in its Open Shelf Room a section of shelving marked with the words "Books in large type." To this section are directed all readers who have found it difficult or painful to read the ordinary printed page but who do not desire to wear magnifying lenses. It has not been easy to fill these shelves, for books in large type are few, and hard to secure, despite the fact that artists, printers, and oculists have for years been discussing the proper size, form, and grouping of printed letters from their various standpoints. Perhaps it is time to urge a new view--that of the public librarian, anxious to please his clients and to present literature to them in that physical form which is most easily assimilable and least harmful. Tired eyes belong, for the most part, to those who have worked them hardest; that is, to readers who have entered upon middle age or have already passed through it. At this age we become conscious that the eye is a delicate instrument--a fact which, however familiar to us in theory, has previously been regarded with aloofness. Now it comes home to us. The length of a sitting, the quality, quantity, and incidence of the light, and above all, the arrangement of the printed page, become matters of vital importance to us. A book with small print, or letters illegibly grouped, or of unrecognizable shapes, becomes as impossible to us as if it were printed in the Chinese character. It is an unfortunate law of nature that injurious acts appear to us in their true light only after the harm is done. The burnt child dreads the fire after he has been burned--not before. So the fact that the middle-aged man cannot read small, or crooked, or badly grouped type means simply that the harmfulness of these things, which always existed for him, has cumulated throughout a long tale of years until it has obtruded itself upon him in the form of an inhibition. The books that are imperative for the tired eyes of middle age, are equally necessary for those of youth--did youth but know it. Curiously enough, we are accustomed to begin, in teaching the young to read, with very legible type. When the eyes grow stronger, we begin to maltreat them. So it is, also, with the digestive organs, which we first coddle with pap, then treat awhile with pork and cocktails, and then, perforce, entertain with pap of the second and final period. What correspond, in the field of vision, to pork and cocktails, are the vicious specimens of typography offered on all sides to readers--in books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers--typography that is slowly but surely ruining the eyesight of those that need it most. Hitherto, the public librarian has been more concerned with the minds and the morals of his clientele than with that physical organism without which neither mind nor morals would be of much use. It would be easy to pick out on the shelves of almost any public library books that are a physiological scandal, printed in type that it is an outrage to place before any self-respecting reader. I have seen copies of "Tom Jones" that I should be willing to burn, as did a puritanical British library-board of newspaper notoriety. My reasons, however, would be typographic, not moral, and I might want to add a few copies of "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," without prejudice to the authors' share in those works, which I admire and respect. Perhaps it is too much to ask for complete typographical expurgation of our libraries. But, at least, readers with tired eyes who do not yet wear, or care to wear, corrective lenses, should be able to find, somewhere on the shelves, a collection of works in relatively harmless print--large and black, clear in outline, simple and distinctive in form, properly grouped and spaced. The various attempts to standardize type-sizes and to adopt a suitable notation for them have been limited hitherto to the sizes of the type-body and bear only indirectly on the size of the actual letter. More or less arbitrary names--such as minion, bourgeois, brevier, and nonpareil,--were formerly used; but what is called the point-system is now practically universal, although its unit, the "point," is not everywhere the same. Roughly speaking, a point is one-seventy-second of an inch, so that in three-point type, for example, the thickness of the type-body, from the top to the bottom of the letter on its face, is one-twenty-fourth of an inch. But on this type-body the face may be large or small--although of course, it cannot be larger than the body,--and the size of the letters called by precisely the same name in the point notation may vary within pretty wide limits. There is no accepted notation for the size of the letters themselves, and this fact tells, more eloquently than words, that the present sizes of type are standardized and defined for compositors only, not for readers, and still less for scientific students of the effect upon the readers' eyes of different arrangements of the printed page. What seems to have been the first attempt to define sizes of type suitable for school grades was made fifteen years ago by Mr Edward R. Shaw in his "School Hygiene"; he advocates sizes from eighteen-point in the first year to twelve-point for the fourth. "Principals, teachers, and school superintendents," he says, "should possess a millimetre measure and a magnifying glass, and should subject every book presented for their examination to a test to determine whether the size of the letters and the width of the leading are of such dimensions as will not prove injurious to the eyes of children." To this list, librarians might be well added--not to speak of authors, editors, and publishers. In a subsequent part of his chapter on "Eyesight and Hearing," from which the above sentence is quoted, appears a test of illumination suggested by "The Medical Record" of Strasburg, which may serve as a "horrid example" in some such way as did the drunken brother who accompanied the temperance lecturer. According to this authority, if a pupil is unable to read diamond type--four-and-one-half-point--"at twelve-inch distance and without strain," the illumination is dangerously low. The adult who tries the experiment will be inclined to conclude that whatever the illumination, the proper place for the man who uses diamond type for any purpose is the penitentiary. The literature upon this general subject, such as it is, is concerned largely with its relations with school hygiene. We are bound to give our children a fair start in life, in conditions of vision as well as in other respects, even if we are careless about ourselves. The topic of "Conservation of Vision," in which, however, type-size played but a small part, was given special attention at the Fourth International Congress of School Hygiene, held in Buffalo in 1913. Investigations on the subject, so far as they affect the child in school, are well summed up in the last chapter of Huey's "Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading." In general, the consensus of opinion of investigators seems to be that the most legible type is that between eleven-point and fourteen-point. Opinion regarding space between lines, due to "leading," is not quite so harmonious. Some authorities think that it is better to increase the size of the letters; and Huey asserts that an attempt to improve unduly small type by making wide spaces between lines is a mistake. As to the relative legibility of different type-faces, one of the most exhaustive investigations was that made at Clark University by Miss Barbara E. Roethlin, whose results were published in 1912. This study considers questions of form, style, and grouping, independently of mere size; and the conclusion is that legibility is a product of six factors, of which size is one, the others being form, heaviness of face, width of the margin around the letter, position in the letter-group, and shape and size of adjoining letters. For "tired eyes" the size factor would appear of overwhelming importance except where the other elements make the page fantastically illegible. In Miss Roethlin's tables, based upon a combination of the factors mentioned above, the maximum of legibility almost always coincides with that of size. These experiments seem to have influenced printers, whose organization in Boston has appointed a committee to urge upon the Carnegie Institution the establishment of a department of research to make scientific tests of printing-types in regard to the comparative legibility and the possibility of improving some of their forms. Their effort, so far, has met with no success; but the funds at the disposal of this body could surely be put to no better use. With regard to the improvement of legibility by alteration of form, it has been recognized by experiments from the outset that the letters of our alphabet, especially the small, or "lower-case" letters, are not equally legible. Many proposals for modifying or changing them have been made, some of them odd or repugnant. It has been suggested, for instance, that the Greek lambda be substituted for our _l_, which in its present form is easily confused with the dotted _i_. Other pairs of letters (_u_ and _n_, _o_ and _e_, for example) are differentiated with difficulty. The privilege of modifying alphabetic form is one that has been frequently exercised. The origin of the German alphabet and our own, for instance, is the same, and no lower-case letters in any form date further back than the Middle Ages. There could be no well-founded objection to any change, in the interests of legibility, that is not so far-reaching as to make the whole alphabet look foreign and unfamiliar. It may be queried, however, whether the lower-case alphabet had not better be reformed by abolishing it altogether. There would appear to be no good reason for using two alphabets, now one and now the other, according to arbitrary rules, difficult to learn and hard to remember. That the general legibility of books would benefit by doing away with this mediaeval excrescence appears to admit of no doubt, although the proposal may seem somewhat startling to the general reader. In 1911, a committee was appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science "to inquire into the influence of school-books upon eyesight." This committee's report dwells on the fact that the child's eye is still in process of development and needs larger type than the fully developed eye of the adult. In making its recommendation for the standardization of school-book type, which it considers the solution of the difficulty, the committee emphasizes the fact that forms and sizes most legible for isolated letters are not necessarily so for the groups that need to be quickly recognized by the trained reader. It dwells upon the importance of unglazed paper, flexible sewing, clear, bold illustrations, black ink, and true alignment. Condensed or compressed letters are condemned, as are long serifs and hair strokes. On the other hand, very heavy-faced type is almost as objectionable as that with the fine lines, the ideal being a proper balancing of whites and blacks in each letter and group. The size of the type face, as we might expect, is pronounced by the committee "the most important factor in the influence of books upon vision"; it describes its recommended sizes in millimetres--a refinement which, for the purposes of this article, need not be insisted upon. Briefly, the sizes run from thirty-point, for seven-year-old children, to ten-point or eleven-point, for persons more than twelve years old. Except as an inference from this last recommendation, the committee, of course, does not exceed its province by treating of type-sizes for adults; yet it would seem that it considers ten-point as the smallest size fit for anyone, however good his sight. This would bar much of our existing reading matter. A writer whose efforts in behalf of sane typography have had practical results is Professor Koopman, librarian of Brown University, whose plea has been addressed chiefly to printers. Professor Koopman dwells particularly on the influence of short lines on legibility. The eye must jump from the end of each line back to the beginning of the next, and this jump is shorter and less fatiguing with the shorter line, though it must be oftener performed. Owing largely to his demonstration, "The Printing Art," a trade magazine published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has changed its make-up from a one-column to a two-column page. It should be noted, however, that a uniform, standard length of line is even more to be desired than a short one. When the eye has become accustomed to one length for its linear leaps, these leaps can be performed with relative ease and can be taken care of subconsciously. When the lengths vary capriciously from one book, or magazine, to another, or even from one page to another, as they so often do, the effort to get accustomed to the new length is more tiring than we realize. Probably this factor, next to the size of type, is most effective in tiring the middle-aged eye, and in keeping it tired. The opinion may be ventured that the reason for our continued toleration of the small type used in the daily newspapers is that their columns are narrow, and still more, that these are everywhere of practically uniform width. The indifference of publishers to the important feature of the physical make-up of books appears from the fact that in not a single case is it included among the descriptive items in their catalogue entries. Libraries are in precisely the same class of offenders. A reader or a possible purchaser of books is supposed to be interested in the fact that a book is published in Boston, has four hundred and thirty-two pages, and is illustrated, but not at all in its legibility. Neither publishers nor libraries have any way of getting information on the subject, except by going to the books themselves. Occasionally a remainder-catalogue, containing bargains whose charms it is desired to set forth with unusual detail, states that a certain book is in "large type," or even in "fine, large type," but these words are nowhere defined, and the purchaser cannot depend on their accuracy. An edition of Scott, recently advertised extensively as in "large, clear type," proved on examination to be printed in ten-point. In gathering the large-type collection for the St. Louis Library fourteen-point was decided upon as the standard, which means, of course, types with a face somewhere between the smallest size that is usually found on a fourteen-point body, even if actually on a smaller body, and the largest that this can carry, even if on a larger body. The latter is unusually large, but it would not do to place the standard below fourteen-point, because that would lower the minimum, which is none too large as it is. The first effort was to collect such large-type books, already in the library, as would be likely to interest the general reader. In the collection of nearly 400,000 volumes, it was found by diligent search that only 150 would answer this description. Most octavo volumes of travel are in large type, but only a selected number of these was placed in the collection to avoid overloading it with this particular class. This statement applies also to some other classes, and to certain types of books, such as some government reports and some scientific monographs, which have no representatives in the group. The next step was to supplement the collection by purchase. All available publishers' catalogues were examined, but after a period of twelve months it was found possible to spend only $65.00 in the purchase of 120 additional books. A circular letter was then sent to ninety-two publishers, explaining the purpose of the collection and asking for information regarding books in fourteen-point type, or larger, issued by them. To these there were received sixty-three answers. In twenty-nine instances, no books in type of this size were issued by the recipients of the circulars. In six cases, the answer included brief lists of from two to twelve titles of large-type books; and in several other cases, the publishers stated that the labor of ascertaining which of their publications are in large type would be prohibitive, as it would involve actual inspection of each and every volume on their lists. In two instances, however, after a second letter, explaining further the aims of the collection, publishers promised to undertake the work. The final result has been that the Library now has over four hundred volumes in the collection. This is surely not an imposing number, but it appears to represent the available resources of a country in which 1,000 publishers are annually issuing 11,000 volumes--to say nothing of the British and Continental output. In the list of the collection and in the entries, the size of the type, the leading, and the size of the book itself are to be distinctly stated. The last-mentioned item is necessary because the use of large type sometimes involves a heavy volume, awkward to hold in the hand. The collection for adults in the St. Louis Library, as it now exists, may be divided into the following classes, according to the reasons that seem to have prompted the use of large type: 1. Large books printed on a somewhat generous scale and intended to sell at a high price, the size of the type being merely incidental to this plan. These include books of travel, history, or biography in several volumes, somewhat high-priced sets of standard authors, and books intended for gifts. 2. Books containing so little material that large type, thick paper, and wide margins were necessary to make a volume easy to handle and use. These include many short stories of magazine length, which for some inscrutable reason are now often issued in separate form. 3. Books printed in large type for aesthetic reasons. These are few, beauty and artistic form being apparently linked in some way with illegibility by many printers, no matter what the size of the type-face. The large-type collection is used, not only by elderly persons, but also in greater number by young persons whose oculists forbid them to read fine print, or who do not desire to wear glasses. The absence of a wide range in the collection drives others away to books that are, doubtless, in many cases bad for their eyes. Some books that have not been popular in the general collection have done well here, while old favorites have not been taken out. Such facts as these mean little with so limited a collection. Until readers awake to the dangers of small print and the comfort of large type there will not be sufficient pressure on our publishers to induce them to put forth more books suitable for tired eyes. It is probably too much to expect that the trade itself will try to push literature whose printed form obeys the rules of ocular hygiene. All that we can reasonably ask is that type-size shall be reported on in catalogues, so that those who want books in large type may know what is obtainable and where to go for it. It has often been noted that physicians are the only class of professional men whose activities, if properly carried on, tend directly to make the profession unnecessary. Medicine tends more and more to be preventive rather than curative. We must therefore look to the oculists to take the first steps towards lessening the number of their prospective patients by inculcating rational notions about the effects of the printed page on the eye. Teachers, librarians, parents, the press--all can do their part. And when a demand for larger print has thus been created the trade will respond. Meanwhile, libraries should be unremitting in their efforts to ascertain what material in large type already exists, to collect it, and to call attention to it in every legitimate way. THE MAGIC CASEMENT[16] [16] Read before the Town and Gown Club, St. Louis. Anyone who talks or writes about the "movies" is likely to be misunderstood. There is little to be said now about the moving picture as a moving picture, unless one wants to discuss its optics or mechanics. The time is past when anyone went to see a moving picture as a curiosity. It was once the eighth wonder of the world; it long ago abdicated that position to join its dispossessed brothers the telephone, the X-ray, the wireless telegraph and the phonograph. What we now go to see is not the moving picture, but what the moving picture shows us; it is no more than a window through which we gaze--the poet's "magic casement" opening (sometimes) "on the foam of perilous seas." We may no more praise or condemn the moving picture for what it shows us than we may praise or condemn a proscenium arch or the glass in a show window. The critic who thinks that the movies are lowering our tastes, or doing anything else objectionable, as well as he who thinks they are educating the masses, is not of the opinion that the moving pictures are doing these things because they show moving objects on a screen, but because of the character of what is photographed for such exhibition. Thoughts on the movies, therefore, must be rather thoughts on things that are currently shown us by means of the movies; thoughts also on some of the things that we might see and do not. I have compared the screen above to a proscenium arch and a show window, but both of these are selective: the screen is as broad as the world. It is especially adapted to show realities; through it one may see the coast of Dalmatia as viewed from a steamer, the habits of animals in the African jungle, or the play of emotion on the faces of an audience at a ball game in Philadelphia. I am pleased to see that more and more of these interesting realities are shown daily in the movie theatres. There has been a determined effort to make them unpopular by calling them "educational," but they seem likely to outlive it. One is educated, of course, by everything that he sees or does, but why rub it in? The boy who thoroughly likes to go sailing will get more out of it than he who goes because he thinks it will be "an educational experience." As one who goes to the movies I confess that I enjoy its realities. Probably they educate me, and I take that with due meekness. Some of these realities I enjoy because they are unfamiliar, like the boiling of the lava lake in the Hawaiian craters and the changing crowds in the streets of Manila; some because they are familiar, like a college foot-ball game or the movement of vessels in the North River at New York. I like the realities, too, in the dramatic performances that still occupy and probably will continue to occupy, most of the time at a movie theatre. Here I come into conflict with the producer. Like every other adapter he can not cut loose from the old when he essays the new. We no longer wear swords, but we still carry the buttons for the sword belt, and it is only recently that semi-tropic Americans gave up the dress of north-temperate Europe. So the movie producer can not forget the theatre. Now the theatre has some advantages that the movie can never attain--notably the use of speech. The movie, on the other hand, has unlimited freedom of scene and the use of real backgrounds. We do not object to a certain amount of what we call "staginess" on the stage--it is a part of its art; as the pigment is part of that of the painter. We are surrounded by symbols; we are not surprised that costume, gesture and voice are also symbolic instead of purely natural. But in the moving picture play it is, or should be, different. The costume and make-up, the posture and gesture, that seem appropriate in front of a painted house or tree on a back-drop, become so out-of-place as to be repulsive when one sees them in front of a real house and real trees, branches moving in the wind, running water--all the familiar accompaniments of nature. The movie producers, being unable to get away from their stage experience, are failing to grasp their opportunity. Instead of creating a drama of reality to correspond with the real environment that only the movie can offer, they are abandoning the unique advantages of that environment, to a large degree. They build fake cities, they set all their interiors in fake studio rooms, where everything is imitation; even when they let us see a bit of outdoors, it is not what it pretends to be. We have all seen, on the screen, bluffs 200 feet high on the coast of Virginia and palm trees growing in the borough of the Bronx. And they hire stage actors to interpret the stagiest of stage plots in as stagy a way as they know how. I am taking the movie seriously because I like it and because I see that I share that liking with a vast throng of persons with whom it is probably the only thing I have in common--persons separated from me by differences of training and education that would seem to make a common ground of any kind well-nigh impossible. With some persons the fact that the movie is democratic puts it outside the pale at once. Nothing, in their estimation, is worth discussing unless appreciation of it is limited to the few. Their attitude is that of the mother who said to the nurse: "Go and see what baby is doing, and tell him he musn't." "Let us," they say, "find out what people like, and then try to make them like something else." To such I have nothing to say. We ought rather, I believe, to find out the kind of thing that people like and then do our best to see that they get it in the best quality--that it is used in every way possible to pull them out of the mud, instead of rubbing their noses further in. On the other hand, some capable critics, like Mr. Walter Pritchard Eaton, decry the movies because they are undemocratic--because they are offering a form of entertainment appealing only to the uneducated and thus segregating them from the educated, who presumably all attend the regular theatre, sitting in the parquet at two dollars per. One wonders whether Mr. Eaton has attended a moving-picture theatre since 1903. I believe the movie to be by all odds the most democratic form of intellectual (by which I mean non-physical) entertainment ever offered; and I base my belief on wide observation of audiences in theatres of many different grades. Now this democracy shows itself not only in the composition of audiences but in their manifestations of approval. I do not mean that everyone in an audience always likes the same thing. Some outrageous "slap-stick" comedy rejoices one and offends another. A particularly foolish plot may satisfy in one place while it bores in another. But everywhere I find one thing that appeals to everybody--realism. Just as soon as there appears on the screen something that does not know how to pose and is forced by nature to be natural--an animal or a young child, for instance--there are immediate manifestations of interest and delight. The least "stagy" actors are almost always favorites. Mary Pickford stands at the head. There is not an ounce of staginess in her make-up. She was never particularly successful on the stage. Some of her work seems to me ideal acting for the screen--simple, appealing, absolutely true. Of course she is not always at her best. To the stage illusions that depend on costume and make-up, the screen is particularly unfriendly. Especially in the "close-ups" the effect is similar to that which one would have if he were standing close to the actor looking directly into his face. It is useless to depend on ordinary make-up under these circumstances. Either it should be of the description used by Sherlock Holmes and other celebrated detectives (we rely on hearsay) which deceives the very elect at close quarters, or else the producer must choose for his characters those that naturally "look the parts." In particular, the lady who, although long past forty, continues to play _ingenue_ parts and "gets away with it" on the stage, must get away _from_ it, when it comes to the screen. The "close up" tells the sad story at once. The part of a sixteen-year-old girl must be played by a real one. Another concession to realism, you see. And what is true of persons is true of their environment. I have already registered my disapproval of the "Universal City" type of production. It is almost as easy for the expert to pick out the fake Russian village or the pasteboard Virginia court-house as it is for him to spot the wrinkles in the countenance of the school girl who left school in 1892. Next to a fake environment the patchwork scene enrages one--the railway that is double-track with 90-pound rails in one scene and single-track with streaks of rust in the next; the train that is hauled in quick succession by locomotives of the Mogul type, the Atlantic and the wood-burning vintage of 1868. There is here an impudent assumption in the producer, of a lack of intelligence in his audience, that is quite maddening. The same lack of correspondence appears between different parts of the same street, and between the outside and inside of houses. I am told by friends that I am quite unreasonable in the extent to which I carry my demands for realism in the movies. "What would you have?" they ask. I would have a producing company that should advertise, "We have no studio" and use only real backgrounds--the actual localities represented. "Do you mean to tell me," my friend goes on, "that you would carry your company to Spain whenever the scene of their play is laid in that country? The expense would be prohibitive." I most certainly should not, and this because of the very realism that I am advocating. Plays laid in Spain should be acted not only in Spain but by Spaniards. The most objectionable kind of fake is that in which Americans are made to do duty for Spaniards, Hindus or Japanese when their appearance, action and bearing clearly indicate that they were born and brought up in Skowhegan, Maine or Crawfordsville, Indiana. I have seen Mary Pickford in "Madame Butterfly", and I testify sadly that not even she can succeed here. No; if we want Spanish plays let us use those made on Spanish soil. Let us have free interchange of films between all film-producing countries. All the change required would be translating the captions, or better still, plays might be produced that require no captions. This might mean the total reorganization of the movie-play business in this country--a revolution which I should view with equanimity. Speaking of captions, here again the average producer appears to agree with Walter Pritchard Eaton that he is catering only to the uneducated. The writers of most captions seem, indeed, to have abandoned formal instruction in the primary school. Why should not a movie caption be good literature? Some of them are. The Cabiria captions were fine: though I do not admire that masterpiece. I am told that D'Annunzio composed them with care, and equal care was evidently used in the translation. The captions of the George Ade fables are uniformly good, and there are other notable exceptions. Other places where knowledge of language is required are inadequately taken care of. Letters from eminent persons make one want to hide under the chairs. These persons usually sign themselves "Duke of Gandolfo" or "Secretary of State Smith." Are grammar school graduates difficult to get, or high-priced? I beg you to observe that here again lack of realism is my objection. But divers friends interpose the remark that the movies are already too realistic. "They leave nothing to the imagination." If this were so, it were a grievous fault--at any rate in so far as the moving-picture play aims at being an art-form. All good art leaves something to the imagination. As a matter of fact, however, the movie is the exact complement of the spoken play as read from a book. Here we have the words in full, the scene and action being left to the imagination except as briefly sketched in the stage direction. In the movie we have scene and action in full, the words being left to the imagination except as briefly indicated in the captions. Where captions are very full the form may perhaps be said to be complementary to the novel, where besides the words we are given a written description of scene and action that is often full of detail. The movie leaves just as much to the imagination as the novel, but what is so left is different in the two cases. Do I think that everyone in a movie audience makes use of his privilege to imagine what the actors are saying? No; neither does the novel-reader always image the scene and action. This does not depend on ignorance or the reverse, but on imaging power. Exceptional visual and auditive imaging power are rarely present in the same individual. I happen to have the former. I automatically see everything of which I read in a novel, and when the descriptions are not detailed, this gets me into trouble. On a second reading my imaged background may be different and when the earlier one asserts itself there is a conflict that I can compare only to hearing two tunes played at once. Persons having already good visual imaging power should develop their auditive imaging power by going to the movies and hearing what the actors say; these with deficient visual imagery should read novels and see the scenery. But to say that the movies allow no scope for the imagination is absurd. As I said at the outset, the movie play is just a play seen through the medium of a moving picture. It is like seeing a drama near enough to note the slightest play of feature and at the same time so far away that the actors can not be heard--somewhat like seeing a distant play through a fine telescope. The action should therefore differ in no respect from what would be proper if the words were intended to be heard. Doubtless this imposes a special duty upon both the author of the scenario and the producer, and they do not always respond to it. Action is introduced that fails to be intelligible without the words, and to clear it up the actors are made to use pantomime. Pantomime is an interesting and valuable form of dramatic art, but it is essentially symbolic and stagy and has, I believe, no place in the moving picture play as we have developed it. If owing to the faulty construction of the play, or a lack of skill on the part of producer or actors, all sorts of gestures and grimaces become necessary that would not be required if the words were heard, the production can not be considered good. Sometimes, of course, words are _seen_; though not heard. The story of the deaf mutes who read the lips of the movie actors, and detected remarks not at all in consonance with the action of the play, is doubtless familiar. It crops up in various places and is as ubiquitous as Washington's Headquarters. It is good enough to be true, but I have never run it to earth yet. Even those of us who are not deaf-mutes, however, may detect an exclamation now and then and it gives great force to the action, though I doubt whether it is quite legitimate in a purely picture-play. I beg leave to doubt whether realism is fostered by a method of production said to be in vogue among first rate producers; namely keeping actors in ignorance of the play and directing the action as it goes on. "Come in now, Mr. Smith; sit in that chair; cross your legs; light a cigar; register perplexity; you hear a sound; jump to your feet"--and so on. This may save the producer trouble, but it reduces the actors to marionettes; it is not thus that masterpieces are turned out. Is there any chance of a movie masterpiece, anyway? Yes, but not in the direction that most producers see it. What Vachell Lindsay calls "Splendor" in the movies is an interesting and striking feature of them--the moving of masses of people amid great architectural construction--sieges, triumphs, battles, mobs--but all this is akin to scenery. Its movements are like those of the trees or the surf. One can not make a play entirely of scenery, though the contrary seems to be the view of some managers, even on the stage of the regular theatre. So far, the individual acting and plot construction in the great spectacular movies has been poor. It was notably so, it seems to me in the Birth of a Nation and not much better in Cabiria. Judith of Bethulia (after T.B. Aldrich) is the best acted "splendor" play that I have seen. Masterpieces are coming not through spending millions on supes, and "real" temples, and forts; but rather by writing a scenario particularly adapted to film-production, hiring and training actors that know how to act for the camera, preferably those without bad stage habits to unlearn, cutting out all unreal scenery, costume and make-up and keeping everything as simple and as close to the actual as possible. The best movie play I ever saw was in a ten-cent theatre in St. Louis. It was a dramatization of Frank Norris's "McTeague." I have never seen it advertised anywhere, and I never heard of the actors, before or since. But most of it was fine, sincere work, and seeing it made me feel that there is a future for the movie play. One trouble is that up to date, neither producers nor actors nor the most intelligent and best educated part of the audience take the movies seriously. Here is one of the marvels of modern times; something that has captured the public as it never was captured before. And yet most of us look at it as a huge joke, or as something intended to entertain the populace, at which we, too are graciously pleased to be amused. It might mend matters if we could have every day in some reputable paper a column of readable serious stuff about the current movie plays--real criticism, not simply the producer's "blurb." Possibly, too, a partnership between the legitimate stage and the movie may be possible and I shall devote to a somewhat wild scheme of this sort the few pages that remain to me. To begin with, the freedom enjoyed by the Elizabethan dramatists from the limitations imposed by realistic scenery has not been sufficiently insisted upon as an element in their art. Theirs was a true _drame libre_, having its analogies with the present attempts of the vers-librists to free poetry from its restrictions of rhyme and metre. But while the tendency of poetry has always been away from its restrictions, the _mise-en-scene_ in the drama has continually, with the attempts to make it conform to nature, tightened its throttling bands on the real vitality of the stage. Those who periodically wonder why the dramatists of the Elizabethan age--the greatest productive period in the history of the English stage--no longer hold the stage, with the exception of Shakespeare, and who lament that even Shakespeare is yielding his traditional place, have apparently given little thought to this loss of freedom as a contributing cause. While the writers of _vers libre_ have so far freed themselves that some of them have ceased to write poetry at all, it is a question whether the scenic freedom of the old dramatists may not have played such a vital part in the development of their art, that they owed to it at least some of their pre-eminence. Shakespeare's plays, as Shakespeare wrote them, read better than they act. Hundreds of Shakespeare-lovers have reached this conclusion, and many more have reached it than have dared to put it into words. The reason is, it seems to me, that we can not, on the modern stage, enact the plays of Shakespeare as he intended them to be acted--as he really wrote them. If we compare an acting edition of any of the plays with the text as presented by any good editor, this becomes increasingly clear. Shakespeare in his original garb, is simply impossible for the modern stage. The fact that the Elizabethan plays were given against an imaginary back-ground enabled the playwright to disregard the old, hampering unity of place more thoroughly than has ever been possible since his time. His ability to do so, was the result not of any reasoned determination to set his plays without "scenery," but simply of environment. As the scenic art progressed, the backgrounds became more and more realistic and less and less imaginary. The imagination of the audience, however, has always been more or less requisite to the appreciation of drama, as of any other art. No stage tree or house has ever been close enough to its original to deceive the onlooker. He always knows that they are imitations, intended only to aid the imagination, and his imagination has always been obliged to do its part. In Shakespeare's time the imagination did all the work; and as imaginary houses and trees have no weight, the services of the scene-shifter were not required to remove them and to substitute others. The scene could be shifted at once from a battlefield in Flanders to a palace in London and after the briefest of dialogues it could change again to a street in Genoa--all without inconveniencing anyone or necessitating a halt in the presentation of the drama. Any reflective reader of Shakespeare will agree, I think, that this ability to shift scenes, which after all, is only that which the novelist or poet has always possessed and still possesses, enables the dramatist to impart a breadth of view that was impossible under the ideas of unity that governed the drama of the Ancients. Greek tragedy was drama in concentration, a tabloid of intense power--a brilliant light focussed on a single spot of passion or exaltation. The Elizabethan drama is a view of life; and life does not focus, it is diffuse--a congeries of episodes, successive or simultaneous--something not re-producible by the ancient dramatic methods. Today, while we have not gone back to the terrific force of the Greek unified presentation, we have lost this breadth. We strive for it, but we can no longer reach it because of the growth of an idea that realism in _mise-en-scéne_ is absolutely necessary. Of course this idea has been injurious to the drama in more ways than the one that we are now considering. The notable reform in stage settings associated with the names of Gordon Craig, Granville Barker, Urban, Hume and others, arises from a conviction that _mise-en-scéne_ should inspire and reflect a mood--should furnish an atmosphere, rather than attempt to reproduce realistic details. To a certain extent these reforms also operate to simplify stage settings and hence to make a little more possible the quick transitions and the play of viewpoint which I regard as one of the glories of the Elizabethan drama. This simplification, however, is very far from a return to the absolute simplicity of the Elizabethan setting. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the temper of the modern audience is favorable to a great change in this direction. We live in an age of realistic detail and we must yield to the current, while using it, so far as possible, to gain our ends. This being the case, it is certainly interesting to find that, entirely without the aid or consent of those who have at heart the interests of the drama, a new dramatic form has grown up which caters to the utmost to the modern desire for realistic detail--far beyond the dreams of ordinary stage settings--and at the same time makes possible the quick transitions that are the glory of the Elizabethan drama. Here, of course, is where we make connection with the moving picture, whose fascinating realism and freedom from the taint of the footlights have perhaps been sufficiently insisted upon in what has been already said. In the moving picture, with the possibility of realistic backgrounds such as no skill, no money, no opportunity could build up on the ordinary stage--distant prospects, marvels of architecture, waving trees and moving animals--comes the ability of passing from one environment to another, on the other side of the globe perhaps, in the twinkling of an eye. The transitions of the Elizabethan stage sink into insignificance beside the possibilities of the moving-picture screen. Such an alternation as is now common in the film play, where two characters, talking to each other over the telephone, are seen in quick succession, would be impossible on the ordinary stage. The Elizabethan auditor, if his imagination were vivid and ready, might picture such a background of castle or palace or rocky coast as no photographer could produce; but even such imagination takes time to get under way, whereas the screen-picture gets to the brain through the retina instantly. It is worth our while, I think, to consider whether this kind of scenery, rich in detail, but immaterial and therefore devoid of weight, could not be used in connection with the ordinary drama. There are obstacles, but they do not appear insuperable. The ordinary moving-picture, of course, is much smaller than the back drop of a large stage. Its enlargement is merely a matter of optical apparatus. Wings must be reduced in number and provided each with its own projection-machine, or replaced with drops similarly provided. Exits and entrances must be managed somewhat differently than with ordinary scenery. All this is surely not beyond the power of modern stagecraft, which has already surmounted such obstacles and accomplished such wonders. The projection, it is unnecessary to say, must be from behind, not from before, to avoid throwing the actors' shadows on the scenery. There must still, of course, be lighting from the front, and the shadow problem still exists, but no more than it does with ordinary scenery. Its solution lies in diffusing the light. No spotlight could be used, and its enforced absence would be one of the incidental blessings of the moving scene. The advantages of this moving-picture scenery would be many and obvious. Prominent among them of course are fidelity to nature and richness of detail. The one, however, on which I desire to lay stress here is the flexibility in change of scene that we have lost with the introduction of heavy material "scenery" on our stages. This flexibility would be regained without the necessity of discarding scenery altogether and going back to the Elizabethan reliance on the imagination of the audience. Of course, moving scenery would not be required or desired in all dramatic productions--only in those where realistic detail combined with perfect flexibility and rapidity of change in scene seems to be indicated. The scenery should of course be colored, and while we are waiting for the commercial tri-chroic picture with absolutely true values, we may get along very well with the di-chroic ones, such as those turned out with the so-called Kinemacolor process. Those who saw the wonderful screen reproduction of the Indian durbar, several years ago, will realize the possibilities. And more than all else, may we not hope that these new backgrounds may react on the players who perform their parts in front of them? Not necessarily; for we have seen that it does not always do so in the present movie play. But I am confident that the change will come. Little by little the necessities of the case are developing actors who act naturally. One may pose in a canoe on a painted rapid; but how can he do so in the real water course, where every attitude, every play of the muscles must be adapted to the real propulsion of the boat? In short, the movie may ultimately require its presenters to be real, and so may come a school of realism in acting that may have its uses on the legitimate stage also. Who will be the first manager to experiment with this new adjunct to the art of the stage? A WORD TO BELIEVERS[17] [17] Address at the closing session of the Church School of Religious Instruction, St. Louis. People may be divided into a great many different classes according to their attitude toward belief and beliefs--toward the meaning and value of belief in general--toward their own beliefs and those of their neighbors. We have the man who does not know what "belief" means, and who does not care; the man whose idea of its meaning is perverse and wrong; the man who thinks his own beliefs are important and those of his neighbors are unimportant; the man who thinks it proper to base belief on certain considerations and not on others--the man, for instance, who will say he believes that two plus two equals four, but can not believe in the existence of God because the grounds for such belief can not be stated in the same mathematical symbols. These are only a few of the classes that might be defined, using this interesting basis of classification. But before we can take up the question of instruction in the church's beliefs, about which I have been asked to address you this evening, we must recognize the existence of these classes, and possibly the fact that you yourselves are not all in accord in the way in which you look at the subject. What I shall say is largely personal and you must not look upon me as representing anybody or anything. I may even fail to agree with some of the instruction that you have received in this interesting and valuable course. But I do speak, of course, as one who loves our church and as a loyal and I hope a thoughtful layman. First, what is belief? We surely give the word a wide range of values. A man says that he believes in his own existence, which the philosopher Descartes said was the most sure thing in the world--"_Cogito, ergo sum_." He also says that he believes it will rain to-morrow. What can there be in common between these two acts of faith? Between a certainty and a fifty per cent chance, or less? This--that a man is always willing to act on his beliefs; if not, they are not beliefs within the meaning of this address. If you believe it will rain, you take an umbrella. Your doing so is quite independent of the grounds for your belief. There may really be very little chance of its raining; but it is your belief that causes your action, no matter whether it is justified or not. You could not act more decisively if you were acting on the certainty of your own existence. It is this willingness to act that unifies our beliefs--that gives them value. If I heard a man declare his belief that a fierce wild animal was on his track, and if I then saw him calmly lie down and go to sleep on the trail, I should know that he was either insane or a liar. I have intimated above that belief may or may not be based on mathematical certainty. Fill up a basket with black and white pebbles and then draw out one. Let us create a situation that shall make it imperative for a person to declare whether a black or a white pebble will be drawn. For instance, suppose the event to be controlled by an oriental despot who has given orders to strike off the man's head if he announces the wrong color. Of course, if he has seen that only white pebbles went into the basket he says boldly "White." That is certainty. But suppose he saw one black pebble in the mass. Does he any the less say "White"? That one black pebble represents a tiny doubt; does it affect the direction of his enforced action? Suppose there were two black pebbles; or a handful. Suppose nearly half the pebbles were black? Would that make the slightest difference about what he would do? If you judge a man's belief by what he does, as I think you should do, that belief may admit of a good deal of doubt before it is nullified. Are your beliefs all based on mathematical certainties? I hope not; for then they must be few indeed. That many of our fellow men have a wrong conception of belief is a very sad fact. The idea that it must be based on a mathematical demonstration of certainty, or even that it must be free from doubt is surely not Christian. Our prayers and our hymns are full of the contrary. We are beset not only by "fightings" but by "fears"--"within; without;" by "many a conflict, many a doubt"; we pray to be delivered from this same doubt. The whole body of Christian doctrine is permeated with the idea that the true believer is likely to be beset by doubts of all kinds, and that it is his duty, despite all this, to believe. And yet there are many who will not call themselves Christians so long as they can not construct a rigid demonstration of every Christian doctrine. There are many thoughtful men who call themselves Agnostics just because they can not be mathematically sure of religious truth. Some of these men are better Christians than many that are so named. That they hold aloof from Christian fellowship is due to their mistaken notion of the nature of belief. The more is the pity. Now let us go back for a moment to our basket of pebbles. We have seen that the action of the guesser is based to some extent on his knowledge of the contents of the basket. In other words, he has grounds for the belief by which his act is conditioned. Persons may act without grounds; it may be necessary for them so to do. Even in this case there may be a sort of blind substitute for belief. A man, pursued by a bear, comes to a fork in the road. He knows nothing about either branch; one may lead to safety and one to a jungle. But he has to choose, and choose at once; and his choice represents his bid for safety. There is plenty of action of this sort in the world; if we would avoid the necessity for it we must do a little preliminary investigation; and if we can not find definitely where the roads lead, we may at least hit upon some idea of which is the safest. But with all our investigation we shall find that we must rely in the end on our trust in some person; either ourselves or someone else. Even the certainty of the mathematical formula depends on our confidence in the sanity of our own mental processes. The man who sees the basket filled with white pebbles must trust the accuracy of his eyesight. If he relies for his information on what someone else told him, he must trust not only that other's eyesight, but his memory, his veracity, his friendliness. And yet one may be far safer in trusting another than in relying on his own unaided powers. _Securus judicat orbis terrarum_, says the old Latin. "The world's judgment is safe." We have learned to modify this, for we have seen world judgments that are manifestly incorrect. The world thought the earth was flat. It thought there were witches, and it burned them. Here individuals simply followed one another like sheep; and all, like sheep, went astray. But where there is a real, independent judgment on the part of each member of a group, and all agree, that is better proof of its correctness than most individual investigations could furnish. My watch, of the best make and carefully regulated, indicates five o'clock, but if I meet five friends, each of whom tells me, independently, that it is six, I conclude that my watch is wrong. There was never a more careful scientific investigation than that by which a French physicist thought he had established the existence of what he called the "N ray"--examined its properties and measured its constants. He read paper after paper before learned bodies as his research progressed. He challenged the interest of his brother scientists on three continents. And yet he was entirely wrong: there never was any "N ray." The man had deceived himself. The failure of hundreds to see as he did weighed more than his positive testimony that he saw what he thought he saw. Here as elsewhere our view of what may be the truth is based on trust. If you trust the French physicist, you will still believe in the "N ray." Creeds, we are told, are outworn, and yet we are confronted, from birth to death, with situations that imperiously require action of some sort. Every act that responds must be based on belief of some kind. Creeds are only expressions of belief. The kind of Creed that _is_ outworn (and this is doubtless what intelligent persons mean when they make this statement) is the parrot creed, the form of words without meaning, the statement of belief without any grounds behind it or any action in front of it. For this the modern churchman has no use. And if he desires to avoid the parrot creed, he must surely inform himself regarding the meaning of its articles and the grounds on which they are held. More; he must satisfy himself of the particular meaning that they have for him and the personal grounds on which he is to hold them. This is the reason why such a course as that which you complete to-night is necessary and valuable. I have heard instruction of this kind deprecated as likely to bring disturbing elements into the mind. One may doubtless change from belief to skepticism by too much searching. It used to be a standing joke in Yale College, when I was a student there, that a well-known professor reputed to be an Atheist, had been perfectly orthodox until he had heard President Porter's lectures on the "Evidences of Christianity." But seriously, this objection is but another phase of the fallacy at which we have already glanced--that doubts are fatal to belief. I am certain that the professor in question might have examined in detail every one of President Porter's "Evidences," and found them wanting, only to discover clearer and stronger grounds of belief elsewhere--in his mere confidence in others, perhaps. Or he might have turned pragmatist and believed in Christianity because it "worked"--a valid reason in this case doubtless, but not always to be depended on; because the Father of Lies sometimes makes things "work" himself--at least temporarily. But if examining into the grounds of his belief makes a man honestly give up that belief, then I bid him God-speed. I may weep for him, but I cannot help believing that he stands better with his Maker for being honest with himself than if he had gone on with his parrot belief that meant absolutely nothing. I can not feel that the Aztecs who were baptized by the followers of Cortes were any more believers in Christianity after the ceremony than they were before. It seems to me, however that a Christian, examining faithfully the grounds of his belief, will usually have that belief strengthened, and that a churchman, examining the doctrines of the church will be similarly upheld. Not that church instruction should be one-sided. The teaching that tends to make us believe that every intelligent man thinks as we do reacts against itself. It is like the unfortunate temperance teaching that represents the liking for wine as always acquired. When the pupil comes to taste wine and finds that he likes it at once, he concludes that the whole body of instruction in the physiology of alcohol is false and acts accordingly. When a boy is taught that there is nothing of value beyond his own church, or nothing of value outside of Christianity, he will think less of his church, and less of Christianity when he finds intelligent, upright, lovable outsiders. I look back with horror on some of the books, piously prepared under the auspices of the S.P.C.K. in London, that I used to take home from Sunday School. In them we were told that a good man outside the church was worse than a bad man in it. If that was not the teaching in the book, it was at least the form in which it took lodgment in my boyish brain. Thank God it never found permanent foothold there. Instead, I hold in my memory the Eastern story of God's rebuke to Abraham when he expelled the Fire Worshipper from his tent. "Could you not bear with him for one hour? Lo! I have borne with him these forty years!" I have always thought that a knowledge of what our neighbors believe is an excellent balance-wheel to our own beliefs and that our own beliefs, so balanced, will be saner and more restrained. It would be well, I think, if we could have a survey of the world's religions, setting down in parallel columns all the faiths of mankind. If this is too great a task we might begin with a survey of Christianity, set down in the same way. I believe that the results of such a survey might surprise us, showing, as I think it would do, the many fundamentals that we hold in common and the trivial nature of some of the barriers that appear to separate us. In your course, just completed, you have had such a survey, I doubt not, of the beliefs of our own beloved church. Where her divines have differed, you have had the varying opinions spread before you. You have not been told that the mind of every churchman has always been a replica of the mind of every other churchman. Personally, I feel grateful that this has not been the case. As I say my creed and begin "I believe in God, the Father Almighty," I realize that the aspect of even such a basic belief as this, is the same in no two minds; that it shifts from land to land and from age to age. I know that God, as he is, is past human knowledge and that until we see Him face to face we can not all mean just the same thing when we repeat this article of belief. But I realize also that this is not due to the mutability of the Almighty but to man's variability. The Gods of St. Jerome, of Thomas Carlyle and of William James are different; but that is because these men had different types of minds. Behind their human ideas stands God himself--"the same yesterday, to-day and forever." So we may go through the creed; so we may study, as you have been doing, the beliefs of the church. Everywhere we see the evidences of the working, upon fallible human minds of a dim appreciation of something beyond full human knowledge-- "That one far-off divine event Toward which the Whole Creation moves." We have a wonderful church, my friends. It is a church to live with; a church to be proud of. Those who miss what we are privileged to enjoy are missing something from the fulness of life. We have not broken with the historic continuity of the Christian faith: there is no chasm, filled with wreckage, between us and the fathers of the church. Above all we have enshrined our beliefs in a marvellous liturgy, which is ever old and ever new, and which had the good fortune to be put into English at a day when the force of expression in our Mother tongue was peculiarly virile, yet peculiarly lovely. I know of nothing in the whole range of English literature that will compare with the collects as contained in our Book of Common Prayer, for beauty, for form, for condensation and for force. They are a string of pearls. And indeed, what I have said of them applies to the whole book. When I see Committees of well-meaning divines trying to tamper with it, I shudder as I might if I witnessed the attempt of a guild of modern sculptors to improve the Venus of Milo by chipping off a bit here and adding something there. Good reasons exist for changes, doubtless; but I feel that we have here a work of art, of divine art; and art is one of God's ways of reaching the human heart. We are proud that we have not discarded it from our church buildings, from our altars, from the music of our choirs. Let us treat tenderly our great book of Common Prayer, like that other great masterpiece of divine literary art, the King James version of the Bible. There are plenty of better translations; there is not one that has the same magic of words to fire the imagination and melt the heart. These are all trite things to say to churchmen: I have tried, on occasion, to say them to non-churchmen, but they do not seem to respond. There are those who rejoice in their break with historic continuity, who look upon a written form of service with horror. It is well, as I have said, for us to realize that our friends hold these opinions. One can not strengthen his muscles in a tug of war unless some one is pulling the other way. The savor of religion, like that of life itself, is in its contrasts. I thank God that we have them even within our own Communion. We are high-church and low-church and broad-church. We burn incense and we wear Geneva gowns. This diversity is not to be condemned. What is to be deprecated is the feeling among some of us that the diversity should give place to uniformity--to uniformity of their own kind, of course. To me, this would be a calamity. Let us continue to make room in our church for individuality. God never intended men to be pressed down in one mold of sameness. In the last analysis, each of us has his own religious beliefs. The doctrines of our church, or of any church are but a composite portrait of these beliefs. But when one takes such a portrait throughout all lands and in all time, and the features keep true, one can not help regarding them as the divine lineaments. This is how I would have you regard the beliefs of our church, as you have studied them throughout this course--as our particular composite photograph of the face of God, as He has impressed it on the hearts and minds of each one of us. I commend this view to those who have no reverence for beliefs, particularly when they are formulated as creeds. These persons mean that they have no regard for group beliefs but only for those of the individual. Each has his own beliefs, and he must have confidence in them, for they are the grounds on which he acts, if he is a normal man. Even the faith of an Agnostic is based on a very positive belief. As for me, I feel that the churchman goes one step beyond him: he even doubts Doubt. Said Socrates: "I know nothing except this one thing, that I know nothing. The rest of you are ignorant even of this." Socrates was a great man. If he had been greater still, he might have said something like this: "I freely acknowledge that a mathematical formula can not satisfy all the cases that we discuss. But neither can it be stated mathematically that they are all unknowable. I am not even sure that I know nothing." Surely, under these circumstances, we may give over looking for mathematical demonstrations and believe a few things on our own account--that our children love us--that our eyes do not deceive us; that the soul lives on; that God rules all. We may put our faith in what our own church teaches us, even as a child trusts his father though he can not construct a single syllogism that will increase that trust. This does not mean that we shall not benefit by examining the articles of our faith; by learning what they are, what they mean and what others have thought of them. The churchman must combine, in his mental habits, all that is best of the Conservative and the Radical. While holding fast that which is good he must keep an open mind toward every change that may serve to bring him nearer to the truth or give him a clearer vision of it. How we can insure this better than by such an institution as the Church School for Religious Instruction I am sure I do not see. May God guide it and aid it in its work! INDEX Abraham, Story of, 335 Action, test of belief, 332 Ade, George, 110, 170; fables in picture plays, 319 Adults and children, compared, 14 Advertisement of ideas, 127 Aldrich, T.B., 322 Alger, Horatio, 16, 174 America, Fluid customs in, 224 "America", hymn, 191 American Academy of Sciences, 57 American ancestry, 179; architecture, 218; art, 217; music, 218; philosophy, 220; religion, 219; thought, tendencies of, 213 American Association for the Advancement of Science, 50 American Library Association, 51 American Library Institute, 52 American readers, 42 Americanization, 17, 73 Americanization of England, 225 Ancestry, American, 179 Anglo-Saxon ancestry, 181 Architecture, American, 218 Archives, family, 184 Army, international, 159 Art, American, 217; effect of, 163 Art, Early forms of, 37 Association, value of, 45 Atoms of energy and action, 122 Attractiveness a selective feature, 26 Austen, Jane, 176 Author, Function of, 67 Authors Club, N.Y., 51 Auto-suggestion in drugs, 233 Aviation, Newcomb's opinion of, 86 Belief, What is?, 339 Bennett, Arnold, 175 Bible, King James Version, 337 Birth of a nation; picture play, 322 Book-stores, disappearance of, 238 Books in selective education, 27 "Book-Taught Bilkins", 89, 98 Book-titles, Possessive case in, 19 Boston tea-party, 183 Branch libraries, Reasons given for using, 11 British Association, 307 Brooklyn Public Library, 4 Brown, Susannah H., who was she? 281 Browsing, 27; uses of, 104 Bryce, James, quoted, 216 Buildings, Monumental, 141 Bulwer-Lytton, E.G.E.L., 86 Burbank, Luther, 24 Cabiria; motion picture play, 319, 322 Captions in motion pictures, 318 Carnegie, Andrew, 77 Carnegie Institution, 85, 306 Cartoonist, Anecdote of, 294 Centre, What is a?, 145 Centralized associations, 58 Certainty and belief, 330 Chaucer, 293 Chautauqua, 265 Chemistry, New drugs from, 232 Chicago Evening Post, quoted, 109 Chicago, Field houses in, 148 Chicago Women's Club, Paper before, 197 Children's editions, 6; rooms, 31 Christian Science and drugs, 233 Christianity, 331 Christmas book shows, 170 Church School of religious instruction, 329 Church, Use of symbols by, 188 Churches of Christ in America, Federation of, 220 Circulation by volumes, 6; publicity value of, 142; tables, 7, 8 Circulation, Publicity, 142 Civil Engineers, Society of, 52 Civil War, Notions of, 180 Classroom libraries, 29 Clergy, Slight influence of, 13 "Close-ups" in motion pictures, 317 Clubs that meet in libraries, 148 Clubwomen's reading, 259 Colloquial speech, 92 Color-photography in motion pictures, 327 Combat, Settlement by, 158 Commercial travellers, 198 Commission government, 216 Constitution, United States, 50, 214; amendment of, 226 Continuum, 116 Cook, Dr. Frederick, 95 Copyright conference, 53 Courses of reading, 268 Court, International, 159 Creeds, Uses of, 333 Crowd-psychology on a ferry, 247 Dante, 46 D'Annunzio, G., 322 Delivery stations in drug stores, 241 Democracy a result, 72; and ancestry, 186; and despotism, 213; conditions of, 209 Department stores, 238 Despotism and democracy, 213 Dickens, pathos of, 175 Disarmament, 161 Discontinuity of the universe, 124 Distribution of books, 67, 129 Distributor, Library as a, 198 Divorce, Freedom of, 217 Don Quixote, Heine on, 173 Drug-addiction, 234 Drugs and the man, 229 Eaton, Walter Pritchard, quoted, 316 Eclecticism in America, 213 Economic advertising, 130 Economic writings of Newcomb, 86 Education, American, 218; in recreation, 100; modern methods of, 63; of the community, 243; of the sexes, 273; post-scholastic, 30; selective, 23, 65; through books, 90 Efficiency in association, 48; What is? 257 Elizabethan drama, 323 Energetics, Theory of, 114 Energy, Atomic theories of, 113 England an elective monarchy. 214; rigid customs in, 224; source consciousness in, 182 Ephemeral, Meaning of, 36 Episcopalians, 220 Eyes, injured by small type, 302 Fairy tales, 75 Falsity in books, 39 Feminist movement, 267 Flag, what it stands for, 187 Fiction, 39; interest in, 137; intoxication by, 40, 100; uses of, 35 Fluids, Mixture of, 118 Force symbolized by flag, 194 Ford, Henry, 237 Freedom, What is? 192 Gallicism in book-titles, 22 Gary system, 246 Genealogy, American, 179 Gibbs, J. Willard, quoted, 118 Good-will, Influence of, 17 Government, Federal, 213 Gravitation, Law of, 83 Gray's Elegy, 111 Greek tragedy, 324 Group-action, 45; on a ferry, 247 Hall, G. Stanley, quoted, 253 Harvard Classics, 109 Heine, Heinrich, quoted, 173 Henry, Joseph, 80 Heredity, and memory, 73; History and, 179 Hertzian waves, 121 Hilgard, Julius, 80 Hill, G.W., 84 Holmes, Mary J., 104 Homer, Methods of, 198 Honesty, Lack of, 32 Huey, Book by, 305 Hunt, Leigh, 109 Huret, Jules, 41 Identity, Meaning of, 114 Impeachment, 214 Indicator, in English libraries, 225 Indifference to books, 133 Information in books, 94 Inspiration from books, 101 Intemperance in reading, 40, 100 Interest, Importance of, 287, 289; Necessity of, 5, 137 International agreements in science, 85 Internationalism, 159 Intoxication by fiction, 40, 100 Ivanhoe, 175 James, William, 138; founder of pragmatism, 221; quoted, 287 Keith, Cleveland, 84 Kent, William, quoted, 229 Kepler, quoted, 177 Kinemacolor process, 327 Kinetic theory, 120 Koopman, H.L., 308 Lagrange, 114 Languages, written and spoken, 90 Large type, Books in, 301 Law, Enforcement of, 158 Le Bon, Gustave, 45 Lee, Gerald Stanley, 77 Legibility of type, 306 Libbey, Laura Jean, 41, 104 Libraries, Economic features of, 67 Library associations. 49; Non-partisanship of, 70, 96, 152; Private basis of, 169 Lindsay, Vachell, 321 Lines, Length of on printed page, 309 Liouville's theorem, 123 Lippmann, Walter, quoted, 216, 228 Literature an art, 165; evaluation of, 95; static and dynamic, 35 Los Angeles Public Library, 96 Lower-case letters. 307 Loyalists, United Empire, 180 Lummis, Chas. F., 96 Lunar theory, 84 Magazines, Support of, 68 Magical remedies, 233 Magnet, Definition of, 87 Make-up in motion pictures, 317 Malemployment, 229 Maxwell Jas. Clerk, 115 Mayflower, The, 183 Medical Record, Strasburg, 305 Meetings in libraries, 147 Memory, Latent, 74 Meredith, Geo., 110 Mexican commission, 194 Military associations, 48 Mill, John Stuart, 243, 244 Mind, Male and female types, 272 Moderation, Lack of in America, 235 Mohammedanism, 219 Molecular theory, 115 Moon's motion, 84 Morals, Eclecticism in, 216 Morgan, J.P., 169 Motives of library users, 11 Moving pictures, 313 Municipal ownership and operation, 154 Music, American, 218 N-ray, 333 Narrative, earliest literary form, 37 National Academy of Fine Arts, 57 National Academy of Science, 52 National Education Association, 50; Address before, 145 Nautical Almanac, 80 New country, What is? 182 New England Society, 179 New York, Free Circulating Library, 19 New York, Library support in, 200; West side readers, 42 New York Public Library, 11, 30, 220 Newcomb, Simon, Sketch of, 79 Newspapers, 36 Newton, Isaac, 83 Non-partisanship of library, 250 Norris, Frank, 322 Omar Khayyam, 108 Open shelves, 104; Origin of, 225 Optic, Oliver, 174 Ostwald, Wilhelm, 114 Pacifism, 157 Pageant of St. Louis, 188 Pantomime in the motion picture, 320 Papers, Ready-made, for clubs, 270; scientific, 275 Pater, Walter, 168 Paulist fathers, 220 Pauperization, intellectual, 68 Pendleton, A.M., quoted, 140 Perry, Bliss, quoted, 211 Pharmacy, School of, address to, 229 Philadelphia Free Library, Address at, 67 Philosophy, an interesting subject, 133, 138; in America, 220 Phonograph, Uses of, 94 Physics made interesting, 138 Pickford, Mary, 247, 317 Planck, Max, 113, 120 Planets, Orbits of, 83 Players' Club, N.Y., 51 Pocahontas, 183 Poincaré, Henri, 113, 120 "Poison labels" for books, 96 Porter, Noah, 334 Posse, International, 159 Possessive case, Use of, 19 Pragmatism in America, 221 Prayer Book as literature, 337 Prescott, William H., 95 Press, Slight influence of, 13 Pride, Personal and group, 185 Princeton University, 219 Printing Art, magazine, 308 Programitis, club disease, 286 Programmes, Club, 268, 280, 295 Public as library owners, 205 Public Library, 169; eclecticism of, 221; people's share in, 197 Publicity, Library, 140 Publisher, Function of, 67 Puritanism, 219 Quanta, 121; hypothesis of, 113 Race-record, Library as a, 74 Radio-activity, 231 Rayleigh's Law, 120 Readers, Do they read? 3 Reading, mechanism of, 91; skill in, 135 Realism in education, 246; in motion pictures, 314 Recall, earliest form of, 213 Records, varieties of, 94 Recreation through books, 99 Religion in America, 219 Renewal, Preservation by, 97 Repetition a test of art, 166 Reprinting, Use of, 98 Re-reading, Art of, 163 Residual personality, 290 Resonators, 121 Revolution, American, notions of, 180; versus evolution, 279 Revue Scientifique, 113 Roethlin, Barbara E., 306 Roman Catholic Church, 220 Roman viewpoint in history, 181 Rome, decadence of, 227 Rousiers, Paul de., quoted, 55, 56, 57 St. Louis Academy of Science, paper before, 113 St. Louis, library tax in, 200 St. Louis Public Library, 140, 254, 302; meetings in, 150 Sampling books, 110 Scenery in motion pictures, 317; in Elizabethan drama, 323; made of motion pictures, 327 School libraries, 29 School, Non-partisanship of, 70; Community use of, 155 Schoolmen of N.Y., Paper before, 23 Scientific societies, 52 "See America First" movement, 191 Selection In nature, 23; mechanical, 47 Selective education, 65 Sex in library use, 15 Sexes, differences of, 272 Shakespeare, 178; changes in, 293; rank of, 168; unavailable for stage, 323 Shaw, Edw. R., 304 Social Centre movement, 145 Society for Psychical Research, 82 Society of Illuminating Engineers, 57 Socrates, quoted, 338 Sorolla, 164 Southern views of Civil War, 180 Spelling reform, 93 Staginess of the theatre, 315 Standard Dictionary, 87 Standards in literature, 36 Statistics of reading, actual, 4 Story-telling, 37; extraordinary, 282 Structure of energy, 118 Superficiality, meaning of, 105; 269 Swift, Dean, 208 Symbols, Use of, 188 Taste, literary, 171; origin of, 4 Tax, library, 200 Teacher, influence of, 13, 243 Text-books, Defects of, 270 Therapeutics, Changes in, 230 Tocqueville, de., quoted, 56 Toronto, University of, 220 Trade-literature, 98 Tradition, Uses of, 93 Travel, Foreign, in United States, 41 Trollope, Anthony, 176 Tutorial system, 219 Tyndall, John, 138 Type sizes, Standardization of, 304 Un-American, what is? 226 Unfitness, Elimination of, 24 Union, symbolized by flag, 189 Unity of place on the stage, 324 Universal City, 317 Value, Structure of, 119 Van Dyke, Henry, quoted, 193 Verne, Jules, 86 Violence, systematization of, 157 Vision, Conservation of, 305 Volumes, Statistics by, 4 Walton, Isaac, 165 War, European, 209, 249; status of, 158 Wesley, John, 46 West, source-consciousness of, 182 White, Gilbert, 165 Wien, Wilhelm, 122 Women's Clubs, 210; reading of, 259 Woodbury, George E., quoted, 219 
25545	----	None 
35535	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive.) FEEDING THE MIND UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT VOLUME. _1s. net each; leather, 2s. net each._ PRAYERS WRITTEN AT VAILIMA. BY R. L. STEVENSON. A CHRISTMAS SERMON. BY R. L. STEVENSON. LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS. FEEDING THE MIND BY LEWIS CARROLL WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY WILLIAM H. DRAPER LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1907 [_All rights reserved_] NOTE _The history of this little sparkle from the pen of Lewis Carroll may soon be told. It was in October of the year 1884 that he came on a visit to a certain vicarage in Derbyshire, where he had promised, on the score of friendship, to do what was for him a most unusual favour--to give a lecture before a public audience._ _The writer well remembers his nervous, highly-strung manner as he stood before the little room full of simple people, few of whom had any idea of the world-wide reputation of that shy, slight figure before them._ _When the lecture was over, he handed the manuscript to me, saying: 'Do what you like with it.'_ _The one for whose sake he did this kindness was not long after called_ 'Into the Silent Land.' _So the beautifully-written MS., in his customary violet ink, has been treasured for more than twenty years, only now and then being read over at Christmastime to a friend or two by the study fire, always to meet with the same welcome and glad acknowledgment that here was a genuine, though little flame that could not have belonged to any other source but that which all the world knew in_ Alice in Wonderland _and_ Through the Looking-Glass. _There may be, perhaps, many others who, gathering round a winter fire, will be glad to read words, however few, from that bright source, and whose memories will respond to the fresh touch of that cherished name._ _It remains to add but one or two more associations that cling to it and make the remembrance more vivid still. While Lewis Carroll was staying in the house, there came to call a certain genial and by no means shy Dean, who, without realizing what he was doing, proceeded, in the presence of other callers, to make some remark identifying Mr. Dodgson as the author of his books._ _There followed an immense explosion immediately on the visitor's departure, with a pathetic and serious request that, if there were any risk of a repetition of the call, due warning might be given, and the retreat secured._ _Probably not many readers of the immortal Alice have ever seen the curious little whimsical paper called_ EIGHT OR NINE WISE WORDS ABOUT LETTER-WRITING _which their author had printed and used to send to his acquaintance, accompanied by a small case for postage-stamps._ _It consists of forty pages, and is published by Emberlin and Son, Oxford; and these are the contents:_ PAGE ON STAMP-CASES, 5 HOW TO BEGIN A LETTER, 8 HOW TO GO ON WITH A LETTER, 11 HOW TO END A LETTER, 20 ON REGISTERING CORRESPONDENCE, 22 _In this little script, also, there are the same sparkles of wit which betoken that nimble pen, as, for example, under_ 'How to begin a Letter': '"And never, never, dear madam" (N.B.--This remark is addressed to ladies _only_. No _man_ would ever do such a thing), "put 'Wednesday' simply as the date! "_That way madness lies!_"' _From section 3_: 'How to go on with a Letter.'--'A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too _quickly_. Of course you reply, "I do it to save _time_." A very good object, no doubt, but what right have you to do it at your friend's expense? Isn't _his_ time as valuable as yours? Years ago I used to receive letters from a friend--and very interesting letters too--written in one of the most atrocious hands ever invented. It generally took me about a _week_ to read one of his letters! I used to carry it about in my pocket and take it out at leisure times, to puzzle over the riddles which composed it--holding it in different positions and at different distances, till at last the meaning of some hopeless scrawl would flash upon me, when I at once wrote down the English under it. And when several had been thus guessed the context would help one with the others, till at last the whole series of hieroglyphics was deciphered. If _all_ one's friends wrote like that, life would be entirely spent in reading their letters!' _Rule for correspondence that has, unfortunately, become_ controversial. '_Don't repeat yourself._--When once you have had your say fully and clearly on a certain point, and have failed to convince your friend, _drop that subject_. To repeat your arguments all over again, will simply lead to his doing the same, and so you will go on like a circulating decimal. _Did you ever know a circulating decimal come to an end?_' * * * * * _Rule 5._--'If your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed, or make your reply distinctly less severe; and if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards making up the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly _more_ friendly. * * * * * 'If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than _three-eighths_ of the way, and if in making friends, each was ready to go _five-eighths_ of the way--why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! Which is like the Irishman's remonstrance to his gad-about daughter: "Shure, you're _always_ goin' out! You go out three times for _wanst_ that you come in!"' * * * * * _Rule 6._--'Don't try to get the last word.... (N.B.--If you are a gentleman and your friend a lady, this rule is superfluous: _You won't get the last word!_)' * * * * * _Let the last word to-day be part of another rule, which gives a glimpse into that gentle heart:_ 'When you have written a letter that you feel may possibly irritate your friend, however necessary you may have felt it to so express yourself, _put it aside till the next day_. Then read it over again, and fancy it addressed to yourself. This will often lead to your writing it all over again, taking out a lot of the vinegar and pepper and putting in honey instead, and thus making a _much_ more palatable dish of it!' 'Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis?' W. H. D. _November 1907._ FEEDING THE MIND Breakfast, dinner, tea; in extreme cases, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, supper, and a glass of something hot at bedtime. What care we take about feeding the lucky body! Which of us does as much for his mind? And what causes the difference? Is the body so much the more important of the two? By no means: but life depends on the body being fed, whereas we can continue to exist as animals (scarcely as men) though the mind be utterly starved and neglected. Therefore Nature provides that, in case of serious neglect of the body, such terrible consequences of discomfort and pain shall ensue, as will soon bring us back to a sense of our duty: and some of the functions necessary to life she does for us altogether, leaving us no choice in the matter. It would fare but ill with many of us if we were left to superintend our own digestion and circulation. 'Bless me!' one would cry, 'I forgot to wind up my heart this morning! To think that it has been standing still for the last three hours!' 'I can't walk with you this afternoon,' a friend would say, 'as I have no less than eleven dinners to digest. I had to let them stand over from last week, being so busy, and my doctor says he will not answer for the consequences if I wait any longer!' Well, it is, I say, for us that the consequences of neglecting the body can be clearly seen and felt; and it might be well for some if the mind were equally visible and tangible--if we could take it, say, to the doctor, and have its pulse felt. 'Why, what have you been doing with this mind lately? How have you fed it? It looks pale, and the pulse is very slow.' 'Well, doctor, it has not had much regular food lately. I gave it a lot of sugar-plums yesterday.' 'Sugar-plums! What kind?' 'Well, they were a parcel of conundrums, sir.' 'Ah, I thought so. Now just mind this: if you go on playing tricks like that, you'll spoil all its teeth, and get laid up with mental indigestion. You must have nothing but the plainest reading for the next few days. Take care now! No novels on any account!' * * * * * Considering the amount of painful experience many of us have had in feeding and dosing the body, it would, I think, be quite worth our while to try and translate some of the rules into corresponding ones for the mind. First, then, we should set ourselves to provide for our mind its _proper kind_ of food. We very soon learn what will, and what will not, agree with the body, and find little difficulty in refusing a piece of the tempting pudding or pie which is associated in our memory with that terrible attack of indigestion, and whose very name irresistibly recalls rhubarb and magnesia; but it takes a great many lessons to convince us how indigestible some of our favourite lines of reading are, and again and again we make a meal of the unwholesome novel, sure to be followed by its usual train of low spirits, unwillingness to work, weariness of existence--in fact, by mental nightmare. Then we should be careful to provide this wholesome food in _proper amount_. Mental gluttony, or over-reading, is a dangerous propensity, tending to weakness of digestive power, and in some cases to loss of appetite: we know that bread is a good and wholesome food, but who would like to try the experiment of eating two or three loaves at a sitting? I have heard a physician telling his patient--whose complaint was merely gluttony and want of exercise--that 'the earliest symptom of hyper-nutrition is a deposition of adipose tissue,' and no doubt the fine long words greatly consoled the poor man under his increasing load of fat. I wonder if there is such a thing in nature as a FAT MIND? I really think I have met with one or two: minds which could not keep up with the slowest trot in conversation; could not jump over a logical fence, to save their lives; always got stuck fast in a narrow argument; and, in short, were fit for nothing but to waddle helplessly through the world. * * * * * Then, again, though the food be wholesome and in proper amount, we know that we must not consume _too many kinds at once_. Take the thirsty a quart of beer, or a quart of cider, or even a quart of cold tea, and he will probably thank you (though not so heartily in the last case!). But what think you his feelings would be if you offered him a tray containing a little mug of beer, a little mug of cider, another of cold tea, one of hot tea, one of coffee, one of cocoa, and corresponding vessels of milk, water, brandy-and-water, and butter-milk? The sum total might be a quart, but would it be the same thing to the haymaker? * * * * * Having settled the proper kind, amount, and variety of our mental food, it remains that we should be careful to allow _proper intervals_ between meal and meal, and not swallow the food hastily without mastication, so that it may be thoroughly digested; both which rules, for the body, are also applicable at once to the mind. First, as to the intervals: these are as really necessary as they are for the body, with this difference only, that while the body requires three or four hours' rest before it is ready for another meal, the mind will in many cases do with three or four minutes. I believe that the interval required is much shorter than is generally supposed, and from personal experience, I would recommend anyone, who has to devote several hours together to one subject of thought, to try the effect of such a break, say once an hour, leaving off for five minutes only each time, but taking care to throw the mind absolutely 'out of gear' for those five minutes, and to turn it entirely to other subjects. It is astonishing what an amount of impetus and elasticity the mind recovers during those short periods of rest. And then, as to the mastication of the food, the mental process answering to this is simply _thinking over_ what we read. This is a very much greater exertion of mind than the mere passive taking in the contents of our Author. So much greater an exertion is it, that, as Coleridge says, the mind often 'angrily refuses' to put itself to such trouble--so much greater, that we are far too apt to neglect it altogether, and go on pouring in fresh food on the top of the undigested masses already lying there, till the unfortunate mind is fairly swamped under the flood. But the greater the exertion the more valuable, we may be sure, is the effect. One hour of steady thinking over a subject (a solitary walk is as good an opportunity for the process as any other) is worth two or three of reading only. And just consider another effect of this thorough digestion of the books we read; I mean the arranging and 'ticketing,' so to speak, of the subjects in our minds, so that we can readily refer to them when we want them. Sam Slick tells us that he has learnt several languages in his life, but somehow 'couldn't keep the parcels sorted' in his mind. And many a mind that hurries through book after book, without waiting to digest or arrange anything, gets into that sort of condition, and the unfortunate owner finds himself far from fit really to support the character all his friends give him. 'A thoroughly well-read man. Just you try him in any subject, now. You can't puzzle him.' You turn to the thoroughly well-read man. You ask him a question, say, in English history (he is understood to have just finished reading Macaulay). He smiles good-naturedly, tries to look as if he knew all about it, and proceeds to dive into his mind for the answer. Up comes a handful of very promising facts, but on examination they turn out to belong to the wrong century, and are pitched in again. A second haul brings up a fact much more like the real thing, but, unfortunately, along with it comes a tangle of other things--a fact in political economy, a rule in arithmetic, the ages of his brother's children, and a stanza of Gray's 'Elegy,' and among all these, the fact he wants has got hopelessly twisted up and entangled. Meanwhile, every one is waiting for his reply, and, as the silence is getting more and more awkward, our well-read friend has to stammer out some half-answer at last, not nearly so clear or so satisfactory as an ordinary schoolboy would have given. And all this for want of making up his knowledge into proper bundles and ticketing them. Do you know the unfortunate victim of ill-judged mental feeding when you see him? Can you doubt him? Look at him drearily wandering round a reading-room, tasting dish after dish--we beg his pardon, book after book--keeping to none. First a mouthful of novel; but no, faugh! he has had nothing but that to eat for the last week, and is quite tired of the taste. Then a slice of science; but you know at once what the result of that will be--ah, of course, much too tough for _his_ teeth. And so on through the whole weary round, which he tried (and failed in) yesterday, and will probably try and fail in to-morrow. Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his very amusing book, 'The Professor at the Breakfast Table,' gives the following rule for knowing whether a human being is young or old: 'The crucial experiment is this--offer a bulky bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is easily accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established.' He tells us that a human being, 'if young, will eat anything at any hour of the day or night.' To ascertain the healthiness of the _mental_ appetite of a human animal, place in its hands a short, well-written, but not exciting treatise on some popular subject--a mental _bun_, in fact. If it is read with eager interest and perfect attention, _and if the reader can answer questions on the subject afterwards_, the mind is in first-rate working order. If it be politely laid down again, or perhaps lounged over for a few minutes, and then, 'I can't read this stupid book! Would you hand me the second volume of "The Mysterious Murder"?' you may be equally sure that there is something wrong in the mental digestion. If this paper has given you any useful hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it is one's duty no less than one's interest to 'read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest' the good books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled. BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 
32172	----	Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Transcriber's Note: Original spelling and grammar has been retained except in the following instances: on page 45, "four hundred vears" was changed to "four hundred years", on page 62, "book are transscriptions" was changed to "book are transcriptions", and on page 131, "United States received the territorry" to "United States received the territory". The original contains both 'dooryard' and 'door-yard' as well as 'stage coach' and 'stage-coach'.] CHILDREN'S STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE BY THE SAME AUTHOR CHILDREN'S STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1861-1896. One vol., 12mo. $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1660-1860. One vol., 12mo. $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES OF AMERICAN PROGRESS. One vol., 12mo. Illustrated $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY. One vol., 12mo. Illustrated $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES OF THE GREAT SCIENTISTS. One vol., 12mo. Illustrated $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. FROM TALIESIN TO SHAKESPEARE. One vol., 12mo. $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. FROM SHAKESPEARE TO TENNYSON. One vol., 12mo. $1.25 THE PRINCESS LILLIWINKINS AND OTHER STORIES. One vol., 12mo. Illustrated $1.25 CHILDREN'S STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE 1660-1860 BY HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHT NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE EARLY LITERATURE, 1 CHAPTER II JOHN JAMES AUDUBON--1780-1851, 14 CHAPTER III WASHINGTON IRVING--1783-1859, 28 CHAPTER IV JAMES FENIMORE COOPER--1789-1851, 51 CHAPTER V WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT--1794-1878, 69 CHAPTER VI WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT--1796-1859, 82 CHAPTER VII JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER--1807-1892, 96 CHAPTER VIII NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE--1804-1864, 108 CHAPTER IX GEORGE BANCROFT--1800-1891, 123 CHAPTER X EDGAR ALLAN POE--1809-1849, 137 CHAPTER XI RALPH WALDO EMERSON--1803-1882, 149 CHAPTER XII HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW--1807-1882, 156 CHAPTER XIII JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY--1814-1877, 174 CHAPTER XIV HARRIET BEECHER STOWE--1811-1896, 188 CHAPTER XV JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL--1819-1892, 203 CHAPTER XVI FRANCIS PARKMAN--1823-1893, 219 CHAPTER XVII OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES--1809-1894, 234 CHAPTER I THE EARLY LITERATURE One Sunday morning, about the year 1661, a group of Indians was gathered around a noble-looking man, listening to a story he was reading. It was summer and the day was beautiful, and the little Indian children who sat listening were so interested that not even the thought of their favorite haunts by brookside or meadow could tempt them from the spot. The story was about the life of Christ and his mission to the world, and the children had heard it many times, but to-day it seemed new to them because it was read in their own language, which had never been printed before. This was the Mohegan tongue, which was spoken in different dialects by the Indians generally throughout Massachusetts; and although it had been used for hundreds of years by the tribes in that part of the country its appearance on paper was as strange to them as if it had been a language of which they knew not a single word. It was just as strange to them, in fact, as if they had heard one of their war cries or love songs set to music, or had seen a picture of their dreams of the happy hunting grounds in that invisible western world where the sun went every night, and which they expected to see only after death. The man who was reading the old story was John Eliot, an English missionary, who had devoted his life to the Indians, and whose ambition it was to leave behind him as his greatest gift the Bible translated into their own tongue. With this in view he set about making them familiar with the Christian faith, and established Sunday-schools among them, where men, women, and children alike were instructed. From time to time they heard read stories from the New Testament which Eliot had translated, and in which he was greatly helped by one or two Indians who had gifts as translators, and could express the English thought into Indian words more fitting and beautiful than Eliot himself could have done. In all his earlier missionary work he also had the assistance of the great sachem Waban, because, as it happened, the first sermon Eliot ever preached to the Indians was delivered in Waban's wigwam. The text was from the old poetic words of Ezekiel--"Say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God," etc. The Indian name for wind was Waban, the old sachem's name, and he thought the sermon was addressed to him. He became an ardent convert and helped Eliot greatly in his work of Christianizing the tribes, and in particular in his trouble to keep peace among the sachems, who objected to the freedom of thought which the new religion taught, thinking that it interfered with their own authority over their people. In a little book in which Eliot describes these grievances of the chiefs he calls them _Pills for the Sachems_, and says they were much harder to swallow than even the nauseous doses of their medicine men. For the better instruction of the Indian children Eliot prepared a small primer, which was printed in 1669, eight years after the New Testament was printed. It was a curious little book, having the alphabet in large and small letters on the fly-leaf, and containing the Apostles' Creed, the Catechism, and the Lord's Prayer, with other religious matter. Out of this primer the Indian youth learned to read and to spell in words of one syllable. When he was able to master the whole Bible, which was printed in 1663, his education was considered complete. This old Indian Bible, which Eliot was ten years in translating, was printed at Cambridge and bound in dark blue morocco, it being the first Bible and one of the first books ever printed in America. Two hundred copies were made, and a second edition contained a dedication to Charles II. of England, praising him for his goodness in distributing the word of God among his colonies, which had not yielded him gold and silver as the Spanish colonies had yielded their sovereign, but which would nevertheless redound to his immortal glory as the first-fruits of Christianity among those heathen tribes. The dedication took up two pages, which was about all the English the old book contained, the rest being in that curious, half-musical, half-guttural tongue of the Mohegans, which Cotton Mather said had been growing since the time of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Certainly some of the words are of such mighty length and awful sound that we may well believe the same old preacher when he says that he knew from personal knowledge that demons could understand Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but that they were utterly baffled by the speech of the American Indians. Very few of these Bibles now exist, and those are of priceless value to lovers of old books. One of the earliest books that may be claimed as belonging to American letters was a volume descriptive of the early settlements in Virginia by Captain John Smith. It has great value as a representation of Indian life before its contact with white civilization. Smith had followed the army of England through the greater part of Europe and Asia and knew the life of a soldier of fortune. He had fought with Turks, hunted Tartars, and had always been the hero of the occasion. The Indian to him was but another kind of heathen to subdue, and the book is full of adventures, in which he describes himself as always intrepid and victorious. This is the earliest book that brings the Indians of the colonies closely before our eyes, and its style is good, and shows that strong, terse, English fibre which characterized the writings of the adventurous Englishman of that time. In another book Smith gives a charming description of inland Virginia, whose birds, flowers, wild animals, rivers, and scenery are discussed in a poetic fashion that throws a new light on the character of the adventurous soldier. There is in both volumes a richness of description in the details of Indian life that possesses a rare value to the student. The story of Smith's visit to Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, reads like a bit of oriental fairy lore, and the great Indian chief, seated upon his couch of skins, with his savage guard around him, is brought as vividly before our eyes as the hero of a romance. And so Smith's books stand for good literature, though written only with the idea of familiarizing the people at home with the condition of the new colony, and they make no mean showing as the beginning of American letters. In New England literature from the first partook inevitably of the Puritan character. There were long journals of the pilgrim fathers, books on books of sermons, and volume after volume of argument on the burning religious questions that had been heard in England since the first Puritan defied the king and openly declared for freedom of conscience. Among the most celebrated of these old books is the _Bay Psalm Book_ of 1640, in which the psalms of David were done into metre for the use of congregations. This book, in which the beautiful Hebrew poetry is tortured into the most abominable English, is a fair example of the religious verse-making of the day. A curious book was the first almanac, published at Cambridge in 1689, and which contained prognostications of the weather, dates of historical events, general news of the world, and bits of poetry, having also blank spaces for the use of the owner, who could either utilize them for preserving his own verses, as Cotton Mather did, or keep therein his accounts with his wig maker and hair-dresser, as did that worthy Puritan Thomas Prince. Perhaps the greatest poet of those early times was Anne Bradstreet, who wrote her famous poems on the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies, and who was called the tenth muse by an admiring public. These works are long and learned, but they show less the poetic spirit of the age than do the short but pointed ballads that sprang up from time to time and which indicated the popular feeling over the events that were making the history of New England. These ballads were on every conceivable subject, from the Day of Judgment to the sale of a cow. The war between England and France for the possession of Canada gave rise to many ditties the tunes of which remained popular long afterward. The Indian wars also furnished material for many. They were printed in almanacs, or loose sheets, and sometimes not printed at all. They served as news-venders long before the first newspaper was published (in 1690) and they expressed, as nothing else could have done, the attitude of the people toward the church, the state, the governor, and even the "tidy man" (tithing-man), whose duty it was to tickle with a hazel rod any youngster who was unlucky enough to fall asleep in church. Later, in revolutionary times, the ballad became a power second to none. Here first appears that great hero Yankee Doodle, who comes, like will-o'-the-wisp, from no one knows where, although many learned pages have been written to show his nationality. He seems to have been as great a traveller as Marco Polo or Baron Munchausen, and, like them, he must have seen many strange sights and countries. Perhaps he may have a trace of the gypsy in him and could recall, if he liked, strange wanderings through the Far East. He may have been a camp-follower through the German and Flemish wars. It is more than probable that he hobnobbed with the Italian banditti, and took an elfish delight in depriving honest travellers of their wits and purses. We know that he lived for a time in Holland, where he seems to have preferred a peaceful life and was content with the humdrum existence of those worthy Dutch farmers who invited him to their feasts, welcomed him to their roofs, and sang his praises in their harvest-fields in such stirring words as these: Yanker didel doodel down, Didel dudel lanter; Yanke viver voover vown, Botermilk un tanther; which means that if the lads and lassies reaped and gleaned faithfully they should be rewarded by a tenth of the grain, and an unlimited supply of buttermilk. Afterward Yankee Doodle seems to have tired of pastoral life, for we find him in the midst of Roundhead and Cavalier upon the battle-fields of England during the Civil War. No doubt such a jolly comrade felt a tinge of sadness at the misfortunes of the unlucky Charles I., and he could not have found the long-faced Puritans, with their nasal voices, very good company for such a happy-go-lucky as himself. At any rate he never became an Englishman, and seems only to have paused in England while making up his mind where to settle down and spend his old age. He probably made his first bow in America in 1775, and it is evident that he took a fancy to the new country, and was pleased, and perhaps flattered, by the reception he met. With his old abandon he threw himself heart and soul into the conflict, and became, in fact, the child of the Revolution. He was a leading spirit everywhere. Throwing all recollections of English hospitality to the winds, he chased the red coats at Bunker Hill, gave them a drubbing at Bennington, and remained bravely in the rear to watch their scouts while Washington retreated from Long Island. Many a time he was the sole support of the faithful few stationed to guard some important outpost; many a time he marched along with the old Continentals, grim and faithful, expecting every moment would reveal danger and perhaps death. He crossed the Delaware with Washington on that eventful Christmas night, in 1775, though the Italian blood in him must have shrunk a little from the cold. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the great leader through all the misery and hopelessness of Valley Forge. He was joyously welcomed by the soldiers in all their daring escapades when breaking loose from the restraints of camp life; and the women and children who had to remain home and suffer danger and privation alone, never saw his honest face without a smile. Such devotion met with its reward. When the war was over the old veteran retired from the service with full military rank, and was brevetted an American citizen besides. It is pleasant to think that he has at last found a resting place among a people who will always honor and love him. Two other ballads very popular at that time were _The Battle of Trenton_ and _The Massacre of Wyoming_, while innumerable ones of lesser note were sung by fireside and camp-fire, all through the colonies. In New York the first liberty pole raised in the country was planted by the Sons of Liberty, a band of patriotic Americans, who set it up again and again as it was cut down by the Tories, accompanying their work by singing every imaginable kind of ballad that would irritate the breast of the British sympathizers. During the war of 1812, came the _Star Spangled Banner_, written to the accompaniment of shot and shell, while the author, Francis S. Key, was a prisoner on shipboard watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British, in the harbor of Baltimore. The song was born in the darkness of a night of terrible anxiety, and when the dawn broke and found the flag still floating over the fort, an earnest of the victory to come, its triumphant measures seemed the fitting pæan of American liberty. The ballad of the camps had developed into the national anthem. CHAPTER II JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 1780-1851 In the days when Louisiana was a province of Spain a little dark-eyed boy used to wander among the fields and groves of his father's plantation studying with eager delight the works of nature around him. Lying under the orange-trees watching the mocking-bird, or learning from his mother's lips the names of the flowers that grew in every corner of the plantation, he soon came to feel that he was part of that beautiful world, whose language was the songs of birds and whose boundaries extended to every place where a blossom lifted its head above the green sod. To him, as he said years afterward, the birds were playmates and the flowers dear friends, and before he could distinguish between the azure of the sky and the emerald of the grass he had formed an intimacy with them so close and endearing that whenever removed from their presence he felt a loneliness almost unbearable. No other companions suited him so well, and no roof seemed so secure as that formed of the dense foliage under which the feathered tribes resorted, or the caves and rocks to which the curlew and cormorant retired to protect themselves from the fury of the tempest. In these words, recorded by himself, we read the first chapter of the life history of John James Audubon, the American naturalist and the author of one of the early classics of American literature. In those early days his father was Audubon's teacher, and hand in hand they searched the groves for new specimens, or lingered over the nests where lay the helpless young. It was his father who taught him to look upon the shining eggs as 'flowers in the bud,' and to note the different characteristics which distinguished them. These excursions were seasons of joy, but when the time came for the birds to take their annual departure the joy was turned to sorrow. To the young naturalist a dead bird, though beautifully preserved and mounted, gave no pleasure. It seemed but a mockery of life, and the constant care needed to keep the specimens in good condition brought an additional sense of loss. Was there no way in which the memory of these feathered friends might be kept fresh and beautiful? He writes that he turned in his anxiety to his father, who in answer laid before him a volume of illustrations. Audubon turned over the leaves with a new hope in his heart, and although the pictures were badly executed the idea satisfied him. Although he was unconscious of it, it was the moment of the birth of his own great life work. Pencil in hand he began to copy nature untiringly, although for a long time he produced what he himself called but a family of cripples, the sketches being burned regularly on his birthdays. But no failure could stop him. He made hundreds of sketches of birds every year, worthless almost in themselves because of bad drawing, but valuable as studies of nature. Meantime for education the boy had been taken from Louisiana to France, the home of his father, who wished him to become a soldier, sailor, or engineer. For a few hours daily Audubon studied mathematics, drawing, and geography, and then would disappear in the country, returning with eggs, nests, or curious plants. His rooms looked like a museum of natural history, while the walls were covered with drawings of French birds. Learning mathematics with difficulty Audubon became easily proficient in fencing and dancing, and learned to play upon the violin, flute, flageolet, and guitar. His drawing lessons were his greatest delight, the great French artist, David, being his teacher and critic. Once, on the elder Audubon's return from a long sea-voyage, he was chagrined to find that although his son had probably the largest amateur natural-history collection in France, he had neglected his equations, angles, and triangles, and the lad was sent to his father's station, given one day to visit the ships and fortifications, and then set to the study of mathematics, and mathematics only. For one year he wrestled with problems and theorems, counting himself happy if by any chance he could fly to the country for an hour to take up his acquaintance with the birds; and then the father admitted his son's unfitness for military pursuits and sent him to America to take charge of some property. Audubon was then seventeen years of age, and had but one ambition in life--to live in the woods with his wild friends. As his father's estate was rented by a very orderly minded Quaker there was little for Audubon to do except enjoy himself. Hunting, fishing, drawing, and studying English from a young English girl he afterward married, filled the day, while he never missed the balls and skating parties for which the neighborhood was famous. He was the best marksman in the region, able to bring down his quarry while riding at full speed. He was the best skater to be found; at balls and parties he was the amateur master of ceremonies, gayly teaching the newest steps and turns that obtained in France. In the hunt it was Audubon--dressed, perhaps, in satin breeches and pumps, for he was a great dandy--who led the way through the almost unbroken wilderness. Add to this that he was an expert swimmer, once swimming the Schuylkill with a companion on his back; that he could play any one of half a dozen instruments for an impromptu dance; that he could plait a set of picnic dishes out of willow rushes; train dogs, and do a hundred other clever things, and it is easy to see why he was a general favorite. His private rooms were turned into a museum. The walls were covered with festoons of birds' eggs, the shelves crowded with fishes, snakes, lizards, and frogs; the chimney displayed stuffed squirrels and opossums, and wherever there was room hung his own paintings of birds. It was the holiday of life for the young lover of nature, and he enjoyed it with good will. Here the idea of his great work came to him as he was one day looking over his drawings and descriptions of birds. Suddenly, as it seemed to him, though his whole life had led to it, he conceived the plan of a great work on American ornithology. He began his gigantic undertaking as a master in the school of nature wherein he had been so faithful a student, for he now saw with joy that the past, which had often seemed idle, had been in reality rich with labors that were to bear fruit. He began at once to put his work into scientific form, and nothing better illustrates his energy and ambition than the fact that he entered on it alone and unaided, though none knew better than he the toil and ceaseless endeavor necessary for its completion. Except in a very immature form, American ornithology at that time did not exist; it was a region almost as unknown to human thought as the new world which Columbus discovered. Season after season, from the Gulf to Canada and back again, these winged creatures of the air wended their way, stopping to hatch and breed their young, becoming acquainted with Louisiana orange-groves and New England apple-orchards, now fluttering with kindly sociability round the dwellings of men and again seeking lonely eeries among inaccessible mountain tops, pursuing their course at all times almost without the thought and cognizance of man. It was Audubon who was the conqueror, if not the discoverer of this aërial world of song, of which he became the immortal historian. It was his untiring zeal which gave thus early to American literature a scientific work of such vast magnitude and importance that it astonished the scientists of Europe and won for itself the fame of being the most gigantic biblical enterprise ever undertaken by a single individual. To do this meant a life of almost constant change, and Audubon can hardly have had an abiding place after his first serious beginning. The wide continent became his home and he found his dwelling wherever the winged tribes sought shelter from the wind and storm. His pursuit was often interrupted by occupations necessary for the support of his family, for at his father's death he had given to his sister his share of the estate and so became entirely dependent upon his own efforts for a livelihood; but at all times, no matter what his situation, his heart was in the wild retreats of nature. Travelling through the West and South in search of fortune as well as of specimens his experiences were often disenchanting. At Louisville and New Orleans he would be forced to make crayon portraits of the principal citizens in order to raise the money for family expenses. Again he taught drawing; he served as tutor in private families, and in order to secure funds for the publication of his work he earned $2,000 by dancing lessons, the largest sum he had ever earned. Many business speculations enlisted Audubon's hopes, but all failed utterly. Once he embarked his money in a steam mill, which, being built in an unfit place, soon failed. At another time he bought a steamboat, which, proving an unlucky speculation, was sold to a shrewd buyer who never paid the purchase money. Again he was cheated in the clearing of a tract of timber. But his studies in natural history always went on. When he had no money to pay his passage up the Mississippi he bargained to draw the portrait of the captain of the steamer and his wife as remuneration. When he needed boots he obtained them by sketching the features of a friendly shoemaker, and more than once he paid his hotel bills, and saved something besides, by sketching the faces of the host and his family. On the other hand, his adventures in search of material for his work were romantic enough to satisfy the most ambitious traveller. From Florida to Labrador, and from the Atlantic to the then unknown regions of the Yellowstone he pursued his way, often alone, and not seldom in the midst of dangers which threatened life itself. He hunted buffalo with the Indians of the Great Plains, and lived for months in the tents of the fierce Sioux. He spent a season in the winter camp of the Shawnees, sleeping, wrapped in a buffalo robe, before the great camp-fire, and living upon wild turkey, bear's grease, and opossums. He made studies of deer, bears, and cougars, as well as of wild turkeys, prairie hens, and other birds. For days he drifted down the Ohio in a flat-bottomed boat, searching the uninhabited shores for specimens, and living the life of the frontiersman whose daily food must be supplied by his own exertions. Sometimes his studies would take him far into the dense forests of the West, where the white man had never before trod, and the only thing that suggested humanity would be the smoke rising miles away from the evening camp-fire of some Indian hunter as lonely as himself. Once as he lay stretched on the deck of a small vessel ascending the Mississippi he caught sight of a great eagle circling about his head. Convinced that it was a new species, he waited patiently for two years before he again had a glimpse of it, flying, in lazy freedom, above some butting crags where its young were nested. Climbing to the place, and watching like an Indian in ambush until it dropped to its nest, Audubon found it to be a sea-eagle. He named it the Washington Sea Eagle, in honor of George Washington. Waiting two years longer, he was able to obtain a specimen, from which he made the picture given in his work. This is but one example of the tireless patience with which he prosecuted his studies, years of waiting counting as nothing if he could but gain his end. Some of his discoveries in this kingdom of the birds he relates with a romantic enthusiasm. Throughout the entire work there runs the note of warmest sympathy with the lives of these creatures of the air and sunshine. He tells us of their hopes and loves and interests, from the time of the nest-making till the young have flown away. The freedom of bird life, its happiness, its experiences, and tragedies appeal to him as do those of humanity. The discovery of a new species is reported as rapturously as the news of a new star. Once in Labrador, when he was making studies of the eggers, his son brought to him a great hawk captured on the precipice far above his head. To Audubon's delight, it was that rare specimen, the gerfalcon, which had heretofore eluded all efforts of naturalists. While the rain dripped down from the rigging above, Audubon sat for hours making a sketch of this bird and feeling as rich as if he had discovered some rare gem. After twenty years the work was published. Every specimen, from the tiny humming-bird to the largest eagles and vultures, was sketched life size and colored in the tints of nature. There were four hundred and seventy-five of these plates, furnishing a complete history of the feathered tribes of North America, for they showed not only the appearance of the birds but represented also the manners and home life of this world of song. The humming-bird poised before the crimson throat of the trumpet flower, the whippoorwill resting among the leaves of the oak, the bobolink singing among the crimson flowers of the swamp maples, the snow-bird chirping cheerily among the snow-touched berries of the holly, were not sketches merely but bits of story out of bird history. So also are those pictures of the swan among the reeds of the Great Lakes, of the great white heron seizing its prey from the waters of the Gulf, and of the golden eagle winging its way toward the distant heights that it inhabits. The work was published by subscription in London in 1829 under the title, "The Birds of North America." The price was eighty guineas. Later on a smaller and cheaper edition was issued. The work now is very rare. Audubon had the gratification of knowing that his labors were understood and appreciated by the world of science. When he exhibited his plates in the galleries of England and France, whither he went to obtain subscriptions, crowds flocked to see them, and the greatest scientists of the age welcomed him to their ranks. _The Birds of America_ was his greatest work, though he was interested somewhat in general zoölogy and wrote on other subjects. Audubon died in New York in 1851. The great zoölogist Cuvier called _The Birds of North America_ the most magnificent monument that art has ever erected to ornithology. The Scotch naturalist Wilson said that the character of Audubon was just what might have been expected from the author of such a work, brave, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing, and capable of heroic endurance. CHAPTER III WASHINGTON IRVING 1783-1859 "Left his lodging some time ago and has not been heard of since, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. . . . Any information concerning him will be thankfully received." Such was the curious advertisement that appeared in the _Evening Post_ under the date of October 26, 1809, attracting the attention of all New York. People read it as they sat at supper, talked of it afterward around their wood fires, and thought of it again and again before they fell asleep at night. And yet not a soul knew the missing old gentleman or had ever heard of him before. Still he was no stranger to them, for he was a Knickerbocker, and everyone was interested in the Knickerbockers, and everyone felt almost as if a grandfather or great-grandfather had suddenly come back to life and disappeared again still more suddenly without a word of explanation. Those who could remember their childhood sent their wits back into the past and gathered up memories of these old Knickerbockers. They saw the old burghers again walking through the streets dressed in their long-waisted coats with skirts reaching nearly to the ankles, and wearing so solemnly their low-crowned beaver hats, while their small swords dangled by their sides to show their importance. They saw their wives in their close-fitting muslin caps, with their dress-skirts left open to show their numerous petticoats of every color, their gay stockings, and their low-cut, high-heeled shoes. They entered the quaint gabled houses made of brick brought from Holland, and sat in the roomy kitchen whose floor had just been sprinkled with sand brought from Coney Island, and on whose walls hung deer antlers and innumerable Dutch pipes. They passed into the parlor, whose chief ornament was the carved bedstead upon which reposed two great feather-beds covered with a patch-work quilt. They sat in the fireplace and drank from the huge silver tankard while listening to stories of Indian warfare. In the streets they saw groups of Indians standing before the shop windows, and passed by the walls of the old fort wherein cows, pigs, and horses were feeding. They noticed the queerly rigged ships in the bay, the windmills scattered everywhere, and the canal passing right through the town and filled with Dutch canal boats. They saw the Dutch maidens standing around the ponds washing the family linen, and visited the bowerie or country house of some honest burgher, and sat with him in his little garden where cabbages and roses flourished side by side. Such were the scenes that the strange advertisement called up, and more than one New Yorker dreamed that night that he was a child again, living over those long past days. For some time nothing was heard of Diedrich Knickerbocker, and then another advertisement appeared in the _Post_ saying he had been seen twice on the road to Albany. Some time again elapsed, and finally the paper stated that the landlord of the inn at which he stopped gave up hope of ever seeing his guest again, and declared that he should sell the manuscript of a book that Mr. Knickerbocker had left behind and take the proceeds in payment of his bill. People were really excited about the fate of the old gentleman, and one of the city officials was upon the point of offering a reward for his discovery when a curious thing happened. It was found that there was no old gentleman by the name of Knickerbocker who had wandered away from his lodging; that there was no inn at which he had lived, and no manuscript he had left behind, and that in fact, Mr. Knickerbocker was simply the hero of a book which the author had taken this clever means of advertising. The book claimed to be the true history of the discovery and settlement of New York, and began with an account of the creation of the world, passing on to the manners, customs, and historical achievements of the old Hollanders from their first voyage in the celebrated ark the Good Vrow, to the shores of New Jersey. Here we read how, as the Indians were given to long talks and the Dutch to long silences, they had no trouble about the settlement of the land, but all lived peacefully together. How Oloffe Van Kortlandt took his perilous journey from New Jersey as far north as Harlem and decided to build a city on Manhattan Island. Then we read of the golden reign of the first Dutch governor, Wouter Van Twiller, who was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference, and who ate four hours a day, smoked eight, and slept twelve, and so administered the affairs of the colony that it was a marvel of prosperity. Next we hear of Governor Keift, of lofty descent, since his father was an inspector of windmills--how his nose turned up and his mouth turned down, how his legs were the size of spindles, and how he grew tougher and tougher with age so that before his death he looked a veritable mummy. And then we see the redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant stumping around on his wooden leg adorned with silver reliefs and follow him in his expedition against the neighboring Swedish colonies, when the entire population of the city thronged the streets and balconies to wave farewell to him as he left, and to welcome his return as a victorious conqueror. Lastly we see him, furious with rage, menacing the British fleet which has come to take possession of the town, threatening vengeance dire upon the English king, and still cherishing his wrath with fiery bravery when the enemy finally occupy the old Dutch town and proceed to transform it into an English city. The book was read with interest, admiration, or amazement as the case might be. Some said it appeared too light and amusing for real history, others claimed that it held stores of wisdom that only the wise could understand; others still complained that the author was no doubt making fun of their respectable ancestors and had written the book merely to hold them up to ridicule. Only a few saw that it was the brightest, cleverest piece of humor that had yet appeared in America, and that its writer had probably a career of fame before him. The author was Washington Irving, then a young man in his twenty-seventh year and already known as the writer of some clever newspaper letters, and of a series of humorous essays published in a semi-monthly periodical called _Salmagundi_. Irving was born in New York on April 3, 1783, and was named after George Washington. The Revolution was over, but the treaty of peace had not yet been signed, and the British army still remained in the city, which had been half burned down during the war. New York was then a small town, with a population of about one seven-hundredth of what it now has; beyond the town limits were orchards, farms, country houses, and the high road leading to Albany, along which the stage coach passed at regular times. There were no railroads, and Irving was fourteen years old before the first steam-boat puffed its way up the Hudson River, frightening the country people into the belief that it was an evil monster come to devour them. All travelling was done by means of sailing vessels, stage coaches, or private conveyances; all letters were carried by the stage-coach, and every one cost the sender or receiver twenty-five cents for postage. The telegraph was undreamed of, and if any one had hinted the possibility of talking to some one else a thousand miles away over a telephone wire he would have been considered a lunatic, or possibly a witch. In fact New York was a quiet, unpretentious little town, whose inhabitants were still divided into English or Dutch families according to their descent, and in whose households were found the customs of England and Holland in full force. In Irving's family, however, there was doubtless greater severity practised in daily life than in the neighboring households. The father was a Scotch Presbyterian who considered life a discipline, who thought all amusement a waste of precious time, and who made the children devote one out of the two half weekly holidays to the study of the catechism. They were also obliged to attend church three times every Sunday, and to spend any spare moments left in reading some religious book, a discipline which had such an effect upon Irving that, to avoid becoming a Presbyterian, he went secretly to Trinity Church and was confirmed. Naturally Irving's love of fun was sedulously hid from such a father, and, as fun he must have, he sought amusement outside his own home. Forbidden to attend the theatre, he would risk his neck nightly by climbing out of his window to visit the play for an hour or so, and then rush home in terror lest his absence had been discovered and his future fun imperilled. Many a night when sent early to bed he would steal away across the adjacent roofs to send a handful of stones clattering down the wide, old-fashioned chimney of some innocent neighbor, who would start from his dreams to imagine robbers, spooks, or other unpleasant visitors in his bed-chamber; and often when Irving was supposed to be fast asleep he was far away in the midst of a group of truant boys concocting some scheme of mischief which was meant to startle the neighborhood and bring no end of fun to the daring perpetrators. Irving went to school kept by an old Revolutionary soldier, with whom he was a great favorite and who always called him _General_. He was not particularly brilliant in his studies, but he distinguished himself as an actor in the tragedies which the boys gave at times in the school-room; at ten years of age he was the star of the company, which did not even lose respect for him when once, being called suddenly upon the stage through a mistake, he appeared with his mouth full of honey-cake, which he was obliged to swallow painfully while the audience roared at the situation. Afterward, when he rushed around the stage flourishing a wooden sabre, he was not a tragedian to be trifled with. The glory of it even paid him for the cruelty of having to run away to see a real play. It was a favorite amusement with him after school to wander down to the wharves, where he would spend hours in watching the ships load and unload, and dream of the day when he, too, should visit those beautiful regions that lay only in reach of their white sails; for, fond as he was of boyish sports, he was much given to day-dreams, and the romantic past of the old world held a great charm for him. His favorite books were "Robinson Crusoe," "The Arabian Nights," "Gulliver's Travels," and all stories of adventure and travel. The world beyond the sea seemed a fairyland to him; a little print of London Bridge and another of Kensington Gardens, that hung up in his bed-room, stirred his heart wistfully, and he fairly envied the odd-looking old gentlemen and ladies who appeared to be loitering around the arches of St. John's Gate, as shown in a cut on the cover of an old magazine. Later his imagination was also kindled by short excursions to the then wild regions of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. Drifting up the Hudson in a little sloop, day after day the picturesque beauty of the Highlands and Catskills impressed itself more deeply upon him, while his mind dwelt fondly upon the traditions which still lingered around the mountains and rivers forever associated with the struggles of the early settlers. Years afterward we find the remembrance of these days gracing with loving touch the pages of some of his choicest work, and it is this power of sympathy, so early aroused, that gives Irving one of his greatest charms as a writer, and makes the period of which he writes seem as real as if a part of to-day. At seventeen Irving left school and began to study for the bar. But his health, which had always been delicate, made it necessary for him to take a long rest from study, and he accordingly left America for two years of travel abroad. He visited England, France, and Italy, taking great delight in seeing those lands he had so often dreamed of, in meeting the famous people of the day, and, above all, in indulging in frequent visits to the theatre and opera, becoming in this way acquainted with all the great singers and actors whose reputation had reached America. It was after his return home that he brought out his Knickerbocker history, a work which made him so famous that when he returned to England some time afterward he found himself very well known in the best literary circles. The results of this second visit are found in the volumes comprising _Geoffrey Crayon's Sketch Book_, _Bracebridge Hall_, _Tales of a Traveller_ and other miscellany, in which occur charming descriptions of English country life, delightful ghost stories, the famous description of an English Christmas, the immortal legend of _Rip Van Winkle_, and an account of a visit to the haunts of Robin Hood, whose exploits had so fascinated him as a boy that he once spent his entire holiday money to obtain a copy of his adventures. _Abbotsford_ is an account of a visit that Irving paid to Sir Walter Scott. It is a charming revelation of the social side of Scott's character, who welcomed Irving as a younger brother in art, became his guide in his visit to Yarrow and Melrose Abbey, and took long rambling walks with him all around the country made so famous by the great novelist. Irving recalled as among the most delightful hours of his life those walks over the Scottish hills with Scott, who was described by the peasantry as having "an awfu' knowledge of history," and whose talk was full of the folk-lore, poetry, and superstitions that made up the interest of the place. In the evening they sat in the drawing-room, while Scott, with a great hound, Maida, at his feet, read to them a scrap of old poetry or a chapter from King Arthur, or told some delightful bit of peasant fairy lore, like that of the black cat who, on hearing one shepherd tell another of having seen a number of cats dressed in mourning following a coffin, sprang up the chimney in haste, exclaiming: "Then I am king of the cats," and vanished to take possession of his vacant kingdom. From this time Irving's life was one of constant literary labor for many years, all of which were spent abroad. His works on the companions of Columbus, and the Alhambra, were written during his residence in Spain, where he had access to the national archives and where he became as familiar with the life of the people as it was possible for a stranger to become. He was at home both in the dignified circles of higher life and among the picturesque and simple peasantry, whose characteristics he draws with such loving grace. After seventeen years' absence Irving returned to America, where he was welcomed as one who had won for his country great honors. He was the first writer to make American literature respected abroad, and his return was made the occasion of numerous fêtes given in his honor in New York and other cities. He now built Sunnyside, on the Hudson, the home that he loved so dearly and that will ever be famous as the abode of America's first great writer. His principal works following the Spanish histories were _Astoria_, the history of the fur-trading company in Oregon founded by the head of the Astor family; _Captain Bonneville_, the adventures of a hunter in the far West; the _Life of Goldsmith_ and the _Lives of Mahomet and His Successors_. He returned to Spain in 1842 as ambassador, and remained four years. In the _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_ Irving tells the story of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, as related in the old Spanish and Moorish chronicles. The pages are full of the spirit of the warfare of the middle ages. Here we see the great Arab chieftain, Taric, the one-eyed, with a handful of men cruising along the Spanish coast to spy out its strength and weakness, and finally making a bold dash inland to capture and despoil a city and return to Africa laden with plunder to report the richness of the land. "Behold!" writes Taric's chief in a letter to the Caliph, "a land that equals Syria in its soil, Arabia in its temperature, India in its flowers and spices, and Cathay in its precious stones." And at this news the Caliph wrote back in haste that God was great, and that it was evidently his will that the infidel should perish, and bade the Moors go forward and conquer. In these delightful chapters we follow Taric in his conquests from the taking of the rock of Calpe, henceforth called from him Gibraltar, the rock of Taric, to the final overthrow of the Christians and the establishment of the Moorish supremacy in Spain. The whole story is a brilliant, living picture of that romantic age. The Spanish king goes to battle wearing robes of gold brocade, sandals embroidered with gold and diamonds, and a crown studded with the costliest jewels of Spain. He rides in a chariot of ivory, and a thousand cavaliers knighted by his own hand surround him, while tens of thousands of his brave soldiers follow him, guarding the sacred banners emblazoned with the cross. The Moorish vanguard, riding the famous horses of Arabia, advance to the sound of trumpet and cymbal, their gay robes and snowy turbans and their arms of burnished gold and steel glittering in the sunshine, which reflects in every direction the sacred crescent, the symbol of their faith. The surroundings are equally picturesque and romantic. The famous plain of Granada, adorned with groves and gardens and winding streams, and guarded by the famous Mountains of the Sun and Air, forms the foreground to the picture, while in the distance we see the gloomy mountain passes, the fortified rocks and castles, and the great walled cities, through which the Moors passed, always victorious and never pausing until their banners floated from every cliff and tower. Scattered through the narrative of battles and sieges we find also many legends that abounded at that time both in the Moslem and Christian faiths, translated with such fidelity from the old chroniclers that they retain all the supernatural flavor of the original. Here we learn how Arab and Christian alike beheld portents, saw visions, received messages from the spirits, and were advised, encouraged, and comforted by signs and warnings from heaven, the whole narrative being most valuable as presenting in fine literary form the every-day life and intense religious fervor of the soldier of the middle ages. For eight hundred years the Moors held Spain. They built beautiful cities and palaces, the remains of which are marvels to this day; they made the plain of Granada a garden of flowers; they preserved classical literature when the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance; they studied the sciences, and had great and famous schools, which were attended by the youth of all nations; they rescued the Jewish people from the oppression of the Spaniards, and made them honorable citizens; and they impressed upon their surroundings an art so beautiful that its influence has extended throughout Christendom. Their occupation of Spain at that time probably did more for the preservation of literature, science, and art than any other event in history. In his chapters on the Alhambra, the beauties of that celebrated palace, the favorite abode of the Moorish kings, is described by Irving as seen by him during a visit in 1829. Even at that date, nearly four hundred years after its seizure by the Spaniards, the Alhambra retained much of its original magnificence. The great courts, with their pavements of white marble, and fountains bordered with roses, the archways, balconies, and halls decorated with fretwork and filigree and incrusted with tiles of the most exquisite design; the gilded cupolas and panels of lapis lazuli, and the carved lions supporting the alabaster basins of the fountains, all appealed to Irving so strongly that when he first entered the palace it seemed, he relates, as if he had been transported into the past and was living in an enchanted realm. Irving remained some months in the Alhambra, living over again the scenes of Moorish story, and so catching the spirit of the lost grandeur of the old palace, that his descriptions read like a bit of genuine Arabian chronicle, which had been kept safe until then in the grim guardianship of the past. The chapters of the _Alhambra_ are also full of delightful legends, the fairy tales which time had woven around the beautiful ruin, and which the custodians of the place related gravely to Irving as genuine history. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of Irving sitting in the stately hall or in his balcony, listening to one of these old tales from the lips of his tattered but devoted domestic, while the twilight was gathering and the nightingale singing in the groves and gardens beneath. He himself said that it was the realization of a day-dream which he had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of the Hudson, he had pored over the story of Granada. In his work, _The Conquest of Granada_, Irving relates the story of the retaking of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, during a war which lasted ten years and which held nothing but disaster for the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella took the field with an army composed of the nobles of Spain and their followers, and which represented the chivalry of Europe, for all Christendom hastened to espouse the holy cause of driving the infidel from the land. The Spanish camps glittered with the burnished armor and gold-embroidered banners of foreign knights; and whether on the march, in the field, or in camp, the whole pageant of the war as depicted by Irving passes before our eyes like a brilliant panorama. We see the Moorish king looking down from the towers of the Alhambra upon the plains once green and blooming but now desolate with fire and sword by the hand of Ferdinand. We follow the Moors as they rush from their walls in one of their splendid but hopeless sallies, to return discomfited, and hear the wail of the women and old men--"Woe! woe! to Granada, for its strong men shall fall by the sword and its maidens be led into captivity." We watch the Spaniards, tireless in endeavor, building the fortified city of Santa Fé, the city of holy faith, to take the place of the camp destroyed by fire, and which has remained famous as the place where Columbus received from Isabella his commission to sail westward until India was reached. And in the end we see the Moors in their retreat looking sadly from the hill which is called to this day, The Last Sigh of the Moor, upon the beautiful valley and mountains lost to them forever. So graphically is the scene described that Irving must ever remain the historian of the Moors of Spain, whose spirit seemed to inspire the beautiful words in which he celebrated their conquests, their achievements, and their defeats. A favorite among Irving's books was the _Life of Washington_, based upon the correspondence of the great statesman. It is an appreciative story of the life work of Washington, written by one whose own work connected the past and present, and who, as a child, had felt the hand of the nation's hero laid upon his head in blessing. In the _Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost_ Irving follows in imagination old Diedrich Knickerbocker into the famous region of Sleepy Hollow, where much of the material for the celebrated Knickerbocker's History was said to have been collected. This chronicle, it was claimed, was written upon the identical old Dutch writing desk that Diedrich used; the elbow chair was the same that he sat in; the clock was the very one he consulted so often during his long hours of composition. In these pages old Diedrich walks as a real person and Irving follows him with faithful step through the region that he loved so fondly all his life. Everything here is dwelt upon with lingering touch; the brooks and streams, the meadows and cornfields, the orchards and gardens, and the groves of beech and chestnut have each their tribute from the pen of one who found their charms ever fresh, who sought in them rest and happiness, and who came back to them lovingly to spend the last days of his life in their familiar companionship. Irving died in 1859 and was buried at Sunnyside, in sight of the Hudson whose legends he had immortalized and whose beauty never ceased to charm him from the moment it first captivated his heart in his boyhood days. CHAPTER IV JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 1789-1851 The region of Otsego Lake, New York, was at the last of the eighteenth century a wilderness. Here and there rose a little clearing, the birthplace of a future village, but westward the primeval forest extended for miles around the little lake, which reflected the shadows of wooded hills on every side. Here roved deer, wolves, panthers, and bears unmolested in the green depths and following the same runways which their species had trodden for centuries. Here also lurked the red man, suspicious and cautious and ever ready to revenge on the white man the wrongs of his race. In this beautiful spot lived the boy, James Fenimore Cooper, in the family mansion built by his father and named Otsego Hall, the starting point of the now famous village of Cooperstown. It was a fitting home for the boy who was hereafter to immortalize the Indian race in the pages of fiction. His life was almost as simple as that of the Indian lads who roamed through the forest fishing and hunting and knowing no ambition beyond. The little hamlet lay far away from the highways of travel. The nearest villages were miles distant and only to be reached on foot or on horseback through miles of unbroken forest. A visitor was rare, and meant perhaps a warning that the Indians were on the war-path. Occasionally a new settler drifted into the little valley, and the village grew slowly through the lad's boyhood, Otsego Hall keeping its dignity as the Manor House. Sometimes a visitor of note brought news of the great political troubles in Europe, and thus Cooper met many men of distinction whose visits seemed to bring the great world very close to the little settlement. This glimpse of a broader life, with attendance at the village school and an intimate companionship with nature, made up his early education. It was not bad training for the future novelist. The acquaintanceship of celebrated men widened his horizon and fed his imagination; his daily life kept his mind fresh and active with the spirit that was fast turning the uninhabited regions of the frontier into busy settlements; and the familiar intercourse with nature kept pure the springs of poetry that lie in every child's heart. He learned wood-lore as the young Indian learned it, face to face with the divinities of the forest. He knew the calls of the wild animals far across the gloomy wilderness. He could follow the deer and bear to their secluded haunts. He could retrace the path of the retreating wolf by the broken cobwebs glistening in the early sunlight; and the cry of the panther high overhead in the pines and hemlocks was a speech as familiar as his own tongue. When he was thirsty he made a hunter's cup of leaves and drank in the Indian fashion. When fatigued he lay down to rest with that sense of security that comes only to the forest bred. When thoughtful he could learn from the lap of the waves against the shore, the murmur of leaves, and the rustle of wings, those lessons which nature teaches in her quiet moods. These experiences and impressions sank into Cooper's heart, and were re-lived again long after in the pages of his romances. While still a boy Cooper went to Albany to study, and in 1803 entered Yale College, at the age of thirteen. He played as much and studied as little as he possibly could, and the first year's preparation perhaps accounts for his dismissal from college in his junior year. This in turn led to a life much more to his liking. His father took his part in the trouble at Yale, but was now anxious to see his son embarked on the serious business of life. Both father and son liked the idea of a naval career for the boy, and it was decided that Cooper should go to sea. He left New York in the autumn of 1806 on a vessel of the merchant marine. There was then no Naval Academy in America, and a boy could fit himself for entering the navy as an officer only by serving before the mast. Cooper was away nearly a year, his ship, the Sterling, visiting London, Portugal, and Spain, carrying cargoes from one port to another in the leisurely manner of the merchant sailing-vessels of that day. It was a time of peculiar interest to all seamen, and his mind was keenly alive to the new life around him. The English were expecting a French invasion, and the Channel was full of ships of war, while every southern port was arming for defence. The Mediterranean was terrorized by the Barbary pirates, who, under cover of night, descended upon any unprotected merchant vessel, stole the cargo, scuttled the ship, and sold the crew into slavery, to Tripolitan and Algerine husbandmen, whose orchards of date and fig were cultivated by many an American or English slave. Cooper saw all this and remembered it, being even then a student of men and events. His work was hard and dangerous; he was never admitted to the cabin of the ship; in storm or wind his place was on the deck among the rough sailors, who were his only companions. But this training developed the good material that was in him, and when in 1808 he received his commission as midshipman he was well equipped for his duties. Cooper remained in the navy three years and a half. He spent part of this time at the port of Oswego, Lake Ontario, superintending the building of a war vessel, the Oneida, intended for the defence of the Canadian frontier in case of a war with England. The days passed in this wild region were not fruitless, for here in the solitude of the primeval forest Cooper found later the background of a famous story. It was the land of the red man, and during the long winter months of his residence there Cooper dwelt in spirit with the wild natives, though he little dreamed that he was to be the historian that would give the story of their lives to a succeeding generation. Cooper saw no active service during the time, and resigned his commission on his marriage. Several succeeding years were passed partly in Westchester County, his wife's former home, and partly in Cooperstown. Here he began the erection of a stone dwelling, in Fenimore, a suburb of the old village. While living at Scarsdale, Westchester County, N. Y., he had produced his first book. Already thirty years old, a literary career was far from his thoughts. This first novel was merely the result of a challenge springing from a boast. Reading a dull tale of English life to his wife, he declared that he could write a better story himself, and as a result produced a tale in two volumes, called _Precaution_. It was founded upon English society life, and it obtained some favorable notices from English papers. But it showed no real talent. But in the next year, 1821, he published a story foreshadowing his fame and striking a new note in American literature. At that time Americans still cherished stirring memories of the Revolution. Men and women could still recall the victories of Bunker Hill and Trenton, and the disasters of Monmouth and Long Island. Cooper's own first impressions of life were vivid with the patriotism that beat at fever heat during his youth, when the birth of American independence was within the recollection of many. In choosing a subject for fiction Cooper therefore naturally turned to the late struggle, and American literature owes him a large debt for thus throwing into literary form the spirit of those thrilling times. This novel, _The Spy_, was founded upon the story of a veritable spy who had been employed by the Revolutionary officer who related to Cooper some of his daring adventures. Taking this scout for a hero Cooper kept the scene in Westchester and wove from a few facts the most thrilling piece of fiction that had yet appeared in the United States. The novel appeared in December, 1821, and in a few months it had made Cooper famous both in America and Europe. It was published in England by the firm which had brought out Irving's _Sketch Book_, and it met with a success that spoke highly for its merit, since the story described English defeat and American triumphs. The translator of the Waverley novels made a French version, and before long the book appeared in several other European tongues, while its hero, Harvey Birch, won and has kept for himself an honorable place in literature. Cooper had now found his work, and he continued to illustrate American life in fiction. His most popular books are the _Leather Stocking Tales_ and his novels of the sea. The _Leather Stocking Tales_ consist of five stories, _The Deerslayer_, _The Last of the Mohicans_, _The Pathfinder_, _The Pioneers_, and _The Prairie_, concerning the same hero, Leatherstocking. In _The Deerslayer_ the hero of the series makes his appearance as a youth of German descent whose parents had settled near a clan of the Mohegans on the Schoharie River. At a great Indian feast he receives the name Deerslayer from the father of Chingachgook, his Indian boy friend, and the story is an account of his first war-path. The tale was suggested to the author one afternoon as he paused for a moment while riding to gaze over the lake he so loved, and whose shores, as he looked, seemed suddenly to be peopled with the figures of a vanished race. As the vision faded he turned to his daughter and said that he must write a story about the little lake, and thus the idea of Deerslayer was born. In a few days the story was begun. The scene is laid on Otsego Lake, and in the tale are incorporated many tender memories of Cooper's own boyhood. It portrays Leatherstocking as a young scout just entering manhood, and embodies some of the author's best work. Perhaps no one was so well-fitted to illustrate the ideal friendship between Deerslayer and Chingachgook as he, who in his boyhood stood many a time beside the lakeside as the shadows fell over the forest, not knowing whether the faint crackling of the bushes meant the approach of the thirsty deer, or signalled the presence of some Indian hunter watching with jealous eye the white intruder. In _The Last of the Mohicans_, Leatherstocking, under the name Hawkeye, is represented in the prime of manhood, his adventures forming some of the most exciting events of the series. Here his old friend Chingachgook and the latter's son Uncas follow Deerslayer hand in hand, and make, next to the hero, the principal characters of the story, the scene of which is laid near Lake Champlain during the trouble between the French and English for the possession of Canada. In _The Pathfinder_ the famous scout, under the name which gives the title to the book, is carried still further in his adventurous career. The scene is laid near Lake Ontario where Cooper spent some months while in the navy. These three tales are not only the finest of the series from a literary standpoint, but they illustrate as well the life of those white men of the forest who lived as near to nature as the Indian himself and whose deeds helped make the history of the country in its beginnings. _The Pioneers_ finds Leatherstocking an old hunter living on Otsego Lake at the time of its first settlement by the whites. The character was suggested by an old hunter of the regions who in Cooper's boyhood came frequently to the door of his father's house to sell the game he had killed. The hero is in this book called Natty Bumppo and the story is one of the primitive life of the frontiersmen of that period. Their occupations, interests and ambitions form the background to the picture of Leatherstocking, the rustic philosopher, who has finished the most active part of his career, and who has gathered from nature some of her sweetest lessons. Many of the scenes in the book are transcriptions from the actual life of those hardy pioneers who joined Cooper's father in the settlement of Cooperstown, while the whole is tinged with that tender reminiscence of the author's youth which sets it apart from the rest though it is, perhaps, the least perfect story of the series. Leatherstocking closes his career in _The Prairie_, a novel of the plains of the great West, whither he had gone to spend his last days. It is the story of the lonely life of the trapper of those days, whose love of solitude has led him far from the frontier, and whose dignified death fitly closes his courageous life. It is supposed that the actual experiences of Daniel Boone suggested this ending to the series. The story of the war of the frontiersmen with nature, with circumstances and with the red man is told in these books. It is the romance of real history and Leatherstocking was but the picture of many a brave settler whose deeds were unrecorded and whose name remains unknown. Side by side with Leatherstocking stand those Indian characters which the genius of Cooper immortalized and which have passed into history as typical. Cooper began the tales without any thought of making a series, but the overwhelming success of _The Pioneers_, the first which appeared, led him to produce book after book until the whole life of the hero was illustrated. Cooper's series of sea novels began with _The Pilot_, published in 1824. It followed _The Pioneers_, and showed the novelist to be equally at home on sea and land. In his stories of frontier life, Cooper followed the great Scott, whose thrilling tales of Border life and of early English history had opened a new domain to the novelist. Cooper always acknowledged his debt to the great _Wizard of the North_, and, indeed, spoke of himself as a chip of Scott's block. But in his sea stories Cooper was a creator. He was the first novelist to bring into fiction the ordinary, every-day life of the sailor afloat, whether employed on a peaceful merchant vessel or fighting hand to hand in a naval battle. And it is interesting to know that the creation of the sea story was another debt that he owed to Scott, though in a far different way. Scott's novel, _The Pirate_, had been criticised by Cooper as the work of a man who had never been at sea. And to prove it the work of a landsman he began his own story, _The Pilot_. The time chosen is that of the Revolution, and the hero is the famous adventurer John Paul Jones, introduced under another name. It was so new a thing to use the technicalities of ship life, and to describe the details of an evolution in a naval battle, that, familiar as he was with ocean life, Cooper felt some doubts of his success. To test his power he read one day to an old shipmate that now famous account of the passage of the ship through the narrow channel. The effect was all that Cooper hoped. The old sailor fell into a fury of excitement, paced up and down the room, and in his eagerness for a moment lived over again a stormy scene in his own life. Satisfied with this experiment Cooper finished the novel in content. _The Pilot_ met with an instant success both in America and Europe. As it was his first, so it is, perhaps, his best sea story. Into it he put all the freshness of reminiscence, all the haunting memories of ocean life that had followed him since his boyhood. It was biographical in the same sense as _The Pioneers_. A part of the romance of childhood drafted into the reality of after life. _The Red Rover_, the next sea story, came out in 1828. By that time other novelists were writing tales of the sea, but they were mere imitations of _The Pilot_. In _The Red Rover_ the genuine adventures of the sailor class were again embodied in the thrilling narrative that Cooper alone knew how to write, and this book has always been one of the most popular of novels. The Red Rover, so called because of his red beard, and whose name gives the title to the book, is a well born Englishman who has turned pirate, and whose daring adventures have made him famous along the coasts of America, Europe and Africa. The scene opens in the harbor of Newport in the days when that town was the most important port of the Atlantic coast, and from there is carried to the high seas, whereon is fought that famous last sea fight of the Red Rover, the description of which forms one of Cooper's best efforts. _Wing and Wing_ is a tale of the Mediterranean during the exciting days of privateers and pirates in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The great admiral, Nelson, is introduced in this book, which abounds with incidents of the tropical seas and reflects much of Cooper's experience during his apprenticeship on the Sterling. The story is one of Cooper's masterpieces, and, like so much of his work, has preserved in literature a phase of life that has forever passed away. In _The Two Admirals_ is introduced, for the first time in fiction, a description of the evolution of great fleets in action. The scene is taken from English history, and in many instances the story shows Cooper at his best. _The Water Witch_, and _Ned Myers, or Life Before the Mast_, a biography almost of Cooper's own early life at sea, must be included among the tales which illustrate the author's genius as a writer of tales of the sea. Nothing can be more different than the picture of Leatherstocking and his Indian friends in the forest retreats of nature and that of the reckless sailor race which found piracy and murder the only outcome for their fierce ambitions. Yet both are touched with the art of a master, and both illustrate Cooper's claim as one of the greatest masters of fiction. Besides his _Leather Stocking Tales_ and the sea stories Cooper wrote novels, sketches of travel, essays on the social and political condition of America, and innumerable pamphlets in answer to attacks made upon him by adverse critics. But his rank in American literature will ever be determined by the _Leather Stocking Tales_ and his best sea stories. His place is similar to that of Scott in English literature, while he enjoys also the reputation of having opened a new and enchanted realm of fiction. Next to Hawthorne, he will long be held, probably, the greatest novelist that America has produced. With the exception of seven years abroad, Cooper spent his life in his native land. While in Europe he wrote some of his best novels, and though he grew to love the old world he never wavered in his devotion to America. Cooper's popularity abroad was equalled only by that of Scott. His works were translated and sold even in Turkey, Persia, Egypt and Jerusalem in the language of those countries. It was said by a traveller that the middle classes of Europe had gathered all their knowledge of American history from Cooper's works and that they had never understood the character of American independence until revealed by this novelist. In spite of defects of style and the poor quality of some of his stories, Cooper has given to fiction many creations that must live as long as literature endures. He died in his sixty-second year at Cooperstown. CHAPTER V WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 1794-1878 William Cullen Bryant was born in 1794 in a log farmhouse in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. His father was the country doctor and the child was named after a celebrated physician. He began his school days in a log school-house beside a little brook that crept down from the hills and went singing on its way to the valley. All around stood the great forest-covered hills, haunted by wolves, bears, deer and wild-cats, which occasionally crept down even to the settlements carrying terror to the hearts of the women and children. Wherever the slopes were cleared, the farm lands had taken possession, the forest often creeping up close to the little homes. From the door-yard of the Bryant homestead the whole world seemed to be made up of hills and forest, and fertile fields, while in the woods grew the exquisite New England wild flowers, the laurel and azalea, the violet, the tiger lily, and the fringed gentian. Here also lived the summer birds of New England, the robins, the blue bird and the thrush, haunting the woods from early spring until late autumn. All these sights and sounds sunk into the boy's heart and made themselves into a poem which he wrote down in words many years after, and which is as clear and fresh as the voice of the little brook itself after which it was named. This poem is called _The Rivulet_ and it shows the poet-child standing upon the banks of the little stream listening to the song of the birds or gathering wild flowers. It was his first lesson in that wonder-book of nature from which he translated so much that was beautiful that he became the distinctive poet of the woods and streams. Lessons from books he learned in the little log school-house, preparing himself for ordeals when the minister came to visit the school. At these times the pupils were dressed in their best and sat in solemn anxiety while the minister asked them questions out of the catechism and made them a long speech on morals and good behavior. On one of these occasions the ten-year-old poet declaimed some of his own verses descriptive of the school. In Bryant's boyhood New England farm life was very simple. The farmers lived in log or slab houses, whose kitchens formed the living room, where the meals were generally taken. Heat was supplied by the great fireplaces that sometimes filled one whole side of the kitchen and were furnished with cranes, spits, and pothooks. Behind the kitchen door hung a bundle of birch rods with which mischievous boys were kept in order, and in the recess of the chimney stood the wooden settle where the children sat before bed-time to watch the fire or glance up through the wide chimney at the stars. Here, when three years old, Bryant often stood book in hand and with painful attention to gesture repeated one of Watts's hymns, while his mother listened and corrected. Here he prepared his lessons, and wrote those first childish poems so carefully criticised by his father, who was his teacher in the art of composition. In the poem called _A Lifetime_ Bryant long afterward described many incidents of his childhood and the influence of his father and mother upon his art, one developing his talent for composition, and the other directing his imagination to and enlisting his sympathies with humanity. This poem shows the boy by his mother's knee, reading the story of Pharaoh and the Israelites, of David and Goliath, and of the life of Christ. As he grew older Bryant shared the usual amusements of country life. In the spring he took his turn in the maple-sugar camp; in the autumn he attended the huskings when the young people met to husk the corn in each neighborhood barn successively, until all was done. He helped at the cider-making bees, and the apple parings, when the cider and apple sauce were prepared for the year's need; and at the house raisings, when men and boys raised the frame of a neighbor's house or barn. In those times the farmers depended upon each other for such friendly aid, and the community seemed like one great family. On Sunday everyone went three times to meeting, listened to long sermons, and sang out of the old Bay Psalm Book. If any unlucky child fell asleep he was speedily waked up by the tithingman, who would tickle his nose with a hare's-foot attached to a long pole. Once in a while a boy might be restless or noisy, and then he was led out of the meeting-house and punished with the tithingman's rod, a terrible disgrace. Throughout his childhood Bryant wrote verses upon every subject discussed in the family, and in those days New England families discussed all the great events of the time. The listening children became public-spirited and patriotic without knowing it. At thirteen Bryant wrote a most scathing satire upon the policy of Thomas Jefferson, intended to make the President hang his head in shame. It was quoted in all the newspapers opposed to Jefferson, and a second edition of this pamphlet was called for in a few months. Bryant here prophesies the evils in store for the country if the President insisted on the embargo that was then laid upon American vessels, and advises him to retire to the bogs of Louisiana and search for horned frogs; advice which Jefferson did not feel called upon to follow. It was Bryant's first introduction to the reading public, but it was not that path in literature that he was destined to follow. Only one or two of his earliest verses give any hint of the poet of nature, though it was during this time that he absorbed those influences that directed his whole life. It is from the retrospective poem, _Green River_, that we really know the boy Bryant to whom the charm of sky and wood and singing brook was so unconscious that it seemed a part of life itself. In _Green River_, written after he became a man, we hear the echoes of his young days, and we know that the boy's soul had already entered into a close communion with nature. But Bryant had not yet reached manhood when the true voice of his heart was heard in the most celebrated poem that he ever wrote, and one of the most remarkable ever written by a youth. This was _Thanatopsis_, which his father discovered among his papers and sent to the _North American Review_ without his son's knowledge, so little did the poet of eighteen, who five years before had published the tirade against Jefferson, realize that he had produced the most remarkable verses yet written in America. _Thanatopsis_ attracted instant attention in this country and in England. It had appeared anonymously, and American critics insisted that it could not be the work of an American author as no native poet approached it either in sublimity of thought or perfection of style. But _Thanatopsis_ bears no trace of English influence, nor was it strange that an heir of the Puritan spirit, who had lived in daily communion with nature, should thus set to the music of poetry the hopes and inspirations of his race. _Thanatopsis_ is the first great American poem, and it divides by a sharp line the poetry hitherto written on our soil from that which was to follow. Henceforth the poets of the newer England ceased to find their greatest inspiration in the older land. At the time of the publication of the poem Bryant was studying law in Great Barrington, Mass., having been obliged by poverty to leave college after a two years' course. It was in the brief interval before beginning his office studies that he wrote _Thanatopsis_ putting it aside for future revision. He was already hard at work upon his profession when his sudden literary success changed all his plans. Destined by nature to be a man of letters, he poured forth verse and prose during the whole time he was studying and practising law. Six months after the publication of _Thanatopsis_ the poem entitled _To a Waterfowl_, suggested by the devious flight of a wild duck across the sunset sky, appeared. It is a perfect picture of the reedy river banks, the wet marshes, and the lonely lakes over which the bird hovered, and it is full of the charm of nature herself. From this time on Bryant's touch never faltered. He was the chosen poet of the wild beauty of his native hills and valleys, and his own pure spirit revealed the most sacred meanings of this beauty. In 1821 he published his first volume of poems under the title, _Poems by William Cullen Bryant_. It was a little book of forty pages, containing _Thanatopsis_, _Green River_, _To a Waterfowl_, and other pieces, among which was the charming, _The Yellow Violet_, a very breath of the spring. This little book was given to the world in the same year in which Cooper published _The Spy_ and Irving completed _The Sketch Book_. In 1825 Bryant removed to New York to assume the editorship of a monthly review, to which he gave many of his best-known poems. A year later he joined the staff of the _Evening Post_, with which he was connected until his death. From this time his life was that of a literary man. He made of the _Evening Post_ a progressive, public-spirited newspaper, whose field embraced every phase of American life. When he became its editor five days were required for the reports of the Legislature at Albany to reach New York, these being carried by mail coach. The extracts printed from English newspapers were a month old, and even this was considered enterprising journalism. All the despatches from different cities of the United States bore dates a fortnight old, while it was often impossible to obtain news at all. The paper contained advertisements of the stage lines to Boston, Philadelphia, and the West; accounts of projects to explore the centre of the earth by means of sunken wells; reports of the possibility of a railroad being built in the United States; advertisements of lottery tickets; a list of the unclaimed letters at the post-office, and usually a chapter of fiction. Such was the newspaper of 1831. During the fifty-two years of his editorship the United States were developed from a few struggling colonies bound together by common interests into one of the greatest of modern nations. And through all the changes incident to this career Bryant stood always firm to the principles which he recognized as the true foundations of a country's greatness. When he was born the United States consisted of a strip of land lying between the Atlantic and the Alleghany Mountains, of which more than half was unbroken wilderness. At his death the Republic extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to Canada. His life-time corresponded with the growth of his country, and his own work was a noble contribution to the nation's prosperity. In all times of national trouble the _Evening Post_ championed the cause of justice, and Bryant was everywhere respected as a man devoted above all to the "cause of America and of human nature." The conduct of the _Evening Post_ did not, however, interfere with his work as a poet, and in 1832 he published in one volume all the poems which he had written, most of which had previously appeared in magazines. A few months later an edition appeared in London with an introduction by Irving. It was this volume which gave Bryant an English reputation as great as that he enjoyed in America. Like Cooper, he revealed an unfamiliar nature as seen in American forests, hills, and streams, taking his readers with him into those solitary and quiet places where dwelt the wild birds and wild flowers. The very titles of his poems show how closely he lived to the life of the world around him. _The Walk at Sunset_, _The West Wind_, _The Forest Hymn_, _Autumn Woods_, _The Death of the Flowers_, _The Fringed Gentian_, _The Wind and Stream_, _The Little People of the Snow_, and many others disclose how Bryant gathered from every source the beauty which he translated into his verses. Among the poems which touch upon the Indian traditions are _The Indian Girl's Lament_, _Monument Mountain_, and _An Indian at the Burial-place of his Father_. In these he lingers upon the pathetic fate of the red man driven from the home of his race and forced into exile by the usurping whites. They are full of sadness, seeming to wake once again the memories of other times when the forest was alive with the night-fires of savage man and the days brought only the gladness of freedom. Besides his original work Bryant performed a noble task in the translation of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of Homer. He was over seventy when he began this work, and was five years in completing it. The poems are put into blank verse, of which Bryant was a master, and they have caught the very spirit of the old Greek bard; so faithfully did the modern poet understand that shadowy past that he might have watched with Helen the burning of Troy, or journeyed with Ulysses throughout his wanderings in the perilous seas. The light of Bryant's imagination burned steadily to the end. In his eighty-second year he wrote his last important poem, _The Flood of Years_. It is a beautiful confession of faith in the nobility of life and the immortality of the soul, and a fitting crown for an existence so beneficent and exalted. His last public work was to participate in unveiling a monument to the Italian statesman Mazzini in Central Park, when he was the orator of the day. On the same evening he was seized with his last illness. He died on June 12, 1878, and was buried at Roslyn, Long Island, one of his favorite country homes. CHAPTER VI WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT 1796-1859 One of the stories that mankind has always liked to believe is that of the existence of a marvellous country whose climate was perfect, whose people were happy, whose king was wise and good, and where wealth abounded. The old travellers of the Middle Ages dreamed of finding this land somewhere in the far East. Many books were written about it, and many tales told by knight and palmer of its rivers of gold, mines of precious stones, and treasure vaults of inexhaustible riches. But, although from time to time some famous traveller like Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville described the great wealth of Ormus or Cathay, yet no one ever found the real country of his imagination, and the dream passed down from generation to generation unfulfilled. The Spaniards called this country _El Dorado_, and perhaps their vision of it was the wildest of all, for not only were they to find inexhaustible riches, but trees whose fruit would heal disease, magic wells which yielded happiness, and fountains of immortal youth. Thus dreamed the Spaniard of the fifteenth century, and when Columbus found the new world it was believed that it included El Dorado. Leader after leader mustered his knights and soldiers and sought the golden country. They traversed forests, climbed mountains, forded rivers, and waded through swamps and morasses; they suffered hunger, thirst, and fever, and the savage hostility of the Indians; they died by hundreds and were buried in unmarked graves, and expedition after expedition returned to Spain to report the fruitlessness of their search. But the hope was not given up. New seekers started on the quest, and it seemed that the ships of Spain could hardly hold her eager adventurers. In a strange way this dream of El Dorado was realized. Two soldiers of fortune, bolder, hardier, luckier than the rest, actually found not one country but two, which were in part at least like the golden world they sought. High upon the table-land of Mexico and guarded by its snow-capped mountains they found the kingdom of the Aztecs, with their vast wealth of gold and silver. Safe behind the barrier of the Andes lay the land of the Incas, whose riches were, like those of Ophir or Cathay, not to be measured. Both of these countries possessed a strange and characteristic civilization. In fact, even to this day, scholars are puzzled to know the source of the knowledge which these people possessed. In Mexico Hernando Cortez found a government whose head was the king, supported by a tribunal of judges who governed the principal cities. If a judge took a bribe he was put to death. In the king's tribunal the throne was of gold inlaid with turquoises. The walls were hung with tapestry embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Over the throne was a canopy flashing with gold and jewels. There were officers to escort prisoners to and from court, and an account of the proceedings was kept in hieroglyphic paintings. All the laws of the kingdom were taught by these paintings to the people. The Aztecs had orders of nobility and knighthood; they had a military code and hospitals for the sick. Their temples glittered with gold and jewels, and they had ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial. They had monastic orders, astrologists and astronomers, physicians, merchants, jewellers, mechanics, and husbandmen. Their palaces were treasure-houses of wealth. In fact, they were as unlike the Indians of the eastern coast of America as the Englishman of to-day is unlike the half-naked savage who in the early ages roamed through England, subsisting upon berries and raw flesh. In Peru Francisco Pizarro found a great and powerful empire, ruled over by a wise sovereign. In the whole length and breadth of the land not one poor or sick person was left uncared for by the state. Great highways traversed mountain passes and crossed ravines and precipices to the most distant parts of the kingdom. Huge aqueducts of stone carried the mountain streams for hundreds of miles to the plains below. Massive fortresses, whose masonry was so solid that it seemed part of the mountain itself, linked the cities together, and a postal system extended over the empire composed of relays of couriers who wore a peculiar livery and ran from one post to another at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day. The walls of temples and palaces were covered with plates of gold encrusted with precious stones. The raiment of the king and nobles was embroidered with jewels. The lakes in the royal court-yards were fringed with wild flowers brought from every corner of the empire and representing every degree of climate. In a word, it was the dream of El Dorado fulfilled. Although these two countries were alike peopled by races who had lived there since remote antiquity, neither had ever heard of the existence of the other, and thus we have the picture of two civilizations, very similar, springing up independently. The conquest of Mexico by Cortez in 1521 changed the entire life of the people. Their forts and cities were ruined; three of their kings had fallen during the struggle; the whole country had been divided among the conquerors, and the Aztecs were made slaves. Cortez rebuilt the City of Mexico and filled the country with cathedrals and convents. He tried to convert the natives to Christianity, and Mexico became Spanish in its laws and institutions. But the old civilization had passed away; there was no more an Aztec nation; and though in time the Indians and Spaniards formed together a new race, it did not partake of the spirit of the old. What Cortez did for Mexico, Pizarro accomplished twelve years later in Peru. On the death of their monarch, the Inca, the Peruvians lost spirit and were more easily conquered than the Aztecs. Peru became a Spanish province, and, like Mexico, was considered by the crown only as a treasure-house from which to draw endless wealth. No regret was felt for the two great and powerful nations that had ceased to exist. In the meantime the settlement of America went on rapidly. Florida, the valley of the Mississippi, Canada, and New England became powerful colonies forming the nucleus of new countries, which had never heard of the civilizations of Mexico and Peru, and whose only knowledge of Indians was gathered from the savage tribes from which they had wrested the soil. In 1610 the Spanish historian Solis wrote an account of the subjugation of Mexico, in which the conquerors were portrayed in glowing colors. This work was read chiefly by scholars. In 1779 the English historian Robertson gave in his _History of the New World_ a brilliant sketch of the Spanish conquests in America. But not until 1847 was the world offered the detailed narrative of the conquest and ruin of the Aztec empire. This work was from the pen of the American scholar, William H. Prescott, who was already known as the author of a history of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a work which had brought him a European reputation. Prescott was born in Salem, Mass., in 1796, in an old elm-shaded house. From his earliest years he was a teller of stories, and had a high reputation among his boy friends as a romancer. Walking to and from school with his companions he invented tale after tale, sometimes the narrative being continued from day to day, lessons and home duties being considered but tiresome interruptions to the real business of life. Very often one of these stories begun on Monday would be continued through the whole week, and the end be celebrated on Saturday by a visit to the Boston Athenæum, into whose recesses he would beguile his fellows, while they buckled on the old armor found there, and played at joust and tournament, imagining themselves to be Lancelot, Ronsard, or Bayard, as the case might be. A life of Gibbon which Prescott read in his teens led to an enthusiastic study of history and to the resolve to become if possible a historian himself. While a student at Harvard one of his eyes was so injured by the carelessness of a fellow pupil that he lost the entire use of it; but he kept to the resolution to fulfil the task he had set for himself. His fame began with the publication of the _History of Ferdinand and Isabella_, which was published almost simultaneously in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia. It covers the history of Spain from the Moorish invasion through the period of national glory which illumined the reign of Isabella. The civil wars, the Jewish persecutions, the discovery of the New World, the expulsion of the Moors, the Italian wars, and the social life of the people, their arts and pursuits, their amusements, and the literature of that age, are vividly presented. The recognition of his merits was welcome to Prescott. While doubting which subject to choose for his labors he had heard several lectures upon Spanish literature, prepared for delivery at Harvard College, and at once applied himself to the study of the Spanish language, history, and romance as a preparation for his life work, and two years after began his celebrated work. The book was eleven years in preparation, and is full of enthusiasm for the romance and chivalry of the Old World. Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ began with a sketch of the ancient Aztec civilization, proceeded to a description of the conquest by Cortez, and concluded with an account of the after career of the great commander, the whole work seeming a brilliant romance rather than sober history. The materials for Prescott's work were gathered from every known available source. The narratives of eye-witnesses were brought forth from their hiding-places in the royal libraries of Spain, and patiently transcribed; old letters, unpublished chronicles, royal edicts, monkish legends, every scrap of information attainable, was transmitted to the worker across the sea, who because of his partial blindness had to depend entirely upon others in the collection of his authorities. These documents were read to Prescott by a secretary, who took notes under the author's direction; these notes were again read to him, and then after sifting, comparing and, retracing again and again the old ground, the historian began his work. He wrote upon a noctograph with an ivory stylus, as a blind man writes, and because of great physical weakness he was able to accomplish only a very little each day. But week by week the work grew. His marvellous memory enabled him to recall sixty pages of printed matter at once. His wonderful imagination enabled him to present the Mexico of the sixteenth century as it appeared to the old Spanish cavaliers, and as no historian had ever presented it before. He made of each episode of the great drama a finished and perfect picture. In fact, the _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ is more than anything else a historical painting wrought to perfection by the cunning of the master hand. Prescott spent six years over this work, which enhanced his fame as a historian and kept for American literature the high place won by Irving. Indeed, Irving himself had designed to write the history of the conquest of Mexico, but withdrew in favor of Prescott. Three months after the publication of his work on Mexico, Prescott began the _History of the Conquest of Peru_, the materials for which had already been obtained. But these documents proved much more complete than those describing the Mexican conquest. The conquest of Mexico was achieved mainly by one man, Cortez; but while Pizarro was virtually the head of the expedition against Peru, he was accompanied by others whose plans were often opposed to his own, and whose personal devotion could never be counted upon. Each of these men held regular correspondence with the court of Spain, and Pizarro never knew when his own account of the capture of a city or settlement of a colony would be contradicted by the statement of one of his officers. After the capture and death of the Inca, which was the real conquest of the country from the natives, Pizarro was obliged to reconquer Peru from his own officers, who quarrelled with him and among themselves continually. The conquest is shown to be a war of adventurers, a crusade of buccaneers, who wanted only gold. The sieges and battles of the Spaniards read like massacres, and the story of the death of the Inca like an unbelievable horror of the Dark Ages. This scene, contrasted with the glowing description of the former magnificence of the Inca, shows Prescott in his most brilliant mood as a writer. Perhaps his greatest gift is this power of reproducing faithfully the actual spirit of the conquest, a spirit which, in spite of the glitter of arms and splendor of religious ceremonial, proves to have been one of greed and lowest selfishness. _The Conquest of Peru_, published in 1847, when Prescott was fifty-two years old, was the last of his historical works. These three histories, with three volumes of an uncompleted life of Philip II., which promised to be his greatest work, and a volume of essays comprise Prescott's contribution to American literature, and begin that series of brilliant historical works of which American letters boast. Prescott, during the most of his literary life, was obliged to sit quietly in his study, leaving to other hands the collection of the materials for his work. For, besides the accident which during his college life deprived him of one eye, he was always delicate. Sometimes he would be kept for months in a darkened room, and at best his life was one of seclusion. The strife of the world and of action was not for him. In his library, surrounded by his books and assisted by his secretary, he sought for truth as the old alchemists sought for gold. Patient and tireless he unravelled thread after thread of the fabric from which he was to weave the history of the Spanish conquests. If Prescott had had access to documents which have since come to light, if he had been able to visit the places he described, and to study their unwritten records, his work would have been a splendid and imperishable monument to the dead civilization of the Aztec and Peruvian. As it is, it must serve as a guiding light pointing to the right way, one which shed lustre on the new literature of his country and opened an unexplored region to the American writer. CHAPTER VII JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 1807-1892 In an old New England farm-house kitchen, a barefoot boy, dressed in homespun, one day sat listening to a lazy Scotch beggar who piped the songs of Burns in return for his meal of bread and cheese and cider. The beggar was good-natured, and the boy was an eager listener, and _Bonnie Doon_, _Highland Mary_, and _Auld Lang Syne_ were trilled forth as the master himself may have sung them among the Scottish "banks and braes." Never before had the farmer boy heard of the famous peasant, and a new door was opened through which he passed into an undreamed of world. A few months later the school-master gave him a copy of Burns's poems, and with this gift the boy became a poet himself. For these songs of roadsides and meadows, of ploughed fields and wet hedgerows, were to him familiar pictures of every-day life, whose poetry, once revealed, had to express itself in words. The boy was the son of John and Abigail Whittier, Quaker farmers owning a little homestead in the valley of the Merrimac, near the town of Haverhill, Mass. In honor of an ancestor he had been named John Greenleaf Whittier, the Greenleaf, as he tells us in one of his poems, having become Americanized from the French _feuille verte_, _green leaf_, a suggestion, perhaps, of far away days in which the family might have been men of the wood, keepers of the deer or forest guarders in France during feudal ages. In his boyhood, life in the Merrimac valley was primitive enough. The house was small and plain, the kitchen being the living room, and the parlor dedicated to Sunday and holiday use only. The floor was sanded and on the wide fire-place benches the men and children of the family sat at night to whittle axe-handles, mend shoes, crack nuts, or learn the next day's lessons. Often a stranger was found among them; some Quaker travelling on business, or a stranger on his way to some distant town, or perhaps a professional beggar to whom the hospitality of the place was well known. Once when the mother had refused a night's shelter to an unprepossessing vagabond, John was sent out to bring him back. He proved to be an Italian artisan, and after supper he told them of the Italian grape gatherings and festivals, and of the wonderful beauty of Italy, paying for his entertainment by presenting to the mother a recipe for making bread from chestnuts. Sometimes the visitor would be an uncanny old crone who still believed in witches and fairies, and who told how her butter refused to come, or how her candle had been snuffed out by a witch in the form of a big black bug. One old woman in the neighborhood was renowned for her tales of ghosts, devils, fairies, brownies, sprenties, enchanted towers, headless men, haunted mills that were run at night by ghostly millers and witches riding on broom-sticks by the light of the full moon, and descending unguarded chimneys to lay their spells upon cream-pot and yeast-bowl. After such an evening's entertainment the boy needed courage to leave the bright kitchen fire and climb up the narrow stairs to the loft where he slept, and where the sound of the night-wind crept through the frosty rafters, and the voice of the screech-owl came dismally from the trees outside. Haverhill boasted at that time its village conjurer, who could remove the spells of those wicked spirits, and whose gaunt form could be seen any day along the meadows and streams gathering herbs to be stewed and brewed into love-potions, cures for melancholy, spells against witchcraft, and other remedies for human ills. He was held in great respect by the inhabitants, and feared almost as much as the witches themselves. An ever-welcome guest at the Whittiers was the school-master, whose head was full of the local legends, and whose tales of Indian raids and of revolutionary struggles were regarded as authentic history. This Yankee pedagogue, moreover, could, with infinite spirit and zest, retell the classic stories of the Greek and Latin poets. Twice a year came to the little homestead the Yankee pedler, with his supply of pins, needles, thread, razors, soaps, and scissors for the elders, and jack-knives for the boys who had been saving their pennies to purchase those treasures. He had gay ribbons for worldly minded maids, but these were never bought for Quaker Whittier's daughters. But to Poet John's thinking the pedler's choicest wares were the songs of his own composing, printed with wood-cuts, which he sold at an astonishingly low price, or even, upon occasions, gave away. These songs celebrated earthquakes, fires, shipwrecks, hangings, marriages, deaths, and funerals. Often they were improvised as the pedler sat with the rest around the hearth fire. If a wedding had occurred during his absence he was ready to versify it, and equally ready to lament the loss of a favorite cow. To Whittier this gift of rhyming seemed marvellous, and in after years he described this wandering minstrel as encircled, to his young eyes, with the very nimbus of immortality. Such was the home-life of this barefooted boy, who drove the cows night and morning through the dewy meadows, and followed the oxen, breaking the earth into rich brown furrows, whose sight and smell suggested to him always the generous bounty of nature. From early spring, when the corn was planted in fields bordered by wild rose-bushes, to late autumn, when the crop lay bound into glistening sheaves, his life was one of steady toil, lightened sometimes by a day's fishing in the mountain streams or by a berrying excursion up among the hills. In cold weather he went to school in the little school-house that he celebrates in one of his poems, and very often, as he confessed, he was found writing verses instead of doing sums on his slate. This old phase of New-England life has now passed away, but he has preserved its memory in three poems, which are in a special sense biographical. These poems are, _The Barefoot Boy_, _My Schoolmaster_, and _Snow-Bound_. The first two are simple, boyish memories, but the last is a description not only of his early home, but of the New-England farm life, and is a Puritan idyl. All are full of the idealization of childhood, for the poet could never break loose from the charm which had enthralled him as a boy. The poetry of common life which lay over the meadow lands and fields of grain, which gave a voice to the woodland brook, and glorified the falling rain and snow, was felt by Whittier, when, as a child, he paused from his work to listen to the robin's song among the wheat or watch the flocks of clouds making their way across the summer sky. When he was nineteen years of age the country-side mail-carrier one day rode up to the farm and took from his saddle-bags the weekly paper, which he tossed to the boy, who stood mending a fence. With trembling eagerness Whittier opened it, and saw in the "Poet's Corner" his first printed poem. He had sent it with little hope that it would be accepted, and the sight of it filled him with joy, and determined his literary career. A few months later the editor of the paper, William Lloyd Garrison, drove out to the homestead to see the young verse-maker. Whittier was called from the field where he was hoeing, and in the interview that followed Garrison insisted that such talent should not be thrown away, and urged the youth to take a course of study at some academy. But, although the farm supplied the daily needs of the family, money was scarce, and the sum required for board and tuition was impossible to scrape together. A young farm assistant, however, offered to teach Whittier the trade of shoemaking, and his every moment of leisure was thereafter spent in learning this craft. During the following winter the lad furnished the women of the neighborhood with good, well-made shoes, and with the money thus earned he entered Haverhill Academy in April, 1827, being then in his twentieth year. For the next six months his favorite haunts in field and wood were unvisited, except on the Saturdays and Sundays spent with his family. He gained some reputation as a poet by the publication of the ode which he wrote in honor of the new academy, and although he returned to the farm after six months of study, it was only to earn more money for further schooling. His poems and sketches now began to appear in the different newspapers and periodicals, and he did some editing for various papers. This work brought him into notice among literary people, but it was his political convictions that first gave him a national reputation. From the first Whittier stood side by side with William Lloyd Garrison in his crusade against slavery, and many of his best poems appeared in the _Liberator_, Garrison's own paper. These poems, with others, were collected in a volume called _Voices of Freedom_. It was these songs, which rushed onward like his own mountain brooks, that made Whittier known from one end of the country to the other as an apostle of liberty. All Whittier's poems of this period belong to the political history of the country, of which they are as much a part as the war records. In all this work there is no trace of bitterness or enmity. His songs of freedom were but the bugle-notes calling the nation to a higher humanity. Like the old Hebrew prophets, he spared not his own, and many of his most burning words are a summons to duty to his brothers in the North. If he could remind the South that the breath of slavery tainted the air "That old Dekalb and Sumter drank," he could also, in _Barbara Frietchie_, pay loving tribute to the noble heart of one of her best-loved sons. His was the dream of the great nation to be--his spirit that of the preacher who saw his people unfaithful to the high trust they had received as guardians of the land which the world had been taught to regard as the home of liberty. It was this high conception that gave to his work its greatest power, and that made Whittier, above all others, the poet of freedom; so that although the mission of these poems has ceased, and as literature they will not appeal to succeeding generations as forcibly as they did to their own, as a part of national history they will be long preserved. Whittier's other poems deal so largely with the home-life of his day that he is called the poet of New England. All its traditions, memories, and beliefs are faithfully recorded by him. In _Snow-Bound_ we have the life of the New-England farmer. In _Mabel Martin_ we see again the old Puritan dogmatism hunting down witches, burning or hanging them, and following with relentless persecution the families of the unhappy wretches who thus came under the ban. In _Mogg Megone_ is celebrated in beautiful verse one of those legends of Indian life which linger immortally around the pines of New England, while the _Grave by the Lake_, the _Changeling_, the _Wreck of Rivermouth_, the _Dead Ship of Harpswell_, and others in the collection called the _Tent on the Beach_, revive old traditions of those early days when history mingled with legend and the belief in water-spirits and ghostly warnings had not yet vanished. In some exquisite ballads, such as _School Days_, we have the memory of the past, fresh as the wild violets which the poet culled as a boy, while _Maud Muller_ is a very idyl of a New-England harvest-field in the poet's youth. In _Among the Hills_ we have some of Whittier's best poems of country life, while many minor poems celebrate the hills and streams of which he was so fond. Whittier wrote, also, many beautiful hymns, and his poems for children, such as _King Solomon and the Ants_ and _The Robin_, show how easy it was for his great heart to enter into the spirit of childhood. _Child Life_, his compilation of poems for childhood, is one of the best ever made, while another compilation, called _Songs of Three Centuries_, shows his wide familiarity and appreciation of all that is great in English poetry. After the sale of the old home of his childhood Whittier lived in the house at Amesbury, which for many years his sister shared. His last collection of poems, called _Sundown_, was published in 1890, for some friends only, as a memento of his eightieth birthday. He died two years later, and was buried in the yard of the Friends' meeting-house in Amesbury, a short distance from his birthplace. CHAPTER VIII NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804-1864 In 1804 the town of Salem, in Massachusetts, was the most important seaport in America. With the regularity of the tides its ships sailed to China, the East Indies, the Feejee Islands, South America, and the West Indies, and its seamen were as well known in the harbors of these distant places as in their native town. Throughout the Revolution Salem, with some neighboring smaller ports, was the hope of the colonists. No American navy existed; but the merchants and marines turned their vessels into ships of war, and under the name of privateers swept the seas of British cruisers, capturing in six years over four hundred and fifty prizes. During the war of 1812, again, the naval service was led by the hardy Salem captains, and the brave little seaport gave generously to the cause of the nation. Salem from the first was identified with American independence. Upon her hillsides one memorable day the inhabitants gathered to watch the fight between the Chesapeake and the Shannon, and through her streets, a few weeks later, the body of the heroic Lawrence was borne in state. Among the thronging crowds that day must have wandered the boy Nathaniel Hawthorne, then in his tenth year. Born in Salem, he came of a line of seafaring men who had fought their way to fame and fortune in the teeth of wind and wave; his family having its American beginning at the time when Indian and white man alike made their homes in the shadowy aisles of the New-England forests. These ocean-roving ancestors were among the first to take an American ship to St. Petersburg, Sumatra, Australia, and Africa. They fought pirates, overcame savages, suffered shipwreck and disaster, and many of them found their graves in the waters of some foreign sea. Hawthorne's own father was lost on a voyage. From this race of hardy sailors Hawthorne inherited the patience, courage, and endurance which were the basis of his character, a character touched besides by that melancholy and love of solitude which is apt to distinguish those born by the sea. It is this combination, perhaps, of Puritan steadfastness of purpose and wild adventurous life that descended to Hawthorne in the form of the most exquisite imagination tinctured with the highest moral aspirations. It was the sturdy, healthy plant of Puritanism blossoming into a beautiful flower. In this old town of Salem, with its quaint houses, with their carved doorways and many windows, with its pretty rose-gardens, its beautiful overshadowing elms, its dingy court-house and celebrated town-pump, Hawthorne passed his early life, his picturesque surroundings forming a suitable environment for the handsome, imaginative boy who was to create the most beautiful literary art that America had yet known. Behind the town stood old Witch Hill, grim and ghastly with memories of the witches hanged there in colonial times. In front spread the sea, a golden argosy of promise, whose wharves and warehouses held priceless stores of merchandise. Between this haunting spirit of the past and the broader, newer life of the future, Hawthorne walked with the serene hope of the youth of that day. The old, intolerant Puritanism had passed away. Only the fine gold remained as the priceless treasure of the new generation. Hawthorne's boyhood was much like that of any other boy in Salem town. He went to school and to church, loved the sea and prophesied that he should go away on it some day and never return, was fond of reading, and ready to fight with any school-fellows who had, as he expressed it, "a quarrelsome disposition." He was a healthy, robust lad, finding life a good thing whether he was roaming the streets, sitting idly on the wharves, or stretched on the floor at home reading a favorite author. Almost all boys who have become writers have liked the same books, and Hawthorne, like his fellows, lived in the magic world of Shakespeare and Milton, Spenser, Froissart, and Bunyan. _The Pilgrim's Progress_ was an especial favorite with him, its lofty spirit carrying his soul into those spiritual regions which the child mind reverences without understanding. For one year of his boyhood he was supremely happy in the wild regions of Sebago Lake, Me., where the family lived for a time. Here, he says, he led the life of a bird of the air, with no restraint and in absolute freedom. In the summer he would take his gun and spend days in the forest, doing whatever pleased his vagabond spirit at the moment. In the winter he would follow the hunters through the snow, or skate till midnight alone upon the frozen lake with only the shadows of the hills to keep him company, and sometimes pass the remainder of the night in a solitary log cabin, warmed by the blaze of the fallen evergreens. But he had to return to Salem to prepare for college, whither he went in 1821, in his seventeenth year. He entered Bowdoin, and had among his fellow-students Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. Here Hawthorne spent happy days, and long afterward, in writing to an old college friend, he speaks of the charm that lingers around the memory of the place when he gathered blueberries in study hours, watched the great logs drifting down the current of the Androscoggin from the lumber districts above, fished in the forest streams, and shot pigeons and squirrels in hours which should have been devoted to the classics. In this same letter, which forms the dedication to one of his books, he adds that it is this friend, if any one, who is responsible for his becoming a writer, as it was here, in the shadow of the tall pines which sheltered Bowdoin College, that the first prophecy concerning his destiny was made. He was to be a writer of fiction, the friend said, little dreaming of the honors that were to crown one of the great novelists of the world. After leaving Bowdoin Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he passed the next twelve years of his life. Here he produced, from time to time, stories and sketches which found their way to the periodicals and won for him a narrow reputation. But the years which a man usually devotes to his best work were spent by Hawthorne in a contented half-dream of a great future, for good as is some of the work produced at this time, it never would have won for the author the highest place in American literature. These stories and sketches were afterward collected and published under the title _Twice-Told Tales_ and _The Snow Image_. Full of the grace and beauty of Hawthorne's style, they were the best imaginative work yet produced in America, but in speaking of them Hawthorne himself says that in this result of twelve years there is little to show for its thought and industry. But the promise of his genius was fulfilled at last. In 1850, when Hawthorne was forty-six years old, appeared his first great romance. Hawthorne had chosen for his subject a picture of Puritan times in New England, and out of the tarnished records of the past he created a work of art of marvellous and imperishable beauty. In the days of which he wrote, a Puritan town was exactly like a large family bound together by mutual interests, the acts of each life being regarded as affecting the whole community. Hawthorne has preserved this spirit of colonial New England, with all its struggles, hopes, and fears, and the conscience-driven Puritan, who lived in the new generation only in public records and church histories, was given new life. In Hawthorne's day this grim figure, stalking in the midst of Indian fights, village pillories, town-meetings, witch-burnings, and church-councils was already a memory. With his steeple-crowned hat and his matchlock at his side he had left the pleasant New-England farm lands and was found only in the court-houses, where his deeds were recorded. Hawthorne brought him back from the past, set him in the midst of his fellow-elders in the church, and showed him a sufferer for conscience' sake. This first romance, published under the title _The Scarlet Letter_, revealed to Hawthorne himself, as well as to the world outside, the transcendent power of his genius. Hawthorne, who was despondent of the little popularity of his other books, told the publisher who saw the first sketch of _The Scarlet Letter_, that he did not know whether the story was very good or very bad. The publisher, however, at once perceived its worth and brought it out one year from that time, and the public saw that it had been entertaining a genius unawares. Hawthorne's next book, _The House of the Seven Gables_, is a story of the New England of his own day. A clever critic has called it an impression of a summer afternoon in an elm-shadowed New-England town. Through its pages flit quaint contrasting figures that one might find in New England and nowhere else. The old spinster of ancient family, obliged to open a toy and gingerbread shop, but never forgetting the time when the house with seven gables was a mansion of limitless hospitality, is a pathetic picture of disappointed hope and broken-down fortune. So is her brother, who was falsely imprisoned for twenty years, and who in his old age must lean upon his sister for support; and the other characters are equally true to the life that has almost disappeared in the changes of the half-century since its scenes were made the inspiration of Hawthorne's romance. _The House of the Seven Gables_ was followed by two beautiful volumes for children, _The Wonder Book_ and _Tanglewood Tales_. In _The Wonder Book_ Hawthorne writes as if he were a child himself, so simple is the charm that he weaves around these old, old tales. Not content with the Greek myths, he created little incidents and impossible characters that glance in and out with elfin grace. One feels that these were the very stories that were told by the centaurs, fauns, and satyrs themselves in the shadows of the old Attic forests. Here we learn that King Midas not only had his palace turned to gold, but that his own little daughter, Marigold, a fancy of Hawthorne's own, was also converted into the same shining metal. We learn, too, the secrets of many a hero and god of this realm of fancy which had been unsuspected by any other historian of their deeds. Every child who reads _The Wonder Book_ doubts not that Hawthorne had hobnobbed many a moonlit night with Pan and Bacchus in their vine-covered grottos by the riverside. This dainty, ethereal touch appears in all his work for children. A like quality gives distinction to his fourth great novel, which deals with a man supposed to be a descendant of the old fauns. This creation, named Donatello, from his resemblance to the celebrated statue of the Marble Faun, is not wholly human, although he has human interests and feeling. Hawthorne makes Donatello ashamed of his pointed ears, though his spirit is as wild and untamed as that of his rude ancestors. In this book there is a description of a scene where Count Donatello joins in a peasant dance around a public fountain. And so vividly is his half-human nature here brought out that Hawthorne seems to have witnessed somewhere the mad revels of the veritable fauns and satyrs in the days of their life upon the earth. Throughout this story Hawthorne shows the same subtle sympathy with uncommon natures, the mystery of such souls having the same fascination for him that the secrets of the earth and air have for the scientist and philosopher. The book coming between _The House of the Seven Gables_ and _The Marble Faun_ is called _The Blithedale Romance_. It is in part the record of a period of Hawthorne's life when he joined a community which hoped to improve the world by combining healthy manual labor with intellectual pursuits, and proving that self-interest and all differences in rank must be hurtful to the commonwealth. This little society lived in a suburb of Boston, and called their association Brook Farm. Each member performed daily some manual labor on the farm or in the house, hours being set aside for study. Here Hawthorne ploughed the fields and joined in the amusements, or sat apart while the rest talked about art and literature, danced, sang, or read Shakespeare aloud. Some of the cleverest men and women of New England joined this community, the rules of which obliged the men to wear plaid blouses and rough straw hats, and the women to content themselves with plain calico gowns. These serious-minded men and women, who tried to solve a great problem by leading the lives of Arcadian shepherds, at length dispersed, each one going back to the world and working on as bravely as if the experiment had been a great success. The experiences of Brook Farm were shadowed forth in _The Blithedale Romance_, although it was not a literal narrative. Immediately after this Hawthorne was married and went to live in Concord, near Boston, in a quaint old dwelling called The Manse. And as all his work partakes of the personal flavor of his own life, so his existence here is recorded in a delightful series of essays called _Mosses from an Old Manse_. Here we have a description of the old house itself, and of the author's family life, of the kitchen-garden and apple-orchards, of the meadows and woods, and of his friendship with that lover of nature, Henry Thoreau, whose writings form a valuable contribution to American literature. The _Mosses from an Old Manse_ must ever be famous as the history of the quiet hours of one of the greatest American men of letters. They are full of Hawthorne's own personality, and reveal more than any other of his books the depth and purity of his poetic and rarely gifted nature. In 1853 his old friend and schoolmate, President Pierce, appointed Hawthorne American Consul at Liverpool. He remained abroad seven years, spending the last four on the Continent, some transcriptions of his experience being found in the celebrated _Marble Faun_ and in several volumes of _Note-Books_. _The Marble Faun_, published in Europe under the title _Transformation_, was written in Rome, and was partly suggested to Hawthorne by an old villa which he occupied near Florence. This old villa possessed a moss-covered tower, "haunted," as Hawthorne said in a letter to a friend, "by owls and by the ghost of a monk who was confined there in the thirteenth century previous to being burnt at the stake in the principal square in Florence." He also states in the same letter that he meant to put the old castle bodily in a romance that was then in his head, which he did by making the villa the old family castle of Donatello, although the scene of the story is laid in Rome. After Hawthorne's return to America he began two other novels, one founded upon the old legend of the elixir of life. This story was probably suggested to him by Thoreau, who spoke of a house in which Hawthorne once lived at Concord having been, a century or two before, the abode of a man who believed that he should never die. This subject was a charming one for Hawthorne's peculiar genius, but the story, with another, _The Dolliver Romance_, was interrupted by the death of Hawthorne in 1864. In point of literary art the romances of Hawthorne are the finest work yet done in America, and their author was a man of high imagination, lofty morality, and pure ideals; an artist in the noblest meaning of the word. CHAPTER IX GEORGE BANCROFT 1800-1891 Seventy years ago the Round Hill School at Northampton, Mass., was perhaps the most famous school in New England. The founder, George Bancroft, had modelled it upon a celebrated school in Switzerland, in the hope that it would prove a starting-point for a broader system of elementary training than had yet existed in America, and everything was done to develop the physical and moral, as well as the mental, traits of the pupils. The school was beautifully situated, commanding a superb view, and had, besides the school-rooms, a gymnasium and play-rooms that were kept warm in cold weather and furnished with tools for carpentering. Here the boys could make bows and arrows, squirrel-traps, kites, sleds, and whatever their fancy dictated. There were large play-grounds on the slopes of the hill, and here was the village of "Cronyville," every house, hut, or shanty in which had been built and was owned by the boys themselves. There were many varieties of architecture in "Cronyville," but each dwelling had at least a large chimney and a small store-room. After school hours each shanty was its owner's castle, where entertainments were held, and the guests feasted with roasted corn, nuts, or apples, which the entire company had helped to prepare on the hearth of the wide chimney. Sometimes the feast was enlivened by recitations, poems, and addresses by the pupils, among whom was at one time the future historian, John Lothrop Motley, and very often the festivities would end in one of those earnest talks that boys fall into sometimes when tired out with play. Bancroft's assistant and partner in the school was Dr. Cogswell, who superintended the course of study, which was carried out by the best teachers procurable in America, England, and France. The boys were in the main good students, some of them brilliant ones, and they enjoyed so much freedom that their spirits gained them sometimes an unenviable reputation. The solemn keeper of a certain inn on the stage line between Northampton and Boston suffered so much from their pranks that he refused to allow them to stop over night, and only consented to give them dinner upon promise of good behavior. The school became so popular that the best families in all parts of the country sent their boys there, but, financially, it was not a success, and after seven years' trial Bancroft was forced to abandon it, though his partner struggled on a few years longer. If the experiment had been entirely successful the cause of education might have been advanced fifty years ahead of the old method, for both founders were men devoted to the cause of education and longed to see newer and broader methods supersede the old ones. As a boy Bancroft had studied at the Exeter Academy; finishing his course there he entered Harvard at thirteen, was graduated in his seventeenth year, and a year later was sent abroad by Harvard to fit himself for a tutorship in the University. During his four years' absence he studied modern languages and literatures, Greek philosophy and antiquities, and some natural history. But he made history the special object of study, and bent all his energies to acquiring as wide a knowledge as possible of the sources and materials that make up the records of modern history. During his vacations he visited the different countries of Europe, travelling in regular student fashion. He would rise at dawn, breakfast by candlelight, and then fill the morning with visits to picture galleries, cathedrals, and all the wonders of foreign towns; after a light luncheon he would start again on his sight-seeing, or visit some person of note, meeting during his travels almost every distinguished man in Europe. At night, if not too tired, he would study still politics, languages, and history, and when he returned to America he had made such good use of his time that he was equipped for almost any position in its intellectual life. His obligations to Harvard led him to accept a tutorship there, which, however, proved so distasteful to him that he only held it one year. It was after this experience that he founded his school at Round Hill. During the years that he was trying to make the Round Hill school a model for boys' schools, the idea of his work as the historian of the United States came to him. Undismayed by the scope of the work, which he meant should include the history of the United States from the time of the landing of Columbus to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, Bancroft, month after month, settled the plan more definitely in his mind; and when the time came for him to begin the work he only looked forward eagerly to the task of writing the records of three hundred years of the world's progress during the most absorbing period known to history. It is doubtful if at this time there was any other man living better qualified for this task than Bancroft. He had been a student of history and politics since boyhood. He had traced the stream of history from its sources in the East through the rise of the great modern nations. He had mastered the politics of the ancient world, whose language, literature, and art were also familiar to him, and civilized Europe had been his field of study during the years which leave the most profound impressions upon the mind. To him the rise and establishment of the United States as a great nation presented itself as one of the most brilliant passages of the world's history, and no labor seemed tiresome which should fittingly chronicle that event. Besides his literary requirements Bancroft possessed eminent qualities for practical life. He was successively Governor of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy, and for a time Acting-Secretary of war; he served his country as Minister to Great Britain. He was made Minister to Prussia and afterward Minister to Germany when that country took its place as a united nation. Some of the most important treaties between the United States and foreign powers were made during Bancroft's diplomatic career, and in every act of his political life showed a talent for practical affairs. While he was Secretary of the Navy he founded the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Previous to this there was no good system by which the boys who desired to enter the navy could receive instruction in any other branch than that of practical seamanship. In the old navy the middies were taught, while afloat, by the chaplains, who gave them lessons in odd hours in writing, arithmetic, and navigation; if the pupils were idle they were reported to the captain, whose discipline was far from gentle. A boy eager to learn could pick up a great deal by asking questions and noticing what was going on about him, and sometimes the officers would volunteer their help in a difficult subject. Later each ship had one regular school-master, who made the voyage with the ship, twenty middies being appointed to each man-of-war. This system was superseded by schools, which were established at the different navy-yards, and which the boys attended in the intervals of sea duty; but, as in the case of the other methods, the instruction was desultory, and the pupils had not the advantage of education enjoyed by the cadets of the West Point Military Academy, though it was evident the necessity for it was the same. Bancroft brought to the office of Secretary of the Navy his old love for broad principles of education, and eight months after he took office the United States Naval Academy was in full operation, with a corps of instructors of the first merit, and with a complement of pupils that spoke well for the national interest in the cause. At first the course was for five years, the first and last of which only were spent at the Academy and the rest at sea, but this was later modified to its present form. Bancroft's generous policy placed the new institution upon a firm basis, and it became at once a vital force in the life of the United States Navy. Bancroft began his history while still at Round Hill, and published the first volume in 1834. Previous to beginning his history he had published a small volume of verse, a Latin Reader, and a book on Greek politics for the use of the Round Hill School, and various translations and miscellaneous writings in the different periodicals of the day. But none of these had seemed serious work to him, and he brought to his history a mind fresh to literary labor, and a fund of general information that was invaluable. While he was minister to Great Britain he visited the state archives of England, France, and Germany for additional historical material. From this time he devoted himself as exclusively to his work as the diplomatic positions he held would allow. His official administration in his own country was also far-reaching. Besides the establishment of the Naval Academy, it was he who, while acting as Secretary of War _pro tem._, gave the famous order for General Taylor to move forward to the western boundary of Texas, which had been annexed to the United States after seceding from Mexico and setting up as a republic. General Taylor's appearance on the borders was the signal to Mexico that the United States intended to defend the new territory, and eventually led to the war with Mexico, by which the United States received the territory of New Mexico and California. When the lookout on the Pinta called out "Land ho!" he really uttered the first word of American history, and Bancroft's narrative begins almost at this point. The first volume embraces the early French and Spanish voyages; the settlement of the Colonies; descriptions of colonial life in New England and Virginia; the fall and restoration of the house of Stuart in England, which led to such important results in American history, and Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, which was the first note of warning to England that the American Colonies would not tolerate English injustice without a protest. To the reader who loves to find in history facts more marvellous than any imaginations of fairy lore, the first volume of Bancroft's history must ever be a region of delight. The picturesque figure of Columbus fronting undismayed the terrors of that unknown sea, which the geographers of the period peopled with demons and monsters; the adventures of the French and Spanish courtiers in search of fabled rivers and life-giving fountains; the trials of the gold-seekers, De Soto, Navarez, Cabeça de Vaca, and others, who sought for the riches of the romantic East; and the heroic suffering of those innumerable bands who first looked upon the wonders of the New World, and opened the way to its great career, are such stories as are found in the sober history of no other country. To the Old World, whose beginnings of history were lost in the mists of the past, this vision of the New World, with its beauty of mountains, river, and forest, with its inexhaustible wealth and its races yet living in the primitive conditions of remote antiquity, was indeed a wonder hardly to be believed. It is something to be present at the birth of a new world, and Bancroft has followed the voyagers and settlers in their own spirit, made their adventures his own, and given to the reader a brilliant as well as faithful picture of the historic beginning of the American continent. In his second volume Bancroft takes up the history of the Dutch in America; of the occupations of the Valley of the Mississippi by the French; of the expulsion of the French from Canada by the English, and the minor events which went toward the accomplishment of these objects. Here are introduced the romantic story of Acadia and the picturesque side of Indian life. "The Indian mother places her child, as spring does its blossoms, upon the boughs of the trees while she works," says Bancroft in describing the sleeping-places of the Indian babies, and we see the same sympathetic touch throughout his descriptions of these dark children of the forest, to whom the white man came as a usurper of their rights and destroyer of their woodland homes. The remaining volumes of the history consist almost entirely of the causes which led up to the American Revolution, the Revolution itself, and its effect upon Europe. One-half of the whole work is devoted to this theme, which is treated with a philosophical breadth that makes it comparable to the work of the greatest historians. Here we are led to see that, besides its influence upon the history of the New World, the American Revolution was one of the greatest events in the world's history; that it followed naturally from the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain and the Revolution of the English people against the tyranny of Charles I., and that, like them, its highest mission was to vindicate the cause of liberty. In two other volumes, entitled _History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States_, Bancroft gave a minute and careful description of the consolidation of the States into an individual nation after the Revolution, and the draughting and adopting of the Constitution by which they have since been governed. This, with some miscellaneous papers, among which may be mentioned the dramatic description of the Battle of Lake Erie, comprise the remainder of Bancroft's contribution to American literature. Bancroft said that there were three qualities necessary to the historian: A knowledge of the evil in human nature; that events are subordinate to law, and that there is in man something greater than himself. To these qualifications, which he himself eminently possessed, may be added that of untiring industry, which distinguished his work. A passage was written over and over again, sometimes as many as eight times, until it suited him. And he was known to write an entire volume over. He carried his labor into his old age, being eighty-four years of age when he made the last revision of the history which had occupied fifty years of his life. His diplomatic career also extended over many years, he being seventy-four when at his own request the Government recalled him from the Court of Berlin where he was serving as Minister. Bancroft died in 1891, in his ninety-second year. The most famous of his own countrymen united in tributes to his memory, and the sovereigns of Europe sent wreaths to place upon his coffin. As historian, diplomatist, and private citizen, he had honored his country as is the privilege of few. CHAPTER X EDGAR ALLAN POE 1809-1849 In the play-ground of an old-fashioned English school the boy Edgar Allan Poe, then in his ninth year, first entered that world of day-dreams, whose wonders he afterward transcribed so beautifully in his prose and poetry. The school was situated in the old town of Stoke Newington, and the quaint, sleepy village, with its avenues shaded by ancient trees and bordered by fragrant shrubberies, and with its country stillness broken only by the chime of the church-bell tolling the hour, seemed to the boy hardly a part of the real world. In describing it in after years he speaks of the dream-like and soothing influence it had upon his early life. The school building, also the village parsonage, as the master of the school was a clergyman, had a similar effect; it was a large, rambling house, whose passages and rooms had a labyrinthine irregularity which charmed the young student and made him regard it almost as a place of enchantment. It had many nooks and corners in which one might lose one's self and dream day-dreams out of the books, poetry and history, with which it was pretty well stocked. The school-room itself was low-walled and ceiled with oak, and filled with desks and benches that had been hacked and hewed by generations of boys. It was of great size, and seemed to Poe the largest in the world. In this room he studied mathematics and the classics, while in the play-ground outside, which was surrounded by brick walls topped with mortar and broken glass, he spent many of his leisure hours, taking part in those sports so loved by the English school-boy. The boys were allowed beyond the grounds only three times in a week; twice on Sunday, when they went to church, and once during the week, when, guarded by two ushers, they were taken a solemn walk through the neighboring fields. All the rest of life lay within the walls that separated the school from the village streets. In this quiet spot Poe spent five years of his life, speaking of them afterward as most happy years and rich in those poetic influences which formed his character. In his thirteenth year he left England and returned to America with his adopted parents, Mr. and Mrs. Allan, of Baltimore, spending the next four or five years of his life partly in their beautiful home and partly at school in Richmond. The parents of Poe had died in his infancy. They had both possessed talent, his mother having been an actress of considerable repute, and from them he inherited gentle and winning manners and a talent for declamation, which, combined with his remarkable personal beauty, made him a favorite in the Allan home, where he was much petted and caressed. The child returned the interest of his adopted parents, and though he was sometimes wilful and obstinate he never failed in affection. To Mrs. Allan especially he always showed a devotion and gratitude that well repaid her for the love and care she had bestowed upon the orphan child. Though fond of books, especially books of poetry, and loving to be alone in some quiet place where he could indulge in the day-dreams that formed so large a part of his life, Poe yet had the fondness of a healthy boy for athletic sports, and some of his feats of strength are still found recorded in the old newspapers of Baltimore. Once on a hot day he swam a distance of seven miles on the James River against a swift tide; in a contest he leaped twenty-one feet on a level, and in other feats of strength he also excelled. He was very fond of animals, and was always surrounded by pets which returned his affection with interest, and which, with the flowers he loved to tend and care for, took up many of his leisure hours. When he was seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia, where he remained not quite a year, distinguishing himself as a student of the classics and modern languages. Upon his return to Baltimore he had a disagreement with his foster-father because of some college debts, and though Poe was very much in the wrong he refused to admit it, and, leaving the house in a fit of anger, went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. He had already published a volume of poems, and now being forced to depend upon himself he issued a second edition. But this brought him neither fame nor money, and after a two years' struggle with poverty he was glad to accept a cadetship at West Point, obtained for him through the influence of Mr. Allan. Mrs. Allan had in the meantime died, and in her death Poe lost his best friend, one who had been ever ready to forgive his faults, to believe in his repentance, and to have faith in his promises of amendment. Poe was charmed with the life at West Point, and in his first enthusiasm decided that a soldier's career was the most glorious in the world. The hard study, the strict discipline, the rigid law and order of cadet life seemed only admirable, and he soon stood at the head of his class. But it was impossible that this enthusiasm should last long. Poe was endowed by nature with the dreamy and artistic temperament of the poet, and discipline and routine could not fail to become in a short time unbearable. When this period arrived the prospective life of the soldier lost its charm, and he was seized with a desire to leave the Academy and bid a final farewell to military life. It was impossible to do this without the consent of his guardian, and as Mr. Allan refused this, Poe was forced to carry his point in his own way. This he did by lagging in his studies, writing poetry when he should have been solving problems, and refusing point blank to obey orders. Military discipline could not long brook this. Poe was court-martialed, and, pleading guilty, was discharged from the Academy, disgraced but happy. During his stay there he had published a third edition of his poems, containing a number of pieces not included in the other editions. It was dedicated to his fellow-cadets, and was subscribed for by many of the students. Almost immediately after his departure from West Point, Poe went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and her daughter Virginia, who afterward became his wife; and from this time forward he never seems to have had any serious idea of a career otherwise than literary. In 1832, when he was in his twenty-fourth year, prizes were offered by a Baltimore paper for the best short story and best poem that should be presented. Among the material offered in competition the judges found a small collection of tales bound together, and written in neat Roman characters. These stories were the last ones read by the committee which had about decided that there had been nothing offered worthy the prize; their unmistakable signs of genius were instantly recognized. It was decided that the prize of one hundred dollars belonged to this author, and out of the series the story entitled _A Manuscript Found in a Bottle_ was selected as the prize tale, though all were so excellent that it was difficult to determine which was best. This little volume had been submitted by Poe, and when the poetry came to be examined it was found also that the best poem in the collection was his. He was not, however, awarded the prize for poetry, that being given to another competitor, whose work the committee thought worthy the second prize, in view of the fact that Poe had obtained the first. It was in this manner that Poe was introduced to the world of literature, his previous productions having excited no attention other than that generally given to the work of a clever or erratic boy. The workmanship of these stories was so fine and the genius so apparent as to give them a distinct place in American fiction, a place to which at that time the promise of Hawthorne pointed. Besides the reputation and money thus earned, the story brought him a stanch friend in the person of Mr. Kennedy, one of the members of the committee, who, from that time, was devoted to the interests of the young author. Poe now became busy with the composition of those beautiful tales which appeared from time to time in the periodicals of the day, and which speedily won him a reputation both in America and Europe. He was also employed in editorial work for different magazines, and became known as the first American critic who had made criticism an art. It was his dream at this time to establish a magazine of his own, and for many years one project after another with this object in view was tried and abandoned. He was never able to start the magazine and felt the disappointment keenly always. Through all his disappointments he still lived much in that dream-world which had always been so real to him, and much of his best work found there its inspiration. His exquisite story of _Ligeia_ came to him first in a dream. This world, so unreal to many, was to Poe as real as his actual life. Like Coleridge in English literature, he had the power of presenting the visions which came to him in sleep or in his waking dreams, surrounded by their own atmosphere of mystery and unreality, thus producing an effect which awed as well as fascinated. No other American writer has ever brought from the dream-world such beautiful creations, which charm and mystify at the same time, and force the most unimaginative reader to believe for the time in the existence of this elusive realm of faery. Poe's poems have this same character, and found their inspiration in the same source. While engaged in editorial work in New York Poe wrote his first great poem, _The Raven_, which was first published under an assumed name. It was not until he recited the poem by request at a gathering of the literary workers of New York that his authorship was suspected. Immediately afterward the poem was published under his name. It was regarded by critics in England and America as illustrating the highest poetic genius. From this time Poe, who had hitherto been ranked among the best prose writers of his native land, now took precedence among the poets. It is, indeed, as a poet that he is always thought of first. It was during the next five years after the publication of _The Raven_ that he produced the series of remarkable poems that has given him immortality. _The Bells_, the original draft of which consisted of only eighteen lines, is, perhaps, next to _The Raven_, the poem that has brought him the most fame. But the number of exquisite shorter poems which he produced would in themselves give him the highest rank as a poet. Chief among these is the little idyll, _Annabel Lee_, a transcription of the ideal love which existed between Poe and his young wife. While engaged in literary work in New York Poe lived for the greater part of the time in the suburb of Fordham, in an unpretentious but charming cottage, bowered in trees and surrounded by the flower garden, which was the especial pride of the poet and his wife. Perhaps the happiest days of his life were spent in this quiet place, to which he would retire after the business of the day was over, and occupy himself with the care of the flowers and of the numerous pet birds and animals, which were regarded as a part of the family. Over this otherwise happy existence hung always the clouds of poverty and sickness, his wife having been an invalid for many years. It was in this little cottage, at a time when Poe's fortunes were at their lowest ebb, that his wife died amid poverty so extreme that the family could not even afford a fire to heat the room in which she lay dying. Poe remained at Fordham a little over two years after his wife's death, leaving it only a few months before his own death, in October, 1849. Poe is undoubtedly to be ranked among the greatest writers of American literature. His prose works would grace any literary period; his poetry is alive with the fire and beauty of genius, and his criticisms marked a new era in critical writing in America. Twenty-six years after his death a monument was erected to his memory in the city of Baltimore, mainly through the efforts of the teachers of the public schools. Some of the most distinguished men of America were present at the unveiling to do honor to the poet whose work was such a noble contribution to the art of his native land. CHAPTER XI RALPH WALDO EMERSON 1803-1882 Walking the streets of Boston, in the days when old-fashioned gambrel-roofed houses and gardens filled the space now occupied by dingy warehouses, might be seen a serious-eyed boy who, whether at work or at play, seemed always to his companions to live in a world a little different from their own. This was not the dream-world so familiar to childhood, but another which few children enter, and those only who seem destined to be teachers of their race. One enters this world just as the world of day-dreams is entered, by forgetting the real world for a time and letting the mind think what thoughts it will. In this world Milton spent many long hours when a child, and Bunyan made immortal in literature the memory of these dreams of youth. Never any thought of the real world enters this place, whose visitors see but one thing, a vision of the soul as it journeys through life. To Bunyan this seemed but a journey over dangerous roads, through lonely valleys, and over steep mountain sides; to Milton it seemed a war between good and evil; to this little New-England boy it seemed but a vision of duty bravely accomplished, and in this he was true to the instincts of that Puritan race to which he belonged. The boy's father was the Rev. William Emerson, pastor of the First Church in Boston, who had died when this son, Ralph Waldo, was in his ninth year; but for three years longer the family continued to reside in the quaint old parsonage, in which Emerson had been born. The father had left his family so poor that the congregation of the First Church voted an annuity of five hundred dollars to the widow for seven years, and many were the straits the little family was put to in order to eke out a comfortable living. The one ambition was to have the three boys educated. An aunt who lived in the family declared that they were born to be educated, and that it must be brought about somehow. The mother took boarders, and the two eldest boys, Ralph and Edward, helped do the housework. In a little letter written to his aunt, in his tenth year, Ralph mentions that he rose before six in the morning in order to help his brother make the fire and set the table for prayers before calling his mother--so early did the child realize that he must be the burden-sharer of the family. Poverty there was, but also much happiness in the old parsonage, whose dooryard of trees and shrubs, joined on to the neighboring gardens, made a pleasant outlook into the world. When school work was over, and household duty disposed of, very often the brothers would retire to their own room and there find their own peculiar joy in reading tales of Plutarch, reciting poetry, and declaiming some favorite piece, for solitude was loved by all, and the great authors of the world were well studied by these boys, whose bedchamber was so cold that Plato or Cicero could only be indulged in when the reader was wrapped so closely in his cloak that Emerson afterward remarked, the smell of woollen was forever afterward associated with the Greek classics. Ralph attended the Latin Grammar School, and had private lessons besides in writing, which he seems to have acquired with difficulty, one of his school-fellows telling long afterward how his tongue moved up and down as the pen laboriously traversed the page, and how on one occasion he even played truant to avoid the dreaded task, for which misdemeanor he was promptly punished by a diet of bread and water. It was at this period that he wrote verses on the War of 1812, and began an epic poem which one of his school friends illustrated. Such skill did he attain in verse-making that his efforts were delivered on exhibition days, being rendered with such impressiveness by the young author that his mates considered nothing could be finer. From the Latin school Emerson passed to Harvard in his fifteenth year, entering as "President's Freshman," a post which brought with it a certain annual sum and a remission of fees in exchange for various duties, such as summoning unruly students to the president, announcing the orders of the faculty, and serving as waiter at commons. At college Emerson was noted as a student more familiar with general literature than with the college text-books, and he was an ardent member of a little book club which met to read and discuss current literature, the book or magazine under discussion being generally bought by the member who had the most pocket-money at the time. But in spite of a dislike for routine study, Emerson was graduated with considerable honor, and almost immediately afterward set about the business of school-teaching. But Emerson was not able to take kindly to teaching, and in his twenty-first year began preparations to enter the ministry. These were interrupted for a while by a trip South in search of health, but he was finally able to accept a position as assistant minister at the Second Church. A year or two later he was again obliged to leave his work and go abroad for his health. After he returned home he decided to leave the ministry, and he began that series of lectures which speedily made him famous and which have determined his place in American literature. From this time Emerson began to be recognized as one of the thought-leaders of his age. To him literature appealed as a means of teaching those spiritual lessons that brace the soul to brave endurance. While Hawthorne was living in the world of romance, Poe and Lowell creating American poetry, and Bancroft and Motley placing American historical prose on the highest level, Emerson was throwing his genius into the form of moral essays for the guidance of conduct. To him had been revealed in all its purity that vision of the perfect life which had been the inspiration of his Puritan ancestors. And with the vision had come that gift of expression which enabled him to preserve it in the noblest literary form. These essays embrace every variety of subject, for, to a philosopher like Emerson every form of life and every object of nature represented some picture of the soul. When he devoted himself to this task he followed a true light, for he became and remains to many the inspiration of his age, the American writer above all others whose thought has moulded the souls of men. Much of Emerson's work found form in verse of noble vein, for he was a poet as well as philosopher. He also was connected with one or two magazines, and became one of the most popular of American lecturers; with the exception of several visits to Europe and the time given to his lecturing and other short trips, Emerson spent his life at Concord, Mass. To this place came annually, in his later years, the most gifted of his followers, to conduct what was known as the Concord School of Philosophy. Throughout his whole life Emerson preserved that serenity of soul which is the treasure of such spiritually gifted natures. He died at Concord in 1882, and was buried in the village cemetery, which he had consecrated thirty years before. CHAPTER XII HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 1807-1882 Almost any summer day in the early part of the century a blue-eyed, brown-haired boy might have been seen lying under a great apple-tree in the garden of an old house in Portland, forgetful of everything else in the world save the book he was reading. The boy was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the book might have been _Robinson Crusoe_, _The Arabian Nights_, or _Don Quixote_, all of which were prime favorites, or, possibly, it was Irving's _Sketch-Book_, of which he was so fond that even the covers delighted him, and whose charm remained unbroken throughout life. Years afterward, when, as a famous man of letters, he was called upon to pay his tribute to the memory of Irving, he could think of no more tender praise than to speak with grateful affection of the book which had so fascinated him as a boy, and whose pages still led him back into the "haunted chambers of youth." Portland was in those days a town of wooden houses, with streets shaded with trees, and the waters of the sea almost dashing up to its doorways. At its back great stretches of woodland swept the country as far as the eye could see, and low hills served as watch-towers over the deep in times of war. It was during Longfellow's childhood that the British ship Boxer was captured by the Enterprise in the famous sea-fight of the War of 1812; the two captains, who had fallen in the battle, were buried side by side in the cemetery at Portland, and the whole town came together to do honor to the dead commanders. Long afterward Longfellow speaks of this incident in his poem entitled _My Lost Youth_, and recalls the sound of the cannon booming across the waters, and the solemn stillness that followed the news of the victory. It is in the same poem that we have a picture of the Portland of his early life, and are given glimpses of the black wet wharves, where the ships were moored all day long as they worked, and also the Spanish sailors "with bearded lips" who seemed as much a mystery to the boy as the ships themselves. These came and went across the sea, always watched and waited for with greatest interest by the children, who loved the excitement of the unloading and loading, the shouts of the surveyors who were measuring the contents of cask and hogshead; the songs of the negroes working the pulleys, the jolly good-nature of the seamen strolling through the streets, and, above all, the sight of the strange treasures that came from time to time into one home or another--bits of coral, beautiful sea-shells, birds of resplendent plumage, foreign coins, which looked odd even in Portland, where all the money nearly was Spanish--and the hundred and one things dear to the hearts of children and sailors. Longfellow's boyhood was almost a reproduction of that of some Puritan ancestor a century before. He attended the village school, played ball in summer and skated in winter, went to church twice every Sunday, and, when service was over, looked at the curious pictures in the family Bible, and heard from his mother's lips the stories of David and Jonathan and Joseph, and at all times had food for his imagination in the view of bay stretching seaward, on one hand, and on the other valley farms and groves spreading out to the west. But although the life was severe in its simplicity, it was most sweet and wholesome for the children who grew up in the home nest, guarded by the love that was felt rather than expressed, and guided into noble conceptions of the beauty and dignity of living. This home atmosphere impressed itself upon Longfellow unconsciously, as did the poetic influences of nature, and had just as lasting and inspiring an effect upon his character, so that truth, duty, fine courage were always associated with the freshness of spring, the early dawn, the summer sunshine, and the lingering sadness of twilight. It is the spiritual insight, thus early developed, that gives to Longfellow's poetry some of its greatest charms. It was during his school-boy days that Longfellow published his first bit of verse. It was inspired by hearing the story of a famous fight which took place on the shores of a small lake called Lovell's Pond, between the hero Lovell and the Indians. Longfellow was deeply impressed by this story and threw his feeling of admiration into four stanzas, which he carried with a beating heart down to the letter-box of the _Portland Gazette_, taking an opportunity to slip the manuscript in when no one was looking. A few days later Longfellow watched his father unfold the paper, read it slowly before the fire, and finally leave the room, when the sheet was grasped by the boy and his sister, who shared his confidence, and hastily scanned. The poem was there in the "Poets' Corner" of the _Gazette_, and Longfellow was so filled with joy that he spent the greater part of the remainder of the day in reading and re-reading the verses, becoming convinced toward evening that they possessed remarkable merit. His happiness was dimmed, however, a few hours later, when the father of a boy friend, with whom he was passing the evening, pronounced the verses stiff and entirely lacking in originality, a criticism that was quite true and that was harder to bear because the critic had no idea who the author was. Longfellow slipped away as soon as possible to nurse his wounded feelings in his own room, but instead of letting the incident discourage him, began, with renewed vigor, to write verses, epigrams, essays, and even tragedies, which he produced in a literary partnership with one of his friends. None of these effusions had any literary value, being no better than any boy of thirteen or fourteen would produce if he turned his attention to composition instead of bat and ball. Longfellow remained in Portland until his sixteenth year, when he went to Bowdoin College, entering the sophomore class. Here he remained for three years, gradually winning a name for scholarship and character that was second to none. His love for reading still continued, Irving remaining a favorite author, while Cooper was also warmly appreciated. From the _Sketch-Book_ he would turn to the exciting pages of _The Spy_, and the announcement of a new work by either of their authors was looked forward to as an event of supreme importance. From time to time he wrote verses which appeared in the periodicals of the day, and as his college life neared its close he began to look toward literature as the field for his future work, and it was with much disappointment that he learned that his father wished him to study law. But what the effect of such a course may have had upon his mind so filled with the love of poetry, and so consecrated to the ideal, will never be known, as the end of his college life brought to him a chance which, for the moment, entirely satisfied the desire of his heart. This was an offer from the college trustees that he should visit Europe for the purpose of fitting himself for a professorship of modern languages, and that upon his return he should fill that chair, newly established at Bowdoin. This was the happiest fortune that could come to Longfellow in the beginning of his literary career. Accordingly, at the age of nineteen, he sailed for France in good health, with fine prospects, and with as fair a hope for the future as ever was given. Longfellow remained abroad three years, studying and absorbing all the new conditions which were broadening his mind, and fitting him for his after-career. He visited France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, meeting with adventure everywhere, and storing up memory after memory that came back to his call in after-years to serve some purpose of his art. We have thus preserved in his works the impressions that Europe then made upon a young American, who had come there to supplement his education by studying at the universities, and whose mind was alive to all the myriad forms of culture denied in his own land. The vividness of these early impressions was seen in all his work, and was perhaps the first reflection of the old poetic European influence that began to be felt in much American poetry, where the charm of old peasant love-songs and roundelays, heard for centuries among the lower classes of Spain, France, and Italy, was wrought into translations and transcriptions so perfect and spirited that they may almost rank with original work. One of Longfellow's great pleasures while on this trip was the meeting with Irving in Spain, where the latter was busy upon his _Life of Columbus_; and Irving's kindness on this occasion was always affectionately remembered. Longfellow returned to America after three years' absence, and at once began his duties at Bowdoin College, where he remained three years, when he left to take a professorship at Harvard, which he had accepted with the understanding that he was to spend a year and a half abroad before commencing his work. The results of his literary labors while at Bowdoin were the publication of a series of sketches of European life called _Outre Mer_, in two volumes; a translation from the Spanish of the _Coplas de Manrique_, and some essays in the _North American Review_ and other periodicals. And considering the demand upon his time which his college duties made, this amount of finished work speaks well for his industry, since it does not include a number of text-books prepared for the use of his pupils, and numberless papers, translations, and other literary miscellany necessary to his work as a teacher of foreign languages. _Outre Mer_, which had first appeared in part in a periodical, was very favorably received. It was really the story of picturesque Europe translated by the eye and heart of a young poet. After his return to America Longfellow settled down to the routine of college work, which was interrupted for the next ten years only by his literary work, which from this time on began to absorb him more and more. Two years after his return he published his first volume of poems and his romance _Hyperion_. In _Hyperion_ Longfellow related some of the experiences of his own travels under the guise of the hero, who wanders through Europe, and the book is full of the same biographical charm that belongs to _Outre Mer_. Here the student life of the German youth, the songs they sang, the books they read, and even their favorite inns are noted, while the many translations of German poetry opened a new field of delight to American readers. It was well received by the public, who appreciated its fine poetic fancy and its wealth of serious thought. But it was not by his prose that Longfellow touched the deepest sympathies of his readers, and the publication of his first volume of poetry a few months later showed his real position in the world of American letters. This little book, which was issued under the title _Voices of the Night_, consisted of the poems that had so far appeared in the various magazines and papers, a few poems written in his college days, and some translations from the French, German, and Spanish poets. In this volume occurs some of Longfellow's choicest works, the gem of the book being the celebrated _A Psalm of Life_. It is from this point that Longfellow goes onward always as the favorite poet of the American people. The _Psalm of Life_ had been published previously in a magazine without the author's name, and it had no sooner been read than it seemed to find its way into every heart. Ministers read it to their congregations all over the country, and it was sung as a hymn in many churches. It was copied in almost every newspaper in the United States; it was recited in every school. To young and old alike it brought its message, and its voice was recognized as that of a true leader. The author of _Outre Mer_ and _Hyperion_ had here touched hands with millions of his brothers and sisters, and the clasp was never unloosened again while he lived. In the same collection occurs _The Footsteps of Angels_, another well-beloved poem, and one in which the spirit of home-life is made the inspiration. Longfellow's poems now followed one another in rapid succession, appearing generally at first in some magazine and afterward in book form in various collections under different titles. His greatest contributions to American literature are his _Evangeline_ and _Hiawatha_, and a score of shorter poems, which in themselves would give the author a high place in any literature. In _Evangeline_ Longfellow took for his theme the pathetic story of the destruction of the Acadian villages by the English during the struggle between the English and French for the possession of Canada. In this event many families and friends were separated never again to be reunited, and the story of _Evangeline_ is the fate of two young lovers who were sent away from their homes in different ships, and who never met again until both were old, and one was dying in the ward of a public hospital. Longfellow has made of this sad story a wondrously beautiful tale, that reads like an old legend of Grecian Arcadia. The description of the great primeval forests, stretching down to the sea; of the villages and farms scattered over the land as unprotected as the nests of the meadow lark; of the sowing and harvesting of the peasant folk, with their _fêtes_ and churchgoing, their weddings and festivals, and the pathetic search of Evangeline for her lost lover Gabriel among the plains of Louisiana, all show Longfellow in his finest mood as a poet whom the sorrows of mankind touched always with reverent pity, as well as a writer of noble verse. Everywhere that the English language is read _Evangeline_ has passed as the most beautiful folk-story that America has produced, and the French Canadians, the far-away brothers of the Acadians, have included Longfellow among their national poets. Among them _Evangeline_ is known by heart, and the cases are not rare where the people have learned English expressly for the purpose of reading Longfellow's poem in the original, a wonderful tribute to the poet who could thus touch to music one of the saddest memories of their race. In _Hiawatha_ Longfellow gave to the Indian the place in poetry that had been given him by Cooper in prose. Here the red man is shown with all his native nobleness still unmarred by the selfish injustice of the whites, while his inferior qualities are seen only to be those that belong to mankind in general. _Hiawatha_ is a poem of the forests and of the dark-skinned race who dwelt therein, who were learned only in forest lore and lived as near to nature's heart as the fauns and satyrs of old. Into this legend Longfellow has put all the poetry of the Indian nature, and has made his hero, Hiawatha, a noble creation that compares favorably with the King Arthur of the old British romances. Like Arthur, Hiawatha has come into the world with a mission for his people; his birth is equally mysterious and invests him at once with almost supernatural qualities. Like Arthur, he seeks to redeem his kingdom from savagery and to teach the blessing of peace. From first to last Hiawatha moves among the people, a real leader, showing them how to clear their forests, to plant grain, to make for themselves clothing of embroidered and painted skins, to improve their fishing-grounds, and to live at peace with their neighbors. Hiawatha's own life was one that was lived for others. From the time when he was a little child and his grandmother told him all the fairy-tales of nature, up to the day when, like Arthur, he passed mysteriously away through the gates of the sunset, all his hope and joy and work were for his people. He is a creature that could only have been born from a mind as pure and poetic as that of Longfellow. All the scenes and images of the poem are so true to nature that they seem like very breaths from the forest. We move with Hiawatha through the dewy birchen aisles, learn with him the language of the nimble squirrel and of the wise beaver and mighty bear, watch him build his famous canoe, and spend hours with him fishing in the waters of the great inland sea, bordered by the pictured rocks, painted by nature herself. Longfellow's first idea of the poem was suggested, it is said, by his hearing a Harvard student recite some Indian tales. Searching among the various books that treated of the American Indian, he found many legends and incidents that preserved fairly well the traditional history of the Indian race, and grouping these around one central figure and filling in the gaps with poetic descriptions of the forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and plains, which made up the abode of these picturesque people, he thus built up the entire poem. The metre used is that in which the Kalevala, the national epic of the Finns is written, and the Finnish hero, Wainamoinen, in his gift of song and his brave adventures, is not unlike the great Hiawatha. Among Longfellow's other long poems are: _The Spanish Student_, a dramatic poem founded upon a Spanish romance; _The Divine Tragedy_, and _The Golden Legend_, founded upon the life of Christ; _The Courtship of Miles Standish_, a tale of Puritan love-making in the time of the early settlers, and _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, which were a series of poems of adventure supposed to be related in turn by the guests at an inn. But it is with such poems as _Evangeline_ and _Hiawatha_, and the shorter famous poems like _A Psalm of Life_, _Excelsior_, _The Wreck of the Hesperus_, _The Building of the Ship_, _The Footsteps of Angels_ that his claim as the favorite poet of America rests. _Evangeline_ and _Hiawatha_ marked an era in American literature in introducing themes purely American, while of the famous shorter poems each separate one was greeted almost with an ovation. _The Building of the Ship_ was never read during the struggle of the Civil War without raising the audience to a passion of enthusiasm, and so in each of these shorter poems Longfellow touched with wondrous sympathy the hearts of his readers. Throughout the land he was revered as the poet of the home and heart, the sweet singer to whom the fireside and family gave ever sacred and beautiful meanings. Some poems on slavery, a prose tale called _Kavanagh_, and a translation of _The Divine Comedy_ of Dante must also be included among Longfellow's works; but these have never reached the success attained by his more popular poems which are known by heart by millions to whom they have been inspiration and comfort. Longfellow died in Cambridge in 1882, in the same month in which was written his last poem, _The Bells of San Blas_, which concludes with these words: "It is daybreak everywhere." CHAPTER XIII JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 1814-1877 One day in the year 1827, a boy of thirteen first entered the chapel of Harvard College to take his seat there as a student. His schoolfellows looked at him curiously first, because of his remarkable beauty, and second because of his reputation as a linguist, a great distinction among boys who looked upon foreign tongues as so many traps for tripping their unlucky feet in the thorny paths of learning. He had come to Harvard from Mr. Bancroft's school at Northampton, where he was famous as a reader, writer, and orator, and was more admired, perhaps, than is good for any boy. Both pupils and masters recognized his talents and overlooked his lack of industry. But neither dreamed that their praise was but the first tribute to the genius of the future historian, John Lothrop Motley. Motley was born in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, April 15, 1814. As a child he was delicate, a condition which fostered his great natural love for reading. He devoured books of every kind, history, poetry, plays, orations, and particularly the novels of Cooper and Scott. Not satisfied with reading about heroes, he must be a hero himself, and when scarcely eight he bribed a younger brother with sweetmeats to lie quiet, wrapped in a shawl, while he, mounted upon a stool, delivered Mark Antony's oration over the dead body of Cæsar. At eleven he began a novel, the scene of which was laid in the Housatonic Valley, because that name sounded grand and romantic. On Saturday afternoon he and his playmates, among whom was Wendell Phillips, would assemble in the garret of the Motley house, and in plumed hats and doublets enact tragedies or stirring melodramas. Comedy was too frivolous for these entertainments, in which Motley was always the leading spirit; the chief bandit, the heavy villain, the deadliest foe. In the school-room also Motley led by divine right, and expected others to follow. Thus, in spite of his dislike for rigid rules of study, he was always before the class as one to be deferred to and honored wherever honor might be given. While still at college Motley seems to have had some notion of a literary career. His writing-desk was constantly crammed with manuscripts of plays, poetry, and sketches of character, which never found their way to print, and which were burned to make room for others when the desk became too full. With the exception of a few verses published in a magazine, this work of his college days served only for pastime. Graduated from Harvard at seventeen, Motley spent the next two years at a German university, where he lived the pleasant, social life of the German student, one of his friends and classmates being young Bismarck, afterward the great Chancellor, who was always fond of the handsome young American, whose wit was the life of the student company and whose powers of argument surpassed his own. Coming back to America, Motley studied law until 1841, when, in his twenty-seventh year, he received the appointment of Secretary of Legation to St. Petersburg. His friends now looked forward to a brilliant diplomatic career for him, but the unfavorable climate soon led him to resign the appointment and return to America. But the St. Petersburg visit was not fruitless, for three years afterward he published an essay in the _North American Review_ which showed a keen appreciation of Russian political conditions. The article was called "A Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great," and its appearance surprised the critics who had justly condemned a novel previously published by the young author. His essay portrayed the character of the great Peter, half king and half savage. It showed a full appreciation of the difficulties that hindered the establishment of a great monarchy, and paid due honor to that force of will, savage courage, and ideal patriotism that laid the foundations of Russia's greatness. The reader is made to see this fiery Sclav, building up a new Russia from his ice-fields and barren valleys; a Russia of great cities, imperial armies, vast commerce, and splendid hopes. It was a brilliant and scholarly narrative of the achievement of a great man, and it placed Motley among the writers of highest promise. A year later he began collecting materials for the serious work of his life. For his subject he chose the story of the old Frisians or Hollanders who rescued from the sea a few islands formed by the ooze and slime of ages, and laid thereon the foundations of a great nation. They raised dykes to keep back the sea, built canals to serve as roads, turned bogs into pasture-lands and morasses into grain-fields, fought with the Romans, founded cities, laid the foundations of the vast maritime commerce of to-day, and finally, in the sixteenth century, when the wealth of their merchants, the power of their cities, and the progress of their arts were the wonder of the world, met their worst foe in the person of their own king, Philip II. From the beginning the Hollanders or Netherlanders had cherished a savage independence which commanded respect even in barbarous ages, and this characteristic insured a quarrel between them and their ruler. Philip II. was King of Spain and of Sicily as well as of Holland. Born in Spain, he could not speak a word of Dutch. He was haughty, overbearing, and unscrupulous, and he resolved to make the Hollanders see in him a master as well as a king. Already in his father's reign there had been trouble because of the growing Protestantism which many of the Hollanders favored. Already some of the chief Dutch cities had been punished for resisting the Emperor's authority, and their burghers sentenced to kneel in sackcloth and beg him to spare their homes from destruction. These things happened in his father's time and had made an impression upon Philip II., who saw that in every case the royal power had been triumphant, and he believed himself invincible. Motley painted the life of Philip from the day of his inauguration through all the years of revolt, bloodshed, and horror which marked his reign. He saw that this rebellion of the Hollanders meant less the discontent of a people with their king than the growth of a great idea, the idea that civil and religious liberty is the right of all men and nations. To Motley's mind the struggle seemed like some old battle between giants and Titans. Unlike other historians, who looked over the world for a subject, rejecting first one and then another, Motley's subject took possession of him and would not be rejected. His work was born, as a great poem or picture is born, from a glimpse of things hidden from other eyes. But at once he discovered that Prescott had already in contemplation a history of Philip II. This was a severe blow to all his hopes. But he resolved to see Prescott, lay the matter before him, and abide by his decision, feeling that the master of history, who was the author of the _Conquest of Mexico_ and the _Conquest of Peru_, would be the best adviser of a young and unknown writer. Prescott received the idea with the most generous kindness, advised Motley to undertake the work, and placed at his disposal all the material which he himself had collected for his own enterprise. After several years the book appeared in 1856, under the title _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_. To write this book Motley dwelt for years in the world of three hundred years ago, when the whole of Europe was shaken by the new Protestantism, when Raleigh and Drake were sailing the Atlantic and adding the shores of the new world to English dominion, the French settling Canada and the Mississippi Valley, Spain sending her mission priests to California, and the Huguenots establishing themselves in Florida. Thus the foundations of the American Republic were being laid, while Philip was striving to overthrow the freedom of the Netherlands. Leaving the nineteenth century as far behind him as he could, Motley established himself successively at Berlin, Dresden, The Hague, and Brussels, in order to consult the libraries and archives of state which contained documents relating to the revolt of the Netherlands against Philip II. In speaking of his work in the libraries of Brussels, he says that at this time only dead men were his familiar friends, and that he was at home in any country, and he calls himself a worm feeding on musty mulberry leaves out of which he was to spin silk. Day after day, year after year, he haunted the old libraries, whose shadows held so many secrets of the past, until the personalities of those great heroes who fought for the liberty of Holland were as familiar as the faces of his own children. William of Orange, called the Silent, the Washington of Dutch independence, Count Egmont, Van Horn, and all that band of heroes who espoused the cause of liberty, came to be comrades. And the end rewarded the years of toil. Out of old mouldy documents and dead letters Motley recreated the Netherlands of the sixteenth century. Again were seen the great cities with their walls miles in extent, their gay streets, their palaces and churches, and public buildings, and the great domains of the clergy, second to none in Europe. The nobles possessed magnificent estates and entertained their guests with jousts and tourneys like the great lords of England and France. The tradespeople and artisans who comprised the population of the cities were divided into societies or guilds, which were so powerful that no act of state could be passed without their consent, and so rich that to their entertainments the proudest nobles came as guests, to see a luxuriousness which vied with that of kings. The Dutch artists were celebrated for their noble pictures, for their marvellous skill in wood and stone carving, and for the wonderful tapestries which alone would have made Dutch art famous. In the midst of this prosperity Philip II. came to the throne, and soon after his coronation the entire Netherlands were in revolt. Motley has described this struggle like an eye-witness. We see the officers of the Inquisition dragging their victims daily to the torture-chamber, and the starved and dying rebels defending their cities through sieges which the Spanish army made fiendish in suffering. Motley's description of the siege of Leyden, and his portrait of William the Silent, are among the finest specimens of historical composition. The work ends with the death of the Prince of Orange, this tragic event forming a fitting climax to the great revolution which had acknowledged him its hope and leader. Motley carried the completed manuscript of _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_ to London, but failing to find a publisher willing to undertake such a work by an unknown author, he was obliged to produce it at his own expense. It met with the most flattering reception, and the reviews which appeared in England, France, and America placed Motley's name among the great historians. The book was soon translated into Dutch, German, and Russian. Motley's two other great works were similar in character to the first. The second work, called _The History of the United Netherlands_, began with the death of William the Silent, and ended with the period known as the Twelve Years' Truce, when by common consent the independence of the Netherlands was recognized throughout Europe. This work consists of four volumes, the first two having been published in 1860, and the remaining two in 1867. These volumes embrace much of the history of England, which became the ally and friend of Holland, and are full of the great events which made up that epoch of English history. The names of Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Leicester, Lord Burghley, and the noble and chivalrous Sir Philip Sidney, who lost his life on one of the battle-fields of this war, figure as largely in its pages as those of the Dutch themselves. The war had ceased to be the revolt of Holland against Spain, and had become a mighty battle for the liberty of Europe. Every nation was interested in its progress, and all men knew that upon its success or failure would depend the fate of Europe for many centuries. In this work Motley's pen lost none of its art. The chapters follow one another in harmonious succession, the clear and polished style giving no hint of the obscurities of diplomatic letters, the almost illegible manuscripts, and the contradictory reports which often made up the original materials. Like its predecessor, it was at once classed among the great histories of the world. _The Life of John of Barneveld_, who shares with William of Orange the glory of achieving Dutch independence, was the subject of Motley's next and last work. The book is not in a strict sense a biography. It is rather a narrative of the quarrel of the Netherlands among themselves over theological questions. The country was now Protestant, and yet the people fought as fiercely over the different points of doctrine as when they were struggling for their independence. The book appeared in 1874, completing the series, which the author called _The History of the Eighty Years' War for Independence_. During this period of literary work Motley was twice appointed to represent the United States at foreign courts. He was Minister to Austria from 1861 to 1866, and during the stormy period of the Civil War showed his powers as a statesman in his diplomatic relations with the Austrian Court, which honored him always both as a diplomatist and as a patriot, his devotion to his country being a proverb among his fellows. In 1868 he was appointed Minister to England, but held the office only two years. On both these occasions Motley proved his ability to meet and master questions of state, and there is no doubt that, had fortune led him into active political life, he would have made a brilliant reputation. He died in May, 1877, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, near London, England. CHAPTER XIV HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 1811-1896 Harriet Beecher Stowe, the first distinguished woman writer of America, was born at Litchfield, Conn., in those old New England days when children were taught that good little girls must always speak gently, never tear their clothes, learn to knit and sew, and make all the responses properly in church. Such is her own story of her early education, to which is also added the item that on Sunday afternoons she was expected to repeat the catechism, and on the occasion of a visit to her grandmother, her aunt made her learn two catechisms, that of her own faith, the Episcopal, and that of Harriet's father, who was a Presbyterian minister. This discipline, however, had no depressing effect upon the child, whose family consisted of a half-dozen healthy, clever brothers and sisters, a father who was loved more than revered even in those days when a minister was regarded with awe, and a stepmother whose devotion made the home-life a thing of beauty to be held in all after-years in loving memory. The old Presbyterian parsonage where Harriet was born had in it one room that was the child's chief delight. This was her father's study, in a corner of which she loved to ensconce herself with her favorite books gathered around her, and read or day-dream, while her father sat opposite in his great writing-chair composing the sermon for the next Sunday. Children's books were not plentiful in those days, and Miss Edgeworth's _Tales_ and Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_ were her principal resource, until one joyful day, rummaging in a barrel of old sermons, she came upon a copy of _The Arabian Nights_. These flowers of fairy lore took healthy root in the imagination of the little Puritan child, whose mind had hitherto resembled the prim flower-beds of the New England gardens, where grew only native plants. The old stories opened a new world of thought, and into this unknown realm she entered, rambling amid such wonderful scenes that never again could their mysterious charm cease; when some time later her father came down from his study one day with a volume of _Ivanhoe_ in his hand, and said: "I did not intend that my children should ever read novels, but they must read Scott," another door into the realm of fairy was opened to the delighted child. This power to lift and lose herself in a region of thought so different from her own, became thereafter the peculiar gift by which she was enabled to undertake the work which made her name distinguished. The library corner, however, did not hold all the good things of life, only part of them. Outside was the happy world of a healthy country child, who grew as joyously as one of her own New England flowers. In the spring there were excursions in the woods and fields after the wild blossoms that once a year turned the country-side into fairy-land; in the summer was the joy of picnics in the old forests, and of fishing excursions along the banks of the streams; in the autumn came nutting parties, when the children ran races with the squirrels to see who could gather the most nuts; and in the winter, when the snow and ice covered the earth, life went on as gayly as ever, with coasting and snow-balling, and the many ways in which the child's heart tunes itself to the spirit of nature. By the time she was five years old Harriet was a regular pupil at a small school near by, whither she also conducted, day after day, her younger brother, Henry Ward Beecher, afterward the celebrated preacher. She was a very conscientious little pupil, and besides her school lessons, was commended for having learned twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible during one summer. School-life henceforth was the serious business of existence, and in her twelfth year she appears as one of the honor pupils at the yearly school exhibition, and was gratified by having her composition read in the presence of the distinguished visitors, her father, the minister, being among the number. The subject of the composition was the immortality of the soul, and into it Harriet had woven, as only a clever child could, all the serious thoughts that she had gleaned from theological volumes in the library, or sermons that her father preached, or from the grave conversations that were common among the elders of the family. It was listened to with great approval by the visitors, who saw nothing absurd in the idea of a child of twelve discoursing upon such a subject, and it was especially pleasing to Harriet's father, which so delighted the affectionate heart of the little writer that she felt no higher reward could be hers. Harriet's first flight from the home nest came in her thirteenth year, when she left Litchfield to attend her sister Catherine's school in Hartford. As her father's salary did not permit any extra expense, Harriet went to live in the family of a friend, who in turn sent his daughter to the parsonage at Litchfield that she might attend the seminary there. This exchange of daughters was a very happy arrangement as far as Harriet was concerned, as she enjoyed the responsibility of being so much her own guardian, and took care of herself and her little room with what she herself calls "awful satisfaction." Here she began the study of Latin, which fascinated her, the Latin poetry making such an impression on her mind that it became her dream to be a poet. Pages and pages of manuscript were now written in the preparation of a great drama called "Cleon," the scene of which was laid in the time of the Emperor Nero. Every moment that could be spared from actual duties was given to this play, which might have grown to volumes had not the young author been suddenly brought up sharply by her sister, who advised her to stop writing poetry and discipline her mind. Whereupon Harriet plunged into a course of Butler's _Analogy_ and other heavy reading, forgot all about the drama, and was so wrought upon by Baxter's _Saint's Rest_ that she longed for nothing but to die and be in heaven. The next years of Harriet's life were spent almost entirely at the Hartford school, where she was successively pupil and teacher until her father removed to Cincinnati, whither she accompanied him with the intention of helping her sister to found a college for women. And, although all undreamed of, it was in this place that she was first to feel the inspiration of the work that made her famous. During a short visit across the Ohio River into Kentucky, she saw for the first time a large plantation and something of the life of the negro slaves. Though apparently noticing little of what was before her eyes, she was really absorbing everything with all the keenness of a first impression. The mansion of the planter and the humble cot of the negro, the funny pranks and songs of the slaves, and the pathos that touched their lives, all appealed to her so strongly that, years afterward, she was able to reproduce with utmost faithfulness each picturesque detail of plantation life. In her twenty-fifth year Harriet was married to Professor Stowe, of Lane Seminary. She had for some time been a contributor to various periodicals, and continued her literary work after her marriage, producing only short sketches for various papers, an elementary geography, and a collection of sketches in book form under the title, _The Mayflower_. These efforts had been well received by publishers, and friends prophesied a satisfactory career, but it was many years afterward before the author gave herself to the literary life with the earnestness and devotion which so characterized her nature. Some of her experiences in this Western home, where living was so primitive, were very funny, and some were very trying; but through them all Mrs. Stowe kept a clear head and brave heart. Sometimes she would be left without warning with the entire care of her house and children; often her literary work was done at the sick-bed of a child; and more than once a promised story was written in the intervals of baking, cooking, and the superintendence of other household matters; one of her stories at this time was finished at the kitchen table, while every other sentence was addressed to the ignorant maid, who stood stupidly awaiting instructions about the making of brown bread. After seventeen years' experience in the Western colleges, Professor Stowe accepted a professorship at Bowdoin, and the family removed to Brunswick, Me. Here her stories and sketches, some humorous, some pathetic, still continued to add to the household's income, and many a comfort that would have been otherwise unknown was purchased with the money thus obtained. Mrs. Stowe's first important book took the form of an appeal for the freedom of the slaves of the South. One day, while attending communion service in the college chapel, she saw, as in a mental picture, the death-scene of Uncle Tom, afterward described in her celebrated book. Returning home, she wrote out the first draft of that immortal chapter, and calling her children around her read it to them. The two eldest wept at the sad story, which from this beginning grew into the book which made its author famous over the civilized world. In _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ it was Mrs. Stowe's aim to present the every-day life of the Southern plantation. She chose for her hero one of those typical negro characters whose faithfulness and loyalty would so well illustrate the fidelity of his race, while his sad story would make an appeal for the freedom of his people. Into this story she wove descriptions of Southern life, delineations of negro character, and so many incidents, pathetic and humorous, that it seemed to present when finished a life-like picture of plantation life. The pathetic figure of Uncle Tom, the sweet grace of Eva, the delightful Topsy, and the grim Yankee spinster show alike the sympathetic heart and mind of the author, who linked them so closely together in the invisible bonds of love. The beautiful tribute that St. Clair pays to his mother's influence in one of the striking passages of the book, was but a memory of Mrs. Stowe's own mother, who died when her daughter was four years old. No one could read this pathetic tale without being touched by the sorrows beneath which the negro race had bowed for generations, and through which he still kept a loyal love for his white master, a pride in the family of which he counted himself a member, and that pathetic patience which had been the birthright of his people. The book _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, or _Life Among the Lowly_, ran first as a serial, and came out in book form in 1852. Into it the author had thrown all the seriousness of her nature, and it met with overwhelming success. It was translated into twenty different languages, and Uncle Tom and Eva passed, like the shadow and sunlight of their native land, hand in hand into the homes, great and humble, of widely scattered nations. Another plea for the negro called _Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp_, followed _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ within a few years, after which Mrs. Stowe turned her attention to the material that lay closer at hand, and began the publication of a series of New England life. Into these she put such a wealth of sympathetic reminiscences, with such a fund of keen observation, that they stand easily as types of the home-life of her native hills. The first of this series was _The Minister's Wooing_, a story of a New England minister's love. It is full of the sights and scenes familiar to the author from childhood, and is a faithful picture of Puritan village life, wherein are introduced many characters as yet new in fiction. Unlike Hawthorne, who sought inspiration in the spiritual questions which so largely made up the life of the Puritans, Mrs. Stowe found her delight in giving the home-life, the household ambitions, the village interests, a place in literature, thus preserving a phase of society which has passed away even in her own lifetime. _The Minister's Wooing_ appeared simultaneously with _The Pearl of Orr's Island_, a tale of the Maine coast, in which are introduced an aged fisherman and his old brown sea-chest, and other characters and accessories all imbued with the true sea flavor and forming a story which Whittier pronounced the most charming New England idyll ever written. In _Old Town Folks_, the most delightful perhaps of her New England stories, Mrs. Stowe has drawn the character of Harry from the memory of her husband's childhood. Professor Stowe had been one of those imaginative children, who, when alone, conjure up visions of fairies and genii to people empty space. He spent many an hour in following the pranks of these unreal people. He imagined that these creatures of his brain could pass through the floor and ceiling, float in the air and flit through meadow or wood, sometimes even rising to the stars. Sometimes they took the form of friendly brownies who would thresh straw and beans. Two resembled an old Indian man and woman who fought for the possession of a base viol. Another group was of all colors and had no shape at all; while the favorite was in human form and came and answered to the name of Harry. Besides her New England tales, Mrs. Stowe wrote a charming novel, _Agnes of Sorrento_, the scene of which is laid in Italy. _Little Foxes_, _Queer Little People_, and _Little Pussy Willow_ are three books for children, written in the intervals of more serious work which included several other novels and some volumes of sketches. In all her work appears a warm love of humanity, which she studied under many conditions. Soon after the publication of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ Mrs. Stowe accepted an invitation from the Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow to visit Scotland; her reception was in reality an ovation from the nation. At every railroad station she had to make her way through the crowds that had gathered to welcome her. Every city she visited honored her with a public greeting, and even her sight-seeing excursions to cathedrals and places of interest were made the occasions of demonstrations of joy from the crowds which quickly gathered. From the nobility to the peasants, who stood at their doors to see her pass by, she was everywhere received as one who had done noble work for the cause of freedom. In England she met with the same enthusiasm, and, both from England and Scotland she received large sums of money to be used for the advancement of the anti-slavery cause in America. Mrs. Stowe has left a sketch of this pleasant episode in her life in a little work called _Sunny Memories_. Some years later she purchased a winter home in Florida, and here she erected a building to be used as church and school-house by the poorer inhabitants. In this she conducted Sunday-school, singing and sewing classes. Her pleasant experiences in her Southern home are embodied in a series of sketches called _Palmetto Leaves_. On the seventieth anniversary of her birthday her publishers arranged a garden party in her honor, to which were invited all the literary celebrities of America. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of her thus surrounded by the distinguished men and women who had gathered to do honor not only to her work for literature, but to that nobility of soul that had made her long life a service for others. Whittier, Holmes, and many others contributed poems on this occasion. In American literature Mrs. Stowe stands as its chief woman representative before the Civil War, taking high place by right among the novelists whose sphere is the presentation of national life. CHAPTER XV JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 1819-1892 James Russell Lowell was born on the 22d of February, 1819, at Cambridge, Mass. Fate had willed that he, beyond all other writers, was to preserve a certain phase of Yankee life and make it the treasure of futurity, and the Cambridge of his early boyhood was the best training he could have received for such a mission. The then unpretentious village, with its quiet streets shaded with elms, lindens, and horse-chestnuts, was revered throughout New England as the home of Harvard College, but it was much more than that. It was a little world in which still lingered all the quaintness and simplicity of early New England life, and Lowell, imbibing these influences unconsciously in childhood, was able afterward to reproduce their flavor in his literary work and thus preserve them from oblivion. The birthplace of Lowell was Elmwood, a charming country-seat formerly occupied by a Tory tax-collector, who had emigrated on the outbreak of the Revolution. It had a large, comfortable house shaded by some of the Cambridge elms, which Lowell characteristically remarks were unable fortunately to emigrate with the tax-collector, and the grounds were beautified by the trees and flowers which were the delight of Dr. Lowell, the poet's father. In Cambridge streets were to be seen many of the sights characteristic of New England village life, suggesting still the village life of England when Shakespeare was a boy. The coach rumbled on its way to Boston, then a little journey away, and old women gathered around the town spring for their weekly washing of clothes. At the inn were discussed all those questions of law, religion, and politics that had not been settled at the town-meeting, and the village barber-shop, with its choice collection of rarities, had the dignity of a museum. So fascinating was this place that the boy who had to have his hair cut was considered in luck, and was usually accompanied by several of his play-fellows, who took this means of feasting their eyes upon the barber's treasures. Here were tomahawks, Indian bows and arrows, New Zealand paddles and war-clubs, beaks of albatrosses and penguins, and whales' teeth; here were caged canaries and Java sparrows, and one large cockatoo who, the barber asserted, spoke Hottentot. Old Dutch prints covered the walls, and the boys were barbered under the pictured eyes of Frederick the Great and Bonaparte. Perhaps the choicest treasure was the glass model of a ship which the young patrons valued at from one hundred to a thousand dollars, the barber always acquiescing in these generous valuations. Once a year Cambridge celebrated a curious festival called the Cornwallis, in which, in masquerade, the town's people and country people marched in grotesque processions in honor of the surrender of Cornwallis. There was also the annual muster, when the militia were drilled under the eyes of their admiring wives, mothers, and daughters. But the great event of the year at Cambridge was Commencement Day. The entire community was aroused to do its best in the celebration of this festival, the fame of which had spread to every corner of New England. The village was turned into a great fair, where came every kind of vender and showman to take the places assigned them by the town constable; the gayly decorated booths extended in an orderly row along the streets, and the entire population gaped unrestrained at the giants, fat women, flying horses, dwarfs, and mermaids, only taking their eyes away long enough to regale themselves with the ginger-beer and egg-pop, sold on the stands or wheeled through the streets in hand-carts by the enterprising venders. The college exercises were dignified and grave, as suited the traditions of its classic halls, but to the boys who, like Lowell, had but this one opportunity in the year, the marvels of the booths and peep-shows made Commencement a red-letter day. Another charm of old Cambridge was found in the river, which to the boyish imagination led to fairy realms beyond. Once a year the sloop Harvard, owned by the college, voyaged to the Maine coast to carry back the winter supply of wood. Her going and coming was an event in the life of the Cambridge schoolboy, who watched the departure with wistful eyes, filled the time of absence with romantic imaginings of adventure in the perilous seas, and welcomed her return with eager thirst for the news she might bring. This humble little craft held no secondary place in the interests of Lowell and his mates. The heroic adventures of her crew inspired the boys to bold ventures on the duck pond, the admiral of the home-made fleet being the young Dana, who delighted an after-generation of boys by the story of his actual adventures at sea in the fascinating book, _Two Years Before the Mast_. Lowell's first school was not far from Elmwood, and although he did not distinguish himself for scholarship, he went willingly every day, returning rather more willingly, perhaps, and sending always his boyish salutation of a cheery whistle to his mother as he approached the house. But in the daily life of the old village, and in the rambles through wood and by stream, he learned lessons more valuable than those he found in books. Nature, who appealed so strongly to his heart, had made him a poet, and she took her own way of teaching him the mysteries of his art. Lowell enjoyed his singularly fortunate and happy boyhood as only one gifted with a poetic mind could. To him New England village life revealed a charm that enabled him in after-days to paint a picture of it as lovingly faithful as one of Shakespeare's scenes. In his charming reminiscence, _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, he has preserved one of the dearest memories of his boyhood. _Beaver Brook_ and _Indian Summer Reveries_ are also transcriptions of those idyllic days of his youth. Lowell entered Harvard in his sixteenth year and was graduated in his twentieth, during which time he says he read everything except the books in the college course. It was during these years, however, that he studied the great poets of the world, while romances, travels, voyages, and history were added as a flavor to his self-chosen course of study. Perhaps he showed the true bent of his mind in his boyhood poem, addressed to the old horse-chestnuts, whose arms twined themselves around his study-room at home. He was class poet for his year, but was not allowed to read his poem, as he was at the time temporarily suspended from the college. In this poem Lowell made good-natured fun of Carlyle, Emerson, and other philosophers, whose thought was just beginning to influence their generation, thus hinting the power which made him later the most successful humorist of America. After leaving college Lowell studied law and was admitted to the bar, a profession which he almost immediately saw would make him only miserable, and which he soon left. In his twenty-second year he published his first book of verse under the title _A Year's Life_, a volume which was mainly inspired by his admiration for the woman who afterward became his wife, and which gives indication of the power which was developed later, though in the after-editions of his works the poet discarded most of the productions of that time. A little later Lowell conceived the idea of starting a magazine, which should rival in value and fame the celebrated Philadelphia magazines, which were believed to stand for the highest literary art in America. The magazine was named _The Pioneer_, and its editorship and ownership were shared with a friend. It appeared in January, 1843, and ran for three months, ending in dismal failure, though the contributors numbered such names as Poe, Elizabeth Barrett, Whittier, and the artist Story. It was not until twelve years later, when his own fame was well established, that Lowell undertook the editorship of another magazine, and put to practical use his reserve talent for adapting and selecting for popular favor the best literary work of the time. A year after the failure of _The Pioneer_, Lowell published a second volume of poems. In this collection occur the poems _The Legend of Brittany_; _Prometheus_, a poem founded on the old Greek myth of Prometheus, who incurs the wrath of Jupiter by giving fire to mankind; _The Heritage_, a stirring ballad, and _The Shepherd of King Admetus_, embodying the myth of the coming of Apollo to King Admetus and his gift of poesy to the world. The volume heralded the fame that Lowell was afterward to attain as a poet. In 1846 the Mexican war was the great political question of the day, and the country was divided in opinion as to whether the Government had undertaken the war in a spirit of justice, or merely for the sake of acquiring new territory. The South mainly favored the war, while a portion of the North opposed it on the principle that the new territory would favor the extension of slavery. There was much talk of glory, and the heroes of the day were the generals and soldiers who were winning laurels on the Mexican battle-fields. Lowell considered the war dishonorable and opposed to the principles of liberty, and he took a firm stand against it. He did this, not, as may be said, in his own way, for the way was new to him, but in a manner that turned the vaunted heroism of the day into ridicule, and appealed to the public conscience by its patriotism and honesty. Keeping his own personality in the background, Lowell sent his wits roving into the world of memory and brought from it a hero who was destined to rival in fame the leader of the Mexican campaigns. This hero possessed the old courage, fire, and enthusiasm which had braved the British in Revolutionary days. His patriotism was a pure flame, his wisdom that of the builders who had founded a commonwealth of civil rights in the midst of the primeval forest; his common-sense would have made him a king in Yankeedom, and his humor was as grim as that of the old Puritans, who believed in fighting the devil with his own weapons. He came on the scene dressed in homespun, and spoke the homely dialect of New England, that singular speech so unlike any other and which seems to have had grafted upon the original English all the eccentricities which made the Puritans a peculiar people. This singular figure which now attracted public attention was first heard from in the columns of the Boston _Courier_, as the author of a poem on the subject of the raising of volunteers for the Mexican War. The poem was written in the Yankee dialect and, it was stated, had been sent to the office by the poet's father, Ezekiel Biglow. The verses rang with New England canniness, and the familiar dialect acquired a dignity never before acknowledged. Scholars, statesmen, critics, and the public at large, after a first few puzzling moments grasped the full force of the new crusade, and the standard-bearer and author, Hosea Biglow, became the most talked about man of the time. Previous to this society had laughed at the reformers. Now people laughed with Hosea at the supporters of the war. From this time Hosea Biglow's sayings and doings were the most popular comment on the political situation. Whatever happened was made the subject of a poem by Hosea, expressing sometimes his own opinions and sometimes the opinions of Parson Wilbur, John P. Robinson, and other persons introduced into the series. These poems met with tremendous success. Wherever it was possible they were set to music and sung with all the abandon of a popular ballad. There is a story told to the effect that John P. Robinson grew so tired of hearing the song in which he is introduced that he fled across the sea in despair. This brought no relief, however, for the street gamins of London and the travelling American and Englishman, wherever he could be found, unconsciously greeted his ears with the rollicking refrain: "But John P. Robinson, he Sez they didn't know everythin' Down in Judee." Among the political poems occurs in "The Notices of the Press," which form the introduction, the exquisite love-poem, _The Courtin'_. In wit, scholarship, and knowledge of human nature, the Biglow papers are acknowledged as a classic, and the future student of American literature will be ever grateful for this preservation of the Yankee dialect by New England's greatest poet. Lowell's next important contribution to literature was the publication of the poem, _The Vision of Sir Launfal_. This beautiful poem, in which in a vision a young knight arms himself and starts in search of the Holy Grail, reads like a sacred legend of the Middle Ages. It is full of the pious spirit of the old monks who still believed the story of the existence of the Holy Grail, and the possibility of its recovery by the pure in heart. This story, which has appealed to the art of every age, found in Lowell a poet worthy of its expression, and one who has transcribed the mysticism of the past into the vital charity of the present. Though a dream of the Old World, it is still the New England poet who translates it, as may be seen from the bits of landscape shining through it. Glimpses of the northern winter; of the wind sweeping down from the heights, and of the little brook that "Heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him winter-proof," show the poet in his mood of loving reminiscence. In his poems _Prometheus_, _The Legend of Brittany_, _Rhoecus_, and the collection known as _Under the Willows_, which includes the _Commemoration Ode_, Lowell shows his highest point as a poet, which is also reached in _The Cathedral_. His was a large and generous spirit, which found no experience or condition of life trivial. He was in sympathy with nature and with the aims and happiness of humanity. The affectionate side of his nature is shown in many of his poems, one of the most beautiful being that which is expressed in _The First Snowfall_, a tender and sacred memory of one of the poet's children. The _Commemoration Ode_, written in honor of the Harvard graduates who fell in the War for the Union, was read by Lowell July 21, 1865, at the Commemoration Service held in their memory. No hall could hold the immense audience which assembled to hear their chosen poet voice the grief of the nation over its slain in the noblest poem produced by the war. To those present the scene, which has become historic, was rendered doubly impressive from the fact that Lowell mourned in his verse many of his own kindred. _A Fable for Critics_ is a satire in verse upon the leading authors of America. The first bit was written and despatched to a friend without any thought of publication. The fable was continued in the same way until the daily bits were sent to a publisher by the friend, who thought the matter too good for private delectation only. In this production Lowell satirizes all the writers of the day, himself included, with a wit so pungent and so sound a taste that the criticism has appealed to the succeeding generation, which has in nearly every case vindicated the poet's judgment of his contemporaries. The authorship remained for some time unknown, and was only disclosed by Lowell when claimed by others. Besides his poetry Lowell produced several volumes of charming prose. Among these is _The Fireside Travels_, which contains his description of Cambridge in his boyhood; _Among My Books_, and _My Study Windows_, which contain literary criticism of the choicest sort, the poet easily taking rank as one of the foremost critics of his time. Throughout his prose we find the same feeling for nature and love for humanity that distinguishes his poetry. His whole literary career was but an outgrowth of his own broad, sympathetic, genial nature, interwoven with the acquirements of the scholar. Lowell was for a large part of his life Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-lettres at Harvard. Soon after its beginning he became editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, and he also was for a time one of the editors of the _North American Review_. Outside of his literary life he was known as a diplomat who served his country with distinction as minister, successively, to Spain and to England. Though finding congenial surroundings in foreign lands, Lowell was always pre-eminently an American; one who, even in his country's darkest hour, saw promise of her glory, and to whom her fame was ever the dearest sentiment of his heart. Most of his life was spent in his old home at Elmwood, where he died in 1892. CHAPTER XVI FRANCIS PARKMAN 1823-1893 At twelve o'clock on a summer night, nearly a half century ago, a young man of twenty-three stood in the shadow of a great Indian camp watching intently the scene before him. On the farther side of the camp a number of Indians were gathered about the fire, which threw into relief their strong, handsome frames, for they were all young and formed, as they stood there, the hope and ambition of their tribe. Suddenly a loud chant broke the silence of the night, and at the same time the young braves began circling around the fire in a grotesque, irregular kind of dance. The chant was now interrupted by bursts of sharp yells, and the motions of the dancers, now leaping, now running, again creeping slyly, suggested the movements of some stealthy animal; this was, in fact, what was intended, for the young warriors were the "Strong Hearts" of the Dacotahs, an association composed of the bravest youths of the tribe, whose _totem_ or tutelary spirit was the fox, in whose honor they were now celebrating one of their dances. The stranger, who stood looking on at a little distance away, since the superstitions of the tribe would not allow him to approach too near the scene of the solemnities, was Francis Parkman, a Harvard graduate, who had left civilization for the purpose of studying the savage form of Indian life face to face. Parkman was born in Boston in 1823. He was noted as a child who threw himself body and soul into whatever happened to be the pursuit of the hour, and thus illustrated even in childhood the most striking feature of his character. During a residence in the country from his eighth to his twelfth year he was seized with a passion for natural history, and bent all his energies to collecting eggs, insects, reptiles, and birds, and to trapping squirrels and woodchucks, practising in the meantime shooting in Indian fashion with bow and arrow. At twelve he forsook natural history and found chemistry the only interest in life. For four years longer he now secluded himself largely from family life and youthful companions, while he experimented in his amateur laboratory. Acids, gases, specific gravity, and chemical equations were the only delight of his life, and he pursued his experiments with all the ardor of the old seekers of the philosopher's stone. But at sixteen the charms of chemistry faded, and he became again a haunter of the woods, but was saved in the end from becoming a naturalist by an equally strong passion for history, a passion so real that at eighteen he had chosen his life-work, that of historian of the French in the New World. With the idea of his work had also come the conception of its magnitude, and he calmly looked forward to twenty years of hard and exacting labor before realizing his hopes. Still, mastered by the spirit of thoroughness, he spent all his vacations in Canada, following in the footsteps of the early French settlers. Here in the forest, he slept on the earth with no covering but a blanket, exhausted his guides with long marches, and exposed his health by stopping neither for heat nor rain. Fascinated by the visions of forest life and with the pictures which the old stories called up, Parkman entered upon the literary preparation for his work with zeal. Indian history and ethnology were included in his college course, while he spent many hours that should have been devoted to rest in studying the great English masters of style. He was graduated at twenty-one, and after a short trip to Europe started for the Western plains to begin his historical studies from nature. For months he and a college friend had followed the wanderings of a portion of the Dacotahs in their journey across the Western prairies to the Platte River, where they were to be joined by thousands of others of their tribe, and take part in the extermination of the Snake Indians, their bitter enemies. They had suffered from the heat and the dust of the desert; they had hunted buffalo among the hills and ravines of the Platte border, and had slept night after night in open camps while wolves and panthers crawled dangerously near. To all intents and purposes their life was that of the Indian of the plains, an alien to civilization, a hunter of buffalo, and an enemy to all human beings except those of his own nation. It was in the year 1846, three years before the discovery of gold in California, and the great West was still a land of forests, and the home of wandering tribes of Indians. From the Mississippi to the Pacific coast the country was entirely unsettled, with the exception of a few military forts and trading-posts. Here the Indian lived as his race had lived from time immemorial. Dressed in his robe of skins, with his gay moccasins on his feet, his dog-skin quiver at his back, and his powerful bow slung across his shoulder, the Dacotah of that day was a good specimen of a race that has almost disappeared. The only two objects in life were war and the hunt, and he was ready at a moment's notice to strike his tent and engage in either. Six or eight times during the year the Great Spirit was called upon, fasts were made, and war parades celebrated preliminary to attacks upon other tribes, while during the remainder of the time he hunted the buffalo which supplied him with every necessity of life. The coverings for their tents, their clothing, beds, ropes, coverings for their saddles, canoes, water-jars, food, and fuel, were all obtained from this animal, which also served as a means of trading with the posts. The Indians had obtained rifles from the whites in a few cases, but they still largely used the bow and arrow, with which their predecessors on the plains had hunted the mammoth and mastodon in prehistoric ages. Their arrows were tipped with flint and stone, and their stone hammers were like those used by the savages of the Danube and Rhine when Europe was still uncivilized. While civilization had laid a chain of cities and towns around the borders of the continent, the American Indian of the interior remained exactly as his forefathers had been. And it was to study this curious specimen of humanity, whose like had faded from almost every other part of the world, that Parkman had come among them. He wished to reveal the Indian in his true character, and he thought he could only do this by living the Indian life. And so, for six months, he shared their lodges, their feasts, hunts, and expeditions of war. He became acquainted with their beliefs in the Great Spirit, the father of the universe, and in the lesser spirits which controlled the winds and rain, and which were found inhabiting the bodies of the lower animals. He learned to know the curious character of their "medicine-men" and their witch-doctors, and all their strange superstitions regarding the mysteries of life and death and the origin of man. Suffering constantly from physical ills, and in danger of death at any moment from the treachery of the red men, Parkman yet was able to maintain his position among them with dignity, and to be acknowledged worthy of their hospitality, and he took advantage of this to make his study of them thorough. The Dacotahs were a branch of the Sioux, one of the fiercest of the tribes of the plains. In his journey with them Parkman traversed the regions of the Platte, which was one of the best known routes to Oregon and California. Frequent parties of emigrants passed them on their way to new homes, and those, with the traders' posts and occasional bands of hunters, gave them their only glimpses of white faces. Reaching the upper waters of the Platte, they branched off for a hunting trip to the Black Hills, and then returning, made the passage of the Rocky Mountains, gained the head-waters of the Arkansas, and so returned to the settlements. It was a trip full of danger and adventure, but Parkman had gained what he wanted--a picture of Indian life still preserved in the solitudes of the plains and mountains as inviolate as the rivers and rocks themselves. A few years later the discovery of gold in California changed this condition almost as if by magic. The plains and mountains became alive with unnumbered hosts of emigrants on their way to the gold fields. Cities and towns sprung up where before Indian lodges and buffalo herds had held sway. Year by year the Indians changed in character and habits, adopting in some measure the dress of the whites and their manner of living. The true Indian of the plains passed out of history, and but for Parkman's visit, even the memory of him as an example of the picturesque freedom of savage life, might have been lost. A year after his return to the east Parkman published an account of his adventures in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, under the title _The Oregon Trail_, the name by which the old route was generally known. Later on these sketches appeared in book form. They formed Parkman's first book and indicated the scheme of his life-work. Parkman had elaborated his first idea, and now intended writing an account of the history of the French influence in America from the earliest visits of Verazzani and Jacques Cartier, down to the time when the English drove out the French from Canada and the Mississippi Valley, and laid the foundations of what was destined to be the American Republic. His second book, _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, published five years after his adventures among the Sioux, deals with the last act of the struggle between France and England. This book appeared thus early in the series because at that time, on account of ill-health, Parkman could not begin any work of vast magnitude such as would require exhaustive research. The conspiracy of Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas, who formed a confederation of the tribes to drive the English from the forts near the Great Lakes, was a theme complete in itself, and yet one that could easily supplement any series dealing with similar subjects. Parkman visited the scene of Pontiac's exploits, talked with the descendants of the tribes which still lingered around the Great Lakes, which then formed the outposts of the English, and stored his mind with such local traditions and color as would give character to the narrative. The book was written through the aid of readers and an amanuensis, whose task it was to gather the notes, which Parkman sifted until ready for dictation. It dealt with one of the most picturesque episodes of the French and Indian War, and the character of Pontiac--brave, patriotic, and ready for any fate--was drawn with a master-touch. Fourteen years passed by before Parkman presented another volume of the series which he intended should illustrate the complete history of the French in America. This volume was called the _Pioneers of France in the New World_, and opens the theme with a description of the early voyagers, thus making it in point of place the first book of the series. His books, which appeared at different times after the _Pioneers of France_, under the titles _The Jesuits of North America_; _The Discovery of the Great West_; _The Old Regime in Canada_; _A Half Century of Conflict_; and _Montcalm and Wolfe_, indicate each in turn the character of its scope. They tell the history of the French race in America for over two hundred years, beginning with the old voyagers who sought in America a region of romance and mystery which should rival the fairy realms of the poets of the Middle Ages, and ending with the last efforts of the Indians to recover their land from the grasp of the hated English. Through all this period the Indians had regarded the French as friends. Jesuit missionaries had penetrated the wilds of the Mississippi, and had brought to the tribes on its banks the message of peace and brotherly love. They spread the story of Christ from Carolina to the St. Lawrence, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. They lived the Indian life, dwelling in lodges, eating the Indian food, conforming as much as possible to the Indian habits, and retaining, in their geographical descriptions, the Indian names of the lakes and rivers, so dear to the savage heart. They made, in the main, a peaceful conquest of the country, and they won the natives to such a degree that in the contest with the English which ensued the Indian remained throughout the firm friend and ally of the French. The English had thus two enemies to deal with instead of one, the military knowledge of the French being in every case strengthened by the subtle and savage modes of Indian warfare. This state of things kept the final issue doubtful, even though the English won victory after victory, for the taking of a fort and the slaughter or capture of the garrison might be followed at any time by a murderous night attack from the savage allies, who ignored the civilized methods of war and would never acknowledge defeat. In this work Parkman not only aimed at the history of the actual struggle between France and England for the possession of North America, but he also wished to present clearly the story of the French alone, as they appeared in their character of settlers and conquerors of uncivilized lands. In the vivid pictures with which Parkman tells this story of their life in the New World, we see a strong contrast to the Spanish power in South America, as illustrated in the pages of history. The Spaniards conquered a race already far advanced in civilization, reduced it to slavery, destroyed its race characteristics, and made everything else bend to their insatiate love of gold. Very different was the conduct of the French in their treatment of the savage tribes that they found inhabiting the primeval forests of North America. The Jesuit missionaries and the persecuted Huguenots alike approached the Indian with one message, that of Christian love and faith in the brotherhood of man. To them the dark child of the forests, savage in nature, untamed in habit, was still a brother who must be lifted to a higher life. And to do this they lived among them as teachers and advisers rather than as conquerors. In these pages all the heroes of the French occupation appear before us as in their daily life with the Indians: Marquette, La Salle, Tonti, Fronténac, Du Gorgues--whose visit of vengeance is so well described that he is forever remembered by the Indians as an avenger of their race--and the men of lesser note. We have also a picture of the Hurons, the Iroquois, and other tribes as they appeared to the early French settlers; and in fact Parkman has left no phase or detail of the movement untouched. It was a vast undertaking, and carried out in the midst of many difficulties, and its completion placed Parkman's name among the greatest historians of all time. Parkman suffered from ill-health from his earliest years throughout his life, and to this was added partial blindness, which made his literary work as great a task as that of Prescott. Very often he was interrupted for months and years by illness, and in the main he had to depend upon the help of others in collecting his material; but his purpose never faltered, and the end was brilliant with success. CHAPTER XVII OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 1809-1894 Among the boys most familiar with the scenes described in Lowell's recollections of his youth was Oliver Wendell Holmes, the son of the pastor of the First Congregational Church at Cambridge. Holmes was ten years older than Lowell, but Cambridge altered little between the birthtimes of the two poets, and in the writings of both are embalmed many loving memories of the old village. In his reminiscence of the famous Commencement week, so faithfully described by Lowell, Holmes says, "I remember that week well, for something happened to me once at that time, namely, I was born." Many after-touches show us how the great week possessed for Holmes the same magic charm it held for Lowell. The wonders of the menagerie where he beheld for the first time a live tiger, the side-show where he enjoyed the delights of Punch and Judy, and gazed with awe at the biggest live fat boy known to showmen, and the marvels of the toy-counter, over which hung the inscription, "Look, but handle not," shared honors with the Governor's parade, and Commencement exercises, and in fact far out-ranked them with Holmes, who confessed that he would willingly have stayed from morning till night viewing their delights, and declared that the sound of the tent-raising on the Common the night before the show began could be compared to nothing but the evening before Agincourt! Holmes was born in August, when, he tells us in one of his charming essays, the meadows around Cambridge were brilliant with the cardinal flower, and blossoming buckwheat covered the fields, while the bayberry, barberry, sweetfern, and huckleberry made delightful retreats for the small boy of the neighborhood. In the same essay he describes the old garden of the parsonage, with its lilac-bushes, hyacinths, tulips, peonies, and hollyhocks, its peaches, nectarines, and white grapes, growing in friendly companionship with the beets, carrots, onions, and squashes, while the old pear-tree in the corner, called by Holmes "the moral pear-tree," because its fruit never ripened, taught him one of his earliest lessons. Bits of reminiscence like this scattered throughout the pages of Holmes enable us to reconstruct the scenes of his youth and to follow him from the time he was afraid of the masts of the sloops down by the bridge, "being a very young child," through all the years of his boyhood. The parsonage was an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, which Holmes recurs to again and again with loving remembrance. The rooms were large and light and had been the scenes of stirring events in other days. On the study floor could still be seen the dents of the muskets stacked there in Revolutionary times, and an old family portrait in one of the upper rooms still bore the sword-thrusts of the British soldiers. A certain dark store-room contained a pile of tables and chairs, which to the child's fancy seemed to have rushed in there to hide, and tumbled against one another as people do when frightened. Another store-room held an array of preserve-jars containing delicious sweets; before the door of this room he would stand with one eye glued to the keyhole while his childish imagination revelled in the forbidden luxuries. The house had also a ghostly garret about which clustered many legends, and these in connection with certain patches of sand bare of grass and vine and called the Devil's Footsteps, which might have been seen around the neighborhood, tended to make the bedtime hour a season of dread to the imaginative boy, who saw shadowy red-coats in every dark corner, and with every unfamiliar noise expected even more uncanny visitors. Outside was the old garden, sweet and sunny, and close to it the friendly wall of a neighbor's house, up which climbed a honeysuckle which stretched so far back into memory that the child thought it had been there always, "like the sky and stars," and on the whole the atmosphere of the old home was most wholesome. When Holmes was but a little child he was sent to Dame Prentice's school, where he studied the primer and spent his leisure moments in falling in love with his pretty girl schoolmates or playing with certain boyish toys which were always confiscated sooner or later by the school-mistress, and went to help fill a large basket which stood ready to receive such treasures. At ten years of age he began attendance at the Cambridgeport school, where he had for schoolmates Margaret Fuller and Richard Henry Dana, and where he remained for some years. Holmes says that in these years of his childhood every possible occasion for getting a crowd together was made the most of--school anniversaries and town centennials; Election Day, which came in May, when everyone carried a bunch of lilacs and the small boys ate "election buns" of such size that the three regular meals had to be omitted; Fourth of July, a very grand holiday indeed, when the festivities were opened by the Governor; Commencement Week, with its glories of shows and dancing on the Common, were each in turn made seasons of joy for the youthful denizens of Cambridge and Boston. Perhaps the most gratifying of all the holidays was the old-fashioned Thanksgiving, when even the sermon, though of greater length than usual, "had a subdued cheerfulness running through it," which kept reminding the children of the turkey and oyster-sauce, the plum-pudding, pumpkin-pie, oranges, almonds, and shagbarks awaiting them at home, and the chink of the coin in the contribution-boxes was but a joyous prelude to the music of roasting apples and nuts. Holmes left the Cambridgeport school to enter Phillips Academy, and has left us a charming account of this first visit to Andover, whither he went in a carriage with his parents, becoming more and more homesick as the time came for parting, until finally he quite broke down and for a few days was utterly miserable. But he had happy days at Andover, and revisiting the place in after years he describes himself as followed by the little ghost of himself, who went with him to the banks of the Showshine and Merrimac; to the old meeting-house, the door of which was bullet-riddled by the Indians; to the school-rooms where he had recited Euclid and Virgil; to the base-ball field, and to the great bowlder upon which the boys cracked nuts, proving such a faithful guide that when the day was over Holmes almost committed the folly of asking at the railroad office for two tickets back to Boston. Perhaps of all the celebrated men who have been pupils at the famous school no one held it more lovingly in his heart than he who turned back after so many years of success to pay this loving tribute to its memory. The stay at Andover lasted but a year, during which time Holmes discovered that he could write verse, and gained a little reputation thereby, which led to his being made class-poet when he left school to enter Harvard, in his sixteenth year. Throughout his college life he kept his reputation as a maker of humorous verse, and was perhaps the most popular member of the various societies and clubs for which Harvard was noted. He was graduated in his twentieth year, and within a year of this time had decided to study medicine, and after a two years' course in Boston went abroad to attend lectures in Paris and Edinburgh. But the practice of medicine included but a few years of Holmes's life, as in 1847 he accepted the chair of anatomy and physiology at Harvard, holding the position for thirty-five years. During his years of study and practice, Holmes had gained gradually the reputation of a clever literary man whose name was familiar to the readers of the best periodicals of the day. This reputation began with the publication of a poem, _Old Ironsides_, which was inspired by the proposition to destroy, as of no further use, the old frigate Constitution, which had done such glorious service during the war of 1812. These verses, which begin the literary life of Holmes, ring with a noble patriotism which flashed its fire into the hearts of thousands of his countrymen and made the author's name almost a household word. They were published originally in the Boston _Advertiser_, but so furious was the storm aroused that within a short time they had been copied in newspapers all over the land, printed on handbills that placarded the walls, and circulated in the streets from hand to hand. It was a satisfaction to the young patriot to know that his appeal had not been made in vain, and that the old ship was allowed to rest secure in the keeping of a grateful nation. A few years later Holmes published his first volume of poems, collected from various periodicals, and gained medals for some essays on medical subjects. For many years after this his literary work consisted chiefly of fugitive poems, written very often for special occasions, such as class anniversaries and dinners. It was, however, by the publication of a series of essays in the _Atlantic Monthly_, which was started in 1857, with James Russell Lowell as editor, that Holmes began his career as the household intimate of every lover of reading in America. These essays, which are now collected in four volumes, appeared in the _Atlantic_, at intervals between the series, between 1857 and 1859, and thus cover almost the entire period of the author's life as a man of letters. The first series--_The Autocrat at the Breakfast-Table_--struck the key-note for the rest, a note which showed the author's heart attuned in its broad yet subtle sympathy to the heart of his race, and created such a friendship as rarely exists between author and reader. In the Autocrat Holmes introduces a variety of characters which at intervals flit throughout the rest of the series. The papers are thrown into the form of talks at the breakfast-table between the author and his fellow-boarders, and so strong is the personal flavor that they seem to the reader like the home-letters of an absent member of the family. The landlady and her son, Benjamin Franklin, the sharp-eyed spinster in black, the young fellow "whose name seems to be John and nothing else," and the school-teacher, appear and disappear side by side with Little Boston, Iris, and the characters of the other series, and emphasize the life-likeness of the whole. It never seems in reading these papers that the _dramatis personæ_ are anything else than living human beings, with whom Holmes actually converses around the boarding-house table or at his own fireside. The series, besides _The Autocrat at the Breakfast-Table_, includes _The Professor at the Breakfast-Table_, _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, and _Over the Teacups_, the last being separated from the others by an interval of thirty years. One of the chief charms of these essays is found in the bits of biography which stamp them in so many cases as personal history. One may read here the nature of the man who could thus step back into the realm of childhood, appreciate the delicate grace of girlhood, enjoy the robust enthusiasm of young manhood, and pause with reverent sympathy before the afflicted. Behind each character portrayed one feels the healthful, generous throb of a humanity to which no ambition of soul could seem foreign or no defect appeal in vain. Scattered throughout the volumes are many charming verses, to some of which Holmes owes his fame as a poet. In _The Autocrat at the Breakfast-Table_ occurs, among others, the celebrated poem, _The Chambered Nautilus_, which shows perhaps the highest point to which Holmes's art as a poet has reached. This poem, founded upon the many-chambered shell of the pearly nautilus, is made by the poet to illustrate the progress of the soul in its journey through life; the spiritual beauty of the verse shows it a genuine reflection of that soul illumination which made of the poet's Puritan ancestors a peculiar people. Many other poems bear the mark of this spiritual insight, and stamp the author as possessing the highest poetic sense. But it is perhaps in his humorous poems that Holmes has appealed to the greatest number of readers. Throughout the verse of this class runs the genuine Yankee humor, allied to high scholarship and the finest literary art. Many of the verses seem but an echo in rhyme of the half-serious, half-whimsical utterances of the Breakfast-Table Series. Who but the Autocrat himself could have given literary form to the exquisite pathos of The _Last Leaf_, the delicious quaintness of _Dorothy Q_, or the solemn drollery of _The Katy Did_? Many of the more popular poems are simply _vers d'occasion_, written for some class reunion, college anniversary, or state dinner. These poems, collected under the title _Poems of the Class of '29_, show Holmes in his most charming mood of reminiscence. Through all his poetry shines here and there an intense sympathy with nature, for running side by side with his appreciation of human interests we see ever that deep love of nature which is the mark of the true poet. Trees and flowers, the seasons, the meadows, rivers, clouds, and the enchanting mysteries of twilight touch his heart to sympathetic vibrations, and their beauty enters into and becomes a part of himself. In this sense some of his most charming recollections cease to be merely remembrance; they are the very air and sunlight which he breathed and which became incorporated into his being. Thus the old garden whose fragrance lingers so loving in his memory and is enshrined with such tender grace in his pages is not a description, but a breath of that far-away childhood which still shines for him immortally beautiful; and the fire-flies flitting across the darkened meadows bring once again to his mind the first flash of insight into the wonder and meaning of the night. In some charming pages he has told us of his love for trees, particularly of the old elms which are the pride of the New England villages, and in equally poetic vein he has emphasized the beauty of the pond-lily, the cardinal flower, the huckleberry pasture, and the fields of Indian corn. Dr. Holmes is also known as a novelist as well as essayist and poet. His three novels, _Elsie Venner_, _The Guardian Angel_, and _A Mortal Antipathy_, are undoubtedly the results of his experience as a physician, for each in turn is founded upon some mental trait which sets the hero or heroine apart from the rest of mankind. In the treatment of these characteristics Holmes has made apparent the powerful effect of heredity upon the life of the human being. These novels are chiefly valuable as character-studies by an earnest student of moral science whose literary bias tempted him to throw them into the form of fiction. While touched with the true Holmes flavor, they cannot be called fiction of the highest order nor do they emphasize Holmes's place in literature. They seem rather to show his versatility as a writer and to illustrate his familiarity with those subtle problems of character that have always puzzled mankind. Holmes's medical and literary essays, poems, novels, and other miscellany have been collected in thirteen volumes, the last of which, _Over the Teacups_, appeared but a short time before his death. He spent most of his life in Boston, his home there being the favorite meeting-place for the most distinguished of his countrymen and a recognized rallying-point for foreign guests. He was the last of that brilliant circle which made New England famous as the literary centre of America; in many senses he combined the excellences which have given American letters their place in the literature of the world. * * * * * Beside the writers who founded American literature must be placed many others whose work belongs to the same period. In history and biography, besides the work of the great historians, we have Hildreth's _History of the United States_, Lossing's _Field Book of the Revolution_, Schoolcraft's studies and researches among the Indian tribes, the carefully written biographies of Sparks, the Peter Parley and Abbott stories for the young, and numerous other contributions which throw valuable light upon the early history of the United States. In fiction the pictures of Southern life by Sims, and the romances of Dutch life in New York by Hoffman, preserve the colonial traditions, and with many other writers of lesser note supplement the work of the great novelists. The philosophy of Emerson has found expression in the writings of Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fuller. In poetry, the still honored names of Fitz-Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, Elizabeth Kinney, Alice and Phoebe Cary illustrate the place that they held in the popular heart. Chief among these minor singers stands John Howard Payne, whose immortal song has found a home in nearly every land. 
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35113	----	Transcriber's Notes: 1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. Illustrations falling inside paragraphs have been relocated to the top or bottom. Where possible, text of Title Page Facsimles is provided, in addition to image captions. 4. Additional transcriber notes are located at the end of this e-text. [Illustration (with text): MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARES COMEDIES, HISTORIES, & TRAGEDIES. Published according to the True Originall Copies. [Portrait] LONDON Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623 TITLE PAGE OF THE CELEBRATED FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE THE PLAYS COLLECTED AND EDITED IN 1623 BY HEMINGE AND CONDELL] COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH _I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine._ --_Goldsmith._ [Illustration] _Illustrated_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO _Copyright, 1911_ _by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY The articles in this book appeared originally in the Sunday book-page of the San Francisco _Chronicle_. The privilege of reproducing them here is due to the courtesy of M. H. de Young, Esq. TO THE MEMORY OF MY SON HAROLD, MY BEST CRITIC, MY OTHER SELF, WHOSE DEATH HAS TAKEN THE LIGHT OUT OF MY LIFE. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS xi Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the Reading Habit. THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD 3 How to Secure the Best that is in the Bible--Much Comfort in Sorrow and Stimulus to Good Life may be Found in its Study. SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE 14 Hints on the Reading of Shakespeare's Plays--How to Master the best of these Dramas, the Finest of Modern Work. HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS 29 Authors of Greece and Rome One Should Know--Masterpieces of the Ancient World that may be Enjoyed in Good English Versions. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS 39 Oriental Fairy Tales and German Legends--The Ancient Arabian Stories and the Nibelungenlied among World's Greatest Books. THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE 48 An Eloquent book of Religious Meditation--The Ablest of Early Christian Fathers Tells of His Youth, His Friends and His Conversion. DON QUIXOTE, ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS 56 Cervantes' Masterpiece a Book for All Time--Intensely Spanish, it Still Appeals to All Nations by its Deep Human Interest. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST 64 Features of Great Work by Old Thomas à Kempis--Meditations of a Flemish Monk which have not Lost their Influence in Five Hundred Years. THE RUBÁ'IYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM 74 Popularity of an Old Persian's Quatrains--Splendid Oriental Imagery Joined to Modern Doubt Found in this Great Poem. THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE 83 Influence of One of the World's Great Books--The Exiled Florentine's Poem has Colored the Life and Work of Many Famous Writers. HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS 92 Is the Higher Education an Absolute Necessity?--Desire to gain Knowledge and Culture will make one Master of All the Best Books. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS 100 A Book that Ranks Close to the English Bible--It Tells the Story of Satan's Revolt, the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Eden. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES 108 Bunyan's Story full of the Spirit of the Bible--The Simple Tale of Christian's Struggles and Triumph Appeals to Old and Young. OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL 116 His Great Fame Due to His Admirer's Biography--Boswell's Work makes the Doctor the best known Literary Man of his Age. ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS 124 Masterpieces of Defoe and Swift Widely Read--Two Writers of Genius whose Stories have Delighted Readers for Hundreds of Years. BIBLIOGRAPHY 133 Notes on the Historical and best Reading Editions of Great Authors. INDEX 159 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Title Page of the Celebrated First Folio Edition of Shakespeare _Title_ A Page from the Gutenberg Bible (Mayence, 1455) 4 A Page from the Coverdale Bible, being the First Complete English Bible 14 Chandos' Portrait of Shakespeare 16 Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon before the Restoration 22 The Anne Hathaway Cottage 22 Bust of Homer in the Museum of Naples 32 Portrait of Virgil, taken from a Bust by L. P. Boitard 34 Plato, after an Antique Bust 36 Edmund Dulac's Conception of Queen Scheherezade, who told the "Arabian Nights" Tales 40 The Jinnee and the Merchant--A Vignette Woodcut by William Harvey 42 Portrait of St. Augustine by the Famous Florentine Painter, Sandro Botticelli 50 A Page from St. Augustine's "La Cite de Dieu" 54 Portrait of Cervantes, from an Old Steel Engraving 58 Don Quixote Discoursing to Sancho Panza 62 Thomas à Kempis, the Frontispiece of an Edition of "The Imitation of Christ" 64 The Best-Known Portrait of Edward FitzGerald, Immortalized by his Version of the "Rubá'iyát" 74 A Page from an Ancient Persian Manuscript Copy of the "Rubá'iyát" with Miniatures in Color 78 One of the Gilbert James Illustrations of the "Rubá'iyát" 80 Portrait of Dante, by Giotto di Bondone 84 Page from "Dante's Inferno," printed by Nicolo Lorenzo near the Close of the Fifteenth Century 88 Portrait of Milton, after the Original Crayon Drawing from Life by William Faithorne, at Bayfordbury, Herts 100 Milton Dictating to his Daughters--After an Engraving by W. C. Edwards, from the Famous Painting by Romney 104 Portrait of John Bunyan, after the Oil Painting by Sadler 108 Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" 112 Portrait of Dr. Johnson, from the Original Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, owned by Boswell 116 Portrait of James Boswell, after a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds--Engraved by E. Finden 118 Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson" 120 Painting by Eyre Crowe of Dr. Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith at the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street 122 Portrait of Daniel Defoe, from an Old Steel Engraving 124 Illustration of "Robinson Crusoe" by George Cruikshank 126 Frontispiece to the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels"--A Portrait Engraved in Copper of Captain Lemuel Gulliver of Redriff 128 Facsimile of the Title Page of the First Edition of "Gulliver's Travels," issued in 1726 130 _Introduction_ _These short essays on the best old books in the world were inspired by the sudden death of an only son, without whom I had not thought life worth living. To tide me over the first weeks of bitter grief I plunged into this work of reviewing the great books from the Bible to the works of the eighteenth century writers. The suggestion came from many readers who were impressed by the fact that in the darkest hour of sorrow my only comfort came from the habit of reading, which Gibbon declared he "would not exchange for the wealth of the Indies." If these essays induce any one to cultivate the reading habit, which has been so great a solace to me in time of trouble, then I shall feel fully repaid._ _This book is not intended for those who have had literary training in high school or university. It was planned to meet the wants of that great American public which yearns for knowledge and culture, but does not know how to set about acquiring it. For this reason I have discussed the great books of the world from De Quincey's standpoint of the literature of power, as distinguished from the literature of knowledge. By the literature of power the author of the_ Confessions of an English Opium Eater _meant books filled with that emotional quality which lifts the reader out of this prosaic world into that spiritual life, whose dwellers are forever young._ _No book has lived beyond the age of its author unless it were full of this spiritual force which endures through the centuries. The words of the Biblical writers, of Thomas à Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and others who are discussed in this book, are charged with a spiritual potency that moves the reader of today as they have moved countless generations in the past. Could one wish for a more splendid immortality than this, to serve as the stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's body has moldered in the dust?_ _Even the Sphinx is not so enduring as a great book, written in the heart's blood of a man or woman who has sounded the deeps of sorrow only to rise up full of courage and faith in human nature._ _Comfort Found in Good Old Books_ _Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books--How the Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the Reading Habit._ _For the thirty years that I have spoken weekly to many hundreds of readers of_ The Chronicle _through its book review columns, it has been my constant aim to preach the doctrine of the importance of cultivating the habit of reading good books, as the chief resource in time of trouble or sickness. This doctrine I enforced, because for many years reading has been my principal recreation, and I have proved its usefulness in broadening one's view of life and in storing up material from the world's greatest writers which can be recalled at will. But it never occurred to me that this habit would finally come to mean the only thing that makes life worth living. When one passes the age of forty he begins to build a certain scheme for the years to come. That scheme may involve many things--domestic life, money-getting, public office, charity, education. With me it included mainly literary work, in which I was deeply interested, and close companionship with an only son, a boy of such lovable personal qualities that he had endeared himself to me from his very childhood. Cut off as I have been from domestic life, without a home for over fifteen years, my relations with my son Harold were not those of the stern parent and the timid son. Rather it was the relation of elder brother and younger brother._ _Hence, when only ten days ago this close and tender association of many years was broken by death--swift and wholly unexpected, as a bolt from cloudless skies--it seemed to me for a few hours as if the keystone of the arch of my life had fallen and everything lay heaped in ugly ruin. I had waited for him on that Friday afternoon until six o'clock. Friday is my day off, my one holiday in a week of hard work, when my son always dined with me and then accompanied me to the theater or other entertainment. When he did not appear at six o'clock in the evening I left a note saying I had gone to our usual restaurant. That dinner I ate alone. When I returned in an hour it was to be met with the news that Harold lay cold in death at the very time I wrote the note that his eyes would never see._ _When the first shock had passed came the review of what was left of life to me. Most of the things which I had valued highly for the sake of my son now had little or no worth for me; but to take up again the old round of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of a companion dearer than life itself, one must have some great compensations; and the chief of these compensations lay in the few feet of books in my library case--in those old favorites of all ages that can still beguile me, though my head is bowed in the dust with grief and my heart is as sore as an open wound touched by a careless hand._ _For more than a dozen years in the school vacations and in my midsummer holidays my son and I were accustomed to take long tramps in the country. For five of these years the boy lived entirely in the country to gain health and strength. Both he and his older sister, Mary, narrowly escaped death by pneumonia in this city, so I transferred them to Angwin's, on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a grove of pines--a ranch in the winter and a summer resort from May to November. There the air was soft with the balsam of pine, and the children throve wonderfully. Edwin Angwin was a second father to them both, and his wife was as fond as a real mother. For five years they remained on the mountain. Mary developed into an athletic girl, who became a fearless rider, an expert tennis player and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She proved to be a happy, wholesome girl, an ideal daughter, but marriage took her from me and placed half the continent between us. Harold was still slight and fragile when he left the country, but his health was firmly established and he soon became a youth of exceptional strength and energy._ _Many memories come to me now of visits paid to Angwin's in those five years. Coming home at three o'clock on winter mornings after a night of hard work and severe nervous strain, I would snatch two or three hours' sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness and make the tedious five-hour journey from this city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to spend one day with my boy and his sister. The little fellow kept a record on a calendar of the dates of these prospective visits, and always had some dainty for me--some bird or game or choice fruit which he knew I relished._ _Then came the preparatory school and college days, when the boy looked forward to his vacations and spent them with me in single-minded enjoyment that warmed my heart like old wine. By means of constant talks and much reading of good books I labored patiently to develop his mind, and at the same time to keep his tastes simple and unspoiled. In this manner he came to be a curious mixture of the shrewd man of the world and the joyous, care-free boy. In judgment and in mental grasp he was like a man of thirty before he was eighteen, yet at the same time he was the spontaneous, fun-loving boy, whose greatest charm lay in the fact that he was wholly unconscious of his many gifts. He drew love from all he met, and he gave out affection as unconsciously as a flower yields its perfume._ _In college he tided scores of boys over financial straits; his room at Stanford University was open house for the waifs and strays who had no abiding-place. In fact, so generous was his hospitality that the manager of the college dormitory warned him one day in sarcastic vein that the renting of a room for a term did not include the privilege of taking in lodgers. His friends were of all classes. He never joined a Greek letter fraternity because he did not like a certain clannishness that marked the members; but among Fraternity men as well as among Barbarians he counted his close associates by the score. He finished his college course amid trying circumstances, as he was called upon to voice the opinion of the great body of students in regard to an unjust ruling of the faculty that involved the suspension of many of the best students in college. And through arbitrary action of the college authorities his degree was withheld for six months, although he had passed all his examinations and had had no warnings of any condemnation of his independent and manly course as an editor of the student paper. Few boys of his age have ever shown more courage and tact than he exhibited during that trying time, when a single violent editorial from his pen would have resulted in the walking out of more than half the university students._ _Then came his short business life, full of eager, enthusiastic work for the former college associate who had offered him a position on the Board of Fire Underwriters. Even in this role he did not work so much for himself as to "make good," and thus justify the confidence of the dear friend who stood sponsor for him. Among athletes of the Olympic Club he numbered many warm friends; hundreds of young men in professional and business life greeted him by the nickname of "Mike," which clung to him from his early freshman days at Stanford. The workers and the idlers, the studious and the joy-chasers, all gave him the welcome hand, for his smile and his gay speech were the password to all hearts. And yet so unspoiled was he that he would leave all the gayety and excitement of club life to spend hours with me, taking keen zest in rallying me if depressed or in sharing my delight in a good play, a fine concert, a fierce boxing bout or a spirited field day. Our tastes were of wide range, for we enjoyed with equal relish Mascagni's "Cavalleria," led by the composer himself, or a championship prize-fight; Margaret Anglin's somber but appealing Antigone or a funny "stunt" at the Orpheum._ _Harold's full young life was also strongly colored by his close newspaper associations. The newspaper life, like the theatrical, puts its stamp on those who love it, and Harold loved it as the child who has been cradled in the wings loves the stage and its folk. Ever since he wore knickerbockers he was a familiar figure in the_ The Chronicle _editorial rooms. He knew the work of all departments of the paper, and he was a keen critic of that work. He would have made a success in this field, but he felt the work was too exacting and the reward too small for the confinement, the isolation and the nervous strain. After the fire he rendered good service when competent men were scarce, and in the sporting columns his work was always valued, because he was an expert in many kinds of sports and he was always scrupulously fair and never lost his head in any excitement. The news of his death caused as deep sorrow in_ The Chronicle _office as would the passing away of one of the oldest men on the force._ _Now that this perennial spirit of youth is gone out of my life, the beauty of it stands revealed more clearly. Gone forever are the dear, the fond-remembered holidays, when the long summer days were far too short for the pleasure that we crowded into them. Gone are the winter walks in the teeth of the blustering ocean breezes, when we "took the wind into our pulses" and strode like Berserkers along the gray sand dunes, tasting the rarest spirit of life in the open air. Gone, clean gone, those happy days, leaving only the precious memory that wets my eyes that are not used to tears._ _And so, in this roundabout way, I come back to my library shelves, to urge upon you who now are wrapped warm in domestic life and love to provide against the time when you may be cut off in a day from the companionship that makes life precious. Take heed and guard against the hour that may find you forlorn and unprotected against death's malignant hand. Cultivate the great worthies of literature, even if this means neglect of the latest magazine or of the newest sensational romance. Be content to confess ignorance of the ephemeral books that will be forgotten in a single half year, so that you may spend your leisure hours in genial converse with the great writers of all time. Dr. Eliot of Harvard recently aroused much discussion over his "five feet of books." Personally, I would willingly dispense with two-thirds of the books he regards as indispensable. But the vital thing is that you have your own favorites--books that are real and genuine, each one brimful of the inspiration of a great soul. Keep these books on a shelf convenient for use, and read them again and again until you have saturated your mind with their wisdom and their beauty. So may you come into the true Kingdom of Culture, whose gates never swing open to the pedant or the bigot. So may you be armed against the worst blows that fate can deal you in this world._ _Who turns in time of affliction to the magazines or to those books of clever short stories which so amuse us when the mind is at peace and all goes well? No literary skill can bind up the broken-hearted; no beauty of phrase satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No, when our house is in mourning we turn to the Bible first--that fount of wisdom and comfort which never fails him who comes to it with clean hands and a contrite heart. It is the medicine of life. And after it come the great books written by those who have walked through the Valley of the Shadow, yet have come out sweet and wholesome, with words of wisdom and counsel for the afflicted. One book through which beats the great heart of a man who suffered yet grew strong under the lash of fate is worth more than a thousand books that teach no real lesson of life, that are as broken cisterns holding no water, when the soul is athirst and cries out for refreshment._ _This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you, my patient readers of many years, is the first in which I have indulged since the great fire swept away all my precious books--the hoarded treasures of forty years. Against my will it has been forced from me, for I am like a sorely wounded animal and would fain nurse my pain alone. It is written in the first bitterness of a crushing sorrow; but it is also written in the spirit of hope and confidence--the spirit which I trust will strengthen me to spend time and effort in helping to make life easier for some poor boys in memory of the one dearest boy who has gone before me into that "undiscovered country," where I hope some day to meet him, with the old bright smile on his face and the old firm grip of the hand that always meant love and tenderness and steadfast loyalty._ _Among men of New England strain like myself it is easy to labor long hours, to endure nervous strain, to sacrifice comfort and ease for the sake of their dear ones; but men of Puritan strain, with natures as hard as the flinty granite of their hillsides, cannot tell their loved ones how dear they are to them, until Death lays his grim hand upon the shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears forever to the words of passionate love that now come pouring in a flood from our trembling lips._ _San Francisco, October 9, 1910._ COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD HOW TO SECURE THE BEST THAT IS IN THE BIBLE--MUCH COMFORT IN SORROW AND STIMULUS TO GOOD LIFE MAY BE FOUND IN ITS STUDY. Several readers of my tribute to my dead son Harold have asked me to specify, in a series of short articles, some of the great books that have proved so much comfort to me in my hours of heart-breaking sorrow. In this age of cheap printing devices we are in danger of being overwhelmed by a great tide of books that are not real books at all. Out of a hundred of the new publications that come monthly from our great publishing houses, beautifully printed and bound and often ornamented with artistic pictures, not more than ten will live longer than a year, and not more than a single volume will retain any life ten years from the time it first saw the light. Hence it behooves us to choose wisely, for our lives are limited to the Psalmist's span of years, and there is no hope of securing the length of days of Methuselah and his kindred. Business or professional cares and social duties leave the average man or woman not over an hour a day that can be called one's very own; yet most of the self-appointed guides to reading--usually college professors or teachers or literary men with large leisure--write as though three or four hours a day for reading was the rule, rather than the exception. In my own case it is not unusual for me to spend six hours a day in reading, but it would be folly to shut my eyes to the fact that I am abnormal, an exception to the general rule. Hence in talking about books and reading I am going to assume that an hour a day is the maximum at your disposal for reading books that are real literature. [Illustration: A PAGE FROM THE GUTENBERG BIBLE (MAYENCE, 1455) NOTEWORTHY AS THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED FROM MOVABLE TYPE AND THE EARLIEST COMPLETE PRINTED BOOK] And in this preliminary article I would like to enforce as strongly as words can express it my conviction that knowledge and culture should be set apart widely. In the reading that I shall recommend, culture of the mind and the heart comes first of all. This is more valuable than rubies, a great possession that glorifies life and opens our eyes to beauties in the human soul, as well as in nature, to all of which we were once blind and dumb. And culture can be built on the bare rudiments of education, at which pedagogues and pedants will sneer. Some of the most truly cultured men and women I have ever known have been self-educated; but their minds were opened to all good books by their passion for beauty in every form and their desire to improve their minds. Among the scores of letters that have come to me in my bereavement and that have helped to save me from bitterness, was one from a woman in a country town of California. After expressing her sympathy, greater than she could voice in words, she thanked me warmly for what I had said about the good old books. Then she told of her husband, the well-known captain of an army transport, who went to sea from the rugged Maine coast when a lad of twelve, with only scanty education, and who, in all the years that followed on many seas, laboriously educated himself and read the best books. In his cabin, she said, were well-worn copies of Shakespeare, Gibbon, Thackeray, Dickens, Burns, and others. These great worthies he had made a part of himself by constant reading. Of course, the man who thinks that the full flower of education is the ability to "parse" a sentence, or to express a commonplace thought in grandiloquent language that will force his reader to consult a dictionary for the meaning of unusual words--such a man and pedant would look upon this old sea captain as uneducated. But for real culture of mind and soul give me the man who has had many solitary hours for thought, with nothing but the stars to look down on him; who has felt the immensity of sea and sky, with no land and no sail to break the fearful circle set upon the face of the great deep. In the quest for culture, in the desire to improve your mind by close association with the great writers of all literature, do not be discouraged because you may have had little school training. The schools and the universities have produced only a few of the immortal writers. The men who speak to you with the greatest force from the books into which they put their living souls have been mainly men of simple life. The splendid stimulus that they give to every reader of their books sprang from the education of hard experience and the culture of the soul. The writers of these books yearned to aid the weak and heavy-laden and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted and sorely stricken. Can one imagine any fame so great or so enduring as the fame of him who wrote hundreds of years ago words that bring tears to one's eyes today--tears that give place to that passionate ardor for self-improvement, which is the beginning of all real culture? And another point is to guard against losing the small bits of leisure scattered through the day. Don't take up a magazine or a newspaper when you have fifteen minutes or a half hour of leisure alone in your room. Keep a good book and make it a habit to read so many pages in the time that is your own. Cultivate rapid reading, with your mind intent on your book. You will find in a month that you have doubled your speed and that you have fixed in your mind what you have read, and thus made it a permanent possession. If you persist in this course, reading always as though you had only a few moments to spare and concentrating your mind on the page before you, you will find that reading becomes automatic and that you can easily read thirty pages where before ten pages seemed a hard task. Long years ago it was my custom to reach home a half hour before dinner. To avoid irritability which usually assailed me when hungry, I took up Scott and read all the Waverley novels again. It required barely a year, but those half hours made at the end of the period eight whole days. In the same way in recent years I have reread Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling and Hardy, because I wanted to read something as recreation which I would not be forced to review. Constant practice in rapid reading has given me the power of reading an ordinary novel and absorbing it thoroughly in four hours. This permits of no dawdling, but one enjoys reading far better when he does it at top speed. Macaulay in his memoirs tells of the mass of reading which he did in India, always walking up and down his garden, because during such exercise his mind was more alert than when sitting at a desk. Many will recall Longfellow's work on the translation of Dante's _Inferno_, done in the fifteen minutes every morning which was required for his chocolate to boil. Every one remembers the "Pigskin Library" which Colonel Roosevelt carried with him to Africa on his famous hunting trip. The books were all standard works of pocket size, bound in pigskin, which defies sweat, blood, dirt or moisture, and takes on in time the rich tint of a well-used saddle. Roosevelt read these books whenever he chanced to have a few minutes of leisure. And it seems to me the superior diction of his hunting articles, which was recognized by all literary critics, came directly from this constant reading of the best books, joined with the fact that he had ample leisure for thought and wrote his articles with his own hand. Dictation to a stenographer is an easy way of preparing "copy" for the printer, but it is responsible for the decadence of literary style among English and American authors. In selecting the great books of the world place must be given first of all, above and beyond all, to the Bible. In the homely old King James' version, the spirit of the Hebrew prophets seems reflected as in a mirror. For the Bible, if one were cast away on a lonely island, he would exchange all other books; from the Bible alone could such a castaway get comfort and help. It is the only book in the world that is new every morning: the only one that brings balm to wounded hearts. Looked upon merely as literature, the Bible is the greatest book in the world; but he is dull and blind indeed who can study it and not see that it is more than a collection of supremely eloquent passages, written by many hands. It is surcharged with that deep religious spirit which marked the ancient Hebrews as a people set apart from alien races. Compare the Koran with the Bible and you will get a measure of the fathomless height this Book of books is raised above all others. Those who come to it with open minds and tender hearts, free from the worldliness that callouses so many fine natures, will find that in very truth it renews their strength; that it makes their spirit "mount up with wings as an eagle." First read the Old Testament, with its splendid imagery, its noble promises of rewards to those who shall be lifted out of the waters of trouble and sorrow. Then read the New Testament, whose simplicity gains new force against this fine background of promise and fulfilment. If the verbiage of many books of the Old Testament repels you, then get a single volume like _The Soul of the Bible_, arranged by Ulysses Pierce and printed by the American Unitarian Association of Boston. This volume of 500 pages contains the real essence of the Bible, revealed in all the beauty of incomparable phrase and sublime imagery; sounding the deeps of sorrow, mounting to the heights of joy; traversing the whole range of human life and showing that God is the only refuge for the sorely afflicted. How beautiful to the wounded heart the promise that always "underneath are the everlasting arms." Read _The Soul of the Bible_ carefully, and make it a part of your mental possessions. Then you will be ready to take up the real study of the Bible, which can never be finished, though your days may be long in the land. This study will take away the stony heart and will give you in return a heart of flesh, tender to the appeals of the sick and the sorrowing. If you have lost a dear child, the daily reading of the Bible will gird you up to go out and make life worth living for the orphan and the children of poverty and want, who so often are robbed from the cradle of their birthright of love and sunshine and opportunity for development of body and mind. If you have lost father or mother, then it will make your sympathy keen for the halting step of age and the pathetic eyes, in which you see patient acceptance of the part of looker-on in life, the only role left to those who have been shouldered out of the active ways of the world to dream of the ardent love and the brave work of their youth. So the reading of the Bible will gradually transmute your spirit into something which the worst blows of fate can neither bend nor break. To guard your feet on the stony road of grief you will be "shod with iron and brass." Then, in those immortal words of Zophar to Job: "Then shall thy life be clearer than the noonday; Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning, And because there is hope, thou shalt be secure; Yea, thou shalt look about thee, and shalt take thy rest in safety; Thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid." To this spiritual comfort will be added gain in culture through close and regular reading of the Bible. Happy are they who commit to the wax tablets of childish memory the great passages of the Old Testament. Such was Ruskin, who owed much of his splendid diction to early study of the Bible. Such also were Defoe and De Quincey, two men of widely different gifts, but with rare power of moving men's souls. The great passages of the Bible have entered into the common speech of the plain people of all lands; they have become part and parcel of our daily life. So should we go to the fountainhead of this unfailing source of inspiration and comfort and drink daily of its healing waters, which cleanse the heart and make it as the heart of a little child. SHAKESPEARE STANDS NEXT TO THE BIBLE HINTS ON THE READING OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS--HOW TO MASTER THE BEST OF THESE DRAMAS, THE FINEST OF MODERN WORK. Next to the Bible in the list of great books of the world stands Shakespeare. No other work, ancient or modern, can challenge this; but, like the Bible, the great plays of Shakespeare are little read. Many of today prefer to read criticism about the dramatist rather than to get their ideas at first hand from his best works. Others spend much time on such nonsense as the Baconian theory--hours which they might devote to a close and loving study of the greatest plays the world has ever seen. Such a study would make the theory that the author of the _Essays_ and the _Novum Organum_ wrote _Hamlet_ or _Othello_ seem like midsummer madness. As well ask one to believe that Herbert Spencer wrote _Pippa Passes_ or _The Idyls of the King_. [Illustration: A PAGE FROM THE COVERDALE BIBLE BEING THE FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH BIBLE IT WAS TYNDALE'S TRANSLATION REVISED BY COVERDALE IT BEARS DATE OF 1535, AND DESIGNS ON THE TITLE PAGE ARE ATTRIBUTED TO HOLBEIN] The peculiarity of Shakespeare's genius was that it reached far beyond his time; it makes him modern today, when the best work of his contemporaries, like Ben Jonson, Marlowe and Ford, are unreadable. Any theatrical manager of our time who should have the hardihood to put on the stage Jonson's _The Silent Woman_ or Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ would court disaster. Yet any good actor can win success with Shakespeare's plays, although he may not coin as much money as he would from a screaming farce or a homespun play of American country life. Those who have heard Robert Mantell in Lear, Richard III, Hamlet or Iago can form some idea of the vitality and the essential modernism of Shakespeare's work. The good actor or the good stage manager cuts out the coarse and the stupid lines that may be found in all Shakespeare's plays. The remainder reaches a height of poetic beauty, keen insight into human nature and dramatic perfection which no modern work even approaches. Take an unlettered spectator who may never have heard Shakespeare's name and he soon becomes thrall to the genius of this great Elizabethan wizard, whose master hand reaches across the centuries and moves him to laughter and tears. The only modern who can claim a place beside him is Goethe, whose _Faust_, whether in play or in opera, has the same deathless grip on the sympathies of an audience. And yet in taking up Shakespeare the reader who has no guide is apt to stumble at the threshold and retire without satisfaction. As arranged, the comedies are given first, and it is not well to begin with Shakespeare's comedies. In reading any author it is the part of wisdom to begin with his best works. Our knowledge of Shakespeare is terribly meager, but we know that he went up to London from his boyhood home at Stratford-on-Avon, that he secured work in a playhouse, and that very soon he began to write plays. To many this sudden development of a raw country boy into a successful dramatist seems incredible. [Illustration: CHANDOS' PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE SO CALLED BECAUSE IT WAS OWNED BY THE DUKE OF CHANDOS--PROBABLY PAINTED AFTER DEATH FROM PERSONAL DESCRIPTION THE ORIGINAL IS IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON] Yet a similar instance is afforded by Alexander Dumas, the greatest imaginative writer of his time, and the finest story-teller in all French literature. Dumas had little education, and his work, when he went to Paris from his native province, was purely clerical, yet he read very widely, and the novels and romances of Scott aroused his imagination. But who taught Dumas the perfect use of French verse? Who gave him his prose style as limpid and flowing as a country brook? These things Dumas doesn't think it necessary to explain in his voluminous memoirs. They are simply a part of that literary genius which is the despair of the writer who has not the gift of style or the power to move his readers by creative imagination. In the same way, had Shakespeare left any biographical notes, we should see that this raw Stratford youth unconsciously acquired every bit of culture that came in his way; that his mind absorbed like a sponge all the learning and the literary art of his famous contemporaries. The Elizabethan age was charged with a peculiar imaginative power; the verse written then surpasses in uniform strength and beauty any verse that has been written since; the men who wrote were as lawless, as daring, as superbly conscious of their own powers as the great explorers and adventurers who carried the British flag to the ends of the earth and made the English sailor feared as one whose high courage and bulldog tenacity never recognized defeat. Given creative literary genius in greater measure than any other man was ever endowed with, the limits of Shakespeare's development could not be marked. His capacity was boundless and, living in an atmosphere as favorable to literary art as that of Athens in the time of Pericles, Shakespeare produced in a few years those immortal plays which have never been equaled in mastery of human emotion and beauty and power of diction. There is no guide to the order in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, except the internal evidence of his verse. Certain habits of metrical work, as shown in the meter and the arrangement of the lines, have enabled close students of Shakespeare to place most of the comedies after the historical plays. Thus in the early plays Shakespeare arranged his blank verse so that the sense ends with each line and he was much given to rhymed couplets at the close of each long speech. But later, when he had gained greater mastery of his favorite blank verse, many lines are carried over, thus welding them more closely and forming verse that has the rhythm and beauty of organ tones. As Shakespeare advanced in command over the difficult blank verse he showed less desire to use rhyme. This close study of versification shows that _Love's Labor's Lost_ was probably Shakespeare's first play, followed by _The Comedy of Errors_ and by several historical plays. One year after his first rollicking comedy appeared he produced _Romeo and Juliet_, but this great drama of young love was revised carefully six years later and put into the form that we know. Three years after his start he produced _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, and followed these with his greatest comedies, _Much Ado About Nothing_, _Twelfth Night_ and _As You Like It_, the latter the comedy which appeals most strongly to modern readers and modern audiences. Then came a period in which Shakespeare's world was somber, and his creative genius found expression in the great tragedies--_Julius Cæsar_, _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_. And finally we have the closing years of production, in which he wrote three fine plays--_The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_ and _The Winter's Tale_. According to the best authorities, Shakespeare began writing plays in 1590 and he ended early in 1613. Into these twenty-three years he crowded greater intellectual activity than any other man ever showed in the same space of time. Probably Sir Walter Scott, laboring like a galley slave at the oar to pay off the huge debt rolled up by the reckless Ballantyne, comes next in creative literary power to Shakespeare; but Scott's work was in prose and was far easier of production. Shakespeare, like all writers of his day, took his materials from all sources and never scrupled to borrow plots from old or contemporary authors. But he so transmuted his materials by the alchemy of genius that one would never recognize the originals from his finished version. And he put into his great plays such a wealth of material drawn from real life that one goes to them for comfort and sympathy in affliction as he goes to the great books of the Bible. In a single play, as in _Hamlet_, the whole round of human life and passions is reviewed. Whatever may be his woe or his disappointment, no one goes to _Hamlet_ without getting some response to his grief or his despair. To give a list of the plays of Shakespeare which one should read is very difficult, because one reader prefers this and another that, and each can give good reasons for his liking. What I shall try to do here is to indicate certain plays which, if carefully read several times, will make you master of Shakespeare's art and will prepare you for wider reading in this great storehouse of human nature. _Romeo and Juliet_, a tragedy of young, impulsive love, represents the fine flower of Shakespeare's young imagination, before it had been clouded by sorrow. The verse betrays some of the defects of his early style, but it is rich in beauty and passion. The plot is one of the best, and this, with the opportunity for striking stage effects and brilliant costumes, has made it the most popular of all Shakespeare's plays. The characters are all sharply drawn and the swift unfolding of the plot represents the height of dramatic skill. Next to this, one should read _The Merchant of Venice_. Shylock is one of the great characters in Shakespeare's gallery, a pathetic, lonely figure, barred out from all close association with his fellows in trade by evil traits, that finally drive him to ruin. Then take up a comedy like _As You Like It_, as restful to the senses as fine music, and filled with verse as tuneful and as varied as the singing of a great artist. By this reading you will be prepared for the supreme tragedies--each a masterpiece without a superior in any literature. These are _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, _Julius Cæsar_, _Macbeth_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_. In no other six works in any language can one find such range of thought, such splendor of verse, such soundings of the great sea of human passions--love, jealousy, ambition, hate, remorse, fear and shame. Each typifies some overmastering passion, but _Hamlet_ stands above all as a study of a splendid mind, swayed by every wind of impulse, noble in defeat and pathetic in the final ruin of hope and love, largely due to lack of courage and decision of character. Take it all in all, _Hamlet_ represents the finest creative work of any modern author. This play is packed with bitter experience of life, cast in verse that is immortal in its beauty and melody. [Illustration: 1. SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON BEFORE THE RESTORATION WHICH HAS SPOILED IT] [Illustration: 2. THE ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE] _Macbeth_ represents ambition, linked with superstition and weakness of will; the fruit is an evil brood--remorse struggles with desire for power, affection is torn by the malign influence of guilt, as seen in the unhinging of Lady Macbeth's mind. No one should miss the opportunity to see a great actor or a great actress in _Macbeth_--it is a revelation of the deeps of human tragedy. _King Lear_ is the tragedy of old age, the same tragedy that Balzac drew in _Le Pere Goriot_, save that Lear becomes bitter, and after weathering the storm of madness, wreaks vengeance on his unnatural daughters. Old Goriot, one of the most pathetic figures in all fiction, goes to his grave trying to convince the world that his heartless girls really love him. The real hero of _Julius Cæsar_ is Brutus, done to death by men of lesser mold and coarser natures, who take advantage of his lack of practical sense and knowledge of human nature. This play is seldom put on the stage in recent years, but it is always a treat to follow it when depicted by good actors. _Othello_ is the tragedy of jealousy working upon the mind of a simple and noble nature, which is quick to accept the evil hints of Iago because of its very lack of knowledge of women. Iago is the greatest type of pure villainy in all literature, far more vicious than Goethe's Mephistopheles, because he wreaks his power over others largely from a satanic delight in showing his skill and resources in evil. As a play _Othello_ is the most perfectly constructed of Shakespeare's works. Finally in _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare shows the disintegrating force of guilty love, which does not revolt even when the Egyptian Queen ruins her lover's cause by unspeakable cowardice. Cleopatra is the great siren of literature, and the picture of her charms is fine verse. And here let me advise the hearing of good actors in Shakespeare as a means of culture. All the great Shakespearean actors are gone, but Mantell remains, and he, though not equal to Booth, is, to my mind, far more convincing than Irving. Mantell's Lear is the essence of great acting--something to recall with rare pleasure. Edwin Booth I probably saw in _Hamlet_ a score of times in twice that many years, but never did I see him without getting some new light on the melancholy Dane. Even on successive nights Booth was never just the same, as his mood tinged his acting. His sonorous voice, his perfect enunciation, his graceful gestures, above all his striking face, alive with the light of genius--these are memories it is a delight to recall. To develop appreciation of Shakespeare I would advise reading the plays aloud. In no other way will you be able to savor the beauty and the melody of the blank verse. It was my good fortune while an undergraduate at Cornell University to be associated for four years with Professor Hiram Corson, then head of the department of English literature. Corson believed in arousing interest in Shakespeare by reading extracts from the best plays, with running comment on the passages that best illustrated the poet's command of all the resources of blank verse. His voice was like a fine organ, wonderfully developed to express every emotion, and I can recall after nearly forty years as though it were but yesterday the thrilling effect of these readings. No actor on the stage, with the single exception of Edwin Booth, equaled Corson in beauty of voice or in power of expression. The result of these readings, with the comment that came from a mind stored with Shakespearean lore, was to stir one's ambition to study the great plays. Recalling the liberal education that came from Corson's readings, I have been deeply sorry for college students whom I have seen vainly trying to appreciate Shakespeare's verse as read by professors with harsh, rasping, monotonous voices that killed the beauty of rhyme and meter as a frost kills a fine magnolia blossom breathing perfume over a garden. When will college presidents awake to the fact that book learning alone cannot make a successful professor of English literature, when the man is unable to bring out the melody of the verse? Similar folly is shown by the theological schools that continue to inflict upon the world preachers whose faulty elocution makes a mock of the finest passages of the Bible. In my own case my tireless study of Shakespeare during four years at college, which included careful courses of reading and study during the long vacations, so saturated my mind with the great plays that they have been ever since one of my most cherished possessions. After years of hard newspaper work it is still possible for me to get keen pleasure from reading aloud to myself any of Shakespeare's plays. My early study of Shakespeare led me to look up every unfamiliar word, every phrase that was not clear. This used to be heavy labor, but now all the school and college editions are equipped with these aids to the student. The edition of Shakespeare which always appealed to me most strongly was the Temple edition, edited by Israel Gollancz. It is pocket size, beautifully printed and very well edited. For a companion on a solitary walk in city or country no book is superior to one of Shakespeare's plays in this convenient Temple edition, bound in limp leather. The best edition of Shakespeare in one volume is, to my mind, the Cambridge edition, issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston, uniform with the same edition of other English and American poets. This, of course, has only a few textual notes, but it has a good glossary of unusual and obsolete words. It makes a royal octavo volume of one thousand and thirty-six double-column pages, clearly printed in nonpareil type. In this chapter I have been able only to touch on the salient features of the work of the foremost English poet and dramatist, and, in my judgment, the greatest writer the world has ever seen. If these words of mine stimulate any young reader to take up the study of Shakespeare I shall feel well repaid. Certainly, with the single exception of the Bible, no book will reward a careful, loving study so well as Shakespeare. HOW TO READ THE ANCIENT CLASSICS AUTHORS OF GREECE AND ROME ONE SHOULD KNOW--MASTERPIECES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD THAT MAY BE ENJOYED IN GOOD ENGLISH VERSIONS. In choosing the great books of the world, after the Bible and Shakespeare, one is brought face to face with a perplexing problem. It is easy to provide a list for the scholar, the literary man, the scientist, the philosopher; but it is extremely difficult to arrange any list for the general reader, who may not have had the advantage of a college education or any special literary training. And here, at the outset, enters the problem of the Greek, Latin and other ancient classics which have always been widely read and which you will find quoted by most writers, especially those of a half century ago. In this country literary fads have prevailed for a decade or two, only to be dropped for new fashions in culture. Take Emerson, for instance. His early development was strongly affected by German philosophy, which was labeled Transcendentalism. A. Bronson Alcott, who never wrote anything that has survived, was largely instrumental in infecting Emerson with his own passion for the dreamy German philosophical school. Emerson also was keenly alive to the beauties of the Greek and the Persian poets, although he was so broad-minded in regard to reading books in good translations that he once said he would as soon think of swimming across the Charles river instead of taking the bridge, as of reading any great masterpiece in the original when he could get a good translation. Many of Emerson's essays are an ingenious mosaic of Greek, Latin, Persian, Hindoo and Arabic quotations. These extracts are always apt and they always point some shrewd observation or conclusion of the Sage of Concord; but that Emerson should quote them as a novelty reveals the provincial character of New England culture in his day as strongly as the lectures of Margaret Fuller. The question that always arises in my mind when reading a new list of the hundred or the fifty best books by some recognized literary authority is: Does the ordinary business or professional man, who has had no special literary training, take any keen interest in the great masterpieces of the Greeks and Romans? Does it not require some special aptitude or some special preparation for one to appreciate Plato's _Dialogues_ or Sophocles' _OEdipus_, Homer's _Iliad_ or Horace's _Odes_, even in the best translations? In most cases, I think the reading of the Greek and Latin classics in translations is barren of any good results. Unless one has a passionate sympathy with Greek or Roman life, it is impossible, without a study of the languages and an intimate knowledge of the life and ideals of the people, to get any grasp of their best literary work. The things which the scholar admires seem to the great public flat and commonplace; the divine simplicity, the lack of everything modern, seems to narrow the intellectual horizon. This, I think, is the general result. But over against this must be placed the exceptions among men of literary genius like Keats and Richard Jefferies, both Englishmen of scanty school education, who rank, to my mind, among the greatest interpreters of the real spirit of the classical age. Keats, like Shakespeare, knew "small Latin and less Greek"; yet in his _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ and his _Endymion_ he has succeeded in bringing over into the alien English tongue the very essence of Greek life and thought. Matthew Arnold, with all his scholarship and culture, never succeeded in doing this, even in such fine work as _A Strayed Reveler_ or _Empedocles on Etna_. In the same way Jefferies, who is neglected by readers of today, in _The Story of My Heart_ has reproduced ancient Rome and made Julius Cæsar more real than we find him in his own _Commentaries_. If you can once reach the point of view of Keats or Jefferies you will find a new world opening before you--a world of fewer ideas, but of far more simple and genuine life; of narrower horizon, but of intenser power over the primal emotions. This was a world without Christ--a world which placidly accepted slavery as a recognized institution; which calmly ignored all claims of the sick, the afflicted and the poverty-stricken, and which admitted the right to take one's own life when that life became burdensome through age or disease, or when self-destruction would save one from humiliation and punishment. [Illustration: BUST OF HOMER IN THE MUSEUM OF NAPLES ANOTHER FINE BUST IS IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS BUT ALL ARE IDEALIZED FOR THE WORLD HAS NO AUTHENTIC RECORDS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE "ILIAD" AND THE "ODYSSEY"] These ideas are all reflected in the great masterpieces of the Greeks and the Romans which have come down to us. Sometimes this reflection is tinged with a modern touch of sentiment, as in the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius; but usually it is hard and repellant in its unconsciousness of romantic love or sympathy or regard for human rights, which Christianity has made the foundation stones of the modern world. This difference it is which prevents the average man or woman of today from getting very near to the classic writers. Even the greatest of these, with all their wealth of beauty and pathos, fail to impress one as do far less gifted writers of our own time. At the head of the ancient classics stand Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ and Virgil's _Æneid_. It is very difficult to get the spirit of either of these authors from a metrical translation. Many famous poets have tried their hand on Homer, with very poor results. About the worst version is that of Alexander Pope, who translated the _Iliad_ into the neat, heroic verse that suited so well his own _Essay on Man_ and his _Dunciad_. Many thousand copies were sold and the thrifty poet made a small fortune out of the venture. All the contemporary critics praised it, partly because they thought it was good, as they did not even appreciate the verse of Shakespeare, and partly because they feared the merciless pen of Pope. The Earl of Derby translated the _Iliad_ into good blank verse, but this becomes very tiresome before you get through a single book. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, gave far greater variety to his verse and his metrical translation of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ is perhaps the best version in print. The best metrical translation of the _Æneid_ is that of Christopher P. Cranch. The very best translation for the general reader is the prose version of Butcher and Lang. These two English scholars have rendered both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into good, strong, idiomatic prose, and in this form the reader who doesn't understand Greek can get some idea of the beauty of the sonorous lines of the original poem. Conington and Professor Church have each done the same service for Virgil and their prose versions of the scholarly Latin poet will be found equally readable. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF VIRGIL TAKEN FROM A BUST BY L. P. BOITARD AND ENGRAVED ON COPPER FOR THE FRONTISPIECE OF WARTON'S VIRGIL, 1753] Homer and Virgil give an excellent idea of the ancient way of looking upon life. Everything is clear, brilliant, free from all illusions; there are no moral digressions; the characters live and move as naturally as the beasts of the field and with the same unconscious enjoyment of life and love and the warmth of the sun. The gods decree the fate of men; the prizes of this world fall to him who has the stoutest heart, the strongest arm and the most cunning tongue. Each god and goddess of Olympus has favorites on earth, and when these favorites are in trouble or danger the gods appeal to Jove to intercede for them. None of the characters reveals any except the most primitive emotions. Helen of Troy sets the whole ancient world aflame, but it is only the modern poets who put any words of remorse or shame into her beautiful mouth. And yet these old stories are among the most attractive that have ever been told. They appeal to young and old alike, and when one sees the bright eyes of children flash over the deeds of the heroes of Homer, he may get some idea of what these tales were to the early Greeks. Told by professional story-tellers about the open fire at night, they had much to do with the development of the Greek mind and character, as seen at its best in the age of Pericles. Virgil took Æneas of Troy as his hero and wrote his great national epic of the founding of Rome. Only brief space can be given to the other worthies of the classical age. Every one should have some knowledge of Plato, whose great service was to tell the world of the life and teachings of Socrates, the wisest of the ancients. Get Jowett's translation of the _Phædo_ and read the pathetic story of the last days of Socrates. Or get the _Republic_ and learn of Plato's ideal of good government. Jowett was one of the greatest Greek scholars and his translations are simple and strong, a delight to read. Of the great Greek dramatists read one work of each--say, the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, the _Medea_ of Euripides and the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus. If you like these, it is easy to find the others. Then there is Plutarch, whose lives of famous Greeks and Romans used to be one of the favorite books of our grandfathers. It is little read today, but you can get much out of it that will remain as a permanent possession. The Romans were great letter-writers, perhaps because they had not developed the modern fads of society and sport which consume most of the leisure of today, and in these letters you will get nearer to the writer than in his other works. [Illustration: PLATO, AFTER AN ANTIQUE BUST PLATO GAVE THE WORLD ITS CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OF SOCRATES AND HE ALSO ANTICIPATED MANY MODERN DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE AND THOUGHT] Cicero in his most splendid orations never touched me as he does in his familiar letters, while Pliny gives a mass of detail that throws a clear light on Roman life. Pliny would have made an excellent reporter, as he felt the need of detail in giving a picture of any event. There are a score of other famous ancient writers whose work you may get in good English translations, but of all these perhaps you will enjoy most the two philosophers--Epictetus, the Greek stoic, and Marcus Aurelius, who retained a refreshing simplicity of mind when he was absolute master of the Roman world. Most of the Greek and Latin authors may be secured in Bohn's series of translations, which are usually good. This ancient world of Greece and Rome is full of stimulus to the general reader, although he may have no knowledge either of Latin or Greek. More and more the colleges are abandoning the training in the classics and are substituting German or French or Italian for the old requirements of Greek and Latin. As intellectual training, the modern languages cannot compare with the classical, but in our day the intense competition in business, the struggle for mere existence has become so keen that it looks as though the leisurely methods of education of our forefathers must be abandoned. The rage for specializing has reached such a point that one often finds an expert mining or electrical engineer graduated from one of our great universities who knows no more of ancient or modern literature than an ignorant ditch-digger, and who cannot write a short letter in correct English. These things were not "required" in his course; hence he did not take them. And it is far more difficult to induce such a man to cultivate the reading habit than it is to persuade the man who has never been to college to devote some time every day to getting culture from the great books of the world. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS AND OTHER CLASSICS ORIENTAL FAIRY TALES AND GERMAN LEGENDS--THE ANCIENT ARABIAN STORIES AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED AMONG WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS. The gap between the ancient writers and the modern is bridged by several great books, which have been translated into all languages. Among these the following are entitled to a place: _The Arabian Nights_; _Don Quixote_, by Cervantes; _The Divine Comedy_, by Dante; _The Imitation of Christ_; _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_, _St. Augustine's Confessions_, and The _Nibelungenlied_. Other great books could be added to this list, such as _Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography_, _Boccaccio's Tales_, the _Analects of Confucius_ and _Mahomet's Koran_. But these are not among the books which one must read. Those that I have named first should be read by any one who wishes to get the best in all literature. And another reason is that characters and sayings from these books are so often quoted that to be ignorant of them is to miss much which is significant in the literature of the last hundred years. Whatever forms a part of everyday speech cannot be ignored, and the _Arabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_ and Dante's _Divine Comedy_ are three books that have made so strong an impression on the world that they have stimulated the imagination of hundreds of writers and have formed the text for many volumes. Dante's great work alone has been commented upon by hundreds of writers, and these commentaries and the various editions make up a library of over five thousand volumes. _The Arabian Nights_ has been translated from the original into all languages, although the primitive tales still serve to amuse Arabs when told by the professional story-tellers of today. [Illustration: EDMUND DULAC'S CONCEPTION OF QUEEN SCHEHEREZADE, WHO TOLD THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS" TALES] In choosing the great books of the world first place must be given to those which have passed into the common language of the people or which have been quoted so frequently that one cannot remain ignorant of them. After the Bible and Shakespeare the third place must be given to _The Arabian Nights_, a collection of tales of Arabia and Egypt, supposed to have been related by Queen Scheherezade to her royal husband when he was wakeful in the night. The first story was told in order that he might not carry out his determination to have her executed on the following morning; so she halted her tale at a very interesting point and, artfully playing upon the King's interest, every night she stopped her story at a point which piqued curiosity. In this way, so the legend goes, she entertained her spouse for one thousand and one nights, until he decided that so good a story-teller deserved to keep her head. Today these Arabian tales and many variants of _The Thousand and One Nights_ are told by professional story-tellers who call to their aid all the resources of gesture, facial expression and variety of tone. In fact, these Oriental story-tellers are consummate actors, who play upon the emotions of their excitable audiences until they are able to move them to laughter and tears. This childlike character the Arab has retained until today, despite the fact that he is rapidly becoming expert in the latest finance and that he is a past master in the handling of the thousands of tourists who visit Egypt, Arabia and other Mohammedan countries every year. The sources of the leading tales of _The Arabian Nights_ cannot be traced. Such stories as _Sinbad the Sailor_, _Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves_ and _Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp_ may be found in the literature of all Oriental countries, but the form in which these Arabian tales have come down to us shows that they were collected and arranged during the reign of the good Caliph Haroun al Raschid of Bagdad, who flourished in the closing years of the eighth century. The book was first made known to European readers by Antoine Galland in 1704. This French writer made a free paraphrase of some of the tales, but, singularly enough, omitted the famous stories of _Aladdin_ and _Ali Baba_. The first good English translation was made by E. W. Lane from an Arabic version, condensed from the original text. The only complete translations of the Arabic version were made by Sir Richard Burton for a costly subscription edition and by John Payne for the Villon Society. Burton's notes are very interesting, as he probably knew the Arab better than any other foreigner, but his literal translation is tedious, because of the many repetitions, due to the custom of telling the stories by word of mouth. [Illustration: THE JINNEE AND THE MERCHANT A VIGNETTE WOODCUT BY WILLIAM HARVEY IN THE FIRST EDITION OF LANE'S TRANSLATION WHICH STILL REMAINS THE BEST ENGLISH VERSION OF THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS"] The usual editions of _The Arabian Nights_, contain eight stories. Happy are the children who have had these immortal stories told or read to them in their impressionable early years. Like the great stories of the Bible are these fairy tales of magicians, genii, enchanted carpets and flying horses; of princesses that wed poor boys who have been given the power to summon the wealth of the underworld; of the adventures of Sinbad in many waters, and of his exploits, which were more remarkable than those of Ulysses. The real democracy of the Orient is brought out in these tales, for the Grand Vizier may have been the poor boy of yesterday and the young adventurer with brains and cunning and courage often wins the princess born to the purple. All the features of Moslem life, which have not changed for fourteen hundred years, are here reproduced and form a very attractive study. For age or childhood _The Arabian Nights_ will always have a perennial charm, because these tales appeal to the imagination that remains forever young. The great poem of German literature, _The Nibelungenlied_, may be bracketed with _The Arabian Nights_, for it expresses perfectly the ideals of the ancient Germans, the historic myths that are common to all Teutonic and Scandinavian races, and the manners and customs that marked the forefathers of the present nation of "blood and iron." _The Nibelungenlied_ has well been called the German _Iliad_, and it is worthy of this appellation, for it is the story of a great crime and a still greater retribution. It is really the story of Siegfried, King of the Nibelungs, in lower Germany, favored of the Gods, who fell in love with Kriemhild, Princess of the Burgundians; of Siegfried's help by which King Gunther, brother of Kriemhild, secures as his wife the Princess Brunhilde of Iceland; of the rage and humiliation of Brunhilde when she discovers that she has been subdued by Siegfried instead of by her own overlord; of Brunhilde's revenge, which took the form of the treacherous slaying of Siegfried by Prince Hagen, and of the tremendous revenge of Kriemhild years after, when, as the wife of King Etzel of the Huns, she sees the flower of the Burgundian chivalry put to the sword, and she slays with her own hand both her brother Gunther and Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried. The whole story is dominated by the tragic hand of fate. Siegfried, the warrior whom none can withstand in the lists, is undone by a woman's tongue. The result of the shame he has put upon Brunhilde Siegfried reveals to his wife, and a quarrel between the two women ends in Kriemhild taunting Brunhilde with the fact that King Gunther gained her love by fraud and that Siegfried was the real knight who overcame and subdued her. Then swiftly follows the plot to kill Siegfried, but Brunhilde, whose wrath could be appeased only by the peerless knight's death, has a change of heart and stabs herself on his funeral pyre. Intertwined with this story of love, revenge and the slaughter of a whole race is the myth of a great treasure buried by the dwarfs in the Rhine, the secret of which goes to the grave with grim old Hagen. These tales that are told in _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made real to readers of today by Wagner, who uses them as the libretto of some of his finest operas. With variations, he has told in the greatest dramatic operas the world has yet seen the stories of Siegfried and Brunhilde, the labors of the Valkyrie, and the wrath of the gods of the old Norse mythology. To understand aright these operas, which have come to be performed by all the great companies, one should be familiar with the epic that first recorded these tales of chivalry. Many variants there are of this epic in the literature of Norway, Sweden and Iceland, but _The Nibelungenlied_ remains as the model of these tales of the heroism of men and the quarrels of the gods. Wagner has used these materials with surpassing skill, and no one can hear such operas as _Siegfried_, _The Valkyrie_, and _Gotterdammerung_ without receiving a profound impression of the reality and the power of these old myths and legends. Perhaps for most readers Carlyle's essay on _The Nibelungenlied_ will suffice, for in this the great English essayist and historian has told the story of the German epic and has translated many of the most striking passages. In verse the finest rendering of this story is found in _Sigurd the Volsung_ by William Morris, told in sonorous measure that never becomes monotonous. A good prose translation has been made by Professor Shumway of the University of Pennsylvania. The volume was brought out by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1909. His version is occasionally marred by archaic turns of expression, but it comes far nearer to reproducing the spirit of the original than any of the metrical translations. THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE AN ELOQUENT BOOK OF RELIGIOUS MEDITATION--THE ABLEST OF EARLY CHRISTIAN FATHERS TELLS OF HIS YOUTH, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS CONVERSION. In reading the great books of the world one must be guided largely by his own taste. If a book is recommended to you and you cannot enjoy it after conscientious effort, then it is plain that the book does not appeal to you or that you are not ready for it. The classic that you may not be able to read this year may become the greatest book in the world to you in another year, when you have passed through some hard experience that has matured your mind or awakened some dormant faculties that call out for employment. Great success or great failure, a crushing grief or a disappointment that seems to take all the light out of your world--these are some of the things that mature and change the mind. So, if you cannot feel interest in some of the books that are recommended in these articles put the volumes aside and wait for a better day. It will be sure to come, unless you drop into the habit of limiting your reading to the newspapers and the magazines. If you fall into this common practice then there is little hope for you, as real literature will lose all its attractions. Better to read nothing than to devote your time entirely to what is ephemeral and simply for the day it is printed. _The Confessions of St. Augustine_ is a book which will appeal to one reader, while another can make little of it. For fifteen hundred years it has been a favorite book among priests and theologians and those who are given to pious meditation. Up to the middle of the last century it probably had a more vital influence in weaning people from the world and in turning their thoughts to religious things than any other single book except the Bible. And this influence is not hard to seek, for into this book the stalwart old African Bishop of the fourth century put his whole heart, with its passionate love of God and its equally passionate desire for greater perfection. As an old commentator said, "it is most filled with the fire of the love of God and most calculated to kindle it in the heart." This is the vital point and the one which it seems to me explains why the _Confessions_ is very hard reading for most people of today. The praise of God, the constant quotation of passages from the Bible and the fear that his feelings may relapse into his former neglect of religion--these were common in the writers who followed Augustine for more than a thousand years. In fact, they remained the staple of all religious works up to the close of the Georgian age in England. Then came a radical change, induced perhaps by the rapid spread of scientific thought. The old religious books were neglected and the new works showed a directness of statement, an absence of Biblical verbiage and a closer bearing on everyday life and thought. This trend has been increased in devotional books, as well as in sermons, until it would be impossible to induce a church congregation of today to accept a sermon of the type that was preached up to the middle of the last century. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ST. AUGUSTINE BY THE FAMOUS FLORENTINE PAINTER SANDRO BOTTICELLI--THE ORIGINAL IS IN THE OGNISSANTI, FLORENCE] For this reason it seems to me that any one who wishes to cultivate St. Augustine should begin by reading a chapter of the _Confessions_. If you enjoy this, then it will be well to take up the complete _Confessions_, one of the best editions of which will be found in Everyman's Library, translated by Dr. E. B. Pusey, the leader of the great Tractarian movement in England. Pusey frowns on the use of any book of extracts from St. Augustine, but this English churchman, with his severe views, cannot be taken as a guide in these days. Doubtless he thought _Pamela_ and _Coebs in Search of a Wife_ entertaining books of fiction; but the reader of today pronounces them too dull and too sentimental to read. Many there are in these days who preserve something of the old Covenanter spirit in regard to the Bible and other devotional books. One of these is Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, superintendent of the Labrador Medical Mission, an Oxford man, who cast aside a brilliant career in England to throw in his life with the poor fishermen along the stormy coast which he has made his home. Dr. Grenfell has come to have the same influence over these uneducated men that General Gordon of Khartoum gained over alien races like the Chinese and the Soudanese, or that Stanley secured over savage African tribes. It is the intense earnestness, the simple-minded sincerity of the man who lives as Christ would live on earth which impresses these people of Labrador and gains their love and confidence. Grenfell in a little essay, _What the Bible Means to Me_, develops his feeling for the Scriptures, which is much the same feeling that inspired Augustine, as well as John Bunyan. Grenfell even goes to the length of saying that he prefers the Bible as a suggester of thought to any other book, and he regrets that it is not bound as secular books are bound, so that he might read it without attracting undue attention on railroad trains or in public places while waiting to be served with meals. Gordon carried with him to the place where he met his death pieces of what he firmly believed was wood of the real cross of Calvary, and on the last day of his life, when he looked out over the Nile for the help that never came, he read his Bible with simple confidence in the God of Battles. Stanley believed that the Lord was with him in all his desperate adventures in savage Africa, and this belief warded off fever and discouragement and gave him the tremendous energy to overcome obstacles that would have proved fatal to any one not keyed up to his high tension by implicit faith in the Lord. If you wish to know what personal faith in God means and what it can accomplish in this world of devotion to mammon, read Stanley's _Autobiography_, edited by his wife, that Dorothy Tennant who is one of the most brilliant of living English women. It is one of the most stimulating books in the world, and no young man can read it without having his ambition powerfully excited and his better nature stirred by the spectacle of the rise of this poor abused boy slave in a Welsh foundlings' home to a place of high honor and great usefulness--a seat beside kings, and a name that will live forever as the greatest of African explorers. It is this marvelous faith in God, which is as real as the breath in his nostrils, that makes St. Augustine's _Confessions_ a vital and enduring book. It is this faith that charges it with the potency of living words, although the man who wrote this book has been dead over fifteen hundred years. Augustine was born in Numidia and brought up amid pagan surroundings, although his mother, Monica, was an ardent Christian and prayed that he might become a convert to her faith. He was trained as a rhetorician and spent some time at Carthage. When his thoughts were directed to religion the main impediment in the way of his acceptance of Christianity was the fact that he lived with a concubine and had had a child by her. Finally came the death of his bosom friend, which called out one of the great laments of all time, and then his gradual conversion to the Christian church, largely due to careful study of St. Paul. Following hard upon his conversion came the death of his mother, who had been his constant companion for many years. Rarely eloquent is his tribute to this unselfish mother, whose virtues were those of the good women of all ages and whose love for her son was the flower of her life. In all literature there is nothing finer than the old churchman's tender memorial to his dear mother and his pathetic record of the heavy grief, that finally was eased by a flood of tears. Here are some of the simple words of this lament over the dead: [Illustration: A PAGE FROM ST. AUGUSTINE'S "LA CITE DE DIEU" WHICH WAS PRINTED IN ABBEVILLE FRANCE, IN 1486] "I closed her eyes; and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my heart, which was overflowing into tears; mine eyes at the same time, by the violent command of my mind, drank up their fountain wholly dry; and woe was me in such strife! * * * What then was it which did grievously pain me within, but a fresh wound wrought through the sudden wrench of that most sweet and dear custom of living together? I joyed indeed in her testimony, when, in her last sickness, mingling her endearments with my acts of duty, she called me 'dutiful,' and mentioned with great affection of love that she never heard any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by my mouth against her. But yet, O my Lord, who madest us, what comparison is there betwixt that honor that I paid her and her slavery for me?" Augustine was the ablest of the early Christian fathers and he did yeoman's service in laying broad and deep the foundations of the Christian church and in defending it against the heretics. But of all his many works the _Confessions_ will remain the most popular, because it voices the cry of a human heart and shows the human side of a great churchman. DON QUIXOTE ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS CERVANTES' MASTERPIECE A BOOK FOR ALL TIME--INTENSELY SPANISH, IT STILL APPEALS TO ALL NATIONS BY ITS DEEP HUMAN INTEREST. Among the great books of the world no contrast could be greater than that between St. Augustine's _Confessions_ and _Don Quixote_ by Cervantes, yet each in its way has influenced unnumbered thousands and will continue to influence other thousands so long as this world shall endure. Few great books have been so widely quoted as this masterpiece of the great Spaniard; few have contributed so many apt stories and pungent epigrams. Of the great imaginary characters of fiction none is more strongly or clearly defined than the sad-faced Knight of La Mancha and his squire, Sancho Panza. The grammar school pupil in his reading finds constant allusions to Don Quixote and his adventures, and the world's greatest writers have drawn upon this romance by Cervantes for material to point their own remarks. In this respect the only great author Spain has produced resembles Shakespeare. His appeal is universal because the man behind the romance had tasted to the bitter dregs all that life can offer, yet his nature had remained sweet and wholesome. Byron in _Childe Harold_, with his cunning trick of epigram, said that Cervantes "smiled Spain's chivalry away," but chivalry was as dead in the days of Cervantes as it is now. What the creator of _Don Quixote_ did was to ridicule the high-flown talk, the absurd sentimentality that marked chivalry, while at the same time he brought out, as no one else has ever done, the splendid qualities that made chivalry immortal. Don Quixote is a man who is absolutely out of touch with the world in which he moves, but while you laugh at his absurd misconceptions you feel for him the deepest respect; you would no more laugh at the man himself than you would at poor unfortunate Lear. The idealistic quality of Don Quixote himself is enhanced by the swinish nature of Sancho Panza, who cannot understand any of his master's raptures. Into this character of the sorrowful-faced knight Cervantes put all the results of his own hard experience. The old knight is often pessimistic, but it is a genial pessimism that makes one smile; while running through the whole book is a modern note that can be found in no other book written in the early days of the seventeenth century. That Cervantes himself was unconscious that he had produced a book that would live for centuries after he was gone is the best proof of the genius of the writer. The plays and romances which he liked the best are now forgotten, as are most of the works of Lope de Vega, the popular literary idol of his day. The book is intensely Spanish, yet its appeal is limited to no race, no creed and no age. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CERVANTES FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING IN A RARE FRENCH EDITION OF "DON QUIXOTE"] We have far more data in regard to the life of Cervantes than we have concerning Shakespeare, yet the Spanish author died on the same day. Cervantes came of noble family, but its fortune had vanished when he entered on life. He spent his boyhood in Valladolid and at twenty went up to Madrid, where he soon joined the train of the Papal Ambassador, Monsignor Acquaviva, and with him went to Rome, then the literary center of the world. There he learned Italian and absorbed culture as well as the prevailing enthusiasm for the crusades against the Turks, who were then menacing Venice and all the cities along the northern shore of the Mediterranean. The leader of the Christian host was Don John of Austria, one of the great leaders of the world, who had the power of arousing the passionate devotion of his followers. Cervantes joined the Christian troops and at the battle of Lepanto, one of the great sea fights of all history, he was captain of a company of soldiers on deck and came out of the battle with two gun-shot wounds in his body and with his left hand so mutilated that it had to be cut off. Despite the fact that he was crippled, his enthusiasm still burned brightly and he saw service for the next five years. Then, on his way home by sea, he was captured and taken to Algiers as a slave. There he fell to the share of an Albanian renegade and afterward he was sold to the Dey of Algiers. During all the five years of his Moorish captivity Cervantes was the life and soul of his fellow slaves, and he was constantly planning to free himself and his companions. The personal force of the man may be seen from the fact that the Dey declared he "should consider captives, and barks and the whole city of Algiers in perfect safety could he but be sure of that handless Spaniard." Finally Cervantes was ransomed and returned to his home at the age of thirty-five. There he married and became a naval commissary and later a tax collector. His mind soon turned to literature, and for twenty years he wrote a great variety of verses and dramas, all in the prevailing sentimental spirit of the age. At last he produced the first part of _Don Quixote_ at the age of fifty-eight, and he lacked only two years of seventy when the second and final part of the great romance was given to the world. Comment has often been made on the ripe age of Cervantes when he produced his masterpiece, but Lockhart, who wrote an excellent short introduction to _Don Quixote_, points out that of all the great English novelists Smollett was the only one who did first-rate work while young. _Humphrey Clinker_ and _Roderick Random_ are little read in these days, but we have a noteworthy instance of the great success of a new English novelist when past sixty years of age in William de Morgan, whose _Joseph Vance_ made him famous, and who has followed this with no less than three great novels: _Alice for Short_, _Somehow Good_ and _It Never Can Happen Again_. And the marvel of it is that Mr. de Morgan actually took up authorship at sixty, without any previous experience in writing. Dickens and Kipling are about the only exceptions to the rule that a novelist does his best work in mature years, but they are in a class by themselves. _Don Quixote_ reflects all the varying fortunes of Cervantes. The book was begun in prison, where Cervantes was cast, probably for attempting to collect debts. All his remarkable experiences in the wars against the Turks and in captivity among the Moors are embodied in the interpolated tales. The philosophy put into the mouth of the Knight of La Mancha is the fruit of Cervantes' hard experience and mature thought. He was a Spaniard with the sentiments and the prejudices of his century; but by the gift of genius he looked beyond his age and his country and, like Shakespeare, he wrote for all time and all peoples. Nationality in literature never had a more striking example than is furnished by _Don Quixote_. It is Spanish through and through; an open-air romance, much of the action of which takes place on the road or in the wayside inns where the Knight and his squire tarry for the night. It swarms with characters that were common in the Spain of the close of the sixteenth and the early days of the seventeenth centuries. Cervantes never attempts to paint the life of the court or the church; he never introduces any great dignitaries, but he is thoroughly at home with the common people, and he tells his story apparently without any effort, yet with a keen appreciation of the natural humor that seasons every scene. And yet through it all Don Quixote moves a perfect figure of gentle knighthood, a man without fear and without reproach. You laugh at him but at the same time he holds your respect. Genius can no further go than to produce a miracle like this: the creation of a character that compels your respect in the face of childish follies and hallucinations. [Illustration: DON QUIXOTE DISCOURSING TO SANCHO PANZA IN THE YARD OF THE INN WHICH THE KNIGHT IMAGINED WAS A LORDLY CASTLE FROM GUSTAVE DORÉ'S ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE CLARK EDITION] No one can read _Don Quixote_ carefully without getting rich returns from it in entertainment and culture. The humor is often coarse, but it is hearty and wholesome, and underlying all the fun is the sober conviction that the hero of all these adventures is a man whom it would have been good to know. It is difficult for any one of Anglo-Saxon strain to understand those of Latin blood, but it seems to me that the American of New England ancestry is nearer to the Spaniard than to the Frenchman or the Italian. Underneath the surface there is a lust for adventure and an element of enduring stubbornness in the Spaniard which made him in the heyday of his nation the greatest of explorers and conquerors. And as a basis of character is his love of truth and his sterling honesty, traits that have survived through centuries of decay and degeneracy, and that may yet restore Spain to something of her old prestige among the nations of Europe. So, in reading _Don Quixote_ one may see in it an epitome of that old Spain which has so glorious a history in adventures that stir the blood, as in the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro, and in that higher realm of splendid sacrifice for an ideal, which witnessed the sale of Isabella's jewels to aid Columbus in his plans to discover a new world. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST FEATURES OF GREAT WORK BY OLD THOMAS À KEMPIS--MEDITATIONS OF A FLEMISH MONK WHICH HAVE NOT LOST THEIR INFLUENCE IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. The great books of this world are not to be estimated by size or by the literary finish of their style. Behind every great book is a man greater than his written words, who speaks to us in tones that can be heard only by those whose souls are in tune with his. In other words, a great book is like a fine opera--it appeals only to those whose ears are trained to enjoy the harmonies of its music and the beauty of its words. Such a book is lost on one who reads only the things of the day and whose mind has never been cultivated to appreciate the beauty of spiritual aspiration, just as the finest strains of the greatest opera, sung by a Caruso or a Calve, fail to appeal to the one who prefers ragtime to real music. [Illustration: THOMAS À KEMPIS, THE FRONTISPIECE OF AN EDITION OF "THE IMITATION OF CHRIST" PUBLISHED BY SUTTABY AND COMPANY OF LONDON AMEN CORNER, 1883] In this world, in very truth, you reap what you sow. If you have made a study of fine music, beautiful paintings and statuary and the best books, you cannot fail to get liberal returns in the way of spiritual enjoyment from the great works in all these arts. And this enjoyment is a permanent possession, because you can always call up in memory and renew the pleasure of a great singer's splendid songs, the strains of a fine orchestra, the impassioned words of a famous actor, the glory of color of an immortal painting, or the words of a poem that has lived through the centuries and has stimulated thousands of readers to the higher life. One of the smallest of the world's famous books is _The Imitation of Christ_ by Thomas à Kempis. It may be slipped into one's coat pocket, yet this little book is second only to the Bible and Shakespeare in the record of the souls it has influenced. It may be read in two hours, yet every paragraph in it has the potency of spiritual life. Within the cloister, where it was written, it has always been a favorite book of meditation, surpassing in its appeal the _Confessions of St. Augustine_. In the great world without, it has held its own for five hundred years, gaining readers from all classes by sheer force of the sincerity and power of the man, who put into it all the yearnings of his soul, all the temptations, the struggles and the victories of his spirit. It was written in crabbed Latin of the fifteenth century, without polish and without logical arrangement, much as Emerson jotted down the thoughts which he afterward gathered up and strung together into one of his essays. Yet the vigor, truth, earnestness and spiritual passion of the poor monk in his cell fused his language into flame that warms the reader's heart after all these years. Thomas à Kempis was plain Thomas Haemerken of Kempen, a small town near Cologne, the son of a poor mechanic, who had the great advantage of a mother of large heart and far more than the usual stock of book learning. Doubtless it was through his mother that Thomas inherited his taste for books and his desire to enter the church. He followed an elder brother into the cloister, spending his novitiate of seven years at the training school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, in the Netherlands. Then he entered as postulant the monastery of Mount St. Agnes, near Zwolle, of which his brother John was prior. This monastery was ruled by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and it was filled by the Brothers of the Common Life. For another seven years he studied to fit himself for this life of the cloister, and finally he was ordained a priest in 1413. As he entered upon his religious studies at the tender age of 13, he had been employed for fourteen years in preparing himself for his life work in the monastery. The few personal details that have been handed down about him show that he was of unusual strength, with the full face of the people of his race, and that he kept until extreme old age the strength of his voice and the fire of his eye. For sixty years he remained a monk, spending most of his time in transcribing the Bible and devotional treatises and in teaching the neophytes of his own community. His devotion to books was the great passion of his life and doubtless reconciled a man of so much native strength of body and mind to the monotony of the cloister. His favorite motto was: "Everywhere have I sought for peace, but nowhere have I found it save in a quiet corner with a little book." The ideal of the community was to live as nearly as possible the life of the early Christians. The community had the honor of educating Erasmus, the most famous scholar of the Reformation. Thomas à Kempis drew most of the inspiration for _The Imitation of Christ_ from the Bible, and especially from the New Testament. The book is a series of eloquent variations on the great central theme of making one's life like that of Christ on earth. And with this monk, who lived in a community where all property was shared in common and where even individual earnings must be put into the general fund, this idea of reproducing the life of Christ was feasible. Cut off from all close human ties, freed from all thought of providing for food and shelter, the monastic life in a community like that of the Brothers of the Common Life was the nearest approach to the ideal spiritual existence that this world has ever seen. To live such a life for more than the ordinary span of years was good training for the production of the _Imitation_, the most spiritual book of all the ages. Every page of this great book reveals that the author had made the Bible a part of his mental possessions. So close and loving had been this study that the words of the Book of Books came unwittingly to his lips. All his spiritual experiences were colored by his Biblical studies; he rests his faith on the Bible as on a great rock which no force of nature can move. So in the _Imitation_ we have the world of life and thought as it looked to a devout student of the Bible, whose life was cut off from most of the temptations and trials of men, yet whose conscience was so tender that he magnified his doubts and his failings. Over and over he urges upon his readers to beware of pride, to cultivate humility, to keep the heart pure and the temper meek, so that happiness may come in this world and the assurance of peace in the world to come. Again and again he appeals to us not to set our hearts upon the treasures of this world, as they may fail us at any time, while the love of worldly things makes the heart callous and shuts the door on the finest aspirations of the soul. In every word of this book one feels the sincerity of the man who wrote it. The monk who jotted down his thoughts really lived the life of Christ on earth. He gained fame for his learning, his success as a teacher and his power as a writer of religious works; but at heart he remained as simple, sincere and humble as a little child. All his thoughts were devoted to gaining that perfection of character which marked the Master whom he loved to imitate; and in this book he pours out the longings that filled his soul and the joys that follow the realization of a good and useful life. In all literature there is no book which so eloquently paints the success of forgetting one's self in the work of helping others. The _Imitation_, like the Bible, should be read day by day, if one is to draw aid and inspiration from it. Read two or three pages each day, and you will find it a rare mental tonic, so foreign to all present-day literature, that its virtues will stand out by comparison. Read it with the desire to feel as this old monk felt in his cell, and something of his rare spirit will come to you, healing your grief, opening your eyes to the many chances of doing good that lie all about you, cleansing your heart of envy, greed, covetousness and other worldly desires. Here are a few passages of the _Imitation_, selected at random, which will serve to show the thought and style of the book: "Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life giveth ease to the mind, and a pure conscience inspireth great confidence in God. "That which profiteth little or nothing we heed, and that which is especially necessary we lightly pass over, because the whole man doth slide into outward things, and unless he speedily recovereth himself he willingly continueth immersed therein. "Here a man is defiled by many sins, ensnared by many passions, held fast by many fears, racked by many cares, distracted by many curiosities, entangled by many vanities, compassed about with many errors, worn out with many labors, vexed with temptations, enervated by pleasures, tormented with want. When shall I enjoy true liberty without any hindrances, without any trouble of mind or body?" Many famous writers have borne testimony to the great influence of _The Imitation of Christ_ upon their spiritual development. Matthew Arnold often refers to the work of Thomas à Kempis, as do Ruskin and others. Comte made it a part of his Positivist ritual, and General Gordon, that strange soldier of fortune, who carried with him what he believed to be the wood of the true cross, and who represented the ideal mystic in this strenuous modern life, had _The Imitation of Christ_ in his pocket on the day that he fell under the spears of the Mahdi's savage fanatics at Khartoum. Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the power of the _Imitation_ is found in George Eliot's novel, _The Mill on the Floss_. The great novelist makes Maggie Tulliver find in the family garret an old copy of the _Imitation_. Then she says: "A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir, while hers was in a stupor. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of mysticism or quietism; but this voice of the far-off ages was the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message. And so it remains to all time, a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who ages ago felt and suffered and renounced, in the cloister; perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent, far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same stirrings, the same failures, the same weariness." Many editions of _The Imitation of Christ_ have been issued, but for one who wishes to make it a pocket companion none is better than the little edition in The Macmillan Company's _Pocket Classics_, edited by Brother Leo, professor of English literature in St. Mary's College, Oakland. This accomplished priest has written an excellent introduction to the book, in which he sketches the life of the old monk, the sources of his work and the curious controversy over its authorship which raged for many years. Buy this inexpensive edition and study it, and then, if you come to love old Thomas, get an edition that is worthy of his sterling merit. THE RUBÁ'IYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM POPULARITY OF AN OLD PERSIAN'S QUATRAINS--SPLENDID ORIENTAL IMAGERY JOINED TO MODERN DOUBT FOUND IN THIS GREAT POEM. A few of the world's greatest books have been given their popularity by the genius of their translators. Of these the most conspicuous example is _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_, which has enjoyed an extraordinary vogue among all English-speaking people for more than a half century since it was first given to the world by Edward FitzGerald, an Englishman of letters, whose reputation rests upon this free translation of the work of a minor Persian poet of the twelfth century. What has given it this extraordinary popularity is the strictly modern cast of thought of the old poet and the beauty of the version of the English translator. Each quatrain or four-line verse of the poem is supposed to be complete in itself, but all are closely linked in thought, and the whole poem might well have been written by any skeptic of the present day who rejects the teachings of the various creeds and narrows life down to exactly what we know on this earth. [Illustration: THE BEST-KNOWN PORTRAIT OF EDWARD FITZGERALD, IMMORTALIZED BY HIS VERSION OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT"--THIS PICTURE IS FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING OF A PHOTOGRAPH OF "OLD FITZ," THE COLLEGE CHUM AND LIFELONG FRIEND OF THACKERAY AND TENNYSON] The imagery of the poem is Oriental and many of the figures of speech and the illustrations are purely Biblical; but in its essence the poem is the expression of a materialist, who cannot accept the doctrine of a future life because no one has ever returned to tell of the "undiscovered country" that lies beyond the grave. Epicureanism is the keynote of the poem, which rings the changes on the enjoyment of the only life that we know; but the poem is saved from rank materialism by its lofty speculative note and by its sense of individual power, that reminds one of Henley's famous sonnet. Omar Khayyám was born at Naishapur, in Persia, and enjoyed a good education under a famous Imam, or holy man, of his birthplace. At this school he met two pupils who strangely influenced his life. One was Nizam ul Mulk, who in after years became Vizier to the Sultan of Persia; the other was Malik Shah, who gained unenviable notoriety as the head of the Assassins, whom the Crusaders knew as "The Old Man of the Mountains." These three made a vow that should one gain fortune he would share it equally with the other two. When Nizam became Vizier his schoolmates appeared. Hassan was given a lucrative office at court, but soon became involved in palace intrigues and was forced to flee. He afterward became the head of the Ismailians, a sect of fanatics, and his castle in the mountains south of the Caspian gave him the name which all Christians dreaded. His emissaries, sent out to slay his enemies, became known as Assassins. Omar made no demand for office of his old friend, but begged permission to live in "a corner under the shadow of your fortune." So the Vizier gave him a yearly pension, and Omar devoted his remaining years to the study of astronomy, in which he became very proficient, and which earned him many favors from the Sultan. Omar became widely celebrated for his scientific knowledge and his skill in mathematics, and he formed one of the commission that revised the Persian calendar. His heretical opinions, shown in the _Rubá'iyát_, gained him many enemies among the strict believers, and especially among the sect of the Sufis, whose faith he ridiculed. But the poet was too well hedged about by royal favor for these religious fanatics to reach him. So Omar ended his life in the scholarly seclusion which he loved, and the only touch of romance in his career is furnished by the provision in his will that his tomb should be in a spot where the north wind might scatter roses over it. One of his disciples relates that years after Omar's death he visited Naishapur and went to his beloved master's tomb. "Lo," he says, "it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them." Edward FitzGerald, the translator, who made Omar known to the western world, and especially to English-speaking readers, was one of the quaintest Englishmen of genius that the Victorian age produced. A college chum of men like Tennyson, Thackeray and Bishop Donne, he so impressed these youthful friends with his rare ability and his engaging personal qualities that they remained his warm admirers throughout life. Apparently without ambition, FitzGerald studied the Greek and Latin classics and made several noteworthy translations in verse, which he printed only for private circulation. Through a friend, Professor Cowell, a profound Oriental scholar, FitzGerald mastered Persian, and it was Cowell who first directed his attention to Omar's _Rubá'iyát_, then little known even to scholars. The poem evidently made a profound impression on FitzGerald and in 1858 he gave the manuscript of his translation of the _Rubá'iyát_ to the publisher, Quaritch. It was printed without the translator's name, but soon gained notice from the praises of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burton and others who recognized the genius of the anonymous author. Ten years later FitzGerald revised his first version and added many new quatrains, but the text as we have it today was the fifth which he gave to the public. Unlike Tennyson, FitzGerald appeared to improve everything he labored over, with the single exception of the first quatrain of the _Rubá'iyát_. In the commonly printed fifth edition he omits a splendid figure because he happened to use it in another poem. Aside from this the changes are all improvements, which is more than can be said for the revisions of Tennyson. [Illustration: A PAGE FROM AN ANCIENT PERSIAN MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT" WITH MINIATURES IN COLOR] The authorship of the _Rubá'iyát_, which soon ceased to be a secret, gave FitzGerald great fame during the closing years of his life. FitzGerald also translated a work of Jami, a Persian poet of the fifth century, and he put into English verse a free version of the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylus, two _OEdipus_ dramas of Sophocles, and several plays by Calderon, the great Spanish dramatist. The _Rubá'iyát_ is far longer than Gray's _Elegy_, but it occupies much the same position in English literature as this classic of meditation, because of the finish of its verse and a certain beguiling attraction in its thought. The reader of the period who makes a study of the _Rubá'iyát_ cannot escape the conviction that old Omar is secretly laughing at his readers. In fact, we come to the conclusion that he had much of FitzGerald's quizzical humor, and consequently believed in few of the heresies that he voices so poetically in his work. That he was an epicurean and a materialist is very difficult to believe when one considers the simple life that he led and the fact that he voluntarily gave up high official place and the means of securing much wealth. To live the life of a scholar, to dwell in the world of thought and abstraction is not the habit of the man who loves pleasure for its own sake. Hence, though Omar indulges in many panegyrics on the juice of the grape, it is pretty safe to say, from the record left by his disciples, that he cared little for wine and less for kindred pleasures of the senses that he sings of so well. That he could not accept the mystical Moslem faith of his day is not strange, for he had a modern cast of mind. His religion was that of thousands today who long to believe in a future life, but who have not the faith to accept it on trust. [Illustration: ONE OF THE GILBERT JAMES ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE "RUBÁ'IYÁT" TAKEN FROM AN EDITION PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY] This lack of faith is finely expressed in several quatrains, which might have been written by a poet of today so modern are they in tone, so thoroughly do they embody the new doctrine that happiness or misery depends upon one's own character and acts. The man who cheats and over-reaches his neighbor, who lies and deceives those who trust him, who indulges in base pleasures through lack of self-restraint, such a man lives in a real hell on earth, plagued by fears of exposure and ever in a mental ferment of unsatisfied desires. Old Omar Khayyám has pictured this doctrine in these two exquisite quatrains, which give a good idea of the quality of his thought, as well as the beauty of FitzGerald's version: Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road Which to discover we must travel too. I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell; And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell." The best known quatrain of the _Rubá'iyát_, the one which is always quoted as typical of Omar's epicurean attitude toward life, is this: A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! Here we will take leave of Omar. His _Rubá'iyát_ is good to read because FitzGerald has clothed his Oriental imagery in beautiful words that appeal to any one fond of melodious verse. If you wish to see what a great artist can evoke from the thoughts of this Persian poet, look over Elihu Vedder's illustrations of the _Rubá'iyát_--a series of memory-haunting pictures that are as full of majesty and beauty as the visions of the poet of Naishapur. THE DIVINE COMEDY BY DANTE INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS--THE EXILED FLORENTINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE AND WORK OF MANY FAMOUS WRITERS. Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books stands Dante's _Divine Comedy_, one of the greatest poems of all ages and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped and actually transformed many lives. History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The _Divine Comedy_ became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life. Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE] Yet in taking up the _Divine Comedy_ the reader who does not know Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the ablest of American literary critics, says: "To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through smoked glass. * * * To understand a _canzone_ of Dante or Leopardi one must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it. Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties." This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books, favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow. The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It is written in blank verse, easy and melodious. To understand even an outline of the _Divine Comedy_ one must know a few facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in 1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title _Vita Nuova_, or _New Life_, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty of face and loveliness of mind and character--these are the forms in which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the _Divine Comedy_. For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many friends and disciples gathered about him. The _Divine Comedy_ was completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on September 14, 1321. This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of Virgil's _Æneid_, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the _Earthly Paradise_. This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders, and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which fits him for a blessed estate in the _Earthly Paradise_. [Illustration: PAGE FROM "DANTE'S INFERNO" PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY--THE VOLUME IS ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY BALDINI AND BOTTICELLI] In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this world. Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of Dante's great poem--its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile, has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante. Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother." Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great poet, but an influence--part of the soul's resources in time of trouble." This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in translating the _Divine Comedy_ in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote, depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this brief study of Dante: O star of morning and of liberty! O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines Above the darkness of the Apennines, Forerunner of the day that is to be! The voices of the city and the sea, The voices of the mountains and the pines, Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines Are footpaths for the thought of Italy! Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights, Through all the nations, and a sound is heard, As of a mighty wind, and men devout, Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes, In their own language hear thy wondrous word, And many are amazed and many doubt. HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY?--DESIRE TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE WILL MAKE ONE MASTER OF ALL THE BEST BOOKS. In changing from the ancient and medieval world to the modern world of books there is a gap which cannot be bridged. A few writers flourished in this interval, but they are not worth consideration in the general scheme of reading which has been laid down in these articles. So the change must be made from the works that have been noticed to the first great writers of England who deserve a place in this popular course of reading. But before starting on these English writers of some of the world's great books I wish to say a few words on the general subject of books and reading, prompted mainly by a letter received from a Shasta county correspondent. The writer is a man who has evidently devoted thought to the subject, and his opinions will probably voice the conclusions of many others who are eager to read the best books, but who fancy that they lack the requisite mental training. Here is the gist of this letter, which is worth reproduction, because it probably represents the mental attitude of a large number of people who have lacked early opportunities of study: "The trouble with the 'Five-foot shelf of books' is that it is too long for the average man and intellectually it is up out of his reach. He can, perhaps, manage the Bible, for he can get commentaries on almost any part of it, and on occasion can hear sermons preached, but he will get very little benefit from a perusal of most of the others for the simple reason that he has not education enough in order to understand them. To read Shakespeare one should have at least a high school education, and about all the others need something even better in the way of schooling. Is it not possible to obtain this comfort, instruction and entertainment by a perusal of more modern books that the average man can understand? "We are apt to look back to the days of our youth as a time of sunshine and flowers, a time, in fact, of all things good; so, also, we are prone to give the men of ancient days some a golden crown, and some a halo, and ascribe to them an importance beyond their real value to us of these later days. Modern times and modern nations are rich in material well worth reading. Such books have the advantage in that the average man can understand them, and can be entertained and edified thereby. "People who are already in possession of culture and education are not so much in need of advice concerning their choice of books, for they have the ability to make proper discrimination. It is the common people, those who have been unable to obtain this higher education and culture, that need the assistance to promote the proper growth of their intellectual and spiritual lives." There is much in this letter which is worthy of thought. It is evidently the sincere expression of a man who has tried to appreciate the world's great classics and has failed, mainly because he has had this mental consciousness that he was not prepared to read and appreciate them. It is this attitude toward the world's great books which I wished to remove in these articles. It has been my aim to write for the men and women who have not had the advantage of a high school or college education. Any higher education is of great benefit, but my experience has shown me that the person who has a genuine thirst for knowledge will gain more through self-culture than the careless or indifferent student who may have all the advantages of the best high school or university training. The man or woman who is genuinely in earnest and who wishes to repair defects of early training will go further with poor tools and limited opportunities than the indolent or careless student who has within reach the best equipment of a great university. All that is necessary to understand and appreciate the great books which have been noticed in this series of articles is an ordinary grammar school education and the desire to gain knowledge and culture. Given this strong desire to know and to appreciate good books and one will go far, even though he may be handicapped by a very imperfect education. My correspondent declares that he does not think Shakespeare and other great books mentioned may be appreciated without the benefit of a high school education. This seems to me an overstatement of the case. Of course, blank verse is more difficult to follow than prose, but much of Shakespeare's work, though he uses a far richer vocabulary than the King James' translators of the Bible, is nearly as simple, because the dramatist appeals to the fundamental passions and emotions of men, which have not changed materially since the days of Elizabeth. That this is true is shown whenever a play of Shakespeare's is given by a dramatic company which includes one or two fine actors. The people in the audience who are accustomed to cheap melodrama will be as profoundly affected by Othello or Shylock, or even by Hamlet, as those who are intimately familiar with the text and have seen all the great actors in these roles from the time of the elder Booth. Actors and dramatic critics have often commented on the power that resides in Shakespeare's words to move an uncultured audience far more strongly than it can be moved by turgid melodrama. And even in a play like _Hamlet_, which is introspective and demands some thought on the part of the audience, there is never any listlessness in front of the footlights when a really great actor depicts the woes and the indecision of the melancholy Dane. The same thing holds good in reading, if one will only bring to the work the same keen interest that moves the audience in the theater. Here are the same words, the same unfolding of the plot, the same skillful development of character, the same fatality which follows weakness or indecision that may be seen on the stage; only the reader, whether he works alone or in company with others, must bring to his labor a keen desire to understand the dramatist, and he must be willing to accept the aid of the commentators who have made Shakespearean study so simple and attractive a task. Get an ordinary school or college edition of one of Shakespeare's plays, read the notes, look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, even though the editor may have ignored them. Then, after you have mastered the text, read what the best critics have said of the play and its characters. You will now be in a condition to enjoy thoroughly the careful reading of the play as literature, and it is from such reading, when all the difficulties of the text have been removed, that literary culture comes. Always read aloud, when possible, because in this way alone can you train the ear to the cadence of the verse and learn to enjoy the music of the best poetry. From my own experience, I would suggest the formation of small reading clubs of four or six persons, meeting at regular times. The members should be of congenial tastes, and it should be understood that promptness and regularity of attendance are vital. Such a club will be able to accomplish far more work than the solitary reader, and the stimulus of other minds will keep the interest keen and unflagging. The best scheme for such a club is to set a certain amount of reading and have each member go over the allotted portion carefully before the club meeting. Then all will be prepared to make suggestions and to remove any difficulties. Such a club, meeting two or three evenings in a week, will be able to get through a very large amount of good reading in a few months, and what seemed labor at first will soon become a genuine pleasure and a means of intellectual recreation. No one knows better than myself the up-hill work that attends solitary reading or study. Not one in a thousand can be counted on to continue reading alone, month after month, with no stimulus, except perhaps occasional talks with some one who is interested in the same books. It is dreary work at best, relieved only by the joy of mental growth and development. To share one's pleasure in a book is like sharing enjoyment in a splendid view or a fine work of art: it helps to fix that book in the mind. One never knows whether he has thoroughly mastered a book until he attempts to put in words his impressions of the volume and of the author. To discuss favorite books with congenial associates is one of the great pleasures of life, as well as one of the best tests of knowledge. With all the equipment that has been devised in the way of notes and comment by the best editors, the text of the great books of the world should offer no difficulties to one who understands English and who has an ordinary vocabulary. The very fact that some of these old writers have novel points of view should be a stimulus to the reader; for in this age of the limited railroad train, the telephone, the automobile and the aeroplane, it is well occasionally to be reminded that Shakespeare and the writers of the Bible knew as much about human nature as we know today, and that their philosophy was far saner and simpler than ours, and far better to use as a basis in making life worth living. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND OTHER POEMS A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH BIBLE--IT TELLS THE STORY OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN AND THE EXPULSION FROM EDEN. In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand out in English literature as preëminent, ranking close to the Bible in popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. To those of New England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best literature that the world has produced. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MILTON AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT BAYFORDBURY, HERTS] Milton's fame rests mainly on his _Paradise Lost_ and on his sonnets and minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems as _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and in the perfect masque of _Comus_. His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work which assured his fame as long as the English language endures. Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind, but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and their sonorous prose. The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press which is buried under the long Greek name, _Areopagitica_. It contains some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell, Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles. At the age of forty-five Milton was stricken with total blindness, but he did not give up any of his activities under this crushing affliction. In these dark days also he learned what it was to have a home without peace or comfort and to be vexed daily by ungrateful children. When the monarchy was restored Milton was forced into retirement, and narrowly escaped the gallows for his part in sending Charles I to the block. Thus in his old age, beaten down by misfortune, galled by neglect, he turned to the development of that rich poetic faculty which had lain fallow for a score of years. And in three years of silent meditation he produced _Paradise Lost_, which ranks very close to the Bible in religious fervor and in splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It is Biblical in its subject, for it includes the revolt of the rebellious angels, the splendid picture of the Garden of Eden and the noble conception of the creation of the world. It is Biblical, also, in a certain sustained sweep of the imagination, such as is seen in the great picture of the burning lake, in which Satan first awakes from the shock of his fall, and in the impressive speeches that mark his plan of campaign against the Lord who had thrown him and his cohorts into outer darkness. Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this scholar's mental possessions. [Illustration: MILTON DICTATING TO HIS DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING BY ROMNEY] Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action, girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit which demands freedom of speech and conscience. Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style: High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat. And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of Milton's style at its best: Through many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death-- A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good; Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire. In contrast to this resounding verse, which enables the poet to soar to lofty heights of imagination, turn to some of Milton's early work, the two beautiful classical idyls, _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the fine _Hymn to the Nativity_, and the mournful cadences of _Lycidas_, the poet's lament over the death of a beloved young friend. But in parting with Milton one should not neglect his sonnets, which rank with Wordsworth's as among the finest in the language. This brief notice cannot be ended more appropriately than with Milton's memorable sonnet on his blindness: When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker and present My true account, lest He returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait." PILGRIM'S PROGRESS THE FINEST OF ALL ALLEGORIES BUNYAN'S STORY FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE--THE SIMPLE TALE OF CHRISTIAN'S STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH APPEALS TO OLD AND YOUNG. No contrast could be greater than that between Milton and John Bunyan unless it be the contrast between their masterpieces, _Paradise Lost_ and _Pilgrim's Progress_. One was born in the purple and had all the advantages that flow from wealth and liberal education; the other was the son of a tinker, who had only a common school education and who from boyhood was forced to work for a living. Milton produced a poem nearly every line of which is rich in allusions to classical literature and mythology; Bunyan wrote an allegory, as simple in style as the English Bible, but which was destined to have a sale in English-speaking countries second only to the Bible itself, from which its inspiration was drawn. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN AFTER THE OIL PAINTING BY SADLER] Milton knew many lands and peoples; he was one of the great scholars of all ages, and in literary craftsmanship has never been surpassed by any writer. Bunyan never traveled beyond the bounds of England; he knew only two books well, the Bible and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, yet he produced one of the great literary masterpieces which profoundly influenced his own time and which has been the delight of thousands of readers in England and America, because of the simple human nature and the tremendous spiritual force that he put into the many trials and the ultimate victory of Christian. John Bunyan was born in 1628 near Bedford, England, and he lived for sixty years. His father was a tinker, a calling that was held in some disrepute because of its association with wandering gypsies. The boy was a typical Saxon, large and strong, full of rude health; but by the time he was ten years old he began to show signs of an imagination that would have wrecked a weaker body. Bred in the rigid Calvinism of his day, he began to have visions of the consequences of sin; he began to see that he was perilously near to the consuming fire which the preachers declared was in store for all who did not repent and seek the Lord. The stories of his early years remind one of the experiences of Rousseau. Between the man of supreme literary genius and the epileptic there is a very narrow line, and more than once Bunyan seemed about to overstep this danger line. At seventeen the youth joined the Parliamentary army and saw some service. The sudden death of the soldier next to him in the ranks made a profound impression upon his sensitive mind; he seemed to see in it the hand of the Lord which had been stretched out to protect him. On his return from the wars he married a country girl, who brought him as a marriage portion a large number of pious books. These Bunyan devoured, and they served as fuel to his growing sense of the terrible results of sin. Of his spiritual wrestlings in those days he has given a very good account in _Grace Abounding_, a highly colored autobiography in which he is represented as the chief of sinners, driven to repentance by the power of God. The fact is that he was a very fine young Puritan and his only offense lay in his propensity to profane swearing. Out of this mental and moral turmoil Bunyan emerged as a wayside preacher who finally came to address small country congregations. Soon he became known far and wide as a man who could move audiences to tears, so strong was the feeling that he put into his words, so convincing was the picture that he drew of his own evil life and the peace that came when he accepted the mercy of the Lord. He went up and down the countryside and he preached in London. Finally, in 1660, he was arrested under the new law which forbade dissenters to preach and was thrown into Bedford jail. He had then a wife and three children, the youngest a blind girl whom he loved more than the others. To provide for them he learned to make lace. The authorities were anxious to free Bunyan because his life had been without reproach and he had made many friends, but he refused to take the oath that he would not preach. For twelve years he remained in Bedford jail, and it is in these years that he conceived the plot of _Pilgrim's Progress_ and wrote most of the book, although it was three years after his release before the volume was finally in form for publication. Bunyan in a rhymed introduction to the book apologizes for the story form, which he feared would injure the work in the eyes of his Puritan neighbors, but the allegory proved a great success from the outset. No less than ten editions were issued in fourteen years. It made Bunyan one of the best known men of his time and it added greatly to his influence as a preacher. He wrote a number of other works, including a fine allegory, _The Holy War_, but none of these approached the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in popularity. When one takes up the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in these days it is always with something of the same feeling that the book inspired in childhood. Then it ranked with the _Arabian Nights_ as a thrilling story, though there were many tedious passages in which Christian debated religious topics with his companions. Still, despite these drawbacks, the book was a great story, full of the keenest human interest, with Christian struggling through dangers on every hand; with Giant Despair and Apollyon as real as the terrible genii of Arabian story, and with Great-heart a champion who more than matched the mysterious Black Knight in _Ivanhoe_. [Illustration (with text): THE Pilgrim's Progress FROM THIS WORLD TO That which is to come: Delivered under the Similitude of a DREAM Wherein is Discovered, The manner of his setting out, His Dangerous Journey; And safe Arrival at the Desired Countrey. _I have used Similitudes, Hos. 12. 10._ By _John Bunyan_. Licensed and Entred according to Order. _London_, Printed for _Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peacock_ in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_, 1678. FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"] Bunyan, out of his spiritual wrestlings, imagined his conflict with the powers of evil as a journey which he made Christian take from his home town along the straight and narrow way to the Shining Gate. Reproduced from his own imaginative sufferings were the flounderings in the Slough of Despond and his experiences in the Vale of Humiliation, the Valley of the Shadow of Death and in Vanity Fair, where he lost the company of Faithful. It is difficult, unless one is very familiar with the book, to separate the adventures in the first part from those in the second part, which deals with the experiences of Christiana and her children. It is in this second part that Great-heart, the knightly champion of the faith, appears, as well as the muck-raker, who has been given so much prominence in these last few years as the type of the magazine writers, who are eager to drag down into the dirt the reputations of prominent men. In fact, Bunyan's allegory has been a veritable mine to all literary people who have followed him. For a hundred years his book remained known only to the poor for whom it was written. Then its literary merits were perceived, and since then it has held its place as second only to the Bible in English-speaking lands. Bunyan, in his years in prison, studied the Bible so that his mind was saturated with its phraseology, and he knew it almost by heart. Every page of _Pilgrim's Progress_ bears witness to this close and loving study. The language of the Bible is often used, but it blends so perfectly with the simple, direct speech of Bunyan's characters that it reads like his own work. The only thing that betrays it is the reference to book and verse. A specimen of Bunyan's close reading of the Bible may be found in this list of curiosities in the museum of the House Beautiful on the Delectable Mountains: "They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitcher, trumpets and lamps, too, with which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shambar slew six hundred men. They showed him also the jaw-bone with which Samson did such mighty feats. They showed him, moreover, the sling and stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the sword, also, with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to prey." And here is a part of Bunyan's description of the fight between Apollyon and Christian in the Valley of Humiliation: "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said: 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die, for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.' * * * In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfulest sight that I ever saw." The miracle of this book is that it should have been written by a man who had little education and small knowledge of the great world, yet that it should be a literary masterpiece in the simple perfection of its form, and that it should be so filled with wisdom that the wisest man may gain something from its pages. Literary genius has never been shown in greater measure than in this immortal allegory by the poor tinker of Bedfordshire. OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF HIS AGE. The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of articles on the good old books. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"] Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago, it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies. Boswell had in him the makings of a great reporter, for no detail of Johnson's life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his keen eye, and for years it was his custom to set down every night in notebooks all the table talk and other conversation of the great man whom he worshiped. In this way Boswell gathered little by little a mass of material which he afterward recast into his great work. Jotted down when every word was fresh in his memory, these conversations by the old doctor are full of meat. If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit combats that took place at his favorite club, then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds of instances are given of the doughty old Englishman's rough usage of an adversary when he found himself hard pressed. As Goldsmith aptly put it: "If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end." Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller of Litchfield. He was born in 1709 and died in 1784. His early education was confined to a grammar school of his native town. The boy was big of figure, but he early showed traces of a scrofulous taint, which not only disfigured his face but made him morose and inclined to depression. But his mind was very keen and he read very widely. When nineteen years of age he went up to Oxford and surprised his tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous reading. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN] His college life was wretched because of his poverty, and the historical incident of the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair of shoes, left outside his chamber door, is probably true. Certain it is that he could not have fitted into the elegant life of most of the undergraduates of Pembroke College, although today his name stands among the most distinguished of its scholars. In 1731 he left Oxford without a degree, and, after an unhappy experience as a school usher, he married a widow old enough to be his mother and established a school to prepare young men for college. Among his pupils was David Garrick, who became the famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in company with Garrick, tramped to London. In the great city which he came to love he had a very hard time for years. He served as a publisher's hack and he knew from personal experience the woes of Grub-street writers. His first literary hit was made with a poem, _London_, and this was followed by the _Life of Richard Savage_, in which he told of the miseries of the writer without regular employment. Next followed his finest poem, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. Then Johnson started a weekly paper, _The Rambler_, in imitation of _The Spectator_, and ran it regularly for about two years. For some time Johnson had been considering the publication of a dictionary of the English language. He issued his prospectus in 1747 and inscribed the work to Lord Chesterfield. He did not secure any help from the noble lord, and when Chesterfield showed some interest in the work seven years after, Johnson wrote an open letter to the nobleman, which is one of the masterpieces of English satire. In 1762 Johnson accepted a Government pension of £300 a year, and after that he lived in comparative comfort. The best literary work of his later years was his _Lives of the Poets_, which extended to ten volumes. Johnson was not an accurate scholar, nor was he a graceful writer, like Goldsmith; but he had a force of mind and a vigor of language that made him the greatest talker of his day. He was one of the founders of a literary club in 1764 which numbered among its members Gibbon, Burke, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and other famous men of genius. Though he was unpolished in manners, ill dressed and uncouth, Johnson was easily the leader in the debates of this club, and he remained its dominating force until the day of his death. [Illustration (with text): THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. COMPREHENDING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES AND NUMEROUS WORKS, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER; A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS, AND VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION, NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY, DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED. IN TWO VOLUMES. BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq. ----Quò fit ut OMNIS Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella VITA SENIS.---- HORAT. VOLUME THE FIRST. _LONDON:_ PRINTED BY HENRY BALDWIN, FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY. M DCC XCI FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S "LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON"--THIS HAS PROVED TO BE THE MOST POPULAR BIOGRAPHY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE] The best idea of Dr. Johnson's verse may be gained from _London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. These are not great poetry. The verse is of the style which Pope produced, but which the modern taste rejects because of its artificial form. Yet there are many good lines in these two poems and they reflect the author's wide reading as well as his knowledge of human life. _The Lives of the Poets_ are far better written than Johnson's early work, and they contain many interesting incidents and much keen criticism. These, with some of Johnson's prayers and his letter to Lord Chesterfield, include about all that the modern reader will care to go through. The Chesterfield letter is a little masterpiece of satire. Johnson, it must be borne in mind, had dedicated the prospectus of his Dictionary to Chesterfield, but he had been virtually turned away from this patron's door with the beggarly gift of £10. For seven years he wrought at his desk, often hungry, ragged and exposed to the weather, without any assistance; but when the end was in sight and the great work was passing through the press, the noble lord deigned to write two review articles, praising the work. And here is a bit of Dr. Johnson's incisive sarcasm in the famous letter to the selfish nobleman: "Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it." Of Boswell's _Life of Dr. Johnson_ only a few words can be said. To treat it properly one should have an entire article like this, for it is one of the great books of the world. A good preparation for taking it up is the reading of the reviews of it by Macaulay and Carlyle. These two essays, among the most brilliant of their authors' work, give striking pictures of Boswell and of the man who was the dictator of English literature for thirty years. Then take up Boswell himself in such a handy edition as that in Everyman's Library, in two volumes. Read the book in spare half hours, when you are not hurried, and you will get from it much pleasure as well as profit. It is packed with amusement and information, and it is very modern in spirit, in spite of its old-fashioned style. [Illustration: PAINTING BY EYRE CROWE OF DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL AND GOLDSMITH AT THE MITRE TAVERN, FLEET STREET THE SCENE OF MANY WORD COMBATS BETWEEN THE DOUGHTY DOCTOR AND HIS ASSOCIATES] Through its pages you get a very strong impression of old Dr. Johnson. You laugh at the man's gross superstitions, at his vanity, his greediness at table, his absurd judgments of many of his contemporaries, his abuse of pensioners and his own quick acceptance of a pension. At all these foibles and weaknesses you smile, yet underneath them was a genuine man, like Milton, full of simplicity, honesty, reverence and humility--a man greater than any literary work that he produced or spoken word that he left behind him. You laugh at his groanings, his gluttony, his capacity for unlimited cups of hot tea; but you recall with tears in your eyes his pathetic prayers, his kindness to the old and crippled pensioners whom he fed and clothed, and his pilgrimage to Uttoxeter to stand bare-headed in the street, as penance for harsh words spoken to his father in a fit of boyish petulance years before. ROBINSON CRUSOE AND GULLIVER'S TRAVELS MASTERPIECES OF DEFOE AND SWIFT WIDELY READ--TWO WRITERS OF GENIUS WHOSE STORIES HAVE DELIGHTED READERS FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS. Two famous books that seem to follow naturally after _Pilgrim's Progress_ are Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ and Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_. Not to be familiar with these two English masterpieces is to miss allusions which occur in everyday reading even of newspapers and magazines. Probably not one American boy in one thousand is ignorant of _Robinson Crusoe_. It is the greatest book of adventure for boys that has ever been written, because it relates the novel and exciting experiences of a castaway sailor on a solitary island in a style so simple that a child of six is able to understand it. Yet the mature reader who takes up _Robinson Crusoe_ will find it full of charm, because he can see the art of the novelist, revealed in that passion for minute detail to which we have come to give the name of realism, and that spiritual quality which makes the reader a sharer in the fears, the loneliness and the simple faith of the sailor who lived alone for so many years on Juan Fernandez Island. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DANIEL DEFOE FROM AN OLD STEEL ENGRAVING--DEFOE'S GENIUS FOR SECRECY EFFECTUALLY DESTROYED MOST MATERIAL FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY AND EVEN THIS PORTRAIT IS NOT AUTHENTIC] In all English literature there is nothing finer than the descriptions of Robinson Crusoe's solitary life, his delight in his pets, and his care and training of Friday. Swift's work, on the other hand, is not for children, although young readers may enjoy the ludicrous features of Gulliver's adventures. Back of these is the bitter satire on all human traits which no one can appreciate who has not had hard experience in the ways of the world. These two books are the masterpieces of their authors, but if any one has time to read others of their works he will be repaid, for both made noteworthy contributions to the literature that endures. Daniel Defoe, the son of a butcher, was born in 1661 and died in 1731. Much of his career is still a puzzle to literary students because of his extraordinary passion for secrecy. He gained no literary fame until after fifty years of age, although he had written many pamphlets and had conducted a review which gave to Addison the idea of _The Spectator_. Defoe engaged in mercantile business and failed. He also wrote much for the Government, his pungent and persuasive style fitting him for the career of a pamphleteer. But his independence and his lack of tact caused him to lose credit at court and he fell back upon literature. He may be called the first of the newspaper reporters, before the day of the daily newspaper, and he first saw the advantage of the interview. No one has ever surpassed him in the power of making an imaginary narrative seem real and genuine by minute detail artfully introduced. The English-reading public was captured by _Robinson Crusoe_. Four editions were called for in four months, and Defoe met the demand for more stories from his pen by issuing in the following year _Duncan Campbell_, _Captain Singleton_ and _Memoirs of a Cavalier_. It is evident that Defoe had written these works in previous years and had not been encouraged to print them. Readers of today seldom look into these books, but the _Memoirs_ are noteworthy for splendid descriptions of fights between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and _Captain Singleton_ contains a memorable narrative of an expedition across Africa, then an unknown land, which anticipated many of the discoveries of Mungo Park, Bruce, Speke, and Stanley. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE" BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK WHICH SERVES AS A FRONTISPIECE TO MAJOR'S EDITION OF DEFOE'S ROMANCE, 1831] Defoe's other works are _Moll Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_, _Roxana_, and _Journal of the Plague Year_. Years ago I read all the novels of Defoe, taking them up at night after work hours. They are not to be commended as books that will induce sleep, because they are far too entertaining. Defoe's story of the great plague in London is far more striking than the records of those who actually lived through the terrible months when a great city was converted into a huge charnel-house by the pestilence that walketh by noonday. Pepys in his _Diary_ has many passages on the plague, but these do not appeal to one as Defoe's story does, probably because Pepys did not have the literary faculty. The three other stories all deal with life in the underworld of London. Defoe in Moll Flanders and Roxana depicts two types of the courtesan and, despite several coarse scenes, the narratives of the lives of these women are singularly entertaining. The only dull spots are those in which he indulges in his habit of drawing pious morals from the vices of his characters. From these stories one may get a better idea of the London of the early part of the eighteenth century than from books which were specially written to describe the customs and manners of the time, because Defoe regarded nothing as too trivial to set down in his descriptions. Defoe wrote his masterpiece from materials furnished by a sailor, Alexander Selkirk, who returned to London after spending many years of solitude on the Island of Juan Fernandez. The records of the time give a brief outline of his adventures, and there is no question that Defoe interviewed this man and received from his lips the suggestion of his immortal story. But everything that has made the book a classic for three hundred years was furnished by Defoe himself. The life of the story lies in the artfully written details of the daily life of the sailor from the time when he was cast ashore on the desolate island. Even the mature reader takes a keen interest in the salvage by Crusoe of the many articles which are to prove of the greatest value to him, while to any healthy child this is one of the most absorbing stories of adventure ever written. The child cannot appreciate Crusoe's mental and moral attitude, but the mature reader sees between the lines of the solitary sailor's reflexions the lessons which Defoe learned in those hard years when everything he touched ended in failure. [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS" A PORTRAIT ENGRAVED IN COPPER OF CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER OF REDRIFF] Jonathan Swift may be bracketed with Defoe, because he was born in 1667 and died in 1745, only fourteen years after death claimed the author of _Robinson Crusoe_. As Defoe is known mainly by his story of the island castaway, so Swift is known by his bitter satire, _Gulliver's Travels_, although he was a prolific writer of political pamphlets. Swift is usually regarded as an Irishman, but he was of English stock, although by chance he happened to be born in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and he had the great advantage of several years' residence at the country seat of Sir William Temple, one of the most accomplished men of his time. There he was associated with Esther Johnson, a poor relation of Temple's who later became the Stella who inspired his journal. Swift, through the influence of Temple, hoped to get political preferment, but though he wrote many pamphlets and a strong satire in verse, _The Tale of a Tub_, his hopes of office were disappointed. Finally he obtained a living at Laracor, in Meath, and there he preached several years, making frequent visits to London and Dublin. Like Defoe, Swift wrote English that was modern in its simplicity and directness. He never indulged in florid metaphor or concealed his thought under verbiage. Everything was clear, direct, incisive. While Defoe accepted failure frankly and remained untinged with bitterness, Swift seemed to store up venom after every defeat and every humiliation, and this poison he injected into his writings. Although a priest of the church, he divided his attentions for years between Stella, the woman he first met at Sir William Temple's, and Vanessa, a young woman of Dublin. He was reported to have secretly married Stella in 1716, but there is no record of the marriage. Seven years later he broke off all relations with Vanessa because she wrote to Stella asking her if she were married to Swift, and this rupture brought on the woman's death. Stella's death followed soon after, and the closing years of Swift were clouded with remorse and fear of insanity. [Illistration (with text): TRAVELS INTO SEVERAL Remote Nations OF THE WORLD. In FOUR PARTS. By _LEMUEL GULLIVER_, First a SURGEON, and then a CAPTAIN of several SHIPS. VOL. I. _LONDON:_ _Printed for_ BENJ. MOTTE, _at the Middle_ Temple-Gate _in_ Fleet-Street. MDCCXXVI. FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS" ISSUED IN 1726, WHICH SCORED AS GREAT A POPULAR SUCCESS AS DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE"] In _Gulliver's Travels_ Swift wrote several stories of the adventures of an Englishman who was cast away on the shores of Lilliput, a country whose people were only six inches tall; then upon Brobdingnag, a land inhabited by giants sixty feet high; then upon Laputa, a flying island, and finally upon the land of the Houyhnhnms, where the horse rules and man is represented by a degenerate creature known as a Yahoo, who serves the horse as a slave. In the first two stories Gulliver's satire is amusing, but the picture of the old people in Laputa who cannot die and of the Yahoos, who have every detestable vice, are so bitter that they repel any except morbid readers. Yet the style never lacks clearness, simplicity and force, and one feels in reading these tales that he is listening to the voice of a master of the English tongue. _Bibliography_ _Notes on the Historical and Best Reading Editions of Great Authors._ _In this bibliography no attempt has been made to give complete guides to the various books. In fact, to give the Bible alone its due would require all the space that is allotted here to the thirteen great books discussed in this volume. All that has been attempted is to furnish the reader lists of the historical editions that are noteworthy, with others which are best adapted for use, as well as any commentaries that are especially helpful to the reader who has small leisure._ _In securing cheap editions of good books the reader of today has a decided advantage over the reader of five years ago, for in these years have appeared two well-edited libraries of general literature that not only furnish accurate texts, well printed and substantially bound, but furnish these at merely nominal prices. The first is Everyman's Library, issued in this country by E. P. Dutton & Company of New York. It comprises the best works from all departments of literature selected by a committee of English scholars, headed by Ernest Rhys, the editor of the Library. Associated with him were Lord Avebury, George Saintsbury, Sir Oliver Lodge, Andrew Lang, Stopford Brooke, Hilaire Belloc, Gilbert K. Chesterton, A. C. Swinburne and Dr. Richard Garnett. The result is a collection of good literature, each volume prefaced with a short but scholarly introduction. The price is 35 cents in cloth and 70 cents in leather._ _The other series is known as the People's Library, and is issued by the Cassell Company of London and New York. This Library is sold at the remarkably low price of 25 cents a volume, well printed and fairly bound in cloth._ THE BIBLE The Bible is the one "best seller" throughout the world. Last year Bible societies printed and circulated 11,378,854 Bibles. The Bible is now printed in four hundred languages. Last year the British and Foreign Bible Society printed 6,620,024 copies, or an increase of 685,000 copies over the previous year. Even China last year bought 428,000 Bibles. The first English translation of the Bible which had a great vogue was what is known as the Authorized Version issued in the reign of King James I. For centuries after the Christian Era the Bible appeared only in the Latin Version, called the Vulgate. As early as the seventh century English churchmen made translations of the Psalter, and the Venerable Bede made an Anglo-Saxon version of St. John's gospel. Toward the close of the fourteenth century appeared Wyclif's Bible, which gained such general circulation that there are still extant no less than one hundred and fifty manuscript copies of this version. Then came Tyndale, whose ambition was to make a translation that any one could understand. He said: "If God spare me life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you priests do." His version of a few books of the Bible was published first at Cologne, but its acceptance in England was greatly hindered by the translator's polemical notes. Tyndale was burned at the stake in Belgium for the crime of having translated the Bible into the speech of the common people. He will always be remembered as the pioneer who prepared the way for the Authorized Version. After Tyndale came Rogers, who carried on his work as far as Isaiah. He was followed by Coverdale who wrote fine sonorous English prose, but was weak in scholarship. His translation was superseded by the Geneva Version, made in 1568 by English refugees in the Swiss city. The Geneva translation is noteworthy as the first to appear in Roman type, all the others being in black letter. The King James Bible was first proposed at the Hampden Conference in 1604. The Bishops opposed the scheme, but the King was greatly taken with it, and in his usual arbitrary way he appointed himself director of the work and issued instructions to the fifty-four scholars chosen. One-third of these were from Oxford, one-third from Cambridge and the remainder from Westminster. They worked three years at the task and produced what is known as the Authorized Version. There seems to be a strong prejudice against King James because of his eccentricities, and most writers on the Bible declare that this version was never authorized by King, Privy Council, Convocation or Parliament. This is wrong, for King James authorized the book, and it owed its existence directly to him. Anglicans and Puritans in this famous Conference were bitterly hostile to each other, and if they had had their way we should never have had this fine version of the Bible. The King was president of the Conference, but the two factions were ready to fly at each other's throats over such questions as the baptism of infants, the authority of the Bishop of Rome and others. The King, however, brushed all these questions aside. He said that the Geneva Bible taught sedition and disobedience, and by royal mandate he ordered Bishop Reynolds and his associates to make the best version in their power. So the credit which the King received by having his name joined to the Bible was well deserved. The King James Bible or the Authorized Version has had greater influence on the style of English authors than any other work, and it remains today a model of the simplest and best English, with few obsolete words. Out of the small number of 6,000 words used in the Bible, as against 25,000 in Shakespeare, not more than 250 words are now out of every-day use. The best short essay on the Authorized Version is by Albert S. Cook, Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale University (N. Y., G. P. Putnam's, 1910). This was originally contributed to the Cambridge History of English Literature, but in book form it contains some matter not printed in the History. Professor Cook shows that the King James Bible today contains fewer obsolete or archaic words than Shakespeare, and that this version put into the speech of the common people a score of phrases that now are scarcely thought of as purely Biblical, so completely have they passed into every-day speech. Among these are "highways and hedges," "clear as crystal," "hip and thigh," "arose as one man," "lick the dust," "a thorn in the flesh," "a broken reed," "root of all evil," "sweat of his brow," "heap coals of fire," "a law unto themselves," "the fat of the land," "a soft answer," "a word in season," "weighed in the balance and found wanting," and so forth. Between the Authorized Version and the New Revised Version a number of individual translations appeared. The Long Parliament made an order in 1653 for a new translation of the Bible, and three years later a committee was appointed, but as Parliament was dissolved shortly after, the project fell through. The individual versions for a hundred years are not noteworthy, but in 1851 the American Bible Society issued a "Standard" Bible which it circulated for five years. It was simply the King James Bible free from errors and discrepancies. Another important revision was made by the American Bible Union in 1860 and a second revision followed in 1866. Its salient feature was the adoption of the paragraph form. In 1870 a new revised version of the Bible, which should receive the benefit of the labors of modern scholars, was decided on. The Upper House of Convocation of Canterbury appointed a committee to report on revision. A joint committee from both houses a few months later was elected and was empowered to begin the work. Two committees were established, one for the Old and one for the New Testament. Work was begun June 22, 1870, but in July it was decided to ask the coöperation of American divines. An American Committee of thirty members was organized, and began work October 4, 1872. The English Committees sent their revision to the American Committee, which returned it with suggestions and emendations. Five revisions were made in this way before the work was completed. Special care was taken in the translation of the Greek text of the New Testament. In 1881 the Revised New Testament appeared. Orders for three million copies came from all parts of the English-speaking world. The Revised Old Testament appeared in 1885. The preferences of the American Committee were placed in a special appendix in both books. In 1901 the American Committee issued the American Standard Revised Version, which is in general circulation in this country. The tercentenary of the King James Version was celebrated in March, 1911, and it brought out many interesting facts in regard to the book that has been one of the chief educational forces in England and in all English-speaking countries since it was issued. Among the famous Bibles are the Gutenberg Bible, which was the first to be printed from movable types; the "Vinegar" Bible, because of the printer's misprint of vinegar for vineyard; the "Treacle" Bible, which owed its name to the phrase "treacle in Gilead" for "balm in Gilead"; the "Wicked" Bible, so called because the printers omitted the "not" in the Seventh Commandment. Of famous manuscript Bibles may be named the Codex Alexandrinus, presented by the Sultan of Turkey to Charles II of England, and the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in a monastery on Mount Sinai by the great Hebrew scholar, Tischendorf. Dr. Grenfell, who has made an international reputation by his work among the fishermen of Labrador and by his books on the Bible, suggests that the Scriptures should not be brought out with any distinctive binding. He believes the Bible would gain many more readers if it were bound like an ordinary secular book, so that one could read it on trains or boats without exciting comment. His suggestion is a good one and it is to be hoped it will be acted on by Bible publishers. Anything that will help to make people read the Bible regularly deserves encouragement. One of the best Bibles for ordinary use is _The Modern Reader's Bible_, edited with introduction and notes by Richard G. Moulton, Professor of Literary Theory and Interpretation in the University of Chicago. The editor has abolished the paragraph form and he has printed all the poetry in verse form, which is a great convenience to the reader. It makes a volume of 1733 pages, printed on thin but opaque paper. (New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, $2.00 net.) _The Soul of the Bible_ (Boston: American Unitarian Association) is the very best condensation of the Scriptures. It is arranged by Ulysses G. B. Pierce and consists of selections from the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. The editor has brought together parts of the Bible which explain and supplement each other. The result is that in five hundred and twenty pages one gets the very soul of the Bible. Nothing could be better than this book as an introduction to the careful reading and systematic study of the Bible, which is the best means of culture of spirit and mind that the world affords. SHAKESPEARE The first folio edition of Shakespeare was published by J. Heminge and H. Condell in 1623. A copy of the first folio is now very valuable. A reprint of the first folio was issued in 1807 in folio. The first photolithographic reproduction was brought out in 1866. The first folio text is now being brought out, with a volume to each play, by the T. Y. Crowell Company of New York. Four folio editions were brought out in all, the last in 1685. Of the famous editions may be mentioned Rowe's, the first octavo, in 1709; Alexander Pope's in 1723; Theobald's in 1733; Warburton's in 1747; Dr. Johnson's in 1765; Malone's, the first variorum, in ten volumes, in 1790. The first American edition was issued at Philadelphia in 1795. Among modern editions may be mentioned Boydell's illustrated edition in 1802; Charles Knight's popular pictorial edition in eight volumes in 1838; Halliwell's edition in sixteen volumes from 1853 to 1865; Dyce's edition in 1857; Richard Grant White's edition in twelve volumes, published in Boston (1857-1860). The most noteworthy edition issued in this country is Dr. H. H. Furness' variorum edition, begun in Philadelphia in 1873 and still continued by Dr. Furness' son. A volume is devoted to each play and the various texts as well as the notes and critical summaries make this the ideal edition for the scholar. The Cambridge Edition, edited by W. Aldis Wright in nine octavo volumes, is the standard modern text. This text is also given in the Temple Edition, so popular with present-day readers, issued in forty handy sized volumes with prefaces and glossaries by Israel Gollancz. The expurgated text edited by W. J. Rolfe has been used generally in schools, as also the Hudson Shakespeare, edited by Rev. H. N. Hudson. The best concordance for many years was that of Mary Cowden Clarke, first issued in 1844. The concordance by John Bartlett was published more recently. The best biography of Shakespeare is by Sydney Lee, in a single volume, _A Life of Shakespeare_. (New York: The Macmillan Company.) Other interesting books that deal with the playwright and his plays are _Shakespeare's London_, by H. T. Stephenson; _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_, by George Pierce Baker; _Shakespeare_, by E. Dowden; _Shakespeare Manual_, by F. L. Fleay; _The Text of Shakespeare_, by Thomas R. Lounsbury; _Shakespearean Tragedy_, by A. C. Bradley, and _An Introduction to Shakespeare_, by H. N. McCracken, F. E. Pierce and W. H. Durham, of the Department of English Literature in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. This is the most valuable book for a beginner in the study of Shakespeare. A valuable book for the reader who cannot grasp readily the story of a Shakespeare play is _Stories of Shakespeare's Comedies_, by H. A. Guerber. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1910.) The best book for the plots is Charles and Mary Lamb's _Tales from Shakespeare_. If you are interested in the subject look up these books in any good library and then decide on the volumes you wish to buy. Never buy a book without looking it over, unless you wish to court disappointment. The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was first touched upon by J. C. Hart in _The Romance of Yachting_, issued in New York in 1848. Seven years later W. H. Smith came out with a work, _Was Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?_ In 1857 Delia Bacon wrote the _Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded_. She created a great furore for a time in England but interest soon declined. In recent years the principal defender of the theory that Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare was Ignatius Donnelly of Minneapolis, who wrote two huge books in which he developed at tedious length what he claimed was a cipher or cryptogram that he had found in Shakespeare's plays, but he died before he cleared up the mystery or gave any adequate proofs. GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS The versions of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are numerous but most readers who do not know Greek prefer the prose rendering of the _Iliad_ by Lang, Leaf and Myers and the prose version of the _Odyssey_ by Butcher and Lang. In language that is almost Biblical in its force and simplicity these scholars give far more of the spirit of the original Greek than any of the translators in verse. Chapman's Homer is known today only through the noble sonnet by Keats. It has fine passages but it is unreadable. Cowper's Homer in blank verse is also intolerably dull. The best blank verse translations are by Lord Derby, William Cullen Bryant and Christopher P. Cranch. For supplementary reading on Homer these works will be found valuable: Jebb, _Introduction to Homer_ (Glasgow, 1887); Matthew Arnold, _Lectures on Translating Homer_; Andrew Lang, _Homer and the Epic_ (London, 1893); Seymour, _Introduction to the Language and Verse of Homer_ (Boston, 1889); Professor J. P. Mahaffy's books on ancient Greece and Greek life will be found helpful. Virgil's _Æneid_ has been translated by many hands. Dryden produced a fair version and William Morris, Cranch, Conington and others have written excellent translations. Conington furnished a good translation in prose. Jowett's translation is the standard English version of Plato, while good sidelights on the author of the _Republic_ and _Phædo_ may be gained from Emerson's essay on Plato in _Representative Men_ and from Walter Pater's _Plato and Platonism_. Professor A. J. Church's _The Story of the Iliad_ and _The Story of the Æneid_ while intended for the young will appeal to many mature readers. No translation of Horace has ever been perfectly satisfactory. The quality of the poet seems to elude translation. Some of the most successful versions are Conington, _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1865); Lord Lytton, _Odes and Epodes_ (London, 1869), and Sargent, _Odes_ (Boston, 1893); supplementary matter may be found in Sellar's _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_ (Oxford, 1892). Short sketches and critical estimates of all the great Greek and Latin writers may be found in _The New International Encyclopedia_ (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.). These are written mainly by Harry Thurston Peck, for many years Professor of Latin in Columbia University and conceded to be one of the best Latin scholars in this country. They give all the facts that the general reader cares to know with an excellent bibliography of each writer. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS The exact title is _The Book of the Thousand and One Nights_. It contains two hundred and sixty-two tales, although the original edition omits one of the most famous, the story of _Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_. Antoine Galland was the first translator into a European language. His French version was issued in 1717, in twelve volumes. Sir Richard Burton, who translated an unexpurgated edition of _The Arabian Nights_, with many notes and an essay on the sources of the tales, ascribed the fairy tales to Persian sources. Burton's edition gives all the obscene allusions but he treated the erotic element in the tales from the scholarly standpoint, holding that this feature showed the Oriental view of such matters, which was and is radically different from the Occidental attitude. Burton's work was issued by subscription in 1885-1886 in ten volumes and is a monument to his Oriental scholarship. Burton left at his death the manuscript of another celebrated Oriental work, _The Scented Garden_, but Lady Burton, who was made his executrix, although offered £25,000 for the copyright, destroyed the manuscript. She declared that she did this to protect her husband's name, as the world would look upon his notes as betraying undue fondness for the erotic, whereas she knew and his close friends knew that this interest was purely scholarly. Scholars all over the world mourned over this destruction of Burton's work. Another noteworthy unexpurgated translation was by John Payne, prepared for the Villon Society, and issued in 1882-1884. The best English translation is by E. W. Lane, an English Orientalist, whose notes are valuable. The editions of _The Arabian Nights_ are endless, and many famous artists have given the world their conception of the principal characters in these Arabian wonder stories. THE NIBELUNGENLIED _The Nibelungenlied_ is the German Iliad and dates from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less than twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have come down through the ages. From the time of the Reformation down to the middle of the eighteenth century it seemed to be forgotten. Then a Swiss writer, Bodmer, issued parts of it in connection with a version of the _Klage_, a poem describing the mourning at King Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who fell to satisfy the vengeance of Kriemhild. The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the world, was Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later version of the poem in the Castle of Hohenems in the Tyrol, June 29, 1755. C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete edition, using part of Bodmer's version. It was not until the opening of the nineteenth century and during the Romantic movement in Germany that _The Nibelungenlied_ was seriously studied. Partsch, a German critic, developed the theory that _The Nibelungenlied_ was written about 1140 and that rhyme was introduced by a later poet to take the place of the stronger assonances in the original version. The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the quarrel of the two queens, and all the woes that followed, was the common property of all the German and Scandinavian people. From the banks of the Rhine to the northernmost parts of Norway and Sweden and the Shetland Isles and Iceland this legend of chivalry and revenge was sung around the camp-fires. William Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_ is derived from a prose paraphrase of the Edda songs. Many English versions of _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's summary of the epic in his _Miscellanies_ is the most satisfactory for the general reader. A good prose version of _The Nibelungenlied_ is by Daniel Bussier Shumway, Professor of German Philology in the University of Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on the history of the epic. (Boston, 1909.) William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of portions of _The Nibelungenlied_ but he has drawn much of his material from the kindred Norse legends. Two translations into English verse are those of W. N. Lettson, _The Fall of the Nibelungen_ (London, 1874), and of Alice Harnton, _The Lay of the Nibelungs_ (London, 1898). A complete bibliography of works in English dealing with _The Nibelungenlied_ may be found in F. E. Sandbach's _The Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America_ (London, 1904). Other books dealing with _The Nibelungenlied_ are F. H. Hedge, _Hours With the German Classics_ (Boston, 1886); G. T. Dippold, _The Great Epics of Mediæval Germany_ (Boston, 1882); G. H. Genung, _The Nibelungenlied_ in Warner's _Library of the World's Best Literature_, Volume xviii (New York, 1897). THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE The first translation of the _Confessions_ to gain general circulation was in Dr. Pusey's _Library of the Fathers_ (Oxford, 1839-1855). Pusey admits his edition is merely a version of W. Watts' version, originally printed in London in 1650, but Pusey added many notes as well as a long preface. An American edition was issued by Dr. W. G. T. Shedd of Andover, Mass., in 1860; it consisted of this same translation by Watts with a comparison by Shedd between _Augustine's Confessions_ and those of Rousseau. An elaborate article on St. Augustine, dealing with his life, his theological work and his influence on the Church, may be found in the second volume of _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ (Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1907). It is written by Eugene Portalie, S. J., Professor of Theology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse, France. CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE" _Don Quixote_ first appeared in Madrid in 1605 and the second part in 1615. Other noteworthy Spanish editions were by Pellicier (Madrid, 1797-1798) and by Diego Clemencia (Madrid, 1833-1839). The first English version of the great Spanish classic appeared in London in 1612. The translator was T. Skelton. Other later English editions were J. Philips, 1687; P. Motteux, 1700-1712; C. Jarvis, 1742; Tobias Smollett, 1755; A. J. Duffield, 1881; H. E. Watts, 1888, 1894. Watts' edition contains a full biography. A noteworthy edition of Cervantes is the English version by Daniel Vierge in four volumes, with many fine illustrations, which give the reader a series of sketches of Spanish life as it is depicted in the pages of _Don Quixote_. Vierge's edition is the most satisfactory that has ever been issued. It is brought out in beautiful style by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. A standard _Life of Cervantes_ is that by T. Roscoe, London, 1839. H. E. Watts has written a fine monograph in Great Writers' Series, 1891. Other lives are by J. F. Kelly, 1892, and A. F. Calvert, 1905. Lockhart's introduction is printed in the Everyman edition of _Don Quixote_, the translation by Motteux. This introduction makes thirty pages and gives enough facts for the general reader, with a good estimate of _Don Quixote_ and Cervantes' other works. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST The early editions of Thomas à Kempis' great work were in manuscript, many of them beautifully illuminated. A noteworthy edition was brought out in 1600 at Antwerp by Henry Sommalius, S. J. The works of Thomas à Kempis in three volumes were issued by this same editor in 1615. The first English version of the _Imitation_ was made by Willyam Atkynson and was printed by Wykyns de Worde in 1502. In 1567 Edward Hake issued a fine edition. Among the best English editions are those of Canon Benham, Sir Francis Cruise, Bishop Challoner and the Oxford edition of 1841. The best edition for the beginner is that edited by Brother Leo, F. S. C., Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College, Oakland, California. It is in the Macmillan's Pocket Classics and has an admirable introduction of fifty-three pages. The notes are brief but very helpful. Some of the best articles on Thomas à Kempis are to be found in _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ and _The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Thought_. There has been much controversy over the authorship of _The Imitation of Christ_, but the weight of evidence is conclusive that Thomas à Kempis was the writer of this book, which has preserved his name for five hundred years. The book was issued anonymously and some manuscript copies of it bore the name of St. Bernard and others that of John Gerson. As Thomas à Kempis spent most of his life copying sacred books it was assumed that he had merely copied the text of another monk's work. A Spanish student in 1604 found a sentence from the _Imitation_ quoted in a sermon attributed to Bonaventura, who died in 1273, two hundred years before the death of Thomas. This caused a great literary sensation and it was some time before it was established that the sermon was not by Bonaventura but belonged to the fifteenth century. In casting about for the real author of the _Imitation_ the Superior of the Jesuit College at Arona, Father Rossignoli, found an undated copy of the _Imitation_ in the college library with the signature of Johannis Gerson. The college had been formerly conducted by the Benedictines, so it was assumed that Gerson was the real author. It was only after much research that it was proved that this manuscript copy of the _Imitation_ was brought to Arona from Genoa in 1579. Constantine Cajetan, a fanatic in his devotion to the order of St. Benedict, found in a copy of the _Imitation_ printed in Venice in 1501 a note saying, "this book was not written by John Gerson but by John, Abbot of Vercelli." A manuscript copy was also found by him bearing the name of John of Carabuco. Out of these facts Cajetan built up his theory that John Gerson of Carabuco, Benedictine Abbot of Vercelli, was the real author of the _Imitation_. Thus began the most famous controversy in the annals of literature, which raged for several hundred years. Among the claimants to the honor of having written this book were Bernard of Clairvaux, Giovanni Gerso, an Italian monk of the twelfth century; Walter Hilton, an English monk; John Gerson, Chancellor of Paris; John Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli, and Thomas à Kempis. What would seem to be conclusive evidence that Thomas à Kempis was the author is the fact that the _Imitation_ was written for chanting. Carl Hirsche compared the manuscript copy of the _Imitation_ of 1441 which he found in the Bourgogne Library in Brussels with other writings of Thomas à Kempis, also marked for chanting, and found great similarity between the _Imitation_ and the works admitted to have been written by Thomas à Kempis. The _Imitation_ has been a favorite book with many persons. Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, who showed such remarkable faith in the university which Leland Stanford founded and who made many sacrifices to save it in critical periods, always carried a fine copy of Thomas à Kempis with her. Miss Berger, who was Mrs. Stanford's secretary and constant companion for over fifteen years, told me that whenever Mrs. Stanford was in doubt or trouble she took up the _Imitation_, opened it at random and always found something which settled her doubts and gave her comfort. THE RUBÁ'IYÁT Edward FitzGerald's version of the _Rubá'iyát_ was the first to appeal to the western world. It has been reproduced in countless editions since it was first issued in London in 1859. Dole in the _Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_ (Boston, 1896) gives a fairly complete bibliography of manuscripts, editions, translations and imitations of the Quatrains. Five hundred quatrains from the original Persian, translated metrically by E. H. Whinfield, were issued in London, 1883, while Payne made a poetical translation, reproducing all the metrical eccentricities of the original Persian, which he called "_The Quatrains of Omar Khayyám_, now first completely done into English Verse from the Persian, with a Biographical and Critical Introduction" (London, 1898). Heron Allen has added a valuable book in _The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám_: A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Translated and Edited (Boston, 1898). One of the best editions of the _Rubá'iyát_ is a reprint of FitzGerald's various editions, showing the many changes, some of which were not improvements, and the quatrains that were dropped out of the final version, with a commentary by Batson and an introduction by Ross (New York, 1900). Another excellent edition of FitzGerald's final version, issued by Paul Elder & Company, is edited by Arthur Guiterman and contains _The Literal Omar_, that lovers of the astronomer-poet may see, stanza for stanza, how the old Persian originally phrased the verses that the Irish recluse so musically echoed in English. DANTE'S "DIVINE COMEDY" The best known English translation of the _Divine Comedy_ is that of Cary, first published in 1806. Other English versions are by Dayman, Pollock and J. A. Carlyle. Longfellow made a translation in verse which is musical and cast in the _terza rima_ of the original. A mass of commentary on Dante has been issued of which only a few noteworthy books can be mentioned here. Among these are Botta, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_ (London, 1887); Maria Francesca Rossetti, _A Shadow of Dante_ (London, 1884); Butler, _Dante: His Times and His Work_ (London, 1895); Symonds, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_ (Edinburgh, 1890); Lowell, _Among My Books_, one of the finest essays on the great poet and his work (Boston, 1880); Macaulay, _Essays_, Vol. I; Carlyle in _Heroes and Hero Worship_. One of the largest Dante libraries in the world was collected by the late Professor Willard Fiske of Cornell University. At his death this splendid library was given to the university which Professor Fiske served for over twenty years as head of the department of Northern European languages. Professor Melville B. Anderson, recently retired from the chair of English Literature at Stanford University, is now completing a translation of Dante, which has been a labor of love for many years. MILTON'S "PARADISE LOST," AND OTHER POEMS The first edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, in ten books, bears date of August 10, 1667. Seven years later, with many changes and enlarged by two books, it appeared in a second edition. All that Milton received for this poem was £10. _Paradise Regained_ was first printed with _Samson Agonistes_ in 1671. The standard biography of Milton is by Masson in six volumes (London, 1859-1894). The best short sketch is Mark Pattison's in John Morley's _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York, 1880). Another good short sketch is in Richard Garnett's volume in _Great Writers' Series_ (London, 1890). One of the best editions of Milton's _Prose Works_ is in the Bohn Library, five volumes, edited by St. John. _The Poetical Works_, edited by Masson, appeared in 1890 in three volumes. Buching of Oxford issued in 1900 reprints of the first editions under the title, _Poetical Works After the Original Texts_. Among famous essays on Milton may be named those by Dr. Johnson, Macaulay, Lowell and Trent. Dr. Hiram Corson's _Introduction to Milton's Works_ will be found valuable, as will also Osgood's _The Classical Mythology of Milton's English Poems_. In Hale's _Longer English Poems_ there are chapters on Milton which are full of good suggestions. BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" The _Pilgrim's Progress_, which has been translated into seventy-one languages and has passed through more editions than any other book except the Bible, originally appeared in 1678, a second edition came out in the same year and a third edition in 1679. Bunyan made numerous additions to the second and third editions. The second part of _Pilgrim's Progress_ appeared in 1684. Bunyan's literary activity was phenomenal when it is remembered that he had little early education. In all he produced sixty books and pamphlets, all devoted to spreading the faith to which he devoted his life. Among the best known of his works besides _Pilgrim's Progress_ is _The Holy War_, _The Holy City_, _Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners_, _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_. The best short life of Bunyan is that by James Anthony Froude in _English Men of Letters Series_ (New York, 1880). Macaulay's essay on Bunyan ranks with his noble essay on Milton. Other lives are those by Southey, Dr. J. Brown and Canon Venables. BOSWELL'S JOHNSON The first edition of _Boswell's Johnson_ appeared in 1791 and made a great hit. There was a call for a second edition in 1794 and Boswell was preparing a third edition in 1795 when he died. This uncompleted third edition was issued by Edward Malone in 1799, who also superintended the issue of the fourth, fifth and sixth editions. Malone furnished many notes and he also received the assistance of Dr. Charles Burney, father of the author of _Evelina_, and others who knew both Boswell and Johnson. An edition in 1822 was issued by the Chalmers, who contributed much information of value. All these materials with much new matter went into the edition of John Wilson Croker in 1831. Croker was cordially hated by Macaulay and the result was the bitter criticism of Croker's edition of Boswell's great work that is now included among the famous essays of Macaulay. Bohn brought out Croker's edition in ten volumes in 1859, and it has been reproduced in this country by the John W. Lovell Company in four volumes. Carlyle's _Essay on Boswell's Johnson_ is one of the best pen pictures of the old Doctor and his biographer that has ever been written. Percy Fitzgerald's _Life of Boswell_ (London, 1891) is good and Rogers' _Boswelliana_ gives many anecdotes of the writer of the best biography in the language. _Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale_, by A. M. Broadley, furnishes much curious information about the relations of the old Doctor with the woman who studied his comfort for so many years. It is rich in illustrations from rare portraits and old prints and in reproductions of letters (New York: John Lane Company, 1909). ROBINSON CRUSOE The first edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ appeared in 1719. It made an immediate hit and was quickly translated into many languages. A second part was added but this was never so popular as the first. The first publication was in serial form in a periodical, _The Original London Post_ or _Heathcote's Intelligencer_. So great was its success that four editions were called for in the same year, three in two volumes and one, a condensed version, in a single volume. In 1720 Defoe brought out _Serious Reflections During the Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with His Vision of the Angelic World_. This was poorly received, although it has since been included in many of the editions of this story. Of the making of editions of _Robinson Crusoe_ there is no end. Nearly every year sees a new edition, with original illustrations. A noteworthy edition is that of Tyson's, published in London, with many fine engravings from designs by Granville, and another in 1820 in two volumes, with engravings by Charles Heath. A fine edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ in two volumes was issued by Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston in 1908, with illustrations from designs by Thomas Stothard. The standard life of Defoe is that by Wm. Hazlitt, published in London (1840-1843) in three volumes. Sir Walter Scott edited a good edition of Defoe's complete works in 1840, in twenty volumes. About fifteen years ago J. M. Dent of London issued a fine edition of Defoe's works, with an excellent introduction to each book. A good selection of some of Defoe's best work is _Masterpieces of Defoe_, issued by the Macmillan Company in a series of prose masterpieces of great authors. "There are few books one can read through and through so, With new delight, either on wet or dry day, As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe, And the good faith and deeds of his man Friday." GULLIVER'S TRAVELS Swift foretold very accurately the great vogue that _Gulliver's Travels_ would have. In writing to Arbuthnot he said: "I will make over all my profits (in a certain work) for the property of _Gulliver's Travels_ which, I believe, will have as great a run as John Bunyan." The success of the book when issued anonymously in November, 1726, was enormous. Swift derived his chief satisfaction from the fact that he had hoodwinked many readers. Arbuthnot told of an acquaintance who had tried to locate Lilliput on a map and another told him of a shipmaster who had known Gulliver well. Many editions of the book were called for in England, and in France it had a great success and was dramatized. A large paper copy of the first edition, with Swift's corrections on the margin, which appeared in later editions, is now in the South Kensington Museum. It shows how carefully Swift revised the work, as the changes are numerous. Toward the close of 1726 the work was reissued, with a second volume. In 1727 appeared the first new edition of both volumes. Swift's changes were mainly in "Laputa," which had been severely criticized. On Dec. 28, 1727, Swift in a letter suggests illustrations for the new edition and says of the book: "The world glutted itself with that book at first, but now it will go off but soberly, but I suppose will not be soon worn out." A Dublin edition of 1735 contained many corrections and it also included a "Letter from Gulliver to his cousin Simpson," a device of Swift to mystify the public and make it believe in the genuineness of Gulliver. The best life of Swift is in two volumes, by Henry Craik (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1894). The best short life is by Leslie Stephen in the _English Men of Letters Series_. Index ADDISON, JOSEPH, suggestion of the _Spectator_ given by Defoe, 126. AGAMEMNON, THE, FitzGerald's version, 79. ÆNEID, THE, features of great Latin epic, 33, 34. ÆSCHYLUS, 36. ALCOTT, A. BRONSON, introduced Emerson to German philosophy, 30. ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS, 39. ANTIGONE, the greatest of Sophocles' tragedies, 36. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 24. APOLLYON, his famous fight with Christian, 115. ARABIAN NIGHTS, 39-43. ARNOLD, MATTHEW, his imitation of Greek lyrics, 32; his fondness for _The Imitation of Christ_, 71. AREOPAGITICA, THE, one of Milton's finest prose works, 102. BACONIAN THEORY, its absurdity, 14, 15. BALZAC, _Le Pere Goriot_, a study of a father's unselfish sacrifices, 23. BIBLE, THE, xx: 9-13. Comfort in time of sorrow, 11, 12. Culture from study of it, 12, 13. Greatness compared with other books, 10. Men who formed their style on it, 12, 13. _Soul of the Bible, The_, a fine condensation of the Scriptures, 11. Zophar's words to Job, 12. BOCCACCIO'S TALES, 39. BOHN'S TRANSLATIONS, 37. BOOTH, EDWIN, his magnificent interpretation of Hamlet, 24, 25. BOSWELL, JAMES, his _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 117. BROBDINGNAG, the land of giants in Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, 131. BRUNHILDE, one of the heroines of _The Nibelungenlied_, 45. BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, his metrical version of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, 34. BUNYAN, JOHN, 100, 109. Biography, 109-111. Comparison between Bunyan and Milton, 108, 109. _Holy War, The_, a good allegory, 112. Life in Bedford jail, 111. Saturated with the Bible, 114. BURTON, SIR RICHARD, his unexpurgated edition of the _Arabian Nights_, 42. BYRON, LORD, epigram on Cervantes, 57. CALDERON, FitzGerald's version of several plays of, 79. CAPTAIN SINGLETON, one of Defoe's romances dealing with African adventure, 126, 127. CARLYLE, THOMAS, Essay on the _Nibelungenlied_, 46. Essay on _Boswell's Johnson_, 127. Tribute to Dante, 89, 90. CERVANTES, his adventurous career, 58-60. Life at Rome, 59. Wounded at Lepanto, 59. Wrote _Don Quixote_ at age of fifty-eight, 60. CHESTERFIELD, LORD, Dr. Johnson dedicated his Dictionary to him, 120. Johnson's bitter satirical letter to him as patron, 121, 122. CHILDE HAROLD, 57. CICERO, eloquence in his letters, 37. CLEOPATRA, pictured by Shakespeare as the greatest siren of history, 24. COLONEL JACK, an entertaining picaresque romance by Defoe, 127. COMEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE, 19. COMTE, AUGUSTE, made the _Imitation_ part of his Positivist ritual, 72. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, THE, 48-55. Influence on Churchmen, 49. Reveals marvelous faith in God, 53. CORSON, PROFESSOR HIRAM, a great interpreter of Shakespeare, 25. CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., author of one of the best metrical versions of the _Æneid_, 34. CULTURE, not confined to college graduates, xix. An old sea captain's self culture, 5, 6. DANTE, biography, 86, 87. His _Divine Comedy_ one of the world's great books, 39. Love of Beatrice his chief inspiration, 86. DEFOE, DANIEL, biography, 125, 126. _Robinson Crusoe_ his greatest work, 128. _Colonel Jack_, _Moll Flanders_, _Roxana_, _Captain Singleton_, _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, _Duncan Campbell_ and _Journal of the Plague Year_, his other best known works, 126, 127. One of the greatest of pamphleteers, 126. Secrecy about life puzzle to biographers, 126. Style formed on study of the Bible, 13. DE MORGAN, WILLIAM, took up authorship at sixty, 61. DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, his distinction between the literature of power and the literature of knowledge, x. His style full of Biblical phrases, 13. DERBY, EARL OF, blank verse translation of the _Iliad_, 34. DICKENS, CHARLES, novelist who gained fame in youth, 61. DIVINE COMEDY, influence on great poets and prose writers, 89, 90. Inspiration of Mazzini and New Italy, 84. Mirrors the Italy of Dante's day, 88. One of the greatest of the world's poems, 83, 84. Tributes by Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow, 89, 90, 91. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, leader under whom Cervantes fought against Moslems, 59. DON QUIXOTE, character of hero, 58. Greatest book in Spanish literature, 57. Mirrors Spanish life and character, 62. Written in prison, 61. DRYDEN, JOHN, his verse, 106. DUNCAN CAMPBELL, a story of second sight, by Defoe, 126. DUMAS, ALEXANDRE, the elder, his remarkable literary development, 17. ELIOT, DR. CHARLES W., his "five-foot shelf of books," xix. ELIOT, GEORGE, her tribute to Thomas à Kempis, 72. ELIZABETHAN AGE, its richness in great writers, 17. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, Essays mosaic of quotations, 30. How he wrote his essays, 66. Influenced by Oriental poets, 30. Recommends translations of classic and modern foreign authors, 85. EPICTETUS, the Greek stoic, 37. EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, one of Matthew Arnold's finest poems, 32. EURIPIDES, 36. FITZGERALD, EDWARD, Biography, 77, 78. Friend of Tennyson and Thackeray, 77. His version of the _Rubá'iyát_ made Omar's work famous, 78, 79. Other translations, 79. FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS, xix, 93. FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, 109. GALLAND, ANTOINE, introduced the _Arabian Nights_ to Europe, 42. GARRICK, DAVID, the famous English actor who, as a youth, tramped to London with Dr. Johnson, 119. GIBBON, EDWARD, in advance of his age, 116, 117. On love of reading, ix. Member of Dr. Johnson's Club, 120. GOETHE, his _Faust_ ranks with Shakespeare's best plays, 16. Comparison between Mephistopheles and Iago, 23. GOLDSMITH, OLIVER comment on Dr. Johnson's method in argument, 118. GORDON, GENERAL, influence over barbarous races, 51, 52. Had the _Imitation_ in his pocket when he fell at Khartoum, 72. GRACE ABOUNDING, one of Bunyan's minor works, 110. GRENFELL, DR. WILFRED T., medical missionary to Labrador and one of the most stimulating of the writers of the day, 51. _What the Bible Means to Me_; full of helpful suggestions, 52. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Swift's greatest work, 129-131. Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms, 131. HAMLET, the finest creative work of Shakespeare, 20, 22, 24, 96. HELEN OF TROY, 35. HOLY WAR, THE, one of Bunyan's religious allegories, 112. HOMER, 31, 33, 34, 35. _The Iliad_ leads all classical works, 33, 34. Many translators of the _Iliad_, 34. Pictures of old Greek Life, 35. HORACE, no satisfactory translation of his odes, 31. HOUYHNHNMS, THE, Land in _Gulliver's Travels_, in which the Horse is King and men are vile slaves called Yahoos, 131. ILIAD, THE, the greatest literary masterpiece of antiquity, 34. IL PENSEROSO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107. IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE, by Thomas à Kempis, 39, 64-71. Appeal for the spiritual life, 70. Best editions, 73. Famous writers bear testimony to its influence, 71, 72. Its inspiration drawn directly from the Bible, 68. Some quotations, 71. IVANHOE, 113. JEFFERIES, RICHARD, a young English writer who reproduced the very spirit of classical life, 31. _The Story of My Heart_, 32. JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL, 116-122. Biography, 118-120. His best poems, _London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, 119, 121. His best prose, _The Lives of the Poets_, and _Life of Richard Savage_, 119, 120. His famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, 121, 122. Rare qualities of old Doctor's character, 123. Boswell's Life of, 117, 122, 123. JOHNSON, ESTHER (STELLA) one of the two women Swift loved to their cost, 129. JONSON, BEN, 15. JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, a work of fiction by Defoe which surpasses any genuine picture of London's great pestilence, 127. JOWETT, DR. BENJAMIN, an Oxford professor and the best Greek scholar of his time who made the finest version of Plato's _Phædo_, 36. JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLAND, scene of Robinson Crusoe's adventures, 125. JULIUS CÆSAR, one of Shakespeare's greatest historical tragedies, 23. KEATS, JOHN; without knowing Greek or Latin, he reproduced most perfectly the spirit of classical life in his _Ode to a Grecian Urn_, and other poems, 31, 32. KEMPIS, THOMAS À, author of _The Imitation of Christ_, 65-68. Biography, 66-68. KING LEAR, the tragedy of old age and children's ingratitude, 23. KIPLING, RUDYARD, his great literary success at early age, 61. KORAN, THE, its inferiority to the Bible, 10. KRIEMHILD, the heroine in the _Nibelungenlied_, whose revenge resulted in the slaughter of the Burgundian heroes, 44. L'ALLEGRO, one of Milton's finest lyrics, 107. LANE, EDWARD W., who wrote the best translation of the _Arabian Nights_, 42. LANG, ANDREW, joint author with Butcher of a prose translation of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, 34. LAPUTA, the floating island in _Gulliver's Travels_, 131. LEO, BROTHER, Professor of English Literature in St. Mary's College, Oakland, Calif., the editor of a good cheap edition of _The Imitation of Christ_, 73. LILLIPUT, a land in _Gulliver's Travels_ inhabited by pygmies, 131. LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON, Scott's son-in-law and biographer, who edited a good edition of _Don Quixote_, 60. LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, translated the _Divine Comedy_ by working fifteen minutes every morning, 8. His tribute to Dante, 90, 91. LOPE DE VEGA, the most prolific of Spanish playwrights, 58. LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, attributed his love of learning to reading Dante, 90. LYCIDAS, Milton's exquisite lament over the death of a young friend, 107. MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, his wide reading in India, 8. Essays rich in allusions to many authors, 104. Essay on Boswell's Johnson, 122. MACBETH, Shakespeare's tragedy of guilty ambition, 22, 23. MANTELL, ROBERT, one of the greatest living interpreters of Shakespeare on the stage, 15. MANZONI, 84. MARCUS AURELIUS, his _Meditations_, 33. Simplicity of character when master of the Roman world, 37. MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose plays are almost unreadable today, 15. MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE, the the Italian patriot who regarded Dante as the prophet of the New Italy, 84, 89. MEDEA, one of the greatest of the tragedies of Euripides, 36. MEDITATIONS of Marcus Aurelius, one of the famous Latin classics that is very modern in feeling, 33. MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, one of Defoe's graphic romances of the time of Cromwell, 126. MERCHANT OF VENICE, one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays, 21. MILL ON THE FLOSS, one of George Eliot's best novels, in which Maggie Tulliver feels the influence of Thomas à Kempis, 72. MILTON, JOHN, 100-103. Biography, 101-103. _Paradise Lost_, dictated in blindness, 103. Sonnet on his blindness, 107. MOLL FLANDERS, the romance of a London courtesan, by Defoe, 127. MORRIS, WILLIAM, his _Sigurd the Volsung_, 46. NAISHAPUR, the home of Omar Khayyám, 75. NIBELUNGENLIED, THE, a German epic poem of the first half of the Thirteenth Century, 44, 47. Story of the murder of Siegfried and the revenge of Kriemhild told in Wagner's operas, 45, 46. NIZAM UL MULK, Vizier of Persia and school friend of Omar Khayyám, who gave the poet a pension, 75, 76. ODYSSEY, THE, one of Homer's great epics, 34. OLD TESTAMENT, its splendid imagery, 10. OMAR KHAYYÁM, author of _The Rubá'iyát_, 74-77. Biography, 75-77. OTHELLO, Shakespeare's tragedy of jealousy, 23. PARADISE LOST, 100-106. Modeled on the classical epics, 104. Richness of imagery and allusions to classical mythology, 104. Blank verse of the poem unsurpassed in English literature, 106. Specimens of style, 106. PAYNE, JOHN, translator of the _Arabian Nights_ for the Villon Society, 42. PEPYS' DIARY, description of the great plague in London, 127. PHÆDO, Plato's version of the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 36. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, Bunyan's great romance, 108-113. Evidences of close study of the Bible in this book, 114. Fight between Christian and Apollyon, 115. A literary masterpiece by a poor, self-educated English tinker, 115. PIGSKIN LIBRARY, THE, a collation of books carried by Colonel Roosevelt on his African game-hunting trip, 9. PLATO, the _Dialogues of Socrates_, 31. Jowett's translation of the _Phædo_, 36. PLINY, his letters bring the classical world very near to us, 37. PLUTARCH'S LIVES, 36. POPE, ALEXANDER, translation of the _Iliad_, 33, 34. Artificial verse of, 106. PROMETHEUS, BOUND, a tragedy of Æschylus, 36. PUSEY, DR. E. B., leader of the Tractarian movement in England, who translated the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, 51. RAMBLER, THE, weekly journal written and published by Dr. Johnson, which suggested the _Spectator_ to Addison, 119. READING CLUBS, suggestions for forming them, 97, 98. REPUBLIC, THE, Plato's picture of an ideal commonwealth, 36. REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, famous artist and associate of Dr. Johnson, 120. ROBINSON CRUSOE, 124-128. The world's greatest book of adventure for children, 124, 125. Instant success of the book, 126. Materials furnished by a castaway on Juan Fernandez Island, 128. Art shown in describing Crusoe's solitude and his moral and religious reflections, 128, 129. ROMEO AND JULIET, Shakespeare's great tragedy of unhappy love, 21. ROOSEVELT, COL., his Pigskin library, 9. His best literary work done in _African Game Trails_, 9. ROXANA, one of Defoe's romances of a woman of London's tenderloin, 127. RUBÁ'IYÁT, THE, Omar Khayyám's great poem, 39, 74, 78-81. Its world-wide vogue due to FitzGerald's splendid free version, 74, 75. Its Oriental imagery, 75. Omar's Epicureanism largely imaginary, 80. Specimen quatrains from FitzGerald's version, 81. RUSKIN, JOHN, his splendid diction due to early Bible study, 13. SANCHO PANZA, squire to Don Quixote, 56. ST. AUGUSTINE, the most famous father of the Latin church of the fourth century, author of the _Confessions_, 39, 49, 50, 54, 55. Biography, 53-55. Influence of the _Confessions_, 54. His tribute to his mother, Monica, 55. SCOTT, SIR WALTER, among English authors next to Shakespeare in creative power, 20. SELKIRK, ALEXANDER, the English sailor whose adventures gave Defoe the materials for _Robinson Crusoe_, 128. SHAKESPEARE, 14-28. Ranks next to Bible, 14. His plays very modern, 15. Robert Mantell in his finest roles, 15, 16. Rhymes in the blank verse give clue to order of the plays, 18. Comedies the work of his early years, 19. The period of great tragedies, 19, 20. His last three plays, _The Tempest_, _Cymbeline_, and _The Winter's Tale_, 20. Enormous creative activity, 20. _Hamlet_ sums up human life, 20, 21, 22. _Romeo and Juliet_, 21. _The Merchant of Venice_, 21. _As You Like It_, 22. _Macbeth_, 22, 23. _Julius Cæsar_, 23. _Othello_, 23. _Antony and Cleopatra_, 24. Best means of studying Shakespeare, 25. Some of the best editions of Shakespeare, 26, 27. SHEHEREZADE, the Queen in _The Arabian Nights_ who saved her life by relating the tales of _The Thousand and One Nights_ to her husband, Sultan Schariar of India, 41. SIEGFRIED, one of the heroes of _The Nibelungenlied_ who is foully slain by Prince Hagen, 45. SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, an English novelist who wrote _Humphrey Clinker_ and _Roderick Random_, 60. SOCRATES, 36. SOPHOCLES, _OEdipus_, 31. SOUL OF THE BIBLE, THE, a condensed version of the Old and New Testaments which will be found useful by Bible students, 11. STORY OF MY HEART, THE, an eloquent book by Richard Jefferies in which the spiritual aspirations of a self-educated young man are vividly described, 32. STRAYED REVELER, A, one of Matthew Arnold's finest lyrical poems, 32. STANLEY, HENRY M., his autobiography records the great work done by a poor foundling whose spirit in boyhood was nearly crushed by cruelty, 53. STELLA, the pet name given by Dean Swift to Esther Johnson, a young woman whom he immortalized by his journal, written for her amusement, 129, 130, 131. SWIFT, JONATHAN, Dean of St. Patrick's, one of the greatest of English writers and author of _Gulliver's Travels_, 129, 130. TALE OF A TUB, THE, a vitriolic satire in verse by Swift, 130. TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, an English statesman and author and patron of Swift, 129. TENNANT, DOROTHY, widow of Stanley, who edited his _Autobiography_, 53. UTTOXETER, a Staffordshire town where Dr. Johnson did penance for harsh words spoken years before to his father, 123. VANESSA, the name given by Swift to Esther Vanhomrigh, a brilliant pupil who fell in love with him and was ruined, like "Stella," 129, 130. VEDDER, ELIHU, the American artist who illustrated the _Rubá'iyát_, 82. VIRGIL, difficulty in translating his work, 33. Story of the _Æneid_, 35, 36. WAGNER, RICHARD, his great operas drawn from the principal incidents of _The Nibelungenlied_ and allied Norse epics, 45, 46. WOODBERRY, GEORGE E., his opinion that Dante is untranslatable, 85. YAHOO, in _Gulliver's Travels_ a race of slaves with the form of men but with none their of virtues, 131. HERE ENDS COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS, BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON GREAT BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS, BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH. PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY THEIR TOMOYÉ PRESS IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF JOHN HENRY NASH IN THE MONTH OF JUNE AND THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED & ELEVEN * * * * * TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment. Corrected spelling on p. 46, "Sigura" to "Sigurd" (Sigurd the Volsung, by William Morris). Added page number (82) to "Index" listing for "VEDDER, ELIHU" on p. 171. Word Variations: "Alexander" (1) and "Alexandre" (1) (---- Dumas) "every-day" (2) and "everyday" (3) "Scheherezade" (3) and "Sheherezade" (1) Words using the [OE] and [oe] ligatures, which have been changed to "OE" and "oe" in this e-text are: OEdipus and Coelebs 
16736	----	BOOKS AND CULTURE By HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY MDCCCCVII _Copyright, 1896_, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, _All rights reserved._ University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. To EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. MATERIAL AND METHOD 7 II. TIME AND PLACE 20 III. MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION 34 IV. THE FIRST DELIGHT 51 V. THE FEELING FOR LITERATURE 63 VI. THE BOOKS OF LIFE 74 VII. FROM THE BOOK TO THE READER 85 VIII. BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION 95 IX. PERSONALITY 109 X. LIBERATION THROUGH IDEAS 121 XI. THE LOGIC OF FREE LIFE 132 XII. THE IMAGINATION 143 XIII. BREADTH OF LIFE 154 XIV. RACIAL EXPERIENCE 165 XV. FRESHNESS OF FEELING 174 XVI. LIBERATION FROM ONE'S TIME 185 XVII. LIBERATION FROM ONE'S PLACE 195 XVIII. THE UNCONSCIOUS ELEMENT 204 XIX. THE TEACHING OF TRAGEDY 217 XX. THE CULTURE ELEMENT IN FICTION 229 XXI. CULTURE THROUGH ACTION 239 XXII. THE INTERPRETATION OF IDEALISM 250 XXIII. THE VISION OF PERFECTION 260 XXIV. RETROSPECT 271 Chapter I. Material and Method. If the writer who ventures to say something more about books and their uses is wise, he will not begin with an apology; for he will know that, despite all that has been said and written on this engrossing theme, the interest of books is inexhaustible, and that there is always a new constituency to read them. So rich is the vitality of the great books of the world that men are never done with them; not only does each new generation read them, but it is compelled to form some judgment of them. In this way Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, and their fellow-artists, are always coming into the open court of public opinion, and the estimate in which they are held is valuable chiefly as affording material for a judgment of the generation which forms it. An age which understands and honours creative artists must have a certain breadth of view and energy of spirit; an age which fails to recognise their significance fails to recognise the range and splendour of life, and has, therefore, a certain inferiority. We cannot get away from the great books of the world, because they preserve and interpret the life of the world; they are inexhaustible, because, being vitally conceived, they need the commentary of that wide experience which we call history to bring out the full meaning of the text; they are our perpetual teachers, because they are the most complete expressions, in that concrete form which we call art, of the thoughts, acts, dispositions, and passions of humanity. There is no getting to the bottom of Shakespeare, for instance, or to the end of his possibilities of enriching and interesting us, because he deals habitually with that primary substance of human life which remains substantially unchanged through all the mutations of racial, national, and personal condition, and which is always, and for all men, the object of supreme interest. Time, which is the relentless enemy of all that is partial and provisional, is the friend of Shakespeare, because it continually brings to the student of his work illustration and confirmation of its truth. There are many things in his plays which are more intelligible and significant to us than they were to the men who heard their musical cadence on the rude Elizabethan stage, because the ripening of experience has given the prophetic thought an historical demonstration; and there are truths in these plays which will be read with clearer eyes by the men of the next century than they are now read by us. It is this prophetic quality in the books of power which silently moves them forward with the inaudible advance of the successive files in the ranks of the generations, and which makes them contemporary with each generation. For while the mediæval frame-work upon which Dante constructed the "Divine Comedy" becomes obsolete, the fundamental thought of the poet about human souls and the identity of the deed and its result not only remains true to experience but has received the most impressive confirmation from subsequent history and from psychology. It is as impossible, therefore, to get away from the books of power as from the stars; every new generation must make acquaintance with them, because they are as much a part of that order of things which forms the background of human life as nature itself. With every intelligent man or woman the question is not, "Shall I take account of them?" but "How shall I get the most and the best out of them for my enrichment and guidance?" It is with the hope of assisting some readers and students of books, and especially those who are at the beginning of the ardours, the delights, and the perplexities of the book-lover, that these chapters are undertaken. They assume nothing on the part of the reader but a desire to know the best that has been written; they promise nothing on the part of the writer but a frank and familiar use of experience in a pursuit which makes it possible for the individual life to learn the lessons which universal life has learned, and to piece out its limited personal experience with the experience of humanity. One who loves books, like one who loves a particular bit of a country, is always eager to make others see what he sees; that there have been other lovers of books and views before him does not put him in an apologetic mood. There cannot be too many lovers of the best things in these pessimistic days, when to have the power of loving anything is beginning to be a great and rare gift. The word love in this connection is significant of a very definite attitude toward books,--an attitude not uncritical, since it is love of the best only, but an attitude which implies more intimacy and receptivity than the purely critical temper makes possible; an attitude, moreover, which expects and invites something more than instruction or entertainment,--both valuable, wholesome, and necessary, and yet neither descriptive of the richest function which the book fulfils to the reader. To love a book is to invite an intimacy with it which opens the way to its heart. One of the wisest of modern readers has said that the most important characteristic of the real critic--the man who penetrates the secret of a work of art--is the ability to admire greatly; and there is but a short step between admiration and love. And as if to emphasise the value of a quality so rare among critics, the same wise reader, who was also the greatest writer of modern times, says also that "where keen perception unites with good will and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all." To get at the heart of that knowledge, life, and beauty which are stored in books is surely one way of reaching the highest goal. That goal, in Goethe's thought, was the complete development of the individual life through thought, feeling, and action,--an aim often misunderstood, but which, seen on all sides, is certainly the very highest disclosed to the human spirit. And the method of attaining this result was the process, also often and widely misunderstood, of culture. This word carries with it the implication of natural, vital growth, but it has been confused with an artificial, mechanical process, supposed to be practised as a kind of esoteric cult by a small group of people who hold themselves apart from common human experiences and fellowships. Mr. Symonds, concerning whose representative character as a man of culture there is no difference of opinion, said that he had read with some care the newspaper accounts of his "culture," and that, so far as he could gather, his newspaper critics held the opinion that culture is a kind of knapsack which a man straps on his back, and in which he places a vast amount of information, gathered, more or less at random, in all parts of the world. There was, of course, a touch of humour in Mr. Symonds's description of the newspaper conception of culture; but it is certainly true that culture has been regarded by a great many people either as a kind of intellectual refinement, so highly specialised as to verge on fastidiousness, or as a large accumulation of miscellaneous information. Now, the process of culture is an unfolding and enrichment of the human spirit by conforming to the laws of its own growth; and the result is a broad, rich, free human life. Culture is never quantity, it is always quality of knowledge; it is never an extension of ourselves by additions from without, it is always enlargement of ourselves by development from within; it is never something acquired, it is always something possessed; it is never a result of accumulation, it is always a result of growth. That which characterises the man of culture is not the extent of his information, but the quality of his mind; it is not the mass of things he knows, but the sanity, the ripeness, the soundness of his nature. A man may have great knowledge and remain uncultivated; a man may have comparatively limited knowledge and be genuinely cultivated. There have been famous scholars who have remained crude, unripe, inharmonious in their intellectual life, and there have been men of small scholarship who have found all the fruits of culture. The man of culture is he who has so absorbed what he knows that it is part of himself. His knowledge has not only enriched specific faculties, it has enriched him; his entire nature has come to ripe and sound maturity. This personal enrichment is the very highest and finest result of intimacy with books; compared with it the instruction, information, refreshment, and entertainment which books afford are of secondary importance. The great service they render us--the greatest service that can be rendered us--is the enlargement, enrichment, and unfolding of ourselves; they nourish and develop that mysterious personality which lies behind all thought, feeling, and action; that central force within us which feeds the specific activities through which we give out ourselves to the world, and, in giving, find and recover ourselves. Chapter II. Time and Place. To get at the heart of Shakespeare's plays, and to secure for ourselves the material and the development of culture which are contained in them, is not the work of a day or of a year; it is the work and the joy of a lifetime. There is no royal road to the harmonious unfolding of the human spirit; there is a choice of methods, but there are no "short cuts." No man can seize the fruits of culture prematurely; they are not to be had by pulling down the boughs of the tree of knowledge, so that he who runs may pluck as he pleases. Culture is not to be had by programme, by limited courses of reading, by correspondence, or by following short prescribed lines of home study. These are all good in their degree of thoroughness of method and worth of standards, but they are impotent to impart an enrichment which is below and beyond mere acquirement. Because culture is not knowledge but wisdom, not quantity of learning but quality, not mass of information but ripeness and soundness of temper, spirit, and nature, time is an essential element in the process of securing it. A man may acquire information with great rapidity, but no man can hasten his growth. If the fruit is forced, the flavour is lost. To get into the secret of Shakespeare, therefore, one must take time. One must grow into that secret. This does not mean, however, that the best things to be gotten out of books are reserved for people of leisure; on the contrary, they are oftenest possessed by those whose labours are many and whose leisure is limited. One may give his whole life to the pursuit of this kind of excellence, but one does not need to give his whole time to it. Culture is cumulative; it grows steadily in the man who takes the fruitful attitude toward life and art; it is secured by the clear purpose which so utilises all the spare minutes that they practically constitute an unbroken duration of time. James Smetham, the English artist, feeling keenly the imperfections of his training, formulated a plan of study combining art, literature, and the religious life, and devoted twenty-five years to working it out. Goethe spent more than sixty years in the process of developing himself harmoniously on all sides; and few men have wasted less time than he. And yet in the case of each of these rigorous and faithful students there were other, and, for long periods, more engrossing occupations. Any one who knows men widely will recall those whose persistent utilisation of the odds and ends of time, which many people regard as of too little value to save by using, has given their minds and their lives that peculiar distinction of taste, manner, and speech which belong to genuine culture. It is not wealth of time, but what Mr. Gladstone has aptly called "thrift of time," which brings ripeness of mind within reach of the great mass of men and women. The man who has learned the value of five minutes has gone a long way toward making himself a master of life and its arts. "The thrift of time," says the English statesman, "will repay in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning." And Matthew Arnold has put the same truth into words which touch the subject in hand still more closely: "The plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously into our present use of time." It is no exaggeration to say that the mass of men give to unplanned and desultory reading of books and newspapers an amount of time which, if intelligently and thoughtfully given to the best books, would secure, in the long run, the best fruits of culture. There is no magic about this process of enriching one's self by absorbing the best books; it is simply a matter of sound habits patiently formed and persistently kept up. Making the most of one's time is the first of these habits; utilising the spare hours, the unemployed minutes, no less than those longer periods which the more fortunate enjoy. To "take time by the forelock" in this way, however, one must have his book at hand when the precious minute arrives. There must be no fumbling for the right volume; no waste of time because one is uncertain what to take up next. The waste of opportunity which leaves so many people intellectually barren who ought to be intellectually rich, is due to neglect to decide in advance what direction one's reading shall take, and neglect to keep the book of the moment close at hand. The biographer of Lucy Larcom tells us that the aspiring girl pinned all manner of selections of prose and verse which she wished to learn at the sides of the window beside which her loom was placed; and in this way, in the intervals of work, she familiarised herself with a great deal of good literature. A certain man, now widely known, spent his boyhood on a farm, and largely educated himself. He learned the rudiments of Latin in the evening, and carried on his study during working hours by pinning ten lines from Virgil on his plough,--a method of refreshment much superior to that which Homer furnished the ploughman in the well-known passage in the description of the shield. These are extreme cases, but they are capital illustrations of the immense power of enrichment which is inherent in fragments of time pieced together by intelligent purpose and persistent habit. This faculty of draining all the rivulets of knowledge by the way was strikingly developed by a man of surpassing eloquence and tireless activity. He was never a methodical student in the sense of following rigidly a single line of study, but he habitually fed himself with any kind of knowledge which was at hand. If books were at his elbow, he read them; if pictures, engravings, gems were within reach, he studied them; if nature was within walking distance, he watched nature; if men were about him, he learned the secrets of their temperaments, tastes, and skills; if he were on shipboard, he knew the dialect of the vessel in the briefest possible time; if he travelled by stage, he sat with the driver and learned all about the route, the country, the people, and the art of his companion; if he had a spare hour in a village in which there was a manufactory, he went through it with keen eyes and learned the mechanical processes used in it. "Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar?" says Emerson. "It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him." The man who is bent on getting the most out of life in order that he may make his own nature rich and productive will learn to free himself largely from dependence on conditions. The power of concentration which issues from a resolute purpose, and is confirmed by habits formed to give that purpose effectiveness, is of more value than undisturbed hours and the solitude of a library; it is of more value because it takes the place of things which cannot always be at command. To learn how to treat the odds and ends of hours so that they constitute, for practical purposes, an unbroken duration of time, is to emancipate one's self from dependence on particular times, and to appropriate all time to one's use; and in like manner to accustom one's self to make use of all places, however thronged and public, as if they were private and secluded, is to free one's self from bondage to a particular locality, or to surroundings specially chosen for the purpose. Those who have abundance of leisure to spend in their libraries are beyond the need of suggestions as to the use of time and place; but those whose culture must be secured incidentally, as it were, need not despair,--they have shining examples of successful use of limited opportunities about them. It is not only possible to make all time enrich us, but to use all space as if it were our own. To have a book in one's pocket and the power of fastening one's mind upon it to the exclusion of every other object or interest is to be independent of the library, with its unbroken quietness. It is to carry the library with us,--not only the book, but the repose. One bright June morning a young man, who happened to be waiting at a rural station to take a train, discovered one of the foremost of American writers, who was, all things considered, perhaps the most richly cultivated man whom the country has yet produced, sitting on the steps intent upon a book, and entirely oblivious of his surroundings. The young man's reverence for the poet and critic filled him with desire to know what book had such power of beguiling into forgetfulness one of the noblest minds of the time. He affirmed within himself that it must be a novel. He ventured to approach near enough to read the title, holding, rightly enough, that a book is not personal property, and that his act involved no violation of privacy. He discovered that the great man was reading a Greek play with such relish and abandon that he had turned a railway station into a private library! One of the foremost of American novelists, a man of real literary insight and of genuine charm of style, says that he can write as comfortably on a trunk in a room at a hotel, waiting to be called for a train, as in his own library. There is a good deal of discipline behind such a power of concentration as that illustrated in both these cases; but it is a power which can be cultivated by any man or woman of resolution. Once acquired, the exercise of it becomes both easy and delightful. It transforms travel, waiting, and dreary surroundings into one rich opportunity. The man who has the "Tempest" in his pocket, and can surrender himself to its spell, can afford to lose time on cars, ferries, and at out-of-the-way stations; for the world has become an extension of his library, and wherever he is, he is at home with his purpose and himself. Chapter III. Meditation and Imagination. There is a book in the British Museum which would have, for many people, a greater value than any other single volume in the world; it is a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne, and it bears Shakespeare's autograph on a flyleaf. There are other books which must have had the same ownership; among them were Holinshed's "Chronicles" and North's translation of Plutarch. Shakespeare would have laid posterity under still greater obligations, if that were possible, if in some autobiographic mood he had told us how he read these books; for never, surely, were books read with greater insight and with more complete absorption. Indeed, the fruits of this reading were so rich and ripe that the books from which their juices came seem but dry husks and shells in comparison. The reader drained the writer dry of every particle of suggestiveness, and then recreated the material in new and imperishable forms. The process of reproduction was individual, and is not to be shared by others; it was the expression of that rare and inexplicable personal energy which we call genius; but the process of absorption may be shared by all who care to submit to the discipline which it involves. It is clear that Shakespeare read in such a way as to possess what he read; he not only remembered it, but he incorporated it into himself. No other kind of reading could have brought the East out of its grave, with its rich and languorous atmosphere steeping the senses in the charm of Cleopatra, or recalled the massive and powerfully organised life of Rome about the person of the great Cæsar. Shakespeare read his books with such insight and imagination that they became part of himself; and so far as this process is concerned, the reader of to-day can follow in his steps. The majority of people have not learned this secret; they read for information or for refreshment; they do not read for enrichment. Feeding one's nature at all the sources of life, browsing at will on all the uplands of knowledge and thought, do not bear the fruit of acquirement only; they put us into personal possession of the vitality, the truth, and the beauty about us. A man may know the plays of Shakespeare accurately as regards their order, form, construction, and language, and yet remain almost without knowledge of what Shakespeare was at heart, and of his significance in the history of the human soul. It is this deeper knowledge, however, which is essential for culture; for culture is such an appropriation of knowledge that it becomes a part of ourselves. It is no longer something added by the memory; it is something possessed by the soul. A pedant is formed by his memory; a man of culture is formed by the habit of meditation, and by the constant use of the imagination. An alert and curious man goes through the world taking note of all that passes under his eyes, and collects a great mass of information, which is in no sense incorporated into his own mind, but remains a definite territory outside his own nature, which he has annexed. A man of receptive mind and heart, on the other hand, meditating on what he sees, and getting at its meaning by the divining-rod of the imagination, discovers the law behind the phenomena, the truth behind the fact, the vital force which flows through all things, and gives them their significance. The first man gains information; the second gains culture. The pedant pours out an endless succession of facts with a monotonous uniformity of emphasis, and exhausts while he instructs; the man of culture gives us a few facts, luminous in their relation to one another, and freshens and stimulates by bringing us into contact with ideas and with life. To get at the heart of books we must live with and in them; we must make them our constant companions; we must turn them over and over in thought, slowly penetrating their innermost meaning; and when we possess their thought we must work it into our own thought. The reading of a real book ought to be an event in one's history; it ought to enlarge the vision, deepen the base of conviction, and add to the reader whatever knowledge, insight, beauty, and power it contains. It is possible to spend years of study on what may be called the externals of the "Divine Comedy," and remain unaffected in nature by this contact with one of the masterpieces of the spirit of man as well as of the art of literature. It is also possible to so absorb Dante's thought and so saturate one's self with the life of the poem as to add to one's individual capital of thought and experience all that the poet discerned in that deep heart of his and wrought out of that intense and tragic experience. But this permanent and personal possession can be acquired by those alone who brood over the poem and recreate it within themselves by the play of the imagination upon it. A visitor was shown into Mr. Lowell's room one evening not many years ago, and found him barricaded behind rows of open books; they covered the table and were spread out on the floor in an irregular but magic circle. "Still studying Dante?" said the intruder into the workshop of as true a man of culture as we have known on this continent. "Yes," was the prompt reply; "always studying Dante." A man's intellectual character is determined by what he habitually thinks about. The mind cannot always be consciously directed to definite ends; it has hours of relaxation. There are many hours in the life of the most strenuous and arduous man when the mind goes its own way and thinks its own thoughts. These times of relaxation, when the mind follows its own bent, are perhaps the most fruitful and significant periods in a rich and noble intellectual life. The real nature, the deeper instincts of the man, come out in these moments, as essential refinement and genuine breeding are revealed when the man is off guard and acts and speaks instinctively. It is possible to be mentally active and intellectually poor and sterile; to drive the mind along certain courses of work, but to have no deep life of thought behind these calculated activities. The life of the mind is rich and fruitful only when thought, released from specific tasks, flies at once to great themes as its natural objects of interest and love, its natural sources of refreshment and strength. Under all our definite activities there runs a stream of meditation; and the character of that meditation determines our wealth or our poverty, our productiveness or our sterility. This instinctive action of the mind, although largely unconscious, is by no means irresponsible; it may be directed and controlled; it may be turned, by such control, into a Pactolian stream, enriching us while we rest and ennobling us while we play. For the mind may be trained to meditate on great themes instead of giving itself up to idle reverie; when it is released from work it may concern itself with the highest things as readily as with those which are insignificant and paltry. Whoever can command his meditations in the streets, along the country roads, on the train, in the hours of relaxation, can enrich himself for all time without effort or fatigue; for it is as easy and restful to think about great things as about small ones. A certain lover of books made this discovery years ago, and has turned it to account with great profit to himself. He thought he discovered in the faces of certain great writers a meditative quality full of repose and suggestive of a constant companionship with the highest themes. It seemed to him that these thinkers, who had done so much to liberate his own thought, must have dwelt habitually with noble ideas; that in every leisure hour they must have turned instinctively to those deep things which concern most closely the life of men. The vast majority of men are so absorbed in dealing with material that they appear to be untouched by the general questions of life; but these general questions are the habitual concern of the men who think. In such men the mind, released from specific tasks, turns at once and by preference to these great themes, and by quiet meditation feeds and enriches the very soul of the thinker. And the quality of this meditation determines whether the nature shall be productive or sterile; whether a man shall be merely a logician, or a creative force in the world. Following this hint, this lover of books persistently trained himself, in his leisure hours, to think over the books he was reading; to meditate on particular passages, and, in the case of dramas and novels, to look at characters from different sides. It was not easy at first, and it was distinctively work; but it became instinctive at last, and consequently it became play. The stream of thought, once set in a given direction, flows now of its own gravitation; and reverie, instead of being idle and meaningless, has become rich and fruitful. If one subjects "The Tempest," for instance, to this process, he soon learns it by heart; first he feels its beauty; then he gets whatever definite information there is in it; as he reflects, its constructive unity grows clear to him, and he sees its quality as a piece of art; and finally its rich and noble disclosure of the poet's conception of life grows upon him until the play belongs to him almost as much as it belonged to Shakespeare. This process of meditation habitually brought to bear on one's reading lays bare the very heart of the book in hand, and puts one in complete possession of it. This process of meditation, if it is to bear its richest fruit, must be accompanied by a constant play of the imagination, than which there is no faculty more readily cultivated or more constantly neglected. Some readers see only a flat surface as they read; others find the book a door into a real world, and forget that they are dealing with a book. The real readers get beyond the book, into the life which it describes. They see the island in "The Tempest;" they hear the tumult of the storm; they mingle with the little company who, on that magical stage, reflect all the passions of men and are brought under the spell of the highest powers of man's spirit. It is a significant fact that in the lives of men of genius the reading of two or three books has often provoked an immediate and striking expansion of thought and power. Samuel Johnson, a clumsy boy in his father's bookshop, searching for apples, came upon Petrarch, and was destined henceforth to be a man of letters. John Keats, apprenticed to an apothecary, read Spenser's "Epithalamium" one golden afternoon in company with his friend, Cowden Clarke, and from that hour was a poet by the grace of God. In both cases the readers read with the imagination, or their own natures would not have kindled with so sudden a flash. The torch is passed on to those only whose hands are outstretched to receive it. To read with the imagination, one must take time to let the figures reform in his own mind; he must see them with great distinctness and realise them with great definiteness. Benjamin Franklin tells us, in that Autobiography which was one of our earliest and remains one of our most genuine pieces of writing, that when he discovered his need of a larger vocabulary he took some of the tales which he found in an odd volume of the "Spectator" and turned them into verse; "and after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper." Such a patient recasting of material for the ends of verbal exactness and accuracy suggests ways in which the imagination may deal with characters and scenes in order to stimulate and foster its own activity. It is well to recall at frequent intervals the story we read in some dramatist, poet, or novelist, in order that the imagination may set it before us again in all its rich vitality. It is well also as we read to insist on seeing the picture as well as the words. It is as easy to see the bloodless duke before the portrait of "My Last Duchess," in Browning's little masterpiece, to take in all the accessories and carry away with us a vivid and lasting impression, as it is to follow with the eye the succession of words. In this way we possess the poem, and make it serve the ends of culture. Chapter IV. The First Delight. "We were reading Plato's Apology in the Sixth Form," says Mr. Symonds in his account of his school life at Harrow. "I bought Cary's crib, and took it with me to London on an _exeat_ in March. My hostess, a Mrs. Bain, who lived in Regent's Park, treated me to a comedy one evening at the Haymarket. I forget what the play was. When we returned from the play I went to bed and began to read my Cary's Plato. It so happened that I stumbled on the 'Phædrus.' I read on and on, till I reached the end. Then I began the 'Symposium;' and the sun was shining on the shrubs outside the ground floor on which I slept before I shut the book up. I have related these unimportant details because that night was one of the most important nights of my life.... Here in the 'Phædrus' and the 'Symposium,' in the 'Myth of the Soul,' I discovered the revelation I had been waiting for, the consecration of a long-cherished idealism. It was just as though the voice of my own soul spoke to me through Plato. Harrow vanished into unreality. I had touched solid ground. Here was the poetry, the philosophy of my own enthusiasm, expressed with all the magic of unrivalled style." The experience recorded in these words is typical; it comes to every one who has the capacity for the highest form of enjoyment and the highest kind of growth. It was an experience which was both emotional and spiritual; delight and expansion were involved in it; the joy of contact with something beautiful, and the sudden enlargement which comes from touch with a great nature dealing with fundamental truth. In every experience of this kind there comes an access of life, as if one had drunk at a fountain of vitality. A thrilling chapter in the spiritual history of the race might be written by bringing together the reports of such experiences which are to be found in almost all literatures,--experiences which vary greatly in depth and significance, which have in common the unfailing interest of discovery and growth. If this collocation of vital contacts could be expanded so as to include the history of the intellectual commerce of races, we should be able to read the story of humanity in a new and searching light. For the transmission of Greek thought and beauty to the Oriental world, the wide diffusion of Hebrew ideas of man and his life, the contact of the modern with the antique world in the Renaissance, for instance, effected changes in the spiritual constitution of man more subtle, pervasive, and radical than we are yet in a position to understand. The spiritual history of men is largely a history of discovery,--the record of those fruitful moments when we come upon new things, and our ideas are swiftly or slowly expanded to include them. That process is generally both rapid and continuous; the discovery of this continent made an instant and striking impression on the older world, but that older world has not yet entirely adjusted itself to the changes in the social order which were to follow close upon the rising of the new world above the once mysterious line of the western horizon. Now, this process of discovery goes on continuously in the experience of every human soul which has capacity for growth; and it is the peculiar joy of the lover of books. Literature is a continual revelation to every genuine reader; a revelation of that quality which we call art, and a revelation of that mysterious vital force which we call life. In this double disclosure literature shares with all art a function which ranges it with the greatest resources of the spirit; and the reader who has the trained vision has the constant joy of discovery: first, of beauty and power; next, of that concrete or vital form of truth which is one with life. One who studies books is in constant peril of losing the charm of the first by permitting himself to be absorbed in the interest of the second discovery. When one has begun to see the range and veracity of literature as a disclosure of the soul and life of man, the definite literary quality sometimes becomes of secondary importance. In academic teaching the study of philology, of grammar, of construction, of literary history, has often been mistaken or substituted for the study of literature; and in private study the peculiar enrichment which comes from art simply as art is often needlessly sacrificed by exclusive attention to books as documents of spiritual history. It must not be forgotten that books become literature by virtue of a certain quality which is diffused through every true literary work, and which separates it at once and forever from all other writing. To miss this quality, therefore, is to miss the very essence of the thing with which we are in contact; to treat the inspired books as if they were uninspired. The first discovery which the real reader makes is the perception of some new and individual beauty or power; the discovery of life and truth is secondary in order of time, and depends in no small measure on the sensitiveness of the spirit to the first and obvious charm. If one wishes to study the life--not the mere structure--of an apple-tree in bloom, he must surrender himself at the start to the bloom and fragrance; for these are not mere external phases of the growth of the tree,--they are most delicate and characteristic disclosures of its life. In like manner he who would master "As You Like It" must give himself up in the first place to its wonderful and significant beauty. For this lovely piece of literature is a revelation in its art quite as definitely as in its thought; and the first care of the reader must be to feel the deep and lasting charm contained in the play. In that charm resides something which may be transmitted, and the reception of which is always a step in culture. To feel freshly and deeply is not only a characteristic of the artist, but also of the reader; the first finds delight in creation, the second finds delight in discovery: between them they divide one of the greatest joys known to men. Wagner somewhere says that the greatest joy possible to man is the putting forth of creative activity so spontaneously that the critical faculty is, for the time being, asleep. The purest joy known to the reader is a perception of the beauty and power of a work of art so fresh and instantaneous that it completely absorbs the whole nature. Analysis, criticism, and judicial appraisement come later; the first moment must be surrendered to the joy of discovery. Heine has recorded the overpowering impression made upon him by the first glimpse of the Venus of Melos. An experience so extreme in emotional quality could come only to a nature singularly sensitive to beauty and abnormally sensitive to physical emotion; but he who has no power of feeling intensely the power of beauty in the moment of discovery, has missed something of very high value in the process of culture. One of the signs of real culture is the power of enjoyment which goes with fresh feeling. All great art is full of this feeling; its characteristic is the new interest with which it invests the most familiar objects; and one evidence of capacity to receive culture from art is the development of this feeling. The reader who is on the way to enrich himself by contact with books cultivates the power of feeling freshly and keenly the charm of every book he reads simply as a piece of literature. One may destroy this power by permitting analysis and criticism to become the primary mood, or one may develop it by resolutely putting analysis and criticism into the secondary place, and sedulously developing the power to enjoy for the sake of enjoyment. The reader who does not feel the immediate and obvious beauty of a poem or a play has lost the power, not only of getting the full effect of a work of art, but of getting its full significance as well. The surprise, the delight, the joy of the first discovery are not merely pleasurable; they are in the highest degree educational. They reveal the sensitiveness of the nature to those ultimate forms of beauty and power which art takes on, and its power of responding not only to what is obviously beautiful but is also profoundly true. For the harmonious and noble beauty of "As You Like It" is not only obvious and external; it is wrought into its structure so completely that, like the blossom of the apple, it is the effluence of the life of the play. To get delight out of reading is, therefore, the first and constant care of the reader who wishes to be enriched by vital contact with the most inclusive and expressive of the arts. Chapter V. The Feeling for Literature. The importance of reading habitually the best books becomes apparent when one remembers that taste depends very largely on the standards with which we are familiar, and that the ability to enjoy the best and only the best is conditioned upon intimate acquaintance with the best. The man who is thrown into constant association with inferior work either revolts against his surroundings or suffers a disintegration of aim and standard, which perceptibly lowers the plane on which he lives. In either case the power of enjoyment from contact with a genuine piece of creative work is sensibly diminished, and may be finally lost. The delicacy of the mind is both precious and perishable; it can be preserved only by associations which confirm and satisfy it. For this reason, among others, the best books are the only books which a man bent on culture should read; inferior books not only waste his time, but they dull the edge of his perception and diminish his capacity for delight. This delight, born afresh of every new contact of the mind with a real book, furnishes indubitable evidence that the reader has the feeling for literature,--a possession much rarer than is commonly supposed. It is no injustice to say that the majority of those who read have no feeling for literature; their interest is awakened or sustained not by the literary quality of a book, but by some element of brightness or novelty, or by the charm of narrative. Reading which finds its reward in these things is entirely legitimate, but it is not the kind of reading which secures culture. It adds largely to one's stock of information, and it refreshes the mind by introducing new objects of interest; but it does not minister directly to the refining and maturing of the nature. The same book may be read in entirely different ways and with entirely different results. One may, for instance, read Shakespeare's historical plays simply for the story element which runs through them, and for the interest which the skilful use of that element excites; and in such a reading there will be distinct gain for the reader. This is the way in which a healthy boy generally reads these plays for the first time. From such a reading one will get information and refreshment; more than one English statesman has confessed that he owed his knowledge of certain periods of English history largely to Shakespeare. On the other hand, one may read these plays for the joy of the art that is in them, and for the enrichment which comes from contact with the deep and tumultuous life which throbs through them; and this is the kind of reading which produces culture, the reading which means enlargement and ripening. The feeling for literature, like the feeling for art in general, is not only susceptible of cultivation, but very quickly responds to appeals which are made to it by noble or beautiful objects. It is essentially a feeling, but it is a feeling which depends very largely on intelligence; it is strengthened and made sensitive and responsive by constant contact with those objects which call it out. No rules can be laid down for its development save the very simple rule to read only and always those books which are literature. It is impossible to give specific directions for the cultivation of the feeling for Nature. It is not to be gotten out of text-books of any kind; it is not to be found in botanies or geologies or works on zoölogy; it is to be gotten only out of familiarity with Nature herself. Daily fellowship with landscapes, trees, skies, birds, with an open mind and in a receptive mood, soon develops in one a kind of spiritual sense which takes cognisance of things not seen before and adds a new joy and resource to life. In like manner the feeling for literature is quickened and nourished by intimate acquaintance with books of beauty and power. Such an intimacy makes the sense of delight more keen, preserves it against influences which tend to deaden it, and makes the taste more sure and trustworthy. A man who has long had acquaintance with the best in any department of art comes to have, almost unconsciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning good work from bad, of recognising on the instant the sound and true method and style, and of feeling a fresh and constant delight in such work. His education comes not by didactic, but by vital methods. The art quality in a book is as difficult to analyse as the feeling for it; not because it is intangible or indefinite, but because it is so subtly diffused. It is difficult to analyse because it is the breath of life in the book, and life always evades us, no matter how keen and exhaustive our search may be. Most of us are so entirely out of touch with the spirit of art in this busy new world that we are not quite convinced of its reality. We know that it is decorative, and that a certain pleasure flows from it; but we are sceptical of its significance in the life of the race, of its deep necessity in the development of that life, and of its supreme educational value. And our scepticism, it must be frankly said, like most scepticism, grows out of our ignorance. True art has nothing in common with the popular conception of its nature and uses. Instead of being decorative, it is organic; when men arrive at a certain stage of ripeness and power they express themselves through its forms as naturally as the tree puts forth its flowers. Nothing which lies within the range of human achievement is more real or inevitable. This expression is neither mechanical nor artificial; it is made under certain inflexible laws, but they are the laws of the human spirit, not the rules of a craft; they are rooted in that deeper psychology which deals with man as an organic whole and not as a bundle of separate faculties. It was once pointed out to Tennyson that he had scrupulously conformed, in a certain poem, to a number of rules of versification and to certain principles in the use of different sound values. "Yes," answered the poet in substance, "I carefully observed all those rules and was entirely unconscious of them!" There was no contradiction between the Laureate's practice of his craft and the technical rules which govern it. The poet's instinct kept him in harmony with those essential and vital principles of language of which the formal rules are simply didactic statements. Art, it need hardly be said, is never artifice; intelligence and calculation enter into the work of the artist, but in the last analysis it is the free and noble expression of his own personality. It expresses what is deepest and most significant in him, and expresses it in a final rather than a provisional form. The secret of the reality and power of art lies in the fact that it is the culmination and summing up of a process of observation, experience, and feeling; it is the deposit of whatever is richest and most enduring in the life of a man or a race. It is a finality both of experience and of thought; it contains the ultimate and the widest conception of man's nature and life, or of the meaning and reality of Nature, which an age or a race reaches. It is the supreme flowering of the genius of a race or an age. It has, therefore, the highest educational value. For the very highest products of man's life in this world are his ideas and ideals; they grow out of his highest nature; they react on his character; they are the precious deposit of all that he has thought, felt, suffered, and done in word and work, in feeling and action. The richest educational material upon which modern men are nourished are these ultimate conclusions and convictions of the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Roman. These ultimate inferences, these final interpretations of their own natures and of the world about them, contain not only the thought of these races, but their life as well. They have, therefore, a vital quality which not only assures their own immortality, but has the power of transmission to others. These ultimate results of experience are embodied in art, and especially in literature; and that which makes them art is this very vitality. For this reason art is absolutely essential for culture; it has the power of enriching and expanding the natures which come in contact with it by transmitting to them the highest results of the life of the past, by sharing with them the ripeness and maturity of the human spirit in its universal experience. Chapter VI. The Books of Life. The books of power, as distinguished from the books of knowledge, include the original, creative, first-hand books in all literatures, and constitute, in the last analysis, a comparatively small group, with which any student can thoroughly familiarise himself. The literary impulse of the race has expressed itself in a great variety of works, of varying charm and power; but the books which are fountain-heads of vitality, ideas, and beauty, are few in number. These original and dominant creations may be called the books of life, if one may venture to modify De Quincey's well-worn phrase. For that which is deepest in this group of masterpieces is not power, but something greater and more inclusive, of which power is but a single form of expression,--life; that quintessence of the unbroken experience and activity of the race which includes not only thought, power, beauty, and every kind of skill, but, below all these, the living soul of the living man. If it be true, as many believe, that the fundamental process of the universe, so far as we can understand it, is not intellectual, but vital, it follows that the deepest things which men have learned have come to them not as the result of processes of thought, but as the result of the process of living. It is evident that certain definite purposes are being wrought out through physical forms, processes, and forces; science reveals clearly enough certain great lines of development. In like manner, although with very significant differences, certain deep lines of growth and expansion become more and more clear in human history. Through the bare process of living, men not only learn fundamental facts about themselves and their world, but they are evidently working out certain purposes. Of these purposes they do not, it is true, possess full knowledge; but complete knowledge is necessary neither for the demonstration of the existence of the purpose nor for those ethical and intellectual uses which that knowledge serves. The life of the race is a revelation of the nature of man, of the character of his relations with his surroundings, and of the certain great lines of development along which the race is moving. Every leading race has its characteristic thought concerning its own nature, its relation to the world, and the character and quality of life. These various fundamental conceptions have shaped all definite thinking, and have very largely moulded race character, and, therefore, determined race destiny. The Hebrew, the Greek, and the Roman conceptions of life constitute not only the key to the diverse histories of the leaders of ancient civilisation, but also their most vital contribution to civilisation. These conceptions were not definitely thought out; they were worked out. They were the result of the contact of these different peoples with Nature, with the circumstances of their own time, and with those universal experiences which fall to the lot of all men, and which are, in the long run, the prime sources and instruments of human education. The interpretations of life which each of these races has left us are revelations both of race character and of life itself; they embody the highest thought, the deepest feeling, the most searching experiences, the keenest suffering, the most strenuous activity. In these interpretations are expressed and represented the inner and essential life of each race; in them the soul of the elder world survives. Now, these interpretations constitute, in their highest forms, not only the supreme art of the world, but they are also the richest educational material accessible to men. Information and discipline may be drawn from other sources, but that culture which means the enrichment and unfolding of a man's self is largely developed by familiarity with those ultimate conclusions of man about himself which are the deposit of all that he has thought, suffered, wrought, and been,--those deep deposits of truth silently formed in the heart of the race in the long and painful working out of its life, its character, and its destiny. For these rich interpretations we must turn to art, and especially to the art of literature; and in literature we must turn especially to the small group of works which, by reason of the adequacy with which they convey and illustrate these interpretations, hold the first places,--the books of life. The man who would get the ripest culture from books ought to read many, but there are a few books which he must read; among them, first and foremost, are the Bible, and the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. These are the supreme books of life as distinguished from the books of knowledge and skill. They hold their places because they combine in the highest degree vitality, truth, power, and beauty. They are the central reservoirs into which the rivulets of individual experience over a vast surface have been gathered; they are the most complete revelations of what life has brought and has been to the leading races; they bring us into contact with the heart and soul of humanity. They not only convey information, and, rightly used, impart discipline, but they transmit life. There is a vitality in them which passes on into the nature which is open to receive it. They have again and again inspired intellectual movements on a wide scale, as they are constantly recreating individual ideals and aims. Whatever view may be held of the authority of the Bible, it is agreed that its power as literature has been incalculable by reason of the depth of life which it sounds and the range of life which it compasses. There is power enough in it to revive a decaying age or give a new date and a fresh impulse to a race which has parted with its creative energy. The reappearance of the New Testament in Greek, after the long reign of the Vulgate, contributed mightily to that renewal and revival of life which we call the Reformation; while its translation into the modern languages liberated a moral and intellectual force of which no adequate measurement can be made. In like manner, though in lesser degree, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," the "Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, and "Faust" have set new movements in motion and have enriched and enlarged the lives of races. With these books of life every man ought to hold the most intimate relationship; they are not to be read once and put on the upper shelves of the library among those classics which establish one's claim to good intellectual standing, but which silently gather the dust of isolation and solitude; they are to be always at hand. The barrier of language has disappeared so far as they are concerned; they are to be had in many and admirable translations; one evidence of their power is afforded by the fact that every new age of literary development and every new literary movement feels compelled to translate them afresh. The changes of taste in English literature and the notable phases through which it has passed since the days of the Elizabethans might be traced or inferred from the successive translations of Homer, from the work of Chapman to that of Andrew Lang. One needs to read many books, to browse in many fields, to know the art of many countries; but the books of life ought to form the background of every life of thought and study. They need not, indeed they cannot, be mastered at once; but by reading in them constantly, for brief or for long intervals, one comes to know them familiarly, and almost insensibly to gain the enrichment and enlargement which they offer. Moreover, they afford tenfold greater and more lasting delight, recreation, and variety than all the works of lesser writers. Whoever knows them in a real sense knows life, humanity, art, and himself. Chapter VII. From the Book to the Reader. The study which has found its material and its reward in Dante's "Divine Comedy" or in Goethe's "Faust" is the best possible evidence of the inexhaustible interest in the masterpieces of these two great poets. Libraries of considerable dimensions have been written in the way of commentaries upon, and expositions of, their notable works. Many of these books are, it is true, deficient in insight and possessed of very little power of interpretation or illumination; they are the products of a barren, dry-as-dust industry, which has expended itself upon external characteristics and incidental references. Nevertheless, the very volume and mass of these secondary books witness to the fertility of the first-hand books with which they deal, and show beyond dispute that men have an insatiable desire to get at their interior meanings. If these great poems had been mere illustrations of individual skill and gift, this interest would have long ago exhausted itself. That singular and unsurpassed qualities of construction, style, and diction are present in "Faust" and the "Divine Comedy" need not be emphasised, since they both belong to the very highest class of literary production; but there is something deeper and more vital in them: there is a philosophy or interpretation of life. Each of these poems is a revelation of what man is and of what his life means; and it is this deep truth, or set of truths, at the heart of these works which we are always striving to reach and make clear to ourselves. In the case of neither poem did the writer content himself with an exposition of his own experience; in both cases there is an attempt to embody and put in concrete form an immense section of universal experience. Neither poem could have been written if there had not been a long antecedent history, rich in every kind and quality of human contact with the world, and of the working out of the forces which are in every human soul. These two forms of activity represent in a general way what men have learned about themselves and their surroundings; and, taken together, they constitute the material out of which interpretations and explanations of human life have been made. These explanations vary according to the genius, the environment, and the history of races but in every case they represent the very soul of race life, for they are the spiritual forms in which that life has expressed itself. Other forms of race activity, however valuable or beautiful, are lost in the passage of time, or are taken up and absorbed, and so part with their separate and individual existence; but the quintessence of experience and thought expressed in great works of art is gathered up and preserved, as Milton said, for "a life beyond life." Now, it is upon this imperishable food which the past has stored up through the genius of great artists that later generations feed and nourish themselves. It is through intimate contact with these fundamental conceptions, worked out with such infinite pain and patience, that the individual experience is broadened to include the experience of the race. This contact is the mystery as it is the source of culture. No one can explain the transmission of power from a book to a reader; but all history bears witness to the fact that such transmissions are made. Sometimes, as during what is called the Revival of Learning, the transmission is so general and so genuine that the life of an entire society is visibly quickened and enlarged; indeed, it is not too much to say that an entire civilisation feels the effect. The transmission of power, the transference of vitality, from books to individuals are so constant and common that they are matters of universal experience. Most men of any considerable culture date the successive enlargements of their intellectual lives from the reading, at successive periods, of the books of insight and power,--the books that deal with life at firsthand. There are, for instance, few men of a certain age who have read widely or deeply who do not recall with perennial enthusiasm the days when Carlyle and Emerson fell into their hands. They may have reacted radically from the didactic teaching of both writers, but they have not lost the impulse, nor have they parted with the enlargement of thought received in those first rapturous hours of discovery. There was wrought in them then changes of view, expansions of nature, a liberation of life which can never be lost. This experience is repeated so long as the man retains the power of growth and so long as he keeps in contact with the great writers. Every such contact marks a new stage in the process of culture. This means not merely the deep satisfaction and delight which are involved in every fresh contact with a genuine work of art; it means the permanent enrichment of the reader. He has gained something more lasting than pleasure and more valuable than information: he has gained a new view of life; he has looked again into the heart of humanity; he has felt afresh the supreme interest which always attaches to any real contact with the life of the race. And all this comes to him not only because the life of the race is essentially dramatic and, therefore, of quite inexhaustible interest, but because that life is essentially a revelation. A series of fundamental truths is being disclosed through the simple process of living, and whoever touches the deep life of men in the great works of art comes in contact also with these fundamental truths. Whoever reads the "Divine Comedy" and "Faust" for the first time discovers new realms of truth for himself, and gains not only the joy of discovery, but an immense addition of territory as well. The most careless and superficial readers do not remain untouched by the books of life; they fail to understand them or get the most out of them, but they do not escape the spell which they all possess,--the power of compelling the attention and stirring the heart. Not many years ago the stories of the Russian novelists were in all hands. That the fashion has passed is evident enough, and it is also evident that the craving for these books was largely a fashion. Nevertheless, the fashion itself was due to the real power which those stories revealed, and which constitutes their lasting contribution to the world's literature. They were touched with a profound sadness, which was exhaled like a mist by the conditions they portrayed; they were full of a sympathy born of knowledge and of sorrow; their roots were in the rich soil of the life they described. The latest of them, Count Tolstoi's "Master and Man," is one of those masterpieces which take rank at once, not by reason of their magnitude, but by reason of a certain beautiful quality which comes only to the man whose heart is pressed against the heart of his theme, and who divines what life is in the inarticulate soul of his brother man. Such books are the rich material of culture to the man who reads them with his heart, because they add to his experience a kind of experience otherwise inaccessible to him, which quickens, refreshes, and broadens his own nature. Chapter VIII. By Way of Illustration. The peculiar quality which culture imparts is beyond the comprehension of a child, and yet it is something so definite and engaging that a child may recognise its presence and feel its attraction. One of the special pieces of good fortune which fell to my boyhood was companionship with a man whose note of distinction, while not entirely clear to me, threw a spell over me. I knew other men of greater force and of larger scholarship; but no one else gave me such an impression of balance, ripeness, and fineness of quality. I not only felt a peculiarly searching influence flowing from one who graciously put himself on my level of intelligence, but I felt also an impulse to emulate a nature which satisfied my imagination completely. Other men of ability whose conversation I heard filled me with admiration; this man made the world larger and richer to my boyish thought. There was no didacticism on his part; there was, on the contrary, a simplicity so great that I felt entirely at home with him; but he was so thoroughly a citizen of the world that I caught a glimpse of the world in his most casual talk. I got a sense of the largeness and richness of life from him. I did not know what it was which laid such hold on my mind, but I saw later that it was the remarkable culture of the man,--a culture made possible by many fortunate conditions of wealth, station, travel, and education, and expressing itself in a peculiar largeness of vision and sweetness of spirit. In this man's friendship I was for the moment lifted out of my own crudity into that vast movement and experience in which all the races have shared. I am often reminded of this early impulse and enthusiasm, but there are occasions when its significance and value become especially clear to me. It was brought forcibly to my mind several years ago by an hour or two of talk with one who, as truly as any other American, stands as a representative man of culture; one, that is, whose large scholarship has been so completely absorbed that it has enriched the very texture of his mind, and given him the gift of sharing the experience of the race. It was on an evening when a play of Sophocles was to be rendered by the students of a certain university in which the tradition of culture has never wholly died out, and I led the talk along the lines of the play. I was rewarded by an hour of such delight as comes only from the best kind of talk, and I felt anew the peculiar charm and power of culture. For what I got that enriched me and prepared me for real comprehension of one of the greatest works of art in all literature was not information, but atmosphere. I saw rising about me the vanished life, which the dramatist knew so well that its secrets of conviction and temperament were all open to him; in architecture, poetry, religion, politics, and manners, it was quietly rebuilded for me in such wise that my own imagination was stirred to meet the talker half-way, and to fill in the outlines of a picture so swiftly and skilfully sketched. When I went to the play I went as a contemporary of its writer might have gone. I did not need to enter into it, for it had already entered into me. A man of scholarship could have set the period before me in a mass of facts; a man of culture alone could give me power to share, for an evening at least, its spirit and life. These personal illustrations will be pardoned, because they bring out in the most concrete way that special quality which marks the possession of culture in the deepest sense. That quality allies it very closely with genius itself, in certain aspects of that rare and inexplicable gift. For one of the most characteristic qualities of genius is its power of divination, of sharing alien or diverse experiences. It is this peculiar insight which puts the great dramatists in possession of the secrets of so many temperaments, the springs of so many different personalities, the atmosphere of such remote periods of time,--which, in a way, gives them power to make the dead live again; for Shakespeare can stand at the tomb of Cleopatra and evoke not the shade, but the passionate woman herself out of the dust in which she sleeps. There has been, perhaps, no more luminous example of the faculty of sharing the experience of a past age, of entering into the thought and feeling of a vanished race, than the peculiar divination and rehabilitation of certain extinct phases of emotion and thought which one finds in the pages of Walter Pater. In those pages there are, it is true, occasional lapses from a perfectly sound method; there is at times a loss of simplicity, a cloying sweetness in the style of this accomplished writer. These are, however, the perils of a very sensitive temperament, an intense feeling for beauty, and a certain seclusion from the affairs of life. That which characterises Mr. Pater at all times is his power of putting himself amid conditions that are not only extinct, but obscure and elusive; of winding himself back, as it were, into the primitive Greek consciousness and recovering for the moment the world as the Greeks saw, or, rather, felt it. It is an easy matter to mass the facts about any given period; it is a very different and a very difficult matter to set those facts in vital relations to each other, to see them in true prospective. And the difficulties are immensely increased when the period is not only remote, but deficient in definite registry of thought and feeling; when the record of what it believed and felt does not exist by itself, but must be deciphered from those works of art in which is preserved the final form of thought and feeling, and in which are gathered and merged a great mass of ideas and emotions. This is especially true of the more subtle and elusive Greek myths, which were in no case creations of the individual imagination or of definite periods of time, but which were fed by many tributaries, very slowly taking shape out of general but shadowy impressions, widely diffused but vague ideas, deeply felt but obscure emotions. To get at the heart of one of these stories one must be able not only to enter into the thought of the unknown poets who made their contributions to the myth, but must also be able to disentangle the threads of idea and feeling so deftly woven together, and follow each back to its shadowy beginning. To do this, one must have not only knowledge, but sympathy and imagination,--those closely related qualities which get at the soul of knowledge and make it live again; those qualities which the man of culture shares in no small measure with the man of genius. In his studies of such myths as those which gather about Dionysus and Demeter this is precisely what Mr. Pater did. He not only marked out distinctly the courses of the main streams, but he followed back the rivulets to their fountain-heads; he not only mastered the thought of an extinct people, but, what is much more difficult, he put off his knowledge and put on their ignorance; he not only entered into their thought about the world of nature which surrounded them, but he entered into their feeling about it. Very lightly touched and charming is, for instance, his description of the habits and haunts and worship of Demeter, the current impressions of her service and place in the life of the world:-- "Demeter haunts the fields in spring, when the young lambs are dropped; she visits the barns in autumn; she takes part in mowing and binding up the corn, and is the goddess of sheaves. She presides over the pleasant, significant details of the farm, the threshing-floor, and the full granary, and stands beside the woman baking bread at the oven. With these fancies are connected certain simple rites, the half-understood local observance and the half-believed local legend reacting capriciously on each other. They leave her a fragment of bread and a morsel of meat at the crossroads to take on her journey; and perhaps some real Demeter carries them away, as she wanders through the country. The incidents of their yearly labour become to them acts of worship; they seek her blessing through many expressive names, and almost catch sight of her at dawn or evening, in the nooks of the fragrant fields. She lays a finger on the grass at the roadside, and some new flower comes up. All the picturesque implements of country life are hers; the poppy also, emblem of an exhaustless fertility, and full of mysterious juices for the alleviation of pain. The country-woman who puts her child to sleep in the great, cradle-like basket for winnowing the corn remembers Demeter _Kourotrophos_, the mother of corn and children alike, and makes it a little coat out of the dress worn by its father at his initiation into her mysteries.... She lies on the ground out-of-doors on summer nights, and becomes wet with the dew. She grows young again every spring, yet is of great age, the wrinkled woman of the Homeric hymn, who becomes the nurse of Demophoon." This bit of description moves with so light a foot that one forgets, as true art always makes one forget, the mass of hard and scattered materials which lie back of it, materials which would not have yielded their secret of unity and vitality save to imagination and sympathy; to knowledge which has ripened into culture. But the recovery of such a story, the reconstruction of such a figure, are not affected by description alone; one must penetrate to the heart of the myth, and master the significance of the woman transformed by idealisation into a beneficent and much labouring goddess. We must go with Mr. Pater a step farther if we would understand how a man of culture divines the deeper experiences of an alien race:-- "Three profound ethical conceptions, three impressive sacred figures, have now defined themselves for the Greek imagination, condensed from all the traditions which have now been traced, from the hymns of the poets, from the instinctive and unformulated mysticism of primitive minds. Demeter is become the divine, sorrowing mother. Kore, the goddess of summer, is become Persephone, the goddess of death, still associated with the forms and odours of flowers and fruit, yet as one risen from the dead also, presenting one side of her ambiguous nature to men's gloomier fancies. Thirdly, there is the image of Demeter enthroned, chastened by sorrow, and somewhat advanced in age, blessing the earth in her joy at the return of Kore. The myth has now entered upon the third phase of its life, in which it becomes the property of those more elevated spirits, who, in the decline of the Greek religion, pick and choose and modify, with perfect freedom of mind, whatever in it may seem adapted to minister to their culture. In this way the myths of the Greek religion become parts of an ideal, visible embodiments of the susceptibilities and intentions of the nobler kind of souls; and it is to this latest phase of mythological development that the highest Greek sculpture allies itself." This illustration of the divination by which the man of culture possesses himself of a half-forgotten and obscurely recorded experience and rehabilitates and interprets it, is so complete that it makes amplification superfluous. Chapter IX. Personality. "It is undeniable," says Matthew Arnold, "that the exercise of a creative power, that a free creative activity is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so by man's finding in it his true happiness." If this be true, and the heart of man apart from all testimony affirms it, then the great books not only embody and express the genius and vital knowledge of the race which created them, but they are the products of the highest activity of man in the finest moments of his life. They represent a high felicity no less than a noble gift; they are the memorials of a happiness which may have been brief, but which, while it lasted, had a touch of the divine in it; for men are never nearer divinity than in their creative impulses and moments. Homer may have been blind; but if he composed the epics which bear his name he must have known moments of purer happiness than his most fortunate contemporary; Dante missed the lesser comforts of life, but there were hours of transcendent joy in his lonely career. For the highest joy of which men taste is the full, free, and noble putting forth of the power that is in them; no moments in human experience are so thrilling as those in which a man's soul goes out from him into some adequate and beautiful form of expression. In the act of creation a man incorporates his own personality into the visible world about him, and in a true and noble sense gives himself to his fellows. When an artist looks at his work he sees himself; he has performed the highest task of which he is capable, and fulfilled the highest purpose for which he was planned by an artist greater than himself. The rapture of the creative mood and moment is the reward of the little group whose touch on any kind of material is imperishable. It comes when the spell of inspired work is on them, or in the moment which follows immediately on completion and before the reaction of depression--which is the heavy penalty of the artistic temperament--has set in. Balzac knew it in that frenzy of work which seized him for days together; and Thackeray knew it, as he confesses, when he had put the finishing touches on that striking scene in which Rawdon Crawley thrashes Lord Steyne within an inch of his wicked life. The great novelist, who happened also to be a great writer, knew that the whole scene, in conception and execution, was a stroke of genius. But while this supreme rapture belongs to a chosen few, it may be shared by all those who are ready to open the imagination to its approach. It is one of the great rewards of the artist that while other kinds of joy are often pathetically short-lived, his joy, having brought forth enduring works, is, in a sense, imperishable. And it not only endures; it renews itself in kindred moments and experiences which it bestows upon those who approach it sympathetically. There are lines in the "Divine Comedy" which thrill us to-day as they must have thrilled Dante; there are passages in the Shakespearian plays and sonnets which make a riot in the blood to-day as they doubtless set the poet's pulses beating three centuries ago. The student of literature, therefore, finds in its noblest works not only the ultimate results of race experience and the characteristic quality of race genius, but the highest activity of the greatest minds in their happiest and most expansive moments. In this commingling of the best that is in the race and the best that is in the individual lies the mystery of that double revelation which makes every work of art a disclosure not only of the nature of the man behind it, but of all men behind him. In this commingling, too, is preserved the most precious deposit of what the race has been and done, and of what the man has seen, felt, and known. In the nature of things no educational material can be richer; none so fundamentally expansive and illuminative. This contact with the richest personalities the world has produced is one of the deepest sources of culture; for nothing is more truly educative than association with persons of the highest intelligence and power. When a man recalls his educational experience, he finds that many of his richest opportunities were not identified with subjects or systems or apparatus, but with teachers. There is fundamental truth in Emerson's declaration that it makes very little difference what you study, but that it is in the highest degree important with whom you study. There flows from the living teacher a power which no text-book can compass or contain,--the power of liberating the imagination and setting the student free to become an original investigator. Text-books supply methods, information, and discipline; teachers impart the breath of life by giving us inspiration and impulse. Now, the great books are different from all other books in their possession of this mysterious vital force; they are not only text-books by reason of the knowledge they contain, but they are also books of life by reason of the disclosure of personality which they make. The student of "Faust" receives from that drama not only the poet's interpretation of man's life in the world, but he is also brought under the spell of Goethe's personality, and, in a real sense, gets from his book that which his friends got from the man. This is not true of secondary books; it is true only of first-hand books. Secondary books are often products of skill, pieces of well-wrought but entirely self-conscious craftsmanship; first-hand books are always the expression of what is deepest, most original and distinctive in the nature which produces them. In such books, therefore, we get not only the skill, the art, the knowledge; we get, above all, the man. There is added to what he has to give us of thought or form the inestimable boon of his companionship. The reality of this element of personality and the force for culture which resides in it are clearly illustrated by a comparison of the works of Plato with those of Aristotle. Aristotle was for many centuries the first name in philosophy, and is still one of the greatest; but Aristotle, although a student of the principles of the art of literature and a critic of deep philosophical insight, was primarily a thinker, not an artist. One goes to him for discipline, for thought, for training in a very high sense; one does not go to him for form, beauty, or personality. It is a clear, distinct, logical order of ideas, a definite system which he gives us; not a view of life, a disclosure of the nature of man, a synthesis of ideas touched with beauty, dramatically arranged and set in the atmosphere of Athenian life. For these things one goes to Plato, who is not only a thinker, but an artist of wonderful gifts,--one who so closely and beautifully relates Greek thought to Greek life that we seem not to be studying a system of philosophy, but mingling with the society of Athens in its most fascinating groups and at its most significant moments. To the student of Aristotle the personality of the writer counts for nothing; to the student of the "Dialogues," on the other hand, the personality of Plato counts for everything. If we approach him as a thinker, it is true, we discard everything except his ideas; but if we approach him as a great writer, ideas are but part of the rich and illuminating whole which he offers us. One can imagine a man fully acquainting himself with the work of Aristotle and yet remaining almost devoid of culture; but one cannot imagine a man coming into intimate companionship with Plato and remaining untouched by his rich, representative personality. From such a companionship something must flow besides an enlargement of ideas or a development of the power of clear thinking; there must flow also the stimulating and illuminating impulse of a fresh contact with a great nature; there must result a certain liberation of the imagination, a certain widening of experience, a certain ripening of the mind of the student. The beauty of form, the varied and vital aspects of religious, social, and individual character, the splendour and charm of a nobly ordered art in temples, speech, manners, and dress, the constant suggestion of the deep humanism behind that art and of the freshness and reality of all its forms of expression,--these things are as much and as great a part of the "Dialogues" as the thought; and they are full of that quality which enriches and ripens the mind that comes under their influence. In these qualities of his style, quite as much as in his ideas, is to be found the real Plato, the great artist, who refused to consider philosophy as an abstract creation of the mind, existing, so far as man is concerned, apart from the mind which formulates it, but who saw life in its totality and made thought luminous and real by disclosing it at all points against the background of the life, the nature, and the habits of the thinker. This is the method of culture as distinguished from that of scholarship; and this is also the disclosure of the personality of Plato as distinguished from his philosophical genius. Whoever studies the "Dialogues" with his heart as well as with his mind comes into personal relations with the richest mind of antiquity. Chapter X. Liberation through Ideas. Matthew Arnold was in the habit of dwelling on the importance of a free movement of fresh ideas through society; the men who are in touch with such movements are certain to be productive, while those whose minds are not fed by this stimulus are likely to remain unfruitful. One of the most suggestive and beautiful facts in the spiritual history of men is the exhilaration which a great new thought brings with it; the thrilling moments in history are the moments of contact between such ideas and the minds which are open to their approach. It is true that fresh ideas often gain acceptance slowly and against great odds in the way of organised error and of individual inertness and dulness; nevertheless, it is also true that certain great ideas rapidly clarify themselves in the thought of almost every century. They are opposed and rejected by a multitude, but they are in the air, as we say; they seem to diffuse themselves through all fields of thought, and they are often worked out harmoniously in different departments by men who have no concert of action, but whose minds are open and sensitive to these invisible currents of light and power. The first and the most enduring result of this movement of ideas is the enlargement of the thoughts of men about themselves and their world. Every great new truth compels, sooner or later, a readjustment of the whole body of organised truth as men hold it. The fresh thought about the physical constitution of man bears its fruit ultimately in some fresh notion of his spiritual constitution; the new fact in geology does not spend its force until it has wrought a modification of the view of the creative method and the age of man in the world; the fresh conception of the method of evolution along material and physical lines slowly reconstructs the philosophy of mental and spiritual development. Every new thought relates itself finally to all thought, and is like the forward step which continually changes the horizon about the traveller. The history of man is the story of the ideas he has entertained and accepted, and of his struggle to incorporate these ideas into laws, customs, institutions, and character. At the heart of every race one finds certain ideas, not always clearly seen nor often definitely formulated save by a few persons, but unconsciously held with deathless tenacity and illustrated by a vast range of action and achievement; at the heart of every great civilisation one finds a few dominant and vital conceptions which give a certain coherence and unity to a vast movement of life. Now, the books of life, as has already been said, hold their place in universal literature because they reveal and illustrate, in symbol and personality, these fundamental ideas with supreme power and felicity. The large body of literature in prose and verse which is put between the covers of the Old Testament not only gives us an account of what the Hebrew race did in the world, but of its ideas about that world, and of the character which it formed for itself largely as the fruit of those ideas. Those ideas, it need hardly be said, not only registered a great advance on the ideas which preceded them, but remain in many respects the most fundamental ideas which the race as a whole has accepted. They lifted the men to whom they were originally revealed, or who accepted them, to a great height of spiritual and moral vision, and a race character was organised about them of the most powerful and persistent type. The modern student of the Old Testament is born into a very different atmosphere from that in which these conceptions of man and the universe were originally formed; but though they have largely lost their novelty, they have not lost the power of enlargement and expansion which were in them at the beginning. In his own history every man repeats, within certain limits, the history of the race; and the inexhaustible educational value of race experience lies in the fact that it so completely parallels the history of every member of the race. Childhood has the fancies and faiths of the earliest ages; youth has visions and dreams which form, generation after generation, a kind of contemporary mythology; maturity aspires after and sometimes attains the repose, the clear intelligence, the catholic outlook of the best modern type of mind and character. In some form every modern man travels the road over which his predecessors have passed, but he no longer blazes his path; a highway has been built for him. He is spared the immense toil of formulating the ideas by which he lives, and of passing through the searching experience which is often the only approach to the greatest truths. If he has originative power, he forms ideas of his own, but they are based on a massive foundation of ideas which others have worked out for him; he passes through his own individual experience, but he inherits the results of a multitude of experiences of which nothing remains save certain final generalisations. Every intelligent man is born into possession of a world of knowledge and truth which has been explored, settled, and organised for him. To the discovery and regulation of this world every race has worked with more or less definiteness of aim, and the total result of the incalculable labours and sufferings of men is the somewhat intangible but very real thing we call civilisation. At the heart of civilisation, and determining its form and quality, is that group of vital ideas to which each race has contributed according to its intelligence and power,--the measure of the greatness of a race being determined by the value of its contribution to this organised spiritual life of the world. This body of ideas is the highest product of the life of men under historic conditions; it is the quintessence of whatever was best and enduring not only in their thought, but in their feeling, their instinct, their affections, their activities; and the degree in which the man of to-day is able to appropriate this rich result of the deepest life of the past is the measure of his culture. One may be well-trained and carefully disciplined, and yet have no share in this organised life of the race; but no one can possess real culture who has not, according to his ability, entered into it by making it a part of himself. It is by contact with these great ideas that the individual mind puts itself in touch with the universal mind and indefinitely expands and enriches itself. Culture rests on ideas rather than on knowledge; its distinctive use of knowledge is to gain material for ideas. For this reason the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are of more importance than Thucydides and Curtius. For Homer was not only in a very important sense the historian of his race; he was, above all, the expositor of its ideas. There is involved in the very structure of the Greek epics the fundamental conception of life as the Greeks looked at it; their view of reverence, worship, law, obligation, subordination, personality. No one can be said to have read these poems in any real sense until he has made these ideas clear to himself; and these ideas carry with them a definite enlargement of thought. When a man has gotten a clear view of the ideas about life held by a great race, he has gone a long way towards self-education,--so rich and illuminative are these central conceptions around which the life of each race has been organised. To multiply these ideas by broad contact with the books of life is to expand one's thought so as to compass the essential thought of the entire race. And this is precisely what the man of broad culture accomplishes; he emancipates himself from whatever is local, provincial, and temporal, by gaining the power of taking the race point of view. He is liberated by ideas, not only from his own ignorance and the limitations of his own nature, but from the partial knowledge and the prejudices of his time; and liberation by ideas, and expansion through ideas, constitute one of the great services of the books of life to those who read them with an open mind. Chapter XI. The Logic of Free Life. The ideas which form the substance or substratum of the greatest books are not primarily the products of pure thought; they have a far deeper origin, and their immense power of enlightenment and enrichment lies in the depth of their rootage in the unconscious life of the race. If it be true that the fundamental process of the physical universe and of the life of man, so far as we can understand them, is not intellectual, but vital, then it is also true that the formative ideas by which we live, and in the clear comprehension of which the greatness of intellectual and spiritual life for us lies, have been borne in upon the race by living rather than by thinking. They are felt and experienced first, and formulated later. It is clear that a definite purpose is being wrought out through physical processes in the world of matter; it is equally clear to most men that moral and spiritual purposes are being worked out through the processes which constitute the conditions of our being and acting in this world. It has been the engrossing and fruitful study of science to discover the processes and comprehend the ends of the physical order; it is the highest office of art to discover and illustrate, for the most part unconsciously, the processes and results of the spiritual order by setting forth in concrete form the underlying and formative ideas of races and periods. "The thought that makes the work of art," says Mr. John La Farge in a discussion of the art of painting of singular insight and intelligence, "the thought which in its highest expression we call genius, is not reflection or reflective thought. The thought which analyses has the same deficiencies as our eyes. It can fix only one point at a time. It is necessary for it to examine each element of consideration, and unite it to others, to make a whole. But the _logic of free life, which is the logic of art_, is like that logic of one using the eye, in which we make most wonderful combinations of momentary adaptation, by co-ordinating innumerable memories, by rejecting those that are useless or antagonistic; and all without being aware of it, so that those especially who most use the eye, as, for instance, the painter or the hunter, are unaware of more than one single, instantaneous action." This is a very happy formulation of a fundamental principle in art; indeed, it brings before us the essential quality of art, its illustration of thought in the order not of a formal logic, but of the logic of free life. It is at this point that it is differentiated from philosophy; it is from this point that its immense spiritual significance becomes clear. In the great books fundamental ideas are set forth not in a systematic way, nor as the results of methodical teaching, but as they rise over the vast territory of actual living, and are clarified by the long-continued and many-sided experience of the race. Every book of the first order in literature of the creative kind is a final generalisation from a vast experience. It is, to use Mr. La Farge's phrase, the co-ordination of innumerable memories,--memories shared by an innumerable company of persons, and becoming, at length and after long clarification, a kind of race memory; and this memory is so inclusive and tenacious that it holds intact the long and varied play of soil, sky, scenery, climate, faith, myth, suffering, action, historic process, through which the race has passed and by which it has been largely formed. The ideas which underlie the great books bring with them, therefore, when we really receive them into our minds, the entire background of the life out of which they took their rise. We are not only permitted to refresh ourselves at the inexhaustible spring, but, as we drink, the entire sweep of landscape, to the remotest mountains in whose heart its sources are hidden, encompasses us like a vast living world. It is, in other words, the totality of things which great art gives us,--not things in isolation and detachment. Mr. La Farge will pardon further quotation; he admirably states this great truth when he says that "in a work of art, executed through the body, and appealing to the mind through the senses, the entire make-up of its creator addresses the entire constitution of the man for whom it is meant." One may go further, and say of the greatest books that the whole race speaks through them to the whole man who puts himself in a receptive mood towards them. This totality of influences, conditions, and history which goes to the making of books of this order receives dramatic unity, artistic sequence, and integral order and coherence from the personality of the writer. He gathers into himself the spiritual results of the experience of his people or his age, and through his genius for expression the vast general background of his personal life, which, as in the case of Homer, for instance, has entirely faded from view, rises once more in clear vision before us. "In any museum," says Mr. La Farge, "we can see certain great differences in things; which are so evident, so much on the surface, as almost to be our first impressions. They are the marks of the places where the works of art were born. Climate; intensity of heat and light; the nature of the earth; whether there was much or little water in proportion to land; plants, animals, surrounding beings, have helped to make these differences, as well as manners, laws, religions, and national ideals. If you recall the more general physical impression of a gallery of Flemish paintings and of a gallery of Italian masters, you will have carried off in yourself two distinct impressions received during their lives by the men of these two races. The fact that they used their eyes more or less is only a small factor in this enormous aggregation of influences received by them and transmitted to us." From this point of view the inexhaustible significance of a great work of art becomes clear, both as regards its definite revelation of racial and individual truth, and as regards its educational or culture quality and value. Ideas are presented not in isolation and detachment, but in their totality of origin and relationship; they are not abstractions, general propositions, philosophical generalisations; they are living truths--truths, that is, which have become clear by long experience, and to which men stand, or have stood, in personal relations. They are ideas, in other words, which stand together, not in the order of formal logic, but of the "logic of free life." They are not torn out of their normal relations; they bring all their relationships with them. We are offered a plant in the soil, not a flower cut from its stem. Every man is rooted to the soil, touches through his senses the physical, and through his mind and heart the spiritual, order of his time; all these influences are focussed in him, and according to his capacity he gathers them into his experience, formulates and expresses them. The greater and more productive the man, the wider his contact with and absorption of the life of his time. For the artist stands nearest, not farthest from his contemporaries. He is not, however, a mere medium in their hands, not a mere secretary or recorder of their ideas and feelings. He is separated from them in the clearness of his vision of the significance of their activities, the ends towards which they are moving, the ideas which they are working out; but, in the exact degree of his greatness, he is one with them in sympathy, experience, and comprehension. They live for him, and he lives with them; they work out ideas in the logic of free life, and he clarifies, interprets, and illustrates those ideas. The world is not saved _by_ the remnant, as Matthew Arnold held; it is saved _through_ the remnant. The elect of the race, its prophets, teachers, artists,--and every great artist is also a prophet and teacher,--are its leaders, not its masters; its interpreters, not its creators. The race is dumb without its artists; but the artists would be impossible without the sustaining fellowship of the race. In the making of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" the Greek race was in full partnership with Homer. The ideas which form the summits of human achievement are sustained by immense masses of earth; the higher they rise the vaster their bases. The richer and wider the race life, the freer and deeper the play of that vital logic which produces the formative ideas. Chapter XII. The Imagination. The Lady of Shalott, sitting in her tower, looked into her magic mirror and saw the whole world go by,--monk, maiden, priest, knight, lady, and king. In the mirror of the imagination not only the world of to-day but the entire movement of human life moves before the eye as the throngs of living men move on the streets. For the imagination is the real magician, of whose marvels all simulated magic is but a clumsy and mechanical imitation. It is the real power, of which all material powers are very inadequate symbols. Rarely taken into account by teachers, largely ignored by educational systems and philosophies, it is the divinest of all the powers which men are able to put forth, because it is the creative power. It uses thought, but, in a way, it is greater than thought, because it builds out of thought that which thought alone is powerless to construct. It is, indeed, the essential element in great constructive thinking; for while we may have thoughts untouched by the imagination, one cannot think along high constructive lines without its constant aid. Isolated thoughts come unattended by it, but the thinking which issues in organised systems, in comprehensive interpretations of things and events, in those noble generalisations which have the splendour of the discovery of new worlds in them, in those concrete embodiments of idea which we call works of art, is conditioned on the use of the imagination. Plato's Dialogues were fashioned by it as truly as Homer's poems; Hegel's philosophy was created by it as definitely as Shakespeare's plays, and Newton and Kepler used it as freely as Dante or Rembrandt. Upon the use of this supreme faculty we depend not only for creative power, but for education in the highest sense of the word; for culture is the highest result of education, and the final test of education is its power to produce culture. Goethe was in the habit of saying that sympathy is essential to all true criticism; for no man can discern the heart of a movement, of a work of art, or of a race who does not put himself into heart relations with that which he is trying to understand. We never really possess an idea, a bit of knowledge, or a fact of experience until we get below the mind of it into the heart of it. Now, sympathy in this sense is the imagination touched with feeling; it is the imagination bringing thought and emotion into vital relation. In the process of culture, therefore, the imagination plays a great part; for culture, it cannot too often be said, is knowledge, observation, and experience incorporate into personality and become part of the very nature of the individual. The man of culture is pre-eminently a man of imagination; lacking this quality, he may become learned by force of industry, or a scholar by virtue of a trained intelligence, but the ripeness, the balance, the peculiar richness of fibre which characterise the man of culture will be denied him. The man of culture, it is true, is not always a man of creative power; but he is never devoid of that kind of creative quality which transforms everything he receives into something personal and individual. And the more deeply one studies the work of the great artists, the more distinctly does he see the immense place which culture in the vital, as contrasted with the academic, sense held in their lives, and the great part it played in their productive activity. Dante, Goethe, Tennyson, Browning, Lowell, were men possessed in rare degree of culture of both kinds; but Shakespeare and Burns were equally men of culture. They shared in the possession of this faculty of making all they saw and knew a part of themselves. Between culture of this quality and the creative power there is something more than complete unity; there is almost identity, for they seem to be two forms of activity of the same power rather than distinct faculties. Culture enables us to receive the world into ourselves, not in the reflection of a magic mirror, but in the depths of a living soul; to receive that world in such a way that we possess it; it ceases to be outside us and becomes part of our very nature. The creative power enables us to refashion that world and to put it forth again out of ourselves, as it was originally put forth out of the life of the divine artist. The creative process is, therefore, a double process, and culture and genius stand in indissoluble union. The development of the imagination, upon the power of which both absorption of knowledge and creative capacity depend, is, therefore, a matter of supreme importance. To this necessity educators will some day open their eyes, and educational systems will some day conform; meantime, it must be done mainly by individual work. Knowledge, discipline, and technical training of the best sort are accessible on every hand; but the development of the faculty which unites all these in the highest form of activity must be secured mainly by personal effort. The richest and most accessible material for this highest education is furnished by art; and the form of art within reach of every civilised man, at all times, in all places, is the book. To these masterpieces, which have been called the books of life, all men may turn with the assurance that as the supreme achievements of the imagination they have the power of awakening, stimulating, and enriching it in the highest degree. For the genuine reader, who sees in a book what the writer has put there, repeats in a way the process through which the maker of the book passed. The man who reads the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" with his heart as well as his intelligence must measurably enter into the life which these poems describe and interpret; he must identify himself for the time with the race whose soul and historic character are revealed in epic form as in a great mirror; he must see life from the Greek point of view, and feel life as the Greek felt it. He must, in a word, go through the process by which the poems were made, as well as feel, comprehend, and enjoy their final perfection. In like manner the open-hearted and open-minded reader of the Book of Job cannot rest content with that noble poem in the form which it now possesses; the imaginative impulse which even the casual reading of the poem liberates in him sends him behind the finished product to the life of which it was the immortal fruit; he enters into the groping thought of an age which has perished out of all other remembrance; he deals with a problem which is as old as man from the standpoint of men who have left no other record of themselves. In proportion to the depth of his feeling and the vitality of his imagination he must saturate himself with the rich life of thought, conviction, and emotion, of struggle and aspiration, out of which the greatest of the poems of nature took its rise. He must, in a word, receive into himself the living material upon which the unknown poet worked. In such a process the imagination is evoked in full and free play; it insensibly reconstructs a life gone out of knowledge; selects, harmonises, unifies, and in a measure creates. It illuminates and unifies knowledge, divines the wide relations of thought, and discerns its place in organic connection with the world which gave it birth. The material upon which this great power is nourished is specifically furnished by the works which it has created. As the eye is trained to discover the line of beauty by companionship with the works in which it is revealed with the greatest clearness and power, so is the imagination developed by intimacy with the books which disclose its depth, its reality, and its method. The reader of Shakespeare cannot follow the leadings of his masterly imagination without feeling a liberation of his own faculty of seeing things as parts of a vast order of life. He does not gain the poet's creative power, but he is enlarged and enriched to the point where his own imagination plays directly on the material about it; he receives it into himself, and in the exact measure in which he learns the secret of absorbing what he sees, feels, and knows, becomes master and interpreter of the world of his time, and restorer of the world of other times and men. For the imagination, playing upon fact and experience, divines their meaning and puts us in possession of the truth and life that are in them. To possess this magical power is to live the whole of life and to enter into the heritage of history. Chapter XIII. Breadth of Life. One of the prime characteristics of the man of culture is freedom from provincialism, complete deliverance from rigidity of temper, narrowness of interest, uncertainty of taste, and general unripeness. The villager, or pagan in the old sense, is always a provincial; his horizon is narrow, his outlook upon the world restricted, his knowledge of life limited. He may know a few things thoroughly; he cannot know them in true relation to one another or to the larger order of which they are part. He may know a few persons intimately; he cannot know the representative persons of his time or of his race. The essence of provincialism is the substitution of a part for the whole; the acceptance of the local experience, knowledge, and standards as possessing the authority of the universal experience, knowledge, and standards. The local experience is entirely true in its own sphere; it becomes misleading when it is accepted as the experience of all time and all men. It is this mistake which breeds that narrowness and uncertainty of taste and opinion from which culture furnishes the only escape. A small community, isolated from other communities by the accidents of position, often comes to believe that its way of doing things is the way of the world; a small body of religious people, devoutly attentive to their own observances, often reach the conclusion that these observances are the practice of that catholic church which includes the pious-minded of all creeds and rituals; a group of radical reformers, by passionate advocacy of a single reform, come to believe that there have been no reformers before them, and that none will be needed after them; a band of fresh and audacious young practitioners of any of the arts, by dint of insistence upon a certain manner, rapidly generate the conviction that art has no other manner. Society is full of provincialism in art, politics, religion, and economics; and the essence of this provincialism is always the same,--the substitution of a part for the whole. Larger knowledge of the world and of history would make it perfectly clear that there has always been not only a wide latitude, but great variation, in ritual and worship; that the political story of all the progressive nations has been one long agitation for reforms, and that no reform can ever be final; that reform must succeed reform until the end of time,--reforms being in their nature neither more nor less than those readjustments to new conditions which are involved in all social development. A wider survey of experience would make it clear that art has many manners, and that no manner is supreme and none final. A long experience gives a man poise, balance, and steadiness; he has seen many things come and go, and he is neither paralysed by depression when society goes wrong, nor irrationally elated when it goes right. He is perfectly aware that his party is only a means to an end, and not a piece of indestructible and infallible machinery; that the creed he accepts has passed through many changes of interpretation, and will pass through more; that the social order for which he contends, if secured, will be only another stage in the unbroken development of the organised life of men in the world. And culture is, at bottom, only an enlarged and clarified experience,--an experience so comprehensive that it puts its possessor in touch with all times and men, and gives him the opportunity of comparing his own knowledge of things, his faith and his practice, with the knowledge, faith, and practice of all the generations. This opportunity brings, to one who knows how to use it, deliverance from the ignorance or half-knowledge of provincialism, from the crudity of its half-trained tastes, and from the blind passion of its rash and groundless faith in its own infallibility. Provincialism is the soil in which philistinism grows most rapidly and widely. For as the essence of provincialism is the substitution of a part for the whole, so the essence of philistinism is the conviction that what one possesses is the best of its kind, that the kind is the highest, and that one has all he needs of it. A true philistine is not only convinced that he holds the only true and consistent position, but he is also entirely satisfied with himself. He is infallible and he is sufficient unto himself. In politics he is a blind partisan, in theology an arrogant dogmatist, in art an ignorant propagandist. What he accepts, believes, or has, is not only the best of its kind, but nothing better can ever supersede it. To this spirit the spirit of culture is antipodal; between the two there is inextinguishable antagonism. They can never compromise or agree upon a truce, any more than day and night can consent to dwell together. To destroy philistinism root and branch, to eradicate the ignorance which makes it possible for a man to believe that he possesses all things in their final forms, to empty a man of the stupidity and vulgarity of self-satisfaction, and to invigorate the immortal dissatisfaction of the soul with its present attainments, are the ends which culture is always seeking to accomplish. The keen lance of Matthew Arnold, flashing now in one part of the field and now in another, pierced many of the fallacies of provincialism and philistinism, and mortally wounded more than one Goliath of ignorance and conceit; but the work must be done anew in every generation and in every individual. All men are conceived in the sin of ignorance and born in the iniquity of half-knowledge; and every man needs to be saved by wider knowledge and clearer vision. It is a matter of comparative indifference where one is born; it is a matter of supreme importance how one educates one's self. There is as genuine a provincialism in Paris as in the remotest frontier town; it is better dressed and better mannered, but it is not less narrow and vulgar. There is as much vulgarity in the arrogance of a czar as in that of an African chief; as much absurdity in the self-satisfaction of the man who believes that the habit and speech of the boulevard are the ultimate habit and speech of the race, as in that of the man who accepts the manners of the mining camp as the finalities of human intercourse. Culture is not an accident of birth, although surroundings retard or advance it; it is always a matter of individual education. This education finds no richer material than that which is contained in literature; for the characteristic of literature, as of all the arts, is its universality of interest, its elevation of taste, its disclosure of ideas, its constant appeal to the highest in the reader by its revelation of the highest in the writer. Many of the noblest works of literature are intensely local in colour, atmosphere, material, and allusion; but in every case that which is of universal interest is touched, evoked, and expressed. The artist makes the figure he paints stand out with the greatest distinctness by the accuracy of the details introduced and by the skill with which they are handled; but the very definiteness of the figure gives force and clearness to the revelation of the universal trait or characteristic which is made through it. Père Goriot has the ineffaceable stamp of Paris upon him, but he is for that very reason the more completely disclosed as a typical individuality. Literature abounds in illustrations of this true and artistic adjustment of the local to the universal, this disclosure of the common humanity in which all men share through the highly elaborated individuality; and this characteristic indicates one of the deepest sources of its educational power. So searching is this power that it is safe to say that no one can know thoroughly the great books of the world and remain a provincial or a philistine; the very air of these works is fatal to narrow views, to low standards, and to self-satisfaction. Chapter XIV. Racial Experience. There is a general agreement among men that experience is the most effective and successful of teachers; that for many men no other form of education is possible; and that those who enjoy the fullest educational opportunities miss the deeper processes of training if they fail of that wide contact with the happenings of life which we call experience. To touch the world at many points; to come into relations with many kinds of men; to think, to feel, and to act on a generous scale,--these are prime opportunities for growth. For it is not only true, as Browning said so often and in so many kinds of speech, that a man's greatest good fortune is to have the opportunity of giving out freely and powerfully all the force that is in him, but it is also true that almost equal good fortune attends the man who has the opportunity of receiving truth and instruction through a wide and rich experience. But individual experience, however inclusive and deep, is necessarily limited, and the life of the greatest man would be confined within narrow boundaries if he were shut within the circle of his own individual contact with things and persons. If Shakespeare had written of those things only of which he had personal knowledge, of those experiences in which he had personally shared, his contribution to literature would be deeply interesting, but it would not possess that quality of universality which makes it the property of the race. In Shakespeare there was not only knowledge of man, but knowledge of men as well. His greatness rests not only on his own commanding personality, but on his magical power of laying other personalities under tribute for the enlargement of his view of things and the enrichment of his portraiture of humanity. A man learns much from his own contacts with his time and his race, but one of the most important gains he makes is the development of the faculty of appropriating the results of the contacts of other men with other times and races; and one of the finer qualities of rich experience is the quickening of the imagination to divine that which is hidden in the experience of other races and ages. The man of culture must not only live deeply and intelligently in his own experience, rationalising and utilising it as he passes through it; he must also break away from its limitations and escape its tendency to substitute a part of life, distinctly seen, for the whole of life, vaguely discerned. The great writer, for instance, must first make his own nature rich in its development and powerful in harmony of aim and force, and he must also make this nature sensitive, sympathetic, and clairvoyant in its relations with the natures of other men. To become self-centred, and yet to be able to pass entirely out of one's self into the thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sufferings of others, involves a harmonising of opposing tendencies which is difficult of attainment. It is precisely this poise which men of the highest productive power secure; for it is this nice adjustment of the individual discovery of truth to the general discovery of truth which gives a man of imaginative faculty range, power, and sanity of view. To see, feel, think, and act strongly and intelligently in our own individual world gives us first-hand relations to that world, and first-hand knowledge of it; to pass beyond the limits of this small sphere, which we touch with our own hands, into the larger spheres which other men touch, not only widens our knowledge but vastly increases our power. It is like exchanging the power of a small stream for the general power which plays through Nature. One of the measures of greatness is furnished by this ability to pass through individual into national or racial experience; for a man's spiritual dimensions, as revealed through any form of art, are determined by his power of discerning essential qualities and experiences in the greatest number of people. The four writers who hold the highest places in literature justify their claims by their universality; that is to say, by the range of their knowledge of life as that knowledge lies revealed in the experience of the race. It is the fortune of a very small group of men in any age to possess the power of divining, by the gift of genius, the world which lies, nebulous and shadowy, in the lives of men about them, or in the lives of men of other times; in the nature of things, the clairvoyant vision of poets like Tennyson, Browning, and Hugo, of novelists like Thackeray, Balzac, and Tolstoi, is not at the command of all men; and yet all men may share in it and be enlarged by it. This is one of the most important services which literature renders to its lover: it makes him a companion of the most interesting personalities in their most significant moments; it enables him to break the bars of individual experience and escape into the wider and richer life of the race. Within the compass of a very small room, on a very few shelves, the real story of man in this world may be collected in the books of life in which it is written; and the solitary reader, whose personal contacts with men and events are few and lacking in distinction and interest, may enter, through his books, into the most thrilling life of the race in some of its most significant moments. No man can read "In Memoriam" or "The Ring and the Book" without passing beyond the boundaries of his individual experience into experiences which broaden and quicken his own spirit; and no one can become familiar with the novels of Tourguéneff or Tolstoi without touching life at new points and passing through emotions which would never have been stirred in him by the happenings of his own life. Such a story as "Anna Karénina" leaves no reader of imagination or heart entirely unchanged; its elemental moral and artistic force strikes into every receptive mind and leaves there a knowledge of life not possessed before. The work of the Russian novelists has been, indeed, a new reading in the book of experience; it has made a notable addition to the sum total of humanity's knowledge of itself. In the pages of Gogol, Dostoievski, Tourguéneff, and Tolstoi, the majority of readers have found a world absolutely new to them; and in reading those pages, so penetrated with the dramatic spirit, they have come into the possession of a knowledge of life not formal and didactic, but deep, vital, and racial in its range and significance. To possess the knowledge of an experience at once so remote and so rich in disclosure of character, so charged with tragic interest, is to push back the horizons of our own experience, to secure a real contribution to our own enrichment and development. Whoever carries that process far enough brings into his individual experience much of the richness and splendour of the experience of the race. Chapter XV. Freshness of Feeling. The primary charm of art resides in the freshness of feeling which it reveals and conveys. An art which discloses fatigue, weariness, exhaustion of emotion, deadening of interest, has parted with its magical spell; for vitality, emotion, passionate interest in the experiences of life, devout acceptance of the facts of life, are the prime characteristics of art in those moments when its veracity and power are at the highest point. A great work of art may be tragic in the view of life which it presents, but it must show no sign of the succumbing of the spirit to the appalling facts with which it deals; even in those cases in which, as in the tragedy of "King Lear," blind fate seems relentlessly sovereign over human affairs, the artist must disclose in his attitude and method a sustained energy of spirit. Nothing shows so clearly a decline in creative force as a loss of interest on the part of the artist in the subject or material with which he deals. That fresh bloom which lies on the very face of poetry, and in which not only its obvious but its enduring charm resides, is the expression of a feeling for nature, for life, and for the happenings which make up the common lot, which keeps its earliest receptivity and responsiveness. When a man ceases to care deeply for things, he ceases to represent or interpret them with insight and power. The preservation of feeling is, therefore, essential in all artistic work; and when it is lost, the artist becomes an echo or an imitation of his nobler self and work. It is the beautiful quality of the true art instinct that it constantly sees and feels the familiar world with a kind of childlike directness and delight. That which has become commonplace to most men is as full of charm and novelty to the artist as if it had just been created. He sees it with fresh eyes and feels it with a fresh heart. To such a spirit nothing becomes stale and hackneyed; everything remains new, fresh, and significant. It has often been said that if it were not for the children the world would lose the faith, the enthusiasm, the delight which constantly renew its spirit and reinforce its courage. A world grown old in feeling would be an exhausted world, incapable of production along spiritual or artistic lines. Now, the artist is always a child in the eagerness of his spirit and the freshness of his feeling; he retains the magical power of seeing things habitually, and still seeing them freshly. Mr. Lowell was walking with a friend along a country road when they came upon a large building which bore the inscription, "Home for Incurable Children." "They'll take me there some day," was the half-humorous comment of a sensitive man, to whom life brought great sorrows, but who retained to the very end a youthful buoyancy, courage, and faculty of finding delight in common things. It is a significant fact that the greatest men and women never lose the qualities which are commonly associated with youth,--freshness of feeling, zest for work, joy in life. Goethe at eighty-four studied the problems of life with the same deep interest which he had felt in them at thirty or forty; Tennyson's imagination showed some signs of waning power in extreme old age, but the magic of feeling was still fresh in his heart; Dr. Holmes carried his blithe spirit, his gayety and spontaneity of wit, to the last year of his life; and Mr. Gladstone at eighty-six was one of the most eager and aspiring men of his time. Genius seems to be allied to immortal youth; and in this alliance resides a large part of its power. For the man of genius does not demonstrate his possession of that rare and elusive gift by seeing things which have never been seen before, but by seeing with fresh interest what men have seen so often that they have ceased to regard it. Novelty is rarely characteristic of great works of art; on the contrary, the facts of life which they set before us are familiar, and the thoughts they convey by direct statement or by dramatic illustration have always been haunting our minds. The secret of the artist resides in the unwearied vitality which brings him to such close quarters with life, and endows him with directness of sight and freshness of feeling. Daisies have starred fields in Scotland since men began to plough and reap, but Burns saw them as if they had sprung from the ground for the first time; forgotten generations have seen the lark rise and heard the cuckoo call in England, but to Wordsworth the song from the upper sky and the notes from the thicket on the hill were full of the music of the first morning. Shakespeare dealt with old stories and constantly touched upon the most familiar things; but with what new interest he invests both theme and illustration! One may spend a lifetime in a country village, surrounded by people who are apparently entirely uninteresting; but if one has the eye of a novelist for the facts of life, the power to divine character, the gift to catch the turn of speech, the trick of voice, the peculiarity of manner, what resources, discoveries, and diversion are at hand! The artist never has to search for material; it is always at hand. That it is old, trite, stale to others, is of no consequence; it is always fresh and significant to him. This freshness of feeling is not in any way dependent on the character of the materials upon which it plays; it is not an irresponsible temperamental quality which seeks the joyful or comic facts of life and ignores its sad and tragic aspects. The zest of spirit which one finds in Shakespeare, for instance, is not a blind optimism thoughtlessly escaping from the shadows into the sunshine. On the contrary, it is drawn by a deep instinct to study the most perplexing problems of character, and to drop its plummets into the blackest abysses of experience. Literature deals habitually with the most sombre side of the human lot, and finds its richest material in those awful happenings which invest the history of every race with such pathetic interest; and yet literature, in its great moments, overflows with vitality, zest of spirit, freshness of spirit! There is no contradiction in all this; for the vitality which pervades great art is not dependent upon external conditions; it has its source in the soul of the artist. It is the immortal quality in the human spirit playing like sunshine on the hardest and most tragic facts of experience. It often suggests no explanation of these facts; it is content to present them with relentless veracity; but even when it offers no solution of the tragic problem, the tireless interest which it feels, the force with which it illustrates and describes, the power of moral organisation and interpretation which it reveals, carry with them the conviction that the spirit of man, however baffled and beaten, is superior to all the accidents of fortune, and indestructible even within the circle of the blackest fate. As OEdipus, old, blind, and smitten, vanishes from our sight, we think of him no longer as a great figure blasted by adverse fate, but as a great soul smitten and scourged, and yet still invested with the dignity of immortality. The dramatist, even when he throws no light on the ultimate solution of the problem with which he is dealing, feels so deeply and freshly, and discloses such sustained strength, that the vitality with which the facts are exhibited and the question stated affirms its superiority over all the adversities and catastrophes of fortune. This freshness of feeling, which is the gift of men and women of genius, must be possessed in some measure by all who long to get the most out of life and to develop their own inner resources. To retain zest in work and delight in life we must keep freshness of feeling. Its presence lends unfailing charm to its possessor; its loss involves loss of the deepest personal charm. It is essential in all genuine culture, because it sustains that interest in events, experience, and opportunity upon which growth is largely conditioned; and there is no more effective means of preserving and developing it than intimacy with those who have invested all life with its charm. The great books are reservoirs of this vitality. When our own interest begins to die and the world turns gray and old in our sight, we have only to open Homer, Shakespeare, Browning, and the flowers bloom again and the skies are blue; and the experiences of life, however tragic, are matched by a vitality which is sovereign over them all. Chapter XVI. Liberation from One's Time. The law of opposites under which men live is very strikingly brought out in the endeavour to secure a sound and intelligent adjustment to one's time,--a relation intimate and vital, and at the same time deliberately and judicially assumed. To be detached in thought, feeling, or action, from the age in which one lives, is to cut the ties that bind the individual to society, and through which he is very largely nourished and educated. To live deeply and really through every form of expression and in every relationship is so essential to the complete unfolding of the personality that he who falls below the full measure of his capacity for experience and for expression falls below the full measure of his possible growth. Life is not, as some men of detached moods or purely critical temper have assumed, a spectacle of which the secret can be mastered without sharing in the movement; it is rather a drama, the splendour of whose expression and the depth of whose meaning are revealed to those alone who share in the action. To stand aside from the vital movement and study life in a purely critical spirit is to miss the deeper education which is involved in the vital process, and to lose the fundamental revelation which is slowly and painfully disclosed to those whose minds and hearts are open to receive it. No one can understand love who has not loved and been loved; no one can comprehend sorrow who has not had the companionship of sorrow. The experiment has been made in many forms, but no one has yet been nourished by the fruit of the tree of knowledge who has eaten of that fruit alone. In the art of living, as in all the arts which illustrate and enrich living, the amateur and the dilettante have no real position; they never attain to that mastery of knowledge or of execution which alone give reality to a man's life or work. Mastery in any art comes to those only who give themselves without reservation or stint to their task; mastery in the supreme art of living is within reach of those only who live completely in every faculty and relation. To stand in the closest and most vital relation to one's time is, therefore, the first condition of comprehending one's age and getting from it what it has to give. But while a man must be in and with his time in the most vital sense, he must not be wholly of it. To get the vital enrichment which flows from identification with one's age, and at the same time to get the detachment which enables one to see his time in true relation to all time, is one of the problems which requires the highest wisdom for its solution. It is easy to become entirely absorbed in one's age, or it is easy to detach one's self from it, and study it in a cold and critical temper; but to get its warmth and vitality and escape its narrowing and limiting influence is so difficult that comparatively few men succeed in striking the balance between two divergent tendencies. A man gets power and knowledge from his time in the degree in which he suffers it to enlarge and vitalise him; he loses power and knowledge in the degree in which he suffers it to limit his vision and confine his interests. The Time Spirit is the greatest of our teachers so long as it is the interpreter of the Eternal Spirit; it is the most fallible and misleading of teachers when it attempts to speak for itself. The visible and material things by which we are surrounded are of immense helpfulness so long as they symbolise invisible and spiritual things; they become stones of stumbling and rocks of offence when they are detached from the spiritual order and set apart in an order of their own. The age in which we live affords a concrete illustration of the vital processes in society and means of contact with that society, but it is comprehensible and educative in the exact degree in which we understand its relation to other times. The impression which the day makes upon us needs to be tested by the impression which we receive from the year; the judgment of a decade must be corrected by the judgment of the century. The present hour is subtly illusive; it fills the whole stage, to the exclusion of the past and the present; it appears to stand alone, detached from all that went before or is to follow; it seems to be the historic moment, the one reality amid fleeting shadows. As a matter of fact, it is a logical product of the past, bound to it by ties so elusive that we cannot trace them, and so numerous and tenacious that we cannot sever them; it is but a fragment of a whole immeasurably greater than itself; its character is so completely determined by the past that the most radical changes we can make in it are essentially superficial; for it is the future, not the present, which is in our hands. To get even a glimpse of the character and meaning of our own time, we must, therefore, see it in relation to all time; to master it in any sense we must set it in its true historical relations. That which to the uneducated mind seems portentous is lightly regarded by the mind which sees the apparently isolated event in a true historic perspective; while the occurrence or condition which is barely noticed by the untrained, seen in the same perspective, becomes tragic in its prophecy of change and suffering. History is full of corrections of the mistaken judgments of the hour; and from the hate or adoration of contemporaries, the wise man turns to the clear-sighted and inexorable judgment of posterity. In the far-seeing vision of a trained intelligence the hour is never detached from the day, nor the day from the year; and the year is always held in its place in the century. Now, the man of culture has pre-eminently the gift of living deeply in his own age, and at the same time of seeing it in relation to all ages. It has no illusion for him; it cannot deceive him with its passionate acceptance or its equally passionate rejection. He sees the crown shining above the cross; he hears the long thunders of applause breaking in upon execrations which they will finally silence; he foresees the harvest in the seed that lies barely covered on the surface; and, afar off, his ear notes the final crash of that which at the moment seems to carry with it the assurance of eternal duration. Such a man secures the vitality of his time, but he escapes its limitation of vision by seeing it clearly and seeing it whole; he corrects the teaching of the time spirit by constant reference to the teaching of the Eternal Spirit imparted in the long training and the wide revelation of history. The day is beautiful and significant, or ominous and tragic, to him as it discloses its relation to the good or the evil of the years that are gone. And these vital associations, these deep historic connections, are brought to light with peculiar clearness in literature. Beyond all other means of enfranchisement, the book liberates a man from imprisonment within the narrow limits of his own time; it makes him free of all times. He lives in all periods, under all forms of government, in all social conditions; the mind of antiquity, of mediævalism, of the Renaissance, is as open to him as the mind of his own day, and so he is able to look upon human life in its entirety. Chapter XVII. Liberation from One's Place. The instinct which drives men to travel is at bottom identical with that which fills men with passionate desire to know what is in life. Time and strength are often wasted in restless change from place to place; but real wandering, however aimless in mood, is always education. To know one's neighbours and to be on good terms with the community in which one lives are the beginning of sound relations to the world at large; but one never knows his village in any real sense until he knows the world. The distant hills which seem to be always calling the imaginative boy away from the familiar fields and hearth do not conspire against his peace, however much they may conspire against his comfort; they help him to the fulfilment of his destiny by suggesting to his imagination the deeper experience, the richer growth, the higher tasks which await him in the world beyond the horizon. Man is a wanderer by the law of his life; and if he never leaves his home in which he is born, he never builds a home of his own. It is the law of life that a child should leave his father and separate himself from his inherited surroundings, in order that by self-unfolding and self-realisation he may substitute a conscious for an unconscious, a moral for an instinctive relation. The instinct of the myth-makers was sound when it led them to attach such importance to the wandering and the return; the separation effected in order that individuality and character might be realised through isolation and experience, the return voluntarily made through clear recognition of the soundness of the primitive relations, the beauty of the service of the older and wiser to the younger and the more ignorant. We are born into relations which we accept as normal and inevitable; we break away from them in order that by detachment we may see them objectively and from a distance, and that we may come to self-consciousness; we resume these relations of deliberate purpose and with clear perception of their moral significance. So the boy, grown to manhood, returns to his home from the world in which he has tested himself and seen for the first time, with clear eyes, the depth and beauty of its service in the spiritual order; so the man who has revolted from the barren and shallow dogmatic statement of a spiritual truth returns, in riper years and with a deeper insight, to the truth which is no longer matter of inherited belief but of vital need and perception. The ripe, mature, full mind not only escapes the limitation of the time in which it finds itself; it also escapes from the limitations of the place in which it happens to be. A man of deep culture cannot be a provincial; he must be a citizen of the world. The man of provincial tastes and ideas owns the acres; the man of culture commands the landscape. He knows the world beyond the hills; he sees the great movement of life from which the village seems almost shut out; he shares those inclusive experiences which come to each age and give each age a character of its own. He is in fellowship and sympathy with the smaller community at his doors, but he belongs also to that greater community which is coterminous with humanity itself. He is not disloyal to his immediate surroundings when he leaves them for exploration, travel, and discovery; he is fulfilling that law of life which conditions true valuation of that into which one is born upon clear perception of that which one must acquire for himself. The wanderings of individuals and races, which form so large a part of the substance of history, are witnesses of that craving for deeper experience and wider knowledge which is one of the springs of human progress. The American cares for Europe not for its more skilful and elaborate ministration to his comfort; he is drawn towards it through the appeal of its rich historic life to his imagination and through the diversity and variety of its social and racial phenomena. And in like manner the European seeks the East, not simply as a matter of idle curiosity, but because he finds in the East conditions which are set in such sharp contrast with those with which he is familiar. The instinct for expansion which gives human history its meaning and interest is constantly urging the man of sensitive mind to secure by observation that which he cannot get by experience. To secure the most complete development one must live in one's time and yet live above it, and one must also live in one's home and yet live, at the same time, in the world. The life which is bounded in knowledge, interest, and activity by the invisible but real and limiting walls of a small community is often definite in aim, effective in action, and upright in intention; but it cannot be rich, varied, generous, and stimulating. The life, on the other hand, which is entirely detached from local associations and tasks is often interesting, liberalising, and catholic in spirit; but it cannot be original or productive. A sound life--balanced, poised, and intelligently directed--must stand strongly in both local and universal relations; it must have the vitality and warmth of the first, and the breadth and range of the second. This liberation from provincialism is not only one of the signs of culture, but it is also one of its finest results; it registers a high degree of advancement. For the man who has passed beyond the prejudices, misconceptions, and narrowness of provincialism has gone far on the road to self-education. He has made as marked an advance on the position of the great mass of his contemporaries as that position is an advance on the earlier stages of barbarism. The barbarian lives only in his tribe; the civilised man, in the exact degree in which he is civilised, lives with humanity. Books are among the richest resources against narrowing local influences; they are the ripest expositions of the world-spirit. To know the typical books of the race is to be in touch with those elements of thought and experience which are shared by men of all countries. Without a knowledge of these books a man never really gets at the life of localities which are foreign to him; never really sees those historic places about which the traditions of civilisation have gathered. Travel is robbed of half its educational value unless one carries with him a knowledge of that which he looks at for the first time with his own eyes. No American sees England unless he carries England in his memory and imagination. Westminster Abbey is devoid of spiritual significance to the man who is ignorant of the life out of which it grew, and of the history which is written in its architecture and its memorials. The emancipation from the limitations of locality is greatly aided by travel, but it is accomplished only by intimate knowledge of the greater books. Chapter XVIII. The Unconscious Element. While it is true that the greatest books betray the most intimate acquaintance with the time in which they are written, and disclose the impress of that time in thought, structure, and style, it is also true that such books are so essentially independent of contemporary forms and moods that they largely escape the vicissitudes which attend those forms and moods. The element of enduring interest in them outweighs the accidents of local speech or provincial knowledge, as the force and genius of Cæsar survive the armor he wore and the language he spoke. A great book is a possession for all time, because a writer of the first rank is the contemporary of every generation; he is never outgrown, exhausted, or even old-fashioned, although the garments he wore may have been laid aside long ago. In this permanent quality, unchanged by changes of taste and form, resides the secret of that charm which draws about the great poets men and women of each succeeding period, eager to listen to words which thrilled the world when it was young, and which have a new meaning for every new age. It is safe to say that Homer will speak to men as long as language survives, and that translation will follow translation to the end of time. What Robinson said of the Bible in one of the great moments of modern history may be said of the greater works of literature: more light will always stream from them. Indeed, many of them will not be understood until they are read in the light of long periods of history; for as the great books are interpretations of life, so life in its historic revelation is one continuous commentary on the greater books. This preponderance of the permanent over the accidental or temporary in books of this class is largely due to the unconscious element which plays so great a part in them: the element of universal experience, in which every man shares in the exact degree in which, in mind and heart, he approaches greatness. It is idle to attempt to separate arbitrarily in Shakespeare, for instance, those elements in the poet's work which were deliberately introduced from those which went into it by the unconscious action of his whole nature; but no one can study the plays intelligently without becoming more and more clearly aware of those depths of life which moved in the poet before they moved in his work; which enlarged, enriched, and silently reorganised his view of life and his power of translating life out of individual into universal terms. It would be impossible, for instance, to write such a play as "The Tempest" by sheer force of intellect; in the creation of such a work there is involved, beyond literary skill, calculation, and deep study of the relation of thought to form, a ripeness of spirit, a clearness of insight, a richness of imagination, which are so much part of the very soul of the poet that he does not separate them in thought, and cannot consciously balance, adjust, and employ them. They are quite beyond his immediate control, as they are beyond all attempts to imitate them. Cleverness may learn all the forms and methods, but it is powerless to imitate greatness; it can simulate the conscious, dexterous side of greatness, but it cannot simulate the unconscious, vital side. The moment a man like Voltaire attempts to deal with such a character as Joan of Arc, his spiritual and artistic limitations become painfully apparent; of cleverness there is no lack, but of reverence, insight, depth of feeling, the affinity of the great imagination for the great nature or deed, there is no sign. The man is entirely and hopelessly incapacitated for the work by virtue of certain limitations in his own nature of which he is obviously in entire ignorance. The conscious skill of Voltaire was delicate, subtle, full of vitality; but the unconscious side of his nature was essentially shallow, thin, largely undeveloped; and it is the preponderance of the unconscious over the conscious in a man's life which makes him great in himself and equips him for work of the highest quality. No man can put his skill to the highest use and give his knowledge the final touch of individuality until both are so entirely incorporated in his personality that they have become part of himself. This deepest and most vital of all the processes of self-education and self-unfolding, which is brought to such perfection in men of the highest creative power, is the fundamental process of culture,--the chief method which every man uses, consciously or unconsciously, who brings his nature to complete ripeness of quality and power. The absorption of vital experience and knowledge which went on in Shakespeare enlarged and clarified his vision and insight to such a degree that both became not only searching, but veracious in a rare degree; life was opened to him on many sides by the expansion first accomplished in himself. This is saying again what has been said so many times, but cannot be said too often,--that, in order to give one's work a touch of greatness, a man must first have a touch of greatness in his own nature. But greatness is not an irresponsible and undirected growth; it is as definitely conditioned on certain obediences to intellectual discipline and spiritual law as is any kind of lesser skill conditioned on practice and work. One of these conditions is the development of the power to turn conscious processes of observation, emotion, and skill into unconscious processes; to enrich the nature below the surface, so to speak; to make the soil productive by making it deep and rich. Men of mere skill always stop short of this final process of self-development, and always stop short of those final achievements which sum up and express all that has been known or felt about a subject and give it permanent form; men of essential greatness take this last step in that higher education which makes one master of the force of his personality, and give his words and works universal range and perennial interest. Now, this is the deepest quality in the books of life, which a student may not only enjoy to the full, but may also absorb and make his own. When Alfred de Musset, in an oft-repeated phrase, said that it takes a great deal of life to make a little art, he was not only affirming the reality of this process of passing experience through consciousness into the unconscious side of a man's nature, but he was also hinting at one of the greatest resources of pleasure and growth. For time and life continually enrich the man who has learned the secret of turning experience and observation into knowledge and power. It is a secret in the sense in which every vital process is a secret; but it is not a trick, a skill, or a method which may be communicated in a formula. Mrs. Ward describes a character in one of her stories as having passed through a great culture into a great simplicity of nature; in other words, culture had wrought its perfect work, and the man had passed through wide and intensely self-conscious activity into the repose and simplicity of self-unconsciousness; his knowledge had become so completely a part of himself that he had ceased to be conscious of it as a thing distinct from himself. There is no easy road to this last height in the long and painful process of education; and time is an essential element in the process, because it is a matter of growth. There are, it is true, a few men and women who seem born with this power of living in the heart of things and possessing them in the imagination without having gone through the long and painful stages of preparatory education; but genius is not only inexplicable, it is also so rare that for the immense majority of men any effort to comprehend it must be purely academic. It is enough to know that if we are in any degree to share with men and women of genius the faculty of vision, insight, and creative energy, we must master the conditions which favor the development of those supreme gifts. There is laid, therefore, upon the student who wishes to get the vital quality of literature the necessity of repeating, by deliberate and intelligent design, the process which in so many of the masters of the arts has been, apparently, accomplished instinctively. To make observation, study, and experience part of one's spiritual and intellectual capital, it is, in the first place, necessary to saturate one's self with that which one is studying; to possess it by constant familiarity; to let the imagination play upon it; to meditate upon it. And it is necessary, in the second place, to make this practice habitual; when it becomes habitual, it will become largely unconscious: one does it by instinct rather than by deliberation. This process is illustrated in every successful attempt to master any art. In the art of speaking, for instance, the beginner is hampered by an embarrassing consciousness of his hands, feet, speech; he cannot forget himself and surrender himself to his thought or his emotion; he dare not trust himself. He must, therefore, train himself through mind, voice, and body; he must submit to constant and long-sustained practice, thinking out point by point what he shall say and how he shall say it. This process is, at the start, partly mechanical; in the nature of things it must be entirely within the view and control of a vigilant consciousness. But as the training progresses, the element of self-consciousness steadily diminishes, until, in great moments, the true orator, become one harmonious instrument of expression, surrenders himself to his theme, and his personality shines clear and luminous through speech, articulation, and gesture. The unconscious nature of the man subordinates his skill wholly to its own uses. In like manner, in every kind of self-expression, the student who puts imagination, vitality, and sincerity into the work of preliminary education, comes at last to full command of himself, and gives complete expression to that which is deepest and most individual in him. Time, discipline, study, and thought enrich every nature which is receptive and responsive. Chapter XIX. The Teaching of Tragedy. No characters appeal more powerfully to the imagination than those impressive figures about whom the literature of tragedy moves,--figures associated with the greatest passions and the most appalling sorrows. The well-balanced man, who rises step by step through discipline and work to the highest place of influence and power, is applauded and admired; but the heart of the world goes out to those who, like OEdipus, are overmatched by a fate which pursues with relentless step, or, like Hamlet, are overweighted with tasks too heavy or too terrible for them. Agamemnon, OEdipus, Orestes, Hamlet, Lear, Père Goriot, are supreme figures in that world of the imagination in which the poets have endeavoured both to reflect and to interpret the world as men see it and act in it. The essence of tragedy is the collision between the individual will, impulse, or action, and society in some form of its organisation, or those unwritten laws of life which we call the laws of God. The tragic character is always a lawbreaker, but not always a criminal; he is, indeed, often the servant of a new idea which sets him, as in the case of Giordano Bruno, in opposition to an established order of knowledge; he is sometimes, as in the case of Socrates, a teacher of truths which make him a menace to lower conceptions of citizenship and narrower ideas of personal life; or he is, as in the case of Othello and Paolo, the victim of passions which overpower the will and throw the whole life out of relation to its moral and social environment. The interest with which the tragic character is always invested is due not only to the exceptional experience in which the tragic situation always culminates, but also to the self-surrender which precedes the penalty and the expiation. There is a fallacy at the bottom of the admiration we feel when a rich nature throws restraint of any kind to the winds and gives itself up wholly to some impulse or passion,--the fallacy of supposing that by a violent break with existing conditions freedom can be secured; for the world loves freedom, even when it is too slothful or too cowardly to pay the price which it exacts. That admiration arises, however, from a sound instinct,--the instinct which makes us love both power and self-sacrifice, even when the first is ill-directed and the second wasted. The vast majority of men are content to do their work quietly and in obscurity, with no disclosure of originality, freshness, or force; they obey law, conform to custom, respect the conventionalities of their age; they appear to be lacking in representative quality; they are, apparently, the faithful and uninteresting drudges of society. There are, it is true, a host of commonplace persons, in every generation, who perform uninteresting tasks in a mechanical spirit; but it must not be inferred that a man is either craven or cowardly because he does not break from the circle in which he finds himself and make a bold and picturesque rush for freedom; it may be that freedom is to be won for him in the silent and faithful doing of the work which lies next him; it is certain that the highest power and the noblest freedom are secured, not by the submission which fears to fight, but by that which accepts the discipline for the sake of the mastery which is conditioned upon it. There are, however, conditions which no man can control, and which are in their nature essentially tragic; and men and women who are involved in these conditions cannot elude a fate for which they are not responsible and from which they cannot escape. This was true of many of the greatest characters in classical tragedy, and it is true also of many of the characters in modern tragedy. The world looks with bated breath on a struggle of the noblest heroism, in which men and women, matched against overwhelming social forces, bear their part with sublime and unfaltering courage, and by the completeness of their self-surrender assert their sovereignty even in the hour when disaster seems to crush and destroy them. To these striking figures, isolated by the greatness of their fate, the heart of the world has always gone out as to the noblest of its children. Solitary in the possession of some new conception of duty or of truth, separated from the mass of their fellows by that lack of sympathy which springs from imperfect comprehension of higher aims or deeper insight, these sublime strugglers against ignorance, prejudice, caste, and power, become the heroes and martyrs of the race; they announce the advent of new conceptions of social order and individual rights; they incarnate the imperishable soul of humanity in its long and terrible endeavour to bring the institutions and the ideas of men into harmony with a higher order of life. The tragic element has, therefore, many aspects,--sometimes lawless and destructive, sometimes self-sacrificing and instructive; but its illustration in literature in any form is not only profoundly interesting, but profoundly instructive as well. In no other literary form is the stuff of which life is made wrought into such commanding figures; in no other form are the deeper possibilities of life brought into such clear view; in no other form are the fundamental laws of life disclosed in a light at once so searching and so beautiful in its revealing power. If all the histories were lost and all the ethical discussions forgotten, the moral quality of life and the tremendous significance of character would find adequate illustration in the great tragedies. They lay bare the very heart of man under all historic conditions; they make us aware of the range of his experiences; they uncover the depths by which he is surrounded. They enable us to see, in lightning flashes, the undiscovered territory which incloses the little island on which we live; they light up the mysterious background of invisible forces against which we play our parts and work out our destiny. To the student of literature, who strives not only to enjoy but to comprehend, tragedy brings all the materials for a deep and genuine education. Instead of a philosophical or ethical statement of principles, it offers living illustration of ethical law as revealed in the greatest deeds and the most heroic experiences; it discloses the secret of the age which created it,--for in no other literary form are the fundamental conceptions of a period so deeply involved or so clearly set forth. The very springs of Greek character are uncovered in the Greek tragedies; and the tremendous forces liberated by the Renaissance are nowhere else so strikingly brought to light as in that group of tragedies which were produced in so many countries, by so many men, at the close of that momentous epoch. When literature runs mainly to the tragic form, it may be assumed that the spiritual force of the race has expressed itself afresh, and that a race, or a group of races, has passed through one of those searching experiences which bring men again face to face with the facts of life; for the production of tragedy involves thought of such depth, insight of such clearness, and imaginative power of such quality and range that it is possible, on a great scale, only when the springs of passion and action have been profoundly stirred. The appearance of tragedy marks, therefore, those moments when men manifest, without calculation or restraint, all the power that is in them; and into no other literary form is the vital force poured so lavishly. It is the instinctive recognition of this unveiling of the soul of man which gives the tragedy such impressiveness even when it is haltingly represented on the stage, and which subdues the imagination to its mood when the solitary reader comes under its spell. The life of the race is sacred in those great passages which record its sufferings; and nothing makes us so aware of our unity with our kind in all times and under all circumstances as the community of suffering in which, actively or passively, all men share. In the tragedy the student of literature is brought into the most intimate relation with his race in those moments when its deepest experiences are laid bare; he enters into its life when that life is passing through its most momentous passages; he is present in those hidden places where it confesses its highest hopes, reveals its most terrible passions, suffers its most appalling punishments, and passes on, through anguish and sacrifice, to its new day of thought and achievement. Chapter XX. The Culture Element in Fiction. One of the chief elements in fiction which make for culture is, primarily, its disclosure of the elementary types of character and experience. A single illustration of this quality will suggest its presence in all novels of the first rank and its universal interest and importance. The aspirations, dreams, devotions, and sacrifices of men are as real as their response to self-interest or their tendency to the conventional and the commonplace; and they are, in the long run, a great deal more influential. They have wider play; they are more compelling; and they are of the very highest significance, because they spring out of that which is deepest and most distinctive in human nature. A host of men never give these higher impulses, these spiritual aptitudes and possibilities, full play; but they are in all men, and all men recognise them and crave an expression of them. Nothing is truer, on the lowest and most practical plane, than the old declaration that men do not live by bread alone; they sometimes exist on bread, because nothing better is to be had at the moment; but they live only in the full and free play of all their activities, in the complete expression not only of what is most pressing in interest and importance at a given time, but of that which is potential and possible at all times. The novel of romance and adventure has had a long history, and the elements of which it is compounded are recognisable long before they took the form of fiction. Two figures appear and reappear in the mythology of every poetic people,--the hero and the wanderer; the man who achieves and the man who experiences; the man who masters life by superiority of soul or body, and the man who masters it by completeness of knowledge. It is interesting and pathetic to find how universally these two figures held the attention and stirred the hearts of primitive men; how infinitely varied are their tasks, their perils, and their vicissitudes. They wear so many guises, they bear so many names, they travel so far and compass so much experience that it is impossible, in any interpretation of mythology, to escape the conviction that they were the dominant types in the thought of the myth-makers. And these earliest story-makers were not idle dreamers, entertaining themselves by endless manufacture of imaginary incidents, conditions, and persons. They were, on the contrary, the observers, the students, the scientists of their period; their endeavour was not to create a fiction, but to explain the world and themselves. Their observation was imperfect, and they made ludicrous mistakes of fact because they lacked both knowledge and training; but they made free use of the creative faculty, and there is, consequently, a good deal more truth in their daring guesses than in many of those provisional explanations of nature and ourselves which have been based too exclusively on scrutiny of the obvious fact, and indifference to the fact, which is not less a fact because it is elusive. The myth-makers endeavoured to explain the world, but that was only one-half of their endeavour; they attempted also to explain themselves. They discovered the striking analogies between certain natural phenomena or processes and the phenomena and processes of their own nature; they discovered the tasks and wanderings of the sun, and they perceived the singular resemblance of these tasks and wanderings to the happenings of their own lives. So the hero and the wanderer became subjective as well as objective, and symbolised what was deepest and most universal in human nature and human experience, as well as what was most striking in the external world. When primitive men looked into their hearts and their experience, they found their deepest hopes, longings, and possibilities bound up and worked out in two careers,--the career of the hero and the career of the wanderer. These two figures became the commanding types of all the nobler mythologies, because they symbolised what was best, deepest, and most real in human nature and life. They represent the possible reach and the occasional achievement of the human soul; they stand for that which is potential as well as for that which is actual in human experience. Few men achieve or experience on a great scale; but these few are typical, and are, therefore, transcendent in interest. The average commonplace man fills great space in contemporary history, as in the history of all times, and his character and career are well worth the closest study and the finest art of the writer; but the average man, who never achieves greatly, and to whom no striking or dramatic experience comes, has all the possibilities of action and suffering in his nature, and is profoundly interested in these more impressive aspects of life. Truth to fact is essential to all sound art, but absolute veracity involves the whole truth,--the truth of the exceptional as well as of the average experience; the truth of the imagination as well as of observation. The hero and the wanderer are still, and always will be, the great human types; and they are, therefore, the types which will continue to dominate fiction; disappearing at times from the stage which they may have occupied too exclusively, but always reappearing in due season,--the hero in the novel of romance, the wanderer in the novel of adventure. These figures are as constant in fiction as they were in mythology; from the days of the earliest Greek and Oriental stories to these days of Stevenson and Barrie, they have never lost their hold on the imagination of the race. When the sense of reality was feeble, these figures became fantastic, and even ridiculous; but this false art was the product of an unregulated, not of an illegitimate, exercise of the imagination; and while "Don Quixote" destroyed the old romance of chivalry, it left the instinct which produced that romance untouched. As the sense of reality becomes more exacting and more general, the action of the imagination is more carefully regulated; but it is not diminished, either in volume or in potency. Men have not lost the power of individual action because society has become so highly developed, and the multiplication of the police has not materially reduced the tragic possibilities of life. There is more accurate and more extensive knowledge of environment than ever before in the history of the race, but temperament, impulse, and passion remain as powerful as they were in primitive men; and tragedy finds its materials in temperament, impulse, and passion, much more frequently than in objective conditions and circumstances. The soul of man has passed through a great education, and has immensely profited by it; but its elemental qualities and forces remain unchanged. Two things men have always craved,--to come to close quarters with life, and to do something positive and substantial. Self-expression is the prime need of human nature; it must know, act, and suffer by virtue of its deepest instincts. The greater and richer that nature, the deeper will be its need of seeing life on many sides, of sharing in many kinds of experience, of contending with multiform difficulties. To drink deeply of the cup of life, at whatever cost, appears to be the insatiable desire of the most richly endowed men and women; and with such natures the impulse is to seek, not to shun, experience. And that which to the elect men and women of the race is necessary and possible is not only comprehensible to those who cannot possess it: it is powerfully and permanently attractive. There is a spell in it which the dullest mortal does not wholly escape.[1] 1. Reprinted in part, by permission, from the "Forum." Chapter XXI. Culture through Action. It is an interesting fact that the four men who have been accepted as the greatest writers who have yet appeared, used either the epic or the dramatic form. It can hardly have been accidental that Homer and Dante gave their greatest work the epic form, and that Shakespeare and Goethe were in their most fortunate moments dramatists. There must have been some reason in the nature of things for this choice of two literary forms which, differing widely in other respects, have this in common, that they represent life in action. They are very largely objective; they portray events, conditions, and deeds which have passed beyond the stage of thought and have involved the thinker in the actual historical world of vital relationships and dramatic sequence. The lyric poet may sing, if it pleases him, like a bird in the recesses of a garden, far from the noise and dust of the highway and the clamour of men in the competitions of trade and work; but the epic or dramatic poet must find his theme and his inspiration in the stir and movement of men in social relations. He deals, not with the subjective, but with the objective man; with the man whose dreams are no longer visions of the imagination, but are becoming incorporate in some external order; whose passions are no longer seething within him, but are working themselves out in vital consequences; whose thought is no longer purely speculative, but has begun to give form and shape to laws, habits, or institutions. It is the revelation of the human spirit in action which we find in the epic and the drama; the inward life working itself out in material and social relations; the soul of the man becoming, so to speak, externalised. The epic, as illustrated in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," deals with a main or central movement in Greek tradition; a series of events which, by reason of their nature and prominence, imbedded themselves in the memory of the Greek race. These events are described in narrative form, with episodes, incidents, and dialogues, which break the long story and relax the strain of attention from time to time, without interrupting the progress of the narrative. There are heroes whose figures stand out in the long story with great distinctness, but we are interested much more in what they do than in what they are; for in the epic, character is subordinate to action. In the dramas of Shakespeare, on the other hand, while action is more constantly employed and is thrown into bolder relief, our deepest interest centres in the actors; the action is no longer the matter of first importance; it is significant mainly because it involves men and women not only in the chain of external consequences, but also in the order of spiritual sequences. We are deeply stirred by our perception of the intimate connection between the possibilities which lie sleeping in the individual life, and the tragic events which are set in motion when those possibilities are realised in action. In both epic and drama men are seen, not in their subjective moods, but in their objective struggles; not in the detachment of the life of speculation and imagination, but in vital association and relation with society in its order and institutions. With many differences, both of spirit and form, the epic and the drama are at one in portraying men in that ultimate and decisive stage which determines individual character and gives history its direction and significance. And it is from men in action that much of the deepest truth concerning life and character has come; indeed, it is not until we pass out of the region of the speculative, the merely potential, that the word "character" takes on that tremendous meaning with which thousands of years of actual happenings have invested it. A purely ideal world--a world fashioned wholly apart from the realities which convey definite, concrete revelations of what is in us and in our world--would necessarily be an unmoral world. The relationships which bind men together and give human intercourse such depth and richness spring into being only when they are actually entered upon; they could never be understood or foreseen in a world of pure thought; nor would it be possible, in such a world, to realise that reaction of the deed upon the doer which creates character, nor that far-reaching influence of the deed upon society, and the sequence of events which so often issues in tragedy and from which history derives its immense interest and meaning. A world which stopped short of realisation in action would not only lose the fathomless dramatic interest which inheres in human life, but it would part with all those moral implications of the integrity and persistence of the individual soul, its moral quality and its moral responsibility, which make man something different from the dust which whirls about him on the highway, or the stone over which he stumbles. This is precisely the character of those speculative systems which deny the reality of action and substitute the idea for the deed; such a world does more than suffocate the individual soul; it destroys the very meaning of life by robbing it of moral order and meaning. The end of such a conception of the universe is necessarily annihilation, and its mood is necessarily despair. "How can a man come to know himself?" asked Goethe. "Never by thinking, but by doing." Now, this knowledge of self in the large sense is precisely the knowledge which ripens and clarifies us, which gives us sanity, repose, and power. To know what is in humanity and what life means to humanity, we must study humanity in its active, not in its passive, moods; in the hours when it is doing, not thinking. Sooner or later all its thinking which has any reality in it passes on into action. The emotion, passion, thought, impulse, which never gets beyond the subjective stage, dies before birth; and all those philosophies which urge abstinence from action would cut the plant of life at the root; they are, in the last analysis, pleas for suicide. Men really live only as they freely express themselves through thought, emotion, and action. They get at the deepest truth and enter into the deepest relationships only as they act. Inaction involves something more than the disease and decay of certain faculties; it involves the deformity of arrested development, and failure to enter into that larger world of truth which is open to those races alone which live a whole life. It is for this reason that the drama must always hold the first place among those forms which the art of literature has perfected; it is for this reason that Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe, consciously or unconsciously, chose those forms of expression which are specially adapted to represent and illustrate life in action; it is for this reason, among others, that these writers must always play so great a part in the work of educating the race. Culture is, above all things, real and vital; knowledge may deal with abstractions and unrelated bits of fact, but culture must always fasten upon those things which are significant in a spiritual order. It has to do with the knowledge which may become incorporate in a man's nature, and with that knowledge especially which has come to humanity through action. It is this deeper knowledge which holds a lighted torch aloft in the deepest recesses of the soul, or over those abysses of possible experience which open on all sides about every man, which is to be found in the pages of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe, and of all those great artists who have seen men in those decisive and significant moments when they strike into the movement of history, or, through their deeds and sufferings, the order of life suddenly shines forth. Chapter XXII. The Interpretation of Idealism. Idealism has so often been associated in recent years with vagueness of thought, slovenly construction, and a weak sentimentalism, that it has been discredited, even among those who have recognised the reality behind it and the great place it must hold in all rich and noble living. It is the misfortune of what is called Idealism, that, like other spiritual principles, it attracts those who mistake the longings of unintelligent discontent for aspiration, or the changing outlines of vapory fancies for the firm and consistent form and shape of real conceptions deeply realised in the imagination. Idealism has suffered much at the hands of feeble practitioners who have substituted irrational dreams for those far-reaching visions and those penetrating insights which are characteristic of its true use and illustration in the arts. The height of the reaction so vigorously and impressively illustrated in a great group of modern realistic works is due largely to the weakness and extravagance of the idealistic movement. When sentiment is exchanged for its corrupting counterfeit, sentimentalism, and clear and definite thinking gives place to vague and elusive emotions and fancies, reaction is not only inevitable but wholesome; the instinct for sanity in men will always prevent them from becoming mere dreamers and star-gazers. The true Idealist has his feet firmly planted on reality, and his idealism discloses itself not in a disposition to dream dreams and see visions, but in the largeness of a vision which sees realities in the totality of their relations and not merely in their obvious and superficial relations. It is a great mistake to discern in men nothing more substantial than that movement of hopes and longings which is so often mistaken for aspiration; it is equally a mistake to discern in men nothing more enduring and aspiring than the animal nature; either report, standing by itself, would be fundamentally untrue. Man is an animal; but he is an animal with a soul, and the sane view of him takes both body and soul into account. The defect of a good deal of current Realism lies in its lack of veracity; it is essentially untrue, and it is, therefore, fundamentally unreal. The love of truth, the passion for the fact, the determination to follow life wherever life leads, are noble, artistic instincts, and have borne noble fruit; but what is often called Realism has suffered quite as much as Idealism from weak practitioners, and stands quite as much in need of rectification and restatement. The essence of Idealism is the application of the imagination to realities; it is not a play of fancy, a golden vision arbitrarily projected upon the clouds and treated as if it had an objective existence. Goethe, who had such a vigorous hold upon the realities of existence, and who had also an artist's horror of mere abstractions, touched the heart of the matter when he defined the Ideal as the completion of the real. In this simple but luminous statement he condensed the faith and practice not only of the greater artists of every age, but of the greater thinkers as well. In the order of life there can be no real break between things as they now exist and things as they will exist in the remotest future; the future cannot contradict the present, nor falsify it; for the future must be the realisation of the full possibilities of the present. The present is related to it as the seed is related to the flower and fruit in which its development culminates. There are vast changes of form and dimension between the seed and the tree hanging ripe with fruit, but there is no contradiction between the germ and its final unfolding. A rigid Realism, however, sees in the seed nothing but its present hardness, littleness, ugliness; a true and rational Idealism sees all these things, but it sees also not only appearances but potentialities; or, to recall another of Goethe's phrases, it sees the object whole. To see life clearly and to see it whole is not only to see distinctly the obvious facts of life, but to see these facts in sequence and order; in other words, to explain and interpret them. The power to do this is one of the signs of a great imagination; and, other things being equal, the rank of a work of art may, in the last analysis, be determined by the clearness and veracity with which explanation and interpretation are suggested. Homer is, for this reason, the foremost writer of the Greek race. He is wholly free from any purpose to give ethical instruction; he is absolutely delivered from the temptation to didacticism; and yet he reveals to us the secret of the temperament and genius of his race. And he does this because he sees in his race the potentialities of the seed; the vitality, beauty, fragrance, and growth which lie enfolded in its tiny and unpromising substance. If the reality of a thing is not so much its appearance as the totality of that which is to issue out of it, then nothing can be truly seen without the use of the imagination. All that the Idealist asks is that life shall be seen not only with his eyes but with his imagination. His descriptions are accurate, but they are also vital; they give us the thing not only as it looked standing by itself, but as it appeared in the complete life of which it was a part; he makes us see the physical side of the fact with great distinctness, but he makes us see its spiritual side as well. As a result, there is left in our minds by the intelligent reading of Homer a clear impression of the spiritual, political, and social aptitudes and characteristics of the Greek people of his age,--an impression which no exact report of mere appearances could have conveyed; an impression which is due to the constant play of the poet's imagination upon the facts with which he is dealing. This is true Idealism; but it is also true Realism. It is not only the fact, but the truth. The fact may be observed, but the truth must be discerned by insight,--it is not within the range of mere observation; and it is this insight, this discernment of realities in their relation to the whole order of things, which characterises true Idealism, and which makes all the greater writers Idealists in the fundamental if not in the technical sense. Tolstoi has often been called a Realist by those who are eager to label everything and everybody succinctly; but Tolstoi is one of the representative Idealists of his time, and his "Master and Man" is one of the most touching and sincere bits of true Idealism which has been given the world for many a day. There is nothing which needs such constant reinforcement as this faculty of seeing things in their totality; for we are largely at the mercy of the hour unless we invoke the aid of the imagination to set the appearances of the moment in their large relations. To the man who sees things as they rush like a stream before him, there is no order, progression, or intelligent movement in human affairs; but to the student who brings to the study of current events wide and deep knowledge of the great historic movements, these apparently unrelated phenomena disclose the most intimate inter-relations and connections. The most despairing pessimism would be born in the heart of the man who should be fated to see to-day apart from yesterday and to-morrow; a rational and inspiring hope may be born in the soul of the man who sees the day as part of the year and the year as part of the century. The great writers are a refuge from the point of view of the moment, because they set the events of life in a fundamental order, and make us aware of the finer potentialities of our race. They are Idealists in the breadth of their vision and the nobility of the interpretation of events which they offer us. Chapter XXIII. The Vision of Perfection. These writers are also, by virtue of the faculty of discerning the interior relations of appearances and events, the expositors of that ultimate Idealism which not only discovers the possibility of the whole in the parts, of the perfect in the imperfect, but which discovers the whole, the complete and the perfect, and brings each before us in some noble form. The reality of the Ideal as Plato saw it is by no means universally accepted as a philosophical conclusion, but all high-minded men and women accept it as a rule of life. Idealism is wrought into the very fibre of the race, and is as indestructible as the imagination in which it has its roots. Deep in the heart of humanity lies the unshakable faith in its essential divinity, and in the reality of its highest hopes of development and attainment. The failure of noble schemes, the decline of enthusiasms, the fading of visions and dreams which seemed to have the luminous constancy of fixed stars, breed temporary depressions and passing moods of scepticism and despair; but the spiritual vitality of the race always reasserts itself, and faith returns after every disaster or disillusion. Indeed, as the race grows older and masters more and more a knowledge of its conditions, the impression of the essential greatness of the experience we call life deepens in the finer spirits. It becomes clear that the end towards which the hopes of the world have always moved is farther off than it seemed to the earlier generations; that the process of spiritual and social evolution is longer and more painful; that the universe is vaster and more wonderful than the vision of it which formed in the imagination of thinkers and poets; in a word, that the education which is being imparted to humanity by the very structure of the conditions under which it lives grows more severe, prolonged, and exacting as its methods and processes become more clear. The broadening of the field of observation has steadily deepened the impression of the magnitude and majesty of the physical order by which men are surrounded; and the fuller knowledge of what is in human experience has steadily deepened the impression of the almost tragic greatness of the lot of men. The disappointments of the race have been largely due to its inadequate conception of its own possibilities; its disillusions have been like the fading of the mirage which simulates against the near horizon that which lies long leagues away. These disappointments and disillusions, as Browning saw clearly, are essential parts of an education which leads the race step by step from smaller to larger ideas, from nearer and easier to more remote and difficult attainments. The disappointment which comes with the completion of every piece of work well and wisely done does not arise from the futility of the work, as the pessimists tell us, but from its inadequacy to express entirely the thought and force of the man who has striven to express himself completely in a material which, however masterfully used, can never give its ultimate form to a spiritual conception. It is not an evidence of failure, but a prophecy of greater achievement. A world in which the work was as great as the worker, the piece of art as the artist, would be a finished world in more senses than one; a world in which all work is inadequate to contain the energy of the worker, all art insufficient to express the soul of the artist, is necessarily a prophetic world, bearing witness to the presence of a creative force in workers and artists immeasurably beyond the capacity of any perishable material to receive or to preserve. A rational Idealism is, therefore, not only indestructible in a race which does not violate the laws of life, but is instilled into the higher order of minds by the order of life as revealed by science, history, and the arts. And this idealistic tendency is not only the poetic temper; it is the hope and safeguard of society. The real perils of the race are not material; they are always spiritual; and no peril could be greater than the loss of faith and hope in the possibility of attaining the best things. If men are ever bereft of their instinctive or rational conviction that they have the power ultimately to bring institutions of all kinds into harmony with their higher conceptions, they will sink into the lethargy of despair or the slough of sensualism. The belief in the reality of the Ideal in personal and social life is not only the joy and inspiration of the poet and thinker; it is also the salvation of the race. It is imperishable, because it is the product of the play of the imagination on the realities of life; and until the imagination perishes, the vision of the ultimate perfection will form and reform in the heart of every generation. It is the inspiration of every art, the end of every noble occupation, the secret hope of every fine character. Idealism in this sense, not as the product of an easy and ignorant optimism turning away from the facts of life, but as the product of a large and spiritual dealing with those facts, is the very soul, not only of noble living, but of those noble expressions of life which the greater writers have given us. They disclose wide diversity of gifts, but they have this in common,--that, in discovering to us the spiritual order of the facts of life, they disclose also those ideal figures which the race accepts as embodiments of its secrets, hopes, and aims. It is a significant fact that, in portraying the Greek of his time, Homer has given us also the ideal Greek and the Greek ideals. His insight went to the soul of the persons he described, and he struck into that spiritual order in which the ideal is not only a reality, but, in a sense, the only reality. Cervantes, in the very act of destroying a false Idealism, conventionally conceived and treated, made one of the most beautiful revelations of a true Idealism which the world has yet received. Shakespeare's presentation of the facts of life is, on the whole, the most comprehensive and impressive which has yet been made; in the disclosure of tragic elements it is unsurpassed; and yet what a host of ideal figures move through the plays and invest them with a light beyond the glow of art! In the Forest of Arden and on Prospero's Island there live, beyond the touch of time and the vicissitudes of fate, those gracious and beautiful spirits in whom the race sees its noblest hopes come true, its instinctive faith in itself justified. These spirits are not airy nothings, woven of the unsubstantial gossamer of which dreams are made; they are born of a deep insight into the possibilities of the soul, and a rational faith in their reality. Prospero is as real as Trinculo, and Rosalind as true as Cressida. These ideal persons are not necessarily fortunate in their surroundings or happy in their lot; they are simply perfect in their development of a type. They are not abnormal beings, rising above normal conditions; they are normal beings, rising above abnormal conditions. They stand for wholeness amid fragments, for perfection amid imperfection; but the very imperfection and fragmentariness by which they are surrounded predicts their coming and affirms their reality. In the rounded and developed nature there must be a deep vein of the Idealism which grows out of the vision of things in their large relations--out of a view of men ample enough to discern not only what they are at this stage of development, but what they may become when development has been completed. Nothing is more essential than the courage, the joy, and the insight which grow out of such an Idealism, and no spiritual possession is more easily lost. The spiritual depression of a reactionary period, the routine of work, the immersion in the stream of events, the decline of moral energy, conspire to blight this noble use of the imagination, and to chill the faith which makes creative living and working possible. The familiar companionship of the great Idealists is one of the greatest resources against the paralysis of this faith and the decay of this faculty. Chapter XXIV. Retrospect. The books of four great writers have been used almost exclusively by way of illustration throughout this discussion of the relation of books to culture. This limited selection may have seemed at times too narrow and rigid; it may have conveyed an impression of insensibility to the vast range and the great variety of literary forms and products, and of indifference to contemporary writing. It needs to be said, therefore, that the constant reference to Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe has been made for the sake of clearness and force of illustration, and not, in any sense, as applying an exclusive principle of selection. The books of life are to be found in every language, and are the product of almost every age; and no one attains genuine culture who does not, through them, make himself familiar with the life of each successive generation. To be ignorant of the thought and art of one's time involves a narrowness of intelligence which is inconsistent with the maturity of taste and ripeness of nature which have been emphasised in these chapters as the highest and finest fruits of culture. The more generous a man's culture becomes, the more catholic becomes his taste and the keener his insight. The man of highest intelligence will be the first to recognise the fresh touch, the new point of view, the broader thought. He will bring to the books of his own time not only a trained instinct for sound work, but a deep sympathy with the latest effort of the human spirit to express itself in new forms. So deep and real will be his feeling for life that he will be eager to understand and possess every fresh manifestation of that life. However novel and unconventional the new form may be, it will not make its appeal to him in vain. It remains true, however, that literature is a universal art, expressive and interpretative of the spirit of humanity, and that no man can make full acquaintance with that spirit who fails to make companionship with its greatest masters and interpreters. The appeal of contemporary books is so constant and urgent that it stands in small need of emphasis; but the claims of the rich and splendid literature of the past are often slighted or ignored. The supreme masters of an art ought to be the objects of constant study and thought; there is more of life, truth, and beauty in them than in their fellow-artists of narrower range of experience and artistic achievement. For this reason these greatest interpreters of the human spirit are in no sense exclusively of the past; they are of the present and the future. To know them is not only to know the particular periods in which they wrote, but to know our own period in the deepest sense. No man can better prepare himself to enter into the formative life of his time than by thoroughly familiarising himself with the greatest books of the past; for in these are revealed, not the secrets of past forms of life, but the secrets of that spirit whose historic life is one unbroken revelation of its nature and destiny. It is, therefore, no disparagement of the great company of writers who have been the secretaries of the race in all ages to fasten attention upon the claims of the four men of genius whom the world has accepted as the supreme masters of the art of literature, and to point out again the immense importance of their works in the educational life of the individual and of society. It cannot be said too often that literature is the product of the continuous spiritual activity of the race; that it cannot be arbitrarily divided into periods save for mere convenience of arrangement; and that it is impossible to understand and value its latest products unless one is able to find their place and discern their value in the order of a spiritual development. To secure an adequate impression of this highest expression of the human spirit one must keep in view the work of the past quite as definitely as the work of the present; in such a broad survey there is a constant deliverance from the rashness of contemporary judgments, and from that narrowness of feeling which limits one's vital contact with the life of the race to the products of a single brief period. In any attempt to indicate the fundamental significance of the art of literature in the educational development of the individual and of society there must also be a certain repetition of idea and of illustration. This limitation, if it be a limitation, is inherent in the very nature of the undertaking. Literature is, for purposes of comment and exposition, practically inexhaustible; its themes are as varied and as numerous as the objects upon which the mind can fasten and about which the imagination can play. But while its forms and products are almost without number, this magnificent growth has, in the last analysis, a single root, and in these brief chapters the endeavour has been made, very inadequately, to bring the mind to this deep and hidden unity of life and art. Information, instruction, delight, flow in a thousand rivulets from as many books, but there is a spring of life which feeds all these separate streams. From that unseen source flows the vitality which has given power and freshness to a host of noble works; from that source vitality also flows into every mind open to its incoming. A rich intellectual life is characterised not so much by profusion of ideas as by the application of a few formative ideas to life; not so much by multiplicity of detached thoughts as by the habit of thinking. The genius of Carlyle is evidenced not by prodigal growth of ideas, but by an impressive interpretation of life through the application to all its phenomena of a few ideas of great depth and range. And this is true of all the great writers who have given us fresh views of life from some central and commanding height rather than a succession of glimpses or outlooks from a great number of points. The closer the approach to the central force behind any course of development, the fewer in number are the elements involved. The rootage of literature in the spiritual nature and experience of the race is the fundamental fact not only in the history of this rich and splendid art, but in its relation to culture. From this rootage flows the vitality which imparts immortality to its noblest products, and which supplies an educational element unrivalled in its enriching and enlarging quality. 
48800	----	[Illustration: A CHAPMAN. _From "The Cries and Habits of the City of London," by M. Lauron, 1709._] CHAP-BOOKS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WITH _FACSIMILES, NOTES, AND INTRODUCTION_ BY JOHN ASHTON [Illustration] =London= CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1882 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. INTRODUCTION. Although these Chap-books are very curious, and on many accounts interesting, no attempt has yet been made to place them before the public in a collected form, accompanied by the characteristic engravings, without which they would lose much of their value. They are the relics of a happily past age, one which can never return, and we, in this our day of cheap, plentiful, and good literature, can hardly conceive a time when in the major part of this country, and to the larger portion of its population, these little Chap-books were nearly the only mental pabulum offered. Away from the towns, newspapers were rare indeed, and not worth much when obtainable--poor little flimsy sheets such as nowadays we should not dream of either reading or publishing, with very little news in them, and that consisting principally of war items, and foreign news, whilst these latter books were carried in the packs of the pedlars, or Chapmen, to every village, and to every home. Previous to the eighteenth century, these men generally carried ballads, as is so well exemplified in the "Winter's Tale," in Shakespeare's inimitable conception, Autolycus. The servant (Act iv. sc. 3) well describes his stock: "He hath songs, for man, or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings:' 'jump her' and 'thump her;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'" And Autolycus, himself, hardly exaggerates the style of his wares, judging by those which have come down to us, when he praises the ballads: "How a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden; and how she longed to eat adders' heads, and toads carbonadoed;" and "of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids;" for the wonders of both ballads, and early Chap-books, are manifold, and bear strange testimony to the ignorance, and credulity, of their purchasers. These ballads and Chap-books have, luckily for us, been preserved by collectors, and although they are scarce, are accessible to readers in that national blessing, the British Museum. There the Roxburghe, Luttrell, Bagford, and other collections of black-letter ballads are easily obtainable for purposes of study, and, although the Chap-books, to the uninitiated (owing to the difficulties of the Catalogue), are not quite so easy of access, yet there they exist, and are a splendid series--it is impossible to say a complete one, because some are unique, and are in private hands, but so large, especially from the middle to the close of the last century, as to be virtually so. I have confined myself entirely to the books of the last century, as, previous to it, there were few, and almost all black-letter tracts have been published or noted; and, after it, the books in circulation were chiefly very inferior reprints of those already published. As they are mostly undated, I have found some difficulty in attributing dates to them, as the guides, such as type, wood engravings, etc., are here fallacious, many--with the exception of Dicey's series--having been printed with old type, and any wood block being used, if at all resembling the subject. I have not taken any dated in the Museum Catalogue as being of this present century, even though internal evidence showed they were earlier. The Museum dates are admittedly fallacious and merely approximate, and nearly all are queried. For instance, nearly the whole of the beautiful Aldermary Churchyard (first) editions are put down as 1750?--a manifest impossibility, for there could not have been such an eruption of one class of publication from one firm in one year--and another is dated 1700?, although the book from which it is taken was not published until 1703. Still, as a line must be drawn somewhere, I have accepted these quasi dates, although such acceptation has somewhat narrowed my scheme, and deprived the reader of some entertainment, and I have published nothing which is not described in the Museum Catalogue as being between the years 1700 and 1800. In fact, the Chap-book proper did not exist before the former date, unless the Civil War and political tracts can be so termed. Doubtless these were hawked by the pedlars, but they were not these pennyworths, suitable to everybody's taste, and within the reach of anybody's purse, owing to their extremely low price, which must, or ought to have, extracted every available copper in the village, when the Chapman opened his budget of brand-new books. In the seventeenth, and during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the popular books were generally in 8vo form, _i.e._ they consisted of a sheet of paper folded in eight, and making a book of sixteen pages; but during the other seventy-five years they were almost invariably 12mo, _i.e._ a sheet folded into twelve, and making twenty-four pages. After 1800 they rapidly declined. The type and wood blocks were getting worn out, and never seem to have been renewed; publishers got less scrupulous, and used any wood blocks without reference to the letter-press, until, after Grub Street authors had worked their wicked will upon them, Catnach buried them in a dishonoured grave. But while they were in their prime, they mark an epoch in the literary history of our nation, quite as much as the higher types of literature do, and they help us to gauge the intellectual capacity of the lower and lower middle classes of the last century. The Chapman _proper_, too, is a thing of the past, although we still have hawkers, and the travelling "credit drapers," or "tallymen," yet penetrate every village; but the Chapman, as described by Cotsgrave in his "Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues" (London, 1611), no longer exists. He is there faithfully portrayed under the heading "BISSOÜART, m. A paultrie Pedlar, who in a long packe or maund (which he carries for the most part open, and (hanging from his necke) before him) hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or other trifling ware to sell." Shakespeare uses the word in a somewhat different sense, making him more of a general dealer, as in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act ii. SC. I: "_Princess of France._ Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, Not uttered by base sale of Chapmen's tongues." And in "Troilus and Cressida," Act iv. SC. I: "_Paris._ Fair Diomed, you do as Chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy." Unlike his modern congener, the colporteur, the Chapman's life seems to have been an exceptionally hard one, especially if we can trust a description, professedly by one of the fraternity, in "The History of John Cheap the Chapman," a Chap-book published early in the present century. He appears, on his own confession, to have been as much of a rogue as he well could be with impunity and without absolutely transgressing the law, and, as his character was well known, very few roofs would shelter him, and he had to sleep in barns, or even with the pigs. He had to take out a licence, and was classed in old bye-laws and proclamations as "Hawkers, Vendors, Pedlars, petty Chapmen, _and unruly people_." In more modern times the literary Mercury dropped the somewhat besmirched title of Chapmen, and was euphoniously designated the "Travelling," "Flying," or "Running Stationer." Little could he have dreamed that his little penny books would ever have become scarce, and prized by book collectors, and fetch high prices whenever the rare occasion happened that they were exposed for sale. I have taken out the prices paid in 1845 and 1847 for nine volumes of them, bought at as many different sales. These nine volumes contain ninety-nine Chap-books, and the price paid for them all was £24 13_s._ 6_d._, or an average of five shillings each--surely not a bad increment in a hundred years on the outlay of a penny; but then, these volumes were bought very cheaply, as some of their delighted purchasers record. The principal factory for them, and from which certainly nine-tenths of them emanated, was No. 4, Aldermary Churchyard, afterwards removed to Bow Churchyard, close by. The names of the proprietors were William and Cluer Dicey--afterwards C. Dicey only--and they seem to have come from Northampton, as, in "Hippolito and Dorinda," 1720, the firm is described as "Raikes and Dicey, Northampton;" and this connection was not allowed to lapse, for we see, nearly half a century later, that "The Conquest of France" was "printed and sold by C. Dicey in Bow Church Yard: sold also at his Warehouse in Northampton." From Dicey's house came nearly all the original Chap-books, and I have appended as perfect a list as I can make, amounting to over 120, of their publications. Unscrupulous booksellers, however, generally pirated them very soon after issue, especially at Newcastle, where certainly the next largest trade was done in this class of books. The Newcastle editions are rougher in every way, in engravings, type, and paper, than the very well got up little books of Dicey's, but I have frequently taken them in preference, because of the superior quaintness of the engravings. After the commencement of the present century reading became more popular, and the following, which are only the names of _a few_ places where Chap-books were published, show the great and widely spread interest taken in their production:--Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock, Penrith, Stirling, Falkirk, Dublin, York, Stokesley, Warrington, Liverpool, Banbury, Aylesbury, Durham, Dumfries, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Whitehaven, Carlisle, Worcester, Cirencester, etc., etc. And they flourished, for they formed nearly the sole literature of the poor, until the _Penny Magazine_ and Chambers's penny Tracts and Miscellanies gave them their deathblow, and relegated them to the book-shelves of collectors. That these histories were known and prized in Queen Anne's time, is evidenced by the following quotation from the _Weekly Comedy_, January 22, 1708:--"I'll give him Ten of the largest Folio Books in my Study, Letter'd on the Back, and bound in _Calves Skin_. He shall have some of those that are the most scarce and rare among the Learned, and therefore may be of greater use to so _Voluminous_ an _Author_; there is '_Tom Thumb_' with _Annotations_ and _Critical Remarks_, two volumes in folio. The '_Comical Life and Tragical Death of the Old Woman that was Hang'd for Drowning herself in_ Ratcliffe High-Way:' One large Volume, it being the 20th Edition, with many new Additions and Observations. '_Jack and the Gyants_;' formerly Printed in a small Octavo, but now Improv'd to three Folio Volumes by that Elaborate Editor, _Forestus, Ignotus Nicholaus Ignoramus Sampsonius_; then there is '_The King and the Cobler_,' a Noble piece of Antiquity, and fill'd with many Pleasant Modern Intrigues fit to divert the most Curious." And Steele, writing in the _Tatler_, No. 95, as Isaac Bickerstaff, and speaking of his godson, a little boy of eight years of age, says, "I found he had very much turned his studies, for about twelve months past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, The Seven Champions, and other historians of that age.... He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton and loved St. George for being Champion of England." As before said, their great variety adapted them for every purchaser, and they may be roughly classed under the following heads:--Religious, Diabolical, Supernatural, Superstitious, Romantic, Humorous, Legendary, Historical, Biographical, and Criminal, besides those which cannot fairly be put in any of the above categories; and under this classification and in this sequence I have taken them. The Religious, strictly so called, are the fewest, the subjects, such as "Dr. Faustus," etc., connected with his Satanic Majesty being more exciting, and probably paying better; whilst the Supernatural, such as "The Duke of Buckingham's Father's Ghost," "The Guildford Ghost," etc., trading upon man's credulity and his love of the marvellous, afford a far larger assortment. About the same amount of popularity may be given to the Superstitious Chap-books--those relating to fortune telling and the interpretation of Dreams and Moles, etc. But they were nothing like the favourites those of the Romantic School were. These dear old romances, handed down from the days when printing was not--some, like "Jack the Giant Killer," of Norse extraction; others, like "Tom Hickathrift," "Guy of Warwick," "Bevis of Hampton," etc., records of the doughty deeds of local champions; and others, again, "Reynard the Fox," "Valentine and Orson," and "Fortunatus," of foreign birth--hit the popular taste, and many were the editions of them. Naturally, however, the Humorous stories were the prime favourites. The Jest-books, pure and simple, are, from their extremely coarse witticisms, utterly incapable of being reproduced for general reading nowadays, and the whole of them are more or less highly spiced; but even here were shades of humour to suit all classes, from the solemn foolery of the "Wise Men of Gotham," or the "World turned upside down," to the rollicking fun of "Tom Tram," "The Fryer and the Boy," or "Jack Horner." In reading these books we must not, however, look upon them from our present point of view. Whether men and women are better now than they used to be, is a moot point, but things used to be spoken of openly, which are now never whispered, and no harm was done, nor offence taken; so the broad humour of the jest-books was, after all, only exuberant fun, and many of the _bonnes histoires_ are extremely laughable, though to our own thinking equally indelicate. The old legends still held sway, and I have given four--"Adam Bell," "Robin Hood," "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green," and "The Children in the Wood"--all of them remarkable for their illustrations. History has a wide range from "Fair Rosamond," to "The Royal Martyr," Charles I., whilst, naturally, such books as "Robinson Crusoe," "George Barnwell," and a host of criminal literature found ready purchasers. I have not included Calendars, and I have purposely avoided Garlands, or Collections of ballads, which equally come under the category of Chap-books. I should have liked to have noticed more of them, but the exigencies of publishing have prevented it; still, those I have taken seem to me to be the best fitted for the purpose I had in view, which was to give a fairly representative list: and I hope I have succeeded in producing a book at once both amusing and instructive, besides having rescued these almost forgotten booklets from the limbo into which they were fast descending. CONTENTS. PAGE The History of Joseph and his Brethren 1 The Holy Disciple 25 The Wandering Jew 28 The Gospel of Nicodemus 30 The Unhappy Birth, Wicked Life, and Miserable Death of that Vile Traytor and Apostle Judas Iscariot 32 A Terrible and Seasonable Warning to Young Men 33 The Kentish Miracle 34 The Witch of the Woodlands 35 The History of Dr. John Faustus 38 The History of the Learned Friar Bacon 53 A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children 56 Bateman's Tragedy 57 The Miracle of Miracles 60 A Wonderful and Strange Relation of a Sailor 61 The Children's Example 62 A New Prophesy 64 God's Just Judgment on Blasphemers 65 A Dreadful Warning to all Wicked and Forsworn Sinners 66 A Full and True Relation of one Mr. Rich Langly, a Glazier 67 A Full, True and Particular Account of the Ghost or Apparition of the Late Duke of Buckingham's Father 68 The Portsmouth Ghost 70 The Guilford Ghost 72 The Wonder of Wonders 74 Dreams and Moles 78 The Old Egyptian Fortune-Teller's Last Legacy 79 A New Fortune Book 83 The History of Mother Bunch of the West 84 The History of Mother Shipton 88 Nixon's Cheshire Prophecy 92 Reynard the Fox 95 Valentine and Orson 109 Fortunatus 124 Guy, Earl of Warwick 138 The History of the Life and Death of that Noble Knight Sir Bevis of Southampton 156 The Life and Death of St. George 163 Patient Grissel 171 The Pleasant and Delightful History of Jack and the Giants 184 A Pleasant and Delightful History of Thomas Hickathrift 192 Tom Thumb 206 The Shoemaker's Glory 222 The Famous History of the Valiant London Prentice 227 The Lover's Quarrel 230 The History of the King and the Cobler 233 The Friar and Boy 237 The Pleasant History of Jack Horner 245 The Mad Pranks of Tom Tram 248 The Birth, Life, and Death of John Franks 253 Simple Simon's Misfortunes 258 The History of Tom Long the Carrier 263 The World turned Upside Down 265 A Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Old Woman who was Drowned at Ratcliffe Highway 273 The Wise Men of Gotham 275 Joe Miller's Jests 288 A Whetstone for Dull Wits 295 The True Trial of Understanding 304 The Whole Trial and Indictment of Sir John Barleycorn, Knt. 314 Long Meg of Westminster 323 Merry Frolicks 337 The Life and Death of Sheffery Morgan 341 The Welch Traveller 344 Joaks upon Joaks 349 The History of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie 353 A True Tale of Robin Hood 356 The History of the Blind Begger of Bednal Green 360 The History of the Two Children in the Wood 369 The History of Sir Richard Whittington 376 The History of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw 382 The History of Jack of Newbury 384 The Life and Death of Fair Rosamond 387 The Story of King Edward III. and the Countess of Salisbury 390 The Conquest of France 392 The History of Jane Shore 393 The History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and her Great Favourite the Earl of Essex 396 The History of the Royal Martyr 398 England's Black Tribunal 403 The Foreign Travels of Sir John Mandeville 405 The Surprizing Life and Most Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 417 A Brief Relation of the Adventures of M. Bamfyeld Moore Carew 423 The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders 427 Youth's Warning-piece 429 The Merry Life and Mad Exploits of Capt. James Hind 433 The History of John Gregg 437 The Bloody Tragedy 439 The Unfortunate Family 440 The Horrors of Jealousie 441 The Constant, but Unhappy Lovers 442 A Looking Glass for Swearers, etc. 443 Farther, and More Terrible Warnings from God 444 The Constant Couple 446 The Distressed Child in the Wood 447 The Lawyer's Doom 448 The Whole Life and Adventures of Miss Davis 449 The Life and Death of Christian Bowman 453 The Drunkard's Legacy 455 Good News for England 458 A Dialogue between a Blind Man and Death 459 The Devil upon Two Sticks 461 Æsop's Fables 463 A Choice Collection of Cookery Receipts 472 The Pleasant History of Taffy's Progress to London 475 The Whole Life, Character, and Conversation of that Foolish Creature called Granny 478 A York Dialogue between Ned and Harry 479 The French King's Wedding 481 Appendix 483 CHAP-BOOKS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. The first printed metrical history of this Biblical episode is the book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, a book of fourteen leaves, and entitled "Thystorie of Jacob and his twelue Sones. Emp[=ry]ted at L[=o]don in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde" (no date). It is chiefly remarkable in connection with this book, as mentioning Chapmen. "Now leaue we of them & speak we of the Chapman That passed ouer the sea into Egipt land. But truely ere that he thether came The wind stiffly against them did stand; And yet at the last an hauen they fand. The Chapman led Joseph with a rope in the streat Him for to bye came many a Lord great." A metrical edition is still used in the performance of a sort of miracle play, entitled "Joseph and his Brothers. A Biblical Drama or Mystery Play." 1864. London and Derby. The action of this piece is reported to be somewhat ludicrous, the performers being in their everyday dress, or, rather, in their Sunday attire. There is no scenery, and very little life or motion in connection with the dialogue, the quality of which may be judged by the following specimen:-- "(_Joseph, weeping, offers Benjamin his goblet._) Here, my son, Drink from my Cup; the sentiment shall be 'Health and long life to your aged father.' (_Benjamin drinks._) Now sing me one of your Hebrew Songs To any National Air; for we in Egypt Know little of the music of Chanaan. _Benjamin._ If such be your wish, I'll sing the song I often sing to soothe my father's breast When he is sad with memory of the past. (_He sings._) Air, '_Phillis is my only joy_,' etc.:-- Joseph was my favourite boy, Rachel's firstborn Son and pride: His father's hope, his father's joy, Begotten in life's eventide," etc. THE HISTORY OF Joseph and his Brethren, WITH _Jacob's Journey into Egypt_, AND HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL. ILLUSTRATED WITH TWELVE CUTS. [Illustration: JOSEPH BROUGHT BEFORE PHAROAH.] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE, LONDON. THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. JACOB'S LOVE TO JOSEPH, WITH JOSEPH'S FIRST DREAM. In Canaan's fruitful land there liv'd of late, Old Isaac's heir blest with a vast estate; Near Hebron Jacob sourjourned all alone, A stranger in the land that was his own: Dear to his God, for humbly he ador'd him, As Isaac did, and Abraham before him. And as he was of worldly wealth possest, So with twelve sons the good old man was blest, Amongst all whom none his affections won, So much as Joseph, Rachel's first-born son, He in his bosom lay, still next his heart, And with his Joseph would by no means part: He was the lad on whom he most did doat, And gave to him a many colour'd coat. This made his bretheren at young Joseph grudge, And thought their father loved him too much. At Jacob's love their hatred did encrease, That they could hardly speak to him in peace. But Joseph, (in whose heart the filial fear Of his Creator early did appear) Not being conscious to himself at all, He had done ought to move his brethren's gall, Did unto them a dream of his relate, } Which (tho' it did increase his bretheren's hate, } Did plainly shew forth Joseph's future state } This is the dream, said Joseph, I did see: The Corn was reap'd, and binding sheaves are we, When my sheaf only was on a sudden found, Both to arise and stand upon the ground. Then yours arose, which round about were laid, } And unto mine a low obeisance made, } Is this your dream, his brethren said? } Can your ambitious thoughts become so vain, To think that you shall o'er your brethren reign? Or that we unto you shall tribute pay, And at your feet our servile necks should lay? Believe us brother, this youll never see, But your aspiring will your ruin be. [Illustration] Thus Joseph's bretheren talk'd, and if before They hated him, they did it now much more; The father lov'd him, and the lad they thought, Took more upon him, than indeed he ought. But they who judge a matter e'er the time, Are oftentimes involved in a crime: 'Tis therefore best for us to wait and see What the issue of mysterious things will be; For those that judge by meer imagination, Will find things contrary to their expectation. JOSEPH'S SECOND DREAM. [Illustration] How bold is innocence! how fix'd it grows! It fears no seeming friends nor real foes. 'Tis conscious of no guilt, nor base designs, And therefore forms no plots nor countermines: But in the paths of virtue walks on still, And as it does none, so it fears no ill. Just so it was with Joseph: lately he Had dream'd a dream, and was so very free, He to his bretheren did the dream reveal, At which their hatred scarce they could conceal. But Joseph not intending any ill, Dream'd on again, and told his bretheren still. Methought as on my slumb'ring bed I lay, I saw a glorious light more bright than day: The sun and moon, those glorious lamps of heaven, With glittering stars in number seven, Came all to me, on purpose to adore me, And every one of them bow'd down before me: And each one when they had thus obedience made, Withdrew, nor for each other longer staid. When Joseph thus his last dream had related, Then he was by his bretheren much more hated. This dream young Joseph to his father told, Who when he heard it, thinking him too bold, Rebuk'd him thus: What dream is this I hear? You are infatuated, child I fear, Must I, your mother, and your bretheren too, Become your slaves and bow down to you. Thus Jacob chid him, for at present he, Saw not so far into futurity: Yet he did wonder how things might succeed, And what for Joseph providence decreed, For well he thought those dreams wa'nt sent in vain Yet knew not how he should these dreams explain. For those things oft are hid from human eyes, Which are by him that rules above the skies Firmly decreed; which when they come to know, The beauty of the work will plainly shew, And all those bretheren which now Joseph hate, Shall then bow down to his superior fate: Old Jacob therefore, just to make a shew, As if he was displeased with Joseph too, Thus seem'd to chide young Joseph, but indeed To his strange dreams he gave no little heed; Tho' how to interpret them he could not tell, Yet in the meanwhile he observ'd them well. How great's the difference 'twixt a father's love, And brethren's hatred may be seen above. They hate their brother for his dreams, but he, } Observes his words, and willing is to see } What the event in future times may be. } JOSEPH PUT INTO A PIT BY HIS BRETHEREN. When envy in the heart of man does reign, To stifle its effects proves oft in vain. Like fire conceal'd, which none at first did know, It soon breaks out and breeds a world of woe: Young Joseph this by sad experience knew, And his brethren's envy made him find it true: For they, as in the sequel we shall see, Resolv'd upon poor Joseph's tragedy; That they together at his dream might mock, Which they almost effected, when their flock In Sechem's fruitful field they fed, for there Was Joseph sent to see how they did fare: Joseph his father readily obeys, And on the pleasing message goes his ways. [Illustration] Far off they know, and Joseph's coming note, For he had on his many colour'd coat; Which did their causeless anger set on fire, And they against Joseph presently conspire: Lo yonder doth the dreamer come they cry, Now lets agree and act this tragedy. And when we've slain him in some digged pit Let's throw his carcase, and then cover it, And if our father ask for him, we'll say, We fear he's kill'd by some wild beast of prey. This Reuben heard, who was to save him bent, } And therefore said, (their purpose to prevent,) } To shed his blood I'll ne'er give my consent; } But into some deep pit him let us throw, And what we've done there's none will know. This Reuben said his life for to defend, Till he could home unto his father send. To Reuben's proposition they agree, And what came of it we shall quickly see. Joseph by this time to his brethren got, And now affliction was to be his lot; They told him all his dreams would prove a lye, For in a pit he now should starve and die. Joseph for his life did now entreat and pray, } But to his tears and prayers they answered Nay, } And from him first his coat they took away. } Then into an empty pit they did him throw, } And there left Joseph almost drown'd in woe, } While they to eating and to drinking go. } See here the vile effects of causeless rage, In what black crimes does it oftimes engage. Nearest relations! setting bretheren on To work their brother's dire destruction. But now poor Joseph in the pit doth lie, 'Twill be his bretheren's turn to weep and cry. JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT. [Illustration] As Joseph in the Pit condemn'd to die, So did his grandfather on the altar lie, The wood was laid, a sacrificing knife, Was lifted up to take poor Isaac's life. But heaven that ne'er design'd the lad should die, Stopt the bold hand, and shew'd a lamb just by, Thus in like manner did the all-wise decree, His brethrens plots should disappointed be: For while within the Pit poor Joseph lay, } And they set down to eat and drink and play, } And with rejoicing revel out the day: } Some Ishmaelitish merchants strait drew near, } Who to the land of Egypt journeying were, } To sell some balm and myrrh, and spices there. } This had on Judah no impressions made, And therefore to his bretheren thus he said, Come Sirs, to kill young Joseph is not good, What profit will it be to spill his blood? How are we sure his death we shall conceal? The birds of air this murder will reveal. Come let's to Egypt sell him for a slave, And we for him some money sure may have; So from his blood our hands shall be clear, And we for him have no cause for fear. To this advice they presently agreed, And Joseph from the Pit was drawn with speed: For twenty pieces they their brother sell To the Ishmaelites, and thought their bargain well. And thus they to their brother bid adieu, For he was quickly carried out of view. Reuben this time was absent, and not told That Joseph was took out of the pit and sold, He therefore to the pit return'd, that he Might sit his father's Joy at liberty. But when, alas! he found he was not there, } He was so overcome with black despair, } To rend his garments he could not forbear; } Then going to his bretheren thus said he, Poor Joseph's out, and whither shall I flee? But they, not so concern'd, still kill'd a goat, And in its blood they dipt poor Joseph's coat, And that they all suspicion might prevent, It by a stranger to their father sent, Saying, We've found, and brought this coat to know Whether 'tis thy son Joseph's coat or no. This brought sad floods of tears from Jacob's eyes, Ah! 'tis my son's, my Joseph's coat he cries: Ah! woe is me, thus wretched and forlorn, For my poor Joseph is in pieces torn: His sons and daughters comfort him in vain, } He can't but mourn while he thinks Joseph slain, } And yet those sons won't fetch him back again. } JOSEPH AND HIS MISTRESS. [Illustration] How much for Joseph's loss old Jacob griev'd, It was not now his time to be reliev'd: And therefore let's to Egypt turn our thought, Where we shall find young Joseph sold and bought, By Potiphar a Captain of the Guard; Sudden the change, but yet I can't say hard; For Joseph mercy in this change did spy, And thought it better than i' th' pit to lie; And well might Joseph be therewith content, For God was with him where so 'er he went; And tho' he did him with afflictions try, He gave him favour in his master's eye, For he each work he undertook did bless, And crown'd his blessing with a good success. So that his master then him steward made, And Joseph's orders were by all obey'd: In which such diligence and care he took, His master needed after nothing look. But his estate poor Joseph long can't hold, His Mistress love so hot, made his master's cold, For Joseph was so comely, young and wise, His mistress on him cast her lustful eyes; Joseph perceiv'd it, yet no notice took, Nor scarcely on her did he dare to look. This vex't her so, she could no more forbear, But unto Joseph did the same declare; Joseph with grief the unwelcome tidings heard, But he his course by heavens directions steer'd. And therefore to his mistress thus did say, O mistress I must herein disobey; My master has committed all to me, That is within his house, save only thee: And if I such a wickedness should do, I should offend my God and master too; And justly should I forfeit my own life, To wrong my master's bed, debauch his wife. But tho' he thus had given her denial, She was resolv'd to make a further trial, She saw he minded not whate'er she said, And therefore now another plot she laid. Joseph one day some business had to do, When none was in the house beside them two, When casting off all shame, and growing bold, Of Joseph's upper garment she takes hold; Now Joseph you shall lie with me, said she, For there is none in the house but you and me; But while she held his cloak to make him stay, He left it with her, and made haste away; On this her lust to anger turns, and she, Cries out help! help! Joseph will ravish me, Whose raging lust I hardly could withstand! But fled, and left his garment in my hand. JOSEPH CAST INTO THE DUNGEON. [Illustration] Poor Joseph's innocence was no defence, Against this brazen strumpet's impudence, She first accus'd, and that she might prevail, She to her husband thus then told her tale. Hast thou this servant hither brought that he Might make a mock upon my chastity? What tho' he's one come from the Hebrew Stock, Shall he thus at my virtue make a mock? For if I once should yield to throw't away } On such a wretch.--O think what you would say? } And yet he sought to do't this very day. } But when he did this steady virtue find, Then fled, and left his garment here behind. No wonder if this story so well told Stirr'd up his wrath, and made his love turn cold; He strait believ'd all that his wife had said, And Joseph was unheard in prison laid. Joseph must now again live underground, And in a dungeon have his virtue crown'd, But tho' in prison cast and bound in chains, His God is with him, and his friend remains; So here he with the gaoler favour finds, That whatsoe'er he does he never minds: The Gaoler knew his God was with him still, And therefore lets him do whate'er he will. King Pharoah's butler and his baker too Under their Princes great displeasure grew And therefore both of them were put in ward, As prisoners to the captain of the guard Where Joseph lay; to whom they did declare, Their case, he serving them whilst they were there. One night, a several dream to each befel, But what it signify'd they could not tell. Joseph perceiving they were very sad, Demanded both the Dreams that they had had, On which they each their dream to Joseph told, Who strait the meaning of it did unfold. The butler in three days restor'd shall be, } The baker should be hang'd upon a tree, } But when this comes to pass remember me, } Said he to the Butler, for here I am thrown, And charg'd with crimes that are to me unknown, In three days time (such was their different case) The Baker hang'd, the Butler gains his place; And he again held Pharoh's cup in his hand, And stood before him as he us'd to stand. And yet for all that he to Joseph said, Joseph in prison two years longer staid, In all which time he ne'er of Joseph thought, Tho' he his help so earnestly besought. So in affliction promises we make, But when that's o'er forget whate'er we speak. JOSEPH'S ADVANCEMENT. [Illustration] More than two years Joseph in prison lay, Yet had no prospect of the happy day Of his release; nor any means could see, By which he could be set at liberty; But God who sent him thither to be try'd, In his due time his mercy magnify'd. For as King Pharaoh lay upon his bed, He had strange things which troubled his head, He saw seven well fed kine rise out of Neal, And seven lean ones eat them in a meal. Again he saw seven ears of corn that stood Upon one stalk, and were both rank and good: Yet these were eaten up as the kine before, By seven ears very lean and poor. What this imported Pharoah fain would know, But none there were that could the meaning show. This to the Butler's mind poor Joseph brought, Who till this day of him had never thought. Great Prince! I call to mind my faults this day, And well remember when in gaol I lay, I and the Baker each our dreams did tell, Which a young Hebrew slave expounded well: I was advanc'd and executed he, Both which the Hebrew servant said should be. Go, said the King, and bring him hither strait, I for his coming with impatience wait. Joseph was put in hastily no doubt, And now more hastily was he brought out. His prison garment now aside was laid, And being shav'd was with new cloaths array'd; To Pharaoh being brought, canst thou, said he, The dream I've dream'd expound me? 'Tis not me, great Sir, Joseph reply'd, To say that I could do't were too much pride, And so 'twould be for any that doth live, But God to Pharaoh will an answer give. Then Pharaoh did at large his dreams relate, And Joseph shew'd him Egypt's future fate. Seven years of plenty should to Egypt come, In which they scarce could get their harvests in. Which by seven years of dearth eat up should be; As were the fair kine by the lean he see. For FAMINE Sir, said he, provide therefore, And in the years of PLENTY lay up store. What Joseph said, seem'd good in Pharoh's eyes, Who did esteem him of all men most wise: Since God, said Pharoah has shewn this to thee, Thou shalt thro' all the land be next to me. Then made him second in his chariot ride, And bow the knee before him all men cry'd. JOSEPH'S BRETHEREN COME INTO EGYPT TO BUY CORN. Now Joseph's Lord of Egypt, all things there Are by the King committed to his care: The plenteous years come on as Joseph told, The earth produces more than barns can hold: New store-houses were in each city made, Where all the corn about it up was laid, Till he had gotten such a numerous store, That it was vain to count it any more. But famine does to plenty next succeed, And in all lands but Egypt there was need; For they neglecting to lay up such store, Had spent their Stock, and soon became so poor, That in the land of Egypt there was bread, By fame's loud trump, thro' every land was spread. Old Jacob heard it, and to his sons thus said. Why look you thus, as if you was afraid? There's Corn in Egypt, therefore go and try, That we may eat and live, not starve and die. [Illustration] Joseph's ten bretheren straitway thither went, Their corn in Canaan being almost spent. This Joseph knew, for him they came before, As being Lord of all the Egyptian store; And as they came to him did each one bow, But little thought he'd been the Dreamer now. From whence came you? said Joseph as they stood, My Lord say they from Canaan to buy food. I don't believe it, said Joseph very high, I rather think you came the land to spy, That you abroad its nakedness may tell, Come, come, I know your purpose very well; Let not, say they, my Lord, his servants blame, For only to buy food thy servants came. Said Joseph sternly, Tell me not those lies, For by the life of Pharaoh ye are spies. We are twelve bretheren, sir, they then reply'd, Sons of one man, of whom one long since dy'd: And with our father we the youngest left, So that he might not be of him bereft. Hereby said Joseph 'twill be prov'd I trow, Whether what I have said be true or now. Your younger brother fetch, make no replies, For if you don't, by Pharoah's life ye are spies. On this they unto prison all were brought, Where how they us'd their brother oft they thought. When they in prison three days time had staid, He sent for them and this proposal made, They to their father should the corn convey, And Simeon should with him a prisoner stay; Until they brought their youngest brother there, Which should to him their innocence declare. This they agreed to, and were sent away, Whilst Simeon did behind in prison stay. BENJAMIN BROUGHT TO JOSEPH. Old Jacob's sons came back to him, report, How they were us'd at the Egyptian court: Taken for spies, and Simeon left behind, Till Benjamin shall make the man more kind. This news old Jacob griev'd unto the heart, Who by no means with Benjamin would part; But when the want of corn did pinch them sore, And they were urg'd to go again for more; They told their father they were fully bent, To go no more except their brother went. Then take your brother and arise and go, Said good old Jacob, and the man will show You favour, that you may all safe return, And I no more my children's loss may mourn. Then taking money and rich presents too, To Joseph they their younger brother shew. Then he his steward straitway did enjoin To bring those men to his house with him to dine. When Joseph came, he kindly to them spake, When they to him did low obeysance make, He ask'd their welfare, and desir'd to tell Whether their father was alive and well. They answer'd Yea, he did in health remain, And to the ground bow'd down their heads again. [Illustration] Then Benjamin he by the hand did take, And said, Is this the youth of whom ye spake, Then God be gracious unto thee my son, To whom he said; which when as soon as done, Into his chamber strait he went to weep, For he his countenance could hardly keep. Then coming out, and sitting down to meet, He made his bretheren all sit down to eat: He sent to each a mess of what was best, But Benjamin's was larger than the rest. Then what he further did design to do, He call'd his servant, and to him did shew; Put in each sack as much corn as they'll hold, And in the mouth of each return his gold, And see that you take my silver cup, And in the sack of the youngest put it up. The steward fill'd the sack as he was bid, And in the mouth of each their money hid. Then on the morrow morning merry hearted With this their good success they all departed; But Joseph's steward quickly spoil'd their laughter, Who by his master's orders strait went after, And to the eleven brethren thus he spake, Is this the return you to my master make? Could you not be contented with the wine, But steal the Cup in which he does divine? This is unkind. And therefore I must say You've acted very foolishly to day. JOSEPH MAKES HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHEREN. [Illustration] The steward's words put them into a fright, They wonder'd at his speech, as well they might Why does my Lord this charge against us bring; For God forbid we e'er should do this thing: The money that within our sacks we found, We brought from Canaan; then what ground Have you to think, or to suppose that we Of such a crime as this should guilty be. With whatsoever man this cup is found, Both let him die, and we'll be also bound As slaves unto my Lord. Let it so be, Reply'd the steward, we shall quickly see Whether it is so or not; then down they took[1] And when the steward he had search'd them round, Within the sack of Benjamin the cup was found. To Joseph therefore they straitway repair, To whom he said as soon as they came there, How durst you take this silver cup of mine Did you not think that I could well divine? To whom Judah said, My Lord we've nought to say But at your feet as slaves ourselves we lay. No, no, said Joseph, there's for that no ground, He is my slave with whom the cup is found. Then Judah unto Joseph drew more near, And said, O let my Lord and Master hear: If we without the lad should back return, Our father would for ever grieve and mourn, And his grey hairs with sorrows we should bring Unto the grave, if we should do this thing; For when your servants father would at home Have kept the lad, I begg'd that he might come, And said, If I return him not to thee, Then let the blame for ever lay on me. Now therefore let him back return again, And in his stead thy servant will remain, And how shall I that piercing sight endure, Which will I know my father's death procure. This speech of Judah touch'd good Joseph so, That he bid all his servants out to go. He and his brethren being all alone, He unto them himself did thus make known. I am Joseph:--Is my father alive? But to return an answer none did strive; For at his presence they were troubled all, Which made him thus unto his brethren call, I am your brother Joseph, him whom ye } To Egypt sold; but do not troubled be; } For what you did heaven did before decree. } Then he his brother Benjamin did kiss, Wept on his neck, and so did he on his, Then kist his bretheren, wept on them likewise, So that among them there were no dry eyes. [Footnote 1: Here seems a line missing.] JOSEPH SENDS FOR HIS FATHER WHO COMES TO EGYPT. [Illustration] Then Joseph to his bretheren thus did say, } Unto my father pray make haste away, } Take food and waggons here, and do not stay, } They went, and Jacob's spirits did revive, To hear his dearest Joseph was alive, It is enough, then did old Jacob cry, I'll go and see my Joseph e'er I die; And he had reason for resolving so, For God appear'd to him and bid him go. Then into Egypt Jacob went with speed, Both he, his wives, his sons, and all their seed. And being for the land of Goshen bent, Joseph himself before him did present. Great was their Joy they on that meeting shew'd, And each the others cheeks with tears bedew'd. Then Joseph did his aged father bring Into the royal presence of the King, Whom Jacob blest, and Pharaoh lik'd him well, And bid him in the land of Goshen dwell. JACOB'S DEATH AND BURIAL. [Illustration] Jacob now having finished his last stage, And come to the end of earthly pilgrimage. Was visited by his son Joseph, who Brought with him Ephraim and Manassah too. When Jacob saw them, who are these said he? The sons said Joseph, God has given me Then Jacob blest them both, and his sons did call, To shew to each what should to them befal. Then giving orders unto Joseph where He would be buried, left to him that care; Then yielded up the ghost upon his bed And to his people he was gathered. Then Joseph for his burial did provide, And with a numerous retinue did ride, Of his own children and Egyptians too, That their respect to Joseph might shew, And with a mighty mourning did inter Old Jacob in his fathers sepulchre. FINIS. THE HOLY DISCIPLE; OR, THE =History of Joseph of Arimathea.= Wherein is contained a true Account of his Birth; his Parents; his Country; his Education; his Piety; and his begging of Pontius Pilate the Body of our blessed Saviour, after his Crucifixion, which he buried in a new Sepulchre of his own. Also the Occasion of his coming to England, where he first preached the Gospel at Glastenbury, in Somersetshire, where is still growing that noted White Thorn which buds every Christmas day in the morning, blossoms at Noon, and fades at Night, on the Place where he pitched his Staff in the Ground. With a full Relation of his Death and Burial. TO WHICH IS ADED, _MEDITATIONS on the BIRTH, LIFE, DEATH, and RESURRECTION of our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST_. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. THE HOLY DISCIPLE; OR, THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. The text of this book is simply an amplification of the title-page, which is sufficient for its purpose in this work. The legend of his planting his staff, which produced the famous Glastonbury Thorn, is very popular and widespread. The writer remembers in the winter of 1879, when living in Herefordshire, on Old Christmas Day (Twelfth Day), people coming from some distance to see one of these trees blossom at noon. Unfortunately they were disappointed. Loudon, in his "Arboretum Britannicum," V. 2, p. 833, says, "_Cratægus præcox_, the _early_ flowering, or Glastonbury, _Thorn_, comes into leaf in January or February, and sometimes even in autumn; so that occasionally, in mild seasons, it may be in flower on Christmas Day. According to Withering, writing about fifty years ago, this tree does not grow within the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, but stands in a lane beyond the churchyard, and appears to be a very old tree. An old woman of ninety never remembered it otherwise than it now appears. This tree is probably now dead; but one said to be a descendant of the tree which, according to the Romish legend, formed the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, is still existing within the precincts of the ancient abbey of Glastonbury. It is not of great age, and may probably have sprung from the root of the original tree, or from a truncheon of it; but it maintains the habit of flowering in the winter, which the legend attributes to its supposed parent. A correspondent (Mr. Callow) sent us on December 1, 1833, a specimen, gathered on that day, from the tree at Glastonbury, in full blossom, having on it also ripe fruit; observing that the tree blossoms again in the month of May following, and that it is from these later flowers that the fruit is produced. Mr. Baxter, curator of the Botanic Garden at Oxford, also sent us a specimen of the Glastonbury Thorn, gathered in that garden on Christmas Day, 1834, with fully expanded flowers and ripe fruit on the same branch. Seeds of this variety are said to produce only the common hawthorn; but we have no doubt that among a number of seedlings there would, as in similar cases, be found several plants having a tendency to the same habits as the parent. With regard to the legend, there is nothing miraculous in the circumstances of a staff, supposing it to have been of hawthorn, having, when stuck in the ground, taken root and become a tree; as it is well known that the hawthorn grows from stakes and truncheons. The miracle of Joseph of Arimathea is nothing compared with that of Mr. John Wallis, timber surveyor of Chelsea, author of 'Dendrology,' who exhibited to the Horticultural and Linnæan Societies, in 1834, a branch of hawthorn, which, he said, had hung for several years in a hedge among other trees; and, though without any root, or even touching the earth, had produced, every year, leaves, flowers, and fruit!" Of St. Joseph himself, Alban Butler gives a very meagre account, not even mentioning his death or place of burial; so that, outside Glastonbury, we may infer he had small reputation. We must not, however, forget that he is supposed to have brought the Holy Grail into England. Wynkyn de Worde printed a book called "The Life of Joseph of Armathy," and Pynson printed two--one "De Sancto Joseph ab Arimathia," 1516, and "The Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathia," 1520. THE WANDERING JEW; OR, THE SHOEMAKER OF JERUSALEM. Who lived when our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST was Crucified, _And by Him Appointed to Wander until He comes again_. With his Travels, Method of Living, and a Discourse with some Clergymen about the End of the World. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH-YARD, BOW LANE, LONDON. THE WANDERING JEW. This version is but a catchpenny, and principally consists of a fanciful dialogue between the Wandering Jew and a clergyman. This famous myth seems to have had its origin in the Gospel of St. John (xxi. 22), which, although it does not refer to him, evidently was the source of the idea of his tarrying on earth until the second coming of our Saviour. The legend is common to several countries in Europe, and we, in these latter days, are familiar with it in Dr. Croly's "Salathiel," "St. Leon," "Le Juif Errant," and "The Undying One." It is certain it was in existence before the thirteenth century, for it is given in Roger of Wendover, 1228, as being known; for an Armenian archbishop, who was then in England, declared that he knew him. His name is generally received as Cartaphilus, but he was known, in different countries and ages, also as Ahasuerus, Josephus, and Isaac Lakedion. The usual legend is that he was Pontius Pilate's porter, and when they were dragging Jesus out of the door of the judgment-hall, he struck him on the back with his fist, saying, "Go faster, Jesus, go faster: why dost thou linger?" Upon which Jesus looked at him with a frown, and said, "I, indeed, am going; but thou shalt tarry till I come." He was afterwards converted and baptized by the name of Joseph. He is believed every hundred years to have an illness, ending in a trance, from which he awakes restored to the age he was at our Saviour's Crucifixion. Many impostors in various countries have personated him. THE GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS. _In thirteen Chapters._ 1. Jesus Accused of the Jews before Pilate. 2. Some of them spake for him. 3. Pilate takes Counsel of Ancient Lawyers, etc. 4. Nicodemus speaks to Pilate for Jesus. 5. Certain Jews shew Pilate the Miracles which Christ had done to some of them. 6. Pilate commands that no villains should put him to his Passion, but only Knights. 7. Centurio tells Pilate of the Wonders that were done at Christ's Passion; and of the fine Cloth of Syndonia. 8. The Jews conspire against Nicodemus and Joseph. 9. One of the Knights that kept the Sepulchre of our Lord, came and told the Master of the Law, that our Lord was gone into Gallilee. 10. Three men who came from Gallilee to Jerusalem say they saw Jesus alive. 11. The Jews chuse eight men who were Joseph's friends, to desire him to come to them. 12. Joseph tells of divers dead Men risen, especially of Simon's two sons, Garius and Levicius. 13. Nicodemus and Joseph tell Pilate all that those two Men had said; and how Pilate treated with the Princes of the Law. NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. This is a translation by John Warren, priest, of this apocryphal Gospel, of which the frontispiece is a summary, and varies very little from that given by Hone, who, in his prefatory notice says, "Although this Gospel is, by some among the learned, supposed to have been really written by Nicodemus, who became a disciple of Jesus Christ, and conversed with him; others conjecture it was a forgery towards the close of the third century, by some zealous believer, who, observing that there had been appeals made by the Christians of the former Age, to the Acts of Pilate, but that such Acts could not be produced, imagined it would be of service to Christianity to fabricate and publish this Gospel; as it would both confirm the Christians under persecution, and convince the Heathens of the truth of the Christian religion.... Whether it be canonical or not, it is of very great antiquity, and is appealed to by several of the ancient Christians." Wynkyn de Worde published several editions of it--in 1509, 1511, 1512, 1518, 1532--and his headings of the chapters differ very slightly from those already given. The unhappy Birth, wicked Life, and miserable Death of that vile Traytor and Apostle JUDAS ISCARIOT, _Who, for Thirty Pieces of Silver betrayed his Lord and Master_ _JESUS CHRIST_. SHEWING 1. His Mother's Dream after Conception, the Manner of his Birth; and the evident Marks of his future shame. 2. How his Parents, inclosing him in a little chest, threw him into the Sea, where he was found by a King on the Coast of Iscariot, who called him by that Name. 3. His advancement to be the King's Privy Counsellor; and how he unfortunately killed the King's Son. 4. He flies to Joppa; and unknowingly, slew his own Father, for which he was obliged to abscond a Second Time. 5. Returning a Year after, he married his own Mother, who knew him to be her own Child, by the particular marks he had, and by his own Declaration. 6. And lastly, seeming to repent of his wicked Life, he followed our Blessed Saviour, and became one of his Apostles; But after betrayed him into the Hands of the Chief Priests for Thirty Pieces of Silver, and then miserably hanged himself, whose Bowels dropt out of his Belly. TO WHICH IS ADDED, _A Short RELATION of the Sufferings of Our BLESSED REDEEMER_, Also the Life and miserable Death of PONTIUS PILATE, Who condemn'd the Lord of Life to Death. _Being collected from the Writings of Josephus Sozomenus, and other Ecclesiastical Historians._ DURHAM: PRINTED AND SOLD BY ISAAC LANE. _A Terrible and seasonable Warning to young Men._ Being a very particular and True Relation of one _Abraham Joiner_ a young Man about 17 or 18 Years of Age, living in _Shakesby's_ Walks in _Shadwell_, being a Ballast Man by Profession, who on _Saturday_ Night last pick'd up a leud Woman, and spent what Money he had about him in Treating her, saying afterwards, if she wou'd have any more he must go to the Devil for it, and slipping out of her Company, he went to the _Cock_ and _Lyon_ in _King Street_, the Devil appear'd to him, and gave him a Pistole, telling him _he shou'd never want for Money_, appointing to meet him the next Night at the _World's End_ at Stepney; Also how his Brother perswaded him to throw the Money away, which he did; but was suddenly taken in a very strange manner; so that they were fain to send for the Reverend Mr. Constable and other Ministers to pray with him; he appearing now to be very Penitent; with an Account of the Prayers and Expressions he makes use of under his Affliction, and the prayers that were made for him to free him from this violent Temptation. The Truth of which is sufficiently attested in the Neighbourhood, he lying now at his mother's house, etc. [Illustration] LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. DUTTON, NEAR FLEET STREET. THE _KENTISH MIRACLE_ =Or, a Seasonable Warning to all Sinners= SHEWN IN The Wonderful Relation of one Mary Moore, whose Husband died some time ago, and left her with two Children, who was reduced to great Want; How she wandered about the Country asking Relief, and went two Days without any food. How the Devil appeared to her, and the many great Offers he made to her to deny Christ, and enter into his Service; and how she confounded Satan by powerful Arguments. How she came to a Well of Water, when she fell down on her Knees to pray to God, that he would give that Vertue to the Water that it might refresh and satisfy her Children's Hunger; with an Account how an Angel appeared to her and relieved her; also declared many things that shall happen in the Month of March next; shewing likewise what strange and surprizing Accidents shall happen by means of the present War; and concerning a dreadful Earthquake, etc. EDINBURGH: PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1741. THE =Witch of the Woodlands;= OR, THE _COBLER'S NEW TRANSLATION_. Here Robin the Cobler for his former Evils, Is punish'd bad as Faustus with his Devils. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE, LONDON. Here the old Witches dance, and then agree, How to fit Robin for his Lechery; First he is made a Fox and hunted on, 'Till he becomes an Horse, an Owl, a Swan. At length their Spells of Witchcraft they withdrew, But Robin still more hardships must go through; For e'er he is transform'd into a Man, They make him kiss their bums and glad he can. [Illustration] This is the argument of the story, which is too broad in its humour to be reprinted, but the following two illustrations show the popular idea of his Satanic Majesty and his dealings with witches. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE HISTORY OF DR. JOHN FAUSTUS. There is very little similarity between this history and Goethe's beautiful drama. This is essentially vulgar, and perfectly fitted for the popular taste it catered for; but we, who are familiar with Goethe's masterpiece, can hardly read it without a shudder. It has been given at length, because it is a type of its class. The History of Faust (who, as far as one can learn, existed early in the sixteenth century) has been repeatedly written, especially in Germany, where it first appeared in 1587, published at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and it was soon translated into English by P. K. Gent. Marlowe produced his "Tragicall History of D. Faustus" in 1589, and in an entry in the Register of the Stationers' Company it appears that in the year 1588 "A Ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, the great Congerer," was licensed to be printed,[2] so that it soon became well rooted in England. It has been a favourite theme with dramatists and musicians, and has even been the subject of a harlequinade, "The Necromancer; or Harlequin Dr. Faustus" (London, 1723). It was a popular Chap book, and many versions were published of it in various parts of the country. J. O. Halliwell Phillips, Esq., has an English edition of Faustus printed 1592, unknown to Herbert or Lowndes. [Footnote 2: Probably the original of that ballad, "The Judgment of God shewed upon one J. Faustus Dr. in Divinity," of which the British Museum possesses two versions--Rox. II. 235 and (643 m. 10,)/55. the date of both being attributed 1670.] THE HISTORY OF =Dr. John Faustus,= SHEWING _How he sold himself to the Devil to have power to do what he pleased for twenty-four years_. ALSO STRANGE THINGS DONE BY HIM AND HIS SERVANT MEPHISTOPHOLES. With an Account how the Devil came for him, and tore him in Pieces. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE, LONDON. [Illustration] THE HISTORY OF DR. JOHN FAUSTUS. CHAP. 1. THE DOCTOR'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. Dr. John Faustus was born in Germany: his father was a poor labouring man, not able to give him any manner of education; but he had a brother in the country, a rich man, who having no child of his own, took a great fancy to his nephew, and resolved to make him a scholar. Accordingly he put him to a grammar school, where he took learning extraordinary well; and afterwards to the University to study Divinity. But Faustus, not liking that employment, betook himself to the study of Necromancy and Conjuration, in which arts he made such a proficiency, that in a short time none could equal him. However he studied Divinity so far, that he took his Doctor's Degree in that faculty; after which he threw the scripture from him, and followed his own inclinations. CHAP. 2. DR. FAUSTUS RAISES THE DEVIL, AND AFTERWARDS MAKES HIM APPEAR AT HIS OWN HOUSE. Faustus whose restless mind studied day and night, dressed his imagination with the wings of an eagle, and endeavoured to fly all over the world, and see and know the secrets of heaven and earth. In short he obtained power to command the Devil to appear before him whenever he pleased. One day as Dr. Faustus was walking in a wood near Wirtemberg in Germany, having a friend with him who was desirous to see his art, and requested him to let him see if he could then and there bring Mephistopholes before them. The Doctor immediately called, and the Devil at the first summons made such a hedious noise in the wood as if heaven and earth were coming together. And after this made a roaring as if the wood had been full of wild beasts. Then the Doctor made a Circle for the Devil, which he danced round with a noise like that of ten thousand waggons running upon paved stones. After this it thundered and lightened as if the world had been at an end. [Illustration] Faustus and his friend, amazed at the noise, and frighted at the devil's long stay, would have departed; but the Devil cheared them with such musick, as they never heard before. This so encouraged Faustus, that he began to command Mephistopholes, in the name of the prince of Darkness, to appear in his own likeness; on which in an instant hung over his head a mighty dragon.--Faustus called him again, as he was used, after which there was a cry in the wood as if Hell had been opened, and all the tormented souls had been there--Faustus in the mean time asked the devil many questions, and commanded him to shew a great many tricks. CHAP. 3. MEPHISTOPHOLES COMES TO THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE; AND OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN THEM. Faustus commanded the spirit to meet him at his own house by ten o'clock the next day. At the hour appointed he came into his chamber, demanding what he would have? Faustus told him it was his will and pleasure to conjure him to be obedient to him in all points of these articles, viz. First, that the Spirit should serve him in all things he asked, from that time till death. Secondly, whosoever he would have, the spirit should bring him. Thirdly. Whatsoever he desired for to know he should tell him. [Illustration] The Spirit told him he had no such power of himself, until he had acquainted his prince that ruled over him. For, said he, we have rulers over us, who send us out and call us home when they will; and we can act no farther than the power we receive from Lucifer, who you know for his pride was thrust out of heaven. But I can tell you no more, unless you bind yourself to us--I will have my request replied Faustus, and yet not be damned with you--Then said the spirit, you must not, nor shall not have your desire, and yet thou art mine and all the world cannot save thee from my power. Then get you hence, said Faustus, and I conjure thee that thou come to me at night again. Then the spirit vanished, and Doctor Faustus began to consider by what means he could obtain his desires without binding himself to the Devil. [Illustration: This is a rough copy of the frontispiece to Gent's translation, ed. 1648.] While Faustus was in these cogitations, night drew on, and then the spirit appeared, acquainting him that now he had orders from his prince to be obedient to him, and to do for him what he desired, and bid him shew what he would have.--Faustus replied, His desire was to become a Spirit, and that Mephistopholes should always be at his command; that whenever he pleased he should appear invisible to all men.--The Spirit answered his request should be granted if he would sign the articles pronounced to him viz, That Faustus should give himself over body and soul to Lucifer, deny his Belief, and become an enemy to all good men; and that the writings should be made with his own blood.--Faustus agreeing to all this, the Spirit promised he should have his heart's desire, and the power to turn into any shape, and have a thousand spirits at command. CHAP. 4. FAUSTUS LETS HIMSELF BLOOD, AND MAKES HIMSELF OVER TO THE DEVIL. The Spirit appearing in the morning to Faustus, told him, That now he was come to see the writing executed and give him power. Whereupon Faustus took out a knife, pricked a vein in his left arm, and drew blood, with which he wrote as follows: [Illustration] "I, JOHN FAUSTUS, Doctor in Divinity, do openly acknowlege That in all my studying of the course of nature and the elements, I could never attain to my desire; I finding men unable to assist me, have made my addresses to the Prince of Darkness, and his messenger Mephistopholes, giving them both soul and body, on condition that they fully execute my desires; the which they have promised me. I do also further grant by these presents, that if I be duly served, when and in what place I command, and have every thing that I ask for during the space of twenty four years, then I agree that at the expiration of the said term, you shall do with Me and Mine, Body and Soul, as you please. Hereby protesting, that I deny God and Christ and all the host of heaven. And as for the further consideration of this my writing, I have subscribed it with my own hand, sealed it with my own seal, and writ it with my own blood. JOHN FAUSTUS." No sooner had Faustus sent his name to the writing, but his spirit Mephistopholes appeared all wrapt in fire, and out of his mouth issued fire; and in an instant came a pack of hounds in full cry. Afterwards came a bull dancing before him, then a lion and a bear fighting. All these and many spectacles more did the Spirit present to the Doctor's view, concluding with all manner of musick, and some hundreds of spirits dancing before him.--This being ended, Faustus looking about saw seven sacks of silver, which he went to dispose of, but could not handle himself, it was so hot. [Illustration] This diversion so pleased Faustus, that he gave Mephistopholes the writing he had made, and kept a copy of it in his own hands. The Spirit and Faustus being agreed, they dwelt together, and the devil was never absent from his councils. CHAP. 5. HOW FAUSTUS SERVED THE ELECTORAL DUKE OF BAVARIA. Faustus having sold his soul to the Devil, it was soon reported among the neighbours, and no one would keep him company, but his spirit, who was frequently with him, playing of strange tricks to please him. Not far from Faustus's house lived the Duke of Bavaria, the Bishop of Saltzburg, and the Duke of Saxony, whose houses and cellars Mephistopholes used to visit, and bring from thence the best provision their houses afforded. One day the Duke of Bavaria had invited most of the gentry of that country to dinner, in an instant came Mephistopholes and took all with him, leaving them full of admiration. If at any time Faustus had a mind for wild or tame fowl, the Spirit would call whole flocks in at the window. He also taught Faustus to do the like so that no locks nor bolts could hinder them. The devil also taught Faustus to fly in the air, and act many things that are incredible, and too large for this book to contain. CHAP. 6. FAUSTUS DREAM OF HELL, AND WHAT HE SAW THERE. After Faustus had had a long conference with the Spirit concerning the fall of Lucifer, the state and condition of the fallen angels, he in a dream saw Hell and the Devils. Having seen this sight he marvelled much at it, and having Mephistopholes on his side, he asked him what sort of people they was who lay in the first dark pit? Mephistopholes told him they were those who pretended to be physicians, and had poisoned many thousands in trying practices; and now said the spirit, they have the very same administered unto them which they prescribed to others, though not with the same effect; for here, said he, they are denied the happiness to die.--Over their heads were long shelves full of vials and gallipots of poison. Having passed by them, he came to a long entry exceeding dark, where was a great crowd: I asked what they were? and the Spirit told me They were pick pockets, who, because they loved to be in a crowd in the other world, were also crowded here together. Among these were some padders on the highway, and others of that function. Walking farther I saw many thousand vintners and some millions of taylors; insomuch there was scarce room enough for them in the place destined for their reception. A little farther the Spirit opened a cellar door, from which issued a smoke almost enough to choak me, with a dismal noise; I asked what they were? and the Spirit told me, They were Witches, such as had been pretended Saints in the other world, but now having lost their veil, they squabble, fight and tear one another. A few steps farther I espied a great number almost hid with smoke; and I asked who they were? The Spirit told me they were Millers and bakers; but, good lack! what a noise was there among them! the miller cried to the baker and the baker to the miller for help, but all in vain, for there was none that could help them. Passing on farther I saw thousands of Shop keepers, some of whom I know, who were tormented for defrauding and cheating their Customers. Having taken this prospect of Hell, my Spirit Mephistopholes took me up in his arms, and carried me home to my own house, where I awaked, amazed at what I had seen in my dream. Being come to myself I asked Mephistopholes in what place Hell was? he answered, Know thou that before the Fall, Hell was ordained: As for the substance or extent of Hell, we Devils do not know it; but it is the wrath of God that makes it so furious. CHAP. 7. DR. FAUSTUS'S TRICK ON TWENTY STUDENTS. [Illustration] Thirteen students meeting seven more near Faustus's house, fell to words, and at length to blows; the thirteen was took hard for the seven. The Doctor looking out at a window saw the fray, and seeing how much the Seven were overmatched by the thirteen, he conjured them all blind, so that they could not see each other; and in this manner they continued to fight, and so smote each other, as made the public laugh heartily. At length he parted them, leading them all to their own homes, where they immediately recovered their sight, to the great astonishment of all. CHAP. 8. FAUSTUS HELPS A YOUNG MAN TO A FAIR LADY. There was a galant young gentleman that was in love with a fair Lady, who was of a proper personage, living at Wirtemberg near the Doctors house. This gentleman had long sought the lady in marriage, but could not obtain his desire; and having placed his affections so much upon her, he was ready to pine away, and had certainly died with grief, had he not made his affairs known to the Doctor, to whom he opened the whole matter. No sooner had the gentleman told his case to the Doctor, but he bid him not fear, for his desire should be fulfilled, and he should have her he so much admired, and that the gentlewoman should love none but him, which was done accordingly; for Faustus so changed the mind of the damsel, by his practices, that she could think of nothing else but him, whom she before hated; and Faustus's device was thus: He gave him an inchanted ring, which he ordered him to slip on her finger, which he did: and no sooner was it on but her affections began to change, and her heart burned with love towards him. She instead of frowns could do nothing else but smile on him, and could not be at rest till she had asked him if he thought he could love her, and make her a good husband: he gladly answered yes, and he should think he was the happiest man alive; so they were married the next day, and proved a very happy couple. CHAP. 9. FAUSTUS MAKES SEVEN WOMEN DANCE NAKED IN THE MARKET. [Illustration] Faustus walking in the Market place saw seven jolly women setting all on a row, selling butter and eggs, of each of them he bought something and departed; but no sooner was he gone, but all their butter and eggs were gone out of their baskets, they knew not how. At last they were told that Faustus had conjured all their goods away; whereupon they ran in haste to the Doctor's house, and demanded satisfaction for their wares.--He resolved to make sport for the townspeople; made them pull off all their cloaths, and dance naked to their baskets; where every one saw their goods safe, and found herself in a humour to put her cloaths on again. CHAP. 10. HOW FAUSTUS SERVED A COUNTRYMAN DRIVING SWINE. [Illustration] Faustus, as he was going one day to Wirtemberg, overtook a country fellow driving a herd of Swine, which was very headstrong, some running one way and some another way, so that the driver could not tell how to get them along. Faustus taking notice of it made every one of them dance upon their hind legs, with a fiddle in one of their fore feet and a bow in the other, and so dance and fiddle all the way to Wirtemberg, the countryman dancing all the way before them, which made the people wonder--After Faustus had satisfied himself with this sport, he conjured the fiddles away; and the countryman offering his pigs for sale, soon sold them and got the money; but before he was gone out of the house, Faustus conjured the pigs out of the market, and sent them to the countryman's house. The man who had bought them, seeing the swine gone, stopped the man that sold them, and forced him to give back the money; on which he returned home very sorrowful, not knowing what to do; but to his great surprize found all the pigs in their sties. CHAP. 11. FAUSTUS BEGINS TO CONTEMPLATE UPON HIS LATTER END. Faustus having spun out his twenty four years within a month or two, began to consider what he could do to cheat the devil, to whom he had made over both body and soul, but could find no ways to frustrate his miserable end; which now was drawing near. Whereupon in a miserable tone he cried out, O lamentable wretch that I am! I have given myself to the devil for a few years pleasure to gratify my Carnal and devilish appetites, and now I must pay full dear; Now I must have torment without end. Woe is me, for there is none to help me; I dare not, I cannot look for mercy from God, for I have abandoned him; I have denied him to be my God, and given up myself to the Devil to be his for ever; and now the time is almost expired, and I must be tormented for ever and ever. CHAP. 12. FAUSTUS WARNED BY THE SPIRIT TO PREPARE FOR HIS END. [Illustration] Faustus's full time being come, the Spirit appeared to him, and shewed him the writings, and told him that the next day the Devil would fetch him away. This made the Doctor's heart to ache; but to divert himself he sent for some Doctors, Masters and Batchelors of Arts, and other students to dine with him for whom he provided a great store of varieties, with musick and the like; but all would not keep up his spirits, for his hour drew near--Whereupon his countenance changing, the doctors asked the reason of his confusion? To which Faustus answered, O! my friends, you have known me these many years, and that I practised all manner of wickedness. I have been a great conjuror, which art I obtained of the devil; selling myself to him soul and body, for the term of twenty four years; which time expiring to night, is the cause of my sorrow; I have called you, my friends, to see my miserable end; and I pray let my fate be a warning to you all, not to attempt to search farther into the secrets of nature than is permitted to be known to man, lest your searches lead you to the Devil, to whom I must this night go, whether I will or no. About twelve o'clock at night the house shook so terribly that they all feared it would have tumbled on their heads, and suddenly the doors and windows were broke to pieces, and a great hissing was heard as though the house had been full of snakes; Faustus in the mean time calling out for help but all in vain. There was a vast roaring in the hall, as if all the Devils in Hell had been there; and then they vanished, leaving the hall besprinkled with blood, which was most terrible to behold. FINIS. [Illustration] THE HISTORY Of the Learned _FRIAR BACON_. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, LONDON. Roger Bacon was born at Ilchester, Somersetshire, in 1214, and was educated at Oxford and Paris, where he was made D.D. He seems to have settled at Oxford about 1240, and entered the order of St. Francis. He devoted himself body and soul to the study of natural philosophy, mathematics, and chemistry, and obtained such celebrity by his discoveries, that they were assigned to evil spirits, and he himself was branded as a magician. He was confined to his cell and forbidden to lecture. A copy of his "Opus Majus" being sent to Clement IV. on his elevation to the Papal chair, he promised his protection, which continued until his death; when Bacon was more severely persecuted, his works were prohibited, and he was imprisoned about ten years. When released, he returned to his beloved Oxford, where he died, June 11, 1292. Why the popular idea of him in after times should be always associated with the ludicrous, I cannot say, but it is so, even in Greene's play, "The Honourable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay," of which the earliest edition extant is 1594; but it must have been earlier, for in Henslowe's Diary, under 1591-92, is an entry, "Rd at fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary satterdaye xvij^s ii^d." Indeed, every history makes fun about him, and almost all his deeds are comic. In this book, for instance, the king, being about four miles from Oxford, naturally desired to see the great philosopher, and sent a nobleman to bring him. Bacon could not go quietly, but he caused a great mist to spring up, and the nobleman lost his way; whilst Bacon was straightway transported into the king's presence, when at the royal request he waved his wand, and caused beautiful music to sound. Another wave, and a banquet appeared, of which the king and queen partook, and then it vanished, leaving the place sweetly perfumed. "Then waving the fourth time, came in Russians Persians and Polanders clad with the finest furs and richest silks in the universe, which he bid them feel; and then the strangers all dancing after their fashion vanished.... During this, the gentleman of the bed chamber came in puffing and blowing, all bemired and dirty, his face and hands scratched with bushes and briars. The King asked him why he stayed so long and how he came in that condition? Oh! the plague, said he, take Friar Bacon and all his Devils, they have led me a dance to the endangering my neck; but the dog is here, I'll be revenged on him. Then he laid his hand upon his sword; but Bacon waving his wand, fixed it in the scabbard, that he could not draw it, saying, I fear not thy anger, thou hadst best be quiet, lest a worse thing befal thee." He had a hypocritical servant, who on Good Friday would not take a bit of bread and a cup of wine when offered by his master, but went privately to eat a pudding, which, by Bacon's enchantments, stuck fast in his mouth, in which condition he was found by the friar, who fastened him by the pudding to the college gate, and there left him to be exposed to the jeers of the passers-by. After he had perfected his famous brazen head, which was to speak at some time or other unknown, within two months after being finished, and required careful watching, this man Miles had his turn of guard. When the head uttered the words "Time is," instead of at once informing his master, he chaffed the head, and it said "Time was." He still went on bantering, when the head called out, "Time is past," and then, with a horrible noise, it fell down and broke in pieces. Bacon and Bungay rushed in, and on questioning Miles he told them the truth, and was punished by his enraged master with the loss of speech for the space of two months. A =Timely Warning= _To Rash and Disobedient_ CHILDREN. Being a strange and wonderful RELATION of a young Gentleman in the Parish of _Stepheny_ in the Suburbs of _London_, that sold himself to the Devil for 12 Years to have the Power of being revenged on his Father and Mother, and how his Time being expired, he lay in a sad and deplorable Condition to the Amazement of all Spectators. [Illustration] EDINBURGH: PRINTED ANNO 1721. BATEMAN'S TRAGEDY, OR THE =Perjured Bride justly rewarded;= BEING THE _HISTORY_ OF THE UNFORTUNATE LOVE OF _German's Wife and Young Bateman_. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. The story of this very popular Chap book can be very well epitomized by the headings of the chapters, which give an excellent idea of the tale. CHAPTER I. How young Bateman, riding through Clifton Town, accidentally espied fair Isabella, a rich Farmer's Daughter, standing at her Father's door, and fell in love with her, enquiring who she was, and his resolution to let her know his passion. CHAPTER II. How the fair Isabella fell sick for Love of Bateman, though a Stranger, and his Abode unknown to her, when she was given over, he came in the Habit of a Physician, discovered himself to her, and she recovered her health by that means, to the unspeakable joy of her Parents. CHAPTER III. How being invited to her Father's House, he walked abroad with her and discovered his passion to her at large. Of the Encouragement he found to proceed in his Suit, and the prospect there was of a happy marriage between them. CHAPTER IV. How he came and asked her Father's consent, but was refused. How one German attempted to kill him, but was wounded by him: and how he made his escape. CHAPTER V. How being banished from her Father's house, his lovely mistress, upon sending a letter, came to him in disguise, in a neighbouring wood, and there they sealed their love by solemn vows, and breaking a piece of gold between them. CHAPTER VI. How upon her coming back, her going was discovered, and she confined to her chamber, where German courted her with tears presents and the proffer of a great estate; she at the instance of her parents, renounced her vows, sent back her gold, and married him, whereupon Bateman hanged himself. CHAPTER VII. How, upon Bateman's hanging himself before her door, she grew malancholy, fancying she saw him with a ghostly face, putting her in mind of her broken vows; and how after having been delivered of a child, a spirit carried her away. THE =Miracle of Miracles.= Being a full and true Account of _Sarah Smith_, Daughter of _John Symons_ a Farmer, who lately was an Inhabitant of Darken Parish in Essex, that was brought to Bed of a Strange Monster, the Body of it like a Fish with Scales thereon: it had no Legs but a pair of great Claws, Tallons Like a Liands, it had Six Heads on its Neck, one was like the Face of a Man with Eyes Nose and Mouth to it, the 2d like the Face of a Cammel, and its Ears Cropt, Two other Faces like Dragons with spiked Tongues hanging out of their Mouths, another had an Eagles Head with a Beak instead of a Mouth at the end of it, and the last seeming to be a Calves head. Which eat and fed for some time, which Monster has surprised many Thousand people that came there to see it. Daily, Spectators flock to view it, but it was by Command of the Magistrates knock'd on the Head, and several Surgeons were there to dissect it. Also you have a Funeral Sermon on the Woman who brought it forth, a very wicked Liver, and disobedient to her Parents, and one that was mightily given to Wishing, Cursing and Swearing. With a Prayer before and after the said Sermon. It being very fit and necessary to be had in all Families for a Warning to Disobedient Children. This strange and unheard of Monster was brought into the World in May last, and if any doubt the truth thereof, it will be certify'd by the Minister and Church-Wardens of the said Parish of Darkins in Essex as aforesaid. [Illustration] ENTRED IN THE HALL BOOK ACCORDING TO ORDER. A wonderful and Strange _RELATION_ OF A SAILOR IN _St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London_; WHO Slept for Five Days and Nights together and then awaking gave an Account of the Blessedness of those in Heaven, and the woful Estate of the Damned in Hell. And also of the STATE of two of his Companions who dy'd whilst he was in his sleep. All which is attested by the Minister and many who were present and Ear Wittnesses to the Relation. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED _The Greatest Light to Sinners_ Occasioned and Explain'd by the late SLEEPING MAN'S DREAM. LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. THE CHILDREN'S EXAMPLE. SHEWING How one Mrs. Johnson's Child of Barnet was tempted by the Devil to forsake God and follow the Ways of other Wicked Children, who us'd to Swear, tell Lies, and disobey their Parents; How this pretty innocent Child resisting Satan, was Comforted by an Angel from Heaven, who warned her of her approaching Death; Together with her dying Speeches desiring young Children not to forsake God, lest Satan should gain a Power over them. [Illustration] ENTER'D ACCORDING TO ORDER. This style of Chap-book, although always a favourite among a certain section of society, is such rubbish that one extract will suffice:-- "As this Child went to School one Day, Through the Church Yard she took her Way, When, lo! the Devil came and said, Where are you going, pretty Maid? To School I am going Sir (said she) Pish, child, don't mind the same, (saith he) But hast to your Companions dear, And learn to lie, and curse and swear. They bravely spend their time in Play, God they don't value; no, not they; It is a Fable, Child he cry'd. At which his Cloven Foot she spy'd. I'm sure there is a God, said she, Who from your Power will keep me free; And if you should this thing deny, Your Cloven Foot gives you the Lie. Satan avoid hence out of Hand In name of JESUS I command! At which the Devil instantly In flames of Fire away did fly," etc., etc. There is another somewhat similar one, presumably of same date "to the tune of 'The Children's Example,'" entitled "The Pious Virgin; or Religious Maid. Being a Relation of the Wonderful and Divine Speeches of Sarah Shrimpton, Daughter to Mrs. Shrimpton, living in Rochester, who falling into a Trance declared the Wonderful Things she had seen; desiring Young Children to serve the Lord in the Time of their Youth, in order to obtain Salvation;" but it is not worth an extract. Indeed, speculative young ladies of this class do not seem to have been uncommon, for a Miss Katherine Atkinson of Torven, in the parish of Ulverstone in the county palatine of Lancaster, also indulged in the luxury of a trance, which is described as follows:-- =A New Prophesy; or, An= ACCOUNT Of a young Girl, not above Eight Years of Age; Who being in a Trance, or lay as dead for the Space of Forty Eight Hours. With an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Sight that she see in the other World. With an Alarm from Heaven to the Inhabitants of the Earth; Giving an Account how crying Sins of the Day and Time do provoke the Almighty. With strange and wonderful Things, as a Warning to this last and worst Age, agreeable to the Holy Scriptures and Divine Revelation. The like never published; That the Saying of the Almighty may be fulfilled, That out of the Mouth of Babes and Sucklings God will perfect Praise. [Illustration] LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. GOD'S JUST JUDGMENT ON BLASPHEMERS, _Being a Terrible Warning Piece to repining Murmurers, set forth in a dreadful Example of the Almighty's Wrath, on one Mr. Thomas Freeburn a Farmer, near Andover in Wiltshire, who utter'd those horrid and blasphemous Expressions, That God never did him any good in his Life, and he believed did not know what he did himself; with other words too monstrous and devilish to be repeated: Upon which he was immediately struck Speechless, Motionless and almost without sign of Life, and fell down as in a dead Sleep; and no strength of Men or Horses, has been able hitherto to remove him from the ground._ Also an Account of his wicked Life and Actions for 24 Years before this just Judgment fell upon him, with his coming to his Speech again, in four Months and twenty Day's time, and the terrible Sights he saw in the other World, which he has discover'd to some thousands of Spectators. LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. _A Dreadful Warning_ TO ALL WICKED AND FORSWORN SINNERS. Shewing the sad and dreadful Example of Nicholas Newsom and David Higham, who were drinking in a Public House in Dudley near Birmingham on Thursday; the 5th day of March 1761. Giving an Account, how they laid a Wager, whether could swear the most blasphemous Oaths, and how they were struck Deaf and Dumb, with their Tongues hanging out of their Mouths. _To which is added a Sermon, preached on this Occasion, by the Rev. Dr. Smith from the following Text. Matt. 5. 34. 35. Swear not at all neither by Heaven for it is Gods Throne; nor by the earth for it is his Footstool._ [Illustration] Here is a full and true _RELATION_ OF ONE MR. RICH LANGLY, A GLAZIER, _Living over against the Sign of the Golden Wheat Sheaf in Ratcliff Highway, London, that lay in a Trance for two Days and one Night. He also saw the Joys of Heaven and the Terrors of Hell._ You have also an Account when he came out of his Trance, how he declared to the Minister, that he had but 5 Days to live in this World, before he should depart. As soon as the Minister was gone out of the Room, it is said the Devil appearing to him, and asking of him if he would Sell his Soul and Body to Him, proffering him in the shape of a Gentleman, a bag of Gold, but he crying out against it, and saying, Lord Jesus receive my soul. Having an account how the Devil Vanished away in a Flame of Fire, you have also in this Book, a Good and Godly Sermon, that was Preached on him at his Funeral, by that Reverend and Learned Divine, Dr. Pede, Minister, of the Parish Church of Clakenwell London. LICENSED ACCORDING TO ORDER. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. BLAND NEAR FLEET STREET. =A Full, True and Particular= ACCOUNT _of the Ghost or Apparition of the Late Duke of Buckingham's Father, which several Times appeared in Armor to one of the Duke's Servants; and for about half a Year before foretold the Dukes death_. [Illustration] PRINTED BY F. C. IN THE OLD BAILEY. This account of the apparition of Sir George Villiers purports to be an "Extract a Monsieur d'Ablancour, le Vie le Grand Duc de Buckingham," but in reality is taken word for word from Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," book i. pars. 89 to 93; according to which, the apparition appeared three times to an officer of the king's wardrobe, in Windsor Castle, and commanded him to tell the Duke of Buckingham "that if he did not somewhat to ingratiate himself to the People, or at least, to abate the Extream Mallice they had against him, he would be suffer'd to live but a Short Time." He is reported to have seen the duke, and left him much troubled. Soon afterwards the duke was murdered by Felton. There were many strange stories similar to this afloat. Lilly the conjuror gave a version in his "Observations on the Life and Death of King Charles," which Dr. Robert Plot contradicted, and gave an altogether fresh one, in all probability as veracious. That the duke received warnings of danger to himself is undoubted. Sir Henry Wotton, in his "Short View of the Life and Death of George Villiers Duke of Buckingham" (1642), admits it, but he denies any supernatural warning. He says, "I have spent some enquiry whether he had any ominous presagement before his end; wherein though both ancient and modern Stories have been infected with much vanity; yet oftentimes things fall out of that kind which may bear a sober constitution, whereof I will glean two or three in the Duke's Case. "Being to take his leave of my Lords Grace of _Canturbury_ the only Bishop of _London_, whom he knew well planted in the King's unchangeable affection, by his own great abilities, after cortesies of courage had passed between them; My Lord, sayes the Duke, I know your Lordship hath very worthily good accesses unto the King our Soveraign, let me pray you to put His Majesty in minde to be good, as I no way distrust, to my poor wife and children; at which words, or at his countenance in the delivery, or at both, My Lord Bishop being somewhat troubled, took the freedom to aske him where [? whether] he had never any secret abodements in his minde, No (replyed the Duke) but I think some adventure may kill me as well as another man," etc. THE PORTSMOUTH GHOST OR A _Full and true Account of a Strange, wonderful, and dreadful Appearing of the Ghost of Madam Johnson, a beautiful young Lady of Portsmouth_ SHEWING 1. Her falling in Love with Mr. John Hunt, a Captain in one of the Regiments sent to Spain. 2. Of his promising her Marriage, and leaving her big With Child. 3. Of her selling herself to the Devil to be revenged on the Captain. 4. Of her ripping open her own Belly, and the Devil's flying away with her Body, and leaving the Child in the room. 5. Of the Captain's Fleet being drove back by a Storm to St. Helen's. 6. Of her appearing to several Sailors, acquainting them who she was. 7. Of her Carrying him away in the night in a flame of fire. PRINTED AND SOLD BY CLUER DICEY AND CO. IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE. This book is useful, as it shows the early date of the firm of Dicey in Aldermary Churchyard. It must have been published very early in the century, for her ghost appeared to him whilst on his voyage to Vigo; the date of the famous capture of the galleons and the large quantity of snuff, which augmented, if it did not almost inaugurate, the taste for snuff-taking in England, being 1702. The catastrophe of the poem is graphically told. "The next time that she came again For to have perish'd on the main, They all expected for to rue So violent the storm it grew. They all at fervent prayers were, At length this sailor, I declare, Did speak to her, and thus did say, What ails thy troubled spirit pray? The truth she quickly then did tell. Saying Him I'll have, then all is well Then with a visage fierce and Grim, She strait approached unto him, He went to turn and hide his face, She cry'd False man it is too late, She clasp'd him in her arms straitway, But no man knew his dying day. In a flash of fire many see She dragged him into the sea The storm is soon abated where They all returned thanks by prayer Unto the Lord that sav'd their lives And delivered them from that surprise Let this a warning be to all That reads the same both great and small." THE GUILFORD GHOST. Being an Account of the Strange and Amazing Apparition or Ghost of Mr. Christopher Slaughterford; with the manner of his Wonderful Appearance to Joseph Lee his Man, and one Roger Voller, at Guildford in Surrey, on Sunday and Monday Night last, in a sad and astonishing manner, in several dreadful and frightful Shapes, with a Rope about his Neck, a flaming Torch in one hand and a Club in the Other, crying Vengeance, Vengeance. With other amazing particulars. [Illustration] LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. WYAT IN SOUTHWARK, 1709. There is a contemporary Chap-book with this, printed by A. Hinde in Fleet Street, 1709: "The Birth, Parentage, and Education, Life and Conversation of Mr. Christopher Slaughterford, who was Executed at Guildford in Surrey, on Saturday the 9th July, 1709, for the Barbarous Murther of Jane Young, his Sweetheart," etc. There was a peculiarity about this case--for the man protested his innocence to the last, although the evidence was very strongly circumstantial against him--and public opinion being exercised thereon, the necessary "catchpenny" was forthcoming. His ghost seems to have appeared to several people, and the book winds up: "P.S. Just now we have an Account from the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark, that he was seen there by several of the Prisoners on Tuesday Night last, and that he has been heard to make his Fetters jingle in the Whyte Lyon, being the place where he was put after his condemnation; insomuch, that those who have heard the said unaccountable Noise are afraid to go near the said Place after Day light." THE =Wonder of Wonders= BEING A Strange and Wonderful Relation of a Mermaid, that was seen and spoke with, on the Black Rock nigh Liverpool, by John Robinson Mariner, who was tossed on the Ocean for Six days and Nights; Together with the Conversation he had with her, and how he was preserved; with the Manner of his Death five days after his return Home. [Illustration] LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. On the 29th of April last one Mr. James Dixon Captain and Commander of the Ship Dolphin in her passage from Amsterdam in Holland, was beat back by a tempestuous Wind and all the Men perished except a young Man named John Robinson, who was taken very ill on board the Ship, and was left to Almighty Providence, and to the Mercy of the Seas and Winds, and was also in great Fear and dreadful fright on the Main Ocean, for the said John Robinson dreamt that he was on the top of an high Mountain, whose top he thought reach'd up to the Heavens, and that there was a fine Castle, about the Circumference of a Mile, and furnished with all sorts of Diamonds, and precious Stones, and likewise on the top of the Mountain was a well, which Water was as sweet as Honey and as white as Milk, that whomsoever drank of that Water should never be dry again; with all sorts of Musick very delightful to hear, so one would think, as one suppos'd seven Years in that Place, not so long as a Day. After having view'd the Castle round he observed to his great Admiration, a beautiful young Lady, who was guarded by Seven Serpents, very frightful to behold. Suppose the young Lady was very beautiful, yet he wish'd rather to be a Thousand Miles off than in the Sight of those Serpents; and looking round about, he espy'd (to his great Comfort) a green Gate, and a street pav'd with blue Marble, which open'd at his coming to it, and so he got away from the Serpents; But coming to the top of the Hill, he did not know how to get down, it being very high and steep, but he found a Ladder to his Comfort; it being very slender, was afraid to venture, but at last was oblig'd to go down it, for one of the Serpents having taken Notice of him pursued him so very close that he was in great Danger, and thought he fell and broke his leg, and that the Serpent fell upon him, which awaked him in great Fright, and almost made him mad. By this you may think what a great trouble he was in, awaked alone on the Main Ocean, when missing all the rest of the Ships Crew, and also the great Danger he was in. But to his great Amazement, he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her head, and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first word with her) then she with a Smile came on board and asked how he did. The young Man being Something Smart and a Scholar, reply'd Madam I am the better to see you in good Health, in great hopes trusting you will be a comfort and assistance to me in this my low Condition; and so caught hold of her Comb and Green Girdle that was about her Waist. To which she replied, Sir, you ought not to rob a young Woman of her Riches, and then expect a favour at her Hands; but if you will give me my Comb and Girdle again, what lies in my power, I will do for you. At which Time he had no Power to keep them from her, but immediately delivered them up again; she then smiling, thank'd him, and told him, If he would meet her again next Friday she wou'd set him on shore. He had no power to deny her, so readily gave his Consent; at which time she gave him a Compass and desired him to Steer South West; he thank'd her and told her he wanted some News. She said she would tell him the next opportunity when he fulfilled his promises; but that he would find his Father and Mother much grieved about him, and so jumping into the Sea she departed out of his sight. At her departure the Tempest ceased and blew a fair Gale to South West, so he got safe on shore; but when he came to his Father's House he found every Thing as she had told him. For she told him also concerning his being left on Ship board, and how all the Seamen perished, which he found all true what she had told him, according to the promise made him. He was still very much troubled in his Mind, concerning his promise, but yet while he was thus Musing, she appeared to him with a smiling Countenance and (by his Misfortune) she got the first word of him, so that he could not speak one Word, but was quite Dumb, yet he took Notice of the Words she spoke; and she began to Sing. After which she departed out of the young Mans sight, taking from him the Compass. She took a Ring from off her Finger, and put it on the young Man's, and said, she expected to see him once again with more Freedom. But he never saw her more, upon which he came to himself again, went home, and was taken ill, and died in five Days after, to the wonderful Admiration of all People who saw the young Man. FINIS. DREAMS AND MOLES WITH THEIR _Interpretation and Signification_ Made far more Manifest and Plain than any Published, to the very meanest Capacities, by the most ancient as well as the most modern Rules of Philosophy. _To which is prefixed, A Collection of choice and valuable Receipts concerning Love and Marriage._ FIRST COMPILED IN GREEK, AND NOW FAITHFULLY RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BY A FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, AND A TRUE LOVER OF LEARNING. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE. THE =Old Egyptian Fortune-Teller's Last Legacy= CONTAINING 1. The Wheel of Fortune by pricking with a Pin. 2. The Wheel of Fortune by the Dice. 3. The Signification of Moles. 4. The Art of Palmistry. 5. The Interpretation of Dreams. 6. The Art of Physiognomy; with the Signification of Lines in the Face. 7. Omens of good and bad luck. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE, LONDON. The engravings in this Chap-book are very numerous, but neither they nor the subject-matter are worth reproducing in their entirety. Two extracts will suffice to give an idea of the book. "THE SIGNIFICATION OF MOLES. [Illustration] A Mole on the right Shoulder, denotes happiness to man or woman. A Mole on the left shoulder, denotes a man to be quarrelsome but a woman to have many husbands. A Mole on the left cheek, denotes fruitfulness in man or woman. A Mole on the left ribs denotes a Man very cruel, and a woman to be vain and proud. A Mole near the right Shoulder, denotes a Man to be a slave to love, and shews that a woman will be beloved of great Men. A Mole under the right loin, signifies an industrious man, and good to a woman. A Mole on the buttock denotes honour to a man, and Riches to a woman. A Mole on the right side the belly, denotes a Man to flow in riches, and a woman to be happy in Marriage. One under the right breast, denotes good Fortune. One on the back denotes Riches and honour. One on the right hip signifies good fortune in wedlock to man or woman. One near the navel signifies many Children. It is a most certain truth. That if the second toe, near the great toe, be as long as the great toe, the person will be very rich and happy. THE SIGNIFICATION OF DREAMS. [Illustration] To dream of musick signifies speedy marriage. To dream of falling out denotes constancy. To dream a ring falls from off your finger, signifies the loss of a friend. To dream of meeting a coffin, signifies the death of a friend. To dream of birds singing, signifies joy. To dream of having teeth drawn, loss of friends. To fight with and destroy serpents, denotes victory over enemies. To dream of kisses denotes love from a friend. To dream of a ring put on your finger, denotes a speedy marriage. To fly high, signifies praise. To dream of gathering fruit from trees well loaden, is gain and profit. To dream of fire, and not being able to quench it, signifies quarrels. To dream of being at a wedding, signifies the death of friends. To dream of vermin, and to be troubled in killing them signifies much riches. To see the Sun or Moon greater than ordinary, signifies increase of honour. To be at a feast and eat greedily, signifies sickness. To speak with an Angel that reveals secrets to you denotes preferment. To dream of losing blood by the nose is of ill consequence. To find difficulty in passing a river, signifies hard labour. To dream of falling from a high place without hurt is good. If you lay a bunch of rosemary under your head, on Easter eve, you will dream of the party you shall enjoy." A NEW _FORTUNE BOOK_. BEING A NEW ART OF COURTSHIP Open'd for young Men and Maids, Widows, Widowers and Batchelors, Instructions for young Men and Maids, how they may know their good or bad Fortune, shewing the signification of Moles, the Interpretation of Dreams, the famous Secret and New invented Art of making the true and false Love Powder; to make the Enchanted Ring that will cause Love. Also how to cure a Drunken Husband or a Scolding Wife, secondly, how to cure the Ague, Thirdly how to cure the Tooth Ache. [Illustration] SOLD AT CIRENCESTER. THE _HISTORY_ OF =Mother Bunch of the West= CONTAINING Many Rarities out of her Golden Closet of Curiosities. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD AT THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX PRINTING OFFICE. NO 81 SHOE LANE, HOLBORN. THE HISTORY OF MOTHER BUNCH Is not particularly interesting, except for its scraps of folk-lore, and both parts consist principally of receipts for girls to get husbands. A few examples may be acceptable. "Take a St. Thomas's onion, pare it, and lay it on a clean handkerchief under your pillow; put on a clean smock, and as you lie down, lay your arms abroad, and say these words Good St. Thomas, do me right And bring my love to me this night, That I may view him in the face, And in my arms may him embrace. Then lying on thy back, with thy arms abroad, go to sleep as soon as you can, and in your first sleep you shall dream of him who is to be your husband, and he will come and offer to kiss you; do not hinder him, but catch him in thy arms, and strive to hold him, for that is he. "Yet I have another pretty way for a maid to know her sweetheart which is as follows: Take a summer apple, of the best fruit, stick pins close into the apple, to the head, and as you stick them, take notice which of them is the middlemost, and give it what name you fancy; put it into thy left hand glove, and lay it under thy pillow on Saturday night, after thou gettest into bed, then clap thy hands together, and say these words. If thou be he that must have me To be thy wedded bride, Make no delay, but come away This night to my bedside. And in thy sleep thou shalt see him come in his shirt, and if he offer thee any abuse, he will be great with another woman; but if he puts his hand over thee be not afraid, for it is a sign he'll prove a good husband; and this is a good way for a young man to know his sweetheart, giving the middlemost pin that name he fancies best, putting an apple in his right hand glove, and laying it under his pillow when he is in bed, saying, If thou be she that must have me In wedlock for to join, Make no delay, but come away Unto this bed of mine. And that night he may see her, as if she came in her shift and petticoat she will prove a civil woman--but if she comes with her shift only, she will prove a ranter, and so better lost than found." "On Midsummer Eve three or four of you must dip your shifts in fair water, then turn them wrong side outwards, and hang them on chairs before the fire, and lay some salt on another chair, and speak not a word. In a short time the likeness of him you are to marry will come and turn your smocks, and drink to you; but if there be any of you will never marry, they will hear a bell, but not the rest." "_Another way quickly tried._ "Take hemp seed, and go into what place you will by yourself, carry the seed in your apron, and with your right hand throw it over your shoulder, saying, Hemp seed I sow, hemp seed I sow, And he that must be my true love, Come after me and mow. And at the ninth time expect to see the figure of him you are to wed, or else to hear a bell as before." "_Another way._ "The first change of the New Moon in the New Year, the first time you see it, hold your hands across, saying this three times. New Moon, New Moon, I pray thee, Tell me this night who my true love will be. Then go to bed without speaking a word, and you will certainly dream of the person you shall marry." [Illustration: A GENTLEMAN GOING TO CONSULT WITH MOTHER BUNCH.] [Illustration: MOTHER BUNCH'S FUNERAL. Thus all her Art at length could not her save, From death's dire stroke, and mould'ring in the Grave. ] THE HISTORY OF MOTHER SHIPTON. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, LONDON. THE HISTORY OF MOTHER SHIPTON. All tradition agrees with the Chap-book version, that Mother Shipton was born at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire. According to this Chap-book, her father was the devil, and she was born in 1488, in a violent storm of thunder and lightning. "The strange physiognomy of the infant frighted the gossips; its body was long, and very big boned, great goggling, sharp and fiery eyes, and unproportionable nose, full of crooks, turnings and red pimples, which gave such light that needed not a candle to dress her by; as it was likewise observed that as soon as she was born, she fell a grinning and laughing after a jeering manner; and immediately the tempest ceased." This interesting child was christened by the Abbot of Beverley by the name of Ursula, and she took the surname of Sontibles, after her mother, who, when her child was two years old, repented of her evil ways, and retired to the convent of St. Bridget, near Nottingham. At the age of twenty-four, Ursula married Toby Shipton, a carpenter, and it is related they lived comfortably together, but never had any children. The wonders she worked are all jocular, and some rather broad in their humour, but it is by her prophecies that she is more generally known. Many are attributed to her, which she probably never uttered, and those in the Chap-book are mainly local. She prophesied that Cardinal Wolsey should never see York; and "at divers other times when persons of quality came to visit her she delivered these prophecies. "FIRST PROPHECY. "Before Oose bridge and Trinity Church meet, they shall build by day and it shall fall by night; until they get the uppermost stone of Trinity Church to be the lowest stone of Oose Bridge. "_Explanation._ "This came to pass, for Trinity steeple in York was blown down by a tempest and Oose Bridge broke down by a rapid flood, and what they repaired by day fell down by night, until they laid the highest stone of the steeple as a foundation of the Bridge. "SECOND PROPHECY. "A time shall come when a ship will come sailing up the Thames till it is opposite London, and the master of the ship asks the Captain of the ship why he weeps, since he has made so good a voyage; and he shall say, Ah! what a grand city was this? none in all the world comparable to it, and now there is scarce a house left. "_Explanation._ "These words were verified after the dreadful Fire of London in 1666, not one house being left on the Thames side from the Tower to the Temple," etc., etc. There are more, but these are a fair sample, and two illustrations are also given, showing the then popular idea of a _Walpurgisnacht_. Mother Shipton is said to have died in 1561, but her life and prophecies were not published till 1641, in a small quarto tract, "The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the raigne of Henry the eighth. Foretelling the death of Cardinal Wolsey, the lord Percy, and others, as also what should happen in insuing times. London: Printed for Richard Lownds at his shop adjoyning to Ludgate. 1641." [Illustration] [Illustration] NIXON'S CHESHIRE PROPHECY _AT LARGE_ Published from Lady Cowpers correct Copy in the reign of Queen Ann. WITH HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL REMARKS; AND _Several Instances wherein it has been Fullfilled_ ALSO HIS LIFE Nixon unfolds the dark decrees of fate Foretells our Second George shall make him great; That Gallia's Politicks are all a Trance, For Brunswick's Arms shall conquer wily France. PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE, LONDON. [Illustration: ROBERT NIXON.] Judging from Mother Shipton, and this portrait of Nixon, our native prophets are not remarkable for their good looks. The latter, especially, seems to have owed very little to nature, for he is described as being "a short squab fellow, had a great head and goggle eyes, that he used to drivel as he spoke, which was very seldom, and was extremely surly. "Against Children he particularly had a spite, especially if they made any sport of him, and would run after them and beat them. At first he was a plough boy to Farmer Crowton of Swanton, and so stubborn, they could make him do nothing without beating. They could seldom get any thing out of him but Yes and No, unless he was pinched with hunger; for he had a very good stomach, and could eat up a shoulder of mutton at one meal, with a good hunch of bread and cheese after it." The spirit of prophecy seems to have come suddenly upon him, and his recorded vaticinations are purely local. His end was sad. "The noise of Nixon's predictions coming to the ears of the King [presumably James I.] he would needs see this fool; he cried, and made much ado that he might not go to court, and the reason he gave was that he should be starved. The King being informed of Nixon's refusing to come, said He would take particular care that he should not be starved; and ordered him to be brought up. Nixon cried out he was sent for again--and soon after the messenger arrived, who brought him up from Cheshire. How or whether he prophesied to his Majesty no body can tell but he is not the first fool that has made a good court prophet.--That Nixon might be well provided for, it was ordered he should be kept in the kitchen; but he grew so troublesome in licking and picking the meat, that the cooks locked him up in a hole, and the King going on a sudden from Hampton Court to London, they forgot Nixon in the hurry, and he was starved to death." The first printed book relating to him is "The Cheshire Prophesy; with Historical and Political Remarks. (By John Oldmixon) London printed and sold by A. Baldwin, in Warwick Lane, price 3_d._" (1714). REYNARD THE FOX. Of the antiquity of this story there is no doubt; the only difficulty is to say how old it is. A poem in Flemish, called "der Reinaert," was known in the eleventh century; and in two _serventes_, or verses of the Troubadours, attributed to our Richard I., the names of Isegrim the Wolf and Reinhart are found. It was, however, reserved to England to have first printed it, as Caxton did in 1481. This rare book is in the British Museum, and winds up "Prayeng alle them that shal see this lytyl treatis to correcte and amende Where they shal fynde faute / For I haue not added ne mynusshed but haue folowed as nyghe as I can my Copye whiche was in dutche / and by me Willm Caxton translated in to this rude and symple englyssh in thabbey of Westmestre + fynysshed the vj daye of Juyn the yere of our lord mcccclxxxj and the xxj yere of the regne of Kynge Edward the iiijth /." Roscoe[3] says the earliest printed German copy would appear to be 1498, written in the dialect of Lower Saxony; though there was a Dutch romance in prose bearing the same title, "Historie van Reynaert de Vos," published at Delft in 1485. Goethe ennobled the subject by his poem in 1794. This Chap-book version is somewhat condensed, but it gives a very good account of the romance, and, as it is not very well known, it is given _in extenso_. [Footnote 3: "German Novelists," vol. i.] THE HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE. LONDON 1780. CHAP. 1. A GREAT FEAST PROCLAIMED BY THE LION, AT WHICH THE WOLF, HIS WIFE AND THE HOUND COMPLAIN AGAINST REYNARD THE FOX. [Illustration] It was when the woods was cloathed with green attire, and the meadows adorned with fragrant flowers; when birds chaunted forth their harmonious songs, the Lion made a great feast at his palace at Sanden; and issued a proclamation for all the beasts and birds to come thereto without delay, on pain of his contempt. Now being assembled before the King, there were some beasts found there that made great complaints against the Fox (who was absent) particularly Isegrim the Wolf who thus began: Dread Sovereign, I beseech thee to take pity on me and my wife, for the injuries we have sustained by that false creature Reynard the Fox; who came into my house by violence and befouled my children in such a rank manner that they became instantly blind; for which I expect from him amends, and from your Majesty Justice. When the Wolf had ended, up starts Curtis the Hound, and complaining against Reynard, said, That in the cold season of the Winter, when he was kept from all manner of prey, and half-starved, having but one poor pudding left, the said Reynard had taken it from him. Tibert the Cat, upon this got up, and falling before the King, said, My Lord, I must confess that Reynard the Fox is much complained against, yet each of these will find enough for his clearing; for concerning the offence against the Hound it was committed long since; the puding was mine, though I complained not, for I got it out of the Mill by night when the miller lay asleep. Here the Panther interrupted the Cat, saying, It was just and good to complain against Reynard, for all the world knows he is a thief, murderer, and ravisher; and false to every creature: I will tell you what I saw him do yesterday to Kayward the Hare, who is now standing in the King's presence. He promised to teach him his Credo, and make him a good chaplain; but had I not come by he had killed him, for he had got poor Kayward between his legs, and was squeezing his throat: therefore, O my Lord if you suffer him to go unpunished that hath broken the peace, your Children hereafter will bear the shadow of this evil--Certainly Panther, said Isegrim, what you say is true. CHAP. 2. GRIMBARD THE BROCK'S SPEECH IN BEHALF OF REYNARD. Grimbard the Brock who was Reynard's Sister's Son, being moved with anger, said, Isegrim, you are malicious and as the proverb is, Malice never speaks well of any one: I wish you would agree that he who hath done the most injury of either my Cousin Reynard or you, should die the death; was he here at Court, and in favour as you are, he would make you ask forgiveness, for have you not bitten and torn him with your venemous teeth? have you forgot how you cheated him of his plaice, of which you left him nothing but the bones; also of the flitch of bacon; the taste of which was so good, that you eat it up from him alone, though he got it at the danger of his own life; I must confess that my kinsman lay with his wife, but it was seven years before Isgrim married her; so what credit gets he by slandering his wife, when she is troubled at it. Now comes Kayward the Hare with his complaint, which is but a trifle; for if he would not learn his lesson, can you blame his schoolmaster Reynard for giving due correction; and lastly, for Curtise had he not stole the pudding himself? and who can blame Reynard for taking away stolen goods from a thief; my uncle is a gentleman, a true man, and cannot endure falsehood; he does nothing but by the Council of a priest; and since the King hath made peace, he hath hurt no body; he eats but once a day, wears a hair shirt, and hath eat no meat for this year past; he hath forsaken his Castle, a poor hermitage retains him; he hath distributed all his wealth, and lives upon alms, and doth infinite penance for his Sins. [Illustration] CHAP. 3. THE COCK'S COMPLAINT AGAINST REYNARD; AND THE KING'S ANSWER. Thus while Grimbard stood preaching was brought upon a bier by Canticleer the Cock, a dead Hen, whose head Reynard had bitten off: On each side stood two sorrowful Hens, sisters to the deceased, each bearing a burning torch, and crying out, Alack-and-a-well-a-day for the loss of our sister Copple: and being come before the King, they kneeled down, and said Most mighty King, Vouchsafe to redress the great injuries that Reynard the Fox hath done me and my children, now weeping before you. In April last, in fair weather, and I in the midst of my pride, having seven fair daughters, was envied by Reynard, who made many attempts to get at us by scaling the wall, but was repulsed, and had his skin tore by the dogs: but at last he came like a hermit with a letter to read, signed with your Majesty's seal, in which I found you had made peace throughout your whole realm, and that no beast nor fowl should hurt one another; and as for him he was become a Monk, did penance for his sins, shewed me his books and beads, the hair shirt next his skin, and vowed to eat no more flesh; and saying his Credo, laid himself down under a bench.--I was glad to hear this, and took no heed, but clucked my children together; but false Reynard crept between us and the gate, seized on, bore away, and destroyed fifteen of them; and yesterday Copple my daughter, now on the bier, was rescued from him by a kennel of Hounds: so for all this, I beg of your Majesty, Justice. The King then turning to Grimbard, said, Your Uncle hath prayed and fasted well, hath he not? I vow he shall suffer for this--Mr. Canticleer I have heard your complaint and will grant your request; give your daughter solemn burial, and I will consult with my Lords to give you right against the murderer.--This the King immediately did, and it was agreed to send Bruin the Bear to summon Reynard to appear before the King to answer to the heavy crimes laid to his charge. CHAP. 4. BRUIN THE BEAR UNFORTUNATE IN HIS MESSAGE TO REYNARD THE FOX. The next morning went Bruin to Malepardus, a high mountain where Reynard had a castle, and knocked at the gate, he cried aloud, Sir Reynard, are you at home? I am Bruin your kinsman, come to summons you to Court, to answer to several complaints laid against you; and if you appear not to your summons, the King vows you shall answer it with your life.--Reynard hearing this, ran into one of his holes, where he plotted how he might bring the Bear to disgrace, whom he knew loved him not. At last he came out of his holes saying, Dear uncle you are welcome, I was busy when you spoke, in saying my evening devotion. I am sorry you have taken this long journey, for I intended to have been at court to-morrow; indeed I wish we were there now, since I have left off eating meat, my body is swelled and distempered with eating so many honey combs through wantonness, that I fear its consequence.--How! quoth Bruin do you make so light of honey combs, which is meat for the Emperor? Nephew help me to some and I will be your friend for ever--Quoth the Fox, well I will bring you to a place where you shall have as much of it as you can eat: at this the Bear laughed till he could hardly stand. Well, thought Reynard, you will soon laugh on the other side of the mouth. So he brought him to a Carpenter's Yard where in stood a great oak tree with two great wedges in it and the clift open. Dear Uncle, said the Fox, be careful, for within this tree is much honey; pray eat moderate, for a surfeit is dangerous.--Never fear you that, said Bruin; so he entered the tree with eagerness, and thrust his head into the cleft quite over his ears; which the Fox perceiving, pulled out the wedges, and the Bear was locked fast in, and roared out hedieously; while the Fox at a distance said, Is the honey good, Uncle? do you like it? pray do not surfeit yourself with it: then left him and went to his Castle. The Bears noise brought out the Carpenter and his neighbours with great sticks and staves; and the Bear seeing so many enemies, at last wrenched his head out of the tree, leaving behind him his skin and ears; upon this the people fell on him and beat him most woefully; however at last he got from them, bitterly cursing the Fox, who had brought him to this misery. In great pain and grief he at length arrived at the King's Court, where he cried out, Behold, dread Sovereign, for doing your Royal will and pleasure I am come to this disgrace. Then said the King, How durst he do this? I swear by my crown I will take such revenge as shall make him tremble. Upon this was summoned another council, when it was agreed to send Tibert the Cat. [Illustration] CHAP. 5. TIBERT THE CAT'S AMBASSY TO REYNARD, WITH THE BAD SUCCESS OF IT. [Illustration] Tibert was loath to go on this message, but at length, fearing the King's displeasure, undertook it; and arriving at Malepardus, he found the Fox standing at his Castle gate, to whom he thus addressed himself. Health to my Cousin Reynard: the King by me summonses you to the Court, on sure pain of death for the refusal--Welcome Cousin, I obey the command, and wish my sovereign all happiness; only let me desire you to stay all night, and early in the morning I will go with you--I am content to stay, says Tibert, you speak like a gentleman--Truly says the Fox, I have but one honeycomb left, what think you of it for supper? I had rather have a mouse, replied Tibert--A Mouse dear Cousin! here is a parson hard by that hath a barn full of mice. Dear Reynard, lead me thither, and I will be your friend for ever--Now the Fox had the night before got into the parson's barn and stole a fat hen, which so exasperated the priest, that he sat a snare to catch him, of which the Fox being apprized, had escaped: To this hole brings the Cat, saying Go in here, and you will soon get your bellyfull. I will wait for you till you come out. But may I go in safety said the Cat, for Priests are very subtle. Cousin, said the Fox, I never knew you a Coward before. Puss being ashamed at this reproof, sprung in, and was quickly caught by the Neck; which as soon as the Cat felt, he leaped back again, so that the snare closed faster and had like to have strangled him, so that he exclaimed bitterly against Reynard, who scornfully said, Tibert, dost thou love mice? but the Cat mewed sadly. The priest rising out of his bed called up his servant, saying, We have caught the Fox that stole our Hens; and coming to Tibert, smote him with a great Staff, and struck out one of his eyes. The Cat thinking his death near, leaped between the Priests legs and fastened his Claws into them; which when his wife saw, swore she would rather lose the whole offering of seven years, than see him so abused--This threw the priest into a swoon, so they all left the Cat, and the Fox returned to his Castle, thinking Tibert past recovery; but he, seeing his foes busy about the priest gnawed the Cord asunder, and made her escape out of the hole, going roaring to court with the loss of one eye, and a bruised body; so that when the King beheld him he was angry and took Council once more how to be revenged on the Fox. CHAP. 6. THE BROCK'S EMBASSY TO REYNARD, THE FOX'S CONFESSION AND THEIR ARRIVAL AT COURT. Then said the King, Go you Sir Grimbard, but take heed, Reynard is very subtle. Brock thanked his Majesty, and taking his leave, went to Malepardus, and found Reynard and his wife sporting with their young ones--Having saluted them, he said, Take heed uncle, that absence from the Court doth not do you more harm than you think for; the complaints against you are many and great; this is the third summons, and if you delay coming, you and yours will find no mercy, for in three days your Castle will be demolished, all your kindred made slaves, and you a publick example; unless you can make your innocence appear; and the which I doubt not you have discretion to do.--Very true nephew, replied Reynard, I will go with you, not only to clear myself, but to the shame of my enemies; many of which I have at court: so taking leave of his family he and Grimbard set out for Sandem the King's Palace--On their way Reynard made the following confession unto his nephew Grimbard; Blame me not dear cousin, if my life be full of Care; for I strive to blot out my sins by repentance, that my soul may be at quiet: I have grievously offended against Canticleer the Cock and his Children; my uncle Bruin the Bear and Tibert the Cat; nay I've abused and slandered the King and Queen; I have betrayed Isegrim the Wolf by calling him Uncle, when he is no kin to me; I made him bind his foot to the bell rope to teach him to ring, but the peal had like to have cost him his life; I taught him to catch fish, by which he was sorely banged; I led him to the parson's house to steal bacon; I stole a fine fat hen set before the priest for his dinner, in doing which he espied and pursued me, when I was obliged to let the hen go and creep into a hole; but the priest espying Isegrim, cried this is he, strike! strike! So my enemies fell upon the Wolf and almost killed him--But for all this I ask forgiveness. Here on their way they met a Pullen, at which the Fox glanced his eye (for the ill that was bred in the bone stuck) which Brock taking notice of, said, Fie, dissembling Cousin why wander your eyes after the Pullin?--You wrong me, nephew, said the Fox, my eyes wandered not; I was just saying a Pater Noster for the Souls of the Pullens I have formerly slain; in which devotion you hindered me. By this time they were come to the palace, and Reynard quaked for fear, on account of the many and great crimes he had to answer for. CHAP. 7. REYNARD'S EXCUSE BEFORE THE KING HIS TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. At the news of Reynard's arrival, all sorts of the King's Subjects from the highest to the lowest, prepared themselves to accuse him--Though Reynard's heart trembled, yet he kept his countenance, and went as proudly and unconcerned through the streets, as though he were the King's Son, and entirely innocent of any offence--When he came before the King, he said, Heaven preserve your Majesty, there never came before you a more loyal subject than myself, and so will die; I know there are several in your court that seek my life; but I am persuaded your Majesty hates slanderers.--Peace, traiterous Reynard, replied the King, thinkest thou to deceive me also; Know that the peace which I commanded, you have broken; therefore, thou Devil among the good, with what face can you pretend to love me? when all these before me can testify against thee?--Said the Fox, my Liege, if Bruin's crown be bloody with stealing honey; and Tibert loses her eye by getting into the Priest's barn to steal mice; when they should have been diligent in your majesty's embassy, can I help that? O my dread Sovereign, I am as innocent as the Child unborn; however, use me as you please. Upon this, Bruin the Bear, Bellin the Ram, Kaward the Hare, Isegrim the Wolf, Bruel the Goose, Boulden the Ass, Borell the Bull, and Canticleer the Cock, with their Children, all with one voice cried out against the Fox; all which caused the King to order his trial to be immediately brought on. A parliament was summoned, and after a long trial, in the course of which the Fox answered every thing with much craft, he was condemned; whereupon Grimbard, and the rest of his kindred left the Court, as not enduring to see him executed. The King seeing so many depart, said, Though Reynard had some faults, yet he had many friends. This musing of the King made the Cat, the Bear, and the Wolf jealous lest the King should retract Reynard's sentence, and was angry at the delay of his execution; to forward which Tibert produced the Cord in which he was hanged in the priests house, and they put it round Reynard's neck, who said, I do not fear death; I saw my father die, and he soon vanished; death is familiar to me: but I beseech your Majesties (who were both seated to see the execution) to grant me but one request before I die; that is that I may unload my Conscience, and beg the assistance of your prayers, that I may be made happy hereafter. [Illustration] CHAP. 8. REYNARD'S CONFESSION AND PARDON. Now every one began to pity Reynard, and prevailed with the King to grant his request; which being done he thus began; Help me ye powers above, for I can see none but whom I have offended; in my youth I used to be much with the lambs, delighting in their bleating, till at last biting one of them, I tasted the Sweetness of their blood, and could not forbear ever since. This drew me into the woods among the goats, where I slew and eat some young Kids; this made me more hardy, so I fell to killing Hens, Geese, and other Pullin; for all was fish that came to net. Afterwards I fell into bad company, as Isegrim, who pretended to be my kinsman; we grew at last so intimate, that he stole the great things and I the small; he murdered the Nobles, and I the meaner subjects; I speak thus plainly, he had plate and jewels more than ten carts could carry.--Ah! said the King, where is all this treasure? It was stolen, my Liege, said the Fox, but had it not been stolen as it was, it might have cost your Majesty's life--Discover the matter immediately, said the Queen.--I am willing to discharge my Conscience before I die: it is true the King was to have been killed by his own subjects, I must confess by some of my nearest kindred; it was thus, My father digging in the ground found the King's treasure, whereupon he was so proud, that he scorned the rest of the beasts of the wilderness; at last he caused Tibert the Cat to go to Bruin the Bear in the forest of Arden, to do him homage, and promised to set the crown upon Bruin's head; then he sent for his wife, Isegrim the Wolf, and Tibert the Cat, amongst whom it was agreed to murder your Majesty, and make Bruin king; but it happened that my nephew Grimbard being got drunk, discovered it to Sluggard his wife, who in great secrecy told it my wife and she discovered it to me. It grieved me to think a ravenous Bear should depose you; but being desirous to find out this treasure which my father had hid, I at last by constant watching did, and I and my wife removed it. The plot being thus carried on with secrecy, when my father went to the cave and found his treasure all taken away, he for madness hanged himself--All this is true, I am now ready to die, my conscience being eased. The King and Queen hearing this, hoping to get from Reynard this treasure, released him from the gibbet, desiring him to discover where it lay.--Rather you than my enemies, said the Fox--Fear not Reynard, said the Queen, the King shall spare thy life--Madam, replied the King, will you believe, the Fox? know you not his quality is to lie and steal? In these circumstances, my Lord, you may believe him.--Well, Madam, for this time I will be ruled by you, and pardon him, all his offences, with this promise, That if ever he offends again, he and all his posterity shall be destroyed. CHAP. 9. REYNARD RESTORED TO FAVOUR AND PREFERRED. Then said the King, Reynard, you shall do us homage; and for your discoveries I will make you one of the Lords of my Council; discharge your trust, and govern by truth and equity; henceforth I will be ruled by your wisdom, and under me you shall be chief governor. Reynard's friends thanked the King, and returned with the Fox, who was glad he had sped so well, having caused Bruin and Tibert to be destroyed, who sought his life. Arriving at Malepardus there was great feasting and rejoicing at the Fox's good fortune; after which Reynard thanked them for the love and honour done him, protesting to be their friend and servant for ever; and so shaking hands, they departed. FINIS. VALENTINE AND ORSON. This romance is undoubtedly of French origin, and an edition of it was printed at Lyons by Jac. Maillet in 1489, whilst one, probably as early, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, of which only a fragment of four leaves is in existence. This is in the Duke of Devonshire's library, and was found in the binding of an oak-covered volume in his library at Bolton Abbey. William Coplande also printed two editions--one "The Hystorye of the two Valyaunte Brethren Valentyne and Orson, s[=on]es vn to the Emperour of Grece. Imprented at London ouer agaynst S. Margaretes Church in Lothbery be William Coplande," quarto, black letter; and the other, "The Hystorye of the two Valyaunte Brethren Valentyne and Orson Sonnes vnto the Emperour of Greece (translated out of French by Henry Watson) Lond. by Wylliam Coplande at the sygne of the Rose Garland," quarto--whilst in the British Museum there are illustrations of the romance in a manuscript, "10 E. IV. Royal," pp. 120, etc., and several beautifully printed early French versions, notably those of Lyons, 1539, and Paris, 1540. The idea of children being nursed by wild beasts is very common and stories of such are told in quite modern times. THE HISTORY OF =Valentine and Orson.= Reader; you'll find this little Book contains Enough to answer thy Expence and Pains; And if with Caution you will read it thro' 'Twill both Instruct thee and Delight thee too. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE, LONDON. CHAP. 1. THE BANISHMENT OF THE LADY BELLISANT WHO IS DELIVERED OF VALENTINE AND ORSON AT ONE BIRTH IN A WOOD. It is recorded, That PEPIN King of France had a fair sister named Bellisant, who was married to Alexander, the Emperor of Greece, and by him carried to his capital at Constantinople; from whence, after having lived with great virtue, she was banished, through the means of a false accuser, whom she had severely checked for his impudence; and though at that time she was big with child, yet she was compelled to leave her husband's empire, to the great regret of the people, attended only with a Squire named Blandiman. [Illustration] After great fatigue and travel she arrived in the forest of Orleans, where finding her pains come thick upon her, she dismissed her attendant for a midwife, but before his return was delivered of two lovely children, one of which was conveyed away by a she bear, but she, willing to save it pursued on her hands and knees, leaving the other behind. But before her return, King Pepin being a hunting in the forest, came to the tree where she left the other babe, and causing it to be taken up, sent it to nurse, and when it grew up called its name Valentine--Blandiman at length came back, and instead of finding his mistress found her brother Pepin, at the tree, to whom he declared all that had happened, and how his sister had been banished through the false suggestions of the arch priest; which when King Pepin heard he was greatly enraged against the Lady Bellisant, saying, that the Emperor ought to have put her to death; so leaving Blandiman, he returned with his Nobles to Paris. The Lady Bellisant having followed the Bear to no purpose, returned to the place where she had left the other babe, but great was her sorrow when Blandiman said, He had seen her brother Pepin, but could tell nothing of the child, and having comforted her for the loss of it, they went to the sea side, took shipping, and arrived at the castle of the Giant Feragus, in Portugal. All this while the Bear nourished the infant among her young ones, until at length it grew up a wild hairy man, doing great mischief to all that passed through the forest; in which we will leave him, and return to the arch Priest, who did great mischief, till he was impeached by a merchant, of having wrongfully accused the Empress, upon which they fought, and the merchant conquering, made the Priest confess all his treasons, when the Emperor acquainting the King of France of it, he was hanged. CHAP. 2. VALENTINE CONQUERS HIS BROTHER ORSON IN THE FOREST OF ORLEANS. Now was Valentine grown a lusty young man, and by the King as greatly beloved as if he had been his own child; commanding him to be taught the use of Arms, in which he soon became so expert, that few in the Court dare to encounter him; which made Hufray and Henry, the King's bastard sons exceedingly envy him--At this juncture great complaints were made against the Wild Man, from whom no Knight had escaped with his life, that had encountered him; which made the King promise a thousand marks to any that should bring him dead or alive, which offer none dare accept; but Hufray and Henry desired King Pepin to send Valentine, with a view of getting rid of so powerful a rival in the King's favour, but his Majesty seeing their malice was very angry, telling them he had rather lose the best Baron in the land. However Valentine desired leave of his Majesty to go to the forest, resolving either to conquer the wild man or die in the attempt. Accordingly having furnished himself with a good horse and arms, he set forward on his journey, and after two days travelling he arrived in the forest. In the evening he tied his horse to a large spreading oak; and got up into a tree himself for his security, where he rested that night. Next Morning he beheld the Wild man traversing the forest in search of his prey, and at length he came to the tree where Valentine's horse stood from whom he pulled many hairs, upon which the horse kicked him. The Wild man feeling the pain was going to tear him to pieces, which Valentine seeing, made signs as if he would fight him, and accordingly he stepped down and gave him a blow; but the Wild Man caught him by the arm and threw him to the ground. Then taking up Valentines shield, he beheld it with amaze, with respect to the divers colours thereon emblazoned. [Illustration] Valentine being much bruised, got up, and came towards his brother in great anger; but Orson ran to a tree and then they engaged; but both being terribly wounded, gave out by consent; after which Valentine signified to Orson, That if he would yield to him, he would order matters so, as he should become a rational creature. Orson thinking that he meant him no harm, stretched forth his hand to him. Upon which he bound him, and then led him to Paris, where he presented him to King Pepin, who had the Wild Man baptized by the name of Orson, from his being taken in a wood. Orson's actions during their stay there, very much amused the whole court, that at length the Duke of Acquitain sent letters importing, That whoever should overthrow the Green Knight, a Pagan Champion, should have his daughter Fazon in marriage. Upon which proposition Valentine set out for that province, attended by his brother Orson, by which means he came to the knowledge of his parents, as we shall find hereafter. CHAP. 3. THE FIGHT BETWEEN ORSON AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. After a long journey, Valentine and Orson arrived at Duke Savary's palace in Acquitain; and making known the reason that they came there, was presented to Fazon, to whom Valentine thus addressed himself. "Sweet creature, King Pepin has sent me hither with the bravest Knight in all his realm to fight the Green Knight, who, though he is dumb and naked, is endued with such valour, that no Knight under the sun is able to cope with him." During this speech she viewed Orson narrowly and he her; but Supper coming in, interrupted them, and they sat down to eat. Whilst they were in the midst of all their feasting, the Green Knight entered, saying Duke Acquitain, hast thou any more Knights to cope with me for thy daughter--Yes, replied the Duke, I have seventeen, and then shewed them to him--The Green Knight then said to them Eat your fill, for to-morrow will be your last--Orson hearing what he said, was much incensed against him and suddenly rising from the table, threw the Green Knight with such force against the wall, as laid him dead for some time; which very much pleased the whole company. Next day many Knights went to fight the Green Knight, but he overcame and slew them all; till at last, Orson being armed in Valentine's armour, came to the Green Knight's pavilion, and defying him they began the most desperate combat as was ever heard of, and the Green Knight made so great a stroke at him, as to cut off the top of the helmet, and half his shield, wounded him very much. But this served only to enrage the valiant Orson, who coming up to him on foot took hold of him, and pulling him from his horse, got astride him, and was just going to kill him, but was prevented by the sudden arrival of Valentine, who interceded with Orson to spare his life on condition of his turning Christian, and acquainted King Pepin how he was conquered. [Illustration] The Green Knight having promised to perform all that was desired, they led him prisoner to the city of Acquitain; and the Duke received them with great joy, and offered the Lady Fazon to Orson; but he would not marry her till his brother had won the Green Knight's sister Lady Clerimond, nor till they had talked with the Enchanted Head of Brass to know his Parents, and get the proper use of his tongue; which when the lady knew she was very sorrowful, because she loved Orson, and was resolved to marry none but him, who had so nobly conquered the Green Knight. CHAP. 4. VALENTINE AND ORSON GO IN SEARCH OF LADY CLERIMOND, WHO HAD THE BRAZEN HEAD IN HER POSSESSION. Valentine and Orson having taken their leave of the Duke of Acquitain, and his daughter Fazon, proceeded upon their journey, in search of the Lady Clerimond, and at last came to a tower of burnished brass; which upon enquiry, they discovered to be kept by Clerimond, sister to Feragus and the defeated Green Knight, and having demanded entrance, was refused it by the centinal who guarded the gate; which provoked Valentine to that degree, that he ran against him with such fury, that the centinell fell down dead immediately. The Lady Clerimond beheld all this dispute, and seeing them brave knights received them courteously--Valentine having presented tokens from the Green Knight, told her, he came there for the love of her, and to discourse with the All knowing Head, concerning their parents. After dinner, the Lady took them by the hand, and led them to the chamber of Rantus, where the head was placed between four pillars of pure jasper; when as they entered, it made the following speeching to Valentine. [Illustration] "Thou famous Knight of Royal extract, art called Valentine the Valiant, who of right ought to marry the Lady Clerimond. Thou art Son to the Emperor of Greece and the Empress Bellisant, who is now in the Castle of Feragus in Portugal, where she has resided for twenty years, King Pepin is thine uncle, and the Wild man thy brother; the Empress Bellisant brought ye two forth in the forest of Orleans; he was taken away by a ravenous Bear, and thou wast taken up by thine Uncle Pepin, who brought thee up to man's estate--Moreover, I likewise tell thee that thy brother shall never speak till thou cuttest the thread that grows under his tongue." The Brazen head having ended his speech, Valentine embraced Orson, and cut the thread which grew under his tongue; and he directly related many surprising things. After which Valentine married Lady Clerimond, but not before she had turned Christian. In this Castle lived a dwarf, named Pacolet, who was an Enchanter, and by his art had contrived a horse of wood, and in the forehead a fixed pin, by turning of which he could convey himself to the farthest part of the world. This enchanter flies to Portugal and informs Ferragus of his sister's nuptials, and of her turning Christian; which so enraged him that he swore by Mahomet he would make her rue it; and thereupon got ready his fleet, and sailed towards the Castle of Clerimond, where when he arrived, he concealed his malice from his sister, and also the two Knights, telling them that he came to fetch them into Portugal, the better to solemnize their Marriage, and he would turn Christian at their arrival at his castle; all which they believed, and soon after embarked with him--When he had got them on board, he ordered them to be put in irons, which so grieved his sister Clerimond, that she would have thrown herself into the sea, had she not been stopped. CHAP. 5. PACOLET COMFORTS THE LADIES AND DELIVERS VALENTINE AND ORSON OUT OF PRISON. When they were come to Portugal, he put Valentine and Orson in a dungeon, fed them with bread and water, but allowed his sister Clerimond to meet the Empress Bellisant, who had been confined twenty years in the Castle of Feragus. She, seeing her so full of grief, comforts her, enquiring the reason, which she told her. The Empress was mightily grieved, but Pacolet comforted them, telling them he would release them all that evening, the which he accordingly did in the following manner: [Illustration] In the dead of the night he goes to the dungeon, where lay Valentine and Orson, bound in chains, and touching the doors with his magical wand, they flew open; and coming to the Knights, he released them and conducted them to the apartment where Bellisant and Clerimond was, who were exceedingly transported; but Pacolet hindered them from discoursing long, by telling them they must depart before the guards of Ferrajus awaked, which would put a stop to his proceedings. So Pacolet led them to the gates of the Castle, and having prepared a ship, he conveyed them to Lady Fazon, at the city of Acquitain. Next morning when Ferragus heard of their escape, he was enraged to the last degree. The Knights and Ladies being out of danger, soon arrived at Acquitain, to the great joy of Lady Fazon, who was soon after married to Orson with great solemnity; upon which tilts and tournaments were performed for many days; but Valentine carried the prize, overthrowing at least an hundred brave Knights. CHAP. 6. FERRAGUS RAISES A MIGHTY ARMY, AND LAYS SIEGE TO THE CITY OF ACQUITAIN. Ferragus, to be revenged on them assembled an Army, and laid close siege to it with a vast army of Saracens, which when Duke Savary perceived, he resolved to give them battle the very next morning, and accordingly he sallied forth with all his forces, but venturing too far, he was taken by the Saracens and carried to Ferragus's tent. Now Orson was resolved to set him free, or lose his life; so putting on the arms of a dead Saracen, he called Pacolet and went through the enemy without being molested, until they arrived at the tent where the Duke was confined; which done they gave him a horse, and rode to the Christian army: on their return a general shout was made by all the army, Long live the Duke of Acquitain; which so dismayed the Saracens, that they fled away in confusion, and the Christians pursued them till the night obliged them to give over. [Illustration] Soon after this victory Valentine, Orson, the Ladies Bellisant, Clerimond and Fazon, set out for Constantinople, to see the Emperor their father, after they had taken leave of Duke Savary and his Nobles, and was received with great joy. At length the Emperor set out from Constantinople after taking leave of his family, to visit a strong Castle he had in Spain.--While he was absent, Brandiser brother to Feragus invaded the Empire with a very great army, and at length besieged Constantinople, where lay Valentine and Orson, the Green Knight and all the Ladies. Valentine seeing the condition they all were in, resolved to give Brandiser battle, and thereupon divided his army into ten battalions, commanded by ten Knights, and sallying out of the City, began to fight with the Saracens, who were drawn up in readiness to receive them. In the mean time the Emperor was at sea, returning homeward, and in his way he met a fleet going to the assistance of Brandiser, which bore upon him with full sails: whereupon exhorting his companions to behave like men, they made ready to receive them; and after a most bloody and obstinate battle, the Emperor got the victory, having slain many of the Pagans, and dispersed all their ships. After this victory the Emperor commanded his men to put on the Arms of the Vanquished, as he did himself, thinking thereby the better to fall upon the beseigers, his enemies; but the Stratagem proved most fatal to him, as we shall hereafter find. All this while the Christians and Valentine bravely encountered Brandiser and his men before the Walls of Constantinople, sometimes getting, and sometimes losing ground; but at length Valentine came to the standard of Brandiser, where an Indian King run against him with great force, but Valentine avoided him, struck him with such fury as cleft him down the Middle. On the other hand Orson and the Green Knight were not idle, but with their brandished swords cut themselves a passage quite through the Pagan army, destroying all that opposed them. Soon after news came that a mighty fleet of Saracens were entering the harbour; whereupon Valentine judged it necessary to go thither, and oppose their landing, but it proved fatal; for in his fleet was the Emperor his father, who being clad in Saracen armour, Valentine by mistake ran him quite through the body with his spear; which when he knew, he was going to kill himself, had not his brother and the Green Knight prevented him; but getting an horse with an intent to lose his life, he rushed into the midst of the enemy, overthrew all that opposed him, till he came to the Giant Brandiser, who when he saw Valentine, encountered him so fiercely, that both fell to the ground; but Valentine recovering, gave him a stab which sent him to hell, to see his false prophet Mahomet-- [Illustration] The Pagans seeing their King dead, threw down their arms and run, and the Christians pursued them with a mighty slaughter--At last the pursuit being over, they returned to Constantinople and Orson acquainted the Empress of the death of his father, but concealed by whom it was done. [Illustration] Upon which it was concluded, That Valentine and Orson should govern the Empire by turns, with their wives the ladies Fazon and Clerimond, whose brother the Green Knight was crowned King of the Green Mountain; the people of which were much delighted to have so brave a warrior for their King. CHAP. 7. VALENTINE DIES AND ORSON TURNS HERMIT. [Illustration] Now Valentine being greatly vexed in mind for the death of his father, whom he had killed out of a mistake, resolved to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre; and therefore taking leave of his wife Clerimond, and giving the government of the Empire unto his brother, he departed to the great sorrow of all, particularly his brother, Bellisant, and the fair Clerimond. Valentine after seven years absence returned, dressed like a poor palmer begging victuals at the gate of his own palace; and at length, being sick, and about to die, he called for Clerimond, and made himself known unto her, at which she was ready to give up the ghost. At last having recommended the care of her to his brother, and the Empress his dear mother, and blessing them he turned on one side, and breathed out his noble soul from his illustrious body to the great grief of all the valiant Knights of Christendom to whom he had been a noble example, and a generous reliever of. But Clerimond never could espouse any one, but betook her to a single life, always lamenting the loss of her beloved husband. [Illustration] After his death, Orson governed the Empire with great wisdom and justice for Seven Years, till at length seeing the fragile state of human affairs, he gave the charge of his Empire, Wife and Children, to the Green Knight, and then turning hermit, he became a resident in the forests and woods, where after living to a great age, this magnanimous and invincible hero surrendered up his body unto never sparing death, and his soul to the immortal deities of whose attributes it had a true resemblance. Thus Reader you may see that none withstand Tho' great in valour, or in vast command The mighty force of Death's all conquering hand. FINIS. FORTUNATUS. The first notice of this romance I can find, is "Fortunatus, Augsp. zu trucken verordnet durch J. Heybler 1509," quarto, and it seems to have been popular, for there was a French edition, "Histoire des aventures de Fortunatus, _trad. de l'Espagn._ Rouen 1656," 12mo. The earliest English edition with an absolute date, seems to be that of Thomas Churchyarde (1676), but it is not perfect, and consists only of ninety-five leaves. In the British Museum is "The History of Fortunatus (Translated from the Dutch)," black letter, quarto; but it is catalogued as doubtful whether it was printed in London, and whether the supposed date of 1650 is correct. It is also imperfect. The edition of 1682 is, however, perfect, and is very curious. It is entitled, "The right, pleasant and variable trachical history of Fortunatus, whereby a young man may learn how to behave himself in all worldly affairs and casual chances. First penned in the Dutch tongue; there hence abstracted and now published in English by T. C." The Chap-book very fairly follows the romance, but of course is much condensed. THE HISTORY OF FORTUNATUS CONTAINING _Various Surprising Adventures_. AMONG WHICH HE ACQUIRED A PURSE THAT COULD NOT BE EMPTIED. And a Hat that carried him wherever he wished to be. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE. LONDON. CHAP. 1. OF THE BIRTH OF FORTUNATUS. In the famous Isle of Cyprus there is a stately city called Famagosta, in which lived a wealthy citizen named Theodorus. He, being left young by his parents, addicted himself to all manner of pleasures, often frequenting the Courts of princes, where he soon wasted great part of his wealth in riotous living, to the grief of his friends, who thinking to make him leave his idle courses, got him married to a rich citizen's daughter named Gratiana with whom he lived virtuously for some time. [Illustration] In one year after his Marriage, Gratiana was brought to bed of a son, who was named Fortunatus--Theodorus in a short time began to follow his old bad courses, insomuch that he began to sell and mortgage all his estate, so that he fell into extreme poverty; Gratiana being forced to dress her meat and wash her clothes herself, not being able now to keep one single servant, or hire the meanest assistance. Theodorus and his wife sitting one day at a poor dinner, he could hardly refrain weeping, which his son, (who was now about eighteen years old, and experienced in hunting, hawking, and playing the lute,) perceiving, he said Father, what aileth you? for I observe, when you look upon me, you seem sad; Sir, I fear I have some way offended you--Theodorus answered, My dear Son, thou art not the cause of my grief, but my self has been the sole cause of the pinching poverty we all feel. When I call to mind the wealth and honour I so lately enjoyed, and when I consider how unable I am now to succour my child, it is that which vexeth me.--To this his son replied--Beloved father, do not take immoderate care for me, for I am young and strong. I have not been so brought up but I can shift for myself; I will go abroad and try my fortune; I fear not but I shall find employment and preferment. [Illustration] Soon after without the least ceremony, Fortunatus set out with a hawk in his hand, and travelled towards the sea side where he espied a galley of Venice lying at anchor. He inquired what ship she was and where bound, hoping he might here find employment. He was told the Earl of Flanders was on board, and had lost two of his men. Fortunatus wishing that he could be entertained as one of his servants, and so get away from his native place, where his poverty was so well known, steps up to the Earl, and making a low bow, says, I understand, noble Lord, you have lost two of your men, so, if you please, I desire to be received into your service. What wages do you ask? says the Earl. No wages, replied Fortunatus, but to be rewarded according to my deserts. This answer pleased the Earl, so they agreed and sailed to Venice. CHAP. 2. OF FORTUNATUS'S SAILING WITH THE EARL OF FLANDERS, WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PARENTS. The Earl was now returned back and joyfully received by his subjects, and welcomed by his neighbours; for he was a very affable and just Prince. [Illustration] Soon after his return, he married the Duke of Cleve's daughter, who was a very beautiful lady; Fortunatus went to the wedding, to which came several Lords and Gentlemen, and were present at a tilt and tournament held there before the Ladies; and though there was so many gentlemen, yet none behaved so well as Fortunatus--After all the Nobles had finished their triumphs and delightful games, the Duke and the bride and bridegroom agreed to let their servants try their manhood at several pastimes for two Jewels, each to be esteemed worth an hundred crowns, and he that obtained the said prize should have it, which made all the servants glad, every one striving to do his best. The Duke of Burgundy's servants won one, and Fortunatus the other, which displeased the other servants. Upon which they desired the Duke's Servants to challenge Fortunatus to fight him before the ladies, which should have them both; which challenge he accepted. Coming to the tilt yard, they encountered each other very briskly, and at last Fortunatus hoisted the Duke's servant quite off his horse at spears length. Whereupon he obtained the victory, and got the Jewels, which encreased the envy of the other servants, but much rejoiced the Earl. Among the Earl's servants was a crafty old fellow who consulted with the rest of the servants, and agreed for ten crowns to make Fortunatus quit his master's service of his own accord. To accomplish the affair, he pretended great friendship to Fortunatus, treating him and praising him much for his great courage. At last he told him he had a secret to reveal to him, which was, That the Lord having conceived a Jealousy of his two Chamberlains, of whom Fortunatus was one, he had a design secretly to kill them. This much amazed Fortunatus, who desired his fellow servant to inform him how to convey himself away; for said he I had rather wander as a vagabond than stay here and be slain. Says Robert, I am sorry I told thee any thing since I shall now lose thy company. Being resolved to go off, he desired Robert to conceal his departure. [Illustration] When Fortunatus had rode ten Miles, he bought another horse, and returned the Earl's, that he might not pursue him; but when the Earl found he was gone, without his leave, not knowing the cause, he was offended, and demanded of the servants if they knew the occasion? which they all denied; and he went to the ladies and gentlemen, and enquired of them if they knew any thing of his departure? and they answered No. Then said the Earl, Though the cause of his departure is concealed from me, yet I am perswaded he is not gone without some cause, which I will find out if it be possible. When Robert found his Lord was so vexed for the loss of Fortunatus, he went and hanged himself, for fear of being discovered. CHAP. 3. OF THE TRAVELS OF FORTUNATUS AFTER HE LEFT HIS MASTER. Fortunatus having sent home his master's horse, travelled with all speed to Calais, where he took shipping and arrived safe in England--Coming to London, he met with some young Cyprus Merchants, his countrymen, who riotously spent his money in gaming and wenching; so that in about half a years time their cash was quite spent. Fortunatus having least his was soonest exhausted. Being moneyless, he went to some of his Landladies to borrow three Crowns, telling them he wanted to go to Flanders, to fetch four hundred crowns that were in his uncle's hands; but he was denied, and none they would lend him. He then desired to be trusted a quart of wine, but they refused, and bid the servants fetch him a pint of small beer. [Illustration] He then took shipping, and soon arrived at Piccardy in France. Travelling through a wood, and being benighted, he made up to an old house, where he hoped to find some relief, but there was no creature in it; Then hearing a noise among the Bears, he got up into a tree where one of them had climbed. Fortunatus being surprised, drew his sword, and stuck the bear, that he fell from the tree. The rest of the beasts being gone, Fortunatus came down from the tree, and laying his mouth to the wound, he sucked out some of the blood, with which he was refreshed; and then slept until the Morning. CHAP. 4. LADY FORTUNE BESTOWS UPON FORTUNATUS A FAMOUS PURSE; SO THAT AFTERWARDS HE NEVER WANTED MONEY. As soon as Fortunatus awoke, he saw standing before him a fair Lady with her eyes muffled--I beseech thee said he, sweet virgin, for the love of God to assist me, that I may get out of this wood, for I have travelled a great way without food. She asked what country he was of? he replied Of Cyprus, and I am constrained by poverty to seek my fortune--Fear not, Fortunatus, said she, I am the Goddess of Fortune, and by permission of heaven have the power of Six gifts, one of which I will bestow on thee, so chuse for yourself: they are, Wisdom, Strength, Riches, Health, Beauty, and Long Life--Said Fortunatus, I desire to have Riches, as long as I live. With that she gave him a purse, saying, As often as you put your hand into this purse, you shall find ten pounds of the coin of any nation thou shalt happen to be in. Fortunatus returned many thanks to the Goddess. Then she bid him follow her out of the wood, and so vanished. He then put his hands in his purse, and drew out the first fruits of the Goddess's bounty, with which he went to an inn and refreshed himself. After which he paid his host, and instantly departed, as doubting the reality of his money, notwithstanding the evidence of his hands and eyes. CHAP. 5. FORTUNATUS BUYS SOME HORSES OUT OF AN EARLS HANDS; FOR WHICH HE IS TAKEN UP AND EXAMINED ABOUT HIS PURSE. Two miles from this wood was a little town and castle, where dwelt an Earl, who owned the wood.--Fortunatus here took up his lodgings at the best inn, and asked the host if he could help him to some good horses--The host told him there was a dealer, who had several fine ones, of which the Earl had chosen three, but was refused though he offered three hundred crowns for them. Fortunatus went to his Chamber and took out of his purse six hundred crowns, and bid the host to send for the dealer with his horses--The host at first supposed he had been in Jest, seeing him so meanly apparelled; but on being convinced by the sight of the money, the dealer and horses were sent for, and Fortunatus with a few words bargained for two of those the Earl had cheapened, and gave three hundred crowns for them. He bought also costly saddles and furniture, and desired his host to get him two servants. [Illustration] The Earl hearing that the two horses had been bought out of his hands, grew angry, and sent to the innkeeper to be informed who he was--The Earl being told he was a stranger, commanded him to be apprehended, imagining he had committed some robbery, and being examined who he was, answered, He was born in Cyprus, and was the son of a decayed gentleman. The Earl asked him how he got so much money? He told him he came by it honestly--Then the Earl swore in a violent passion, that if he would not discover, he would put him to the rack.--Fortunatus proposed to die rather than reveal it.--Upon this he was put upon the rack, and being again asked how he got so many crowns, he said he found them in a wood adjoining.--Thou villain, said the Earl the money found is mine, and thy body and goods are forfeited. O, my gracious Lord, said he, I knew not it was in your jurisdiction--But said the Earl, this shall not excuse you, for to day I will take thy goods, and tomorrow thy life. Then did Fortunatus wish he had chose Wisdom before Riches. Then Fortunatus earnestly begged his life of the Earl, who at the entreaty of some of his nobles spared his life and restored him the crowns and the purse, and charged him never to come into his jurisdiction--Fortunatus rejoiced that he had so well escaped, and had not lost his Purse. After that he had travelled towards his own country, having got horses and servants to attend him, he arrived at Famagosta, where it was told him that his father and mother were dead. He then purchased his fathers house, and pulled it down, and built a stately palace. He also built a fine Church, and had three tombs made, one for his father and mother, the other for the wife which he intended to marry, and the last for his heirs and himself. CHAP. 6. OF FORTUNATUS'S MARRIAGE WITH LORD NEMAINS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER. Not far from Famagosta lived a Lord who had three daughters; one of which the King of Cyprus intended to bestow on Fortunatus: but gave him leave to take his choice. When Fortunatus had asked them some questions, he chose the youngest, to the great grief of the other two sisters; but the Countess and Earl approved the match. Fortunatus presented the Countess her mother, and her two sisters, with several rich jewels. Then did the King proffer to keep the wedding at his court, but Fortunatus desired to keep it at his own palace, desiring the King and Queen's Company--Then said the King, I'll come with my Queen and all my relations--After four days the King and all his Company went to Fortunatus's house where they were entertained in a grand manner. His house was adorned with costly furniture, glorious to behold. This feasting lasted forty days. Then the king returned to his Court, vastly well satisfied with the entertainment.--After this, Fortunatus made another feast for the citizens, their wives and daughters. [Illustration] CHAP. 7. OF FORTUNATUS HAVING TWO SONS BY HIS WIFE. Fortunatus and his Wife Cassandra lived long in a happy state, and found no want of any thing but Children; and he knew the virtues of his purse would fail at his death, if he had no lawfully begotten heirs; therefore he made it constantly the petition in his prayers to God, that he would be pleased to send him an heir; and at length, in due time his lady brought forth a son, and he named him Ampedo. Shortly after she had another son, for whom he provided the best of tutors to take care they had an education suitable to their fortunes. Fortunatus having been married twelve years, took it into his head to travel once more, which his wife much opposed, desiring him, by all the love he bore to her and to her dear children, not to leave them, but he was resolved, and soon after took leave of his wife and Children, promising to return again in a short space. A few days after, he took shipping for Alexandria, where having stayed some time, and got acquainted with the Soldan, he gained such favour of him, as to receive letters to carry him safe through his dominions. CHAP. 8. FORTUNATUS ARTFULLY GETS POSSESSION OF A WISHING HAT. Fortunatus after supper, opened his Purse, and gave to all the Soldan's servants very liberally. The Soldan being highly pleased, told Fortunatus he would shew him such curiosities as he had never seen. Then he took him to a strong marble tower, in the first room were several very rich vessels and jewels; in the second he shewed several vessels of gold coin; with a fine wardrobe of garments, and golden candlesticks, which shined all over the room, and mightily pleased Fortunatus.--Then the Soldan shewed him his bed chamber, which was finely adorned, and likewise a small felt Hat, simple to behold, saying I set more value on this Hat, than all my jewels, as such another is not to be had; for it lets a person be wherever he doth wish. Fortunatus imagined his Hat would agree very well with his Purse, and thereupon put it on his head saying. He should be very glad of a Hat that had such virtues. So the Soldan immediately gave it him; With that he suddenly wished himself in his ship, it being then under Sail, that he might return to his own country. The Soldan looking out at his window, and seeing the Ship under sail, was very angry, and commanded his men to fetch him back; declaring, if they took him, he should immediately be put to death. But Fortunatus was too quick for them, and arriving safe at Famagosta, very richly laden, was joyfully received by his wife, his two sons and the Citizens.--He now began to tender the advancement of his children; he maintained a princely court, providing masters to instruct his children in all manner of chivalry, whereof the youngest was most inclined to behave manfully, which caused Fortunatus to bestow many Jewels for his exploits. When he had many years employed all earthly pleasures, Cassandra died, which so grieved Fortunatus, that he prepared himself for death also. [Illustration] CHAP. 9. FORTUNATUS DECLARES THE VIRTUES OF HIS HAT AND PURSE TO HIS SON. Fortunatus perceiving his death to approach, said to his two sons, God has taken away your mother, which so tenderly nourished you; and I perceiving death at hand, will shew you how ye may continue in honour unto your dying day.--Then he declared to them the virtues of his Purse, and that it would last no longer than their lives. He also told them the virtues of his Wishing Hat, and commanding them not to part with those Jewels, but to keep them in common, and live friendly together, and not to make any person privy to their virtues; for, said he I have concealed them forty years, and never revealed them to any but you.--Having said this, he ceased to speak, and immediately gave up the ghost.--His sons buried him in the magnificent church before mentioned. [Illustration] FINIS. GUY, EARL OF WARWICK. The earliest known printed edition of this romance is French, "Cy commence Guy de Waruich, chevalier d'Angleterre, qui en son temps fit plusieurs prouesses et conquestes en Angleterre, en Allemaigne, Ytalie et Dannemarche, et aussi sur les infidelles ennemys de la chrestieneté. Par Fr. Regnault, 7 Mars 1525," small folio, Gothic letter; and Ebert mentions an earlier undated edition. Hazlitt says the Bodleian library possesses a fragment of one leaf, containing thirty lines on a page, and printed with the types of Wynkyn de Worde's "Memorare Novissima." In _Notes and Queries_, 2nd Series, vol. x. p. 46, E. F. B. writes: "On recently examining a copy of the Sarum Ordinale edited by Master Clerke, Chantor of King's Coll. Cambridge, and printed by Pynson in 1501, I found three fly leaves of a book of earlier date, respecting which I should be glad to be informed; and therefore I subjoin a passage by which it may or may not be identified with the romance of Sir Guy. The type is of the Gothic character. "Wyth that the lumbardis fledde away Guy Guy and heraude and terrey pfay Chased after theym gode wone, They slowe and toke many one, The Lumbardis made sory crye. For they were on the worse partye, Of this toke duke otton gode hede, And fledde to an hylle gode spede; That none sued of theym echone, But syr heraude of arderne alone, Heraude hym sued as an egyr lyon And euer he cryed on duke otton, Heraude had of hym no doubte, Nor he sawe no man ferre aboute, But only theymselfe two." The earliest copy in the British Museum is 1560?, "The Booke of the most victoryous Prince Guy of Warwicke," and it was "Imprynted at London in Lothbury, ouer agaynst saynt Margarits Church, by Wylliam Copland," quarto, imperfect. This is in verse, beginning-- "Sithen the tyme that God was borne And Chrisendom was set and sworne Many aduentures haue befall The which that men knew not all." There is a fine fourteenth-century illumination in the royal manuscripts in the British Museum (20 A. ii. fo. 4_b_) of Guy as a hermit. The mute witnesses of Guy's wonderful deeds, preserved in Warwick Castle, have been proved apocryphal in these investigating and matter-of-fact days. His breastplate, or helmet, is the "croupe" of a suit of horse armour; another breastplate is a "poitrel." His famous porridge-pot or punch-bowl is a garrison crock of the sixteenth century, and his fork a military fork, _temp._ Henry VIII. THE HISTORY OF =Guy. Earl of Warwick= [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, LONDON. CHAP. 1. GUY'S PRAISE. HE FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE FAIR PHILLIS. [Illustration] In the blessed time when Athelstone wore the crown of the English nation, Sir Guy, Warwick's Mirror, and all the world's wonder, was the chief hero of the age; whose prowess so surpassed all his predecessors, that the trump of fame so loudly sounded Warwick's praise, that Jews, Turks, and Infidels became acquainted with his name. But as Mars the God of Battle was inspired with the beauty of Venus, so our Guy, by no means conquered, was conquered by love; for Phillis the fair, whose beauty and virtue was inestimable, shining with such heavenly lustre that Guy's poor heart was ravished in adoration of this heavenly Phillis, whose beauty was so excellent, that Helen the pride of all Greece, might seem as a Black, a Moor to her. Guy resolving not to stand doating at a distance, went to Warwick Castle, where Phillis dwelt, being daughter and heiress to the Earl of Warwick; the Earl, her father hearing of Guy's coming, entertained him with great joy; after some time the Earl invited Guy to go a hunting with him; but finding himself unable to partake of the diversion, feigned himself sick. The Earl troubled for his friend Guy, sent his own Physician to him. The Doctor told Guy his disease was dangerous, and without letting blood there was no remedy. Guy replied, I know my body is distempered; but you want skill to cure the inward inflammation of my heart; Galen's herbal cannot quote the flower I like for my remedy. I know my own disease, Doctor, and I am obliged to you. The Doctor departed, and left Guy to cast his eyes on the heavenly face of his Phillis, as she was walking in a garden full of roses and other flowers. CHAP. 2. GUY COURTS THE FAIR PHILLIS, SHE AT FIRST DENIES, BUT AFTER GRANTS HIS SUIT ON CONDITIONS WHICH HE ACCEPTS. Guy immediately advanced to fair Phillis, who was reposing herself in an arbour, and saluted her with bended knees, All hail, fair Phillis, flower of beauty, and jewel of virtue, I know great princes seek to win thy love, whose exquisite perfections might grace the mightiest monarch in the world; yet may they come short of Guy's real affection, in whom love is pictured with naked truth and honesty, disdain me not for being a steward's son, one of thy father's servants. [Illustration] Phillis interrupted him saying, Cease, bold youth, leave off this passionate address:--You are but young and meanly born, and unfit for my degree; I would not that my father should know this. Guy, thus discomfited, lived like one distracted, wringing his hands, resolving to travel through the world to gain the love of Phillis, or death to end his misery. Long may dame Fortune frown, but when her course is run she sends a smile to cure the hearts that have been wounded by her frowns; so Cupid sent a powerful dart, representing to her a worthy Knight of Chivalry, saying, This Knight shall be so famous in the world, that his actions shall crown everlasting posterity. When Phillis found herself wounded, she cried, O pity me gentle Cupid, sollicit for me to my Mother, and I will offer myself up at thy shrine. Guy, little dreaming of this so sudden a thaw, and wanting the balm of love to apply to his sores, resolves to make a second encounter. So coming again to his Phillis, said, fair Lady, I have been arraigned long ago, and now am come to receive my just sentence from the Tribunal of Love; It is life or death, fair Phillis, I look for, let me not languish in despair, give Judgment, O ye fair, give Judgment, that I may know my doom; a word from thy sacred lips can cure a bleeding heart, or a frown can doom me to the pit of misery. Gentle Guy, said she, I am not at my own disposal, you know my father's name is great in the nation, and I dare not match without his consent. [Illustration] Sweet Lady, said Guy, I make no doubt, but quickly to obtain his love and favour; let me have thy love first, fair Phillis, and there is no fear of thy father's wrath preventing us. It is an old saying, Get the good will of the daughter, and that of the parent will soon follow. Sir Guy, quoth Phillis, make thy bold achievements and noble actions shine abroad, glorious as the sun, that all opposers may tremble at thy high applauded name and then thy suit cannot be denied. Fair Phillis, said Guy, I ask no more.--Never did the hound mind more his game, than I do this my new enterprize. Phillis, take thy farewell, and accept of this kiss as the signal of my heart. CHAP. 3. GUY WINS THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER FROM SEVERAL PRINCES, HE IS SET UPON BY SIXTEEN ASSASSINS, WHOM HE OVERCOMES. Thus noble Guy at last disengaged from Love's cruelty, he now arms himself like a Knight of Chivalry, and crossing the raging ocean, he quickly arrived at the Court of Thrace, where he heard that the Emperor of Almain's fair daughter Blanch, was to be made a prize for him that won her in the field, upon which account the worthies of the world assembled to try their fortunes--The golden trumpets sounded with great joy and triumph, and the stately pampered steeds prance over the ground, and each He there thought himself a Cæsar, that none could equal;--Kings and Princes being there to behold who should be the conqueror, everyone thinking that fair Blanch should be his. After desperate charging with horse and man, much blood was shed, and Princes no more valued than common persons; but our noble Guy appearing laid about him like a lion, among the princes; here lay one headless, another without a leg or an arm, and there a horse. Guy, still like Hercules, charged desperately and killed a German Prince and his horse under him. Duke Otto vowing revenge upon our English Champion, gave Guy a fresh assault, but his courage soon cooled. Then Duke Poyner would engage our favourite knight; but with as little success as the rest, so that no man could encounter Guy any more; by which valor he won the Lady in the field as a prize, being thus approved Conqueror. [Illustration] The Emperor being himself a spectator, he sent a messenger for our English Knight.--Guy immediately came into the Emperor's presence, and made his obeysance, when the Emperor as a token of his affection, gave him his hand to kiss and withal resigned him his daughter, the falcon and the hound--Guy thanked his Majesty for his gracious favour, but for fair Phillis's sake left fair Blanch to her father's tuition, and departed from that graceful court only with the other tokens of victory. [Illustration] Now Guy beginning to meditate upon his long absence from his fair Phillis, and doubting of her prosperity, or that she might too much forget him, because the proverb says, Out of Sight out of Mind! prepared for England, and at last arrived at the long wished for haven of his love; and with this sort of salutation greeted his beloved mistress; Fair foe, said he, I am now come to challenge your promise, the which was, upon my making my name famous by martial deeds, I should be the master of my beloved mistress,--Behold, fair Phillis, part of the prize I have won in the field before kings and princes. Worthy Knight, quoth Phillis, I have heard of thy winning the Lady Blanch from Royal Dukes and Princes, and I am glad to find that Guy is so victorious. But, indeed Guy thou must seek more adventures. Guy, discomfited at this answer, taking leave of his fair Phillis, clad himself again in Belona's livery, and travelled towards Sedgwin, Duke of Nouvain, against whom the Emperor of Almain had then laid siege. But as Guy was going his intended journey, Duke Otto, whom Guy had disgraced in battle, hired sixteen base traytors to slay him. Guy being set upon by these rogues, drew his sword, and fought till he had slain them all; and leaving their carcasses to the fowls of the air, he pursued his Journey to Louvain, which he found close besieged, and little resistance could the Duke make against the Emperor's power--Guy caused the Levinians to sally forth, and made a most bloody slaughter among the Almains; but the Emperor gathering more forces renewed the siege, thinking to starve them out; but Guy in another sally defeated the Almains, slaying in these two battles about thirteen thousand men. [Illustration] After this Guy made a perfect league between the Emperor and the Duke, gaining more praise thereby than by his former victories. CHAP. 4. GUY HAVING PERFORMED GREAT WONDERS ABROAD, RETURNS TO ENGLAND, AND IS MARRIED TO PHILIS. [Illustration] After a tedious journey Guy sat down by a spring to refresh himself, and he soon heard a hedious noice, and presently espied a Lion and a Dragon fighting, biting, and tearing each other; but Guy perceiving the Lion ready to faint, encountered the Dragon, and soon brought the ugly Cerberes roaring and yelling to the ground.--The Lion in gratitude to Guy, run by his horse's side like a true-born spaniel, till lack of food made him retire to his wonted abode. Soon after Guy met with the Earl of Terry, whose father was confined in his castle by Duke Otto; but he and the Lord posted thither, and freed the castle immediately; and Guy in an open field slew Duke Otto hand to hand; but his dying words of repentance moved Guy to pity and remorse. But as Guy returned through a desart he met a furious boar that had slain many Christians. Guy manfully drew his sword and the boar gaping, intending with his dreadful tusks to devour our noble champion; but Guy run it down his throat, and slew the greatest boar that ever Man beheld. [Illustration] At Guy's arrival in England, he immediately repaired to King Athelstone at York, where the King told Guy of a mighty Dragon in Northumberland, that destroyed men, women, and children.--Guy desired a guide, and went immediately to the dragon's cave, when out came the monster, with eyes like a flaming fire: Guy charged him courageously, but the monster bit the lance in two like a reed; then Guy drew his sword, and cut such gashes in the dragon's sides that the blood and life poured out of his venemous carecase. Then Guy cut off the head of the monster, and presented it to the King, who in the memory of Guy's service caused the picture of the Dragon, being thirty feet in length to be worked in a cloth of arras, and hung up in Warwick Castle for an everlasting monument. Phillis hearing of Guy's return and success, came as far as Lincoln to meet him, where they were married with much joy and great triumph; King Athelstone, his Queen, the chief Nobles and Barons of the land being present. No sooner were their nuptials celebrated but Phillis's father died, leaving all his estate to Sir Guy; and the King made him Earl of Warwick. CHAP. 5. GUY LEAVES HIS WIFE AND GOES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. In the very height of Guy's glory, being exalted to his father's dignities, Conscience biddeth him repent of all his former sins, and his youthful time; so Guy resolved to travel to the Holy Land like a Pilgrim. Phillis perceiving this sudden alteration enquires of her Lord what was the cause of this Passion? Ah! Phillis, said he, I have spent much time in honouring thee, and to win thy favour, but never spared one minute for my soul's health in honouring the Lord. Phillis, though very much grieved, understanding his determination, opposed not his will. So with exchanging their rings, and melting kisses, he departed like a stranger from his own habitation, taking neither money nor scrip with him, and but a small quantity of herbs and roots, such only as the wild fields could afford, were his chief diet; vowing never to fight more but in a just cause. [Illustration] Guy, after travelling many tedious miles, met an aged person oppressed with grief, for the loss of fifteen sons, whom Armarant a mighty Giant had taken from him, and held in strong captivity. Guy borrowed the old mans sword, and went directly up to the Castle gate, where the Giant dwelt, who, coming to the door, asked grimly, How he durst so boldly knock at the gates? vowing he would beat his brains out. But Guy laughing at him, said, Sirrah, thou art quarrelsome; but I have a sword has often hewn such lubbards as you asunder:--At the same time laying his blade about the Giant's shoulders, that he bled abundantly, who being much enraged, flung his club at Guy with such force, that it beat him down; and before Guy could recover his fall Armarant had got up his club again. But in the end Guy killed this broad back dog, and released divers captives that had been in thrawldom a long time, some almost famished, and others ready to expire under various tortures. They returned Guy thanks for their happy deliverance; after which he gave up the castle and keys to the old man and his fifteen sons. [Illustration] Guy pursued his intended journey and coming to a grave, he took up a worm-eaten skull, which he thus addressed:--Perhaps thou wert a Prince, or a mighty Monarch, a King, a Duke, or a Lord!--But the King and the Beggar must all return to the earth; and therefore man had need to remember his dying hour. Perhaps thou mightest have been a Queen, or a Dutchess, or a Lady varnished with much beauty; but now thou art worm's meat, lying in the grave, the Sepolchre of all creatures. While Guy was in this repenting solilude, fair Phillis, like a mourning widow, cloathed herself in sable attire, and vowed chastity in the absence of her beloved husband. Her whole delight was in divine meditations and heavenly consolations, praying for the welfare of her beloved Lord, fearing some savage monster had devoured him.--Thus Phillis spent the remainder of her life in sorrow for her dear Lord; and to shew her humility she sold her Jewels and costly robes, with which she used to grace King Athelstones Court, and gave the money freely to the poor; she relieved the lame and the blind, the widow and the fatherless, and all those that came to ask alms; building a large hospital for aged and sick people that they may be comforted in their sickness and weak condition. And according to this rule she laid up treasure in heaven, which will be paid again with life everlasting. Meantime Guy travelled through many lands and nations; at last in his Journey he met the Earl of Terry, who had been exiled from his territories by a merciless traytor. Guy bid him not be dismayed, and promised to venture his life for his restoration. The Earl thanked Guy most courteously, and they travelled together against Terry's enemy. Guy challenged him into the field, and then slew him hand to hand, and restored to the Earl his lands. The Earl begged to know the name of his Champion, but Guy insisted to remain in secret, neither would he take any gratuity for his services. Thus was the noble Guy successful in all his actions, and finding his head crowned with silver hairs, after many years travel, he resolved to lay his aged body in his native country, and therefore returning from the Holy Land, he came to England, where he found the nation in great distress, the Danes having invaded the land, burning Cities and towns, plundering the country, and killing men, women and children; insomuch that King Athelstone was forced to take refuge in his invincible city of Winchester. CHAP. 6. GUY FIGHTS WITH THE GIANT COLBORN, AND HAVING OVERCOME HIM, DISCOVERS HIMSELF TO THE KING, THEN TO HIS WIFE, AND DIES IN HER ARMS. The Danes having intelligence of King Athelstone's retreat to Winchester, drew all their forces hither, and seeing there was no way to win the City, they sent a summons to King Athelstone desiring that an Englishman might combat with a Dane, and that side to lose the whole whose champion was defeated. On this the mighty Colborn singled himself from the Danes, and entered upon Morn Hill, near Winchester, breathing venemous words, calling the English cowardly dogs, that he would make their carcasses food for ravens. What mighty boasting said he, hath there been in the foreign nations, of these English Cowards, as if they had done deeds of wonder, who now like foxes hide their heads. Guy hearing proud Colborn could no longer forbear, but went immediately to the King, and on his knee begged a Combat; the King liking the courage of the pilgrim bid him go and prosper. Guy walking out of the North Gate to Morn Hill, where Colborn, the Danish Champion was--When Colborn espied Guy he disdained him, saying, Art thou the best Champion England can afford? Quoth Guy, it is unbecoming a professed champion to rail, my sword shall be my Orator. No longer they stood to parley, but with great Courage fought most Manfully, but Guy was so nimble, that in vain Colborn struck for every blow, fell upon the ground. Guy still laid about him like a dragon, which gave great encouragement to the English; but Colborn in the end growing faint, Guy brought the giant to the ground; upon which the English all shouted with so much Joy, that peals of ecchoes rung in the air--After this battle the Danes retired back again to their own Country. King Athelstone sent for this Champion to honour him, but Guy refused honours, saying, My Liege, I am a mortal man, and have set the vain world at defiance. But at the King's earnest request, on promise of concealment, Guy discovered himself to him, which rejoiced his heart, and he embraced his worthy champion; but Guy took leave of his sovereign, and went into the fields where he made a cave living very pensive and solitary; and finding his hour draw nigh, he sent a messenger to Phillis, at the sight of which she hasted to her Lord, where with weeping joy they embraced each other--Guy departed this life in her tender arms, and was honourably interred. [Illustration] His widow grieving at his death died 15 days after him. THEIR EPITAPH. Under this marble lies a pair, Scarce such another in the world there are. Like him so valiant or like her so fair, His actions thro' the world have spread his fame, And to the highest honours rais'd his name. For conjugal affection and chaste love, She's only equal'd by the blest above, Below they all perfections did possess, And now enjoy consummate happiness. FINIS. THE FAMOUS _HISTORY_ OF GUY EARL OF WARWICK [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. The letter-press in this Chap-book is nearly identical with the previous one, but there are two engravings which the other lacks. [Illustration: GUY AND THE NORTHUMBRIAN DRAGON.] [Illustration: GUY HAVING SLAIN ARMARANT.] _THE HISTORY_ OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THAT NOBLE KNIGHT SIR BEVIS OF SOUTHAMPTON [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. According to Ebert, the French editions of this romance are very early; he quotes two, "Le livre de Beufoes de Hantonne et de la Belle Josienne sa mye. Par. Verard." no date, folio, G.L., and "Beufues Danthonne nouvellement imprimé a Paris. Par le Noir 1502," small folio, Gothic letter; whilst the British Museum possesses an earlier Italian book on the subject, "Buovo de Antona di Guidone Palladius Rezunto & reuisto. Caligula di Bazalieri. Bologna 1497," octavo, Gothic letter. The Bodleian Library possesses a very early English copy of "Sir Beuys of Hamton," "Emprynted by Rycharde Pynson in Flete-strete at the Sygne of the George," quarto, black letter; and Hazlitt says there also is a fragment of two leaves by Wynkyn de Worde, printed with the same types as the "Memorare Novissima." The frontispiece is an engraving belonging to an edition of 1690. Sir Bevis was born in the reign of Edgar, and his parents were Sir Guy of Southampton, and a daughter of the King of Scotland, who was desperately in love with Sir Murdure, brother of the Emperor of Almaine. She managed to keep up appearances for some years after the birth of Bevis, until her passion for Sir Murdure became uncontrollable, and she sent a message to him to come over to England and slay her husband. He obeyed, and with his men lay in wait for Sir Guy, who was hunting for a wild boar for his wife. They assaulted him, and, after a desperate resistance on his part, killed him, and Sir Murdure was received joyfully by the false wife, and duly installed in her husband's stead. Naturally, Bevis was wroth, and having expressed his opinion freely, was duly hated by his mother, who sent to Sir Sabere, her husband's brother, to privately murder him. Sir Sabere, however, dressed him in old clothes and put him to keep sheep, whilst he showed Bevis's blood-stained garments, as a token of having killed him. However, the impulsive Bevis could not brook the situation, but went to the castle, crook in hand, and with it knocked Sir Murdure under the table, and would have murdered his mother, had not better thoughts prevailed. His mother was furious, and ordered Sir Sabere and another knight to cast him into the sea, which they promised to do; but meeting with merchants of Armony, they sold Bevis to them. The merchants presented him to the king (Ermine), who was prepossessed with his looks, and on questioning him, remembered having heard of the prowess of his father Sir Guy. "I have but one fair Daughter, said the King, and if thou wilt forsake thy God, and serve _Apoline_ our God, thou shalt have my Daughter to Wife, and enjoy my Kingdom after me. Not so, my Lord, said Bevis, for all the Beauties in the World, I would not deny my Creator; Then, said the King, wilt thou be my Chamberlain, and when I find thy Desert, I'll dub thee a Knight, and thou shalt bear my Standard in the Field against my Foes. What you please to command me, my Lord, said he, save the denying of my God, I will do. "Bevis was so beloved of the king that none durst speak against him; nay _Josian_ the King's daughter was in love with him." But it happened, one Christmas Day, Bevis met sixty Saracens, who, taunting him with his religion, he encountered, and slew them all. At which the king swore he should die. But Josian on her knees begged his life, which was granted; she dressed his wounds, nursed him, and he was in as great favour as ever. He next, after many difficulties, slew a mighty wild boar of cannibal propensities, and won great honour thereby. Josian must have been fair indeed, for, all through the story, Bevis is perpetually getting into trouble through her fatal beauty. It now happened to have attracted King Brandmond, who sent to King Ermine demanding her hand, or he would depose him. The nobles were for yielding; but Josian suggested that if Bevis were made general, and invested with command, things would speedily be righted. This was done; he was dubbed knight, and Josian armed him, and gave him a sword, Morglay, and a wonderful steed, Arundel. He defeated Brandmond, and took him prisoner. "So Bevis returned with great Victory and was royally entertained by the King, and then _Josian_ broke her mind to _Bevis_; quoth she, by _Mahomed_, I do desire to be thy Love: Not so, Lady, said _Bevis_, I'll wed no Heatheness; which words she took very scornfully." But her love prevailed, and she went to Bevis, offering to do anything, even turn Christian, could she but win his love. Sir Bevis could only act as he did--take her in his arms, and kiss her. Her speech and behaviour being reported to the king, he was mad, and wrote letters to Brandmond, to put Sir Bevis to death, and gave them to him, to be the unconscious bearer of his own death-warrant. Meanwhile, Sir Sabere had sent his son, Terry, travelling in search of Sir Bevis, and the two met near Damas; but Bevis did not make himself known. He rode into Damas, insulted the inhabitants by asking them, "What devil do you serve here?" and pulled down their idol Mahomed, throwing it into the gutter. This naturally exasperated the Saracens, and they set upon him; but before they could secure him, two hundred of them were slain. He was brought before the king, who read the letters of which he was the bearer. Bevis, finding he had only himself to trust to, went Berserk again and killed sixty more Saracens, was overpowered and thrown into a dungeon with two dragons, which, however, he slew with the truncheon of a spear he opportunely found, "and then he was at rest awhile." Josian's fatal beauty was to bring trouble. "Father, said _Josian_ where is _Bevis_? He reply'd he is gone to his own country. At this Time came King _Jour_, Intending for to wed _Josian_ which he obtained. And _Ermine_ gave _Jour_, _Arundel_ and _Morglay_, which belonged to Bevis; this _Josian_ could in no way avoid." Bevis's captors thought they would go and see him, and as he had been in prison seven years, fed only on bread and water, they thought he would be weak; but he killed them all, and seizing on a horse, escaped. He met with a giant whom he slew, and then proceeded on his search for Josian. He met a poor palmer who told him that in that castle opposite lived King Jour and his wife, the fair Josian. They exchanged clothes, and Bevis entered the castle. He saw and conversed with Josian, who did not know him; but when Arundel heard him speak, he "broke seven Chains asunder, and neighed;" and then Josian recognized him. The sequel may be imagined. King Jour was sent off on an imaginary errand, and Josian and Bevis eloped, taking with them the chamberlain Boniface. They were pursued, and hid in a cave, where, Bevis being absent hunting for their sustenance, two lions entered, killed and eat Boniface, and then meekly laid their heads in Josian's lap. On Bevis's return, she called out to him the state of things, when he told her to let the lions loose, and he killed them. They then continued their journey, until they were stopped by Ascapart, "an ugly Giant, who was thirty Foot high, and a Foot between his Eyebrows; he was bristled like a Swine, and his Blubber Lips hung on one side." Naturally he had to be fought and overcome, and on his life being spared, he promised to be a faithful servant. They reached the shore, where they wanted to take ship, but, being unable to procure a boat, they first had to fight and slay many Saracens, and then Ascapart waded to the ship, carrying Sir Bevis and Josian, and tucking Arundel under his arm. They reached the land of Colen, where the bishop was a relation of Bevis. Josian was baptized, but Ascapart refused the rite. "_Bevis_ being in bed heard a Knight cry, I rot, I rot, at which Noise _Bevis_ wondered; and the next Morning he ask'd what was the Cause of that Noise; He was a Knight, they said, that coming through the street, the Dragon met him and cast her Venom upon him, whereof he rotted and died." Bevis could not stand this, but sought and encountered the dragon, which he slew, after the hardest of his many fights. Then he set about recovering his lost inheritance, and sailed for England, landing near Southampton. But no sooner was his back turned than the Earl of Milo, having got rid of Ascapart by stratagem, married Josian; but she strangled him in bed, whereupon she was sentenced to be burned. Ascapart, however, had broken prison, joined Bevis, and they together arrived just in the nick of time to save Josian. Sir Bevis and Sir Sabere then seriously took Sir Murdure in hand, defeated him, and boiled him in a cauldron of pitch and brimstone; which treatment had such an effect on the mother of Sir Bevis, that she threw herself from the top of her castle and broke her neck. Sir Bevis then, somewhat tardily, married Josian, and went to do homage to Edgar; but the king's son, having been refused Arundel at any price, went to take him by force, and had his brains kicked out by the horse. Sir Bevis was banished, and having left his estates in the hands of his uncle Sabere, started on his journey, when Josian, whilst passing through a forest, was taken ill and delivered of twins. She had requested her husband, Terry, and Ascapart to leave her alone for a time; so the former two went one way, and the latter another. But when Sir Bevis and Terry returned, they found the two boys, but not the mother, who had been carried off by Ascapart. Bevis left his children with a forester, with strict injunctions to return them to one Bevis of Hampton in seven years' time; but Sabere and twelve knights tracked and slew the villain Ascapart, and restored Josian to her husband. They redeemed the children; and then, finding there was war between the kings Ermine and Jour, Bevis naturally helped his father-in-law, and captured Jour, whose ransom was "twenty Tun of Gold and three hundred White Steeds." King Ermine turned Christian, and before his death crowned his grandson Guy King of Armony, and knighted his grandson Miles. Not unnaturally King Jour hated Sir Bevis, and beseiging him in Armony, was of course overcome and slain, and Bevis took possession of his kingdom, and converted all the inhabitants to Christianity. But his troubled life was drawing to a close. King Edgar had disinherited Sabere's wife, so he, Bevis, and Josian, with their two sons Guy and Miles, marched to London with a great army, fought the king, slew two thousand of his men, and then went back to Southampton. The king wisely parleyed with them, and ultimately agreed to marry his eldest daughter to Miles, whom he created Earl of Cornwall; after which they all separated and went home. Bevis and Josian retired to the late King Jour's capital of Mambrant, where both he and Josian fell sick, and died the same day. "They were solemnly interred in one Grave, by Guy their Son, who raised a stately Tomb over them, to the everlasting Memory of so gallant a Knight, and his most royal and constant Lady. So I conclude his famous Acts here penn'd, For Time and Death brings all Things to an End." THE LIFE AND DEATH OF =St. George= THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF ENGLAND. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE LONDON Although there are, as may be expected from the great popularity of this patron saint of England, very numerous illustrations of him in manuscripts, even as far back as the eleventh century, yet there seems, with the exception of the "Legenda Aurea" of Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde, to be very little early printed matter about him, although Dibdin (Ames) notices "The Lyfe of that glorious Martyr Saint George," quarto, printed by Pynson. Alban Butler gives a very etherealized life of this saint, and says, "George is usually painted on horseback and tilting at a dragon under his feet; but this representation is no more than an emblematical figure, purporting, that by his faith and Christian fortitude he conquered the Devil, called the Dragon in the Apocalypse." Caxton's "Legenda Aurea" ("Westmestre, 1483") gives the following account of the Cappadocian saint, and his encounter with the Dragon:--"Saynt George was a knyght and borne in capadose / On a tyme he came to the prouynce of Lybye to a cyte which is sayd Sylene / And by this cyte was a stagne or a ponde lyke a see / wherein was a dragon whyche envenymed alle the contre / And on a tyme the peple were assemblid for to slee hym / And whan they sawe hym they fledde / And whan he came nyghe the citte / he venymed the peple wyth his breeth / And therfore the peple of the citte gaue to hym euery day two sheep for to fede hym / by cause he shold doo no harme to the peple / And whan the sheep fayled there was taken a man and a sheep / "Thenne was an ordenaunce made in the towne / that there shold be taken the chyldren and yonge peple of them of the towne by lotte / And eueryche as it fyl were he gentil or poure shold be delyuered whan the lotte fyl on hym or hyr / So it happed that many of them of the towne were thenne delyuerd / In soo moche that the lotte fyl vpon the kynges doughter / Wherrof the kyng was sory and sayd vnto the people / "For the loue of the goddes take golde and syluer and alle that I haue / and lett me haue my doughter / they sayd how syr ye haue made and ordeyned the lawe / and our chyldren been now deed / And now ye wold doo the contrarye / your doughter shal be gyuen / or ellys we shal breune you & your hows. Whan the kyng saw he myght nomore doo he began to wepe and sayd to his doughter / Now shal I neuer see thyn espousayls / Thenne retorned he to the peple and demauded viij dayes respyte And they graunted hit to hym / and whan the viij dayes were passed they came to hym and sayd / thou seest that the cyte perissheth / Th[=en]e dyd the kyng doo[4] araye his doughter / lyke as she shold be wedded / and embraced hyr kyssed hir and gaue hir his benedyccion / And after ledde hyr to the place where the dragon was / whan she was there / saynt george passed by / And whan he sawe the lady / he demaunded the lady what she made there, And she sayd / goo ye your waye fayre yonge man / that ye perysshe not also / "Thenne sayd he telle to me what haue ye / and why ye were / and doubte ye of no thynge / whan she sawe that he wold knowe she sayde to hym how she was delyuered to the dragon / Thenne sayd saynt george / Fayre doughter doubte ye no thynge herof / For I shall helpe the in the name of Jhesu Cryste / She said for goddes sake good knyght goo your waye / and abyde not wyth me / for ye may not delyuer me / "Thus as they spake to gyder the dragon apperyd & came rennyng to them and saynt George was vpon his hors & drewe out his swerde & garnysshed hym wyth the signe of the Crosse / and rode hardely ageynst the dragon which came toward hym and smote hym with hys spere and hurte hym sore & threwe hym to the grounde / And after sayde to the mayde / delyuer to me your gyrdel and bynde hit about the necke of the dragon / and be not aferde / whan she had doon soo the dragon folowed hyr as it had been a make beest and debonayr / Thenne she ledde hym in to the cyte / & the peple fledde by mountayns and valeyes / and sayd / alas / alas / we shal be alle deed / Thenne saynt George sayd to them / ne doubte ye no thynge / without more byleue ye in god Jhesu Cryste / and doo you to be baptysed / and I shal slee the dragon / "Thenne the kyng was baptysed and al his peple / and saynt george slewe the dragon and smote of his heed / And commaunded thathe shold be throwen in the feldes / and they took iiij cartes wyth oxen that drewe hym out of the cyte / Thenne were there wel fyftene thousand men baptised without wymmen and chyldren / And the kyng dyd doo make a chirche there of our lady and of saynt George / In the whiche yet sourdeth a founteyn of lyuynge water whiche heleth seek peple that drynke therof / After this the kyng offred to Saint george as moche money as there myght be nombred / but he refused alle and commaunded that it shold be gyuen to poure peple for goddes sake / and enioyned the kynge iiij thynges / that is / that he shold haue charge of the Chyrches / and that he shold honoure the preestes / and here theyr seruyce dylygently / and that he shold haue pite on the poure peple / And after kyssed the kyng and departed /" [Footnote 4: Dyd doo, _i.e._ caused to be.] [Illustration] The Chap-book version is far more marvellous, and is, as the reader will note, strangely similar, in some places, to the romance of Sir Bevis. Coventry, not Cappadocia, is made his birth-place; his father was "a renowned peer named Lord Albert," and his mother was the King's daughter, who before St. George's birth dreamed her child would be a dragon. So Lord Albert went to consult the enchantress Kalyb, which he did by blowing a trumpet at the entrance of her cave, when a voice replied that his son should be as fierce as a dragon in deeds of chivalry. The mother died in childbirth, and St. George was stolen in his infancy by Kalyb, which so grieved Lord Albert that he died. [Illustration] [Illustration] Kalyb grew very fond of the boy, and in a moment of confidence she showed him the brazen castle where the other six champions of Christendom were confined, and made him a present of some invincible armour. She also lent him her magic wand, a kindness which he requited by enclosing her in a rock. He then released the six champions, who went their several ways, and he went to Egypt. There he found the whole kingdom desolate because of a dragon which every day devoured a virgin, and had destroyed all but the king's daughter, who was that day to be given to him unless some one should slay the dragon, in which case she would be given in marriage to her deliverer. St. George, of course, undertook the adventure, and reached the place soon after the king and queen had taken leave of their daughter. [Illustration] St. George held a short parley with the damsel, whose name was Sabra, when the dragon approached and the combat took place. We know its issue--St. George cut off the dragons head, released Sabra, and entered the city, but was withstood by some of the inhabitants, stirred up by Aminder, King of Morocco, in love with Sabra, whom he had to fight and overcome. [Illustration] The king, however, received him graciously; but Aminder spread reports of St. George trying to convert the princess to Christianity, and the king wrote a letter to the Sultan of Persia, making St. George the bearer, asking him to slay him. On its delivery St. George was thrown into a dungeon, and when he had been there two days, they let down two hungry lions to devour him, but he killed them with an old sword he found. He was seven years in prison, during which time Sabra had been forced by her father to marry Aminder, when one day he found an iron crowbar and effected his release, stole a horse, was stopped by and fought with a giant, whom he killed. He journeyed on till he came to where Sabra lived, changed clothes with a peasant, applied to her for alms, showed her a ring which she had given him, and was immediately recognized. Accompanied by a servant, they fled; met with two lions, who eat the servant but did Sabra no harm, and were duly killed by St. George. [Illustration] He returned to Coventry, where he was but a little while, when St. David and the other champions asked him for his assistance against the pagans who had invaded Hungary. He went with them, leaving Sabra at home, and duly overthrew the pagans. Then came messengers to him saying that Sabra, who it appears the Earl of Coventry had attempted to seduce, had stabbed and killed him, and was condemned to die unless a champion could be found to fight for her. St. George came at the right moment, fought, conquered, and freed Sabra. They now lived quietly, and three sons, Guy, Alexander, and David, were born to them, who were sent to Rome, England, and Bohemia, to be educated at the Courts of the several sovereigns. After eighteen years' absence they all returned, and after they had rested a few days a hunt was proposed, in which Sabra joined. Her horse, however, fell and threw her "into a thorny briar, which tore her tender flesh so terribly, that she found she had not long to live, whereupon calling to St. George and her sons, she very affectionately embraced them, not being able to speak, and soon died." St. George undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and on his return home he fought with a dragon on Dunsmore Heath and slew it. "But this proved the most fatal of all his adventures, for the vast quantities of poison thrown upon him by that monsterous beast, so infected his vital spitals, that two days afterwards he died in his own house." PATIENT GRISSEL. "I wol you tell a Tale which that I Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk As preved by his wordes and his werk: He is now ded and nailed in his cheste, I pray to God to yeve his soule reste. Fraunceis Petrark, the Laureate poete, Hight this clerk whos retherike swete Enlumined all Itaille of poetrie"-- so says Chaucer in the prologue to the "Clerkes Tale," but Petrarch was not the author of this ever favourite story. It seems to have been the undoubted offspring of Boccaccio's fancy, even Mr. Baring Gould failing to trace an Indian source for it, as he has done in so many tales of the "Decameron."[5] In fact, Petrarch, although intimately acquainted with Boccaccio, never saw the tale until 1374, just before his death at Arquà. He at once fell in love with it, and translated it into Latin, with alterations. This translation was never printed, but there is a copy in the library at Paris, and another at Magdalen College, Oxford. It was dramatized in France in 1393, under the title of "Le Mystere de Griseildis Marquis de Salucas;" again in England, "The Pleasant Comedie of Patient Grissill. As it hath been sundrie times lately plaid by the right honorable the Erle of Nottingham (Lord high Admirall) his seruants. London: Imprinted for Henry Rocket, and are to be solde at the long Shop vnder S. Mildreds Church in the Poultry. 1603."[6] There was also a comedy by Ralph Radcliffe, called "Patient Griseld," but this was never printed; and in modern times it has been dramatized by Mr. Edwin Arnold. [Footnote 5: "Bouchet, in his _Annales d'Aquitaine_, I. iii., maintains that Griselda flourished about the year 1025, and that her real history exists in manuscript under the title of 'Parement des Dames.'"--_Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, vol. iii. p. 389.] [Footnote 6: Of this play only two copies are known.] THE _HISTORY_ OF THE NOBLE MARQUIS OF SALUS AND PATIENT GRISSEL [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE LONDON. CHAP. 1. THE MARQUIS OF SALUS IS SOLLICITED BY HIS NOBLES TO MARRY; HE CONSENTS, AND FALLS IN LOVE WITH A POOR COUNTRYMAN'S DAUGHTER. Between the mountains of Italy and France, towards the South, lies the territory of Salus, a country flourishing with excellent towns, and some castles, and peopled with the best sort of gentry and peasants.--Among them lived not long since a nobleman of great reputation and honour, who was Lord of the country, and by name GUALTER, Marquis of Salus; to whom, as the government appertained by his right of inheritance, so their obedience attended by desert of his worthiness. He was young in years and never had thought of marriage until pressed to it by the desires and petitions of his people, who often importuned him thereto.--At last he consented to it, and fame soon spread the report abroad, and each Princess was filled with hopes of being the Marquis's happy partner. [Illustration] All this time the Marquis continued his hunting, and usually resorted to a little village not far from Selus where lived a poor countryman named Janicola, overworn in years, and overcome with distress, having nothing to make his life comfortable but an only daughter, who was exceedingly beautiful, modest, and virtuous. But as fire will not lay hid where there is matter of combustibles, so virtue cannot be obscured if there is tongues and ears; for the report of her reached the Marquis, who being satisfied of the truth, and finding her a fit woman to be his wife, resolved to forward the business.--In the mean time the Court was furnished, a Crown and rich apparel prepared for the Queen; but who she was the Nobles all wondered, and the damsels marvelled; while the people in general flocked to see who was to be the happy woman. At last the nuptial day arrived, and each one looked for a bride, but who she was the next Chapter must discover. CHAP. 2. THE MARQUIS DEMANDS, AND MARRIES THE OLD MAN'S DAUGHTER. [Illustration] When all things were prepared, the Noble Marquis took with him a great Company of Earls Lords Knights Squires, Gentlemen, Ladies, and Attendants, and went from the palace into the country, towards Janicola's house, where the fair maid Grissel, ignorant of what had happened, or of what was to come, had made herself and house clean, determining with the rest of the neighbouring virgins to see this solemnity; at which instant arrived the Marquis with his Company, meeting Grissel with two pitchers of Water which she was carrying home. He asked where her father was? She answered, in the house--Go then, replied he, and tell him I would speak with him. The poor man came forth to him somewhat abashed, until the Marquis taking him by the hand, said That he had a secret to impart to him; and taking him from the rest of the Company spoke to him in the following manner: "Janicola, I know thou always lovedst me, and I am satisfied thou dost not hate me now; you have been pleased when I have been pleased, and you will not now be sorrowful if I am satisfied; nay I am sure if it lies in your power, you will further my delight; for I am come with the intention of begging your daughter to be my wife; and I to be your son in law, will you take me for your friend, as I have chose you for a father." The poor old man was so astonished, that he could not speak for Joy, but when the extasy was over, he thus faintly replied; "Most gracious Sovereign, You are my Lord, and therefore I must agree to your will; but you are generous, and therefore take her in God's name, and make me a glad father; and let that God which raiseth up the humble and meek, make her a befitting wife and a fruitful mother." Why then, quoth the Marquis, let us enter your house, for I must ask her a question before you. So he went in, the company tarrying without in vast astonishment--The fair maid was busied in making it as handsome as she could, and proud to have such a guest under her roof, amazed why he came so accompanied, little conjecturing so great a blessing; but at last the Marquis took hold of her hand and used these speeches. To tell you this blush becomes you, were but a folly; or that your modesty has graced your comliness, is unbecoming my greatness; but in one word, your father and I have agreed to make you my wife, therefore, delays shall not entangle you with suspicion, nor two days longer protract the kindness, only I must be satisfied in this, if your heart affords willing entertainment to the motion, and your virtue and constancy to the following resolution; that is, not to repine at my pleasure in anything, nor presume on contradiction when I command; for as good soldiers must obey without disputing the business, so must virtuous wives dutifully consent without reproof; therefore be advised how you answer, and I charge thee take heed that thy tongue utters no more than thy heart conceits. All this time was Grissel wondering at these words; but thinking nothing impossible with God, made the Marquis the following answer: "My gracious Lord, I am not ignorant of your greatness, and know my own weakness. There is nothing worthy in me to be your servant, therefore can have no desert to be your wife. Notwithstanding, because God is the author of Miracles, I yield to your pleasure, and praise him for the fortune. Only this I will be bold to say. That your will shall be my delight; and death shall be more welcome to me, than a word of displeasure against you." After this the Ladies adorned Grissel with robes befitting her state; the Marquis and all the company returned back to Salus, where in the Cathedral, in the sight of the people according to the fullness of religious ceremonies they were by the priest essentially joined together. [Illustration] CHAP. 3. LADY GRISSELS PATIENCE TRIED BY THE MARQUIS. To the other blessinge in process of time, there was added the birth of a daughter, that rejoiced the mother and gladded the father; the country triumphed, and the people clapped their hands with joy--Notwithstanding this, fortune had a trick to check her pride; and prosperity must be seasoned with some crosses or else it would corrupt us too much. Whereupon the Marquis determined to prove his wife, and to make trial of her virtues indeed; and so taking a convenient season, after the child was weaned, he one day repaired secretly to her chamber, and seeming angry, imparted to her some of his mind. The lady hearing him, sorrowfully apprehended the Marquis's resolution to her grief (though every word was like an arrow in her side) yet admitted of the temptation, and disputing with herself to what end the virtues of patience, modesty, forbearance, fortitude and magnanimity was ordained, if they had not proper subjects to work upon. When the Marquis saw her constancy, he was pleased with her modest behaviour, and said but little at that time, but between joy and fear departed; resolving to make a farther trial of her. CHAP. 4. THE MARQUIS'S DAUGHTER IS TAKEN FROM HER MOTHER AND SENT TO BOLOGNE TO BE THERE BROUGHT UP. [Illustration] Not long after this Conference between the Marquis and his Lady, he called a faithful servant, to whom he imparted the secret, and what he meant to do with his child; and then sent him to his wife with an unsavoury message--When she had heard him out, remembering the conference the Marquis had with her, and apprehending there was no room for dispute, feared it was ordained to die; so taking it up in her arms with a mothers blessing she kissed it, being not once amazed or troubled, since her lord would have it so, only she said, I must, friend, intreat one thing at your hand, that out of humanity and Christian love, you leave not the body to be devoured by beasts and birds, for she is worthy of a grave. The man, having got the Child, durst not tarry, but returned to his master, repeating every circumstance of her answer that might aggrandise her constancy. The Marquis considering the great virtue of his wife, and looking on the beauty of his daughter, began to entertain some compassion, and to retract his wilfulness; but at last resolution won the field of pity, and having, as he thought so well begun, would not soon give over. But with the same secrecy he had taken her from his wife, he sent her away to his sister the Dutchess of Bologne, with presents of worth, and letters of recommendation, containing in them the nature of the business, and the manner of her bringing up, which she accordingly put into practice. CHAP. 5. THE MARQUIS MAKES A FARTHER TRIAL OF HIS WIFE'S PATIENCE. As this patient and wonderful lady was one day sporting with her infant son, like a tempest did this messenger of death interpose; yet as if he was conscious of disquieting her greatness, he came forward with preamble, craving pardon of the lady, that the message might seem blameless. He was not so sudden in his demand, as she was in her despatch; for she immediately gave him this child also, with the same enforcements as she had done the former.-- In the like manner he returned to the Marquis, who had still more cause for astonishment, and less reason to abuse so obedient a wife; but for a time sent this child likewise to his sister, who understanding her brother's mind brought up the children in such a manner, that tho' no man ever knew whose children they were, yet they supposed them to belong to some great potentate. The ordering the business in this manner, made the Marquis once again settle himself in Salus, where he kept an open house to all comers, and was proud of nothing but the love of his wife; for although he had more than once tried her patience, yet she never complained, but seemed to love him the more. By this time his unkindness to her got spread among the people, who all admired and wondered at her for her constancy and patience. CHAP. 6. GRISSEL DISROBED, AND SENT HOME TO HER FATHER BY HER HUSBAND; HER SON AND DAUGHTER BROUGHT HOME, UNDER PRETENCE OF THE MARQUIS'S MARRYING HER; GRISSEL IS SENT FOR TO MAKE PREPARATIONS, AND HER CONDESCENSION THEREON. After this the Marquis was resolved to put her to another trial, so sent for her cloaths, and commanded her to go home again to her father's naked, except her shift; when, being in the midst of her nobility she disrobed herself, and returned back to her father's Cottage. They could not but deplore the alteration of fortune; yet she could not but smile that her virtue was predominant over her passion. They all exclaimed against the cruelty of her Lord; but she used no invective. They wondered at her so great virtue and patience; she answered, They were befitting a modest woman. By this time they approached the house and old Janicola having been acquainted with it; and seeing his daughter only in her smock, amidst such honourable company, he ran into the house and brought the robes she formerly wore, and putting them on said Now, thou art in thy element, and kissing her bid her welcome. The Company was in amaze at his moderation, and wondered how nature could be so restrained from passion, and that any woman could have so much grace and virtue. In which amaze not without some reprehension of fortune and their Lord's cruelty, they left her to the poverty of the Cell, and returned to the glory of the palace, where they recounted to the Marquis how she continued in her moderation and patience; and the father comforting her in her condition. [Illustration] Not long after came the Dutchess of Bologne, with her glorious company, she sending word beforehand she should be at Salus such a day. Whereupon the Marquis sent a troop to welcome her, and prepared a court for her entertainment. The effects of which were not agreeable; some condemned the Marquis whilst others deplored his wife's misfortunes. Some were transported with the gallant youth and comely virgin that came along with the Dutchess, the latter of whom it was reported the Marquis was going to marry; nor did the Duke nor Princess know themselves to be the Children of the Marquis, but appeared as strangers designed to be at this new Marriage. The next morning after their arrival he sent a messenger for Grissel bidding her come and speak with him just in the dress she then was; upon which she immediately waited upon her Lord. At her appearance he was somewhat abashed, but recovering his spirits he thus addressed her: Grissel, the Lady with whom I must marry will be here to-morrow by this time, and the feast is prepared according--Now, because there is none so well acquainted with the secrets of my palace and disposition of myself but you, I would have you, for all this base attire, address your wisdom to the ordering of the business, appointing such officers as are befitting, and disposing of the rooms according to the degrees and estates of the persons. Let the Lady have the privilege of the marriage chamber, and the young Lord the pleasure of the gallery. Let the wines be plentiful, and the ceremonies be maintained--In a word, let nothing be wanting which may set forth my honour and delight the people. [Illustration] My Lord, said she, I ever told you, That I took pleasure in nothing but your Contentment, and in whatsoever might conform to your delight. Herein consisted my joy and happiness, therefore make no question of my diligence and duty in this or anything you shall please to impose upon me. And so, like a poor servant she presently addressed herself to the business of the house performing all things with such dispatch and quickness that each one wondered at her goodness and fair demeanor; and many murmured to see her put to such a trial. But the day of entertainment being come, and when the fair lady approached, she looked exceeding beautiful, insomuch that some began not to blame the Marquis for his change. At length Grissel, taking the lady by the hand, thus addressed her: Lady, if it were not his pleasure, that may command, to bid you welcome, yet methinks there is a kind of over ruling grace from nature in you, which must extort a respect unto you.--And as for you young Lord, I can say no more, but if I might have my desires, they should be employed to wish you well--To the rest I afford all that is fit for entertainment, hoping they will excuse whatever they see amiss. And so conducted them to their several apartments, where they agreeably reposed themselves till it was dinner time. When all things were thus prepared, the Marquis sent for his Grissel, and standing up, took her by the hand, and thus expressed himself to her: You see the Lady is here I mean to marry, and the Company assembled to witness it; are you therefore contented I shall thus dispose of myself? and do you submit quietly to the alteration? My Lord, replied she, before them all, in what as a woman I might be found faulty, I will not now dispute; but because I am your wife, and have devoted myself to obedience, I am resolved to delight myself in your pleasure; so, if this match be designed for your good, I am satisfied and more than much contented. And as for your lady, I wish her the delights of marriage, the honour of her husband, many years happiness, and the fruits of true and chaste wedlock--Only, great Lord, take care of one thing, That you try not your new bride, as you did your old wife; for she is young, and perhaps wants the patience which poor I have endured. Till this he held out bravely, but now could not forbear bursting into tears, and all the company wondered at it; but the next Chapter will happily conclude the whole Story. CHAP. 7. THE MARQUIS'S SPEECH TO HIS WIFE AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILDREN. After the Marquis had recovered himself, he thus addressed his patient wife Grissel:--Thou Wonder of Women, and Champion of true Virtue! I am ashamed of my imperfections, and tired with abusing thee; I have tried thee beyond all modesty.--Believe me therefore, I will have no wife but thyself, and therefore seeing I have used you so unkindly heretofore, I protest never to disquiet thee any more; and wherein my cruelty extended against thee in bereaving thee of thy Children, my love shall now make amends in restoring thee thy son and daughter; for this my new bride is she, and this young Lord, her brother. Thank this good Lady my sister for the bringing them up; and this man, you know him well enough, for his secrecy. I have related the truth, and will confirm it with my honour and this kiss; only sit down till the dinner is come, and then bid the company welcome even in this poor array. The Marquis thus tenderly treating her, and discovering who the young Lord and Lady was, gave the Nobility a fresh opportunity to shew their obedience; the which they immediately did to all three; and the dinner being over, none was so ready to attire Grissel, as her daughter, who was more glad than disappointed by this so sudden a change--Janicola was sent for to Court, and ever afterwards he was the Marquis's counsellor. The servant was also well rewarded for his fidelity; and the Dutchess returned to her palace, leaving her brother and sister to reign in peace.--In length of time the Marquis died, and Grissel lived thirty three years after him, and then died in a good old age; being a pattern for all women after, who might have their virtue or patience tried in the like, or other manner, not to distrust an all wise Providence, who, when he seemeth most to frown, oftentimes is about blessing his creatures with the Sunshine of prosperity.--On the other hand her example should teach us Content, though in meek and abject circumstances; considering it is not the pleasure of the Divine Will to bless all people alike with affluence. FINIS. The Pleasant and Delightful _HISTORY_ OF JACK AND THE GIANTS PART THE FIRST [Illustration] NOTTINGHAM PRINTED FOR THE RUNNING STATIONERS. THE SECOND PART OF JACK and the GIANTS GIVING A full Account of his Victorious Conquests over the North Country Giants; destroying the inchanted Castle kept by Galligantus; dispers'd the fiery Griffins; put the Conjuror to Flight; and released not only many Knights and Ladies, but likewise a Duke's Daughter, to whom he was honourably married. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. WHITE. 1711 THE _HISTORY_ OF JACK and the GIANTS [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE. LONDON [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] The origin of this romance is undoubtedly Northern. The Edda of Snorro contains a similar story to that of the Welsh Giant. Thor and the giant Skrimner were travelling together, and when they slept, Skrimner substituted a rock, as Jack did a billet, for his person. Thor smote it with his mighty hammer, and the giant asked whether a leaf had fallen from a tree. Again he smote, and this time the giant suggested an acorn had fallen. Yet still one mightier blow than all, but the provoking Skrimner thought it was only some moss fallen on his face. Also in the second relation of Ssidi Kur, a Calmuck romance, the wonderful shoes of swiftness are to be found.[7] This romance used to be a never-failing source of delight to children, but a long version of it is now seldom found. The Chap-books give two parts, and all agree in their story. The date is laid in King Arthur's time, and Jack was the son of a wealthy farmer near Land's End in Cornwall, and he was of great strength and extremely subtle. The country at that time seems to have been under the terrorism of a race of giants, and Jack's mission was their destruction. For the greater part, as we shall see, they were a very simple and foolish race, very ferocious, but with no brains, and they fell an easy prey to the astute Jack. He tried his 'prentice hand on a fine specimen, the Giant Cormoran, eighteen feet high and three yards in circumference, who dwelt on the Mount of Cornwall. Jack's preparations were simple. He took a horn, a pickaxe, and a shovel, and with the two latter dug a pit twenty-two feet deep, and covered it over; then he blew his horn. The Giant came out and fell into the pit, when Jack killed him with his axe (Plates Nos. 1 and 2). This earned him his sobriquet of the Giant-Killer. The Giant Blunderbore, hearing of this feat, vowed vengeance, and meeting Jack in a lonely part of Wales, he carried him on his shoulders to his castle, locked him in an upper room, and started off to invite a brother giant to supper. But, alas for the blindness of these huge dunderheads! two strong cords had been left most imprudently in Jack's room, in which he made running nooses, and, as the giants were unlocking the gates, he threw the ropes over their heads and strangled them, cut off their heads, and delivered their captives. In Flintshire he met with an abnormal specimen, a giant with two heads; and, as perhaps they were "better than one," this giant was crafty, pretended friendship, and took Jack home with him to sleep. Luckily for Jack, the giant had a bad habit of soliloquy, and he overheard him say-- "Tho' here you lodge with me this night, You shall not see the morning's light. My club shall dash your brains out quite." "Forewarned is forearmed;" so Jack substituted a billet of wood for himself, which the giant duly belaboured, and, being utterly astounded at seeing Jack alive and well in the morning, asked him how he slept--whether he had been disturbed? "No," said the self-possessed Jack; "a rat gave me three or four flaps with his tail." Crafty Jack, however, made the foolish giant destroy himself, as follows:--"Soon after the Giant went to breakfast on a great bowl of hasty pudding, giving Jack but little quantity; who being loath to let him know he could not eat with him, got a leather bag, putting it artfully under his coat, into which he put his pudding, telling the Giant he would shew him a trick; so taking a large knife he ripped open the bag which the Giant thought to be his belly, and out came the hasty pudding; which the Welsh Giant seeing, cried out, Cot's plut, hur can do that hurself; and taking up the knife he ripped open his belly from top to bottom, and out dropped his tripes and trullibubs, so that he immediately fell down dead." King Arthur's son was travelling about, and meeting with Jack, they joined company. The prince seems to have been too lavish with his money, and soon was in want. Jack then proposed they should sup and sleep at the house of a _three_-headed giant, who rather prided himself upon his fighting qualities. Stratagem succeeded; Jack made the giant believe that the prince was coming with a thousand men to destroy him, and the human Cerberus (who, although he was a match for five hundred, did not dare to overweight himself with double that number) begged Jack to bolt and bar him in a vault till the prince had gone. Jack and the prince ate and drank of the best, slept well, and in the morning took the giant's cash. When the prince was well on his way, Jack let the big stupid lubber out, and he out of gratitude gave his preserver a coat which would render him invisible, a cap which would furnish him with knowledge, a miraculously sharp sword, and shoes of incredible swiftness.[8] Jack took them and followed the prince, whose life he afterwards saved, and, besides, made himself useful in casting an evil spirit out of a lad. In the Second Part Jack turns professional giant-slaughterer, and of course these overgrown simpletons had no chance against Jack's magic paraphernalia. They had to give up their prisoners (Plate 4); they were cut in pieces without seeing their assailant (Plate 3); their very weight sometimes proved their destruction--notably one Thundel, who will always live in memory as the talented author of "Fe, fa, fum I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make me bread." This Thundel was beguiled on to a drawbridge, which broke with his weight (see frontispiece, Newcastle edition), and, floundering in the moat, fell an easy prey. But Jack's supreme effort was masterly, and well rewarded him. A hermit told him of a giant, one Galligantus, who lived in an enchanted castle, in which, by the aid of a conjuror and two fiery dragons, he had imprisoned a duke's daughter, transforming her into a deer. Could Jack resist this charming adventure? Impossible. Clad in his invisible coat, he got into the castle, found that the way to break the enchantment was to blow a certain trumpet, did so--an act which had the effect of temporarily depriving the giant and sorcerer of their presence of mind, a fact which Jack took advantage of by decapitating Galligantus; at which sight the conjuror mounted in the air, and disappeared in a whirlwind. The two dragons, considering these proceedings equivalent to a notice of ejectment, promptly took their departure; whilst a quantity of beasts and birds resumed their former shapes of knights and ladies, and the castle vanished. Needless to say, King Arthur prevailed on the duke to reward Jack with his daughter's hand, and he himself gave him "plentiful estate;" so there is very little reason to doubt the announcement which closes this veracious history, that "he and his Lady lived the residue of their days in joy and content. [Footnote 7: The Chan steals a pair from the Tchadkurrs, or evil spirits, by means of a cap which made him invisible, which he won from some quarrelling children whom he met in a forest.] [Footnote 8: To show the northern origin of this tale, it is only necessary to point out that the coat is identical with the magic garment known in ancient German as the "Nebel Kappe," or cloud cloak, fabled to belong to King Alberich and the other dwarfs of the Teutonic Cycle of Romance, who, clad therein, could walk invisible. To them also belongs the "Tarn hut," or Hat of Darkness. Velent, the smith of the Edda of Sæmund, forged a "Sword of Sharpness," which in the Wilkina Saga is called Balmung. It was so sharp that when Velent cleft his rival Æmilius, it merely seemed to the latter like cold water running down him. "Shake thyself," said Velent. He did so, and fell in two halves, one on each side of the chair. The Shoes of Swiftness were worn by Loke when he escaped from Valhalla.] A pleasant and delightful HISTORY OF =Thomas Hickathrift= [Illustration] NEWCASTLE, PRINTED BY AND FOR M. ANGUS AND SON, IN THE SIDE-- _Where is always kept on Sale, a choice and extensive Assortment of Histories, Songs, Children's Story Books, School Books &c &c._ This worthy does not seem to have been an absolute myth, if we can trust Sir Henry Spelman, who in his "Icenia sive Norfolciæ Descriptio Topographica," p. 138, speaking of Tilney in Marshland Hundred, says, "Hic se expandit insignis area, quæ à planitie nuncupatur _Tylney-smeeth_, pinguis adeo & luxurians ut Padua pascua videatur superasse.... Tuentur eum indigenæ velut Aras and Focos, fabellamque recitant longa petitam vetustate de _Hikifrico_ (nescio quo,) _Haii_ illius instar in Scotorum Chronicis, qui Civium suorum dedignatus fugam, Aratrum quod agebat, solvit; arrepto que Temone furibundus insiliit in hostes, victoriamque ademit exultantibus. Sic cum de agri istius finibus acriter olim dimicatum esset inter fundi Dominum et Villarum Incolas, nec valerent hi adversus eum consistere; cedentibus occurrit _Hikifricus_, axem que excutiens a Curru quem agebat, eo vice Gladii usus; Rotâ, Clypei; invasores repulit ad ipsos quibus nunc funguntur terminos. Ostendunt in cæmeterio Tilniensi, Sepulcrum sui pugilis, Axem cum Rota insculptum exhibens." Sir William Dugdale also says, "They to this day shew a large gravestone near the east end of the Chancel in Tilney Churchyard, whereon the form of a Cross is so cut or carved, as that the upper part thereof (wherewith the carver had adorned it) being circular they will therefore have it to be the gravestone of Hickifrick as a memorial of his Courage." In Chambers's "History of Norfolk," vol. i. p. 492, it says, "The stone coffin which stands out of the ground in Tilney Churchyard, on the north side of the Church, will not receive a person above six feet in length; and this is shewn as belonging formerly to the giant Hickafric. The cross said to be a representation of the cart wheel, is a cross pattée on the head of a staff, which staff is styled an axletree." THE HISTORY OF THOMAS HICKATHRIFT _PART THE FIRST_ [Illustration] PRINTED IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. LONDON CHAP. 1. TOM'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. In the reign of William the Conqueror I have read in antient records, there lived in the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire, a man named Thomas Hickathrift, a poor labourer, yet he was an honest stout man, and able to do as much work in a day as two ordinary men. Having only one Son he called him after his own name Thomas. The old man put his son to School, but he would learn nothing. God called the old man aside, his Mother being tender of her son, maintained him by her own labour as well as she could; but all his delight was in the chimney corner, and he eat as much at once as would serve five ordinary men. At ten years old he was six feet high and three in thickness, his hand was like a shoulder of mutton, and every other part proportionable; but his great strength was yet unknown. CHAP. 2. HOW TOM HICKATHRIFT'S GREAT STRENGTH CAME TO BE KNOWN. [Illustration] Tom's Mother being a poor widow, went to a rich farmer's house, to beg a bundle of straw, to shift herself and her son Thomas. The farmer being an honest charitable man, bid her take what she wanted. She, going home to her son Thomas said, Pray go to such a place and fetch me a bundle of straw; I have asked leave.--He swore he would not go--Nay, prythee go, said his poor old Mother.--Again he swore he would not go, unless she would borrow him a cart rope, she being willing to pleasure him, went and borrowed one. Then taking the Cart rope, away he went, and coming to the farmer's house, the master was in the barn, and two men threshing. Tom said, I am come for a burden of Straw. Tom, said the farmer, take as much as thou can'st carry. So he laid down his Cart rope, and began to make up his burden. Your rope, Tom, said they is too short, and jeered him. But he fitted the farmer well for his joke; for when he had made up his burthen, it was supposed it might be two thousand weight--But says they, what a fool art thou? for thou can'st not carry the tythe of it.--But however he took up his burthen, and made no more of it than we do an hundred pound weight, to the great admiration of master and men. Now Tom's strength beginning to be known in the town, they would not let him lie basking in the chimney corner, everyone hirting him to work, seeing he had so much strength, all telling him, it was a shame for him to lie idle as he did from day to day; so that Tom finding them bate at him as they did, went first to one work and then to another. At last a man came to him and desired him to go to the wood to help him to bring a tree home; so Tom went with him and four other men. And when they came to the wood, they set the cart by the tree, and began to draw it by pullies; but Tom seeing them not able to stir it, said aloud, stand aside fools--And set it on one end, and then put it in to the cart--There, said he, see what a man can do? Marry, said they, that's true. Having done, and come through the wood they met the woodman, and Tom asked him for a stick to make his mother a fire with. Aye, said the woodman, take one. [Illustration] So Tom took up a tree bigger than that on the cart, and put it on his shoulder, and walked home with it faster than the six horses in the cart drew the other. This was the second instance of Tom's shewing his strength; by which time he began to know that he had more natural strength than twenty common men; and from this time Tom began to grow very tractable; he would jump, run, and take delight in young company, and go to fairs and meetings, to see sports and diversions. [Illustration] One day going to the wake, where the young men were met, some went to wrestling, and some to cudgels, some to throwing the hammer and the like. Tom stood awhile to see the sport, and at last he joined the company throwing the hammer; at length he took the hammer in his hand, and felt the weight of it, bidding them stand out of the way, for he would try how far he could throw it--Aye, said the old smith, you will throw it a great way I warrant you-- [Illustration] Tom took the hammer, and giving it a swing, threw it into a river five or six furlongs distant, and bid them fetch it out. After this Tom joined the wrestlers; and though he had no more skill than an ass, yet by main strength he flung all he grappled with; if once he laid hold, they were gone; some he threw over his head, and others he laid down gently. He did not attempt to lock or strike at their heels, but threw them down two or three yards from him, and sometimes on their heads, ready to break their necks. So that at last none durst enter the ring to wrestle with him; for they took him to be some devil among them. CHAP. 3. TOM BECOMES A BREWER'S SERVANT; AND OF HIS KILLING A GIANT, AND GAINING THE TITLE OF MR. HICKATHRIFT. Tom's fame being spread, no one durst give him an angry word; for being fool hardy, he cared not what he did; so that those who knew him would not displease him. At last a brewer of Lynn, who wanted a lusty man to carry beer to the Marsh, and to Wisbeach, hearing of Tom, came to hire him; but Tom would not hire himself, until his friends persuaded him, and the master promised him a new suit of cloaths from top to toe, and besides that he should eat and drink of the best. At last Tom consented to be his man, and the master shewed him which way he was to go; for there was a monsterous Giant, who kept part of the Marsh, and none durst go that way; for if the Giant found them, he would either kill them, or make them his slaves. [Illustration] But to come to Tom and his master; Tom did more in one day than all the rest of his men did in three; so that his master seeing him so tractable, and careful in his business, made him his head man, and trusted him to carry beer by himself, for he needed none to help him; Thus Tom went each day to Wisbeach, which was a long Journey of twenty miles. Tom going this journey so often, and finding the other road, the Giant kept, nearer by the half, and Tom having encreased his strength by being so well kept, and improved his courage by drinking so much strong ale; one day as he was going to Wisbeach, without saying any thing to his master, or any of his fellow servants, he resolved to make the nearest road, or lose his life; to win the horse, or lose the saddle; to kill or be killed if he met the Giant. Thus resolved, he goes the nearest way with his cart, flinging open the gates in order to go through; but the Giant soon espied him, and seeing him a daring fellow, vowed to stop his journey, and make a prize of his beer; but Tom cared nothing for him; and the Giant met him like a roaring lion, as though he would have swallowed him. Sirrah, said he, who gave you authority to come this way? Do you not know that I make all stand in fear of my sight; and you, like an impudent rogue, must come and fling open my gates at pleasure. Are you so careless of your life that you care not what you do? I'll make you an example to all rogues under the sun. Dost thou not see how many heads hang on yonder tree, that have offended my laws? thine shall hang above them all. [Illustration] Who cares for you, said Tom, you shall not find me like one of them. No, said the Giant, why you are but a fool, if you come to fight me, and bring no weapon to defend yourself. Cries Tom I have got a weapon here shall make you know I am your Master. Aye, say you so, Sirrah, said the Giant, and then ran to his Cave to fetch his Club, intending to dash out his brains at one blow. While the Giant was gone for his club, Tom turned his cart upside down, taking the axle tree and wheel for his sword and buckler, and excellent weapons they was on such an emergence. The Giant coming out again began to stare at Tom to see him take the wheel in one hand and the axle tree in the other. Oh! Oh! said the Giant, you are like to do great things with these instruments. I have a twig here that will beat thee and thy axle tree, and thy wheel to the ground. Now that which the giant called a twig was as thick as a millpost; with this the giant made a blow at Tom with such force as made his wheel crack. Tom nothing daunted, gave him as brave a blow on the side of his head, which made him reel again. What, said Tom, are you got drunk with my small beer already? The Giant recovering, made many hard blows at Tom; but still, as they came, he kept them off with his wheel, so that he received but very little hurt. [Illustration] In the mean time Tom plied him so well with blows, that the sweat and blood ran together down the Giant's face; who being fat and foggy, was almost spent with fighting so long, begged Tom to let him drink, and then he would fight him again. No said Tom, my mother did not teach me such wit; who is fool then? whereupon finding the Giant grow weak, Tom redoubled his blows till he brought him to the ground. The Giant finding himself overcome, roared hediously, and begged Tom to spare his life, and he would perform anything he should desire, even yield himself unto him, and be his servant. But Tom having no more mercy on him than a bear upon a dog, laid on him till he found him breathless, and then Cut off his head, after which he went into the cave and there found great store of gold and silver, which made his heart leap for Joy. When he had rumaged the cave and refreshed himself a little, he restored the wheel and axletree to their former places, and loaded his beer on his cart, and went to Wisbeach, where he delivered his beer and returned home the same night as usual. Upon his return to his master, he told him what he had done, which though he was rejoiced to hear, he could not altogether believe, till he had seen it was true. Next morning Tom's master went with him to the place, to be convinced of the truth; as did most of the inhabitants of Lynn. When they came to the place they were rejoiced to find the giant dead: and when Tom shewed them the head, and what gold and silver there was in the Cave, all of them leaped for joy; for the giant had been a great enemy to that part of the Country. News was soon spread that Thomas Hickathrift had killed the giant, and happy was he that could come to see the giant's cave; and bonfires were made all round the country for Tom's success. Tom by the general consent of the country took possession of the giant's cave, and the riches. He pulled down the Cave and built himself a handsome house on the spot. Part of the Giant's lands he gave to the poor for their Common, and the rest he divided and enclosed for an estate, to maintain him and his mother. Now Tom's fame spread more and more thro' the country, and he was no longer called plain Tom but Mr. Hickathrift; and they feared his anger now, almost as much as they did that of the Giant before. Tom now finding himself very rich, resolved his neighbours should be the better for it; he enclosed himself a park and kept deer; and just by his house he built a church, which he dedicated to St. James, because on that Saint's day he killed the Giant. CHAP. 4. HOW TOM KEPT A PACK OF HOUNDS, AND OF HIS BEING ATTACKED BY FOUR HIGHWAYMEN. Tom not being used to have such a stock of riches could hardly tell how to dispose of it; but he used means to do it; for he kept a pack of hounds and men to hunt them; and who but Tom! he took such delight in sports and exercises, that he would go far and near to a merry meeting. [Illustration] One day as Tom was riding, he saw a company at Football, and dismounted to see them play for a wager; but he spoiled all their sport, for meeting the football he gave it such a kick that they never found it more; whereupon they began to quarrel with Tom, but some of them got little good by it; for he got a Spar, which belonged to an old house that had been blown down, with which he drove all opposition before him, and made way wherever he came. [Illustration] After this, going home late in the evening, he was met by four highwaymen well mounted, who had robbed all the passengers that travelled this road. When they saw Tom, and found he was alone, they were cock sure of his money, and bid him stand and deliver--What must I deliver, cries Tom?--Your money, sirrah, says they.--Aye, said Tom, but you shall give me better words for it first, and be better armed too.--Come, come, said they, we came not here to prate, but for your money, and Money we will have before we go. Is it so said Tom, then get it and take it. Whereupon one of them made at him with a trusty sword, which Tom immediately wrenched out of his hand, and attacked the whole four with it, and made them set spurs to their horses; but seeing one had a portmantua behind him, and supposing it contained money, he more closely pursued them, and cut their journey short, killing two of them, and sadly wounding the other two; who begging hard for their lives, he let them go; but took away all their money, which was above two hundred pounds, to bear his expenses home. When Tom came home, he told them how he had served the poor football players; and also related his engagement with the four thieves; which produced much laughter amongst the whole company. CHAP. 5. TOM MEETS WITH A TINKER AND OF THE BATTLE THEY FOUGHT. [Illustration] Some time afterwards as Tom was walking about his estate, to see how his workmen went on, he met upon the skirts of the forest a very sturdy Tinker, having a good staff on his shoulder, and a great dog to carry his budget of tools. So Tom asked the Tinker from whence he came and whither he was going? as that was no highway. And the Tinker being a very sturdy fellow, bid him go look, what was that to him? but fools must always be meddling--Hold said Tom, before you and I part I will make you know who I am.--Ay--said the Tinker, it is three Years since I had a combat with any man; I have challenged many a one, but none dare face me, so I think they are all cowards in this part of the country; but I hear there is a man hereabouts named Thomas Hickathrift, who killed a Giant; him I'd willingly see to have a bout with.--Aye, said Tom, I am the man, what have you to say to me? Truly said the Tinker, I am glad we are so happily met that we may have one touch--Surely, said Tom, you are but in jest--Marry said the Tinker, I am in earnest--A match, said Tom--It is done, said the Tinker.--But, said Tom, will you give me leave to let me get a twig--Aye, said the Tinker, I hate him that fights with a man unarmed. So Tom stepped to a gate, and took a rail for a staff. To it they fell, the Tinker at Tom, and Tom at the Tinker like two Giants. The Tinker had a leather coat on, so that every blow Tom gave him made him roar again; yet the Tinker did not give way an inch, till Tom gave him such a bang on the side of the head as felled him to the ground.--Now, Tinker, where art thou? said Tom.--But the Tinker being a nimble fellow leaped up again, and gave Tom a bang, which made him reel, and following his blow took Tom on the other side, which made him throw down his weapon, and yield the Tinker the best of it. After this Tom took the Tinker home to his house, where we shall leave them to improve their acquaintance, and get themselves cured of the bruises they gave each other. FINIS. TOM THUMB. This prose version is made from the ballad, the original of which was printed for John Wright in 1630; the second and third parts were written about 1700. Like most of its class, it seems to have had a northern origin. The German "Daumerling," or little Thumb, was, like Tom, swallowed by a cow; and there is a Danish book which treats of "Svend Tomling, a man no bigger than a thumb, who would be married to a woman three ells and three quarters long." But tradition has it that Tom died at Lincoln, which was one of the five Danish towns of England, and there was a little blue flagstone in the cathedral, said to be his tombstone, which got lost, or at least never replaced, during some repairs early in this century. The first mention of him is in Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft," 1584, where he is classed with "the puckle, hobgobblin, _Tom Tumbler_ boneles, and such other bugs," or bugbears. The Famous History of TOM THUMB _Wherein is declared_, =His Marvellous Acts of Manhood= FULL OF WONDER AND MERRIMENT PART THE FIRST. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, LONDON. "In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live A man of mickle might, Who was the best of the table round, And eke a worthy Knight. "In stature but an inch in height, Or quarter of a span, How think you that this valiant knight Was proved a valiant man. "His father was a ploughman plain, His mother milked the Cow, And yet the way to get a son This couple knew not how.-- "Until the time the good old man To learned Merlin goes, And there to him in deep distress, In secret manner shews, "How in his heart he'd wish to have A child in time to come, To be his heir, though it might be No bigger than his Thumb. "Of this old Merlin then foretold, How he his wish should have; And so a son of stature small This charmer to him gave." It is needless to say that this marvellous being was under special fairy protection. "Tom Thumb, the which the Fairy Queen Did give him to his name, Who with her train of goblins grim Unto the Christening came." Of his childhood nothing very particular is told until "Whereas about Christmas time, His mother a hog had kill'd, And Tom would see the pudding made, For fear it should be spoil'd. [Illustration] "He sat the candle for to light Upon the pudding bowl, Of which there is unto this day, A pretty Story told. "For Tom fell in and could not be For some time after found, For in the blood and batter he Was lost and almost drown'd." In cooking, the pudding behaved so curiously-- "As if the devil had been boil'd Such was the mother's fear," that she at once gave it to a passing tinker, who put it in his "budget;" but hearing Tom cry out, threw both bag and pudding away; and Tom, by some unexplained means having got out, returned home, where his mother, when she went milking, tied him to a thistle to keep him safe. Whilst she was busy milking, the cow eat the thistle, and Tom with it; but his mother missed him, and calling for him was answered by Tom from the cow's interior. Naturally unaccustomed to such internal commotion, the cow took the earliest opportunity of getting rid of Tom by natural means, and [Illustration] "Now all besmeared as he was His mother took him up And home to bear him hence, poor Lad, She in her apron put." [Illustration] [Illustration: [9]] But Tom from his size was a prey to accidents from which ordinary mortals were exempt, for we find-- "Now by a raven of great strength, Away poor Tom was borne, And carried in the Carrion's beak, Just like a grain of corn. "Unto a Giant's castle top Whereon he let him fall And soon the Giant swallowed up His body, cloaths and all." [Illustration] But Tom, like most small men, was rather self-assertive. "But in his belly did Tom Thumb So great a rumbling make That neither night nor day he could The smallest quiet take. "Until the Giant him had spew'd Full three miles in the sea; There a large fish took him up, And bore him hence away." [Illustration] The fish was sent to King Arthur; Tom was discovered, and taken into high favour at Court. "Among the deeds of courtship done, His Highness did command That he should dance a galliard brave Upon the Queen's left hand. [Illustration] "All which he did, and for the same Our king his signet gave, Which Tom about his middle wore Long time a girdle brave." The king used to take him out hunting, and Tom was made proficient in martial exercises--so much so that at one tourney we read: "And good Sir Lancelot du Lake Sir Tristram and Sir Guy, Yet none compar'd to brave Tom Thumb In acts of Cavalry." [Illustration] Nay, his prowess was such that he beat all comers, "Sir Khion and the rest;" even the invincible Lancelot had his horse clean run through. Indeed, it was through his exertions in this manner that he fell sick and finally died, and was buried with great pomp. His death is forcibly and graphically told. "He being both slender and tall, The cunning Doctors took A fine perspective glass thro' which They took a careful look, "Into his sickly body down, And therein saw that death Stood ready in his wasted guts To take away his breath." But to a being so wonderful, ordinary death was a mere nothing. "The Fairy Queen she lov'd him so As you shall understand, That once again she let him go Down to the Fairy Land. "The very time that he return'd Unto the Court again, It was, as we are well inform'd, In good King Arthur's reign. "When in the presence of the King, He many wonders wrought, Recited in the Second Part, Which now is to be bought "In Bow Church Yard, where is sold Diverting Histories many; And pleasant tales as e'er was told For purchase of One Penny." [Footnote 9: This illustration is from another edition.] * * * * * The Second Part commences with Tom's return to earth from Fairy Land, but his _début_ was neither agreeable nor romantic. The Fairy Queen had determined "To send him to the lower World, In triumph once again; So with a puff or blast him hurl'd Down with a mighty pain: With mighty force it happened, Did fall, as some report, Into a pan of firmity, In good King Arthur's[10] Court. The Cook that bore it then along Was struck with a surprise, For with the fall the firmity Flew up into his eyes." [Illustration] The cook let the dish fall, and Tom was extricated; but the Court, disappointed of dinner, looked very evilly on him. "Some said he was a fairy elf And did deserve to die." To escape this fate, Tom, unperceived, jumped down a miller's throat, but evidently behaved ungratefully in his asylum of safety: "Tom often pinched him by the tripes, And made the Miller roar, Alas! Alas! ten thousand stripes Could not have vexed him more." At length the Miller got rid of him, and Tom was turned into a river, and swallowed by a salmon. The same thing occurred to him as before. The fish was caught, sent to the king, and Tom found by his old enemy the cook, who had not forgiven the loss of the firmity. "He stared strait, and said, Alas! How comes this fellow here? Strange things I find have come to pass, He shall not now get clear. Because he vow'd to go thro' stitch, And him to Justice bring, He stuck a fork into his breech And bore him to the King." The king, however, was busy, and ordered Tom to be brought before him another time; so the cook kept him in custody in a mouse-trap. [Illustration] The king, on hearing Tom's story, pardoned him "for good King Arthur's sake," took him into favour, and allowed him to go hunting with him, mounted on a mouse. [Illustration] This, however, was the cause of his second death. "For coming near a Farmer's house, Close by a Forest side, A Cat jump'd out and caught the mouse Whereon Tom Thumb did ride. She took him up between her Jaws, And scower'd up a tree, And as she scratch'd him with her claws, He cry'd out, Woe is me! He laid his hand upon his sword, And ran her thro' and thro'; And he for fear of falling roar'd, Puss likewise cry'd out Mew. It was a sad and bloody fight Between the Cat and he; Puss valu'd not this worthy Knight, But scratch'd him bitterly." He was taken home; but his wounds were too bad, and he died, and was taken again to Fairy Land, and did not reappear on earth till Thunston's (?) reign. [Footnote 10: The chronology is somewhat involved. The king could not have been King Arthur, for Tom was not remembered by him, and at the end of the book it says-- "And to his memory they built A monument of gold Upon King Edgars dagger hilt Most glorious to behold." ] * * * * * The Third Part opens with the Fairy Queen again despatching Tom to earth, and also, as before, his advent is unpropitious. "Where he descended thro the Air, This poor unhappy man, By sad mishap as you shall hear Fell in a close stool pan." [Illustration] He was rescued, but narrowly escaped death, and was brought before King Thunston. "In shameful sort Tom Thumb appear'd Before his Majesty, But grown so weak could not be heard, Which caused his malady." [Illustration] He recovered and was taken into high favour by the king, who "For lodgings--Now the King resolv'd A palace should be fram'd The walls of this most stately place Were lovely to behold. For workmanship none can take place It look'd like beaten gold The height thereof was but a span, And doors but one inch wide. The inward parts were all Japan, Which was in him great pride." And not only was he lodged so magnificently, but the king did all in his power to make him happy. "All recreation thought could have Or life could e'er afford, All earthly Joys that he would crave, At his desire or word. * * * * * "Of smallest mice that could be found, For to draw his coach appears Such stately steeds his wish to crown Long tails with cropped ears." [Illustration] But the morals of this ungrateful little wretch had evidently grown lax during his stay in Fairy Land, and he forgot all his obligations to his benefactor. "For his desires were lustful grown Against her Majesty, Finding of her one day alone, Which proved his tragedy." The queen was naturally furious. "That nothing would her wrath appease To free her from all strife, Or set her mind at perfect ease, Until she had his life." [Illustration] Tom hid himself, and tried to escape on the back of a butterfly; but the insect flew into the palace, and Tom was captured. He was duly tried, and found guilty. [Illustration] "So the King his sentence declar'd, How hanged he should be, And that a gibbet should be rear'd, And none should set him free. After his sentence thus was past, Unto a prison he was led. For in a Mousetrap he was fast, He had no other bed. * * * * * "At last by chance the cat him spy'd, And for a mouse did take, She him attacked on each side, And did his prison break. The Cat perceiving her mistake, Away she fled with speed, Which made poor Tom to flight betake, Being thus from prison freed. Resolving there no more to dwell But break the Kings decree, Into a spider's web he fell, And could not hence get free. The spider watching for his prey Took Tom to be a fly, And seized him without delay, Regarding not his cry. The blood out of his body drains, He yielded up his breath; Thus he was freed from all his pains, By his unlook'd for death." Thus sadly ended the favourite of immortals and of kings; but, from the fact that we hear no more of his going to Fairy Land, it is probable that his immoral conduct could not be condoned by the "good people." =The Shoemaker's Glory= OR THE _PRINCELY HISTORY_ OF THE GENTLE CRAFT SHEWING What renowned Princes, Heroes, and Worthies have been of the Shoemakers Trade, both in this and in other Kingdoms. Likewise why it is called the _Gentle Craft_; and that they say a Shoemaker's son is a Prince born &c. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED AT THE PRINTING OFFICE IN PILGRIM STREET. THE SHOEMAKER'S GLORY. _Or, The Princely History of the_ GENTLE CRAFT SHEWING What renowned Princes, Heroes, and Worthies have been of the Shoemakers Trade, both in this and other Kingdoms. Likewise, Why it is called the Gentle Craft; and that they say, A Shoemakers Son is a Prince born. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE LONDON. This book is in reality two: one, the history of Sir Hugh, and the other, of Crispin and Crispianus. Sir Hugh seems to have been the son of Arviragus, King of Powisland in Britain, and Genevra, daughter of a king in North Wales. He went abroad for his education, and there distinguished himself by slaying monsters and giants, and by fighting against the Saracens--so much so, that he was knighted by the Roman Emperor, and promised one of his daughters as a wife; but this he would not have, although the princess loved him dearly. [Illustration] [Illustration] He returned home, and whilst visiting Donvallo, King of Flintshire, fell in love with his daughter Winnifred. Finding her one day reading in her bower in the garden, he declared his love, but was courteously, though firmly, declined by the princess. Grieved at this disappointment, Sir Hugh went again abroad, was shipwrecked, and finally returned to Harwich in a destitute condition. Here he fell in with some shoemakers, and tarried with them a whole year, learning their trade. In Chap-books one does not look for extreme historical accuracy, so we are not surprised that Diocletian came over to England, and sent Winnifred to prison for refusing to worship idols. Sir Hugh heard of this, and in order to join her, spoke loudly in favour of the Christian religion, and soon had his wish gratified. In prison, journeymen shoemakers brought him relief, and were so kind to him, that he styled them all gentlemen of the "gentle craft;" but the tale winds up informing us that "Sir Hugh and Winnifred remained a long time in prison, and were at last, for their steadfastness to the Christian religion, put to death by order of this cruel tyrant." Crispin and Crispianus seem to have lived in Britain in the reign of Maximinius, and were the sons of King Logrid. Maximinius sent for them in order to slay them, but their mother, Queen Esteda, disguised them, and caused them to flee. They wandered to Faversham, where, tired out, they knocked at the door of a shoemaker, who took them in, and finally apprenticed them to himself. Crispianus, however, could not "stick to his last," so he went to assist the King of France against the Persians; whilst Crispin, whose master was the Court shoemaker, being a handsome young man, used to be sent there with shoes, and the Princess Ursula fell violently in love with him, declared her passion for him, and they were privately married under an oak tree in the park. Crispianus, meanwhile, had been performing prodigies of valour, and at length returned to Maximinius with letters of commendation from the French king; whilst the Princess Ursula, whose confinement drew nigh, did not know how to screen herself. Love, however, is proverbially sharp-witted; so a false rumour of an enemy having landed being spread by means "_of firing a gun_," she escaped in the confusion, and took refuge in the shoemaker's house, where a son was born, whence the saying, "A shoemaker's son is a prince born." Maximinius received Crispianus with effusion, sent for his mother, acknowledged his birth, and would have given him his daughter in marriage could she have been found. At this juncture the young couple turned up, were forgiven, "and they lived very happy all their lives afterwards." [Illustration] The original of this book seems to have been written by Thomas Deloney; an edition of it was printed in 1598, and it was entered on the Stationers' Books on October 19, 1597, as "a booke called the gentle Crafte, intreatinge of Shoomakers." The Famous History of the Valiant LONDON PRENTICE [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. A youth named Aurelius was the son of wealthy parents in the county of Chester, and, being of singular beauty, caused a flutter in all the feminine hearts in his neighbourhood; one young lady, named Dorinda, even going so far as to write him a most unmaidenlike love letter, which, being dropped by accident, was found by one of the young lady's lovers, who, taking counsel with three others, set upon Aurelius as he was going through a wood. It is needless to say that he speedily overcame them; but his parents, fearing revenge, and wishing to remove him from the wiles of Dorinda, sent him to London, and bound him apprentice to a Turkey merchant on London Bridge. Here the young gentleman, after some time, must needs fall in love with his master's daughter; but, unlike the usual course of events in such cases, his passion was not reciprocated, so in dudgeon he applied for, and obtained, the merchant's leave for him to go to Turkey as his factor. He set out with a gallant equipage, and was well received by the English merchants in Turkey. Merchants at that time do not seem to have been of the same prosaic class as they are now; for, on the occasion of a tournament held in honour of a marriage, Aurelius must go fully armed, in order to take part in the joust. His blood boiled to see the knights of other nations overthrown by the Turkish champions; so he joined in the fray, soon disposed of the Turkish chivalry, and killed Grodam, the son-in-law of the Great Turk, who, in his rage, ordered "the English boy" to be sent to prison, and afterwards to be cast alive to two lions, who were kept fasting many days. "The day of his death, as appointed being come, and the King, his nobles, and all his ladies seated to behold the execution, the brave Aurelius was immediately brought forth in his shirt of Cambric, and the drawers of white Satin, embroidered with gold and a crimson cap on his head, but had scarce time to bow respectfully to the ladies, who greatly praised his manly beauty, and began highly to pity his misfortunes ere the lions were let loose, who at the sight of their prey, casting their eyes upon him, began to roar horridly, insomuch that the spectators trembled and beheld Aurelius whom death could not daunt, laying aside all fear, as they came fiercely to him, with open mouths, he thrust his hands into their throats and ere they had power to get from his strong Arms, he forced out their hearts, and laid them dead at his feet, demanding of the King what other dangerous enterprises they had to put on him, as he would gladly do it for the Queen and his country's sake; when immediately the Emperor descended from his throne, tenderly embracing him, swearing he was some Angel withal pardoning him, and gave him the beautiful Teoraza his daughter in marriage, with great riches, who for his sake became a Christian; and after spending some time in that place, they both returned to England with great joy, where they lived many years very loving and happy." THE LOVER'S QUARREL OR CUPID'S TRIUMPH _Being the Pleasant and Delightful_ HISTORY OF FAIR ROSAMOND WHO WAS BORN IN _SCOTLAND_. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS YEAR. [Illustration] This metrical romance is more commonly known by the name of "Tommy Potts," and somewhat extravagantly recounts the love between him and fair Rosamond, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, who, being wooed by Lord Ph[oe]nix, confessed her passion to him, to his natural and great disgust; but their marriage being settled by their friends, as a last resource she sent her little foot page to Tommy Potts, telling him of her dilemma, and begging him to meet her on Guildford Green. Tommy, whose position was only that of a servant at Strawberry Hall, sent back word by her messenger that he would be there, and went and asked his master for leave, which his master not only readily granted, but offered to enrich him so that their fortunes might be equalized; also, he wished to furnish him with an armed force--both of which offers Tommy declined. He met Rosamond and Lord Ph[oe]nix at Guildford Green, was taunted by the latter with his menial position, and challenged him to a course of spears, at a future day, on that very spot. His master behaved very kindly to him, and reiterated his offers, which were again refused, Potts only accepting the loan of an old white horse and a suit of armour. The combatants duly met, and Tom Potts was run through the thick of the thigh. He bound up his wound with his handkerchief, and continued the combat, this time running Lord Ph[oe]nix through the right arm. He doctored Lord Ph[oe]nix, and offered to resume the fight, which his lordship refused, and they agreed to refer their claims to the lady herself. She, of course, chose Tommy; but to prove her still more, Lord Ph[oe]nix pretended to fight with Tommy behind a wall, and reported to her that he had slain him. The lady declared she would spend all her fortune rather than Lord Ph[oe]nix should not be hanged, and then swooned. From this time everything prospered with the lovers. Lord Arundel joyfully gave his consent to their marriage, and made Tommy his heir. There is a Second Part, but it lacks the interest of the first. I cannot trace any connection between the Chap-book and the frontispiece; but it is evidently the proper thing, as it occurs in the same place in the black-letter edition of 1675, which is the earliest I can find. It is entitled, "The Lovers Quarrel, or _Cupid's Triumph_ being The Pleasant History of fair Rosamond of Scotland. Being Daughter to the Lord _Arundel_ whose Love was obtained by the Valour of _Tommy Pots_: who conquered the Lord _Phenix_, and wounded him, and after obtained her to be his wife. Being very delightful to read. London. Printed by A. P. for F. Coles, T. Vere and J. Wright." THE _HISTORY_ OF THE KING and the COBLER PART THE FIRST [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD AT THE LONDON AND MIDDLESEX PRINTING OFFICE 81. SHOE LANE HOLBORN. "It was the custom of King Henry 8 to walk late in the night into the City disguised, to observe how the constables and watch performed their duty; not only in guarding the City gates but also diligently watching the inner part of the city, that they might prevent those dangers and casualities that happens to great and populous Cities, in the night time--This he did oftentimes, without the least discovery who he was, returning home to Whitehall early in the morning.--Now on his return home through the Strand he took notice of a certain Cobler, who was always up at work whistling and singing every morning, so he resolved to see him, in order which he immediately knocks the heel off his shoe by hitting it against the Stones." [Illustration] [Illustration] The King gives the shoe to be mended, and tells the cobbler to bring it to him at the opposite inn when done. The cobbler obeys. The king gives him liquor, and they hobnob in the most familiar manner; the king telling him his name was Harry Tudor, that he belonged to the Court, and should be very glad to see the cobbler whenever he liked to call. In fact, they became so friendly, that the cobbler would insist on the king's going over to his cellar, and trying some wonderful brown ale and a Cheshire cheese; and there they kept it up until Joan, the cobbler's wife (who slept in the same apartment), awoke, and then the King retired. The cobbler sadly missed his boon companion, and at length, with his wife's permission, he started to pay him a visit, Joan having made him as spruce as possible. [Illustration] On his arrival at Whitehall, he asked for Harry Tudor, and by the King's express command, was immediately ushered into his presence. [Illustration] [Illustration: [11]] [Footnote 11: This illustration is from another edition.] This so bewildered the cobbler that he turned and fled; but being captured, and once more brought to the king, the latter, on hearing his tale, bids him go to the cellar and he will send Harry Tudor to him. The king disguises himself and joins the cobbler, and they have a jovial tune together, until their noise attracts some of the nobility, who enter, and then the cobbler discovers who his boon companion really is. [Illustration] Bluff King Hal, however, must needs reward his humble friend, so he gave him a pension of forty marks yearly, with the freedom of his cellar, and made him "one of the courtiers"--a position which he must have graced, judging by his deportment as depicted in the illustrations. [Illustration] [Illustration: [12]] [Footnote 12: This illustration is from another edition.] The earliest book on this subject I can find, is the "Cobler turned Courtier, being a Pleasant Humour between K. Henry 8th and a Cobler," 1680, quarto. The First Part of the FRYAR AND BOY. OR THE _Young PIPERS pleasant Pastime_ CONTAINING The witty Adventures betwixt the Fryar and Boy in relation to his Step Mother, whom he fairly fitted for her unmerciful cruelty. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS YEAR. THE FRIAR AND BOY OR THE _Young PIPER'S_ PLEASANT PASTIME CONTAINING His witty Pranks in Relation to his Step Mother, whom he fitted for her unkind Treatment. PART THE FIRST [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD LONDON The father of the "boy" Jack had married a second time, and Jack's stepmother behaved most harshly to him, and half starved him. "Nay, tho' his meat and drink was poor He had not half enough. Yet, if he seem'd to crave for more His ears she strait did cuff." [Illustration] His father, however, behaved kindly, and to get the lad away, proposed he should look after the cows all day, taking his provision with him. One day, an old man came to him and begged for food, on which Jack offered him his dinner, which the old man thankfully took and eat. [Illustration] Indeed, he was so grateful that he told Jack he would give him three things, whatever he liked to choose. Jack replied-- "The first thing I'd have thee bestow On me without dispute, Pray let it be a cunning bow, With which I birds may shoot. Well thou shalt have a bow, my son, I have it here in store, No archer ever yet had one Which shot so true before. Take notice well of what I say. Such virtues are in this That wink or look another way The mark you shall not miss." Jack also asked for a pipe, and the old man said-- "A pipe I have for thee my son, The like was never known, So full of mirth and mickle joy, That whensoe'er 'tis blown, All living creatures that shall hear The sweet and pleasant sound They shan't be able to forbear But dance and skip around." The third thing Jack chose was, that whenever his stepmother looked crossly at him, she should, against her will, behave in a rude and unseemly manner, which was also granted. [Illustration] The old man left him; and at evening Jack took the cattle home, and as he went, he tried his pipe with wonderful effect. "His Cows began to caper then, The Bulls and Oxen too, And so did five and twenty men Who came this sight to view, Along the road he piping went, The Bulls came dancing after, Which was a fit of merriment, That caus'd a deal of laughter. For why, a friar in his gown Bestrides the red cow's back, And so rides dancing thro' the town, After this young wag Jack." [Illustration] He found his father at home, and telling him how he had disposed of his dinner, the good man handed him a capon; at which his mother-in-law frowned, and, to her great disgust, her punishment was prompt, and she had to retire, Jack bantering her. She vowed vengeance, and "A Friar whom she thought a saint, Came there to lodge that night; To whom she made a sad complaint, How Jack had sham'd her quite. Said she, For sweet St. Francis sake, To-morrow in the field, Pray thrash him till his bones you break No shew of comfort yield." [Illustration] [Illustration: [13]] [Footnote 13: This illustration is from another edition.] The friar went the next morning to give Jack his thrashing, but Jack begged him not to be angry, and he would show him something; so he took his bow and shot a pheasant, which fell in a thorn bush. The friar ran to secure the bird, and when well in the bush, Jack played his pipe, with woeful effects as regards the friar, who in his involuntary dancing got literally torn to pieces, till he begged Jack-- "For Good St. Francis sake, Let me not dancing die." He naturally told his pitiful tale when he reached Jack's father's house, and the father asked him if it were true, and if so, to play the pipe and make them dance. The friar had already experienced the sensation, and "The Friar he did quake for fear And wrung his hands withal. He cry'd, and still his eyes did wipe, That work kills me almost; Yet if you needs must hear the pipe, Pray bind me to a post." This was done; the pipe struck up, and every one began their involuntary dance, to the delight of the father, and the great disgust of the stepmother and the friar, who "was almost dead, While others danced their fill Against the post he bang'd his head, For he could not stand still. His ragged flesh the rope did tear, And likewise from his crown, With many bangs and bruises there The blood did trickle down." [Illustration] The lad led them all into the street, where every one joined in the mad scene, until his father asked him to stop. Then the friar summoned him before the proctor, and the gravity of the court was disturbed by Jack's playing his pipe at the proctor's request. All had to dance, nor would Jack desist until he had a solemn promise that he should go free. Here the First Part ends, as also does the first printed version of the romance, which is entitled, "Here begynneth a mery Geste of the Frere and the Boye, emprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde." There is no date, and there is a copy in the public library, Cambridge. It has been reprinted both by Ritson and Hazlitt. Ritson says, "From the mention made in v. 429 of the city of 'Orlyance,' and the character of the 'Offycial,' it may be conjectured that this poem is of French extraction; and, indeed, it is not at all improbable that the original is extant in some collection of old Fabliaux." It is a most popular Chap-book, and went through many editions. A Second Part was afterwards added, but it is coarser in its humour. The Newcastle frontispiece is extremely quaint. _The Pleasant History of_ JACK HORNER CONTAINING His witty tricks and pleasant pranks, which he play'd from his youth to his riper years: Right pleasant and delightful for winter and summer recreations. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. This is somewhat similar to "The Friar and the Boy," but is even coarser. "Jack Horner was a pretty lad, Near London he did dwell, His father's heart he made full glad His mother lov'd him well; She often set him on her lap, To turn him dry beneath And fed him with sweet sugar'd pap, Because he had no teeth. While little Jack was sweet and young, If he by chance should cry, His mother pretty sonnets sung, With a Lulla ba by; With such a dainty, curious tone, As Jack sat on her knee, So that e'er he could go alone, He sung as well as she. A pretty boy, of curious wit, All people spoke his praise And in the corner he would sit In Christmas holy-days: When friends they did together meet, To pass away the time; Why, little Jack, he sure would eat His Christmas pye in rhime. And said, Jack Horner, in the corner, Eats good Christmas pye, And with his thumbs pulls out the plumbs, And said Good boy am I. These pretty verses which he made Upon his Christmas cheer, Did gain him love, as it is said, Of all both far and near." Jack Horner was a dwarf, and never exceeded thirteen inches in height. His first exploit was to frighten a tailor who stole some of his cloth, by putting on the head of a goat lately killed, and pretending to be the devil. He had a fight with a cook-maid who chastised him for making a sop in the dripping-pan, in which he got the best of it. An old hermit being desirous of a jug of beer, Jack brought it to him, and in return the hermit presented him with a coat in which he should be invisible, and a pair of enchanted pipes, both of which he tried on some fiddlers, making them dance sorely against their will. He had many adventures, but his last was with a giant who had seized and imprisoned a knight's daughter. Jack armed himself, and mounting on a badger, rode down the giant's throat, and with his pipes and sword created such a disturbance in his inside, that the giant died, and Jack delivered the lady, whom he afterwards married. THE MAD PRANKS OF TOM TRAM Son in Law to Mother Winter TO WHICH IS ADDED. _His Merry Jests, odd Conceits and Pleasant Tales, being very delightful to read._ [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. THE MAD PRANKS OF =Tom Tram= _Son in Law to Mother Winter_ TO WHICH IS ADDED. His Merry Jests, odd Conceits and pleasant Tales, very delightful to Read. THE FIRST PART. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, BOW LANE LONDON. "There was an old woman, named Mother Winter, who had a son in Law, whose name was Thomas, who though he was at man's estate, yet would do nothing but what he pleased, which grieved his mother to the heart. One day being at market, she heard a proclamation that those who would not work should be whipped; On this she ran home and told Tom of the proclamation that was issued out; replied Tom, I will not break the decree. Upon which the old woman left her son, and went to market. "She was no sooner gone, but Tom looked into a stone pot she used to keep her small beer in, and seeing the beer did not work, he with his cartwhip lays on the pot as hard as he could. The people seeing him, told his mother, who said, The knave will be hanged, and in that note went home--Tom seeing her coming, laid on as hard as he could drive, and broke the pots, which made the old woman say, O what hast thou done, thou villain? O dear mother said he, you told me it was proclaimed, that those who did not work must be whipped; and I have so often seen our pots work so hard that they foamed at the mouth; but these two lazy knaves will never work. So I have whipped them to death to shew their fellows to work, or never look me in the face again." [Illustration] Mother Winter once sent him to buy a pennyworth of soap, and bade him be sure, and bring her the change back safely; so he got two men with a hand barrow to carry the soap, and hired four men with "brown bills" to guard it, and gave them the elevenpence for their pains. But Tom was quite as much knave as fool, and, as the anecdotes relating to him are not very amusing, only those illustrating the Newcastle title-page will be made use of. [Illustration] Whilst staying at an inn, he saw some turkeys in the yard. He killed two of them by running pins into their heads, and then persuaded his hostess to throw them away, as there was a sickness among the birds. Of course he took them away with him, but, finding them heavy to carry, had recourse to stratagem to help himself. He saw a man leading his horse down the hill, and "Tom fell down, crying as if he had broke a leg and made great lamentation of his being five or six miles from any town, and was likely to perish. The man asked where he lived? Tom replied, With such a Knight. He, knowing the gentleman, set him on his horse. Tom then bid him give him his master's turkies, and then galloped away as fast as he could, crying out I shall be killed, I shall be killed--The man seeing he was gone without the turkies, knew not what to do, for he thought if he left the turkies behind the Knight might take it amiss. So carrying them on foot, lugging, fretting, and sweating to the next town, where he hired a horse to overtake Tom, but could not till he arrived at the Knight's house, where Tom stood ready, calling to him, Oh! now I see thou art an honest fellow; I had thought you had set me on a headstrong horse on purpose to deceive me of my two turkies. But he replied Pox on your turkies and you too; I hope you will pay me for the horse I got." The story of the house on fire in the top left hand of the title-page is thus told: "It happened one evening there came a number of Gypsies to town, whom Tom meeting, asked what they did there? they said, To tell people their fortunes, that they might avoid approaching danger. Where do you lie to night said Tom? We cannot tell, said they. If you can be content to lie in the straw, says Tom, I will show you where you may lie dry and warm. They thanked him, and said they would tell him his fortune for nothing. He thanked them, and conveyed them to a little thatched house filled with straw, and which had a ditch round it, close to the wall of the house, and there left them to take their rest, drawing up the bridge after him. In the dead of the night he got a long pole with a large whisp of straw, and set the house on fire. One of the Gypsies seeing the house in flames, calling to the rest, and thinking to cross the bridge, fell into the ditch, crying out for help; while by Tom's means great part of the town stood to see the Jest. As the Gypsies came out of the ditch, the people let them go to the fire to warm themselves; when Tom told them, That seeing they could not foretel their own fortunes he would, which was on the morrow morning they should be whipt for cheats, and in the afternoon charged for setting the house on fire. "The Gypsies hearing this having made haste to dry themselves, got out of the town before day break, and never came there afterwards." The right-hand upper portion of the engraving represents Tom cutting some shavings of wood from the gallows, to put in the ale of some persons who had played a practical joke upon him. There are three parts, but the other two are uninteresting both as to matter and illustrations. THE =Birth, Life, and Death= OF JOHN FRANKS _With the Pranks he played Though a meer Fool_ [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. LONDON. From the preface, and its general internal evidence, this Chap-book seems to be recollections of a real person, who was locally famous, and whose actions were traditionally handed down. Only a few of the sayings and deeds of this half-witted jester are worth repeating. THE PREFACE. "John Franks, the reputed son of John Ward, was born at Much Eaton in Essex, within three miles of Dunmow. He had no friends to take care of him, but his being such a fool was the cause of his well being; for every one was in love with the sport he made. "When he was grown to be of man's stature, there was a worthy Knight, who took him to keep, where he did many strange pranks. "He was a comely person, and had a good complexion, his hair was of a dark flaxen. He was of a middle stature, and good countenance. If his tongue had not betrayed his folly, he might have been taken for a wise man." "The Knight where Jack lived kept a poor taylor in his house, who lay with the fool. [Illustration] "One morning they wondered that the taylor nor Jack did not come down; one of the servants going up, found the door fast, and calling to them, Jack only answered them; so calling more assistance and breaking open the door, they found the taylor dead in his bed with his neck broke, and the fool set astride on a high beam, whence he could not come down without help. They asked Jack how it was? he said the Devil came upstairs, clink, clink, clink, and came to my bed side, and I cried, Good devil do not take me take the taylor; so the devil broke the taylor's neck, and set me upon the beam. Jack was strictly examined at Chelmsford Assizes, and several times after; but he always kept in one story, and never seemed concerned." [Illustration] "Jack was often upon the ramble; one day he went up to a yeoman's house, who loved to make sport with him. The servants being all busy and abroad, none but the fool and he was together. Mr. Sorrel, says Jack, shall we play at Blind Man's Buff? Ay, says he, with all my heart, Jack--You shall be blinded says Jack--That I will, Jack, says he. So pinning a napkin about his eyes and head; Now turn about, says Jack; but you see Mr. Sorrel, you see; No, Jack, said he I do not see. Jack shuffled about the kitchen, in order to catch him, still crying, you see, but when he found he did not see he ran to the chimney and whipt down some puddings, and put them into his pockets; this he did every time he came to that end of the room, till he had filled his pockets and breeches. The doors being open, away runs Jack, leaving the good man blindfolded, who wondering he did not hear the fool, cried out, Jack, Jack; but finding no answer, he pulled off the napkin, and seeing the fool gone, and that he had taken so many puddings with him, was so enraged that he sent his blood hounds after him; which when Jack perceived, he takes a pudding and flings it at them; the dogs smelling the pudding, Jack gained ground the time: and still as the dogs pursued, he threw a pudding at them; and this he did till he come to an house. This was spread abroad to the shame and vexation of the farmer. "Some time after Mr. Sorrel and some other tenants went to see the fool's master. Jack espying them, went and told his Lady that Mr. Sorrel was come. The lady being afraid the fool might offend him by speaking of the puddings, told Jack he should be whipped if he mentioned them. But when they were at dinner, Jack went and shaked Mr. Sorel by the hand, saying, How is it Mr. Sorel then, seeming to whisper, but speaking so loud that all the Company heard him, said, Not a word of the puddings, Mr. Sorel.--At this they all burst into a laughter, but the honest man was so ashamed, that he never came there again. Ever since it is a bye-word to say, Not a word of the puddings." [Illustration] "A Justice of the Peace being at his Lord's table one day, who delighted to jest with every one, and Jack being in the room to make them some sport, and having then a new calfskin suit on, red and white spotted, and a young puppy in his arms, much of the same colour; he said to the justice, as he jogged him, Is not this puppy like me? The justice said It is very much like thee; now there are two puppies Jack, ha! ha! ha!--Jack after going downstairs to dinner, returned again and striking the Justice on the back with his fist the Justice seemed angry. How is it Justice, said Jack, are you angry, let us shake hands and be friends. The Justice gave him his hand, and the fool cried out laughing, Now here are two fools, Justice, two fools, two fools. At this they all laughed heartily, to see this great wit affronted by a fool; especially a gentleman whom the Justice had but a few minutes before abused by his jesting; for he was of that temper that he would jest but never take one. It is not safe to play with edged tools Nor is it good to Jest too much with fools." SIMPLE SIMON'S MISFORTUNES AND HIS =Wife Margery's Cruelty= WHICH BEGAN _The very next Morning after their Marriage_ [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD LONDON Simple Simon married a shrew named Margery, who brought him a "considerable fortune; forty shillings in money, and a good milch cow, four fat weathers, with half a dozen ewes and lambs, likewise geese, hens, and turkies; also a sow and pigs, with other moveables." She began scolding him the day after marriage, and the poor fellow found out he had a hard bargain. "Ud swaggers, I think I have a woeful one now." He went out, and meeting with one Jobson, an old friend, proceeded to an alehouse with him; but his wife, coming there with her gossips, "snatched up Jobsons oaken staff from off the table, and gave poor Simon such a clank upon the noddle, as made the blood spin," and afterwards treated Jobson to a sound thrashing, and then she and her gossips got "as drunk as fishwomen." [Illustration] [Illustration] Simon sneaked away, but when he got home he found his wife before him, and "not forgetting the fault he had committed, she invented a new kind of punishment; for having a wide chimney, wherein they used to dry bacon, she, taking him at a disadvantage, tied him hand and foot, bound him in a basket, and by the help of a rope drew him up to the beam of the chimney, and left him there to take his lodging the second night after his wedding; with a small smoaky fire under him; so that in the morning he was reezed like a red herring. But at length he caused his wife to shew him so much pity as to let him down." He was undoubtedly a great fool, for, his wife having sent him to the mill with a sack of corn, he was induced by a stranger to lay it on the back of his spare horse, and of course the man made off with it. [Illustration] [Illustration] Simon had to take a basket of eggs to market, but finding that "two butter women had fallen out, and to that degree, that they had taken one another by the quoif, their hair and their fillets flying about their ears," he essayed to part them, but got pushed down, and his eggs were all broken. The constable, coming up, thought they were drunk, and clapped them in the stocks, where, being between the combatants, he had to endure their scolding. On his release he went home, only to endure his customary beating. So he lay all night in the hog-stye, and on the morrow, "in the presence of some of his dearest friends he begged pardon on his knees, of his sweet wife Margery." [Illustration] [Illustration] One day his wife went to a "gossiping," leaving Simon at home to fill and boil the kettle. He made the fire and hung the kettle over it, then started to fill his pail at the well. He put down his pail in order to stop a runaway ox, which led him a chase of three or four miles. On his return he found his pail stolen, and, when he reached home, the bottom was burnt out of the kettle. When his wife came back, it is needless to say that "she let fly an earthen pot at his head, which made the blood run about his ears. This done she took him by the collar and cuft him about the kitchen at a most horrid rate." No doubt he was very vexing, as he could not be trusted with the most ordinary concerns of life. He had to get some soap, but, whilst passing over a bridge, he was frightened by some crows, and dropped the money into the water. Knowing what the consequences would be, he stripped and went into the water to search after it, but a larcenous old ragman came by and stole his clothes. He had to go home naked, where his wife administered his usual correction--"taking the dog whip, she jerked poor Simon about, making him dance the Canaries for two hours." [Illustration] Many more mishaps and punishments happened to the poor wretch, until at last even he could stand it no longer; so he attempted to poison himself, but, by mistake, drank his wife's bottle of sack (_vide_ frontispiece), and consequently got drunk. He was duly cudgelled; but, either this determination of his, frightened his wife, or she saw the folly of going on in the way they were doing, for the tale winds up with, "For now he leads a happy life." THE _HISTORY_ OF TOM LONG the Carrier [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE Although the address "To the Reader" says-- "Of all the Toms that ever yet was nam'd, Was ever Tom like TOM LONG fam'd, Tom Tram, who mad pranks shews, Unto Tom Long, will prove a Goose. Tom Thumb is dumb until the pudding creep, In which he was entomb'd, then out doth peep. The fool may go to school, but ne'er be taught, Such rare conceits with which Tom Long is fraught. Tom Ass but for his ugly ears, might pass, Since no such jewels as our Tom he wears. Tom Tell Truth is but froth, the truth to tell, From all the Toms, TOM LONG doth bear the bell," yet the Chap-book is very dreary fun, not even being enlivened by any good illustrations--those supplied belonging to other books--but it is valuable for its frontispiece, which represents a Chapman of Elizabethan or Jacobean time, a veritable Autolycus. The other edition in the British Museum, "Printed and Sold at Sympson's Warehouse in Stone Cutter Street, Fleet Market," has a bad copy of this engraving. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN OR THE _FOLLY OF MAN_ EXEMPLIFIED IN TWELVE COMICAL RELATIONS UPON UNCOMMON SUBJECTS _Illustrated with Twelve curious Cuts Truly adapted to each Story_ [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON [Illustration] "Philosophers of old will tell us, As Tycho, and such merry fellows, That round this habitable ball The beamy sun did yearly fall; No wonder then the world is found By change of place Turn'd Upside Down; If revolutions strange appear Within the compass of the sphere; If men and things succession know, And no dependance reigns below; Since tis allow'd the world we dwell in, Is always round the sun a sailing; Experience to our knowledge brings; That times may change as well as things, And art than nature wiser grown, Turns every object upside down, Whim's epidemic takes her rise, And constancy's become a vice. He that to do is fortunate, The darling minions of his fate! To morrow feels his fate's displeasure, Spoil'd his hoarded idol treasure! And like this man, his emblem shows, A sudden revolution knows. His fortune grows profoundly scurvy Turns the poor earthworms topsy turvy, Becomes the tennis ball of fools, Things quite form'd out of nature's rules. Such as you see Atlas bear Upon their backs this mighty sphere. The young, the old, the middle aged, Are all in this great task engaged; And strive with wondrous eagerness Which all the greatest part possess. Since folly then has got the ascendant, He's most a fool that han't a hand in't; And as the mad brain'd world runs round Still keeps towards the rising ground." This is quite enough for a specimen of the style of this poem, and, luckily, the illustrations explain themselves. [Illustration: THE OX TURNED FARMER.] [Illustration: THE OLD SOLDIER TURNED NURSE.] [Illustration: THE REWARD OF ROGUERY, OR THE ROASTED COOK.] [Illustration: THE DUEL OF THE PALFRIES.] [Illustration: THE MAD SQUIRE AND HIS FATAL HUNTING.] [Illustration: THE OX TURNED BUTCHER.] [Illustration: GALLANTRY--A LA MODE--OR THE LOVERS CATCHED BY THE BIRD.] [Illustration: THE HONEST ASS AND MILLER.] [Illustration: THE HORSE TURNED GROOM.] [Illustration: THE WATER WONDER, OR FISHES LORDS OF THE CREATION.] [Illustration: SUN, MOON, STARS AND EARTH TRANSPOSED.] A Strange and Wonderful RELATION OF THE OLD WOMAN WHO WAS DROWNED AT _RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY_ A Fortnight ago. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE OLD WOMAN'S DREAM, A little after her Death. PART THE FIRST. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON. This book is somewhat of a curiosity; it is the only one of its kind in the whole series of Chap-books, and has been several times reprinted in the country. It is illustrated, in every edition, with engravings which have no connection with the text, which, however, would be an impossible task, as the following page or so of the commencement will show. The frontispiece has nothing whatever to do with the book, but it is curious and valuable, as giving a representation of the ducking-stool. There are two parts, but they both consist of such rodomontade as the following:-- "It was the last Monday Morning about four o'clock in the afternoon before sun rising, going over Highgate Hill I asked him if the Old Woman was dead that was drowned at Ratcliffe Highway a few nights ago. He told me he could not tell, but if I went a little farther I should meet with two young men on horseback, riding under a mare, in a blue red jerkin and a pair of white freestone breeches, and they would give intelligence. So when I came up with the women they thought I was a Hector that was come to rob them and therefore ran to me, but I most furiously pursued before them, so that one of them for meer madness, seeing him dead, drew out his sword and directly killed him. The horse for vexation seeing himself dead ran away as fast as he could, leaving them to go on foot upon another horse's back forty miles--Friend, said I, I mean you no good, but pray inform me if the Old woman be dead yet that was drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago? and they told me they could not tell; but if I went a little farther I should meet with two women driving an empty cartful of apples, and a Mill Stone in the midst, and they would give me particular intelligence--But when I came up with them they would not satisfy me neither; but told me if I went down to the waterside, there lived one Sir John Vang, and he would give me true intelligence. So going by the waterside, I hooped and hallowed, but I could make nobody see. At last I heard Six Country Lads and Lasses, who were all fast asleep playing at nine pins under a hay cock, piled up of pease straw in the midst of the Thames, and eating of a roasted bran pudding freezing hot," etc., etc. THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM. Wright, in his "Early Mysteries," 1838, published some poems, by an anonymous writer, which he assigned to the thirteenth century, called "Descriptus Norfolciensum," by which it would appear that these tales had their origin in Norfolk; and the "Folcs of Gotham" are mentioned as early as the fifteenth century in the Townley "Mysteries." But be that as it may, "The Merie Tales" are undoubtedly the work of Andrew Borde, or Boorde, who lived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was born at Holmesdale in Sussex, was educated at Oxford, and afterwards became a Carthusian monk. At the persecution, _temp._ Henry VIII., he escaped abroad, and travelled over many parts of Europe and some portion of Africa. He settled at Montpellier, became a physician, and practised as such on his return to England. For some reason, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he died, April, 1549. There are two black-letter editions without dates, and there is one in the Bodleian library, with a woodcut of the hedging in the cuckoo, "The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham. Gathered together by A.B. of Physick Doctor," 1630; but Ant. à Wood, in his "Ath. Oxon." (Bliss, edition), says it was printed in the reign of Henry VIII. Gotham is a village about six miles from Nottingham, and the name of the "Cuckoo bush" is still given to a place near the village. THE =Merry Tales= OF THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE LONDON. TALE 1. There was two Men of Gotham, and one of them was for going to Nottingham market to buy sheep; and the other came from the Market, and both met on Nottingham Bridge.--Well met, said one to the other, Whither are you going, said he that came from Nottingham; Marry, said he that was going thither, I am going to the market to buy sheep--To buy sheep! said the other, which way will you bring them home? Marry, said the other, I will bring them over this bridge--By Robin Hood, said he that came from Nottingham, but thou shalt not--By Maid Margery, said the other, but I will--You shall not, said the one. I will, said the other. Then they beat their staves one against the other, and then against the ground, as if a hundred sheep had been between them. Hold then there said the one. Beware of my sheep leaping over the bridge, said the other--I care not said the one--They shall all come this way, said the other--But they shall not, said the one--Then said the other, if thou make much ado, I will put my finger in thy mouth. The Devil thou wilt said the one. And as they were in contention, another Wise Man that belonged to Gotham, came from the market with a sack of meal on his horse; and seeing his neighbours at strife about sheep, and none betwixt them, said he, Ah! fools, will you never learn wit! help me to lay this sack upon my shoulder; and they did so, and he went to the side of the bridge, and shook out the meal into the river, saying, How much meal is there in the sack, neighbours? Marry, said they, none.--By my faith, replies this Wise Man, even so much wit is there in your two heads to strive for that which you have not. Now which was the Wisest of these three, I leave you to judge. TALE 2. There was a man of Gotham that rode to the market with two bushels of wheat, and because his horse should not be damaged by carrying too great a burden, he was determined to carry the corn himself on his own neck and still kept riding upon the horse until the end of his journey.--Now I will leave you to judge which is the wisest, his horse or himself. TALE 3. On a time the Men of Gotham fain would have pinned in the Cuckow, that she might sing all the year; all in the midst of the town they had a hedge made round in Compass, and got a cuckow, and put her into it, and said, Sing here, and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year--The Cuckow when she perceived herself encompassed within the hedge, flew away. A vengeance on her, said these Wise Men, we made not the hedge high enough. TALE 4. There was a Man of Gotham who went to Nottingham market to sell Cheese, and going down the hill to Nottingham bridge one of the cheeses fell out of his wallet, and ran down the hill. Whoreson, said the fellow, what can you run to the market alone?--I'll now send one after another; then laying down his wallet, taking out the cheeses, he tumbled them down the hill, one after another; some ran into one bush, and some into another; however he charged them to meet him in the market place--The man went to the market to meet with the cheeses, and staid till the market was almost over, then went and enquired of his neighbours, if they saw the cheeses come to market? Why, who should bring them? said one--Marry themselves, said the fellow, they knew the way very well--A vengeance on them, they run so fast I was afraid they would run beyond the market; I suppose by this time they are got as far as York:--so he immediately rode to York, but was very much disappointed; and to this day no man has ever heard of his cheeses. TALE 5. A Man of Gotham, bought at Nottingham market a trivet or bar iron, and going home with it, his shoulder grew weary of the carriage; he set it down, and seeing it had three feet, said Whoreson, thou hast three feet, and I but two, thou shalt bear me home, if thou wilt--so set himself down on it saying Bare me along as I have bore thee, For if thou dost not thou shalt stand still for me. The Man of Gotham seeing that his trevit would not move, Stand still, said he, in the Mayor's name, and follow me if thou wilt; and I can shew thee the way.--When he went home, his wife asked him where the trivet was? he told her it had three legs, and he but two, and he had taught him the ready way to his house; and therefore he might come home himself if he would. Where did you leave the trevit? said the woman. At Gotham bridge, said he. So she immediately went and fetched the trevit, otherwise she must have lost it, on account of her husband's want of wit. TALE 6. A certain Smith of Gotham had a large wasp's nest in the straw at the end of his forge, and there coming one of his neighbours to have his horse shod, and the wasps being exceeding busy, the man was stung by one of them; and being grievously affronted, he said, Are you worthy to keep a forge or no, to have men stung with these wasps?--O neighbour, said the smith, be content, and I shall put them from their nest presently. Immediately he took a Coulter, and heated it red hot and thrust it into the straw, at the end of the forge, and set it on fire and burnt it up.--Then said the smith, I told thee I'd fire them out of their nest. TALE 7. One Good Friday the Men of Gotham consulted together what to do with their white herrings, red herrings, sprats, and salt fish, and agreed that all such fish should be cast into the pond or pool in the middle of the town, that the number of them might encrease against the next year. Therefore every one that had any fish left did cast them immediately into the pond--Then said one, I have as yet gotten left so many red herrings, Well, said another, and I have left so many whitings--Another immediately cried out, I have as yet gotten so many sprats left;--And, said the last, I have as yet gotten so many salt fishes, let them go together in the great pond without distinction, and we may be sure to fare like Lords the next year--At the beginning of the next Lent they immediately went about drawing the pond, imagining they should have the fish; but were much surprised to find nothing but a great eel. Ah! said they, a mischief on this eel, for he hath eaten up our fish. What must we do with him, said one to the other. Kill him, said one. Chop him in pieces, said another. Nay, not so, said the other, let us drown him.--Be it accordingly so, replied them all.--So they immediately went to another pond, and cast the eel into the water. Lie there, said these wise men, and shift for thyself, since you may not expect any help of us--So they left the eel to be drowned. TALE 8. On a time the men of Gotham had forgotten to pay their rent to their landlords, so one of them said to the other, To morrow must be pay day, by whom can we send our money that is due to our landlord? upon which one of them said, I have this day taken a hare, and he may carry it, for he is very quick footed. Be it so, replied the rest, he shall have a letter and a purse to put our money in, and we can direct her the right way. When the letter was written, and the money put in a purse, they immediately tied them about the hare's neck saying, You must go to Loughboro' and then to Leicester, and at Newark is our landlord; then commend us unto him, and there is his due. The hare, as soon as she got out of their hands ran quite a contrary way--Some said, Thou must go to Loughborough--Others said, let the hare alone for she can tell a nearer way than the best of us--let her go. TALE 9. A Man of Gotham that went mowing in the meads, found a large grasshopper; he immediately threw down his scyth, and ran home to his neighbours, and said that the devil was there in the field, and was hopping amongst the grass. Then was every man ready with their clubs and staves, with halberts and other weapons to kill the grasshopper. When they came almost to the place where the grasshopper was, said one to the other, Let every man cross himself from the Devil, for we will not meddle with him--So they returned again and said--We were blest this day that we went no farther--O ye cowards! said he that left his scyth in the mead, help me to fetch my scyth. No, answered they, it is good to sleep in a whole skin; it is much better for thee to lose thy scyth than to marr us all. TALE 10. On a certain time there were twelve men of Gotham, that went to fish, and some stood on dry land. And in going home, one said to the other, We have ventured wonderfully in wading, I pray God that none of us come home to be drowned--Nay, Marry, said one to the other, let us see that, for there did twelve of us come out--Then they told themselves, and every one told eleven. Said the one to the other, There is one of us drowned. They went back to the brook where they had been fishing and sought up and down for him that was drowned, making great lamentation. A Courtier coming by, asked what it was they sought for, and why they were sorrowful? Oh! said they, this day we went to fish in the brook; twelve of us came out together, and one is drowned--Said the Courtier, tell how many there be of you. One of them said eleven, and he did not tell himself. Well, said the Courtier, what will you give me and I will find the twelfth man. Sir, said they, all the money we have got. Give me the money, said the Courtier, and began with the first, and gave him a stroke over the shoulders with his whip, which made him groan, saying Here is one; and so he served them all, and they all groaned at the matter. When he came to the last, he paid him well, saying Here is the twelfth man.--God's blessings on thy heart, said they, for thus finding our dear brother. TALE 11. A Man of Gotham riding along the highway, saw a cheese, so drew his sword and pricked it with the point in order to take it up. Another man came by, and alighted, and picked it up, and rode away with it. The man of Gotham rides back to Nottingham to buy a long sword to pick up the cheese, and returning to the place where the cheese did lie, he pulled out his sword, and pricking the ground, he said, if I had this sword at the first, I should have gotten the cheese myself, but now another has got it from me. TALE 12. A Man of Gotham who did not love his wife, she having fair hair, her husband said divers times, He would cut it off, but durst not do it when she was awake; so resolved to do it when she was asleep: therefore one night he took up a pair of sheers and put them under his pillow, which his wife perceiving, said to one of her maids, Go to bed to my husband, for he thinks to cut off my hair to-night; let him cut off thy hair, and I will give thee as good a kirtle as ever thou didst see. The maid did so, and feigned herself asleep; which the man perceiving, cut off the maids hair and wrapped it about the sheers, and laid them under his pillow and went to sleep; then the maid arose and the wife took the hair and sheers and went into the hall, and there burnt the hair. The man had a fine horse that he loved much; and the good wife went into the stable, cut off the tail of the horse, wrapping the sheers up in it, and then laid them under the pillow again. Her husband seeing her combing her head in the morning, he marvelled very much thereat--The girl seeing her master in a deep study, said, What the Devil ails the horse in the stable, he bleeds so prodigiously? The man ran into the stable, and found the horse's tail was cut off; then going to his bed, he found the sheers wrapped up in his horse's tail. He then went to his wife, saying, I cry thee mercy, for I intended to have cut off my horses tail. Yea, said she, self do, self have--Many men think to do a bad turn but it turneth oftimes to himself. Tale 13 is rather too broad in its humour to be reproduced. TALE 14. A Man of Gotham took a young buzzard, and invited four or five gentlemen's servants to the eating of it; but the old wife killed an old goose and she and two of her gossips eat up the buzzard, and the old goose was laid to the fire for the gentlemen's servants. So when they came and the goose was set before them, What is this? said one of them. A fine buzzard, said the man. A buzzard! said they, why it is an old goose, and thou art a knave to mock us; and in anger departed home. The fellow was very sorry that he had affronted them, and took a bag, and put in the buzzard's feathers; but his wife desired him before he went to fetch her a block of wood, and in the intrim, she pulled out the buzzard's feathers, and put in the gooses. Then the man taking the bag went to the gentlemen's servants, and said, Pray be not angry with me; you shall see I had a buzzard, for here be the feathers. Then he opened the bag and shook out the goose's feathers. They said, Why thou knave, could you not be content to mock us at home but art come here to mock us? The one took a cudgel and gave him a dozen stripes, saying, Heretofore mock us no more. Tale 15 is too silly, and not worth reproducing. TALE 16. A young man of Gotham went a wooing to a fair maid; his mother warned him before hand, saying, whenever you look at her, cast a sheep's eye at her and say, How dost thou do, my sweet pigsnie![14] The fellow went to the butchers shop and bought seven or eight sheeps eyes; and then when this lusty wooer was at dinner, he would look upon his fair wench, and cast in her face a sheep's eye, saying how do you do, my sweet pigsnie?--How do you do, swine's face? said the wench; what do you mean by casting a sheep's eye at me?--O sweet pigsnie, have at thee another.--But I defy thee, swine's flesh, said the wench.--What, my sweet old pigsnie be content, for if you live till next year, you will be a foul sow.--Walk knave, walk, said she, for if you live till next year, you will be a fool. [Footnote 14: A term of endearment, generally used towards a young girl: "And here you may see I have Even such another, Squeaking, gibbering, of everie degree. The player fooles dear darling _pigsnie_ He calls himselfe his brother, Come of the verie same familie." TARLTON'S _Horse Loade of Fooles_. Chaucer, in "The Milleres Tale," says-- "Hire shoon were laced on her legges hie; She was a primerole (primrose), a piggesnie." ] TALE 17. There was a man of Gotham who would be married, and when the day of marriage was come, they went to church. The priest said, Do you say after me. The priest said say not after me such words but say what I shall tell you--Thou dost play the fool to mock with the Holy Bible concerning Matrimony. Then the fellow said, Thou dost play the fool to mock with the Holy Bible concerning Matrimony. The priest could not tell what to say, but answered, what shall I do with this fool? And the man said, What shall I do with this fool.--So the priest departed, and would not marry him--But he was instructed by others how to do and was afterwards married--And thus the breed of Gothamites has been perpetuated even unto this day. TALE 18. There was a Scotchman who dwelt at Gotham, and he took a house, a little distance from London, and turned it into an inn, and for a sign he would have a Boars head; accordingly he went to a Carver, and said, Make me a Bare heed. Yes, said the Carver. Then says he, Make me a bare heed and thous have twenty pence for thy hire. I will do it, said the Carver.--So on St. Andrew's day, before Christmas the which is called Youl in Scotland, the Scot came to London for his Boar's head to set up at his door. I say, to speak, said the Scotchman, hast thou made me a bare's heed. Yes, said the Carver. Aye then thous a good fellow. He went and brought a man's head that was bare, and said here is your bare head! Aye, said the Scot, the mickle devil! is this a bare heed? Yes, said the carver. I say, said the Scotchman, I will have a bare heed, like a heed that follows the sow that has gryces. Sir, said the Carver, I don't know a sow and gryces. What! whoreson, know you not a sow that will greet and groan, and her gryces will run after and cry Aweek, aweek. O, said the Carver it is a pig--Yes said the Scotchman, let me have her heed made in timber, and set on her scalp, and let her sing, whip, whire. The Carver said he could not.--You whoreson, said he, gang as she'd sing Whip, whire.--This shews that all men delight in their fancy. TALE 19. In old times, during these tales, the wives of Gotham got into an alehouse, and said, They were all profitable to their husbands; which way, good gossips? said the alewife.--The first said, I tell you all, good gossips, I can brew or bake, so I am every day alike; and if I go to the alehouse, I pray to God to speed my husband, and I am sure my prayers will do him more good than my labour. Then said the second, I am profitable to my husband in saving candle in the winter; for I cause my husband and all my people to go to bed by daylight, and rise by the same.--The third said, I am profitable in sparing bread, for I drink a gallon of ale, care not how much meat and drink at home, so I go to the tavern at Nottingham and drink wine and such other things, as God sends me.--The fourth said, A man will for ever have more company in another's house than his own, and most commonly in an alehouse. The fifth said, My husband has flax and wool to spare, if I go to other folks houses to do their work.--The sixth said, I spare both my husbands wood and coals, and talk all the day at other folks fire. The seventh said, beef, mutton and pork are dear, wherefore I take pigs, hens, chickens, conies which be of a lower price.--The eighth said I spair my husband's lie and soap, for whereas I should wash once a week, I wash but once a quarter; then said the alewife, and I keep all my husband's ale that I brew from sowering, for, as I used to drink it most up, now I never leave a drop. TALE 20. One Ash Wednesday the Minister of Gotham would have a Collection of his parishioners, and said unto them, My friends the time is come that you must use prayer, fasting and alms; but come ye to shrift, I will tell you more of my mind; but as for prayer, I don't think that two men in the parish can say half the Pater Noster. As for fasting, ye fast still, for ye have not a meal's victuals in a year. As for alms deed, what should they do to give that have nothing to take? But as one came to shrift and confessed himself to have been drunk divers times in the year, but especially in Lent: the priest said In Lent you should most refrain from drunkenness and refrain from drink--No, not so, said the fellow, for it is an old proverb that fish would swim. Yes, said the priest--it must swim in the water; I say you mercy, quoth the fellow, I thought it should have swum in fine ale, for I have been so.--Soon after the man of Gotham came to shrift, and even the priest knew not what penance to give; he said, If I enjoin prayer, you cannot say your Pater Noster. And it is but a folly to make you fast, because you never eat a meals meat. Labour hard and get a dinner on Sunday, and I will come and partake of it--Another man he enjoined to fare well on Monday, and another on Tuesday, and one after another, that one or the other would fare well once in a week, that he might have part of their meat. And as for alms deeds the priest said, ye be beggars all except one or two so therefore bestow your alms among yourselves. FINIS. JOE MILLER'S _JESTS_ BEING A COLLECTION OF The most Brilliant JESTS and most pleasant short Stories in the English Language-- _The greater Part of which are taken from the Mouth of that facetious Gentleman whose Name they bear_. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON JOE MILLER Was a comedian, born 1684, died August 15, 1738; but, although he might have originated the jests, he did not collect them, which was done by John Mottley, a dramatist, in 1739. Miller was buried in St. Clement's burial-ground, in Portugal Street, Clare Market--now destroyed--and his tombstone was to be seen in 1852. Part of his epitaph was-- "HERE LYE THE REMAINS OF HONEST JO. MILLER WHO WAS A TENDER HUSBAND A SINCERE FRIEND A FACETIOUS COMPANION AND AN EXCELLENT COMEDIAN," etc. Hogarth is said to have engraved a ticket for his benefit on April 25, 1717, when he played Sir Joseph Wittol in Congreve's "Old Batchelor." All jokes marked with an asterisk are in the first edition, but the book has been somewhat expurgated. "Joe Miller going with a friend one day along Fleet Street, and seeing old Cross the Player, who was very deaf, and unwilling that any one should know it, on the other side of the way, told his friend he should see some Sport; so beckoning Cross with his finger, and stretching open his mouth as wide as ever he could, as if he halloed to him, though he said nothing; the old fellow came puffing from the other side of the way. What a pox do you make such a noise for, do you think one can't hear? * "Joe Miller another day sitting in the window at the Sun tavern in Clare Street, while a fish woman was passing by, crying, Buy my soul--buy my maids! Ah! you wicked creature, said Joe, are you not content to sell your own soul, but you must sell your maid's also. "A person of quality coming into a church where several of his ancestors lay buried, after he had praised them very much for worthy men, Well, said he, I am resolved, if I live, to be buried as near them as possible. "One man told another who used not to be clothed very often, that his new coat was too long for him; That's true answered the other, but it will be longer before I get another. * "A poor man who had a termagant wife, after a very long dispute, in which she was resolved to have the last word, told her, if she spoke another crooked word more he would beat her brains out: Why then, Ram's Horns, you dog, said she if I die for it. "A certain Country Squire asked a Merry Andrew why he played the fool? For the same reason, said he, as you do, for want; you do it for want of wit, I for want of money. * "A Welshman bragging of his family, said, that his father's effigy was set up in Westminster Abbey; being asked whereabouts, he said, In the same monument with Squire Thynne, for he was his coachman. "A very harmless Irishman was eating an apple pie with some quinces in it. Arrah now, dear honey, said he, if so few of these quinces give such a flavour, how would an apple pye taste made all of quinces. * "An Irish lawyer of the Temple having occasion to go to dinner, left this direction in the keyhole; Gone to the Elephant and Castle, where you will find me, and if you cannot read this, carry it to the stationer's and he will read it for you. * "Two Oxford Scholars meeting on the road with a Yorkshire ostler, they fell to bantering him; and told him, That they would prove him to be an horse or an ass, Well, said the ostler, I can prove your saddle to be a mule. A mule, said one of them, how can that be? Because said the Ostler, it is something between a horse and an ass. * "The Chaplain's boy of a man of war, being sent out of his own ship on an errand to another, the boys were conferring notes about their manner of living. How often do you go to prayers now? Why, answered the other, in case of a storm or the apprehension of any danger from an enemy. Aye, said the first, there is some sense in that; but my master makes us go to prayers when there is no more occasion for it, than for my leaping overboard. * "King Henry VIII. designing to send a nobleman on an embassy to Francis I. at a very dangerous juncture, he begged to be excused, saying, Such a threatening message to so hot a prince as Francis I. might go near to cost him his head. Fear not said old Harry: if the French King should offer to take away your life, I will revenge it by taking off the heads of the Frenchmen now in my power.--But of all these heads, replied the Nobleman, not one would fit my shoulders. * "A prince laughing at one of his nobles whom he had employed in several embassies, told him he looked like an owl. I know not, said the Courtier, what I look like; but this I know, that I have had the honour several times to represent your Majesty's person. * "A Mayor of Yarmouth, in antient times, being by his office a justice of the peace, and one who was willing to dispense the laws in the wisest manner, though he could hardly read, got himself a statute book, where finding a law against firing a beacon, or causing one to be fired, read it, Frying bacon or causing it to be fried; and according went out the next night upon the scent, and being directed by his nose to the Carriers house he found the man and his wife both frying bacon, the husband holding the pan, while the wife turned it. Being thus caught in the fact and having nothing to say for themselves his worship committed them both to prison without bail or mainprize. * "A gentleman who had been a shooting brought home a small bird with him, and having an Irish servant, he asked him if he had shot that little bird? Yes, he told him. Arrah, by my shoul, honey, replied the Irishman, it was not worth the powder and shot, for this little thing would have died in the fall. * "The same Irishman being at a tavern, where the Cook was dressing some Carp, he observed some of the fish moved, after they were gutted and put in the pan, which much surprised honest Teague.--Well, now by my faith, said he, of all the Christian creatures that ever I saw, this same carp will live the longest after it is dead. * "A young fellow riding down a steep hill, doubting if the foot of it was boggish, called out to a clown that was ditching, and asked if it was hard at the bottom? Aye, answered the countryman, it is hard enough at the bottom, I will warrant you. But in half a dozen steps the horse sunk up to the saddle girts, which made the young gallant whip, spur, curse, and swear; Why you whoreson of a rascal, said he to the ditcher, didst thou not tell me that it was hard at the bottom? Aye, said the ditcher, but you are not halfway to the bottom yet. * "An Englishman and a Welshman disputing in whose Country was the best living; said the Welshman, there is such noble housekeeping in Wales, that I have known above a dozen cooks to be employed at one wedding dinner. Aye, replied the Englishman, that was because every man toasted his own cheese. * "One losing a bag of money of about Fifty pounds, between the Temple Gate and Temple Bar, fixed up a paper, offering a reward to those who took it and should return it. Upon which, the person that had it came and wrote underneath it to the following effect: Sir, I thank you for the offered reward, but indeed you really bid me to my loss. * "A very humourous countryman having bought a barn in partnership with a neighbour of his, neglected to make the least use of it, while the other had plentifully stored his part with corn and hay. In a little time the latter came to him, and conscientiously expostulated with him about laying out his money to so little purpose. Why, neighbour, said he, pray never trouble your head, you may do what you will with your part of the barn, but I will set mine on fire. * "The famous Tom Thynne, who was remarkable for his good housekeeping and hospitality, standing one day at his gate in the Country, a beggar came up to him and craved a mug of his small beer. Why, how now, said he, what times are these, when beggars must be choosers! I say, bring this fellow a mug of strong beer. * "A profligate young Nobleman being in company with some sober people, desired leave to toast the Devil. The gentleman who sat next to him, said he had no objection to any of his Lordship's particular friends. * "A certain Lady of quality, sending her Irish footman to fetch home a pair of new stays, strictly charged him to take a coach if it rained, for fear of wetting them. But a great shower falling, the fellow returned with the stays dripping wet; and being severely reprimanded for not doing as he was ordered, he said he had obeyed his orders. How then, answered the lady, could the stays be wet if you took them into the coach with you? No replied honest Teague, I know my place better, I did not get into the Coach, but rode behind, as I always used to do. "Two honest gentlemen, who dealt in brooms, meeting one day in the street, one asked the other, how the devil he could afford to undersell him as he did, when he stole the stuff, and made the brooms himself? Why, you silly dog, replied the other, I steal them ready made. "A cowardly servant having been out a hunting with his master, they killed a wild boar. The fellow thinking the boar stirred, betook himself to a tree; upon which his master called to him, and asked him, what he was afraid of, as the boar's guts were out? No matter for that, said he, his teeth are in. "One Irishman meeting another, asked, what was become of their old acquaintance Patrick Murphy? Arrah! now, dear honey, answered the other, he was condemned to die, but he saved his life by dying in prison. "One asked his friend, why he, being such a proper man himself, had married so small a wife? Why, friend, said he, I thought you had known that of evils we should chuse the least. "Two gentlemen, one named Chambers and the other Garret, riding to Tyburn, said the first, This would be a pretty tenement, if it had a garret. You fool, says Garret, don't you know there must be Chambers first. "Two Irishmen having travelled on foot from Chester to Barnet, were much tired and fatigued with their journey, and the more so when they were told that they had still ten miles to London. By my shoul and St. Patrick, cries one of them, it is but five miles apiece, let's e'en walk on. * "A country clergyman meeting a neighbour who never came to church although an old fellow about sixty, he gave him some reproof on that account and asked him if he never read at home? No, replied the clown, I cannot read. I dare say, said the parson, You don't know who made you? Not I, in troth, said the countryman. A little boy coming by at the time--Who made you, child? said the parson. God, sir, said the boy. Why, look you there quoth the clergyman, are you not ashamed to hear a child five or six years old tell me who made him, when you, who are so old a man, cannot? Ah! said the countryman it is no wonder that he should remember; he was made but the other day, and it is a long while, measter, since I was made." A WHETSTONE FOR DULL WITS OR A =Poesy= OF NEW AND INGENIOUS _RIDDLES_ Of Merry Books this is the Chief, 'Tis as a purging Pill; To carry off all heavy Grief And make you laugh your Fill PRINTED & SOLD IN LONDON Question. Into this world I came hanging, And when from the same I was ganging, I was cruelly batter'd and Squeez'd, And men with my blood, they were pleas'd. [Illustration] Answer. _It is a Pipping pounded into Cyder._ Q. A Wide Mouth, no ears nor eyes, No scorching flames I feel-- Swallow more than may suffice Full forty at a meal. [Illustration] A. _It is an Oven._ Q. Tho' of great age I'm kept in a Cage Having a long tail and one ear, My mouth it is round And when Joys do abound O' then I sing wonderful clear. [Illustration] A. _It is a Bell in a Steeple; the Rope betokens a Tail, & the Wheel an ear._ Q. The greatest travellers that e'er were known By Sea and land were mighty archers twain; No armor proof, or fenced walls of stone, Could turn their arrows; bulwarks were in vain. Thro' princes courts, and kingdoms far and near, As well in foreign parts as Christendom, These travellers their weary steps then steer, But to the deserts seldom come. [Illustration] A. _'Tis Death and Cupid, whose arrows pierce thro' the walls of Brass or strong Armour in all Courts and Kingdoms in the habitable World._ Q. Two Calves and an Ape They made their escape From one that was worse than a spright; They travell'd together In all sorts of weather But often were put in a fright. [Illustration] A. _'Tis a Man flying from his scolding wife; the two Calves and an Ape, signify the calves of the legs and the Nape of his neck, which by travelling was expos'd to the weather._ Q. A thing with a thundering breech It weighing a thousand welly, I have heard it roar Louder than Guys wild boar, They say it hath death in its belly. [Illustration] A. _It is a Cannon._ Q. It flies without wings, Between silken strings And leaves as you'll find It's guts still behind. [Illustration] A. _It is a Weaver's Shuttle._ Q. Close in a cage a bird I'll keep, That sings both day and night, When other birds are fast asleep It's notes yield sweet delight. [Illustration] A. _It is a Clock._ Q. To the green wood Full oft it hath gang'd, Yet yields us no good Till decently hang'd. [Illustration] A. _It is a hog fattened with Acorns, which makes good bacon when hanged a drying._ Q. Rich, yellow, and bright, Long, slender and white, Both one in another there are; Now tell unto me, What this Riddle may be, Then will I your wisdom declare. [Illustration] A. _A Diamond ring on a Lady's finger._ Q. A Visage fair And voice is rare, Affording pleasant charms; Which is with us Most ominous Presaging future harms. [Illustration] A. _A Mermaid, which betokens destruction to Mariners._ Q. To ease men of their care I do both rend and tear Their mother's bowels still; Yet tho' I do, There are but few That seem to take it ill. [Illustration] A. _'Tis a Plough which breaks up the bowels of the Earth for the sowing of Corn._ Q. By sparks in lawn fine I am lustily drawn, But not in a chariot or Coach; I fly, in a word, More swift than a bird, That does the green forest approach. [Illustration] A. _An Arrow drawn in a Bow by a Gentleman Archer._ Q. By the help of a guide I often divide What once in a green forest stood; Behold me, tho' I Have got but one eye, When that is stopt I do the most good. [Illustration] A. _A Hatchet, with which they cleave Wood; till the Eye is stopped with the Haft, it cannot perform business._ Q. My back is broad, my belly is thin, And I am sent to pleasure youth; Where mortal man has never been Tho' strange it is a naked truth. [Illustration] A. _A Paper Kite which mounts the lofty air._ _THE TRUE_ TRIAL OF UNDERSTANDING: OR =Wit Newly Reviv'd= BEING A BOOK OF RIDDLES Adorned with Variety of PICTURES. New Riddles make both Wit and Mirth, The Price of a Penny, yet not half the Worth. By S. M. PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON. Q. Tho' it be cold I wear no cloaths, The frost and snow I never fear, I value neither shoes nor hose, And yet I wander far and near; Both meat and drink are always free, I drink no cyder, mum, nor beer, What Providence doth send to me I neither buy, nor sell, nor lack. [Illustration] A. _A Herring swimming in the Sea._] Q. Once hairy scenter did transgress, Whose dame, both powerful and fierce, Tho' hairy scenter took delight To do the thing both fair and right, Upon a Sabbath day. [Illustration] A. _An old Woman whipping her Cat for Catching Mice on a Sunday._ Q. Promotion lately was bestow'd Upon a person mean and small; Then many persons to him flow'd, Yet he return'd no thanks at all; But yet their hands were ready still To help him with their kind good will. [Illustration] A. _It is a Man pelted in the Pillory._ Q. There was a sight near Charing Cross, A creature almost like a horse; But when I came the beast to see, The head was where the Tail should be. [Illustration] A. _A Mare tied with her tail to the Manger._ Q. As I walked thro' the street, It was near twelve o'clock at night; Two all in black I chanc'd to meet, Their eyes like flaming fire bright. They passed by, and nothing said, Therefore I was not much afraid. [Illustration] A. _Two long lighted Links carried along the street._ Q. Three men near the flowing Thames, Much pains and labour they did take They did both scratch and claw their wems, Until their very hearts did ache. It is as true as e'er was told, Therefore this riddle now unfold. [Illustration] A. _Three Fidlers in Thames Street, who played up a bridegroom in the Morning, who gave them nothing to drink._ Q. There is a steeple standing fair, 'Tis built upon a rock of care, Therein a noise both fierce and shrill, Tho' here was neither clock nor bell. [Illustration] A. _An old woman scolding in a high crown'd Hat._ Q. My weapon is exceeding keen, Of which I think I well may boast, And I'll encounter Colonel Green Together with his mighty host. With me they could not then compare, I conquer them both great and small, Tho' thousands stood before me there I stood and got no harm at all. [Illustration] A. _A Man mowing of Grass with a Scyth, which took all before it._ Q. I saw five birds all in a cage, Each bird had but one single wing, They were an hundred years of age, And yet did fly and sweetly sing. The wonder did my mind possess, When I beheld their age and strength; Besides, as near as I can guess,-- Their tails were thirty feet in length. [Illustration] A. _A Peel of Bells in a Steeple._ _The whole Trial and Indictment of_ SIR JOHN BARLEYCORN, KNT. _A Person of noble Birth and Extraction and well known by Rich and Poor throughout the Kingdom of Great Britain; Being accused of several Misdemeanours, by him committed against his Majesty's Liege People; by killing some, wounding others, and bringing Thousands to Beggary, and ruins many a poor family._ Here you have the substance of the Evidence given in against him on his Trial; with the Names of the Judges, Jury and Witnesses. Also the comical Defence Sir John makes for himself, and the Character given him by some of his Neighbours, namely Hewson the Cobler, an honest Friend of Sir John's, who is entomb'd as a Memorandum, at the Two Brewers in East Smithfield. _Taken in Short Hand by Thomas Tosspot, Foreman of the Jury._ [Illustration] LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. THE Arraigning and Indicting OF SIR JOHN BARLEYCORN, KNT. _Newly Composed_ BY A WELL WISHER TO SIR JOHN, AND ALL THAT LOVE HIM. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD LONDON. This Chap-book not only contains the following ballad, but sets forth the offences of which Sir John is guilty, and witnesses are called to prove them. They consist principally of his making people quarrelsome, etc. For the defence it is asserted that "there is not such another in the land that can do what he can and hath done for he can make a cripple to go, he can make a coward to fight with a valiant soldier; nay he can make a good soldier to feel neither hunger or cold." It is needless to say he is triumphantly acquitted. [Illustration] "A NEW SONG. "_To the Tune of Old Sir John Barleycorn, Or Jack of all Trades._ "All you that be good fellows, Come listen unto me, If that you love the alehouse And merry company. "Attend unto my story, It makes my heart full sorry, Which I fear is too true And many doth it rue. "'Tis of a gallant noble Knight, Which many know full well, An honest man, I witness can, If I the truth may tell. "His name is Sir John Barleycorn, Who makes both beer and bread, What would do all that now are born, If Barleycorn was dead? "For as I abroad did walk, I heard a piteous cry, And many a man did talk That Barleycorn must die, "His enemies increase so fast, At board, and eke at bed, I fear their malice will not cease, Till they cut off his head. "For Smut the honest blacksmith, With many tradesmen more; And Snip the nimble Taylor, Doth vow that he shall die. "And Will the Weaver doth complain, With many thousands more; I hope their labour is in vain, Therefore they may give o'er. "Yet now awhile give ear, You that are standers by, And you presently shall hear Sir John condemned to die. "All you that love poor Barleycorn, A good word for him give, And he that speaks against him, I wish he may not live." The foregoing is nothing like so witty, or funny, as the Black-Letter ballad. A copy is in the British Museum (Rox. i. 343), which, although it has been reprinted, is not generally known, and is too good to lose.[15] "A pleasant new Ballad to Sing both Even and Morne, Of the bloody Murther of Sir John Barleycorne. "To the tune of _Shall I lye beyond thee_. "As I went through the North Countrey, I heard a merry greeting, A pleasant toy, and full of joy, two noble men were meeting. "And as they walked for to sport, vpon a Sommers day, Then with another noble man they went to make a fray. "Whose name was sir John Barleycorne he dwelt down in a dale; Who had a kinsman dwelt him nigh they cal'd him Thomas Goodale. "Another named Richard Beere, was ready at that time; Another worthy Knight was there, call'd sir William White Wine. "Some of them fought in a blacke Jacke, some of them in a Can; But the chiefest in a blacke pot, like a worthy noble man. "Sir John Barleycorne fought in a Boule who wonne the victorie; And made them all to fume and sweare that Barleycorne should die. "Some said kill him, some said drowne, others wisht to hang him hie; For as many as follow Barleycorne shall surely beggers die. "Then with a plough they plowed him vp and thus they did deuise, To burie him quicke within the earth and swore he should not rise. "With horrowes strong they combed him and burst clods on his head: A joyfull banquet then was made, when Barleycorne was dead. "He rested still within the earth till raine from skies did fall Then he grew vp in branches greene, which sore amazed them all. "And so grew vp till Midsommer, which made them all afeard; For he was sprouted vp on hie and got a goodly beard. "Then he grew till S. James tide his countenance was wan, For he was growne vnto his strength, and thus became a man. "With hookes and sickles keene, into the field they hide, They cut his legs off by the knees, and made him wounds full wide. "Thus bloodily they cut him downe from place where he did stand, And like a thiefe for treachery, they bound him in a band. "So then they tooke him vp againe according to his kind; And packt him vp in seuerall stackes to wither with the wind. "And with a pitchfork that was sharpe, they rent him to the heart, And like a thiefe for treason vile they bound him in a cart. "And tending him with weapons strong, vnto the towne they hie, And straight they mowed him in a mow and there they let him lie. "Then he lay groaning by the wals, till all his wounds were sore; At length they took him vp againe and cast him on the floore. "They hyred two with holly clubs, to beat on him at once, They thwacked so on Barlycorne that flesh fell from the bones. "And then they tooke him vp againe to fulfill womens mind They dusted and they sifted him, till he was almost blind. "And then they knit him in a sacke which grieued him full sore; They steep'd him in a Fat, God wot, for three dayes space and more, "Then they tooke him vp againe, and laid him for to drie, They cast him on a chamber floore, and swore that he should die. "They rubbed and they stirred him and still they did him turne, The Malt man swore that he should die his body he would burne. "They spightfully tooke him vp againe And threw him on a kill: So dried him then with fire hot, and thus they wraught their will. "Then they brought him to the mill, and there they burst his bones, The Miller swore to murther him betwixt a pair of Stones. "Then they tooke him vp againe, and seru'd him worse than that For with hot scalding liquor score they washt him in a Fat. "But not content with this, God wot, that did him mickle harme, With threatning words they promised to beat him into barme "And lying in this danger deep for feare that he should quarrell, They took him straight out of the fat and tunn'd him in a barrell. "And then they set a tap to him, euen thus his death begun; They drew out euery drain of blood, whilst any drop would run, "Some brought iacks vpon their backs some brought bill and bow, And euery man his weapon had, Barlycorne to overthrow. "When sir John Goodale heard of this he came with mickle might And there he took their tongues away, their legs or else their sight. "And thus sir John in each respect so paid them all their hire, That some lay sleeping by the way some tumbling in the mire-- "Some lay groning by the wals, some in the streets down right, The best of them did scarcely know what they had done ore night. "All you good wiues that brew good ale God turne from you all teen, But if you put too much water in the devill put out your eyne. [Footnote 15: This ballad, which is circa 1640, was stolen wholesale by Robert Burns, as an examination of "John Barleycorn" will prove.] "FINIS. "LONDON, PRINTED FOR JOHN WRIGHT, AND ARE TO BE SOLD AT HIS SHOP IN GUILTSPURRE STREET, AT THE SYNE OF THE BIBLE." LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER. There can be very little doubt but that this virago was a living being, for the first edition known of her "Life and Pranks"--which was published in 1582, and which differs materially from the Chap-book version--bears internal evidence of her reality; and she must have lived in the reign of Henry VIII., for, in chapter ii. she finds, on her arrival in London, her mistress drinking with Doctor Skelton (poet laureate, who died 1529), Will Summers the King's Jester, and a Spanish knight called Sir James of Castille. As the 1582 edition does not mention her death, she might then have been alive. The Chap-book version says, "After marriage she kept a house at Islington." This may have been true, but she also seems to have had one on the Southwark side of the river, for a scarce tract, called "Holland's leaguer," etc. (London, 1632), says, "It was out of the _Citie_ yet in the view of the _Citie_ only divided by a delicate _River_: there was many handsome buildings, and many hearty neighbours, yet at the first foundation, it was renowned for nothing so much as for the memory of that famous Amazon, _Longa Margarita_, who had there for many years kept a famous _infamous_ house of open Hospitality," and on the tract is a woodcut of the house. That she was well known, appears in an old book, "Pierces Supererogation, on a new prayse of the Olde Asse," by Gabriell Harvey, 1593, p. 145: "Phy, Long Megg of Westminster would have been ashamed to disgrace her Sonday bonet with her Satterday witt. She knew some rules of Decorum; and although she were a lustie bounsing rampe, somewhat like Gallemella or maide Marian, yet was she not such a roinish rannell, or such a dissolute gillian-flurtes, as this wainscot-faced Tomboy.' It is probable from this, as speaking of her in the past tense, that she was then dead, and this is the more likely, as there is an entry in the curious diary of Philip Henslowe, proprietor of the Rose Theatre near Bankside, Southwark, relating to her. He kept a register of all the plays performed by the servants of Lord Strange and the Lord Admiral, and by other companies, between February 19, 1591-2, and November 5, 1597. Against each entry was put the sum he received as a proprietor from either a part or the whole of the galleries; so we read, "R the 14 of febreary 1594, at long mege of westmester (18[16]) _l._iii. _s._ix. _d._o." It was performed at the theatre at Newington Butts, which Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's "Chronicles" (1631), mentions as having been there "in former time." By whom it was acted seems uncertain, as the heading reads, "_In the name of God, Amen, beginning at_ newington _my_ lord admirell men, _and_ my lord chamberlen men, as followeth, 1594." It is a singular coincidence that on this very February 14, 1594, the Registers of the Stationers' Company should have an entry: "xiiij Febr. John Danter. Entred for his Copie &c. a ballad entituled The mad merye pranckes of Long Megg of Westm(inster) ... vj^_d_." That the play was popular, is evidenced by the fact that in N. Field's play, "Amends for Ladies" (1618), Meg is not only mentioned, but the play is spoken of by Fee simple: "Faith, I have a good mind to see Long Meg and the Ship at the Fortune." [Footnote 16: This shows how popular the play was, as it notes it had the long run of eighteen representations.] THE WHOLE =Life and Death= OF LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. LONDON CHAP. 1. WHERE MEG WAS BORN, HER COMING UP TO LONDON, AND HER USAGE TO THE HONEST CARRIER. In the reign of Henry VIII. was born in Lancashire, a maid called LONG MEG. At eighteen years old she came to London to get her a service; Father Willis the Carrier being the Waggoner, and her neighbour, brought her up with some other lasses. After a tedious journey, being in sight of the desired city, she demanded why they looked sad? We have no money said one, to pay our fare. So Meg replies, If that be all, I shall answer your demands, and this put them in some comfort. But as soon as they came to St. John's Street, Willis demanded their money. Say what you will have, quoth she. Ten shillings a piece, said he. But we have not so much about us, said she.--Nay, then I will have it out of your bones.--Marry, content, replied Meg; and taking a staff in her hand, so belaboured him and his man, that he desired her for God's sake to hold her hand.--Not I, said she, unless you bestow an angel on us for good luck, and swear e'er we depart to get us good addresses. The Carrier having felt the strength of her arm, thought it best to give her the money, and promised not to go till he had got them good places. CHAP. 2. OF HER BEING PLACED IN WESTMINSTER, AND WHAT SHE DID AT HER PLACE. The Carrier having set up his horses, went with the lasses to the Eagle in Westminster, and told the landlady he had brought her three fine Lancashire lasses, and seeing she often asked him to get her a maid, she might now take her choice. Marry, said she I want one at present, and here are three gentlemen who shall give their opinions--As soon as Meg came in, they blessed themselves, crying Domine, Domine, viee Originem.[17] So her mistress demanded what was her name; Margaret, forsooth, said she briskly--And what work can you do? She answered she had not been bred unto her needle, but to hard labour, as washing, brewing, and baking, and could make a house clean--Thou art, quoth the hostess, a lusty wench, and I like thee well, for I have often persons that will not pay--Mistress, said she, if any such come let me know, and I'll make them pay, I'll engage.--Nay, this is true, said the Carrier, for my carcase felt it; and then he told them how she served him--On this Sir John de Castile, in a bravado, would needs make an experiment of her vast strength; and asked her, If she durst exchange a box o' the ear with him. Yes, quoth she, if my mistress will give me leave. This granted, she stood to receive Sir John's blow, who gave her a box with all his might, but it stirred her not at all; but Meg gave him such a memorandum on his ear that Sir John fell down at her feet.--By my faith, said another, she strikes a blow like an ox, for she hath knocked down an Ass.--So Meg was taken into Service. [Illustration] [Footnote 17: In the 1582 edition the passage runs, "As soon as they saw long Meg they began to smile, and Dr. Skelton in his mad merry vain blessing himself began thus, Domine, Domine, Vid: Origin." ] CHAP. 3. THE METHOD MEG TOOK TO MAKE ONE OF THE VICARS PAY HIS SCORE. Meg so bestirred herself, she pleased her mistress, and for her tallness was called Long Meg of Westminster. One of the lubbers of the Abbey had a mind to try her strength, so coming with Six of his associates one frosty morning calls for a pot of Ale, which being drank, he asked what he owed? To which Meg answers, Five Shillings and Threepence. [Illustration] O thou foul scullion, I owe thee but three shillings and one penny, and no more will I pay thee. And turning to his landlady, complained how Meg had charged him too much. The foul ill take me, quoth Meg, if I misreckon him one penny, and therefore, Vicar, before thou goest out of these doors, I shall make thee pay every penny; and then she immediately lent him such a box on the ears, as made him reel again. The Vicar then steps up to her, and together both of them went by the ears.--The Vicars head was broke, and Megs Cloaths torn off her back. So the Vicar laid hold of her hair, but he being shaved she could not have that advantage; so laying hold of his ears, and keeping his pate to the post, asked him how much he owed her? As much as you please said he.--So you knave, quoth she, I must knock out of your bald pate my reckoning. And with that she began to beat a plain song between the post and his pate. But when he felt such pain, he roared out he would pay the whole--But she would not let him go, until he laid it down, which he did, being jeered by his friends. CHAP. 4. OF HER FIGHTING AND CONQUERING SIR JAMES OF CASTILE A SPANISH KNIGHT. All this time Sir James continued his suit to Meg's mistress but to no purpose. So coming in one day and seeing her melancholy, asked what ailed her? for if any one has wronged you I will requite you--Marry, quoth she, a base knave in a white sattin doublet has abused me, and if you revenge my quarrel, I shall think you love me--Where is he? quoth Sir James.--Marry--said she, he said he would be in St. George's Fields--Well, quoth he, do you and the Doctor go along with me, and you shall see how I'll pumel the knave. Unto this they agreed, and sent Meg into St. George's Fields beforehand. Yonder, said she, walks the fellow by the windmill. Follow me, hostess, said Sir James, I will go to him. But Meg passed as if she would have gone by. Nay, stay, said Sir James, you and I part not so; I am this gentlewoman's champion, and fairly for her sake will have you by the ears--With that Meg drew her sword, and to it they went. At the first blow she hit him on the head, and often endangered him--At last she struck his weapon out of his hands, and stepping up to him, swore all the world should not save him--O, save me, Sir, said he, I am a Knight and it is but a woman's matter; do not spill my blood. Wer't thou twenty Knights, said Meg, and was the King here himself, I would not spare thy life, unless you grant me one thing--Let it be what it will, you shall be obeyed--Marry, said she, that this night you wait on my plate at this woman's house, and confess me to be your master. This being yielded to, and a supper provided, Thomas Usher and others was invited to make up the feast; and unto whom Sir James told what had happened.--Pho! said Usher, jeeringly, it is no such great dishonour for to be foiled by an English gentleman, since Cæsar the Great was himself driven back by their extraordinary courage. At this juncture, Meg came in, having got on her man's attire. Then said Sir James, This is that valiant gentleman whose courage I shall ever esteem. Hereupon she pulling off her hat, her hair fell about her ears, and she said I am no other than Long Meg of Westminster; and so you are heartily welcome. At this they all fell a laughing, nevertheless at supper time, according to agreement, Sir James was a proper page; and she, having leave of her mistress, sat in state like her Majesty--Thus Sir James was disgraced for his love, and Meg was counted a proper woman. CHAP. 5. HER USAGE TO THE BAILIFF OF WESTMINSTER, WHO CAME INTO HER MISTRESS'S AND ARRESTED HER FRIEND. A Bailiff having for the purpose took forty shillings, arrested a gentleman in Meg's mistress's house, and desired the company to keep peace. She, coming in, asked what was the matter? O, said he, I'm arrested. Arrested! and in our house! Why this unkind act to arrest one in our house; but, however take an Angel, and let him go. No, said the Bailiff, I cannot, for the creditor is at the door. Bid him come in said she, and I'll make up the matter. So the creditor came in: but being found obstinate she rapped him on the head with a quart pot, and bid him go out of doors like a knave; he can but go to prison, quoth she, where he shall not stay long, if all the friends I have can fetch him out. The creditor went away with a good knock, and the Bailiff was going with his prisoner. Nay, said she, I'll bring a fresh pot to drink with him. She came into the parlour with a rope, and knitting her brows, Sir Knave, said she, I'll learn thee to arrest a man in our house, I'll make thee a spectacle for all catchpoles; and tossing the rope round his middle, said to the gentleman, Sir, away, shift for yourself, I'll pay the bailiff his fees before he and I part. Then she dragged the bailiff unto the back side of the house, making him go up to his chin in a pond, and then paid him his fees with a cudgel; after which he went away with the amends in his hands; for she was so well beloved that no person would meddle with her. CHAP. 6. OF HER MEETING WITH A NOBLEMAN, AND HER USAGE TO HIM AND TO THE WATCH. [Illustration] Now it happened she once put on a suit of man's apparel. The same night it fell out, that a young nobleman being disposed for mirth, would go abroad to see the fashions, and coming down the Strand, espies her, and seeing such a tall fellow, asked him whither he was going? Marry, said she, to St. Nicholas's to buy a calve's head. How much money hast thou? In faith, said she, little enough, will you lend me any?--Aye, said he, and putting his thumb into her mouth, said--There's a tester. She gave him a good box on the ear, and said, There's a groat, now I owe you twopence. Whereupon the Nobleman drew, and his man too; and she was as active as they, so together they go; but she drove them before her into a little Chandler's shop, insomuch that the Constable came in to part the fray, and, having asked what they were, the nobleman told his name, at which they all pulled off their caps--And what is your name? said the Constable. Mine, said she is Cuthbert Curry Knave--Upon this the constable commanded some to lay hold on her, and carry her to the Compter. She out with her sword and set upon the watch, and behaved very resolutely; but the constable calling for clubs, Meg was forced to cry out, Masters, hold your hands, I am your friend, hurt not Long Meg of Westminster--So they all staid their hands, and the nobleman took them all to the tavern; and thus ended the fray. CHAP. 7. MEG GOES A SHROVING, FIGHTS THE THIEVES OF ST. JAMES'S CORNER AND MAKES THEM RESTORE FATHER WILLIS THE CARRIER HIS HUNDRED MARKS. Not only the cities of London and Westminster, but Lancashire also, rung of Meg's fame: so they desired old Willis the Carrier to call upon her, which he did, taking with him the other lasses. Meg was joyful to see them, and it being Shrove Tuesday, Meg went with them to Knightsbridge, and there spent most of the day, with repeating tales of their friends in Lancashire, and so tarried the Carrier, who again and again enquired how all did there; and made the time seem shorter than it was. The Night growing on, the carrier and the two other lasses were importunate to be gone, but Meg was loath to set out, and so stayed behind to discharge the reckoning, and promised to overtake them. It was their misfortune at St. James's Corner to meet with two thieves who were waiting there for them and took an hundred marks from Willis the Carrier, and from the two wenches their gowns and purses.--Meg came up immediately after, and then the thieves, seeing her also in a female habit, thought to take her purse also; but she behaved herself so well that they began to give ground. Then said Meg, Our gowns and purses against your hundred marks; win all and wear all. Content, quoth they.--Now, lasses, pray for me, said Meg--With that she buckled with these two knaves, beat one and so hurt the other, that they entreated her to spare their lives--I will, said she, upon conditions.--Upon any condition, said they--Then, said she, it shall be thus: 1. That you never hurt a woman, nor any company she is in. 2. That you never hurt lame or impotent men. 3. That you never hurt any Children or innocents. 4. That you rob no carrier of his money. 5. That you rob no manner of poor or distressed. Are you content with these conditions? We are, said they. I have no book about me, said she, but will you swear on my smock tail? which they accordingly did, and then she returned the wenches their gowns and purses, and old Father Willis the Carrier an hundred marks. The men desiring to know who it was had so lustily be-swinged them, said, To alleviate our sorrow pray tell us your name? She smiling, replied, If any one asks you who banged your bones, say Long Meg of Westminster once met with you. CHAP. 8. MEG'S FELLOW SERVANT PRESSED; HER USAGE OF THE CONSTABLE; AND OF HER TAKING PRESS MONEY TO GO TO BOLOGNE. In those days were wars between England and France, and a hot press about London. The Constables of Westminster pressed Meg's fellow servant and she told them if they took him her mistress was undone. All this could not persuade the Constable, but Harry must go, on which she lent the Constable a knock--Notice being given to the Captain, he asked who struck him--Marry, quoth Meg, I did, and if I did not love soldiers, I'd serve you so too. So taking a Cavalier from a mans hand, she performed the exercise with such dexterity, that they wondered; whereupon she said, Press no man, but give me press money, and I will go myself. At this they all laughed, and the Captain gave her an Angel. Whereupon she went with him to Bologne. CHAP. 9. OF HER BEATING THE FRENCHMEN OFF THE WALLS OF BOLOGNE, FOR WHICH GALLANT BEHAVIOUR SHE IS REWARDED BY THE KING WITH EIGHT PENCE PER DAY FOR LIFE. King Henry passing the seas took Bologne; hereupon the Dauphin with a great number of men surprised and retook it. Meg being a Laundress in the town, raised the best of the women, and with a halberd in her hand, came to the walls, on which some of the French had entered, and threw scalding water and stones at them, that she often obliged them to quit the town before the soldiers were up in arms--And at the sally she came out the foremost with her halberd in her hand to pursue the Chace. The report of this deed being come to the ears of the King, he allowed her for life, eight pence a day. CHAP. 10. OF HER FIGHTING AND BEATING A FRENCHMAN BEFORE BOLOGNE. During this, she observed one who in a bravado tossed his pike; she seeing his pride, desired a drum, to signify that a young soldier would have a push at pike with him. It was agreed on, and the place appointed, life against life. On the day the Frenchman came, and Meg met him, and without any salute fell to blows; and, after a long combat, she overcame him, and cut off his head. Then pulling off her hat her hair fell about her ears. By this the Frenchman knew it was a woman, and the English giving a shout, she by a Drummer sent the Dauphin his soldier's head, and said, An English Woman sent it. The Dauphin much commended her, sending her an hundred crowns for her Valour. CHAP. 11. OF HER COMING TO ENGLAND, AND BEING MARRIED. The Wars in France being over, Meg came to Westminster, and married a soldier, who, hearing of her exploits, took her into a room and making her strip to her petticoat, took one staff, and gave her another, saying, As he had heard of her manhood, he was determined to try her--But Meg held down her head, whereupon he gave her three or four blows, and she in submission fell down upon her knees desiring him to pardon her--For, said she, whatever I do to others, it behoves me to be obedient to you; and it shall never be said, If I cudgel a knave that injures me, Long Meg is her husband's master; and therefore use me as you please--So they grew friends, and never quarrelled after. CHAP. 12. LONG MEG'S USAGE TO AN ANGRY MILLER. Meg going one day with her neighbours to make merry, a miller near Epping looking out, the boy they had with them about fourteen years old, said, Put out, miller, put out.--What must I put out? said he.--A thief's head and ears, said the other. At this the Miller came down and well licked him, which Meg endeavoured to prevent, whereupon he beat her; but she wrung the stick from him, and then cudgelled him severely; and having done, sent the boy to the Mill for an empty sack, and put the Miller in, all but his head; and then fastening him to a rope she hawled him up half way, and there left him hanging. The poor Miller cried out for help, and if his wife had not come he had surely been killed, and the mill, for want of corn, set on fire. CHAP. 13. OF HER KEEPING HOUSE AT ISLINGTON, AND HER LAWS. After Marriage she kept a house at Islington. The Constable coming one night, he would needs search Meg's house, whereupon she come down in her shift with a cudgel, and said, Mr. Constable take care you go not beyond your Commission, for if you do, I'll so cudgel you, as you never was since Islington has been.--The Constable seeing her frown, told her he would take her word, and so departed. Meg, because in her house there should be a good decorum, hung up a table containing these principles; First--If a Gentleman or Yeoman had a charge about him, and told her of it, she would repay him if he lost it, but if he did not reveal it, and said he was robbed, he should have ten bastinadoes, and afterwards be turned out of doors. Secondly, whoever called for meat and had no money to pay, should have a box on the ear, and a cross on the back that he might be marked and trusted no more. Thirdly. If any good fellow came in, and said he wanted money, he should have his belly full of meat and two pots of drink. Fourthly. If any rafler came in, and made a quarrel, and would not pay his reckoning, to turn into the fields and take a bout or two with Meg, the maids of the house should dry beat him, and so thrust him out of doors. These and many such principles, she established in her house, which kept it still and quiet. FINIS. MERRY FROLICKS OR THE _Comical Cheats_ OF SWALPO A NOTORIOUS PICK POCKET And the Merry Pranks of ROGER the CLOWN [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE LONDON Nowadays, Swalpo would have made a fortune as a prestidigitateur, for his was the high art of pocket-picking, and people used to employ him to show his talents for their amusement, even after he had become virtuous, and steward to a nobleman. The frontispiece represents him meeting with a countryman at Bartholomew Fair, and cautioning him against pickpockets. The countryman tells him he has a broad piece, which he puts in his mouth. Swalpo instructs a confederate boy, who tumbles and falls down in front of the countryman, scattering a lot of change, which he held in his hand. The people round about help to pick up the money, and the boy declares he has got it all except a broad piece of gold. Swalpo then comes up, and says he saw the countryman put it in his mouth; it is discovered, and the countryman gets as badly used as a "welsher" at a race meeting. The next engraving shows how "Swalpo steals a fine Coat from a Nobleman's back." "The whole Company being greatly pleased with the ingenuity of the last trick, Swalpo said, Alas, gentlemen, this trick is not worth talking of, such as this, we send our boys about. There is now a Nobleman going by the door, I will wager a guinea I steal his coat from off his back before all his followers. The gentlemen staked each their guinea, and Roger and Swalpo covered them as before. Then out went Swalpo, and dogged the Nobleman to a tavern; as soon as he was conducted upstairs, Swalpo went to the barkeeper, and desired to borrow an apron for the Nobleman his master would only be served by himself; he ran so nimbly, and did everything so handily, that the Company were mightily pleased with him, taking him for a servant to the house; he never came into the room but he passed some merry jest, and when they spoke to him, his answers pleased them all mightily. "When he found them in a good humour, he resolved not to trifle, wherefore as he waited behind the Lord's chair he took out his knife, and made a slit in the back seam of his coat, and ran downstairs for more liquor, when he returned, as soon as he came near his Lordship he started back, asking what taylor made that coat, which would not hold one day? Some of the Company rising and seeing the slash, said the taylor had affronted my Lord--Said he I paid him his price, and he shall hear of it--My Lord, said Swalpo, it is only the end of a thread has slipt, such things often happen; there is a fine drawer of my acquaintance lives in the next street, if your Lordship pleases, I will convey it under my master's cloak, and return immediately. The Nobleman borrows a great coat of one of the Company, and gave it unto Swalpo, who immediately came down to the vintner, and told him what had happened, and to prevent its being seen in the streets, desires him to lend him his Cloak. The Vintner shewed him where it was, which Swalpo put on, as also a hat which hung on the next pin; thus he walks off with them, and coming to the tavern at which the gentlemen waited, he went into a room, changed his cloaths, then returns and salutes them. Says one, Instead of a coat you come in a cloak; so then opening the cloak they were surprised to see the rich embroidered Coat. Then Roger laughed heartily; but when he told them how he had performed it, they all burst into a great laughter." [Illustration] Space will only admit of one more story of his dexterity in picking pockets after notice given:-- "The Nobleman hearing of his dexterity in taking watches desired him to do it. Swalpo bid the Nobleman be on his guard; so he walked up and down the room as did also Swalpo. While the Lord was disputing warmly with some of the Company, Swalpo who watched his opportunity, gently tickles the Lord with a feather under the right ear; which makes him on a sudden quit the watch to scratch himself, and clapping his hand to his fob again, he found it gone. He looks behind him, and sees Swalpo with the watch in his hand, bowing, which occasioned much laughter." [Illustration] THE =Life and Death= OF SHEFFERY MORGAN THE _Son of Shon ap Morgan_ [Illustration] NEWCASTLE; PRINTED IN THIS YEAR There are several editions of this book, and parts of it are amusing. Sheffery was the son of a small farmer, and received some slight education. His father sent him to the university, where he wasted his time, and learnt nothing; but his father, considering his studies were sufficient and complete, got the promise of a living from the bishop, provided Sheffery could preach a sermon he could approve of. The day came and he knew nothing that he should say--in fact, he had not brains enough to compose a sermon--but "Sheffery no sooner enters the church, but he steps into the pulpit, and so begun as followeth. 'Good people, all hur knows, there's something expected from hur by way of Discourse, and seeing we are all met together, take the following matter as an undeniable truth; There are some things that I know and you know not, and there are some things that neither you nor I know; For thus, as I went over a stile, I tore my breeches; that I know, and you know not; but what you'll give me towards the mending of them, that you know and I know not; but what the knave the taylor will have for mending them, that neither you nor I know.'" This sermon did not gain Sheffery his proposed living, so he started for London to seek his fortune. On the road, he joined two Welsh drovers, who asked him to help them and they would share with him the shilling they were to receive. "At last they came to Smithfield where the owner gave them a whole shilling, then was their care to part this one piece equally amongst three; Sheffery being ingenious said, 'We'll go change it for three groats:' to which they consented: So going from street to street, at last they came to Lombard Street, where Sheffery spies a tray full of groats, and cry'd Here, hur will do it, if ever. The gentleman of the shop being at dinner, the hatch was shut, and nobody in the shop but an old jackanapes chained, upon the cáunter; Sheffery leaning over the hatch said 'Good sir, will you give hur three groats for a shilling?' and held the shilling forth, which the jackanapes took, and put it down into the place where he used to see his master put money, and minded Sheffery no more; but hur was very urgent with the jackanapes for hur change; and said 'Good Sir, what does hur intent to do? Will hur give her three groats for a shilling or no; But the jackanapes not minding, stirred hur Welsh blood up, fearing that the old shentleman was minded to sheat them, which caus'd a great croud about the door, so that the gentleman of the house heard them, and coming into the shop to see what was the matter, began to be rough with them, doubting they intended to rob his shop; but they cried out, that they were poor Welshmen that thought no hurt but desired to have three groats for a shilling. The gentleman finding them to be three poor ignorant fellows, asked them for their shilling; they immediately told him they had given it to hur poor aged father. The gentleman in great wrath cry'd out, You villains, do you think I'm the son of a jackanapes. And threatening to set them by the heels; but discovering their simplicity asked them what the jackanapes did with it. Quoth they, he put it into that hole. So he supposed it might be, and gave them three groats, bidding them be gone, so away went Sheffery's countrymen to their places provided for them, but Sheffery had hur fortune to seek." Which he did with varying success; married the widow of a physician, set up as doctor, got a wonderful reputation, and finally died, leaving his practice to his son Shon ap Morgan. There is a Second Part to this history. THE WELCH TRAVELLER; OR THE =Unfortunate Welchman= By HUMPHREY CORNISH [Illustration] NEWCASTLE. PRINTED IN THE PRESENT YEAR This is another of the satires against the Welsh, which were so frequent in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It was written in the latter part of the seventeenth century, as the first edition shows. "The Welch Traveller; or the Unfortunate Welchman; "If any Gentleman do want a Man, As I doubt not but some do now and than, I have a Welchman though but meanly clad-- Will make him merry be he nere so sad: If that you read, read it quite ore I pray, And you'l not think your penny cast away. "By Humphry Crouch. "London printed for William Whitwood at the Sign of the Bell in Duck Lane near Smithfield 1671." The engraving to that edition is exactly similar to the Chap-book frontispiece. As the frontispiece to the Aldermary edition (from which the subjoined illustrations are taken) is almost similar to "The Life and Death of Sheffery Morgan," one from a Newcastle Chap-book of about the same age has been substituted. This is a metrical story of the adventures of a Welshman who was going along star-gazing. [Illustration] "For as hur gaz'd upon the Sky, For want of better wit, Poor Taffy fell immediately Into a great deep pit. "Had not a shepherd been hur friend, And help'd hur quickly out, Hur surely then had had an end, Hur makes no other doubt." Hungry and weary, he arrived at an alehouse, where the hostess gave him rotten eggs, which he cast in her face, and fled. Seeing an apple tree, he climbed it in order to assuage his hunger. "Up into the tree hur gets, The owner came anon, Made hur almost besides hur wits, A cruel fight began. [Illustration] "He pelted hur with large huge stones And hur did apples cast; The stones did so benumb her pones That down hur come at last." He fled, and lying down under a hedge, saw a couple of lovers, one of whom dropped a gold ring, which he picked up and appropriated. But "Going thro' a town, God wot, Against some ill bred curs, Hur shewed it to a chattering trot Who said the ring was hers." An altercation ensued, and it ended in their going before a justice, where the Welshman, calling the justice a "great Boobie," was sent to the stocks. Whilst there, the lovers passed him, and he told them that the woman had the ring. She was apprehended and put with him in the stocks. [Illustration] "Now Taffy had his hearts desire He had her company, But when he did begin to jeer, She in his face did fly." He was released, and finding a house open and the proprietor absent, he entered and began feeding on the bacon smoking up the chimney, sitting astride of it; but fell down, bacon and all, when the owner and his wife were sitting by the fire. The man beat him severely, and he ran away. Joining some gipsies on the road, they agreed to rob the house of its bacon, by letting Taffy down the chimney with a rope. This was done. [Illustration] "They let him down, to work he falls, The bacon strait doth bind, The gipsies up the bacon haul And leave the fool behind." He went to the larder and helped himself to the bread and butter, and by his sooty and begrimed appearance he frightened the maid, who thought he was the devil; and she alarmed her master, who came with a sword, but was appalled by the sight of the pseudo-fiend. He walked away, frightening the children, till the women of the town determined to drive the devil out; and sorely they beat poor Taffy, who took refuge in the church, where he was captured by the sexton, who was not afraid of him, carried before a justice, and condemned to stand for "one long hour or more" in the pillory, where the history leaves him. [Illustration] [Illustration] JOAKS UPON JOAKS. OR _No Joak like a true Joak_. BEING THE Diverting Humours of Mr. John Ogle a Life Guard Man THE MERRY PRANKS OF LORD MOHUN AND THE EARLS OF WARWICK AND PEMBROKE WITH _Rochesters Dream, his Maiden Disappointment and his Mountebanks Speech_ TOGETHER WITH The diverting Fancies and Frolicks of Charles 2 and his three Concubines [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON. Space will only admit of a few of these "Joaks," even if their quality would permit them to be reproduced for general perusal. "Another time Ogle wanted a pair of boots which were brought to him. They fitting him he walks up and down the shop to settle them to his feet, but espying an opportunity, he ran out of the shop, and the shoemaker followed him, crying, Stop thief, stop thief--No, gentlemen, it is for a wager, I am to run in boots, and he shoes and stockings. Then, said the mob, Well done boots, shoes and stockings can never overtake thee--So Ogle got clear off with the boots." [Illustration] "One time the Earl of Warwick being out late one night and in company of an officer who had an artificial leg, they went into the Dark house near Billingsgate, but by the way the wary Warwick scraped a deal of dust out of a rotten post, and as he was putting it up before several people, one asked him what that powder was good for? Warwick said, it is good for all manner of bruises, sores, and scalds. And to shew the excellency of it, he desired them to bring him a kettle of scalding hot water. Then rubbing the powder on his friends artificial leg, he put it into the water. Now, the people seeing he was not hurt, soon bought up all the powder, so that his lordship very shortly raised between three and four pounds. Soon after this a very ingenious drayman who had purchased some of the powder, being in company with some of his calling, and having laid a wager that he could put his leg into a kettle of scalding water without hurting himself. The wager being laid, he, like a cunning dog, got into a private room, to rub the powder of rotten post upon his leg. Which done, he returns to the kitchen, and plunged his leg into the kettle of scalding hot water which made him roar out like a town bull, and what was worst, he had like to have lost his leg." [Illustration] Lord Pembroke was once playing the fool with a woman of low degree, when she persuaded him to strap her child upon his back, which when done, she ran away, and left him the child to take care of. [Illustration] The frontispiece is supposed to represent the following scene:--"The Earl of Rochester being out of favour at the Court took private lodgings on Tower Hill, where being in disguise, he set up a mountebank's stage upon the hill, and spoke to the Mob in the following manner. "Gentlemen and Ladies. "Here is my famous Unguentum Aureum, or Golden Ointment, so very famous for curing all kinds of distempers in men, women and children. Look here, good people, this is my noble Tinctura Hyperboriacorum prepared only by myself. This will make the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak; nay there is nothing can restore life so soon as this; for with three drops of this tincture I restored a gentleman to life who had lost his head seven years; but he being a state criminal, the Emperor made me fly to Germany for my great exploit; Therefore I am come here to seek my fortune, with my incomparable and famous tincture, which cures all manner of sickness, hectick fever, jaundice, looseness, megrims, and all other distempers incident to mankind," etc. THE _HISTORY_ OF ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH. AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLIE. Who were three Archers good enough The best in the North Country. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. This Chap-book follows the old poem very closely, and, in its main facts, is almost identical with an edition of 1550.[18] The story is briefly as follows:--Of the three outlaws, only one, William of Cloudeslie, was married, and he longed to see his wife and children at Carlisle. He went, was welcomed by his wife, but was betrayed to the sheriff by an old woman whom he had kept out of charity over seven years. His house was surrounded, and, as no entrance could be forced, it was set on fire. William let down his wife and children out of a back window, and at last he was compelled to sally forth in order to escape being burnt. He was overcome and captured, and sentenced to be hanged next day. A little boy heard of this, and ran and told Adam Bell and Clim, who went to Carlisle, and, in spite of fearful odds against them, rescued William when on his road to execution. They performed prodigies of valour, killed the justice, and sheriff, and hundreds of the citizens, and finally got clear off. William's wife joined them, and, fearful of the consequences of their deeds, they set off at once to London to sue for pardon from the king. At first he would not hear of it, but at the queen's intercession he relented and pardoned them, just before a letter arrived from Carlisle narrating their evil doings. The pardon could not be recalled, but the king, having heard of their wonderful shooting, determined that they should beat all his archers or die. William did so, by cleaving a hazel wand at four hundred paces, and then shooting an apple off his son's head at a hundred and twenty paces. The king was so struck with these marvellous feats that-- "Now God forbid, then said the King, That thou should shoot at me. I give thee Eighteen pence a Day, And my Bow shalt thou bear, Yea, over all the North Country, I make thee Chief Keeper. Ill give thee Thirteen pence a Day, Said the Queen, by my fay Come fetch the payment when thou wilt No man shall say thee Nay. William, I make thee Gentleman, Of Clothing and of Fee, Thy Brethren of my Bedchamber For they are lovely to see. Your Son, for he's of tender age, Of my Cellarists shall be; And when he comes to Man's Estate Better preferr'd shall be; And William bring your wife, said she, I long full sore to see; She shall be chief Gentlewoman To govern my Nursery." It will be seen from the foregoing short description, that the frontispiece has nothing to do with the book. It is very evidently belonging to some history of Robin Hood, as he is represented in the centre at the top, having on one side either the Bishop of Carlisle or the Abbot of St. Mary's, and on the other the beggar, tinker, or shepherd who thrashed him, while at the bottom are Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian. [Footnote 18: "Adam bel Clym of the cloughe and wyllyym of cloudesle. (colophon) Imprinted at London in Lothburye by Wyllyam Copland." Black letter.] A TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD LONDON [Illustration] Whilst the poems and ballads on Robin Hood are more plentiful than on any other Englishman, the Chap-books are comparatively scarce, probably on account of the impossibility of condensing his numerous adventures and exploits into the conventional twenty-four pages. There are several editions printed in London, all having similar engravings, of which, however, but three or four belong properly to the work, which are reproduced below, the first being Robin Hood and the Abbot of St. Mary. [Illustration] "He bound the Abbot to a tree, And would not let him pass Before that to his men and he, His Lordship had said Mass." The next is Robin's attack on the Bishop of Ely. [Illustration] "He riding down towards the North, With his aforesaid train Robin and his men did issue forth, Them all to entertain. And with the gallant grey goose wing, They shew'd to them such play, That made their horses kick and fling, And down their riders lay. Full glad and fain the Bishop was, For all his thousand men, To seek what means he could to pass From out of Robin's ken. Two hundred of his men were kill'd, And fourscore horses good, Thirty who did as captives yield, Were brought to the Green Wood-- Which afterwards were ransomed For twenty marks a man, The rest set spurs to horse and fled To the town of Warrington." And there is the representation of the treacherous monk bleeding him to death. [Illustration] "This sad perplexity did cause A fever as some say, Which him into confusion draws, Tho' by a stranger way. This deadly danger to prevent, He hy'd him with all speed Unto a Nunnery with intent For health's sake there to bleed. A faithless friar did pretend In love, to let him blood, But he by falsehood wrought the end Of famous Robin Hood." THE _HISTORY_ OF THE BLIND BEGGER OF BEDNAL GREEN. [Illustration: Young _Monford_ Riding to the Wars where he unhapily lost his Eyesight] Licensed and Enterd according to Order Printed for _T. Norris_, at the _Looking-Glass_ on _London Bridge_. The illustrations to this very scarce Chap-book are evidently of earlier date than 1715, to which it is assigned, and, with the exception of the one of the blind beggar and his dog, have probably very little to do with the letter-press. The frontispiece is more likely to represent "Prince Rupert and his dogge Pudle" than "Young Monford Riding to the Wars." The ballad is well known, and extremely popular in England; it was written in the reign of Elizabeth, to commemorate the tradition of Henry de Montfort, a son of Simon de Montfort, the famous Earl of Leicester, founder of the House of Commons, who was slain at the battle of Evesham, August 4, 1265. His son, Henry, who was left for dead on the field, was found, according to the ballad, by a baron's daughter, who had come to search for her father, but finding young Montfort half dead and deprived of sight by his wounds, she "was moved with pitye and brought him awaye." "In secret she nurst him, and swaged his paine, While hee through the realme was beleev'd to be slaine; At length his faire bride she consented to bee, And made him glad father of prettye Bessee. And now lest oure foes oure lives sholde betraye, Wee clothed ourselves in beggar's arraye; Her jewelles shee sold, and hither came wee; All our comfort and care was our prettye Bessee." The Chap-book differs somewhat in detail from the ballad. It places the time in the wars with France, and the scene itself in France, whither Monford went, accompanied by his wife in man's attire. He was wounded and blind, and was discovered on the field by his wife and servant, and on his recovery to health they all returned to England; but his relations, for some unknown reason, treated him very coldly, and this their high spirits could not brook, so it ended in their settling down at Bethnal Green, where she spun and he turned beggar. Here a professional beggar named Snap introduced himself to him, and "invited him to their Feasts, or Rendezvouse in White chappel, whither he having promised to come, and they between them tipp'd off four black Pots of Hum, they at that time parted." His wife took him to the "rendezvouse," where he not only thoroughly enjoyed himself, but the beggars presented him with a dog trained to the business. [Illustration] Soon after this pretty Betty was born, and at fifteen years of age was a marvel of beauty, and a paragon of accomplishments. Betty then left her parents, and obtained a situation at an inn at Rumford, where she found plenty of lovers, all of whom, except the knight, withdrew their pretensions to her hand when they heard she was only the daughter of a blind beggar. The knight, however, was constant, and they had just set out together to see old Monford, when the knight's uncle came up, and, having followed them, created a scene at the beggar's residence, when, to end it, Monford proposed to give angel for angel with the knight's uncle, as a fortune for the young people. The uncle's servant was sent for coin, and the two old gentlemen set themselves to their task of dropping angels against each other; but the beggar kept producing cats' skins filled with gold, and beat the knight's uncle. This money was made up to £3000 by Monford, who also gave Bessie "a hundred more to buy her a gown." Monford declared his pedigree; everybody was pleased and happy, and the young couple were duly married. [Illustration] [Illustration: The young Knight that Married pretty _Betty_] THE HISTORY OF THE BLIND BEGGAR _Of Bethnal Green_; SHEWING HIS BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. His going to the Wars, losing his sight, and turning Beggar at Bethnal Green. Of his getting Riches, and the Education of his Daughter; who is courted by a young Knight.--Of the Beggar's dropping Gold with the Knight's Uncle.--Of the Knight's Marriage with the Beggar's Daughter; and the Discovery of his famous Pedigree. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE LONDON [Illustration] "The Beggar Trav'lling with his Dog, Brings home good store of Wealth to prog With which he does outvie the Knight, And weds his Child to her delight." [Illustration: THE BLIND BEGGAR RECEIVING ALMS.] [Illustration: MONTFORT RETURNING FROM THE BEGGARS' FEAST.] [Illustration: PRETTY BESSIE RECEIVING HER FATHER'S BLESSING WHEN GOING TO SEEK HER OWN LIVELIHOOD.] [Illustration: BESSIE AND THE KNIGHT GOING TO SEE HER FATHER.] [Illustration: The HISTORY of The Two Children in the WOOD.] _The most Lamentable and Deplorable_ HISTORY OF THE TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOOD: CONTAINING The happy Loves and Lives of their Parents, the Treachery and barbarous Villany of their Unkle, the duel between the Murdering Ruffians, and the unhappy and deplorable death of the two innocent Children. As also an Account of the Justice of God that overtook the Unnatural Unkle; and of the deserved Death of the two murdering Ruffians. TO WHICH IS ANNEX'D THE OLD SONG UPON THE SAME LONDON: PRINTED BY AND FOR W.O., AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS. The date given to this rare and most interesting Chap-book is 1700, but though the frontispiece apparently points to an earlier date, it seems to have been executed specially for this work, as the nearest approach to it, a ballad in the Bagford Collection (British Museum, (643, m. 10)/44), varies from it in some slight particulars, and this is undoubtedly the finest engraving of the subject extant. Almost all the ballads of the seventeenth, and the Chap-books of the eighteenth, century give a similar treatment: the duel between the ruffians, the birds covering the children with leaves, the deserved chastisement of the good robber, and the fearful punishment that fell upon the wicked uncle thus described in this book. "But tho' he had contriv'd all this so privately, yet Divine vengeance follow'd him; affrighting Dreams terrifying him in his Sleep, and the image of the murther'd children still staring him i' th' Face; and he that egg'd him on to all this wickedness, now in most horrid Shapes appear'd to him, and threat'ning every Moment to destroy him. Besides, most of his Cattle dy'd of the Murrain, his Corn was blasted, and his Barns were fir'd by Lightning; Mildews and Catter-pillars destroy'd all his Fruits; two of his Sons, for whom he coveted his Brother's Lands, were cast away at Sea. His company was hated by all honest Men, and he was forc'd to herd with Rogues and Villains out of meer necessity, amongst whom when he had profusely lavish'd his Estate, he run in Debt, and was cast into Prison, where through Despair and Want he dy'd unpitied." "The Old Song upon the Same" is identical with the earliest (1640) in the British Museum (Rox. I. 284), and may be considered as the standard ballad. Indeed, another ballad (Rox. III. 588) in the same collection (1720) has been corrected in ink from this model. "THE NORFOLK GENTLEMAN'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, ETC. "Now ponder well, you Parents dear, these words which I shall write, A Doleful Story you shall hear, in time brought forth to light; A Gentleman of good account, in Norfolk dwelt of late, Whose Wealth and Riches did surmount, most men of his Estate. Sore sick he was, and like to dye, No help that he could have; His Wife by him as sick did lye, and both possess'd one Grave, No love between these two was lost, each was to other kind, In love they liv'd, in love they dy'd, and left two Babes behind. The one a fine and prity Boy, not passing three Years old, The other a Girl more young than he, and made in Beauty's Mould; The Father left his little Son, as plainly doth appear, When he to perfect Age should come, three hundred Pounds a year. And to his little Daughter Jane, five hundred Pound in Gold, To be paid down on Marriage day, which might not be controul'd; But if the Children chance to dye, e're they to Age should come, Their Uncle should possess their Wealth, for so the Will did run. 'Now, brother, (said the dying Man) look to my children dear, 'Be good unto my Boy and Girl, no Friends else I have here: 'To God and you I do commend my children night and day, 'A little while be sure we have within this world to stay. 'You must be Father and Mother both, and Uncle all in one; 'God knows what will become of them, when I am dead and gone. 'With that bespoke their Mother dear, O Brother kind quoth she, 'You are the Man must bring my Babes to Wealth or Misery. 'If you do keep them carefully, then God will you reward. 'If otherwise you seem to deal, God will your Deeds regard. With lips as cold as any stone, he kist the Children small, 'God bless you both, my Children dear; with that the tears did fall. These Speeches then their Brother spoke, to this sick Couple there, 'The keeping of your Children dear, sweet Sister, do not fear; 'God never prosper me nor mine, nor aught else that I have, 'If I do wrong your Children dear, when you are laid in Grave.' Their Parents being dead and gone, the Children home he takes, And brings them home unto his House, and much of them he makes. He had not kept those prity Babes, a Twelvemonth and a Day, But for their Wealth he did devise to make them both away. He bargain'd with two Ruffians rude, that were of furious Mood, That they should take the Children young, and slay them in a Wood. And told his Wife and all he had, he did the Children send To be brought up in fair London, with one that was his friend. Away then went these prity Babes rejoycing at that Tide, Rejoycing with a merry mind, they should on Cock horse ride: They prate and prattle pleasantly, as they rode on the way, To those that should their Butchers be, and work their Lives decay. So that the prity speech they had, made Murtherers hearts relent, And they that took the Deed to do, full sore they did repent. Yet one of them more hard of heart, did vow to do his charge, Because the wretch that hired him, had paid him very large. The other would not agree thereto, so here they fell at Strife, With one another they did fight about the Children's Life: And he that was of mildest mood, did slay the other there, Within an unfrequented Wood, where Babes did quake for fear. He took the Children by the hand, when tears stood in their eye, And bade them come and go with him, and look they did not cry: And two long Miles he led them thus, while they for Bread complain, Stay here, quoth he, I'll bring ye Bread, when I do come again. These prity Babes with hand in hand, went wandering up and down, But never more they saw the Man, approaching from the Town: Their prity lips with Black berries, were all besmear'd and dy'd, And when they saw the darksome night, they sat them down and cry'd. Thus wandered these two prity Babes, till death did end their grief; In one another's arms they dy'd as Babes wanting Relief; No Burial these prity Babes of any Man receives, Till Robin red breast painfully, did cover them with Leaves. And now the heavy Wrath of God upon their Uncle fell, Yea, fearful Fiends did haunt his house, his Conscience felt an Hell: His barns were fir'd, his goods consum'd, his lands were barren made, His Cattle dy'd within the Field, and nothing with him staid. And in the Voyage of Portugal, two of his sons did dye; And to conclude, himself was brought unto much Misery; He pawn'd and mortgag'd all his land, e're seven years came about; And now at length this wicked Act, did by this means come out: The Fellow that did take in hand these Children for to kill, Was for a Robbery judg'd to dye, as was God's blessed Will; Who did confess the very Truth of what here is exprest; Their Uncle dy'd while he for debt, did long in Prison rest. All you that be Executors made, and Overseers eke, Of Children that be Fatherless, and Infants mild and meek; Take you Example by this thing, and yeild to each his Right, Least God with such like Misery, your wicked Minds requite. "FINIS." In "The History of the Children in the Wood; or Murder Revenged," published in Aldermary Churchyard, and all other Chap-books, the name of the father is changed from Arthur Truelove to Pisaurus, the wicked uncle is called Androgus, and the children are named Cassander and Jane. The three illustrations therefrom tell their own story. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] THE HISTORY OF SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON THRICE Lord Mayor of London. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE. The common version of Whittington's story is well known, and not worth repeating at length. The headings of the chapters tell the tale succinctly, and are all that is wanted to explain the illustrations. "Chap. 1. Of Whittington's obscure Birth and hard Fortune; and of his being drove to London. "Chap. 2. Of Mrs. Alice putting him under the Cook, with her cruel Usage to him; and Mrs. Alice's interposition in his favour. "Chap. 3. Of his being troubled with Vermin in his Garret; of his buying a Cat to destroy them; and of his sending her for a venture abroad. "It was a custom with the worthy merchant Mr. Hugh Fitz Warren, that God might give him a greater blessing to his endeavours, to call his servants together when he sent out a ship, and cause every one to venture something in it to try their fortune; for which they was to pay nothing for freight or custom." The two illustrations, one taken from a Chap-book published at Newcastle (1770?), show Fitzwarren receiving his servants' ventures. [Illustration] [Illustration] "Chap. 4. Of Whittington's Elopement on Allhallow's Day; and his Return on hearing Bow Bells ring; and of the Disposal of the Cat by the Factor abroad." This illustration shows the dreadful condition of the Court of Barbary as regards rats, and by the style the cat is killing her foes, the casket of jewels, valued at £300,000, was not too dear for her purchase. "Chap. 5. Of the Riches received for the Cat; the Unbelief of Whittington on their Arrival; and of his Liberality to some of his Fellow Servants. "Chap. 6. Of Mr. Whittington's Comely Person and Deportment; of Mrs. Alice's falling in Love with him and marrying him, and of his being Sheriff of London. "Chap. 7. Of his being thrice Lord Mayor, his entertainment of Henry V., and his Death, Burial, etc." [Illustration] [Illustration] As a matter of fact, the common story of Sir Richard Whittington is full of error. So far from being a poor obscure boy, he was the third son of Sir William Whittington, lord of the manor of Pauntley, in Gloucestershire, who died in 1360. He was sent to London to be a merchant, then a not unusual course to pursue with cadets of good families, and eventually became enormously rich. He was thrice Lord Mayor of London, in 1397, 1406, and 1419, besides having been named by Richard II. to succeed a Mayor who died in his year of office. He was a mercer, and enjoyed royal patronage, his invoices of the wedding trousseau of the Princesses Blanche and Philippa, daughters of Henry IV., being still in existence. He died, leaving no issue, in 1423. He rebuilt Newgate, founded the library in Guildhall, and the Grey Friars, repaired St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and materially contributed towards the rebuilding of the nave of Westminster Abbey. These are the bare facts of his life. His cat still remains a mystery. It has been said that he made money by carrying coals in vessels called cats or "cattes." Mr. Riley, who edited the famous "Liber Albus" (which compilation we owe to Whittington), suggests that his fortune was made by "achats," which was the French name for trading; and Mr. Lysons, in his charming book, "The Model Merchant of the Middle Ages," defends the ordinary story on these grounds: 1st. From the ancient and generally received tradition; 2nd. From the scarcity and value of domestic cats at that period; 3rd. From its not being a solitary instance of a fortune made by such means; 4th. From the ancient portraits and statues of Whittington in connection with a cat, some of which may be reasonably traced up to the times and orders of his own executors. The reader may decide which of the three theories he prefers. [Illustration] THE _HISTORY_ OF WAT TYLER AND JACK STRAW. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. This Chap-book gives a very fair account of the domestic troubles of Richard II.'s reign, especially of the poll-tax rising of 1381; but it stigmatizes as "scum," "rake shames," and "rake hells" those poor men who then rose against oppression. The frontispiece represents Sir William Walworth, and gives due prominence to the famous dagger, with which he is said to have killed Wat Tyler, and which is still shown at Fishmonger's Hall. There was a play, "The Life and Death of Iake Straw, a notable Rebell in England; who was kild in Smithfield by the Lord Maior of London--Printed at Lond. by Iohn Danter and are to be sold by William . Barley 1593;" and a tract, which was taken from the "Chronicle of the Schoolmaster of St. Albans," called "The just Reward of Rebels, or the Life and Death of Jack Straw and Wat Tyler 1642." There was also another little book, of which two editions appeared in 1654, called "The Idol of the Clownes or Insurrection of Wat the Tyler." THE HISTORY OF JACK OF NEWBURY CALLED _THE CLOTHIER OF ENGLAND_. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON. Of Jack of Newbury, as he is familiarly called, very little is known certainly. He lived in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., and was said to be the largest clothier or clothmaker in England. He sumptuously entertained Henry VIII. and Queen Catherine on their visit to the town, and built the vestry to the church, besides having liberally contributed towards its improvement. He also left £40 for the same object. In his will he describes himself as "John Smalwoode the Elder a[~l]s John Wynchcombe." He was twice married, and left his wife Joan behind him. There is a brass to him and his first wife: "Off yo charitie pray for the soule of John Smalwode als Wynchcom & Alys hys Wyfe. John dyed the 15 day of February A^o Dm. M^oCCCCC^oXIX." The Chap-book version is, that he was apprenticed to a rich clothier at Newbury, and married his master's widow, and a great portion of the book is taken up with their courtship. "Shortly after the king had occasion to raise an army against the Scots, who were risen against the English, Jack of Newbury raised at his own expense one hundred and fifty men, and cloathed them with white coats, red caps and yellow feathers, and led them himself." This was to the famous battle of Flodden. [Illustration] Jack's wife died, and he married one of his maids, whose father came to see her, and was astonished at Jack's magnificent establishment, making a speech which would delight the Philological Society. "Sir, quoth the old man, I wize you be abominable rich, and cham content you should have my daughter, and God's blessing and mine light on you both. I waith cham of good exclamashon amongst all my neighbours, and they will as soon ask my 'vize for any thing as rich men. So thick I will agree. You shall have her with my very good will, because we hear a very good commendation of you in every place, therefore besides thick, I will give you twenty marks and a weaning calf that's a year old, and when I and my wife die then you shall have the revolution of our goods." Jack, however, gave the old man twenty pounds and other things. The book ends with Jack's death, and an imaginary epitaph. Thomas Deloney wrote a novel called "The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb, in his younger yeares called Jack of Newberie, the famous and worthy clothier of England," which was licensed to three several persons in 1595 and 1596; but the earliest known edition is the eighth, published in 1619. THE =Life and Death= OF FAIR ROSAMOND CONCUBINE TO _King Henry the Second_ SHEWING HER BEING POISONED BY QUEEN ELEANOR. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD, LONDON Perhaps the earliest book about this frail beauty is "The Life and Death of Fair Rosamond, King Henry the Seconds Concubine, and how she was Poysoned to death by Queen Elenor. Printed for F. Coles" (circa 1640); but afterwards her story became very popular, and numerous editions were published. She has more than once been made the subject of a drama. There is one, however, by John Bancroft, which is replete with historical recollections. It is called "Henry the Second, King of England; with the death of Rosamond. A Tragedy Acted at the Theatre Royal, by their Majesties Servants. Printed for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges Head in Chancery Lane near Fleet Street 1693." Thackeray's "poor Will Mountfort" wrote the "epistle dedicatory;" Dryden wrote the epilogue. Betterton played King Henry II.; Doggett took the part of Bertrand, a priest; whilst Queen Eleanor and Rosamond were respectively represented by Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle! Respecting Rosamond's tomb, there is no doubt she was buried at Godstow, for her father, Walter de Clifford,[19] granted the nuns there certain property at Frampton-on-Severn (which tradition says was the birthplace of the fair one), "pro salute animæ meæ, et pro animabus uxoris meæ Margaretæ et filiæ nostræ Rosamundæ." And in another document (same page) Osbertus, son of Hugh, gave to the convent a certain saltpit at Wich, at the instance of the said Walter de Clifford, "pro salute animæ uxoris suæ Margaretæ et animæ filiæ suæ Rosamundæ _quarum corpora ibidem requiescunt_." The history of the "Rosa Mundi" is not told to advantage in this Chap-book, but its facts are mainly in accordance with the popular tradition; and probably the stratagem used by Queen Eleanor to effect an entrance into her rival's bower, _i.e._ by sending a sham postman, may be as correct as the generally received notion of the ball of silk being dropped and unrolled, thus betraying the place of her seclusion. The bowl and dagger scene so vividly given in the frontispiece, is in accordance with tradition, although among nearly contemporary writers there is no mention of her dying a violent death, nor was such suggested till long afterwards. In fact, we have no evidence at all in support of Eleanor's jealous violence. As before mentioned, Rosamond was buried at Godstow, a convent near Oxford, of which a very ruined portion still exists; but her remains were not suffered to remain undisturbed, for Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, coming to Godstow in 1191, asked whose tomb that was, and was told it was the tomb of Rosamond, "some time Lemman to Henry II." Then said the stern bishop, "Take out of this place the Harlot, and bury her without the Church." Tradition says her poor bones were then laid in the nun's chapter-house, but at the Reformation they were taken up and her tomb destroyed. Hearne[20] says, "After this Removal, it continu'd at rest 'till about the time of the Reformation, when 'twas taken up, as Mr. Leland himself acquaints us, and at the same time a Stone was found with it, on which was this Inscription 'Tumba Rosamvnda' which is a different Inscription from this common one:[21] 'Hic jacet in Tumba Rosa Mundi, non Rosa Munda Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.' But the latter possibly is the Epitaph that was fix'd in the Quire of the Church before the Body was remov'd. Mr. Leland, I think, saw the Stone himself, and he tells us that when her Coffin was open'd they found her Bones in it, and a very sweet smell came from it." [Footnote 19: Monasticon, vol. ii. p. 884, ed. orig.] [Footnote 20: Leland's "Itinerary" (2nd edit.), p. 101.] [Footnote 21: In Corio's "History of Milan" (vol. i. p. 47) this epitaph is stated to have been placed on the tomb of Rosamunda, queen of the Lombards, who died by poison, in the sixth century.] THE STORY OF KING EDWARD III AND THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY [Illustration] "Know this plain Truth (enough for Man to know) "Virtue alone is Happiness below." PRINTED BY J. BRISCOE, IN THE MARKET PLACE WHITEHAVEN. This Chap-book seems the only edition extant. It is no great loss in a literary point of view, for the supposed history is pure fiction. The countess is represented as the daughter of Earl Varuccio, and the whole novelette is about the endeavours of the king to seduce her. He tries when her husband is alive, and when she is a widow he still presses her to be his mistress, and is firmly but respectfully repulsed. He makes her father and mother sue to her, without success; and finally, being overcome by the sight of such immaculate virtue, marries her amid the plaudits of the people. The episode of the garter only occupies a paragraph at the end of the book. THE CONQUEST OF FRANCE _With the Life and Glorious Actions of_ =Edward the Black Prince= Son to Edward the Third King of England, his Victory, with about Twelve thousand Archers and Men at Arms, over Philip of France, and an hundred thousand Frenchmen; his Vanquishing King John of France, and taking him and his Son Prisoners; his Love to the Earl of Kent's fair Daughter, and Marriage with her; Being a History full of great and noble Actions in Love and Arms, to the Honour of the English Nation. [Illustration] LONDON: PRINTED AND SOLD BY C. DICEY, IN BOW CHURCH YARD; SOLD ALSO AT HIS WAREHOUSE IN NORTHAMPTON. THE _HISTORY_ OF JANE SHORE, CONCUBINE TO KING EDWARD IV. GIVING An account of her Birth, Parentage, her Marriage with Mr. Matthew Shore, a Goldsmith in Lombard Street, London. How she left her Husband's bed to live with King Edward IV. And of the miserable End she made at her Death. [Illustration] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. According to this Chap-book version (and it is as reliable as any other), this lovely, but erring, woman was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Wainsted, a mercer in Cheapside, whose business lay among the ladies of the Court, whither his daughter frequently accompanied him. Her conduct seems to have been of extreme levity, and her father rejoiced when she was married to Matthew Shore, a rich goldsmith in Lombard Street. Lord Hastings, having in vain tried to seduce her, and being forbidden the house by her husband, told the king, Edward IV., of her; who went to Shore's house, disguised as a merchant, and saw her. By the contrivance of Hastings and a go-between named Mrs. Blague, Jane was enticed to a Court ball, where the king discovered himself and told her of his affection for her. This was too much for the weak woman, and next day she left her husband's home. Shore, finding where she had gone, was heartbroken, and went abroad; returned in poverty, took to evil ways, and was executed for clipping coin in the reign of Henry VIII. Jane lived in great splendour until the death of Edward, and then Lord Hastings took her; but at his death she was apprehended, and had to do penance in a white sheet, with a cross and wax taper in her hand, walking barefoot and bare-headed through Cheapside. The Chap-book gives a graphic account of her sad fate: "Richard, not content with this, put out a severe proclamation to this effect; That on pain of death, and confiscation of goods, no one should harbour her in their houses or relieve her with food and raiment. So that she went wandering up and down to find her food upon the bushes and on the dunghills, where some friends she had raised would throw bones with more meat than ordinary, and crusts of stale bread in the places where she generally haunted. And a baker who had been condemned to die for a riot in King Edward's reign and saved by her means, as he saw her pass along in gratitude for her kindness would trundle a penny loaf after her, which she thankfully took up and blest him with tears in her eyes. But some malicious neighbour informing against him: he was taken up and hanged for disobeying King Richard's proclamation; which so terrified others, that they durst not relieve her with anything, so that in miserable rags, almost naked, she went about a most shocking spectacle, wringing her hands, and bemoaning her unhappy circumstances." After Bosworth Field and Richard's death, she hoped for help from Henry VII.; but receiving only fresh persecution, "she wandered up and down in as poor and miserable condition as before, till growing old, and utterly friendless, she finished her life in a ditch, which is from thence called Shore Ditch adjoining to Bishopgate St."[22] There is a very lugubrious and classical poem of nearly two hundred verses, or twelve hundred lines, called "Beawtie dishonoured written vnder the title of Shore's wife" (London, 1593). [Footnote 22: It is needless to say that this derivation is utterly erroneous. It was probably called so because the ditch was a shore or sewer, or from Sir John de Soerdich, lord of the manor, _temp._ Edward III.] THE _HISTORY_ Of the most Renowned QUEEN ELIZABETH _And her great Favourite_ THE EARL OF ESSEX. [Illustration: ELIZABETHA REGINA] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED BY J. WHITE. More than half this book is taken up with an elaborate confession by Elizabeth, to the Countess of Nottingham, of her love for the unfortunate Earl of Essex; and, historically speaking, it has many blunders, such as making him privately marry the Countess of Rutland, instead of Sir Philip Sidney's widow, etc. It is mainly taken from "The Secret History of the most renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex. By a Person of Quality London 1695;" and, like that book, was sometimes published in two parts. THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL MARTYR _King Charles the First_ WITH THE _EFFIGIES_ of those _WORTHY PERSONS_ that Suffered; and the Time and Places where they lost their Lives in his Majesty's Cause, during the Usurpation of _OLIVER CROMWELL_ [Illustration] SOLD IN BOW CHURCH YARD, LONDON. Of this book there are two parts, and it is interesting, as it gives portraits of the celebrated men in Charles I.'s reign, with brief biographical notices of each, out of Clarendon. Space will only admit of the portraits out of the first part. [Illustration: WILLIAM LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. BEHEADED 10TH JANUARY, 1644.] [Illustration: DR. HEWIT. BEHEADED 8TH JUNE, 1658.] [Illustration: EARL OF LITCHFIELD.] [Illustration: EARL OF KINGSTON.] [Illustration: EARL OF NORTHAMPTON.] [Illustration: EARL OF STRAFFORD.] [Illustration: EARL OF CARNARVON.] [Illustration: EARL OF LINDSEY.] =England's Black Tribunal;= BEING THE Characters of King _CHARLES_ the First, and the Nobility that Suffer'd for him. [Illustration] _Ecce Spectaculum dignum ad quod respiciat Deus operi suo intentus, Vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus._ Sen. de Prov. c. 2. _LONDON_: Printed for _E. M._ near _White-Hall_. This Chap-book is extremely like the "History of the Royal Martyr," as it simply consists of portraits and short biographies of Sir Bevil Granville. Viscount Falkland. Earl of Lichfield. Sir Ralph Hopton. Earl of Carnarvon. Earl of Holland. Marquis of Montrose. Earl of Kingston. Archbishop Laud. Earl of Lindsey. Dr. Hewit. Earl of Northampton. Lord Capel. Sir Henry Slingsby. Earl of Strafford. Duke of Hamilton. Colonel Penruddock. Sir Charles Lucas. Sir George Lisle. Earl of Derby. _The Foreign Travels of_ SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE CONTAINING An Account of remote Kingdoms, Countries, Rivers, Castles, &c. Together with a Description of Giants, Pigmies, and various other People of odd Deformities; as also their Laws, Customs, and Manners. Likewise, enchanted Wildernesses, Dragons, Griffins, and many more wonderful Beasts of Prey, &c. &c. &c. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD LONDON The earliest printed English edition seems to be that by Wynkyn de Worde: "Here Begynneth a lytell treatyse or booke named Johan Mandeuyll Knyght born in Englonde in the towne of saynt Albone, and speketh of the wayes of the holy londe towards Iherrusalem, and of marueyles of Ynde and of other dyuers co[=u]trees;" colophon: "Here endeth the boke of Johan Ma[=u]deuyll Knyght, of the wayes towarde Jerusalem and of the meruayles of Ynde and of other diverse co[=u]tries. Emprynted at Westmynster by Wynkyn de Worde. Anno d[=n]i 1499." But the British Museum possesses earlier editions in other languages--for instance, in French, 1478; Dutch, 1470; and Italian, 1488; which goes to show how universally his work was read. The original of this book was intended as a guide for pilgrims for Jerusalem. Of Sir John Maundeville, Knight, very little is known but what he tells us--that he set out on his travels in 1323, and returned and wrote the account in 1356. He afterwards went to Liége, and is said to have died there, according to one authority in 1371, and to another in 1382. He either was extremely credulous, and believed everything told him, or he drew very largely upon his imagination for his facts. Anyhow, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries his work was most popular; and even the marvels contained in the condensed form of a Chap-book are sufficient to satisfy the most rabid craving for literary stimulants. As this history is not well known, it is given in its entirety. CHAP. 1. SIR JOHN'S TRAVELS TO THE HOLY LAND; AND OF THE ENCHANTED HAWKE. I, Sir John Mandeville Kn^t born in the Old town of S^t Albans set forward to travel on Michaelmas Day 1322,[23] to the Holy Land; and shall give an account of all the remarkable things in the countries thro' which I passed, as follows; First, In my way to Jerusalem, I passed through Almain, Hungary, and so to Constantinople where before S^t Stephen's Church is the image of Justinian the Emperor, sitting on horseback crowned, holding an apple in his hand. From thence I passed thro' Turkey, Nika, and several islands, where I beheld men hunting with pampeons like leopards, catching wild beasts quicker than hounds. From thence I passed to Hierusalem and went on a pilgrimage to the Church where is the holy grave; in the middle of the Church is a tabernacle, on the right side of which is the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the Cross on which he was crucified standing in a Mortis by it. In this mortis, it is said Adam's head was found after the Flood. Travelling on further I came to a country whereon stands the Castle of Cyprus; where I beheld a curious hawk sitting on a porch, and a beautiful Lady of Fairy Land keeping it; and it is said, he that will watch seven days and seven nights, without company or sleep, this lady will come and grant him the richest of worldly things he shall crave; and the truth of which hath been proved often by experience. The men here are proper and of fine complection, their cloaths richly beset with rubies and gold; but the women are short, hard favoured, and go for the most part barefooted, their garments poor and short, that it comes but to the middle of their thighs, yet their sleeves, so extraordinary long that they hang down to their toes. Their hair long and lank. [Footnote 23: The Chap-book says 1372, but that is a misprint.] CHAP. 2. DESCRIPTION OF AN ODD SORT OF PEOPLE, OF INDIA'S EXTRAORDINARY EELS; AND OF OTHER REMARKABLE WONDERS. From thence I came to the land of Ethiope, where I beheld many strange things. Here is a well, whose water is so cold in the day, as no man dare drink it, and so hot in the night as you cannot bear your finger in it. There is still one thing remarkable in this place, for there is a sort of men who have one foot, yet so swift as to exceed the deer in running. This foot is so large in compass, as when they are minded to rest, lying on their backs it shelters the body from the heat of the sun or showers of rain--When their Children come first into the world they are of a russet complection; but as they grow up they turn perfect black.--One of the wise men who sought for Our Lord in Bethlehem, was King of this Country. From thence I went thro' many Islands into India, where there are eels thirty feet in length, and the men who commonly fish there are of different colours, such as green, yellow, blue, &c. In the heat of the day the men and women lay themselves under water, and the women are not ashamed to appear naked before the men. In the island of Lombe they worship images according to their own imaginations; and here there are wonderful rats, exceeding the tallest hounds; and they hunt these rats with mastiff dogs, who can scarce conquer them. From thence I passed thro' the forest of Tombar, where grows abundance of Spices, and came to a city called Polomes, where there is a well, whose waters are variable every hour of the day, taking of changeable spices and rich odors; and whoever drinks of this water three times is cured of all diseases: They call it, The Well of Youth. I drank thereof myself, and believe I am the better for it ever since. Here they worship an Ox for his simplicity, whose dung and urine they preserve in vessels of gold, and present it to the King, who puts his hand into it, and anoints his breast and forehead, saying, "I am anointed with the virtue of the Ox." And after him the Nobles do the like, as long as any is left. The idols they constantly worship are half men and half oxen, before whom they often slay their Children by way of sacrifice. And when any man dies they burn him, in token of penance; and if he leaves no children, they burn his wife with him, saying she ought to bear him company in the next world, as she did in this. CHAP. 3. OF THE COUNTRY OF LEMORY. OF THE KING OF JAVA'S GOLDEN PALACE. AND OF THE KINGDOM OF TELONOCK. From thence I came to Lemory, where the men and women go naked, and glory in it, saying God made Adam and Eve both naked, and why should they be ashamed of what God made? Here is no marriages, but all are common one with another. Their riches is as common to each other as themselves; and though they have plenty of corn and other dainties yet their chief food is Man's flesh.--Children from other Countries are brought hither as Merchandise to be sold; and those that are fat and plump are killed like pigs for stately banquetting; and those that are lean they fatten and kill also. Near this isle is another, where the nobility, as a mark of distinction are burned in the face with a red hot iron. These people hold a perpetual war with the aforesaid naked men and women. From thence I travelled to Java, a place abounding with all manner of Spices; the King thereof has seven Kings under him, and so wealthy is he, that the stairs and floors of his palace are covered with massy gold and silver; and the walls with the same. On which are written ancient stories of renowned Knights and valiant men at arms. Travelling from thence by sea, I came to the land of Telonoch; the King of which has as many wives as he pleases, and never lies but once with each woman. Here is a miraculous wonder, for the various sorts of fishes that breed in the sea, come once a year to land, and lie there three days, in which time the inhabitants take what they please, and the rest return. Then comes another sort and does the like, till all have taken their turns; and no one knoweth the reason, except it be, as they say, that they come to worship their King; who is a mighty Prince, and has at his command forty thousand elephants, upon whose back, when he goeth to fight he placeth mighty Castles, whereby he conquers his enemies. CHAP. 4. OF A BLOODY KIND OF PEOPLE; AND OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE HEADS LIKE HOUNDS. Not far from the last mentioned place is an island called Tarkonet, inhabited by a wicked kind of people, whose delight is in the slaughter of mankind, whose blood they drink with as much pleasure as if it was the richest wine in the world. Moreover, he is accounted most famous who commits most murders; and if two are at variance they must drink of each other's blood before they can be reconciled. Departing from thence, I came to the isle of Macumerac, where the men and women have heads like hounds, and worship the Ox. They fight well, and send the prisoners to their King; who is a peaceable and virtuous man, hindering nobody from passing through his country. About his neck he wears three hundred pearls, with which he says three hundred prayers every morning before breakfast. Here are wild beasts, serpents, &c. CHAP. 5. OF THE SAVAGE PEOPLE DWELLING IN THE ISLE OF DODYN. After three days journey I came to Dodyn, where the Child eats its parents, and its parents the child; the husband his wife, and the wife her husband. If a parent lies sick, the son goes to enquire of the Oracle whether they are for life or death? if for death, he returns with the priest and immediately stops the breath of the parent; which done, the body is strait cut in pieces, and the relations invited to come and feast upon it; having eat the flesh, they bury the bones with joy and musick. The King of this place has twelve isles under his government, viz. in the first are men that eat fish and flesh raw, having but one eye, and that in the middle of their foreheads--In the second are men whose eyes are in their shoulders, and their mouths in their breasts, having no heads.--In the third are men with plain faces, without noses or eyes, but have two holes instead of eyes, and flat mouths--In the fourth are men with plain faces, without nose, mouth or eyes; but they are on their back and shoulders.--In the fifth are men with lips so large that they cover their faces while asleep.--In the sixth are men very small, being but two feet high.--In the seventh are men hanging below their shoulders--In the eighth are men that have feet like horses, and run as swift--In the ninth are men that run upon all fours; their skins are as rough as bears--In the tenth are men going upon their knees, with eight toes on each foot--In the eleventh are men with fingers and toes a yard long--And in the twelfth are people that are both men and women. CHAP. 6. OF THE KINGDOM OF MANCIA. OF PIGMIES. OF THE PROVINCE OF CATHAY, AND THE GRANDEUR OF ITS EMPEROR. Departing from Dodyn, I came to Mancia, in which is the City of Cassa, having ten thousand bridges, and on each bridge a stately tower. Here married women wear crowns on their heads by way of distinction. The fowl are six times as large as in England--Hens instead of feathers wear wool like sheep--Men have beards like Cats, yet are rational, and of good and sound understanding. From thence I passed along the river that leads to the Line of Pigmies, where the men and women are but three spans long, and marry when but half a year old; for as they are but of small stature, so their days are short; for he is looked on to be old who lives eight years. They are very ingenious at working silk and cotton, which is their employ. Large men that live among them till the land, because they are not strong enough to perform such hard labour. From thence I travelled to the province Catha, where are two Cities, the Old and the New. The New has twelve gates, each a mile asunder. In these cities the palace of the great Caan is; in the hall are thirteen pillars of fine gold, the walls covered with red skins of beasts. In the center is a lofty seat for the great Caan, adorned with rubbies, pearls, and diamonds; and underneath are fountains flowing with liquor for the supply of his court. At the left hand are three seats for his three wives who sit in a degree below each other; and on his right hand sits his son and heir. In this hall is an artificial vine which extends its branches over every part of the hall, on which appears fine clusters of grapes. Here the Emperor informed me of the origin of his title, which was as follows; Under his government are seven Lineages, and it is not long since a poor man, named Chanius, sleeping on his bed, was visited by an apparition in the likeness of a Nobleman, saying unto him, Arise, for God hath sent me unto thee to say unto thee, Go unto the seven Lineages, and tell them, that thou shalt be their mighty Emperor to deliver them from their enemies. The old man went, and having delivered his message, they not only laughed at the old man, but called him an hundred fools.--Soon after this, he appeared to the Seven Lineages, telling them it was the will of God it should be so for their deliverance; whereupon they took the old man, and made him Emperor, calling him Great Caan, which continues to this day. To try the loyalty of his nobility, he summoned them together and ordered them to smite off the heads of their eldest sons with their own hands; which they accordingly did. After this convincing proof he sent them forth, and conquered all the countries around him; together with the land of Catha, and then died, leaving his eldest son Chico Emperor whose grandeur made him the greatest Emperor in the World. This Caan is great, and may expend forty millions yearly; but his money is made of leather, for he builds his palaces of silver: in his presence chamber is a gold pillar, in which is fixed a carbuncle that gives continual light in the dark; his subjects have as many wives as they please: some have forty, fifty, an hundred, or more; and they marry their relations, except mothers, sisters, and daughters. Men and women go all in one sort of apparel. When the Emperor dies he is put in a cart, and placed in the midst of a tent, and they set before him a table furnished with meat and mare's milk and close by it a horse saddled and bridled, loaded with gold and silver; and having dug a deep pit, they lay him in it, with all the stuff about him, and also the horse, mare and colt, that he may not want for horses in another world, and one of his Chamberlains is buried alive with him, that he may do him service in another world. CHAP. 7. OF THE LANDS OF GORGY AND BACTRINE. Travelling from thence I came to the land of Gorgy, where dwell many Christians. A great part of this Country is hid with perpetual darkness; nevertheless they have often heard the crowing of cocks, the cries of men, the trampling of horse, and clashing of arms, though none know what sort of people they are; but it is said, a bloody minded Emperor who pursued the Christians to put them to death, and was opposed by the hand of heaven, and the land covered with darkness, so that he could pursue them no longer; but remains with his host in continual darkness. Then I travelled to the land of Bactrine, where are many marvels. Trees bearing wool, with which they make Cloth. Likewise creatures that are half horses, living sometimes in water, and sometimes on land, and they devour men when they meet with them. There I have seen griffins, and the fore part like an eagle, and the hinder parts like a lion. There is likewise another kind of griffin much larger and stronger than the former; also a great number of wild animals of all kinds. CHAP. 8. OF THE LAND OF PRESTOR JOHN, AND PARTS ADJACENT; AND SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE'S HAPPY RETURN TO ENGLAND, &C. From thence I went to the Country of Prestor John, who is a noble Lord and wedded the only daughter of the Great Caan. Such plenty of rich stones and diamonds there is in this country that they make them into Cups and dishes. In this land is a gravelly sea, which ebbs and flows like the ocean, yet not one drop of water is to be seen therein, yet never the less men catch fishes in it. A sand runs in three days in a week, among which are found many rubbies. Trees grow from sun rising to mid day, bearing apples that are harder than iron, which fall into the earth at noon successfully each day. Here are wild men, who are very hairy, with horns on their heads, they speak not but roar like swine. At Pitan, a place in this Kingdom, are men very small, but not so small as the Pigmies. They live on the smell of Apples. On another island are men overgrown with feathers, like the fowls of the air. Near the river Poison there is an enchanted valley between two hills; here are tempests and storms like shrieks and cries so that they call it the Valley of Devils; both day and night the sound of musick and much feasting is heard in it; it also contains great store of gold and silver, for the lucre of which, many have gone into it but never came back again. Beyond this valley is the isle of Girty, where men are 40 feet high, and sheep bigger than oxen. The Emperor Prestor John when he goes to battle hath three golden Crosses carried before him, set with precious stones, and each cross guarded by One Thousand fighting men. He has a most superb palace, and seven Kings, seventy two Dukes, three hundred Earls, and thirty two bishops to wait upon him every day. Beyond this place is a large wilderness, in which grow speaking Trees, called The Trees of the Sun and Moon; and whoever eats of the fruit thereof live four or five hundred years; and some never die. These trees foretold Alexander his death. I would willingly have gone to see them, but was prevented by lions, dragons, etc. The reason of this Emperor's being called Prestor John was as follows; He happened in his progress to go into a Christian Church in Egypt, on the Saturday after Whitsunday, when the Bishop gave Orders; and he asked who they were that stood before the Bishop? the answer was, They are priests. Then said he, I will no longer be called Emperor, but according to the name of the first that comes forth, whose name was John. Therefore the Emperors of that country ever since have been called Prestor John. Towards the East of this place is an island wherein is a mountain of gold dust, kept by pismires, whose industerous labours is to part the fine from the coarse. They are larger than the English hounds, and it is difficult for any one to gain the treasure, through fear of them, for they sting to death. Near this place is a dark Wilderness, full of mountains and craggy rocks, no manner of light appearing to distinguish the day from night. Beyond this is the Paradise where Adam and Eve were, whose ground is the highest in the world. The Flood was not so high as this mountain.--No man can come to the Paradise by land for huge rocks and mountains, nor by sea for restless waves and dangerous waters; some that have attempted it have been struck dead, others blind. This Prester John and his people are baptized, hold with Three Persons in the Trinity, and are very devout in what they profess. They have plenty of Cattle; and the land is divided into twenty two provinces, every one of which hath a king. In this Country also is a gravelly sea containing the like wonders in that before mentioned. Towards the east side of Prester John lies the Island of Taprabone, being a very pleasant and spacious place, abounding with unspeakable plenty, and all manner of rich fruits and spice. The king of this Country pays obedience and is subject to Prester John; to whom he pays a very large revenue. This king is always made by election. To our wonderful admiration here are two summers and two winters every year; they have two harvests, and as for their herbs and flowers they always flourish. The people are of a kind and loving disposition, being for the most part of them Christian professors; whose laws, customs, manners, and actions are as reasonable as their profession; to which they adhere very strictly. Between Prester John's Country and this island is a small river that men wade over from country to Country, without danger of being drowned. These islands and kingdoms of Prester John are directly under the earth, from England. We are foot to foot I can assure the reader, from the great experience of my long travels; of which I at last grew weary, and being desirous once more to see the land of my nativity, and accordingly I set sail for England, and after a very favourable passage, arrived safe on my native shore, to the great joy and satisfaction of all my friends. And since my arrival, have been employed by the help of my journals, in compiling this book, which gives an account of what I have seen in my travels, some of which for their strangeness may seem incredible; but those that will not believe the truth of these things, let them but read the book of Mappa Mundi, and they will find a great part of it there continued; and great many stranger things than are here recited. FINIS. _The Surprizing_ LIFE _and most Strange_ ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE Of the City of York, Mariner. GIVING An Account how he was cast on Shore by Shipwreck (none escaping but himself) on an uninhabited Island, on the Coast of America near the mouth of the great River Oroonoque, where he lived twenty eight Years, till at length he was strangely delivered by Pirates, and brought Home to his native Country. PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. [Illustration] From Defoe's original edition of three volumes in 1719, to the 12mo Chap-book, is a great drop, and, naturally, the story is much condensed. As it is so well known, only the illustrations are given, which in this edition are quainter than in the earlier one published at Aldermary Churchyard. [Illustration: ROBINSON AND XURY ESCAPING FROM THE MOORS.] [Illustration: HE SETS SAIL ON HIS EVENTFUL VOYAGE.] [Illustration: THE WRECK.] [Illustration: HE KEEPS A RECORD OF TIME AND EVENTS.] [Illustration: ADVENT OF FRIDAY.] [Illustration: ARRIVAL OF SAVAGES WITH CHRISTIAN PRISONER.] [Illustration: LANDING OF MUTINOUS CREW ON ISLAND.] A Brief Relation of the _ADVENTURES_ OF =M. Bamfyeld Moore Carew= _For more than forty Years past the_ KING OF THE BEGGARS. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN LONDON. This Chap-book gives a very fair account of the adventures of this misguided man, who so wasted his fair natural abilities. It is hardly worth giving _in extenso_, but, as generally, his eventful life is not much known, it may be interesting to give the story, and some extracts. Bamfylde Moore (so named from his two godfathers) Carew was the son of a clergyman near Tiverton, and was born in 1693. While at Tiverton School, he and some of his schoolmates got into serious trouble for hunting a deer, and, rather than face the certain chastisement, they ran away, and joined a company of gipsies, with whom Carew abode. He swindled a lady out of twenty guineas by pretending to tell her where a treasure was buried, and generally followed the bad example of his companions, until the fancy took him to return home. He did so; but the fascination of his wild life was too great, and he once more ran away and joined his beloved gipsies. His disguises were innumerable, and he even feigned madness successfully, at all events in a monetary point of view. Once, when disguised as a rat-catcher (see frontispiece), he was recognized, and a gentleman present, one Mr. Pleydell, said he had often wished to see him, but never had. "Yes, you have, replied Carew, and given me a suit of cloaths; do you not remember meeting a poor wretch one day at your stable door, with a stocking round his head, an old mantle over his shoulders, without shirt, stocking or scarce any shoes, who told you he was a poor unfortunate man cast away upon the coast with sixteen more of the crew, who were all drowned; you believing this story, generously relieved me with a guinea and a good suit of cloaths. Mr. Pleydell said he well remembered it, but on his discovery it is impossible to deceive him so again, come in whatever shape you will--The company blamed him for thus boasting, and secretly prevailed upon Carew to put his art in practice to convince him of the fallacy thereof; to which he agreed, and in a few days after, appointing the company present to be at Pleydell's house, he put the following scheme into execution. He shaved himself closely, and cloathed himself in an old woman's apparel, with a high crowned hat, and a large dowde under his chin; then taking three children from among his fraternity, he tied two to his back, and one in his arms; thus accoutred he comes to Mr. Pleydell's door, and pinching one of the brats, set it a roaring; this gave the alarm to the dogs who came out with open mouths and the whole family was soon alarmed; out came the maid, saying, Carry away the children, good woman, they disturb the ladies.--God bless their ladyships, I am the poor unfortunate grandmother of these helpless infants, whose mother and all they had, was burnt at the dreadful fire at Kirton, and hope the good ladies, for God's sake, will bestow something on the poor famishing starving infants. In goes the maid with this affecting story to the ladies, while our grandmother keeps pinching the children to make them cry, and the maid returned with half a crown and some good broth, which he thankfully received, and went into the court yard to sit down to eat it, as perceiving the gentlemen were not at home. He had not been long there before they came, when one of them accosted him thus--Where do you come from, old woman?--From Kirton, please your honours, where the poor unhappy mother of these helpless infants was burnt in the flames, and all they had, consumed.--Damn you said one of them, here has been more money collected for Kirton than ever Kirton was worth; however, they each gave the old grandmother a shilling, commiserating the hard case of her and the helpless infants; which he thankfully receiving, pretended to go away; but the gentlemen were hardly got into the house before their ears were saluted with a Tantivee, Tantivee, and a Holloo to the dogs, on which they turned about, supposing it to be some other sportmen, but seeing nobody, they directly suspected it to be Carew, in the disguise of the old Kirton Grandmother; so, bidding the servants fetch her back, she was brought into the parlour among them all, and confessed herself to be the famous Mr. Bamfylde Moore Carew, to the astonishment and mirth of them all; who well rewarded him for the diversion he had afforded them." This is a fair specimen of his tricks, and he was very successful in duping the not-over-acute country gentlemen of his time. On the death of Clause Patch, the king of the gipsies, he was elected to succeed him; and there the Chap-book leaves him. His after career was very chequered. Soon after his accession to regal dignity, he was apprehended as an idle vagrant, tried at the quarter sessions at Exeter, and transported to Maryland, where on his arrival he ran away. He, however, gave himself up, and was severely punished with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and had a heavy iron collar fastened round his neck. He excited the pity of some ships' captains, who helped him to fly, by giving him some biscuits, cheese, and rum; he travelled some time until he fell in with some friendly Indians, who relieved him of his iron collar. He gave them the slip, and stealing one of their canoes, landed near Newcastle, in Pennsylvania. Here he plied his old trade of deception, pretending to be a Quaker, and made it pay very well. Thence he got to New York, and set sail for England, where he rejoined his beloved gipsies. His ultimate fate is unknown, but he is said to have died in 1770, aged 77. There seem to have been at least two books written about him during his lifetime--"Accomplish'd Vagabond, or compleat Mumper, exemplify'd in the bold and artful Enterprizes, and merry Pranks of Bamfylde Carew" (Oxon., 1745); and "An Apology for the Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew (by Robert Goadby)" (London, 1749). _The Fortunes and Misfortunes of_ =Moll Flanders= WHO WAS BORN IN NEWGATE. And during a life of Continued Variety for Sixty Years was 17 times a W---- 5 Times a Wife, whereof once to her own Brother, 12 Years a Thief, 11 Times in Bridewell, 9 Times in New Prison, 11 Times in Woodstreet Compter, 6 Times in the Poultry Compter, 14 Times in the Gate house, 25 Times in Newgate, 15 Times Whipt at the Carts tail, 4 Times Burnt in the Hand, once Condemned for Life, and 8 Years a Transport in Virginia. At last grew rich, lived honest, and died penitent. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE LONDON. Defoe wrote "Moll Flanders" in 1721, and his book is chiefly remarkable for the graphic account of the plantations in Virginia. This Chap-book is a condensed version, and is not very edifying reading. Its contents may be imagined by the titlepage, which is far fuller than Defoe's. YOUTH'S WARNING-PIECE OR, THE TRAGICAL _HISTORY_ OF GEORGE BARNWELL WHO WAS _UNDONE BY A STRUMPET_ THAT CAUSED HIM TO ROB HIS MASTER, AND MURDER HIS UNCLE. By other's harm learn to be wise And ye shall do full well. STOCKTON PRINTED AND SOLD BY R. CHRISTOPHER. [Illustration: GEORGE BARNWELL.] And behold there met him an Harlot, subtle of heart; and she kissed him, and said unto him, I have decked my bed with fine linen, come let us take our fill of love until the Morning. [Illustration: SARAH MILLWOOD.] The lips of a strange Woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is sweeter than oil; but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Editions of this popular story were published in several towns, and the present one has been chosen as having the most curious illustrations, there being none specially illustrated to exemplify the text, any female head doing duty for Sarah Milwood. The story of George Barnwell, of his lapse from virtue, and his rapid declension from theft to murder, together with his penitence and execution, is so well known that it needs no repetition. It is a very old story, dating back, it is said, to Queen Elizabeth's time. The earliest ballad on the subject in the British Museum is,[24] "An excellent ballad of George Barnwell, an apprentice in the City of London, who was undone by a strumpet, who caused him thrice to rob his master and murder his uncle in Ludlow" (London, 1670). Lillo dramatized it in 1731, and within very few years since it was always acted at the minor theatres on Boxing night, previous to the pantomime, as a warning to apprentices. [Footnote 24: (643, m. 10)/109.] THE =Merry Life and Mad Exploits= OF CAPT JAMES HIND _The great Robber of England_. [Illustration: The true Portraiture of Captain _JAMES HIND_, the Robber, who died, for Treason. ] NEWCASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. The history of the famous highwayman Captain Hind, is evidently taken from a little black-letter book, published 1651, Old Style (or 1652 of our calendar), called "Wit for Money;" and in that also is found the original of this frontispiece, even more roughly executed. In place of "The true portraiture," etc., is "I rob'd men neatly as is here exprest. Coyne I ne'r tooke unlesse I gave a Jest." Indeed, most of the accounts of Hind are full of his "merry pranks," as, for instance, "We have brought our Hogs to a fair Market; or Strange Newes from New-Gate," etc. (London, 1652), a book which was of such importance, that two pages of "The Faithful Scout" for January 9/16, 1651-2, are taken up with extracts from it. In this book are two portraits of Hind, which, from their resemblance to each other, are probably authentic. In one he is represented as "Unparallel'd Hind," in full armour on horseback; the other is similar to that given on next page, which is taken from "The Declaration of Captain James Hind (close Prisoner in Newgate)," etc. In "The True and perfect Relation of the taking of Captain James Hind" (London, 1651), it says that "A Gentleman or two, desired so much favour of him [the keeper], as to aske Mr. Hind a civil question; which was granted. So pulling two books out of his pocket, the one entituled, Hind's Ramble, The other Hind's Exploits, asked him whether he had ever seen them or not: He answered, yes; And said upon the word of a Christian, they were fictions: But some merry Pranks and Revels I have plaid, that I deny not." Nay, his exploits were even dramatized in "An excellent Comedy called the Prince of Priggs Revels or The Practises of that grand Thief Captain James Hind," etc. (London, 1651). A play in five acts. Hind was born at Chipping Norton, in Oxfordshire, and, according to one account, his father was a saddler. He was sent to school, but being too fond of play, he was apprenticed to a butcher, from whom he ran away, and came to London, where he fell in with "a Company of idle, roaring young Blades," and he became a highwayman. The Chap-book is full of his robberies, and introduces "How Hind was enchanted by an old Hagg, for the space of Three Years," a performance which seems to have provided for his personal safety during that time. Finding England too hot for him, he went to Holland; but "Hind finding that this country was not fit for his purpose, resolved to retire as soon as an opportunity offered," and he went to Scotland to join Charles I. The king put him under the command of the Duke of Buckingham, "because his own life guards were full," and he was present at the engagements at Warrington and Worcester. He escaped from the latter, and came to London, where he was apprehended on November 6, 1651, in a barber's shop in Fleet Street. He was examined at Whitehall on the charge of rebellion, and committed to Newgate. On December 12, 1651, he was tried at the Old Bailey, and remanded to Newgate, where he lay till March 1, 1652, when he was sent to Reading to take his trial for killing a companion at a village called Knowl. It was, however, proved to have been only a case of manslaughter, and he was pardoned through an Act of Oblivion; only, however, to suffer death for treason against the State, being hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Worcester, on September 24, 1652. [Illustration: [The true Portraiture of Captain _James Hind_. _London_, Printed for _G. HORTON_, 1651.] THE HISTORY OF JOHN GREGG _AND HIS FAMILY_ OF ROBBERS AND MURDERERS _Who took up their Abode in a Cave near to the Sea Side, in Clovaley in Devonshire, where they liv'd Twenty five Years without so much as once going to visit any City or Town._ _How they Robbed above One Thousand Persons, and murdered, and eat all whom they robbed._ _How at last they were happily discover'd by a pack of Blood hounds; and how John Gregg, his Wife, Eight Sons, Six Daughters, Eighteen Grand Sons and Fourteen Grand daughters were all seized and executed, by being Cast alive into three Fires, and were burnt._ LICENSED AND ENTERED ACCORDING TO ORDER. This Chap-book is precisely similar to the History of Sawney Beane, who lived _temp._ James I., only the names and locality have been changed. The lovers of horrors can be fully gratified by reading Sawney Beane's life, either in Captain Charles Johnson's "History of the Lives and Actions of the most famous Highwaymen, Street Robbers," etc., 8vo (Edinburgh, 1813), pp. 33-37, or vol. i. p. 161 of "The Terrific Registers." THE BLOODY TRAGEDY OR _A Dreadful Warning_ TO DISOBEDIENT CHILDREN GIVING A sad and dreadful Account of one John Gill in the Town of Oborn [Woburn] in Bedfordshire, who lived a Wicked Life. How, coming home drunk one Night, he asked his Father for Money to carry on his Debaucheries, who putting him off till next Morning, he grew so impatient and desparately wicked, that he arose in the Dead of the Night, and cut his Father, and Mother's Throats in their Beds. How afterwards binding and ravishing the Maid Servant he murdered her also, and then robbed the House of Plate and Money, and set it on Fire, burning the dead Bodies to Ashes. With the Manner of the Discovery, and being apprehended, what Confession he made before the Magistrates. How the Ghosts of the dead Bodies appeared to him in Jail. Together with his Dying Speech at the Place of Execution. With several other Things, worthy the Observation of Young People. LONDON, PRINTED IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. BOW LANE. THE UNFORTUNATE FAMILY: _In Four Parts_. Part 1. How one John Roper, through want of Grace, broke the Heart of his Mother, and strangled his Father, taking what Money was in the House, and fled to a Wood. Part 2. How the Spirit of his Mother appeared to him in a Wood, in an Angry manner; and how Conscience drove him into the hands of Justice. Part 3. His Lamentation in Dorchester Gaol. Part 4. His last dying Speech desiring all Young Men to take Warning by him. To which is added, A Notable Poem upon the uncertainty of Man's Life. _Licensed according to Order._ PRINTED FOR E. BLARE ON LONDON BRIDGE. THE =Horrors of Jealousie= OR THE FATAL MISTAKE Being a Terrible and Dreadful Relation of one Jonathan Williams, a Gentleman of a Considerable Fortune near Sittingburn in Kent, who had a Beautiful and Virtuous young Lady to his Wife, who disgusting a light Huswife, her Chamber Maid, she vowed a Bloody Revenge upon her Mistress; then forged a Letter to make her Master Jealous: When one Day, as the Plot was laid, sending up the Butler into her Bed Chamber when she was in Bed, and sent her Master after him; who immediately killed him with his Sword, and afterward did the like by his Wife, protesting her Innocency with her dying Breath; upon which horrible Tragedy the Chamber Maid confessed her Treachery, shewing her Lady's Innocency; upon this he killed her, and after fell upon his own Sword and died. TOGETHER WITH _The Copy of the LETTER, and all the Circumstances attending so Tragical an End; and how upon the sight of this Bloody Tragedy their only Son and Heir run Distracted and Died Raving Mad._ LICENSED ACCORDING TO ORDER. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. WILLIAMS NEAR WOOD STREET 1707. THE CONSTANT, BUT UNHAPPY LOVERS _Being a full and true Relation_ OF ONE =Madam Butler= A young Gentlewoman, and a great Heiress at Hackney Boarding School, who being by her Father forced to Marry Mr. Harvey, a Rich Merchants Son near Fanchurch Street, against her Will; one Mr. Perpoint, a young Gentleman of Considerable Estate, who had courted her above two Years, grew so Discontented that he went a Volunteer to the wars in Spain, where being Mortally Wounded at the late Battle of Almanza he writ a Letter with his own Blood, therein putting a Bracelet of Madam Butler's Hair, and then ordering his Servant to bake his Heart to a Powder after his death, he charg'd him to deliver them in a Box to the above-said Gentlewoman. His Man came to England, and went on 6th June to deliver the Present to Madam Butler, but it was took away by her Husband, who gave her the Powder in a Dish of Tea; which when she knew what she had Drank, and saw the bloody Letter and Bracelet, she said it was the last she would ever Eat and Drink, and accordingly going to Bed, she was found dead in the Morning, with a copy of _VERSES_ lying by her on a Table, written in her own Blood. LONDON: PRINTED BY E. B. NEAR LUDGATE 1707. _A Looking Glass for Swearers, Drunkards, Blasphemers, Sabbath Breakers, Rash Wishers, and Murderers._ Being a True Relation of one Elizabeth Hale, in Scotch Yard in White Cross Street; who having Sold herself to the Devil to be reveng'd on her Neighbours, did on Sunday last, in a wicked manner, put a quantity of Poyson into a Pot where a Piece of Beef was a boyling for several Poor Women and Children, Two of which dropt down dead, and Twelve more are dangerously Ill; the Truth of which will be Attested by several in the Neighbourhood. Her Examination upon the Crowners Inquest and her Commitment to Newgate. A Full and True Account of a horrid, barbarous and bloody Murder, committed on the Body of one Jane Greenway and Four of her Children, by Robert Greenway her Husband, on Sunday last being the 2nd of this instant January, near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. His Examination before the Worshipful Justice Lewis Esqre of Beaconsfield, and his commitment to Ailsbury Gaol. Note the Truth of this will be Attested by the Beaconsfield Carriers that comes to the Bell in Warwick Lane. Likewise an Account of several Damages and other Accidents that have happen'd in Town and Country, by the present great Frost and Snow. First Four Men that were lost in a Boat going from Gravesend to the Buoy of the Nore. 2dly. Two Boys that were drown'd by sliding on the River of Thames. 3rdly. Two men drown'd at Battersea. 4thly. A Farrier that dropt down dead off his Horse near Paddington, as he was going Home. 5thly. A Gentleman in Surry that was found dead on Horseback at his own Door. 6thly. A Carrier that was lost on the North Road with two of his Horses. TOGETHER WITH An Account of a dreadful Fire that happen'd on Sunday Morning at the Cock Pit near Grays Inn; where one of the Feeders was burnt, and the other missing. TO WHICH IS ADDED. A True and Amazing Relation of one Mr. B----l an Eminent Butcher in White Chapple; who having made a Vow never to kill any Cattel on a Sabbath Day, and on Sunday Night last, as he was opening the Bowels of a Calf, there issued out of its Paunch a dreadful flash of Fire and Brimstone; which burnt his Wigg, and His Apprentice's Face and Eye Brows in a sad and dismal manner. LONDON: PRINTED BY W. WISE AND M. HOLT IN FLEET STREET 1708. _Farther, and more Terrible Warnings from God._ Being a sad and dismal Account of a dreadful Earthquake or Marvelous Judgments of God. _That happen'd between Newcastle and Durham on Tuesday the 24th day of August last; which burst open the Earth with such Violence, that near an Hundred Souls, Men, Women and Children were Kill'd and Destroy'd; being Buried Alive in the sad and dreadful Ruins thereof. Besides great Damage to many Houses and Persons for several Miles round. With the Names of some of the Persons Destroy'd thereby. With a Sermon Preach'd on that deplorable Occasion, and of the late dreadful Thunder and Lightning._ BY THE REVEREND MR. SALTER MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT HARETIN NEAR NEWCASTLE. LONDON, PRINTED BY J. NOON, NEAR FLEET STREET 1708. [Illustration] =The Constant Couple.= OR THE TRAGEDY OF LOVE _Being a True and Mournful Relation of one Mrs. Sophia Elford, a Young Lady near St. James's, that Poyson'd herself for love of a Captain in Flanders; who hearing that her Lover was kill'd, and not having any Account from him since the Campaign, on Monday last being the 21st of this Instant, she took a strong Dose of Poyson that ended her Life._ ALSO, How the same Night she was Buried, there came a Letter from her Lover, giving an Account of his being now a Prisoner in France; which her Parents receiv'd and having read the same, they fell into a greater Agony of Grief than before. WITH The Melancholly Answer they return'd him back, and the Copies of several Endearing Letters that have pass'd between these Unfortunate Lovers this Campaign. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. D. NEAR FLEET STREET 1709. _The Distressed Child in the Wood_; OR, THE CRUEL UNKLE BEING A True and dismal Relation of one Esq: Solmes of Beverly in Yorkshire; who dying left an only Infant Daughter, of the Age of two Years, to the care of his own Brother; who with many Oaths, Vows, and Protestations promised to be Loving to her; but the Father was no sooner Dead, but out of a wicked Covetousness of the Child's Estate of three hundred Pounds a Year, carry'd it into a Wood, and there put it into a Hollow Tree to Starve it to Death; Where a Gentleman and his Man being a Hunting two days after, found it half Famish'd, having gnawed its own Flesh and Fingers end in a dreadful manner. With an Account how the Cruel Unkle to hide his Villany, had caused the Child's Effigies to be buried in Wax, and made a great Funeral, as if it had been really Dead; with the manner of the whole Discovery by a Dream, and taking the Wax Child out of the Grave; with the Unkle's Apprehension, Examination, Confession before Justice Stubbs, and his Commitment to Gaol, in order to be Try'd the next Assizes, for that Barbarous Action. To which is added a Copy of Verses on the said Relation. [Illustration] LONDON, PRINTED BY J. READ, BEHIND THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN IN FLEET STREET. THE LAWYERS DOOM. Being an Account of the Birth, Parentage, Education, Life and Conversation of Mr. Edward Jefferies, who was Executed at Tyburn on Friday the 21st of December 1705, for the Murther of Mr. Robert Woodcock the Lawyer. With an Account of his being Clerk to a Lawyer in Clifford's Inn; the many Pranks he has play'd after he came out of his time; his Marriage; and spending an Estate of One Hundred a year, on Leud Women; with the manner of Murthering Mr. Woodcock; his being Apprehended, Committed to Newgate; his Tryal, Examination, Condemnation, with a true Copy of his Reprieve, and last Dying Speech and Confession at the Place of Execution. [Illustration] LONDON: PRINTED FOR W. PATEM BY FLEET STREET THE WHOLE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF =Miss Davis= COMMONLY CALLED THE BEAUTY IN DISGUISE _With a full, true and particular Account of her robbing Mr. W. of Gosfield in Essex of Eleven Hundred Pounds in Cash and Bank Notes for which she now lays to take her Trial at Chelmsford Assizes._ [Illustration] PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1785. The Chap-book version and the _Annual Register_ agree as to Frances Davis's story, but, as the latter is more concise and truthful, it is here given: "Sep. 3, 1785. An extraordinary robbery was committed last Saturday morning at Mrs. Bennet's the sign of the Three Rabbits on the Rumford Road. Mr. W---- of Gosfield in Essex, who is agent for the Scots and Lincolnshire salesmen, came to the above house on the evening before, in order to proceed to Smithfield market, with upwards of eleven hundred pounds, in drafts and bank notes, besides a purse containing 162 guineas and a half in his pocket. He went to bed early that night, and placed the above property in his breeches beneath his head. A youth, genteelly dressed, lay in the same room, and found means to convey the notes and money from under Mr. W----'s pillow, and departed with the whole, before break of day.--At seven o'clock, Mr. W---- discovered the theft; and sent immediately to all the different public offices in London. After a long search, a woman was taken into custody yesterday morning, at an obscure lodging in the Mint, Southwark, who, upon examination, was discovered to be the identical person who had taken up her quarters at Mrs. Bennet's on Friday night. Eight Hundred pounds in Notes and Cash were found concealed in her cloaths. She was soon after carried to the public office in Bow Street, where the Notes were sworn to by Mr. W---- and her person ascertained by the chambermaid of the inn. Her boy's apparel was also produced. She denied any knowledge of the transaction with great composure, and was committed to Tothill fields Bridewell. It appeared in course of the evidence, that on her coming to town she had changed some of the notes at different shops, and had on Saturday last visited a female convict in Newgate, to whom she had made a present of a pair of silver buckles and other trifling articles. The name of the above offender is Davis; she is extremely handsome, and not more than eighteen years of age. It is said she is connected with a numerous gang, and has long been employed in robberies similar to the above." [Illustration] Neither the Chap-book nor the _Annual Register_ give her ultimate fate, but there can be little doubt that it was that so vividly portrayed in the frontispiece. A portrait is given as hers. It may be: but the practice of using any blocks that came handy renders it doubtful; besides, the costume is too early for the period. _THE LIFE AND DEATH OF_ CHRISTIAN BOWMAN, ALIAS MURPHY; Who was burnt at a Stake, in the Old Bailey, on Wednesday the 18th of March 1789 for High Treason, in feloniously and traitorously counterfeiting the Silver Coin of the Realm. _Containing her Birth and Parentage, youthful Adventures, Love Amours, fatal Marriage, unhappy Connections, and untimely Death._ [Illustration] ARREST OF HUGH MURPHY AND CHRISTIAN BOWMAN. [Illustration] This book is specially interesting, as being an account of the last execution by burning in England. There is nothing uncommon in her story. Originally a servant, she married, but was deserted by her husband; she then lived with a man named Murphy, a coiner. Of course they were found out, tried, and condemned to death. The man was hanged, and the woman, according to the then law, was burned. Blackstone gives the following curious reason for this punishment:--"In treasons of every kind the punishment of the woman is the same, and different from that of men. For as the decency due to the sex forbids the exposing and public mangling their bodies, the sentence is, to be drawn to the gallows, and there to be burned alive." The law was altered by 30 George III. c. 48 (1790), which provided that after June 5, 1790, women under this sentence should be hanged. It must be borne in mind that the culprits were strangled before burning (Christian Bowman was hanging forty minutes); although, by the carelessness of the executioner, one woman, Katherine Hayes, was actually burned alive at Tyburn, November 3, 1726. THE DRUNKARD'S LEGACY. IN FOUR PARTS. _Giving an Account_ First, Of a Gentleman having a wild Son, and foreseeing he would come to poverty, had a cottage built with one door to it, always kept fast. His father on his Dying bed, charged him not to open it 'till he was poor and slighted, which the young man promised he would perform. Secondly, Of this young man's pawning his estate to a Vintner, who when poor, kicked him out of doors. Thinking it time to see his Legacy, he broke open the door, when instead of money, found a Gibbet and Halter, which he put round his Neck, and jumping off the Stool, the Gibbet broke, and a Thousand Pounds came down upon his head, which lay hid in the Ceiling. Thirdly of his redeeming the Estate; and fooling the Vintner out of Two Hundred Pounds, who for being jeered by his neighbours, cut his own throat. And lastly, Of the young Man's Reformation. _Very proper to be read by all who are given to Drunkenness._ [Illustration] PRINTED BY DICEY AND CO. IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD. As the title is so voluminous and exhaustive, it is unnecessary to reproduce any of the text, and the three following illustrations tell their own story very well. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] =Good News for= ENGLAND BEING A strange and remarkable _ACCOUNT_ how a stranger in bright Raiment appeared to one Farmer Edwards near Lancaster, on the 12th of last Month, at night; containing the discourse that past between the said Farmer and the Stranger, who foretold what a wonderful Year of Plenty this will be, and how wheat will be sold for four shillings a bushel, and barley for two shillings this Year; all which was confirmed to the Farmer by four wonderful signs. PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1772. A _DIALOGUE_ BETWEEN A Blind Man and Death TO WHICH IS ADDED A HEAVENLY DISCOURSE BETWEEN A DIVINE AND A BEGGAR. [Illustration] PRINTED AND SOLD IN ALDERMARY CHURCH YARD BOW LANE LONDON. The argument of this metrical dialogue is that Death comes to a blind man, who asks him his name and business, and on hearing it, tries to escape from him. Death, however, explains matters to him, and brings him into such a seraphic state of mind that he exclaims-- "Now welcome Death upon my Saviour's score Who would not die to live for ever more. DEATH. Sir, I perceive you speak not without reason, I'll leave you now and call some other season. BLIND MAN. Call when you please, I will await that call, And while I can make ready for my fall; In the mean time my constant prayers shall be, From sudden and from endless Death, good Lord deliver me." THE _DEVIL upon two STICKS_ OR THE TOWN UNTIL'D With the Comical Humours of Don Stulto and Siegnior Jingo; As it is acted in Pinkeman's Booth in May Fair. [Illustration] LONDON, PRINTED BY J. R. NEAR FLEET STREET. 1708. This is a condensed version of a portion of Le Sage's famous "Diable Boiteux," only substituting Don Stulto for Don Cleofas, and Siegnor Jingo for Asmodeus. There is nothing about Pinkeman (details of whose life would be interesting) in the book. This worthy seems first to have acted at the Theatre Royal in 1692, in the play of "Volunteers, or the Stock Jobbers," where he had the part of Taylor (six lines only). He afterwards was a useful member of Drury Lane Company, and had booths, as had also Dogget, in Bartholomew and May fairs; in fact, he notices his ill success at the latter in the epilogue to the "Bath" (Drury Lane, 1701). He there said that he had made grimaces to empty benches, while Lady Mary, the rope-dancer, had carried all before her at May fair-- "Gadzooks--what signified my face?" His value as an actor may be taken from a play presumably by Gildon, "Comparison between the Two Stages," printed 1702: "_Sullen._ But Pinkethman the flower of---- _Critick._ Bartholomew Fair, and the idol of the rabble; a fellow that overdoes everything, and spoils many a part by his own stuff." He died 1740. ÆSOP'S FABLES. [Illustration] FABLE 1. A FOX AND A SICK LION. [Illustration] A Lion falling sick, all the beasts went to see him except the Fox, upon which the Lion sent for him, telling him he wanted to see him, and his presence would be acceptable. Moreover he desired the messenger to assure the Fox that for several reasons he had no occasion to be afraid of him, since the Lion loved the Fox very well, and therefore desired to see him; besides he lay so sick, he could not stir to do the Fox any harm. The Fox returned an obliging answer, desiring the messenger to acquaint the Lion, he was very desirous of his recovery, and he would pray to the Gods for it; but desired to be excused for his not coming to see him as the other beasts had done; for truly, says he, the traces of their feet frighten me, all of them going towards the palace but none coming back. FABLE 2. THE STAG AND THE VINE. A Stag, who was hard pursued, ran into a Vineyard, and took shelter under a Vine; when he thought his enemies were gone, and the danger over, he fell to, browsing on the leaves; the rustling of the boughs gave a suspicion to the huntsmen, and on search he was discovered and Shot, and as he was dying he said, How justly am I punished for offering to destroy my shade. [Illustration] FABLE 3. THE CRANE AND GEESE. [Illustration] As some Geese and Cranes were feeding in a Countrymans Corn field, he heard their noise, and came presently out upon them. The Cranes seeing the man fled for it, but the Geese staid and were caught. FABLE 4. A TRUMPETER TAKEN PRISONER. [Illustration] When an army had been routed, a trumpeter was taken prisoner, and as the soldiers were going to kill him, Gentlemen, says he, why should you kill a man that hurts nobody? You shall die the rather for that, says one of the company, when like a rascal you don't fight yourself, you set other people by the ears. FABLE 5. THE HUSBANDMAN AND STORK. [Illustration] A poor innocent Stork happened to be taken in a net that was laid for geese and cranes. The Storks plea was simplicity and the love of mankind, together with the service she did in picking up venemous creatures--It is all true says the husbandman, but they that keep ill company, if they are catched with them, must suffer with them. FABLE 6. THE WASP AND THE PARTRIDGES. [Illustration] A Flight of Wasps and a covey of Partridges being hard put to it for water, went to a farmer to beg some. The partridges offered to dig his vineyard for it, and the Wasps to secure it from thieves. Pray hold your peace says the farmer, I have oxen and dogs to perform those offices already, and I am resolved to provide for them first. FABLE 7. A DAW AND PIGEONS. A Daw took particular notice that the Pigeons in the Dove House were well provided for, so went and painted himself of a dove colour and fed among the Pigeons. So long as he kept silence, it passed very well, but forgetting himself he fell a chattering--On which discovery they beat him out of the house, and on his returning to his own companions, they also rejected him. [Illustration] FABLE 8. THE FOX AND SNAKE. [Illustration] A Fox and Snake meeting, she began to entertain the Fox with a long story concerning the beauties and colours of her skin. The Fox, weary of the discourse, interrupted her, and said, The beauties of the mind were better than those of a painted outside. FABLE 9. THE CHOUGH AND SWALLOW. [Illustration] The Chough and the Swallow fell into a warm dispute about beauty, and the Swallow insisted mightily on hers, and claimed the advantage. Nay says the Chough, you forget that your beauty decays with the Spring, whereas mine lasts all the year. FABLE 10. A FATHER AND HIS SONS. [Illustration] An honest man who had the misfortune to have contentious children, endeavoured to reconcile them; and one day having them before him, he bought a bundle of sticks, then desired each of them to break it, which they strove to do, but could not. Well, said he, unbind it, and take every one a single stick, and try what you can do that way. They did so, and with ease they snapped all the sticks. The father said to them, Children, your condition is exactly like unto that bundle of sticks; for if you hold together you are safe, but if you divide you are undone. FABLE 11. THE FOX AND HUNTSMEN. [Illustration] A Fox that had been run hard, begged of a countryman, whom he saw hard at work in a wood, to help him to a hiding place. The man directed him to a cottage, and thither he went. He was no sooner got in, but the Huntsmen were at his heels, and asked the cottager, If he did not see the Fox that way? No, said he, I saw none; but pointed with his finger to the place. Though the Huntsmen did not understand, yet the Fox saw him; and after they were gone, out steals the Fox; How now, said the countryman, have you not the manners to take leave of your host? Yes, said the Fox, if you had been as honest with your fingers, as with your tongue, I should not have gone without bidding you farewell. FABLE 12. THE FOX AND BRAMBLE. [Illustration] A Fox being closely pursued, took to a hedge, the bushes gave way and in catching hold of a Bramble to break his fall, he laid himself down, and fell to licking his paws, making great complaint against the Bramble. Good words, Reynard, said the Bramble, you should never expect any kindness from an enemy. A CHOICE COLLECTION OF COOKERY RECEIPTS [Illustration] NEW CASTLE: PRINTED IN THIS PRESENT YEAR. This is really a useful book of recipes, although some of them are scarcely in use now. A few examples may be acceptable. "TO BROIL PIDGEONS WHOLE. Cut off the Wings and Neck close, leave the Skin at the Neck to tie close, then having some grated Bread, two Pidgeons Livers, one Anchovy, a Quarter of a Pound of Butter, half a Nutmeg grated, a little Pepper and Salt, a very little Thyme and Sweet Marjoram shred; mix all together, put a piece as big as a Walnut into each Pidgeon, sew up their Rumps and Necks, strew a little Pepper Salt and Nutmeg on the Out side, broil them on a very slow Charcoal Fire on the Hearth; baste and turn them very often. Sauce is melted Butter; or rich Gravy, if you like it higher tasted. A PRETTY SAUCE FOR WOODCOCKS OR ANY WILD FOWL. Take a Quarter of a Pint of Claret, and as much Water, some grated Bread, two or three heads of Rocumbile, or a Shallot, a little whole Pepper, Mace, sliced Nutmeg, and Salt; Let this stew very well over the Fire, then beat it up with butter, and pour it under the Wild Fowl, which being under roasted, will afford Gravy to mix with this Sauce. A WHIPT SILLIBUB EXTRAORDINARY. Take a Quart of Cream and boil it, let it stand till it is cold; then take a Pint of White Wine, pare a Lemon thin, and steep the peel in the Wine two Hours before you use it; to this add the Juice of a Lemon, and as much Sugar as will make it very sweet: Put all this together into a Bason, and whisk it all one way till it is pretty thick. Fill your Glasses, and keep it a Day before you use it; it will keep three or four Days. Let your Cream be full Measure, and your Wine rather less. If you like it perfumed, put in a Grain or two of Amber-grease. EGG MINCED PIES. Take six Eggs, boil them very hard, and shred them small; shred double the Quantity of good Suet very fine; put Currants neatly wash'd and pick'd, one Pound or more, if your Eggs were large; the Peel of one Lemon very fine shred, half the juice, and five or six Spoonfuls of Sack, Mace, Nutmeg, Sugar, and a little Salt; and candied Citron or Orange peel, if you would have them rich." There are recipes for making "Raisin Elder wine; Sage wine, _very good_; Raspberry wine, _very good_; Cowslip or Marigold, Gooseberry and Elder-flower wines"; besides strong Mead and Cinnamon Water, as well as a curious compound-- "BIRCH WINE, AS MADE IN SUSSEX. Take the Sap of Birch fresh drawn, boil it as long as any Scum arises; to every Gallon of Liquor put two Pounds of good Sugar; boil it Half an Hour, and scum it very clean; when 'tis almost cold, set it with a little Yeast spread on a Toast; let it stand five or six days in an open Vessel, stirring it often: then take such a Cask as the Liquor will be sure to fill, and fire a large Match dipt in Brimstone, and put it into the Cask, and stop in the Smoak till the Match is extinguished, always keeping it shook; then shake out the Ashes, and, as quick as possible, pour in a Pint of Sack or Rhenish wine, which Taste you like best, for the Liquor retains it; rainge the Cask well with this, and pour it out; pour in your Wine, and stop it close for Six Months, then, if it is perfectly fine, you may boil it." _The Pleasant History of TAFFY'S Progress to London; with the WELSHMAN'S Catechism._ [Illustration] Behold in _WHEEL BARROW_ I come to Town With Wife and Child to pull the Taffies down For sweet _St. DAVID_ shall not be Abus'd And by the Rabble yearly thus Misus'd LONDON PRINTED FOR F. THORN NEAR FLEET STREET. This octavo is principally taken up with "Taffy's Catechism," which is in a kind of Welsh _patois_, and is not very interesting. The frontispiece is explained as under. "TAFFY'S PROGRESS TO LONDON." "The much renowned Taffy William Morgan having receiv'd a Letter sent by word of Mouth from London, which gave him an Account how Despiseable the poor Welshmen alias Britains were made in England on Saint Tafy's day, by the Rabbles hanging out of a Bundle of Rags in representation of a Welshman mounted on a red Herring with a Leek in his Hat, truly poor Morgan's Blood was up, he Fretted and Fum'd till he Foam'd at Mouth agen, and being exasperated as much as the French King was Joyful when he first heard of the great Victory obtain'd by Marshal Tallard over the Duke of Marlborough at Hochstet, he in a great Passion Swore by the Glory and Renown of all his Ancestors, famous in the Books of Rates for their being ever chargeable to the Parish, that he wou'd be Reveng'd on those that thus presum'd to affront Goatlandshire, and in order thereto he prepar'd for his Journey, taking Coach in a Wheel Barrow, Drove along by his Wife, who with a Child at her Back went Barefooted all the way, and by Taffy were compell'd to take this tedious Journey that they might be Witnesses to his Prowess and Valour; in case it was questioned by any after his return to Wales; so accordingly poor William Morgan ap Renald et Cetera, for his Name would take an hour to tell it at length, set out for his great Adventures about One in the Morning, it being the 33th of January last in the year 1890 after the Welsh Account, making it Six days before he Arriv'd in the abovesaid Pomp to Leominster, where he and his Wife and Children were charitably entertain'd in a Barn; the next Day he came to Worcester, where begging Charity to bear their Charges forwards, poor Taffy and his Wife were Whipt out of Town; but however this harsh Usage daunted not his Heart, which all Wales knew for certain to be bigger than a Pea, for resolv'd he was to be reveng'd still on those that Affronted his Countrey, and by Cruising all the way he came, he at length reacht London, just the Eve before the Welshmen's great Festival of Saint David, which is Solemnis'd with so much Devotion, as to get every Welshman Drunk by Night, now being Arriv'd in this great City, he fortunately lit upon some of his Acquaintance who in Commiseration of his and his Wifes great Poverty made him pretty Boosie, and being Pot valiant he fell like Fury to breaking of Windows where a Taffy was hung out, but being first well Beaten by the Mob, he was then sent to Bridewell for an idle drunken Vagabond, and being well Flaug'd and put to hard Labour for a while, he and his tatter'd Family were pass'd down to their Countrey, to his great Grief in that he could not Vindicate Saint Taffy; and Swearing hur would never see England again." _The Whole Life_ CHARACTER AND CONVERSATION OF THAT FOOLISH CREATURE CALLED GRANNY Being a true Account of one Mr. Wilson an Eminent Lawyer of the Temple, who above all things, doated to Distraction on this Simple Creature; and how he had two children by her, and the means he us'd to decoy her, and keep the thing secret. Likewise That by his last Will and Testament which you may find in Doctors Commons, he has left her six hundred pounds in ready Money, five hundred pounds a Year in Land, for her and her Heirs for ever, she being at this time, with Child by him. And lastly you have a Copy of Verses made on Granny's good Fortune. [Illustration] _Licensed according to Order._ PRINTED BY A. HINDE IN FLEET STREET 1711. A YORK DIALOGUE BETWEEN =Ned and Harry= OR _Ned giving Harry an Account of his Courtship and Marriage State_ TO WHICH IS ADDED-- TWO EXCELLENT NEW SONGS. [Illustration] A very mild description of the particularly uninteresting courtship and marriage of a small tradesman and a chambermaid, with the details of the subsequent hen-pecking the husband underwent, and of his wife's taste for gossiping, ending up with advice from Ned, and a determination of Harry's never to marry a chambermaid. THE FRENCH KING'S WEDDING OR THE ROYAL FROLICK _Being a Pleasant Account_ Of the Amorous Intrigues, Comical Courtship, Catterwauling and Surprizing Marriage Ceremonies of Lewis the XIVth with Madam Maintenon, His late Hackney of State. _With a List of the Names of those that threw the Stocking on the Wedding Night and Madam Maintenon's Speech to the King._ As also, a Comical Wedding Song Sung to his Majesty, by the famous Monsieur La Grice to the Tune of The Dame of Honour. [Illustration] LONDON PRINTED FOR J. SMITH NEAR FLEET STREET 1708. APPENDIX. LIST OF CHAP-BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ALDERMARY AND BOW CHURCHYARDS. Academy of Courtship. Arimathea, The History of that Holy Disciple Joseph of. Argalus and Parthenia, The History of, being a Choice Flower gathered out of Sir Phillip Sidney's Rare Garden. Art of Courtship. Armstrong, History of Johnny (of Westmoreland). Bacon, History of the Learned Friar. Barleycorn, The Arraigning and Indicting of Sir John. Barnwell, The Tragical History of George. Bateman's Tragedy. Bellianis, Don, of Greece, The History of. Bethnal Green, The History of the Blind Beggar of. Bevis, Sir, of Southampton, The History of the Life and Death of that most Noble Knight. Bloody Tragedy, The, or a Dreadful Warning to Disobedient Children. Bowman, Life and Death of Christian. Bunch: Mother B.'s Closet newly broke open. Bunch: The History of Mother B. of the West (Part II.). Cabinet, The Golden. Cambridge Jests, being Wit's Recreation. Canterbury Tales, by J. Chaucer, Junr. Card Fortune-Book. Champions, The History of the Seven (Parts I. and II.). Charles XII., The History of the Remarkable Life of the Brave and Renowned. Chevy Chase, The Famous and Memorable History of. Children in the Wood, The History of. Coachman and Footman's Catechism, The. Countries, A Brief Character of the Low. Courtier: The History of the Frolicksome C. and the Jovial Tinker. Crusoe, The Life of Robinson. Cupboard Door opened, The, or Joyful News for Apprentices and Servant-Maids. Cupid's Decoy, The Lover's Magazine, or. Delights for Young Men and Maids. Dialogue, A, between a Blind Man and Death. Dialogue, A Choice and Diverting, between Hughson the Cobler and Margery his Wife. Dialogue between John and Loving Kate (Parts I. and II.). Dialogue, A New and Diverting, between a Shoemaker and his Wife. Divine Songs. Dorastus and Faunia. Drake, Voyages and Travels of that Renowned Captain Sir Francis. Dreams and Moles, with their Interpretation and Signification. Drunkard's Legacy, The. Edward the Black Prince, The History of. Egyptian Fortune-Teller's Legacy, The Old. Elizabeth, History of Queen, and her Great Favourite the Earl of Essex (Parts I. and II.). England, Antient History of, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Roman Conquest. England, The History of, from the Norman Conquest to the Union of the Houses of York and Lancaster. England, The Present State of; to which is added an Account of the New Style. Erra Pater. Fairy Stories (Blue Bird and Florinda and the King of the Peacocks). Faustus, History of Dr. John. Figure of Seven, The. Flanders, Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll. Fortunatus, History of. Fortune-Book, Partridge and Flamsted's New and Well-experienced. Fortune-Teller, The High German. Franks, Birth, Life, and Death of John. Friar and Boy, The (Parts I. and II.). George, The Life and Death of Saint. Ghost, The Portsmouth. Gotham, Merry Tales, or the Wise Men of. Grissel, History of the Marquis of Salus and Patient. Gulliver, The Travels and Adventures of Captain Lemuel. Guy, Earl of Warwick, History of. Hector, Prince of Troy, History of. Hercules of Greece, History of the Life and Glorious Actions of the Mighty. Hero and Leander, Famous History of. Hero's Garland, The. Hickathrift, History of Thomas (Parts I. and II.). Hind, Merry Life and Mad Exploits of Captain James. Hippolito and Dorinda, Loves of. Hocus Pocus, or a New Book of Legerdemain. Hood, A True Tale of Robin. Horner, History of Jack. Jack and the Giants, History of (Parts I. and II.). Jack of Newbury, History of. Jew, The Wandering, or the Shoemaker of Jerusalem. Joak upon Joaks. Joseph and his Brethren, History of. Kings, History of Four, their Queens and Daughters. Lady, The Whimsical. Laurence, Lazy, The History of. Legerdemain, The Whole Art of. Long Meg of Westminster, Whole Life and Death of. Long, History of Tom, the Carrier. Maiden's Prize, The, or Bachelor's Puzzle. Mandeville, The Foreign Travels of Sir John. Martyr, History of the Royal, King Charles the First. Matrimony, The Whole Pleasures of. Merryman, Doctor, or Nothing but Mirth. Montellion, The History of. Mournful Tragedy, The. Nimble and Quick. Nixon's Cheshire Prophecy. Parismus, Prince of Bohemia, The History of. Poets' Jests, or Mirth in Abundance. Prentice, The Famous History of the Valiant London. Puss in Boots. Rarities of Richmond. Reading, Directions for, with Elegance and Propriety. Reading, History of Thomas of. Reynard the Fox, History of. Rich Man's Warning-Piece, The, or the Oppressed Infants in Glory. Rome, The Famous History of the Seven Wise Masters of. Rome, The Famous and Renowned History of the Seven Wise Mistresses of. Rosamond, Life and Death of Fair. Shipton, History of Mother. Shoemaker's Glory, The, or the Princely History of the Gentle Craft. Shore, Life and Death of Mrs. Jane. Simple Simon's Misfortunes. Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. Swalpo, Merry Frolics, or the Comical Cheats of. Tom Thumb, The Famous History of (Parts I., II., and III.). Tomb Thumb, The Mad Pranks of (Parts I., II., and III.). Unfortunate Son, The, or a Kind Wife is worth Gold. Valentine and Orson, History of. Wanton Tom, or the Merry History of Tom Stitch the Taylor (Parts I. and II.). Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, History of. Welsh Traveller, The, or the Unfortunate Welshman. West Country Garland, The New. Whetstone for Dull Wits. Whittington, History of Sir Richard. Wit, a Groat's worth for a Penny, or the Interpretation of Dreams. Witch of the Woodlands, or the Cobler's New Translation. Witches, The Famous History of the Lancashire. World turned Upside Down, The. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. [Illustration] Transcriber's Note: - - signifies italic text; = = signifies Old English text; ^ or ^{} signifies a superscript. [=] signifies a letter with a macron (straight line over) accent; [~] signifies a letter with a tilde over, sometimes indication an omitted letter. The footnotes, originally marked with asterisks and daggers, have been numbered in the text version. The spelling is not necessarily consistent. The Author appears to have updated some of the originals, but quoted directly from others. Errors persist, and most have not been corrected by the transcriber. It seemed best to retain original sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation. (e.g. 'No sooner had Faustus sent his name to the writing,...' for 'No sooner had Faustus set his name to the writing,...') The 18th century had no spelling or punctuation rules. Acceptable variants have been retained. Before about 1860-70 (and the various Victorian Public Instruction Acts) apostrophes were often absent. (e.g. brethren/bretheren; Pharoh/Pharaoh/Pharoah; 'youll' for you'll; fathers for father's). Sundry missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired, but only apparent printer's errors have been corrected: Page 120: 'eady' corected to 'ready'. "they made ready to receive them;" Page 140: '=Guy. Earl of Warwick=' Period is as clearly printed in large Old English type; retained. Page 150: 'solilude' retained. An error, or variant, for 'soliloquy'? 'solitude' doesn't seem to fit the context. "While Guy was in this repenting solilude,..." Perhaps solilude is a made-up word for a state of soliloquising. Page 164: extra 'to' removed (at original line break) "/ On a tyme he came to the prouynce of Lybye to [to] a cyte which is sayd Sylene /" Page 174: 'pheasants' corrected to 'peasants' (though 'pheasants' may perhaps be correct). "and peopled with the best sort of gentry and peasants. Page 196: 'hirting' perhaps 'hurting', connected to 'bate' (bait) later in sentence. Page 338: 'downstars' corrected to 'downstairs'. "and ran downstairs for more liquor," Page 354: 'Ill' for 'I'll'. Retained. Apostrophes were often notable by their absence. 
13435	----	Proofreading Team. ON THE CHOICE OF BOOKS THOMAS CARLYLE _WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR_ [Illustration: _No_. 5 _Great Cheyne Row. The Residence of Mr. Carlyle from_ 1834 _until his Death_] _A NEW EDITION_ CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY [Illustration] CONTENTS. PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 7 ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, APRIL 2, 1866 125 THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHAIR IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 189 FAREWELL LETTER TO THE STUDENTS 192 BEQUEST BY MR. CARLYLE 195 INDEX 201 [Illustration] BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. There comes a time in the career of every man of genius who has devoted a long life to the instruction and enlightenment of his fellow-creatures, when he receives before his death all the honours paid by posterity. Thus when a great essayist or historian lives to attain a classic and world-wide fame, his own biography becomes as interesting to the public as those he himself has written, and by which he achieved his laurels. This is almost always the case when a man of such cosmopolitan celebrity outlives the ordinary allotted period of threescore years and ten; for a younger generation has then sprung up, who only hear of his great fame, and are ignorant of the long and painful steps by which it was achieved. These remarks are peculiarly applicable in regard to the man whose career we are now to dwell on for a short time: his genius was of slow growth and development, and his fame was even more tardy in coming; but since the world some forty years ago fairly recognised him as a great and original thinker and teacher, few men have left so indelible an impress on the public mind, or have influenced to so great a degree the most thoughtful of their contemporaries. Thomas Carlyle was born on Tuesday, December 4th, 1795, at Ecclefechan, a small village in the district of Annandale, Dumfriesshire. His father, a stone-mason, was noted for quickness of mental perception, and great energy and decision of character; his mother, as affectionate, pious, and more than ordinarily intelligent;[A] and thus accepting his own theory, that "the history of a man's childhood is the description of his parents' environment," Carlyle entered upon the "mystery of life" under happy and enviable circumstances. After preliminary instruction, first at the parish school, and afterwards at Annan, he went, in November, 1809, and when he was fourteen years old, to the University of Edinburgh. Here he remained till the summer of 1814, distinguishing himself by his devotion to mathematical studies then taught there by Professor Leslie. As a student, he was irregular in his application, but when he did set to work, it was with his whole energy. He appears to have been a great reader of general literature at this time, and the stories that are told of the books that he got through are scarcely to be credited. In the summer of 1814, on the resignation of Mr. Waugh, Carlyle obtained, by competitive examination at Dumfries, the post of mathematical master at Annan Academy. Although he had, at his parents' desire, commenced his studies with a view to entering the Scottish Church, the idea of becoming a minister was growingly distasteful to him. A fellow-student describes his habits at this time as lonely and contemplative; and we know from another source that his vacations were principally spent among the hills and by the rivers of his native county. In the summer of 1816 he was promoted to the post of "classical and mathematical master" at the old Burgh or Grammar School at Kirkcaldy. At the new school in that town Edward Irving, whose acquaintance Carlyle first made at Edinburgh, about Christmas, 1815, had been established since the year 1812; they were thus brought closely together, and their intimacy soon ripened into a friendship destined to become famous. At Kirkcaldy Carlyle remained over two years, becoming more and more convinced that neither as minister nor as schoolmaster was he to successfully fight his way up in the world. It had become clear to him that literature was his true vocation, and he would have started in the profession at once, had it been convenient for him to do so. [Footnote A: James Carlyle was born in August, 1758, and died January 23, 1832. His second wife (whose maiden name was Margaret Aitken), was born in September, 1771, and died on Christmas Day, 1853. There were nine children of this marriage, "whereof four sons and three daughters," says the inscription en the tombstone in the burial-ground at Ecclefechan, "survived, gratefully reverent of such a father and such a mother."] He had already written several articles and essays, and a few of them had appeared in print; but they gave little promise or indication of the power he was afterwards to exhibit. During the years 1820--1823, he contributed a series of articles (biographical and topographical) to Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,"[1] viz.:-- [Footnote 1: Vols. XIV. to XVI. The fourteenth volume bears at the end the imprint, "Edinburgh, printed by Balfour and Clarke, 1820;" and the sixteenth volume, "Printed by A. Balfour and Co., Edinburgh, 1823." Most of these articles are distinguished by the initials "T.C."; but they are all attributed to Carlyle in the List of the Authors of the Principal Articles, prefixed to the work on its completion.] 1. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 2. Montaigne 3. Montesquieu 4. Montfaucon 5. Dr. Moore 6. Sir John Moore 7. Necker 8. Nelson 9. Netherlands 10. Newfoundland 11. Norfolk 12. Northamptonshire 13. Northumberland 14. Mungo Park 15. Lord Chatham 16. William Pitt. The following is from the article on _Necker_:-- "As an author, Necker displays much irregular force of imagination, united with considerable perspicuity and compass of thought; though his speculations are deformed by an undue attachment to certain leading ideas, which, harmonizing with his habits of mind, had acquired an excessive preponderance in the course of his long and uncontroverted meditations. He possessed extensive knowledge, and his works bespeak a philosophical spirit; but their great and characteristic excellence proceeds from that glow of fresh and youthful admiration for everything that is amiable or august in the character of man, which, in Necker's heart, survived all the blighting vicissitudes it had passed through, _combining, in a singular union, the fervour of the stripling with the experience of the sage_."[A] [Footnote A: "In the earliest authorship of Mr. Carlyle," says Mr. James Russell Lowell, alluding to these papers, "we find some not obscure hints of the future man. The outward fashion of them is that of the period; but they are distinguished by a certain security of judgment, remarkable at any time, remarkable especially in one so young. Carlyle, in these first essays, already shows the influence of his master Goethe, the most widely receptive of critics. In a compact notice of Montaigne there is not a word as to his religious scepticism. The character is looked at purely from its human and literary sides."] Here is a passage from the article on _Newfoundland_, interesting as containing perhaps the earliest germ of the later style:-- "The ships intended for the fishery on the southeast coast, arrive early in June. Each takes her station opposite any unoccupied part of the beach where the fish may be most conveniently cured, and retains it till the end of the season. Formerly the master who arrived first on any station was constituted _fishing-admiral_, and had by law the power of settling disputes among the other crews. But the jurisdiction of those _admirals_ is now happily superseded by the regular functionaries who reside on shore. Each captain directs his whole attention to the collection of his own cargo, without minding the concerns of his neighbour. Having taken down what part of the rigging is removable, they set about their laborious calling, and must pursue it zealously. Their mode of proceeding is thus described by Mr. Anspach, _a clerical person, who lived in the island several years, and has since written a meagre and very confused book, which he calls a_ HISTORY _of it_." To the "New Edinburgh Review" (1821-22) Carlyle also contributed two papers--one on Joanna Baillie's "Metrical Legends," and one on Goethe's "Faust." In the year 1822 he made a translation of "Legendre's Geometry," to which he prefixed an Essay on Proportion; and the book appeared a year or two afterwards under the auspices of the late Sir David Brewster.[A] The Essay on Proportion remains to this day the most lucid and succinct exposition of the subject hitherto published. [Footnote A: "Elements of Geometry and Trigonometry," with Notes. Translated from the French of A.M. Legendre. Edited by David Brewster, LL.D. With Notes and Additions, and an Introductory Chapter on Proportion. Edinburgh: published by Oliver and Boyd; and G. and W.B. Whittaker, London. 1824, pp. xvi., 367. Sir David Brewster's Preface, in which he speaks of "an Introduction on Proportion, by the Translator," is dated _Edinburgh, August_ 1, 1822.] "I was already," says Carlyle in his _Reminiscences_, "getting my head a little up, translating 'Legendre's Geometry' for Brewster. I still remember a happy forenoon in which I did a _Fifth Book_ (or complete 'doctrine of proportion') for that work, complete really and lucid, and yet one of the briefest ever known. It was begun and done that forenoon, and I have (except correcting the press next week) never seen it since; but still I feel as if it were right enough and felicitous in its kind! I only got £50 for my entire trouble in that 'Legendre;' but it was an honest job of work, honestly done."[A] [Footnote A: _Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle_, Edited by James Anthony Froude. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1881, Vol. 1., pp. 198-199.] The late Professor de Morgan--an excellent authority--pronounced a high eulogium upon this Essay on Proportion. In 1822 Carlyle accepted the post of tutor to Charles Buller, of whose early death and honourable promise, two touching records remain to us, one in verse by Thackeray, and one in prose by Carlyle. For the next four years Carlyle devoted his attention almost exclusively to German literature. His Life of Schiller first appeared under the title of "Schiller's Life and Writings," in the London Magazine. Part I.--October, 1823. Part II.--January, 1824. Part III.--July, 1824. " August, 1824. " September, 1824. It was enlarged, and separately published by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, the proprietors of the Magazine, in 1825. The translation of "Wilhelm Meister," in 1824,[A] was the first real introduction of Goethe to the reading world of Great Britain. It appeared without the name of the translator, but its merits were too palpable to be overlooked, though some critics objected to the strong infusion of German phraseology which had been imported into the English version. This acquired idiom never left our author, even in his original works, although the "Life of Schiller," written but a few months before, is almost entirely free from the peculiarity. "Wilhelm Meister," in its English dress, was better received by the English reading public than by English critics. De Quincey, in one of his dyspeptic fits, fell upon the book, its author, and the translator,[B] and Lord Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, although admitting Carlyle to be a talented person, heaped condemnation upon the work. [Footnote A: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. 3 Vols., Edinburgh, 1824.] [Footnote B: Curiously enough in the very numbers of the "London Magazine" containing the later instalments of Carlyle's Life of Schiller.] Carlyle's next work was a series of translations, entitled "German Romance: Specimens of the chief Authors; with Biographical and Critical Notices." 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1827. The Preface and Introductions are reprinted in the second volume of Carlyle's Collected Works: the Specimens translated from Hoffmann and La Motte Fouqué, have not been reprinted. "This," says Carlyle, in 1857, "was a Book of Translations, not of my suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journey-work in defect of better. The pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable on such terms: not quite of _less_ than no worth (I considered) any piece of them; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only. Four of these lots, or quotas to the adventure, Musæus's, Tieck's, Richter's, Goethe's, will be given in the final stage of this Series; the rest we willingly leave, afloat or stranded, as waste driftwood, to those whom they may farther concern." It was in 1826 that Mr. Carlyle married Miss Jane Welsh, the only child of Dr. John Welsh, of Haddington,[A] a lineal descendant of John Knox, and a lady fitted in every way to be the wife of such a man. For some time after marriage he continued to reside at Edinburgh, but in May, 1828, he took up his residence in his native county, at Craigenputtoch--a solitary farmhouse on a small estate belonging to his wife's mother, about fifteen miles from Dumfries, and in one of the most secluded parts of the country. Most of his letters to Goethe were written from this place. [Footnote A: Her father had been dead some seven years when Carlyle and she were married, and the life interest of her inheritance in the farm of Craigenputtoch had been made over to her mother, who survived until 1842, when it reverted to Carlyle.] In one of the letters sent from Craigenputtoch to Weimar, bearing the date of 25th September, 1828, we have a charming picture of our author's seclusion and retired literary life at this period:-- "You inquire with such warm interest respecting our present abode and occupations, that I feel bound to say a few words about both, while there is still room left. Dumfries is a pleasant town, containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and may be considered the centre of the trade and judicial system of a district which possesses some importance in the sphere of Scottish industry. Our residence is not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the north-west, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward through Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed, and planted ground, where corn ripens, and trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. Here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a neat, substantial dwelling; here, in the absence of professorial or other office, we live to cultivate literature according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. We wish a joyful growth to the rose and flowers of our garden; we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to further our aims. The roses, indeed, are still in part to be planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. Two ponies, which carry us everywhere, and the mountain air, are the best medicines for weak nerves. This daily exercise--to which I am much devoted--is my only recreation: for this nook of ours is the loneliest in Britain--six miles removed from any one likely to visit me. Here Rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of St. Pierre. My town friends, indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposition, and forbode me no good result. But I came hither solely with the design to simplify my way of life, and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself. This bit of earth is our own; here we can live, write, and think, as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. Nor is the solitude of such great importance; for a stage-coach takes us speedily to Edinburgh, which we look upon as our British Weimar. And have I not, too, at this moment piled up upon the table of my little library a whole cart-load of French, German, American, and English journals and periodicals--whatever may be their worth? Of antiquarian studies, too, there is no lack. From some of our heights I can descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them. At the foot of it I was born, and there both father and mother still live to love me. And so one must let time work." The above letter was printed by Goethe himself, in his Preface to a German transition of Carlyle's "Life of Schiller," published at Frankfort in 1830. Other pleasant records of the intercourse between them exist in the shape of sundry graceful copies of verses addressed by Goethe to Mrs. Carlyle, which will be found in the collection of his poems. Carlyle had now fairly started as an original writer. From the lonely farm of Craigenputtoch went forth the brilliant series of Essays contributed to the Edinburgh, Westminster, and Foreign Reviews, and to Fraser's Magazine, which were not long in gaining for him a literary reputation in both hemispheres. To this lonely farm came one day in August, 1833, armed with a letter of introduction, a visitor from the other side of the Atlantic: a young American, then unknown to fame, by name Ralph Waldo Emerson. The meeting of these two remarkable men was thus described by the younger of them, many years afterwards:-- "I came from Glasgow to Dumfries, and being intent on delivering a letter which I had brought from Rome, inquired for Craigenputtoch. It was a farm in Nithsdale, in the parish of Dunscore, sixteen miles distant. No public coach passed near it, so I took a private carriage from the inn. I found the house amid desolate heathery hills, where the lonely scholar nourished his mighty heart. Carlyle was a man from his youth, an author who did not need to hide from his readers, and as absolute a man of the world, unknown and exiled on that hill-farm, as if holding on his own terms what is best in London. He was tall and gaunt, with a cliff-like brow, self-possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humour, which floated everything he looked upon. His talk playfully exalting the familiar objects, put the companion at once into an acquaintance with his Lars and Lemurs, and it was very pleasant to learn what was predestined to be a pretty mythology. Few were the objects and lonely the man, 'not a person to speak to within sixteen miles except the minister of Dunscore; so that books inevitably made his topics. "He had names of his own for all the matters familiar to his discourse. 'Blackwood's' was the 'sand magazine;' 'Fraser's' nearer approach to possibility of life was the 'mud magazine;' a piece of road near by that marked some failed enterprise was 'the grave of the last sixpence.' When too much praise of any genius annoyed him, he professed hugely to admire the talent shewn by his pig. He had spent much time and contrivance in confining the poor beast to one enclosure in his pen, but pig, by great strokes of judgment, had found out how to let a board down, and had foiled him. For all that, he still thought man the most plastic little fellow in the planet, and he liked Nero's death, 'Qualis artifex pereo!' better than most history. He worships a man that will manifest any truth to him. At one time he had inquired and read a good deal about America. Landor's principle was mere rebellion, and that he feared was the American principle. The best thing he knew of that country was, that in it a man can have meat for his labour. He had read in Stewart's book, that when he inquired in a New York hotel for the Boots, he had been shown across the street, and had found Mungo in his own house dining on roast turkey. "We talked of books. Plato he does not read, and he disparaged Socrates; and, when pressed, persisted in making Mirabeau a hero. Gibbon he called the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. His own reading had been multifarious. Tristram Shandy was one of his first books after Robinson Crusoe, and Robertson's America an early favourite. Rousseau's Confessions had discovered to him that he was not a dunce; and it was now ten years since he had learned German, by the advice of a man who told him he would find in that language what he wanted. "He took despairing or satirical views of literature at this moment; recounted the incredible sums paid in one year by the great booksellers for puffing. Hence it comes that no newspaper is trusted now, no books are bought, and the booksellers are on the eve of bankruptcy. "He still returned to English pauperism, the crowded country, the selfish abdication by public men of all that public persons should perform. 'Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish folk come wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to every son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the next house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, and nobody to bid these poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to attend to them.' "We went out to walk over long hills, and looked at Criffel, then without his cap, and down into Wordsworth's country. There we sat down, and talked of the immortality of the soul. It was not Carlyle's fault that we talked on that topic, for he had the natural disinclination of every nimble spirit to bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where no step can be taken. But he was honest and true, and cognizant of the subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how every event affects all the future. 'Christ died on the tree: that built Dunscore kirk yonder: that brought you and me together. Time has only a relative existence.' "He was already turning his eyes towards London with a scholar's appreciation. London is the heart of the world, he said, wonderful only from the mass of human beings. He liked the huge machine. Each keeps its own round. The baker's boy brings muffins to the window at a fixed hour every day, and that is all the Londoner knows, or wishes to know, on the subject. But it turned out good men. He named certain individuals, especially one man of letters, his friend, the best mind he knew, whom London had well served."[A] [Footnote A: "English Traits," by R.W. Emerson. First Visit to England.] "Carlyle," says Emerson, "was already turning his eyes towards London," and a few months after the interview just described he did finally fix his residence there, in a quiet street in Chelsea, leading down to the river-side. Here, in an old-fashioned house, built in the reign of Queen Anne, he and his wife settled down in the early summer of 1834; here they continued to live together until she died; and here Carlyle afterwards lived on alone till the end of his life. With another man, of whom he now became the neighbour--Leigh Hunt--he had already formed a slight acquaintance, which soon ripened into a warm friendship and affection on both sides, in spite of their singular difference of temperament and character. "It was on the 8th of February, 1832," says Mr. Thornton Hunt, "that the writer of the essays named 'Characteristics' received, apparently from Mr. Leigh Hunt, a volume entitled 'Christianism,' for which he begged to express his thanks. By the 20th of February, Carlyle, then lodging in London, was inviting Leigh Hunt to tea, as the means of their first meeting; and by the 20th of November, Carlyle wrote from Dumfries, urging Leigh Hunt to 'come hither and see us when you want to rusticate a month. Is that for ever impossible?' The philosopher afterwards came to live in the next street to his correspondent, in Chelsea, and proved to be one of Leigh Hunt's kindest, most faithful, and most considerate friends."[A] [Footnote A: From "The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt," edited by his eldest son. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1862. Vol. 1., p. 321.] Mr. Horne tells a story very characteristic of both men. Soon after the publication of "Heroes and Hero Worship," they were at a small party, when a conversation was started between these two concerning the heroism of man. "Leigh Hunt had said something about the islands of the blest, or El Dorado, or the Millennium, and was flowing on his bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropped some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt's pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts and objections at every interval of the speaker's joyous progress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of hopefulness and of the unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good nature which distinguish both of these men. The opponents were so well matched that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. They all sallied forth, and leaving the close room, the candles and the arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant starlight night. They all looked up. 'Now,' thought Hunt, 'Carlyle's done for! he can have no answer to that!' 'There,' shouted Hunt, 'look up there, look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of Hope in the soul of man.' Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. They began to think he was silenced at last--he was a mortal man. But out of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who on earth could have anticipated what the voice said? 'Eh! it's a sad sight!' Hunt sat down on a stone step. They all laughed--then looked very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again they laughed--then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace."[A] [Footnote A: "A New Spirit of the Age," by R.H. Home. London, 1844. Vol. . p. 278.] In 1840 Leigh Hunt left Chelsea, and went to live at Kensington, but Carlyle never altogether lost sight of him, and on several occasions was able to do him very serviceable acts of kindness; as, for instance, in writing certain Memoranda concerning him with the view of procuring from Government a small provision for Leigh Hunt's declining years, which we may as well give in this place:-- MEMORANDA CONCERNING MR. LEIGH HUNT. "1. That Mr. Hunt is a man of the most indisputedly superior worth; a _Man of Genius_ in a very strict sense of that word, and in all the senses which it bears or implies; of brilliant varied gifts, of graceful fertility, of clearness, lovingness, truthfulness; of childlike open character; also of most pure and even exemplary private deportment; a man who can be other than _loved_ only by those who have not seen him, or seen him from a distance through a false medium. "2. That, well seen into, he _has_ done much for the world;--as every man possessed of such qualities, and freely speaking them forth in the abundance of his heart for thirty years long, must needs do: _how_ much, they that could judge best would perhaps estimate highest. "3. That, for one thing, his services in the cause of reform, as Founder and long as Editor of the 'Examiner' newspaper; as Poet, Essayist, Public Teacher in all ways open to him, are great and evident: few now living in this kingdom, perhaps, could boast of greater. "4. That his sufferings in that same cause have also been great; legal prosecution and penalty (not dishonourable to him; nay, honourable, were the whole truth known, as it will one day be): unlegal obloquy and calumny through the Tory Press;--perhaps a greater quantity of baseless, persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living writer has undergone. Which long course of hostility (nearly the cruellest conceivable, had it not been carried on in half, or almost total misconception) may be regarded as the beginning of his other worst distresses, and a main cause of them, down to this day. "5. That he is heavily laden with domestic burdens, more heavily than most men, and his economical resources are gone from him. For the last twelve years he has toiled continually, with passionate diligence, with the cheerfullest spirit; refusing no task; yet hardly able with all this to provide for the day that was passing over him; and now, after some two years of incessant effort in a new enterprise ('The London Journal') that seemed of good promise, it also has suddenly broken down, and he remains in ill health, age creeping on him, without employment, means, or outlook, in a situation of the painfullest sort. Neither do his distresses, nor did they at any time, arise from wastefulness, or the like, on his own part (he is a man of humble wishes, and can live with dignity on little); but from crosses of what is called Fortune, from injustice of other men, from inexperience of his own, and a guileless trustfulness of nature, the thing and things that have made him unsuccessful make him in reality _more_ loveable, and plead for him in the minds of the candid. "6. That such a man is rare in a Nation, and of high value there; not to be _procured_ for a whole Nation's revenue, or recovered when taken from us, and some £200 a year is the price which this one, whom we now have, is valued at: with that sum he were lifted above his perplexities, perhaps saved from nameless wretchedness! It is believed that, in hardly any other way could £200 abolish as much suffering, create as much benefit, to one man, and through him to many and all. "Were these things set fitly before an English Minister, in whom great part of England recognises (with surprise at such a novelty) a man of insight, fidelity and decision, is it not probable or possible that he, though from a quite opposite point of view, might see them in somewhat of a similar light; and, so seeing, determine to do in consequence? _Ut fiat_! "T.C." "Some years later," says a writer in "Macmillan's Magazine,"[A] "in the 'mellow evening' of a life that had been so stormy, Mr. Leigh Hunt himself told the story of his struggles, his victories, and his defeats, with so singularly graceful a frankness, that the most supercilious of critics could not but acknowledge that here was an autobiographer whom it was possible to like. Here is Carlyle's estimate of Leigh Hunt's Autobiography:-- [Footnote A: July, 1862.] "Chelsea, June 17, 1850. "DEAR HUNT, "I have just finished your Autobiography, which has been most pleasantly occupying all my leisure these three days; and you must permit me to write you a word upon it, out of the fulness of the heart, while the impulse is still fresh to thank you. This good book, in every sense one of the best I have read this long while, has awakened many old thoughts which never were extinct, or even properly asleep, but which (like so much else) have had to fall silent amid the tempests of an evil time--Heaven mend it! A word from me once more, I know, will not be unwelcome, while the world is talking of you. "Well, I call this an excellent good book, by far the best of the autobiographic kind I remember to have read in the English language; and indeed, except it be Boswell's of Johnson, I do not know where we have such a picture drawn of a human life, as in these three volumes. "A pious, ingenious, altogether human and worthy book; imaging, with graceful honesty and free felicity, many interesting objects and persons on your life-path, and imaging throughout, what is best of all, a gifted, gentle, patient, and valiant human soul, as it buffets its way through the billows of the time, and will not drown though often in danger; cannot _be_ drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it: that, I think, conies out more clearly to me than in any other of your books;--and that, I can venture to assure you, is the best of all results to realise in a book or written record. In fact, this book has been like an exercise of devotion to me; I have not assisted at any sermon, liturgy or litany, this long while, that has had so religious an effect on me. Thanks in the name of all men. And believe, along with me, that this book will be welcome to other generations as well as to ours. And long may you live to write more books for us; and may the evening sun be softer on you (and on me) than the noon sometimes was! "Adieu, dear Hunt (you must let me use this familiarity, for I am an old fellow too now, as well as you). I have often thought of coming up to see you once more; and perhaps I shall, one of these days (though horribly sick and lonely, and beset with spectral lions, go whitherward I may): but whether I do or not believe for ever in my regard. And so, God bless you, "Prays heartily, "T. CARLYLE." On the other hand Leigh Hunt had an enthusiastic reverence for Carlyle. There are several incidental allusions to the latter, of more or less consequence, in Hunt's Autobiography, but the following is the most interesting:-- "_Carlyle's Paramount Humanity_.--I believe that what Mr. Carlyle loves better than his fault-finding, with all its eloquence, is the face of any human creature that looks suffering, and loving, and sincere; and I believe further, that if the fellow-creature were suffering only, and neither loving nor sincere, but had come to a pass of agony in this life which put him at the mercies of some good man for some last help and consolation towards his grave, even at the risk of loss to repute, and a sure amount of pain and vexation, that man, if the groan reached him in its forlornness, would be Thomas Carlyle."[A] [Footnote A: "Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, with Reminiscences of friends and Contemporaries." (Lond. 1850.)] It was in "Leigh Hunt's Journal,"--a short-lived Weekly Miscellany (1850--1851)--that Carlyle's sketch, entitled "Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago,"[A] first appeared. [Footnote A: "Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago. From a waste paper bag of T. Carlyle." Reprinted in Carlyle's Miscellanies, Ed. 1857.] It was during his residence at Craigenputtoch that "Sartor Resartus" ("The Tailor Done Over," the name of an old Scotch ballad) was written, which, after being rejected by several publishers, finally made its appearance in "Eraser's Magazine," 1833--34. The book, it must be confessed, might well have puzzled the critical gentlemen--the "book-tasters"--who decide for publishers what work to print among those submitted in manuscript. It is a sort of philosophical romance, in which the author undertakes to give, in the form of a review of a German work on dress, and in a notice of the life of the writer, his own opinions upon matters and things in general. The hero, Professor Teufelsdroeckh ("Devil's Dirt"), seems to be intended for a portrait of human nature as affected by the moral influence to which a cultivated mind would be exposed by the transcendental philosophy of Fichte. Mr. Carlyle works out his theory--the clothes philosophy--and finds the world false and hollow, our institutions mere worn-out rags or disguises, and that our only safety lies in flying from falsehood to truth, and becoming in harmony with the "divine idea." There is much fanciful, grotesque description in "Sartor," with deep thought and beautiful imagery. "In this book," wrote John Sterling, "we always feel that there is a mystic influence around us, bringing out into sharp homely clearness what is noblest in the remote and infinite, exalting into wonder what is commonest in the dust and toil of every day." "Sartor" found but few admirers; those readers, however, were firm and enthusiastic in their applause. In 1838 the "Sartor Resartus" papers, already republished in the United States, were issued in a collected form here; and in 1839-1840 his various scattered articles in periodicals, after having similarly received the honour of republication in America, were published here, first in four and afterwards in five volumes, under the title of "Miscellanies." It was in the spring of 1837 that Carlyle's first great historical work appeared, "The French Revolution:--Vol. I., The Bastile; Vol. II, The Constitution; Vol. III., The Guillotine." The publication of this book produced a profound impression on the public mind. A history abounding in vivid and graphic descriptions, it was at the same time a gorgeous "prose epic." It is perhaps the most readable of all Carlyle's works, and indeed is one of the most remarkable books of the age. There is no other account of the French Revolution that can be compared with it for intensity of feeling and profoundness of thought. A great deal of information respecting Carlyle's manner of living and personal history during these earlier years in London may be gleaned incidentally from his "Life of John Sterling," a book, which, from the nature of it, is necessarily partly autobiographical. Thomas Moore and others met him sometimes in London society at this time. Moore thus briefly chronicles a breakfast at Lord Houghton's, at which Carlyle was present:-- "22nd May, 1838.--Breakfasted at Milnes', and met rather a remarkable party, consisting of Savage, Landor, and Carlyle (neither of whom I had ever seen before), Robinson, Rogers, and Rice. A good deal of conversation between Robinson and Carlyle about German authors, of whom I knew nothing, nor (from what they paraded of them) felt that I had lost much by my ignorance."[A] [Footnote A: Diary of Thomas Moore. (Lond. 1856.) Vol. vii., p. 224] In 1835, after the publication of "Sartor Resartus," Carlyle received an invitation from some American admirers of his writings, to visit their country, and he contemplated doing so, but his labours in examining and collecting materials for his great work on "The French Revolution," then hastening towards completion, prevented him. We may say that, for many reasons, it is to be regretted that this design was never carried into execution. Had Carlyle witnessed with his own eyes the admirable working of democratic institutions in the United States, he might have done more justice to our Transatlantic brethren, who were always his first and foremost admirers, and he might also have acquired more faith in the future destinies of his own countrymen. In December, 1837, Carlyle wrote a very remarkable letter to a correspondent in India, which has never been printed in his works, and which we are enabled to give here entire. It is addressed to Major David Lester Richardson, in acknowledgment of his "Literary Leaves, or Prose and Verse," published at Calcutta in 1836. These "Literary Leaves" contain among other things an article on the Italian Opera (taking much the same view of it as Carlyle does), and a sketch of Edward Irving. These papers no doubt pleased Carlyle, and perhaps led him to entertain a rather exaggeratedly high opinion of the rest of the book. THOMAS CARLYLE TO DAVID LESTER RICHARDSON. "5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, "_19th December_, 1837. "My DEAR SIR, "Your courteous gift, with the letter accompanying it, reached me only about a week ago, though dated 20th of June, almost at the opposite point of the year. Whether there has been undue delay or not is unknown to me, but at any rate on my side there ought to be no delay. "I have read your volume--what little of it was known to me before, and the much that was not known--I can say, with true pleasure. It is written, as few volumes in these days are, with fidelity, with successful care, with insight and conviction as to matter, with clearness and graceful precision as to manner: in a word, it is the impress of a mind stored with elegant accomplishments, gifted with an eye to see, and a heart to understand; a welcome, altogether recommendable book. More than once I have said to myself and others, How many parlour firesides are there this winter in England, at which this volume, could one give credible announcement of its quality, would be right pleasant company? There are very many, _could_ one give the announcement: but no such announcement _can_ be given; therefore the parlour firesides must even put up with ---- or what other stuff chance shovels in their way, and read, though with malediction all the time. It is a great pity, but no man can help it. We are now arrived seemingly pretty near the point when all criticism and proclamation in matters literary has degenerated into an inane jargon, incredible, unintelligible, inarticulate as the cawing of choughs and rooks; and many things in that as in other provinces, are in a state of painful and rapid transition. A good book has no way of recommending itself except slowly and as it were accidentally from hand to hand. The man that wrote it must abide his time. He needs, as indeed all men do, the _faith_ that this world is built not on falsehood and jargon but on truth and reason; that no good thing done by any creature of God was, is, or ever can be _lost_, but will verily do the service appointed for it, and be found among the general sum-total and all of things after long times, nay after all time, and through eternity itself. Let him 'cast his bread upon the waters,' therefore, cheerful of heart; 'he will find it after many days.' "I know not why I write all this to you; it comes very spontaneously from me. Let it be your satisfaction, the highest a man can have in this world, that the talent entrusted to you did not lie useless, but was turned to account, and proved itself to be a talent; and the 'publishing world' can receive it altogether according to their own pleasure, raise it high on the housetops, or trample it low into the street-kennels; that is not the question at all, the _thing_ remains precisely what it was after never such raising and never such depressing and trampling, there is no change whatever in _it_. I bid you go on, and prosper. "One thing grieves me: the tone of sadness, I might say of settled melancholy that runs through all your utterances of yourself. It is not right, it is wrong; and yet how shall I reprove you? If you knew me, you would triumphantly[A] for any spiritual endowment bestowed on a man, that it is accompanied, or one might say _preceded_ as the first origin of it, always by a delicacy of organisation which in a world like ours is sure to have itself manifoldly afflicted, tormented, darkened down into sorrow and disease. You feel yourself an exile, in the East; but in the West too it is exile; I know not where under the sun it is not exile. Here in the Fog Babylon, amid mud and smoke, in the infinite din of 'vociferous platitude,' and quack outbellowing quack, with truth and pity on all hands ground under the wheels, can one call it a home, or a world? It is a waste chaos, where we have to swim painfully for our life. The utmost a man can do is to swim there like a man, and hold his peace. For this seems to me a great truth, in any exile or chaos whatsoever, that sorrow was not given us for sorrow's sake, but always and infallibly as a lesson to us from which we are to learn somewhat: and which, the somewhat once _learned_, ceases to be sorrow. I do believe this; and study in general to 'consume my own smoke,' not indeed without very ugly out-puffs at times! Allan Cunningham is the best, he tells me that always as one grows older, one grows happier: a thing also which I really can believe. But as for you, my dear sir, you have other work to do in the East than grieve. Are there not beautiful things there, glorious things; wanting only an eye to note them, a hand to record them? If I had the command over you, I would say, read _Paul et Virginie_, then read the _Chaumière Indienne_; gird yourself together for a right effort, and go and do likewise or better! I mean what I say. The East has its own phases, there are things there which the West yet knows not of; and one heaven covers both. He that has an eye let him look! [Footnote A: There seems to be some omission or slip of the pen here.] "I hope you forgive me this style I have got into. It seems to me on reading your book as if we had been long acquainted in some measure; as if one might speak to you right from the heart. I hope we shall meet some day or other. I send you my constant respect and good wishes; and am and remain, "Yours very truly always, "T. CARLYLE." Carlyle first appeared as a lecturer in 1837. His first course was on 'German Literature,' at Willis's Rooms; a series of six lectures, of which the first was thus noticed in the _Spectator_ of Saturday, May 6, 1837.[A] [Footnote A: Facsimiled in "The Autographic Mirror," July, 1865.] "_Mr. Thomas Carlyle's Lectures_. "Mr. Carlyle delivered the first of a course of lectures on German Literature, at Willis's Rooms, on Tuesday, to a very crowded and yet a select audience of both sexes. Mr. Carlyle may be deficient in the mere mechanism of oratory; but this minor defect is far more than counterbalanced by his perfect mastery of his subject, the originality of his manner, the perspicuity of his language, his simple but genuine eloquence, and his vigorous grasp of a large and difficult question. No person of taste or judgment could hear him without feeling that the lecturer is a man of genius, deeply imbued with his great argument." "This course of lectures," says a writer already quoted, "was well attended by the fashionables of the West End; and though they saw in his manner something exceedingly awkward, they could not fail to discern in his matter the impress of a mind of great originality and superior gifts."[A] [Footnote A: JAMES GRANT: "Portraits of Public Characters." (Lond. 1841.) Vol. ii., p. 152.] The following year he delivered a second course on the 'History of Literature, or the Successive Periods of European Culture,' at the Literary Institution in Edwards-street, Portman-square. 'The Revolutions of Modern Europe' was the title given to the third course, delivered twelve months later. The fourth and last series, of six lectures, is the best remembered, 'Heroes and Hero-worship.' This course alone was published, and it became more immediately popular than any of the works which had preceded it. Concerning these lectures, Leigh Hunt remarked that it seemed "as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberalized by German philosophy and his own intense reflections and experience." Another critic, a Scotch writer, could see nothing but wild impracticability in them, and exclaimed, "Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these lectures? If not, what is the real value of Mr. Carlyle's teachings? What is Mr. Carlyle himself but a phantasm!" The vein of Puritanism running through his writings, composed upon the model of the German school, impressed many critics with the belief that their author, although full of fire and energy, was perplexed and embarrassed with his own speculations. Concerning this Puritan element in his reflections, Mr. James Hannay remarks, "That earnestness, that grim humour--that queer, half-sarcastic, half-sympathetic fun--is quite Scotch. It appears in Knox and Buchanan, and it appears in Burns. I was not surprised when a school-fellow of Carlyle's told me that his favourite poem was, when a boy, 'Death and Doctor Hornbook.' And if I were asked to explain this originality, I should say that he was a covenanter coming in the wake of the eighteenth century and the transcendental philosophy. He has gone into the hills against 'shams,' as they did against Prelacy, Erastianism, and so forth. But he lives in a quieter age, and in a literary position. So he can give play to the humour which existed in them as well, and he overflows with a range of reading and speculation to which they were necessarily strangers." 'Chartism,' published in 1839, and which, to use the words of a critic of the time, was the publication in which "he first broke ground on the Condition of England question," appeared a short time before the lectures on 'Heroes and Hero-worship' were delivered. If we remember rightly, Mr. Carlyle gave forth "those grand utterances" extemporaneously and without an abstract, notes, or a reminder of any kind--utterances not beautiful to the flunkey-mind, or valet-soul, occupied mainly with the fold of the hero's necktie, and the cut of his coat. Flunkey-dom, by one of its mouthpieces, thus speaks of them:-- "Perhaps his course for the present year, which was on Hero-worship, was better attended than any previous one. Some of those who were present estimated the average attendance at three hundred. They chiefly consisted of persons of rank and wealth, as the number of carriages which each day waited the conclusion of the lecture to receive Mr. Carlyle's auditors, and to carry them to their homes, conclusively testified. The locality of Mr. Carlyle's lectures has, I believe, varied every year. The Hanover Rooms, Willis's Rooms, and a place in the north of London, the name of which I forget, have severally been chosen as the place whence to give utterance to his profound and original trains of thought. "A few words will be expected here as to Mr. Carlyle's manner as a lecturer. In so far as his mere manner is concerned, I can scarcely bestow on him a word of commendation. There is something in his manner which, if I may use a rather quaint term, must seem very uncouth to London audiences of the most respectable class, _accustomed as they are to the polished deportment[A] which is usually exhibited in Willis's or the Hanover Rooms_. When he enters the room, and proceeds to the sort of rostrum whence he delivers his lectures, he is, according to the usual practice in such cases, generally received with applause; but he very rarely takes any more notice of the mark of approbation thus bestowed upon him, than if he were altogether unconscious of it. And the same seeming want of respect for his audience, or, at any rate, the same disregard for what I believe he considers the troublesome forms of politeness, is visible at the commencement of his lecture. Having ascended his desk, he gives a hearty rub to his hands, and plunges at once into his subject. He reads very closely, which, indeed, must be expected, considering the nature of the topics which he undertakes to discuss. He is not prodigal of gesture with his arms or body; but there is something in his eye and countenance which indicates great earnestness of purpose, and the most intense interest in his subject. _You can almost fancy, in some of his more enthusiastic and energetic moments, that you see his inmost soul in his face_. At times, indeed very often, he so unnaturally distorts his features, as to give to his countenance a very unpleasant expression. On such occasions, you would imagine that he was suddenly seized with some violent paroxysms of pain. _He is one of the most ungraceful speakers I have ever heard address a public assemblage of persons_. In addition to the awkwardness of his general manner, he 'makes mouths,' which would of themselves be sufficient to mar the agreeableness of his delivery. And his manner of speaking, and the ungracefulness of his gesticulation, are greatly aggravated by his strong Scotch accent. Even to the generality of Scotchmen his pronunciation is harsh in no ordinary degree. Need I say, then, what it must be to an English ear? [Footnote A: Shade of Mr. Turveydrop senior, hear this man!] "I was present some months ago, during the delivery of a speech by Mr. Carlyle at a meeting held in the Freemasons' Tavern, for the purpose of forming a metropolitan library; and though that speech did not occupy in its delivery more than five minutes, he made use of some of the most extraordinary phraseology I ever heard employed by a human being. He made use of the expression 'this London,' which he pronounced 'this Loondun,' four or five times--a phrase which grated grievously on the ears even of those of Mr. Carlyle's own countrymen who were present, and which must have sounded doubly harsh in the ears of an Englishman, considering the singularly broad Scotch accent with which he spoke. "A good deal of uncertainty exists as to Mr. Carlyle's religious opinions. I have heard him represented as a firm and entire believer in revelation, and I have heard it affirmed with equal confidence that he is a decided Deist. My own impression is," &c.[A] [Footnote A: "Portraits of Public Characters," by the author of "Random Recollections of the Lords and Commons." Vol. ii. pp. 152-158.] In 1841 Carlyle superintended the publication of the English edition of his friend Emerson's Essays,[B] to which he prefixed a characteristic Preface of some length. [Footnote B: Essays: by R.W. Emerson, of Concord, Massachusetts. With Preface by Thomas Carlyle. London: James Fraser, 1841.] "The name of Ralph Waldo Emerson," he writes, "is not entirely new in England: distinguished travellers bring us tidings of such a man; fractions of his writings have found their way into the hands of the curious here; fitful hints that there is, in New England, some spiritual notability called Emerson, glide through Reviews and Magazines. Whether these hints were true or not true, readers are now to judge for themselves a little better. "Emerson's writings and speakings amount to something: and yet hitherto, as seems to me, this Emerson is perhaps far less notable for what he has spoken or done, than for the many things he has not spoken and has forborne to do. With uncommon interest I have learned that this, and in such a never-resting, locomotive country too, is one of those rare men who have withal the invaluable talent of sitting still! That an educated man, of good gifts and opportunities, after looking at the public arena, and even trying, not with ill success, what its tasks and its prizes might amount to, should retire for long years into rustic obscurity; and, amid the all-pervading jingle of dollars and loud chaffering of ambitions and promotions, should quietly, with cheerful deliberateness, sit down to spend _his_ life not in Mammon-worship, or the hunt for reputation, influence, place, or any outward advantage whatsoever: this, when we get a notice of it, is a thing really worth noting." In 1843, "Past and Present" appeared--a work without the wild power which "Sartor Resartus" possessed over the feelings of the reader, but containing passages which look the same way, and breathe the same spirit. The book contrasts, in a historico-philosophical spirit, English society in the Middle Ages, with English society in our own day. In both this and the preceding work the great measures advised for the amelioration of the people are education and emigration. Another very admirable letter, addressed by Mr. Carlyle in 1843 to a young man who had written to him desiring his advice as to a proper choice of reading, and, it would appear also, as to his conduct in general, we shall here bring forth from its hiding-place in an old Scottish newspaper of a quarter of a century ago:-- "DEAR SIR, "Some time ago your letter was delivered me; I take literally the first free half-hour I have had since to write you a word of answer. "It would give me true satisfaction could any advice of mine contribute to forward you in your honourable course of self-improvement, but a long experience has taught me that advice can profit but little; that there is a good reason why advice is so seldom followed; this reason namely, that it is so seldom, and can almost never be, rightly given. No man knows the state of another; it is always to some more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most honest adviser is speaking. "As to the books which you--whom I know so little of--should read, there is hardly anything definite that can be said. For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book that is wiser than yourself, will teach you something--a great many things, indirectly and directly, if your mind be open to learn. This old counsel of Johnson's is also good, and universally applicable:--'Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.' The very wish and curiosity indicates that you, then and there, are the person likely to get good of it. 'Our wishes are presentiments of our capabilities;' that is a noble saying, of deep encouragement to all true men; applicable to our wishes and efforts in regard to reading as to other things. Among all the objects that look wonderful or beautiful to you, follow with fresh hope the one which looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will gradually find, by various trials (which trials see that you make honest, manful ones, not silly, short, fitful ones), what _is_ for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest--what is _your_ true element and province, and be able to profit by that. True desire, the monition of nature, is much to be attended to. But here, also, you are to discriminate carefully between _true_ desire and false. The medical men tell us we should eat what we _truly_ have an appetite for; but what we only _falsely_ have an appetite for we should resolutely avoid. It is very true; and flimsy, desultory readers, who fly from foolish book to foolish book, and get good of none, and mischief of all--are not these as foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake their superficial false desire after spiceries and confectioneries for their real appetite, of which even they are not destitute, though it lies far deeper, far quieter, after solid nutritive food? With these illustrations, I will recommend Johnson's advice to you. "Another thing, and only one other, I will say. All books are properly the record of the history of past men--what thoughts past men had in them--what actions past men did: the summary of all books whatsoever lies there. It is on this ground that the class of books specifically named History can be safely recommended as the basis of all study of books--the preliminary to all right and full understanding of anything we can expect to find in books. Past history, and especially the past history of one's own native country, everybody may be advised to begin with that. Let him study that faithfully; innumerable inquiries will branch out from it; he has a broad-beaten highway, from which all the country is more or less visible; there travelling, let him choose where he will dwell. "Neither let mistakes and wrong directions--of which every man, in his studies and elsewhere, falls into many--discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got by finding that we are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully, to be right, he will grow daily more and more right. It is, at bottom, the condition which all men have to cultivate themselves. Our very walking is an incessant falling--a falling and a catching of ourselves before we come actually to the pavement!--it is emblematic of all things a man does. "In conclusion, I will remind you that it is not by books alone, or by books chiefly, that a man becomes in all points a man. Study to do faithfully whatsoever thing in your actual situation, there and now, you find either expressly or tacitly laid to your charge; that is your post; stand in it like a true soldier. Silently devour the many chagrins of it, as all human situations have many; and see you aim not to quit it without doing all that _it_, at least, required of you. A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading. They are a growing kind of men that can wisely combine the two things--wisely, valiantly, can do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere, and prepare themselves withal for doing other wider things, if such lie before them. "With many good wishes and encouragements, I remain, yours sincerely, "THOMAS CARLYLE. "Chelsea, 13th March, 1843." The publication of "Past and Present" elicited a paper "On the Genius and Tendency of the Writings of Thomas Carlyle," from Mazzini, which appeared in the "British and Foreign Review," of October, 1843.[A] It is a candid and thoughtful piece of criticism, in which the writer, while striving to do justice to Carlyle's genius, protests strongly and uncompromisingly against the tendency of his teaching. [Footnote A: Reprinted in the "Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini." (London, 1867). Vol. iv. pp. 56-144.] Some months afterwards, when the House of Commons was occupied with the illegal opening of Mazzini's letters, Carlyle spontaneously stepped forward and paid the following tribute to his character:-- "TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.' "SIR,-- "In your observations in yesterday's _Times_ on the late disgraceful affair of Mr. Mazzini's letters and the Secretary of State, you mention that Mr. Mazzini is entirely unknown to you, entirely indifferent to you; and add, very justly, that if he were the most contemptible of mankind, it would not affect your argument on the subject.[A] [Footnote A: "Mr. Mazzini's character and habits and society are nothing to the point, unless connected with some certain or probable evidence of evil intentions or treasonable plots. We know nothing, and care nothing about him. He may be the most worthless and the most vicious creature in the world; but this is no reason of itself why his letters should be detained and opened."--leading article, June 17, 1844.] "It may tend to throw farther light on this matter if I now certify you, which I in some sort feel called upon to do, that Mr. Mazzini is not unknown to various competent persons in this country; and that he is very far indeed from being contemptible--none farther, or very few of living men. I have had the honour to know Mr. Mazzini for a series of years; and, whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great freedom testify to all men that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and virtue, a man of sterling veracity, humanity, and nobleness of mind; one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr-souls; who, in silence, piously in their daily life, understand and practise what is meant by that. "Of Italian democracies and young Italy's sorrows, of extraneous Austrian Emperors in Milan, or poor old chimerical Popes in Bologna, I know nothing, and desire to know nothing; but this other thing I do know, and can here declare publicly to be a fact, which fact all of us that have occasion to comment on Mr. Mazzini and his affairs may do well to take along with us, as a thing leading towards new clearness, and not towards new additional darkness, regarding him and them. "Whether the extraneous Austrian Emperor and miserable old chimera of a Pope shall maintain themselves in Italy, or be obliged to decamp from Italy, is not a question in the least vital to Englishmen. But it is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English post-office be, as we all fancied they were, respected as things sacred; that opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to picking men's pockets, and to other still viler and far fataler forms of scoundrelism be not resorted to in England, except in cases of the very last extremity. When some new gunpowder plot may be in the wind, some double-dyed high treason, or imminent national wreck not avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters--not till then. "To all Austrian Kaisers and such like, in their time of trouble, let us answer, as our fathers from of old have answered:--Not by such means is help here for you. Such means, allied to picking of pockets and viler forms of scoundrelism, are not permitted in this country for your behoof. The right hon. Secretary does himself detest such, and even is afraid to employ them. He dare not: it would be dangerous for him! All British men that might chance to come in view of such a transaction, would incline to spurn it, and trample on it, and indignantly ask him what he meant by it? "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "THOMAS CARLYLE.[A] "Chelsea, June 18." [Footnote A: From _The Times_, Wednesday, June 19, 1844.] The autumn of this year was saddened for Carlyle by the loss of the dear friend whose biography he afterwards wrote. On the 18th of September, 1844--after a short career of melancholy promise, only half fulfilled--John Sterling died, in his thirty-ninth year. The next work that appeared from Carlyle's pen--a special service to history, and to the memory of one of England's greatest men--was "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations and a Connecting Narrative," two volumes, published in 1845. If there were any doubt remaining after the publication of the "French Revolution" what position our author might occupy amongst the historians of the age, it was fully removed on the appearance of "Cromwell's Letters." The work obtained a great and an immediate popularity; and though bulky and expensive, a very large impression was quickly sold. These speeches and letters of Cromwell, the spelling and punctuation corrected, and a few words added here and there for clearness' sake, and to accommodate them to the language and style in use now, were first made intelligible and effective by Mr. Carlyle. "The authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself," he says, "I have gathered them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires where they lay buried. I have washed, or endeavoured to wash them clean from foreign stupidities--such a job of buckwashing as I do not long to repeat--and the world shall now see them in their own shape." The work was at once republished in America, and two editions were called for here within the year. While engaged on this work, Carlyle went down to Rugby by express invitation, on Friday, 13th May, 1842, and on the following day explored the field of Naseby, in company with Dr. Arnold. The meeting of two such remarkable men--only six weeks before the death of the latter--has in it something solemn and touching, and unusually interesting. Carlyle left the school-house, expressing the hope that it might "long continue to be what was to him one of the rarest sights in the world--a temple of industrious peace." Arnold, who, with the deep sympathy arising from kindred nobility of soul, had long cherished a high reverence for Carlyle, was very proud of having received such a guest under his roof, and during those few last weeks of life was wont to be in high spirits, talking with his several guests, and describing with much interest, his recent visit to Naseby with Carlyle, "its position on some of the highest table-land in England--the streams falling on the one side into the Atlantic, on the other into the German Ocean--far away, too, from any town--Market Harborough, the nearest, into which the cavaliers were chased late in the long summer evening on the fourteenth of June." Perhaps the most graphic description of Carlyle's manner and conversation ever published, is contained in the following passage from a letter addressed to Emerson by an accomplished American, Margaret Fuller, who visited England in the autumn of 1846, and whose strange, beautiful history and tragical death on her homeward voyage, are known to most readers. The letter is dated Paris, November 16, 1846. "Of the people I saw in London, you will wish me to speak first of the Carlyles. Mr. C. came to see me at once, and appointed an evening to be passed at their house. That first time, I was delighted with him. He was in a very sweet humour,--full of wit and pathos, without being overbearing or oppressive. I was quite carried away with the rich flow of his discourse, and the hearty, noble earnestness of his personal being brought back the charm which once was upon his writing, before I wearied of it. I admired his Scotch, his way of singing his great full sentences, so that each one was like the stanza of a narrative ballad. He let me talk, now and then, enough to free my lungs and change my position, so that I did not get tired. That evening, he talked of the present state of things in England, giving light, witty sketches of the men of the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet, homely stories he told of things he had known of the Scotch peasantry. "Of you he spoke with hearty kindness; and he told, with beautiful feeling, a story of some poor farmer, or artisan in the country, who on Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that dirty English world, and sits reading the Essays, and looking upon the sea. "I left him that night, intending to go out very often to their house. I assure you there never was anything so witty as Carlyle's description of ---- ----. It was enough to kill one with laughing. I, on my side, contributed a story to his fund of anecdote on this subject, and it was fully appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand of you for that;--he is not ashamed to laugh when he is amused, but goes on in a cordial, human fashion. "The second time Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, author of a History of Philosophy,[A] and now writing a Life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit as irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told stories admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a little, of which one was glad, for that night he was in his more acrid mood, and though much more brilliant than on the former evening, grew wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost everything he said. [Footnote A: George Henry Lewes.] "For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the whole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson wrote in verse because the schoolmasters had taught him that it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from the true path for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been turned from his vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to see that it would have been better to write straight on in prose;--and such nonsense, which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after a while. "The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some refrain, as in the French Revolution of the _sea-green_. In this instance, it was Petrarch and _Laura_, the last word pronounced with his ineffable sarcasm of drawl. Although he said this over fifty times, I could not help laughing when _Laura_ would come. Carlyle running his chin out when he spoke it, and his eyes glancing till they looked like the eyes and beak of a bird of prey. Poor Laura! Luckily for her that her poet had already got her safely canonized beyond the reach of this Teufelsdröckh vulture. "The worst of hearing Carlyle is, that you cannot interrupt him. I understand the habit and power of haranguing have increased very much upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner when he has once got hold of you. To interrupt him is a physical impossibility. If you get a chance to remonstrate for a moment, he raises his voice and bears you down. True, he does you no injustice, and, with his admirable penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, so that you are not morally delinquent; but it is not pleasant to be unable to utter it. The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this, by a series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of modern French literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. All were depreciating, except that of Béranger. Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because with hearty sympathy. "I had, afterward, some talk with Mrs. C., whom hitherto I had only _seen_, for who can speak while her husband is there? I like her very much;--she is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. Her eyes are sad and charming. * * * * * "After this, they went to stay at Lord Ashburton's, and I only saw them once more, when they came to pass an evening with us. Unluckily, Mazzini was with us, whose society, when he was there alone, I enjoyed more than any. He is a beauteous and pure music: also, he is a dear friend of Mrs. C., but his being there gave the conversation a turn to 'progress' and ideal subjects, and C. was fluent in invectives on all our 'rose-water imbecilities.' We all felt distant from him, and Mazzini, after some vain efforts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. C. said to me,-- "'These are but opinions to Carlyle, but to Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped bring his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such subjects, it is a matter of life and death.' "All Carlyle's talk, that evening, was a defence of mere force,--success the test of right;--if people would not behave well, put collars round their necks;--find a hero, and let them be his slaves, &c. It was very Titanic, and anti-celestial. I wish the last evening had been more melodious. However, I bid Carlyle farewell with feelings of the warmest friendship and admiration. We cannot feel otherwise to a great and noble nature, whether it harmonise with our own or not. I never appreciated the work he has done for his age till I saw England. I could not. You must stand in the shadow of that mountain of shams, to know how hard it is to cast light across it. "Honour to Carlyle! _Hoch_! Although, in the wine with which we drink this health, I, for one, must mingle the despised 'rose-water.' "And now, having to your eye shown the defects of my own mind, in the sketch of another, I will pass on more lowly,--more willing to be imperfect, since Fate permits such noble creatures, after all, to be only this or that. It is much if one is not only a crow or magpie;--Carlyle is only a lion. Some time we may, all in full, be intelligent and humanely fair." * * * * * "_December_, 1846.--Accustomed to the infinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is still an amazement and a splendour scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does not converse;--only harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked men,--happily not one invariable or inevitable,--that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe, and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction which the greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. "Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority,--raising his voice, and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others. On the contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought. But it is the impulse of a mind accustomed to follow out its own impulse, as the hawk its prey, and which knows not how to stop in the chase. Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing; but in his arrogance there is no littleness,--no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror;--it is his nature, and the untameable impulse that has given him power to crush the dragons. You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere; and perhaps, also, he would only laugh at you if you did; but you like him heartily, and like to see him the powerful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old iron in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns you, if you senselessly go too near. "He seems, to me, quite isolated,--lonely as the desert,--yet never was a man more fitted to prize a man, could he find one to match his mood. He finds them, but only in the past. He sings, rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up, near the beginning, some singular epithet, which serves as a _refrain_ when his song is full, or with which, as with a knitting needle, he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced, now and then, to let fall a row. "For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigour; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical strokes masterly. Allow for his point of view, and his survey is admirable. He is a large subject. I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor needs it;--his works are true, to blame and praise him,--the Siegfried of England,--great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to destroy evil, than legislate for good."[A] [Footnote A: "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli." (Boston, 1852.) Vol. iii., pp. 96-104.] In 1848 Mr. Carlyle contributed a series of articles to the _Examiner_ and _Spectator_, principally on Irish affairs, which, as he has never yet seen fit to reprint them in his Miscellanies, are apparently quite unknown to the general public. With the exception of the last, they may be considered as a sort of alarum note, sounded to herald the approach of the Latter-Day Pamphlets, which appeared shortly afterwards. The following is a list of these newspaper articles:-- In _The Examiner_, 1848. March 4. "Louis Philippe." April 29. "Repeal of the Union." May 13. "Legislation for Ireland." In _The Spectator_, 1848. May 13. "Ireland and the British Chief Governor." " "Irish Regiments (of the New Era)." In _The Examiner_, 1848. Dec. 2. "Death of Charles Buller." The last-named paper, a tribute to the memory of his old pupil, we shall give entire. Another man of genius,[A] now also gone to his rest, sang sorrowfully on the same occasion: [Footnote A: W.M. Thackeray.] "Who knows the inscrutable design? Blest be He who took and gave! Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave? We bow to Heaven that will'd it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give, or to recall." Carlyle's paper reads like a solemn and touching funeral oration to the uncovered mourners as they stand round the grave before it is closed:-- "A very beautiful soul has suddenly been summoned from among us; one of the clearest intellects, and most aërial activities in England, has unexpectedly been called away. Charles Buller died on Wednesday morning last, without previous sickness, reckoned of importance, till a day or two before. An event of unmixed sadness, which has created a just sorrow, private and public. The light of many a social circle is dimmer henceforth, and will miss long a presence which was always gladdening and beneficent; in the coming storms of political trouble, which heap themselves more and more in ominous clouds on our horizon, one radiant element is to be wanting now. "Mr. Buller was in his forty-third year, and had sat in Parliament some twenty of those. A man long kept under by the peculiarities of his endowment and position, but rising rapidly into importance of late years; beginning to reap the fruits of long patience, and to see an ever wider field open round him. He was what in party language is called a 'Reformer,' from his earliest youth; and never swerved from that faith, nor could swerve. His luminous sincere intellect laid bare to him in all its abject incoherency the thing that was untrue, which thenceforth became for him a thing that was not tenable, that it was perilous and scandalous to attempt maintaining. Twenty years in the dreary, weltering lake of parliamentary confusion, with its disappointments and bewilderments, had not quenched this tendency, in which, as we say, he persevered as by a law of nature itself, for the essence of his mind was clearness, healthy purity, incompatibility with fraud in any of its forms. What he accomplished, therefore, whether great or little, was all to be _added_ to the sum of good; none of it to be deducted. There shone mildly in his whole conduct a beautiful veracity, as if it were unconscious of itself; a perfect spontaneous absence of all cant, hypocrisy, and hollow pretence, not in word and act only, but in thought and instinct. To a singular extent it can be said of him that he was a spontaneous clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully. "To many, for a long while, Mr. Buller passed merely for a man of wit, and certainly his beautiful natural gaiety of character, which by no means meant _levity_, was commonly thought to mean it, and did for many years, hinder the recognition of his intrinsic higher qualities. Slowly it began to be discovered that, under all this many-coloured radiancy and coruscation, there burnt a most steady light; a sound, penetrating intellect, full of adroit resources, and loyal by nature itself to all that was methodic, manful, true;--in brief, a mildly resolute, chivalrous, and gallant character, capable of doing much serious service. "A man of wit he indisputably was, whatever more amongst the wittiest of men. His speech, and manner of being, played everywhere like soft brilliancy of lambent fire round the common objects of the hour, and was, beyond all others that English society could show, entitled to the name of excellent, for it was spontaneous, like all else in him, genuine, humane,--the glittering play of the soul of a real man. To hear him, the most serious of men might think within himself, 'How beautiful is human gaiety too!' Alone of wits, Buller never made wit; he could be silent, or grave enough, where better was going; often rather liked to be silent if permissible, and always was so where needful. His wit, moreover, was ever the ally of wisdom, not of folly, or unkindness, or injustice; no soul was ever hurt by it; never, we believe, never, did his wit offend justly any man, and often have we seen his ready resource relieve one ready to be offended, and light up a pausing circle all into harmony again. In truth, it was beautiful to see such clear, almost childlike simplicity of heart coexisting with the finished dexterities, and long experiences, of a man of the world. Honour to human worth, in whatever form we find it! This man was true to his friends, true to his convictions,--and true without effort, as the magnet is to the north. He was ever found on the right side; helpful to it, not obstructive of it, in all he attempted or performed. "Weak health; a faculty indeed brilliant, clear, prompt, not deficient in depth either, or in any kind of active valour, but wanting the stern energy that could long endure to _continue_ in the deep, in the chaotic, new, and painfully incondite--this marked out for him his limits; which, perhaps with regrets enough, his natural veracity and practicality would lead him quietly to admit and stand by. He was not the man to grapple, in its dark and deadly dens, with the Lernæan coil of social Hydras; perhaps not under any circumstances: but he did, unassisted, what he could; faithfully himself did something--nay, something truly considerable;--and in his _patience_ with the much that by him and his strength could not be done let us grant there was something of beautiful too! "Properly, indeed, his career as a public man was but beginning. In the office he last held, much was silently expected of him; he himself, too, recognised well what a fearful and immense question this of Pauperism is; with what ominous rapidity the demand for solution of it is pressing on; and how little the world generally is yet aware what methods and principles, new, strange, and altogether contradictory to the shallow maxims and idle philosophies current at present, would be needed for dealing with it! This task he perhaps contemplated with apprehension; but he is not now to be tried with this, or with any task more. He has fallen, at this point of the march, an honourable soldier; and has left us here to fight along without him. Be his memory dear and honourable to us, as that of one so worthy ought. What in him was true and valiant endures for evermore--beyond all memory or record. His light, airy brilliancy has suddenly become solemn, fixed in the earnest stillness of Eternity. _There_ shall we also, and our little works, all shortly be." In 1850 appeared the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," essays suggested by the convulsions of 1848, in which, more than in any previous publication, the author spoke out in the character of a social and political censor of his own age. "He seemed to be the worshipper of mere brute force, the advocate of all harsh, coercive measures. Model prisons and schools for the reform of criminals, poor-laws, churches as at present constituted, the aristocracy, parliament, and other institutions, were assailed and ridiculed in unmeasured terms, and generally, the English public was set down as composed of sham heroes, and a valet or 'flunkey' world." From their very nature as stern denunciations of what the author considered contemporary fallacies, wrongs, and hypocrisies, these pamphlets produced a storm of critical indignation against him. The life of John Sterling was published in the following year; and Carlyle then began that long spell of work--the "History of Frederick the Great"--which extended over thirteen years, the last, and perhaps the greatest, monument of his genius. In 1856, when we may suppose his mind to be full of the details of battles, and overflowing with military tactics, he received from Sir W. Napier his "History of the Administration of Scinde," and wrote the following letter to the author:-- "THOMAS CARLYLE TO SIR WILLIAM NAPIER. "Chelsea, May 12, 1856. "DEAR SIR, "I have read with attention, and with many feelings and reflections, your record of Sir C. Napier's Administration of Scinde. You must permit me to thank you, in the name of Britain at large, for writing such a book; and in my own poor name to acknowledge the great compliment and kindness implied in sending me a copy for myself. "It is a book which every living Englishman would be the better for reading--for studying diligently till he saw into it, till he recognised and believed the high and tragic phenomenon set forth there! A book which may be called 'profitable' in the old Scripture sense; profitable for reproof, for correction and admonition, for great sorrow, yet for 'building up in righteousness' too--in heroic, manful endeavour to do well, and not ill, in one's time and place. One feels it a kind of possession to know that one has had such a fellow-citizen and contemporary in these evil days. "The fine and noble qualities of the man are very recognisable to me; his subtle, piercing intellect turned all to the practical, giving him just insight into men and into things; his inexhaustible adroit contrivances; his fiery valour; sharp promptitude to seize the good moment that will not return. A lynx-eyed, fiery man, with the spirit of an old knight in him; more of a hero than any modern I have seen for a long time. "A singular veracity one finds in him; not in his words alone--which, however, I like much for their fine rough _naïveté_--but in his actions, judgments, aims; in all that he thinks, and does, and says--which, indeed, I have observed is the root of all greatness or real worth in human creatures, and properly the first (and also the rarest) attribute of what we call _genius_ among men. "The path of such a man through the foul jungle of this world--the struggle of Heaven's inspiration against the terrestrial fooleries, cupidities, and cowardices--cannot be other than tragical: but the man does tear out a bit of way for himself too; strives towards the good goal, inflexibly persistent till his long rest come: the man does leave his mark behind him, ineffaceable, beneficent to all good men, maleficent to none: and we must not complain. The British nation of this time, in India or elsewhere--God knows no nation ever had more need of such men, in every region of its affairs! But also perhaps no nation ever had a much worse chance to get hold of them, to recognise and loyally second them, even when they are there. "Anarchic stupidity is wide as the night; victorious wisdom is but as a lamp in it shining here and there. Contrast a Napier even in Scinde with, for example, a Lally at Pondicherry or on the Place de Grève; one has to admit that it is the common lot, that it might have been far worse! "There is great talent in this book apart from its subject. The narrative moves on with strong, weighty step, like a marching phalanx, with the gleam of clear steel in it--sheers down the opponent objects and tramples them out of sight in a very potent manner. The writer, it is evident, had in him a lively, glowing image, complete in all its parts, of the transaction to be told; and that is his grand secret of giving the reader so lively a conception of it. I was surprised to find how much I had carried away with me, even of the Hill campaign and of Trukkee itself; though without a map the attempt to understand such a thing seemed to me desperate at first. "With many thanks, and gratified to have made this reflex acquaintance, which, if it should ever chance to become a direct one, might gratify me still more, "I remain always yours sincerely, "T. CARLYLE."[A] [Footnote A: "Life of General Sir William Napier, K.C.B." Edited by H.A. Bruce, M.P. London: Murray, 1864. Vol. ii. pp. 312-314.] In June, 1861, a few days after the great fire in which Inspector Braidwood perished in the discharge of his duty, Carlyle broke a long silence with the following letter:-- "TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES.' "SIR,-- "There is a great deal of public sympathy, and of deeper sort than usual, awake at present on the subject of Inspector Braidwood. It is a beautiful emotion, and apparently a perfectly just one, and well bestowed. Judging by whatever light one gets, Braidwood seems to have been a man of singular worth in his department, and otherwise; such a servant as the public seldom has. Thoroughly skilled in his function, nobly valiant in it, and faithful to it--faithful to the death. In rude, modest form, actually a kind of hero, who has perished in serving us! "Probably his sorrowing family is not left in wealthy circumstances. Most certainly it is pity when a generous emotion, in many men, or in any man, has to die out futile, and leave no _action_ behind it. The question, therefore, suggests itself--Should not there be a 'Braidwood Testimonial,' the proper parties undertaking it, in a modest, serious manner, the public silently testifying (to such extent, at least) what worth its emotion has? "I venture to throw out this hint, and, if it be acted on, will, with great satisfaction, give my mite among other people; but must, for good reasons, say further, that this [is] all I can do in the matter (of which, indeed, I know nothing but what everybody knows, and a great deal less than every reader of the newspapers knows); and that, in particular, I cannot answer any letters on the subject, should such happen to be sent me. "In haste, I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, "T. CARLYLE.[A] "5, Cheyne-row, Chelsea, June 30." [Footnote A: (Printed in _The Times_, Tuesday, July 2, 1861.)] The "History of Frederick the Great" was completed early in 1865. Later in the same year the students of Edinburgh University elected Carlyle as Lord Rector. We cannot do better than describe the proceedings and the subsequent address in the words of the late Alexander Smith:-- "Mr. Gladstone demitted office, and then it behoved the students of the University to cast about for a worthy successor. Two candidates were proposed, Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Disraeli; and on the election day Mr. Carlyle was returned by a large and enthusiastic majority. This was all very well, but a doubt lingered in the minds of many whether Mr. Carlyle would accept the office, or if accepting it, whether he would deliver an address--said address being the sole apple which the Rectorial tree is capable of bearing. The hare was indeed caught, but it was doubtful somewhat whether the hare would allow itself to be _cooked_ after the approved academical fashion. It was tolerably well known that Mr. Carlyle had emerged from his long spell of work on "Frederick," in a condition of health the reverse of robust; that he had once or twice before declined similar honours from Scottish Universities--from Glasgow some twelve or fourteen years ago, and from Aberdeen some seven or eight; and that he was constitutionally opposed to all varieties of popular displays, more especially those of the oratorical sort. "But all dispute was ended when it was officially announced that Mr. Carlyle had accepted the office of Lord Rector, that he would conform to all its requirements, and that the Rectorial address would be delivered late in spring. And so when the days began to lengthen in these northern latitudes, and crocuses to show their yellow and purple heads, people began to talk about the visit of the great writer, and to speculate on what manner and fashion of speech he would deliver. "Edinburgh has no University Hall, and accordingly when speech-day approached, the largest public room in the city was chartered by the University authorities. This public room--the Music Hall in George Street--will contain, under severe pressure, from eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred persons, and tickets to that extent were secured by the students and members of the General Council. Curious stories are told of the eagerness on every side manifested to hear Mr. Carlyle. Country clergymen from beyond Aberdeen came into Edinburgh for the sole purpose of hearing and seeing. Gentlemen came down from London by train the night before, and returned to London by train the night after. "In a very few minutes after the doors were opened the large hall was filled in every part, and when up the central passage the Principal, the Lord Rector, the Members of the Senate, and other gentlemen advanced towards the platform, the cheering was vociferous and hearty. The Principal occupied the chair of course, the Lord Rector on his right, the Lord Provost on his left. Every eye was fixed on the Rector. To all appearance, as he sat, time and labour had dealt tenderly with him. His face had not yet lost the country bronze which he brought up with him from Dumfriesshire as a student fifty-six years ago. His long residence in London had not touched his Annandale look, nor had it--as we soon learned--touched his Annandale accent. His countenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful--the countenance of a man on whom 'the burden of the unintelligible world' had weighed more heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost dark; his moustache and short beard were iron grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy, sorrowful; and seemed as if they had been at times a-weary of the sun. Altogether in his aspect there was something aboriginal, as of a piece, of unhewn granite, which had never been polished to any approved pattern, whose natural and original vitality had never been tampered with. In a word, there seemed no passivity about Mr. Carlyle--he was the diamond, and the world was his pane of glass; he was a graving tool rather than a thing graven upon--a man to set his mark on the world--a man on whom the world could not set _its_ mark. And just as, glancing towards Fife a few minutes before, one could not help thinking of his early connection with Edward Irving, so seeing him sit beside the venerable Principal of the University, one could not help thinking of his earliest connection with literature. "Time brings men into the most unexpected relationships. When the Principal was plain Mr. Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh Cyclopædia, little dreaming that he should ever be Knight of Hanover and head of the Northern Metropolitan University, Mr. Carlyle--just as little dreaming that he should be the foremost man of letters of his day and Lord Rector of the same University--was his contributor, writing for said Cyclopædia biographies of Montesquieu and other notables. And so it came about that after years of separation and of honourable labour, the old editor and contributor were brought together again--in new aspects. "The proceedings began by the conferring of the degree of LL.D. on Mr. Erskine of Linlathen--an old friend of Mr. Carlyle's--on Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and Ramsay, and on Dr. Rae, the Arctic explorer. That done, amid a tempest of cheering and hats enthusiastically waved, Mr. Carlyle, slipping off his Rectorial robe--which must have been a very shirt of Nessus to him--advanced to the table and began to speak in low, wavering, melancholy tones, which were in accordance with the melancholy eyes, and in the Annandale accent, with which his playfellows must have been familiar long ago. So self-contained was he, so impregnable to outward influences, that all his years of Edinburgh and London life could not impair even in the slightest degree, _that_. "The opening sentences were lost in the applause. What need of quoting a speech which by this time has been read by everybody? Appraise it as you please, it was a thing _per se_. Just as, if you wish a purple dye you must fish up the Murex; if you wish ivory you must go to the east; so if you desire an address such as Edinburgh listened to the other day, you must go to Chelsea for it. It may not be quite to your taste, but, in any case, there is no other intellectual warehouse in which that kind of article is kept in stock. "The gratitude I owe to him is--or should be--equal to that of most. He has been to me only a voice, sometimes sad, sometimes wrathful, sometimes scornful; and when I saw him for the first time with the eye of flesh stand up amongst us the other day, and heard him speak kindly, brotherly, affectionate words--his first appearance of that kind, I suppose, since he discoursed of Heroes and Hero Worship to the London people--I am not ashamed to confess that I felt moved towards him, as I do not think in any possible combination of circumstances I could have felt moved towards any other living man."[A] [Footnote A: _The Argosy_, May, 1866.] The Edinburgh correspondent to a London paper thus describes what took place:-- "A vast interest among the intelligent public has been excited by the prospect of Mr. Thomas Carlyle's appearance to be installed as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. With the exception of the delivery of his lectures on Heroes and Hero-worship, he has avoided oratory; and to many of his admirers the present occasion seemed likely to afford their only chance of ever seeing him in the flesh, and hearing his living voice. The result has been, that the University authorities have been beset by applications in number altogether unprecedented--to nearly all of which they could only give the reluctant answer, that admission for strangers was impossible. The students who elect Mr. Carlyle received tickets, if they applied within the specified time, and the members of the University council, or graduates, obtained the residue according to priority of application. Ladies' tickets to the number of one hundred and fifty were issued, each professor obtaining four, and the remaining thirty being placed at the disposal of Sir David Brewster, the Principal. And the one hundred and fifty lucky ladies were conspicuous in the front of the gallery to-day, having been admitted before the doors for students and other males were open. "The hour appointed for letting them in was kept precisely--it was half-past one P.M., but an hour before it, despite occasional showers of rain, a crowd had begun to gather at the front door of the music-hall, and at the opening of the door it had gathered to proportions sufficient to half fill the building, its capacity under severe crushing being about two thousand. "When the door was opened, they rushed in as crowds of young men only can and dare rush, and up the double stairs they streamed like a torrent; which torrent, however, policemen and check-gates soon moderated. I chanced to fall into a lucky current of the crowd, and got in amongst the first two or three hundred, and got forward to the fourth seat from the platform, as good a place for seeing and hearing as any. "The proceedings of the day were fixed to commence at two P.M., and the half-hour of waiting was filled up by the students in throwing occasional volleys of peas, whistling _en masse_ various lively tunes, and in clambering, like small escalading parties, on to and over the platform to take advantage of the seats in the organ gallery behind. For Edinburgh students, however, let me say that these proceedings were singularly decorous. They did indulge in a little fun when nothing else was doing, but they did not come for that alone. Any student who wanted fun could have sold his ticket at a handsome profit, for which better fun could be had elsewhere. I heard among the crowd that some students had got so high a price as a guinea each for their tickets, and I heard of others who had been offered no less but had refused it. And I must say further, that they listened to Mr. Carlyle's address with as much attention and reverence as they could have bestowed on a prophet--only I daresay most prophets would have elicited less applause and laughter. "Shortly before two, the city magistrates and a few other personages mounted the platform, and, with as much quietness as the fancy of the students directed, took the seats which had been marked out for them by large red pasteboard tickets. At two precisely the students in the organ gallery started to the tops of the seats and began to cheer vociferously, and almost instantly all the audience followed their example. The procession was on its way through the hall, and in half a minute Lord Provost Chambers, in his official robes, mounted the platform stair; then Principal Sir David Brewster and Lord Rector Carlyle, both in their gold-laced robes of office; then the Rev. Dr. Lee, and the other professors, in their gowns; also the LL.D.'s to be, in black gowns. Lord Neaves and Dr. Guthrie were there in an LL.D.'s black gown and blue ribbons; Mr. Harvey, the President of the Royal Academy, and Sir D. Baxter, Bart.--men conspicuous in their plain clothes. "Dr. Lee offered up a prayer of a minute and a half, at the 'Amen' of which I could see Mr. Carlyle bow very low. Then the business of the occasion commenced. Mr. Gibson--a tall, thin, pale-faced, beardless, acute, composed-looking young gentleman, in an M.A.'s gown--introduced Mr. Carlyle, 'the most distinguished son of the University,' to the Principal, Sir David Brewster, as the Lord Rector elected by the students. Sir David saluted him as such, thinking, perhaps, of the time when, an unknown young man, Thomas Carlyle wrote articles for Brewster's 'Cyclopædia,' and got Brewster's name to introduce to public notice his translation of Legendre's 'Geometry.' Next Professor Muirhead, for the time being the Dean of the Faculty of Laws in the University, introduced various gentlemen to the Principal in order, as persons whom the senate had thought worthy of the degree of LL.D., giving a dignified, but not always very happy, account of the merits of each. There was Mr. Erskine, of Linlathen, Mr. Carlyle's host for the time being, and often previously, an old friend of Irving and Chalmers, himself the writer of various elegant and sincere religious books, and one of the best and most amiable of men. If intelligent goodness ever entitled any one to the degree of LL.D., he certainly deserves it; and when I say this, I do not insinuate that on grounds of pure intellect he is not well entitled to the honour. He is now, I should think, nearer eighty than seventy years of age--a mild-looking, full-eyed old man, with a face somewhat of the type of Lord Derby's. There was Professor Huxley, young in years, dark, heavy-browed, alert and resolute, but not moulded after any high ideal; and there was Professor Tyndall, also young, lithe of limb, and nonchalant in manner. When his name was called he sat as if he had no concern in what was going on, and then rose with an easy smile, partly of modesty, but in great measure of indifference. "Dr. Rae, the Arctic explorer and first discoverer of the fate of Sir John Franklin, who is an M.D. of Edinburgh, was now made LL.D. He is of tall, wiry, energetic figure, slightly baldish, with greyish, curly hair, keen, handsome face, high crown and sloping forehead, and his bearing is that of a soldier--of a man who has both given and obeyed commands, and been drilled to stand steady and upright. Carlyle himself was offered the degree of LL.D., but he declined the honour, laughing it off, in fact, in a letter, with such excuses as that he had a brother a Dr. Carlyle (an M.D., also a man of genius, I insert parenthetically, and known in literature as a translator of 'Dante'), and that if two Dr. Carlyles should appear at Paradise, mistakes might arise. "After all the LL.D's had heard their merits enumerated, and had had a black hood or wallet of some kind, with a blue ribbon conspicuous in it, flung over their heads, Principal Brewster announced that the Lord Rector would now deliver his address. Thereupon Mr. Carlyle rose at once, shook himself out of his gold-laced rectorial gown, left it on his chair, and stepped quietly to the table, and drawing his tall, bony frame into a position of straight perpendicularity not possible to one man in five hundred at seventy years of age, he began to speak quietly and distinctly, but nervously. There was a slight flush on his face, but he bore himself with composure and dignity, and in the course of half an hour he was obviously beginning to feel at his ease, so far at least as to have adequate command over the current of his thought. "He spoke on quite freely and easily, hardly ever repeated a word, never looked at a note, and only once returned to finish up a topic from which he had deviated. He apologised for not having come with a written discourse. It was usual, and 'it would have been more comfortable for me just at present,' but he had tried it, and could not satisfy himself, and 'as the spoken word comes from the heart,' he had resolved to try that method. What he said in words will be learned otherwise than from me. I could not well describe it; but I do not think I ever heard any address that I should be so unwilling to blot from my memory. Not that there was much in it that cannot be found in his writings, or inferred from them; but the manner of the man was a key to the writings, and for naturalness and quiet power, I have never seen anything to compare with it. He did not deal in rhetoric. He talked--it was continuous, strong, quiet talk--like a patriarch about to leave the world to the young lads who had chosen him and were just entering the world. His voice is a soft, downy voice--not a tone in it is of the shrill, fierce kind that one would expect it to be in reading the Latter-day Pamphlets. "There was not a trace of effort or of affectation, or even of extravagance. Shrewd common sense there was in abundance. There was the involved disrupted style also, but it looked so natural that reflection was needed to recognise in it that very style which purists find to be un-English and unintelligible. Over the angles of this disrupted style rolled out a few cascades of humour--quite as if by accident. He let them go, talking on in his soft, downy accents, without a smile; occasionally for an instant looking very serious, with his dark eyes beating like pulses, but generally looking merely composed and kindly, and so, to speak, father-like. He concluded by reciting his own translation of a poem of Goethe-- "'The future hides in it gladness and sorrow.' And this he did in a style of melancholy grandeur not to be described, but still less to be forgotten. It was then alone that the personality of the philosopher and poet were revealed continuously in his manner of utterance. The features of his face are familiar to all from his portraits. But I do not think any portrait, unless, perhaps, Woolner's medallion, gives full expression to the resolution that is visible in his face. Besides, they all make him look sadder and older than he appears. Although he be threescore and ten, his hair is still abundant and tolerably black, and there is considerable colour in his cheek. Not a man of his age on that platform to-day looked so young, and he had done more work than any ten on it." The correspondent of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gives some interesting particulars:-- "Mr. Carlyle had not spoken in public before yesterday, since those grand utterances on Heroes and Hero-worship in the institute in Edwards Street, Marylebone, which one can scarcely believe, whilst reading them, to have been, in the best sense, extemporaneously delivered. In that case Mr. Carlyle began the series, as we have heard, by bringing a manuscript which he evidently found much in his way, and presently abandoned. On the second evening he brought some notes or headings; but these also tripped him until he had left them. The remaining lectures were given like his conversation, which no one can hear without feeling that, with all its glow and inspiration, every sentence would be, if taken down, found faultless. It was so in his remarkable extemporaneous address yesterday. He had no notes whatever. 'But,' says our correspondent, in transmitting the report, 'I have never heard a speech of whose more remarkable qualities so few can be conveyed on paper. You will read of "applause" and "laughter," but you will little realize the eloquent blood flaming up the speaker's cheek, the kindling of his eye, or the inexpressible voice and look when the drolleries were coming out. When he spoke of clap-trap books exciting astonishment 'in the minds of foolish persons,' the evident halting at the word '_fools_,' and the smoothing of his hair, as if he must be decorous, which preceded the change to 'foolish persons,' were exceedingly comical. As for the flaming bursts, they took shape in grand tones, whose impression was made deeper, not by raising, but by lowering the voice. Your correspondent here declares that he should hold it worth his coming all the way from London in the rain in the Sunday night train were it only to have heard Carlyle say, "There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now!"' In the first few minutes of the address there was some hesitation, and much of the shrinking that one might expect in a secluded scholar; but these very soon cleared away, and during the larger part, and to the close of the oration, it was evident that he was receiving a sympathetic influence from his listeners, which he did not fail to return tenfold. The applause became less frequent; the silence became that of a woven spell; and the recitation of the beautiful lines from Goethe, at the end, was so masterly--so marvellous--that one felt in it that Carlyle's real anathemas against rhetoric were but the expression of his knowledge that there is a rhetoric beyond all other arts." In the _Times_ the following leader appeared upon Mr. Carlyle's address:-- "There is something in the return of a man to the haunts of his youth, after he has acquired fame and a recognised position in the world, which is of itself sufficient to arrest attention. We are interested in the retrospect and the contrast, the juxtaposition of the old and the new, the hopes of early years, the memory of the struggles and contests of manhood, the repose of victory. A man may differ as much as he pleases from the doctrines of Mr. Carlyle, he may reject his historical teachings, and may distrust his politics, but he must be of a very unkindly disposition not to be touched by his reception at Edinburgh. It is fifty-four years, he told the students of the University, since he, a boy of fourteen, came as a student, 'full of wonder and expectation,' to the old capital of his native country, and now he returns, having accomplished the days of man spoken of by the Psalmist, that he may be honoured by students of this generation, and may give them a few words of advice on the life which lies before them. "The discourse of the new Lord Rector squared very well with the occasion. There was no novelty in it. New truths are not the gifts which the old offer the young; the lesson we learn last is but the fulness of the meaning of what was only partially apprehended at first. Mr. Carlyle brought out things familiar enough to everyone who has read his works; there were the old platitudes and the old truths, and, it must be owned, mingled here and there with them the old errors. Time has, however, its recompenses, and if the freshness of youth seemed to be wanting in the address of the Rector, so also was its crudity. There was a singular mellowness in Mr. Carlyle's speech, which was reflected in the homely language in which it was couched. The chief lessons he had to enforce were to avoid cram, and to be painstaking, diligent, and patient in the acquisition of knowledge. Students are not to try to make themselves acquainted with the outsides of as many things as possible, and 'to go flourishing about' upon the strength of their acquisitions, but to count a thing as known only when it is stamped on their mind. The doctrine is only a new reading of the old maxim, _non multa sed multum_, but it is as much needed now as ever it was. Still more appropriate to the present day was Mr. Carlyle's protest against the notion that a University is the place where a man is to be fitted for the special work of a profession. A University, as he puts it, teaches a man how to read, or, as we may say more generally, how to learn. It is not the function of such a place to offer particular and technical knowledge, but to prepare a man for mastering any science by teaching him the method of all. A child learns the use of his body, not the art of a carpenter or smith, and the University student learns the use of his mind, not the professional lore of a lawyer or a physician. It is pleasant to meet with a strong reassertion of doctrines which the utilitarianism of a commercial and manufacturing age is too apt to make us all forget. Mr. Carlyle is essentially conservative in his notions on academic functions. Accuracy, discrimination, judgment, are with him the be-all and end-all of educational training. If a man has learnt to know a thing in itself, and in its relation to surrounding phenomena, he has got from a University what it is its proper duty to teach. Accordingly, we find him bestowing a good word on poor old Arthur Collins, who showed that he possessed these valuable qualities in the humble work of compiling a Peerage. "The new Lord Rector is, however, as conservative in his choice of the implements of study as he is in the determination of its objects. The languages and the history of the great nations of antiquity he puts foremost, like any other pedagogue. The Greeks and the Romans are, he tells the Edinburgh students, 'a pair of nations shining in the records left by themselves as a kind of pillar to light up life in the darkness of the past ages;' and he adds that it would be well worth their while to get an understanding of what these people were, and what they did. It is here, however, that an old error of Mr. Carlyle's crops up among his well-remembered truths. He quotes from Machiavelli--evidently agreeing himself with the sentiment, though he refrained from asking the assent of his audience to it--the statement that the history of Rome showed that a democracy could not permanently exist without the occasional intervention of a Dictator. It is possible that if Machiavelli had had the experience of the centuries which have elapsed since his day, he would have seen fit to alter his conclusion, and it is to be regretted that the admiration which Mr. Carlyle feels for the great men of history will not allow him to believe in the possibility of a political society where each might find his proper sphere and duty without disturbing the order and natural succession of the commonwealth. His judgment on this point is like that of a man who had only known the steam-engine before the invention of governor balls, and was ready to declare that its mechanism would be shattered if a boy were not always at hand to regulate the pressure of the steam. * * * * * "We may turn, however, from this difference to another of Mr. Carlyle's doctrines, which mark at once his independence of thought and his respect for experience, where he declares the necessity for recognising the hereditary principle in government, if there is to be 'any fixity in things.' In the same way we find him almost lamenting the fact that Oxford, once apparently so fast-anchored as to be immovable, has begun to twist and toss on the eddy of new ideas. "It is impossible to glance at Mr. Carlyle's Easter Monday discourse without recalling the oration which his predecessor pronounced on resigning office last autumn. * * * Mr. Carlyle is as simple and practical as his predecessor was dazzling and rhetorical. An ounce of mother wit, quotes the new Lord Rector, is worth a pound of clergy, and while he admires Demosthenes, he prefers the eloquence of Phocion. A little later he repeats his old doctrine on the virtue of silence, laments the fact that 'the finest nations in the world--the English and the American--are going all away into wind and tongue,' and protests that a man is not to be esteemed wise because he has poured out speech copiously. Mr. Carlyle has so often inculcated these sentiments in his books that there can be no suspicion of an _arrière pensée_ in their utterance now, but the contrast between him and his predecessor is at the least instructive. Each does, however, in some measure, supply what is deficient in the other. No one would claim for the Chancellor of the Exchequer the intensity of power of his successor, but in his abundant energy, his wide sympathy with popular movement, and his real, if vague and indiscriminating, faith in the activity and progress of modern life, he conveys lessons of trust in the present, and hopefulness in the future, which would be ill-exchanged for the patient and somewhat sad stoicism of Mr. Carlyle." Carlyle was still in Scotland on April 21, and there the terrible and solemn news had to be conveyed to him of the sudden death of her who had been his true and faithful life-companion for forty years. Mrs. Carlyle died on Saturday, April 21, under very peculiar circumstances. She was taking her usual drive in Hyde Park about four o'clock, when her little favourite dog--which was running by the side of the brougham--was run over by a carriage. She was greatly alarmed, though the dog was not seriously hurt. She lifted the dog into the carriage, and the man drove on. Not receiving any call or direction from his mistress, as was usual, he stopped the carriage and discovered her, as he thought, in a fit, or ill, and drove to St. George's Hospital, which was near at hand. When there it was discovered that she must have been dead some little time. Mrs. Carlyle's health had been for several months feeble, but not in a state to excite anxiety or alarm. On the following Wednesday her remains were conveyed from London to Haddington for interment there, and the funeral took place on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Carlyle was accompanied from London (whither he had returned immediately on the receipt of that solemn message) by his brother, Dr. Carlyle, Mr. John Forster, and the Hon. Mr. Twistleton. The funeral cortège was followed on foot by a large number of gentlemen who had known Mrs. Carlyle and her father, Dr. Welsh, who was held in high estimation in the town, where he had practised medicine till his death, in 1819. The grave, which is the same as that occupied by Dr. Welsh's remains, lies in the centre of the ruined choir of the old cathedral at Haddington. In accordance with the Scottish practice, there was no service read, and Mr. Carlyle threw a handful of earth on the coffin after it had been lowered into the grave. * * * * * Carlyle wrote the following inscription to be placed on his wife's tombstone:-- "Here likewise now rests Jane Welsh Carlyle, spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. She was born at Haddington 14th July, 1801; only child of the above John Welsh and of Grace Welsh, Caplegell, Dumfriesshire, his wife. In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common, but also a soft invincibility, a clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart which are rare. For forty years she was the true and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him as none else could in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st April, 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life as if gone out." Later in the same year, weighed down as he was by his great sorrow, Carlyle nevertheless thought it a public duty to come forward in defence of Governor Eyre, when the quelling of the Jamaica insurrection excited so much controversy, and seemed to divide England into two parties. He acted as Vice-President of the Defence Fund. The following is a letter written to Mr. Hamilton Hume, giving his views on the subject in full: "Ripple Court, Ringwould, Dover, "_August 23_, 1866. "SIR, "The clamour raised against Governor Eyre appears to me to be disgraceful to the good sense of England; and if it rested on any depth of conviction, and were not rather (as I always flatter myself it is) a thing of rumour and hearsay, of repetition and reverberation, mostly from the teeth outward, I should consider it of evil omen to the country and to its highest interests in these times. For my own share, all the light that has yet reached me on Mr. Eyre and his history in the world goes steadily to establish the conclusion that he is a just, humane, and valiant man, faithful to his trusts everywhere, and with no ordinary faculty of executing them; that his late services in Jamaica were of great, perhaps of incalculable value, as certainly they were of perilous and appalling difficulty--something like the case of 'fire,' suddenly reported, 'in the ship's powder room,' in mid-ocean where the moments mean the ages, and life and death hang on your use or misuse of the moments; and, in short, that penalty and clamour are not the thing this Governor merits from any of us, but honour and thanks, and wise imitation (I will farther say), should similar emergencies arise, on the great scale or on the small, in whatever we are governing! "The English nation never loved anarchy, nor was wont to spend its sympathy on miserable mad seditions, especially of this inhuman and half-brutish type; but always loved order, and the prompt suppression of seditions, and reserved its tears for something worthier than promoters of such delirious and fatal enterprises who had got their wages for their sad industry. Has the English nation changed, then, altogether? I flatter myself it is not, not yet quite; but only that certain loose, superficial portions of it have become a great deal louder, and not any wiser, than they formerly used to be. "At any rate, though much averse, at any time, and at this time in particular, to figure on committees, or run into public noises without call, I do at once, and feel that as a British citizen I should, and must, make you welcome to my name for your committee, and to whatever good it can do you. With the hope only that many other British men, of far more significance in such a matter, will at once or gradually do the like; and that, in fine, by wise effort and persistence, a blind and disgraceful act of public injustice may be prevented; and an egregrious folly as well--not to say, for none can say or compute, what a vital detriment throughout the British Empire, in such an example set to all the colonies and governors the British Empire has! "Farther service, I fear, I am not in a state to promise, but the whole weight of my conviction and good wishes is with you; and if other service possible to me do present itself, I shall not want for willingness in case of need. Enclosed is my mite of contribution to your fund."I have the honour to be yours truly, "T. CARLYLE." "To HAMILTON HUME, Esq., "Hon. Sec. 'Eyre Defence Fund.'" In August, 1867, Carlyle broke silence again with an utterance in the style of the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_, entitled "Shooting Niagara: and After?" published anonymously (though everyone, of course, knew it to be his) in _Macmillan's Magazine_. Shortly afterwards it was reprinted as a separate pamphlet, with additions, and with the author's name on the title-page. In February, 1868, Carlyle wrote some Recollections of Sir William Hamilton, as a contribution to Professor Veitch's Memoir of that accomplished metaphysician. In November, 1870, he addressed a long and very remarkable letter to the _Times_, on the French-German war, which is reprinted in the latest edition of his collected Miscellanies. Two years later (November, 1872) he added a very beautiful Supplement to the People's Edition of his "Life of Schiller," founded on Saupe's "Schiller and his Father's Household," and other more recent books on Schiller that had appeared in Germany. His last literary productions were a series of papers on "The Early Kings of Norway," and an Essay on "The Portraits of John Knox," which appeared, in instalments, in _Fraser's Magazine_, in the first four months of 1875. On the 4th December of that year, Carlyle attained his eightieth year, and this anniversary was signalised by some of the more distinguished of his friends and admirers by striking a medal, the head being executed by Mr. Boehm, whose noble statue of Carlyle, exhibited in the Royal Academy in the previous year, had won so much merited praise from Mr. Ruskin and others. The medal was accompanied by an address, signed by the subscribers. Carlyle seems to have been much gratified with this honour, which took him quite by surprise, and he expressed his acknowledgments as follows:-- "This of the medal and formal address of friends was an altogether unexpected event, to be received as a conspicuous and peculiar honour, without example hitherto anywhere in my life.... To you ... I address my thankful acknowledgments, which surely are deep and sincere, and will beg you to convey the same to all the kind friends so beautifully concerned in it. Let no one of you be other than assured that the beautiful transaction, in result, management, and intention, was altogether gratifying, welcome, and honourable to me, and that I cordially thank one and all of you for what you have been pleased to do. Your fine and noble gift shall remain among my precious possessions, and be the symbol to me of something still more _golden_ than itself, on the part of my many dear and too generous friends, so long as I continue in this world. "Yours and theirs, from the heart, "T. CARLYLE." Carlyle's last public utterances were a letter on the Eastern Question, addressed to Mr. George Howard, and printed in the _Times_ of November 28, 1876, and a letter to the Editor of the _Times_, on "The Crisis," printed in that journal on May 5, 1877. He was now beginning to feel the effects of his great age. Yearly and monthly he grew more feeble. His wonted walking exercise had to be curtailed, and at last abandoned. He was affectionately and piously tended during these last years by his niece, Mary Aitken, now Mrs. Alexander Carlyle. In the autumn of 1879 he lost his brother, Dr. John Aitken Carlyle, the translator of Dante's "Inferno." The end came at last, after a long and gradual decay of strength. The great writer and noble-hearted man passed away peacefully at about half-past eight o'clock on the morning of Saturday, February 5, 1881, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. His remains were conveyed to Scotland, and were laid in the burial-ground at Ecclefechan, where the ashes of his father and mother, and of others of his kindred, repose. He had executed what is known in Scotch law as a "deed of mortification," by virtue of which he bequeathed to Edinburgh University the estate of Craigenputtoch--which had come to him through his wife--for the foundation of ten Bursaries in the Faculty of Arts, to be called the "John Welsh Bursaries." In his Will he bequeathed the books which he had used in writing on Cromwell and Friedrich to Harvard College, Massachusetts. In less than a month after his death, with a haste on many accounts to be deplored, and which has excited much animadversion, his literary executor, Mr. James Anthony Froude, the historian, issued two volumes of posthumous "Reminiscences," written by Carlyle, partly in 1832, and partly in 1866-67. The first section consists of a memorial paper, written immediately after his father's death; the second contains Reminiscences of his early friend, Edward Irving, commenced at Cheyne Row in the autumn of 1866, and finished at Mentone on the 2nd January, 1867. The Reminiscences of Lord Jeffrey were begun on the following day, and finished on January 19. The paper on Southey and Wordsworth, relegated to the Appendix, was also written at Mentone between the 28th January and the 8th March, 1867. The Memorials of his wife, which fill the greater part of the second volume, were written at Cheyne Row, during the month after her death. Of the earlier portraits of Carlyle three are specially interesting, 1. The full-length sketch by "Croquis" (Daniel Maclise) which formed one of the _Fraser_ Gallery portraits, and was published in the magazine in June, 1833. (The original sketch of this is now deposited in the Forster Collection at South Kensington.) 2. Count D'Orsay's sketch, published by Mitchell in 1839, is highly characteristic of the artist. It was taken when no man of position was counted a dutiful subject who did not wear a black satin stock and a Petersham coat. The great author's own favourite among the early portraits was 3. the sketch by Samuel Laurence, engraved in Horne's "New Spirit of the Age," published in 1844. Since the art of photography came into vogue, a series of photographs of various degrees of merit and success have been executed by Messrs. Elliott and Fry, and by Watkins. The late Mrs. Cameron also produced a photograph of him in her peculiar style, but it was not so successful as her fine portrait of Tennyson. An oil-painting by Mr. Watts, exhibited some fifteen years ago, and now also forming part of the Forster Collection at South Kensington, is remarkable for its weird wildness; but it gave great displeasure to the old philosopher himself! More lately we have a remarkable portrait by Mr. Whistler, who seized the _tout ensemble_ of his illustrious sitter's character and costume in a very effective manner. The _terra cotta_ statue by Mr. Boehm, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1875, has received such merited meed of enthusiastic praise from Mr. Ruskin that it needs no added praise of ours. It has been excellently photographed from two points of view by Mr. Hedderly, of Riley Street, Chelsea. One of the best and happiest of the many likenesses of Mr. Carlyle that appeared during the last decade of his life was a sketch by Mrs. Allingham--a picture as well as a portrait--representing the venerable philosopher in a long and picturesque dressing-gown, seated on a chair and poring over a folio, in the garden at the back of the quaint old house at Chelsea, which will henceforth, as long as it stands, be associated with his memory. Beside him on the grass lies a long clay pipe (a churchwarden) which he has been smoking in the sweet morning air. So that altogether, as far as pictorial, graphic, and photographic art can go, the features, form, and bodily semblance of Carlyle will be as well known to future generations as they are to our own. * * * * * The impression of his brilliant and eloquent talk, though it will perhaps remain, for at least half a century to come, more or less vivid to some of those of the new generation who were privileged to hear it, will, of course, gradually fade away. But it seems hardly probable that the rich legacy of his long roll of writings--historical, biographical, critical--can be regarded as other than a permanent one, in which each succeeding generation will find fresh delight and instruction. The series of vivid pictures he has left behind in his "French Revolution," in his "Cromwell," in his "Frederick," can hardly become obsolete or cease to be attractive; nor is such power of word-painting likely soon to be equalled or ever to be surpassed. The salt of humour that savours nearly all he wrote (that lambent humour that lightens and plays over the grimmest and sternest of his pages) will also serve to keep his writings fresh and readable. Many of his _dicta_ and opinions will doubtless be more and more called in question, especially in those of his works which are more directly of a didactic than a narrative character, and in regard to subjects which he was by habit, by mental constitution, and by that prejudice from which the greatest can never wholly free themselves, incapable of judging broadly or soundly,--such, for instance, as the scope and functions of painting and the fine arts generally, the value of modern poetry, or the working of Constitutional and Parliamentary institutions. RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD. _Chelsea, June, 1881_. ON THE CHOICE OF BOOKS. [Illustration] ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, APRIL 2, 1866. GENTLEMEN, I have accepted the office you have elected me to, and have now the duty to return thanks for the great honour done me. Your enthusiasm towards me, I admit, is very beautiful in itself, however undesirable it may be in regard to the object of it. It is a feeling honourable to all men, and one well known to myself when I was in a position analogous to your own. I can only hope that it may endure to the end--that noble desire to honour those whom you think worthy of honour, and come to be more and more select and discriminate in the choice of the object of it; for I can well understand that you will modify your opinions of me and many things else as you go on. (Laughter and cheers.) There are now fifty-six years gone last November since I first entered your city, a boy of not quite fourteen--fifty-six years ago--to attend classes here and gain knowledge of all kinds, I know not what, with feelings of wonder and awe-struck expectation; and now, after a long, long course, this is what we have come to. (Cheers.) There is something touching and tragic, and yet at the same time beautiful, to see the third generation, as it were, of my dear old native land, rising up and saying, "Well, you are not altogether an unworthy labourer in the vineyard: you have toiled through a great variety of fortunes, and have had many judges." As the old proverb says, "He that builds by the wayside has many masters." We must expect a variety of judges; but the voice of young Scotland, through you, is really of some value to me, and I return you many thanks for it, though I cannot describe my emotions to you, and perhaps they will be much more conceivable if expressed in silence. (Cheers.) When this office was proposed to me, some of you know that I was not very ambitious to accept it, at first. I was taught to believe that there were more or less certain important duties which would lie in my power. This, I confess, was my chief motive in going into it--at least, in reconciling the objections felt to such things; for if I can do anything to honour you and my dear old _Alma Mater_, why should I not do so? (Loud cheers.) Well, but on practically looking into the matter when the office actually came into my hands, I find it grows more and more uncertain and abstruse to me whether there is much real duty that I can do at all. I live four hundred miles away from you, in an entirely different state of things; and my weak health--now for many years accumulating upon me--and a total unacquaintance with such subjects as concern your affairs here,--all this fills me with apprehension that there is really nothing worth the least consideration that I can do on that score. You may, however, depend upon it that if any such duty does arise in any form, I will use my most faithful endeavour to do whatever is right and proper, according to the best of my judgment. (Cheers.) In the meanwhile, the duty I have at present--which might be very pleasant, but which is quite the reverse, as you may fancy--is to address some words to you on some subjects more or less cognate to the pursuits you are engaged in. In fact, I had meant to throw out some loose observations--loose in point of order, I mean--in such a way as they may occur to me--the truths I have in me about the business you are engaged in, the race you have started on, what kind of race it is you young gentlemen have begun, and what sort of arena you are likely to find in this world. I ought, I believe, according to custom, to have written all that down on paper, and had it read out. That would have been much handier for me at the present moment (a laugh), but when I attempted to write, I found that I was not accustomed to write speeches, and that I did not get on very well. So I flung that away, and resolved to trust to the inspiration of the moment--just to what came uppermost. You will therefore have to accept what is readiest, what comes direct from the heart, and you must just take that in compensation for any good order of arrangement there might have been in it. I will endeavour to say nothing that is not true, as far as I can manage, and that is pretty much all that I can engage for. (A laugh.) Advices, I believe, to young men--and to all men--are very seldom much valued. There is a great deal of advising, and very little faithful performing. And talk that does not end in any kind of action, is better suppressed altogether. I would not, therefore, go much into advising; but there is one advice I must give you. It is, in fact, the summary of all advices, and you have heard it a thousand times, I dare say; but I must, nevertheless, let you hear it the thousand and first time, for it is most intensely true, whether you will believe it at present or not--namely, that above all things the interest of your own life depends upon being diligent now, while it is called to-day, in this place where you have come to get education. Diligent! That includes all virtues in it that a student can have; I mean to include in it all qualities that lead into the acquirement of real instruction and improvement in such a place. If you will believe me, you who are young, yours is the golden season of life. As you have heard it called, so it verily is, the seed-time of life, in which, if you do not sow, or if you sow tares instead of wheat, you cannot expect to reap well afterwards, and you will arrive at indeed little; while in the course of years, when you come to look back, and if you have not done what you have heard from your advisers--and among many counsellers there is wisdom--you will bitterly repent when it is too late. The habits of study acquired at Universities are of the highest importance in after-life. At the season when you are in young years the whole mind is, as it were, fluid, and is capable of forming itself into any shape that the owner of the mind pleases to order it to form itself into. The mind is in a fluid state, but it hardens up gradually to the consistency of rock or iron, and you cannot alter the habits of an old man, but as he has begun he will proceed and go on to the last. By diligence, I mean among other things--and very chiefly--honesty in all your inquiries into what you are about. Pursue your studies in the way your conscience calls honest. More and more endeavour to do that. Keep, I mean to say, an accurate separation of what you have really come to know in your own minds, and what is still unknown. Leave all that on the hypothetical side of the barrier, as things afterwards to be acquired, if acquired at all; and be careful not to stamp a thing as known when you do not yet know it. Count a thing known only when it is stamped on your mind, so that you may survey it on all sides with intelligence. There is such a thing as a man endeavouring to persuade himself, and endeavouring to persuade others, that he knows about things when he does not know more than the outside skin of them; and he goes flourishing about with them. ("Hear, hear," and a laugh.) There is also a process called cramming in some Universities (a laugh)--that is, getting up such points of things as the examiner is likely to put questions about. Avoid all that as entirely unworthy of an honourable habit. Be modest, and humble, and diligent in your attention to what your teachers tell you, who are profoundly interested in trying to bring you forward in the right way, so far as they have been able to understand it. Try all things they set before you, in order, if possible, to understand them, and to value them in proportion to your fitness for them. Gradually see what kind of work you can do; for it is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe. In fact, morality as regards study is, as in all other things, the primary consideration, and overrides all others. A dishonest man cannot do anything real; and it would be greatly better if he were tied up from doing any such thing. He does nothing but darken counsel by the words he utters. That is a very old doctrine, but a very true one; and you will find it confirmed by all the thinking men that have ever lived in this long series of generations of which we are the latest. I daresay you know, very many of you, that it is now seven hundred years since Universities were first set up in this world of ours. Abelard and other people had risen up with doctrines in them the people wished to hear of, and students flocked towards them from all parts of the world. There was no getting the thing recorded in books as you may now. You had to hear him speaking to you vocally, or else you could not learn at all what it was that he wanted to say. And so they gathered together the various people who had anything to teach, and formed themselves gradually, under the patronage of kings and other potentates who were anxious about the culture of their populations, nobly anxious for their benefit, and became a University. I daresay, perhaps, you have heard it said that all that is greatly altered by the invention of printing, which took place about midway between us and the origin of Universities. A man has not now to go away to where a professor is actually speaking, because in most cases he can get his doctrine out of him through a book, and can read it, and read it again and again, and study it. I don't know that I know of any way in which the whole facts of a subject may be more completely taken in, if our studies are moulded in conformity with it. Nevertheless, Universities have, and will continue to have, an indispensable value in society--a very high value. I consider the very highest interests of man vitally intrusted to them. In regard to theology, as you are aware, it has been the study of the deepest heads that have come into the world--what is the nature of this stupendous universe, and what its relations to all things, as known to man, and as only known to the awful Author of it. In fact, the members of the Church keep theology in a lively condition (laughter), for the benefit of the whole population, which is the great object of our Universities. I consider it is the same now intrinsically, though very much forgotten, from many causes, and not so successful as might be wished at all. (A laugh.) It remains, however, a very curious truth, what has been said by observant people, that the main use of the Universities in the present age is that, after you have done with all your classes, the next thing is a collection of books, a great library of good books, which you proceed to study and to read. What the Universities have mainly done--what I have found the University did for me, was that it taught me to read in various languages and various sciences, so that I could go into the books that treated of these things, and try anything I wanted to make myself master of gradually, as I found it suit me. Whatever you may think of all that, the clearest and most imperative duty lies on every one of you to be assiduous in your reading; and learn to be good readers, which is, perhaps, a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading--to read all kinds of things that you have an interest in, and that you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in. Of course, at the present time, in a great deal of the reading incumbent on you you must be guided by the books recommended to you by your professors for assistance towards the prelections. And then, when you get out of the University, and go into studies of your own, you will find it very important that you have selected a field, a province in which you can study and work. The most unhappy of all men is the man that cannot tell what he is going to do, that has got no work cut out for him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind--honest work, which you intend getting done. If you are in a strait, a very good indication as to choice--perhaps the best you could get--is a book you have a great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best of all possible conditions to improve by that book. It is analogous to what doctors tell us about the physical health and appetites of the patient. You must learn to distinguish between false appetite and real. There is such a thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man into vagaries with regard to diet, will tempt him to eat spicy things which he should not eat at all, and would not but that it is toothsome, and for the moment in baseness of mind. A man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for--what suits his constitution; and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books. As applicable to almost all of you, I will say that it is highly expedient to go into history--to inquire into what has passed before you in the families of men. The history of the Romans and Greeks will first of all concern you; and you will find that all the knowledge you have got will be extremely applicable to elucidate that. There you have the most remarkable race of men in the world set before you, to say nothing of the languages, which your professors can better explain, and which, I believe, are admitted to be the most perfect orders of speech we have yet found to exist among men. And you will find, if you read well, a pair of extremely remarkable nations shining in the records left by themselves as a kind of pillar to light up life in the darkness of the past ages; and it will be well worth your while if you can get into the understanding of what these people were and what they did. You will find a great deal of hearsay, as I have found, that does not touch on the matter; but perhaps some of you will get to see a Roman face to face; you will know in some measure how they contrived to exist, and to perform these feats in the world; I believe, also, you will find a thing not much noted, that there was a very great deal of deep religion in its form in both nations. That is noted by the wisest of historians, and particularly by Ferguson, who is particularly well worth reading on Roman history; and I believe he was an alumnus in our own University. His book is a very creditable book. He points out the profoundly religious nature of the Roman people, notwithstanding the wildness and ferociousness of their nature. They believed that Jupiter Optimus--Jupiter Maximus--was lord of the universe, and that he had appointed the Romans to become the chief of men, provided they followed his commands--to brave all difficulty, and to stand up with an invincible front--to be ready to do and die; and also to have the same sacred regard to veracity, to promise, to integrity, and all the virtues that surround that noblest quality of men--courage--to which the Romans gave the name of virtue, manhood, as the one thing ennobling for a man. In the literary ages of Rome, that had very much decayed away; but still it had retained its place among the lower classes of the Roman people. Of the deeply religious nature of the Greeks, along with their beautiful and sunny effulgences of art, you have a striking proof, if you look for it. In the tragedies of Sophocles, there is a most distinct recognition of the eternal justice of Heaven, and the unfailing punishment of crime against the laws of God. I believe you will find in all histories that that has been at the head and foundation of them all, and that no nation that did not contemplate this wonderful universe with an awe-stricken and reverential feeling that there was a great unknown, omnipotent, and all-wise, and all-virtuous Being, superintending all men in it, and all interests in it--no nation ever came to very much, nor did any man either, who forgot that. If a man did forget that, he forgot the most important part of his mission in this world. In our own history of England, which you will take a great deal of natural pains to make yourselves acquainted with, you will find it beyond all others worthy of your study; because I believe that the British nation--and I include in them the Scottish nation--produced a finer set of men than any you will find it possible to get anywhere else in the world. (Applause.) I don't know in any history of Greece or Rome where you will get so fine a man as Oliver Cromwell. (Applause.) And we have had men worthy of memory in our little corner of the island here as well as others, and our history has been strong at least in being connected with the world itself--for if you examine well you will find that John Knox was the author, as it were, of Oliver Cromwell; that the Puritan revolution would never have taken place in England at all if it had not been for that Scotchman. (Applause.) This is an arithmetical fact, and is not prompted by national vanity on my part at all. (Laughter and applause.) And it is very possible, if you look at the struggle that was going on in England, as I have had to do in my time, you will see that people were overawed with the immense impediments lying in the way. A small minority of God-fearing men in the country were flying away with any ship they could get to New England, rather than take the lion by the beard. They durstn't confront the powers with their most just complaint to be delivered from idolatry. They wanted to make the nation altogether conformable to the Hebrew Bible, which they understood to be according to the will of God; and there could be no aim more legitimate. However, they could not have got their desire fulfilled at all if Knox had not succeeded by the firmness and nobleness of his mind. For he is also of the select of the earth to me--John Knox. (Applause.) What he has suffered from the ungrateful generations that have followed him should really make us humble ourselves to the dust, to think that the most excellent man our country has produced, to whom we owe everything that distinguishes us among modern nations, should have been sneered at and abused by people. Knox was heard by Scotland--the people heard him with the marrow of their bones--they took up his doctrine, and they defied principalities and powers to move them from it. "We must have it," they said. It was at that time the Puritan struggle arose in England, and you know well that the Scottish Earls and nobility, with their tenantry, marched away to Dunse-hill, and sat down there; and just in the course of that struggle, when it was either to be suppressed or brought into greater vitality, they encamped on the top of Dunse-hill thirty thousand armed men, drilled for that occasion, each regiment around its landlord, its earl, or whatever he might be called, and eager for Christ's Crown and Covenant. That was the signal for all England rising up into unappeasable determination to have the Gospel there also, and you know it went on and came to be a contest whether the Parliament or the King should rule--whether it should be old formalities and use and wont, or something that had been of new conceived in the souls of men--namely, a divine determination to walk according to the laws of God here as the sum of all prosperity--which of these should have the mastery; and after a long, long agony of struggle, it was decided--the way we know. I should say also of that Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell's--notwithstanding the abuse it has encountered, and the denial of everybody that it was able to get on in the world, and so on--it appears to me to have been the most salutary thing in the modern history of England on the whole. If Oliver Cromwell had continued it out, I don't know what it would have come to. It would have got corrupted perhaps in other hands, and could not have gone on, but it was pure and true to the last fibre in his mind--there was truth in it when he ruled over it. Machiavelli has remarked, in speaking about the Romans, that democracy cannot exist anywhere in the world; as a Government it is an impossibility that it should be continued, and he goes on proving that in his own way. I do not ask you all to follow him in his conviction (hear); but it is to him a clear truth that it is a solecism and impossibility that the universal mass of men should govern themselves. He says of the Romans that they continued a long time, but it was purely in virtue of this item in their constitution--namely, that they had all the conviction in their minds that it was solemnly necessary at times to appoint a Dictator--a man who had the power of life and death over everything--who degraded men out of their places, ordered them to execution, and did whatever seemed to him good in the name of God above him. He was commanded to take care that the Republic suffered no detriment, and Machiavelli calculates that that was the thing that purified the social system from time to time, and enabled it to hang on as it did--an extremely likely thing if it was composed of nothing but bad and tumultuous men triumphing in general over the better, and all going the bad road, in fact. Well, Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, or Dictatorate if you will, lasted for about ten years, and you will find that nothing that was contrary to the laws of Heaven was allowed to live by Oliver. (A laugh, and applause.) For example, it was found by his Parliament, called "Barebones"--the most zealous of all Parliaments probably--the Court of Chancery in England was in a state that was really capable of no apology--no man could get up and say that that was a right court. There were, I think, fifteen thousand or fifteen hundred--(laughter)--I don't really remember which, but we shall call it by the last (renewed laughter)--there were fifteen hundred cases lying in it undecided; and one of them, I remember, for a large amount of money, was eighty-three years old, and it was going on still. Wigs were waving over it, and lawyers were taking their fees, and there was no end of it, upon which the Barebones people, after deliberation about it, thought it was expedient, and commanded by the Author of Man and the Fountain of Justice, and for the true and right, to abolish the court. Really, I don't know who could have dissented from that opinion. At the same time, it was thought by those who were wiser, and had more experience of the world, that it was a very dangerous thing, and would never suit at all. The lawyers began to make an immense noise about it. (Laughter.) All the public, the great mass of solid and well-disposed people who had got no deep insight into such matters, were very adverse to it, and the president of it, old Sir Francis Rous, who translated the Psalms--those that we sing every Sunday in the church yet--a very good man and a wise man--the Provost of Eton--he got the minority, or I don't know whether or no he did not persuade the majority--he, at any rate, got a great number of the Parliament to go to Oliver the Dictator, and lay down their functions altogether, and declare officially with their signature on Monday morning that the Parliament was dissolved. The thing was passed on Saturday night, and on Monday morning Rous came and said, "We cannot carry on the affair any longer, and we remit it into the hands of your Highness." Oliver in that way became Protector a second time. I give you this as an instance that Oliver felt that the Parliament that had been dismissed had been perfectly right with regard to Chancery, and that there was no doubt of the propriety of abolishing Chancery, or reforming it in some kind of way. He considered it, and this is what he did. He assembled sixty of the wisest lawyers to be found in England. Happily, there were men great in the law--men who valued the laws as much as anybody does now, I suppose. (A laugh.) Oliver said to them, "Go and examine this thing, and in the name of God inform me what is necessary to be done with regard to it. You will see how we may clean out the foul things in it that render it poison to everybody." Well, they sat down then, and in the course of six weeks--there was no public speaking then, no reporting of speeches, and no trouble of any kind; there was just the business in hand--they got sixty propositions fixed in their minds of the things that required to be done. And upon these sixty propositions Chancery was reconstituted and remodelled, and so it has lasted to our time. It had become a nuisance, and could not have continued much longer. That is an instance of the manner in which things were done when a Dictatorship prevailed in the country, and that was what the Dictator did. Upon the whole, I do not think that, in general, out of common history books, you will ever get into the real history of this country, or anything particular which it would beseem you to know. You may read very ingenious and very clever books by men whom it would be the height of insolence in me to do any other thing than express my respect for. But their position is essentially sceptical. Man is unhappily in that condition that he will make only a temporary explanation of anything, and you will not be able, if you are like the man, to understand how this island came to be what it is. You will not find it recorded in books. You will find recorded in books a jumble of tumults, disastrous ineptitudes, and all that kind of thing. But to get what you want you will have to look into side sources, and inquire in all directions. I remember getting Collins' _Peerage_ to read--a very poor peerage as a work of genius, but an excellent book for diligence and fidelity--I was writing on Oliver Cromwell at the time. (Applause.) I could get no biographical dictionary, and I thought the peerage book would help me, at least tell me whether people were old or young; and about all persons concerned in the actions about which I wrote. I got a great deal of help out of poor Collins. He was a diligent and dark London bookseller of about a hundred years ago, who compiled out of all kinds of treasury chests, archives, books that were authentic, and out of all kinds of things out of which he could get the information he wanted. He was a very meritorious man. I not only found the solution of anything I wanted there, but I began gradually to perceive this immense fact, which I really advise every one of you who read history to look out for and read for--if he has not found it--it was that the kings of England all the way from the Norman Conquest down to the times of Charles I. had appointed, so far as they knew, those who deserved to be appointed, peers. They were all Royal men, with minds full of justice and valour and humanity, and all kinds of qualities that are good for men to have who ought to rule over others. Then their genealogy was remarkable--and there is a great deal more in genealogies than is generally believed at present. I never heard tell of any clever man that came out of entirely stupid people. If you look around the families of your acquaintance, you will see such cases in all directions. I know that it has been the case in mine. I can trace the father, and the son, and the grandson, and the family stamp is quite distinctly legible upon each of them, so that it goes for a great deal--the hereditary principle in Government as in other things; and it must be recognised so soon as there is any fixity in things. You will remark that if at any time the genealogy of a peerage fails--if the man that actually holds the peerage is a fool in these earnest striking times, the man gets into mischief and gets into treason--he gets himself extinguished altogether, in fact. (Laughter.) From these documents of old Collins it seems that a peer conducts himself in a solemn, good, pious, manly kind of way when he takes leave of life, and when he has hospitable habits, and is valiant in his procedure throughout; and that in general a King, with a noble approximation to what was right, had nominated this man, saying "Come you to me, sir; come out of the common level of the people, where you are liable to be trampled upon; come here and take a district of country and make it into your own image more or less; be a king under me, and understand that that is your function." I say this is the most divine thing that a human being can do to other human beings, and no kind of being whatever has so much of the character of God Almighty's Divine Government as that thing we see that went all over England, and that is the grand soul of England's history. It is historically true that down to the time of Charles I., it was not understood that any man was made a peer without having a merit in him to constitute him a proper subject for a peerage. In Charles I.'s time it grew to be known or said that if a man was by birth a gentleman, and was worth £10,000 a-year, and bestowed his gifts up and down among courtiers, he could be made a peer. Under Charles II. it went on with still more rapidity, and has been going on with ever increasing velocity until we see the perfect break-neck pace at which they are now going. (A laugh.) And now a peerage is a paltry kind of thing to what it was in these old times, I could go into a great many more details about things of that sort, but I must turn to another branch of the subject. One remark more about your reading. I do not know whether it has been sufficiently brought home to you that there are two kinds of books. When a man is reading on any kind of subject, in most departments of books--in all books, if you take it in a wide sense--you will find that there is a division of good books and bad books--there is a good kind of a book and a bad kind of a book. I am not to assume that you are all ill acquainted with this; but I may remind you that it is a very important consideration at present. It casts aside altogether the idea that people have that if they are reading any book--that if an ignorant man is reading any book, he is doing rather better than nothing at all. I entirely call that in question. I even venture to deny it. (Laughter and cheers.) It would be much safer and better would he have no concern with books at all than with some of them. You know these are my views. There are a number, an increasing number, of books that are decidedly to him not useful. (Hear.) But he will learn also that a certain number of books were written by a supreme, noble kind of people--not a very great number--but a great number adhere more or less to that side of things. In short, as I have written it down somewhere else, I conceive that books are like men's souls--divided into sheep and goats. (Laughter and applause.) Some of them are calculated to be of very great advantage in teaching--in forwarding the teaching of all generations. Others are going down, down, doing more and more, wilder and wilder mischief. And for the rest, in regard to all your studies here, and whatever you may learn, you are to remember that the object is not particular knowledge--that you are going to get higher in technical perfections, and all that sort of thing. There is a higher aim lies at the rear of all that, especially among those who are intended for literary, for speaking pursuits--the sacred profession. You are ever to bear in mind that there lies behind that the acquisition of what may be called wisdom--namely, sound appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that come round about you, and the habit of behaving with justice and wisdom. In short, great is wisdom--great is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated. The highest achievement of man--"Blessed is he that getteth understanding." And that, I believe, occasionally may be missed very easily; but never more easily than now, I think. If that is a failure, all is a failure. However, I will not touch further upon that matter. In this University I learn from many sides that there is a great and considerable stir about endowments. Oh, I should have said in regard to book reading, if it be so very important, how very useful would an excellent library be in every University. I hope that will not be neglected by those gentlemen who have charge of you--and, indeed, I am happy to hear that your library is very much improved since the time I knew it; and I hope it will go on improving more and more. You require money to do that, and you require also judgment in the selectors of the books--pious insight into what is really for the advantage of human souls, and the exclusion of all kinds of clap-trap books which merely excite the astonishment of foolish people. (Laughter.) Wise books--as much as possible good books. As I was saying, there appears to be a great demand for endowments--an assiduous and praiseworthy industry for getting new funds collected for encouraging the ingenious youth of Universities, especially in this the chief University of the country. (Hear, hear.) Well, I entirely participate in everybody's approval of the movement. It is very desirable. It should be responded to, and one expects most assuredly will. At least, if it is not, it will be shameful to the country of Scotland, which never was so rich in money as at the present moment, and never stood so much in need of getting noble Universities to counteract many influences that are springing up alongside of money. It should not be backward in coming forward in the way of endowments (a laugh)--at least, in rivalry to our rude old barbarous ancestors, as we have been pleased to call them. Such munificence as theirs is beyond all praise, to whom I am sorry to say we are not yet by any manner of means equal or approaching equality. (Laughter.) There is an overabundance of money, and sometimes I cannot help thinking that, probably, never has there been at any other time in Scotland the hundredth part of the money that now is, or even the thousandth part, for wherever I go there is that gold-nuggeting (a laugh)--that prosperity. Many men are counting their balances by millions. Money was never so abundant, and nothing that is good to be done with it. ("Hear, hear," and a laugh.) No man knows--or very few men know--what benefit to get out of his money. In fact, it too often is secretly a curse to him. Much better for him never to have had any. But I do not expect that generally to be believed. (Laughter.) Nevertheless, I should think it a beautiful relief to any man that has an honest purpose struggling in him to bequeath a handsome house of refuge, so to speak, for some meritorious man who may hereafter be born into the world, to enable him a little to get on his way. To do, in fact, as those old Norman kings whom I have described to you--to raise a man out of the dirt and mud where he is getting trampled, unworthily on his part, into some kind of position where he may acquire the power to do some good in his generation. I hope that as much as possible will be done in that way; that efforts will not be relaxed till the thing is in a satisfactory state. At the same time, in regard to the classical department of things, it is to be desired that it were properly supported--that we could allow people to go and devote more leisure possibly to the cultivation of particular departments. We might have more of this from Scotch Universities than we have. I am bound, however, to say that it does not appear as if of late times endowment was the real soul of the matter. The English, for example, are the richest people for endowments on the face of the earth in their Universities; and it is a remarkable fact that since the time of Bentley you cannot name anybody that has gained a great name in scholarship among them, or constituted a point of revolution in the pursuits of men in that way. The man that did that is a man worthy of being remembered among men, although he may be a poor man, and not endowed with worldly wealth. One man that actually did constitute a revolution was the son of a poor weaver in Saxony, who edited his "Tibullus" in Dresden in the room of a poor comrade, and who, while he was editing his "Tibullus," had to gather his pease-cod shells on the streets and boil them for his dinner. That was his endowment. But he was recognised soon to have done a great thing. His name was Heyne. I can remember it was quite a revolution in my mind when I got hold of that man's book on Virgil. I found that for the first time I had understood him--that he had introduced me for the first time into an insight of Roman life, and pointed out the circumstances in which these were written, and here was interpretation; and it has gone on in all manner of development, and has spread out into other countries. Upon the whole, there is one reason why endowments are not given now as they were in old days, when they founded abbeys, colleges, and all kinds of things of that description, with such success as we know. All that has changed now. Why that has decayed away may in part be that people have become doubtful that colleges are now the real sources of that which I call wisdom, whether they are anything more--anything much more--than a cultivating of man in the specific arts. In fact, there has been a suspicion of that kind in the world for a long time. (A laugh.) That is an old saying, an old proverb, "An ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy." (Laughter.) There is a suspicion that a man is perhaps not nearly so wise as he looks, or because he has poured out speech so copiously. (Laughter.) When the seven free Arts on which the old Universities were based came to be modified a little, in order to be convenient for or to promote the wants of modern society--though, perhaps, some of them are obsolete enough even yet for some of us--there arose a feeling that mere vocality, mere culture of speech, if that is what comes out of a man, though he may be a great speaker, an eloquent orator, yet there is no real substance there--if that is what was required and aimed at by the man himself, and by the community that set him upon becoming a learned man. Maid-servants, I hear people complaining, are getting instructed in the "ologies," and so on, and are apparently totally ignorant of brewing, boiling, and baking (laughter); above all things, not taught what is necessary to be known, from the highest to the lowest--strict obedience, humility, and correct moral conduct. Oh, it is a dismal chapter, all that, if one went into it! What has been done by rushing after fine speech? I have written down some very fierce things about that, perhaps considerably more emphatic than I would wish them to be now; but they are deeply my conviction. (Hear, hear.) There is very great necessity indeed of getting a little more silent than we are. It seems to me the finest nations of the world--the English and the American--are going all away into wind and tongue. (Applause and laughter.) But it will appear sufficiently tragical by-and-bye, long after I am away out of it. Silence is the eternal duty of a man. He wont get to any real understanding of what is complex, and, what is more than any other, pertinent to his interests, without maintaining silence. "Watch the tongue," is a very old precept, and a most true one. I do not want to discourage any of you from your Demosthenes, and your studies of the niceties of language, and all that. Believe me, I value that as much as any of you. I consider it a very graceful thing, and a proper thing, for every human creature to know what the implement which he uses in communicating his thoughts is, and how to make the very utmost of it. I want you to study Demosthenes, and know all his excellencies. At the same time, I must say that speech does not seem to me, on the whole, to have turned to any good account. Why tell me that a man is a fine speaker if it is not the truth that he is speaking? Phocion, who did not speak at all, was a great deal nearer hitting the mark than Demosthenes. (Laughter.) He used to tell the Athenians--"You can't fight Philip. You have not the slightest chance with him. He is a man who holds his tongue; he has great disciplined armies; he can brag anybody you like in your cities here; and he is going on steadily with an unvarying aim towards his object: and he will infallibly beat any kind of men such as you, going on raging from shore to shore with all that rampant nonsense." Demosthenes said to him one day--"The Athenians will get mad some day and kill you." "Yes," Phocion says, "when they are mad; and you as soon as they get sane again." (Laughter.) It is also told about him going to Messina on some deputation that the Athenians wanted on some kind of matter of an intricate and contentious nature, that Phocion went with some story in his mouth to speak about. He was a man of few words--no unveracity; and after he had gone on telling the story a certain time there was one burst of interruption. One man interrupted with something he tried to answer, and then another; and, finally, the people began bragging and bawling, and no end of debate, till it ended in the want of power in the people to say any more. Phocion drew back altogether, struck dumb, and would not speak another word to any man; and he left it to them to decide in any way they liked. It appears to me there is a kind of eloquence in that which is equal to anything Demosthenes ever said--"Take your own way, and let me out altogether." (Applause.) All these considerations, and manifold more connected with them--innumerable considerations, resulting from observation of the world at this moment--have led many people to doubt of the salutary effect of vocal education altogether. I do not mean to say it should be entirely excluded; but I look to something that will take hold of the matter much more closely, and not allow it slip out of our fingers, and remain worse than it was. For if a good speaker--an eloquent speaker--is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation? (Loud cheers.) Of such speech I hear all manner and kind of people say it is excellent; but I care very little about how he said it, provided I understand it, and it be true. Excellent speaker! but what if he is telling me things that are untrue, that are not the fact about it--if he has formed a wrong judgment about it--if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right conclusion in regard to the matter? An excellent speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying--"Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true, come hither." (Great laughter and applause.) I would recommend you to be very chary of that kind of excellent speech. (Renewed laughter.) Well, all that being the too well-known product of our method of vocal education--the mouth merely operating on the tongue of the pupil, and teaching him to wag it in a particular way (laughter)--it had made a great many thinking men entertain a very great distrust of this not very salutary way of procedure, and they have longed for some kind of practical way of working out the business. There would be room for a great deal of description about it if I went into it; but I must content myself with saying that the most remarkable piece of reading that you may be recommended to take and try if you can study is a book by Goethe--one of his last books, which he wrote when he was an old man, about seventy years of age--I think one of the most beautiful he ever wrote, full of mild wisdom, and which is found to be very touching by those who have eyes to discern and hearts to feel it. It is one of the pieces in "Wilhelm Meister's Travels." I read it through many years ago; and, of course, I had to read into it very hard when I was translating it (applause), and it has always dwelt in my mind as about the most remarkable bit of writing that I have known to be executed in these late centuries. I have often said, there are ten pages of that which, if ambition had been my only rule, I would rather have written than have written all the books that have appeared since I came into the world. (Cheers.) Deep, deep is the meaning of what is said there. They turn on the Christian religion and the religious phenomena of Christian life--altogether sketched out in the most airy, graceful, delicately-wise kind of way, so as to keep himself out of the common controversies of the street and of the forum, yet to indicate what was the result of things he had been long meditating upon. Among others, he introduces, in an aërial, flighty kind of way, here and there a touch which grows into a beautiful picture--a scheme of entirely mute education, at least with no more speech than is absolutely necessary for what they have to do. Three of the wisest men that can be got are met to consider what is the function which transcends all others in importance to build up the young generation, which shall be free from all that perilous stuff that has been weighing us down and clogging every step, and which is the only thing we can hope to go on with if we would leave the world a little better, and not the worse of our having been in it for those who are to follow. The man who is the eldest of the three says to Goethe, "You give by nature to the well-formed children you bring into the world a great many precious gifts, and very frequently these are best of all developed by nature herself, with a very slight assistance where assistance is seen to be wise and profitable, and forbearance very often on the part of the overlooker of the process of education; but there is one thing that no child brings into the world with it, and without which all other things are of no use." Wilhelm, who is there beside him, says, "What is that?" "All who enter the world want it," says the eldest; "perhaps you yourself." Wilhelm says, "Well, tell me what it is." "It is," says the eldest, "reverence--_Ehrfurcht_--Reverence! Honour done to those who are grander and better than you, without fear; distinct from fear." _Ehrfurcht_--"the soul of all religion that ever has been among men, or ever will be." And he goes into practicality. He practically distinguishes the kinds of religion that are in the world, and he makes out three reverences. The boys are all trained to go through certain gesticulations, to lay their hands on their breast and look up to heaven, and they give their three reverences. The first and simplest is that of reverence for what is above us. It is the soul of all the Pagan religions; there is nothing better in man than that. Then there is reverence for what is around us or about us--reverence for our equals, and to which he attributes an immense power in the culture of man. The third is reverence for what is beneath us--to learn to recognise in pain, sorrow, and contradiction, even in those things, odious as they are to flesh and blood--to learn that there lies in these a priceless blessing. And he defines that as being the soul of the Christian religion--the highest of all religions; a height, as Goethe says--and that is very true, even to the letter, as I consider--a height to which the human species was fated and enabled to attain, and from which, having once attained it, it can never retrograde. It cannot descend down below that permanently, Goethe's idea is. Often one thinks it was good to have a faith of that kind--that always, even in the most degraded, sunken, and unbelieving times, he calculates there will be found some few souls who will recognise what that meant; and that the world, having once received it, there is no fear of its retrograding. He goes on then to tell us the way in which they seek to teach boys, in the sciences particularly, whatever the boy is fit for. Wilhelm left his own boy there, expecting they would make him a Master of Arts, or something of that kind; and when he came back for him he saw a thundering cloud of dust coming over the plain, of which he could make nothing. It turned out to be a tempest of wild horses, managed by young lads who had a turn for hunting with their grooms. His own son was among them, and he found that the breaking of colts was the thing he was most suited for. (Laughter.) This is what Goethe calls Art, which I should not make clear to you by any definition unless it is clear already. (A laugh.) I would not attempt to define it as music, painting, and poetry, and so on; it is in quite a higher sense than the common one, and in which, I am afraid, most of our painters, poets, and music men would not pass muster. (A laugh.) He considers that the highest pitch to which human culture can go; and he watches with great industry how it is to be brought about with men who have a turn for it. Very wise and beautiful it is. It gives one an idea that something greatly better is possible for man in the world. I confess it seems to me it is a shadow of what will come, unless the world is to come to a conclusion that is perfectly frightful; some kind of scheme of education like that, presided over by the wisest and most sacred men that can be got in the world, and watching from a distance--a training in practicality at every turn; no speech in it except that speech that is to be followed by action, for that ought to be the rule as nearly as possible among them. For rarely should men speak at all unless it is to say that thing that is to be done; and let him go and do his part in it, and to say no more about it. I should say there is nothing in the world you can conceive so difficult, _prima facie_, as that of getting a set of men gathered together--rough, rude, and ignorant people--gather them together, promise them a shilling a day, rank them up, give them very severe and sharp drill, and by bullying and drill--for the word "drill" seems as if it meant the treatment that would force them to learn--they learn what it is necessary to learn; and there is the man, a piece of an animated machine, a wonder of wonders to look at. He will go and obey one man, and walk into the cannon's mouth for him, and do anything whatever that is commanded of him by his general officer. And I believe all manner of things in this way could be done if there were anything like the same attention bestowed. Very many things could be regimented and organized into the mute system of education that Goethe evidently adumbrates there. But I believe, when people look into it, it will be found that they will not be very long in trying to make some efforts in that direction; for the saving of human labour, and the avoidance of human misery, would be uncountable if it were set about and begun even in part. Alas! it is painful to think how very far away it is--any fulfilment of such things; for I need not hide from you, young gentlemen--and that is one of the last things I am going to tell you--that you have got into a very troublous epoch of the world; and I don't think you will find it improve the footing you have, though you have many advantages which we had not. You have careers open to you, by public examinations and so on, which is a thing much to be approved, and which we hope to see perfected more and more. All that was entirely unknown in my time, and you have many things to recognise as advantages. But you will find the ways of the world more anarchical than ever, I think. As far as I have noticed, revolution has come upon us. We have got into the age of revolutions. All kinds of things are coming to be subjected to fire, as it were; hotter and hotter the wind rises around everything. Curious to say, now in Oxford and other places that used to seem to live at anchor in the stream of time, regardless of all changes, they are getting into the highest humour of mutation, and all sorts of new ideas are getting afloat. It is evident that whatever is not made of asbestos will have to be burnt in this world. It will not stand the heat it is getting exposed to. And in saying that, it is but saying in other words that we are in an epoch of anarchy--anarchy _plus_ the constable. (Laughter.) There is nobody that picks one's pocket without some policeman being ready to take him up. (Renewed laughter.) But in every other thing he is the son, not of Kosmos, but of Chaos. He is a disobedient, and reckless, and altogether a waste kind of object--commonplace man in these epochs; and the wiser kind of man--the select, of whom I hope you will be part--has more and more a set time to it to look forward, and will require to move with double wisdom; and will find, in short, that the crooked things that he has to pull straight in his own life, or round about, wherever he may be, are manifold, and will task all his strength wherever he may go. But why should I complain of that either?--for that is a thing a man is born to in all epochs. He is born to expend every particle of strength that God Almighty has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for--to stand it out to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get--which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it--is that we have got the work done, or, at least, that we have tried to do the work; for that is a great blessing in itself; and I should say there is not very much more reward than that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters it whether he have £10,000, or £10,000,000, or £70 a-year. He can get meat and clothes for that; and he will find very little difference intrinsically, if he is a wise man. I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men--"Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to success; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now. (Loud and prolonged cheers.) Finally, gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which is practically of very great importance, though a very humble one. I have no doubt you will have among you people ardently bent to consider life cheap, for the purpose of getting forward in what they are aiming at of high; and you are to consider throughout, much more than is done at present, that health is a thing to be attended to continually--that you are to regard that as the very highest of all temporal things for you. (Applause.) There is no kind of achievement you could make in the world that is equal to perfect health. What are nuggets and millions? The French financier said, "Alas! why is there no sleep to be sold?" Sleep was not in the market at any quotation. (Laughter and applause.) It is a curious thing that I remarked long ago, and have often turned in my head, that the old word for "holy" in the German language--_heilig_--also means "healthy." And so _Heil-bronn_ means "holy-well," or "healthy-well." We have in the Scotch "hale;" and, I suppose our English word "whole"--with a "w"--all of one piece, without any hole in it--is the same word. I find that you could not get any better definition of what "holy" really is than "healthy--completely healthy." _Mens sana in corpore sano_. (Applause.) A man with his intellect a clear, plain, geometric mirror, brilliantly sensitive of all objects and impressions around it, and imagining all things in their correct proportions--not twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything, so that he cannot see the truth of the matter without endless groping and manipulation--healthy, clear, and free, and all round about him. We never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations we have got into are destructive of it. You cannot, if you are going to do any decisive intellectual operation--if you are going to write a book--at least, I never could--without getting decidedly made ill by it, and really you must if it is your business--and you must follow out what you are at--and it sometimes is at the expense of health. Only remember at all times to get back as fast as possible out of it into health, and regard the real equilibrium as the centre of things. You should always look at the _heilig_, which means holy, and holy means healthy. Well, that old etymology--what a lesson it is against certain gloomy, austere, ascetic people, that have gone about as if this world were all a dismal-prison house! It has, indeed, got all the ugly things in it that I have been alluding to; but there is an eternal sky over it, and the blessed sunshine, verdure of spring, and rich autumn, and all that in it, too. Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given. Neither do you find it to have been so with old Knox. If you look into him you will find a beautiful Scotch humour in him, as well as the grimmest and sternest truth when necessary, and a great deal of laughter. We find really some of the sunniest glimpses of things come out of Knox that I have seen in any man; for instance, in his "History of the Reformation," which is a book I hope every one of you will read--a glorious book. On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it--not in sorrows or contradiction to yield, but pushing on towards the goal. And don't suppose that people are hostile to you in the world. You will rarely find anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often as if the whole world is obstructing you, more or less; but you will find that to be because the world is travelling in a different way from you, and rushing on in its own path. Each man has only an extremely good-will to himself--which he has a right to have--and is moving on towards his object. Keep out of literature as a general rule, I should say also. (Laughter.) If you find many people who are hard and indifferent to you in a world that you consider to be unhospitable and cruel--as often, indeed, happens to a tender-hearted, stirring young creature--you will also find there are noble hearts who will look kindly on you, and their help will be precious to you beyond price. You will get good and evil as you go on, and have the success that has been appointed to you. I will wind up with a small bit of verse that is from Goethe also, and has often gone through my mind. To me it has the tone of a modern psalm in it in some measure. It is sweet and clear. The clearest of sceptical men had not anything like so clear a mind as that man had--freer from cant and misdirected notion of any kind than any man in these ages has been This is what the poet says:-- The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow: We press still thorow; Nought that abides in it Daunting us--Onward! And solemn before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal. Stars silent rest o'er us-- Graves under us, silent. While earnest thou gazest Comes boding of terror, Come phantasm and error; Perplexes the bravest With doubt and misgiving. But heard are the voices, Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages: "Choose well: your choice is Brief, and yet endless." Here eyes do regard you In Eternity's stillness; Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you. Work, and despair not.[A] [Footnote A: Originally published in Carlyle's "Past and Present," (Lond. 1843,) p. 318, and introduced there by the following words:-- "My candid readers, we will march out of this Third Book with a rhythmic word of Goethe's on our tongue; a word which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German man, sounds like a stanza in the grand _Road Song_ and _Marching Song_ of our great Teutonic kindred,--wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time!"] One last word. _Wir heissen euch hoffen_--we bid you be of hope. Adieu for this time. THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHAIR IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. The following is a letter addressed by Mr. Carlyle to Dr. Hutchison Stirling, late one of the candidates for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh:-- "Chelsea, 16th June, 1868. "DEAR STIRLING,-- "You well know how reluctant I have been to interfere at all in the election now close on us, and that in stating, as bound, what my own clear knowledge of your qualities was, I have strictly held by that, and abstained from more. But the news I now have from Edinburgh is of such a complexion, so dubious, and so surprising to me; and I now find I shall privately have so much regret in a certain event--which seems to be reckoned possible, and to depend on one gentleman of the seven--that, to secure my own conscience in the matter, a few plainer words seem needful. To whatever I have said of you already, therefore, I now volunteer to add, that I think you not only the one man in Britain capable of bringing Metaphysical Philosophy, in the ultimate, German or European, and highest actual form of it, distinctly home to the understanding of British men who wish to understand it, but that I notice in you farther, on the moral side, a sound strength of intellectual discernment, a noble valour and reverence of mind, which seems to me to mark you out as the man capable of doing us the highest service in Ethical science too: that of restoring, or decisively beginning to restore, the doctrine of morals to what I must ever reckon its one true and everlasting basis (namely, the divine or supra-sensual one), and thus of victoriously reconciling and rendering identical the latest dictates of modern science with the earliest dawnings of wisdom among the race of men. "This is truly my opinion, and how important to me, not for the sake of Edinburgh University alone, but of the whole world for ages to come, I need not say to you! I have not the honour of any personal acquaintance with Mr. Adam Black, late member for Edinburgh, but for fifty years back have known him, in the distance, and by current and credible report, as a man of solid sense, independence, probity, and public spirit; and if, in your better knowledge of the circumstances, you judge it suitable to read this note to him--to him, or indeed to any other person--you are perfectly at liberty to do so. "Yours sincerely always, "T. CARLYLE." [Illustration] FAREWELL LETTER TO THE STUDENTS. Mr. Carlyle, ex-Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, being asked before the expiration of his term of office, to deliver a valedictory address to the students, he sent the following letter to Mr. Robertson, Vice-President of the Committee for his election:-- "Chelsea, December 6, 1868. "DEAR SIR,-- "I much regret that a valedictory speech from me, in present circumstances, is a thing I must not think of. Be pleased to advise the young gentlemen who were so friendly towards me that I have already sent them, in silence, but with emotions deep enough, perhaps too deep, my loving farewell, and that ingratitude or want of regard is by no means among the causes that keep me absent. With a fine youthful enthusiasm, beautiful to look upon, they bestowed on me that bit of honour, loyally all they had; and it has now, for reasons one and another, become touchingly memorable to me--touchingly, and even grandly and tragically--never to be forgotten for the remainder of my life. Bid them, in my name, if they still love me, fight the good fight, and quit themselves like men in the warfare to which they are as if conscript and consecrated, and which lies ahead. Tell them to consult the eternal oracles (not yet inaudible, nor ever to become so, when worthily inquired of); and to disregard, nearly altogether, in comparison, the temporary noises, menacings, and deliriums. May they love wisdom, as wisdom, if she is to yield her treasures, must be loved, piously, valiantly, humbly, beyond life itself, or the prizes of life, with all one's heart and all one's soul. In that case (I will say again), and not in any other case, it shall be well with them. "Adieu, my young friends, a long adieu, yours with great sincerity, "T. CARLYLE" BEQUEST BY MR. CARLYLE. At a meeting of the Senatus Academicus of Edinburgh University, a few weeks after his decease, a deed of mortification by Thomas Carlyle in favour of that body, for the foundation of ten Bursaries in the Faculty of Arts, was read. The document opens as follows:-- "I, Thomas Carlyle, residing at Chelsea, presently Rector in the University of Edinburgh, from the love, favour and affection which I bear to that University, and from my interest in the advancement of education in my native Scotland, as elsewhere, for these and for other more peculiar reasons, which also I wish to record, do intend, and am now in the act of making to the said University, a bequest, as underwritten, of the estate of Craigenputtoch, which is now my property. Craigenputtoch lies at the head of the parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire. The extent is of about 1,800 acres; rental at present, on lease of nineteen years, is £250; the annual worth, with the improvements now in progress, is probably £300. Craigenputtoch was for many generations the patrimony of a family named Welsh, the eldest son usually a 'John Welsh,' in series going back, think some, to the famous John Welsh, son-in-law of the reformer Knox. The last male heir of the family was John Welsh, Esq., surgeon, Haddington. His one child and heiress was my late dear, magnanimous, much-loving, and, to me, inestimable wife, in memory of whom, and of her constant nobleness and piety towards him and towards me, I am now--she having been the last of her kindred--about to bequeath to Edinburgh University with whatever piety is in me this Craigenputtoch, which was theirs and hers, on the terms, and for the purposes, and under the conditions underwritten. Therefore I do mortify and dispose to and in favour of the said University of Edinburgh, for the foundation and endowment of ten equal Bursaries, to be called the 'John Welsh Bursaries,' in the said University, heritably and irredeemably, all and whole the lands of Upper Craigenputtoch. The said estate is not to be sold, but to be kept and administered as land, the net annual revenue of it to be divided into ten equal Bursaries, to be called, as aforesaid, the 'John Welsh Bursaries.' The Senatus Academicus shall bestow them on the ten applicants entering the University who, on strict and thorough examination and open competitive trial by examiners whom the Senatus will appoint for that end, are judged to show the best attainment of actual proficiency and the best likelihood of more in the department or faculty called of arts, as taught there. Examiners to be actual professors in said faculty, the fittest whom the Senatus can select, with fit assessors or coadjutors and witnesses, if the Senatus see good, and always the report of the said examiners to be minuted and signed, and to govern the appointments made, and to be recorded therewith. More specially I appoint that five of the 'John Welsh Bursaries' shall be given for the best proficiency in mathematics--I would rather say 'in mathesis,' if that were a thing to be judged of from competition--but practically above all in pure geometry, such being perennial, the symptom not only of steady application, but of a clear, methodic intellect, and offering in all epochs good promise for all manner of arts and pursuits. The other five Bursaries I appoint to depend (for the present and indefinitely onwards) on proficiency in classical learning, that is to say, in knowledge of Latin, Greek, and English, all of these, or any two of them. This also gives good promise of a young mind, but as I do not feel certain that it gives perennially or will perennially be thought in universities to give the best promise, I am willing that the Senatus of the University, in case of a change of its opinion on this point hereafter in the course of generations, shall bestow these latter five Bursaries on what it does then consider the most excellent proficiency in matters classical, or the best proof of a classical mind, which directs its own highest effort towards teaching and diffusing in the new generations that will come. The Bursaries to be open to free competition of all who come to study in Edinburgh University, and who have never been of any other University, the competition to be held on or directly before or after their first matriculation there. Bursaries to be always given on solemnly strict and faithful trial to the worthiest, or if (what in justice can never happen, though it illustrates my intention) the claims of two were absolutely equal, and could not be settled by further trial, preference is to fall in favour of the more unrecommended and unfriended under penalties graver than I, or any highest mortal, can pretend to impose, but which I can never doubt--as the law of eternal justice, inexorably valid, whether noticed or unnoticed, pervades all corners of space and of time--are very sure to be punctually exacted if incurred. This is to be the perpetual rule for the Senatus in deciding." After stating some other conditions, the document thus concludes: "And so may a little trace of help to the young heroic soul struggling for what is highest spring from this poor arrangement and bequest. May it run for ever, if it can, as a thread of pure water from the Scottish rocks, trickling into its little basin by the thirsty wayside for those to whom it veritably belongs. Amen. Such is my bequest to Edinburgh University. In witness whereof these presents, written upon this and the two preceding pages by James Steven Burns, clerk to John Cook, writer to the signet, are subscribed by me at Chelsea, the 20th day of June, 1867, before these witnesses: John Forster, barrister-at-law, man of letters, etc., residing at Palace-gate House, Kensington, London; and James Anthony Froude, man of letters, residing at No. 5, Onslow Gardens, Brompton, London. "_(Signed)_ T. CARLYLE. "JOHN FORSTER,} "J.A. FROUDE, } _Witnesses_. [Illustration] INDEX. Abelard, 134. Aitken, Mary, 117. Allingham, Mrs., her sketch of Carlyle, 121. Annan, Academy, 9. Anspach's _History_ of Newfoundland, 13. Arnold, Thomas, visits the field of Naseby with Carlyle, 63, 64. Baillie, Joanna, her Metrical Legends, 13. Bentley, Richard, the last of English scholars, 162. Black, Adam, 191. Boehm, Mr., his medallion and statue of Carlyle, 116, 120, 121. Braidwood Testimonial, 85, 86. Brewster, Sir David, his Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 10, 11; writes a Preface to Carlyle's Translation of Legendre, 13; presides at Carlyle's installation as Rector of Edinburgh University, 90, 93, 96. Buchanan, George, 47. Buller, Charles, Carlyle becomes tutor to, 15; his death, 74; Carlyle's tribute to, 75-80. Burns, Robert, 67. Cameron, Mrs., her photograph of Carlyle, 120. Carlyle, Jane Welsh, Goethe's verses to, 20; described by Margaret Fuller, 68, 69; death of, 109; funeral, 110; inscription on her tombstone, 111. Carlyle, Thomas, birth and parentage, 8; early studies, 9; school-mastering, 9-10; first attempts in literature, 10-14; Buller tutorship, 15; German translations, 15-17; his marriage, 17; life at Craigenputtoch, 17-18; removes to London, 25; his affection for Leigh Hunt, 26; letter to Major Richardson, 40; his Lectures, 45; advice to a young man, 54; defence of Mazzini, 59; visit to Rugby, 63; his letter to Sir William Napier, 81; the Edinburgh Rectorship and Address, 87-109; death of his wife, 109; on the Jamaica insurrection, 112; latest writings, 115; medal and address, 116; closing years of life, 117; his _Reminiscences_, 118; portraits of, 119. Carlyle, John A., his Translation of Dante, 98; death of, 117. Chelsea, old memories of, 25; Carlyle fixes his residence there, 25, 26. Collins's Peerage, 152. Craigenputtoch, 17; description of by Carlyle, in a letter to Goethe, 18. Cromwell, Oliver, Letters and Speeches, 68; his Protectorate, 145 Cunningham, Allan, on old age, 44: Demosthenes, 166. De Quincey, Thomas, his critique on Wilhelm Meister, 16 D'Orsay, Count, his Portrait of Carlyle, 119. Dumfries, 18. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his visit to Carlyle at Craigenputtoch, 21; his Essays introduced to the English public by Carlyle, 52; Margaret Fuller's letter to him, 64. Eyre, Edward John, Carlyle's defence of, 112. Ferguson's Roman History, 140. Fichte, 37. Forster, John, 200. Fraser's Magazine, 20, 22, 115, 119. Frederick the Great, History of, 81, 87. French Revolution, History of the, 38. Froude, James Anthony, 118, 200. Fuller, Margaret, her Letter to Emerson describing Carlyle's conversation, 65-73. German Romance, 16. Gibbon, 23. Goethe, his _Faust_, 13; his _Wilhelm Meister_ translated by Carlyle, 15; Carlyle's letters to him, 18; writes an Introduction to the German translation of Carlyle's Life of Schiller, 20; his verses to Mrs. Carlyle, _ib_.; Wilhelm Meister's Travels, 170-171; Verses by him, quoted, 186, 187. Grant, James, quoted, 46, 48-52. Hannay, James, on Carlyle, 47. Heyne, his Tibullus and Virgil, 162-163. Hoffmann, Carlyle's translation from, 16. Horne, R.H., quoted, 27, 28. Houghton, Lord, breakfast party at his house, 38. Hunt, Leigh, invited by Carlyle to visit him in Dumfriesshire. 26; settles at Chelsea, _ib_.; characteristic anecdote, 27; leaves Chelsea, 28; Carlyle's eulogium on, 29; Carlyle's opinion of his Autobiography, 33; quoted, 35, 46. Ireland, Carlyle's papers on, 74. Irving, Edward, 10, 40. Jeffrey, Lord, his critique on Wilhelm Meister, 16; Carlyle's Reminiscences of, 119. Johnson, Samuel, advice as to reading, 55. Kirkcaldy, 10. Knox, John, an ancestor of Carlyle's wife, 17, 196; grim humour of, 47; the portraits of, 115; belongs to the select of the earth, 142-143; his History of the Reformation, 184-185. Lally, at Pondicherry, 84. La Motte Fouqué, Carlyle's Translations from, 16. Landor, Walter Savage, 23, 38. Latter-Day Pamphlets, 80. Laurence, Samuel, his portrait of Carlyle, 119. Legendre's Geometry, translated by Carlyle, 13, 14. Leslie, Sir John, 9. Lewes, George Henry, 66. London Magazine, The, 15, 16. Louis Philippe, 74. Machiavelli on Democracy, 107, 146. Maclise, Daniel, 119. Mazzini, his articles on Carlyle, 58; Carlyle's defence of his character, 59; remonstrates vainly with Carlyle, 69. Milnes, R. M., see _Houghton_, Lord. Mirabeau, 23. Moore, Thomas, meets Carlyle at a breakfast party, 38. Musæus, Carlyle's translations from, 17. Napier, Sir William, his History of the Administration of Scinde 81; Carlyle's letter to him, 81-85. Necker, Carlyle's biography of him, quoted, 11. Nero, death of, 22. Newfoundland, Carlyle's account of, quoted, 12. Ossoli, see _Fuller_. _Past and Present_, 53; quoted, 187-188. _Paul et Virginie_, 44. Petrarch and _Laura_, 67. Phocion, 167. Quincey, see _De Quincey_. Richardson, David Lester, his _Literary Leaves_, 40; Carlyle's letter to him, 40-44. Richter, Jean Paul, 17. Robinson, Henry Crabb, 38, 39. Rous, Sir Francis, 148. Rousseau, at St. Pierre, 19; his Confessions, 23. Ruskin, John, his praise of Boehm's statue of Carlyle, 116, 121. Rugby School, 63, 64. _Sartor Resartus_, 36, 37. Schiller, Friedrich, Carlyle's life of him, 15; Supplement to, 115. Shakespeare, 67. Smith, Alexander, his account of the delivery of Carlyle's Address at Edinburgh, 87-92. Socrates, disparaged by Carlyle, 23. Sophocles, the tragedies of, 141. Sterling, John, 37, 38; death of, 62; Carlyle's life of him, 81. Stirling, Dr., Carlyle's letter to, 189-191. Tennyson, why he wrote in verse, 67. Teufelsdröckh, 36, 68. Thackeray, W.M., his verses on the death of Charles Buller, 15, 74-75. Tieck, 17. Turveydrop senior, on Polished Deportment, 49. University of Edinburgh, 125. Watts, G.F., his portrait of Carlyle, 120. Welsh family, 17. Whistler, J.A., his portrait of Carlyle, 120. Youth, the golden season of life, 130. Zoilus, 19. THE END. 
12914	----	Online Distributed Proofreaders Team ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS With Commentary and an Essay on Books and Reading by JOHN COWPER POWYS 1916 PREFACE This selection of "One hundred best books" is made after a different method and with a different purpose from the selections already in existence. Those apparently are designed to stuff the minds of young persons with an accumulation of "standard learning" calculated to alarm and discourage the boldest. The following list is frankly subjective in its choice; being indeed the selection of one individual, wandering at large and in freedom through these "realms of gold." The compiler holds the view that in expressing his own predilection, he is also supplying the need of kindred minds; minds that read purely for the pleasure of reading, and have no sinister wish to transform themselves by that process into what are called "cultivated persons." The compiler feels that any one who succeeds in reading, with reasonable receptivity, the books in this list, must become, at the end, a person with whom it would be a delight to share that most classic of all pleasurable arts--the art of intelligent conversation. BOOKS AND READING There is scarcely any question, the sudden explosion of which out of a clear sky, excites more charming perturbation in the mind of a man--professionally, as they say, "of letters"--than the question, so often tossed disdainfully off from young and ardent lips, as to "what one should read," if one has--quite strangely and accidentally--read hitherto absolutely nothing at all. To secure the privilege of being the purveyor of spiritual germination to such provocatively virgin soil, is for the moment so entirely exciting that all the great stiff images from the dusty museum of "standard authors," seem to swim in a sort of blurred mist before our eyes, and even, some of them at least, to nod and beckon and put out their tongues. After a while, however, the shock of first excitement diminishing, that solemn goblin Responsibility lifts up its head, and though we bang at it and shoo it away, and perhaps lock it up, the pure sweet pleasure of our seductive enterprise, the "native hue," as the poet says, of our "resolution" is henceforth "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and the fine design robbed of its freshest dew. As a matter of fact, much deeper contemplations and maturer ponderings, only tend, in the long run, to bring us back to our original starting-point. It is just this very bugbear of Responsibility which in the consciences and mouths of grown-up persons sends the bravest of our youth post-haste to confusion--so impinging and inexorable are the thing's portentous horns. It is indeed after these maturer considerations that we manage to hit upon the right key really capable of impounding the obtrusive animal; the idea, namely, of indicating to our youthful questioner the importance of aesthetic austerity in these regions--an austerity not only no less exclusive, but far more exclusive than any mandate drawn from the Decalogue. The necessary matter, in other words, at the beginning of such a tremendous adventure as this blowing wind into the sails of a newly built little schooner, or sometimes even of a poor rain-soaked harbor-rotten brig, bound for the Fortunate Islands, is the inspiration of the right mood, the right tone, the right temper, for the splendid voyage. It is not enough simply to say "acquire aesthetic severity." With spoils so inexhaustible offered to us on every side, some more definite orientation is desirable. Such an orientation, limiting the enormous scope of the enterprise, within the sphere of the possible, can only be wisely found in a person's own individual taste; but since such a taste is, obviously, in a measure "acquired," the compiler of any list of books must endeavor, by a frank and almost shameless assertion of _his_ taste, to rouse to a divergent reciprocity the latent taste, still embryotic, perhaps, and quite inchoate, of the young person anxious to make some sort of a start. Such a neophyte in the long voyage--a voyage not without its reefs and shoals--will be much more stirringly provoked to steer with a bold firm hand, even by the angry reaction he may feel from such suggestions, than by a dull academic chart--professing tedious judicial impartiality--of all the continents, promontories, and islands, marked on the official map. One does not trust youth enough, that is in short what is the matter with our educational method, in this part of it at least, which concerns "what one is to read." One teases oneself too much, and one's infants, too, poor darlings, with what might be called the "scholastic-veneration-cult"; the cult, namely, of becoming a superior person by reading the best authors. It comes back, after all, to what your young person emphatically is, in himself, independent of all this acquiring. If he has the responsive chord, the answering vibration, he may well get more imaginative stimulus from reading "Alice in Wonderland," than from all the Upanishads and Niebelungenlieds in the world. It is a matter of the imagination, and to the question "What is one to read?" the best reply must always be the most personal: "Whatever profoundly and permanently stimulates your imagination." The list of books which follows in this volume constitutes in itself, in the mere perusal of the titles, such a potential stimulation. A reader who demands, for instance, why George Eliot is omitted, and Oliver Onions included; why Sophocles is excluded and Catullus admitted, is brought face to face with that essential right of personal choice in these high matters, which is not only the foundation of all thrilling interest in literature, but the very ground and soil of all-powerful literary creation. The secret of the art of literary taste, may it not be found to be nothing else than the secret of the art of life itself--I mean the capacity for discovering the real fatality, the real predestined direction of one's intrinsic nature and the refusal, when this is found, to waste one's energies in alien paths and irrelevant junketings? A list of books of the kind appended here, becomes, by the very reason of its shameless subjectivity, a challenge to the intelligence perusing it--a challenge that is bound, in some degree or another, to fling such a reader back upon his own inveterate prejudices; to fling him back upon them with a sense that it is his affair reasonably to justify them. From quite another point of view, however, might the appended list find its excuse--I mean as being a typical choice; in other words, the natural choice of a certain particular minority of minds, who, while disagreeing in most essentials, in this one important essential find themselves in singular harmony. And this minority of minds, of minds with the especial prejudices and predilections indicated in this list, undoubtedly has a real and definite existence; there are such people, and any list of books which they made would exclude the writers here excluded, and include the writers here included, though in particular instances, the motives of the choice might differ. For purely psychological reasons then--as a kind of human document in criticism, shall we say?--such a list comes to have its value; nor can the value be anything but enhanced by the obvious fact that in this particular company there are several quite prominent and popular writers, both ancient and modern, signalized, as it were, if not penalized, by their surprising absence. The niches of such venerated names do not exactly call aloud for occupancy, for they are emphatically filled by less popular figures; but they manifest a sufficient sense of incongruity to give the reader's critical conscience the sort of jolt that is so salutary a mental stimulus. A further value might be discovered for our exclusive catalogue, in the interest of noting--and this interest might well appeal to those who would themselves have selected quite a different list--the curious way certain books and writers have of hanging inevitably together, and necessarily implying one another. Thus it appears that the type of mind--it would be presumptuous to call it the best type of mind--which prefers Euripides to Sophocles, and Heine to Schiller, prefers also Emily Brontë to Charlotte Brontë, and Oliver Onions to Compton Mackenzie. Given the mind that in compiling such a list would at once drag in The Odyssey and The Psalms, and run hastily on to Sir Thomas Browne and Charles Lamb, we are instinctively conscious that when it reaches, with its arbitrary divining rod, our own unlucky age, it will skip quite lightly over Thackeray; wave an ambiguous hand in the direction of Meredith, and sit solemnly down to make elaborate mention of all the published works of Walter Pater, Thomas Hardy and Mr. Henry James. It seems to me that nothing is more necessary, in regard to the advice to be given to young and ardent people, in the matter of their reading, than some sort of communication of the idea--and it is not an easy idea to convey--that there is in this affair a subtle fusion desirable between one's natural indestructible prejudices, and a certain high authoritative standard; a standard which we may name, for want of a better word, "classical taste," and which itself is the resultant amalgam of all the finest personal reactions of all the finest critical senses, winnowed out, as it were, and austerely purged, by the washing of the waves of time. It will be found, as a matter of fact, that this latter element in the motives of our choice works as a rule negatively rather than positively, while the positive and active force in our appreciations remains, as it ought to remain, our own inviolable and quite personal bias. The winnowed taste of the ages, acquired by us as a sort of second nature, warns us what to avoid, while our own nerves and palate, stimulated to an ever deepening subtlety, as our choice narrows itself down, tells us what passionately and spontaneously we must snatch up and enjoy. It will be noted that in what we have tried to indicate as the only possible starting-point for adventurous criticism, there has been a constant assumption of a common ground between sensitive people; a common sensual and psychic language, so to speak, to which appeals may be made, and through which intelligent tokens may be exchanged. This common ground is not necessarily--one is reluctant to introduce metaphysical speculation--any hidden "law of beauty" or "principle of spiritual harmony." It is, indeed, as far as we can ever know for certain, only "objective" in the sense of being essentially human; in the sense, that is, of being something that inevitably appeals to what, below temperamental differences, remains permanent and unchanging in us. "Nature," as Leonardo says, "is the mistress of the higher intelligences"; and Goethe, in his most oracular utterances, recalls us to the same truth. What imagination does, and what the personal vision of the individual artist does, is to deal successfully and masterfully with this "given," this basic element. And this basic element, this permanent common ground, this universal human assumption, is just precisely what, in popular language, we call "Nature"; that substratum of objective reality in the appearances of things, which makes it possible for diversely constructed temperaments to make their differences effective and intelligible. There could be no recognizable differences, no conversation, in fact, if, in the impossible hypothesis of the absence of any such common language, we all shouted at one another "in vacuo" and out of pure darkness. It is from their refusal to recognize the necessity for something at least relatively objective in what the individual imagination works upon, that certain among modern artists, if not among modern poets, bewilder and puzzle us. They have a right to make endless experiments--every original mind has that--but they cannot let go their hold on some sort of objective solidity without becoming inarticulate, without giving vent to such unrelated and incoherent cries as overtake one in the corridors of Bedlam. "Nature is the mistress of the higher intelligencies," and though the individual imagination is at liberty to treat Nature with a certain creative contempt, it cannot afford to depart altogether from her, lest by relinquishing the common language between men and men, it should simply flap its wings in an enchanted circle, and utter sounds that are not so much different from other sounds, as outside the region where any sound carries an intelligible meaning. The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading books is probably at the bottom of the abominable pedantry that thrusts so many tiresome pieces of antiquity down the throats of youth. There is no talisman for getting wise--some of the wisest in the world never open a book, and yet their native wit, so heavenly-free from "culture," would serve to challenge Voltaire. Lovers of books, like other infatuated lovers, best know the account they find in their exquisite obsessions. None of the explanations they give seem to cover the field of their enjoyment. The thing is a passion; a sort of delicate madness, and like other passions, quite unintelligible to those who are outside. Persons who read for the purpose of making a success of their added erudition, or the better to adapt themselves--what a phrase!--to their "life's work," are, to my thinking, like the wretches who throw flowers into graves. What sacrilege, to trail the reluctances and coynesses, the shynesses and sweet reserves of these "furtivi amores" at the heels of a wretched ambition to be "cultivated" or learned, or to "get on" in the world! Like the kingdom of heaven and all other high and sacred things, the choicest sorts of books only reveal the perfume of their rare essence to those who love them for themselves in pure disinterestedness. Of course they "mix in," these best-loved authors, with every experience we encounter; they throw around places, hours, situations, occasions, a quite special glamour of their own, just as one's more human devotions do; but though they float, like a diffused aroma, round every circumstance of our days, and may even make tolerable the otherwise intolerable hours of our impertinent "life's work," we do not love them because they help us here or help us there; or make us wiser or make us better; we love them because they are what they are, and we are what we are; we love them, in fact, for the beautiful reason which the author of that noble book--a book not in our present list, by the way, because of something obstinately tough and tedious in him--I mean Montaigne's Essays--loved his sweet friend Etienne. Any other commerce between books and their readers smacks of Baconian "fruits" and University lectures. It is a prostitution of pleasure to profit. As with all the rare things in life, the most delicate flavor of our pleasure is found not exactly and precisely in the actual taste of the author himself; not, I mean, in the snatching of huge bites out of him, but in the fragrance of anticipation; in the dreamy solicitations of indescribable afterthoughts; in those "airy tongues that syllable men's names" on the "sands and shores" of the remote margins of our consciousness. How delicious a pleasure there is in carrying about with us wherever we go a new book or a new translation from the pen of our especial master! We need not open it; we need not read it for days; but it is there--there to be caressed and to caress--when everything is propitious, and the profane voices are hushed. I suppose, to take an instance that has for myself a peculiar appeal, the present edition--"brought out" by the excellent house of Macmillan--of the great Dostoievsky, is producing even now in the sensibility of all sorts and conditions of queer readers, a thrilling series of recurrent pleasures, like the intermittent visits of one's well-beloved. Would to God the mortal days of geniuses like Dostoievsky could be so extended that for all the years of one's life, one would have such works, still not quite finished, in one's lucky hands! I sometimes doubt whether these sticklers for "the art of condensation" are really lovers of books at all. For myself, I would class their cursed short stories with their teasing "economy of material," as they call it, with those "books that are no books," those checker boards and moral treatises which used to annoy Elia so. Yes, I have a sneaking feeling that all this modern fuss about "art" and the "creative vision" and "the projection of visualized images," is the itching vice of quite a different class of people, from those who, in the old, sweet, epicurean way, loved to loiter through huge digressive books, with the ample unpremeditated enjoyment of leisurely travelers wayfaring along a wonderful road. How many luckless innocents have teased and fretted their minds into a forced appreciation of that artistic ogre Flaubert, and his laborious pursuit of his precious "exact word," when they might have been pleasantly sailing down Rabelais' rich stream of immortal nectar, or sweetly hugging themselves over the lovely mischievousness of Tristram Shandy! But one must be tolerant; one must make allowances. The world of books is no puritanical bourgeois-ridden democracy; it is a large free country, a great Pantagruelian Utopia, ruled by noble kings. Our "One Hundred Best Books" need not be yours, nor yours ours; the essential thing is that in this brief interval between darkness and darkness, which we call our life, we should be thrillingly and passionately amused; innocently, if so it can be arranged--and what better than books lends itself to that?--and harmlessly, too, let us hope, God help us, but at any rate, amused, for the only unpardonable sin is the sin of taking this passing world too gravely. Our treasure is not here; it is in the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of heaven is Imagination. Imagination! How all other ways of escape from what is mediocre in our tangled lives grow pale beside that high and burning star! With Imagination to help us we can make something of our days, something of the drama of this confused turmoil, and perhaps, after all--who can tell?--there is more in it than mere "amusement." Once and again, as we pause in our reading, there comes a breath, a whisper, a rumor, of something else; of something over and above that "eternal now" which is the wisest preoccupation of our passion, but not wise are those who would seek to confine this fleeting intimation within the walls of reason or of system. It comes; it goes; it is; it is not. The Hundred Best Books did not bring it; the Hundred Best Books cannot take it away. Strangely and wonderfully it blends itself with those vague memories of what we have read, somewhere, sometime, and not always alone. Strangely and wonderfully it blends itself with those other moments when the best books in the world seem irrelevant, and all "culture" an impertinent intrusion; but however it comes and however it goes, it is the thing that makes our gravity ridiculous; our philosophy pedantic. It is the thing that gives to the "amusements" of the imagination that touch of burning fire; that breath of wider air; that taste of sharper salt, which, arriving when we least expect it, and least--heaven knows--deserve it, makes any final opinion upon the stuff of this world vain and false; and any condemnation of the opinions of others foolish and empty. It destroys our assurances as it alleviates our miseries, and in some unspeakable way, like a primrose growing on the edge of a sepulchre, it flings forth upon the heavy night, a fleeting signal, "Bon espoir y gist au fond!" ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS 1. THE PSALMS OF DAVID. The Psalms remain, whether in the Latin version or in the authorized English translation, the most pathetic and poignant, as well as the most noble and dignified of all poetic literature. The rarest spirits of our race will always return to them at every epoch in their lives for consolation, for support and for repose. 2. HOMER. THE ODYSSEY. _Butcher and Lang's Prose Translation_. The Odyssey must continue to appeal to adventurous persons more powerfully than any other of the ancient stories because, blent with the classic quality of its pure Greek style, there can be found in it that magical element of thrilling romance, which belongs not to one age, but to all time. 3. THE BACCHANALS. THE BACCHÆ OF EURIPIDES. _Translated by Professor Gilbert Murray_. Euripides, the favourite poet of John Milton and Goethe, is the most modern in feeling, the most romantic in mood of all the Greek poets. One is conscious that in his work, as in the sculpture of Praxiteles, the calm beauty of the Apollonian temper is touched by the wilder rhythm of the perilous music of Dionysus. 4. HORACE. _Any selection in Latin of The Odes of Horace and complete prose translation published by Macmillan_. Flawlessly hammered out, as if from eternal bronze--"aere perennius"--The Odes of Horace are the consummate expression of the pride, the reserve, the tragic playfulness, the epicurean calm, the absolute distinction of the Imperial Roman spirit. A few lines taken at random and learned by heart would act as a talisman in all hours to drive away the insolent pressure of the vulgar and common crowd. 5. CATULLUS. _Any Latin edition and the prose translation published by Macmillan bound up with Tibullus_. Catullus, the contemporary of Julius Caesar, is, of all the ancient lyrical poets, the one most modern and neurotic in feeling. One discerns in his work, breathing through the ancient Roman reserve, the pressure of that passionate and rebellious reaction to life, which we enjoy in the most magical of all later poets from Villon to Verlaine. 6. DANTE 'S DIVINE COMEDY. _Best edition the "Temple Classics," in three small volumes, with the Italian original and English prose translation on opposite pages_. Dante's poetry can legitimately be enjoyed in single great passages, of which there are more in the "Inferno" than in the other sections of the poem. His peculiar quality is a certain blending of mordant realism with a high and penetrating beauty. There is no need in reading him to vex oneself with symbolic interpretations. He is at his best, when from behind his scholastic philosophy, bursts forth, in direct personal betrayal, his pride, his humility, his passion, and his disdain. 7. RABELAIS. _The English translation with the Doré illustrations_. Rabelais is the philosopher's Bible and his book of outrageous jests. He is the recondite cult of wise and magnanimous spirits. He reconciles Nature with Art, Man with God, and religious piety with shameless enjoyment. His style restores to us our courage and our joy; and his noble buffoonery gives us back the sweet wantonness of our youth. Rabelais is the greatest intellect in literature. No one has ever had a humor so large; an imagination so creative, or a spirit so world-swallowing, so humane, so friendly. 8. CANDIDE. _Any French edition or English translation_. Voltaire was a true man of action, a knight of the Holy Ghost. He plunged fiercely into the human arena, and fought through a laborious life, against obscurantism, stupidity and tyranny. He had a clear-cut, aristocratic mind. He hated mystical balderdash, clumsy barbarity, and stupid hypocrisy. Candide is not only a complete refutation of optimism; it is a book full of that mischievous humor, which has the power, more than anything else, of reconciling us to the business of enduring life. 9. SHAKESPEARE. _In the Temple edition_. It is time Shakespeare was read for the beauty of his poetry, and enjoyed without pedantry and with some imagination. The less usual and more cynical of his plays, such as Troilus, and Cressida, Measure for Measure and Timon of Athens, will be found to contain some very interesting commentaries upon life. The Shakespearean attitude of mind is quite a definite and articulate one, and one that can be, by slow degrees, acquired, even by persons who are not cultivated or clever. It is an attitude "compounded of many simples," and, like the melancholy of Jaques, it wraps us about "in a most humorous sadness." But the essential secret of Shakespeare's genius is best apprehended in the felicity of certain isolated passionate speeches, and in the magic of his songs. 10. MILTON. _Any edition_. No epicurean lover of the subtler delicacies in poetic rhythm or of the more exalted and translunar harmonies in the imaginative suggestiveness of words, can afford to leave Milton untouched. In sheer felicity of beauty--the beauty of suggestive words, each one carrying "a perfume in the mention," and together, by their arrangement in relation to one another, conveying a thrill of absolute and final satisfaction--no poem in our language surpasses Lycidas, and only the fine great odes of John Keats approach or equal it. There are passages, too, in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, which, for calm, flowing, and immortal loveliness, are not surpassed in any poetry in the world. Milton's work witnesses to the value in art of what is ancient and traditional, but while he willingly uses every tradition of antiquity, he stamps all he writes with his own formidable image and superscription. 11. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. RELIGIO MEDICI AND URN BURIAL. _In the "Scott Library" Series_. The very spirit of ancient Norwich, the mellowest and most historic of all English cities, breathes in these sumptuous and aromatic pages. After Lamb and Pater, both of whom loved him well, Browne is the subtlest adept in the recondite mysteries of rhythmic prose who can be enjoyed in our language. Not to catch the cadences of his peculiar music is to confess oneself deaf to the finer harmonies of words. 12. GOETHE. FAUST, _translated in English Poetry by Bayard Taylor_. WILHELM MEISTER, _in Carlyle's translation_. GOETHE'S CONVERSATIONS WITH ECKERMAN, _translation in Bohn's Library_. No other human name, except Da Vinci's, carries the high associations of oracular and occult wisdom as far as Goethe's does. He hears the voices of "the Mothers" more clearly than other men and in heathen loneliness he "builds up the pyramid of his existence." The deep authority of his formidable insight can be best enjoyed, not without little side-lights of a laconic irony, in the "Conversations"; while in Wilhelm Meister we learn to become adepts in the art of living in the Beautiful and True, in Faust that abysmal doubt as to the whole mad business of life is undermined with a craft equal to his own in the delineation and defeat of "the queer son of Chaos." 15. NIETZSCHE. ZARATHUSTRA, THE JOYFUL WISDOM, AND ECCE HOMO _are all translated in the English edition of Foulis and published in America by Macmillan. Lichtenberger's exposition of his doctrines is in the same series. The most artistic life of him is by Daniel Halêvy, translated from the French_. Nietzsche's writings when they fall into the hands of Philistines are more misunderstood than any others. To appreciate his noble and tragic distinction with the due pinch of Attic salt it is necessary to be possessed of more imagination than most persons are able to summon up. The dramatic grandeur of Nietzsche's extraordinary intellect overtops all the flashes of his psychological insight; and his terrific conclusions remain as mere foot-prints of his progress from height to height. 18. HEINE. HEINE'S PROSE WORKS WITH THE "CONFESSIONS," _translated in the "Scott Library." A good short life of Heine in the "Great Writers" Series_. Heine's genius remains unique. Full of dreamy attachment to Germany he lived and died in Paris, but his heart was always with the exiles of Israel. Mocker and ribald, he touches depths of sentimental tenderness sounded by none other. He fooled the philosophers, provoked the pious, and confused the minds of his free-thinking friends by outbursts of wilful reaction. He sticks the horns of satyrish "diablerie" on the lovely forehead of the most delicate romance; and he flings into his magical poems of love and the sea the naughty mud-pellets of an outrageous capriciousness. 19. SUDERMANN. SONG OF SONGS. _Translation into English published by Huebsch of New York_. Sudermann is the most remarkable and characteristic of modern German writers. His massive and laborious realism, his firm and exhaustive exposition of turbulent and troubled hearts, his heavy sledge-hammer style, his comprehension of the shadowy background of the most ponderous sensuality, are all found at their best in this solemn and sordid and pitiable tale. 20. HAUPTMANN. THE FOOL IN CHRIST, _translation published by Huebsch, New York_. Hauptmann seems, of all recent Teutonic authors, the one who has in the highest degree that tender imaginative sentiment mixed with rugged and humorous piety which one finds in the old German Protestant Mystics and in such works of art as the engravings of Albert Durer and the Wooden Madonna of Nuremburg. "The Fool in Christ"--outside some of the characters in Dostoievsky--is the nearest modern approach to a literary interpretation of what remains timeless and permanent in the Christ-Idea. 21. IBSEN. _Any edition of Ibsen containing the_ WILD DUCK. Ibsen is still the most formidable of obstinate individualists. Absolute self-reliance is the note he constantly strikes. He is obsessed by the psychology of moral problems; but for him there are no universal ethical laws--"the golden rule is that there is no golden rule"--thus while in the Pillars of Society he advocates candid confession and honest revelation of the truth of things; in the "Wild Duck" he attacks the pig-headed meddler, who comes "dunning us with claims of the Ideal." Ultimately, though absorbed in "matters of conscience," it is as an artist rather than as a philosopher that he visualizes the world. 22. STRINDBERG. THE CONFESSIONS OF A FOOL. Strindberg has obtained, because of his own neurotic and almost feminine clairvoyance, a diabolical insight into the perversities of the feminine character. This merciless insight manifested in all his works reaches its intensest degree in the "Confessions of a Fool," where the woman implicated surpasses the perversities of the normal as greatly as the lashing energy with which he pursues her to her inmost retreats surpasses the vengeance of any ordinary lover. 23. EMERSON. _Routledge's complete works of Emerson, or any other edition containing everything in one volume_. The clear, chaste, remote and distinguished wisdom of Emerson with its shrewd preacher's wit and country-bred humor, will always be of stirring and tonic value to certain kindred minds. Others will prove him of little worth; but it is to be noted that Nietzsche found him a sane and noble influence principally on the ground of his serene detachment from the phenomena of sin and disease and death. He will always remain suggestive and stimulating to those who demand a spiritual interpretation of the Universe but reluct at committing themselves to any particular creed. 24. WALT WHITMAN. _The complete unexpurgated edition of all his poems, with his prose works and Mr. Traubel's books about him as a further elucidation_. Walt Whitman is the only Optimist and perhaps the only prophet of Democracy one can read without shame. The magical beauty of his style at its best has not even yet received complete justice. He has the power of restoring us to courage and joy even under circumstances of aggravated gloom. He puts us in some indescribable manner "en rapport" with the large, cool, liquid spaces and with the immense and transparent depths. More than any he is the poet of passionate friendship and the poet of all those exquisite evasive emotions which arise when our loves and our regrets are blended with the presence of Nature. 25. EDGAR LEE MASTERS. SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, _published by Macmillan_. After Whitman and Poe, Mr. Masters is by far the most original and interesting of American poets. There is something Chaucerian about the quizzical and whimsical manner in which he tells his brief and homely stories. His characters are penetrated with the bleak and yet cheerful tone of the "Middle West." Something quaint, humorous and astringent emerges as their dominant note. Mr. Masters has the massive ironical observation and the shrewd humane wit of the great English novelists of the eighteenth century. His dead people reveal "the true truth" of their sordid and troubled lives. The little chances, the unguessed-at accidents, the undeserved blows of a capricious destiny, which batter so many of us into helpless inertness, are the aspects of life which interest him most. 26. THEODORE DREISER. THE TITAN. Of all modern novelists Theodore Dreiser most entirely catches the spirit of America. Here is the huge torrential stream of material energies. Here are the men and women, so pushed and driven and parched and bleached, by the enormous forces of industry and commerce, that all distinction in them seems to be reduced to a strange colorlessness; while the primordial animal cravings, greedy, earth-born, fumble after their aims across the sad and littered stage of sombre scenery. There is something epic--something enormous and amorphous--like the body of an elemental giant--about each of these books. In the "Titan," especially, the peculiar power of Dreiser's massive, coulter-like impetus is evident. Here we realize how, between animal passion and material ambition, there is little room left in such a nature as Cooperwood's for any complicated subtlety. All is simple, direct, hard and healthy--a very epitome and incarnation of the life-force, as it manifests itself in America. 27. CERVANTES. DON QUIXOTE. _In any translation except those vulgarized by eighteenth century taste_. Cervantes' great, ironical, romantic story is written in a style so noble, so nervous, so humane, so branded with reality, that, as the wise critic has said, the mere touch and impact of it puts courage into our veins. It is not necessary to read every word of this old book. There are tedious passages. But not to have ever opened it; not to have caught the tone, the temper, the terrible courage, the infinite sadness of it, is to have missed being present at one of the "great gestures" of the undying, unconquerable spirit of humanity. 28. VICTOR HUGO. THE TOILERS OF THE SEA. _In any translation_. Victor Hugo is the greatest of all incorrigible romanticists. Something between a prophet, a charlatan, a rhetorician, and a spoiled child, he believes in God, in democracy, in innocence, in justice, and he has a noble and unqualified devotion to human heroism and the depths of the dangerous sea. He has that arbitrary, maniacal inventive imagination which is very rare except in children--and in spite of his theatrical gestures he has the power of conjuring up scenes of incredible beauty and terror. 29. BALZAC. LOST ILLUSIONS. COUSIN BETTE. PÉRE GORIOT. HUMAN COMEDY, _in any translation. Saintsbury's is as good as any_. Balzac's books create a complete world, which has many points of contact with reality; but, in a deep essential sense, is the projection of the novelist's own passionate imagination. A thundering tide of subterranean energy, furious and titanic, sweeps, with its weight of ponderous details, through every page of these dramatic volumes. Every character has its obsession, its secret vice, its spiritual drug. Even when, as in the case of Vautrin, he lets his demonic fancy carry him very far, there is a grandeur, an amplitude, a smouldering flame of passion, which redeem a thousand preposterous extravagances. His dramatic psychology is often drowned in the tide of his creative energy; but though his world is not always the world of our experience, it is always a world in which we are magnetized to feel at home. It is consistent with its own amazing laws; the laws of the incredible Balzacian genius. Profoundly moral in its basic tendency, the "Human Comedy" seems to point, in its philosophical undercurrent, at the permanent need in our wayward and childish emotionalism, for wise and master-guides, both in the sphere of religion and in the sphere of politics. 32. GUY DE MAUPASSANT. LE MAISON TELLIER. MADAME TELLIER'S ESTABLISHMENT. _Any translation, preferably not one bound in paper or in an "Edition de Luxe."_ Guy de Maupassant's short stories remain, with those of Henry James and Joseph Conrad, the very best of their kind. After "Madame Tellier's Establishment" perhaps the stories called respectively "A Farm Girl" and "Love" are the best he wrote. He has the eternal excellencies of savage humanity, savage sincerity, and savage brevity. His pessimism is deep, absolute, unshaken;--and the world, as we know it, deserves what he gives it of sensualized literary reactions, each one like the falling thud of the blade of a murderous axe. His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man's natural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of his Norman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "the real thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth know it--"stark, bleak, terrible and lovely." His subjects may not wander very far from the basic situations. He does not deal in spiritual subtleties. But when he hits, he hits the mark. 33. STENDHAL (HENRI BEYLE). LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR. _Either the original French or any translation, if possible with a preface; for the life of Stendhal is of extraordinary interest_. Stendhal is one of those who, following Goethe and anticipating Nietzsche, has not hesitated to propound the psychological justifications for a life based upon pagan rather than Christian ethics. A shrewd and sly observer, with his own peculiar brand of the egoistic cult, Stendhal lived a life of desperately absorbing emotions, most of them intellectual and erotic. He made an æsthetic use of the Will to Power before even Nietzsche used that singular expression. In "Le Rouge et le Noir" the eternal sex-struggle with its fierce accompaniment of "Odi et Amo" is concentrated in the clash of opposing forms of pride; the pride of intellect against the pride of sex-vanity. No writer has ever lived with more contempt for mere sedentary theories or a fiercer mania for the jagged and multifarious edges of life's pluralistic eccentricity. For any reader teased and worried by idealistic perversion this obstinate materialistic sage will have untold value. And yet he knows, none better, the place of sentiment in life! 34. ANATOLE FRANCE. L'ORME DE MAIL. L'ABBE JEROME COIGNARD. LE LIVRE DE MON AMI. _Either in French or the authorized English translation_. Anatole France, now translated into English, is the most classical, the most ironical, the most refined, of all modern European writers. He is also, of all others, the most antipathetic to the Anglo-Saxon type of mind. In a word he is a humanist of the great tradition--a civilized artist--a great and wise man. He is Rabelaisian and Voltairian, at the same time. His style has something of the urbanity, the unction, the fine malice, of Renan; but it has also a quality peculiar to its creator--a sort of transparent objectivity, lucid as rarified air, and contemptuously cold as a fragment of antique marble. Monsieur Bergeret, who appears in all four of the masterpieces devoted to Contemporary France, is a creation worthy, as some one has said, of the author of Tristram Shandy. One cannot forget that Anatole France spent his childhood among the bookshops on the South side of the Seine. We are conscious all the while in reading him of the wise, tender, pitiful detachment of a true scholar of the classics, contemplating the mad pell-mell of human life from a certain epicurean remoteness, and loving and mocking the sons and daughters of men, as if they were little children or comical small animals. 37. REMY DE GOURMONT. UNE NUIT AU LUXEMBOURG. _Translated with a preface by Arthur Ransome, published by Luce, Boston_. Remy de Gourmont's death must be regretted by all lovers of the rare in art and the remote in character. As a poet his "Litany of the Rose" has that strange, ambiguous, sinister, and lovely appeal, the full appreciation of which is an initiation into all the "enclosed gardens" of the world. He is a great critic--perhaps the greatest since Walter Pater--and as a philosopher his constant and frank advocacy of a noble and shameless Hedonism has helped to clear the air in the track of Nietzsche's thunder-bolts. His audacity in placing an exposition of the very principles of Epicurean Hedonism, touched with Spinozistic equanimity, into the mouth of our Lord, wandering through the Luxembourg Gardens, may perhaps startle certain gentle souls, but the Dorian delicacy of what might for a moment appear blasphemous robs this charming Idyll of any gross or merely popular profanity. It is a book for those who have passed through more than one intellectual Renaissance. Like the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius it has a philosophical justification for its mythological audacity. 38. PAUL BOURGET. LE DISCIPLE. "Le Disciple" is perhaps the best work of this voluminous and interesting writer. Devoid of irony, deficient in humor, lacking any large imaginative power, Paul Bourget holds, all the same, an unassailable place among French writers. Though a devoted adherent of Goethe and Stendhal, Bourget represents, along with Bordeaux, the conservative ethical reaction. He upholds Catholicism and the sacredness of the "home." He is a master in plot and has a clear, vigorous and appealing style. A gravely portentous sentiment sometimes spoils his tragic effects; but every lover of Paris will enjoy the unctuous elaboration of the "backgrounds" of his stories, touched often with the most delicate and mellow evocations of that City's atmosphere. 39. ROMAIN ROLLAND. JEAN CHRISTOPHE. _Translated by Gilbert Cannan_. Rolland's "Christophe" is without doubt the most remarkable book that has appeared in Europe since Nietzsche's "Ecce Homo." It is a profoundly suggestive treatise upon the relations between art and life. It contains a deep and heroic philosophy--the philosophy of the worship of the mysterious life-force as God; and of the reaching out beyond the turmoil of good and evil towards some vast and dimly articulated reconciliation. Since "Wilhelm Meister" no book has been written more valuable as an intellectual ladder to the higher levels of æsthetic thought and feeling. Massive and dramatic, powerful and suggestive, it magnetizes us into an acceptance of its daring and optimistic hopes for the world; of its noble suggestions of a spiritual synthesis of the opposing race-traditions of Europe. Of all the books mentioned in this list it is the one which the compiler would most strongly recommend to the notice of those anxious to win a firmer intellectual standing-ground. 40. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO. THE FLAME OF LIFE. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. _Translated by Arthur Hornblow_. D'Annunzio is the most truly Italian, the most inveterately Latin, of all recent writers. Without light and shade, without "nuance," without humor or irony, he compels our attention by the clear-cut, monumental images he projects, by the purple and scarlet splendor of his imperial dreams. His philosophy, though lacking in the deep and tragic imagination of Nietzsche, has something of the Nietzschean intellectual fury. He teaches a shameless and antinomian hedonism, narrower, less humane, but more fervid and emotional, than that taught by Remy de Gourmont. In "The Triumph of Death" we find a fierce smoldering voluptuousness, expressed with a hard and brutal realism which recalls the frescoes on the walls of ancient Pompeii. In "The Flame of Life" we have in superb rhetoric the most colored and ardent description of Venice to be found in all literature. Perhaps the finest passage he ever wrote is that account of the speech of the Master of Life in the Doge's Palace with its incomparable eulogy upon Veronese and its allusion to Pisanello's head of Sigismondo Malatesta. 42. DOSTOIEVSKY. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THE IDIOT. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. THE INSULTED AND INJURED. THE POSSESSED. _Translated by Constance Garnett and published by Macmillan. Other translations in Everyman's Library_. Dostoievsky is the greatest and most racial of all Russian writers. He is the subtlest psychologist in fiction. As an artist he has a dark and sombre intensity and an imaginative vehemence only surpassed by Shakespeare. As a philosopher he anticipates Nietzsche in the direction of his insight, though in his conclusions he is diametrically opposite. He teaches that out of weakness, abnormality, perversity, foolishness, desperation, abandonment, and a morbid pleasure in humiliation, it is possible to arrive at high and unutterable levels of spiritual ecstasy. His ideal is sanctity--not morality--and his revelations of the impassioned and insane motives of human nature--its instinct towards self-destruction for instance--will never be surpassed for their terrible and convincing truth. The strange Slavophil dream of the regeneration of the world by the power of the Russian soul and the magic of the "White Christ who comes out of Russia" could not be more arrestingly expressed than in these passionate and extraordinary works of art. 47. TURGENIEV. VIRGIN SOIL. A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES. _Translated by Constance Garnett. And "Lisa" in Everyman's Library_. Turgeniev is by far the most "artistic" as he is the most disillusioned and ironical of Russian writers. With a tender poetical delicacy, almost worthy of Shakespeare, he sketches his appealing portraits of young girls. His style is clear--objective--winnowed and fastidious. He has certain charming old-fashioned weaknesses--as for instance his trick of over-emphasizing the differences between his bad and good characters; but there is a clear-cut distinction, and a lucid charm about his work that reminds one of certain old crayon drawings or certain delicate water-color sketches. His allusions to natural scenery are always introduced with peculiar appropriateness and are never permitted to dominate the dramatic element of the story as happens so often in other writers. There is a sad and tender vein of unobtrusive moralizing running through his work but one is conscious that at bottom he is profoundly pessimistic and disenchanted. The gaiety of Turgeniev is winning and unforced; his sentiment natural and never "staled or rung upon." The pensive detachment of a sensitive and yet not altogether unworldly spirit seems to be the final impression evoked by his books. 50. GORKI--FOMA GORDYEFF. _Translation published by Scribners_. Maxim Gorki is one of the most interesting of Russian writers. His books have that flavour of the soil and that courageous spirit of vagabondage and social independence which is so rare and valuable a quality in literature. "Foma Gordyeff" is, after Dostoievsky's masterpieces, the most suggestive and arresting of Russian stories. That paralysis of the will which descends like an evil cloud upon Foma and at the same time seems to cause the ground to open under his feet and precipitate him into mysterious depths of nothingness, is at once tragically significant of certain aspects of the Russian soul and full of mysterious warnings to all those modern spirits in whom the power of action is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." For those who have been "fooled to the top of their bent" by the stupidities and brutalities of the crowd there is a savage satisfaction in reading of Foma's insane outbursts of misanthropy. 51. TCHEKOFF--SEAGULL. _Tchekoff's plays and short stories are published by Scribners in admirable translations_. Tchekoff is one of the gentlest and sweetest tempered of Russian writers. There is in him a genuine graciousness, a politeness of soul, an innate delicacy, which is not touched--as such qualities often are in the work of Turgeniev--with any kind of self-conscious Olympianism. A doctor, a consumptive, and a passionate lover of children, there is a whimsical humanity about all that Tchekoff writes which has a singular and quite special appeal. The "Seagull" is a play full of delicate subtleties and dreamy glimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things--the mere background and scenery of the play--are used to deepen and enhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic of this author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility which makes every material object one encounters significant with spiritual intimations. The mere business of plot--whether in his plays or stories--is not the important matter. The important matter is a certain sudden and pathetic illumination thrown upon the essential truth by some casual grouping of persons or of things--some emphatic or symbolic gesture--some significant movement among the silent "listeners." 52. ARTZIBASHEFF. SANINE, _translation published by Huebsch_. Artzibasheff is an extremist. The suicidal "motif" in the "Breaking-point" is worked out with an appalling and devastating thoroughness. Pessimism, in a superficial sense, could hardly go further; though compared with Dostoievsky's insight into the "infinite" in character, one is conscious of a certain closing of doors and narrowing of issues. "Sanine" himself is a sort of idealization of the sublimated common sense which seems to be this writer's selected virtue. Artzibasheff appears to advocate, as the wisest and sanest way of dealing with life, a certain robust and contemptuous self-assertion, kindly, genial, without baseness or malice; but free from any scruple and quite untroubled by remorse. If regarded seriously--as he appears to be intended to be--as an approximate human ideal, one cannot help feeling that in spite of his humorous anarchism and subjective zest for life, Sanine has in him something sententious and tiresome. He is, so to speak, an immoral prig; nor do his vivacious spirits compensate us for the lack of delicacy and irony in him. On the other hand there is something direct, downright and "honest" about his clear-thinking, and his shameless eroticism which wins our liking and affection, if not our admiration. Artzibasheff is indeed one of the few writers who dare excite our sympathy not only for the seduced in this world but for the seducer. 53. STERNE--TRISTRAM SHANDY. Sterne is a writer who less than any one else in the present list reveals the secrets of his manner and mind to the casual and hasty reader. "Tristram Shandy" and "The Sentimental Journey" are books to be enjoyed slowly and lingeringly, with many humorous after-thoughts and a certain Rabelaisian unction. A shrewd and ironical wisdom, gentle and light-fingered and redolent of evasive sentiment, is evoked from these digressive and wanton pages. At his best Sterne is capable of an imaginative interpretation of character which for delicacy and subtlety has never been surpassed. For the Epicurean in literature, his unfailing charm will be found in his style--a style so baffling in the furtive beauty of its disarming simplicity that even the greatest of literary critics have been unable to analyze its peculiar flavour. There is a winnowed purity about it, and a kind of elfish grace; and with both these things there mixes, strangely enough, a certain homely, almost Dutch domesticity, quaint and mellow and a little wanton--like a picture by Jan Steen. 54. JONATHAN SWIFT. TALE OF A TUB. Swift's mysterious and saturnine character, his outbursts of terrible rage; his exquisite moments of tenderness; his sledge-hammer blows; his diabolical irony; form a dramatic and tragic spectacle which no psychologist can afford to miss. With the "saeva indignatio" alluded to in his own epitaph, he puts his back, as it were, to the "flamantia moenia mundi" and hits out, insanely and blindly, at the human crowd he loathes. His secretive and desperate passion for Stella, his little girl pupil; his barbarous treatment of Vanessa--his savage championship of the Irish people against the Government--make up the dominant "notes" of a character so formidable that the terror of his personality strikes us with the force of an engine of destruction. His misanthropy is like the misanthropy of Shakespeare's Timon--his crushing sarcasms strike blow after blow at the poor flesh and blood he despises. The hatefulness of average humanity drives him to distraction and in his madness, like a wounded Titan, he spares nothing. To the whole human race he seems to utter the terrible words he puts into the mouth of God: "I to such blockheads set my wit, And damn you all--Go, go, you're bit!" 55. CHARLES LAMB. THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. Charles Lamb remains, of all English prose-writers, the one whose manner is the most beautiful. So rich, so delicate, so imaginative, so full of surprises, is the style of this seductive writer, that, for sheer magic and inspiration, his equals can only be found among the very greatest poets. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of Charles Lamb's philosophy. He indicates in his delicate evasive way--not directly, but as it were, in little fragments and morsels and broken snatches--a deep and subtle reconciliation between the wisdom of Epicurus and the wisdom of Christ. And through and beyond all this, there may be felt, as with the great poets, an indescribable sense of something withdrawn, withheld, reserved, inscrutable--a sense of a secret, rather to be intimated to the initiated, than revealed to the vulgar--a sense of a clue to a sort of Pantagruelian serenity; a serenity produced by no crude optimism but by some happy inward knowledge of a neglected hope. The great Rabelaisian motto, "bon espoir y gist au fond!" seems to emanate from the most wistful and poignant of his pages. He pities the unpitied, he redeems the commonplace, he makes the ordinary as if it were not ordinary, and by the sheer genius of his imagination he throws an indescribable glamour over the "little things" of the darkest of our days. Moving among old books, old houses, old streets, old acquaintances, old wines, old pictures, old memories, he is yet possessed of so original and personal a touch that his own wit seems as though it were the very soul and body of the qualities he so caressingly interprets. 56. SIR WALTER SCOTT. GUY MANNERING. BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. The large, easy, leisurely manner of Scott's writing, its digressiveness, its nonchalant carelessness, its indifference to artistic quality, has in some sort of way numbed and atrophied the interest in his work of those who have been caught up and waylaid by the modern spirit. And yet Scott's novels have ample and admirable excellencies. In his expansive and digressive fashion he can give his characters--especially the older and the more idiosyncratic among them--a surprising and convincing verisimilitude. He can create a plot which, though not dramatically flawless, has movement and energy and stir. The sweetness and modesty of his disposition lends itself to his portrayal of the more gracious aspects of human life, especially as seen in the humours and oddities of very simple and naïve persons. Under the stress of occasional emotion he can rise to quite noble heights of feeling and he is able to throw a startling glamour of romance over certain familiar and recurrent human situations. At his best there is a grandeur and simplicity of utterance about what his characters say and an ease and largeness of sympathy about his own commentaries upon them, which must win admiration even from those most avid of modern pathology. Without the passion of Balzac, or the insight of Dostoievsky, or the art of Turgeniev, there is yet, in the sweetness of Scott's own personality, and in the biblical grandeur of certain of the scenes he evokes, a quality and a charm which it would be at once foolish and arbitrary to neglect. 59. THACKERAY. THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND. Thackeray is a writer who occupies a curious and very interesting position. Devoid of the noble and romantic sympathies of Scott, and corrupted to the basic fibres of his being by Early Victorian snobbishness, he is yet--none can deny it--a powerful creator of living people and an accomplished and graceful stylist. Without philosophy, without faith, without moral courage, the uneasy slave of conventional morality, and with a hopeless vein of sheer worldly philistinism in his book, Thackeray is yet able, by a certain unconquerable insight into the motives and impulses of mediocre people, and by a certain weight and mass of creative force, to give a convincing reality to his pictures of life, which is almost devastating in its sneering and sentimental accuracy. The most winning and attractive thing about him is his devotion to the eighteenth century; a century whose manners he is able to depict in his large and gracious way without being disturbed by the pressure of that contemporary vulgarity which finds a too lively response in something bourgeois and snobbish in his own nature. Dealing with the eighteenth century he escapes not only from his age but from himself. 60. CHARLES DICKENS. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. The compiler has placed in this list only one of Dickens' books for a somewhat different reason from that which has influenced him in other cases. All Dickens' novels have a unique value, and such an equal value, that almost any one of them, chosen at random, can serve as an example of the rest. Those who still are not prohibited, by temperamental difficulty or by some modern fashion, from enjoying the peculiar atmosphere of this astonishing person's work, will be found reverting to him constantly and indiscriminately. "Great Expectations" is perhaps, as a more "artistic" book than the rest, the most fitted of them all to entice towards a more sympathetic understanding of his mood, those who are held from reading him by some more or less accidental reason. The most characteristic thing about this great genius is the power he possesses of breathing palpable life into what is often called the inanimate. Like Hans Andersen, the writer of fairy-stories, and, in a measure, like all children, Dickens endows with fantastic spirituality the most apparently dead things in our ordinary environment. His imagination plays superb tricks with such objects and things, touching the most dilapidated of them with a magic such as the genius of a great poet uses, when dealing with nature--only the "nature" of Dickens is made of less lovely matters than leaves and flowers. The wild exaggerations of Dickens--his reckless contempt for realistic possibility--need not hinder us from enjoying, apart from his revelling humor and his too facile sentiment, those inspired outbursts of inevitable truth, wherein the inmost identity of his queer people stands revealed to us. His world may be a world of goblins and fairies, but there cross it sometimes figures of an arresting appeal and human voices of divine imagination. 61. JANE AUSTEN. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Jane Austen's delicate and ironic art will remain unassailable through all changes of taste and varieties of opinion. What she really possesses--what might be called the clue to her inimitable secret--is nothing less than the power of giving expression to that undying ironic detachment, touched with a fine malice but full of tender understanding, which all women, to some degree or other, share, and which all men, to some degree or other, suffer from; in other words, the terrible and beautiful insight of the maternal instinct. The clear charm of her unequalled style--a style quite classical in its economy of material and its dignified reserve--is a charm frequently caught in the wit and fine malice of one's unmarried aunts; but it is, none the less, the very epitome of maternal humor. As a creative realist, giving to her characters the very body and pressure of actual life, no writer, living or dead, has surpassed her. Without romance, without philosophy, without social theories, without pathological curiosity, without the remotest interest in "Nature," she has yet managed to achieve a triumphant artistic success; and to leave an impression of serene wisdom such as no other woman writer has equaled or approached. 62. EMILY BRONTË. WÜTHERING HEIGHTS. Of all the books of all the Brontës, this one is the supreme masterpiece. Charlotte has genius and imagination. She has passion too. But there is a certain demonic violence about Emily which carries her work into a region of high and desperate beauty forbidden to the gentler spirit of her sister. The love of Heathcliff and Catherine breaks the bonds of ordinary sensual or sentimental relationship and hurls itself into that darker, stranger, more unearthly air, wherein one hears the voices of the great lovers; and where Sappho and Michaelangelo and Swift and Shelley and Nietzsche gasp forth their imprecations and their terrible ecstasies. Crude and rough and jagged and pitiless, the style of this astounding book seems to rend and tear, like a broken saw, at the very roots of existence. In some curious way, as in Balzac and Dostoievsky, emotions and situations which have the tone and mood of quite gross melodrama are so driven inwards by sheer diabolical intensity, that they touch the granite substratum of what is eternal in human passion. The smell of rain-drenched moors, the crying of the wind in the Scotch firs, the long lines of black rooks drifting across the twilight,--these things become, in the savage style of this extraordinary girl, the very symbols and tokens of the power that rends her spirit. 63. GEORGE MEREDITH. HARRY RICHMOND. "Harry Richmond" is at once the least Meredithian and the best of all Meredith's books. Meredith, though to a much less degree than George Eliot, is one of those pseudo-philosophic, pseudo-ethical writers, who influence a generation or two and then stem to become antiquated and faded. It is when he is least philosophical and least moralistic--as in the superbly imaginative figure of Richmond Roy--that he is at his greatest. There is, throughout his work, an unpleasing strain, like the vibration of a rope drawn out too tight,--a strain and a tug of intellectual intensity, that is not fulfilled by any corresponding intellectual wisdom. His descriptions of nature, in his poems, as well as in his prose works, have an original vigor and a pungent tang of their own; but the twisted violence of their introduction, full of queer jolts and jerks, prevents their impressing one with any sense of calm or finality. They are too aphoristic, these passages. They are too clever. They smell too much of the lamp. The same fault may be remarked in the rounding off of the Meredithian plots where one is so seldom conscious of the presence of the "inevitable" and so teased by the "obstinate questionings" of purely mental problems. Reading Henry James one feels like a wisp of straw floating down a wide smooth river; reading Meredith one is flicked and flapped and beaten, as if beneath a hand with a flail. 64. HENRY JAMES. THE AMBASSADORS. THE TRAGIC MUSE. THE SOFT SIDE. THE BETTER SORT. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE. THE GOLDEN BOWL. Henry James is the most purely "artistic" as he is the most profoundly "intellectual" of all the European writers of our age. His fame will steadily grow, and his extraordinary genius will more and more create that finer taste by which alone he can be appreciated. No novelist who has ever lived has "taken art" so seriously. But it is art, and not life, he takes seriously; and, therefore, along with his methods of elaborate patience, one is conscious of a most delicate and whimsical playfulness--sparing literally nothing. In spite of his beautiful cosmopolitanism it must never be forgotten that at bottom Henry James is richly and wonderfully American. That tender and gracious "penchant" of his for pure-souled and modest-minded young men, for their high resolves, their noble renunciations, their touching faith, is an indication of how much he has exploited--in the completest aesthetic sense--the naive puritanism of his great nation. In regard to his style one may remark three main divergent epochs; the first closing with the opening of the "nineties," and the third beginning about the year 1903. Of these the second seems to the present compiler the best; being, indeed, more intellectualized and subtle than the first and less mannered and obscure than the final one. The finest works he produced would thus be found to be those on one side or the other of the year 1900. The subtlety of Henry James is a subtlety which is caused not by philosophical but by psychological distinctions and it is a subtlety which enlarges our sympathy for the average human nature of middle class people to a degree that must, in the very deepest sense of the word, be called moral. The wisdom to be derived from him is all of a piece with the pleasure--both being the result of a fuller, richer, and more discriminating consciousness of the tragic complexity of quite little and unimportant characters. To a real lover of Henry James the greyest and least promising aspects of ordinary life seem to hold up to us infinite possibilities of delicate excitement. It is indeed out of excitement--partly intellectual and partly aesthetic,--that his great effects are produced. And yet the final effect is always one of resignation and calm--as with all the supreme masters. 70. THOMAS HARDY. TESS OF THE D'URBEVILLES. THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE. THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. WESSEX POEMS. Thomas Hardy remains the greatest poet and novelist of the England of our age. His poetry, Wessex Poems, Poems of Past and Present, Time's Laughing-Stock, Satires of Circumstance, make up the most powerful and original contribution to modern verse, produced recently, either in England or America. Not to value Hardy's poetry as highly as all but his very greatest prose is to betray oneself as having missed the full pregnancy of his bitter and lovely wisdom. He has, like Henry James, three "manners" or styles--the first containing such lighter, friendlier work, as "Life's Little Ironies," "Under a Greenwood Tree," and "The Trumpet Major"--the second being the period of the great tragedies which assume the place, in his work, of "Hamlet," "Lear," "Macbeth" and "Othello," in the work of Shakespeare--the third, of curious and imaginative interest, expresses in quite a particular way, Mr. Hardy's own peculiar point of view. The Well-Beloved, Jude the Obscure, and the later poems would belong to this epoch. At his best Hardy is a novelist second to none. His style has a grandeur, a distinction, a concentration, which we find neither in Balzac nor Dostoievsky. Not to appreciate the power and beauty of his manner, when his real inspiration holds him, is to confess that the genuinely classical in style and the genuinely pagan in feeling has no meaning for you. No English writer, whether in prose or poetry, has ever caught so completely the magic of the earth and the quaint humors, tragical and laughable, of those who live inured to her moods; who live with her moroseness, her whimsicality, her vindictiveness, her austerity, her evasive grace. Mr. Hardy's clairvoyant feeling for Nature is, however, only the background of his work. He is no idyllic posture-monger. The march of events as they drive forward the primitive earth-born men and women of Wessex, thrills one with the same weight of accumulated fatality, as--the comparison is tedious and pedantic--the fortunes of the ill-starred houses of Argos and Thebes. One peculiarity of Mr. Hardy's method must finally be mentioned, as giving their most characteristic quality to these formidable scenes--I mean his preference for form over color. Who can forget those desolately emphatic human protagonists silhouetted so austerely along the tops of hills and against the perspectives of long white roads? 75. JOSEPH CONRAD. CHANCE. LORD JIM. VICTORY. YOUTH. ALMAYER'S FOLLY. _Published by Doubleday Page & Co. with a critical monograph, so admirably written (it is given gratis) by Wilson Follet that one longs to see more criticism from such an accomplished hand_. Conrad's work--and, considering his foreign origin and his late choice of English as a medium of expression, it is no less than an astounding achievement--is work of the very highest literary and psychological value. It is, indeed, as Mr. Follet says, only such criticism as is passionately anxious to prove for itself the true "romance of the intellect" that can hope to deal adequately with such an output. The background of Conrad's books is primarily the sea itself; and after the sea, ships. No one has indicated the extraordinary romance of ships in the way he has done--of ships in the open sea, in the harbour, at the wharf, or driven far up some perilous tropical river. But it is neither the sea nor the tropical recesses nor the sun-scorched river-edges of his backgrounds that make up the essence of romance in the Conrad books. This is found in nothing less than the mysterious potencies for courage and for fear, for good and for evil, of human beings themselves--of human beings isolated by some external "diablerie" which throws every feature of them into terrible and baffling relief. The finest and deepest effects of Conrad's art are always found when, in the process of the story, some solitary man and woman encounter each other, far from civilization, and tearing off, as it were, the mask of one another's souls, are confronted by a deeper and more inveterate mystery--the eternal mystery of difference, which separates all men born into the world and keeps us perpetually alone. In the case of Heyst and Lena--of Flora de Barral and her Captain Anthony--of Charles and Mrs. Gould--of Aissa and Willems--of Almayer's daughter and her Malay lover, Mr. Conrad takes up the ancient planetary theme of the loves of men and women and throws upon it a sudden, original, and singularly stimulating light; a light, that like a lantern carried down into the very Cave of the "Mothers," throws its flickering and ambiguous rays over the large, dumb, formless shapes--the primordial motives of human hearts--which grope and fumble in that thick darkness. The style of Conrad, simpler than that of James, less monumental than that of Hardy, has nevertheless a certain forward-driving impetus hardly less effective than these more famous mediums of expression. "Lord Jim" is perhaps his masterpiece and may be regarded as the most interesting book written recently in our language with the exception of Henry James' "Golden Bowl." For sheer excitement and the thrilling sensation of delayed dénouement it must be conceded that not one of our classical novelists can touch Conrad. "Victory" remains an absorbing evidence of his power of concentrating at one and the same moment our dramatic and our psychological interest. 80. WALTER PATER. MARIUS THE EPICUREAN. STUDIES IN THE RENAISSANCE. IMAGINARY PORTRAITS. PLATO AND PLATONISM. GASTON DE LATOUR. Walter Pater's writings are more capable than any in our list of offering, if approached at the suitable hour and moment, new vistas and possibilities both intellectual and emotional. That wise and massive egoism taught by Goethe, that impassioned "living to oneself" indicated by Stendhal, find in Walter Pater a new qualification and a new sanction. Himself a supreme master of the rare and exquisite in style, he becomes, for those who really understand him, something more penetrating and insidious than a mere personality. He becomes an atmosphere, an attitude, a tone, a temper--and one too which may serve us to most rich and recondite purpose, as we wander through the world seeking the excitement and consecration of impassioned cults and organized discriminations. For this austere and elaborately constructed style of his is nothing less than the palpable expression of his own discriminating days; the wayfaring, so self-consciously and scrupulously guarded, of his own fastidious "hedonism," seeking its elaborate satisfactions among the chance-offered occasions of hour, or person or of place. Walter Pater remains, for those who are permitted to feel these things, the one who above all others has the subtlest and most stimulating method of approach with regard to all the great arts, and most especially with regard to the art of literature. No one, after reading him, can remain gross, academic, vulgar, or indiscriminate. And, with the rest, we seem to be aware of a secret attitude not only towards art but towards life also, to miss the key to which would be to fail in that architecture of the soul and senses which is the object of the discipline not merely of the æsthetic but of the religious cult. For the supreme initiation into which we are led by these elaborate and patient essays, is the initiation into the world of inner austerity, which makes its clear-cut and passionate distinctions in our emotional as well as in our intellectual life. Everything, without exception, as we read Pater becomes "a matter of taste"; but the high and exclusive nature of this taste, to which no sensations but those which are vulgar and common are forbidden, is itself a guarantee of the gentleness and delicacy of the passions evoked. His ultimate philosophy seems to be that--as he himself has described it in "Marius,"--of Aristippus of Cyrene; but this "undermining of metaphysic by means of metaphysic" lands him in no mere arid agnosticism or weary emptiness of suspended judgment; but in a rich and imaginative region of infinite possibilities, from the shores of which he is able to launch forth at will; or to gather up at his pleasure the delicate shells strewn upon the sand. 85. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. MAN AND SUPERMAN. Mr. Shaw has found his role and his occupation very happily cut out for him in the unfailing stupidity, not untouched by a sense of humor, of our Anglo-Saxon democracy in England and America. In Germany, too, there seems naïveté and simplicity enough to be still entertained by these mischievously whimsical and yet portentously moral comedies. It appears however that the civilization for which Rabelais and Voltaire wrote, is less willing to acclaim as an extraordinary genius one who has the wit to pierce with a bodkin the idolatries and illusions of such pathetically simple people. Bernard Shaw takes the Universe very seriously. By calling it the Life-Force he permits himself to address it in that heroic vein reserved, among more ordinary intelligencies, for anthropomorphic deities. Bernard Shaw's sense of the comic draws its spirit from the contrast between clever people and stupid people, and seems to appear at its best when engaged in upsetting the pseudo-historical, pseudo-philosophical illusions of Anglo-Saxons, in charmingly ridiculous pantomimes, which the redeeming humor of that patient race has just intelligence enough thoroughly to enjoy. If he were himself less moralistically earnest the spice of the jest would disappear. His humor is not universal humor. It is topical humor; and topical humor derives its point from moral contrast,--the contrast in this case between the virtue of Mr. Shaw and the vices of modern society. "Man and Superman" is undoubtedly his most interesting work from a philosophical point of view, but his later plays--such bewitching farces as "Fanny's First Play," "Androcles," and "Pygmalion"--seem to express more completely than anything else that rollicking combative roguishness which is his most characteristic quality. 86. GILBERT K. CHESTERTON. ORTHODOXY. Mr. Chesterton may congratulate himself upon being the only man of letters in England who has had the originality or the insight or the temperamental courage to adopt a definitely reactionary philosophy; whereas in France we have Huysmans, Barrés, Bourget, Bordeaux, and many others, whose persuasive and romantic rôle it is to prop up tottering altars; in England we have only Mr. Chesterton. That is doubtless why it is necessary for him to exaggerate his paradoxes so extravagantly; and also why he is so important and so dear to the hearts of intelligent clergymen. Mr. Chesterton's grand philosophical "coup" is a simple and effective one--the turning of everything, complacently and hilariously, upside down. One has the salutary amusement in reading him of visualizing the Universe in the posture of a Gargantuan baby, "prepared" for a sound smacking. Mr. Chesterton himself is the chief actor in this performance and wonderful pyrotechnic stars leap into space as its happy result. Mr. Chesterton has his own peculiar "religion"--a sort of Chelsea Embankment Catholicism, in which, in place of Pontifical Encyclicals, we have Punch and Judy jokes, and in place of Apostolic Doctrine we have umbrellas, lamp-posts, electric-signs and prestidigitating clerics. Mr. Chesterton is never more entertaining, never more entirely at ease, than when turning one or other of the really noble and tragic figures of human intellect into preposterous "Aunt Sallies" at whose battered heads he can fling the turnips and potatoes of the Average Man's average suspicion, dipped for that purpose in a fiery sort of brandy of his own whimsical wit. If we don't become "like little children"; in other words like jovial, middle-aged swashbucklers, and protest our belief in Flying Pigs, Pusses in Boots, Jacks on the top of Beanstalks, Old Women who live in Shoes, Fairies, Fandangos, Prester Johns, and Blue Devils, there is no hope for us and we are condemned to a dreadful purgatory of pedantic and atheistic dullness, along with Li Hung Chang, George Eliot, Herbert Spencer and other heretics whose view of the Dogma of the Immortality of the Soul differs from that of Mr. Chesterton. 87. OSCAR WILDE. INTENTIONS. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. DE PROFUNDIS. "Intentions" is perhaps the most original of all Wilde's remarkable works. His supreme art, as he himself well knew, was, after all, the art of conversation. One might even put it that his greatest achievement in life was just the achievement of being brazenly and shamelessly what he naturally was--especially in conversation. To call him a "poseur" with the implication that he pretended or assumed a manner, were just as absurd as to call a tiger striped with the implication that the beast deliberately "put on" that mark of distinction. If it is a pose to enjoy the sensation of one's own spontaneous gestures, Wilde was indeed the worst of pretenders. But the stupid gravity of many generals, judges and archbishops is not more natural to them than his exquisite insolence was to him. Below the wit and provocative persiflage of "Intentions" there is a deep and true conception of the nature of art--a conception which might well serve as the "philosophy" of much of the most interesting and arresting of modern work. Wilde's extraordinary charm largely depends upon something invincibly boyish and youthful in him. His personality, as he himself says, has become almost symbolic--symbolic, that is, of a certain shameless and beautiful defiance of the world, expressed in an unconquerable insolence worthy of the very spirit of hard, brave, flagrant youth. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is perhaps the gayest, least responsible, and most adorably witty of all English comedies; just as "Salome" is the most richly colored and smoulderingly sensual of all modern tragedies. One actually touches with one's fingers the feasting-cups of the Tetrarch; and the passion of the daughter of Herodias hangs round one like an exotic perfume. In "De Profundis" we sound the sea-floor of a quite open secret; the secret namely of the invincible attraction of a certain type of artist and sensualist towards the "white Christ" who came forth from the tomb where he had been laid, with precious ointments about him, by the Arimathaean. In "The Soul of Man" another symbolic reversion displays itself--that reversion namely of the soul of the true artist towards the revolutionary organization which, along with insensitiveness and brutality, proposes to abolish ugliness also. The name of Oscar Wilde thus becomes a name "to conjure with" and a fantastic beacon-fire to which those "oppressed and humiliated" may repair and take new heart. 90. RUDYARD KIPLING. THE JUNGLE BOOK. Whatever one may feel about Mr. Kipling's other work, about his rampagious imperialism, his self-conscious swashbucklerism, his pipe-clay and his journalism, his moralistic breeziness and his patronage of the "white man's burden," one cannot help admitting that the Jungle-Book is one of the immortal children's tales of the world. In spite of the somewhat priggish introduction, even here, of what might be called his Anglo-Saxon propaganda, the Jungle-Book carries one further, it almost seems, and more convincingly, into the very heart and inwards of beast-life and wood-magic, than any other work ever written. The figures of these animals are quite Biblical in their emphatic picturesqueness, and never has the romance of these spotted and striped aboriginals, in their primordial struggles for food and water, been more thrillingly conveyed. Every scene, every situation, brands itself upon the memory as perhaps nothing else in literature does except the stories in the Old Testament. The best of all children's books--"Grimm's Fairy Tales" itself--takes no deeper hold upon the youthful mind. Mr. Kipling's genius which in his other work is constantly "dropping bricks" as the expressive phrase has it, and running amuck through strenuous banalities, rises in the Jungle-Book to heights of poetic and imaginative suggestion which will give him an undying position among the great writers of our race. 91. CHARLES L. DODGSON. ALICE IN WONDERLAND. _The edition with the original illustrations_. It would be ridiculous to compile a list of a hundred best books and leave out this one. Lack of space alone prevents us from including "Through the Looking Glass" too. "Alice" is after all as much of a classic now and by the same right, the right of a universal appeal, to every type of child, as Mother Goose of the Nursery Rhymes. She had only to appear--this slender-legged, straight-haired, Early-Victorian little prude, to enter at once the inmost arcana of the temple of art. The book is a singular evidence of what the power of a desperate devotion can do--a devotion like this of Mr. Dodgson to all little girls--when a certain whimsical genius belongs to the possessed by it. The creator of Alice has really done nothing but permit his absorbing worship of many demure little maids to focus and concentrate itself into an almost incredible transformation of what was the intrinsic nature of the writer into what was the intrinsic nature of the "written-about." The author of this book has indeed, so to speak, eluded the limitations of his own skin, and by the magic of his love for little girls has passed--carrying his grown-up cleverness with him--actually into the little girl's inmost consciousness. The book might be quite as witty as it is and quite as amusing but it would not carry for us that peculiar "perfume in the mention," that provocative enchantment, if it were not much more--Oh, so much more--than merely amusing. The thousand and one reactions, impressions, intimations, of a little girl's consciousness, are reproduced here with a faithfulness that is absolutely startling. What really makes the transformation complete is the absence in "Alice" of that half-comic sententious priggishness which, as soon as we have ceased to be children, we find so curiously irritating in Kingsley's "Water Babies." 92. JOHN GALSWORTHY. THE COUNTRY HOUSE. THE MAN OF PROPERTY. FRATERNITY. John Galsworthy is almost alone among modern writers in the possession of a genius, which in the most exact sense of that admirable word, can only be described as the genius of a gentleman. It is a style singularly sensitive, a little vibrant perhaps sometimes, and so tense as to become attenuated, but of a most rare and wistful beauty. His humor which is his weakest point is a thing of almost feminine perceptions but quaintly pliable, as the sense of humor in women often is, to an odd strain of peevish extravagance. The chivalrous nobility of Mr. Galsworthy's habitual mood is at once the cause of certain fragilities and betrayals in the mass and weight of his art and the cause of the indignant pity which evokes some of his finest touches. It seems to irritate his nerves almost to frenzy to contemplate the shackles and fetters with which, whether in the domestic or social or legal world, the free spirits of men and women are bound down and imprisoned. The touching figure of Mrs. Pendyce in the "Country House"--the tragic figure of Irene Soames Forsyte in the "Man of Property"--the pitiful figure of the little Model in "Fraternity"--have all something of the same quality. 95. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. OF HUMAN BONDAGE. In this remarkable book Mr. W. Somerset Maugham surpasses by a long distance the average novels of recent appearance. The portion of the book which deals with Paris, especially with that mad poet there, who expounds the philosophy of the "Pattern," is as suggestive a piece of literature as any we have seen for half a dozen years. The passage towards the end of the book on the subject of the genius of El Greco is also profoundly interesting; and the sentences which comment so gravely and beautifully upon the cry of the Christ, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do," have a rare and most moving power. 96. GILBERT CANNAN. ROUND THE CORNER. "Round the Corner" is perhaps Mr. Cannan's best book but "Young Earnest" and "Old Mole" are also curious and interesting volumes. Mr. Cannan is as typical a modern writer as could be found anywhere. And yet modernity is not his only charm. He has genuine psychological insight and though this insight comes in flashes and is not continuous it often gives an original twist to his characters which helps to make them strangely convincing and appealing. "Round the Corner" is a genuine masterpiece. It is the history of the most charming and touching clergyman described in all English fiction since the Vicar of Wakefield; and the massive, solid manner in which the story is constructed, the vigor and reality of the interplay of the various members of Francis' family, the admirable portrait of the mother, the grand and solemn close of the book, make it one of the most powerful works of fiction England has produced during the last decade. Now and again--and what praise could go further?--there are little touches of clear-cut realism, of that kind which has a mystical background, which actually suggest some of the lighter and more idyllic work of Goethe himself. The book has genuine wisdom in it, of a sort superior to any philosophical system, and one feels at the close the tonic and soothing effect of a powerful moral influence, sweetening and refining one's general reaction towards life. 97. VINCENT O'SULLIVAN. THE GOOD GIRL. _Published by Dutton & Co._ This admirable work of art is not known as well as it deserves either in England or America. It is a work of genius in every sense of that word, and it produces on the mind that curious sense of completeness and finality which only such works produce. Mr. L.U. Wilkinson--himself a writer of powerful achievement--says of "The Good Girl": "It does what I have always desired should be done; it reduces 'atmosphere' and 'nature' to their proper subordinate place. It wastes no energy. It focuses one's intellect and one's emotion. It creates characters who resemble none others in fiction. It is imaginative realism of the highest level of excellence." The complex figure of Vendred, the hero of the story, the evasive provocative Mona Lisa-like portrait of Mrs. Dover, the extraordinary and stimulating art with which her husband is described, the agitating and tragic appeal made to us by Vendred's child-wife, the unfortunate Louise--all these together make up one of the most absorbing and unforgettable impressions we have received for many years. Of Mr. and Mrs. Dover in their relation to one another the following passage reverberates through one's mind:--"They would sit opposite one another silently, criticising with a drastic pitiless criticism. This in itself showed where they had arrived; for faith has to be shaken before there is room for criticism, and if love survives the criticism of lovers, it is altogether different from the love they began with. Lovers can be almost anything they choose to each other and still be in love, but they cannot be critical. That is blighting." Perhaps the most tragic thing in the book is the letter written by Louise to Vendred when the luckless child discovers her husband's intrigue with her mother:--"I came to you in the middle of the night last night because I was afraid of the wind. The fire was burning and I saw. I am gone, you will never see me again." The last scenes of the unfortunate girl's life--indirectly described by the ruffian who got possession of her in Paris--produce on the mind that sickening sense of the wanton stupidity of the Universe which fills one with hopeless pity. The author of this book must have a noble and formidable soul. 98. OLIVER ONIONS. THE STORY OF LOUIE. "The Story of Louie" is the last and finest volume of an astonishing trilogy--the first two volumes of which are named respectively "In Accordance with the Evidence" and "The Debit Account." The mere fact that in the midst of our contemptible hatred of "long books" this excellent trilogy should have appeared, is an indication of the daring and originality of Mr. Oliver Onions. Mr. Onions is one of the few modern writers--along with Hardy, Conrad and James--who is entirely untouched by political or ethical propagandism. His trilogy is a genuinely creative work of a high and exclusive order. The manner in which, to quote Mr. L.U. Wilkinson again--"the whole prospect is, as it were, strained through the character of one or other of the leading persons is in itself a proof of this writer's fine artistic instinct." The way in which all the leading persons in the book stand out in clear relief and indelibly print themselves on the mind is evidence of the value of this method. And what masterly irony in the contrast between "Evie" for instance as Jeffries sees her and "Evie" as she is seen by her rival Louie! Nowhere in literature, except in Dostoievsky, has the ferocious struggle of two women over a man been so savagely and truly portrayed as in the great scene in "Louie" between that young woman and Evie when the latter visits her in her rooms. Oliver Onions' humor has that large and vigorous expansiveness, touched with something almost sardonic, which we associate with some of the very greatest writers. There is always present in his work a certain free sweep of imagination which deals masterfully and suggestively with all manner of sordid material. 99. ARNOLD BENNETT. CLAYHANGER. "Clayhanger" with its sequels, "Hilda Lessways" and "These Twain," makes up an imposing and convincing trilogy of middle-class life in the English Pottery Towns. To these books should be added "Old Wives' Tale," "Anna of the Five Towns" and all the others among this writer's works which deal with these Pottery places he knows so superbly well. Outside the Five Towns Mr. Bennett loses something of the power of his touch. He is an interesting example of a writer with a definite "milieu" out of whose happy security he is always ill-advised to stray. But within his own region he is a powerful master. No one in modern English fiction has treated so creatively and illuminatingly the least interesting and least romantic strata of human society which is perhaps to be found in the whole world. And yet he endows this paralyzing bourgeoisie with astonishing life. One turns back from much more exciting literature to these ignorant, conceited, restricted and undistinguished people. One turns back to them because Mr. Bennett shows one the tragic humanity, eternally and mysteriously fascinating, to be found beneath these vulgar and unlovely exteriors. Nor when it comes to the problem of sex itself is this writer less of a master. Never has the undying conflict, the world-old struggle, between those who, in the Catullian phrase, "love and hate" at the same time, been more convincingly brought into the light than in the relations between these uninteresting but strangely appealing people. Arnold Bennett's knowledge of the Five Towns gives to his work a background of significant congruity whose interaction upon the characters of his plots has the same kind of weight and portentousness as the interaction of Nature in the books of Mr. Hardy. Such a background may be in itself materialistic and sordid, but in the imaginative reaction it produces upon the characters it has the genuine poetic quality. 100. OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE. This is by far the best anthology of English poetry, its only rival being the first series of Palgrave's Golden Treasury. Those interested in the work of more recent poets and in the latest poetic "movements" in England and America would be wise to turn to Putnam's "Georgian Poetry"--two series--and "The New Poetry" by Harriet Monroe, published by Macmillan. The compiler of this selection of books feels himself that the most poetical among the younger poets of our age is Walter de la Mare and of the poems which Mr. de la Mare has so far written, he finds the best to be those extraordinary and magical verses entitled "The Listeners" which seem to come nearer to giving a voice to the unutterable margin of our days than any others written within the last ten years. The following pages contain an alphabetical list by author of the One Hundred Best Books, also the titles of other books recommended in the text by Mr. Powys. The numerals following the titles of the books refer to the number given the books in this list, while the prices attached thereto are the Publisher's list prices. If sent by mail or express it is necessary to add the cost, which is usually about 10 per cent, of the price. G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK INDEX WITH PRICES OF RECOMMENDED EDITIONS OF JOHN COWPER POWYS' LIST OF ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS And Other Books Mentioned In the Text Binding and price Author Title Leather Cloth Artzibasheff ........ Sanine (52) ....................... $1.35 Artzibasheff ........ Breaking Point .................... 1.40 Austen, Jane ........ *Pride and Prejudice (61) ......... $1.25 .75 Balzac, Honore de ... *Lost Illusions (29) Centenary ed.. 1.35 Balzac, Honore de ... *Cousin Bette (30) Centenary ed.... 1.35 Balzac, Honore de ... *Old Goriot (31) Centenary ed...... 1.35 Bennett, Arnold ..... Clayhanger (99).................... 1.50 Bennett, Arnold ..... Hilda Lessways .................... 1.50 Bennett, Arnold ..... These Twain ....................... 1.50 Bennett, Arnold ..... Old Wives' Tale ................... 1.50 Bennett, Arnold ..... Anna of the Five Towns ............ 1.20 Brontë, Emily ....... Wüthering Heights (62) ............ 1.75 Bourget, Paul ....... Le Disciple (38)................... .75 Browne, Sir Thos..... *Religio Medici and Urn Burial (11) in Scott Library ........... .40 Browne, Sir Thos..... *Religio (Golden Treasury Series) . 1.00 Cannan, Gilbert...... Round the Corner (96) ............. 1.35 Cannan, Gilbert...... Young Earnest ..................... 1.35 Cannan, Gilbert...... Old Mole .......................... 1.35 Catullus............. Loeb Library Edition (5) .......... 2.00 1.50 Cervantes............ *Don Quixote (27) trans. W.J. Jarvis ........................... 2.00 Carroll, Lewis....... Alice in Wonderland (91) ......... 1.00 Carroll, Lewis....... Thro the Looking Glass ........... 1.00 Chesterton, G.K...... Orthodoxy (86) ................... 1.50 Conrad, Joseph....... Chance (75) ...................... 1.50 Conrad, Joseph....... Lord Jim (76) .................... 1.50 Conrad, Joseph....... Victory (77) ..................... 1.50 Conrad, Joseph ...... Youth (78) ....................... 1.50 Conrad, Joseph ...... Almayer's Folly (79) ............. 1.35 Dante ............... Divine Comedy (6) ................ Temple Classics, 3 vols. ......... 1.35 D'Annunzio, G. ...... The Flame of Life (40) ........... 1.50 D'Annunzio, G. ...... The Triumph of Death (41) ........ 1.50 de la Mare, Walter... The Listeners .................... 1.20 Dickens, Charles..... *Great Expectations (60), Oxford Edition ................. .75 Dickens, Charles..... *Great Expectations, Oxford Red Venetian ................... 1.25 Dickens, Charles..... *Great Expectations, India paper, Lambskin ....................... 1.75 Dostoievsky, F....... *Crime and Punishment, trans. C. Garnett (42) ................... 1.50 Dostoievsky, F....... *The Idiot (43), C. Garnett ...... 1.50 Dostoievsky, F....... The Brothers Karamazov (44) C. Garnett ........................ 1.50 Dostoievsky, F....... The Insulted and Injured (45) C. Garnett ........................ 1.50 Dostoievsky, F....... The Possessed (46) C. Garnett .... 1.50 Dreiser, Theodore.... The Titan (26) ................... 1.40 Emerson, R.W......... Essays (23), first and second series in one volume. Cambridge Classics Edition ............... .90 Euripides ........... The Bacchae (3), trans, by Gilbert Murray ......................... .65 France, Anatole ..... The Elm Tree on the Mall (34) .... 1.75 France, Anatole ..... The Opinions of Jerome Coignard (35) .................. 1.75 France, Anatole ..... My Friend's Book (36) ............ 1.75 Galsworthy, John..... The Country House (92) ........... 1.35 Galsworthy, John..... The Man of Property (93) ......... 1.35 Galsworthy, John..... Fraternity (94) .................. 1.35 Georgian Poetry...... 1911/1912 ........................ 1.50 Georgian Poetry...... 1913/1914 ........................ 1.50 Goethe............... *Faust (12) trans. by Bayard Taylor 1.25 Goethe............... *Wilhelm Meister (13) trans. by Carlyle ........................ 1.25 Goethe............... Goethe's Conversations with Eckerman (14) .................. 1.25 Gourmont, Remy de.... A Night in the Luxembourg (37) ... 1.50 Gorki, Maxim......... Foma Gordyeeff (50) ... 1.00 Hardy, Thomas ....... Tess of the D'Urbevilles (70) .... 1.50 Hardy, Thomas........ The Return of the Native (71) .... 1.50 Hardy, Thomas........ The Mayor of Casterbridge (72).... 1.50 Hardy, Thomas........ Far from the Madding Crowd (73) .. 1.50 Hardy, Thomas........ Wessex Poems (74) ................ 1.85 Hardy, Thomas........ Poems of Past and Present ........ 1.60 Hardy, Thomas........ Satires of Circumstances ......... 1.50 Hauptmann............ The Fool in Christ, (20) ......... 1.50 Heine ............... Prose works and "Confessions" (18), Scott Library ............ .40 Heine ............... Life of--Great Writers Series .... .40 Horace............... *Odes (4) prose translation ...... 1.25 Hugo, Victor ........ *The Toilers of the Sea (28) ..... 1.00 Homer ............... *The Odyssey, (2) Butcher and Lang ............................ .80 Ibsen................ *The Wild Duck (21) .............. 1.00 James, Henry ........ The Ambassadors (64) ............. 2.00 James, Henry ........ The Tragic Muse (65) 2 vols. each. 1.25 James, Henry ........ The Soft Side (66) ............... 1.50 James, Henry ........ The Better Sort (67) ............. 1.35 James, Henry ........ The Wings of a Dove (68) 2 vols. . 2.25 James, Henry ........ The Golden Bowl (69) 2 vols. ..... 2.25 Kipling, Rudyard..... The Jungle Book (90) ............. 1.50 Lamb, Charles ....... *Essays of Elia (55) Eversley Ed. 1.50 Masters, Edgar Lee... Spoon River Anthology (25) ....... 1.50 1.25 Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage (95) ............ 1.50 Maupassant, Guy de .. Madame Tellier's Establishment (32) paper ..................... .40 Meredith, George .... Harry Richmond (65) Pocket ed. ... 1.00 Milton ......(10) Eversley Edition (or*), 3 vols. set 4.50 Monroe, Harriet ..... The New Poetry ................... 1.50 Nietzsche, F......... Zarathustra (15) ................. 2.00 Nietzsche, F......... The Joyful Wisdom (16) ........... 1.60 Nietzsche, F......... Ecce Homo (17) ................... 2.00 Nietzsche, F......... Commentary by Lichtenberger ...... 1.50 Nietzsche, F......... Life of by Daniel Halevy, trans. . 1.25 Onions, Oliver ...... The Story of Louie (98) .......... 1.25 Onions, Oliver ...... In Accordance with the Evidence .. 1.25 Onions, Oliver ...... The Debit Account ................ 1.25 O'Sullivan, Vincent.. The Good Girl (97) ............... 1.35 Oxford Book of English Verse (100), crown 8 vo. ....... 2.00 Oxford Book of English Verse, India Paper Edition ..... 2.75 Palgrave ............ Golden Treasury, First Series* ... 1.00 Pater, Walter ....... Marius the Epicurean (80), 2 vols. 4.00 Pater, Walter ....... Studies in the Renaissance (81) .. 2.00 Pater, Walter ....... Imaginary Portraits (82) ......... 2.00 Pater, Walter ....... Plato and Platonism (83) ......... 2.00 Pater, Walter ....... Gaston de Latour (84) ............ 2.00 Rabelais ............ (7) Edition with Doré Illustrations Rare Selection in French Classics for English Readers' Series .... 1.25 Rolland, Romain ..... Jean Christophe (39) (trans. G. Cannan), 3 vols. .... 4.50 Scott, Sir Walter ... *Guy Mannering (56), Dryburgh Edition ........................ 1.25 Scott, Sir Walter ... *Bride of Lammermoor (57) ........ 1.25 Scott, Sir Walter ... *Heart of Midlothian (58) ........ 1.25 Shakespeare ......... Troilus and Cressida (9), Temple . .55 .35 Shakespeare ......... Measure for Measure, Temple ...... .55 .35 Shakespeare ......... Timon of Athens, Temple Edition .. .55 .35 Shaw, George Bernard Man and Superman (85) ............ 1.25 Stendhal ............ The Red and the Black (33) ....... 1.75 Sterne, Laurence .... *Tristram Shandy (53) Lib. of Eng. Classics, 2 vols. each ................... 1.50 Strindberg, August .. The Confessions of a Fool (22) ... 1.35 Sudermann ........... Song of Songs (19) ............... 1.40 Swift, Jonathan ..... *Tale of a Tub (54), Bohn Lib. ... 1.25 Thackeray, W.M. ..... *Henry Esmond (59), Cranford Series ......................... 2.00 Thackeray, W.M. ..... *Henry Esmond, Oxford Edition .... .75 Thackeray, W.M. ..... *Henry Esmond, India Paper ed. ... 1.75 Turgeniev ........... *Virgin Soil, trans. Constance Garnett, 2 vols. each (47) ..... 1.00 Turgeniev ........... Sportsman's Sketches, trans. Constance Garnett, 2 vols. each (48) .............. 1.00 Turgeniev ........... *Lisa, trans. Constance Garnett, (49) .................. 1.00 Tschekoff ........... The Sea Gull (51) ................ 1.50 Voltaire ............ Candide (8) in Morley's Universal Library ........................ .35 Whitman, Walt ....... *Leaves of Grass (24) ............ 1.25 Wilde, Oscar ........ Intentions (87) Ravenna Edition .. 1.25 Wilde, Oscar ........ The Importance of Being Earnest (88) ................... 1.25 Wilde, Oscar ........ De Profundis (89) ................ 1.25 An asterisk (*) before the title of a book indicates that it may be obtained in Everyman's Library, as well as the edition named, price 40 cts, in cloth, and 80 cts. in leather. THE END REMINISCENT OF DOSTOIEVSKY WOOD AND STONE A ROMANCE By JOHN COWPER POWYS _12mo, 722 pages, $1.50 net_ This is an epoch marking novel by an author "who is dramatic as is no other now writing."--Oakland _Enquirer_. In this startling and original romance, the author turns aside from the track of his contemporaries and reverts to models drawn from races which have bolder and less conventional views of literature than the Anglo-Saxon race. Following the lead of the Great Russian Dostoievsky, he proceeds boldly to lay bare the secret passions, the unacknowledged motives and impulses, which lurk below the placid-seeming surface of ordinary human nature. It has been reviewed favorably by all of America's principal newspapers, as the following extracts from press notices will indicate: BOSTON TRANSCRIPT: "His mastery of language, his knowledge of human impulses, his interpretation of the forces of nature and of the power of inanimate objects over human beings, all pronounce him a writer of no mean rank.... He can express philosophy in terms of narrative without prostituting his art; he can suggest an answer without drawing a moral; with a clearer vision he could stand among the masters in literary achievement." CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "Psychologically speaking, it is one of the most remarkable pieces of fiction ever written.... I do not hesitate to say that a new novelist of power has appeared upon the scene." EVENING SUN, New York: "Mr. Powys, master essayist, comes forward with a first novel which is brilliant in style, absorbing in plot, deep and thoughtful in its purpose." PHILADELPHIA PRESS: "It undoubtedly will set a new mark in literature of the contemporary period.... Mr. Powys' style is the style of Thomas Hardy." PHILADELPHIA RECORD: "Every page is a joy, every chapter a fresh proof of Powys' genius." N.Y. EVENING POST: "The best novel one reviewer has read in a good while." NEW YORK TIMES: "Mr. Powys is evidently a keen observer of life and responsive to all its phases." N.Y. TRIBUNE: "A good story well told." N.Y. HERALD: "Here is a novel worth reading." THE NATION: "A book of distinctive flavor." REVIEW OF REVIEWS: "An exceptional novel ... a brilliant intellectual piece of work." PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN: "A notable achievement in fictitious literature." SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN: "This is a book which will have more than the ephemeral existence of the average novel." NEW HAVEN COURIER JOURNAL: "One of the most notable and important novels that has appeared in the last twelve months." HARTFORD COURANT: "The book is very interesting, provokingly interesting." DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, ROCHESTER: "Among the few works of fiction that stand out in the very forefront of this season's production." G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK SHAW'S FALL FICTION RODMOOR, A ROMANCE BY JOHN COWPER POWYS. _12mo. About 400 pages. $1.50 net_ The New York _Evening Post_ said of Mr. Powys' first novel "Wood and Stone" that it was "one of the best novels of the twelvemonth" while the Boston _Transcript_ said that "with a clearer vision he could stand among the masters in literary achievement." The Chicago _Tribune_ said of the same work, "Psychologically speaking, it is one of the most remarkable pieces of fiction ever written." The announcement of a second novel by the same brilliant author is therefore one of extraordinary interest. In this new novel, Mr. Powys, while unhesitatingly using to his purpose those new fields of psychological interest opened up for us by recent Russian writers, reverts, in the general style and content of his story, to that more idealistic, more simple mood, which we associate with such great romanticists as Emily Brontë and Victor Hugo. QUAKER-BORN, A ROMANCE OF THE GREAT WAR, BY IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH. _12mo. About 320 pages. $1.35 net_ While this is Dr. Hannah's first novel, it is his eighth published work; he thus brings to bear the skill of the literary craftsman upon his dramatic theme of the Quakers' conscientious objections to war. To fight or not to fight is the problem that confronted Edward Alexander when he witnessed the bombardment of Scarborough; he decided as an Englishman, not as a Quaker--but, the next day a telegram came summoning him to the death-bed of his mother, who demanded as her dying wish that he should not abandon the principles of the Friends. He had the strength to reverse his decision but neither his fiancée nor his best Cambridge friend could understand. How he nearly lost the former while saving the life of the latter on the battle field in Flanders is the basis of an absorbing plot which holds the interest from beginning to end of this thrilling story of young love. An admirable book recommended especially to those who detest alike the mawkish sentiment of the "best-seller" and the revolting realistic novels of our day. THE CHILD OF THE MOAT, A STORY OF 1550, BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN. _12mo. About 320 pages. $1.25 net_ This is a book for girls of from 13 to 16 written for a child rescued from the _Lusitania_. Many complain that girls' books are too tame and prefer those written for boys. Mr. Holborn therefore promised to write a girls' book with as much adventure as Stevenson's "Treasure Island." He has succeeded and the hair-breadth escapes of the heroine should satisfy the most exacting. The scene is laid in the stirring times of the Reformation and those who know the author as an archaeological lecturer will recognize his bent in several picturesque touches, such as the striking dressing scene before the heroine's birthday-party. The book is a remarkable contribution to children's literature and suggests a raising of the standard if more were written by men of learning and scholarship who are true child-lovers. After all was not "Alice in Wonderland" written by an erudite Oxford don and everyone who has read the present author's volume of poems "Children of Fancy" will know him as a lover of children. G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK Recommended by the A.L.A. Booklist Adopted for required reading by the Pittsburgh Teachers Reading Circle VISIONS AND REVISIONS A BOOK OF LITERARY DEVOTIONS By JOHN COWPER POWYS _8vo, 298 pp. Half White Cloth with Blue Fabriano Paper Sides, $2.00 net_ This volume of essays on Great Writers by the well-known lecturer was the first of a series of three books with the same purpose as the author's brilliant lectures; namely, to enable one to discriminate between the great and the mediocre in ancient and modern literature: the other two books being "One Hundred Best Books" and "Suspended Judgments." Within a year of its publication, four editions of "Visions and Revisions" were printed--an extraordinary record considering that it was only the second book issued by a new publisher. The value of the book to the student and its interest for the general reader are guaranteed by the international fame of the author as an interpreter of great literature and by the enthusiastic reviews it received from the American Press. REVIEW OF REVIEWS, New York: "Seventeen essays ... remarkable for the omission of all that is tedious and cumbersome in literary appreciations, such as pedantry, muckraking, theorizing, and, in particular, constructive criticism." BOOK NEWS MONTHLY, Philadelphia: "Not one line in the entire book that is not tense with thought and feeling. With all readers who crave mental stimulation ... 'Visions and Revisions' is sure of a great and enthusiastic appreciation." THE NATION AND THE EVENING POST, New York: "Their imagery is bright, clear and frequently picturesque. The rhythm falls with a pleasing cadence on the ear." BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE: "A volume of singularly acute and readable literary criticism." CHICAGO HERALD: "An essayist at once scholarly, human and charming is John Cowper Powys.... Almost every page carries some arresting thought, quaintly appealing phrase, or picture spelling passage." REEDY'S MIRROR, St. Louis: "Powys keeps you wide awake in the reading because he's thinking and writing from the standpoint of life, not of theory or system. Powys has a system but it is hardly a system. It is a sort of surrender to the revelation each writer has to make." KANSAS CITY STAR: "John Cowper Powys' essays are wonderfully illuminating.... Mr. Powys writes in at least a semblance of the Grand Style." "Visions and Revisions" contains the following essays:-- Rabelais Dickens Thomas Hardy Dante Goethe Walter Pater Shakespeare Matthew Arnold Dostoievsky El Greco Shelley Edgar Allan Poe Milton Keats Walt Whitman Charles Lamb Nietzsche Conclusion G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS ESSAYS ON BOOKS AND SENSATIONS BY JOHN COWPER POWYS 8vo. about 400 pages. Half cloth with blue Fabriano paper sides............................................$2.00 net _The Book News Monthly_ said of "Visions and Revisions": "Not one line in the entire book that is not tense with thought and feeling." The author of "Visions and Revisions" says of this new book of essays: "In 'Suspended Judgments' I have sought to express with more deliberation and in a less spasmodic manner than in 'Visions,' the various after-thoughts and reactions both intellectual and sensational which have been produced in me, in recent years, by the re-reading of my favorite writers. I have tried to capture what might be called the 'psychic residuum' of earlier fleeting impressions and I have tried to turn this emotional aftermath into a permanent contribution--at any rate for those of similar temperament--to the psychology of literary appreciation. "To the purely critical essays in this volume I have added a certain number of others dealing with what, in popular parlance, are called 'general topics,' but what in reality are always--in the most extreme sense of that word--personal to the mind reacting from them. I have called the book 'Suspended Judgments' because while one lives, one grows, and while one grows, one waits and expects." SUSPENDED JUDGMENTS CONTAINS THESE ESSAYS: THE ART OF DISCRIMINATION IN LITERATURE MONTAIGNE EMILY BRONTË PASCAL JOSEPH CONRAD VOLTAIRE HENRY JAMES ROUSSEAU OSCAR WILDE BALZAC AUBREY BEARDSLEY VICTOR HUGO DE MAUPASSANT FRIENDS ANATOLE FRANCE RELIGION PAUL VERLAINE LOVE REMY DE GOURMANT CITIES WILLIAM BLAKE MORALITY BYRON EDUCATION G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK "Rhymes or Real Poems?"--_Boston Globe_ WOLF'S--BANE RHYMES BY JOHN COWPER POWYS _8vo, 120 pages, $1.25 net_ In these remarkable poems Mr. Powys strikes a new and startlingly unfamiliar note; their interest lies in the fact that they are the unaffected outcries and protests of a soul in exile, and their originality is to be found in that they sweep aside all facile and commonplace consolations and give expression to the natural and incurable sadness of the heart of man. NEW YORK EVENING POST says: "As regards what Mr. Powys modestly calls his 'rhymes,' we hesitate to say how many years it is necessary to go back in order to find their equals in sheer poetic originality." BOOK NEWS MONTHLY says: "Such poems as those are worthy of a permanent existence in literature." KANSAS CITY STAR says: "It is unmistakably verse of lasting quality." THE WAR AND CULTURE An Answer to Professor Musterberg By JOHN COWPER POWYS _12mo, 113 pages, 60 cents_ Mr. Powys says of this book that he has sought to correct that plausible and superficial view of the Russian people as "the half-civilised legions to whom we have taught killing by machinery"--a view to which even so independent a thinker as George Bernard Shaw appears to have fallen a victim. The _Nation_ says:--"It is more weighty than many of the more pretentious treatises on the subject." THE SOLILOQUY OF A HERMIT By THEODORE FRANCIS POWYS _12mo, 144 pages, $1.00_ A profoundly original interpretation of life by the great lecturer's hermit brother of which the Dial, Chicago says: "Truly a satirist and humorist of a different kidney from the ordinary sort is this companionable hermit. There is many a chuckle in his little book." G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK BOOKS BY I.B. STOUGHTON HOLBORN CHILDREN OF FANCY _Second Edition, 256 pages, $2.00 net_ This volume has a special claim to attention as the poet was invited to read these poems at Oxford University at the 1915 Summer Meeting. The Oxford Chronicle in a long account "of one of the greatest pleasures provided for the Meeting," remarked that "the ideal is perfectly attained when the poet can recite his own poems with the artistry with which Mr. Holborn introduced to his audience his charming 'Children of Fancy.'" Mr. Holborn swam with part of the MSS. from the _Lusitania_, and the Edinburgh _Evening News_ says that "he has commemorated the tragedy in lines of sublime pathos." AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS says: "Mr. Holborn's poetry is delicate, musical, rhapsodic; often shaped to enfold classical themes, always of proportioned comeliness, filled with a vague haunting of indefinable beauty that can never be embraced in words. It is a book of poetry for poets; one can hardly say more." Adopted for Required Reading by the Pittsburgh Teachers Reading Circle THE NEED FOR ART IN LIFE _Cloth, 116 pp., 75 cents net_ The object of Mr. Holborn's little book is to show that the peculiar evil of the present day is a lack of the proper love and appreciation of Art and Beauty. Our social and political problems which we attempt to tackle on scientific and moral lines can never be righted in that way, as we have not made a scientifically correct diagnosis of the disease. He makes a careful analytical survey of the three great epochs in our past civilization and clearly demonstrates that wherever one of the fundamentals of man's existence is wanting the man as a whole must fail. It makes no difference whether the lack be on the intellectual, artistic or moral side--the result is equally disastrous to the complete man. THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT says: "This is one of the greatest little books of the age. If it is not epoch-making, it should be. It treats in charming style and convincing manner a theme of vital and universal interest. The thoughtful man who reads it will feel that a new classic has been added to the world's literature." ARCHITECTURES OF EUROPEAN RELIGIONS _Blue Buckram, Gold stamping, 264 pp., $2.00 net_ G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK Recommended by the A.L.A. Booklist Specially suitable for Schools and Colleges ARMS AND THE MAP A STUDY IN NATIONALITIES AND FRONTIERS By IAN CAMPBELL HANNAH, M.A., D.C.L. _12mo, 256 pages, $1.23 net_ This work, which has had a large sale in England, will be invaluable when the terms of peace begin to be seriously discussed. Every European people is reviewed and the evolution of the different nationalities is carefully explained. Particular reference is made to the so-called "Irredentist" lands, whose people want to be under a different flag from that under which they live. The colonizing methods of all the nations are dealt with, and especially the place in the sun that Germany hasn't got. NEW YORK TIMES says: "Such a volume as this will undoubtedly be of value in presenting ... facts of great importance in a brief and interesting fashion." BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE says: "It is hard to find a man who presents his arguments so broad-mindedly as Dr. Hannah. His spirit is that of a catholic scholar striving earnestly to find the truth and present it sympathetically." PHILADELPHIA NORTH AMERICAN says: "It is in no sense history, but rather a preparatory effort to mark broadly the outlines of any future peace settlement that would have even a fighting chance of permanency. Only in perusing a critical study of this character can the vast problems of post-bellum imminence be fully apprehended." PHILADELPHIA PRESS says: "His work is immensely readable and particularly interesting at this time and will throw much fresh light on the situation." OTHER BOOKS BY IAN C. HANNAH Eastern Asia, A History ..................................$2.50 Capitals of the Northlands (A tale of ten cities)......... 2.00 The Berwick and Lothian Coast (in the County Coast Series) 2.00 The Heart of East Anglia (A History of Norwich)........... 2.00 Some Irish Religious Houses (Reprinted from the _Archeological Journal_) ............................... .50 Irish Cathedrals (Reprinted from the _Archaeological Journal_) .50 G. ARNOLD SHAW, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ASSOCIATION GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YOR 
44133	----	[Transcriber's Note: Underscores are used as delimiter for _italics_] The Girl Warriors _A BOOK FOR GIRLS_ [Illustration] By ADENE WILLIAMS David C. Cook Publishing Company ELGIN, ILL.; OR 36 WASHINGTON STREET, CHICAGO. Copyright, 1901. By David C. Cook Publishing Company. The Girl Warriors. _A BOOK FOR GIRLS._ By ADENE WILLIAMS. CHAPTER I. THE BURTONS. Winnifred Burton sat all alone in the pleasant sitting-room, curled up in an easy-chair so large that her little figure was almost lost in its great depths. The fire in the open grate burned brightly, sending out little tongues of flame which made dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling, and flashed ever and anon on the bright hair and face and dress of the little girl sitting so quiet before it. It was a dismal day near the close of January. Snow had been falling steadily all day, and the window-sill was already piled so high with it that by and by it would have to be brushed away in order to close the shutters. But Winnifred was so absorbed in the book she was reading that she knew nothing of all this. The book was a new edition of "The Giant Killer; or, The Battle That All Must Fight." She was just reading how the brave but tempted Fides lay in the dreadful Pit of Despair; of how he had fallen back, bruised and bleeding, time after time, in his endeavors to cut and climb his way out, before he found the little cord of love which was strong enough to draw him out with scarcely an effort of his own. Twilight was fast closing in around the little reader, and all the letters on the page were beginning to dance up and down. Impatiently shaking herself, Winnifred slipped down from her chair, gave the fire a little poke, and settled herself on the floor in front of it, holding the book so that she could see to read by the flickering light. But she had scarcely begun to do so, when the door opened. She gave a little jump, and turned quite red in the face. But it was only her little brother Ralph, who said: "'Innie, mamma says if 'oo have 'oor lessons done, 'ou'se to come out and set the table for supper." Her lessons done! Winnie glanced at the pile of books lying on the table by the window. Yes, there they all were--her geography, history, grammar, arithmetic. When now would she have time to learn those lessons? And she felt that she had been dishonest, too, because her mother would perhaps have had something else for her to do, if she had not supposed she was studying hard. However, there was no help for it now, and with a rueful face she left the room. Mrs. Burton was in the kitchen, so that Winnie escaped being questioned, but just now she was taking herself to task, for she had a very guilty conscience, and was wondering when she was going to begin fighting her giants. She knew only too well what one of them was, and she knew also that if she could not find time to learn those lessons, another punishment beside the stings of her conscience would await her on the morrow. But presently her father and older brother came home; little Ralph ran to get their slippers, while they took off their wet boots; supper was put on the table, and they all sat down to the cheerful meal. Mr. and Mrs. Burton had few rules for their household, but they had one which was imperative: nothing but cheerful faces and cheerful conversation was allowed at the table. Business or household worries were kept for private conference, and the little griefs of the children were not allowed to be mentioned. Winnie soon forgot her anxiety in listening to the things that her father and brother Jack were saying, and, as the talk was about politics, and the tariff, and the state of the market, other little girls may not be so interested as Winnie tried to make herself believe that she was. So this will be a good time to describe them all, as they sit at the table. All of their acquaintances spoke of the Burtons as a very happy family, and this opinion was undoubtedly correct, the reason for which will appear later. Mr. Burton is a tall, handsome, young-looking man, with brown eyes having a merry twinkle in them; his eyebrows and moustache are dark and heavy, and his firm mouth and chin show character and decision. Mrs. Burton looks as young as her husband, and Winnie is always taken by strangers to be her younger sister, which is a source of great delight and comfort to the girl, as she is very proud of her dainty and stylish mother. Mrs. Burton has soft brown hair, always prettily dressed; her eyes are a deep, soft blue, shaded by long, curling lashes, and with straight, delicate eyebrows above. Although she does much of the household work, she manages, in some mysterious manner, to keep her hands soft and white. Winnie sometimes steals up behind her mother and puts her own little brown hands beside one of the soft white ones with a little sigh--for she would like her own to be soft and white, too--but more often with a merry laugh. Eighteen-year-old Jack, except that he gives promise of attaining his father's noble inches, is much like his mother. He had been intended for one of the professions, but all of his talents and inclinations having pointed to business, his father finally yielded the point of having him go through college, and, upon his graduation from high-school the year previous, took him into his own real estate office. Winnie has eyes and hair like her father, but, in spite of her twelve years, is so small and slight that she looks like a child of nine or ten. Four-year-old Ralph is the pet and beauty of the family. His hair curls in loose rings all over his head. His hazel eyes have such large, dilating pupils, and such a way of shining when anything is given him, that his young aunts and uncles, together with Winnie and Jack, are always giving him something for the pleasure of seeing his wondering look. "Well, my dear," said Mr. Burton to his wife, as they rose from the table, "anything on the carpet for to-night?" "Yes, if you don't think the weather too bad, I'd like to call on Mrs. Brown after Ralph is put to bed." "Winnie, I should like you to accompany Jack in one of his new violin studies, while we are gone; but you must not forget that half past nine is your bed-time." [Illustration: "Now for the new music," Jack said.--See page 6.] Poor Winnie! She dearly liked playing Jack's accompaniments, but the unlearned lessons rose up before her, and she said, "Oh, mamma, I can't to-night; I haven't done my lessons!" "Well, Winnie, this has happened three or four times within the last week. If several study bells in school and two hours in the afternoon are not sufficient for you to keep up with your classes, I'd rather you'd go back a year. I want you to be educated thoroughly, but I can't have you 'crammed,' and you're too young to do studying at night." "Mamma, that is time enough for me to do all my school work; but, like the Little Women, I have something to ''fess,' and if you'll let me study this time, I think that after this I'll get through in the daytime." "Very well; but remember, if this is of frequent occurrence, I'll have to consult Mr. Bowen and see if you are overworked." Jack and Mr. Burton had heard none of this conversation, having gone into the sitting-room for a game of chess, and Mrs. Burton and Winnie had remained in the dining-room. Mrs. Burton went into the kitchen to give her orders for breakfast to Norah, and Winnie returned to the sitting-room with a strong determination to work so hard that she would make up for her self-indulgence of the afternoon. But little Ralph came running up to her with: "Now, 'Innie, tell me a story." "Oh, Ralphie, Winnie can't to-night; see, she has to learn something out of all these books;" and she pointed to the big pile of them that lay on the table. "Well, den, me'll wead the newspaper;" and he sat down on a hassock with a paper in his hand, and looked so cunning that Winnie had to go and give him a little hug before she could get to work. She began with her greatest bugbear, United States History; not, however, without having cast one longing look at "The Giant Killer," as it stood temptingly on the edge of the book case. But, saying to herself, "I'm bound to do it"--a phrase which had seemed to help her over difficulties so many times that she almost felt as if it were the phrase, and not the exertions which always followed the use of it, that was helpful to her--she applied herself with such concentration that, during the twenty minutes her mother remained out of the room, she learned quite thoroughly the three pages describing the Battle of Monmouth. In the meantime, Ralph had been put to bed, and Mrs. Burton had come in, cloaked and bonneted. As soon as their father and mother had gone, Jack said, "Now, Win, for the new music." "Oh, Jack, look here! There are two pages of descriptive geography, ten map questions, and a short account of the exports and imports of India to be learned, and I've six long problems in percentage to work." "Whew! Then my cake's dough! But how is it that you have all this to do to-night? I thought we were to spend our evenings in helping and entertaining each other; that was what I understood mother to say when she changed your hour for bed from half past eight to half past nine. Ah! Win, I know what it is; you've been at your old tricks, you little bookworm!" "Don't tease, Jack. I'm sorry enough for it now, and I'll be ready to help you to-morrow night." "To-morrow! Always to-morrow! But to-morrow our debating club meets, and that settles that. I'll have to play without accompaniment, that's all." Winnie heaved a sigh. It was a disappointment to her, too, but she resolutely forbore to say more about the matter. It took her, however, until nearly nine o'clock to learn her geography lesson, and when her bed-time came, she had but four of the problems solved. She would much have liked to remain up an hour longer, but of direct disobedience Mrs. Burton's children were seldom guilty, so Winnie gathered up her books, ready to take to school in the morning, and went to her room. CHAPTER II. GOOD RESOLUTIONS. Winnie was having a confused dream of a little dwarf, armed with a long column of figures, which he waved threateningly in the air; but as she advanced to seize them, thinking to use them for her lessons during the day, the dwarf commenced to grow, and, as she stood amazed and horror-struck, he attained the height of ten feet or so, and was still growing when she heard the tinkling of a bell, and a voice said: "Wizard, avaunt!" At this the giant disappeared, and the whole column of figures fell on the floor in a confused heap. She stooped to pick them up, when the bell rang again, this time louder, and she grasped--her brother Ralph, who was ringing the breakfast bell violently in her ears. A little vexed, she was going to send him away and turn over for another nap, when suddenly she remembered her good resolutions of the evening before, and, to Ralph's surprise, sprang up at once. Having dressed herself, she turned the bedclothes back to air, and, with the exception of making her bed, which was done by Norah later in the day, put everything in her dainty pink room in nice order. Then she sat down to select her verse, it being the custom of the family for each to recite some passage from the Bible, about which they afterward had a little talk. She chose part of the second verse of the sixth chapter of 2d Corinthians: "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation." When the bell rang for the family to gather, Winnie was ready to go down at once, without hurry or confusion, or being haunted by the thought that she was but half dressed. If she received no other reward, her mother's approving smile as her daughter entered, made her feel quite happy. Mr. Burton and Jack were not yet down, but came in almost directly. Her father read for that morning a part of the 107th Psalm, that most beautiful psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Then they all recited their verses. The mother had chosen hers from the chapter just read: "For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness." Jack had chosen: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Ralph said, "Suffer little children," which was his great standby. Mr. Burton had a few words to say about all of them, but about Winnie's in particular; he spoke about its spiritual and religions meaning, and went on to say that it could be applied to all the affairs of life. He spoke of the folly as well as the sin of procrastination, that great destroyer of so many good deeds, which become utterly useless if done too late. He said that duties are like bricks used in building a house; if the foundation stones were left out, it would be impossible to make any use of those remaining. After the talk was finished, the family gathered around the piano, and sang a morning hymn. Winnie was in very good spirits that morning; an approving conscience is a great help to cheerfulness and good temper. She cut Ralph's steak for him, and pleased him very much by begging for one of his dollars, as she called the tiny cakes which Norah fried for her pet. She amused the others, also, by giving, in the phraseology of a school-girl of to-day, a graphic account of the way she imagined the redoubtable Captain Molly acted at the Battle of Monmouth. Everything seemed to go well with her, and at half past eight she had her books in her arms, ready to take a leisurely stroll to school, although the unfinished problems still troubled her. When she entered her room, three or four of the girls rushed up to her with: "Come on into the dressing-room, Win; we're going to have a meeting of the B. S. S." "Oh, I can't, girls!" said Winnie, it must be confessed very faintly, "I've two more problems to work, and I'll just have time to do them before the bell rings, and during the first study bell." "Oh, bother the problems!" said Miriam Douglass, striking an attitude. "Let them go! What are problems, compared with the important business of the B. S. S.?" But Winnie, collecting all her mental strength, and remembering her "I'm bound to" of the night before, resolutely drew back, saying, "I can't, girls; for I've a giant to kill." The girls looked at her in amaze. "A giant to kill! You look as if you'd kill a dozen, single-handed, you midge!" laughed tall Miriam, for Winnie was the youngest and smallest girl in the class. "Whatever do you mean?" "I can't stop to tell you now," said Winnie, "for if I do, I'll lose the first blow; but I'll tell you about it at recess." "All right, since you're determined," said Fannie Allen; "and I say, girls, let's postpone our meeting till then." "Agreed!" said the others; and each one, as they separated, went to her own seat and busied herself at some study, so quickly does a little leaven leaven the whole. When recess came, Winnie explained to the three girls, and Miriam Douglass laughed at her and teased her not a little; but somehow no one minded Miriam's teasing, she was so bright and good-natured with it all. "I suppose," said Miriam, munching her last piece of butterscotch--for be it known that the mysterious initials, about which the other girls of the class were "dancing crazy with curiosity," as Miriam said, signified "Butter Scotch Society"--"you'll be wanting us to give up the B. S. S. with all its sweet delights, and go about the world with drawn swords, and 'front like Jove, to threaten or command,' neither giving nor receiving quarter. I can see myself now, as I exclaim, 'Base spirit, beware, lest with this trusty sword I hew thee in pieces!'" And she flourished her ruler with such spirit that the girls all applauded. Just then, however, the bell rang for the close of recess, and they were obliged to go to their recitations. Thanks to Winnie's determination, and her vigorous use of the study bells, she received a perfect mark in all her lessons for the day, but she went home in the afternoon tired and jaded from the hard work. She found her mother in the sitting-room, sewing, and said, as she threw down her books, "Now, mamma, I want to make my confession, and also to thank you for allowing me to work last night. I know you have often spoken to me about my bad habit of putting everything off till the last minute, and it is almost always because I get hold of a story book and cannot lay it down. Yesterday it was 'The Giant Killer,' and I was so interested in Fides' battle with Giant Hate, that I forgot I was neglecting my own faults to watch him conquer his. But now I'm going to begin killing my own giants, and I'll commence with my worst, procrastination; for indeed, as Miss Brownlow is always telling us, it is the thief of time. And I want you to watch me and help me. As to-morrow will be Saturday, I want to get every one of my lessons for Monday, so that I can use the Monday study bells for Tuesday's lessons; then I can always get through in the afternoon." "I think that will be a very good plan, Winnie; you will then feel at ease each day about the work for the succeeding one, and an absence of worry will keep your mental faculties in good condition, so that you can do much more work with less strain of mind or body. And it will leave your evenings for reading or such other recreation as may occur from time to time, for you know I do not believe in all work and no play. I want to run down to Shillito's now to do a little shopping, and I hope you will be able, while I am gone, to resist your favorite temptation, for I really believe that many of our temptations are favorites." As soon as Mrs. Burton, taking Ralph with her, had gone, Winnie settled herself resolutely to work at her problems. She had just become quite interested in finding out the "population of a certain village," which increased a certain per cent, the first year, etc., when the bell rang, and answering the call, she found Miriam Douglass. Here was a dilemma. But she said: "Miriam, I'm just at work on my problems for Monday. Come right in, and we'll work them together." "Oh, Winnie, we'll have all day to-morrow to get our lessons. Do let's have a good time to-day." "I promised mamma that I would do all my lessons before Monday, but, of course, Miriam, if you don't wish to, I'll stop. I do think, though, that we'll enjoy ourselves just as well if we do this work." "All right, Winnie, go ahead," said Miriam laughing. "I guess my brain can stand it if yours can." The two girls applied themselves so well, Miriam being particularly bright in arithmetic, that by the time Mrs. Burton returned, they not only had the whole set of problems solved, but neatly copied and ready to "hand in." Mrs. Burton herself helped them with their analysis in grammar, and that being Miriam's great stumbling block, she was delighted with the assistance. She accepted Mrs. Burton's invitation to stay to supper, after which, Mr. Burton and Jack both being out, Winnie's mother proposed that the girls should take turns reading aloud to her from the book Winnie had been telling them about. Both girls had been well taught, and it was a pleasure to listen to their fresh, well modulated voices. Miriam, though far less imaginative than Winnifred, enjoyed the book very much, and said, half in fun: "Why can't we turn our B. S. S. into a club to fight our giants? We might then be a help instead of a drawback to each other, as I know we are now, for we're always upsetting each other's attempts to do right." "I think that is a very good idea," said Mrs. Burton. "Union and organization are such powers in this world, that I do not see why they should not help four little girls to do right. You might have social meetings occasionally to report progress, and you could have a good time beside. Talk it over on Monday with Gretta and Fannie, and if you want help, come to me." "Oh, Mrs. Burton, you always do think of the nicest things! That's just what we will do, and we'll report a week from to-night. But now it is time for me to go." As Miriam lived only a square away, Mrs. Burton and Winnie walked over with her, and on their return Winnie went to bed happy and contented. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. STUMBLING BLOCKS. On the following Monday at recess, Miriam called a meeting of the B. S. S., and she and Winnie told the other two girls what they were thinking of doing. But it was very hard work to make Gretta Berger understand. "Giants!" said she, "what do we care for giants? We're no longer little children, that we should believe in such things." "But don't you believe that we have faults that we ought to try to conquer?" said Winnie. "Faults! You'd think I had a million, if you'd hear my mother lecture me; and my sister Josephine seems to think I never did do anything right. I never suit either of them. I'm scolded from Monday morning till Saturday night, and I don't want all my play-time taken up in the same way." "Oh, Gretta, who is going to scold you? I'm sure we'll all have enough to do to watch over our own faults, without talking to you of yours." "Didn't you say we were to help each other? How can we do that, if we don't say anything when one of us does wrong? No, let our teachers and parents and big sisters do that. I'm sure they seem to enjoy it well enough." "Enjoy it! Well, I'm sure we can't blame them. I don't know how else they are to get even with you, when you never give in half your demerits for the day, and sit and sulk for half an hour if you're told to stop talking," said Miriam, with her usual heedlessness. "Well. I'm not so lazy that I can't pin my collar on straight and clean my finger nails; and as for killing giants, I think we'd better be eating fruit and taffy than getting into a fuss by meddling with other folks' affairs!" And Gretta flounced off in high dudgeon. Winnie's eyes filled with tears. All this was so unlike anything she had imagined, and now they had gotten into a quarrel the very first thing. "Let her go, Winnie," said Fannie; "she's always getting into the sulks, and her father's nothing but a music teacher, anyhow. I never could see why you girls liked her so much. I'm sure I never did." "No!" said Miriam sarcastically, "we can't all be the handsome daughter of a wealthy and celebrated lawyer, more's the pity!" Winnie's heart sank lower. How she wished she had tried to do right herself, and let the other girls alone! Now Fannie would be angry, too. But, to her surprise, Fannie laughed outright. "This is too absurd for anything, girls. Here we were just about to sweep the world before us, and now we've had our first quarrel for over a month. As for me, I know I'm proud and vain, and I do like my friends to be rich and distinguished. But papa says it isn't exactly well-bred to choose our friends on such a basis, and he calls my pride silly, and tells me not to be a--well, yes, he does--a snob. But I like to be proud. Perhaps, though, someone else beside myself knows something, and I'll be glad to join, and will try to like it when my toes are stepped on." "Well," said Miriam, "I'm sure I beg your pardon, if I hurt the toes. But I think your good-nature got the best of it. As for Gretta, you all know she'll sulk just so long, anyhow, and when she gets tired of it, she'll be all right; and if she once gets this thing through her somewhat thick head, she'll want to join, too." "My! but there's a lot of work before us! Do you know, girls, I actually lay awake for an hour last night, wondering what faults I had, and now, since this squabble, I've seen signs of half a dozen. It's taken all the starch out of me. Don't I look limp?" And Miriam hung her hands and arms so nervelessly and assumed such a vapid expression, that Fannie laughed outright, and Winnie smiled through her tears. "Well, there's one bad habit that we all have," said she decidedly. "We're always saying, 'in a minute,' or 'by and by,' or 'to-morrow.' I don't believe we'll get angry with each other over that, for it isn't what my father would call 'a personal peculiarity.'" Winnie did like to use big words. "All right, Winnie, we'll all begin together, and you shall be the captain of our first expedition against the foe." Winnie went home somewhat comforted, but still quite unhappy about Gretta. She longed to tell her mother all that had happened, but Mrs. Burton was entertaining callers, and she was therefore obliged to restrain her impatience. On Tuesdays there were fewer recitations for her class than on other days, and, having made good use of her study bells, she was quite through before five o'clock, and concluded to take Ralph out for a walk, so she called her mother to ask permission. Mrs. Burton was quite willing, and said she might also go to the library and change her book. Then she returned to her guests. Winnie ran to ask Norah if she would help get Ralph ready. She found her in the wooden rocking-chair in the cheerful kitchen, reading the "Commercial Gazette," and "taking it easy," as she called it. Winnie made her request in a very peremptory manner. Norah looked at her a minute, and then said: "So you want me to dress Ralph, do you? Well, I guess that want will have to be your master, for I don't intend to break my back over the wash-tub all day, and, when I'm snatching a moment for rest, be at the beck and call of a sassy little girl." So saying, Norah returned to her newspaper, completely ignoring Winnie's presence. Winnifred knew that it would be utterly useless to say anything more; besides, she had been reproved by her mother more than once for her way of speaking to Norah. But she was greatly disappointed, for now she would either have to take Ralph dressed as he was, or leave him at home. She finally concluded to do the former, so, hastily getting Ralph and herself into their coats, they were soon in the street car. Ralph, as usual, had numberless questions to ask. When they reached Fountain Square, they got out, and Winnie, as she invariably did when down town, crossed to the Esplanade to look at the fountain, of which she never wearied. Ralph said he liked to see the little boys and girls sprinkling, and then he must have a drink from the little boy with a shell in his hand. All this took up time, so that when they reached the public library it was quite late. The delivery room, as usual at that hour, was crowded, and, having handed in her card and list, Winnie sat down on one of the benches to wait till her number was called. This took so long that Ralph became restless and then sleepy, and when they were finally in the car on their way home, he soon closed his eyes. Winnie knew that she would have her hands full if he went to sleep, so she shook him, saying, "Ralphie, Ralphie, don't you know that you mustn't go to sleep?" "Me isn't s'eepy!" said the little fellow, poking his chubby fingers into his eyes to keep them open; but, finding it quite hard work, after a minute's consideration he added, "But there's somefin in my eyes, 'ough." "Oh, Ralph, that's the Sandman; you mustn't let him throw sand in your eyes in the street car!" "No, me 'on't," said Ralph, making a desperate effort. This little conversation seemed greatly to amuse an old gentleman opposite. He took Ralph on his knee and let him play with his watch, and kindly kept him awake until it was time for the children to get out. When they reached home they found the family, with the addition of their grandma, Aunt Kitty and Uncle Fred, all at supper, laughing and talking in the happiest manner imaginable. Winnie was delighted. Aunt Kitty was the dearest to her of all her aunts. She was young and gay and good-natured, always ready to join in a frolic, or to help with one's lessons, or to take the children and the children's visitors to the "zoo" or the park or some other place equally delightful. After supper they went into the sitting-room, and Winnie and Jack played their last duet, which Aunt Kitty complimented quite highly. She said to Mr. Burton, "Winnie does so nicely with her music that I hope you'll allow her to make more of it soon. If she goes to the high-school next year, she'll have more time to practice, won't she?" "Yes, I think so," interrupted Uncle Fred. "She'll be putting on long dresses, and practicing the airs of a young lady before the glass. But she won't imitate you, Kitty; your ways will be too youthful for her by that time," and he gave Winnie's braid a pull. "Isn't it singular?" he continued meditatively. "Here Winnie will be growing older every year, and Kitty just the reverse. I don't think she'll have another birthday in ten years." "Most assuredly not, if you'll tell me the way to avoid it. Winnie can have my birthdays and her own, too," laughed Aunt Kitty. If there was one thing in the world that Winnie resented as an indignity, it was having her ears tweaked, and now she burst out: "Grandma, do make Uncle Fred stop! I think he ought to have a good scolding." "Why, he's my baby," said grandma; "you wouldn't have me scold my baby, would you?" Winnie's expression at the novel idea of teasing Uncle Fred's being anybody's baby was one of such amazement that they all laughed, though Winnie herself hardly appreciated the joke. "Never mind," said Uncle Fred, slipping a bag of chocolates into her hands as a peace-offering, "you know I must tease someone, and your Aunt Kitty is more invulnerable than Achilles himself, for I think that even her heel was dipped." "Oh, I have a vulnerable point," laughed Aunt Kitty, though a close observer might have noticed a queer little sober look about her eyes and mouth, "and it is this"--putting one of Winnifred's creams into her mouth: "the absolute cruelty of giving someone else a paper of chocolates while I'm present. By the way, Winnie, let's go into the kitchen and make some taffy, while my mother instructs your mother how to bring up children in the way they should go; for that she knows how to do it, witness your Uncle Fred and myself as bright and shining examples." But for once Winnie held back. At last she said: "Norah won't like it; she's cross to-day. She wouldn't help me get Ralph ready to go down town." "Oh, Winnie, I'm afraid you've been at your old tricks. But come on; I'll manage Norah, and she has probably forgiven you before this." This proved to be the case, and Norah, who was very fond of Aunt Kitty, was so good-natured, not even grumbling about the "muss," that Winnie felt as if she were having coals of fire heaped on her head; and, not to be outdone in generosity, contritely begged Norah's pardon for the way she had spoken to her in the afternoon. CHAPTER IV. A RAINY DAY. "'One by one the sands are flowing,'--comma-- One by one the moments fall;'--semicolon-- 'Some are coming,'--comma; 'some are going;'--semicolon-- 'Do not strive to grasp them all,'--period." dictated Miriam to a group of girls in the school-room, who were "cramming" for the February examination, and who had hurried back at dinner time for that purpose. "What a queer jumble that makes!" said Winnie. "I believe I'd rather copy it from the book. Don't you think that last line's odd?--'Do not strive to grasp them all.' I thought that was just what we ought to do, isn't it?" "I asked Miss Brownlow that question yesterday," said Ernestine Alroy, a tall, pale and thoughtful-looking girl, "and she said that Miss Procter didn't mean that we were to let any of them go, but that we are not to try to seize them all at once; that it would be like anything else--if our hands were too full, we'd be sure to drop something. She said we must take this 'Memory Gem' in connection with the motto on the board, 'Do the duty that lies nearest thee,' and that if we followed the advice in both of them, we'd be sure not to let any of our duties go undone." "Ernestine, you always did like to preach," said Josie Thompson, making a wry face over the pickle she was eating. "I think it's quite bad enough to have to learn Memory Gems, with all the hideous punctuation, and expect to stand an examination--and they always pick out the one you know the least about--with five per cent. off for a comma left out or put in the wrong place, ten for a misspelled word, and so on until, by the time my 'Gems' are corrected, there's no per cent. left at all. I say all this is bad enough, without having to understand and explain them." And she stopped to take breath, quite exhausted by her long speech. "Perhaps, if you troubled yourself a little more about the meaning, you'd get higher marks occasionally," said Miriam. "Oh, who cares for marks anyhow? I'm getting sick of the eternal word 'Duty!' Miss Brownlow never misses an occasion to make use of it. Then we're always learning some selection with the same word in it, and now you girls have taken it up and there's no knowing if you will ever stop. As for me, I'm going to enjoy myself while I'm young. I guess I'll live just as long, if I don't worry myself to death." The brighter girls laughed, and Miriam said, with quick mimicry, "I think you will live just as long, if you don't worry yourself to death. What a speech! Well, I think you're right; you'll live forever, if worry is the only thing that can kill." "Well, laugh as much as you please; you can all plod along, if you want to. I'm going to have a good time." "It is hard, though," said Winnie, plaintively; "it's much nicer to do the things we like to do than those we ought to do, especially when none of us want to do things that are very wrong." "It's harder to catch up," said Ernestine, "than to keep straight on; and I think if we'd all pray for help not to neglect our duties, we'd find it easier." None of the girls laughed at this, for Ernestine was so devoted to her ideas of religion, and so brave in the profession of them, that if she thought it was her duty, she would have knelt down right there and prayed aloud for them all. "Well, this isn't learning the 'Gem,'" said Fannie Allen decisively; and then for a few moments nothing was heard but the scratching of pencils, as Miriam went on dictating: "One by one thy duties wait thee, Let thy whole strength go to each, Let no future dreams elate thee, Learn thou first what these can teach." After the bell had rung for school to commence, the afternoon wore dismally away. A steady, drenching rain was pouring down as if it intended never to stop. Under the circumstances there could be no recess, which added to the general feeling of weariness, restlessness and disgust. Each recitation was a recapitulation, which made the more studious or those with the better memories feel as if there were "nothing new under the sun," and gave to the triflers, or those to whom study was a continual climbing of the "Hill Difficulty," a confused impression of hearing something they had heard before, but failed to remember just when or where or how. To add to the discomfort, there was much copying to be done from the blackboard, and, as it was dark and gloomy, there was a complaint of not being able to see, until the front seats were filled with a crowd of tired, discontented girls, with their young faces puckered up into all sorts of frowns and grimaces. Even the best-natured among the teachers were conscious of an utter failure to keep from showing irritation, and they were made to sigh for a royal road both to learning and to teaching. It was with a general sigh of relief that the bell announcing the hour of dismission was heard. But the discomfort was not yet over. The halls and dressing-rooms were filled with an odor of wet wool and rubber; rain-cloaks and rubbers were confusedly mixed, and Miss Brownlow reminded the complainers, in a most irritating manner, of the number of times she had urged them all to mark their gossamers and overshoes, and positively forbade them to expect any interference from her if anything were lost. Then some of the girls ran down stairs, and all were ordered back; and, it being impossible to distinguish the culprits, the innocent suffered with the guilty, so that it was nearly five o'clock before they were finally allowed to descend the stairs, and they had been hearing the exasperating shouts of freedom from the boys under the windows for a full half hour. Miriam and Winnie, walking home under the same umbrella, felt their desire to be good and the courage to strive for it, at the lowest ebb. Winnie said petulantly, "I wish there were no such thing as school! It's dig, dig, dig, and then it's cram, cram, cram, until, at last, you don't know whether you know anything or not! I'm just sick of it!" "You'd feel more disagreeable if you'd lost the third pair of rubbers this winter, and had wet feet. I don't see why it is that it's always my rubbers that are gone, anyway. Mamma will say that I grow more heedless every day of my life; that I never will learn to take care of anything; and will wonder if I think papa is a millionaire. I wish now that I'd marked that last pair of rubbers." "Oh, dear! It's so hard to do right, and not to feel hateful and cross. Everyone seems to get cross but Ernestine. But then, none of the rest are as good as she is. I don't believe she ever feels like doing wrong; and she always seems happy, too; not peevish or sulky like the rest of us. Do you suppose--" But just then, too absorbed to notice where they were going, they ran against an old gentleman, and their umbrella was knocked out of their hands into the gutter, where, of course, it was soon all wet and muddy. [Illustration: Too absorbed to notice where they were going.] Then the old gentleman sputtered and scolded, and said he wished little girls would look where they were going once in a while, and that they were nothing but "giggling nuisances" anyhow. Then Miriam dropped her books, and, as both she and Winnie stooped to pick them up, they knocked their heads together with such force that tears sprang to the eyes of both. As a usual thing, such occurrences would have made them laugh, but they were far enough from being "giggling nuisances" on this occasion, and when they turned the corner and separated, it would not have been easy to find two muddier or crosser little girls, while both, I fear, had forgotten all about the giants they were intending to fight. When Winnie reached home, she spoke to Ralph so crossly, when he ran up to her for a kiss, that his lips trembled and he turned to Mrs. Burton, saying, "Mamma, is me bad? 'Innie 'ouldn't tiss me!" Winnie, at sight of his grieved face, began to feel ashamed of herself, but was still too cross to make any acknowledgments, and, without saying a word, went up to her room to change her muddy dress. When she came down, Mrs. Burton looked at her searchingly, but asked no questions, and it was not until after supper that Winnie felt sufficiently herself to tell her mother about the disagreeable afternoon. Mrs. Burton only said: "Well, Winnie,-- 'Into each life some rain must fall. Some days be dark and dreary,' but I hope my daughter isn't going to grow up into one of those unpleasant women who always make it disagreeable for other people when things do not turn out just as they would like to have them." CHAPTER V. THE FIRST MEETING. As a consequence of the lost rubbers and wet feet, Miriam caught such a cold that she was not able to leave the house for the remainder of the week. Gretta Burger was still sulking, and Fannie Allen was, as she said, "reviewing odds and ends," so the meeting which was to have been held on Friday of that week was postponed. But fickleness and inconstancy of purpose were not among the faults of Winnifred, and although she made many failures, and the words "by and by" and "in a minute" were frequently on her lips, she nevertheless made some progress in conquering her great fault. Her greatest temptation, as is evident from what has already been seen of her, was to let everything else go and slip off into some nook and lose herself in what she called "a delicious read." And this habit was all the harder for her to break because she had commenced it when she was a very little girl, and it had then looked "so cunning" and studious that injudicious friends and acquaintances of the family, unable to distinguish between a love for study which costs hard work and self-denial, and a mere love for narrative which is easily gratified, had praised her when she was within hearing, and had told Mr. Burton how much they envied him the possession of so studious and intelligent a child. Not that all works of fiction are to be condemned, for they often have a good and lasting influence, and become a decided factor in the formation of a noble character. But like all things intended for recreation, they should be used only at the proper time. Winnie was fast finding out that the proper time was when her daily duties were over, and that was reducing her two or three snatched hours a day to fifteen or twenty minutes. She was also beginning to find out the close connection between various bad habits. She saw that procrastination led to carelessness, disobedience, and, in some natures, to untruthfulness and dishonesty. But by the following Friday, the long-anticipated examination was over. Our four little friends had reason to be well satisfied with the result, so far as they were personally concerned. A mutual content had restored harmony between Gretta and the other three, and they had decided to hold their first meeting on that evening. Winnie was very anxious to have Ernestine come, too; but, although she laughed at herself for her foolish pride, Fannie said: "Of course we know Ernestine is a nice girl, but we don't know anything about her family, and you know she never speaks of her father, although nobody ever heard that he is dead. They may be very common people, for all we know." Winnie was greatly troubled about this, for she did not like "common people" very well herself. She had her own ideas about such things, and she called Althea Browne "common." Althea wore brass jewelry, and was always boasting about the fine things they had at home, and the grand parties her aunt in Virginia gave. She was always willing to accept fruits and sweetmeats from the other girls, but had been known, more than once, to sneak off by herself and munch candies and apples which she had brought. Winnie thought that if Ernestine's people were like Althea, she did not want to have anything to do with them. As usual, she carried this perplexity to her mother, who said: "Let the matter rest for the present, dear. While Fannie feels as she does about it, it would not be pleasant for any of you to have her come, or for Ernestine herself, and dissension will not help you to become better. In the meantime I will consider the matter, and, if I conclude that it will be best for Ernestine to join you, I hope to be able to arrange it." Mrs. Burton had invited the three girls to take supper with Winnie, and, as school had closed early, and they had no lessons to prepare for Monday, they had a nice, long afternoon together. Miriam read aloud the account of the combat of Fides with the Giant Sloth, and when she was through, said: "That is the giant Gretta pointed out to me; and a hard one he will be for me to overcome, I can tell you." "What is my worst one?" asked Fannie, taking up the book which Miriam had laid down. As she glanced through the pages she said, with a slight blush, "Oh, yes; my father would tell me that I must conquer my pride, and he tries to have me see how disagreeable it makes me, by telling me that I will never be a perfect lady until I have done so. Here, Miriam, read this aloud, too; you make it so plain that I almost feel as if I were there." Gretta said very little, but she had a self-satisfied air about her, as if it were as needless for anyone to be proud or untidy as for anyone to steal, and she felt herself far removed from faults such as these. And indeed she was neither indolent nor untidy. She rose at six--that magic hour in which Fides was to strike his first blow at Giant Sloth--and practiced two hours before school; she was neatness itself, both in person and in all her belongings. Besides, she was neither so conscientious as Winnie, so frank and outspoken as Fannie, nor so easily influenced, either for right or wrong, as Miriam. So her conscience lay dormant. She was, however, conscious that she, too, had a habit of not doing things as soon as she ought, and to try to overcome that seemed to her almost like a lesson to be learned, so she was willing to try to learn it with the others. After Miriam had finished the chapter, Winnie said, "Oh, girls, I must show you my autographs;" and, turning to Ralph, who sat by the window, gazing intently at a couple of puppies which were having a romp together, she said, "Ralphie, bring Winnie that book by the window." Without moving a muscle of his chubby little body, or even turning his head, the child answered: "You just s'pect me to do evvyfing; I tan't do evvyfing." "Oh, Ralph, my little partner in distress!" exclaimed Miriam, in her most dramatic way, snatching him up and kissing him in spite of his struggles. "You'll have to have a suit of armor, too. Who would have thought that one so young could be so lazy!" The laugh was not yet over when Mrs. Burton came in, with her pleasant smile, saying, "Girls, I've a short story to tell you--that is, if you wish to hear it; and there'll just be time before supper." Of course they were delighted, and, Fannie having coaxed Ralph to her lap, they all gathered around Mrs. Burton, making a pretty group in their unconsciously graceful attitudes, as they listened to the following narrative: "Constance van Orten was born in New York, a descendant of one of the old Knickerbocker families, but of a branch which had preserved more of the family pride than its estates. Money, however, was not altogether lacking, and to many people their income would have seemed sumptuous; but to them, in comparison with their more wealthy friends and relatives, it seemed the merest pittance that necessity could demand. "But this comparative lack of money never troubled little Constance, and fortune seemed to smile upon her. One might almost have believed that all the beneficent fairies had presided at her birth, so many graces of face and form and disposition were hers, and so many of the conditions necessary to human happiness seemed fulfilled in her lot. "She was the youngest child and only daughter, and her four brothers found her so charming a plaything, and later so agreeable a companion, that they took pleasure in making her life a succession of pleasant surprises, and her every wish was gratified almost before expressed. Indeed, had she asked for the moon, it would have been a source of genuine grief to them that they could not get it for her. "Pain seemed as far removed from her as anxiety or grief, for, although she had an odd faculty of catching all the diseases incident to childhood, they touched her so lightly that it was seldom necessary to call in a physician. If she received a cut or a wound of any kind, so pure was her blood and so perfect her physical condition that it healed as if by magic. "Her willfulness was extreme, as might have been expected from the almost total lack of restraint under which she grew up; but so winning were her ways, and so ready her repentance for her little misdeeds, that for the most part she escaped punishment and even reproof. "Almost without the power of application, she seemed to pick up external evidences of education and culture without effort. She talked fluently, sang charmingly, and, having almost marvelous tact, never failed to please. "Being, as I have said, the only daughter, she entered society earlier than most girls, and, in spite of her comparative lack of means, soon became a reigning belle. During her first season she refused more than one wealthy suitor, and that, too, to the intense satisfaction of her parents and brothers, for she was a veritable sunbeam in the family, and they looked forward with dread to the thought of losing her. "At last, however, there came, furnished with letters of introduction to one of Constance's uncles, a young and wealthy cotton planter from Louisiana. His seeming indifference to money and his prodigal use of it, his pleasant speech and manner, his languid Southern movements, so different from those of the brisk Northerners to whom they were accustomed, and, above all, the very fact of his being a stranger, made him most welcome to the girlish minds so fond of change and novelty. But it was with the greatest regret that the Van Ortens began to notice his marked attentions to Constance and the increasing pleasure she took in them. It was not only that a marriage with him would separate her from them all, but her father and brothers, constantly meeting the young stranger at clubs and places where there were no ladies present, and consequently where he was off his guard, found him capricious and changeable in his opinions and actions, extremely self-indulgent, selfishly indifferent to the comfort of others, and so fond of intoxicating liquor that, on more than one occasion, he had been directly and shamefully under its influence. "But Constance would not, perhaps could not, see him in the light in which he was portrayed to her, and, in spite of all their warnings and her mother's pleadings, she consented to become his wife. Immediately after the marriage, they went to Louisiana, and for awhile all was to Constance as her most ardent fancy had painted it. Their home was in the beautiful Claiborne Parish, which has been named "the Eden of Louisiana." Her winning ways and delicate beauty endeared her to the new acquaintances she formed, and made her the idol of the slaves on the plantation. Here two sons were born, and the mother felt her happiness complete. But presently she found her husband less attentive to her. He absented himself on long journeys, for which he scarcely had a pretext, and when at home was either sullen or irritable. "Then the Civil War broke out and he lost much of his property, and there were almost ceaseless and taunting allusions on his part to the "plebeian Yankees" and the ruin they had brought him. After the close of the war, however, he seemed to make an effort to do the best with what property remained. He became a little more considerate, and sometimes seemed to be almost what he had been in the early years of his married life, and when Constance became the mother of a little girl, she began to feel as if, after all, life might hold some good in store for her. "But alas! her husband's good behavior did not last long. He began to drink constantly, and at last he left one morning, without saying a word, and never returned. Then the two promising boys died of that dreadful scourge, yellow fever, and Constance was almost heartbroken. "During the war, communication with her New York relatives had been almost impossible, and since then, as is usual in interrupted correspondence, even among those who love each other best, it had assumed a desultory character; and now that Constance felt overwhelmingly disgraced by her husband's desertion, and knowing that all this sorrow had come upon her in consequence of her opposition to the wishes of her family, she was too proud to turn to them for help or comfort. But to remain where she was was likewise almost an impossibility, for the scenes of sorrow through which she had passed made the South a hated prison from which she felt that she must escape. Besides, her husband's creditors had seized upon everything that was left, and the once lovely, petted girl, destitute, bereaved, forsaken, raised what money she could from the sale of her laces and jewelry, and, taking passage in one of the Mississippi steamers, started for Louisville. There, however, she remained but a few days, and finally came to Cincinnati, hoping here to find some way to support herself and her little daughter, without being obliged to appeal to her brothers for help. "But for a woman reared as she had been, what was there to do? Her slender means became still more slender, and it was only after having been subjected to absolute privation, that she managed to obtain a place in a store as saleswoman, and now she and her child are able to live respectably, if not always comfortably. Her one joy and source of happiness she finds in the companionship of her daughter Ernestine, a girl of character so fine and religious principles so high that they would be a credit to one of twice her years." "Why, that sounds like a description of Ernestine Alroy!" said Fannie. "And it is Ernestine of whom I am speaking, although I hope it is not necessary for me to suggest that she would not like her mother's history to be made public property. In fact, I must earnestly request you not to mention it even in your own homes," said Mrs. Burton. "It was only by a mere accident that I heard this narrative yesterday afternoon. But I hear Mr. Burton and Jack in the hall, and, as supper will be served in a very few minutes, I must leave you, with an apology for telling you a sad story, and one which I would not have ventured upon had it not been an 'o'er true tale.'" "How dreadful!" said Fannie. "And to think, girls, that her mother was as happy and well reared--" Just then, however, supper was announced, and Fannie's sentence remained unfinished. After supper, Jack brought out his violin, and he and Gretta played some duets together, Gretta reading the piano part at sight, and so well that Winnie felt her own poor little talent cast quite in the shade. Then Gretta played some pretty sonatinas with fine taste and expression, and gave so much pleasure to her listeners that Fannie began to think there might be worse things in the world than being a "music teacher's daughter." After that, to the great delight of the girls, Mr. Burton sang, in his fine bass voice, and with the merry twinkle in his eyes in accord with his extravagant gestures, a comic song, ending with a little refrain in which all the Burtons, not even excepting Ralph, joined, the latter singing at the top of his voice, and clapping his hands for accompaniment. They had hardly had time to feel weary of sitting still and listening, when Mrs. Burton had them all in the dining-room playing the good old game of "Puss in the Corner." Here, too, Mr. Burton distinguished himself by his pathetic appeals for a "corner." The game left them all breathless but happy, and they sat down for awhile to recover themselves and "cool off," while Jack went to get on his overcoat preparatory to seeing the girls home. CHAPTER VI. WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. The school which Winnie and her friends attended was in the habit of selecting certain authors, whose birthday anniversaries they commemorated. This year, however, the principal had concluded to celebrate Washington's birthday by patriotic songs, declamations, and so on. In consequence the pupils were all in a state of great excitement, pleasurable to boyish and girlish hearts. Lessons were shortened, classes dismissed early, rehearsals conducted morning, noon and night. From one end of the building to the other, "spouting" was heard, gestures were being made in the most frantic manner, the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner," "America," and "The Red, White and Blue" rose upon the air; and, as the crowds of boys and girls passed to and from school, their conversation contained allusions to "The Father of our Country," or the fine way in which Harry or Tom or Frank gave that declamation, or the sweetness of Mabel Gray's voice, or why Mr. Bowen hadn't selected Clarence instead of Bob, etc., etc., etc., until all the air around the school-house must have been as heavily charged with patriotism as the air around Lexington on the morning of that memorable battle which, too, was talked of, for there had been much "brushing up" of United States history. The memorable day of the 21st of February arrived (there being no school on the 22d), and found the rooms finely decorated with flags and swords and battle relics, portraits of George and Martha Washington, and flowers and living plants, while the blackboards were entirely filled with ornamental scrolls containing patriotic mottoes. Two o'clock had been set for the beginning of the programme, but long before that time visitors had begun to arrive and were shown to seats by the two gentlemanly boy-ushers in quite an impressive manner. Among the visitors, our friends the Burtons, not excepting Ralph, were represented. Ralph sat snuggled up to his mother, his big eyes having their most pleased and wondering look. Mrs. Alroy, too, was there, dressed quietly but tastefully, and looking a perfect lady; having indeed so thoroughbred an air that even Fannie's somewhat haughty mamma who sat next her, could scarcely equal her. Gretta Berger took her place at the piano, and soon the inspiring strains of a patriotic medley were heard, while the boys and girls from the various rooms marched into the hall and took their places with such a fine idea of time and military precision of movement that to see them was not the least pleasure of the afternoon. The next thing on the programme was a sketch of George Washington's life, by Ernestine Alroy, read by her in a sweet, dignified way, in a well-modulated voice, and an expression which showed a thorough appreciation of the fine character and life she was describing. One of the boys followed with a recitation of Drake's "American Flag." Next a small choir of girls and boys (the girls dressed in the national colors and the boys wearing flag badges) sang the "Star Spangled Banner." Then Winnie went upon the stage, and recited the following, which is given in full, as it is one of those fugitive things which seem to have no home. It is entitled: THE USED-TO-BE. The mother gathered her children together, She folded them close to her heart in glee, For the red sun had brought them rainy weather, And what they should do, they never could see. And they cried in querulous tones, "Mamma, Now think back, ever and ever so far, And see if _you_ ever had rainy days That troubled the plans, and spoiled the plays, And what you did in the Used-to-be." The mother laughed with low, soft laughter; She was remembering, they could see. "I see, you rogues, what you are all after; I'll tell you a tale that happened to me. I and some wee little bits of girls, With hair as yellow as shaving-curls, When it rained for a day and a night and a day, And we thought it hard to go on that way, As we were as tired as tired could be. "Up in the attic, in grandma's attic, There's a chest of drawers--or there used to be; Though we had many a charge emphatic, Not to go near enough to see. But one rainy day we opened them wide, And strewed the contents on every side; We dressed ourselves in the queer old caps, The brass-buttoned coats, with long blue flaps. And--but wait a minute; papa calls me." They waited and waited and waited and waited,-- "Forty hours, it seems to me," Said weary Kitty, with eyes dilated. "Let's do it ourselves; I can find the key." They climbed the stairs,--as still as a mouse. You might have heard them all over the house. They dressed themselves in the queer old dresses, The powdered wigs and hempen tresses, Just as they did in the Used-to-be. The warning stairs kept creaking and creaking,-- There was no time to turn and flee. "_What's all this!_" (It was grandma speaking.) "I shall take every one of you over my knee." And I regret to say that she did, All except Kitty, who ran and hid. And when they went and told mamma, She only said, with a soft "ha! ha!" "Just what your grandmamma did to me." The amusing little poem suited Winnie's childish face and figure, and her mother had read between the lines for her, so that the picture was plain to her mind. Winnie saw the pretty young mother playing the little joke on the children, and the affected wrath of the grandmother as she spanked each of the little ones--saw the picture so plainly herself that it was easy for her to make her good-natured audience see it, too, and her hearers laughed while they applauded. Of course they had "The Red, White and Blue" sung by the whole school; and "America," which can never be old to any of us; and for further recitations. "Independence Bell," and "The Blue and the Gray"--for what patriotic celebration would be complete without these? The finest declamation of the day, given by the pride of the class, so far as elocutionary ability was concerned, and with a drum accompaniment by a corps of boys well drilled for the occasion, was the following stirring SONG OF THE DRUM. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! Follow me, follow me, every true man! Hark to the song of the rolling drum: Come with me! Come with me! Come with me! Come! Follow me! Follow me! Follow me now! Come from the anvil, come from the plow. Don't think of the danger which threatens your lives! Leave home, leave friends, leave your children, your wives! Hark to the sound of the rolling drum! Come with me! Come with me! Come! Follow me, follow me, every one, To where the white camps shine in the sun. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! Follow me, follow me, every true man! From the crowded streets of the city, come! Follow the drum, the drum, the drum! From fields where the blithe birds chirp and sing, From woods where your sturdy axes ring; Leave the plow in the furrow to stand; Grasp the musket firm in your hand: There's a grander place in the world for you, And nobler work for your hands to do. Come with me! Come with me! Come with me! Come! Follow the drum, the drum, the drum! Come with me where the camps shine white; Hark to my shrill tattoo at night, To my loud reveille when morning breaks. And the golden eye of the dawn awakes. Come with me out to the trenches then. Where are gathered scores of your fellow-men Beginning to dig with pick and with spade,-- This is the way entrenchments are made. There's a puff of smoke, and now comes a shell; See yonder, there, where its fragments fell; Nobody hurt! and above on the hill, Our batteries, until this moment still, Now blaze away with a deafening noise, And a shout goes up from our gallant boys. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! This is the life for every true man. Come with me now to the picket! Come! Follow the drum, the drum, the drum! That's a sharpshooter's rifle we hear, And that was the bullet that sang so near; There's another rifle, that shrill, sharp sound; And yonder's a wounded man on the ground, With the blood flowing out in a crimson tide From a gaping hole in his quivering side. Don't sicken and pale at the sight you see, For this is where only men should be. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! Follow me, follow me, every true man! Come with me over the battle field, come! Follow the drum, the drum, the drum! Through the smoke and heat and the storm of lead, Adown this gulley piled deep with dead; And along the edge of this shattered wood, Where the trees are splintered and dashed with blood; Then on through this field of trampled corn, Where the once broad leaves into shreds are torn; Into the shadow of this ravine, Where the dead and wounded are everywhere seen. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! Follow me, follow me, every true man! Follow me on through the fiery breath Of the vengeful cannon, scattering death. On through the battle's sound and glare, Follow me, follow me, everywhere! And hear the cries and the awful groans, The piercing shrieks and the feeble moans-- And the ringing shout which goes up to the sun, When a work is stormed and a victory won. Rataplan! Rataplan! Rataplan! This is the death for every true man. [Illustration: Then Winnie recited.--See page 25.] But the crowning performance of the day, in the opinion of all the girls and boys, was a little drama, written expressly for the occasion, entitled, "Revolutionary Days." The characters represented were an elderly lady, two young girls, two little children, a negro servant girl, an elderly gentleman, a Tory, and two young men, Continental soldiers. While the platform was being cleared and prepared, the girls and boys who took part were having what they called "fine fun" in the dressing-room, getting their hair powdered, caps and wigs adjusted, and so on. When the curtain rose, Miriam was discovered, dressed as an elderly lady of the eighteenth century, sitting in an old-fashioned chair beside a spinning-wheel, and singing a song of Revolutionary days. As she ceased singing, two little children, borrowed from the primary class in the "Colony," came in, begging their grandmother to tell them something about George Washington. She tells them that she is busy, but they persist, and then tell her that they know some verses about him, and each recites, alternately, a verse of four lines, descriptive of Washington's childhood and school days, and, as seems inevitable, winding up with the story of the hatchet. As they finish, a negro servant girl rushes in, in which burnt-cork heroine it would be utterly impossible to discover the maiden of the pickles and of the ardent desire to enjoy herself while young, had she not been seen in the dressing-room "making up" for the occasion. She informs Mrs. Grey that the cat or something has pulled all the yarn off the reel, and of its consequent fearful state of entanglement. Mrs. Grey rouses herself from her reverie, and asks the children if they know anything about it. Each accusingly points to the other, whereupon their grandmother looks at them sternly, when they say they "can't tell a lie," that they did it with-- They are interrupted by Mrs. Grey, who tells Dinah to take them away and put them to bed without their supper. They begin to howl, and reproachfully tell their grandmother that she ought to say, "Come to my arms, my precious children;" whereupon an audacious small boy in the audience--a visitor, it is needless to say--shouts, "Chestnut!" and Mrs. Grey's face hardens into a look of positive inflexibility, as if this were the last straw, and the children, howling and struggling, are carried away by Dinah. Quiet being thus restored, Mrs. Grey paces up and down, indulging in a long soliloquy. She speaks of the long years of war, and the hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. She regretfully recalls the bonnie little island, with its green fields and blooming gardens, which had been forsaken for these scenes of hardship. Then, however, she remembers the days of oppression there, and bursts into a thanksgiving that they had at last found a spot where they could worship God in peace according to the dictates of their own conscience. Then she thinks of the Declaration of Independence, and tries to remember the resolution of Richard Henry Lee. Seeing the girls come in, she says that they will remember. The two girls, Winnie and Fannie, attired in short-waisted dresses, big poke bonnets, and immense outside pockets, are asked by Mrs. Grey to recall the resolution which has for the moment slipped from her recollection. One of them (Fannie), in answer, declaims the resolution, and as she comments, in rather excited tones, "Glorious, mother, isn't it?" Mr. Cranston, the Tory gentleman, enters. This was one of the boys of the class, resplendent in hempen wig, frilled shirt front, and the veritable "brass-buttoned coat, with long blue flaps," knee breeches, and silver-buckled slippers. He tauntingly informs them that they will find it "too glorious, when the rebellion is crushed, and they are all sentenced to be executed as rebels." Whereupon he and the colonial young ladies enter into a heated argument, with taunts on one side about the minute-men of Massachusetts and the battles of Lexington and Concord, and retaliations from the Tory about the battle of Long Island and the miseries at Valley Forge. They retort with the news of the treaty of alliance with France, and he replies by reminding them of the loss of their ports in the north. He is interrupted by the entrance of the children, who tell the group that every one in the village is shouting "Hurrah!" that the bell in the church is ringing, and that the big flag is waving over the roof. While the patriots are exclaiming that "there must be good news," two young men enter, carrying guns. All spring up in surprise, and the children dance and caper about, with shouts of "Uncle Mark! Uncle John!" Mark and John inform Mrs. Grey and their sisters of the surrender of Cornwallis. The Tory makes his way out as quietly as possible, with a very evident desire to do so unobserved, saying, "Cornwallis surrendered! Then this is no place for me!" The curtain falls, as Mrs. Grey exclaims, with clasped hands and upraised eyes, "The morning has dawned at last!" There was the usual applause, and soon visitors and children--the entertained and the entertainers--were on their homeward way, and the "exhibition" had become a part of the past. CHAPTER VII. THE YOUNG WARRIOR MAIDS. After the entertainment, things went on in their accustomed routine. Winnie, Miriam, Gretta and Fannie became more intimate than ever, and really tried, in spite of many discouragements, to conquer their bad habits. For a couple of weeks the little band of "Giant Killers" had had no meetings, but on the second week after the Washington celebration, the four girls received a pretty invitation from Winnifred's Aunt Kitty to take tea with her on the following Friday, and to consider themselves invited to hold their next meeting at her home, bidding them tell their mothers that the hostess would see that they arrived home safe not later than half-past nine. Also, inclosed under cover to Winnie, was an invitation for Ernestine Alroy, to be delivered only in case the other three girls were willing. Upon Winnie's showing this, Fannie was the first to propose that not only should the invitation be delivered, but that Ernestine should be invited to join their society. The family of Winnie's grandmother was a small one, Mrs. Benton often saying, with a sigh, that her children had all left her except Kitty and Fred. Whereupon Kitty would take hold of her mother's hand and assure her, in a serio-comic manner, that this daughter she would have ever beside her, "to warn, to comfort, to command." Mrs. Benton was not wealthy, but she had a comfortable income of her own, and as Fred received a very good salary in one of the large railroad offices, they always had means for the comforts of life and many of its luxuries. They lived in a suite of rooms in one of the finest apartment houses of the city. The "Arlington" was a very large building, and as the girls were not accustomed to such immense houses, they had arranged with Winnie that they should all go together at five o'clock. Accordingly that hour found them all standing in the vestibule together, to the manifest amusement of the janitor when he answered Winnie's ring. As Mrs. Benton's apartment was only one flight up, they did not take the elevator, but Winnie ran lightly up the stairs, the others following more slowly. She knocked at the door at the right of the hall, which was immediately opened by Miss Benton, to whom Winnie introduced the other girls, who more or less timidly put their hands into the outstretched one of this pleasant young lady, but found their timidity vanish almost as if by magic when they felt her warm, cordial clasp as she drew them into the parlor. And a very pretty parlor it was, with a quaint individuality of its own--"just like Kitty Benton herself," as her friends were wont to say. There were no two chairs alike, but they all agreed in one respect--that of being exceedingly comfortable, from the high-backed willow to the low chair upholstered in old gold and scarlet tapestry. On the walls were five or six oil paintings--a couple of marines, and the others bright, summer landscapes. There was one, which Miss Benton had herself painted, entirely different from the others. A cloudy sky, with dim, gray mountains in the distance. In the foreground a single grave under a willow, but lying in such vivid sunlight, which came from a break in the clouds, that it had almost a jubilant look for so sad a subject, as most people would have deemed it. On a low shelf stood a beautifully engraved Madonna, and on a table near was a portfolio of fine etchings. About the room were bits of bric-a-brac of various kinds, among them a piece of genuine old Wedgwood. On the upright piano stood a tall vase of Easter lilies. Miss Benton, having helped her young visitors to divest themselves of their wraps, seated them close to the open fire, and then took down the etchings to show them. These, however, proved a little beyond them, so she took from the table a stereoscope and some views, every one of which had been collected by her mother or herself during their various trips, and about each one she told some incident, amusing or pathetic, so that an hour had passed away almost before the girls knew it. Fred had been requested by his sister to take his supper downtown, as she felt that the girls would feel more at their ease without his presence. When the bright-faced maid announced supper, Miss Benton took Gretta by the hand, and said, as they all entered the dining-room, "'We are seven,' and, I presume, if Wordsworth were here, he would write a poem about us." As the five friends took their places, they simultaneously burst into an exclamation of delight. At each of their places was a bunch of flowers, with a card on which was a pretty little painting in water-colors of a young girl, with fair hair streaming over her shoulders, in full armor, receiving from an angel a sword. Underneath were the words in old English text, in scarlet and gold, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things." The cards were exactly alike, but the flowers were different. Miriam had a glorious red rose, with buds and leaves; Gretta, garden daisies and primroses; Fannie, scarlet geraniums, a calla lily and a wild jack-in-the-pulpit; Ernestine, lilies of the valley; Winnie, ferns and mignonette. Mrs. Benton lifted caressingly to her face a bunch of English violets, and their hostess pinned on her bodice a cluster of yellow rosebuds. "Oh, Aunt Kitty, what a hunt you must have had among the florists and markets for all these flowers!" said Winnie. "And how well you have suited us all!" cried Miriam. "What is this, Miss Benton?" asked Fannie, holding up the jack-in-the-pulpit. "That is a wild-flower," replied Miss Benton, giving the blossom its name, "which was sent me from Tennessee this week; it does not bloom quite so early here. If you will examine it and compare it with your calla, you will see many points of resemblance; indeed, they are of the same family, although the splendid Egyptian calla has all the advantages of climate, water and sun, which make it the handsome thing it is. But our little American Jack, all the same, lifts its head out of its green pulpit and preaches to us of the eternal kinship of all things. Put your geraniums in your button hole, and after tea I'll put your calla and its country cousin in water for you to keep fresh till you go home." "How did you know I was fond of lilies of the valley, Miss Benton?" asked Ernestine. "It is my mother's favorite flower, too; she says they used to grow in great clumps in the yard of her home when she was a girl, and she never sees one without thinking of her childhood." "Of course I couldn't know that, my dear; I only thought that you would like them. Although I had never met any of you I have heard Winnifred talk about you, and her little tongue sometimes gives me queer ideas," said Miss Benton, smiling at her niece with an air of good comradeship. "Mother, let Winnie serve the chocolate, while I attend to this end of the table. You see, girls, we only have the maid bring in the dishes from the kitchen, for we like to wait on each other," she said, helping them to chicken croquettes, cold ham, and delicious muffins, as Winnie passed around the chocolate in dainty china cups. How they all enjoyed that supper! They were just like girls in a book, Miriam said. Everything seemed so different from ordinary occasions. Even the orange jelly tasted so much better than at other times, because of the orange baskets in which it was served. They sat at the table a long time, for both Mrs. Benton and her daughter encouraged their visitors to talk; and while they were eating their candy and nuts, they played the game of rhymes and "yes and no." Then Miss Kitty sent them into the parlor with her mother, excusing herself and Winnie for a few moments. When they entered the parlor, they found Mrs. Benton with her silk socks in her hands, knitting as rapidly as she was talking. She was giving them an account of the old turkey gobbler that used to chase her when she was a little girl, and they were all laughing heartily. This anecdote led to Miriam's giving an account of a goat which one of her aunt's friends had presented to her little boy, and which was the terror of the neighborhood. "My aunt and I," said Miriam, "were making an afternoon visit at Mrs. Kincaid's, and, as it was warm and pleasant, we were invited into the yard to look at the flowers. My aunt was very enthusiastically admiring a fine Yucca which, for a wonder, was in bloom, when the goat was seen peering through a gap in the fence which divided the front from the back yard. "Mrs. Kincaid immediately took to her heels, and I was about to follow, when Aunt Jennie said, 'Miriam, I am surprised that you should be afraid of a goat. Even if he were to come near you, you would only have to seize him by the horns; it is the easiest thing in the world to conquer a goat.' "By this time Mrs. Kincaid was safe in the house, tapping loudly on the window, from which she was viewing the scene, for us to come in, and 'dancing crazy' (as the girls say about things), because we were still outside. "My aunt was walking in a leisurely and dignified manner toward the house, holding her head a little higher than usual, and I was following very meekly for me--for I hate to be thought a coward--when the goat gave a sudden bound, broke another picket in the fence, and went straight toward her with his head down, and his bob tail switching. "Well, Aunt Jennie did turn and face him, and she really did take the vicious little beast by the horns. But was he conquered? You wouldn't have thought so, had you been there; he just raised himself on his hind legs and shook himself loose. Aunt Jennie suddenly dropped her dignity, and flew, rather than ran, toward the house, the goat after her, and she just escaped him by Mrs. Kincaid's pulling her inside the door and slamming it shut. "As for me, I went through the hole in the fence to the back yard, rushed pell-mell into the kitchen door, without stopping to knock, and dropped into the nearest chair, where I sat and laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, to the astonishment of the kitchen girl and the washerwoman, who were enjoying a cup of tea. "I was wicked enough to laugh afterward, for Aunt Jennie did not lecture on courage or dignity for a month after that, and I notice now that when we pass a livery stable she keeps a quiet but effective lookout for 'the horned monarch of the livery stable,' as I once heard him called." "Well, I'm afraid of goats myself," said Miss Kitty, "and I think there ought to be a law against their being allowed inside the city limits. What with the small boy who torments the goat, and the goat which cannot distinguish between his tormentor and any other member of the human race, every passer-by is certain of being made ridiculous, if nothing more serious occurs. But to change the subject, would you young giant-killers like to hear a story that I have written for you?" Of course they were delighted, and, the softly-shaded lamp having been adjusted, and Mrs. Benton seated so that the light fell upon her knitting, Miss Benton took her seat at the other side of the table, and read the following allegory: GIANT PROCRASTINATION. Stretching off far as the eye can reach, lies a vast plain, intersected by many roads of various widths, from the narrowest foot-path to those wide enough for three or four vehicles to pass abreast. Pleasant roads they seem to be, too; wild-flowers of brilliant hues grow along their sides, birds of beautiful plumage twitter their varied notes, and pretty little squirrels and rabbits dart here and there. But when the saunterer along one of these by-paths plucks the blossoms, they fall to pieces in his hands, and, on near approach, the birds circle for a few moments about the head, and then fly away and are seen no more. These by-ways continually lead into and cross one another, but all at last meet in one broad road, and this is the road of "By and By," which leads to the castle of "Never." This castle stands at the entrance to a dark and gloomy forest, through which no path has ever been cut, and which is so dense and wild that one draws back in fear, finding it impossible not to think of it as inhabited by beasts and serpents and insects as wild and poisonous as those which infest the South American forests or the jungles of India. At the right and left of the castle rise huge cliffs unscaled by mortal foot during the lifetime of the present owner, and seldom attempted even during the ages gone by, when his ancestors, in a more or less direct line, held high orgies, while with demoniac laughter they tortured their victims. The present owner and occupant of the castle is a giant, so skilled in the art of metamorphosis that he is constantly deceiving and deluding his victims, each of whom he approaches in a different manner. With some he wears an air of haughty though courteous dignity, and gives them fair and sweet promises of granting their every desire as soon as his plans are perfected and he is ready. With others, he puts on a smiling, joyous look, points out to them the birds and flowers along the roadside, and tells them that to-morrow all these pleasures shall be theirs. A different face and garb for every deluded follower, who ever ends in becoming his victim; for, just at the entrance to the castle, still covered by the seemingly fair flowers, is a frightful morass, out of which the wanderer is helped only by the giant himself, and taken by him thence into the castle, from which there is no escape. The dreadful Castle of Never! And yet, how fair it looks to those who stand just outside its gates! Its battlemented towers, decorated with flags and banners floating gayly in the air, its many windows, catching and reflecting every ray of sunlight, its majestic proportions, make it seem a dwelling much to be desired. And either because it is enchanted, or from some strange property of the surrounding atmosphere, it often appears to be raised high in the air, so that at a very great distance it shows larger, if less distinct, than when viewed near by. It is early morning. The sun himself has not yet risen, although his approach is heralded by lovely green and rose tints on the eastern horizon. The great Giant Procrastination lies stretched upon his huge bed, dreaming uneasily, for he groans and starts many times, but still sleeps on. The inside of the far-famed castle shows not so fair as the outside. There are many things lying about on tables and chairs, or tucked away under articles of larger furniture; some of them are pretty, some elegant, but all unfinished. The morning wind, rising as if it, too, had lain asleep during the night, shrieks and whistles as if in wrath, or moans and sighs as though in mortal anguish. And hush! What other sound is that which rises above the roar of the wind and fills one's soul with terror? Alas! it is the shrieks of despair from the prisoners in the dungeon, and one hears, mingled with their groans, the dreadful words, "Too late! Too late!" But who are these descending the heretofore unscaled cliff? And how comes it that thus unguided they have escaped the dangers of the forest, and that, now stealing upon their sleeping foe from the unguarded rear, they are not dashed into pieces as they make the steep and terrible descent? Ah! they have an invisible Guide, who goes before and smooths every difficulty; and their feet are shod with a divine determination which leads them securely over the most dangerous places. And yet they move with caution. Clinging now to the bushes that grow along the cliff, now stepping carefully on some jutting crag, they come one by one. Now they have reached the bottom, and stop a moment to take breath and consult as to the next movement. For behold! five little maidens, scarcely in their teens, have come to give battle to one of the strongest enemies of mankind, and to attack him in his own stronghold. Brave as they are, however, and resolutely as they have nerved themselves to the task ahead of them, they cannot repress a shudder as they gaze upon the frowning mass before them. For, never dreaming of attack in the rear, the giant's ancestors had taken no pains to make that part of the castle beautiful or to endow it with the enchantment of illusion, so all is dark and strong and terrible. Regaining courage, the five young warriors kneel upon the rocky path and ask their invisible Guide for succor and strength. They rise encouraged and hopeful, and each assists the other to readjust her armor. Wonderful armor! light to wear, but stronger than mailed steel. They advance to the heavy door. It is all unguarded, and even stands partly open, so that all their strength is saved to them for the combat. One by one, and noiselessly, they climb the iron stairs, and, guided by his snores, they find themselves at last in the presence of their sleeping enemy. If they can but strike now! One blow from either of their swords, and he would lie slain before them. But alas! they hesitate for one short moment, and in that brief space of time the wind bangs a heavy shutter against the iron casement, and, at its fearful clang, the giant awakes and rises to his feet. He stares about him for a moment, stupefied, but there is no mistaking the fact that he is in the presence of an enemy; for their armor, their uplifted swords, their resolute mien, all proclaim their errand to be one of war. Then, gazing upon their diminutive forms, he laughs a horrid, blood-curdling laugh, as he gloats over the prospect that he will soon have five more victims to languish in his dungeons. He springs forward to seize the foremost of his youthful foes, but her fear has vanished. Raising her shield for protection, she strikes with her sword, and the giant receives a fearful gash in the hand outstretched to grasp her, and starts back, howling with pain. The five girls close around him at once, but so immense of stature is he, that they soon perceive it will be impossible for them to reach a vital part unless he can be thrown. Fast and furious they rain the blows upon him, and not in vain. He has no armor on, his usual weapons are beyond his reach, and he knows instinctively that his usual powers of metamorphosis are useless. One blow, at last, inflicts a ghastly wound in his ankle; he clutches at the bed for support, but misses it, and falls, groaning heavily, at full length on the floor, where, taken at a disadvantage, a sword is thrust into his heart, and with horrid struggles he dies. The maiden warriors embrace each other joyfully, and, kneeling together in that moment of victory, give all the praise and glory to that invisible Power which has enabled them, weak girls as they are, to conquer. But their work is not yet done. Taking the keys from under the pillow of the dead monster, they pass down a winding staircase, until they find themselves so far beneath the surface of the earth, that not a ray of light shines over their pathway. One of them lights a tiny lamp which she has brought with her, and they proceed. At length they reach the foot of the stairs and find themselves in a dark, narrow passage, with many windings and turnings. Along this they proceed carefully, until they stand before the massive doors of the dungeon. Trying one key after another, they find one that turns the lock, and the door swings open. What a sight meets their sorrowful gaze! Bones--human bones--lie scattered everywhere, and, as they become more accustomed to the darkness, they distinguish human forms still living, with haggard faces, and despair written on every feature. "Your enemy is dead!" say the maidens. "We have come to set you free, and then we are going to burn the castle, for thus has our Guide commanded us." As they all stand once more in the glad sunlight, they set fire to the mighty structure, and see the leaping, victorious flames devour it, even to the flags and banners which had so short a time before streamed gayly from its towers. "Thank you, Aunt Kitty," said Winnifred, as Miss Benton laid down the manuscript. "I don't see how you ever thought of all that." "Well, Winnie, we all know that the idea is taken from the book you have recently been reading, but where no pretense is made to originality, imitation is not deception." "But do you really think, Miss Benton," said Ernestine, raising her eyes, "that we can so completely conquer our faults?" "Alas, no! I'm afraid we never can completely conquer them, but by striving constantly we can strike many a blow, each one of which leaves the enemy weaker, and ourselves stronger. The great pity of it all is, that we can kill only our own giants, and destroy their strongholds for ourselves; we can never do it for others, dearly as we may love them." "Well," said Fannie, in her decided manner, "I wish that Procrastination were the only giant to fight; but I have some enemies which are still harder for me to conquer;" and she blushed slightly, as she involuntarily glanced toward Ernestine. "It is a great gain, however," said Mrs. Benton, pausing in her knitting, "when we have learned to do that which must be done, without unnecessary delay. Procrastination, it is quite true, is the least vicious and the least malicious of all the faults; but stronger, almost, than any other, and holding more people, young and old, under its control. If this be overcome, the struggle with the others grows easier. Indeed, it is surprising how many little misdeeds are the outcome of that one fault. Untidiness, fits of temper, disobedience, prevarication, and sometimes even downright untruth, might often be avoided if things were done in time." "But it is hard always to remember," sighed Miriam. "Ernestine, how do you keep from forgetting?" "Oh, I forget oftener than you know," said Ernestine, flushing under her delicate skin; "but I have had mamma to think of, and have tried to please her and make her happy; then, too, I had a nurse in Louisiana who taught me to remember that there is One 'who is a very present help in time of trouble.'" "That is the best help of all, girls, and one that you can carry with you always. I find mottoes and texts a great help, too, when I want to succeed in any one particular thing. How would it do, at your next meeting, for each one to contribute a text from the Bible, and, if possible, a quotation from one of the poets, applicable to this same wheedling fault?" said Miss Benton. "I should like that very much," replied Ernestine. "So would I!" "And I!" "And I!" replied Miriam, Fannie and Winnie. Gretta only was silent, but Miss Kitty judged it best to pass her silence by without remark. At this moment, Mr. Fred Benton entered the parlor and was introduced to the girls, and very soon they were all escorted to their homes by their friend's uncle, who proved himself as good an entertainer of these little women as was his sister. CHAPTER VIII. STRUGGLES. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home," carolled Winnie, as she descended the stairs the next morning, feeling happy and contented, and as if the world were a pleasant place in which to live and love and to succeed in being good. She felt at peace with everybody, and had such a sense of security that she imagined her giants all conquered, and saw in rosy hues a future of beautiful and pleasant right-doing. What was her surprise when she entered the dining-room, expecting to find the usual tempting breakfast on the table, to see not the slightest signs of it, and to find the room unoccupied except by little Ralph, who was sitting in front of the empty grate in his night-clothes; and a very cross little boy Winnie soon found him to be, for he set up a howl the moment he saw her. "'Innie, I 'ants to be d'essed, and it's ugly izout any fire, and I 'ants my b'eakast." "Whatever is the matter?" said Winnie. But she received no answer except the whining refrain, "I 'ants my b'eakast," until she began to feel so irritated that she would have liked to shake the child. This, however, she did not do, simply because she did not dare. But instead of attempting to soothe him, she went into the kitchen to find out from Norah the reason for this unusual state of affairs. Instead of Norah, she found her mother heating water and making mustard plasters, with an anxious look on her face. "What is the matter, mamma?" asked Winnie; "and where are papa and Jack?" "They had important business at the store and couldn't wait, but will take breakfast downtown. Norah was taken very sick in the night, but she said nothing about it, and came down as usual this morning to get breakfast, and I found her in a dead faint on the kitchen floor. Your father and I got her upstairs between us, and Jack went for the doctor. He says it is nothing serious, but that Norah will have to keep still for two or three days. Help me carry these things to Norah's room, and then you will have to come downstairs and get some breakfast for us." Winnie took the pail of water which her mother handed to her, and started upstairs, feeling a strange sense of resentment against Norah, as if she were to blame for this unpleasant condition of affairs. When they reached Norah's room, her mother said, "Put down the pail, Winnie, and make haste downstairs and see if you can't get things into some kind of order; it's getting very late." Winnie put the water down so hurriedly that it splashed over the floor. Then she went out, but instead of hurrying, went down clinging to the balusters as if she could not and would not make any exertion. When she opened the dining-room door Ralph said: "I sink Norah's mean to det sick; she dust did it a-purpose, so Ralph touldn't have any b'eakast." "Why, Ralph," said Winnie, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Of course it's no fun for Norah to be sick." But as she spoke to Ralph, her conscience reproached her, for she knew in her heart that she had had the same feeling, if not the same thought. This startled her, as if she had suddenly had a mirror held up before her mind, and she spoke to the little boy more pleasantly, telling him to come into the kitchen with her and watch her make the coffee and cook some ham and eggs for breakfast. But although aware that her conscience was speaking to her, Winnie had not in the least succeeded in overcoming her irritable feelings. She had made plans for such a pleasant day! She had intended to practice faithfully, and get through all her little duties early in the afternoon, so that she could take Ralph through market--something that she particularly liked to do; it was always so exciting to her to see the people jostling each other, to hear them haggling over the price of something, to see the strange types and characters, and to imagine the different motives which brought these different people together. Besides, she had been saving her money to surprise her mother with a pot of English violets from the flower market, which would be sure to be particularly lovely this afternoon, for the sun shone out brightly, giving promise of an unusually warm day for March. "How could people do their duty, if they never knew what it was going to be?" she mused, as she measured out the coffee and put it into the filter. But as she went to turn the water over it, she remembered that her mother had emptied the hot water from the kettle into the pail. "I should think mamma might have taken the water out of the tank for Norah!" she said, half aloud, although she knew very well that the water in the tank was scarcely warm, as she proceeded to fill the kettle. She poked the fire viciously, feeling as if here she could give her impatience some vent. The ham, fortunately, Norah had sliced the evening before, otherwise in her present state of irritation Winnie would certainly have cut her fingers. Now, when Winnie chose, she could be a very nice little housekeeper; but this morning, as may well be imagined, everything went wrong, as she said, never thinking that perhaps her own impatience might be at fault. She burnt the ham, the eggs did not break open nicely, she cut her finger in slicing the bread, and altogether it took her so long to get breakfast that poor little Ralph, still running about in his night-clothes, was, as he expressed it, "starved 'mos' to death." Mrs. Burton came down before Winnie had finished setting the table, and a glance at the little girl's flushed face was sufficient to tell the observant mother the true state of affairs. As usual in such cases, however, she said nothing, but called Ralph and took him upstairs to be dressed, telling Winnie that she would be down in ten minutes for breakfast. When they came down, Mrs. Burton said: "This morning we will not say our verses till after breakfast, as I am sure we are all of us too hungry to receive any benefit from them now;" and she proceeded to pour the coffee. Then Winnie saw that she had forgotten the cream and jumped up to get it. "Your coffee is very nice, Winnie," said her mother. "Oh, mamma, I didn't think anything would be nice! I had such a time! The fire wouldn't burn, and I burnt my fingers and afterward cut them, and everything was horrid generally." "I had a defful time gene'lly, too," said Ralph. "I was so hung'y I toudn't wait, and 'Innie 'ouldn't div me a tracker, and said I'se a bodder. Is I a bodder, mamma?" "Not when you're a good boy, my pet. Sister doesn't always think so, either; but you see, this morning she had so much to do." "Did Norah det sick so 'Innie have to 'ork so hard? Poor 'Innie!" And the little fellow stroked Winnie's hand, while she scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry. Altogether it was quite an unusual breakfast. Ralph ate three eggs, and more bread and butter than he had ever been known to eat before; and Winnie felt her own impatience dying away to some extent, as her hunger diminished, although she had not realized before that she was hungry. After breakfast Mrs. Burton gave her text, and then called upon Winnie for hers. Up to that moment Winnie's text had entirely left her mind, and she recited it with a feeling of shame as she remembered the contrast between her morning conduct and the somewhat puffed-up feeling with which she had selected it: "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." "Perhaps only the One above knows how hard it is for people to govern their own spirits. The temptation to yield to self is so strong that it sometimes seems as if there is nothing that will conquer it," commented Mrs. Burton. "But mamma, everybody says, 'Do the duty that lies nearest thee.' How are we to do this, when we never know what is going to happen from one day to another? This morning I thought I was going to get my music lesson, and now how can I do that?" "That is where we all make mistakes, Winnifred. We lay our plans, and are annoyed and vexed when something occurs to change them. We are like soldiers placed on the field of battle. Some of us would like an easy place; some would rather stay behind and guard the rear; others, in spite of danger, wish to press forward where 'glory waits them.' But we cannot choose either our own places or the attending circumstances. All we can do is to fall to 'with might and main.' God will take care of the ordinary duties, but there are some things which brook no delay. Do we not know how the Savior turned away from the chosen way to heal the sick or comfort the afflicted? But I think that my present duty is to cut my sermon short, for both you and I will have a great deal to do to-day. I will attend to things upstairs, and will be down to do the baking by the time you are through the work here." So saying, Mrs. Burton rose from the table and left the room. Winnie still felt a sense of disappointment, but the little sermon, arising, as it did, from the text she herself had selected, had been good for her, and she went to work cheerfully and systematically, and the difficulties which an hour ago had seemed so great, all disappeared. Ralph, too--who was so unlike most children of his age as not to be fond of doing anything that appeared in the least like work--seemed animated by the spirit of the occasion, and trotted back and forth between the kitchen and dining-room carrying a plate or a cup and saucer, and feeling that he was helping greatly. As for Winnie, she had none of the feeling of some girls who are ashamed to be seen doing housework, for her mother had taught her, both by word and example, the folly and sinfulness of such a notion, and that it is the worker who degrades the work instead of the opposite; and as a very little girl, Winnie had learned Herbert's fine lines: "Who sweeps a room as by God's laws, Makes that and the action fine." Now that she was working cheerfully, she even found a pleasure in dish-washing, as who should not, given plenty of hot water, clean towels, a pleasant kitchen with the sun shining in, and a little cherub of a brother chattering on with his cunning tongue, which finds so much difficulty in pronouncing the consonants? So, when Mrs. Burton returned to the kitchen, everything was in fine order, and a bright fire had prepared the oven to do its share in the Saturday baking. When noon came, Winnie really felt that she had had a pleasant morning, although it had been spent in beating eggs and grating lemons; besides, she had for once had her mother all to herself, and she sat down to the lunch she had prepared feeling quite happy. She did not get an opportunity to leave the house all that day, except to do two or three errands in the neighborhood. She took Norah's toast and tea up to her, and spent the greater part of the afternoon in her room, trying to make amends for the morning's impatience by bathing the sick girl's head, changing her pillows, and moistening her parched lips. CHAPTER IX. RALPH'S BIRTHDAY. A few days after the events narrated in the last chapter, a bright, sunshiny morning ushered in Ralph's fourth birthday anniversary, and a fine time he had receiving, in the first place, four little love taps and then four kisses from each member of the family in turn. Norah had entirely recovered from her illness, and had baked a cake especially for him, lighted by four wax candles, which was placed in front of Ralph's plate at breakfast time. His father gave him that toy most delightful to the average boy--a mechanical engine. Jack's gift was a basket of fruit, his mother's a humming top, and Winnie's a little autograph album, in which she had copied the following verse, written by Aunt Kitty: "Many tiny sunbeams fill the world with light, Tiny drops of water make the ocean's might; Tiny bits of goodness, that tiny laddies do, Fill our homes with gladness and make our hearts glad, too." Ralph was much pleased at having a little book all his own, with a verse in it made on purpose for him, and he had Winnie read it over and over, until presently he could say it himself. But the crowning gift of all was sent to the house just as they were at dinner, labeled "From Grandma, Aunt Kitty and Uncle Fred." It was a handsome velocipede, just the right height to fit the little short legs. Strange to say, Ralph learned to manage it at once and rode right off on it, and when Aunt Kitty came to take him and Winnie to the park, it was with great difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to leave it behind. Finally they effected a compromise by allowing him to take his humming top, which he insisted on stopping to spin every few rods, much to the amusement of Aunt Kitty and the intense though unexpressed disgust and mortification of Winnie. When they reached the park they sat down on one of the benches to rest awhile, and watched Ralph feed the swans with some crumbs from the cake which he had brought. After that Aunt Kitty took them to the pretty dock, and, having selected a boat, rowed them around the lake, to the great interest of some boys, who called out to each other, "Come and see a girl row a boat!" Suddenly Ralph gave one of his tremendous howls, and Winnie grasped him just in time to keep him from pitching headlong into the water. He had dropped his top in the lake, and was trying in vain to seize it before it sank. It was some time before he could be pacified, and it was not till his aunt had him sit beside her and take hold of one oar and help her row, that he could be comforted. The remainder of the boat ride was very pleasant, and they supposed the child had forgotten all about the loss of his top. When they went home to supper, however, and Mr. Burton asked: "Well, my little man, what have you done with your birthday?" "I took it to the park and lost it in the lake, papa!" was the unexpected reply. "Fortunate child!" exclaimed Aunt Kitty, catching Ralph up, and laughing. "How happy the rest of us would be if we could dispose of our yearly reminders of the lapse of time in the same way! We might fancy ourselves blessed with the gift of eternal youth if it were not for our birthdays." But Ralph was not yet through celebrating. It was very seldom that Mrs. Burton allowed him to go out in the evening, but this was a special occasion, and as there was an opportunity for him to have a treat, she thought it only right for them to take advantage of it. There was to be a stereopticon entertainment at their Sunday-school, and they were all going. Ralph had not been told until supper was over, and even then, short as the time was until they should start out, he could hardly restrain his impatience. [Illustration: They watched Ralph feed the swans.--See page 42.] Aunt Kitty took him on her lap and told him the story of Red Riding-Hood and the Fair One with the Golden Locks, and repeated "Mother Goose" jingles to him, and thus managed to keep him somewhat contented until time to start. The walk through the lighted streets was a great pleasure to the little fellow. They went down Central Avenue, and, all the stores being lighted, it seemed to the child a different and mysterious world, more full of lights and people than the one he had been accustomed to. "Now, Ralph," said his father, "we are going to see a great many beautiful things to-night. But this is different from most times; for generally, the more light we have, the better we can see; but these pictures can be seen better in the dark, and they put out all the lights. When that happens, some foolish boy or girl may cry, but I want my little man to keep hold of papa's hand and not say one word till he sees the beautiful pictures." "I doesn't twy, papa!" said Ralph, indignantly. "I'se a big boy now--not a dreat big boy, but a little big boy. And I hasn't twied--oh, not for twenty-ten days, I dess." "Very well," said papa, "be sure to remember that by and by." When they reached the church it was still quite early, and the few people already there were laughing and chatting and having a pleasant time. This was very much to Ralph's disapproval. He did not attend church often, but when he did go, he had been talked to so much about keeping still, particularly by Winnie, that he thought it very naughty to make a noise in church, so now he said in a loud whisper: "Papa, I sink dose people is very naughty, to talk out loud in church." "But this isn't Sunday, Ralph," his father said; "you may talk, too, if you like." Ralph was so surprised at this that he had nothing to say for some time. Presently some of the girls of Winnie's Sunday-school class came and she went away with them, and Miss Benton stepped across the aisle to speak to some friends. This secession grieved Ralph very much. "I sink auntie's weal mean, to go and stay wiz dose ozzer people!" he said. "Aunt Kitty will come back in a few moments, Ralph," said mamma. By and by all the people stopped talking and took their seats, and Aunt Kitty came back and sat down beside Ralph. Two men entered and placed a big screen in the front part of the church. The organist began to play something slow and sweet and solemn, which made one think of things sad but not unhappy. The lights were suddenly turned out, and Ralph had just time to draw his breath quickly, and seize his father's hand and snuggle up close to him, when a picture appeared on the screen, and his father lifted him up that he might see it better. On the screen they saw a lonely, desolate mountain, which two persons were slowly ascending, one of them bearing an armful of wood. One represented an old man; the other was a young, slender boy. The organ was now giving forth minor strains, in queer, broken time, full of heartache. The next picture showed Abraham binding Isaac on the altar, and the look of surprise and terror on the face of the boy was equalled only by the intense but submissive expression of sorrow on the face of the old man. The organ was still sounding its sad tones, when the picture changed again, and this time the angel was staying Abraham's hand. And now the organ pealed forth tones of joy and gladness. The next views thrown on the screen appeared to be scenes in Switzerland. These Ralph did not seem to be at all interested in, until they saw a representation of Lake Lucerne, showing some children rowing a boat. This reminded Ralph of the loss of his humming-top, and he said, quite loudly, "Do you sink, papa, that little boy lost his birfday, too?" "If he did," said Aunt Kitty, "he will probably find another one to make up for its loss." The next picture was that of Jacob's Dream; a tall ladder, reaching to the sky, with the bright-winged "angels ascending and descending on it," as the narrative so simply tells us. Jacob lay with his head on its stony pillow, a wondering but happy look on his face, and his arms outstretched as if he would fain seize the lovely vision. The dreamy tones of Schumann's "Traumerie" stole upon the air, and changed from that, with skillful modulations, into a grand anthem, and the big chorus choir, which till now had been silent, burst into joyful but majestic strains: "The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble." Ralph knew this picture quite well. He had seen it many times in the big family Bible, and it was always a favorite with him, and now he clapped his little hands. This was an unintentional signal, and there was such a round of applause that the whole thing was repeated. The next picture showed Jacob wrestling with the angel; and in the following one, Jacob, kneeling, receives the desired blessing. Then came a series of comic pictures, which made everybody laugh. Then the words "Good-night" were thrown on the screen in immense letters, and it grew light in the church as suddenly as it had before grown dark, making everybody rub his eyes on account of the sudden glare. The people all began to hurry out as if it were necessary to reach home without a moment's delay. Winnie soon joined her family, and in a short time the "Green Line" had taken them all home. Ralph rubbed his sleepy eyes as he said his evening prayer, but was not too sleepy to thank God for his nice birthday. CHAPTER X. ERNESTINE. "Mamma," asked Ernestine Alroy, "may I ask the girls to have their next meeting here and take tea with us?" Mrs. Alroy looked at her daughter with some hesitation as she said: "Ernestine, you know I would like to please you, but have you sufficiently considered the matter? All of your friends are very comfortably situated, and it will be impossible for us to entertain them as they do you. Besides, I cannot be at home until after six, and it will make tea very late." "I know all that, mamma, but I am sure I can make them have a pleasant time. I do not think we ought to be ashamed of being poor, when we think of the One who 'had not where to lay His head.' For your sake, poor mamma, I wish we had more money; but as for myself, I feel just as happy as if we were worth millions. I don't care a bit whether my friends have money or not, and I don't see why it should make any difference to anybody." "My poor child!" said her mother, and she sighed as she remembered that at Ernestine's age she had never even seen apartments so poorly furnished as theirs, "you have much to learn; you will find that there are many people in the world to whom it will make a great deal of difference." "Well, mamma, we don't care for the Madame Mucklegrands of the world, and Winnie Burton and all of her folks are as 'real folks' as any in Mrs. Whitney's book. Do let us have them!" "Well, dear, I don't exactly like to have you accept hospitalities which we are not willing to return, and if you think you can make it pleasant for your friends, you shall do as you wish." The next day, therefore, Ernestine told the four girls that her mother sent her compliments and would be much pleased to have them to tea on Friday evening. In the afternoon the girls all accepted, and Fannie said that if agreeable to Mrs. Alroy, her father would call for them at nine o'clock and see them home. After school that day, as Fannie and Ernestine were walking down Court Street together, they met a little girl, dirty and uncombed, carrying a basket of soiled clothes. Two of the boys of their class, racing wildly down the street, boy-fashion, ran against the child, upset the basket, and the clothes, not being very tightly packed, fell out. There was quite a strong wind, and some of the napkins and handkerchiefs lying loose on top were caught up and sent blowing here, there and everywhere. The boys ran on, totally indifferent, if not unconscious. The child, commencing to cry, gave chase to the wind-blown articles, and the basket rolled entirely over, and nearly every article fell out. Fannie stood laughing, her sense of the ridiculous overcoming any pity she might have felt for the girl. Ernestine hesitated a moment. She was daintiness itself, and the sight of the soiled clothes, belonging to no one knew whom, was not an attractive one. But for three years she had been earnestly striving to follow the Golden Rule, so she righted the basket, picked up the soiled clothes, rolled them together more tightly, and replaced them in the basket by the time the child returned with the recaptured napkins. She also helped put these in, and with a few kind words sent the girl on her way far happier than she would have been if obliged to struggle with her burden alone. Fannie had moved on some distance, much ashamed of being mixed up in such a scene to even so slight a degree, and feeling inclined to leave Ernestine entirely, for she knew that her mother would have characterized the whole affair as "plebeian," and she felt half angry with Ernestine. [Illustration: Ernestine righted the basket.--See page 46.] When the latter rejoined her, she said with some irritation, "However could you touch those horrid, dirty clothes or go near that dirty child?" "I didn't like to touch them," said Ernestine simply; "but Christ did a great many things he did not like to do." "Well, you are a queer girl, Ernestine! I'm sure I can't make up my mind that it is my duty to be pleasant to every dirty little beggar who comes along. There might have been small-pox in those clothes!" Ernestine smiled at that, but made no reply, and the two walked on in silence till they reached the corner where they separated. Fannie went on, swinging her books by the strap, and thinking that dirt could not be so repulsive to Ernestine as to her; but if she could have seen Ernestine go straight to the kitchen sink the minute she reached home, before she stopped to touch anything, Fannie might have realized something of the self-restraint her friend had exercised in the matter. But few of us can be brought to believe that things we find unpleasant are often quite as unpleasant to other people. Friday afternoon came, and five o'clock found the four girls entering a side yard in a pleasant if not an aristocratic neighborhood. They went up the stairs leading from a side hall, and were met at the top by Ernestine, who was holding open the door. She led them into a tiny bedroom, not much larger than a closet, but scrupulously dainty and clean, from the white spread and pillows on the bed to the fresh towels hanging on the rack above the washstand. Here she helped the girls remove their wraps, and then they went into the adjoining room, which was a pleasant surprise, particularly to Fannie. So pretty and pleasant and homelike it appeared that, at first, it almost seemed elegant, until one had time to observe that there was not an expensive article in the room. The floor was covered with a blue and white checked matting, the chairs and rockers were simply "cane," and the only piece of upholstered furniture was the lounge. But there were some engravings, plainly framed; hanging baskets at both of the windows; a window-box of lilies-of-the-valley, just beginning to bloom, and in the other window a similar box of mignonette, which filled the whole room with its delicate fragrance. A bright fire blazed in the grate, and the four girls felt at home more quickly than they had done at either of the two places of their previous meetings, probably because Ernestine was their only hostess, her mother not yet having returned from the store. A late magazine lay on the table, together with a copy of that charming story, "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and Mrs. Whitney's "We Girls" and "Real Folks." Winnie could not help picking them up to see what they were, and it turned out that all of the girls except Gretta had read them, so they immediately began talking about them. "Mamma and papa and brother Jack took turns in reading 'Fauntleroy' aloud to us when it came out in the magazine," said Winnie, "and for a day or two in each month we hardly talked of anything else." "I liked the scene of the dinner party best, when the little lord talked to the guests, but stayed close beside the pretty lady and paid her such cunning compliments," said Fannie. "I enjoyed reading about him in the grocery store with Mr. Hobbs," said Miriam. "I can see them now; Hobbs was so funny! My sister said he was more of a child than the little hero of the story." "I think I liked him best when he was with his grandfather," said Ernestine; "it was lovely of him to think that wicked old man was so good." "My mother says that every child in the land, and particularly every boy, ought to read that story, if for no other reason than to learn what it is to be a real gentleman and a real lady. She says no depths of poverty could ever have made 'Dearest' and her son anything else." "I was just about frantic," said Fannie, "when I began to be afraid he wasn't the heir after all. It seemed horrid to think that that rough woman's son should own those fine lands and the title, and I felt almost as glad when it turned out all right as if he had been one of my nearest friends." "I wish I read more," said Gretta. "I do love my music; and if I didn't, I'd have to keep it up all the same. But I would like to read the book you are talking about." "You may take it," said Ernestine, "and keep it just as long as you wish." "Speaking of borrowing books," said Miriam, "reminds me that I did the most dreadful thing to-day. Miss Carter had lent me Mrs. Gaskel's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' and I had just returned it yesterday, feeling very grateful, for I think it is nice in Miss Carter to take an interest in so many girls. I should think she would just get to hating us, for it is the same thing year in and year out, and most of us are so trying. "But although I love her dearly, you know how angry she gets, and she was giving Josie Thompson such a lecture about there being no punctuation in her composition, and then she read a paragraph as it was punctuated--just 'like commas and periods shaken out of a pepper-box,' she said. The subject was 'Joan of Arc,' and Josie, as usual, had rather a mixed idea of her character, and what Miss Carter read sounded something like this: "'Joan of Arc, was a poor, girl who heard a great many, ghost stories and these turned her head and she imagined, that, it would be a great deal more fun to lead soldiers. To battle in the war. With England than to be spending her time tending sheep? on the mountains she thought she would enjoy herself better.' "That last was so much like Josie--who, as you know, is always talking about enjoying herself--that I could hardly keep in, and when Josie made a mouth at Miss Carter the minute her back was turned, three or four of us giggled out loud, and Miss Carter stopped lecturing Josie and turned her wrath on us. "That was yesterday, but this morning the whole affair was still fresh in my memory, and three or four of the girls in Miss Brownlow's room happening to come about the same time that I did, I began to tell them about it. I began in a high key, a great deal worse than Miss Carter ever uses, although she does pitch her voice very high when she is vexed. I said: "'Miss Thompson, I am surprised at you; in fact, I am more than surprised. It almost passes belief that a girl should begin to study punctuation almost as soon as her school life begins, as in our schools, and after six or seven years should not be able even to use a period, to say nothing of the more complicated marks; to know nothing, absolutely nothing, of her own language.' "Here I interrupted myself to show them the kind of mouth Josie made, and of course they all laughed, for they know how her mouth and nose go up at every little thing. Then I went on. "Miss Carter didn't see the mouth that Josie made, and she caught us laughing, and said, 'Can it be possible that there are girls in this class, girls of good rank and standing, and of moderately good behavior, who can laugh, yes, actually laugh, at the ignorance of one of their school-mates? Something is wrong, radically wrong,'--and here I made the gesture she always makes when she says 'radically wrong,' and--what do you think? There she stood, right behind me!" "What did she do?" asked Fannie. "Do? She didn't do anything, and I half thought she was smiling. But I felt as if I would like to sink through the floor, I was so mortified. And only yesterday I was walking down the street with her, talking to her as if I thought her my best friend! She'll think I'm a perfect hypocrite." "Why don't you apologize?" asked Gretta. "I can't go and apologize to someone for making fun of her as soon as her back is turned, can I? And I really didn't intend to make fun of Miss Carter, either; it was only that the whole affair seemed amusing to me." "She probably understands, and does not think any more about it," said Ernestine. "But now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to go into the kitchen for a few minutes; or perhaps you'll come, too." "Oh, we'd like to come, if we won't be in the way," said Fannie. So they all trooped into the kitchen. What a tiny box of a place it was, to be sure! When all five of the girls were there, there was not room for anybody else. Fannie and Gretta squeezed close to each other on the box beside the window, Miriam sat on a chair in one corner, and Winnie stood in the doorway between the two rooms, watching Ernestine, and thinking how cross she had been only a week or two before because she had to do a little cooking in the morning, while Ernestine had to do it every day and go to school beside. But Ernestine did everything so easily and pleasantly that it was a pleasure to watch her. She did her cooking on a little oil stove, and there seemed so little to be done--for Mrs. Alroy and Ernestine had prepared things the day before--that her young visitors could not feel as if it were a bit of trouble to entertain them. It was as nice as a play, too, to see her cut the potatoes in delicate, thin slices and drop them into the boiling fat, and see them come out delightfully crisp and brown. Then the girls all followed her into the sitting-room, laughing and chattering as only girls can, while Ernestine set the table. The table linen was white and fine, and the cups and saucers were real old china, these being about the only things which Mrs. Alroy had saved from her past grandeur. Everything was ready and on the table, except the food which was to be served hot, when Mrs. Alroy came in, looking tired and reserved. She disappeared for a few moments into the bedroom, and when she came out, seeming somewhat refreshed, they all sat down to the table. To the surprise of the girls, Ernestine, in her simple, unaffected manner, asked a blessing on what was set before them. It seemed queer to them that if it were to be done at all, it should not be by Mrs. Alroy. But Ernestine's mother was not yet perfectly resigned to what had come upon her, and it was that, perhaps--yes, certainly--which made her burden so hard to bear; but at least she did not interfere with Ernestine in these matters. The girls were hungry, and everything tasted delicious, from the sliced cold ham and the potatoes which they had seen Ernestine frying, to the dessert of ice-cream and cake. When supper was over, the girls begged to be allowed to clear off the table, and Ernestine washed the dishes as they brought them out, while Winnie wiped them. Mrs. Alroy sat down and glanced over the newspaper. Fannie watched her curiously, and privately came to the conclusion that she was the proudest woman she had ever seen. This conviction came to her with something of a shock, for she had heretofore supposed that pride and wealth and fine living belonged together. She furthermore came to the conclusion that while pride might be fine, it was not especially charming, for though Mrs. Alroy had been pleasant when the girls were presented to her, her manner had been only polite, not interested. When the girls had finished washing and putting away the supper things, she roused herself and talked with them about their school and amusements, but as soon as Ernestine returned, excused herself and went into the little room and closed the door. Ernestine followed her, with a troubled look on her usually calm face. When she returned, she said: "Mamma has a severe headache, and begs to be excused for awhile, but hopes to feel better before you go home." "We were all to have a text or a verse to-night, weren't we?" asked Fannie. "The only thing I could find was our Golden Text for last Sunday, 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' I spoke to papa about it, and, although he is not very religious, he said he didn't believe there was any better way of remembering our Creator than by trying to do what was right, and he was glad to see that I was thinking about such things." "Mamma says there are very few things said in the Bible about the dangers of delay," said Winnie, "but she gave me this one from Proverbs: 'Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.'" "I couldn't find anything in the Bible," said Miriam, "but I found a poem by Adelaide Procter which I copied, thinking you might like to hear it all, as I scarcely knew which verse to select. I will read it to you: "Rise! for the day is passing, And you lie dreaming on; The others have buckled their armor, And forth to the fight are gone. A place in the ranks awaits you, Each man has some part to play; The Past and the Future are nothing, In the face of the stern To-day. "Rise from your dreams of the Future,-- Of gaining some hard-fought field; Of storming some airy fortress, Or bidding some giant yield; Your Future has deeds of glory, Of honor (God grant it may)! But your arm will never be stronger, Or the need so great as To-day. "Rise! for the day is passing; The sound that you scarcely hear, Is the enemy marching to battle; Arise! for the foe is here! Stay not to sharpen your weapons, Or the hour will strike at last, When, from dreams of a coming battle, You may wake to find it past!" "How much better we understand things than we did three months ago!" said Winnie. "I used to dream of the grand things I was going to do when I grew up." Then she added, blushing a little as she remembered her cross Saturday morning, "I do yet, sometimes, but I don't think I neglect quite so many things as I used to." "I never had much chance either to neglect things or to dream," said Gretta, "for papa or mamma or my sister was always reminding me that it was time to do this or that or the other. But I am beginning now to think of some of my faults. I couldn't find anything for this afternoon, except the Memory Gem we learned in the First Reader. You know I don't read a great deal myself, and we all seem to have so much to do at our house; when it isn't something else, it's practice, practice, practice! Even this little verse I don't suppose I should have remembered if I hadn't heard the children reciting it at the 'Colony': "One thing at a time, And that done well, Is a very good rule, As many can tell." "Why, that's the very thing, Gretta! I'm surprised that none of the rest of us thought of it. How queer that the same piece of advice, in one form or another, has been given to us ever since we were little girls, and that we have just begun to realize what it all means!" said Fannie. "What have you, Ernestine?" said Miriam. "I took mine from Ecclesiastes," was the reply. "'When thou vowest a vow unto the Lord, defer not to pay it.'" "I like that, too," said Gretta; "but I think Miss Benton's pretty card is helping me more than anything else." "I think that was lovely, too," said Fannie. "I liked the story ever so much, but it will be nice for us to do as she suggested, and take a motto this week. How would it do to take the one Winnie brought? It seems the easiest for us to understand." So they all learned it, and, at Miriam's suggestion, added the verse that Gretta had recited. Mrs. Alroy came back into the sitting-room just as the girls had finished reading their mottoes, and, though her eyes looked heavy, as if she were suffering, she joined the little band, and told them that she thought they were adopting a very good plan to help them over the rough places of life, and perhaps also enable them to make fewer mistakes than they might otherwise do. While she was talking to them, footsteps were heard coming up the stairs. "That's papa, I think," said Fannie, and she went with Ernestine to the door. Ernestine had seen Mr. Allen often, for he was one of the trustees of their school, but of course Mrs. Alroy had never met him, so the girls led him through the narrow hall into the room beyond. Mrs. Alroy met him at the door and extended her hand, as Fannie said, "My papa, Mrs. Alroy." Mr. Allen seated himself, at Mrs. Alroy's invitation, while the girls went to get on their wraps. As they talked of the weather and the usual subjects discussed by strangers, Mr. Allen looked at the lady in rather a puzzled manner, as if wondering where he had seen her before. Finally he said: "Excuse me, Mrs. Alroy, but may I ask what was your maiden name?" She told him, but rather coldly, as if she considered the question impertinent. He read her thought well enough, but unhesitatingly continued: "The Van Ortons of New York?" "Of New York, yes." "I thought so; it must be one of your brothers whom you so strongly resemble. I could not think whom you were like, the day of the celebration over at the school-house, but that, I see, was what puzzled me. I know your brother and his family quite well. I have had business relations with him for years, which have been very pleasant ones." "I am glad to meet someone who has seen my brother recently. I have seen no member of my family for years; it has been impossible for me to go home, and my circumstances have been such that I have managed to prevent their visiting me, for I had no desire to have them do so. Should you have any communication with him, I ask as a favor that my name may not be mentioned." "Your wishes, of course, will be respected, madam," the gentleman replied courteously. The girls appeared at this moment, ready for the walk home, and Mr. Allen rose, adding: "Permit me to thank you for the pleasure you have given my daughter, and to express the wish that you will allow her to make a return soon." Then they took their departure. Ernestine went into the little kitchen to prepare things for breakfast, and when she came back she was shocked to find her mother sobbing violently. It frightened her, too, for though her mother was never very cheerful, the girl seldom saw her shed tears. "Mother dear, what is it?" she said. "Have I been selfish? Was the evening too much for you?" "Selfish? No, dear," was the reply. "I am the selfish one, and I am grateful to know that you have such perfect faith and hope that all is well. Otherwise your young life would have been darkened long ago by my constant sorrow and regret. Poor child! It is a hard life for one so young." "But, mother, some day you will be happy again." "I hope so, dear," replied Mrs. Alroy. But she thought to herself that there was nothing in this world that could make life endurable to her, unless she could forget. And that, to her proud, sensitive nature, seemed impossible. CHAPTER XI. EASTER-TIDE. "Well," said Mrs. Allen to her husband, after they had gone upstairs, "I hope you're satisfied and have had enough of Fannie's visiting around at tenement houses. Democratic ideas are all right enough, theoretically, but I think it is impossible for people to dwell long in poverty without losing refinement." "Some kinds of poverty, yes; and some kinds of people, yes. That comfort and luxury are refining in their influence goes without saying; but just as there are some people whom all the wealth in the world could never raise above vulgarity, so there are others whom poverty could never degrade. And the lady and her little girl whom Fannie has visited to-night are of this type. They are the kind of people who will have the refinements of life even at the expense of some of its comforts." "It seems to me that is queer talk. How can people have refinements without comforts?" "Had you been at Mrs. Alroy's to-night, I think you would understand how that could be. And as for the rest," Mr. Allen added dryly, "Mrs. Alroy is one of the Van Ortons of New York." "The Van Ortons of New York!" and Mrs. Allen dropped into her chair in astonishment, for the Van Ortons were people whom she was glad to visit. "How do you know?" "Her resemblance to her brother puzzled me, and, wondering where I could have met her, I asked her maiden name." "Why, I must call upon her soon." "I think you'd better not--" "Who's the aristocrat now, I wonder!" "--because," he added, as if he had not heard the interruption, "she would consider it an intrusion. Her pride has been made as hard and cold as ice by her misfortunes, and I'm afraid nothing will ever melt it." This was another new idea to Mrs. Allen. It seemed as if new things, starting with the little folks, were destined to be contagious. That a woman who lived in three small rooms and who supported herself and her daughter by selling goods across a counter, should resent a visit from a person so well known as herself, was somewhat startling to the lady. "Well," she said impatiently, "what are you and your philanthropy going to do about it?" "I think it is a case which my philanthropy, as you choose to call it, cannot reach. I know that her people would gladly have her come home, and there is no reason why they should be ashamed of either her or her daughter; but she manages to keep them in complete ignorance of her circumstances, and also, I strongly suspect, of her whereabouts." "Why don't you write to them?" "She has forbidden it, and in such a way as to make me feel that it would be a breach of honor to disregard her wishes. No, nothing can be done at present. But she is as frail as a reed, and her body, in spite of her will power, will break down under the pressure, and then----" "Well?" "Then she will die--that is all." * * * * * It seems hard, at first thought, to bring the sorrows of older people--and sorrows, too, for which, as the words of Mr. Allen would indicate the above to be, there seems no earthly cure--into a book for girls; but perhaps it is, after all, a truer kindness to let them find out, while there is yet time, that life is a thing of earnest and real import, and that the impossible ideas of a romantic world where a few sorrows come simply as contrast, and then vanish forever, leaving the heroes and heroines surrounded by an everlasting halo of happiness and prosperity--which so many of the lighter novels teach--are more injurious than any statistics will ever show. They give views of life which, if followed out, as in the case of Constance Van Orton, are apt to end in sorrow and despair. But the saddest life must have some joy in it, and Mrs. Alroy probably had many happy hours, when she enjoyed the sunshine, or, in more sober moods, the gentle patter of the rain on the roof, her books (to which the poorest of those who live in our large cities can have access through the public libraries), and, above all, the companionship of her daughter, who was really that most remarkable of characters, a child good, and even pious, without priggishness or the slightest taint of affectation. And when all is thought and felt and suffered, above earth's joys and woes and hopes and dark despair is God, the eternal Good, and What to us is darkness, to Him is light, And the end He knoweth." And so the days rolled on and brought the anniversary of Christ's suffering and death and resurrection. The Burton family kept Easter with great rejoicing. They exchanged presents of pots of flowers, ferns and Easter lilies, mignonette and roses, which made the house fragrant and beautiful. The children received from their parents and friends at a distance Easter cards; and colored eggs, in which Ralph delighted, were not forgotten. Mrs. Burton and Winnie, also, on the day previous, did their share toward decorating the church they attended. There was always a big pyramid of bouquets on the pulpit stand, which were taken down after service and distributed to the children of the Sunday-school. It was a great treat to the children to go to church on this day and join in the responsive service and hear the joyful anthems. This Easter Day was no exception to previous ones, in point of joy and thanksgiving. There were some little extra surprises at the Burton home, among them being a panel of Easter lilies and maidenhair fern, painted in oil for Mrs. Burton by her sister Kitty; and from the same source Winnie received a smaller one of lilies-of-the-valley and wild violets, with the motto below: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." In the afternoon they held a service of their own in the sitting-room. Mrs. Burton and Aunt Kitty sang Abt's duet, "Easter Day," and they had two or three fine quartettes. Norah had not been forgotten, either, in the distribution of the flowers, or in an invitation to join the family circle in the afternoon. She was anxious to do something in return, and so had prepared another surprise which greeted them at tea-time. On each plate lay an egg, which, when examined, was found to be a wooden candy-box, full of home-made candies. All were pleased, even to grandma and Mr. Burton, and Norah's face shone with delight when she saw that her gifts were appreciated. It had been a long day for Ralph, however, and Winnie and Jack stayed at home with him while the other members of the family went to evening service. The child was tired and restless, yet too much excited to be sleepy, and was very unwilling to go to bed when the usual hour arrived. Winnie was quite weary, too, but she dared not allow herself to be impatient on a day like this, so she told him Bible stories and sang to him, and at last the heavy eyelids closed, and she was at liberty to go downstairs with her book. This time it was "Pilgrim's Progress," which she was reading for about the dozenth time. She dropped, with a sense of luxury, into the same big chair in which we have seen her on a former occasion. Jack also had an interesting book, and they read on in perfect silence for half an hour, when suddenly they heard a crash, and then Ralph's voice in a frightened cry. Dropping their books, they ran upstairs. Jack turned up the gas, and they found that poor little Ralph had rolled out of bed, and was lying stretched on the floor, but far more frightened than hurt. He said he had had bad dreams, and they could not quiet him nor induce him to go back to bed. At last Jack wrapped him up in a shawl, and Winnie sat down in the big chair and took the frightened child in her arms. Jack settled himself again with his book and forgot all about them both, until his father and mother came home and found them asleep. Mrs. Burton's face showed disapproval until Jack explained the circumstances, and she could then enjoy the pretty picture they made, without feeling a regret that it was the result of disobedience. Jack took Ralph in his arms and once more carried him, still sleeping soundly, upstairs. They did not waken Winnie until it was time for them all to go to bed, when she was gently roused by her mother. She looked around in bewilderment, and it was some time before she could realize what had happened. CHAPTER XII. A VISIT TO THE ZOO. The days were growing longer and pleasanter. The trees were all dressed in green now, and the maples in front of the Burton home bent their green boughs and shook their leaves at the invitation of every little zephyr. The evening star shone over the western hills, followed closely by the slender new moon. The sun sank to rest behind those same hills, some nights gorgeously attended by crimson and gold and purple clouds; on other evenings, dropping out of sight suddenly, as if in a hurry to get to China, as Winnie was fond of telling Ralph. Winnie often sat with Ralph on the front steps these days, and showed him the bright star and tried to explain to him that it was a big world, perhaps full of people; or she would put on her roller skates and skate up and down the flagged pavement, while he rode his velocipede. Winnie thought she had never known a spring so beautiful as this one. She felt as if she could stay out of doors forever, and found it even harder to keep her resolution of conquering self-indulgence and sticking to her duties now than when she liked so much to sit by a bright fire and read. She had her pretty card and her motto in the looking-glass in her room, but she found it so hard to remember--or to want to remember, perhaps, which every one knows is quite a different thing--that she pinned a little piece of stiff paper with the word "Now" written on it, inside her dress. On the whole, however, she kept pretty well to her resolution of having a time for everything and doing everything in its time. But she had never before felt such a desire to be out of doors, and she imagined she heard fairies beckoning to her from the woods and hills. So one day, when Aunt Kitty came over and invited Ralph and herself and the other four girls of her little band to go to the Zoological Garden the next Saturday, the girl's delight was unbounded, and she was in a fever lest something should happen to prevent their going. She delivered her message to the other girls. Miriam and Fannie at once said they thought they could go, but Ernestine did not feel sure she could arrange her Saturday duties so that no extra burden would fall on her mother, while Gretta told them she would have to ask her father to excuse her from the extra practice on Saturday, as they were to take their lunches and stay all day. Fortunately Gretta found her father in very good humor. She had been making excellent progress with her music, and he was very willing she should have a holiday. Ernestine, also, had arranged with one of the neighbors in the building to take care of her little children on the succeeding Saturday, in return for her help in doing some extra household work. Saturday turned out to be a warm, pleasant day, and in their eagerness the girls arrived at the Burtons' a little ahead of time, and had to wait till Miss Benton came, which she did soon, looking very happy. As for Ralph, his eyes were as bright as stars, and he was the very picture of joy and good humor. They walked up to Elm Street, and from there took the car to the Mt. Bellevue inclined railway. When they entered the car of the latter, all stood at the front end of it and looked out of the window, and had the strange sensation, which no familiarity therewith seems quite to deaden, of being lifted suddenly into another region, and of seeing the great city sinking down, down, until one wonders where it is going. Then, all at once, the car stopped with its usual jerk, and there they were, at the top of the hill. There were very few people about the Bellevue House. They took a walk around the grounds and through the building, and stood looking at the city, covered with its workaday smoke from the many manufactories, till it almost seemed as if it were seen through a cloud. "How strange it is," said Miriam, as they entered the street-car at the top of the hill, "to see the houses just as close together here, and to have it seem like a city of itself, and yet so different from the business part of Cincinnati below that it is hard to imagine the two are any part of each other!" "There is something strange about such things," said Miss Benton. "It is just like people's lives. Their daily business, which brings them bread and butter, and which is really the largest and most important part of existence, seems to sink into insignificance or to be forgotten altogether when social relations are taken up. But, after all, I like to live in the city itself, where there is something of the past lingering about. Everything seems so new here." "I don't know," said Ernestine. "I think I would like to live up here; the air seems so much purer. But I would want a bigger yard than these, where I might have a garden." "It's cleaner, too, up here," said practical Gretta, who was neatness itself. "I visit my aunt on Vine Street Hill, and things always looks so much nicer and newer at her house than the same ones at ours. And it isn't because we don't try, for we do twice the amount of work; my mother and sister are always going about with a duster." And Gretta, who had made a long speech for her, finished with a sigh, at which they all laughed. "Gretta would like a house where everything had a glass cover," said Miriam. "As for me, I like things jolly and comfortable, and if they get grimy and sooty, and nobody's to blame, what's the use of making one's self unhappy about it? I'm afraid I'm a good deal like Josie Thompson, for I do like to enjoy myself." "Well, no two of us are alike, and I don't think it was intended that we should be," said Miss Benton. "That is what makes the charm of people's houses--that they should all partake of the individuality of their owners. When I enter even a little girl's room, I like to see some signs of her ownership there, and not have it all as her mother or older sister or the maid arranged it. I like to see something that looks as if she had an object in life, if it is nothing more than a charm string of buttons, (which, by the way, has gone out of fashion, I believe,) or a scrapbook." "Well, then, Aunt Kitty," said Winnifred, smiling at her own thought, "it must be a treat for you to go into Uncle Fred's room; for, if I were to see such a room at the North Pole, I would think of him." "Well," said Miss Benton, with a smile, "I might enjoy it better if it were in some other house. I think, in this case, it must be that familiarity breeds contempt. The fact is, girls, my brother's room is more of an old curiosity shop than a modern sleeping-room. He has always had a sort of magpie-habit of storing things away, and is continually having some new hobby; and as his hobbies are often changed, and each hobby is apt to take the form of making some sort of collection, he has queer things lying about. But from the time he was quite a little boy, mother always said, 'Oh, let him have that,' or 'do the other, and he'll be satisfied at home.'" "How many canes and walking-sticks has he, Aunt Kitty?" "Eight, I think, and each one has a history; and two or three of them a mystery, which he refuses to divulge. But here we are at the end of our journey, and Fannie hasn't had an opportunity to open her mouth." "It's probably very good for my tongue to get a rest; it works quite steadily as a usual thing--at least so my father says. But if Ralph hadn't been all eyes, this would have been dull for him." "I isn't all eyes!" said Ralph, indignantly. They now approached the entrance to the Zoological Garden, and the girls once more took out their pocket books; but Miss Benton was ahead of them again, and had settled for the party before there was time to demur. The first thing they spied were the mounds of the prairie dogs, and they stood watching these a long time. It was such fun to see the little animals running in and out of their holes and to hear their funny bark, which Miriam said was "the best part of them, and probably very much better than their bite." Our little party was fortunate enough to be at the cages of the carnivora just at feeding time. The great lions lay basking in the sun and looking so innocent and amiable that it was almost impossible to imagine they could be at all dangerous, when suddenly the man who fed them appeared with the raw meat. Then their roars were fairly appalling, and made the whole crowd jump, while Ralph clung tight to the hand of Aunt Kitty, who said: "I was just thinking how nice it would be to pat that quiet, majestic fellow on the head, as I would my Angora cat; but I think I'll wait till he's had his dinner." "Oh, Aunt Kitty," said Ralph, "I 'ouldn't let you; he'd eat you up!" It was an exciting but rather terrible pleasure to see the wild creatures quarreling and growling and fighting over their dinners, and was also a most effective object lesson on greediness. Like other visitors, although Miss Kitty laughed at them for it, our little party followed the keeper around from one cage to another as he fed the various animals. "I like the bears best," said Fannie. "They look like Eskimos when they stand on their hind legs, and they stare up at us and the other people as if we were here just for them to look at." "There is a something within me that, in spite of bears and all their attractions, tells me it must be dinner time," said Miss Benton, taking out her watch. "Yes, it is one o'clock; suppose we get our baskets." Ralph, in particular, manifested great approval of this part of the programme, and, having selected a nice grassy spot, they disposed of themselves as comfortably as possible, each with her basket at her side. As they opened the baskets, passing the thin sandwiches and pickles, Winnie made a suggestion. "Aunt Kitty, let's play 'I have a thought.'" "Very well," replied the lady; and, after a short explanation of the game, and a little time to think, she announced the fact that she had a thought. "Why is it like the sky?" asked Winnie. "Because it is round." "Why is it like a bear?" asked Miriam, her thoughts still on the bear pit. "Because--oh, Miriam, that is a hard one!--because it is sometimes white." "Why is it like me?" said Ralph. "Because everybody likes it when it is good." And Ralph wondered why they all laughed. "Why is it like the grass?" asked Ernestine. "Because it is greenest in the spring." Then the questions poured upon Miss Benton rapidly, as the girls began to see how the game was played. "Why is it like music?" asked Gretta. "Because it suggests pleasant thoughts." "Why is it like a novel?" "It is often highly flavored." "Why is it like an egg?" "Because it is an article of food." "Why is it like a cream-puff?" "Because the best part is inside." "Why is it like cheese?" said Fannie, putting a piece in her mouth. "Because it comes on with the dessert." "Why is it like a book?" "Because the best part is usually between the covers." "Why is it like a ring?" "Because people like to have a finger in it." At which there was a general shout, and they all said: "A pie, of course!" "But what kind of a pie, Miss Benton?" asked Miriam. "That you must find out, too," was the laughing answer; and the questions went on. "It can't be lemon or custard or pumpkin," said Fannie, "because we know it has two covers." "Why is it like a flower?" "Because it has various colors." "And is greenest in the spring," said Winnie, musingly. "Oh, it is an apple pie! And Miss Benton acknowledged that she had guessed correctly. Then Ernestine and Gretta consulted, and took a thought together. Their thought was a geography lesson, and of course the resemblances were most absurd, and it required all the ingenuity the two girls possessed to answer the questions. They were all so occupied with the game and their dinner that no one noticed Miss Benton had not yet opened her basket, and great was their surprise and delight when she passed around to each of them a grocer's thin platter filled with strawberries, for they were still very scarce, as it was early in the season. After dinner, Miss Benton took out a book and said she was going to read for a while, so the girls walked around, taking Ralph with them, and greatly enjoying the admiration he excited by his pretty dress, his beauty and his cunning speeches. They too, however, soon found themselves somewhat tired, so they went back to Miss Benton, and, sitting down for a rest, amused themselves by hunting for four-leaved clovers. In this Winnie and Miriam proved themselves the lucky ones. Fannie had not the slightest success, till finally she gave a little cry and held up a clover. But Miss Benton's quick eyes noticed a twinkle in Fannie's, and saying, "Oh, Fannie, I'm afraid you're a little cheat!" she reached over and adroitly separated one of the leaves from another, leaving only a common clover leaf. "Well," said Fannie, laughing at being discovered so soon, "if I don't have good luck, I'm not going to let everyone know it. My father tells me to make up my mind that lots of things will happen to me in this world which I'll best conquer by grinning and bearing them. And that's what I'm going to do." "A very good plan, my dear," said Miss Benton, "for even if the grin is a sickly one, it's better than a frown or a whine." "I guess I don't do that way," said Gretta, whose tongue and conscience both seemed to be awaking. "I'm afraid I go away and pout." "The worst of habits," said Miss Benton, with intentional decision. "That is the habit which is most disagreeable to everyone around, most full of unhappiness to the one who indulges in it, and the most difficult to break. I am afraid that ill-temper is as powerful a giant as procrastination, because it, too, assumes so many forms; there are pouting and whining, storming and scolding, and the various other manifestations which we all, more or less, indulge in. I do not think many people cling to the powerful Giant Hate, but it is 'the little foxes that spoil the vines,' and little fits of temper, long indulged in, might at last lead even to that. But, girls, I didn't inveigle you out here this lovely day to lecture you. So come, let's be moving on." They next went to the aviary. Here, although they enjoyed looking at the birds, they became more interested in a party of children, boys and girls, each one looking like the others, so far as clothes were concerned. Of course they must be from some charitable institution, but the girls did not know which one. Afterward, when our little company had gone to the monkey house and found a number of the same uniformed children, Miss Benton said to one of them, "What school is this, my dear?" The child looked at her a moment in surprise, and then replied: "Why, this is the monkey school, I think." "Where is the teacher?" asked Ralph, who mistook both question and answer, as the child herself had done. Miriam and Fannie were delighted at this, and, going up pretty close to one of the cages, Fannie, who had yellow bangs, said, pointing to a great monkey which was watching them in a very observant manner: "I think this must be the teacher." Just as she made the remark, the monkey stretched out his long arms, grabbed her bangs, and pulled out several hairs, which he smelled, and then threw down with an air of disgust. Fannie was somewhat startled at first, but, recovering herself, she said the monkey must have thought her hair was wisps of hay. Miss Benton did not seem very fond of the "monkey school," as they dubbed it for the remainder of the afternoon, and she proposed going to the pony track. This gave general satisfaction. Here, too, they found the uniformed children, all of them having a lovely time. Miss Benton found out, by conversing with one of the attendants, that they were from one of the city orphan asylums, and that the whole lovely day was a gift to them from one of its patrons--admission into the garden and a ride for each child on one of the ponies. [Illustration: Ralph was not in the least frightened.] They stood watching the orphan children for awhile, as they rode around the track, and Miss Benton asked if her guests would not like a ride, too. Fannie, Winnie and Miriam said that they would, and each selected a pony; Fannie, who had attended a riding-school, riding very gracefully. Ralph thought he would like a ride, too, so the riding-master brought his smallest pony, and two of the little orphan boys came up and begged permission to lead it around the track. Miss Benton consented, and, Ralph having been lifted into the saddle, they started off, a boy on each side of him. But the little pony started to run, and one of the boys was soon left behind; the other, who had hold of the bridle, kept up manfully for a time, but before the pony had gone round the track, he, too, was left behind. Ralph, however, held on to the bridle himself, and, not in the least frightened, kept his seat in the saddle as if it had been his velocipede. And the by-standers seemed to think it as cunning as did his partial aunt and the rest of her party. However, in spite of the courage he had shown, Ralph was quite willing to get off. They remained at the track a little longer, watching the other children riding, and feeling glad that, if children were left alone in the world, there were people noble and good and with means enough to gather the little waifs together, and that they, too, had happy holidays. CHAPTER XIII. DREAMS AND REALITIES. The following Friday Gretta and Winnifred were dismissed at recess, the Friday afternoon privilege of those who had had perfect marks for the week. As they passed out through the yard together, Gretta said: "I'm going to church to practice my organ lesson. Come go with me, Win." Winnifred hesitated. "If I had spoken to mamma about it this morning--" "Well, let's go and ask her now." "No, she won't be at home. She was going out to Walnut Hills to make several calls." "Then I don't see what's to keep you from going with me. No one will know whether you are with me or at school." Winnie knew very well that she had no right to be away without anyone at home knowing where she was, but she hesitated--and was lost. The temptation was too great; and beside, she reasoned, "What difference can it possibly make whether I am at school or at the church? If I had not had good marks I couldn't have gone home, anyway." So the two girls passed on up the street together. Winnifred soon forgot her scruples, and laughed and chattered away as usual. She had been reading Grimm's story of the boy who could not understand what it was to shiver. She had thought it very amusing, and now she narrated it at length to Gretta as they went along, so that they reached the church before Gretta had stopped laughing at the absurd climax. They went up the flight of steep stone steps and tried the side door that led to the choir gallery, but it was locked, and Gretta said, "We'll have to go the back way; come on, Win." So they descended the stairs again and went through the narrow side yard at the right of the church. At the back were two rooms which at this time were occupied by the janitor and his wife. Gretta knocked, and when the door was opened by a smiling woman, walked in with an I-have-a-right-to manner, simply saying, "I've come to practice." Winnifred followed somewhat bashfully, but recovered her sense of being herself when the door of the little living-room closed upon them. The two girls crossed a narrow passage and opened a door leading to a stairway. It was very dark here, but Gretta had traveled up and down these stairs so many times that she went swiftly now, while Winnifred, unaccustomed to them, groped her way along through the darkness very slowly. When she reached the top Gretta opened another door which led into the church itself, always filled with people when Winnifred had seen it before, but now empty and mysterious, with the light dimmed and deepened and transformed as it made its way through the stained-glass windows. She breathed a little heavily as she glanced up at the pulpit on the left, and almost felt as if she would hear a voice rise from the empty air and chide them for their boldness in entering so sacred a place on workaday business. But Gretta, entirely accustomed to independent errands connected with musical matters, passed on up the narrow side aisle, Winnifred following slowly. Then came another narrow staircase leading to the choir gallery, which faced the pulpit. When they reached the top they found the shades all down and the place quite dark except for a long, narrow beam of light which streamed through a crevice in one of the blinds. Winnifred stopped on the threshold with something like fear, which was yet pleasing because of the sense of mystery and romance which was blended with it in her imaginative young mind. Gretta, however, stepped in at once and went quickly toward the back of the gallery. Here she suddenly pulled up a shade, and Winnifred saw numbers of music books piled up on one of the long benches. Gretta opened the organ and sat down. She reached the pedals with some difficulty, being obliged to stretch her legs somewhat in order to do so; but this, like everything else with her, was a part of the musical education which was the chief business of her life and of all the lives nearest to her. She began to play a voluntary, softly, slowly and reverently, yet clearly, and with wonderful appreciation for a child just entering her teens. Winnifred climbed into the darkest corner she could find and gave herself up to enjoyment of the music and all the unusual surroundings. Forgetting all else, she began to weave herself and Gretta into a little story of a world separate and apart from the world she had always known: a world filled with visionary forms and faces, and in which there was no sound but that of music. "Over there in that pew just under the stained-glass window," she thought, "is a little girl who cannot see, but who has never missed her eyesight, because she does not need it. She lives only in this world, where there is nothing but sweet sounds. She will grow up some day and go out into the other world where Gretta and I lived yesterday, but she will be a poet like Milton, whose picture, when he was such a beautiful boy, I saw yesterday; but she will not be sad like him, because she knows only the world of poetry and music. "Over in that other pew," Winnie's dreams ran on, "is that poor, little, blind beggar girl I saw on the street yesterday afternoon. She isn't hungry now, for this is the fairyland of music where people do not need to eat. The music has gone straight to her heart--and see! she creeps softly over to the opposite pew--how did she know that the other little blind girl was there?--she creeps softly to the other pew, and they clasp hands and feel as happy as if they had looked into each other's eyes. "And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of music. And yet--how would I know where they were sitting if I were blind, too?" And Winnie closed her eyes to try how it would seem not to be able to see. The music floated out upon the air; it grew softer and softer and sounded farther and farther away, and at last Winnie ceased to hear it, for the darkness and the gentle sounds had so soothed her senses that she went straight from day-dreamland to slumberland. Gretta all unconsciously played on until she had finished her allotted task, forgetting the existence of Winnifred as completely as the latter had forgotten hers. But by and by she had finished the last bar, and jumped up from her seat with a feeling of satisfaction. She looked around in surprise for a moment when she realized that Winnifred had gone to sleep. The next thing the latter knew Gretta was shouting into her ear: "Wake up! Wake up, Winnie! I'm all through my practice and ready to go home. Let's hurry! It must be late." They gathered up their school books, the sense of haste taking away all the feeling of mystery and romance. When they looked at the clock in the little room downstairs on their way out, Winnifred was dismayed and realized suddenly that she ought to have been at home an hour ago. She had a very uncomfortable walk home, particularly after she had parted from Gretta, but, as it happened, her mother had not yet returned and her absence had been unnoticed. She told her mother about it in the evening--of how sweetly Gretta had played, and how she had imagined a world made on purpose for blind people. Mrs. Burton only said, "I am glad you had such a nice afternoon, dear. It is one you will always remember. You were fortunate that nothing happened to spoil the pleasure of it. I am glad I was not at home, however, for I fear I would have been very uneasy about you." CHAPTER XIV. ARBOR DAY. In nearly every household of the big city the children were astir early, all wearing an air of excitement, from the six-year-old in the primary school to the "big brother" or sister in the intermediate, for there was at last something new under the sun--the celebration of "Arbor Day" for the first time in their city and State. It was a day to be devoted to the trees and their planting. Every school in the city had had a plot of ground set aside for its use, and every school had had at least one tree planted, beside those in memory of the teachers who had passed away to the unknown land. There was no set time for departure and no special gathering place, so that at almost any hour after nine o'clock on that lovely May morning groups of children might have been seen wending their way toward the eastern hills. Those in the vicinity of Eden Park walked, a few drove over with their parents or friends, but the great majority filled the street cars to overflowing, laughing and chattering and enjoying a holiday as only school children can. Forming a portion of the last class were the pupils of the "First Intermediate," that old landmark which has guided so many embryo citizens of our great Republic through the intricate paths of fractions, decimals, and so on, to the crowning difficulty of cube root; through grammar and history and geography, before bidding them "Godspeed" as they entered the high-school or took up the story of their lives in some other direction. Among these last, lunch baskets in hand, were the five young warriors, but with their armor off and as great an air of being on pleasure bent as though they had never thought of anything more serious. Miriam as usual had the floor, and the entire car-load of girls and boys, nearly all of them her classmates, were laughing at her remarks. There was a change of cars at Fountain Square and again at the foot of the Mt. Adams incline, but the five girls managed to keep from being separated. Arrived at the top of the hill, they stopped to breathe in the fresh air and admire the beautiful landscape--the Kentucky hills far away in the distance, with the beautiful Ohio flowing placidly at their feet; Cincinnati, in its hill-encircled cup, making, with Covington and Newport and the various smaller villages, part of one great whole, linked by the bridges across the Ohio and the Licking. "This reminds me," said Ernestine, who was the historian of the little company, "of the name first chosen for our city--Losantiville, the town opposite the mouth of the Licking; 'ville,' town; 'anti,' opposite; 'os,' mouth; 'L,' initial of Licking." "Dreadful!" said Miriam. "Imagine this great city designated as a town across the way from that little stream! It would be like the immense woman I saw the other day. I know she weighed over two hundred. There was a little man walking beside her, and he called her 'Birdie!' Indeed he did, and she called him 'Horatio!'" "Our city started about here," said Ernestine, after the girls had stopped laughing, "or just at the foot of the hill, and grew first along the river. Later on it spread northward, and Fourth Street was one of its aristocratic streets." "There comes Josie Thompson," said Fannie. "She's evidently bent on having a good time, and she's gotten up regardless. See that chain around her neck; plated, I'm sure." "Don't look so sober, Ernestine," said Miriam. "There wouldn't be any use in living if you could not make fun of people once in a while." "But perhaps Josie has never been taught any better at home," said Winnifred, suddenly thinking of the giants. "She has eyes, hasn't she?" said Gretta. "But it seems to me she can't have ears, or else she couldn't help hearing that dress she has on. I know that's what my father would say." Just then Josie came up to them. "Hello, girls! Going to have a good time? I tell you I am! Glad to have one day with no lessons to learn!" And she passed on with her friends, leaving the girls, even Ernestine, convulsed. "Let's go on to the park," said Ernestine. Accordingly they gathered up their baskets and other belongings. It was but a short walk, and they soon reached the spot where many of their schoolmates had already assembled. At twelve o'clock the schools had a few simple exercises. The children sang, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," one of the girls of their grade recited "Woodman, Spare that Tree," and Fannie's father made a brief address. He talked to them of the part the forests play in helping to prevent drouths and disastrous floods. He told of the old Italian poet who called the trees "my brothers," and said that everyone, whether poet or not, should have especial tenderness and affection for these beautiful and useful bits of nature which grow up around us, relieving our eyes from the glare of day, shading us from the noonday sun, and giving us pleasure in many ways, so that their useless and wanton destruction becomes a sin against mankind. After the conclusion of this little talk (for it was that rather than a set speech), the children gathered up their lunch baskets and boxes, each party sought the spot that pleased it best, and soon the hillside was dotted with groups of boys and girls engaged in disposing of sandwiches, pickles, pies, cakes, fruit, and so on, with great enjoyment and good appetites. The afternoon was passed most pleasantly by Winnifred and her own special friends, reinforced by many of the girls and boys of her class. Games of all sorts were indulged in with unflagging energy and good spirits for two or three hours. About four o'clock Fannie's parents came for her in a carriage. Soon after Winnifred's mother arrived on the scene with little Ralph, and they were shown the trees which had just been planted and told about all the events of the day. By this time nearly every one was making preparations to leave, and by five o'clock the park was almost deserted and the happy day had become only a memory. But the seeds of thought planted there fell not altogether on stony ground, and were destined to bear fruit at some future day. Indeed, the very next morning Ralph insisted on having an Arbor Day of his own, and he put in the ground a branch of willow, which took root and thrived, growing so rapidly that in a few years it was taller than himself; and each spring, when it put forth its delicate gray-green foliage, it recalled to Winnifred that most delightful Arbor Day. CHAPTER XV. GRETCHEN'S KAFFEEKLATCH. Another year of Gretta's life had rolled around and brought with it her thirteenth birthday. The little club of "warriors" had not been without its influence upon her behavior, and she had become so ready to enter upon her duties, so cheerful in performing them, and so much less resentful in accepting the reproof which was perhaps too frequent in that busy and overworked household, that her elder sister--whom she had so complained of when the subject of forming their club was first mentioned--had decided that Gretta must have a little birthday party, and asked her whom she wished to invite. Gretta was greatly delighted, for she had long been wishing to have a meeting of the club at her home, but had hardly known how to broach the subject. She immediately gave her sister the list, and while the latter was somewhat surprised that it should be so small, it was something of a relief to find what she had thought would be quite an undertaking so greatly simplified. It was decided that the girls should be invited to come at four o'clock and that supper should be served at half past five. Promptly at the hour named Winnifred and Miriam appeared, followed soon after by Fannie, and then by Ernestine. The door was opened by the smiling-faced, German maid-of-all-work, and the girls were met at the foot of the stairs by Gretta, who took them up to the library on the second floor. "Here we will have no one to bother us," said Gretta. "My mother is out of the city on a visit to my uncle, and my sister has a music pupil in the parlor, so we'll have the library all to ourselves." "How jolly!" said Miriam, looking around. "Oh, here is a big reclining-chair! We'll call it the president's chair, and Winnifred shall occupy it, because she was the first one to think of this club." "Yes! yes!" they all insisted, so Winnifred climbed into the big chair, and the other girls ranged themselves in various attitudes around her. "Do you know," said Miriam, with a half laugh and a half sigh, "I don't find fighting such easy work as I thought I would. I like to dress up my 'little observations,' as my brother calls them, just as much as I ever did, and I almost got into a temper this morning because my hair pulled when I began to comb it out." "And I have been wishing we were richer," said Ernestine, whose great ambition it was to be contented with all that came to her. "You know we had such a hot spell last week, and mamma ought to go away this summer. She is getting thinner and thinner, and she has those awful headaches more and more often lately." "I don't see why everybody can't have the things they want," said Fannie, feeling guilty to think she ever had a cross minute. "I said that to mamma last week," said Ernestine, "when I felt uneasy about her, and she said it all comes from something in ourselves. That didn't make it any easier for me; nothing did, until I thought of the One who had not where to lay His head. Then I felt ashamed." For a minute the girls were silent. Then Winnie said, "Well, I, for one, don't think I have quite killed that ugly old Hate. I can't bear to stop doing what I like, to please other people. I was reading 'Grandfather's Chair' last night, and I just hated to stop and tell Ralph his story before he went to bed. You know he always expects a story from some one of us, and last night nobody had the time but me." "I'll tell you what upsets me more than anything else," said their little hostess; "that is, to have to jump up from the piano to answer the bell. And there's never a day that I don't have to do it; sometimes three or four times." "What is your bugaboo, Fannie?" said Miriam; "or don't you have any?" "Don't I? I believe I have more than any of you," was the answer. "But the thing that grieves me most is that I can't wear prettier and more expensive dresses to school. You know, lots of the girls who haven't half as much money as we dress a great deal better. Mamma would not care so much, but papa won't hear of such a thing." "What awful troubles we all do have!" said Miriam, laughing. "Miss Embry would say you shouldn't use 'awful,'" said Winnie from the depths of the big chair. "There, you've hit it exactly!" said Miriam. "There is my bugaboo in a nut shell, and it really is an awful one. You know I like to make things sound strong, so I use all the strong-sounding words I can find; and I suppose I do exaggerate. Although I am reproved on all sides, it hasn't the slightest effect on me, except to make me wish that all the people who reprove me, or remind me of someone who does reprove,"--here she made big eyes at Winnie--"were hard of hearing when I am about. No, no; my motto is: "'Tameness and slowness can't stay with me; They and I will never agree.'" "And yet," said Ernestine, "there are a great many very interesting things told in very simple language and without getting away from the white truth." "Well," said Miriam, "to tell the white truth myself just this once. I don't know whether I want to conquer this or not. I don't believe it is really much relation to the Giant Untruth. I think it's only a little dwarfish imp, a Brownie, who simply 'growed,' like Topsy, and to me is just about as interesting." "And yet even you couldn't call Topsy beautiful," said Ernestine readily. "Hardly," laughed Miriam. "But now we've all owned up, let's parade rest, as we say in our broom drills;" and she threw herself back on the sofa, where she sat as if indeed resting from a hard-fought battle. The five formed a group of American girls good to look upon in their sweet springtime. Ernestine, with serious gray eyes, fair, slender, and tall for her fifteen years, sat erect but graceful in a straight, high-backed chair, her very pose denoting a peaceful courage. Fannie, with skin soft and rosy and eyes of a rare violet hue, occupied a low seat, her arms resting on the sofa against which she was leaning. Miriam, with dark, sparkling eyes and long, thick hair, looking brimful of life in spite of her present lazy attitude, sat just behind Fannie. Next came Winnie, small even for her twelve years, brown-eyed and dainty, looking fond of luxury, as she undoubtedly was and always would be, and yet good and high-minded. Last Gretta herself, a true German, with blue eyes and thick, light braids, a trim and compact little maiden. She sat near a table, her chin in her hand, with its flexible, square-tipped fingers--the fingers of the born and made pianist--for Gretta had "begun," as her mates used to tell, at the age of four. It was a pleasant room in which they sat; it had many books, German and English and a few in other languages, and where no book-cases rested, the walls were hung with pictures of musicians--Mozart and Bach and Mendelssohn and many others as companions; and on a pedestal stood a bust of Beethoven, whom--so Gretta told the girls as they looked around--her father considered the greatest of them all. Just then Winnie glanced up at the clock and saw that it was fifteen minutes past five. She made a motion to the girls, at which they all jumped up, and, joining hands, formed a circle around Gretta. Before she had had time to do anything but look astonished, Miriam stopped behind her, and, holding something over her head, said, "Heavy, heavy hangs over your head. What shall the owner do to redeem it?" Before Gretta had a chance to answer, Miriam had dropped into her lap a box of pretty note-paper, and replied to her own question by saying, "The owner shall redeem it by writing to the giver this summer a letter for each week they are separated." Then the girls circled about again, and this time Winnifred stopped behind Gretta, saying: "Open your mouth and shut your eyes, And I'll give you something to make you wise." Gretta did as she was bidden, and Winnie popped a big marshmallow into her mouth, depositing the remainder of the box in her lap. They circled about her for the third time, and Fannie stopped behind her, saying, as Miriam had done, "Heavy, heavy hangs over your head. What shall the owner do to redeem it?" and continued, "Read every word of it and enjoy it," and placed in Gretta's hand a copy of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." Yet again they circled about her, singing: "A rosy wreath I twine for thee, Of Flora's richest treasures; Take, oh, take, this rosy, rosy crown, Flora's richest treasures, Flora's richest treasures,"-- and Ernestine placed a crown of flowers on Gretta's brow. Gretta was quite overcome with pleasure and surprise, for the girls had so skillfully hidden their little gifts that she had not even caught a glimpse of them. Just then the door opened, and the hostess' sister appeared at the door, saying, "Tea is ready, Gretta." Before they did anything else, however, Gretta had to exhibit her presents. They were duly admired, and then Miss Josephine said, "Come on, now; I'll head the procession. Keep step." Through the open door came the sound of a lively march, which even Gretta had never heard before. "That is a new march which father composed in honor of your birthday. He calls it 'Gretchen's March.'" [Illustration: Winnifred popped a big marshmallow into her mouth.--See page 72.] They all felt very important as they marched down the stairs, headed by Miss Berger, who led them out into the long parlor and twice around it, while her father at the piano, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, kept on playing, and then out into the dining-room. The table was set for five only, and the girls, directed by Miss Josephine, took their seats, with Gretta at the head, to the inspiring strains of the lively march. It proved a most enjoyable little feast. Miss Berger left the room as soon as they were all seated, and then the same smiling-faced maid who had opened the door for them, also departed, and gave them an opportunity to look about. At Gretta's place was a set of cunning china cups and saucers, which had been sent her from Germany when she was quite a little child. The cups were just about the size of after-dinner coffees, and the smiling Mina had insisted on calling the little party "Gretchen's Kaffeeklatch." Miss Berger had been so amused that she fell in with the idea, and had decided that they really should have coffee and some of Mina's coffee-cake on the bill of fare. As Gretta filled the little cups, and the coffee and its delicious adjunct were passed around, five tongues chattered as fast as those of their elders might have done on a similar occasion. When the coffee-cake and sandwiches and chicken salad had been disposed of, Gretta touched the bell at her place, and Mina appeared. After clearing the table, she brought in a great cake with thirteen little candles on it burning away merrily, and a great bowl of lemonade. Miss Josephine came in and cut the cake and served the lemonade, and was as entertaining and companionable as any of them could have desired. They sat at the table a long time, then they went into the parlor and were introduced to Gretta's father. They shook hands with him timidly, for they had been so impressed by his strictness with Gretta in regard to her musical studies that they were a little afraid of him. Though they felt vaguely conscious that he was looking at them quizzically, he threw off the yoke of business entirely and entered into their games like a boy. Among the other enjoyable things they played "Magic Music." It was really the game of "Hunt the Slipper," and when the music was soft they were "cold," and when it was loud they were "hot." Mr. Berger played for them, and never before had these girls played this game to such music. The four girls walked home together in the Late twilight, declaring to each other that they had never had such a delightful time; and Fannie, who had once spoken so contemptuously of Gretta as a "music teacher's daughter," was loudest in her praise. CHAPTER XVI. THE BOAT-RIDE. A few evenings after the meeting at Gretta's, Uncle Fred came in, and, pulling Winnie's ears according to his custom, said: "I think it's my turn to treat, Winnifred; at least Kitty says it is. She and I were out boating yesterday, and she suggests that I take you and the other Joans for a row Friday evening." "Oh, Uncle Fred," cried Winnie, "that will be grand! I'll tell the girls about it to-morrow. Who all are to be invited?" "'You-all,' as our Southern friends say, and your Aunt Kitty; us seven, and no more, as the poet expresses it." The girls accepted with eagerness. But on Thursday Ernestine did not come to school. Winnie went around Friday noon to learn the reason of such an unusual occurrence, and found that Mrs. Alroy was sick in bed, and although she had protested against her daughter's staying at home, Ernestine could not be prevailed upon to leave her. The other girls were, of course, very sorry not to have her go, but soon forgot their disappointment in the excitement of anticipation. At a quarter past six, the hour agreed upon, Fannie was ringing Mrs. Burton's door bell, while Gretta and Miriam were just entering the gate. Winnie and her uncle and aunt were quite ready, so they all started out. After a short ride in the "Green Line," they were transferred to the Covington and Newport cars on their way to the river. None of the girls had been in that neighborhood often enough to be familiar with it, and everything they saw had the interest of novelty for them. When they reached the bridge, Mr. Fred helped them out of the car and they went on down the bank of the river. They stood there for awhile watching the many boats, large and small, the people going and coming, none of whom seemed to be in the same hurry as those farther up in the city, and most of whom were men sauntering leisurely along with their hands in their pockets. Mr. Fred, who had left the girls for a few minutes, now came back, and, on his giving the command, they followed him to a pretty little dock where there were several row-boats. In one of these the five girls were soon seated, Winnie in the bow, Gretta and Fannie in the stern, while Miriam and Miss Kitty--who could both row--sat together where each could handle an oar, declaring that they meant to help provide some of the power. Uncle Fred took his place in the seat of "the crack oarsman," as he said, the smiling boatman on the wharf pushed them off, and soon they found themselves afloat. Fannie held the rudder and handled it very skillfully, although Mr. Fred kept a sharp lookout himself, for the river at this point was full of craft of all descriptions, from the large steamboats whose journey continues through the beautiful Ohio down through "The Father of Waters;" the ferry boats crossing between Ohio and Kentucky; little steam launches and row-boats, just starting out for pleasure; and fishing-boats returning laden from the day's work. At first Miss Kitty and Miriam splashed about a little, but soon they became accustomed to each other and pulled such a steady, even stroke that Mr. Fred was obliged to stop laughing at them, and even acknowledged that they were helping to make the boat go. All along the shores of the river were numbers of shanty boats, and as they approached the mouth of the Licking they saw more of these. Winnie, especially, was much interested in them, and enjoyed her seat in the bow as giving a good opportunity to catch a glimpse of some of their inmates--little boys with bare feet, girls with bright-colored dresses, many barking dogs, and an occasional cat, all of whom, in her eyes, were invested with a peculiar fascination. But soon they entered the mouth of the Licking, and, gradually leaving all these sights and sounds behind them, passed into an enchanted country, the domain of Nature herself. Miss Kitty started up softly, "My country, 'tis of thee," and the girls joined in, Miriam's contralto adding richness to the voices as they rose and fell on the still air. Miss Kitty and Miriam had already drawn their oars up into the boat, and Mr. Fred let his trail idly in the water as he listened. When they had finished the last stanza, Winnie said, "Aunt Kitty, won't you and Uncle Fred sing 'Juanita' for us? The moon is just rising behind those trees, and this is the very time for that duet." "What a romantic little thing it is!" said Fred, teasingly; but he joined his sister in the pretty duet, which has been sung on the water so many times as almost to be considered a boating song. After this they took to their oars again, and, pulling hard against the stream, advanced silently but rapidly. Presently Mr. Fred, with a strong pull on his left oar, turned the boat, in spite of Fannie's hold on the rudder, and it shot suddenly in toward the right bank, where was a little beach in a sheltered cove under an immense willow tree. Here Mr. Fred jumped out, and, after making the boat fast to the tree, assisted the other members of the party to disembark. "Follow me!" he commanded, starting up the bank, which here sloped gradually to the water's edge. The little company soon reached the top of the bank. The moon, nearly full, had just risen, and by its light, struggling with that of the dying day, they saw a little path leading up the green hillside. Along this they went, single file, wondering where Mr. Fred and Miss Kitty were taking them, when suddenly they were startled by the bark of a dog, and in a second a great mastiff jumped up almost to Mr. Fred's shoulders, and nearly knocked him down by the force of the spring. Winnie was struck dumb with fear, and the other girls screamed, but Mr. Fred said, in a tone which quite reassured them: "Down, down, Jasper! Don't let your joy make you forget your manners." Jasper wagged his tail as if to say, "All right, sir," and trotted along the path, with Mr. Fred's hand on his head. The path wound about through the trees, and when they reached the top of the hill they saw a large white house, and coming towards them a tall young man, who called out cheerily: "We've been looking for you for the last half hour. Come right along. Nellie and Rob can hardly contain themselves, they have been so afraid you wouldn't come." He led the way around the house, and soon had ushered the new-comers into a large, square parlor with long windows opening on a broad veranda. "Nellie, Rob," he said, "here are the 'Warrior Maidens,' of whom you have heard so much." The two children, Nellie about fourteen, and Rob a few years younger, bowed bashfully, and then looked appealingly at their elder brother, as they sat down on the two chairs farthest removed from those occupied by their guests. The moon was now above the tree tops, and shone into the room brightly through the long windows. [Illustration: They passed unto an enchanted country.--See page 75.] "A glorious night for a game of hide-and-seek," said the older brother suggestively, in answer to an unspoken appeal of the younger ones. "And this would be a grand place for it," said Miss Kitty. "I used to think a game of I-spy on a moonlight night the finest thing in the world. Suppose we try it now?" "Yes! yes!" they all exclaimed; and, headed by their young hosts, rushed out of doors, and for half an hour made the hills echo with their shouts of merriment. Such places as there were in which to hide!--a dark corner in the grape arbor, a nook in the vine-covered summer-house, a deep-shadowed projection from the stable or house or veranda: such chances to "make home" around the house, which stood in the center of the yard! Miss Kitty generally came in first, but once, after long searching, she was found in the hollow of a tree into which she had crawled, and from which, being caught in her own trap, she had to be pulled out by the united efforts of her brother and niece. Then Miss Kitty declared that it was high time they should start for home. But when they went into the house to get their wraps, they found the smiling mother of their hosts waiting for them with a great bowl of strawberries, picked, she said, just before the sun went down, and which they must really try. It was not a difficult task to persuade the guests to do this, and after they had all done full justice to the berries and the accompanying cake and rich, sweet milk, they set forth to embark for home, escorted to the river by the entire family of their new friends. The row home was enjoyed even more, if that were possible, than the one thither. The moon was now high in the sky, and hill and tree and rock and dimpling wave were beautified by its enchanting glamour. They all felt either too tired, or too happy, or both perhaps, to talk, and the trip was made almost in silence, although Miss Kitty stopped rowing once, and quoted softly: "And the cares that infest the day, Shall fold their tents like the Arab, And as silently steal away." CHAPTER XVII. SAD NEWS. The next morning Winnie wakened early and lay for some time thinking over the pleasure of the evening before and the events of the past six months. It seemed to her as if a long time had elapsed since the evening on which she began to look upon life as something of a battle-field. She felt older, and yet light-hearted, as the gentle air of late May, stealing in through the open window, lightly stirred the thin curtains and brushed her face "like the breeze from an angel's wing," she thought. "How happy we all have been!" she said aloud. "And Ernestine--I wish she had been with us last night--is the happiest of all, because she is the best." Then she dozed off again, and did not awake until she heard little Ralph calling at her door: "Hurry up, 'Innie! B'eakast is 'most weady!" She sprang out of bed in haste then, and was in the dining-room in time to take her seat with the rest. "'He maketh the storm a calm, and the waves thereof are still,'" she quoted when it came her turn to give her selection. She had chosen this one for its gentle beauty. How pleasant it all was! How full of life and joy everything seemed, even to the carnations in the center of the table, with their spicy odor! She performed her Saturday morning duties cheerfully, and after lunch asked permission to take her books and go to Ernestine's to look over the lessons for Monday, for the end of the year--their last year in the Intermediate--was rapidly approaching, and, their course being almost completed, they would soon begin the heavy review in preparation for the high-school examination. Permission was readily granted, and Winnifred started off with a light heart. When she reached Ernestine's home, a gentleman came down the steps and passed out of the door just as she was about to enter the hall, so, somewhat surprised, she went up the stairs more slowly than usual and knocked softly. It was opened by a strange lady, who, in answer to Winnifred's inquiry for Ernestine, said: "Ernestine is with her mother, who is so ill that the doctor says she must either have a trained nurse or go to the hospital." "Oh, I must go right home and tell mamma!" said Winnie, and she went away without another word. When she reached home, she found her mother in the sitting-room doing the week's mending. On hearing her daughter's sad news she hurriedly changed her dress and set out at once for Mrs. Alroy's. She was gone an hour--an age, it seemed to Winnifred, unsuccessfully struggling to keep her mind on her lessons. When Mrs. Burton returned, her face was very grave, and she drew Winnie toward her with a warm embrace as she said: "Mrs. Alroy has decided to have a nurse; she says she has saved a little money for just such an emergency and prefers to be at home where she can have Ernestine with her. She asked me to send for Mr. Allen." "Fannie's father?" said Winnifred, surprised. "Yes, and I want you to go there now and leave a note for him." And seating herself at her desk, Mrs. Burton wrote a short note while Winnie was getting on her hat. Winnie felt very sober--and, it must be confessed, also somewhat important--as she hurried away to deliver the note. She found Mr. Allen at home, and, having sent up the note by the servant who answered the bell, she asked for Fannie, for she longed to talk the matter over with one of her mates. But Fannie, from her room at the head of the stairs, had heard Winnifred's voice, and now came running down to meet her. "What is it, Win?" she said. "Oh, Fannie," was the reply, "I'm afraid something awful is going to happen at Ernestine's house! Her mother is very, very sick. I went there this morning just as the doctor was coming away, and he said she must either go to the hospital or have a trained nurse. Mamma went over right away, and now Mrs. Alroy has sent for your father." "For papa! Isn't that strange? Come up to my room, Winnie, and stay awhile, can't you?" "I don't know," said Winnie, hesitatingly. "Mamma didn't say for me to hurry--" "Well, come on then," said Fannie, leading the way up the softly carpeted stairs. Winnie followed with scarcely a glance around. Although Fannie's father was much wealthier than her own, and his house finer in every way, her heart was too full for much interest in fine ornamentation; and besides, child though she was, she instinctively felt that culture and true refinement are at home anywhere. But it was the first time she had ever been in Fannie's own room, and this she found interesting in spite of the emotions which had troubled her heart during the day. It certainly was a charming nook, with its pink-curtained bed half hidden behind a large four-fold screen with the Seasons painted in oil upon its panels; the pretty white dressing-table, draped to match the bed, and filled with the dainty accessories of a girl's toilet; a low, well-filled book case and desk combined; the pretty matting and rugs; and the many pictures and other ornaments here and there. The girls sat down on a little willow seat, large enough for two, and Winnie had to begin all over again and tell what she knew about Mrs. Alroy's illness. In the meantime they heard Mr. Allen descend the stairs and go out of the street door before Fannie had time to call to him. "I wonder if papa has gone to Mrs. Alroy's now," said she. "Whatever can she want of him? Perhaps she is going to have him make her will." "But why should she do that?" said Winnie. "She can't have much to leave to anybody; and, if she had, Ernestine would be the only one to get it, wouldn't she? But what would Ernestine do if her mother should die? Who would take care of her? You know she has always said she would teach when she had finished school, and it will be years before she does that. Do you know, if the worst should happen, I'd love to have her stay with us, and I almost believe mamma would be willing." "I think that would be a good deal for your family to do," was the answer, "but maybe papa would help." "I don't believe Ernestine would be helped by anyone unless she did something in return. But how long I am staying! I must go right away." "Oh, stay just a minute longer," said Fannie. "I want to show you my hanging garden;" and she threw up the long window and stepped out to a little balcony, almost filled with flowers in pots and boxes, and baskets full of vines drooping over all. "Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Winnie. "Yes, isn't it? I care more for this than anything else I have," Fannie replied, breaking off a bunch of heliotrope and pinning it to her friend's dress. "Oh, thank you!" said Winnie. "But now I must go." "Yes, I suppose you must," said Fannie, reluctantly. "I'll put on my hat and go a ways with you." They went down the stairs and out into the street together, talking alternately--as people do under such circumstances--of trivial things and of that which filled their hearts. When Winnifred reached home, she found her mother seated at the open window of the sitting-room, darning a pair of stockings--a homely enough occupation, but to Winnie's eyes her mother had never looked so dear or so beautiful, and she went and put her arms about her neck. Her mother returned the embrace, holding her close for a moment, and then she said gently: "Have you your lessons for Monday, dear?" "Oh, mamma," said Winnie, "it does not seem to me as if I can ever study again!" "Is there any nearer duty, Winnie?" "I don't know--I suppose not. But, mamma, I can't put my mind on my lessons, when Ernestine's mother is so sick." "Can you help Ernestine any by neglecting your own duties, dear? You do not recognize Giant Despair when he comes in the guise of love and sympathy for your friends, but he it is who comes at these times. You know in Whose hands are the issues of life and death, of health and sickness. You cannot help Ernestine's future by worrying over her present; but you may mar a portion of your own by neglecting your present." Winnie could not help knowing that her mother was right. She took out her books, and was soon so hard at work that her disturbed emotions were quieted, and by supper time, though still full of sympathy for her friend, she was quite herself again, and ready to play the accompaniment to the new piece her brother was learning. And when she went to bed, it was to sleep peacefully, rather than to lie awake fighting unseen terrors, as Mrs. Burton well knew would have been the case with her high-strung child had she been allowed to brood over the events of the day. CHAPTER XVIII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. The next day at breakfast Mrs. Burton announced her intention of going to see Mrs. Alroy instead of attending church, and said that if she were not home to dinner they might know she had thought it necessary to remain. "Mayn't I go with you, mamma?" asked Winnifred. "I think it would not be best for either Ernestine or yourself, Winnie, and certainly not for Mrs. Alroy." Winnie at once saw that her mother was right, and instead of demurring, she went and gathered some beautiful clusters of lilacs for Ernestine, and cut the one white rose in bloom on her window-sill to send to Mrs. Alroy. Mrs. Burton set off, taking a basket of fruit and the flowers, but she sighed as she turned the corner leading to Mrs. Alroy's, for she felt that the fruit would never refresh the world-weary woman for whom it was intended. When she reached her destination she glanced apprehensively up to the second-story windows, for, although she said nothing about it to Winnie, she had on the previous day given up all hope of Mrs. Alroy's recovery. But the sorrowful banner which she had dreaded to see was not there, and she breathed more freely as she passed up the stairs. In answer to her low knock the door was opened by Ernestine, who smiled as Mrs. Burton took her hand, a sad little smile of welcome which went to her visitor's heart. "Mamma is resting quite easily now, but she passed a painful night. I will tell the nurse you are here. How beautiful the flowers and fruit are!" she said, as Mrs. Burton handed the basket to her. "Yes, dear; the lilacs are for you--you know their odor is too strong for a sick-room--but Winnie sent this rose from her own little monthly to your mother." Ernestine's lips quivered, as she took the rose without speaking, and went into the little bedroom, closing the door gently behind her. Mrs. Burton found a vase, which she filled with water to put the lilacs in, and sat down to await the nurse's coming. She had not long to wait. The nurse, entering, closed the door behind her as softly as Ernestine had done, and motioned Mrs. Burton to follow her into the little kitchen. "There is not the slightest hope," said she, in answer to Mrs. Burton's anxious inquiry. "The doctor says it may be a matter of hours only, although she may live for some days yet. It is neuralgia of the heart and she has been suffering exceedingly. However, she is resting easier now--which is not a good sign, you know--and wants to see you. She has asked me to send her daughter on some little errand, because she wants to see you alone." They entered Mrs. Alroy's room together, and Ernestine, at a sign from the nurse, followed her out of the room. Mrs. Alroy took Mrs. Burton's outstretched hand, and for a moment neither spoke. Then the former said quietly: "Please sit down, Mrs. Burton, for I have much to say to you. And I cannot speak long at a time, so you will have to be patient with me. You are not in a hurry?" "My dear Mrs. Alroy, I have the day at your disposal. Do not hesitate to command me." "You know something of my past life--so I found out yesterday. I need not touch upon it further. It is past now and I no longer regret it. But it is of the future I wish to speak. Not my own--that lies beyond our knowing--but of my daughter's--" The sick woman put her hand over her eyes a moment, and Mrs. Burton walked to the window to fight back the tears which were fast rising to her eyes. Mrs. Alroy was the first to regain control of herself, and as Mrs. Burton resumed her seat, she went on: "I had a long talk with Mr. Allen yesterday. He knows my family and I have placed my affairs in his hands. I have no doubt that Ernestine will be taken care of, but it is of her immediate future that I wish to speak. I would not have her go among strangers at once, and I am about to ask a great favor of you. The child loves you next to myself; your daughter is her dearest friend--" "Winnifred feels it an honor to be thought so. Nothing would please both of us, all of us, better than to have Ernestine make her home with us for as long a time as she may desire." "You give me courage to die. You could almost give me courage to live--but not quite. Yes, that is what I wish to ask of you, but only for the remainder of the school year. Preparing for the high-school examination will occupy my little girl's mind and help her to bear the separation, and after that--in the shadow of death pride vanishes, and I have requested Mr. Allen to write to my brother. They will settle everything else." She sank back on her pillows and closed her eyes wearily. Mrs. Burton could not immediately command her voice, but laid her hand gently on that of the sick woman. The latter, without opening her eyes, continued: "I shall not last long; this pain has too constantly been hovering about my heart; it cannot be driven back again; it must soon strike its last blow. But I do not fear it; it will be sharp but quick. Nor do I wish to live. Even my little daughter's wonderful love for me can no longer hold me. Besides, I know that from a material point of view she will only profit by my departure. She does not know that, and I am all she has--and I have not had the courage to tell her. This hard task I must ask you to do for me. I have only a hope--to you that hope is certainty. Your views are different; you can soften the blow as I cannot do. You will stay here awhile?" "Anything I can do for you is too little." "I have been loquacious, but I had long restrained myself. What time is it?" "Half past eleven." "Ernestine will soon be here, and I will tell her to make a cup of tea for you." "Oh, no--" "Yes, it will give her occupation and relieve the strain. There she is now." Ernestine came in with soft footsteps. "How do you feel now, mamma?" she asked gently. "Quite easy, dear. I think I shall sleep for a little while. Mrs. Burton will stay to lunch, and you may make a cup of tea for her and yourself. The nurse will stay with me now; you can call her." The nurse came, and Mrs. Burton and Ernestine left the room together. After the sad little lunch Mrs. Burton, summoning up all her courage, spoke. "Ernestine," she said, "your mother has asked me to tell you something which she would gladly spare you knowledge of, but which you must know. She is going on a long journey, from which she can no more return to you. But you will one day go to her." Ernestine's great eyes dilated wildly. "You mean that my mother is going--" "My dear, my dear! Your mother walks in the valley of the shadow of death, yet she fears no evil. You--and I and all who love you and her--are enveloped in its gloom, but if she fears not passing to the Unknown, shall we fear for her or for ourselves?" "I cannot do without my mother, Mrs. Burton! I cannot! I cannot! She is all I have--all I want!" and the girl burst into a tempest of tears. Mrs. Burton gathered her up in her arms and let her weep undisturbed for some minutes. Then she said gently: "Your mother wants to go. If she could live longer, she would seldom be free from pain. Besides, it is God's will." "Oh, my mother! my mother!" And Ernestine dropped upon her knees. Mrs. Burton went out and left her, knowing that the stricken child's hope was in a Comforter greater than herself. When Ernestine went in later, pale but quiet, her mother turned toward her with a smile. "Kiss me, my daughter, my baby!" she said, "and be at peace, as I am." The windows of the little bedroom faced the west, and toward evening Mrs. Alroy asked the nurse to draw back the curtains. "It has been a stormy day," she said, "but the sun is setting clear. I think I will go to sleep." And she closed her tired eyes, and "fell on sleep" without being touched by the dreaded pain. When they knew that it was indeed all over, they led Ernestine away, and she allowed them to put on her hat and went submissively home with Mrs. Burton. When she returned to her own home again, the little room had been transformed into a bower of flowers, and Mrs. Alroy slept under their fragrant covering, beautiful and serene, with a smile on her lips. Ernestine was met on the threshold by a tall, handsome man, who put his arms about her and said how glad he was to see his little niece. He had come at once in response to Mr. Allen's telegram. All was quiet and beautiful. A dozen or so friends gathered to listen to the sweet words of farewell to the dead and of benediction to the living; and then Mr. Van Orten took his sister home with him, that she might lie beside her kindred in the little old village on the banks of the Hudson. CHAPTER XIX. A BUSY MONTH. Mr. Van Orten left his niece behind him reluctantly, but Mr. Allen had convinced him that his sister had decided wisely, and that nothing could be better for Ernestine during the coming month than the calm and cheerful atmosphere of Mrs. Burton's home. Ernestine's own cot had been brought and placed in Winnie's room, and the two girls were tucked in every night by the same motherly hands. Little Ralph took Ernestine at once into his affections, made her smile at his quaint fancies and cunning little tongue, and his father and brother treated her as if she had always been one of them. The end of the school year was rapidly approaching, and there was a great deal of work to be done. Ernestine and Winnie were both anxious to do honor to their school and to the teachers who had worked with them hard and patiently, so every minute was occupied in some way, and Ernestine had no time for unhealthy grieving. On Saturday afternoons Fannie and Miriam and Gretta came to Mrs. Burton's, and they all went over the week's work together. Sometimes Mr. Allen and Fannie came and took Winnifred and Ernestine for a drive through the beautiful suburbs, and one evening they had another row on the river with Uncle Fred and Aunt Kitty. And so the weeks wore away and brought the bright June day when they all walked together to the high-school to take their examination seats. Their hearts beat high with hope and courage, and swelled with self-importance not altogether to be made light of; for it had been their aim for many months to gain this last fight of their school year on the very field on which they would plant their banners of occupation if they won. And win they felt sure they would, for this was but the supreme test to prove the force and earnestness of what had gone before. "On, on to victory!" laughed Miriam each morning, waving her hands high above her head. And "On, on to victory!" laughed the four other girls, echoing her cry. How they worked that week, their young heads bent over their papers, while their young eyes carefully perused those wonderful "printed questions"! The five, so different in manner, but so alike in aim and purpose--Ernestine, calm, deliberate, direct; Fannie, thoughtful but rapid; Gretta, neat, painstaking, and a little anxious; Miriam, dashing ahead impulsively, scratching out a word here or inserting one there, doing twice to thinking once, but thinking that once well; and Winnie, absorbed, thorough and confident--were noted with interest by the stranger teachers watching them, for they had learned to work with a definite aim which showed itself in their very attitudes. They took the questions home with them, and each day the five might be seen at the home of one or the other, again going over the work, replying one at a time and sometimes all at once to the oft-repeated query, "How did you answer this?" or "Did you prove that?" Sometimes the group was joined by one or more of their other classmates, and once Josie Thompson, wearing her brightest dress and biggest pin, called to them as she passed: "Isn't this a horrid old examination? I know I won't pass, and I don't care if I don't. My mother says if I fail she'll take me out of school, and I'll be glad of it. I can't see any fun in digging every minute, and what's the use of all this high-school stuff anyhow! I can have a better time without it." And on the last day she waved her hands to them across the street and shouted: "Good-by, girls! I know it's all up with me!" "Poor Josie!" said Ernestine, after they had gone home; "trying so hard to have a good time, and missing it after all." "Yes," said Mrs. Burton, laying her hand gently on the girl's head, "like the dog in the fable, she is losing the substance to grasp at the shadow." "Tell me about the dog in the table, Ernie," said Ralph, pulling at Ernestine's dress to attract her attention. "I don't think I know, you little dear!" she said, laughing gently at his mistake. "We must ask your mamma to tell us both." "Then 'Innie must hear, too!" said the child, running to the door to call his sister. It was what Miriam called a "delicious" evening, and after tea she and Fannie and Gretta came strolling over to talk about the events of the week and reassure each other that "all was well." Ralph looked upon each of them as his own particular friend and in a sense his charge, and so he now proceeded to enlighten them on the subject of the dog in the fable as follows: "There was a dog and a table," he said, "but I don't know what the table was for, because he didn't eat on a table, you know, 'cause he was on'y a dog; but he stealed a bone, and he was wunning away wid it over some watah, and saw his shadow looking like anudder dog wid a bone, an' he was so greedy dat he dropped his bone to get de bone of de odder dog in de ribber, and so he lost his own bone and didn't get any odder, and Josie Thompson didn't get any bone eider." "Oh, Ralph," said Winnie, "you tell everything you know, besides much that you don't!" How the girls laughed when Winnie explained! And all the more as laughter came easy to them, with hearts light from the consciousness of a well-spent year which had brought its reward. CHAPTER XX. A TRIP TO MAMMOTH CAVE. One evening, shortly after the examination, Fannie said to her father: "Papa, I want to invite the club for a last meeting before Ernestine leaves us. I wish I could have something in the way of a treat different from anything we have had." "I don't know about that. Your mother is so busy getting ready for the summer, and we are going away so soon, that I hardly see how we can arrange it." Fannie looked at her father in blank dismay. But he went on unmoved: "In fact, Fannie, I have been thinking that these meetings, as you call them, are becoming somewhat monotonous." (Fannie's eyes opened wide.) "No, I don't think we can have it at all." This was too much, and Fannie's speechless indignation found voice: "Papa Allen, I didn't think this of you!" Then, seeing the well-known twinkle in his eyes, she perched herself on his knee and said, "Now, papa, what are you up to?" "Well, as the immortal Peter Pindar says, as reported by McGuffey, 'I love to please good children,' and as you have all been 'kind and civil,' I have concluded to give you what I call a grand treat. So prepare for a shock." "Go ahead, papa. I'm not afraid of it at all; what I was afraid of was--none." "Well, what do you say to my taking all of you, the whole company of warriors, to Mammoth Cave?" Fannie sprang from his knee and fairly danced around the room for joy. Then she quieted herself and said, "When, papa?" "Just before the Fourth, I think. Your mother and I will go, and possibly Ernestine's uncle, who will be here by that time; and I thought we might invite 'Miss Kitty,' of whom I have heard so much." So it came about that on a warm afternoon in July, a party of eight, escorted to the boat by several friends, ascended the narrow staircase of the steamboat, and made themselves comfortable on deck until the "All aboard!" was heard, when the escort hurried down the stairs to the wharf. When the boat had floated entirely out of sight of the waving handkerchiefs of their friends, the party, taking their hand luggage, went into the cabin to find their staterooms and deposit their belongings. They had four staterooms in all. Fannie and Miriam occupied one communicating with that of Fannie's parents; and Ernestine, Gretta, Winnie and her Aunt Kitty had another similar suite. This duty over, they went on deck to enjoy the sweet, fresh air from the river and the beautiful scenery along its banks. Just after the short landing which had been made at Lawrenceburg, supper was called, and they were all ready to respond. The colored waiters were delighted to find such a party of young girls, and served them with the utmost alacrity, anticipating every want in a delightful manner. After supper they sat on deck till long after dark. Mr. Allen and Mr. Van Orten were exchanging reminiscences of their college days; and later, joined by Mrs. Allen, of summers passed at beautiful Lake George and in the White Mountains. To all of this the remainder of the party listened with absorbing interest. However, the air, which had first given them so good an appetite for supper, now made them sleepy, so that by ten o'clock the girls had all climbed into their narrow berths and were soon sound asleep. They had breakfast on the boat, so were ready to continue their journey by rail without interruption. After a pleasant ride through a picturesque country they reached Cave City, where they were transferred to a tram--an engine and one coach--which took them first up and then down hill over a road cut right through the woods, so that in some places the trees almost interlaced over the top of the coach. It was most delightful to all the party, and would have been only too short had it not been for what was to follow. It formed a fit introduction to the sublime and wonderful results of Nature's long and patient work which they were to see. Therefore, in spite of the novelty and beauty, they were glad to reach the hotel, a long, rambling, wooden building, so unlike anything the girls had ever before seen that the short stay within its quaint rooms, with their bare floors and whitewashed walls, was in itself an experience long to be remembered. After a night's refreshing sleep they were ready to start out bright and early for the first day's adventures. With many girlish giggles they arrayed themselves in the costumes provided by the Cave management--the short woolen skirts and loose blouses carrying with them a delightfully free and unconventional feeling--and then, at the sound of the gong, set forth with their guide; Mr. and Mrs. Allen in the lead, close behind them Miss Kitty and Miriam, next Fannie and Gretta, then Ernestine with one hand locked in that of her uncle and the other tightly holding Winnie's fingers, while the interesting and friendly dog, "Brigham,"--so called, the guide explained, because he was no longer young--divided his attentions between them, but seemed most inclined to make friends with Miss Kitty, who was accused of having a piece of meat in her pocket as the only way to account for her mysterious fascination for his dogship. They had a short but beautiful walk through the fern-decorated woods, down a steep path, over a little bridge, till they found themselves on a stone platform directly in front of an enormous opening in the hill, a natural arch overhung with trees, rocks, ferns and wild-flowers--a sight never to be forgotten, so wonderfully beautiful and grand was it--and the party stepped back to admire it. When they went forward again in order to enter, they saw that what was an arch above was a gaping chasm below, which looked ready to swallow them, and down which there seemed no way to go except to fall headlong. Their guide watched their dismay with amusement, but presently Miriam discovered a narrow flight of steps cut out of the solid rock. Down these they went, shaded by the trees, under the sparkling cascade, beneath the black, overhanging rock, winding their way along to where the last bit of daylight is swallowed up, and then, with various kinds of sensations, watched the guide unlock the iron gate through which they were to pass on their way to the mysterious region of the nether world. As they took their lamps and the gate closed behind them with a clang, Miriam confided to Miss Kitty that she felt little shivers running up and down her back. As the darkness became more intense, Winnie slipped away from Ernestine to her Aunt Kitty, whose hand she seized with a breath of relief, as if feeling safer there; and Gretta and Fannie clung closely together. As they advanced, the sense of mystery increased, and for a minute the girls huddled together in a bunch. Brigham, however, sniffed once more--a little contemptuously, according to Miss Kitty--and then ran ahead on side trips of his own, returning to the party from time to time as if to reassure them that everything was all right and they might place implicit confidence in his knowledge of the Cave and his friendship for them. Their first stop was made in the Rotunda in order to examine the saltpeter vats, in which Ernestine, in keeping with her liking for history, was much interested when she heard that the saltpeter made here was taken to Philadelphia to be used in the manufacture of gunpowder during the war of 1812. Presently they entered Methodist Hall--so named, as they were assured by their guide, "because it's a heap too dry for the Baptis'." In this place was the natural pulpit from which--so tradition says--Booth once delivered Hamlet's soliloquy. Next they came to Gothic Avenue, where their way lay along piles of stone erected by admirers of famous men, States, and so on. There was one little pile which seemed to have been neglected, and Miss Kitty asked whose it was. On being told that it was the Old Maid's Monument, she exclaimed: "I shall find nothing nearer my heart!" and, picking up a stone, carefully balanced it on the top of the pile. But in spite of her care, it rolled off. "That's a shore sign, Miss, that you ain't gwine to be a ole maid." "Can it be!" she said, as the elders of the company laughingly congratulated her. "Once more I feel a breath of hope." By and by they reached Register Hall, which has been aptly described as a huge autograph album, for on its ceiling, smoked by burning candles, can be found names and addresses from all parts of the world, while address cards are placed in numberless nooks and crevices. Here Gretta sat in the arm-chair in which, so it is said, Jenny Lind once sat and sang. The next thing which pleased all of them, and particularly Fannie, was the water clock--a tick-tock sound made by the dropping of a little stream of water into a pool below--and they all laughed at William when he said, "But it ain't a eight-day clock, because it runs down every twenty-four hours." When they saw the Giant's Coffin they looked upon it with awe--for it was a gruesome sight enough--until Mr. Allen said in a loud aside to Mr. Van Orten: "This is the coffin in which the Warrior Maidens deposit the bodies of their victims." Mrs. Allen smiled faintly, but Miss Kitty--more at Mr. Van Orten's puzzled expression than at the speech itself--laughed outright. Winnie and Ernestine had not heard, and Gretta hardly knew whether to laugh or be offended, until Fannie and Miriam, catching the joke, re-echoed Miss Kitty's laugh. From a crevice behind the Giant's Coffin they went slipping and sliding down an incline, and then up and down, till they came to a small, round opening in what seemed to be a solid wall. "Stay here," said the guide; and he disappeared through the hole with his lights. Then he called to them, and, peering through the aperture, they found it to be a natural window opening into a great, beautiful chamber--Gorin's Dome, considered by many, said the guide, to be the finest room in the Cave, with its immense extent, measuring two hundred feet from floor to ceiling, and covering an entire acre of space. From here they went to the pits, and, standing on the Bridge of Sighs, a lowered ball of flame showed them that they were directly suspended over the deepest, known as the Bottomless Pit. Winnie and Gretta caught their breath quickly, and Ernestine's hand tightened on her uncle's arm; indeed, the whole party was glad to get away from that dangerous spot. The next place visited, however, made up to them for any amount of hard travel or moment of terror. Having retraced their steps till they came to the original passage, they went on for some distance until told by their guide to rest for a moment on a convenient stone seat, and wait there until he called to them. He then took away all of their lamps and disappeared. For a moment they felt the darkness something frightful, but before it had lasted long enough to be painful, they saw a vision overhead of numberless stars shining down upon them from a cloudless dome. That which for one moment in the darkness had almost provoked a cry of terror from more than one of the party, became a cry of delight; and then Mrs. Allen wondered aloud how they could see the stars so far below the surface of the earth. But even as she spoke, the scene changed. They no longer saw a clear sky, but the stars disappeared behind heavy clouds, and then they were again in that indescribably awful darkness. But gradually a soft light was seen, and they heard the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle as they wake in the early dawn. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" they said, and were almost sorry when they found out that these sounds were produced by their guide, who turned out to be something of a ventriloquist, and that the stars and rosy dawn are but optical illusions called forth by skillful manipulation of the light thrown on the crystals which sparkle in the dome with its coating of black oxide of manganese. From here they wended their way back, followed by Brigham, who had waited for them on the road to the Star Chamber, feeling that they had experienced and seen enough for one day. They rested all that day and the next, doing nothing that required more exertion than short walks through the woods or promenades along the wide galleries which surrounded both stories of the hotel. Here they swung hammocks, and rested in the open air between their little walks. But on the third day all the members of the party again set out for the Cave, starting in the morning, for they were warned that going and returning it would be a sixteen-mile walk. Presently they found that the road they had taken on the previous day diverged, and soon they were going through the Valley of Humility leading into Fat Man's Misery, a place but eighteen inches wide, five feet high, and changing direction eight times. Through the one hundred and five yards of this place they twisted and crawled, until they reached Great Relief. Here they stopped to congratulate Mrs. Allen, the stoutest of the party, and Mr. Van Orten, the tallest, on having successfully passed this ordeal. On again, now ascending a flight of stairs to a higher gallery, now descending to one below, always surprised at finding the immense columns piercing through from the highest galleries down to the very lowest of the five levels of the Cave. They passed through Bacon Chamber--which Winnie did not think at all "romantic"--and through various winding passages, to River Hall, where all the waters of the Cave collect, and where they gazed with awe on the deep lakes. Then they came to the Dead Sea, surrounded on all sides by massive cliffs, from which they descended by means of a stairway to the banks of the River Styx, which the party crossed by a natural bridge to Lake Lethe; then along the Great Walk, with its fine, yellow sand, to Echo River. Here they found a boat waiting for them, and, embarking, were paddled along over the clear water--thirty feet deep--singing, whistling, and shouting to waken the echoes from the rocky walls on either side, until it seemed--so Miss Kitty said--as if "Echo had been transferred from her former mountain home, with all her nymphs." But no, it was not the Mountain Echo, but her unknown sister who dwelt in these underground regions, as their guide proved to them by striking the long vault with his cane; for it had its own keynote, which excited harmonies of wonderful depth and sweetness, each sound being prolonged many seconds. Here, too, they saw the eyeless fish, and Gretta even went the length of pitying them, until Miss Kitty told her that, as they were not "fish with little lanterns on their tails,"--which she had once heard given as an explanation of some phosphorescent phenomenon on an ocean trip--and so could not see in those dark waters even if they had eyes, she need not waste her pity. Soon they reached Washington Hall, and perceived a waiter, who had been following them at a distance, emerge from the gloom, bringing with him a great basket of lunch. This was a pleasant surprise, and they partook heartily of the generous repast, unmoved for the time by their gnome-like surroundings in the semi-darkness of this great chamber, so dimly lighted by the various lanterns and torches. Beyond this place they found the crystalline gardens, where the crystals take the form of flowers and vines, and even grapes--as in Mary's Vineyard--and later they came upon a snowstorm in a chamber so thickly covered with snowy crystals that they were made to fall like flakes by a loud concussion of the air. And so they proceeded on their journey and came to the Corkscrew. After a brief consultation, they decided to take this short cut out of the Cave, instead of going over what is now somewhat familiar ground. So up they climbed, partly by means of the three ladders, now through cracks, again over huge boulders scattered here and there in wild confusion, now twisting up through round holes--five hundred feet of climbing, although they were assured by their guide that the vertical distance was only one hundred and fifty feet. At last they emerged on the edge of a cliff just over the main cave, and, as they stopped to take breath, wondered for a moment if they were in another Star Chamber, for the stars were shining bright above them! But no; this time it was no illusion, for though they had left the bright sunlight behind them when they made the descent into the lantern-lighted darkness, they had been all day in the cave, and were indeed glad that they had saved the mile and a half walk by their ascent through the Corkscrew. Altogether it was a trip long to be remembered; the more so that, at its close, when they were all back in "dear, old, smoky Cincinnati," as Miss Kitty fondly called it, came the first parting of the ways for the Warrior Maidens. Not the ordinary summer parting, but one which entirely changed the parallel grooves in which their lives had been running, at least for one of them, for Ernestine was to go home with her uncle to New York. The whole Burton family had become so attached to her that they would gladly have kept her with them as a much-loved member of their circle, necessary not only to their happiness but to their comfort, and Ralph expressed his opinion that Ernie's uncle was a bad, bad man. But, while in compliance with his sister's wish, expressed to Mr. Allen on that day on which Mrs. Alroy had sent for him, he had waited for the end of the school year before coming for his niece, he was now only too impatient to take to her kindred the lovely child--the last living link between their family and the sister whom he and his brothers had so loved and so mourned. And so, one bright morning in July, the little company, each wearing her badge of warriorhood, went to the station to see their dear friend start on her journey. There were tearful faces on the outside of the car, and a pale but earnest and loving face hidden behind a handkerchief on the inside, as the train slowly moved out of the station. CHAPTER XXI. AN EXCHANGE OF LETTERS. _Ernestine to Winnifred._ New York, Sept. 12. Dearest Winnifred: It seems a long time since I left you standing in the station, the afternoon I said good-by to the city which had been my home. I can never forget you nor the dear schoolmates who made my life there so pleasant, nor the friends who took me to their hearts in my great sorrow. I was happy and contented in my little home, so happy with my precious mother's care and companionship, that nothing can ever come into my life to bring greater happiness, or greater desire to do and be good, and our little society helped me. And yet, dear Winnie, I would not have my mother back to suffer. How much she must have suffered in her isolation from her people, I never knew until I came among them. Never could orphan have found more lovely relatives. I inclose in this my letter to the club, to be read at your next meeting. With my heart full of gratitude to your mother and all the rest, I am, Your loving friend, Ernestine. * * * * * _Ernestine to the Warrior Maidens._ Dear Girls: When you read this you will all be together at Miriam's and I know you will wish, as I do, that I could be with you. I am here at my grandmother's home, and a beautiful place it is, with its large rooms and fine, old-fashioned furniture. It is in a very quiet neighborhood, which will seem strange to you when I say that it is but a few minutes' walk from Broadway, with its crowds of people, who always seem in a hurry. When Uncle Morris and I first reached New York, we went straight to his home. His wife received me very kindly, and my cousins (one a young lady, another a girl about my own age, and two boys younger,) were kind, too, and they all wanted me to stay with them. But my grandparents said they must have me, and I was glad to come, for I felt strange with so many new cousins, and was afraid I would find it hard to fall into their ways. I have such a beautiful room, all my own. It has east windows which open over a little court, where the first thing I see when I throw back my shutters in the morning, is a fountain sparkling in the sun, with rainbows in its spray, and birds flying about and bathing in the pool. At first there was some talk of sending me to a school to prepare for Vassar, but my grandmother said she had just found me and could not give me up, and my grandfather--with tears in his eyes, which nearly broke my heart, for I knew what he was thinking of--said the same thing; so I am to have teachers right here at home, and have already commenced music and French. I am sure I shall be very happy; but, for all that, I imagine you all seated at your desks at school, or chatting with each other over your lunch, and that makes me feel very lonely. But I mean to make the best of my opportunities, and shall keep in mind our watchword, "Now," which means much more to me than when we first chose it. I hope we will all meet again sometime, and that you will always think of me with love, as Your loving Ernestine. * * * * * _Gretta to Ernestine._ Dear Friend: We all miss you very much, and it seems hard to wait for the "sometime" to come when we shall see you again. You remember the idea of "fighting giants" seemed silly to me at first, but I can see now that it did me a great deal of good, especially about my school work. I never stood so well in any other examination as in the last one for the high-school; and I never blamed myself, but always my "music." Now I see, though, that two things may be well done as well as one, if only we go about it in the right way. Good-by, Gretta. * * * * * _Miriam to Ernestine._ Dearest Ernestine: How we did miss you the first day of school, particularly when your name was read as having the highest per cent. in the whole city! And after the classes were formed, every teacher inquired for you, and all looked disappointed when they found that you had moved away. Our little Winnifred was only five behind you, and not one of us stood less than ninety. We went back to see Miss Brownlow one day last week, and she said she was proud of us. She asked for you and sent her love. We are struggling with x, y, z, and in Latin have reached "uterque, utraque, utrumque," which sounds about as sensible as onery, twoery, etc. I feel sorry for those people who must have found it no laughing matter to put a different ending to every word for every case, gender and number, and I must say that for myself I like plain English. I saw Josie Thompson the other day, and I laughed to myself when I thought of her trying to fight her way through such things as these. She said she was "enjoying herself gorgeously!" We mean to keep up with the record of last year if we can, especially the record of good times. With lots of love, Miriam. * * * * * _Fannie to Ernestine._ My Dear, Dear Ernestine: How strange it seems that your uncle and my father are friends, and have almost always been friends, and that just as you and I began to know each other you should have to go so far away! But papa says he means to take me with him to New York during the holidays, and then I will see you again. It seems strange to think that we really go to the high-school, and it makes me feel quite grown-up and as if I ought to be dignified; but Winnie is the same demure little puss and looks very small and childish among so many big girls, some of whom actually wear long dresses. Miriam is as lively as ever, and keeps us all laughing at lunch time. You know it isn't what she says so much as the way she says it that is so very funny. But it is time for me to get my algebra lesson, so I will close now. Au revoir, Fannie. * * * * * _Winnie to Ernestine._ Dear Ernestine: We had the first meeting for this year at Miriam's last Friday evening, and the first thing we did was to go up to Miriam's room and read your letter. I read it out loud first, but that wasn't enough, and it passed from hand to hand, each one reading it for herself. We had such a nice little meeting, and while we didn't talk quite so much as we did a year ago about fighting giants, I think we all felt that those we had been able to fight had made it easier for us to see and do our duties as they came to us. After we had read your letter and our business meeting was over, we went down into Miriam's yard and had a regular frolic. It was a bright moonlight night, and we had games and told stories and old riddles and tried to make up new ones--but didn't succeed very well--and by and by Miriam's brother came out with an enormous watermelon on a great, big tray. It was a warm night--you know how warm it is sometimes here in September--and I don't know which we enjoyed most, eating the cool, refreshing fruit or snapping the seeds at each other. We all miss you very much. Ralph still asks when you are coming back, and no one's paper dolls please him so much as yours did. Sometimes I feel very lonely without you, but Aunt Kitty says she is sure you will come to visit us some time, and that we are only twenty-four hours apart, which does not seem so very far, does it? So I shall look forward Till we meet, Winnie. THE END. [Transcriber's Note The following modifications have been made: page original text modified text Page 6 She began with her greatest bugbear. United States History; She began with her greatest bugbear, United States History; Page 35 their uplifted swords, their resolute mein, their uplifted swords, their resolute mien, Page 44 "you may talk, too, if you like" "you may talk, too, if you like." Page 46 She also helped put these in. and with a few kind words She also helped put these in, and with a few kind words Page 77 "A glorious night for a game of hide-and seek," "A glorious night for a game of hide-and-seek," Page 85 Little Ralph took Ernestine at once into his afleetions, Little Ralph took Ernestine at once into his affections, ] 
15432	----	HENRY BROCKEN With a heart of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander: With a burning spear, And a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander; With a Knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to Tourney: Ten leagues beyond The wide world's end; Methinks it is no journey. --ANON. (_Tom o' Bedlam_). HENRY BROCKEN His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance by WALTER J. DE LA MARE ("WALTER RAMAL") London John Murray, Albemarle Street, W. 1904 CONTENTS I. WHITHER? Come hither, come hither, come hither! --SHAKESPEARE. II. LUCY GRAY Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray; And, when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see at break of day The solitary child. --WORDSWORTH. III. JANE EYRE I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams ... where amidst unusual scenes ... I still again and again met Mr. Rochester;... and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. --CHARLOTTE BRONTË (_Jane Eyre_, Ch. xxxii.). IV. JULIA, ELECTRA, DIANEME Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, go marry: For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry. ANTHEA-- Now is the time when all the lights wax dim, And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me Under the holy-oak or gospel tree;... Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb In which thy sacred relics shall have room: For my embalming, sweetest, there will be No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee. --HERRICK (_Hesperides_). V. NICK BOTTOM 43 BOT. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine. --_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act III., Sc. i. VI. SLEEPING BEAUTY VII. & VIII. LEMUEL GULLIVER I must freely confess that since my last return some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me, by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: but I have done with all such visionary schemes for ever.--_Gulliver's Letter to his Cousin._ The first money I laid out was to buy two young stone horses, which I kept in a good stable, and next to them the groom is my greatest favourite; for I feel my spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the stable. --SWIFT (_A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms_, Ch. xi.). IX. & X. MISTRUST, OBSTINATE, LIAR, ETC. And as he read he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?"... The neighbours also came out to see him run; and as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return. ATHEIST-- Now, after awhile, they perceived afar off, one coming softly and alone, all along the highway, to meet them. --BUNYAN (_The Pilgrim's Progress_). XI. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done." --KEATS. XII. SLEEP AND DEATH Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon-- Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night-- Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon! --SHELLEY. XIII. & XIV. A DOCTOR OF PHYSIC Well, well, well,-- ... God, God forgive us all! --_Macbeth_, Act V., Sc. i. XV. ANNABEL LEE I was a child, and she was a child In this kingdom by the sea; And we loved with a love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel Lee-- With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. --EDGAR ALLAN POE. XVI. CRISEYDE ... Love hadde his dwellinge With-inne the subtile stremes of hir yën. Book I., 304-5. Y-wis, my dere herte, I am nought wrooth, Have here my trouthe and many another ooth; Now speek to me, for it am I, Criseyde! Book III., 1110-2. And fare now wel, myn owene swete herte! Book V., 1421. --CHAUCER (_Troilus and Criseyde_). THE TRAVELLER TO THE READER The traveller who presents himself in this little book feels how tedious a person he may prove to be. Most travellers, that he ever heard of, were the happy possessors of audacity and rigour, a zeal for facts, a zeal for Science, a vivid faith in powder and gold. Who, then, will bear for a moment with an ignorant, pacific adventurer, without even a gun? He may, however, seem even more than bold in one thing, and that is in describing regions where the wise and the imaginative and the immortal have been before him. For that he never can be contrite enough. And yet, in spite of the renown of these regions, he can present neither map nor chart of them, latitude nor longitude: can affirm only that their frontier stretches just this side of Dream; that they border Impossibility; lie parallel with Peace. But since it is his, and only his, journey and experiences, his wonder and delight in these lands that he tells of--a mere microcosm, as it were--he entreats forgiveness of all who love them and their people as much as he loves them--scarce "on this side idolatry." H.B. I _Oh, what land is the Land of Dream?_ --WILLIAM BLAKE. I lived, then, in the great world once, in an old, roomy house beside a little wood of larches, with an aunt of the name of Sophia. My father and mother died a few days before my fourth birthday, so that I can conjure up only fleeting glimpses of their faces by which to remember what love was then lost to me. Both were youthful at death, but my Aunt Sophia was ever elderly. She was keen, and just, seldom less than kind; but a child was to her something of a little animal, and it was nothing more. In consequence, well fed, warmly clad, and in freedom, I grew up almost in solitude between my angels, hearkening with how simple a curiosity to that everlasting warfare of persuasion and compulsion, terror and delight. Which of them it was that guided me, before even I could read, to the little room dark with holly trees that had been of old my uncle's library, I know not. Perhaps at the instant it chanced there had fallen a breathless truce between them, and I being solitary, my own instinct took me. But having once found that pictured haven, I had found somewhat of content. I think half my youthful days passed in that low, book-walled chamber. The candles I burned through those long years of evening would deck Alps' hugest fir; the dust I disturbed would very easily fill again the measure that some day shall contain my own; and the small studious thumbmarks that paced, as if my footprints, leaf by leaf of that long journey, might be the history of life's experience in little,--from clearer, to clear, to faint--how very faint at last! I do not remember ever to have been discovered in this retreat. I was (by nature) prompt at meals, and wary to be in bed at my hour, however transitory its occupation might be. Indeed, I very well recollect dawn painting the page my eyes dwelt on, surprising me with its mystery and stealth in a house as silent as the grave. Thus entertained then by insubstantial society I grew up, and began to be old, before I had yet learned age is disastrous. And it was there, in that cold, bright chamber, one snowy twilight, first suddenly awoke in me an imperative desire for distant lands. Even while little else than a child I had begun to cast my mind to travel. I doubt if ever Columbus suffered such vexation from an itch to be gone. But whither? Now, it seemed clear to me after long brooding and musing that however beautiful were these regions of which I never wearied to read, and however wild and faithful and strange and lovely the people of the books, somewhere the former must remain yet, somewhere, in immortality serene, dwell they whom so many had spent life in dreaming of, and writing about. In fact, take it for all in all, what could these authors have been at, if they laboured from dawn to midnight, from laborious midnight to dawn, merely to tell of what never was, and never by any chance could be? It was heaven-clear to me, solitary and a dreamer; let me but gain the key, I would soon unlock that Eden garden-door. Somewhere yet, I was sure, Imogen's mountains lift their chill summits into heaven; over haunted sea-sands Ariel flits; at his webbed casement next the stars Faust covets youth, till the last trump shall ring him out of dream. It was on a blue March morning, with all the trees of my aunt's woods in a pale-green tumult of wind, that, quite unwittingly, I set out on a journey that has not yet come to an end. There was a hint in the air at my waking, I fancied, not quite of mere earth, the perfume of the banners of Flora, of the mould where in melting snow the crocus blows. I looked from my window, and the western clouds drew gravely and loftily in the illimitable air towards the whistling house. Strange trumpets pealed in the wind. Even my poor, aged Aunt Sophia had changed with the universal change; her great, solitary face reminded me of some long-forgotten April. And a little before eleven I saddled my uncle's old mare Rosinante (poor female jade to bear a name so glorious!), and rode out (as for how many fruitless seasons I had ridden out!), down the stony, nettle-narrowed path that led for a secret mile or more, beneath lindens, towards the hills. II _Still thou art blest compared wi' me!_ --ROBERT BURNS. It is to be wondered at that in so bleak a wind I could possibly fall into reverie. But the habit was rooted deep in me; Rosinante was prosaic and trustworthy; the country for miles around familiar to me as the palm of my hand. Yet so deeply was I involved, and so steadily had we journeyed on, that when at last I lifted my eyes with a great sigh that was almost a sob, I found myself in a place utterly unknown to me. But more inexplicable yet, not only was the place strange, but, by some incredible wizardry, Rosinante seemed to have carried me out of a March morning, blue and tumultuous and bleak, into the grey, sweet mist of a midsummer dawn. I found that we were ambling languidly on across a green and level moor. Far away, whether of clouds or hills I could not yet tell, rose cold towers and pinnacles into the last darkness of night. Above us in the twilight invisible larks climbed among the daybeams, singing as they flew. A thick dew lay in beads on stick and stalk. We were alone with the fresh wind of morning and the clear pillars of the East. On I went, heedless, curious, marvelling; my only desire to press forward to the goal whereto destiny was directing me. I suppose after this we had journeyed about an hour, and the risen sun was on the extreme verge of the gilded horizon, when I espied betwixt me and the deep woods that lay in the distance a little child walking. She, at any rate, was not a stranger to this moorland. Indeed, something in her carriage, in the grey cloak she wore, in her light, insistent step, in the old lantern she carried, in the shrill little song she or the wind seemed singing, for a moment half impelled me to turn aside. Even Rosinante pricked forward her ears, and stooped her gentle face to view more closely this light traveller. And she pawed the ground with her great shoe, and gnawed her bit when I drew rein and leaned forward in the saddle to speak to the child. "Is there any path here, little girl, that I may follow?" I said. "No path at all," she answered. "But how then do strangers find their way across the moor?" I said. She debated with herself a moment. "Some by the stars, and some by the moon," she answered. "By the moon!" I cried. "But at day, what then?" "Oh, then, sir," she said, "they can see." I could not help laughing at her demure little answers. "Why!" I exclaimed, "what a worldly little woman! And what is your name?" "They call me Lucy Gray," she said, looking up into my face. I think my heart almost ceased to beat. "Lucy Gray!" I repeated. "Yes," she said most seriously, as if to herself, "in all this snow." "'Snow,'" I said--"this is dewdrops shining, not snow." She looked at me without flinching. "How else can mother see how I am lost?" she said. "Why!" said I, "how else?" not knowing how to reach her bright belief. "And what are those thick woods called over there?" She shook her head. "There is no name," she said. "But you have a name--Lucy Gray; and you started out--do you remember?--one winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and on, on and on, the snow falling in the dark, till--Do you remember?" She stood quite still, her small, serious face full to the east, striving with far-off dreams. And a merry little smile passed over her lips. "That will be a long time since," she said, "and I must be off home." And as if it had been but an apparition of my eyes that had beset and deluded me, she was gone; and I found myself sitting astride in the full brightness of the sun's first beams, alone. What omen was this, then, that I should meet first a phantom on my journey? One thing only was clear: Rosinante could trust to her five wits better than I to mine. So leaving her to take what way she pleased, I rode on, till at length we approached the woods I had descried. Presently we were jogging gently down into a deep and misty valley flanked by bracken and pines, from which issued into the crisp air of morning a most delicious aromatic smell, that seemed at least to prove this valley not far remote from Araby. I do not think I was disturbed, though I confess to having been a little amazed to see how profound this valley was into which we were descending, yet how swiftly climbed the sun, as if to pace with us so that we should not be in shadow, howsoever fast we journeyed. I was astonished to see flowers of other seasons than summer by the wayside, and to hear in June, for no other month could bear such green abundance, the thrush sing with a February voice. Here too, almost at my right hand, perched a score or more of robins, bright-dyed, warbling elvishly in chorus as if the may-boughs whereon they sat were white with hoarfrost and not buds. Birds also unknown to me in voice and feather I saw, and little creatures in fur, timid yet not wild; fruits, even, dangled from the trees, as if, like the bramble, blossom and seed could live here together and prosper. Yet why should I be distracted by these things, thought I. I remembered Maundeville and Hithlodaye, Sindbad and Gulliver, and many another citizen of Thule, and was reassured. A man must either believe what he sees, or see what he believes; I know no other course. Why, too, should I mistrust the bounty of the present merely for the scarcity of the past? Not I! I rode on, and it seemed had advanced but a few miles before the sun stood overhead, and it was noon. We were growing weary, I think, of sheer delight: Rosinante, with her mild face beneath its dark forelock gazing this side, that side, at the uncustomary landscape; and I ever peering forward beneath my hat in eagerness to descry some living creature a little bigger than these conies and squirrels, to prove me yet in lands inhabited. But the sun was wheeling headlong, and the stillness of late afternoon on the woods, when, dusty and parched and heavy, we came to a break in the thick foliage, and presently to a green gate embowered in box. III _Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truth, and fables histories._ --JOHN DONNE. I dismounted and, with the nose of my beast in my bosom, stood awhile gazing, in the half-dream weariness brings, across the valley at the dense forests that covered the hills. And while thus standing, doubtful whether to knock at the little gate or to ride on, it began to open, and a great particoloured dog looked out on us. There was certainly something unusual in the aspect of this animal, for though he lifted on us grave and sagacious eyes, he scarcely seemed to see us, manifested neither pleasure nor disapproval, neither wagged his tail to give us welcome nor yawned to display his armament. He seemed a kind of dream-dog, a dog one sees without zeal, and sees again partly with the eye, but most in recollection. Thus however we stood, stranger, horse, and dog, till a morose voice called somewhere from beyond, "Pilot, sir, come here, Pilot." Semi-dog or no, he knew his master. Whereupon, tying up my dejected Rosinante to a ring in the gateway, I followed boldly after "Pilot" into that sequestered garden. Meanwhile, however, he had disappeared--down a thick green alley to the left, I supposed. So I went forward by a clearer path, and when I had advanced a few paces, met face to face a lady whose dark eyes seemed strangely familiar to me. She was evidently a little disquieted at meeting a stranger so unceremoniously, but stood her ground like a small, black, fearless note of interrogation. I explained at once, therefore, as best I could, how I came to be there: described my journey, my bewilderment, and how that I knew not into what country nor company fate had beguiled me, except that the one was beautiful, and the other in some delightful way familiar, and I begged her to tell me where I really was, and how far from home, and of whom I was now beseeching forgiveness. Her thoughts followed my every word, passing upon her face like shadows on the sea. I have never seen a listener so completely still and so completely engrossed in listening. And when I had finished, she looked aside with a transient, half-sly smile, and glanced at me again covertly, so that I could not see herself for seeing her eyes; and she laughed lightly. "It is indeed a strange journey," she replied. "But I fear I cannot in the least direct you. I have never ventured my own self beyond the woods, lest--I should penetrate too far. But you are tired and hungry. Will you please walk on a few steps till you come to a stone seat? My name is Rochester--Jane Rochester"--she glanced up between the hollies with a sigh that was all but laughter--"Jane Eyre, you know." I went on as she had bidden, and seated myself before an old, white, many-windowed house, squatting, like an owl at noon, beneath its green covert. In a few minutes the great dog with dripping jowl passed almost like reality, and after him his mistress, and on her arm her master, Mr. Rochester. There seemed a night of darkness in that scarred face, and stars unearthly bright. He peered dimly at me, leaning heavily on Jane's arm, his left hand plunged into the bosom of his coat. And when he was come near, he lifted his hat to me with a kind of Spanish gravity. "Is this the gentleman, Jane?" he enquired. "Yes, sir." "He's young!" he muttered. "For otherwise he would not be here," she replied. "Was the gate bolted, then?" he asked. "Mr. Rochester desires to know if you had the audacity, sir, to scale his garden wall," Jane said, turning sharply on me. "Shall I count the strawberries, sir?" she added over her shoulder." "Jane, Jane!" he exclaimed testily. "I have no wish to be uncivil, sir. We are not of the world--a mere dark satellite. I am dim; and suspicious of strangers, as this one treacherous eye should manifest. I'll but ask your name, sir,--there are yet a few names left, once pleasing to my ear." "My name is Brocken, sir--Henry Brocken," I answered. "And--did you walk? Pah! there's the mystery! God knows how else you could have come, unless you are a modern Ganymede. Where then's your aquiline steed, sir? We have no neighbours here--none to stare, and pry, and prate, and slander." I informed him that I was as ignorant as he what power had spirited me to his house, but that so far as obvious means went, my old horse was probably by this time fast asleep beside the green gate at which I had entered. Jane stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear, and, nodding imperiously at him, withdrew into the house. Complete silence fell between us after her departure. The woods stood dark and motionless in the yellow evening light. There was no sound of wind or water, no sound of voices or footsteps; only far away the clear, scarce-audible warbling of a sleepy bird. "Well, sir," Mr. Rochester said suddenly, "I am bidden invite you to pass the night here. There are stranger inhabitants than Mr. and Mrs. Rochester in these regions you have by some means strayed into--wilder denizens, by much; for youth's seraphic finding. Not for mine, sir, I vow. Depart again in the morning, if you will: we shall neither of us be displeased by then to say farewell, I dare say. I do not seek company. My obscure shell is enough." I rose. "Sit down--sit down again, my dear sir; there's no mischief in the truth between two men of any world, I suppose, assuredly not of this. My wife will see to your comfort. There! hushie now, here he floats; sit still, sit still--I hear his wings. It is my 'Four Evangels,' sir!" It was a sleek blackbird that had alighted and now set to singing on the topmost twig of a lofty pear-tree near by; and with his first note Jane reappeared. And while we listened, unstirring, to that rich, undaunted voice, I had good opportunity to observe her, and not, I think, without her knowledge, not even without her approval. This, then, was the face that had returned wrath for wrath, remorse for remorse, passion for passion to that dark egotist Jane in the looking-glass. Yet who, thought I, could be else than beautiful with eyes that seemed to hide in fleeting cloud a flame as pure as amber? The arch simplicity of her gown, her small, narrow hands, the exquisite cleverness of mouth and chin, the lovely courage and sincerity of that yet-childish brow--it seemed even Mr. Rochester's "Four Evangels" out of his urgent rhetoric was summoning with reiterated persuasions, "Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Ja ... ne!" Light faded from the woods; a faint wind blew cold upon our faces. Jane took Mr. Rochester's hand and looked into his face. She turned to me. "Will you come in, Mr. Brocken? I have seen that your horse is made quite easy. He was fast asleep, poor fellow, as you surmised; and, I think, dreaming; for when I proffered him a lump of sugar, he thrust his nose into my face and breathed as if I were a peck of corn. The candles are lit, sir; supper is ready." We went in slowly, and Jane bolted the door. "But who it is that can be bolted out," she said, "I know not; though there's much to bolt in. I have stood here, Mr. Brocken, on darker nights as still as this, and have heard what seemed to be the sea breaking, far away, leagues upon leagues beyond the forests--the gush forward, the protracted, heavy retreat,--listened till I could have wept to think that it was only my own poor furious heart beating. You may imagine, then, I push the bolts home." "But why, Jane--why?" cried Mr. Rochester incredulously. "Violent fancies, child!" "Why, sir, it was, I say, not the sea I heard, but a trickling tide one icy tap might stay, if it found but entry there." "You talk wildly, Jane--wildly, wildly; the air's afloat with listeners; so it seems, so it seems. Had I but one clear lamp in this dark face!" We sat down in the candle-lit twilight to supper. It was to me like the supper of a child, taken at peace in the clear beams, ere he descend into the shadow of sleep. They sat, try as I would not to observe them, hand touching hand throughout the meal. But to me it was as if one might sit to eat before a great mountain ruffled with pines, and perpetually clamorous with torrents. All that Mr. Rochester said, every gesture, these were but the ghosts of words and movements. Behind them, gloomy, imperturbable, withdrawn, slumbered a strange, smouldering power. I began to see how very hotly Jane must love him, she who loved above all things storm, the winds of the equinox, the illimitable night-sky. She begged him to take a little wine with me, and filled his glass till it burned like a ruby between their hands. "It paints both our hands!" she cried glancing up at him. "Ay, Janet," he answered; "but where is yours?" "And what goal will you make for when you leave us," she enquired of me. "_Is_ there anywhere else?" she added, lifting her slim eyebrows. "I shall put trust in Chance," I replied, "which at least is steadfast in change. So long as it does not guide me back, I care not how far forward I go." "You are right," she answered; "that is a puissant battlecry, here and hereafter." Mr. Rochester rose hastily from his chair. "The candles irk me, Jane. I would like to be alone. Excuse me, sir." He left the room. Jane lifted a dark curtain and beckoned me to bring the lights. She sat down before a little piano and desired me to sit beside her. And while she played, I know not what, but only it seemed old, well-remembered airs her mood suggested, she asked me many questions. "And am I indeed only like that poor mad thing you thought Jane Eyre?" she said, "or did you read between?" I answered that it was not her words, not even her thoughts, not even her poetry that was to me Jane Eyre. "What then is left of me?" she enquired, stooping her eyes over the keys and smiling darkly. "Am I indeed so evanescent, a wintry wraith?" "Well," I said, "Jane Eyre is left." She pressed her lips together. "I see," she said brightly. "But then, was I not detestable too? so stubborn, so wilful, so demented, so--vain?" "You were vain," I answered, "because--" "Well?" she said, and the melody died out, and the lower voices of her music complained softly on. "For a barrier," I answered. "A barrier?" she cried. "Why, yes," I said, "a barrier against cant, and flummery, and coldness, and pride, and against--why, against your own vanity too." "That's really very clever--penetrating," she said; "and I really desired to know, not because I did not know already, but to know I knew all. You are a perspicacious observer, Mr. Brocken; and to be that is to be alive in a world of the moribund. But then too how high one must soar at times; for one must ever condescend in order to observe faithfully. At any rate, to observe all one must range at an altitude above all." "And so," I said, "you have taken your praise from me--" "But you are a man, and I a woman: we look with differing eyes, each sex to the other, and perceive by contrast. Else--why, how else could you forgive my presumption? He sees me as an eagle sees the creeping tortoise. I see him as the moon the sun, never weary of gazing. I borrow his radiance to observe him by. But I weary you with my garrulous tongue.... Have you no plan at all in your journey? 'Tis not the dangers, but to me the endless restlessness of such a venture--that 'Oh, where shall wisdom be found?'... Will you not pause?--stay with us a few days to consider again this rash journey? To each his world: it is surely perilous to transgress its fixed boundaries." "Who knows?" I cried, rather arrogantly perhaps. "The sorcery that lured me hither may carry me as lightly back. But I have tasted honey and covet the hive." She glanced sidelong at me with that stealthy gravity that lay under all her lightness. "That delicious Rosinante!" she exclaimed softly.... "And I really believe too _I_ must be the honey--or is it Mr. Rochester? Ah! Mr. Brocken, they call it wasp-honey when it is so bitter that it blisters the lips." She talked on gaily, as if she had forgotten I was but a stranger until now. Yet none the less she perceived presently my eyes ever and again fixed upon the little brooch of faintest gold hair at her throat, and flinched and paled, playing on in silence. "Take the whole past," she continued abruptly, "spread it out before you, with all its just defeats, all its broken faith, and overweening hopes, its beauty, and fear, and love, and its loss--its loss; then turn and say: this, this only, this duller heart, these duller eyes, this contumacious spirit is all that is left--myself. Oh! who could wish to one so dear a destiny so dark?" She rose hastily from the piano. "Did I hear Mr. Rochester's step by the window?" she said. I crossed the room and looked out into the night. The brightening moon hung golden in the dark clearness of the sky. Mr. Rochester stood motionless, Napoleon-wise, beneath the black, unstirring foliage. And before I could turn, Jane had begun to sing:-- You take my heart with tears; I battle uselessly; Reft of all hopes and doubts and fears, Lie quietly. You veil my heart with cloud; Since faith is dim and blind, I can but grope perplex'd and bow'd, Seek till I find. Yet bonds are life to me; How else could I perceive The love in each wild artery That bids me live? Jane's was not a rich voice, nor very sweet, and yet I fancied no other voice than this could plead and argue quite so clearly and with such nimble insistency--neither of bird, nor child, nor brook; because, I suppose, it was the voice of Jane Eyre, and all that was Jane's seemed Jane's only. The music ceased, the accompaniment died away; but Mr. Rochester stood immobile yet--a little darker night in that much deeper. When I turned, Jane was gone from the room. I sat down, my face towards the still candles, as one who is awake, yet dreams on. The faint scent of the earth through the open window; the heavy, sombre furniture; the daintiness and the alertness in the many flowers and few womanly gew-gaws: these too I shall remember in a tranquillity that cannot change. A sudden, trembling glimmer at the window lit the garden and, instantaneously, the distant hills; lit also the figures of Jane and Mr. Rochester beneath the trees. They entered the house, and once more Jane drew the bolts against that phantom fear. A tinge of scarlet stood in her cheeks, an added lustre in her eyes. They were strange lovers, these two--like frost upon a cypress tree; yet summer lay all around us. I bade them good night and ascended to the little room prepared for me. There was a great pincushion on the sprigged and portly toilet table, and I laboured till the constellations had changed beyond my window, in printing from a box of tiny pins upon that lavendered mound, "Ave, Ave, atque Vale!" Far in the night a dreadful sound woke me. I rose and looked out of the window, and heard again, deep and reverberating, Pilot baying I know not what light minions of the moon. The Great Bear wheeled faintly clear in the dark zenith, but the borders of the east were grey as glass; and far away a fierce hound was answering from his echo-place in the gloom, as if the dread dog of Acheron kept post upon the hills. A light tap woke me in the sunlight, and a lighter voice. Mr. Rochester took breakfast with us in a gloomy old dressing-room, moody and taciturn, unpacified by sleep. But Jane, whimsical and deft, had tied a yellow ribbon in the darkness of her hair. Rosinante awaited me at the little green gate, eyeing forlornly the steep valley at her feet. And I rode on. The gate was shut on me; and Mr. Rochester again, perhaps, at his black ease. I had jogged on, with that peculiar gravity age brings to equine hoofs, about a mile, when the buttress of a thick wall came into view abutting on the lane, and perched thereon what at first I deemed a coloured figment of the mist that festooned the branches and clung along the turf. But when I drew near I saw it was indeed a child, pink and gold and palest blue. And she raised changeling hands at me, and laughed and danced and chattered like the drops upon a waterfall; and clear as if a tiny bell had jingled I heard her cry. And my heart smote me heavily since I had of my own courtesy not remembered Adèle. IV _Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo._ --THOMAS NASH. It was yet early, and refreshing in the chequered shade. We plodded earnestly after our gaunt shadow in the dust, and ever downward, till at last we drew so near to the opposite steep that I could well nigh count its pines. It was about the hour when birds seek shade and leave but few among their fellows to sing, that at a stone's throw from the foot of the hill I came to where a faint bridle-path diverged. And since it was smooth with moss, and Rosinante haply tired of pebbles; since any but the direct road seems ever the more delectable, I too turned aside, and broke into the woods through which this path meandered. Maybe it is because all woods are enchanted that the path seemed more than many miles long. Often too we loitered, or stood, head by head, to listen, or to watch what might be after all only wings, mere sunbeams. Shall I say, then, that it began to be thorny, and, where the thorns were, pale with roses, when at length the knitted boughs gradually drew asunder, and I looked down between twitching, hairy ears upon a glade so green and tranquil, I deemed it must be the Garden of the Hesperides? And because there ran a very welcome brook of water through this glade, I left Rosinante to follow whithersoever a sweet tooth might dictate, and climbed down into the weedy coolness at the waterbrink. I confess I laughed to see so puckered a face as mine in the clear blue of the flowing water. But I dipped my hands and my head into the cold shallows none the less pleasantly, and was casting about for a deeper pool where I might bathe unscorned of the noonday, when I heard a light laughter behind me, and, turning cautiously, perceived under the further shadow of the glade three ladies sitting. Not even vanity could persuade me that they were laughing at anything more grotesque than myself, so, putting a bold face on matters so humiliating, I sauntered as carelessly and loftily as I dared in their direction. My courage seemed to abash them a little; they gathered back their petticoats like birds about to fly. But at hint of a titter, they all three began gaily laughing again till their eyes sparkled brighter than ever, and their cheeks seemed shadows of the roses above their heads. "Ladies," I began gravely, "I have left my horse, that is very old and very thirsty, above in the wood. Is there any path I may discover by which she may reach the water without offence?" "Is she very old?" said one. "She is very old," I said. "But is she very thirsty?" said another. "She is perhaps very thirsty," I said. "Perhaps!" cried they all. "Because, ladies," I replied, "being by nature of a timid tongue, and compelled to say something, and having nothing apt to say, I remembered my old Rosinante above in the wood." They glanced each at each, and glanced again at me. "But there is no path down that is not steep," said the fairest of the three. "There never was a path, not even, we fear, for a traveller on foot," continued the second. I waited in silence a moment. "Forgive me, then," I said; "I will offend no longer." But this seemed far from their design. "You see, being come," began the fairest again, "Julia thinks Fortune must have brought you. Are we not all between Fortune's finger and thumb?" "If pinching is to prove anything," said the other. "And Fortune is fickle, too," added Julia--"that's early wisdom; but not quite so fickle as you would wish to show her. Here we have sat in these mortal glades ever since our poor Herrick died. And here it seems we are like to sit till he rises again. It is all so--dubious. But since Electra has invited you to rest awhile, will you not really rest? There is shade as deep, and fruit to refresh you, in a little arbour yonder. Perhaps even Anthea will dip out of her weeping awhile if she hears that ... a poor old thirsty horse is tethered in the woods." They rose up together with a prolonged rustling as of a peacock displaying his plumes; and I found myself irretrievably their captive. Moreover, even if they were but sylphs and fantasies of the morning, they were fantasies lovely as even their master had portrayed; while the dells through which they led me were green and deep and white and golden with buds. It was now, I suppose, about the middle of the morning, yet though the sun was high, his heat was that of dawn. Dawn lingered in the shadows, as snow when winter is over and gone, and dwelt among the sunbeams. Dew lay heavy on the grass, as the dainty heels of my captresses testified, yet they trod lightly upon daisies wide-open to the blue sky, while daffadowndillies stooped in a silence broken only by their laughter. We came presently to a little stone summerhouse or arbour, enclustered with leaves and flowers of ivy and convolvulus, wherein two great dishes of cherries stood and bowls of honeycomb and sillabub. There we sat down; but they kept me close too in the midst of the arbour, where perhaps I was not so ill-content to be as I should like to profess. How then could I else than bob for cherries as often as I dared, and prove my wit to conceal my hunger? "And now, Sir Traveller," said she of the sparkling eyes, named Dianeme, "since we have got you safe, tell us of all we have never heard or seen!" "And oh! are we forgot?" cried Electra, laying a lip upon a cherry. "There's not a poet in his teens but warbles of you morn, noon, and night," I answered. "There's not a lover mad, young, true, and tender, but borrows your azure, and your rubies, and your roses, and your stars, to deck his sweetheart's name with." "Boys perhaps," cried Julia softly, "but _men_ soon forget." "Youth never," I replied. "Why 'Youth'?" said Dianeme. "Herrick was not always young." "Ay, but all men once were young, please God," I said, "and youth is the only 'once' that's worth remembrance. Youth with the heart of youth adores you, ladies; because, when dreams come thick upon them, they catch your flying laughter in the woods. When the sun is sunk, and the stars kindle in the sky, then your eyes haunt the twilight. You come in dreams, and mock the waking. You the mystery; you the bravery and danger; you the long-sought; you the never-won; memories, hopes, songs ere the earth is mute. You will always be loved, believe me, O bright ladies, till youth fades, turns, and loves no more." And I gazed amazed on cherries of such potency as these. "But once, sir," said Julia timidly, "we were not only loved but _told_ we were loved." "Where is the pleasure else?" cried Dianeme. "Besides," said Electra, "Anthea says if we might but find where Styx flows one draught--my mere palmful--would be sweeter than all the poetry ever writ, save some." "It is idle," cried Dianeme; "Herrick himself admired us most on paper." "And ink makes a cross even of a kiss, that is very well known," said Julia. "Ah!" said I, "all men have eyes; few see. Most men have tongues: there is but one Robin Herrick." "I will tell you a secret," said Dianeme. And as if a bird of the air had carried her voice, it seemed a hush fell on sky and greenery. "We are but fairy-money all," she said, "an envy to see. Take us!--'tis all dry leaves in the hand. Herrick stole the honey, and the bees he killed. Blow never so softly on the tinder, it flames--and dies." "I heard once," said Electra, with but a thought of pride, "that had I lived a little, little earlier, I might have been the Duchess of Malfi." "I too, Flatterer," cried Julia, "I too--Desdemona slain by a blackamoor. To some it is the cold hills and the valleys 'green and sad,' and the sea-birds' wailing," she continued in a low, strange voice, "and to some the glens of heather, and the mountain-brooks, and the rowans. But, come to an end, what are we all? This man's eyes will tell ye! I would give white and red, nectar and snow and roses, and all the similes that ever were for--" "For what?" said I. "I think, for Robin Herrick," she said. It was a lamentable confession, for that said, gravity fled away; and Electra fetched out a lute from a low cupboard in the arbour, and while she played Julia sang to a sober little melody I seemed to know of old: Sighs have no skill To wake from sleep Love once too wild, too deep. Gaze if thou will, Thou canst not harm Eyes shut to subtle charm. Oh! 'tis my silence Shows thee false, Should I be silent else? Haste thou then by! Shine not thy face On mine, and love's disgrace! Whereat Dianeme lifted on me so naïve an afflicted face I must needs beseech another song, despite my drowsy lids. Wherefore I heard, far away as it were, the plucking of the strings, and a voice betwixt dream and wake sing: All sweet flowers Wither ever, Gathered fresh Or gathered never; But to live when love is gone!-- Grieve, grieve, lute, sadly on! All I had-- 'Twas all thou gav'st me; That foregone, Ah! what can save me? If the exórcised spirit fly, Nought is left to love me by. Take thy stars, My tears then leave me; Thine my bliss, As thine to grieve me; Take.... For then, so insidious was the music, and not quite of this earth the voice, my senses altogether forsook me, and I fell asleep. Would that I could remember much else! But I confess it is the heart remembers, not the poor, pestered brain that has so many thoughts and but one troubled thinker. Indeed, were I now to be asked--Were the fingers cold of these bright ladies? Were their eyes blue, or hazel, or brown? or, haply, were Dianeme's that incomparable, dark, sparkling grey? Wore Julia azure, and Electra white? And was that our poet wrote our poet's only, or truly theirs, and so even more lovely?--I fear I could not tell. I fell asleep; and when I awoke no lute was sounding. I was alone; and the arbour a little house of gloom on the borders of evening. I caught up yet one more handful of cherries, and stumbled out, heavy and dim, into a pale-green firmanent of buds and glow-worms, to seek the poor Rosinante I had so heedlessly deserted. But I was gone but a little way when I was brought suddenly to a standstill by another sound that in the hush of the garden, in the bright languor after sleep, went to my heart: it was as if a child were crying. I pushed through a thick and aromatic clump of myrtles, and peering between the narrow leaves, perceived the cold, bright face of a little marble god beneath willows; and, seated upon a starry bank near by, one whom by the serpentry of her hair and the shadow of her lips I knew to be Anthea. "Why are you weeping?" I said. "I was imitating a little brook," she said. "It is late; the bat is up; yet you are alone," I said. "Pan will protect me," she said. "And nought else?" She turned her face away. "None," she said. "I live among shadows. There was a world, I dreamed, where autumn follows summer, and after autumn, winter. Here it is always June, despite us both." "What, then, would you have?" I said. "Ask him," she replied. But the little god looking sidelong was mute in his grey regard. "Why do you not run away? What keeps you here?" "You ask many questions, stranger! Who can escape? To live is to remember. To die--oh, who would forget! Even had I been weeping, and not merely mocking time away, would my tears be of Lethe at my mouth's corners? No," said Anthea, "why feign and lie? All I am is but a memory lovely with regret." She rose, and the myrtles concealed her from me. And I, in the midst of the dusk where the tiny torches burned sadly--I turned to the sightless eyes of that smiling god. What he knew, being blind, yet smiling, I seemed to know then. But that also I have forgotten. I whistled softly and clearly into the air, and a querulous voice answered me from afar--the voice of a grasshopper--Rosinante's. V _How should I your true love know From another one?_ --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. But even then she was difficult finding, so cunningly had ivy and blackberry and bindweed woven snares for the trespasser's foot. But at last--not far from where we had parted--I found her, a pillar of smoke in the first shining of the moon. She turned large, smouldering eyes on me, her mane in elf locks, her flanks heaving and wet, her forelock frizzed like a colt's. Yet she showed only pleasure at seeing me, and so evident a desire to unburden the day's history, that I almost wished I might be Balaam awhile, and she--Dapple! It would be idle to attempt to ride through these thick, glimmering brakes. The darkness was astir. And as the moon above the valley brightened, casting pale beams upon the folded roses and drooping branches, if populous dream did not deceive me, a tiny multitude was afoot in the undergrowth--small horns winding, wee tapers burning. Presently as with Rosinante's nose at my shoulder we pushed slowly forward, a nightingale burst close against my ear into so passionate a descant I thought I should be gooseflesh to the end of my days. The heedless tumult of her song seemed to give courage to sounds and voices much fainter. Soon a lovelit rival in some distant thicket broke into song, and far and near their voices echoed above the elfin din of timbrel and fife and hunting-horn. I began to wish the moon away that dazzled my eyes, yet could not muffle my ears. In the heavy-laden boughs dim lanterns burned. There, indeed, when we dipped into the deeper umbrage of some loftier tree, I espied the pattering hosts--creatures my Dianeme might have threaded for a bangle, yet breeched and armed and fiercely martial. Down, too, in a watery dell of harts-tongue, around the root of a swelling fungus, a lovely company floated of an insubstantiality subtile as taper-smoke, and of a beauty as remote as the babes in children's eyes. We passed unheeded. Four bearded hoofs rose and fell upon the moss with all the circumspection snorting Rosinante could compass. But one might as well go snaring moonbeams as dream to crush such airy beings. Ever and again a gossamer company would soar like a spider on his magic thread, and float with a whisper of remotest music past my ear; or some bolder pigmy, out of the leaves we brushed in passing, skip suddenly across the rusty amphitheatre of my saddle into the further covert. So we wandered on, baffled and confused, through a hundred pathless glens and dells till already gold had begun to dim the swelling moon's bright silver, and by the freshness and added sweetness of the air it seemed dawn must be near, when, on a sudden, a harsh, preposterous voice broke on my ear, and such a see-saw peal of laughter as I have never tittered in sheer fellowship with before, or since. We stood listening, and the voice broke out again. "Tittany--nay, Tittany, you'll crack my sides with laughing. Have again at you! love your master and you'll wax nimble. Bottom will learn you all. Trust Time and Bottom; though in sooth your weeny Majesty is something less than natural. Drive thy straw deeper, Mounsieur Mustardseed! there squats a pestilent sweet notion in that chamber could spellican but set him capering. Prithee your mousemilk hand on this smooth brow, mistress! Your nectar throbbeth like a blacksmith's anvil. Master Moth, draw you these bristling lashes down, they mirk the stars and call yon nothing Quince to mind--a vain, official knave, in and out, to and fro, play or pleasure; and old Sam Snout, the wanton! Lad's days and all--'twas life, Tittany; and I was ever foremost. They'd bob and crook to me like spaniels at a trencher. Mine was the prettiest conceit, this way, that way, past all unravelling till envy stretched mine ears. Now I'm old dreams. Gone all men's joy, your worships, since Bully Bottom took to moonshine. Where floats your babe's-hand now, Dame Lovepip?" There he lolled, immortal Bottom, propped on a bed of asphodel and moly that seemed to curd the moonshine; and at his side, Titania slim and scarlet, and shimmering like a bride-cake. The sky was dark above the tapering trees, but here in the secret woods light seemed to cling in flake and scarf. And it so chanced as our two noses leaned forward into his retreat that Bottom's head lolled back upon its pillow, and his bright, simple eyes stared deep into our own. "Save me, ye shapes of nought," he bellowed, "no more, no more, for love's sake. I begin to see what men call red Beelzebub, and that's an end to all true fellowship. Whiffle your tufted bee's wing, Signior Cobweb, I beseech you--a little fiery devil with four eyes floats in my brain, and flame's a frisky bedfellow. Avaunt! avaunt ye! Would now my true friend Bottom the weaver were at my side. His was a courage to make princes great. Prithee, Queen Tittany, no more such cozening possets!" I drew Rosinante back into the leaves. "Droop now thy honeyed lids, my dearest love!" I heard a clear voice answer. "There's nought can harm thee in these silvered woods: no bird that pipes but love incites his throat, and never a dewdrop wells but whispers peace!" "Ay, ay, 'tis very well, you have a gift, you have a gift, Tittany's for twisting words to sugarsticks. But la, there, what wots your trickling whey of that coal-piffling Prince of Flies! I'm Bottom the weaver, I am. He knows not his mother's ring-finger that knows not Nick Bottom. Back, back, ye jigging dreams! 'Tis Puckling nods. Ha' done, ha' done--there's no sweet sanity in an asshead more if I quaff their elvish ... Out now ... Ha' done, I say!" Then indeed he slumbered truly, this engarlanded weaver, his lids concealing all bright speculation, his jowl of vanity (foe of the Philistine) at peace: and I might gaze unperceived. The moon filled his mossy cubicle with her untrembling beams, streamed upon blossoms sweet and heavy as Absalom's hair, while tiny plumes wafted into the night the scent of thyme and meadow-sweet. I know not how long they would have kept me prisoner with their illusive music. I dared not move, scarce wink; for much as immortality may mollify hairiness, I had no wish to live too frank. How, also, would this weaver who slumbered so cacophonously welcome a rival to his realms. I say I sat still, like Echo in the woods when none is calling; like too, I grant, one who ached not a little after jolts and jars and the phantasmal mists of this engendering air. But none stirred, nor went, nor came. So resting my hands cautiously on a little witch's guild of toadstools that squatted cold in shade, I lifted myself softly and stood alert. And in a while out of that numerous company stepped one whom by his primrose face and mien I took to be Mounsieur Mustardseed, and I followed after him. VI _Care-charming Sleep ... ... sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince!_ --JOHN FLETCHER. Away with a blink of his queer green eye over his shoulder he sauntered by a devious path out of the dell. Forgetful of thorn and brier, trickery and wantonness, we clambered down after him, out of the moonlight, into a dark, clear alley, soundless and solitary amid these enchanted woods. As I have said already, another air than that of night was abroad in the green-grey shadows of the woods. Yet between the lofty and heavy-hooded pines scarce a beam of dawn pierced downward. Wider swept the avenue, but ever dusky and utterly silent. Deeper moss couched here; unfallen moondrops glistened; mistletoe palely sprouted from the gnarled boughs. Nor could I discern, though I searched close enough, elder or ash tree or bitter rue. We journeyed softly on till I lost all count of time, lost, too, all guidance; for as a flower falls had vanished Mustardseed. Far away and ever increasing in volume I heard the trembling crash of some great water falling. What narrow isles of sky were visible between the branches lay sunless and still. Yet already, on a mantled pool we journeyed softly by, the waterlily was unfolding, the swan afloat in beauty. In a dim, still light we at last slowly descended out of the darker glade into a garden of grey terraces and flowerless walks. Even Rosinante seemed perturbed by the stillness and solitude of this wild garden. She trod with cautious foot and peering eye the green, rainworn paths, that led us down presently to where beneath the vault of its trees a river flowed. Surely I could not be mistaken that here a voice was singing as if out of the black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were the notes. I burst through the knotted stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some poor travesty of Narcissus, with shaded face pierced down deep--deep into eyes not my own, but violet and unendurable and strange--eyes of the living water-sprite drawing my wits from me, stilling my heart, till I was very near plunging into that crystal oblivion, to be fishes evermore. But my fingers still grasped my friend's kind elf-locks, and her goose-nose brooded beside mine upon that water of undivulged delight. Out of the restless silence of the stream floated this long-drawn singing: Pilgrim forget; in this dark tide Sinks the salt tear to peace at last; Here undeluding dreams abide, All sorrow past. Nods the wild ivy on her stem; The voiceless bird broods on the bough; The silence and the song of them Untroubled now. Free that poor captive's flutterings, That struggles in thy tired eyes, Solace its discontented wings, Quiet its cries! Knells now the dewdrop to its fall, The sad wind sleeps no more to rove; Rest, for my arms ambrosial Ache for thy love! I cannot think how one so meekened with hunger as I, resisted that water-troubled hair, eyes that yet haunt me, that heart-alluring voice. "No, no," I said faintly, and the words of Anthea came unbidden to mind, "to sleep--oh! who would forget? You plead merely with some old dream of me--not _all_ me, you know. Gold is but witchcraft. And as for sorrow--spread me a magical table in this nettle-garden, I'll leave all melancholy!" I must indeed have been exhausted to chop logic with a water-witch. As well argue with minnows, entreat the rustling of ivy-leaves. It was Rosinante, wearying, I suppose, of the reflection of her own mild countenance, that drew me back from dream and disaster. She turned with arched neck seeking a more wholesome pasture than these deep mosses. Leaving her then to her own devices, and yet hearkening after the voice of the charmer, I came out again into the garden, and perceived before me a dark palace with one lofty tower. It seemed strange I had not seen the tower at my first coming into this wilderness. It stood with clustered summit and stooping gargoyles, appealing as it were to fear, in utter silence. Though I knew it must be day, there was scarcely more than a green twilight around me, ever deepening, until at last I could but dimly discern the upper windows of the palace, and all sound waned but the roar of distant falling water. Then it was I found that I was not alone in the garden. Two little leaden children stood in an attitude of listening on either side of the carved porch of the palace, and between them a figure that seemed to be watching me intently. I looked and looked again--saw the green-grey folds, the tawny locks, the mistletoe, the unearthly eyes of this unstirring figure, yet, when I advanced but one strenuous pace, saw nought--only the little leaden boys and the porch between them. These childish listeners, the straggling briers, the impenetrable thickets, the emerald gloaming, the marble stillness of the lofty lichenous tower: I took courage. Could such things be in else than Elfland? And she who out of beauty and being vanishes and eludes, what else could she be than one of Elfland's denizens from whom a light and credulous heart need fear nothing. I trod like a shadow where the phantom had stood and opened the unused door. I was about to pass into the deeper gloom of the house when a hound appeared and stood regarding me with shining eyes in the faint gloaming. He was presently joined by one as light-footed, but milk-white and slimmer, and both turned their heads as if in question of their master, who had followed close behind them. This personage, because of the gloom, or the better to observe the intruder on his solitude, carried a lantern whose beams were reflected upon himself, attired as he was from head to foot in the palest primrose, but with a countenance yet paler. There was no hint of enmity or alarm or astonishment in the colourless eyes that were fixed composedly on mine, nothing but courtesy in his low voice. "Back, Safte!--back, Sallow!" he cried softly to his hounds; "is this your civility? Indeed, sir," he continued to me, "it was all I could do to dissuade the creatures from giving tongue when you first appeared on the terrace of my solitary gardens. I heard too the water-sprite: she only sings when footsteps stray upon the banks." He smiled wanly, and his nose seemed even sharper in his pale face, and his yellow hair leaner about his shoulders. "I feared her voice might prove too persuasive, and deprive me of the first strange face I have seen these many decades gone." I bowed and murmured an apology for my intrusion, just as I might perhaps to some apparition of nightmare that over-stayed its welcome. "I beseech you, sir," he replied, "say no more! It may be I deemed you at first a visitor perchance even more welcome--if it be possible,... yet I know not that either. My name is Ennui,"--he smiled again--"Prince Ennui. You have, perchance, heard somewhere our sad story. This is the perpetual silence wherein lies that once-happy princess, my dear sister, Sleeping Beauty." His voice seemed but an echo amongst the walls and arches of this old house, and he spoke with a suave enunciation as if in an unfamiliar tongue. I replied that I had read the ever-lovely story of Sleeping Beauty, indeed knew it by heart, and assured him modestly that I had not the least doubt of a happy ending--"that is, if the author be the least authority." He narrowed his lids. "It is a tradition," he replied; "meanwhile, the thickets broaden." Whereupon I begged him to explain how it chanced that among that festive and animated company I had read of, he alone had resisted the wicked godmother's spell. He smiled distantly, and bowed me into the garden. "That is a simple thing," he said. Yet for the life of me I could not but doubt all he told me. He who could pass spring on to spring, summer on to summer, in the company of beasts so sly and silent, so alert and fleet as these hounds of his, could not be quite the amiable prince he feigned to be. I began to wish myself in homelier places. It seems that on the morning of the fatal spindle, he had gone coursing, with this Safte and Sallow and his horse named "Twilight," and after wearying and heating himself at the sport, a little after noon, leaving his attendants, had set out to return to the palace alone. But allured by the cool seclusion of a "lattice-arbour" in his path, he had gone in, and then and there, "Twilight" beneath the willows, his hounds at his feet, had fallen asleep. Undisturbed, dreamless, "the unseemly hours sped light of foot." He awoke again, between sunset and dark; the owl astir; "the silver gnats yet netting the shadows," and so returned to the palace. But the spell had fallen--king and courtier, queen and lady and page and scullion, hawk and hound, slept a sleep past waking--"while I, roamed and roam yet in a solitary watch beyond all sleeping. Wherefore, sir, I only of the most hospitable house in these lands am awake to bid you welcome. But as for that, a few dwindling and harsh fruits in my orchards, and the cold river water that my dogs lap with me, are all that is left to offer you. For I who never sleep am never hungry, and they who never wake--I presume--never thirst. Would, sir, it were otherwise! After such long silence, then, conceive how strangely falls your voice on ears that have heard only wings fluttering, dismal water-songs, and the yelp and quarrel and night-voice of unseen hosts in the forests." He glanced at me with a mild austerity and again lowered his eyes. I cannot now but wonder how the rhythm of a voice so soft, so monotonous, could give such pleasure to the ear. I almost doubted my own eyes when I looked upon his yellow, on that unmoved, sad, mad, pale face. I had no doubt of his dogs, however, and walked scarcely at ease beside him, while they, shadow-footed, closely followed us at heel. "Prince Ennui" conducted me with shining lantern into a dense orchard thickly under-grown, marvellously green, with a small, hard fruit upon its branches, shaped like a medlar, of a crisp, sweet odour and, despite its hardness, a delicious taste. The interwoven twigs of the stooping trees were thickly nested; a veritable wilderness of moonlike and starry flowers ran all to seed amid the nettles and nightshade of this green silence. And while I ate--for I was hungry enough--Prince Ennui stood, his hand on Sallow's muzzle, lightly thridding the dusky labyrinths of the orchard with his faint green eyes. Mine, too, were not less busy, but rather with its lord than with his orchard. And the strange thought entered my mind, Was he in very deed the incarnation of this solitude, this silence, this lawless abundance? Somewhere, in the green heats of summer, had he come forth, taken shape, exalted himself? What but vegetable ichor coursed through veins transparent as his? What but the swarming mysteries of these thick woods lurked in his brain? As for his hounds, theirs was the same stealth, the same symmetry, the same cold, secret unhumanity as his. Creatures begotten of moonlight on silence they seemed to me, with instincts past my workaday wits to conceive. And Rosinante! I laughed softly to think of her staid bones beside the phantom creature this prince had called up to me at mention of "Twilight." I ate because I was ravenously hungry, but also because, while eating, I was better at my ease. Suddenly out of the stillness, like an arrow, Safte was gone; and far away beneath the motionless leaves a faint voice rang dwindling into silence. I shuddered at my probable fate. Prince Ennui glanced lightly. "When the magic horn at last resounds," he said, "how strange a flight it will be! These thorny briers encroach ever nearer on my palace walls. I am a captive ever less at ease. Summer by summer the sun rises shorn yet closer of his beams, and now the lingering transit of the moon is but from one wood by a narrow crystal arch to another. They will have me yet, sir. How weary will the sleepy ones be of my uneasy footfall!" And even as Safte slipped softly back to his watching mate, the patter and shrill menace of voices behind him hinted not all was concord between these hidden multitudes and their unseemly prince. The master-stars shone earlier here; already sparkling above the tower was a canopy of clearest darkness spread, while the leafy fringes of the sky glowed yet with changing fires. We returned to the lawns before the palace porch, and, with his lantern in his hand, the Prince signed to me to go in. I was not a little curious to view that enchanted household of which I had read so often and with so much delight as a child. In the banqueting-hall only the matted windows were visible in the lofty walls. Prince Ennui held his lantern on high, and by its flame, and the faint light that flowed in from above, I could presently see, distinct in gloom, as many sleepers as even Night could desire. Here they reclined just as sorcerous sleep had overtaken them. But how dimmed, how fallen! For Time that could not change the sleeper had changed with quiet skill all else. Tarnished, dusty, withered, overtaken, yellowed, and confounded lay banquet and cloth-of-gold, flagon, cup, fine linen, table, and stool. But in all the ruin, like buds of springtime in a bare wood, or jewels in ashes, slumbered youth and beauty and bravery and delight. I lifted my eyes to the King. The gold of his divinity was fallen, his splendour quenched; but life's dark scrutiny from his face was gone. He made no stir at our light, slumbered untreasoned on. The lids of his Queen were lightlier sealed, only withheld beauty as a cloud the sky it hides. His courtiers flattered more elusively, being sincerely mute, and only a little red dust was all the wine left. I seemed to hear their laughter clearer now that the jest was forgotten, and to admire better the pomp, and the mirth, and the grace, and the vanity, now that time had so far travelled from this little tumult once their triumph. In a kind of furtive bravado, I paced the length of the long, thronged tables. Here sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping his fingers into his cup with a sidelong glance at his mother. There a high officer, I know not how magnificent and urgent when awake, slumbered with eyes wide open above his discouraged moustaches. Simply for vanity of being awake in such a sleepy company, I strutted conceitedly to and fro. I bent deftly and pilfered a little cockled cherry from between the very fingertips of her whose heart was doubtless like its--quite hard. And the bright lips never said a word. I sat down, rather clownishly I felt, beside an aged and simpering chancellor that once had seemed wise, but now seemed innocent, nibbling a biscuit crisp as scandal. For after all the horn _would_ sound. Childhood had been quite sure of that--needed not even the author's testimony. They were alert to rise, scattering all dust, victors over Time and outrageous Fortune. Almost with a cry of apprehension I perceived again the solitary Prince. But he merely smiled faintly. "You see, sir," he said, "how weary must a guardianship be of them who never tire. The snow falls, and the bright light falls on all these faces; yet not even my Lady Melancholy stirs a dark lid. And all these dog-days--" He glanced at his motionless hounds. They raised languidly their narrow heads, whimpering softly, as if beseeching of their master that long-delayed supper--haplessly me. "No, no, sirs," said the Prince, as if he had read their desire as easily as he whom it so much concerned. "Guard, guard, and hearken. This gentleman is not the Prince we await, Sallow; not the Prince, Safte! And now, sir,"--he turned again to me--"there is yet one other sleeper--she who hath brought so much quietude on a festive house." We climbed the staircase where dim light lay so invitingly, and came presently to a little darker chamber. Green, blunt things had pushed and burst through the casement. The air smelled faintly-sour of brier, and was as still as boughs of snow. There the not-unhappy Princess reclined before a looking-glass, whither I suppose she had run to view her own alarm when the sharp needle pierced her thumb. All alarm was stilled now on her face. She, one might think, of all that company of the sleepy, was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful lips lay a little asunder; the heavy beauty of her hair was parted on her forehead; her childish hands sidled together like leverets in her lap. "Why!" I cried aloud, almost involuntarily, "she breathes!" And at sound of my voice the hounds leapt back; and, on a traveller's oath, I verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and how fearfully and brightly, those childish lids unsealed their light as of lilac that lay behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one who had ventured so far, and fell again to rest. "And when," I cried harshly, "when will that laggard burst through this agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all this ruin, this inhospitable peace!" Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me. "I assure you, O suddenly enkindled," he said in his suave, monotonous voice, "it is not for _my_ indifference he does not come. I would willingly sleep; these--my dear sister, all these old fineries and love-jinglers would as fain wake." He turned away his treacherous eyes from me. "Maybe the Lorelei hath snared him!..." he said, smiling. I relished not at all the thought of sleeping in this mansion of sleep. Yet it seemed politic to refrain from giving offence to fangs apparently so eager to take it. Accordingly I followed this Ennui to a loftier chamber yet that he suggested for me. Once there, however, and his soft footfall passed away, I looked about me, first to find a means for keeping trespassers from coming in, and next to find a means for getting myself out. It was a long and arduous, but not a perilous, descent from the window by the thick-grown greenery that cumbered the walls. But I determined to wait awhile before venturing,--wait, too, till I could see plainly where Rosinante had made her night-quarters. By good fortune I discovered her beneath the greenish moon that hung amid mist above the forest, stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside as if in search of the Lorelei. When, as it seemed to me, it must be nearing dawn, though how the hours flitted so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very cautiously climbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawns beneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacing from some dark gallery of the palace above me broke out a distant baying. Nothing shall persuade me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly I haled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deeps of that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered into the saddle. Yet I could not help commiserating the while the faithful soul who floated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the water rather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out of her maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinante must have preferred from the bottom of her heart dry land. I, too, momentarily, when I discovered that we were speedily approaching the roaring fall whose reverberations I had heard long since. Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarching thickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the gliding surface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath a palely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeat at last so rapturously as I. The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. A pale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose the solitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straight before us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foam and light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, the ever-dreamed-of, Death. Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save the beauty and terror and glory in which they rode, down swept snorting ship and master to doom. The crystal water jargoned past my saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, like the panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. Light blinded me; clamour deafened me; foam and the pure wave and cold darkness whelmed over me. We surged, paused, gazed, nodded, crashed:--and so an end to Ennui. VII _He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree._ --SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. How long my body was the sport of that foaming water I cannot tell. But when I again opened my eyes, I found, first, that the sun was shining dazzling clear high above me, and, next, that the delightful noise of running water babbled close against my ear. I lay upon a strip of warm sward by the river's brink. Near by me grew some rank-smelling waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed peopled with larks. I crawled, confused and aching, to the water, and dipped my head and hands into the cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the sun had, it would seem, long been dwelling on that passive corse of mine by the waterside and had parched it to the skin. But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully to what had passed, and so to my loss. I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous that Rosinante could be gone. It might be that the same hand as must have drawn myself from drowning had snatched her bridle also out of Fate's grasp. Perhaps even now she was seeking her master by the greener pasture of the wide plains around me. Perhaps the far-off sea was her green sepulchre. But many waters cannot quench love. I faced, friendless and discomfited, a region as strange to me as the farther side of the moon. Without more ado I rose, shook myself, and sadly began to go forward. But I had taken only a few steps along the banks of the stream--for here was fresh water, at least--when a sound like distant thunder rolled over these flat, green lands towards me, increasing steadily in volume. I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the distance, perhaps, of a little less than a mile, descried an innumerable herd of horses streaming across these level pastures, and at the extremity, it seemed, of a wide ellipse, that had brought them near, and now was galloping them away. My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary spectacle. And while I stood in uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, I perceived a figure running towards me, lifting his hands and crying out in a voice sonorous and inhuman. He was of a stature much above my own, yet so gross in shape and immense of head he seemed at first almost dwarfish. He came to a stand twenty paces or so from me, on the ridge of a gentle inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, bright eyes. Even at this distance I could perceive the almost colourless lustre of his eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair. When he had taken his fill of me, he lifted his head again and cried out to me a few words of what certainly might be English, but was neither intelligible nor reassuring. I stood my ground and stared him in the face, till I could see nothing but wind-blown yellow, and strange, brutal eyes. Then he advanced a little nearer. Whereupon I also raised my hand with a gesture like his own, and demanded loudly where I was, what was this place, and who was he. His very ears pricked forward, he listened so intently. He came nearer yet, then stayed, tossed his head into the air, whirled the long leather thong he carried above his head, and, signing to me to follow, set off with so swift and easy a stride as would soon have carried him out of sight, had he not turned and perceived how slowly I could follow him. He slackened his pace then, and, thus running, we came in sight at length of what appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, with one rude chimney, and surrounded by a thick fence, or stockade, many feet high and apparently of immense strength and stability. In the gateway of this fence stood the master of these solitudes, his eyes fixed strangely on my coming with an intense, I had almost said incredulous, interest. Nor did he cease so to regard me, while the creature that had conducted me thither, told, I suppose, where he had found me, and poured out with childish zeal his own amazement and delight. By this time, too, his voice had begun to lose its first strangeness, and to take a meaning for me. And I was presently fully persuaded he spoke a kind of English, and that not unpleasingly, with a liquid, shrill, voluminous ease. His master listened patiently awhile, but at last bade his servant be silent, and himself addressed me. "I am informed, Yahoo," he said with peculiar deliberation, "that you have been borne down into my meadows by the river, and fetched out thence by my servant. Be aware, then, that all these lands from horizon to horizon are mine and my people's. I desire no tidings of what follies may be beyond my boundaries, no aid, and no amity. I admit no trespasser here and will bear with none. It appears, however, that your life has passed beyond your own keeping: I may not, therefore, refuse you shelter and food, and to have you conducted in safety beyond my borders. Have the courtesy, then, to keep within shelter of these walls till the night be over. Else"--he gazed out across the verdant undulations--"else, Yahoo, I have no power to protect you." He turned once more, and regarded me with a lofty yet tender recognition, as if, little though his speech might profess it, he very keenly desired my safety. He then stepped aside and bade me rather sharply enter the gate before him. I tried to show none of the mistrust I felt at passing out of these open lands into this repellent yard. I glanced at the shock-haired creature, alert, half-human, beside me; across the limitless savannah around me, echoing yet, it seemed, with the rumour of innumerable hoofs; and bowing, as it were, to odds, I went in. On the other hand, I felt my host had been frank with me. If this was indeed the same Lemuel Gulliver whose repute my infancy had prized so well, I need have no fear of blood and treachery at his hands, however primitive and disgusting his household, or distorted his intellect might be. He who had proved no tyrant in Lilliput, nor quailed before the enormities of Brobdingnag, might abhor the sight of me; he would not play me false. His servant, or whatsoever else he might be, I considered not quite so calmly. Yet even in _his_ broad countenance dwelt a something like bright honesty, less malice than simplicity. Wherefore, I say, I ordered down my cowardice, and, looking both of them as squarely in the face as I knew how, passed out of the open into the appalling yard of this wooden house. I say "appalling," but without much reason. Perhaps it was the unseemly hugeness of its balks, the foul piles of skins, the mounds of refuse that lay about within; perhaps the all-pervading beastly stench, the bareness and filthiness under so glassy-clear and fierce a sun that revolted me. All man's seemliness and affection for the natural things of earth were absent. Here was only a brutal and bald order, as of an intelligence like that of the yellow-locked, swift-footed creature behind me. Perhaps also it was the mere unfamiliarity of much I saw there that estranged me. All lay in neglect, cracked and marred with rough usage,--coarse strands of a kind of rope, strips of hide, gaping tubs, a huge and rusty brazier, and in one corner a great cage, many feet square and surmounted with an iron ring. I know not. I almost desired Sallow at my side, and would to heaven Rosinante's nose lay in my palm. Within the house a wood-fire burned in the sun, its smoke ascending to the roof, and flowing thence through a rude chimney. A pot steamed over the fire, burdening the air with a savour at first somewhat faint and disgusting,--perhaps because it was merely strange to me. The walls of this lofty room were of rough, substantial timber, bare and weatherproof; the floor was of the colour of earth, seemingly earth itself. A few rude stools, a bench, and a four-legged table stood beside the unshuttered window. And from this stretched the beauteous green of the grass-land or prairie beyond the stockade. The house, then, was built on the summit of a gentle mound, and doubtless commanded from its upper window the extreme reaches of this sea of verdure. I sat down where Mr. Gulliver directed me, and was not displeased with the warmth of the fire, despite the sun. I was cold after that long, watery lullaby, and cold too with exhaustion after running so far at the heels of the creature who had found me. And I dwelt in a kind of dream on the transparent flames, and watched vacantly the seething pot, and smelt till slowly appetite returned the smoke of the stuff that bubbled beneath its lid. Mr. Gulliver himself brought me my platter of this pottage, and though it tasted of nothing in my experience--a kind of sweet, cloying meat--I was so tired of the fruits to which enterprise had as yet condemned me, I ate of it hungrily and heartily. Yet not so fast as that the young "Gulliver" had not finished his before me, and sat at length watching every mouthful I took from beneath his sun-enticing thatch of hair. Ever and again he would toss up his chin with a shrill guffaw, or stoop his head till his eyeballs were almost hidden beneath their thick lashes, so regarding me for minutes together with a delightful simulation of intelligence, yet with that peculiar wistful affection his master had himself exhibited at first sight of me. But when our meal was done, Mr. Gulliver ordered him about his business. Without a murmur, with one last, long, brotherly glance at me, he withdrew. And presently after I heard from afar his high, melancholy "cooee," and the crack of his thong in the afternoon air as he hastened out to his charges. My companion did not stir. Only the flames waved silently along the logs. The beam of sunlight drew across the floor. The crisp air of the pasture flowed through the window. What wonder, then, that, sitting on my stool, I fell asleep! VIII _If I see all, ye're nine to ane!_ --OLD BALLAD. I was awoke by a sustained sound as of an orator speaking in an unknown tongue, and found myself in a sunny-shadowy loft, whither I suppose I must have been carried in my sleep. In a delicious languor between sleeping and waking I listened with imperturbable curiosity awhile to that voice of the unknown. Indeed, I was dozing again when a different sound, enormous, protracted, abruptly aroused me. I got up, hot and trembling, not yet quite my own master, to discover its cause. Through a narrow slit between the timbers I could view the country beneath me, far and wide. I saw near at hand the cumbrous gate of the stockade ajar, and at a little distance on the farther side Mr. Gulliver and his half-human servant standing. In front of them was an empty space--a narrow semicircle of which Gulliver was the centre. And beyond--wild-eyed, dishevelled, stretching their necks as if to see, inclining their heads as if to hearken, ranging in multitude almost to the sky's verge--stood assembled, it seemed to me, all the horses of the universe. Even in my first sensation of fear admiration irresistibly stirred. The superb freedom of their unbridled heads, the sun-nurtured arrogance of their eyes, the tumultuous, sea-like tossing of crest and tail, their keenness and ardour and might, and also in simple truth their numbers--how could one marvel if this solitary fanatic dreamed they heard him and understood? Unarmed, bareheaded, he faced the brutal discontent of his people. Words I could not distinguish; but there was little chance of misapprehending the haughty anguish with which he threatened, pleaded, cajoled. Clear and unfaltering his voice rose and fell. He dealt out fearlessly, foolishly, to that long-snouted, little-brained, wild-eyed multitude, reason beyond their instinct, persuasion beyond their savagery, love beyond their heed. But even while I listened, one thing I knew those sleek malcontents heard too--the Spirit of man in that small voice of his--perplexed, perhaps, and perverted, and out of tether; but none the less unconquerable and sublime. What less, thought I, than power unearthly could long maintain that stern, impassable barrier of green vacancy between their hoofs and him? And I suppose for the very reason that these were beasts of a long-sharpened sagacity, wild-hearted, rebellious, yet not the slaves of impulse, he yet kept himself their king who was, in fact, their captive. "Houyhnhnms?" I heard him cry; "pah--Yahoos!" His voice fell; he stood confronting in silence that vast circumference of restless beauty. And again broke out inhuman, inarticulate, immeasurable revolt. Far across over the tossing host, rearing, leaping, craning dishevelled heads, went pealing and eddying that hostile, brutal voice. Gulliver lifted his hand, and a tempestuous silence fell once more. "Yahoos! Yahoos!" he bawled again. Then he turned, and passed back into his hideous garden. The gate was barred and bolted behind him. Thus loosed and unrestrained, surged as if the wind drove them, that concourse upon the stockade. Heavy though its timbers were, they seemed to stoop at the impact. A kind of fury rose in me. I lusted to go down and face the mutiny of the brutes; bit, and saddle, and scourge into obedience man's serfs of the centuries. I watched, on fire, the flame of the declining sun upon those sleek, vehement creatures of the dust. And then, I know not by what subtle irony, my zeal turned back--turned back and faded away into simple longing for my lost friend, my peaceful beast-of-evening, Rosinante. I sat down again in the litter of my bed and earnestly wished myself home; wished, indeed, if I must confess it, for the familiar face of my Aunt Sophia, my books, my bed. If these were this land's horses, I thought, what men might here be met! The unsavouriness, the solitude, the neighing and tumult and prancing induced in me nothing but dulness at last and disgust. But at length, dismissing all such folly, at least from my face, I lifted the trap-door and descended the steep ladder into the room beneath. Mr. Gulliver sat where I had left him. Defeat stared from his eyes. Lines of insane thought disfigured his face. Yet he sat, stubborn and upright, heedless of the uproar, heedless even that the late beams of the sun had found him out in his last desolation. So I too sat down without speech, and waited till he should come up out of his gloom, and find a friend in a stranger. But day waned; the sunlight went out of the great wooden room; the tumult diminished; and finally silence and evening shadow descended on the beleaguered house. And I was looking out of the darkened window at a star that had risen and stood shining in the sky, when I was startled by a voice so low and so different from any I had yet heard that I turned to convince myself it was indeed Mr. Gulliver's. "And the people of the Yahoos, Traveller," he said, "do they still lie, and flatter, and bribe, and spill blood, and lust, and covet? Are there yet in the country whence you come the breadless bellies, the sores and rags and lamentations of the poor? Ay, Yahoo, and do vicious men rule, and attain riches; and impious women pomp and flattery?--hypocrites, pandars, envious, treacherous, proud?" He stared with desolate sorrow and wrath into my eyes. Words in disorder flocked to my tongue. I grew hot and eager, yet by some instinct held my peace. The fluttering of the dying flames, the starry darkness, silence itself; what were we who sat together? Transient shadows both, phantom, unfathomable, mysterious as these. I fancied he might speak again. Once he started, raised his arm, and cried out as if acting again in dream some frenzy of the past. And once he wheeled on me extraordinary eyes, as if he half-recognised some idol of the irrevocable in my face. These were momentary, however. Gloom returned to his forehead, vacancy to his eyes. I heard the outer gate flung open, and a light, strange footfall. So we seated ourselves, all three, for a while round the smouldering fire. Mr. Gulliver's servant scarcely took his eyes from my face. And, a little to my confusion, his first astonishment of me had now passed away, and in its stead had fallen such a gentleness and humour as I should not have supposed possible in his wild countenance. He busied himself over his strips of skin, but if he caught my eye upon his own he would smile out broadly, and nod his great, hairy head at me, till I fancied myself a child again and he some vast sweetheart of my nurse. When we had supped (sitting together in the great room), I climbed the ladder into the loft and was soon fast asleep. But from dreams distracted with confusion I awoke at the first shafts of dawn. I stood beside the narrow window in the wall of the loft and watched the distant river change to silver, the bright green of the grass appear. This seemed a place of few and timorous birds, and of fewer trees. But all across the dews of the grasses lay a tinge of powdered gold, as if yellow flowers were blooming in abundance there. I saw no horses, no sign of life; heard no sound but the cadent wail of the ash-grey birds in their flights. And when I turned my eyes nearer home, and compared the distant beauty of the forests and their radiant clouds with the nakedness and desolation here, I gave up looking from the window with a determination to be gone as soon as possible from a country so uncongenial. Moreover, Mr. Gulliver, it appeared, had returned during the night to his first mistrust of my company. He made no sign he saw me, and left his uncouth servant to attend on me. For him, indeed, I began to feel a kind of affection springing up; he seemed so eager to befriend me. And whose is the heart quite hardened against a simple admiration? I rose very gladly when, after having stuffed a wallet with food, he signed to me to follow him. I turned to Mr. Gulliver and held out my hand. "I wish, sir, I might induce you to accompany me," I said. "Some day we would win our way back to the country we have abandoned. I have known and loved your name, sir, since first I browsed on pictures--Being measured for your first coat in Lilliput by the little tailors:--Straddling the pinnacled city. Ay, sir, and when the farmers picked you up 'twixt finger and thumb from among their cornstalks...." I had talked on in hope to see his face relax; but he made no sign he saw or heard me. I very speedily dropped my hand and went out. But when my guide and I had advanced about thirty yards from the stockade, I cast a glance over my shoulder towards the house that had given me shelter. It rose, sad-coloured and solitary, between the green and blue. But, if it was not fancy, Mr. Gulliver stood looking down on me from the very window whence I had looked down on him. And there I do not doubt he stayed till his fellow-yahoo had passed across his inhospitable lands out of his sight for ever. I was glad to be gone, and did not, at first, realise that the least danger lay before us. But soon, observing the extraordinary vigilance and caution my companion showed, I began to watch and hearken, too. Evidently our departure had not passed unseen. Far away to left and to right of us I descried at whiles now a few, now many, swift-moving shapes. But whether they were advancing with us, or gathering behind us, in hope to catch their tyrant alone and unaware, I could not properly distinguish. Once, for a cause not apparent to me, my guide raised himself to his full height, and, thrusting back his head, uttered a most piercing cry. After that, however, we saw no more for a while of the beasts that haunted our journey. All morning, till the sun was high, and the air athrob with heat and stretched like a great fiddlestring to a continuous, shrill vibration, we went steadily forward. And when at last I was faint with heat and thirst, my companion lifted me up like a child on to his back and set off again at his great, easy stride. It was useless to protest. I merely buried my hands in his yellow hair to keep my balance in such a camel-like motion. A little after noon we stayed to rest by a shallow brook, beneath a cluster of trees scented, though not in blossom, like an English hawthorn. There we ate our meal, or rather I ate and my companion watched, running out ever and again for a wider survey, and returning to me like a faithful dog, to shout snatches of his inconceivable language at me. Sometimes I seemed to catch his meaning, bidding me take courage, have no fear, he would protect me. And once he shaded his eyes and pointed afar with extreme perturbation, whining or murmuring while he stared. Again we set off from beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now no doubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But my guide gave them very little heed. Did they pause a moment too long in our path, or gallop down on us but a stretch or two beyond the limit his instinct had set for my safety, he whirled his thong above his head, and his yell resounded, and like a shadow upon wheat the furious companies melted away. Evidently these were not the foes he looked for, but a subtler, a more indomitable. It was at last, I conjectured, at scent, or sight, or rumour of these that he suddenly swept me on to his shoulders again, and with a great sneeze or bellow leapt off at a speed he had, as yet, given me no hint of. Looking back as best I could, I began to discern somewhat to the left of us a numerous herd in pursuit, sorrel in colour, and of a more magnificent aspect than those forming the other bands. It was obvious, too, despite their plunging and rearing, that they were gaining on us--drew, indeed, so near at last that I could count the foremost of them, and mark (not quite callously) their power and fleetness and symmetry, even the sun's gold upon their reddish skins. Then in a flash my captor set me down, toppled me over (in plain words) into the thick herbage, and, turning, rushed bellowing, undeviating towards their leaders, till it seemed he must inevitably be borne down beneath their brute weight, and so--farewell to summer. But almost at the impact, the baffled creatures reared, neighing fearfully in consort, and at the gibberish hurled back on them by their flamed-eyed master, broke in rout, and fled. Whereupon, unpausing, he ran back to me, only just in time to rescue me from the nearer thunder yet of those who had seized the very acme of their opportunity to beat out my brains. It was a long and arduous and unequal contest. I wished very heartily I could bear a rather less passive part. But this fearless creature scarcely heeded me; used me like a helpless child, half tenderly, half roughly, displaying ever and again over his shoulder only a fleeting glance of the shallow glories of his eyes, as if to reassure me of his power and my safety. But the latter, those distant savannahs will bear witness, seemed forlorn enough. My eyes swam with weariness of these crested, earth-disdaining battalions. I sickened of the heat of the sun, the incessant sidelong jolting, the amazing green. But on we went, fleet and stubborn, into ever-thickening danger. How feeble a quarry amid so many hunters! Two things grew clearer to me each instant. First, that every movement and feint of our pursuers was of design. Not a beast that wheeled but wheeled to purpose; while the main body never swerved, thundered superbly on toward the inevitable end. And next I perceived with even keener assurance that my guide knew his country and his enemy and his own power and aim as perfectly and consummately; knew, too--this was the end. Far distant in front of us there appeared to be a break in the level green, a fringe of bushes, rougher ground. For this refuge he was making, and from this our mutinous Houyhnhnms meant to keep us. There was no pausing now, not a glance behind. His every effort was bent on speed. Speed indeed it was. The wind roared in my ears. Yet above its surge I heard the neighing and squealing, the ever-approaching shudder of hoofs. My eyes distorted all they looked on. I seemed now floating twenty feet in air; now skimming within touch of ground. Now that sorrel squadron behind me swelled and nodded; now dwindled to an extreme minuteness of motion. Then, of a sudden, a last, shrill paean rose high; the hosts of our pursuers paused, billow-like, reared, and scattered--my poor Yahoo leapt clear. For an instant once again in this wild journey I was poised, as it were, in space, then fell with a crash, still clutched, sure and whole, to the broad shoulders of my rescuer. When my first confusion had passed away, I found that I was lying in a dense green glen at the foot of a cliff. For some moments I could think of nothing but my extraordinary escape from destruction. Within reach of my hand lay the creature who had carried me, huddled and motionless; and to left and to right of me, and one a little nearer the base of the cliff, five of those sorrel horses that had been chief of our pursuers. One only of them was alive, and he, also, broken and unable to rise--unable to do else than watch with fierce, untamed, glazing eyes (a bloody froth at his muzzle,) every movement and sign of life I made. I myself, though bruised and bleeding, had received no serious injury. But my Yahoo would rise no more. His master was left alone amidst his people. I stooped over him and bathed his brow and cheeks with the water that trickled from the cliffs close at hand. I pushed back the thick strands of matted yellow hair from his eyes. He made no sign. Even while I watched him the life of the poor beast near at hand welled away: he whinnied softly, and dropped his head upon the bracken. I was alone in the unbroken silence. It seemed a graceless thing to leave the carcasses of these brave creatures uncovered there. So I stripped off branches of the trees, and gathered bundles of fern and bracken, with which to conceal awhile their bones from wolf and fowl. And him whom I had begun to love I covered last, desiring he might but return, if only for a moment, to bid me his strange farewell. This done, I pushed through the undergrowth from the foot of the sunny cliffs, and after wandering in the woods, came late in the afternoon, tired out, to a ruinous hut. Here I rested, refreshing myself with the unripe berries that grew near by. I remained quite still in this mouldering hut looking out on the glens where fell the sunlight. Some homely bird warbled endlessly on in her retreat, lifted her small voice till every hollow resounded with her content. Silvery butterflies wavered across the sun's pale beams, sipped, and flew in wreaths away. The infinite hordes of the dust raised their universal voice till, listening, it seemed to me their tiny Babel was after all my own old, far-off English, sweet of the husk. Fate leads a man through danger to his delight. Me she had led among woods. Nameless though many of the cups and stars and odours of the flowers were to me, unfamiliar the little shapes that gamboled in fur and feather before my face, here dwelt, mummy of all earth's summers, some old ghost of me, sipper of sap, coucher in moss, quieter than dust. So sitting, so rhapsodising, I began to hear presently another sound--the rich, juicy munch-munch of jaws, a little blunted maybe, which yet, it seemed, could never cry Enough! to these sweet, succulent grasses. I made no sign, waited with eyes towards the sound, and pulses beating as if for a sweetheart. And soon, placid, unsurprised, at her extreme ease, loomed into sight who but my ox-headed Rosinante in these dells, cropping her delightful way along in search of her drowned master. I could but whistle and receive the slow, soft scrutiny of her familiar eyes. I fancied even her bland face smiled, as might elderliness on youth. She climbed near with bridle broken and trailing, thrust out her nose to me, and so was mine again. Sunlight left the woods. Wind passed through the upper branches. So, with rain in the air, I went forward once more; not quite so headily, perhaps, yet, I hope, with undiminished courage, like all earth's travellers before me, who have deemed truth potent as modesty, and themselves worth scanning print after. IX _A ... shop of rarities._ --GEORGE HERBERT. A little before darkness fell we struck into a narrow road traversing the wood. This, though apparently not much frequented, would at least lead me into lands inhabited, so turning my face to the West, that I might have light to survey as long as any gleamed in the sky, I trudged on. But I went slow enough: Rosinante was lame; I like a stranger to my body, it was so bruised and tumbled. The night was black, and a thin rain falling when at last I emerged from the interminable maze of lanes into which the wood-road had led me. And glad I was to descry what seemed by the many lights shining from its windows to be a populous village. A gay village also, for song came wafted on the night air, rustic and convivial. Hereabouts I overtook a figure on foot, who, when I addressed him, turned on me as sharply as if he supposed the elms above him were thick with robbers, or that mine was a voice out of the unearthly hailing him. I asked him the name of the village we were approaching. With small dark eyes searching my face in the black shadow of night, he answered in a voice so strange and guttural that I failed to understand a word. He shook his fingers in the air; pointed with the cudgel he carried under his arm now to the gloom behind us, now to the homely galaxy before us, and gabbled on so fast and so earnestly that I began to suppose he was a little crazed. One word, however, I caught at last from all this jargon, and that often repeated with a little bow to me, and an uneasy smile on his white face--"Mishrush, Mishrush!" But whether by this he meant to convey to me his habitual mood, or his own name, I did not learn till afterwards. I stopped in the heavy road and raised my hand. "An inn," I cried in his ear, "I want lodging, supper--a tavern, an inn!" as if addressing a child or a natural. He began gesticulating again, evidently vain of having fully understood me. Indeed, he twisted his little head upon his shoulders to observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. "'Ame!--'ame!" he cried with a great effort. I nodded. "Ah!" he cried piteously. He led me, after a few minutes' journey, into the cobbled yard of a bright-painted inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered faintly gold, and these letters standing close above it--"The World's End." Mr. "Mishrush" seemed not a little relieved at nearing company after his lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having guided me hither so cunningly. He lifted his nimble cudgel in the air and waved it conceitedly to and fro in time to the song that rose beyond the window. "Fau'ow er Wur'!--Fau'ow er Wur'!" he cried delightedly again and again in my ear, eager apparently for my approval. So we stood, then, beneath the starless sky, listening to the rich _choragium_ of the "World's End." They sang in unison, sang with a kind of forlorn heat and enthusiasm. And when the song was ended, and the roar of applause over, Night, like a darkened water whelmed silently in, engulfed it to the echo: Follow the World-- She bursts the grape, And dandles man In her green lap; She moulds her Creature From the clay, And crumbles him To dust away: Follow the World! One Draught, one Feast, One Wench, one Tomb; And thou must straight To ashes come: Drink, eat, and sleep; Why fret and pine? Death can but snatch What ne'er was thine: Follow the World! It died away, I say, and an ostler softly appeared out of the shadow. Into his charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and followed my inarticulate acquaintance into the noise and heat and lustre of the Inn. It was a numerous company there assembled. But their voices fell to a man on the entry of a stranger. They scrutinised me, not uncivilly, but closely, seeking my badge, as it were by which to recognise and judge me ever after. Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered my guide's name indeed to be, was volubly explaining how I came into his company. They listened intently to what, so far as I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish or Double-Dutch. And then, as if to show me to my place forthwith, a great fleshy fellow that sat close beside the hearth this summer evening continued in a loud voice the conversation I had interrupted. Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little confidence commended me in dumb show to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood him aright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, wore cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon, according to that they dwelt on. I am afraid, as much to my amusement as wonder, I discovered that this landlady of so much apparent _bonhomie_ was a deaf-mute. If victuals, or drink, or bed were required, one must chalk it down on a little slate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. Indeed, the absence of two of her three chief senses had marvellously sharpened the remaining one. Her eyes were on all, vaguely dwelling, lightly gone, inscrutable, strangely fascinating. She moved easily and soundlessly (as fat women may), and I doubt if ever mug or pot of any of that talkative throng remained long empty, except at the tippler's reiterated request. She laid before me an excellent supper on a little table somewhat removed beside a curtained window. And while I ate I watched, and listened, not at all displeased with my entertainment. The room in which we sat was low-ceiled and cheerful, but rather close after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls. Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet--in a clear brown light that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a fine gentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds and fishes in cases stared glassily,--owl and kestrel, jack and eel and gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable inn can be. But they who frequented it interested me much more--as various and animated a gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some peculiar manner they seemed one and all not to the last tittle quite of this world. They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to the mould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness. Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet who finds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he seems to have be cunning? Near beside me, however, sat retired a man a little younger and more at his ease than most of the many there, and as busy with his eyes and ears as I. His name, I learned presently, was Reverie; and from him I gathered not a little information regarding the persons who talked and sipped around us. He told me at whiles that his house was not in the village, but in a valley some few miles distant across the meadows; that he sat out these bouts of argument and slander for the sheer delight he had in gathering the myriad strands of that strange rope Opinion; that he lived (heart, soul, and hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeply mistrusted this place, and the company we were in, yet not for its mistress's sake, who was at least faithful to her instincts, candid to the candid, made no favourites, and, eventually, compelled order. He told me also that if friends he had, he deemed it wiser not to name them, since the least sibilant of the sound of the voice incites to treachery; and in conclusion, that of all men he was acquainted with, one at least never failed to right his humour; and that one was yonder flabby, pallid fellow with the velvet collar to his coat, and the rings on his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, who sat beside Mr. Stubborn on the settle by the fire. When, then, I had finished my supper, I drew in my chair a little closer to Mr. Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on the Landlady's slate, turned my attention to the talk. At the moment when I first began to listen attentively they seemed to be in heated dispute concerning the personal property of a certain Mr. Christian, who was either dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr. Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right this Christian's "easy-chair"; a gentleman named Smoothman most of his other goods for a debt; while a Parson Decorum had appropriated as heretical his books and various peculiar MSS. But there now remained in question a trifling sum of money which a Mr. Liar loudly demanded in payment of an "affair of honour." This, however, he seemed little likely to obtain, seeing that an elderly uncle by marriage of Christian's, whose name was Office, was as eager and affable and frank about the sum as he was bent on keeping it; and rattled the contents of his breeches' pocket in sheer bravado of his means to go to law for it. "He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance," he said. "What could there be of any account? Christian despised money, professed to despise it. That alone would prove my wretched nephew queer in the head--despised _money_! "Tush, friend!" cried Obstinate from his corner. "Whether the money is yours, or neighbour Liar's--and it is as likely as not neither's--that talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes--sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a groat to call his own." "Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The Sects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tis said, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian must have been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults." He tittered. "Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even on setting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar's hat!--his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon the waters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. They say," he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly Jerusalem lieth down by the weir." "But we must not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours," said Liar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was a character of beautiful simplicity--beautiful! _How_ many rickety children did he leave behind him?" A shrill voice called somewhat I could not quite distinguish, for at that moment a youth rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out. Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a piercing voice, friend Liar!" "I did but seek the truth," said Liar. "But whether or no, Christian believed in it--verily he seemed to believe in it. Was it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired Pliable, stroking his leg. "Believed in what, my friend?" said Obstinate, in a dull voice. "About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of Glory, and the Harps of Gold, and such like," said Pliable uneasily--"at least, it is said so; so 'tis said." "Believed!" retorted a smooth young man who seemed to feel the heat, and sat by the staircase door. "That's an easy task--to believe, sir. Ask any pretty minikin!" "And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder Liveloose," said a thick, monotonous voice (a Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if mebbe he be referring to one of his own, or that fellow Sloth's devilish fairy tales? I know one yet he'll eat again some day." At which remark all laughed consumedly, save Dull. "Well, one thing Christian had, and none can deny it," said Pliable, a little hotly, "and that was Imagination? _I_ shan't forget the tales he was wont to tell: what say you, Superstition?" Mr. Superstition lifted dark, rather vacant eyes on Pliable. "Yes, yes," he said: "Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My God, my God, gentlemen!" "Oo-ay, Oo-ay," yelped the voice of Mistrust, startled out of silence. "Oo-ay," whistled Malice, under his breath. "Tush, tush!" broke in Obstinate again, and snapped his fingers in the air. "And what is this precious Imagination? Whither doth it conduct a man, but to beggary, infamy, and the mad-house? Look ye to it, friend Pliable! 'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and leisure, the fairest house is ashes." "Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, who had more than once taken my attention with his peculiar contortions--"talking of ashes, what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master Tongue-stump? What of Love-the-log Faithful?" At which Liveloose was so extremely amused, the tears stood in his eyes for laughing. I looked round for Mistrust, and easily recognised my friend by his hare-like face, and the rage in his little active eyes. But unfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat of Reverie, Liveloose suddenly paused in his merriment with open mouth; and the whole company heard my question, "But who was Love-the-log Faithful?" I was at once again the centre of attention, and Mr. Obstinate rose very laboriously from his settle and held out a great hand to me. "I'm pleased to meet thee," he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dear heart with my good neighbour Superstition yonder who will present a very fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's a young gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log." A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally. "Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir," explained the woman civilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot." "Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearly helpless with amusement. I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I was about to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr. Christian?" I enquired simply. At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up. X ... _Large draughts of intellectual day._ --RICHARD CRASHAW. "Believe me, neighbours," said Malice softly, when this uproar was a little abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meaneth only that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of your company before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christian is like to be immortal only because you _talk_ him out of the grave? One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot." "Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and with pleasure," cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had sat quietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist, sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friend of my family's--Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir--at least in those days--opposite to one another." "He is a great talker," whispered Reverie in my ear. But the company evidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still and attentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher. "Well, sir," continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours, Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though, assuredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth he began to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it is impossible--at least in this plain world--to eat your cake, yet have it. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy old folio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternal grandmother--the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, though somewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of the world like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir--a collection of legends and fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together, mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any I know, if a little lax and flowery in parts. "Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend--never to return it. And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits, and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reduced him to, he accepts the whole book--from Apple to Vials--for truth. In fact, 'he ate the little book,' as one of the legendary kings it celebrates had done before him." "Ay," broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes." Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coarsely, gentlemen, such was the case," he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waning and shivering, to a great bog or quagmire--that my friend Pliable will answer to--and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could be temperate in nought. _I_ knew the bog well; but I knew the stepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow way this same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the _elixir vitæ_, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets a man's heart on fire--that's weak enough to read it--with its pomp, and rhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words, who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty.' I snapped my fingers at the grinning Lions. I passed cautiously through the 'Valley of the Shadow'--wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also, Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And--though boasting be far from me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain charnel-house near by. "_Thus far_, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barren of literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found the world so barren of ingratitude as to seek happiness by stabbing in the back every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife and children; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a whim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian's ignorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, he prateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his own fantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and--I affirm it in all sympathy and sorrow--he is crazed. Malice, haply, is a little sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight with his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchins say, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. He distorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. And because he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he is impotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he--why, beyond the grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave--bliss for his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever--if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the phrase. And this he calls 'Charity.' "Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would condemn us, beyond the grave--a place of peace whereto I deem there are not many here but will be content at length to come; and I not least content, when my duty is done, my children provided for, and my last suspicion of fear and folly suppressed. "To conclude, sir--and beshrew me, gentlemen, how time doth fly in talk!--this Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord with his caprice and conscience, go ours. We envy him not his vapours, his terrors, or his shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth he envy us our wealth, our success, our gaiety, our content? He raves. He is haunted. What is man but as grass, and the flower of grass? Come the sickle, he is clean gone. I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbour was crazed: 'tis Christian in a word." A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, rose from the company, as if one and all had escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a very real peril. I thanked him for his courtesy, and in some confusion turned to Reverie with the remark that I thought I now recollected to have heard Christian's name, but understood he had indeed arrived, at last, at the Celestial City for which he had set out. "Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate hoarsely. "He went stark, staring mad, and now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that's certain." Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and elbowed his way to the door. He opened it and looked out. "I would," he said, "I had known of this Christian before he started. Step you down to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take you; and we'll show you as pretty a persuasion against pilgrimage as ever you saw." He opened his mouth where he stood between me and the stars. "... There's many more!" he added with difficulty, as if his rage was too much for him. He spat into the air and went out. Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling softly, and groped after him. A little silence followed their departure. "You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie," said Atheist good-humouredly, "that Mr. Cruelty says more than he means. To my mind he is mistaken--too energetic; but his intentions are good." "He's a staunch, dependable fellow," said Obstinate, patting down the wide cuffs he wore. But even at that moment a stranger softly entered the inn out of the night. His face was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once round on us all with a still, appalling glance that silenced the words on my lips. We sat without speech--Obstinate yawning, Atheist smiling lightly, Superstition nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn a little back, Pliable bolt upright, like a green and white wand, Mistrust blinking his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed on this stranger, who deemed himself, it seemed, among friends. He turned his back on us and sipped his drink under the heedless, deep, untroubled gaze of Mrs. Nature, and passed out softly and harmlessly as he had come in. Reverie stood up like a man surprised and ill at ease. He turned to me. "I know him only by repute, by hearsay," he said with an effort. "He is a stranger to us all, indeed, sir--to all." Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust his hand into his breeches' pocket. "Nay, sir," he said, "my purse is yet here. What more would you have?" At which Pliable laughed, turning to the women. I put on my hat and followed Reverie to the door. "Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I have no desire to stay in this house over-night. And if you would kindly direct me to the nearest way out of the village, I will have my horse saddled now and be off." And then I noticed that Superstition stood in the light of the doorway looking down on us. "There's Christian's way," he said, as if involuntarily.... "Lodge with me to-night," Reverie answered, "and in the morning you shall choose which way to go you will." I thanked him heartily and turned in to find Rosinante. The night was now fine, but moist and sultry, and misty in the distance. It was late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath the moonlight from the windows round about the smooth village-green. Even as we set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, and Superstition on my left hand, out of heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading as it fell. And soon high hedges hid utterly the "World's End" behind us, out of sight and sound. I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr. Superstition who had desired to accompany us was of a very different courage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess. He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and right of him. Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a little of Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what they could not tell. He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, a pale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering eyes. "You must think me very bold to force my company on you," said Superstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never so mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in the air. See there!" he cried. As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills forest above forest unutterably dark and still. "Surely," I said, "that is not the way Christian took?" "They say," Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between those hills." "But Atheist," I said, "_that_ acid little man, did he indeed walk there alone?" "I have heard," muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, "'tis fear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear." "But what of Cruelty," I said, "and Liveloose?" "Why," answered Superstition, "Cruelty works cunningest when he is afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there's not a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popular young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I thought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believe me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust _did_ go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owe partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure. And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my confidence. And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, "lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles burning against the brighter lightnings." So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a little by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon. But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath the hills of Silence, Peace. XI _His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung._ --JOHN KEATS. Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's house beneath embowering chestnuts, there advanced across the moonlit spaces to meet us a figure on foot like ourselves, leading his horse. He was in armour, yet unarmed. His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers hung ungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt a look never happy warrior wore yet. He seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of war to unhappy idleness. The disillusionment of age was in his face: yet he was youthful, I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and once, perhaps, as light of wit. He took my hand in a grasp cold and listless, and smiled from mirthless eyes. Yet there was something strangely taking in this solitary knight-at-arms. She for whom he does not fight, I thought, must have somewhat of the immortals to grace her warrior with. And if it were only shadows that beset him and obscured his finer heart, shadows they were of myrtle and rhododendron, with voices shrill and small as the sparrows', and eyes of the next-to-morning stars. Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the wind at play in the air seemed to bear far-away music, dying and falling. We entered the house and sat down to supper in a low room open to the night. Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I wish," he said, turning to his friend, "you would accompany Mr. Brocken and me one night to the 'World's End' to hear these fellows talk. Such arrogance, such assurance, such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!--yet, on my word, a kind of gravity with it all, as if the scarecrows had some real interest in the devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be a bargain between us, and leave this endless search awhile." But the solitary knight shook his head. "They would jeer me out of knowledge," he said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their play when I pass, and draw their tops and marbles out of the dust, and gaze till I am hid from sight." "It is fancy, only fancy," replied Reverie; "children stare at all things new to them in the world. How else could they recognise and learn again--how else forget? But as for this rabble's mockery, there is a she-bear left called Oblivion which is their mistress, and will some day silence every jeer." The solitary knight shook his head again, eyeing me solemnly as if in hope to discern in my face the sorcery that held himself in thrall. The few wax tapers gave but light enough to find the way from goblet to mouth. As for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had the poppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness so subtly I almost forgot these were the hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, too, as if of the lotus, all thought of effort and hope. After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the flaw that proves men mortal; while as for hope, who would seek a seed that floats on every wind and smothers the world with weeds that bear no fruit? It was, in fact, fare very different from the ale and cheese of the "World's End." "But you yourself," I said to Mr. Reverie presently; "in all the talk at the inn you kept a very scrupulous silence--discreet enough, I own. But now, what truly _was_ this Christian of whom we heard so much? and why, may I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? You yourselves, did you ever meet with him?" I turned from one to the other of my companions as they glanced uneasily each at each. "Well, sir," said Reverie rather deliberately, "I have met him and talked with him. I often think of him, in spite of myself. Yet he was a man of little charm. He certainly had a remarkable gift for estranging his friends. He was a foe to the most innocent compromise. For myself, I found not much humour in him, no eye for grace or art, and a limited imagination that was yet his absolute master. Nevertheless, as you hint, these fellows, no more than I, can forget him. Nor you?" He turned to the other. "Christian," he replied, "I remember him. We were friends a little while. Faithful I knew also. Faithful was to the last my friend. Ah! Reverie, then--how many years ago!--there was a child we loved, all three: do you remember? I see the low, green wall, cool from how many a summer's shadows, the clusters of green apples on the bough. And in the early morning we would go, carrying torn-off branches, and shouting our songs through the fields, till we came to the shadow and the hush of the woods. Ay, Reverie, and we would burst in on silence, each his heart beating, and play there. And perhaps it was Hopeful who would steal away from us, and the others play on; or perhaps you into the sunlight that maddened the sheltered bird to flit and sing in the orchard where the little child we loved played--not yet sad, but how much beloved; not yet weary of passing shadows, and simple creatures, and boy's rough gifts and cold hands. But I--with me it was ever evening, when the blackbird bursts harshly away. Then it was so still in the orchard, and in the curved bough so solitary, that the nightingale, cowering, would almost for fear begin to sing, and stoop to the bending of the bough, her sidelong eyes in shade; while the stars began to stand in the stations above us, ever bright, and all the night was peace. Then would I dream on--dream of the face I loved, Innocence, O Innocence!" It was a strange outburst. His voice rose almost to a chant, full of a forlorn music. But even as he ceased, we heard in the following silence, above the plashing of the restless fountains, beyond, far and faint, a wild and stranger music welling. And I saw from the porch that looks out from the house called Gloom, "La belle Dame sans Merci" pass riding with her train, who rides in beauty beneath the huntress, heedless of disguise. Across from far away, like leaves of autumn, skirred the dappled deer. The music grew, timbrel and pipe and tabor, as beneath the glances of the moon the little company sped, transient as a rainbow, elusive as a dream. I saw her maidens bound and sandalled, with all their everlasting flowers; and advancing soundless, unreal, the silver wheels of that unearthly chariot amid the Fauns. On, on they gamboled, hoof in yielding turf, blowing reed melodies, mocking water, their lips laid sidelong, their eyes aleer along the smoothness of their flutes. And when I turned again to my companions, with I know not what old folly in my eyes, I know not what unanswerable cry in my heart, Reverie alone was at my side. I seemed to see the long fringes of the lake, the sedge withered, the grey waters restless in the bonds of the wind, tuneless and chill; all these happy gardens swept bare and flowerless; and the far hills silent in the unattainable dawn. "She pipes, he follows," said Reverie; "she sets the tune, he dances. Yet, sir, on my soul, I believe it is the childish face of that same Innocence we kept tryst with long ago he pursues on and on, through what sad labyrinths we, who dream not so wildly, cannot by taking thought come to guess." * * * * * The next two days passed serenely and quietly at Reverie's. We read together, rode, walked, and talked together, and listened in the evening to music. For a sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, who visited him while I was there, and took supper with us, delighting us with her wit and spirit and her youthful voice. But though Reverie more than once suggested it, I could not bring myself to return to the "World's End" and its garrulous company. Whether it was the moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most abhorred, or Stubborn's slug-like eye, or the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, I cannot say. Moreover, I had begun to feel a very keen curiosity to see the way that had lured Christian on with such graceless obstinacy. They had spoken of remorse, poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, even vice: but these appeared to me only such things as might fret a man to set violently out on, not to persist in such a course; or likelier yet, to abandon hope, to turn back from heights that trouble or confusion set so far, and made seem dreams. How could I help, too, being amused to think how vastly strange these fellows considered a man's venturing whither his star beckoned; though that star were only power, only fame, only beauty, only peace? What wonder they were many? Not far from this place, Reverie informed me, were pitched the booths of Vanity Fair. This, by his account, was a place one ought to visit, if only for the satisfaction of leaving it behind. But I have heard more animated accounts of it elsewhere. As for Reverie himself, he seemed only desirous to contemplate; never to taste, to win, or to handle. He needed but refuse reality to what shocked or teased him, to find it harmless and entertaining. He was a dreamer whom the heat and shout of battle could not offend. Perhaps he perceived my restlessness to be gone, for he himself suggested that I should stay till the next morning, and then, if I so pleased, he would see me a mile or two on my way. "For the Pitiless Lady," he said, smiling, "takes many disguises, sometimes of the sun, sometimes of evening, sometimes of night; and I would at least save you from the fate that has made my poor friend a phantom before he is a shade." XII _The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie._ --S.T. Coleridge. So Reverie, as he had promised, rode out with me a few miles to see me on my way. Above the gloom and stillness of the valley the scene began to change again. I was glad as I could be to view once more the tossing cornfields and the wind at play with shadow. Near and far, woods and pastures smoked beneath the sun. I know not through how many arches of the elms and green folds of the meadows I kept watch on the chimneys of a farmhouse above its trees. But Reverie, the further we journeyed, the less he said. I almost chafed to see his heedless eyes turned upon some inward dream, while here, like life itself, stood cloud and oak, warbled bird and brook beneath the burning sun. I saw again in memory the silver twilight of the moon, and the crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of shade. Let him but venture into the open, I thought, hear again the distant lowing of the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, see again the flocks upon the hillside! I suppose this was her home my heart had turned to. This was my dust; night's was his. For me the wild rose and the fields of harvest; for him closed petals, the chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes and voices. And, as if he had overheard my thoughts, Reverie turned at the cross-ways. "You will come back again," he said. "They tell me in distant lands men worship Time, set up a shrine to him in every street, and treasure his emblem next their hearts. There, they say, even the lover babbles of hours, and the dreamer measures sleep with a pendulum. Well, my house is secluded, and the world is far; and to me Time is naught. Return, sir, then, when it pleases you. Besides," he added, smiling faintly, "there is always company at the World's End." The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale and delicate horse, its equal-plaited mane, on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delighted face. Here smouldered gold, here flushed crimson, and here the curved damaskening of his bridle glistened and gleamed. He was a strange visitant to the open day, between the green hedges, beneath the enormous branching of the elms. And there I bade him farewell. Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he has foretold, for it is ever easy to find again the house of Reverie--to them who have learned the way. On I journeyed, then, following as I had been directed the main road to Vanity Fair. But whether it is that the Fair is more difficult to arrive at than to depart from, or is really a hard day's journey even from the gay parlour of the World's End, it already began to be evening, and yet no sign of bunting or booth or clamour or smoke. And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, far from all vanity, that I came at sunset--the cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was tired out and desired only rest; so dismounting and leading Rosinante, I turned aside willingly into its peace. It seemed I had entered a new earth. The lane above had wandered on in the gloaming of its hedges and over-arching trees. Here, all the clouds of sunset stood, caught up in burning gold. Even as I paused, dazzled a moment by the sudden radiance, from height to height the wild bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering stone, black, well-nigh shapeless with age, not a green bush, but seemed to dwell unconsumed in its own fire above this desolate ground. The trees that grew around me--willow and yew, thorn and poplar--were but flaming cages for the wild birds that perched in their branches. Above these sound-dulled mansions trod lightly, as if of thought, Rosinante's gilded shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation of mind, filled with a desperate desire ever to remember how flamed this rose between earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of delight. And turning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal of laughter showed me I was not alone. Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing. The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face of roses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But the face of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the dark hair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it were the shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain, had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they were stooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seen me, they as yet paid no heed. I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude's creation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so the branches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw not far distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boys in charge. I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were no mortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she who sat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned with sudden dismay to depart from their presence unobserved as I had entered; but the children had now espied me, and came running, filled with wonder of Rosinante and the stranger beside her. They stayed at a little distance from us with dwelling eyes and parted lips. Then the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of the brothers stooped and plucked a few blades of grass and proffered them, half fearfully, to the beast that amazed him. But the other gave less heed to Rosinante, fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, his wonderful young face veiled with that wisdom which is in all children, and of an immutable gravity. But by this time, she who it seemed had the charge of these children had followed them with her eyes. To her then, leaving Rosinante in an ecstasy of timidity before such god-like boys, I addressed myself. So might a traveller lost beneath strange stars address unanswering Night. She, however, raised a compassionate face to me and listened with happy seriousness as to a child returned in safety at evening from some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed only a deeper youthfulness in her face for all its eternity of brooding on her beauteous children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her chaplet. The darker wine-colours of the sea changed in her eyes. There was no sense of gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. I began to see how the same still breast might bear celestial children so diverse as these, whose names, she told me presently, were Sleep and Death. I looked at the two children at play, "Ah! now," I said, almost involuntarily "the golden boy who has caught my horse's bridle in his hand, is not he Sleep? and he who considers his brother's boldness--that one is Death?" She smiled with lovely vanity, and told me how strange of heart young children are. How they will alter and vary, never the same for long together, but led by indiscoverable caprices and obedient to some further will. She smiled and said how that sometimes, when the birds hush suddenly from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and sadly to her knees, and Death clasp her roguishly, as if in some secret with the beams of morning. So would they change, one to the likeness of the other. But Sleep was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a little obstinate and headstrong; at times, indeed, beyond all cajolery; yet very sweet of impulse and ardent to make amends. But Death's caprices baffled even her. He seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of heart; and now, as if possessed, passionate and swift; and now would break away burning from her arms in an infinite tenderness. But best she loved them when there came a transient peace to both; and looking upon them laid embraced in the shadow-casting moonbeam, not even she could undoubtingly touch the brow of each beneath their likened hair, and say this is the elder, and this the dreamless younger of the boys. Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the undecipherable letters of the tomb by which we sat, she told me how that once, near before dawn, she had awoke in the twilight to find their places empty where the children had lain at her side, and had sought on, at last to find them even here, weeping and quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by little, and with many tears, she had gleaned the cause of their quarrel--how that, like very children, they had run a race at cockcrow, and all these stones and the slender bones and ashes beneath to be the prize; and how that, running, both had come together to the goal set, and both had claimed the victory. "Yet both seem happy now to share it," I said, "or how else were they comforted?" Nor did I consider before she told me that they will run again when they be grown men, Sleep and Death, in just such a thick darkness before dawn; and one called Love will then run with them, who is very vehement and fleet of foot, and never turns aside, nor falters. He who then shall win may ask a different prize. For truth to tell, she said, only children can find delight for long in dust and ruin. At that moment Death himself came hastening to his mother, and, taking her hand, turned to the enormous picture of the skies as if in some faint apprehension. But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full length among the "cool-rooted flowers," while Rosinante grazed beside him. I told her also, in turn, of my journey; and that although transient, or everlasting, solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wild happiness may be found in them, yet men think not often on these divine children. "As for this one," I said, looking down into the pathless beauty of Death's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; some violently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogether dismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, no stranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yet to the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy net to snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold of Sleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame has left the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and it is day; and exhales her breath, and it is night. Let them then play secret and innocent between her breasts, comfort her with silence above the tempest of her heart.... But I!--what am I?--a traveller, footsore and far." And then it was that I became conscious of a warm, sly, youthful hand in mine, and turned, half in dread, to see only happy Sleep laughing under his glistening hair into my eyes. I strove in vain against his sorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, starry face; and then I smelled as it were rain, and heard as it were tempestuous forest-trees--fell asleep among the tombs. XIII _I warmed both hands before the fire of life._ --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of those ruins, or the soulless ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy influence. Never have I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester. Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. I leapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted--where none kept visible watch. An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind to stir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood in a thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to survey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I found her, the picture of age, foot crook'd, and head dejected. Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues of silence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and his dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning. Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a road almost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathed ourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on the sun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, and surveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinary grandeur. Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold and changeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed, broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The dark champaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure. Mystery and peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of their far-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these the Hyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for the sun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, its flowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind. Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kind of heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distant waters of the sea. Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence. There, too, was profounder silence on the sea's untrampled floor. Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strange syllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand--a shattered instrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the less the invisible lute-master stooped. Could I but catch, could I but in words express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, the peace--well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of the earth, a changeling in its cities. I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yet seen. Hitherto at least I had encountered little else than friendliness. But here--doves in eyries! I stood, twisting my fingers in Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. And she turned her face to me, and looked with age into my eyes: and I know not how woke courage in me again. "On then?" I said, on the height. And the gentle beast leaned forward and coughed into the valley what might indeed be "Yea!" So we began to descend. Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until in a while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, another traveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace with mine. I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether to overtake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourable chance offered. But Chance--avenger of all shilly-shally--settled the matter offhand. For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards the skies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him out of sight. A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting in gusts dust into the air and whitening the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. A cloud of flies droned fretfully about my ears. And I watched advancing, league-high, transfigured with sunbeams, the enormous gloom of storm. The sun smote from a silvery haze upon its peaks and gorges. Wind, far above the earth, moaned, and fell; only to sound once more in the distance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings played along the desolate hills. The sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy, arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath his place. And day withdrew its boundaries, spread to the nearer forests a bright amphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it seemed to me Rosinante with her poor burden was the centre and the butt. I confess I began to dread lest even my mere surmise of danger should engage the piercing lightnings; as if in the mystery of life storm and a timorous thought might yet be of a kin. We hastened on at the most pathetic of gallops. Nor seemed indeed the beauteous lightning to regard at all that restless mote upon the cirque of its entranced fairness. In an instantaneous silence I heard a tiny beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom recognised almost with astonishment my own shape bowed upon the saddle. It was a majestic entry into a kingdom so far-famed. The storm showed no abatement when at last I found shelter. From far away I had espied in the immeasurable glare a country barn beneath trees. Arrived there, I almost fell off my horse into as incongruous and lighthearted a company as ever was seen. In the midst of the floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a fool in motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tune he played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it, dancers--some thirty or more--capering round him with all the abandon heart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he whose horse now stood smoking beside my own first drew my attention--a smooth, small-bearded, solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He lifted his toes with such inimitable agility, postured his fingers so daintily, conducted his melon-belly with so much elegance, and exhaled such a warm joy in the sport that I could look at nothing else at first for delight in him. But there were slim maids too among the plumper and ruddier, like crocuses, like lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance and freshness and lightness. Such eyes adazzle dancing with mine, such nimble and discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, and such a gay delight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath rafters ringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across a hundred furrows for sheer envy to witness. As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with such delightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere I also was snatched into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling with mine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about we skipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, and the monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness. Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool to sip, and sip, as if _in extremis_ over his mouthpiece. Then we rested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while the rain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds to tatters. With some little circumstance my traveller picked his way to me, and with a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereupon ensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the opening impudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of the company tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped the thunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, and so deep in love with at least five young country faces, that I scarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of a kind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere. Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in the fresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, but more, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite _Nirvana_ from which the tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving in vain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glanced behind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once more with my new acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, it seemed, than I. We had not far to go--past a meadow or two, a low green wall, a black fish-pool--and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view. My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked casements and peered into my face. "Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it in your eye, sir--clear and full and profound--such ever goes with eloquence. 'Tis my delight. What are we else than beasts?--beasts that perish? I never tire; I never weary;--give me to dance and to sing, but ever to talk: then am I at ease. Heaven is just. Enter, sir--enter!" He led me by a shady alley into his orchard, and thence to a stable, where we left Rosinante at hob-a-nob with his mare over a friendly bottle of hay. And we ourselves passed into the house, and ascended a staircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its walls hung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and its lozenged casement partly shuttered against the blaze of sunshine that flowed across the forests far away to the west. My friend eyed me brightly and busily as a starling. "You danced fine, sir," he said. "Oh! it is a _pleasure_ to me. Ay, and now I come to consider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet be echo. No, but I did _not_ think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! But well met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just in time! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So--so--this leg, that leg; up now--hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones for such freaks. Once!... '_Memento mori_!' say I, and smell the shower the sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like a bagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!" We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then down would drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon among his victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other. He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walked beneath the trees. "'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir," he said, gazing on the resinous trunk of an old damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, am melancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy,--and none to scold or deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth had pleasure--innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peaceful acre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I have lived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fashion, and am so much my own close and indifferent friend--Why! he is happy who has solitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marry daily wives of memory's fashioning, and dream at peace." It seemed an old bone he picked with Destiny. "There's much to be said," I replied as profoundly as I could. The air he now lulled youth asleep with was a very cheerless threnody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightful orchard. "You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root and branch: how many a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! I know it--there is bliss to come;--miraculous Paradise for men even dull as I. Yet 'twill be strange to me--without my house and orchard. Age tends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead--a branch in the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquish dear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vaunting ashes!'--and speak in vain. So's life!" And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a little music. He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and sat down with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between the candles to a pathetic air this doggerel:-- There's a dark tree and a sad tree, Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded, For her lover long-time absent, Plucking rushes by the river. Let the bird sing, let the buck sport, Let the sun sink to his setting; Not one star that stands in darkness Shines upon her absent lover. But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree, Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping; And 'tis gathering moss she touches, Where the locks lay of her lover. "A dolesome thing," he said; "but my mother was wont to sing it to the virginals. 'Cold to bosom,'" he reiterated with a plangent cadence; "I remember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music." And then, with an ample flirt of his bow, he broke, all beams and smiles, into this ingenuous ditty: The goodman said, "'Tis time for bed, Come, mistress, get us quick to pray; Call in the maids From out the glades Where they with lovers stray, With love, and love do stray." "Nay, master mine, The night is fine, And time's enough all dark to pray; 'Tis April buds Bedeck the woods Where simple maids away With love, and love do stray. "Now we are old, And nigh the mould, 'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray; When once we'd roam, 'Twas else cried, 'Come, And sigh the dusk away, With love, and love to stray.'" So they gat in To pray till nine; Then called, "Come maids, true maids, away! Kiss and begone, Ha' done, ha' done, Until another day With love, and love to stray!" Oh, it were best If so to rest Went man and maid in peace away! The throes a heart May make to smart Unless love have his way, In April woods to stray!-- In April woods to stray! And that finished with another burst of laughter, he set very adroitly to the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seen a face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to the call; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose was plastic. "Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!" "Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!" and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along the string, anxious and tender. "A woodpecker," he cried, directing momentarily a sedulous, clear eye on me. And lo, "inviolable quietness" and the smooth beech-boughs! "And thus," he said, sitting closer, "the martlets were wont to whimper about the walls of the castle of Inverness, the castle of Macbeth." "Macbeth!" I repeated--"Macbeth!" "Ay," he said, "it was his seat while yet a simple soldier--flocks and flocks of them, wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, crying and calling." I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And Duncan," I said.... He eyed me with immense pleasure, and nodded with brilliant eyes on mine. "What looking man was he?" I said at last as carelessly as I dared. "... The King, you mean,--of Scotland." He magnanimously ignored my confusion, and paused to build his sentence. "'Duncan'?" he said. "The question calls him straight to mind. A lean-locked, womanish countenance; sickly, yet never sick; timid, yet most obdurate; more sly than politic. An _ignis fatuus_, sir, in a world of soldiers." His eye wandered.... "'Twas a marvellous sanative air, crisp and pure; but for him, one draught and outer darkness. I myself viewed his royal entry from the gallery--pacing urbane to slaughter; and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, sir, do you sigh to see the king?' cried one softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord,' I answered to the instant, 'at sight of a monarch even Duncan's match!'" He looked his wildest astonishment at me. "Not, I'd have you remember--not that 'twas blood I did foresee.... To kill in blood a man, and he a king, so near to natural death ... foul, foul!" "And Macbeth?" I said presently--"Macbeth...?" He laid down his viol with prolonged care. "His was a soul, sir, nobler than his fate. I followed him not without love from boyhood--a youth almost too fine of spirit; shrinking from all violence, over-nicely; eloquent, yet chary of speech, and of a dark profundity of thought. The questions he would patter!--unanswerable, searching earth and heaven through.... And who now was it told me the traitor Judas's hair was red?--yet not red his, but of a reddish chestnut, fine and bushy. Children have played their harmless hands at hide-and-seek therein. O sea of many winds! "For come gloom on the hills, floods, discolouring mist; breathe but some grandam's tale of darkness and blood and doubleness in his hearing: all changed. Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him out; and Ambition, that spotted hound of hell, strained at the leash towards the Pit. "So runs the world--the ardent and the lofty. We are beyond earth's story as 'tis told, sir. All's shallower than the heart of man.... Indeed, 'twas one more shattered altar to Hymen." "'Hymen!'" I said. He brooded long and silently, clipping his small beard. And while he was so brooding, a mouse, a moth, dust--I know not what, stirred the listening strings of his viol to sound, and woke him with a start. "I vowed, sir, then, to dismiss all memory of such unhappy deeds from mind--never to speak again that broken lady's name. Oh! I have seen sad ends--pride abased, splendour dismantled, courage to terror come, guilt to a crying guilelessness." "'Guilelessness?'" I said. "Lady Macbeth at least was past all changing." The doctor stood up and cast a deep scrutiny on me, which yet, perhaps, was partly on himself. "Perceive, sir," he said, "this table--broader, longer, splendidly burdened; and all adown both sides the board, thanes and their ladies, lords, and gentlemen, guests bidden to a royal banquet. 'Twas then in that bleak and dismal country--the Palace of Forres. Torches flared in the hall; to every man a servant or two: we sat in pomp." He paused again, and gravely withdrew behind the tapestry. "And presently," he cried therefrom, suiting his action to the word, "to the blast of hautboys enters the king in state thus, with his attendant lords. And with all that rich and familiar courtesy of which he was master in his easier moods he passed from one to another, greeting with supple dignity on his way, till he came at last softly to the place prepared for him at table. And suddenly--shall I ever forget, it, sir?--it seemed silence ran like a flame from mouth to mouth as there he stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in a leaden glare. And he raised his face and looked once round on us all with a forlorn astonishment and wrath, like one with a death-wound--I never saw the like of such a face. "Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and pay no heed, the queen laid her hand on his and called him. And his orbs rolled down once more upon the empty place, and stuck as if at grapple with some horror seen within. He muttered aloud in peevish altercation--once more to heave up his frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!--" The viol-strings rang to his "lo!" "Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered. His lip sagged into his beard, he babbled with open mouth, and leaned on his lady with such an impotent and slavish regard as I hope never to see again man pay to woman.... We thought no more of supper after that.... "But what do I--?" The doctor laid a cautioning finger on his mouth. "The company was dispersed, the palace gloomy with night (and they were black nights at Forres!), and on the walls I heard the sentinel's replying.... In the wood's last glow I entered and stood in his self-same station before the empty stool. And even as I stood thus, my hair creeping, my will concentred, gazing with every cord at stretch, fell a light, light footfall behind me." He glanced whitely over his shoulder. "Sir, it was the queen come softly out of slumber on my own unquiet errand." The doctor strode to the door, and peered out like a man suspicious or guilty of treachery. It was indeed a house of broken silences. And there, in the doorway, he seemed to be addressing his own saddened conscience. "With all my skill, and all a leal man's gentleness, I solaced and persuaded, and made an oath, and conducted her back to her own chamber unperceived. How weak is sleep!... It was a habit, sir, contracted in childhood, long dormant, that Evil had woke again. The Past awaits us all. So run Time's sands, till mercy's globe is empty and ..." He stooped and whispered it across to me: "... A child, a comparative child, shrunk to an anatomy, her beauty changed, ghostly of youth and all its sadness, baffled by a word, slave to a doctor's nod! None knew but I, and, at the last, one of her ladies--a gentle, faithful, and fearful creature. Nor she till far beyond all mischief.... "Wild deeds are done. But to have blood on the hands, a cry in the ears, and one same glassy face eye to eye, that nothing can dim, nor even slumber pacify--dreams, dreams, intangible, enorm! Forefend them, God, from me!" He stood a moment as if he were listening; then turned, smiling irresolutely, and eyed me aimlessly. He seemed afraid of his own house, askance at his own furniture. Yet, though I scarce know why, I felt he had not told me the whole truth. Something fidelity had yet withheld from vanity. I longed to enquire further. I put aside how many burning questions awhile! XIV _And if we gang to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm._ --OLD BALLAD. By and by less anxious talk soothed him. Indeed it was he who suggested one last bright draught of air beneath his trees before retiring. Down we went again with some unnecessary clatter. And here were stars between the fruited boughs, silvery Capella and the Twins, and low on the sky's moonlit border Venus excellently bright. He asked me whither I proposed going, if I needs must go; besought there and then in the ambrosial night-air the history of my wanderings--a mere nine days' wonder; and told me how he himself much feared and hated the sea. He questioned me also with not a little subtilty (and double-dealing too, I fancied,) regarding my own country, and of things present, and things real. In fact nothing, I think, so much flattered his vanity--unless it was my wonder at Dame Partlett's clucking on his viol-strings--as to learn himself was famous even so far as to ages yet unborn. He gazed on the simple moon with limpid, amiable eyes, and caught my fingers in his. How, then, could I even so much as hint to enquire which century indeed was his, who had no need of any? How could I abash that kindly vanity of his by adding also that, however famous, he must needs be to all eternity--nameless? We conversed long and earnestly in the coolness. He very frankly counselled me not to venture unconducted further into this country. The land of Tragedy was broad. And though on this side it lay adjacent to the naïve and civil people of Comedy; on the further, in the shadow of those bleak, unfooted mountains, lurked unnatural horror and desolation, and cruelty beyond all telling. He very kindly offered me too, if I was indeed bent on seeking the sea, an old boat, still seaworthy, that lay in a creek in the river near by, from which he was wont to fish. As for Rosinante, he supposed a rest would be by no means unwelcome to so faithful a friend. He himself rode little, being indolent, and a happier host than guest; and when I returned here, she should be stuffed with dainties awaiting me. To this I cordially and gratefully agreed; and also even more cordially to remain with him the next day; and the next night after that to take my watery departure. So it was. And a courteous, versatile, and vivacious companion I found him. Rare tales he told me, too, of better days than these, and rarest of his own never-more-returning youth. He loved his childhood, talked on of it with an artless zeal, his eyes a nest of singing-birds. How contrite he was for spirit lost, and daring withheld, and hope discomfited! How simple and urbane concerning his present lowly demands on life, on love, and on futurity! All this, too, with such packed winks and mirth and mourning, that I truly said good-night for the second time to him with a rather melancholy warmth, since to-morrow ... who can face unmoved that viewless sphinx? Moreover, the sea is wide, has fishes in plenty, but never too many coraled grottoes once poor mariners. XV _'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day._ --JOHN WEBSTER. On the stroke of two next morning the doctor conducted me down to the creek in the river-bank where he kept his boat. There was little light but of the stars in the sky; nothing stirring. She floated dim and monstrous on the softly-running water, a navy in germ, and could have sat without danger thirty men like me. We stood on the bank, side by side, eyeing her vacancy. And (I can answer for myself) night-thoughts rose up in us at sight of her. Was it indeed only wind in the reeds that sighed around us? only the restless water insistently whispering and calling? only of darkness were these forbidding shadows? I looked up sharply at the doctor from such pensive embroidery, and found him as far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and we shook hands on the bank in the thick mist. "There's biscuits and a little meat, wine, and fruit," he said in an undertone. "God be with you, sir! I sadly mistrust the future. ... 'Tis ever my way, at parting." We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry of some little fluttering creature of the rushes. And well before dawn I was floating midstream, my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far as this brief narrative will tell, nearly ended. I saw nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. When too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank and await the ebb. But towards evening of the third day I began to approach the sea. I listened to the wailing of its long-winged gulls; snuffed with how broad-nostrilled a gusto that savour not even pinewoods can match, nor any wild flower disguise; and heard at last the sound that stirs beneath all music--the deep's loud-falling billow. I pushed ashore, climbed the sandy bank, and moored my boat to an ash tree at the waterside. And after scrambling some little distance over dunes yet warm with the sun, I came out at length, and stood like a Greek before the sea. Here my bright river disembogued in noise and foam. Far to either side of me stretched the faint gold horns of a bay; and beyond me, almost violet in the shadow of its waves, the shipless sea. I looked on the breaking water with a divided heart. Its light, salt airs, its solitary beauty, its illimitable reaches seemed tidings of a region I could remember only as one who, remembering that he has dreamed, remembers nothing more. Larks rose, singing, behind me. In a calm, golden light my eager river quarrelled with its peace. Here indeed was solitude! It was in searching sea and cliff for the least sign of life that I thought I descried on the furthest extremity of the nearer of the horns of the bay the spires and smouldering domes of a little city. If I gazed intently, they seemed to vanish away, yet still to shine above the azure if, raising my eyes, I looked again. So, caring not how far I must go so long as my path lay beside these breaking waters, I set out on the firm, white sands to prove this city the mirage I deemed it. What wonder, then, my senses fell asleep in that vast lullaby! And out of a daydream almost as deep as that in which I first set out, I was suddenly aroused by a light tapping sound, distinct and regular between the roaring breakers. I lifted my eyes to find the city I was seeking evanished away indeed. But nearer at hand a child was playing upon the beach, whose spade among the pebbles had caused the birdlike noise I had heard. So engrossed was she with her building in the sand that she had not heard me approaching. She laboured on at the margin of the cliff's shadow where the sea-birds cried, answering Echo in the rocks. So solitary and yet so intent, so sedate and yet so eager a little figure she seemed in the long motionlessness of the shore, by the dark heedlessness of the sea, I hesitated to disturb her. Who of all Time's children could this be playing uncompanioned by the sea? And at a little distance betwixt me and her in the softly-mounded sand her spade had already scrawled in large, ungainly capitals, the answer--"Annabel Lee." The little flounced black frock, the tresses of black hair, the small, beautiful dark face--this then was Annabel Lee; and that bright, phantom city I had seen--that was the vanishing mockery of her kingdom. I called her from where I stood--"Annabel Lee!" She lifted her head and shook back her hair, and gazed at me startled and intent. I went nearer. "You are a very lonely little girl," I said. "I am building in the sand," she answered. "A castle?" She shook her head. "It was in dreams," she said, flushing darkly. "What kind of dream was it in then?" "Oh! I often dream it; and I build it in the sand. But there's never time: the sea comes back." "Was the tide quite high when you began?" I asked; for now it was low. "Just that much from the stones," she said; "I waited for it ever so long." "It has a long way to come yet," I said; "you will finish it _this_ time, I dare say." She shook her head and lifted her spade. "Oh no; it is much bigger, more than twice. And I haven't the seaweed, or the shells, and it comes back very, very quickly." "But where is the little boy you play with down here by the sea?" She glanced at me swiftly and surely; and shook her head again. "He would help you." "He didn't in my dream," she said doubtfully. She raised long, stealthy eyes to mine, and spoke softly and deliberately. "Besides, there isn't any little boy." "None, Annabel Lee?" I said. "Why," she answered, "I have played here years and years and years, and there are only the gulls and terns and cormorants, and that!" She pointed with her spade towards the broken water. "You know all their names then?" I said. "Some I know," she answered with a little frown, and looked far out to sea. Then, turning her eyes, she gazed long at me, searchingly, forlornly on a stranger. "I am going home now," she said. I looked at the house of sand and smiled. But she shook her head once more. "It never _could_ be finished," she said firmly, "though I tried and tried, unless the sea would keep quite still just once all day, without going to and fro. And then," she added with a flash of anger--"then I would not build." "Well," said I, "when it is nearly finished, and the water washes up, and up, and washes it away, here is a flower that came from Fairyland. And that, dear heart, is none so far away." She took the purple flower I had plucked in Ennui's garden in her slim, cold hand. "It's amaranth," she said; and I have never seen so old a little look in a child's eyes. "And all the flowers' names too?" I said. She frowned again. "It's amaranth," she said, and ran off lightly and so deftly among the rocks and in the shadow that was advancing now even upon the foam of the sea, that she had vanished before I had time to deter, or to pursue her. I sought her awhile, until the dark rack of sunset obscured the light, and the sea's voice changed; then I desisted. It was useless to remain longer beneath the looming caves, among the stones of so inhospitable a shore. I was a stranger to the tides. And it was clear high-water would submerge the narrow sands whereon I stood. Yet I cannot describe how loth I was to leave to night's desolation the shapeless house of a child. What fate was this that had set her to such profitless labour on the uttermost shores of "Tragedy"? What history lay behind, past, or, as it were, never to come? What gladness too high for earth had nearly once been hers? Her sea-mound took strange shapes in the gloom--light foliage of stone, dark heaviness of granite, wherein rumour played of all that restless rustling; small cries, vast murmurings from those green meadows, old as night. I turned, even ran away, at last. I found my boat in the gloaming where I had left her, safe and sound, except that all the doctor's good things had been nosed and tumbled by some hungry beast in my absence. I stood and thought vacantly of Crusoe, and pig, and guns. But what use to delay? I got in. If it were true, as the excellent doctor had informed me, that seamen reported islands not far distant from these shores, chance might bear me blissfully to one of these. And if not true ... I turned a rather startled face to the water, and made haste not to think. Fortune pierces deep, and baits her hooks with sceptics. Away I went, bobbing mightily over the waves that leapt and wrestled where sea and river met. These safely navigated, I rowed the great creature straight forward across the sea, my face towards dwindling land, my prow to Scorpio. XVI _Art thou pale for weariness._ --PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between water and starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of the sultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above the countries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings played innocently in the heights. I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on the horizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as of fish stirring in the water--the beauty and wonder of Night's dwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality. I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear, as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams of light trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as of wings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking the air, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night. So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness began to steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries across the deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chill mist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom. Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped my oars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, and screening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would be moving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell asleep. I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the sound of voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed upon the cliff by the waterside. All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had descended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; the white dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in the thick arbours. I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright and burning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlasting shadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry woke many, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness. How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers as thick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vague fashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to this same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life? I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath the reflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadow might be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from all land its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, and these were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the little arches. So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirring groves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villa on the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin, the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orange trees, with their unripe fruit upon them. But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking the sea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green, unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossing above the yellow sands. Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approaching and the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were now regarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet. "Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man so softly?" Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade! I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled the deeper out of her baffling eyes. "If you could guess," she said presently, "how my heart leapt in me, as if, poor creature, any oars of earth could bring it ease, you would think me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream, Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of the Greeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, is the world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet that madness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued race sleep at last, nodding no more at me?" I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, that earth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And the madness mirth calls Life flickers yet," I said; "and the little race tosses on in nightmare." "Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' tales. I too once trusted to seem indifferent. But you, if shadow deceives me not, may yet return: I, only to the shades whence earth draws me. Meanwhile," she said, looking softly at the fountain playing in the clear gloom beyond, "rest and grow weary again, for there flock more questions to my tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The gardens are green with flowers, Traveller; let us talk where rosemary blows." Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, her pallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered between ecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom the shrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde. She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed no scarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purest purple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each by each in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypresses beneath them. Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy and time-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of my journey--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for the shingley murmur of the sea, and the calmness of morning. "But, surely," I said, "this must be very far from Troy." "Far indeed," she said. "Far also from the hollow ships." "Far also from the hollow ships," she replied. "Yet," said I, "in the country whence I come is a saying: Where the treasure is--" "Alack! _there_ gloats the miser!" said Criseyde; "but I, Traveller, have no treasure, only a patchwork memory, and that's a great grief." "Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?" I said. She smiled and seated herself, leaning a little forward, looking upon the ground. "Soothfastness _must_,"' she said very gravely, raising her long black eyebrows; "yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered by one who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to be true--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that is Paris; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen, green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; and the faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that must be me, even me, Criseyde!'" "And this thick rosemary-bush that smells of exile, who, then, is that?" I said. She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. "That," she said, "I think I have forgot again." "But," I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickle of persuasion?" "Why," she said, "I think 'twas the fountain was Diomed: I know not. And as for persuasion; he was a man forked, vain, and absolute as all. Let the waterless stone be sudden Diomed--you will confuse my wits, Mariner; where, then, were I?" She smiled, stooping lower. "You have voyaged far?" she said. "From childhood to this side regret," I answered rather sadly. "'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale," she said, "were it but truly told. But yet, and yet, and yet--you may return, and life heals every, every wound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this same making amends men now call 'Purgatory,' they tell me." "'Amends,'" I said; "to whom? for what?" "Welaway," said she, with a narrow fork between her brows; "to most men and to all women, for being that Criseyde." She gazed half solemnly at some picture of reverie. "But which Criseyde?" I said. "She who was every wind's, or but one perfect summer's?" She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of the night that burns so many stars," she said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor busy Uncle Pandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: they love and love again--one same tune of a myriad verses." "All?" I said. She tossed lightly a little dust from her hand. "Nay--all," she replied; "but what is that to me? Mine only to see Charon on the wave pass light over and return. Man of the green world, prithee die not yet awhile! 'Tis dull being a shade. See these cold palms! Yet my heart beats on." "For what?" I said. Criseyde folded her hands and leaned her cheek sidelong upon the stone. "For what?" I repeated. "For what but idle questions?" she said; "for a traveller's vanity that deems looking love-boys into a woman's eyes her sweeter entertainment than all the heroes of Troy. Oh, for a house of nought to be at peace in! Oh, gooseish swan! Oh, brittle vows! Tell me, Voyager, is it not so?--that men are merely angry boys with beards; and women--repeat not, ye who know! Never yet set I these steadfast eyes on a man that would not steal the moon for taper--would she but come down." She turned an arch face to me: "And what is to be faithful?" "I?" said I--"'to be faithful?'" "It is," she said, "to rise and never set, O sun of utter weariness! It is to kindle and never be quenched, O fretting fire of midsummer! It is to be snared and always sing, O shrilling bird of dulness! It is to come, not go; smile, not sigh; wake, never sleep. Couldst _thou_ love so many nots to a silk string?" "What, then, is to change,... to be fickle?" I said. "Ah! to be fickle," she said, "is showers after drought, seas after sand; to cry, unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. And--ask now this pitiless darkness of the eyes!--to be remembered though Lethe flows between. Nay, you shall watch even hope away ere another comes like me to mope and sigh, and play at swords with Memory." She rose to her feet and drew her hands across her face, and smiling, sighed deeply. And I saw how inscrutable and lovely she must ever seem to eyes scornful of mean men's idolatries. "And you will embark again," she said softly; "and in how small a ship on seas so mighty! And whither next will fate entice you, to what new sorrows?" "Who knows?" I said. "And to what further peace?" She laughed lightly. "Speak not of mockeries," she said, and fell silent. She seemed to be thinking quickly and deeply; for even though I did not turn to her, I could see in imagination the restless sparkling of her eyes, the stillness of her ringless hands. Then suddenly she turned. "Stranger," she said, drawing her finger softly along the cold stone of the bench, "there yet remain a few bright hours to morning. Who knows, seeing that felicity is with the bold, did I cast off into the sea--who knows whereto I'd come! 'Tis but a little way to being happy--a touch of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a shuddering silence. Had I but man's courage! Yet this is a solitary place, and the gods are revengeful." I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, by some strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, calming all suspicion. "There is honeycomb here, and the fruit is plenteous. Yes," she said, "and all travellers are violent men--catch and kill meat--that I know, however doleful. 'Tis but a little sigh from day to day in these cool gardens; and rest is welcome when the heart pines not. Listen, now; I will go down and you shall show me--did one have the wit to learn, and courage to remember--show me how sails your wonderful little ship; tell me, too, where on the sea's horizon to one in exile earth lies, with all its pleasant things--yet thinks so bitterly of a woman!" "Tell me," I said; "tell me but one thing of a thousand. Whom would _you_ seek, did a traveller direct you, and a boat were at your need?" She looked at me, pondering, weaving her webs about me, lulling doubt, and banishing fear. "One could not miss--a hero!" she said, flaming. "That, then, shall be our bargain," I replied with wrath at my own folly. "Tell me this precious hero's name, and though all the dogs of the underworld come to course me, you shall take my boat, and leave me here--only this hero's name, a pedlar's bargain!" She lowered her lids. "It must be Diomed," she said with the least sigh. "It must be," I said. "Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites," she said happily, "the silver-tongued!" "Good-bye, then," I said. "Good-bye," she replied very gently. "Why, how could there be a vow between us? I go, and return. You await me--me, Criseyde, Traveller, the lonely-hearted. That is the little all, O much-surrendering Stranger! Would that long-ago were now--before all chaffering!" Again a thousand questions rose to my tongue. She looked sidelong at the dry fountain, and one and all fell silent. "It is harsh, endless labour beneath the burning sun; storms and whirlwinds go about the sea, and the deep heaves with monsters." "Oh, sweet danger!" she said, mocking me. I turned from her without a word, like an angry child, and made my way to the steps into the sea, pulled round my boat into a little haven beside them, and shewed her oars and tackle and tiller; all the toil, and peril, the wild chances." "Why," she cried, while I was yet full of the theme, "I will go then at once, and to-morrow Troy will come." I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerless riddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave no more thought to all life else. Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, put fruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered a trembling hand, and led her down. The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame of crimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on of evening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had no surmise of. Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitary country; pathless," she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listening to the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at the consummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, with unimaginable entreaty. "What do you seek else?" I cried in a voice I scarcely recognised. "Oh, you speak in riddles!" I sprang into the boat and seized the heavy oars. Something like laughter, or, as it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, echoed among the rocks at the rattling of the rowlocks. As if invisible hands withdrew it from me, the island floated back. I turned my prow towards the last splendour of the sun. A chill breeze played over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes. Buoyant was my boat; how light her cargo!--an oozing honeycomb, ashy fruits, a few branches of drooping leaves, closing flowers; and solitary on the thwart the wraith of life's unquiet dream. So fell night once more, and made all dim. And only the cold light of the firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the sea on which I tossed, whose moon was dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the distant stars. Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury 
7167	----	THE POCKET UNIVERSITY VOLUME XXIII THE GUIDE TO READING EDITED BY DR. LYMAN ABBOTT, ASA DON DICKINSON AND OTHERS CONTENTS BOOKS FOR STUDY AND READING By Lyman Abbott THE PURPOSE OF READING By John Macy How TO GET THE BEST Out OF BOOKS By Richard Le Gallienne THE GUIDE TO DAILY READING By Asa Don Dickinson GENERAL INDEX OF AUTHORS GENERAL INDEX OF TITLES THE POCKET UNIVERSITY Books for Study and Reading BY LYMAN ABBOTT There are three services which books may render in the home: they may be ornaments, tools, or friends. I was told a few years ago the following story which is worth retelling as an illustration of the use of books as ornaments. A millionaire who had one house in the city, one in the mountains, and one in the South, wished to build a fourth house on the seashore. A house ought to have a library. Therefore this new house was to have a library. When the house was finished he found the library shelves had been made so shallow that they would not take books of an ordinary size. His architect proposed to change the bookshelves. The millionaire did not wish the change made, but told his architect to buy fine bindings of classical books and glue them into the shelves. The architect on making inquiries discovered that the bindings would cost more than slightly shop-worn editions of the books themselves. So the books were bought, cut in two from top to bottom about in the middle, one half thrown away, and the other half replaced upon the shelves that the handsome backs presented the same appearance they would have presented if the entire book had been there. Then the glass doors were locked, the key to the glass doors lost, and sofas and chairs and tables put against them. Thus the millionaire has his library furnished with handsome bindings and these I may add are quite adequate for all the use which he wishes to make of them. This is a rather extreme case of the use of books as ornaments, but it illustrates in a bizarre way what is a not uncommon use. There is this to be said for that illiterate millionaire: well-bound books are excellent ornaments. No decoration with wall paper or fresco can make a parlor as attractive as it can be made with low bookshelves filled with works of standard authors and leaving room above for statuary, or pictures, or the inexpensive decoration of flowers picked from one's own garden. I am inclined to think that the most attractive parlor I have ever visited is that of a bookish friend whose walls are thus furnished with what not only delights the eye, but silently invites the mind to an inspiring companionship. More important practically than their use as ornaments is the use of books as tools. Every professional man needs his special tools--the lawyer his law books, the doctor his medical books, the minister his theological treatises and his Biblical helps. I can always tell when I go into a clergyman's study by looking at his books whether he is living in the Twentieth Century or in the Eighteenth. Tools do not make the man, but they make his work and so show what the man is. Every home ought to have some books that are tools and the children should be taught how to use them. There should be at least an atlas, a dictionary, and an encyclopædia. If in the evening when the family talk about the war in the Balkans the father gets out the atlas and the children look to see where Roumania and Bulgaria and Greece and Constantinople and the Dardanelles are on the map, they will learn more of real geography in half an hour than they will learn in a week of school study concerning countries in which they have no interest. When there is reading aloud in the family circle, if every unfamiliar word is looked up in a dictionary, which should always lie easily accessible upon the table, they will get unconsciously a widening of their vocabulary and a knowledge of the use of English which will be an invaluable supplement to the work of their teacher of English in the school. As to cyclopædias they are of all sizes from the little six- volumed cyclopædia in the Everyman's Library to the twenty-nine volumed Encyclopædia Britannica, and from the general cyclopædia with more or less full information on every conceivable topic to the more distinctive family cyclopædia which covers the life of the household. Where there are children in the family the cyclopædia which covers the field they are most apt to be interested in--such as "The Library of Work & Play" or "The Guide Series" to biography, music, pictures, etc. --is the best one to begin with. After they have learned to go to it for information which they want, they will desire a more general cyclopædia because their wants have increased and broadened. So much for books as ornaments and as tools. Certainly not less important, if comparisons can be made I am inclined to say more important, is their usefulness as friends. In Smith College this distinction is marked by the College authorities in an interesting and valuable manner. In the library building there is a room for study. It is furnished with a number of plain oak or walnut tables and with chairs which do not invite to repose. There are librarians present to get from the stacks the special books which the student needs. The room is barren of ornament. Each student is hard at --work examining, comparing, collating. She is to be called on to-morrow in class to tell what she has learned, or next week to hand in a thesis the product of her study. All eyes are intent upon the allotted task; no one looks up to see you when you enter. In the same building is another room which I will call The Lounge, though I think it bears a different name. The books are upon shelves around the wall and all are within easy reach. Many of them are fine editions. A wood fire is burning in the great fireplace. The room is furnished with sofas and easy chairs. No one is at work. No one is talking. No! but they are listening--listening to authors whose voices have long since been silent in death. In every home there ought to be books that are friends. In every day, at least in every week, there ought to be some time which can be spent in cultivating their friendship. This is reading, and reading is very different from study. The student has been at work all the morning with his tools. He has been studying a question of Constitutional Law: What are the powers of the President of the United States? He has examined the Constitution; then Willoughby or Watson on the Constitution; then he turns to The Federalist; then perhaps to the Constitutional debates, or to the histories, such as Von Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, or to treatises, such as Bryce's American Commonwealth. He compares the different opinions, weighs them, deliberates, endeavors to reach a decision. Wearied with his morning pursuit of truth through a maze of conflicting theories, he puts his tools by and goes to dinner. In the evening he sits down in the same library for an hour with his friends. He selects his friend according to his mood. Macaulay carries him back across the centuries and he lives for an hour with The Puritans or with Dr. Samuel Johnson. Carlyle carries him unharmed for an hour through the exciting scenes of the French Revolution; or he chuckles over the caustic humor of Thackeray's semi-caricatures of English snobs. With Jonathan Swift as a guide he travels with Gulliver into no-man's land and visits Lilliput or Brobdingnag; or Oliver Goldsmith enables him to forget the strenuous life of America by taking him to "The Deserted Village." He joins Charles Lamb's friends, listens to the prose-poet's reveries on Dream-Children, then closes his eyes and falls into a reverie of his own childhood days; or he spends an hour with Tennyson, charmed by his always musical but not often virile verse, or with Browning, inspired by his always virile but often rugged verse, or with Milton or Dante, and forgets this world altogether, with its problems and perplexities, convoyed to another realm by these spiritual guides; or he turns to the autobiography of one of the great men of the past, telling of his achievements, revealing his doubts and difficulties, his self-conflicts and self-victories, and so inspiring the reader to make his own life sublime. Or one of the great scientists may interpret to him the wonders of nature and thrill him with the achievements of man in solving some of the riddles of the universe and winning successive mastery over its splendid forces. It is true that no dead thing is equal to a living person. The one afternoon I spent in John G. Whittier's home, the one dinner I took with Professor Tyndall in his London home, the one half hour which Herbert Spencer gave to me at his Club, mean more to me than any equal time spent in reading the writings of either one of them. These occasions of personal fellowship abide in the memory as long as life lasts. This I say with emphasis that what I say next may not be misunderstood--that there is one respect in which the book is the best of possible friends. You do not need to decide beforehand what friend you will invite to spend the evening with you. When supper is over and you sit down by the evening lamp for your hour of companionship, you give your invitation according to your inclination at the time. And if you have made a mistake, and the friend you have invited is not the one you want to talk to, you can "shut him up" and not hurt his feelings. Remarkable is the friend who speaks only when you want to listen and can keep silence when you want silence. Who is there who has not been sometimes bored by a good friend who went on talking when you wanted to reflect on what he had already said? Who is there who has not had his patience well nigh exhausted at times by a friend whose enthusiasm for his theme appeared to be quite inexhaustible? A book never bores you because you can always lay it down before it becomes a bore. Most families can do with a few books that are tools. In these days in which there is a library in almost every village, the family that has an atlas, a dictionary, and a cyclopædia can look to the public library for such other tools as are necessary. And we can depend on the library or the book club for books that are mere acquaintances--the current book about current events, the books that are read to-day and forgotten to-morrow, leaving only a residuum in our memory, the book that, once read, we never expect to read again. In my own home this current literature is either borrowed and returned or, if purchased, as soon as it has been used is passed along to neighbors or to the village library. Its room is better than its company on my over-crowded book shelves. But books that are friends ought to abide in the home. The very form of the book grows familiar; a different edition, even a different copy, does not quite serve the same friendly purpose. If the reader is wise he talks to his friend as well as listens to him and adds in pencil notes, in the margin or on the back pages of the book, his own reflections. I take up these books marked with the indications of my conversation with my friend and in these pencilled memoranda find an added value. Sometimes the mark emphasizes an agreement between my friend and me, sometimes it emphasizes a disagreement, and sometimes it indicates the progress in thought I have made since last we met. A wisely marked book is sometimes doubled in value by the marking. Before I bring this essay to a close, already lengthened beyond my predetermined limits, I venture to add four rules which may be of value at least to the casual reader. For reading, select the book which suits your inclination. In study it is wise to make your will command your mind and go on with your task however unattractive it may prove to you. You may be a Hamiltonian, and Jefferson's views of the Constitution may repel you, or even bore you. No matter. Go on. Scholarship requires persistence in study of matter that repels or even bores the student. You may be a devout believer and Herbert Spencer repellent. Nevertheless, if you are studying you may need to master Herbert Spencer. But if you are reading, read what interests you. If Scott does not interest you and Dickens does, drop Scott and read Dickens. You need not be any one's enemy; but you need not be a friend with everybody. This is as true of books as of persons. For friendship some agreement in temperament is quite essential. Henry Ward Beecher's application of this principle struck me as interesting and unique. He did a great deal of his reading on the train in his lecture tours. His invariable companion was a black bag and the black bag always contained some books. As I am writing from recollection of a conversation with him some sixty years ago my statement may lack in accuracy of detail, but not, I think, in essential veracity. He selected in the beginning of the year some four departments of reading, such as Poetry, History, Philosophy, Fiction, and in each department a specific course, such as Greek Poetry, Macaulay's History, Spencer's Philosophy, Scott's Novels. Then he read according to his mood, but generally in the selected course: if poetry, the Greek poets; if history, Macaulay; if philosophy, Spencer; if fiction, Scott. This gave at once liberty to his mood and unity to his reading. One may read either for acquisition or for inspiration. A gentleman who has acquired a national reputation as a popular lecturer and preacher, formed the habit, when in college, of always subjecting himself to a recitation in all his serious reading. After finishing a chapter he would close the book and see how much of what he had read he could recall. One consequence is the development of a quite marvelous memory, the results of which are seen in frequent and felicitous references in his public speaking to literature both ancient and modern. He who reads for inspiration pursues a different course. If as he reads, a thought expressed by his author starts a train of thought in his own mind, he lays down his book and follows his thought wherever it may lead him. He endeavors to remember, not the thought which the author has recorded, but the unrecorded thought which the author has stimulated in his own mind. Reading is to him not an acquisition but a ferment. I imagine from my acquaintance with Phillips Brooks and with his writings that this was his method. I have a friend who says that he prefers to select his authors for himself, not to have them selected for him. But he has money with which to buy the books he wants, a room in which to put them, and the broad culture which enables him to make a wise selection. Most of us lack one at least of these qualifications: the money, the space, or the knowledge. For most of us a library for the home, selected as this Pocket Library has been has three great advantages: the cost is not prohibitive; the space can easily be made in out home for the books; and the selection is more wisely made than any we could make for ourselves. For myself I should be very glad to have the editors of this series come into my library, which is fairly large but sadly needs weeding out, give me a literary appraisal of my books, and tell me what volumes in their respective departments they think I could best dispense with to make room for their betters, and what their betters would be. To these considerations in favor of such a home library as this, may be added the fact that the books are of such a size that one can easily put a volume in his pocket when he is going on a train or in a trolley car. For busy men and women often the only time for reading is the time which too many of us are apt to waste in doing nothing. Perhaps the highest use of good books is their use as friends. Such a wisely selected group of friends as this library furnishes is an invaluable addition to any home which receives it and knows how to make wise use of it. I am glad to have the privilege of introducing it and hope that this introduction may add to the number of homes in which it will find a welcome. THE PURPOSE OF READING BY JOHN MACY Why do we read books is one of those vast questions that need no answer. As well ask, Why ought we to be good? or, Why do we believe in a God? The whole universe of wisdom answers. To attempt an answer in a single article would be like turning a spyglass for a moment toward the stars. We take the great simple things for granted, like the air we breathe. In a country that holds popular education to be the foundation of all its liberties and fortunes, we do not find many people who need to be argued into the belief that the reading of books is good for us; even people who do not read much acknowledge vaguely that they ought to read more. There are, to be sure, men of rough worldly wisdom, even endowed with spiritual insight, who distrust "book learning" and fall back on the obvious truth that experience of life is the great teacher. Such persons are in a measure justified in their conviction by the number of unwise human beings who have read much but to no purpose. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head is a living argument against mere reading. But we can meet such argument by pointing out that the blockhead who cannot learn from books cannot learn much from life, either. That sometimes useful citizen whom it is fashionable to call a Philistine, and who calls himself a "practical man," often has under him a beginner fresh from the schools, who is glib and confident in repeating bookish theories, but is not yet skillful in applying them. If the practical man is thoughtless, he sniffs at theory and points to his clumsy assistant as proof of the uselessness of what is to be got from books. If he is wise, the practical man realizes how much better off he would be, how much farther his hard work and experience might have carried him, if he had had the advantage of bookish training. Moreover, the hard-headed skeptic, self-made and self-secure, who will not traffic with the literature that touches his life work, is seldom so confined to his own little shop that he will not, for recreation, take holiday tours into the literature of other men's lives and labors. The man who does not like to read any books is, I am confident, seldom found, and at the risk of slandering a patriot, I will express the doubt whether he is a good citizen. Honest he may be, but certainly not wise. The human race for thousands of years has been writing its experiences, telling how it has met our everlasting problems, how it has struggled with darkness and rejoiced in light. What fools we should be to try to live our lives without the guidance and inspiration of the generations that have gone before, without the joy, encouragement, and sympathy that the best imaginations of our generation are distilling into words. For literature is simply life selected and condensed into books. In a few hours we can follow all that is recorded of the life of Jesus--the best that He did in years of teaching and suffering all ours for a day of reading, and the more deeply ours for a lifetime of reading and meditation! If the expression of life in words is strong and beautiful and true it outlives empires, like the oldest books of the Old Testament. If it is weak or trivial or untrue, it is forgotten like most of the "stories" in yesterday's newspaper, like most of the novels of last year. The expression of truth, the transmission of knowledge and emotions between man and man from generation to generation, these are the purposes of literature. Not to read books is like being shut up in a dungeon while life rushes by outside. I happen to be writing in Christmas week, and I have read for the tenth time "A Christmas Carol," by Dickens, that amazing allegory in which the hard, bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth, that wizard's caldron in which humor bubbles and from which rise phantom figures of religion and poetry. Can any one doubt that if this story were read by every man, woman, and child in the world, Christmas would be a happier time and the feelings of the race elevated and strengthened? The story has power enough to defeat armies, to make revolutions in the faith of men, and turn the cold markets of the world into festival scenes of charity. If you know any mean person you may be sure that he has not read "A Christmas Carol," or that he read it long ago and has forgotten it. I know there are persons who pretend that the sentimentality of Dickens destroys their interest in him. I once took a course with an over-refined, imperfectly educated professor of literature, who advised me that in time I should outgrow my liking for Dickens. It was only his way of recommending to me a kind of fiction that I had not learned to like. In time I did learn to like it, but I did not outgrow Dickens. A person who can read "A Christmas Carol" aloud to the end and keep his voice steady is, I suspect, not a safe person to trust with one's purse or one's honor. It is not necessary to argue about the value of literature or even to define it. One way of bringing ourselves to realize vividly what literature can do for us is to enter the libraries of great men and see what books have done for the acknowledged leaders of our race. You will recall John Stuart Mill's experience in reading Wordsworth. Mill was a man of letters as well as a scientific economist and philosopher, and we expect to find that men of letters have been nourished on literature; reading must necessarily have been a large part of their professional preparation. The examples of men of action who have been molded and inspired by books will perhaps be more helpful to remember; for most of us are not to be writers or to engage in purely intellectual work; our ambitions point to a thousand different careers in the world of action. Lincoln was not primarily a man of letters, although he wrote noble prose on occasion, and the art of expression was important, perhaps indispensable, in his political success. He read deeply in the law and in books on public questions. For general literature he had little time, either during his early struggles or after his public life began, and his autobiographical memorandum contains the significant words: "Education defective." But these more significant words are found in a letter which he wrote to Hackett, the player: "Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read, while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are 'Lear,' 'Richard III,' 'Henry VIII,' 'Hamlet,' and, especially, 'Macbeth.'" If he had not read these masterpieces, no doubt he would have become President just the same and guided the country through its terrible difficulties; but we may be fairly sure that the high philosophy by which he lifted the political differences of his day above partisan quarrels, the command of words which gives his letters and speeches literary permanence apart from their biographical interest, the poetic exaltation of the Gettysburg Address, these higher qualities of genius, beyond the endowment of any native wit, came to Lincoln in some part from the reading of books. It is important to note that he followed Franklin's advice to read much but not too many books; the list of books mentioned in the biographical records of Lincoln is not long. But he went over those half dozen plays "frequently." We should remember, too, that he based his ideals upon the Bible and his style upon the King James Version. His writings abound in Biblical phrases. We are accustomed to regard Lincoln as a thinker. His right arm in the saddest duty of his life, General Grant, was a man of deeds; as Lincoln said of him, he was a "copious worker and fighter, but a very meager writer and telegrapher." In his "Memoirs," Grant makes a modest confession about his reading: "There is a fine library connected with the Academy [West Point] from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted more time to these than to books relating to the course of studies. Much of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not those of a trashy sort. I read all of Bulwer's then published, Cooper's, Marryat's, Scott's, Washington Irving's works, Lever's, and many others that I do not now remember." Grant was not a shining light in his school days, nor indeed in his life until the Civil War, and at first sight he is not a striking example of a great man influenced by books. Yet who can deny that the fruit of that early reading is to be found in his "Memoirs," in which a man of action, unused to writing, and called upon to narrate great events, discovers an easy adequate style? There is a dangerous kind of conjecture in which many biographers indulge when they try to relate logically the scattered events of a man's life. A conjectured relation is set down as a proved or unquestioned relation. I have said something about this in [Footnote: See John Macy's Guide to Reading, Chapter VIII.] writing on biography, and I do not wish to violate my own teachings. But we may, without harm, hazard the suggestion, which is only a suggestion, that some of the chivalry of Scott's heroes wove itself into Grant's instincts and inspired this businesslike, modern general, in the days when politeness has lost some of its flourish, to be the great gentleman he was at Appomattox when he quietly wrote into the terms of the surrender that the Confederate officers should keep their side arms. Stevenson's account of the episode in his essay on "Gentlemen" is heightened, though not above the dignity of the facts, certainly not to a degree that is untrue to the facts, as they are to be read in Grant's simple narrative. Since I have agreed not to say "ought to read," I will only express the hope that the quotation from Stevenson will lead you to the essay and to the volume that contains it. "On the day of the capitulation, Lee wore his presentation sword; it was the first thing that Grant observed, and from that moment he had but one thought: how to avoid taking it. A man, who should perhaps have had the nature of an angel, but assuredly not the special virtues of a gentleman, might have received the sword, and no more words about it; he would have done well in a plain way. One who wished to be a gentleman, and knew not how, might have received and returned it: he would have done infamously ill, he would have proved himself a cad; taking the stage for himself, leaving to his adversary confusion of countenance and the ungraceful posture of a man condemned to offer thanks. Grant without a word said, added to the terms this article: 'All officers to retain their side arms'; and the problem was solved and Lee kept his sword, and Grant went down to posterity, not perhaps a fine gentleman, but a great one." Napoleon, who of all men of mighty deeds after Julius Caesar had the greatest intellect, was a tireless reader, and since he needed only four or five hours' sleep in twenty-four he found time to read in the midst of his prodigious activities. Nowadays those of us who are preparing to conquer the world are taught to strengthen ourselves for the task by getting plenty of sleep. Napoleon's devouring eyes read far into the night; when he was in the field his secretaries forwarded a stream of books to his headquarters; and if he was left without a new volume to begin, some underling had to bear his imperial displeasure. No wonder that his brain contained so many ideas that, as the sharp- tongued poet, Heine, said, one of his lesser thoughts would keep all the scholars and professors in Germany busy all their lives making commentaries on it. In Franklin's "Autobiography" we have an unusually clear statement of the debt of a man of affairs to literature: "From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.... My father's little library consisted chiefly of books on polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved that I should not be a clergyman. 'Plutarch's Lives' there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, called an 'Essay on Projects,' and another of Dr. Mather's, called 'Essays to do Good,' which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life." It is not surprising to find that the most versatile of versatile Americans read De Foe's "Essay on Projects," which contains practical suggestions on a score of subjects, from banking and insurance to national academics. In Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good" is the germ perhaps of the sensible morality of Franklin's "Poor Richard." The story of how Franklin pave his nights to the study of Addison and by imitating the Spectator papers taught himself to write, is the best of lessons in self-cultivation in English. The "Autobiography" is proof of how well he learned, not Addison's style, which was suited to Joseph Addison and not to Benjamin Franklin, but a clear, firm manner of writing. In Franklin's case we can see not only what he owed to books, but how one side of his fine, responsive mind was starved because, as he put it, more proper books did not fall in his way. The blind side of Franklin's great intellect was his lack of religious imagination. This defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature of the religious books in his father's library. Repelled by the dull discourses, the young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic mysticism which the New England divines concealed in their polemic argument. Franklin's liking for Bunyan and his confession that his father's discouragement kept him from being a poet--"most probably," he says, "a very bad one"--show that he would have responded to the right kind of religious literature, and not have remained all his life such a complacent rationalist. If it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put ourselves in communication with the best minds of our race, we need go no farther for a definition of "good reading." Whatever human beings hare said well is literature, whether it be the Declaration of Independence or a love story. Reading consists in nothing more than in taking one of the volumes in which somebody has said something well, opening it on one's knee, and beginning. We take it for granted, then, that we know why we read. We may ask one further question: How shall we read? One answer is that we should read with as much of ourselves as a book warrants, with the part of ourselves that a book demands. Mrs. Browning says: We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits--so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. We sometimes know exactly what we wish to get from a book, especially if it is a volume of information on a definite subject. But the great book is full of treasures that one does not deliberately seek, and which indeed one may miss altogether on the first journey through. It is almost nonsensical to say: Read Macaulay for clearness, Carlyle for power, Thackeray for ease. Literary excellence is not separated and bottled up in any such drug-shop array. If Macaulay is a master of clearness it is because he is much else besides. Unless we read a man for all there is in him, we get very little; we meet, not a living human being, not a vital book, but something dead, dismembered, disorganized. We do not read Thackeray for ease; we read him for Thackeray and enjoy his ease by the way. We must read a book for all there is in it or we shall get little or nothing. To be masters of books we must have learned to let books master us. This is true of books that we are required to read, such as text-books, and of those we read voluntarily and at leisure. The law of reading is to give a book its due and a little more. The art of reading is to know how to apply this law. For there is an art of reading, for each of us to learn for himself, a private way of making the acquaintance of books. Macaulay, whose mind was never hurried or confused, learned to read very rapidly, to absorb a page at a glance. A distinguished professor, who has spent his life in the most minutely technical scholarship, surprised us one day by commending to his classes the fine art of "skipping." Many good books, including some most meritorious "three- decker" novels, have their profitless pages, and it is useful to know by a kind of practised instinct where to pause and reread and where to run lightly and rapidly over the page. It is a useful accomplishment not only in the reading of fiction, but in the business of life, to the man of affairs who must get the gist of a mass of written matter, and to the student of any special subject. Usually, of course, a book that is worth reading at all is worth reading carefully. Thoroughness of reading is the first thing to preach and to practise, and it is perhaps dangerous to suggest to a beginner that any book should be skimmed. The suggestion will serve its purpose if it indicates that there are ways to read, that practice in reading is like practice in anything else; the more one does, and the more intelligently one does it, the farther and more easily one can go. In the best reading--that is, the most thoughtful reading of the most thoughtful books--attention is necessary. It is even necessary that we should read some works, some passages, so often and with such close application that we commit them to memory. It is said that the habit of learning pieces by heart is not so prevalent as it used to be. I hope that this is not so. What! have you no poems by heart, no great songs, no verses from the Bible, no speeches from Shakespeare? Then you have not begun to read, you have not learned how to read. We have said enough, perhaps, of the theories of reading. The one lesson that seems most obvious is that we must come close to literature. HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF BOOKS By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE One is sometimes asked by young people panting after the waterbrooks of knowledge: "How shall I get the best out of books?" Here indeed, is one of those questions which can be answered only in general terms, with possible illustrations from one's own personal experience. Misgivings, too, as to one's fitness to answer it may well arise, as wistfully looking round one's own bookshelves, one asks oneself: "Have I myself got the best out of this wonderful world of books?" It is almost like asking oneself: "Have I got the best out of life?" As we make the survey, it will surely happen that our eyes fall on many writers whom the stress of life, or spiritual indolence, has prevented us from using as all the while they have been eager to be used; friends we might have made yet never have made, neglected counsellors we would so often have done well to consult, guides that could have saved us many a wrong turning in the difficult way. There, in unvisited corners of our shelves, what neglected fountains of refreshments, gardens in which we have never walked, hills we have never climbed! "Well," we say with a sigh, "a man cannot read everything; it is life that has interrupted our studies, and probably the fact is that we have accumulated more books than we really need." The young reader's appetite is largely in his eyes, and it is very natural for one who is born with a taste for books to gather them about him at first indiscriminately, on the hearsay recommendation of fame, before he really knows what his own individual tastes are, or are going to be, and in that wistful survey I have imagined, our eyes will fall, too, with some amusement, on not a few volumes to which we never have had any really personal relation, and which, whatever their distinction or their value for others, were never meant for us. The way to do with such books is to hand them over to some one who has a use for them. On our shelves they are like so much good thrown away, invitations to entertainments for which we have no taste. In all vital libraries, such a process of progressive refection is continually going on, and to realize what we do not want in books, or cannot use, must, obviously, be a first principle in our getting the best out of them. Yes, we read too many books, and too many that, as they do not really interest us, bring us neither benefit nor diversion. Even from the point of view of reading for pleasure, we manage our reading badly. We listlessly allow ourselves to be bullied by publishers' advertisements into reading the latest fatuity in fiction, without, in one case out of twenty, finding any of that pleasure we are ostensibly seeking. Instead, indeed, we are bored and enervated, where we might have been refreshed, either by romance or laughter. Such reading resembles the idle absorption of innocuous but interesting beverages, which cheer as little as they inebriate, and yet at the same time make frivolous demands on the digestive functions. No one but a publisher could call such reading "light." Actually it is weariness to the flesh and heaviness to the spirit. If, therefore, our idea of the best in books is the recreation they can so well bring; if we go to books as to a playground to forget our cares and to blow off the cobwebs of business, let us make sure that we find what we seek. It is there, sure enough. The playgrounds of literature are indeed wide, and alive with bracing excitement, nor is there any limit to the variety of the games. But let us be sure, when we set Out to be amused, that we really are amused, that our humorists do really make us laugh, and that our story-tellers have stories to tell and know how to tell them. Beware of imitations, and, when in doubt, try Shakespeare, and Dumas--even Ouida. As a rule, avoid the "spring lists," or "summer reading." "Summer reading" is usually very hot work. Hackneyed as it is, there is no better general advice on reading than Shakespeare's-- No profit is where is no pleasure taken, In brief, sir, study what you most affect. Not only in regard to books whose purpose, frankly, is recreation, but also in regard to the graver uses of books, this counsel no less holds. No reading does us any good that is not a pleasure to us. Her paths are paths of pleasantness. Yet, of course, this does not mean that all profitable reading is easy reading. Some of the books that give us the finest pleasure need the closest application for their enjoyment. There is always a certain spiritual and mental effort necessary to be made before we tackle the great books. One might compare it to the effort of getting up to see the sun rise. It is no little tug to leave one's warm bed--but once we are out in the crystalline morning air, wasn't it worth it? Perhaps our finest pleasure always demands some such austerity of preparation. That is the secret of the truest epicureanism. Books like Dante's "Divine Comedy," or Plato's dialogues, will not give themselves to a lounging reader. They demand a braced, attentive spirit. But when the first effort has been made, how exhilarating are the altitudes in which we find ourselves; what a glow of pure joy is the reward which we are almost sure to win by our mental mountaineering. But such books are not for moments when we are unwilling or unable to make that necessary effort. We cannot always be in the mood for the great books, and often we are too tired physically, or too low down on the depressed levels of daily life, even to lift our eyes toward the hills. To attempt the great books--or any books at all--in such moods and moments, is a mistake. We may thus contract a prejudice against some writer who, approached in more fortunate moments, would prove the very man we were looking for. To know when to read is hardly less important than to know what to read. Of course, every one must decide the matter for himself; but one general counsel may be ventured: Read only what you want to read, and only when you want to read it. Some readers find the early morning, when they have all the world to themselves, their best time for reading, and, if you are a good sleeper, and do not find early rising more wearying than refreshing, there is certainly no other time of the day when the mind is so eagerly receptive, has so keen an edge of appetite, and absorbs a book in so fine an intoxication. For your true book-lover there is no other exhilaration so exquisite as that with which one reads an inspiring book in the solemn freshness of early morning. One's nerves seem peculiarly strung for exquisite impressions in the first dewy hours of the day, there is a virginal sensitiveness and purity about all our senses, and the mere delight of the eye in the printed page is keener than at any other time. "The Muses love the morning, and that is a fit time for study," said Erasmus to his friend Christianus of Lubeck; and, certainly, if early rising agrees with one, there is no better time for getting the very best out of a book. Moreover, morning reading has a way of casting a spell of peace over the whole day. It has a sweet, solemnizing effect on our thoughts--a sort of mental matins--and through the day's business it accompanies us as with hidden music. There are others who prefer to do their reading at night, and I presume that most readers of this paper are so circumstanced as to have no time to spare for reading during the day. Personally, I think that one of the best places to read in is bed. Paradoxical as it may sound, one is not so apt to fall asleep over his book in bed as in the post-prandial armchair. While one's body rests itself, one's mind, remains alert, and, when the time for sleep comes at last, it passes into unconsciousness, tranquilized and sweetened with thought and pleasantly weary with healthy exercise. One awakens, too, next morning, with, so to say, a very pleasant taste of meditation in the mouth. Erasmus, again, has a counsel for the bedtime reader, expressed with much felicity. "A little before you sleep," he says, "read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep; and, when you awake in the morning, call yourself to an account for it." In an old Atlantic Monthly, from which, if I remember aright, he never rescued it, Oliver Wendell Holmes has a delightful paper on the delights of reading in bed, entitled "Pillow-Smoothing Authors." Then, though I suppose we shall have the oculists against us, the cars are good places to read in--if you have the power of detachment, and are able to switch off your ears from other people's conversation. It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. Most likely you will carry it many a day and never give it a single look, but, even so, a book in the hand is always a companionable reminder of that happier world of fancy, which, alas! most of us can only visit by playing truant from the real world. As some men wear boutonnieres, so a reader carries a book, and sometimes, when he is feeling the need of beauty, or the solace of a friend, he opens it, and finds both. Probably he will count among the most fruitful moments of his reading the snatched glimpses of beauty and wisdom he has caught in the morning car. The covers of his book have often proved like some secret door, through which, surreptitiously opened, he has looked for a moment into his own particular fairy land. Never mind the oculist, therefore, but, whenever you feel like it, read in the car. One or two technical considerations may be dealt with in this place. How to remember what one reads is one of them. Some people are blest with such good memories that they never forget anything that they have once read. Literary history has recorded many miraculous memories. Still, it is quite possible to remember too much, and thus turn one's mind into a lumber-room of useless information. A good reader forgets even more than he remembers. Probably we remember all that is really necessary for us, and, except in so far as our reading is technical and directed toward some exact science or, profession, accuracy of memory is not important. As the Sabbath was made for man, so books were made for the reader, and, when a reader has assimilated from any given book his own proper nourishment and pleasure, the rest of the book is so much oyster shell. The end of true reading is the development of individuality. Like a certain water insect, the reader instinctively selects from the outspread world of books the building materials for the house of his soul. He chooses here and rejects there, and remembers or forgets according to the formative desire of his nature. Yet it often happens that he forgets much that he needs to remember, and thus the question of methodical aids to memory arises. One's first thought, of course, is of the commonplace book. Well, have you ever kept one, or, to be more accurate, tried to keep one? Personally, I believe in the commonplace book so long as we don't expect too much from it. Its two dangers are (1) that one is apt to make far too many and too minute entries, and (2) that one is apt to leave all the remembering to the commonplace book, with a consequent relaxation of one's own attention. On the other hand, the mere discipline of a commonplace book is a good thing, and if--as I think is the best way--we copy out the passages at full length, they are thus the more securely fixed in the memory. A commonplace book kept with moderation is really useful, and may be delightful. But the entries should be made at full length. Otherwise, the thing becomes a mere index, an index which encourages us to forget. Another familiar way of assisting one's memory in reading is to mark one's own striking passages. This method is chiefly worth while for the sake of one's second and subsequent readings; though it all depends when one makes the markings--at what time of his life, I mean. Markings made at the age of twenty years are of little use at thirty--except negatively. In fact, I have usually found that all I care to read again of a book read at twenty is just the passages I did not mark. This consideration, however, does not depreciate the value of one's comparatively contemporary markings. At the same time, marking, like indexing, is apt, unless guarded against, to relax the memory. One is apt to mark a passage in lieu of remembering it. Still, for a second reading, as I say--a second reading not too long after the first-- marking is a useful method, particularly if one regards his first reading of a book as a prospecting of the ground rather than a taking possession. One's first reading is a sort of flying visit, during which he notes the places he would like to visit again and really come to know. A brief index of one's markings at the end of a volume is a method of memory that commended itself to the booklovers of former days--to Leigh Hunt, for instance. Yet none of these external methods, useful as they may prove, can compare with a habit of thorough attention. We read far too hurriedly, too much in the spirit of the "quick lunch." No doubt we do so a great deal from the misleading idea that there is so very much to read. Actually, there is very little to read,--if we wish for real reading-- and there is time to read it all twice over. We--Americans--bolt our books as we do our food, and so get far too little good out of them. We treat our mental digestions as brutally as we treat our stomachs. Meditation is the digestion of the mind, but we allow ourselves no time for meditation. We gorge our eyes with the printed page, but all too little of what we take in with our eyes ever reaches our minds or our spirits. We assimilate what we can from all this hurry of superfluous food, and the rest goes to waste, and, as a natural consequence, contributes only to the wear and tear of our mental organism. Books should be real things. They were so once, when a man would give a fat field in exchange for a small manuscript; and they are no less real to-day--some of them. Each age contributes one or two real books to the eternal library--and always the old books remain, magic springs of healing and refreshment. If no one should write a book for a thousand years, there are quite enough books to keep us going. Real books there are in plenty. Perhaps there are more real books than there are real readers. Books are the strong tincture of experience. They are to be taken carefully, drop by drop, not carelessly gulped down by the bottleful. Therefore, if you would get the best out of books, spend a quarter of an hour in reading, and three-quarters of an hour in thinking over what you have read. THE GUIDE TO DAILY READING PREPARED BY ASA DON DICKINSON The elaborate, systematic "course of reading" is a bore. After thirty years spent among books and bookish people I have never yet met anyone who would admit that he had ploughed through such a course from beginning to end. Of course a few faithful souls, with abundant leisure, have done this, just as there are men who have walked from New York City to San Francisco. Good exercise, doubtless! But most of us have not time for feats of such questionable utility. Yet I myself and most of the booklovers whom I know have started at one time or another to pursue a course of reading, and we have never regretted our attempts. Why? Because this is an excellent way to discover the comparatively small number of authors who have a message that we need to hear. When such an one is discovered, one may with a good conscience let the systematic course go by the board until one has absorbed all that is useful from the store of good things offered by the valuable new acquaintance. Each one has his idiosyncrasies. If I may be permitted to allude to a personal failing, let me confess that I have never read "Paradise Lost" or "Pilgrim's Progress." I have hopefully dipped into them repeatedly, but--I don't like them. Some day I hope to, but until my mind is ready for these two great world-books, I do not intend to waste time by driving through them with set teeth. There are too many other good books that I do enjoy reading. "In brief, Sir, study what you most affect." The "Guide to Daily Readings" which follows makes no claim to be systematic. The aim has been simply to introduce the reader to a goodly company of authors--to provide a daily flower of thought for the buttonhole, to-day a glorious rose of poetic fancy, to-morrow a pert little pansy of quaint humor. Yet nearly all the selections are doubly significant and interesting if read upon the days to which they are especially assigned. For example, on New Year's Day it is suggested that one set one's house in order by reading Franklin's "Rules of Conduct," Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," Bryant's "Thanatopsis," and Lowell's "To the Future"; on January 19th, Poe's Birthday, one is directed to an excellent sketch of Poe and to typical examples of his best work, "The Raven" and "The Cask of Amontillado"; and on October 31st, Hallowe'en, one is reminded of Burns's "Tam O'Shanter" and Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The references are explicit in each case, so that it is a matter of only a few seconds to find each one. For example, the reference to the "Cask of Amontillado" is 4-Pt. I =67-77; which means that this tale is ten pages long and will be found in Part I of volume 4, at page 67. Excepting volumes 10-15 (Poetry), two volumes are bound in one in this set, so it should be remembered that generally there are two pages numbered 67 in each book. The daily selections can in most cases be read in from fifteen minutes to half an hour, and Dr. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard, has said that fifteen minutes a day devoted to good literature will give every man the essentials of a liberal education. If time can be found between breakfast and the work-hours for these few minutes of reading, one will receive more benefit than if it is done during the somnolent period which follows the day's work and dinner. It is a mistake, however, to read before breakfast. Eyes and stomach are too closely related to permit of this. Happy is he who can read these books in company with a sympathetic companion. His enjoyment of the treasure they contain will be doubled. One final hint--when reading for something besides pastime, get in the habit of referring when necessary to dictionary, encyclopædia, and atlas. If on the subway or a railway train, jot down a memorandum of the query on the flyleaf, and look up the answer at the first opportunity. ASA DON DICKINSON. There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to study. --DANIEL WYTTENBACH. JANUARY 1ST TO 7TH 1st. I. Franklin's Rules of Conduct, 6-Pt. II: 86-101 II. Longfellow's Psalm of Life, 14:247-248 III. Bryant's Thanatopsis, 15:18-20 IV. Lowell's To the Future, 13:164-167 2nd. I. Arnold's Self Dependence, 14:273-274 II. Adams's Cold Wave of 32 B. C., 9-Pt. I:146 III. Thomas's Frost To-night, 12:343 3rd. TOMASSO SALVINI, b. 1 Ja. 1829; d. 1 Ja. 1916 I. Tomasso Salvini, 17-II:80-108 4th. I. Extracts from Thackeray's Book of Snobs, 1-Pt. I:3-37 5th. I. Ruskin's Venice, 1-Pt. II:73-88 II. St. Marks, 1-Pt. II:91-100 6th. I. Shakespeare's Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind, 12:256-257 II. Messenger's A Winter Wish, 12:259-261 III. Emerson's The Snow Storm, 14:93-94 IV. Thackeray's Nil Nisi Bonum, l-Pt. I:130-143 7th. I. Adams's Ballad of the Thoughtless Waiter, 9-Pt. I:147 II. Us Poets, 9-Pt. I:148 III. Spenser's Amoretti, 13:177 No book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all. --THOMAS CARLYLE. JANUARY 8TH TO 14th 8th. I. Fred Trover's Little Iron-clad, 7-Pt. II:82-105 9th. I. Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, 21-Pt. II:1-56 10th. I. Carlyle's Boswell's Life of Johnson, 2-Pt. I: 32-78 11th. I ALEXANDER HAMILTON, b. II Ja. 1757 Alexander Hamilton, 16-Pt. I:71-91 12th. I. Macaulay's Dr. Samuel Johnson, His Biographer, 2-Pt. II:30-39 II. The Puritans, 2-Pt. II:23-29 13th. I. EDMUND SPENSER, d, 16 Ja. 1599 Prothalamion, 13:13-20 14th. I. Hawthorne's Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, 3-Pt. I:3-19 The novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented. --SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. JANUARY 15TH TO 21ST 15th. EDWARD EVERETT, d. 15 Ja. 1865 I. Lincoln to Everett, 5-Pt. I:120 II. Irving's Westminster Abbey, 3-Pt. II:75-92 16th. GEORGE V. HOBART, b. 16 Ja. 1867 I. John Henry at the Races, 9-Pt. II:107-113 II. Poe's The Black Cat, 4-Pt. I:127-143 17th. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, b. 17 Ja. 1706 I. Poor Richard's Almanac, 6-Pt. II:133-149 II. Maxims, 7-Pt. II:11 III. The Whistle, 6-Pt. II:156-159 18th. DANIEL WEBSTER, b. 18 Ja. 1782 I. Adams and Jefferson, 6-Pt. I:3-60 19th. EDGAR ALLAN POE, b. 19 Ja. 1809 I. Cask of Amontillado, 4-Pt. I:67-77 II. The Raven, 10:285-292 III. Edgar Allan Poe, 17-Pt. I:28-37 20th. N. P. WILLIS, b. 20 Ja. 1806 I. Miss Albina McLush, 7-Pt. I:25-29 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, b. 20 Ja. 1866 II. May Is Building Her House, 12:328 21st. JAMES STUART, Earl of Murray, killed 21 Ja. 1570 I. The Bonny Earl of Murray, 10:21-22 II. Lincoln's The Dred Scott Decision, 5-Pt. I:13-22 III. Fragment on Slavery, 5-Pt. I:11-12 He that revels in a well-chosen library has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour. His taste is rendered so acute as easily to distinguish the nicest shade of difference. --WILLIAM GODWIN. JANUARY 22ND TO 28TH 22nd. LORD BYRON, b. 22 Ja. 1788 I. Macaulay's Lord Byron the Man, 2-Pt. II: 80-94 II. On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, 12:275-277 III. The Isles of Greece, 14:75-79 23rd. I. Lamb's Dream Children, 5-Pt. II:34-40 II. On Some of the Old Actors, 5-Pt. II:52-76 24th. I. Spenser's Epithalamium, 13:20-37 25th. ROBERT BURNS, b. 25 Ja. 1759 I. The Cotter's Saturday Night, II:40-48 II. Robert Burns, 17-Pt. 1:43-64 II. Halleck's Burns, 15:67-73 26th. THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES, d. 26 Ja. 1849 I. Wolfram's Dirge, 15:42-43 II. How Many Times Do I Love Thee, Dear? 12:158-159 III. Dream-Pedlary, 12:227-228 IV. Franklin's Philosophical Experiments, 6-Pt. II:125-130 27th. JOHN McCRAE, Died in France 28 Ja. 1918 I. In Flanders Fields, 15:214 28th. HENRY MORTON STANLEY, b. 28 Ja. 1841 I. Henry Morton Stanley, 17-Pt. II:97-124 We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly.... --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. JANUARY 29TH TO FEBRUARY 4th 29th. ADELAIDE RISTORI, b. 30 Ja. 1822 I. Adelaide Ristori, 17-Pt. II:109-119 II. Thackeray's On Being Found Out, 1-Pt. I:104-115 30th. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, b. 30 Ja. 1775 I. Rose Aylmer,15:119 II. The Maid's Lament, 15:119-120 III. Mother I Cannot Mind My Wheel, 12:273 IV. On His Seventy-fifth Birthday, 13:278 V. Ruskin's The Two Boyhoods, 1-Pt. II:3-23 31st. I. Carlyle's Essay on Biography, 2-Pt. I:3-3l F.1st. I. Morris's February,14:102-103 II. Belloc's South Country,12:331 III. Early Morning, 13:294 2nd. W.R.BENET, b. 2 F. 1886 I. Tricksters, 13:288 II. Hodgson's Eve, 11:324 III. The Gypsy Girl, 14:299 3rd. SIDNEY LANIER, b. 3 F. 1842 I. The Marshes of Glynn, 14:55-61 II. A Ballad of Trees and the Master, 12:316-317 III. The Stirrup Cup, 13:283 4th. THOMAS CARLYLE, d. 4 F. 1881 81 I. Mirabeau, 2-Pt. I:79-86 II. Ghosts, 2-Pt. I:134-137 III. Labor, 2-Pt. I:138-145 Borrow therefore, of those golden morning hours, and bestow them on your book. --EARL OF BEDFORD FEBRUARY 5TH TO 11TH 5th. I. De Quincey's On the Knocking at the Gate In Macbeth, 4-Pt. II:100-107 6th. SIR HENRY IRVING, b. 6 F. 1838 I. Sir Henry Irving, 17-II:39-47 7th. CHARLES DICKENS, b. 7 F. 1812 I. The Trial for Murder, 21-Pt. I:1-19 8th. JOHN RUSKIN, b. 8 F. 1819 I. The Slave Ship, 1-Pt. II:27-29 II. Art and Morals, 1-Pt. II:103-132 III. Peace, 1-Pt. II:135-137 9th. GEORGE ADE, b. 9 F. 1866 I. The Fable of the Preacher, 9-Pt. II:67-71 II. The Fable of the Caddy, 9-Pt. II:93-94 III. The Fable of the Two Mandolin Players, 9-Pt. II:13l-136 10th. SIR JOHN SUCKLING, baptized 10 F. 1609 I. Encouragements to a Lover, 13:122 II. Constancy, 12:122-123 E. W. TOWNSEND, b. 10 F. 1855 III. Chimmie Meets the Duchess, 9-Pt. I 109-114 11th. I. Brooke's Dust, 12:341 II. 1914--V--The Soldier, 15: 228 III. Guiterman's In the Hospital, 15:203 The scholar, only, knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value. --Washington Irving. February 12th to 18th 12th. Abraham Lincoln, b. 12 F. 1809 I. Lincoln, 16-Pt. I:93-141 13th. I. Irving's The Stout Gentleman, 3-Pt. II: 129-145 14th. W. T. Sherman, d. 14 F. 1891 I. General William Tecumseh Sherman, 16-Pt. II:32-61 15th. Charles Bertrand Lewis ("M. Quad") b. 15 F. 1842 I. The Patent Gas Regulator, 9-Pt. II:3-7 II. Two Cases of Grip, 8-Pt. I:50-53 16th. Joseph Hergesheimer, b. 15 F. 1880 I. A Sprig of Lemon Verbena, 22-Pt. II:1-47 17th. Josephine Dodge Daskam, b. 17 F. 1876 I. The Woman Who Was Not Athletic, 9-Pt. II:78-80 II. The Woman Who Used Her Theory, 9-Pt. II: 80-81 III. The Woman Who Helped Her Sister, 9-Pt. II:81-82 18th. I. De Quincey's The Affliction of Childhood, 4-Pt. II:3-30 What a place to be in is an old library! It seems though all the souls of all the writers were reposing here. --CHARLES LAMB. FEBRUARY 19TH TO 25th 19th. I. Conrad's The Lagoon, 22-Pt. I:17-37 20th. JOSEPH JEFFERSON, b. 20 F. 1829 I. Joseph Jefferson, 17-Pt. II:3-22 21st. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, b. 21 F. 1801 I. The Pillar of the Cloud, 12:323 II. Sensitiveness, 15:183-184 III. Flowers Without Fruit, 15:184 IV. Lincoln's Address at Cooper Institute, 5-Pt. I:37-69 22nd. GEORGE WASHINGTON, b. 22 F. 1732 I. Washington, 16-Pt. I:3-42 23rd. I. Mrs. Freeman's The Wind in the Rosebush, 20-Pt. II:12-38 24th. SAMUEL LOVER, b. 24 F. 1797 I. The Gridiron, 19-Pt. II:59-70 25th. I. Lamb's Superannuated Man, 5-Pt. II: 80-91 II. Old China, 5-Pt. II:91-100 A little peaceful home Sounds all my wants and wishes; add to this My book and friend, and this is happiness. --FRANCESCO DI RIOJA. FEBRUARY 26TH TO MARCH 4TH 26th. SAM WALTER FOSS, d. 26 F. 1911 I. The Prayer of Cyrus Brown, 9-Pt. II:8 II. The Meeting of the Clabberhuses, 8-Pt. I: 39-41 III. A Modern Martyrdom, 9-Pt. II: 84-86 IV. The Ideal Husband to His Wife, 9-Pt. I:103-104 27th. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, b. 27 F. 1807 I. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 17-Pt. I:3-27 II. Wreck of the Hesperus, 10:156-160 III. My Lost Youth, 12:263-266 28th. ELLEN TERRY, b. 27 F. 1848 I. Ellen Terry, 17-Pt. II:48-60 Mr.1st I. Morris's March, 14:103-104 W. D. HOWELLS, b. 1 Mr. 1837 II. Mrs. Johnson, 8-Pt. II:107-128 2nd. I. Franklin's Settling Down, 6-Pt. II:76-85 II. Public Affairs, 6-Pt. II:102-107 3rd. EDMUND WALLER, b. 9 Mr. 1606 I. On a Girdle, 12:132 II. Go, Lovely Rose, 12:136-137 III. De la Mare's The Listeners, 11:327 4th. Inauguration Day I. Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 5-Pt. I:74-89 A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a man's history. It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life. --HENRY WARD BEECHER. MARCH 5TH TO 11TH 5th. FRANK NORRIS, b. 5 Mr. 1870 I. The Passing of Cock-Eye Blacklock, 22-Pt. II:64 6th. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, b. 6 Mr. 1806 I. Mother and Poet, 11:297-302 II. A Musical Instrument, 12: 282-283 III. The Cry of the Children, 12: 296-302 7th. I. Thackeray's On a Lazy Idle Boy, 1-Pt. I: 41-51 8th. HENRY WARD BEECHER, d. 8 Mr. 1887 I. Deacon Marble, 7-Pt. I:13-15 II. The Deacon's Trout, 7-Pt. I:15-16 III. Noble and the Empty Hole, 7-Pt. I:17-18 9th. ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD, d. 9 Mr. 1825 I. Life, 14:260-261 II. Dunsany's Night at an Inn, 18:I 10th. I. Ruskin's The Mountain Gloom, 1-Pt. II: 33-56 11th. CHARLES SUMNER, d. n Mr. 1874 I. Longfellow's Charles Sumner, 15:111-112 GILES FLETCHER, buried 11 Mr. 1611 II. Wooing Song, 12:101-102 III. Carlyle's Reward, 2-Pt. I:146-160 Books that can be held in the hand, and carried to the fireside are the best after all. --SAMUEL JOHNSON. MARCH 12TH TO 18TH 12th. I. A Family Horse, 9-Pt. I:3-14 II. Living in the Country, 7-Pt. I:82-95 13th. I. Macaulay's Task of the Modern Historian, 2-Pt. II:3-22 II. Puritans, 2-Pt. II:23-29 14th. HENRY IV. defeated the "Leaguers" at Ivry, 14 Mr. 1590 I. Macaulay's Ivry, 10:194-199 15th. JOHANN LUDWIG PAUL HEYSE, b. 15 Mr. 1830 I. L'Arrabiata, 20-Pt. I:130-157 16th. WILL IRWIN, b. 15 Mr. 1876 I. The Servant Problem, 7-Pt. I:132 17th. I. Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face, 3-Pt. I:103-135 18th. I. Roche's The V-A-S-E, 7-Pt. II:60-61 II. Roche's A Boston Lullaby, 8-Pt. II:78 III. A Boston Lullaby (Anon.), 7-Pt. II:105 IV. Burgess's The Bohemians of Boston, 7-Pt. II:141-143 The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend; when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. --OLIVER GOLDSMITH. MARCH 19TH TO 25th 19th. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, d. 19 Mr. 1907 I. A Rivermouth Romance, 7-Pt. II:129-140 II. A Death Bed, 15:136-137 20th. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, d. 20 Mr. 1903 I. Ballad, 7-Pt. II:51-52 II. Hans Breitmann's Party, 7-Pt. I:96-97 III. De Quincey's Levana, 4-Pt. II:145-157 21st. ROBERT SOUTHEY, d. 21 Mr. 1843 I. The Inchcape Rock, 10:153-156 II. My Days Among the Dead Are Past, 14: 261-262 III. Lincoln's Springfield Speech, 5-Pt. I:23-36 22nd. I. Lamb's Two Races of Men, 5-Pt. II:3-11 23rd. JOHN DAVIDSQN, disappeared 23 Mr. 1909 I. Butterflies, 12:345 II. Doyle's Dancing Men, 22-Pt. I:63-l00 24th. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, d. 24 Mr. 1882 I. The Building of the Ship, ll:89-102 II. The Skeleton in Armor, 10:124-130 III. Resignation, 15:131-133 IV. The Arrow and the Song, 12:283-284 25th. I. Franklin's George Whitefield, 6-Pt. II: 108-114 II. The Franklin Stove, 6-Pt. II:115-116 III. Civic Pride, 6-Pt. II:117-124 IV. Advice to a Young Tradesman, 6-Pt. II: 153-155 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learnings. --ST. PAUL. MARCH 26TH TO APRIL 1ST 26th. A. E. HOUSMAN, b. 26 Mr. 1859 I. A Shropshire Lad-XIII, 12:340 II. Ferber's Gay Old Dog, 22-Pt. II:81-114 27th. I. Thackeray's Thorns in the Cushion, 1-Pt. I:51-64 28th. FOCH, made Commander Allied Armies, 28 Mr. 1918 I. Burr's Fall In, 15:211 II. Coates's Place de la Concorde, 15:226 29th. BONNIVARD, Prisoner of Chillon, liberated 29 Mr. 1536 I. Byron's Prisoner of Chillon, 11:191-204 30th. DE WOLF HOPPER, b. 30 Mr. 1858 I. Casey at the Bat, 9-Pt. I:95-98 II. Butler's Just Like a Cat, 8-Pt. I:152 31st. ANDREW MARVELL, b,. 31 Mr. 1621 I. The Garden, 14:20-22 II. Bermudas, 15:162-163 JOHN DONNE, d. 31 Mr. 1631 III. The Dream, 12:137-138 IV. The Will, 15:156-158 V. Death, 13:195-196 VI. A Burnt Ship, 13:272 Ap. 1st. AGNES REPPLIER, b. 1 Ap. 1858 I. A Plea for Humor, 8-Pt. II:3-25 Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils, strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. APRIL 2ND TO 8TH 2nd. I. Jefferson, 16-Pt. I:43-70 Nelson's Victory Over the Danish Fleet, 2 Ap. 1801 II. The Battle of the Baltic, 10:189-192 3rd. WASHINGTON IRVING, b. 3 Ap. 1783 I. Wouter Van Twiller, 7-Pt. I:3-10 II. The Voyage, 3-Pt. II:61-71 4th. I. Browning's Home Thoughts from Abroad, 12:57-58 II. Macaulay's Byron the Poet, 2-Pt. II:94-109 5th. FRANK R. STOCKTON, b. 5 Ap. 1834 I. Pomona's Novel, 7-Pt. II:62-81 II. A Piece of Red Calico, 8-Pt. I:105-112 6th. COMMANDER ROBERT E. PEARY reached the North Pole, 6 Ap. 1909 I. At the North Pole, 16-Pt. II:125-151 7th. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, b. 7 Ap. 1770 I. Landor's To Wordsworth, 14:148-150 II. To the Cuckoo, 12:38-40 III. Daffodils, 12:41-42 IV. Tintern Abbey, 14:47-52 V. Lucy Gray, 10:255-258 VI. Arnold's Memorial Verses, 15:77-79 8th. PHINEAS FLETCHER, baptized, 8 Ap. 1582 I. A Hymn, 12:317 ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER, b. 8 Ap.1879 II. Earth's Easter (1915), 15:224 III. Hagedorn's Song Is So Old, 12:337 But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --LORD BYRON. APRIL 9TH TO 15TH 9th. I. Tennyson's Early Spring, 14:94-96 II. Poe's Ligeia, 4-Pt. I:37-63 10th. I. De Quincey's The Vision of Sudden Death, 4-Pt. II:119-145 11th. NAPOLEON abdicated at Fontainebleau, 11 Ap. 1814 I. Byron's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, 13:109-115 12th. I. Franklin's Autobiography, 6-Pt. II:3-35 13th. I. Burns's To a Mountain Daisy, 14:109-111 II. Lamb's Imperfect Sympathies, 5-Pt. II:21-34 14th. LINCOLN shot by John Wilkes Booth, 14 Ap. 1865 I. Markham's, Lincoln the Man of the People, 14:296 II. Flecker's Dying Patriot, 10:295 III. Ballad of Camden Town, 12:347 15th. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, d. 15 Ap. 1865 I. Farewell at Springfield, 5-Pt. I:70 II. Speech to 166th Ohio Regiment, 5-Pt. I:96-97 III. Letters to Mrs. Lincoln, 5-Pt. I:113-114 IV. To Grant, 5-Pt. I:121 V. Whitman's O Captain! My Captain! 15:105-106 Titanic Sunk, 15 Ap. 1912 VI. Van Dyke's Heroes of the Titanic, 10:305 Many times the reading of a book has made the fortune of a man--has decided his way of life. --RALPH WALDO EMERSON. APRIL 16TH TO 22ND 16th. I. Herbert's Easter, 15:152-153 II. Franklin's Motion for Prayers, 6-Pt. II: 62-164 III. Necessary Hints, 6-Pt. II: 160-161 17th. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, d. 17 Ap. 1790 I. Franklin's Autobiography, 6-Pt. II:35-75 DR. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, b. 17 Ap. 1842 II. A Remarkable Dream, 8-Pt. I:79-80 18th. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, b. 18 Ap. 1864 I. Mr. Travers's First Hunt, 22-Pt. I:135 II. A Slave to Duty, 8-Pt. I:66-67 19th. Battles of Lexington and Concord, 19 Ap. 1775 I. Emerson's Concord Hymn, 12:218-219 Siege of Ratisbon, 19-23 Ap. 1809 II. Browning's Incident of the French Camp, 10:213-214 20th. I. Campbell's Ye Mariners of England, 10: 150-151 II. Lincoln's Response to Serenade, 5-Pt. I: 98-100 WILLIAM H. DAVIS, b. 20 Ap. 1870 III. Davies's Catharine, 11:327 21st. CHARLOTTE BRONTË, b. 21 Ap. 1816 I. Charlotte Brontë, 17-Pt. I:121-132 II. Thackeray's De Juventute, 1-Pt. I:65-87 22nd. I. Riley's The Elf-Child, 8-Pt. I:34-36 II. A Liz-Town Humorist, 8-Pt. I:48-49 III. Carlyle's The Watch Tower, 2-Pt. I:129-133 UNITED STATES DAY CELEBRATED IN FRANCE 22 Ap. 1917 IV. Van Dyke's The Name of France, 15:224 Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me, From my own library, with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. APRIL 23RD TO 29TH 23rd. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, b. 23 (?) Ap. 1564; d/ 23 Ap. 1616 I. When Daises Pied, 12:18-19 II. Under the Greenwood Tree, 12:21 III. Hark, Hark, The Lark, 12:97 IV. Milton's Epitaph on Shakespeare, 15:44 V. Stratford-on-Avon, 3-Pt. II:151-181 24th. JAMES T. FIELDS, d. 24 Ap. 1881 I. The Owl-Critic, 7-Pt. I: 41-44 II. The Alarmed Skipper, 7-Pt. I:75-76 LORD DUNSANY, wounded 25 Ap. 1916 III. Songs from an Evil Wood, 15:221 25th. OLIVER CROMWELL, b. 25 Ap. 1599 I. Marvell's Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland, 13:54-59 II. To the Lord General Cromwell, 13:201-202 JOHN KEBLE, b. 25 Ap. 1792 III. Morning, 15:173-175 IV. Evening, 15:175-177 26th. CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE (Artemus Ward,) b. 26 Ap. 1834 I. One of Mr. Ward's Business Letters, 8-Pt. II:68-69 II. On Forts, 8-Pt. II:69-71 III. Among the Spirits, 8-Pt. I:81-85 27th. U. S. GRANT, b. 27 Ap. 1822 I. General Ulysses Simpson Grant, 16--Pt. II: 3-30 28th. 28 Ap. 1864 "Tell Tad the Goats are Well." I. Lincoln's Telegram to Mrs. Lincoln, 5--Pt. I:114 II. The Last Address in Public, April 11, 1865, 5--Pt. I:102-106 29th. E. R. SILL, b. 29 Ap. 1841 I. Five Lives, 7--Pt. I:39-40 II. Eve's Daughter, 9--Pt. I:102 III. Opportunity, 11:106 IV. The Fool's Prayer, 11:263-264. I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner....Why have we none for books? --CHARLES LAMB. APRIL 30th TO MAY 6TH April 30th. I. Peck's Bessie Brown, M. D., 8-Pt. II:81-82 II. A Kiss in the Rain, 9-Pt. II:83 III. Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, 4-Pt. I:3-34 May 1st. I. Morris's May, 14:104-105 Battle of Manila Bay, I My. 1898 II. Ware's Manila, 8-Pt. I:173 S.S. Lusitania torpedoed I My. 1916 III. Graves's It's a Queer Time, 15:219 HARRY LEON WILSON, b. I My. 1867 IV. Ruggles and Fate, 22-Pt. II:115 2nd. I. Lowell's To the Dandelion, 14:116-118 II. Lamb's Farewell to Tobacco, 5-Pt. II:149-154 III. She Is Going, 5-Pt. II:154 3rd. I. Browning's Two in the Campagna, 14:187-189 II. Franklin's Letters, 6-Pt. II:167-178 4th. RICHARD HOVEY, b. 4 My. 1864 I. The Sea Gypsy, 12:334 II. Braithwaite's Sic Vita, 12:343 III. Sandy Star, 12:346 5th. CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, b. 5 My. 1890 I. Rhubarb, 22-Pt. II:56 6th. ABBÉ VOGLER, d. 6 My. 1814 I. Abt Vogler, 14:177-183 ROBERT EDWIN PEARY, b. 6 My. 1857 II. Robert E. Peary, 16-Pt. II:125-146 Where a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by: it is good and made by a good workman. --JEAN BE LA BRUYÈRE. MAY 7TH TO 13TH 7th. ROBERT BROWNING, b. 7 My. 1812 I. Landor's To Robert Browning, 14:151-152 II. A King Lived Long Ago, 11:9-11 III. Evelyn Hope, 15:121-123 IV. How They Brought the Good News, 10:130-134 V. A Woman's Last Word, 14:189-191 8th. I. Shakespeare's Sonnets, 13:184-195 II. Peabody's Fortune and Men's Eyes, 18:89 9th. J. M. BARRIE, b. 9 My. 1860 I. The Courting of T'Nowhead's Bell, 20-Pt. I:1-29 10th. HENRY M. STANLEY, d. 10 My. 1904 I. In Darkest Africa, 16-Pt. II:97-124 11th. I. Wordsworth's The Green Linnet, 14:106-108 GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY, b. 12 My. 1855 II. At Gibraltar, 13:290 12th. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, b. 12 My. 1828 I. The Blessed Damozel, 10:58-63 II. The Sonnet, 13:176-177 III. The House of Life, 13:257-264 13th. ALPHONSE DAUDET, b. 13 My. 1840 I. The Siege of Berlin, 21-Pt. I:129-138 Learn to be good readers--which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in. --THOMAS CARLYLE. MAY 14TH TO 20TH 14th. "Mother's Day" (2d Sunday in May) I. Branch's Songs for My Mother, 14:300 II. Emerson's Each and All, 14:262-263 III. Carlyle's Battle of Dunbar, 2-Pt. I:142-159 15th. I. Thackeray's On Letts's Diary, 1-Pt. I:115-130 16th. HONORÉ DE BALZAC, b. 20 My. 1799 I. A Passion in the Desert, 21-Pt. II:107-129 17th. I. Thackeray's On a Joke I Once Heard, l-Pt. I:89-104 18th. I. Browning's May and Death, 15:123-124 II. Galsworthy's The Little Man, 18:227 19th. Battle of La Hogue 19 My. 1692 (N. S. 29 My. 1692) I. Browning's Hervé Riel, 10:162-168 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, d. 19 My. 1864 II. The Great Carbuncle, 20-Pt. II:30-52 20th. I. Gerstenberg's Overtones, 18:139 At this day, as much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better. --ALEXANDER POPE. MAY 21ST TO 27TH 21st. ALEXANDER POPE, b. 21 My. 1688 I. On a Certain Lady at Court, 13:272-273 II. The Dying Christian to His Soul, 15:169 III. The Universal Prayer, 15:166-168 JAMES GRAHAM, Marquis of Montrose, d. 21 My. 1650 IV. The Execution of Montrose, 10:270-277 22nd. ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, b. 22 My. 1859 I. The Dancing Men, 22-Pt. I:63 23rd. THOMAS HOOD, b. 23 My. 1799 I. Flowers, 12:53-54 II. I Remember, I Remember, 12:269-270 III. The Song of the Shirt, 12:292-295 IV. The Bridge of Sighs, 15:124-128 V. The Dream of Eugene Aram, 11:265-273 24th. RICHARD MANSFIELD, b. 24 My. 1857 I. Richard Mansfield, 17-Pt. II:61-79 25th. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, b. 25 My. 1803 I. The Rhodora, 14:115 II. The Titmouse, 12:66-69 III. The Problem, 14:268-271 IV. Lincoln's The Whigs and the Mexican War, 5-Pt. I:3-6 V. Notes for a Law Lecture, 5-Pt. I:7-10 26th. I. Bret Harte's Melons, 7-Pt. II:41-50 II. The Society upon the Stanislaus, 7-Pt. II:57-59 27th. I. Lady Dufferin's The Lament of the Irish Emigrant, 15:128-130 II. Hawthorne's Wakefield, 3-Pt. I:85-99 All the best experience of humanity, folded, saved, freighted to us here! Some of these tiny ships we call Old and New Testaments, Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, Juvenal, etc. Precious Minims! --WALT WHITMAN. MAY 28TH TO JUNE 3RD 28th. THOMAS MOORE, b. 28 My. 1779 I. As Slow Our Ship, 12:232-233 II. Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, 12:157-158 III. The Lake of the Dismal Swamp, 11:83-85 IV. Oft in the Stilly Night, 12:271-272 V. Fly to the Desert, 12:155-157 VI. Canadian Boat Song, 12:233-234 29th I. De Quincey's Pleasures of Opium, 4-Pt. II:31-73 30th. Memorial Day I. Hale's The Man Without a Country, 21-Pt. II:57-95 31st. WALT WHITMAN, b. 31 My. 1819 I. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, 14: 120-129 Je. 1st. HENRY FRANCIS LYTE, b. 1 Je. 1793 I. Abide With Me, 15:180-181 JOHN DRINKWATER, b. 1 Je. 1882 II. Birthright, 15:199 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, killed in a street brawl, 1 Je. 1593 III. Porcelain Cups, 22-Pt. I:38-62 2nd. J. G. SAXE, b. 2 Je. 1816 I. Early Rising II. The Coquette III. The Stammering Wife IV. My Familiar, THOMAS HARDY, b. 2 Je. 1840 V. Hardy's The Oxen, 15:201 3rd. I. Hood's It Was Not in the Winter, II. Lamb's Letters, We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most. --PLUTARCH. JUNE 4TH TO 10th 4th. I. Thackeray's Dennis Haggarty's Wife, 21-Pt. I:20-52 5th. O. HENRY, d. 5 Je. 1910 I. The Furnished Room, 22-Pt. I:140 6th. ROBERT FALCON SCOTT, b. 6 Je. 1868 I. Captain Scott's Last Struggle, 16-Pt. II: 152-159 7th. EDWIN BOOTH, d. 7 Je. 1893 I. Edwin Booth, 17-Pt. II:23-38 8th. I. Lamb's Letters, 5-Pt. II:103-106 9th. CHARLES DICKENS, d. 9 Je. 1870 I. Charles Dickens, 17-Pt. I:99-120 10th. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, d. 10 Je. 1909 I. My Double and How He Undid Me, 8-Pt. I:124-142 If an author be worthy of anything, he is worth bottoming. It may be all very well to skim milk, for the cream lies on the top; but who could skim Lord Byron? --GEORGE SEARLE PHILLIPS. JUNE 11TH TO 17TH 11th. I. Wells's Tragedy of a Theatre Hat, 9-Pt. II:50-55 II. One Week,9-Pt. II:151 III. The Poster Girl, 8-Pt. II:92-93 IV. A Memory, 9-Pt. I:116-117 12th. CHARLES KINGSLEY, b. 12 Je. 1819 I. Oh! That We Two Were Maying, 12:175-176 II. The Last Buccaneer, 14:240-242 III. The Sands of Dee, 10:261-262 IV. The Three Fishers, 10:262-263 V. Lorraine, 11:306-308 13th. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, b. 13 Je. 1865 I. Ballad of Father Gilligan, 10:314 II. Fiddler of Dooney, 14:310 14th. Flag Day I. Whittier's Barbara Frietchie, 10:210-213 II. Key's Star-Spangled Banner, 12:213-215 III. Drake's American Flag, 12:215-217 IV. Holmes's Old Ironsides, 12:217-218 15th. I. Leacock's My Financial Career, 9-Pt. II:19-23 II. Hawthorne's Gray Champion, 3-Pt. I:139-152 16th. I. Lanigan's The Villager and the Snake, 9-Pt-I:19 II. The Amateur Orlando, 9-Pt. I:26-30 III. The Ahkoond of Swat, 8-Pt. I: 37-38 17th. JOSEPH ADDISON, d. 17 Je. 1719 I. The Voice of the Heavens, 15:165-166 II. Poe's MS. Found in a Bottle, 4-Pt. I:105-123 III. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 5-Pt. I:90-93 IV. Ship of State and Pilot, 5-Pt. I:94-95 Sitting last winter among my books, and walled around with all the comfort and protection which they and my fireside could afford me--to wit, a table of higher piled books at my back, my writing desk on one side of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire at my feet--I began to consider how I loved the authors of those books. --LEIGH HUNT. JUNE 18th TO 24TH 18th. I. Hawthorne's Ethan Brand, 3-Pt. I:55-82 19th. RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, d. Aug. 11, 1885 I. The Brook-Side, 12:177-178 II. The Men of Old, 14:133-135 III. Lincoln's Speech in Independence Hall, 5-Pt. I:71-73 IV. To the Workingmen of Manchester, 5-Pt. I:115-117 20th. I. Longfellow's Hymn to the Night, 12:46-47 II. The Light of the Stars, 12:48-49 III. Daybreak, 12:49-50 IV. Seaweed, 14:88-89 V. The Village Blacksmith, 14:165-166 21st. HENRY GUY CARLETON, b. 21 Je. 1856 I. The Thompson Street Poker Club, 7-Pt. II: 116-121 II. Munkittrick's Patriotic Tourist, 9-Pt. II: 47-48 III. What's in a Name, 9-Pt. II:103-104 IV. 'Tis Ever Thus, 9-Pt. II:152 22nd. ALAN SEEGER, b. 22 Je. 1888 I. I Have a Rendezvous with Death, 15:215 II. O. Henry's Gift of the Magi, 22-Pt. II:48 23rd. I. Longfellow's The Day Is Done, 12:240-242. II. The Beleaguered City, 14:249-251 III. The Bridge, 12:279-282 IV. Whittier's Ichabod, 14:154-156 V. Maud Muller, 11:219-224 24th. AMBROSE BIERCE, b. 24 Je. 1842 I. The Dog and the Bees, 7-Pt. II:10 II. The Man and the Goose, 9-Pt. I:85 Battle of Bannockburn, 24 Je. 1314 III. Burns's Bannockburn, 12:198-199 IV. My Heart's in the Highlands, 12:36-37 V. The Banks of Doon, 12:146-147 Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west. --RALPH WALDO EMERSON. JUNE 25TH TO JULY 1ST 25th. I. Goodman's Eugenically Speaking, 18:193 26th. I. Burns's Elegy, 15:61-64 II. Mary Morison, 12: 147-148 III. Oh! Saw Ye Bonnie Lesley? 12:148-149 IV. O, My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose, 12:149-150 V. Ae Fond Kiss, 12:150-151 27th. HELEN KELLER, b. 27 Je. 1880 I. Helen Keller, 17-Pt. I:167-171 II. Garrison's A Love Song, 12:338 28th. I. Lincoln's Letter to Bryant, 5--Pt. I:122-123 II. Burns's Of A' the Airts, 12:151 III. Highland Mary, 12:152-153 IV. A Farewell, 12:199-200 V. It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King, 12:200-201 29th. I. The Pit and the Pendulum, 21-Pt. I:139-162 30th. I. Burns's John Anderson My Jo, 12:245-246 II. Thou Lingering Star, 12:270-271 III. Lines Written on a Banknote, 13:273-274 IV. Byron's Darkness, 11:102-105 V. Oh! Snatch'd Away in Beauty's Bloom, 15:113-114 Jl. 1st. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, d. 1 Jl. 1896 I. The Minister's Wooing, 8-Pt. II:97-106 A library is not worth anything without a catalogue; it is a Polyphemus without an eye in his head--and you must confront the difficulties whatever they may be, of making a proper catalogue. --Thomas Carlyle. July 2nd to 8th 2nd. Richard Henry Stoddard, b. 2 Jl. 1825 I. There Are Gains for All Our Losses, 12:267 II. The Sky, 13:281 III. Byron's Ode on Venice, 13:115-121 IV. Stanzas for Music, 12:162-163 V. When We Two Parted, 12: 163-164 3rd. Charlotte Perkins (Stetson) Oilman, b. 3 Jl. 1860 I. Similar Cases, 9-Pt. I:53-57 II. Byron's She Walks in Beauty, 12:164-165 III. Destruction of Sennacherib, 11:183-184 IV. Sonnet on Chillon, 13:222 4th. Nathaniel Hawthorne, b. 4 Jl. 1804 I. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 17-Pt. I.74-98 Declaration of Independence, 4 Jl. 1776 II. Emerson's Ode, 13:167-169 5th. I. Emerson's Waldeinsamkeit, 14:39-41 II. The World Soul, 12:59-63 III. To the Humblebee, 12:64-66 IV. The Forerunners, 14:265-267 V. Brahma, 14:271 6th. I. Macdonald's Earl o' Quarterdeck, 10:300 7th. I. Markham's Man with the Hoe, 14:294 8th. Shelley drowned, 8 Jl. 1822 I. Memorabilia, 14:151 II. Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil, 21-Pt. I:107-128 For my part I have ever gained the most profit, and the most pleasure also, from the books which have made me think the most. --JULIUS C. HARE. JULY 9TH TO 15TH 9th. I. Browning's The Statue and the Bust, II: 273-284 II. The Lost Leader, 12:289-290 III. The Patriot, II:290-291 10th. ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE, b. 10 Jl. 1861 I. Mis' Smith, 8-Pt. II:77 F. P. DUNNE, ("Mr. Dooley"), b. 10 Jl. 1867 II. Home Life of Geniuses, 9-Pt. II:56-62 III. The City as a Summer Resort, 9-Pt. II:138-144 11th. I. Burdette's Vacation of Mustapha, 8-Pt. I:3-7 II. The Legend of Mimir, 8-Pt. I:68-69 III. The Artless Prattle of Childhood, 7-Pt. II. 106-112 IV. Rheumatism Movement Cure, 8-Pt. II:37-43 12th. B. P. SHILLABER, b. 12 Jl. 1814 I. Fancy Diseases, 7-Pt. I:32 II. Bailed Out, 7-Pt. I:33 III. Masson's My Subway Guard Friend, 9-Pt. I:140 13th. I. Mukerji's Judgment of Indra, 18:257 14th. The Bastille Destroyed, 14 Jl. 1789 I. Carlyle's The Flight to Varennes from "The French Revolution," 2-Pt. I:87-110 15th. Battle of Château Thierry, 15 Jl. 1918 I. Grenfell's Into Battle, 15:217 II. Keats's La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 10:85-87 III. Ode to a Nightingale, 13:132-135 IV. Ode, 13:135-137 V. Ode to Psyche, 13:139-141 VI. Fancy, 13:143-146 Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity; the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions at night, in travelling, in the country. --CICERO. JULY 16TH TO 22ND 16th. ROALD AMUNDSEN, b. 16 Jl. 1872 I. Amundsen, 16-Pt. II:147-15l II. Masefield's Sea Fever, 12:334 17th. I. Keats's Robin Hood, 14: 146-148 II. Sonnets, 13:223-227 III. Shelley's Hymn of Pan, 12:44-45 IV. Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills, 14: 61-73 V. Stanzas Written in Dejection, 14:73-75 18th. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, b. 18 Jl. 1811 I. De Finibus, 1-Pt. I:143-157 II. Ballads, 1-Pt. I:161-164 19th. I. Derby's Illustrated Newspaper, 7-Pt. II: 11-19 II. Tushmaker's Toothpuller, 7-Pt. II:53-56 III. Burdette's Romance of the Carpet, 9-Pt. I: 38-40 20th. JEAN INGELOW, d.20 Jl.1897 I. High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 10:263-269 II. Shelley's The Cloud, 14:90-93 III. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 13:121-124 IV. To a Skylark, 13:124-129 V. Arethusa, 11:140-143 21st. Robert Burns, d. 21 Jl. 1796 I. Thoughts, 15:65-67 II. Shelley's Love's Philosophy, 12:160 III. I Fear Thy Kisses, 12:161 IV. To----, 12:161-162 V. To---, 12:162 22nd. I. Shelley's Ozymandias of Egypt, 13:222-223 II. Song, 12:225-226 III. When the Lamp Is Shattered, 12:274-275 IV. Tennyson's The Gardener's Daughter, II:17-28 V. The Deserted House, 15:23-24 Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. --BACON. July 23rd to 29th 23rd. U. S. Grant, d. 23 Jl. 1885 I. Lincoln to Grant, 5-Pt. I:121 II. Tennyson's Ulysses, 14:175-177 III. Ask Me No More, 12:180 IV. The Splendor Falls, 12:181 V. Come into the Garden, Maud, 12:182-184 VI. Sir Galahad, 14: 184-186 24th. John Newton, b. 24 Jl. 1725. I. The Quiet Heart, 15:170 II. Tennyson's The Miller's Daughter, II:31-40 III. The Oak, 14:41 IV. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, 10:51-53 V. Song, 12:54-55 25th. I. Tennyson's The Throstle, 12:55-56 II. A Small, Sweet Idyl, 14:79-80 III. Merlin and the Gleam, II:122-127 IV. The Lotos-Eaters, 14:135-143 V. Mariana, 14:162-164 26th. I. Stevenson's Markheim, 20-Pt. I:103-129 27th. Thomas Campbell, b. 27 Jl. 1777 I. The Soldier's Dream, 10:186-187 II. Lord Ullin's Daughter, 10:259-261 III. How Delicious Is the Winning, 12:165-166 IV. To the Evening Star, 12:47 28th. ABRAHAM COWLEY, d. 28 Jl. 1667 I. A Supplication, 13:59-60 II. On the Death of Mr. William Hervey, 15:80-86 JOHN GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE VISCOUNT DUNDEE, d. 28 Jl. 1689 III. Scott's Bonny Dundee, 10:183-186 29th. DON MARQUIS, b. 29 Jl. 1878 I. Chant Royal of the Dejected Dipsomaniac, 9-Pt. I:143 BOOTH TARKINGTON, b. 29 Jl. 1869 II. Overwhelming Saturday, 22-Pt. I:101 Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells. --COWPER. July 30th to August 5th 30th. JOYCE KILMER, killed in action, 30 Jl. 1918 I. A Ballad of Three, 10:311 II. Trees, 12:329 III. Noyes's The May Tree, 12:327 31st. I. Tennyson's Song of the Brook, 14:99-101 II. O That 't Were Possible, 12:185-188 III. Morte d'Arthur, 11:204-215 IV. Sweet and Low, 12:249-250 V. Will, 14:259-260 Ag. 1st I. Tennyson's Rizpah, 10:279-285 II. The Children's Hospital, 11:310-315 III. Break, Break, Break, 12:320 IV. In the Valley of Cauteretz, 12:321 V. Wages, 12:321-322 VI. Crossing the Bar, 12:324 VII. Flower in the Crannied Wall, 13:280 2nd. I. Browning's Love Among the Ruins, 11:28-31 II. My Star, 12:58-59 III. From Pippa Passes, 12:59 IV. The Boy and the Angel, 11:133-137 V. Epilogue, 15: 143-144 3rd. H. C. BUNNER, b. 3 Ag. 1855 I. Behold the Deeds! 7-Pt. II:123-125 II. The Love Letters of Smith, 8-Pt. I:89-104 4th. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, b. 4 Ag. 1792 I. The Sensitive Plant, 11:54-68 II. To Night, 12:43-44 III. The Indian Serenade, 12:159-160 5th. GUY DE MAUPASSANT, b. 5 Ag. 1850 I. The Piece of String, 21-Pt. II:96-106 II. The Necklace, 21-Pt. I:94-106 Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. --LORD MACAULAY. AUGUST 6th to 12th 6th. ALFRED TENNYSON, b. 6 Ag. 1809 I. Alfred Tennyson, 17-Pt. I:38-42 II. Dora, 11:11-17 III. The Lady of Shalott, 10:73-79 7th. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, b. 7 Ag. 1795 I. Halleck's Joseph Rodman Drake, 15:104-105 II. Browning's Prospice, 15:145-146 III. Pied Piper, 11:163-173 IV. Meeting at Night, 12:189-190 V. Parting at Morning, 12:190 8th. SARA TEASDALE, b. 8 Ag. 1884 I. Teasdale's Blue Squills, 12:327 II. The Return, 12:338 III. Browning's Misconceptions, 12:190-191 IV. Rabbi Ben Ezra, 14:191-199 9th. JOHN DRYDEN, b. 9 Ag. 1631 I. Alexander's Feast, 13:63-70 II. Ah, How Sweet It Is to Love! 12:140-141 III. The Elixir, 15:150-151 IV. Discipline, 15:151-152 V. The Pulley, 15:153-154 10th. WITTER BYNNER, b. 10 Ag. 1881 I. Sentence, 13:295 II. Browning's Soul, 14:199-221 III. Herrick's To Blossoms, 12:33-34 IV. To Daffodils, 12:34 V. To Violets, 12:35 11th. I. Herrick's To Meadows, 12:35-36 II. Lacrimæ, 15:41-42 III. The Primrose, 12:124 IV. Litany, 15:158-160 V. Lowell's Madonna of the Evening Flowers, 11:319 12th. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, d. 12 Ag. 1891 I. Rhoecus, 11:127-13 3 II. The Courtin', 11:230-233 III. The Yankee Recruit, 7-Pt. I:52-60 Give us a house furnished with books rather than with furniture. Both if you can, but books at any rate! --HENRY WARD BEECHER. AUGUST 13TH TO 19TH 13th. Battle of Blenheim, 13 Ag. 1704 I. Southey's After Blenheim, 10:192-194 II. De Quincey's Going Down with Victory, 4-Pt. II: 107-119 14th. JOHN FLETCHER, d. 14 Ag. 1785 I. Love's Emblems, 12:29-30 II. Hear, Ye Ladies, 12:132-133 III. Melancholy, 12:278-279 IV. Lodge's Rosalind's Madrigal, 12:83-84 V. Rosalind's Description, 12:84-86 15th. THOMAS DE QUINCEY, b. 15 Ag. 1785 I. The Pains of Opium, 4-Pt. II:73-100 16th. BARONESS NAIRNE (Carolina Oliphant), b. 16 Ag. 1766 I. The Laird o' Cockpen, 11:251-252 II. The Land o' the Leal, 12:311-312 III. Cather's Grandmither, Think Not I Forget, 14:313 17th. I. Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers, 19-Pt. II:1-58 18th. I. Longfellow's Rain in Summer, 14:96-99 II. Herrick's Corinna's Going a-Maying, 12:30-33 III. Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, 13:129-132 19th. Battle of Otterburn, 19 Ag. 1388 I. The Battle of Otterburn, 10:171-176 Books make up no small part of human happiness. --FREDERICK THE GREAT (in youth). My latest passion will be for literature. --FREDERICK THE GREAT (in old age). AUGUST 20TH TO 26TH 20th. MARCO BOZZARIS,fell 20 Ag. 1823 I. Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, 11:187-191 II. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, 11:107-121 21st. MARY MAPES DODGE, d. 21 Ag. 1905 I. Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question, 7-Pt. 11:20-24 II. Lowell's Letter from a Candidate, 7-Pt. II:29-32 22nd. Royal Standard Raised at Nottingham, 22 Ag. 1642 I. Browning's Cavalier Tunes, 12:205-208 II. Milton's Il Penseroso, 14:14-19 III. Lycidas, 15:52-58 23rd. EDGAR LEE MASTERS, b. 23 Ag. 1869 I. Isaiah Beethoven, 14:308 II. Hardy's She Hears the Storm, 14:312 III. Wheelock's The Unknown Beloved, 10:309 24th. ROBERT HERRICK, baptized 24 Ag. 1591 I. To Dianeme, 12:123 II. Upon Julia's Clothes, 12:124 III. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, 12:125 IV. Delight in Disorder, 12:125-126 V. To Anthea, 12:126-127 VI. To Daisies, 12:127 VII. The Night Piece, 12:128 25th. BRET HARTE, b. 25 Ag. 1839 I. Plain Language from Truthful James, II:234-236 II. The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 20-Pt. I:30-46 III. Ramon, 11:285-288 IV. Her Letter, 8-Pt. I:113-115 26th. I. Holley's An Unmarried Female, 8-Pt. II: 26-36 We are as liable to be corrupted by books as by companions. --HENRY FIELDING. AUGUST 27TH TO SEPTEMBER 2ND 27th. I. Scott's Coronach, 15:33-34 II. Lochinvar, 10:36-39 III. A Weary Lot Is Thine, 10:40-41 IV. County Guy, 12:154-155 V. Hail to the Chief, 12:203-204 28th. LEO TOLSTOI, b. 28 Ag. 1828 I. The Prisoner in the Caucasus, 19-Pt. I:141-186 29th. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,b. 29Ag. 1809;d. I. The Ballad of the Oysterman, 7-Pt. I:105-106 II. My Aunt, 7-Pt. I:23-24 III. Foreign Correspondence, 7-Pt. I:77-80 IV. The Chambered Nautilus, 14:108-109 The Royal George lost 29 Ag. 1782 V. Cowper's On the Loss of the Royal George, 10:148-149 30th. I. Scott's Brignall Banks, 10:41-43 II. Hunting Song, 12:230-231 III. Soldier Rest, 12:277-278 IV. Proud Maisie, 10:258 V. Harp of the North, 12:286-287 31st. THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, b. 31 Ag. 1811 I. The Mummy's Foot, 19-Pt. I:90-108 S. 1ST. SIMEON FORD, b. 31 Ag. 1855 I. At a Turkish Bath, 9-Pt. II:74-77 II. The Discomforts of Travel, 9-Pt. II: 123-127 III. Boyhood in a New England Hotel, 9-Pt. I:123-126 2nd. AUSTIN DOBSON, d. 2 S. 1921 I. Ballad of Prose and Rhyme, 12:335 II. Carman's Vagabond Song, 12:330 III. Colum's Old Woman of the Roads, 14:311 IV. Peabody's House and the Road, 12:344 V. Daly's Inscription for a Fireplace, 13:294 Old wood best to burn; old wine to drink; old friends to trust; and old authors to read. --ALONZO OF ARAGON. SEPTEMBER 3RD TO 9TH 3rd. IVAN SERGEYEVICH TURGENIEFF, d. 3 S.1883 I. The Song of Triumphant Love, 19-Pt. I: 109-140 II. Wordsworth's Sonnet Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept, 3, 1802, 13:211 4th. SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE, d. 4 (?) S. 1591 I. Tennyson's The Revenge, 10:222-229 II. Wordsworth's To the Skylark, 12:40-41 III. On a Picture of Peele Castle, 14:44-47 5th. I. Some Messages Received by Teachers in Brooklyn Public Schools, 7-Pt. II:144-147 II. Emerson's Labor, 2-Pt. I:138-145 6th. I. Wordsworth's Resolution and Independence, 11:48-54 II. Yarrow Unvisited, 14:53-55 III. Intimations of Immortality, 13:89-96 IV. Ode to Duty, 13:96-98 V. The Small Celandine, 14:112-113 7th. I. Milton's Echo, 12:25-26 II. Sabrina, 12:26-27 III. The Spirit's Epilogue, 12:27-29 IV. On Time, 13:52-53 V. At a Solemn Music, 13:53-54 8th. I. Wordsworth's Lucy, 15:114-118 II. Hart-Leap Well, 10:134-142 SIEGFRIED SASSOON, b. 8 S. 1886 III. Dreamers, 15:223 9th. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT, drowned 9 S. 1583 I. Longfellow's Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 10:160-161 Battle of Flodden Field, 9 S. 1513 II. Elliot's A Lament for Flodden, 10:251-252 III. Wordsworth's Stepping Westward, 14:158-159 IV. She Was A Phantom of Delight, 14:159-160 V. Scorn Not the Sonnet, 13:175-176 To desire to have many books, and never use them, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping. --HENRY PEACHAM. SEPTEMBER 10TH TO 16TH 10th. I. Wordsworth's Nuns Fret Not, 13:175 II. Lines, 14:253-255 III. We Are Seven, 10:252-255 11th. JAMES THOMSON, b. II S. 1700 I. Rule Britannia, 12:208-209 II. Collins's On the Death of Thomson, 15:59-60 III. Lowell's A Winter Ride, 12:331 IV. MacKaye's The Automobile, 13:290 12th. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, b. 12 S. 1829 I. Plumbers, 8-Pt. I:150-151 II. My Summer in a Garden, 7-Pt. I:6l-74 III. How I Killed a Bear, 9-Pt. I:59-70 13th. GENERAL AMBROSE EVERETT BURNSIDE, d. 13 S. 1881 I. Lincoln's Letter to Burnside, 5-Pt. I:118 II. Collins's Ode Written in 1745, 15:34 III. The Passions, 13:81-85 IV. Ode to Evening, 13:85-88 V. Dirge in Cymbeline, 15:112-113 14th. DUKE OF WELLINGTON, d. 14 S. 1852 I. Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 13:151-161 DANTE, d. 14 S. 1321 II. Longfellow's Dante and Divina Comedia, 13:239-244 III. Parsons's On a Bust of Dante, 14:152-154 15th. I. Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper, 14:160-161 II. Jonson's Hymn to Diana, 12:14 III. Pindaric Ode, 13:37-42 IV. Epitaph, 15:46-47 V. On Elizabeth L. H., 15:47 16th. ALFRED NOYES, b. 16 S. 1880 I. Old Grey Squirrel, 14:306 JOHN GAY, baptized 16 S. 1685 II. Black-Eyed Susan, 10:32-34 CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS, b. 16 S. 1861 III. O-U-G-H, 7-Pt. I:143 It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have. --SENECA. SEPTEMBER 17TH to 23RD 17th. I. Turner's The Harvest Moon, 13:249 II. Letty's Globe, 13:245-246 III. Mary, A Reminiscence, 13:246-247 IV. Her First-born, 13:247-248 V. The Lattice at Sunrise, 13:248 18th. DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, b. 18 S. 1709 I. Macaulay's Dr. Samuel Johnson, 2-Pt. II:39-79 19th. HARTLEY COLERIDGE, b. 19 S. 1796 I. Song, 12:166-167 II. Sonnets, 13:227-230 III. Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, 14:22-25 IV. Love, 10:44-47 V. France: An Ode, 13:99-103 20th. WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE, d. 20 S. 1863 I. Antony to Cleopatra, 14:238-240 II. Hood's The Death Bed, 15:131 III. Autumn, 13:148-150 IV. Ruth, 14:157-158 V. Fair Ines, 12:168-169 21st. SIR WALTER SCOTT, d. 21 S. 1832 I. Sir Walter Scott, 17-Pt. I:65-73 II. The Maid of Neidpath, 10:39-40 III. Pibroch of Donald Dhu, 12:201-203 IV. Wandering Willie's Tale, 20-Pt. II:75-103 22nd. I. Wordsworth's My Heart Leaps Up, 13:274 II. Laodamia, 11:143-150 III. There Was a Boy, 14:156-157 23rd. Battle of Monterey, 23 S. 1846 I. Hoffman's Monterey, 10:206-207 II. Lovelace's The Grasshopper, 12:30 III. To Lucasta, 12:129-130 IV. To Althea, 12:130-131 V. To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars, 12:198 The words of the good are like a staff in a slippery place. --HINDU SAYING. SEPTEMBER 24TH TO 30TH 24th. I. Noyes's Creation, 15:204 25th. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, b. 25 S. 1793 I. Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, 10:151-153 II. Poe's Annabel Lee, 10:56-57 III. To Helen, 12:176 IV. The Bells, 12:234-238 V. For Annie, 12:305-308 26th. I. Holmes's Latter-Day Warnings, 7-Pt. I:34-35 II. Contentment, 7-Pt. I:35-38 III. An Aphorism, 8-Pt. II:44-52 IV. Music Pounding, 7-Pt. I:80-81 27th. I. Holmes's The Height of the Ridiculous, 8-Pt. I:118-119 II. The Last Leaf, 14:167-168 III. The One-Hoss Shay, 11:236-241 28th. I. Morley's Haunting Beauty of Strychnine, 9-Pt. I:135 II. Guiterman's Strictly Germ-Proof, 7-Pt. I:141 III. Burgess's Lazy Roof, 8-Pt. I:149 IV. My Feet, 8-Pt. I:149 29th. ÉMILE ZOLA, d. 29 S. 1902 I. The Death of Olivier Bécaille, 21-Pt. I:53-93 30th. I. Lowell's Without and Within, 8-Pt. II:72-73 II. She Came and Went, 15:134 III. The Sower, 14:144-145 IV. Sonnets, 13:251-253 V. What Rabbi Jehosha Said, 14:282-283 If you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, Baron Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as you--he is certainly not better occupied. --P. G. HAMERTON. OCTOBER 1ST TO 7TH 1st. LOUIS UNTERMYER, b. 1 O. 1885 I. Only of Thee and Me, 12:339 II. Morris's October, 14:105-106 III. Bunner's Candor, 8-Pt. I:11-12 2nd. French Fleet destroyed off Boston, October, 1746 I. Longfellow's Ballad of the French Fleet, 10:202-204 II. Mrs. Browning's Sleep, 15:21-23 III. The Romance of the Swan's Nest, 10:79-83 IV. A Dead Rose, 12:191-192 V. A Man's Requirements, 12:192-194 3rd. WILLIAM MORRIS, d. 3 0. 1896 I. Summer Dawn, 12:172 II. The Nymph's Song to Hylas, 12:173-174 III. The Voice of Toil, 12:290-292 IV. The Shameful Death, 10:277-279 4th. HENRY CAREY, d. 4 O. 1743 I. Sally in Our Alley, 12:142-144 II. Van Dyke's The Proud Lady, 10:296 5th. I. Poe's Ulalume, II:302-306 II. Arnold's The Last Word, 15:43 III. A Nameless Epitaph, 15:48 IV. Thyrsis, 15:86-97 V. Requiescat, 15:120-121 6th. GEORGE HENRY BOKER, b. 6 O. 1893 I. The Black Regiment, 10:207-210 II. Lamb's Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:129-132 III. Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:136-143 IV. Letter to Wordsworth, 5-Pt. II:143-145 7th. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, d. 7 O. 1586 I. The Bargain, 12:87 II. Astrophel and Stella, 13:178-180 III. To Sir Philip Sidney's Soul, 13:181 EDGAR ALLAN POE, d. 7 O. 1849 IV. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Pt. I:1-53 A little before you go to sleep read something that is exquisite and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep. --ERASMUS. OCTOBER 8TH TO 14TH 8th. JOHN HAY, b. 8 O. 1838 I. Little Breeches, 7-Pt. I:45-47 EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, b. 8 0. 1833. II. The Diamond Wedding, 7-Pt. I:107-114 9th. S. W. GILLILAN, b. O. 1869 I. Finnigin to Flannigan, 9-Pt. I:92-93 II. Dunne's On Expert Testimony, 9-Pt. II:13-16 III. Work and Sport, 9-Pt. II:87-92 IV. Avarice and Generosity, 9-Pt. II:144-146 10th. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, d. 10 0. 1872 I. Lincoln's Letter to Seward, 5-Pt. I:111-112 II. Walker's Medicine Show, 18:213 11th. I. Keats's To Autumn, 13:142-143 II. Carew's Epitaph, 15:48 III. Disdain Returned, 12:133-134 IV. Song, 12:134 V. To His Inconstant Mistress, 12:135 12th. ROBERT E. LEE, d. 12 O. 1870 I. Robert E. Lee, 16-Pt. II:62-73 DINAH MULOCK CRAIK, d. 12 O. 1887. II. Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True 12:310-311 13th. SIR HENRY IRVING, d. 13 O. 1905 I. Sir Henry Irving, 17-Pt. II:39-47 14th. JOSH BILLINGS (H. W. SHAW), d. 14 O. 1885 I. Natral and Unnatral Aristokrats, 7-Pt. I:48-51 II. To Correspondents, 9-Pt. I:73-74 III. Russell's Origin of the Banjo, 9-Pt. I:79-82 And when a man is at home and happy with a book, sitting by his fireside, he must be a churl if he does not communicate that happiness. Let him read now and then to his wife and children. --H. FRISWELL. OCTOBER 15TH TO 21ST 15th. I. Tennyson's Tears, Idle Tears, 12:272-273 II. Shakespeare's Over Hill, Over Dale, 12:19 III. Poe's Assignation, 4-Pt. I:81-101 16th. I. Nye's How to Hunt the Fox, 8-Pt. I:70-78 II. A Fatal Thirst, 7-Pt. II:148-150 III. On Cyclones, 9-Pt. I:83-85 17th. WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY, d. 17 O. 1910 I. Gloucester Moors, 11:320 18th. THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK, b. 18 O. 1785 I. Three Men of Gotham, 12:257-258 II. Shakespeare's Silvia, 12:91-92 III. O Mistress Mine, 12:92 IV. Take, O Take Those Lips Away, 12:93 V. Love, 12:93-94 19th. LEIGH HUNT, b. 19 O. 1784 I. Jenny Kissed Me, 12:158 II. Abou Ben Adhem, 11:121-122 CORNWALLIS surrendered at Yorktown, 19 O. 1781 III. Tennyson's England and America in 1782, 12:209-210 20th. I. Shakespeare's The Fairy Life, 12:20 II. When Icicles Hang by the Wall, 12:22 III. Fear No More the Heat of the Sun, 15:37 IV. A Sea Dirge, 15:38 21st. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, b. 21 0. 1772 I. Youth and Age, 14:264-265 II. Kubla Khan, 14:80-82 III. Thompson's Arab Love Song, 12:339 I wist all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant. --ROGER ASCHAM. OCTOBER 22ND TO 28TH 22nd. I. Shakespeare's Crabbed Age and Youth, 12:94 II. On A Day, Alack the Day, 12:95 III. Come Away, Come Away, Death, 12:96 IV. Rittenhouse's Ghostly Galley, 13:296 V. O'Hara's Atropos, 15:199 23rd. I. Townsend's Chimmie Fadden Makes Friends, 9-Pt. I:105-109 II. Tompkins's Sham, 18:169 24th. I. Tarkington's Beauty and the Jacobin, 18:19 25th. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, b 25 O. 1800 I. Country Gentlemen, 2-Pt. II:110-119 II. Polite Literature, 2-Pt. II:119-132 Battle of Balaclava, 25 0. 1854. III. Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, 10:217-219 IV. Tennyson's Charge of the Heavy Brigade, 10:219-221 26th. I. Vaughan's Friends Departed, 15:10-11 II. Peace, 15:160-161 III. The Retreat, 15:161-162 IV. The World, 14:245-247 27th. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, b. 27 0. 1858 I. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, 16-Pt. II:74-94 28th. I. Zola's Attack on the Mill, 20-Pt. I:47-102 I never think of the name of Gutenberg without feelings of veneration and homage. --G. S. PHILLIPS. OCTOBER 29TH TO NOVEMBER 4TH 29th. JOHN KEATS, b. 29 O. 1795 I. Ode on a Grecian Urn, 13:137-139 II. The Eve of St. Agnes, 11:68-83 30th. ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, b. 30 O. 1825 I. A Doubting Heart, 12:312-313 II. Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd, 12:97-98 III. Raleigh's Her Reply, 12:98-99 IV. The Pilgrimage, 12:314-316 31st. Hallowe'en I. Burns's Tam O'Shanter, 11:253-260 N. 1st. I. Bryant's The Death of the Flowers, 14:118-120 II. The Battle-Field, 15:26-28 III. The Evening Wind, 12:50-52 IV. To a Waterfowl, 13:147-148 2nd. I. Arnold's Rugby Chapel, 15: 97-104 II. Campion's Cherry-Ripe, 12:103 III. Follow Your Saint, 12:103-104 IV. Vobiscum est Iope, 12:105 3rd. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, b. 3 N. 1794 I. The Mosquito, 8-Pt. II:58-61 II. To the Fringed Gentian, 14:114-115 III. Song of Marion's Men, 10:199-201 IV. Forest Hymn, 14:34-38 4th. EUGENE FIELD, d. 4 N. 1895 I. Baked Beans and Culture, 9-Pt. I:86-89 II. The Little Peach, 8-Pt. I:86 III. Dibdin's Ghost, 9-Pt. II:44-46 IV. Dutch Lullaby, 12:250-251 To divert myself from a troublesome Fancy 'tis but to run to my books ... they always receive me with the same kindness. --MONTAIGNE. NOVEMBER 5TH TO 11TH 5th. I. Lowell's What Mr. Robinson Thinks, 7-Pt. I:115-117 II. Field's The Truth About Horace, 9-Pt. I:17-18 III. The Cyclopeedy, 9-Pt. I:127-134 6th. HOLMAN F. DAY, b. 6 N. 1865 I. Tale of the Kennebec Mariner, 9-Pt. II:10-12 II. Grampy Sings a Song, 9-Pt. II:64-66 III. Cure for Homesickness, 9-Pt. II:129-130 IV. The Night After Christmas (Anonymous), 9-Pt. I:75-76 7th. I. Gibson's The Fear, 15:216 II. Back, 15:216 III. The Return, 15:217 8th. JOHN MILTON, d. 8 N. 1674 I. Sonnets, 13:198-205 II. L'Allegro, 14:9-14 III. On Milton by Dryden, 13:272 9th. I. Lincoln's Letter to Astor, Roosevelt, and Sands, 9 N. 1863, 5-Pt. I:119 II. Arnold's Saint Brandan, II:137-140 III. Longing, 12:188-189 IV. Sonnets, 13:253-256 10th. HENRY VAN DYKE, b. 10 N. 1852 I. Salute to the Trees, 14:290 II. The Standard Bearer, 10:307 VACHEL LINDSAY, b. 10 N. 1879 III. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, 14:298 11th. Armistice Day, 11 N. 1918 I. Wharton's The Young Dead, 15:213 II. Meynell's Dead Harvest, 14:292 III. Tennyson's Locksley Hall, 14:223-238 We have known Book-love to be independent of the author and lurk in a few charmed words traced upon the title-page by a once familiar hand. --ANONYMOUS. NOVEMBER 12TH TO 18TH 12th. RICHARD BAXTER, b. 12 N. 1615 I. A Hymn of Trust, 15:164-165 II. Arnold's The Future, 14:275-278 III. Palladium, 14:278-279 IV. The Forsaken Merman, 11:291-296 13th. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, b. 13 N. 1850 I. Robert Louis Stevenson, 17-Pt. I:133-146 II. Foreign Lands, 12:248-249 III. Requiem, 15:142 14th. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, d. 14 N. 1915 I. Booker T. Washington, 17-Pt. I:172-190 15th. WILLIAM COWPER, b. 26 N. 1731 I. To Mary, 12:243-245 II. Boadicea, 10:181-182 III. Verses, 14:221-223 IV. Diverting History of John Gilpin, 11:241-251 16th. I. Cone's Ride to the Lady, 10:311 II. Hewlett's Soldier, Soldier, 15:212 17th. Lucknow relieved by Campbell, 17 N. 1857 I. Robert Lowell's The Relief of Lucknow, 11:184-187 II. Roberts's The Maid, 10:305 18th. I. Joseph Conrad, 17-Pt. I:147-166 Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. --LORD BACON. NOVEMBER 19TH TO 25TH 19th. I. Lincoln's Gettyburg Address, 5-Pt. I: 107-108 20th. THOMAS CHATTERTON, b. 20 N. 1752 I. Minstrel's Song, 15:40-41 CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE, b. 20 N. 1829 II. Irish Astronomy, 8-Pt. II:79-80 III. Davis's The First Piano in a Mining-Camp, 9-Pt. I:34-44 IV. Dunne's On Gold Seeking, 9-Pt. I:99-102 21st. VOLTAIRE, b. 21 N. 1694 I. Jeannot and Colin, 22-Pt. I:1-16 BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall), b. 21 N. 1787 II. The Sea, 12:72-73 III. The Poet's Song to His Wife, 12:242-243 IV. A Petition to Time, 12:252 22nd. St. Cecilia's Day, Nov. 22nd. I. Dryden's Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 13:61-63 II. O May I Join the Choir Invisible, 15:185-186 JACK LONDON, d. 22 N. 1916 III. Jan the Unrepentant, 22-Pt. II:136 23rd. I. Carryl's The Walloping Window Blind, 9-Pt. II:35-36 II. Marble's The Hoosier and the Salt-pile, 8-Pt. II:62-67 24th. I. Arnold's Growing Old, 14:281-282 II. Lyly's Spring's Welcome, 12:15 III. Cupid and Campaspe, 12:86 IV. Lindsay's Auld Robin Gray, 10:30-32 25th. I. Irving's The Devil and Tom Walker, 3-Pt. II:37-57 Montaigne with his sheepskin blistered, And Howell the worse for wear, And the worm-drilled Jesuit's Horace, And the little old cropped Molière-- And the Burton I bought for a florin, And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd-- For the others I never have opened, But those are the ones I read. --AUSTIN DOBSON. NOVEMBER 26th TO DECEMBER 2ND 26th. COVENTRY PATMORE, d. 26 N. 1896 I. To the Unknown Eros, 13:169-171 II. The Toys, 15:140-141 III. Lamb's The Old Familiar Faces, 15:73-74 IV. Hester, 15:75-76 27th. I. Wordsworth's Influence of Natural Objects, 14:251-253 RIDGELEY TORRENCE, b. 27 N. 1875 II. Torrence's Evensong, 12:346 III. Burt's Resurgam, 13:292 28th. WILLIAM BLAKE, b. 28 N. 1757 I. The Tiger, 12:42-43 II. Piping Down the Valleys, 12:246 III. The Golden Door, 15:172 WASHINGTON IRVING. d. 28 N. 1859 IV. Rip Van Winkle, 19-Pt. II:71-96 29th. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, b. 29 N. 1832 I. Street Scenes in Washington, 8-Pt. II:74-76 JOHN G. NEIHARDT, married 29 N. 1908 II. Envoi, 15:200 III. Cheney's Happiest Heart, 14:318 IV. Dargan's There's Rosemary, 13:287 30th. SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS (Mark Twain), b. 30 N. 1835 I. Colonel Mulberry Sellers, 7-Pt. II:31-40 II. The Notorious Jumping Frog, 7-Pt. I:122-131 D. 1st. I. Keats's In a Drear-Nighted December, 12:268 II. Gray's Progress of Poesy, 13:76-80 III. Doyle's Private of the Buffs, 11:284-285 2nd. I. Lowell's The First Snow-Fail, 15:135-136 II. Daniel's Love Is a Sickness, 12:108 III. Delia, 13:181-182 IV. Darley's Song, 12:170-171 When evening has arrived, I return home, and go into my study.... For hours together, the miseries of life no longer annoy me; I forget every vexation; I do not fear poverty; for I have altogether transferred myself to those with whom I hold converse. --MACHIAVELLI. DECEMBER 3RD TO 9TH 3rd. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, b. 3 D. 1826 I. Lincoln's Letter to McClellan, 5-Pt. I:109-110 Battle of Hohenlinden, 3 D. 1800 II. Campbell's Hohenlinden, 10:188-189 ROBERT Louis STEVENSON, d. 3 D. 1894 III. Providence and the Guitar, 19-Pt. II: 96-138 4th. I. Sudermann's The Gooseherd, 20-Pt. II:62-74 5th. CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI, b. 5 D. 1830 I. One Certainty, 13:265 II. Up-Hill, 12:322-323 III. Hayne's In Harbor, 15:142-143 IV. Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon, 13:265-266 V. Goldsmith's When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly, 13:273 6th. R. H. BARHAM, b. 6 D. 1788 I. The Jackdaw of Rheims, 11:173-179 7th. CALE YOUNG RICE, b. 7 D. 1872 I. Chant of the Colorado, 14:291 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, b. 7 D. 1784 II. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, 12:73-74 III. Hame, Hame, Hame, 12:309-310 IV. Bailey's After the Funeral, 8-Pt. I:42-44 V. What He Wanted It For, 9-Pt. I:90-91 8th. I. A Visit to Brigham Young, 9-Pt. I:47-52 9th. STEPHEN PHILLIPS, d. 9 D. 1915 I. Harold before Senlac, 14:315 This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasures that God has prepared for his creatures.... It lasts when all other pleasures fade. --TROLLOPE. DECEMBER 10TH TO 16TH 10th. EMILY DICKINSON, b. 10 D. 1830 I. Our Share of Night to Bear, 13:282 II. Heart, We Will Forget Him, 13:282 III. Ruskin's Mountain Glory, 1-Pt. II:59-69 11th. I. Webster's Reply to Hayne, 6-Pt. I:63-105 12th. I. Herford's Gold, 9-Pt. II:9 II. Child's Natural History, 9-Pt. II:37-39 III. Metaphysics, 9-Pt. II:128 IV. The End of the World, 9-Pt. I:120-122 13th. WILLIAM DRUMMOND, b. 13 D. 1585 I. Invocation, 12:24-25 II. "I Know That All Beneath the Moon Decays," 13:196-197 III. For the Baptist, 13:197 IV. To His Lute, 13:198 V. Browne's The Siren's Song, 12:23 VI. A Welcome, 12:111-112 VII. My Choice, 12:112-113 14th. CHARLES WOLFE, b. 14 D. 1791 I. The Burial of Sir John Moore, 15:31-33 II. Clough's In a Lecture Room, 14:272 III. Qua Cursum Ventus, 12:317-318 IV. Davis's Souls, 14:317 15th. I. Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, 13:232-239 16th. GEORGE SANTAYANA, b. 16 D. 1863 I. "As in the Midst of Battle There Is Room," 13:287 II. MacMillan's Shadowed Star, 18:273 When there is no recreation or business for thee abroad, thou may'st have a company of honest old fellows in their leathern jackets in thy study which will find thee excellent divertisement at home. --THOMAS FULLER. DECEMBER 17TH TO 23RD 17th. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, b. 17 D. 1807 I. Amy Wentworth, 10:53-56 II. The Barefoot Boy, 14:169-172 III. My Psalm, 15:180-191 IV. The Eternal Goodness, 15:192-196 V. Telling the Bees, 11:308-310 18th. PHILIP FRENEAU, d. 18 D. 1832 I. The Wild Honeysuckle, 14:113-114 L. G. C. A. CHATRIAN, b. 18 D. 1826 II. The Comet, 20-Pt. II:104-114 19th. BAYARD TAYLOR, d. 19 D. 1878 I. Palabras Grandiosas, 9-Pt. I:58 II. Bedouin Love Song, 12:174-175 III. The Song of the Camp, 11:288-290 IV. W. B. Scott's Glenkindie, 10:48-51 20th. I. Ford's The Society Reporter's Christmas, 8-Pt. I:57-65 II. The Dying Gag, 9-Pt. II:119-122 21st. GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, d. 21 D. 1375 I. The Falcon, 20-Pt. II:1-11 22nd. EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, b. 22 D. 1869 I. Miniver Cheevy, 7-Pt. I:147 II. Vickery's Mountain, 14:303 III. Richard Cory, 14:309 23rd. MICHAEL DRAYTON, d. 23 D. 1631 I. Idea, 13:182 II. Agincourt, 10:176-181 III. Stevenson's The Whaups, 12:70 IV. Youth and Love, 12:231 Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books; and valuable books should, in a civilized country, be within the reach of every one. --JOHN RUSKIN. DECEMBER 24TH TO 31ST 24th. Christmas Eve I. Guiney's Tryste Noël, 15:202 II. Rossetti's My Sister's Sleep, 15:137-139 MATTHEW ARNOLD, b. 24 D. 1822 III. Dover Beach, 14:279-280 IV. Philomela, 12:56-57 25th. I. Milton's Ode on The Morning of Christ's Nativity, 13:42-43 II. Thackeray's The Mahogany Tree, 12:252-254 III. Thackeray's The End of the Play, 14:283-286 IV. Domett's A Christmas Hymn, 15:178-179 26th. THOMAS GRAY, b. 26 D. 1716 I. Elegy, 15:12-17 II. Ode to Adversity, 13:70-72 III. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 13:72-76 27th. CHARLES LAMB, d. 27 D. 1834 I. Landor's To the Sister of Elia, 15:76-77 II. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, 5-Pt. II:40-51 III. Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading, 5-Pt. II 70-79 28th. I. Hawthorne's The Birthmark, 3-Pt. I:23-51 29th. JOHN VANCE CHENEY, b,. 29 D. 1848 I. Cheney's Happiest Heart, 14:318 II. Emerson's Terminus, 14:267-268 III. Clough's Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth, 14:272-273 IV. Lamb's Old Familiar Faces, 15:73-74 30th. RUDYARD KIPLING, b. 30 D. 1865 I. Without Benefit of Clergy, 19-Pt. I:54-89 31st. I. Shelley's The World's Great Age Begins Anew, 12:284-286 II. Burns's Auld Lang Syne, 12:261-262 III. Lowell's To the Past, 13:161-163 IV. Lamb's New Year's Eve, 5-Pt. II:11-21 
6884	----	the Online Distributed SLEEPING FIRES A NOVEL BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON SLEEPING FIRES I There was no Burlingame in the Sixties, the Western Addition was a desert of sand dunes and the goats gambolled through the rocky gulches of Nob Hill. But San Francisco had its Rincon Hill and South Park, Howard and Fulsom and Harrison Streets, coldly aloof from the tumultuous hot heart of the City north of Market Street. In this residence section the sidewalks were also wooden and uneven and the streets muddy in winter and dusty in summer, but the houses, some of which had "come round the Horn," were large, simple, and stately. Those on the three long streets had deep gardens before them, with willow trees and oaks above the flower beds, quaint ugly statues, and fountains that were sometimes dry. The narrower houses of South Park crowded one another about the oval enclosure and their common garden was the smaller oval of green and roses. On Rincon Hill the architecture was more varied and the houses that covered all sides of the hill were surrounded by high-walled gardens whose heavy bushes of Castilian roses were the only reminder in this already modern San Francisco of the Spain that had made California a land of romance for nearly a century; the last resting place on this planet of the Spirit of Arcadia ere she vanished into space before the gold-seekers. On far-flung heights beyond the business section crowded between Market and Clay Streets were isolated mansions, built by prescient men whose belief in the rapid growth of the city to the north and west was justified in due course, but which sheltered at present amiable and sociable ladies who lamented their separation by vast spaces from that aristocratic quarter of the south. But they had their carriages, and on a certain Sunday afternoon several of these arks drawn by stout horses might have been seen crawling fearfully down the steep hills or floundering through the sand until they reached Market Street; when the coachmen cracked their whips, the horses trotted briskly, and shortly after began to ascend Rincon Hill. Mrs. Hunt McLane, the social dictator of her little world, had recently moved from South Park into a large house on Rincon Hill that had been built by an eminent citizen who had lost his fortune as abruptly as he had made it; and this was her housewarming. It was safe to say that her rooms would be crowded, and not merely because her Sunday receptions were the most important minor functions in San Francisco: it was possible that Dr. Talbot and his bride would be there. And if he were not it might be long before curiosity would be gratified by even a glance at the stranger; the doctor detested the theatre and had engaged a suite at the Occidental Hotel with a private dining-room. Several weeks before a solemn conclave had been held at Mrs. McLane's house in South Park. Mrs. Abbott was there and Mrs. Ballinger, both second only to Mrs. McLane in social leadership; Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Brannan, and other women whose power was rooted in the Fifties; Maria and Sally Ballinger, Marguerite McLane, and Guadalupe Hathaway, whose blue large talking Spanish eyes had made her the belle of many seasons: all met to discuss the disquieting news of the marriage in Boston of the most popular and fashionable doctor in San Francisco, Howard Talbot. He had gone East for a vacation, and soon after had sent them a bald announcement of his marriage to one Madeleine Chilton of Boston. Many high hopes had centered in Dr. Talbot. He was only forty, good-looking, with exuberant spirits, and well on the road to fortune. He had been surrounded in San Francisco by beautiful and vivacious girls, but had always proclaimed himself a man's man, avowed he had seen too much of babies and "blues," and should die an old bachelor. Besides he loved them all; when he did not damn them roundly, which he sometimes did to their secret delight. And now he not only had affronted them by marrying some one he probably never had seen before, but he had taken a Northern wife; he had not even had the grace to go to his native South, if he must marry an outsider; he had gone to Boston--of all places! San Francisco Society in the Sixties was composed almost entirely of Southerners. Even before the war it had been difficult for a Northerner to obtain entrance to that sacrosanct circle; the exceptions were due to sheer personality. Southerners were aristocrats. The North was plebeian. That was final. Since the war, Victorious North continued to admit defeat in California. The South had its last stronghold in San Francisco, and held it, haughty, unconquered, inflexible. That Dr. Talbot, who was on a family footing in every home in San Francisco, should have placed his friends in such a delicate position (to say nothing of shattered hopes) was voted an outrage, and at Mrs. McLane's on that former Sunday afternoon, there had been no pretence at indifference. The subject was thoroughly discussed. It was possible that the creature might not even be a lady. Had any one ever heard of a Boston family named Chilton? No one had. They knew nothing of Boston and cared less. But the best would be bad enough. It was more likely however that the doctor had married some obscure person with nothing in her favor but youth, or a widow of practiced wiles, or--horrid thought--a divorcee. He had always been absurdly liberal in spite of his blue Southern blood; and a man's man wandering alone at the age of forty was almost foredoomed to disaster. No doubt the poor man had been homesick and lonesome. Should they receive her or should they not? If not, would they lose their doctor. He would never speak to one of them again if they insulted his wife. But a Bostonian, a possible nobody! And homely, of course. Angular. Who had ever heard of a pretty woman raised on beans, codfish, and pie for breakfast? Finally Mrs. McLane had announced that she should not make up her mind until the couple arrived and she sat in judgment upon the woman personally. She would call the day after they docked in San Francisco. If, by any chance, the woman were presentable, dressed herself with some regard to the fashion (which was more than Mrs. Abbott and Guadalupe Hathaway did), and had sufficient tact to avoid the subject of the war, she would stand sponsor and invite her to the first reception in the house on Rincon Hill. "But if not," she said grimly--"well, not even for Howard Talbot's sake will I receive a woman who is not a lady, or who has been divorced. In this wild city we are a class apart, above. No loose fish enters our quiet bay. Only by the most rigid code and watchfulness have we formed and preserved a society similar to that we were accustomed to in the old South. If we lowered our barriers we should be submerged. If Howard Talbot has married a woman we do not find ourselves able to associate with in this intimate little society out here on the edge of the world, he will have to go." II Mrs. McLane had called on Mrs. Talbot. That was known to all San Francisco, for her carriage had stood in front of the Occidental Hotel for an hour. Kind friends had called to offer their services in setting the new house in order, but were dismissed at the door with the brief announcement that Mrs. McLane was having the blues. No one wasted time on a second effort to gossip with their leader; it was known that just so often Mrs. McLane drew down the blinds, informed her household that she was not to be disturbed, disposed herself on the sofa with her back to the room and indulged in the luxury of blues for three days. She took no nourishment but milk and broth and spoke to no one. Today this would be a rest cure and was equally beneficial. When the attack was over Mrs. McLane would arise with a clear complexion, serene nerves, and renewed strength for social duties. Her friends knew that her retirement on this occasion was timed to finish on the morning of her reception and had not the least misgiving that her doors would still be closed. The great double parlors of her new mansion were thrown into one and the simple furniture covered with gray rep was pushed against soft gray walls hung with several old portraits in oil, ferrotypes and silhouettes. A magnificent crystal chandelier depended from the high and lightly frescoed ceiling and there were side brackets beside the doors and the low mantel piece. Mrs. McLane may not have been able to achieve beauty with the aid of the San Francisco shops, but at least she had managed to give her rooms a severe and stately simplicity, vastly different from the helpless surrenders of her friends to mid-victorian deformities. The rooms filled early. Mrs. McLane stood before the north windows receiving her friends with her usual brilliant smile, her manner of high dignity and sweet cordiality. She was a majestic figure in spite of her short stature and increasing curves, for the majesty was within and her head above a flat back had a lofty poise. She wore her prematurely white hair in a tall pompadour, and this with the rich velvets she affected, ample and long, made her look like a French marquise of the eighteenth century, stepped down from the canvas. The effect was by no means accidental. Mrs. McLane's grandmother had been French and she resembled her. Her hoopskirt was small, but the other women were inclined to the extreme of the fashion; as they saw it in the Godey's Lady's Book they or their dressmakers subscribed to. Their handsome gowns spread widely and the rooms hardly could have seemed to sway and undulate more if an earthquake had rocked it. The older women wore small bonnets and cashmere shawls, lace collars and cameos, the younger fichus and small flat hats above their "waterfalls" or curled chignons. The husbands had retired with Mr. McLane to the smoking room, but there were many beaux present, equally expectant when not too absorbed. Unlike as a reception of that day was in background and costumes from the refinements of modern art and taste, it possessed one contrast that was wholly to its advantage. Its men were gentlemen and the sons and grandsons of gentlemen. To no one city has there ever been such an emigration of men of good family as to San Francisco in the Fifties and Sixties. Ambitious to push ahead in politics or the professions and appreciating the immediate opportunities of the new and famous city, or left with an insufficient inheritance (particularly after the war) and ashamed to work in communities where no gentleman had ever worked, they had set sail with a few hundreds to a land where a man, if he did not occupy himself lucratively, was unfit for the society of enterprising citizens. Few had come in time for the gold diggings, but all, unless they had disappeared into the hot insatiable maw of the wicked little city, had succeeded in one field or another; and these, in their dandified clothes, made a fine appearance at fashionable gatherings. If they took up less room than the women they certainly were more decorative. Dr. Talbot and his wife had not arrived. To all eager questions Mrs. McLane merely replied that "they" would "be here." She had the dramatic instinct of the true leader and had commanded the doctor not to bring his bride before four o'clock. The reception began at three. They should have an entrance. But Mrs. Abbott, a lady of three chins and an eagle eye, who had clung for twenty-five years to black satin and bugles, was too persistent to be denied. She extracted the information that the Bostonian had sent her own furniture by a previous steamer and that her drawing room was graceful, French, and exquisite. At ten minutes after the hour the buzz and chatter stopped abruptly and every face was turned, every neck craned toward the door. The colored butler had announced with a grand flourish: "Dr. and Mrs. Talbot." The doctor looked as rubicund, as jovial, as cynical as ever. But few cast him more than a passing glance. Then they gave an audible gasp, induced by an ingenuous compound of amazement, disappointment, and admiration. They had been prepared to forgive, to endure, to make every allowance. The poor thing could no more help being plain and dowdy than born in Boston, and as their leader had satisfied herself that she "would do," they would never let her know how deeply they deplored her disabilities. But they found nothing to deplore but the agonizing necessity for immediate readjustment. Mrs. Talbot was unquestionably a product of the best society. The South could have done no better. She was tall and supple and self-possessed. She was exquisitely dressed in dark blue velvet with a high collar of point lace tapering almost to her bust, and revealing a long white throat clasped at the base by a string of pearls. On her head, as proudly poised as Mrs. McLane's, was a blue velvet hat, higher in the crown than the prevailing fashion, rolled up on one side and trimmed only with a drooping gray feather. And her figure, her face, her profile! The young men crowded forward more swiftly than the still almost paralyzed women. She was no more than twenty. Her skin was as white as the San Francisco fogs, her lips were scarlet, her cheeks pink, her hair and eyes a bright golden brown. Her features were delicate and regular, the mouth not too small, curved and sensitive; her refinement was almost excessive. Oh, she was "high-toned," no doubt of that! As she moved forward and stood in front of Mrs. McLane, or acknowledged introductions to those that stood near, the women gave another gasp, this time of consternation. She wore neither hoop-skirt nor crinoline. Could it be that the most elegant fashion ever invented had been discarded by Paris? Or was this lovely creature of surpassing elegance, a law unto herself? Her skirt was full but straight and did not disguise the lines of her graceful figure; above her small waist it fitted as closely as a riding habit. She was even more _becomingly_ dressed than any woman in the room. Mrs. Abbott, who was given to primitive sounds, snorted. Maria Ballinger, whose finely developed figure might as well have been the trunk of a tree, sniffed. Her sister Sally almost danced with excitement, and even Miss Hathaway straightened her fichu. Mrs. Ballinger, who had been the belle of Richmond and was still adjudged the handsomest woman in San Francisco, lifted the eyebrows to which sonnets had been written with an air of haughty resignation; but made up her mind to abate her scorn of the North and order her gowns from New York hereafter. But the San Franciscans on the whole were an amiable people and they were sometimes conscious of their isolation; in a few moments they felt a pleasant titillation of the nerves, as if the great world they might never see again had sent them one of her most precious gifts. They all met her in the course of the afternoon. She was sweet and gracious, but although there was not a hint of embarrassment she made no attempt to shine, and they liked her the better for that. The young men soon discovered they could make no impression on this lovely importation, for her eyes strayed constantly to her husband; until he disappeared in search of cronies, whiskey, and a cigar: then she looked depressed for a moment, but gave a still closer attention to the women about her. In love with her husband but a woman-of-the-world. Manners as fine as Mrs. McLane's, but too aloof and sensitive to care for leadership. She had made the grand tour in Europe, they discovered, and enjoyed a season in Washington. She should continue to live at the Occidental Hotel as her husband would be out so much at night and she was rather timid. And she was bright, unaffected, responsive. Could anything be more reassuring? There was nothing to be apprehended by the socially ambitious, the proud housewives, or those prudent dames whose amours were conducted with such secrecy that they might too easily be supplanted by a predatory coquette. The girls drew little unconscious sighs of relief. Sally Ballinger vowed she would become her intimate friend, Sibyl Geary that she would copy her gowns. Mrs. Abbott succumbed. In short they all took her to their hearts. She was one of them from that time forth and the reign of crinoline was over. III The Talbots remained to supper and arrived at the Occidental Hotel at the dissipated hour of half past nine. As they entered their suite the bride took her sweeping skirts in either hand and executed a pas seul down the long parlor. "I was a success!" she cried. "You were proud of me. I could see it. And even at the table, although I talked nearly all the time to Mr. McLane, I never mentioned a book." She danced over and threw her arms about his neck. "Say you were proud of me. I'd love to hear it." He gave her a bear-like hug. "Of course. You are the prettiest and the most animated woman in San Francisco, and that's saying a good deal. And I've given them all a mighty surprise." "I believe that is the longest compliment you ever paid me--and because I made a good impression on some one else. What irony!" She pouted charmingly, but her eyes were wistful. "Now sit down and talk to me. I've scarcely seen you since we arrived." "Oh! Remember you are married to this old ruffian. You'll see enough of me in the next thirty or forty years. Run to bed and get your beauty sleep. I promised to go to the Union Club." "The Club? You went to the Club last night and the night before and the night before that. Every night since we arrived--" "I haven't seen half my old cronies yet and they are waiting for a good old poker game. Sleep is what you want after such an exciting day. Remember, I doctor the nerves of all the women in San Francisco and this is a hard climate on nerves. Wonder more women don't go to the devil." He kissed her again and escaped hurriedly. Those were the days when women wept facilely, "swooned," inhaled hartshorn, calmed themselves with sal volatile, and even went into hysterics upon slight provocation. Madeleine Talbot merely wept. She believed herself to be profoundly in love with her jovial magnetic if rather rough husband. He was so different from the correct reserved men she had been associated with during her anchored life in Boston. In Washington she had met only the staid old families, and senators of a benignant formality. In Europe she had run across no one she knew who might have introduced her to interesting foreigners, and Mrs. Chilton would as willingly have caressed a tiger as spoken to a stranger no matter how prepossessing. Howard Talbot, whom she had met at the house of a common friend, had taken her by storm. Her family had disapproved, not only because he was by birth a Southerner, but for the same reason that had attracted their Madeleine. He was entirely too different. Moreover, he would take her to a barbarous country where there was no Society and people dared not venture into the streets lest they be shot. But she had overruled them and been very happy--at times. He was charming and adorable and it was manifest that for him no other woman existed. But she could not flatter herself that she was indispensable. He openly preferred the society of men, and during that interminable sea voyage she had seen little of him save at the table or when he came to their stateroom late at night. For her mind he appeared to have a good-natured masculine contempt. He talked to her as he would to a fascinating little girl. If he cared for mental recreation he found it in men. She went into her bedroom and bathed her eyes with eau de cologne. At least he had given her no cause for jealousy. That was one compensation. And a wise married friend had told her that the only way to manage a husband was to give him his head and never to indulge in the luxury of reproaches. She was sorry she had forgotten herself tonight. IV Dr. Talbot had confided to Mrs. McLane that his wife was inclined to be a bas bleu and he wanted her broken of an unfeminine love of books. Mrs. McLane, who knew that a reputation for bookishness would be fatal in a community that regarded "Lucile" as a great poem and read little but the few novels that drifted their way (or the continued stories in Godey's Lady's Book), promised him that Madeleine's intellectual aspirations should be submerged in the social gaieties of the season. She kept her word. Dinners, receptions, luncheons, theatre parties, in honor of the bride, followed in rapid succession, and when all had entertained her, the less personal invitations followed as rapidly. Her popularity was not founded on novelty. No girl in her first season had ever enjoyed herself more naively and she brought to every entertainment eager sparkling eyes and dancing feet that never tired. She became the "reigning toast." At parties she was surrounded by a bevy of admirers or forced to divide her dances; for it was soon patent there was no jealousy in Talbot's composition and that he took an equally naive pride in his wife's success. When alone with women she was quite as animated and interested, and, moreover, invited them to copy her gowns. Some had been made in Paris, others in New York. The local dressmakers felt the stirrings of ambition, and the shops sent for a more varied assortment of fabrics. Madeleine Talbot at this time was very happy, or, at least, too busy to recall her earlier dreams of happiness. The whole-hearted devotion to gaiety of this stranded little community, its elegance, despite its limitations, its unbounded hospitality to all within its guarded portals, its very absence of intellectual criticism, made the formal life of her brief past appear dull and drab in the retrospect. The spirit of Puritanism seemed to have lost heart in those trackless wastes between the Atlantic and the Pacific and turned back. True, the moral code was rigid (on the surface); but far from too much enjoyment of life, of quaffing eagerly at the brimming cup, being sinful, they would have held it to be a far greater sin not to have accepted all that the genius of San Francisco so lavishly provided. Wildness and recklessness were in the air, the night life of San Francisco was probably the maddest in the world; nor did the gambling houses close their doors by day, nor the women of Dupont Street cease from leering through their shuttered windows; a city born in delirium and nourished on crime, whose very atmosphere was electrified and whose very foundations were restless, would take a quarter of a century at least to manufacture a decent thick surface of conventionality, and its self-conscious respectable wing could no more escape its spirit than its fogs and winds. But evil excitement was tempered to irresponsible gaiety, a constant whirl of innocent pleasures. When the spirit passed the portals untempered, and drove women too highly-strung, too unhappy, or too easily bored, to the divorce courts, to drink, or to reckless adventure, they were summarily dropped. No woman, however guiltless, could divorce her husband and remain a member of that vigilant court. It was all or nothing. If a married woman were clever enough to take a lover undetected and merely furnish interesting surmise, there was no attempt to ferret out and punish her; for no society can exist without gossip. But none centered about Madeleine Talbot. Her little coquetries were impartial and her devotion to her husband was patent to the most infatuated eye. Life was made very pleasant for her. Howard, during that first winter, accompanied her to all the dinners and parties, and she gave several entertainments in her large suite at the Occidental Hotel. Sally Ballinger was a lively companion for the mornings and was as devoted a friend as youth could demand. Mrs. Abbott petted her, and Mrs. Ballinger forgot that she had been born in Boston. When it was discovered that she had a sweet lyric soprano, charmingly cultivated, her popularity winged another flight; San Francisco from its earliest days was musical, and she made a brilliant success as La Belle Helene in the amateur light opera company organized by Mrs. McLane. It was rarely that she spent an evening alone, and the cases of books she had brought from Boston remained in the cellars of the Hotel. V Society went to the country to escape the screaming winds and dust clouds of summer. A few had built country houses, the rest found abundant amusement at the hotels of The Geysers, Warm Springs and Congress Springs, taking the waters dutifully. As the city was constantly swept by epidemics Dr. Talbot rarely left his post for even a few days' shooting, and Madeleine remained with him as a matter of course. Moreover, she hoped for occasional long evenings with her husband and the opportunity to convince him that her companionship was more satisfying than that of his friends at the Club. She had not renounced the design of gradually converting him to her own love of literature, and pictured delightful hours during which they would discuss the world's masterpieces together. But he merely hooted amiably and pinched her cheeks when she approached the subject tentatively. He was infernally over-worked and unless he had a few hours' relaxation at the Club he would be unfit for duty on the morrow. She was his heart's delight, the prettiest wife in San Francisco; he worked the better because she was always lovely at the breakfast table and he could look forward to a brief dinner in her always radiant company. Thank God, she never had the blues nor carried a bottle of smelling salts about with her. And she hadn't a nerve in her body! God! How he did hate women's nerves. No, she was a model wife and he adored her unceasingly. But companionship? When she timidly uttered the word, he first stared uncomprehendingly, then burst into loud laughter. "Men don't find companionship in women, my dear. If they pretend to they're after something else. Take the word of an old stager for that. Of course there is no such thing as companionship among women as men understand the term, but you have Society, which is really all you want. Yearnings are merely a symptom of those accursed nerves. For God's sake forget them. Flirt all you choose--there are plenty of men in town; have them in for dinner if you like--but if any of those young bucks talks companionship to you put up your guard or come and tell me. I'll settle his hash." "I don't want the companionship of any other man, but I'd like yours." "You don't know how lucky you are. You have all of me you could stand. Three or four long evenings--well, we'd yawn in each other's faces and go to bed. A bull but true enough." "Then I think I'll have the books unpacked, not only those I brought, but the new case papa sent to me. I have lost the resource of Society for several months, and I do not care to have men here after you have gone. That would mean gossip." "You are above gossip and I prefer the men to the books. You'll ruin your pretty eyes, and you had the makings of a fine bluestocking when I rescued you. A successful woman--with her husband and with Society--has only sparkling shallows in her pretty little head. Now, I must run. I really shouldn't have come all the way up here for lunch." Madeleine wandered aimlessly to the window and looked down at the scurrying throngs on Montgomery Street. There were few women. The men bent against the wind, clutching at their hats, or chasing them along the uneven wooden sidewalks, tripping perhaps on a loose board. There were tiny whirlwinds of dust in the unpaved streets. The bustling little city that Madeleine had thought so picturesque in its novelty suddenly lost its glamour. It looked as if parts of it had been flung together in a night between solid blocks imported from the older communities; so furious was the desire to achieve immediate wealth there were only three or four buildings of architectural beauty in the city. The shop windows on Montgomery Street were attractive with the wares of Paris, but Madeleine coveted nothing in San Francisco. She thought of Boston, New York, Washington, Europe, and for a moment nostalgia overwhelmed her. If Howard would only take her home for a visit! Alas! he was as little likely to do that as to give her the companionship she craved. But she had no intention of taking refuge in tears. Nor would she stay at home and mope. Her friends were out of town. She made up her mind to go for a walk, although she hardly knew where to go. Between mud and dust and hills, walking was not popular in San Francisco. However, there might be some excitement in exploring. She looped her brown cloth skirt over her balmoral petticoat, tied a veil round her small hat and set forth. Although the dust was flying she dared not lower her veil until she reached the environs, knowing that if she did she would be followed; or if recognized, accused of the unpardonable sin. The heavy veil in the San Francisco of that day, save when driving in aggressively respectable company, was almost an interchangeable term for assignation. It was as inconvenient for the virtuous as indiscreet for the carnal. Madeleine reached the streets of straggling homes and those long impersonal rows depressing in their middle-class respectability, and lowered the veil over her smarting eyes. She also squared her shoulders and strode along with an independent swing that must convince the most investigating mind she was walking for exercise only. Almost unconsciously she directed her steps toward the Cliff House Road where she had driven occasionally behind the doctor's spanking team. It was four o'clock when she entered it and the wind had fallen. The road was thronged with buggies, tandems, hacks, phaetons, and four-in-hands. Society might be out of town but the still gayer world was not. Madeleine, skirting the edge of the road to avoid disaster stared eagerly behind her veil. Here were the reckless and brilliant women of the demi-monde of whom she had heard so much, but to whom she had barely thrown a glance when driving with her husband. They were painted and dyed and kohled and their plumage would have excited the envy of birds in Paradise. San Francisco had lured these ladies "round the Horn" since the early Fifties: a different breed from the camp followers of the late Forties. Some had fallen from a high estate, others had been the mistresses of rich men in the East, or belles in the half world of New York or Paris. Never had they found life so free or pickings so easy as in San Francisco. Madeleine knew that many of the eminent citizens she met in Society kept their mistresses and flaunted them openly. It was, in fact, almost a convention. She was not surprised to see several men who had taken her in to dinner tooling these gorgeous cyprians and looking far prouder than when they played host in the world of fashion. On one of the gayest of the coaches she saw four of the young men who were among the most devoted of her cavaliers at dances: Alexander Groome, Amos Lawton, Ogden Bascom, and "Tom" Abbott, Jr. Groome was paying his addresses to Maria Ballinger, "a fine figure of a girl" who had inherited little of her mother's beauty but all of her virtue, and Madeleine wondered if he would reform and settle down. Abbott was engaged to Marguerite McLane and looked as if he were having his last glad fling. Ogden Bascom had proposed to Guadalupe Hathaway every month for five years. It was safe to say that he would toe the mark if he won her. But he did not appear to be nursing a blighted heart at present. Madeleine's depression left her. _That_, at least, Howard would never do. She felt full of hope and buoyancy once more, not realizing that it is easier to win back a lover than change the nature of man. When Madeleine reached the Cliff House, that shabby innocent-looking little building whose evil fame had run round the world, she stared at it fascinated. Its restaurant overhung the sea. On this side the blinds were down. It looked as if awaiting the undertaker. She pictured Howard's horror when she told him of her close contact with vice, and anticipated with a pleasurable thrill the scolding he would give her. They had never quarrelled and it would be delightful to make up. "Not Mrs. Talbot! No! Assuredly not!" Involuntarily Madeleine raised her veil. She recognized the voice of "Old" Ben Travers (he was only fifty but bald and yellow), the Union Club gossip, and the one man in San Francisco she thoroughly disliked. He stood with his hat in his hand, an expression of ludicrous astonishment on his face. "Yes, it is I," said Madeleine coolly. "And I am very much interested." "Ah? Interested?" He glanced about. If this were an assignation either the man was late or had lost courage. But he assumed an expression of deep respect. "That I can well imagine, cloistered as you are. But, if you will permit me to say so, it is hardly prudent. Surely you know that this is a place of ill repute and that your motives, however innocent, might easily be misconstrued." "I am alone!" said Madeleine gaily, "and my veil is up! Not a man has glanced at me, I look so tiresomely respectable in these stout walking clothes. Even you, dear Mr. Travers, whom we accuse of being quite a gossip, understand perfectly." "Oh, yes, indeed. I do understand. And Mrs. Talbot is like Caesar's wife, but nevertheless--there is a hack. It is waiting, but I think I can bribe him to take us in. You really must not remain here another moment--and you surely do not intend to walk back--six miles?" "No, I'll be glad to drive--but if you will engage the hack--I shouldn't think of bothering you further." "I shall take you home," said Travers firmly. "Howard never would forgive me if I did not--that is--that is--" Madeleine laughed merrily. "If I intend to tell him! But of course I shall tell him. Why not?" "Well, yes, it would be best. I'll speak to the man." The Jehu was reluctant, but a bill passed and he drove up to Madeleine. "Guess I can do it," he said, "but I'll have to drive pretty fast." Madeleine smiled at him and he touched his hat. She had employed him more than once. "The faster the better, Thomas," she said. "I walked out and am tired." "I saw you come striding down the road, ma'am," he said deferentially, "and I knew you got off your own beat by mistake. I think I'd have screwed up my courage and said something if Mr. Travers hadn't happened along." Madeleine nodded carelessly and entered the hack, followed by Travers, in spite of her protests. "I too walked out here and intended to ask some one to give me a lift home. I am the unfortunate possessor of a liver, my dear young lady, and must walk six miles a day, although I loathe walking as I loathe drinking weak whiskey and water." Madeleine shrugged her shoulders and attempted to raise one of the curtains. The interior was as dark as a cave. But Travers exclaimed in alarm. "No! No! Not until we get out of this. When we have reached the city, but not here. In a hack on this road--" "Oh, very well. Then entertain me, please, as I cannot look out. You always have something interesting to tell." "I am flattered to think you find me entertaining. I've sometimes thought you didn't like me." "Now you know that is nonsense. I always think myself fortunate if I sit next you at dinner." Madeleine spoke in her gayest tones, but in truth she dreaded what the man might make of this innocent escapade and intended to make a friend of him if possible. She was growing accustomed to the gloom and saw him smile fatuously. "That sends me to the seventh heaven. How often since you came have I wished that my dancing days were not over." "I'd far rather hear you talk. Tell me some news." "News? News? San Francisco is as flat at present as spilled champagne. Let me see? Ah! Did you ever hear of Langdon Masters?" "No. Who is he?" "He is Virginian like myself--a distant cousin. He fought through the war, badly wounded twice, came home to find little left of the old estate--practically nothing for him. He tried to start a newspaper in Richmond but couldn't raise the capital. He went to New York and wrote for the newspapers there; also writes a good deal for the more intellectual magazines. Thought perhaps you had come across something of his. There is just a whisper, you know, that you were rather a bas bleu before you came to us." "Because I was born and educated in Boston? Poor Boston! I do recall reading something of Mr. Masters' in the _Atlantic_--I suppose it was--but I have forgotten what. Here, I have grown too frivolous--and happy--to care to read at all. But what have you to tell me particularly about Mr. Masters?" "I had a letter from him this morning asking me if there was an opening here. He resents the antagonism in the North that he meets at every turn, although they are glad enough of his exceptionally brilliant work. But he knows that San Francisco is the last stronghold of the South, and also that our people are generous and enterprising. I shall write him that I can see no opening for another paper at present, but will let him know if there happens to be one on an editorial staff. That is a long journey to take on an uncertainty." "I should think so. Heavens, how this carriage does bounce. The horses must be galloping." "Probably." He lifted a corner of the curtain. "We shall reach the city soon at this rate. Ah!" Madeleine, in spite of the bouncing vehicle, had managed heretofore to prop herself firmly in her corner, but a violent lurch suddenly threw her against Travers. He caught her firmly in one of his lean wiry arms. At the moment she thought nothing of it, although she disliked the contact, but when she endeavored to disengage herself, he merely jerked her more closely to his side and she felt his hot breath upon her cheek. It was the fevered breath of a man who drinks much and late and almost nauseated her. "Come come," whispered Travers. "I know you didn't go out there to meet any one; it was just a natural impulse for a little adventure, wasn't it? And I deserve my reward for getting you home safely. Give me a kiss." Madeleine wrenched herself free, but he laughed and caught her again, this time in both arms. "Oh, you can't get away, and I'm going to have that kiss. Yes, a dozen, by Jove. You're the prettiest thing in San Francisco, and I'll get ahead of the other men there." His yellow distorted face--he looked like a satyr--was almost on hers. She freed herself once more with a dexterous twisting motion of her supple body, leaped to the front of the carriage and pounded on the window behind the driver. "For God's sake! You fool! What are you doing? Do you want a scandal?" The carriage stopped its erratic course so abruptly that he was thrown to the floor. Madeleine already had the door open. She had all the strength of youth and perfect health, and he was worn out and shaken. He was scrambling to his feet. She put her arms under his shoulders and threw him out into the road. "Go on!" she called to the driver. And as he whipped up the horses again, his Homeric laughter mingling with the curses of the man in the ditch, she sank back trembling and gasping. It was her first experience of the vileness of man, for the men of her day respected the women of their own class unless met half way, or, violently enamoured, given full opportunity to express their emotions. Moreover she had made a venomous enemy. What would Howard say? What would he do to the wretch? Horsewhip him? Would he stop to think of scandal? The road had been deserted. She knew that Travers would keep his humiliation to himself and the incidents that led up to it; but if she told her husband and he lost his head the story would come out and soon cease to bear any semblance to the truth. She wished she had some one to advise her. What _did_ insulted women do? But she could not think in this horrible carriage. It would be at least an hour before she saw Howard. She would bathe her face in cold water and try to think. The hack stopped again and the coachman left the box. "It's only a few blocks now, ma'am," he said, as he opened the door. "I haven't much time--" Madeleine almost sprang out. She opened her purse. He accepted the large bill with a grin on his good-natured face. "That's all right, Mrs. Talbot. I wouldn't have spoke of it nohow. The Doctor and me's old friends. But I'm just glad old Ben got what he deserved. The impudence of him! You--well!--Good day, ma'am." He paused as he was climbing back to the box. "If you don't mind my giving ye a bit of advice, Mrs. Talbot--I've seen a good bit of the world, I have--this is a hot city, all right--I just wouldn't say anything to the doctor. Trouble makes trouble. Better let it stop right here." "Thanks, Thomas. Good-by." And Madeleine strode down the street as if the furies pursued her. VI Madeleine was spared the ordeal of confession; it was six weeks before she saw her husband again. He telegraphed at six o'clock that he had a small-pox patient and could not subject her to the risk of contagion. The disease most dreaded in San Francisco had arrived some time before and the pest house outside the city limits was already crowded. The next day yellow flags appeared before several houses. Before a week passed they had multiplied all over the city. People went about with visible camphor bags suspended from their necks, and Madeleine heard the galloping death wagon at all hours of the night. Howard telegraphed frequently and sent a doctor to revaccinate her, as the virus he had administered himself had not taken. She was not to worry about him as he vaccinated himself every day. Finally he commanded her to leave town, and she made a round of visits. She spent a fortnight at Rincona, Mrs. Abbott's place at Alta, in the San Mateo valley, and another with the Hathaways near by. Then, after a fortnight at the different "Springs" she settled down for the rest of the summer on the Ballinger ranch in the Santa Clara valley. All her hostesses had house parties, there were picnics by day and dancing or hay-rides at night. For the first time she saw the beautiful California country; the redwood forests on the mountains, the bare brown and golden hills, the great valleys with their forests of oaks and madronas cleared here and there for orchard and vineyard; knowing that Howard was safe she gave herself to pleasure once more. After all there was a certain satisfaction in the assurance that her husband could not be with her if he would. She was not deliberately neglected and it was positive that he never entered the Club. She told no one but Sally Ballinger of her adventure, and although Travers was a favorite of her mother, this devoted friend adroitly managed that the gentleman to whom she applied many excoriating adjectives should not be invited that summer to "the ranch." VII Langdon Masters arrived in San Francisco during Madeleine's third winter. He did not come unheralded, for Travers bragged about him constantly and asserted that San Francisco could thank him for an editorial writer second to none in the United States of America. As a matter of fact it was on Masters' achievement alone that the editor of the _Alta California_ had invited him to become a member of his staff. Masters was also a cousin of Alexander Groome, and arrived in San Francisco as a guest at the house on Ballinger Hill, a lonely outpost in the wastes of rock and sand in the west. There was no excitement in the female breast over his arrival for young men were abundant; but Society was prepared to welcome him not only on account of his distinguished connections but because his deliberate choice of San Francisco for his future career was a compliment they were quick to appreciate. He came gaily to his fate filled with high hopes of owning his own newspaper before long and ranking as the leading journalist in the great little city made famous by gold and Bret Harte. He was one of many in New York; he knew that with his brilliant gifts and the immediate prominence his new position would give him the future was his to mould. No man, then or since, has brought so rare an assortment of talents to the erratic journalism of San Francisco; not even James King of William, the murdered editor of the _Evening Bulletin_. Perhaps he too would have been murdered had he remained long enough to own and edit the newspaper of his dreams, for he had a merciless irony, a fearless spirit, and an utter contempt for the prejudices of small men. But for a time at least it looked as if the history of journalism in San Francisco was to be one of California's proudest boasts. Masters was a practical visionary, a dreamer whose dreams never confused his metallic intellect, a stylist who fascinated even the poor mind forced to express itself in colloquialisms, a man of immense erudition for his years (he was only thirty); and he was insatiably interested in the affairs of the world and in every phase of life. He was a poet by nature, and a journalist by profession because he believed the press was destined to become the greatest power in the country, and he craved not only power but the utmost opportunity for self-expression. His character possessed as many antitheses. He was a natural lover of women and avoided them not only because he feared entanglements and enervations but because he had little respect for their brains. He was, by his Virginian inheritance, if for no simpler reason, a bon vivant, but the preoccupations and ordinary conversational subjects of men irritated him, and he cultivated their society and that of women only in so far as they were essential to his deeper understanding of life. His code was noblesse oblige and he privately damned it as a superstition foisted upon him by his ancestors. He was sentimental and ironic, passionate and indifferent, frank and subtle, proud and democratic, with a warm capacity for friendship and none whatever for intimacy, a hard worker with a strong taste for loafing--in the open country, book in hand. He prided himself upon his iron will and turned uneasily from the weeds growing among the fine flowers of his nature. Such was Langdon Masters when he came to San Francisco and Madeleine Talbot. VIII He soon tired of plunging through the sand hills between the city and Ballinger Hill either on horseback or in a hack whose driver, if the hour were late, was commonly drunk; and took a suite of rooms in the Occidental Hotel. He had brought his library with him and one side of his parlor was immediately furnished with books to the ceiling. It was some time before Society saw anything of him. He had a quick reputation to make, many articles promised to Eastern periodicals and newspapers, no mind for distractions. But his brilliant and daring editorials, not only on the pestiferous politics of San Francisco, but upon national topics, soon attracted the attention of the men; who, moreover, were fascinated by his conversation during his occasional visits to the Union Club. Several times he was cornered, royally treated to the best the cellar afforded, and upon one occasion talked for two hours, prodded merely with a question when he showed a tendency to drop into revery. But as a matter of fact he liked to talk, knowing that he could outshine other intelligent men, and a responsive palate put him in good humor with all men and inspired him with unwonted desire to please. Husbands spoke of him enthusiastically at home and wives determined to know him. They besieged Alexina Ballinger. Why had she not done her duty? Langdon Masters had lived in her house for weeks. Mrs. Ballinger replied that she had barely seen the man. He rarely honored them at dinner, sat up until four in the morning with her son-in-law (if she were not mistaken he and Alexander Groome were two of a feather), breakfasted at all hours, and then went directly to the city. What possible use could such a man be to Society? He had barely looked at Sally, much less the uxoriously married Maria, and might have been merely an inconsiderate boarder who had given nothing but unimpaired Virginian manners in return for so much upsetting of a household. No doubt the servants would have rebelled had he not tipped them immoderately. "Moreover," she concluded, "he is quite unlike our men, if he _is_ a Southerner. And not handsome at all. His hair is black but he wears it too short, and he had no mustache, nor even sideboards. His face has deep lines and his eyes are like steel. He rarely smiles and I don't believe he ever laughed in his life." Society, however, had made up its mind, and as the women had no particular desire to make that terrible journey to Alexina Ballinger's any oftener than was necessary, it was determined (in conclave) that Mrs. Hunt McLane should have the honor of capturing and introducing this difficult and desirable person. Mr. McLane, who had met him at the Club, called on him formally and invited him to dinner. Hunt McLane was the greatest lawyer and one of the greatest gentlemen in San Francisco. Masters was too much a man of the world not to appreciate the compliment; moreover, he had now been in San Francisco for two months and his social instincts were stirring. He accepted the invitation and many others. People dined early in those simple days and the hours he spent in the most natural and agreeable society he had ever entered did not interfere with his work. Sometimes he talked, at others merely listened with a pleasant sense of relaxation to the chatter of pretty women; with whom he was quite willing to flirt as long as there was no hint of the heavy vail. He thought it quite possible he should fall in love with and marry one of these vivacious pretty girls; when his future was assured in the city of his enthusiastic adoption. He met Madeleine at all these gatherings, but it so happened that he never sat beside her and he had no taste for kettledrums or balls. He thought her very lovely to look at and wondered why so young and handsome a woman with a notoriously faithful husband should have so sad an expression. Possibly because it rather became her style of beauty. He saw a good deal of Dr. Talbot at the Club however and asked them both to one of the little dinners in his rooms with which he paid his social debts. These dinners were very popular, for he was a connoisseur in wines, the dinner was sent from a French restaurant, and he was never more entertaining than at his own table. His guests were as carefully assorted as his wines, and if he did not know intuitively whose minds and tastes were most in harmony, or what lady did not happen to be speaking to another at the moment, he had always the delicate hints of Mrs. McLane to guide him. She was his social sponsor and vastly proud of him. IX Madeline went impassively to the dinner. His brilliancy had impressed her but she was indifferent to everything these days and her intellect was torpid; although when in society and under the influence of the lights and wine she could be almost as animated as ever. But the novelty of that society had worn thin long since; she continued to go out partly as a matter of routine, more perhaps because she had no other resource. She saw less of her husband than ever, for his practice as well as his masculine acquaintance grew with the city--and that was swarming over the hills of the north and out toward the sand dunes of the west. But she was resigned, and inappetent. She had even ceased to wish for children. The future stretched before her interminable and dull. A railroad had been built across the continent and she had asked permission recently of her husband to visit her parents: her mother was now an invalid and Mr. Chilton would not leave her. But the doctor was more nearly angry than she had ever seen him. He couldn't live without her. He must always know she was "there." Moreover, she was run down, she was thin and pale, he must keep her under his eye. But if he was worried about her health he was still more worried at her apparent desire to leave him for months. Did she no longer love him? Her response was not emphatic and he went out and bought her a diamond bracelet. At least she was thankful that it had been bought for her and not sent to his wife by mistake, an experience that had happened the other day to Maria Groome. The town had rocked with laughter and Groome had made a hurried trip East on business. But Madeleine no longer found consolation in the reflection that things might be worse. The sensation of jealousy would have been a welcome relief from this spiritual and mental inertia. She wore a dress of bright golden-green grosgrain silk trimmed with crepe leaves a shade deeper. The pointed bodice displayed her shoulders in a fashion still beloved of royal ladies, and her soft golden-brown hair was dressed in a high chignon with a long curl descending over the left side of her bust. A few still clung to the low chignon, others had adopted a fashion set by the Empress Eugenie and wore their hair in a mass of curls on the nape of the neck; but Madeleine received the latest advices from a sister-in-law who lived in New York; and as femininity dies hard she still felt a mild pleasure in introducing the latest cry in fashion. As she was the last to arrive she would have been less than woman if she had not felt a glow at the sensation she made. The color came back to her cheeks as the women surrounded her with ecstatic compliments and peered at the coiffure from all sides. The diamond bracelet was barely noticed. "I adopt it tomorrow," said Mrs. McLane emphatically. "With my white hair I shall look more like an old marquise than ever." One of the other women ran into Masters' bedroom where they had left their wraps and emerged in a few moments with a lifted chignon and a straggling curl. Amid exclamations and laughter two more followed suit, while the host and the other men waited patiently for their dinner. It was a lively party that finally sat down, and it was the gayest if the most momentous of Masters' little functions. His eyes strayed toward Madeleine more than once, for her success had excited her and she had never looked lovelier. She was at the other end of the table and Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Ballinger sat beside him. She interested him for the first time and he adroitly drew her history from his mentor (not that he deluded that astute lady for an instant, but she dearly loved to gossip). "She is going through one of those crises that all young wives must expect," she concluded. "If it isn't one thing it's another. She is still very young, and inclined to be romantic. She expected too much--of a husband, mon dieu! Of course she is lonely or thinks she is. Too bad youth never can realize that it is enough to be young. And with beauty, and means, and position, and charming frocks! She will grow philosophical--when it is too late. Meanwhile a little flirtation would not hurt her and Howard Talbot does not know the meaning of the word jealousy. Why don't you take her in hand?" "Not my line. But it seems odd that Talbot should neglect her. She looks intelligent and she is certainly beautiful." "Oh, Howard! He is the best of men but the worst of husbands." Her attention was claimed by the man on her right and at the same moment Madeleine's had evidently been drawn to the wall of books behind her. She turned, craned her neck, forgetting her partner. Then, Masters saw a strange thing. Her eyes filled with tears and she continued to stare at the books in complete absorption until her attention was laughingly recalled. "Now, that is odd," thought Masters. "Very odd." She felt his keen gaze and laughed with a curious eagerness as she met his eyes. He guessed that for the first time he had interested her. X After dinner the men went into his den to smoke, but before his cigar was half finished he muttered something about his duty to the ladies and returned to the parlor. As he had half expected, Madeleine was standing before the books scanning their titles, and as he approached she drew her hand caressingly across a shelf devoted to the poets. The other women were gossiping at the end of the long room. "You are fond of books!" he said abruptly. She had not noticed his reappearance. She was startled and exclaimed passionately, "I loved them--once! But it is a long time since I have read anything but an occasional novel." "But why? Why?" He had powerful gray eyes and they magnetized the truth out of her. "My husband thinks it is a woman's sole duty to look charming. He was afraid I would become a bluestocking and lose my charm and spoil my looks. I brought many books with me, but I never opened the cases and finally gave them to the Mercantile Library. I have never gone to look at them." "Good heaven!" He had never felt sorrier for a woman who had asked alms of him in the street. She was looking at him eagerly. "Perhaps--you won't mind--you will lend me--I don't think my husband would notice now--he is never at home except for breakfast and dinner--" "Will I? For heaven's sake look upon them as your own. What will you take with you to-night?" "Oh! Nothing! Perhaps you will send me one tomorrow?" "One? I'll send a dozen. Let us select them now." But at this moment the other men entered and she whispered hurriedly, "Will you select and send them? Any--any--I don't care what." The doctor came toward them full of good wine and laughter. The books meant nothing to him. He had forgotten his wife's inexplicable taste for serious literature. He now found her quite perfect but was worried about her health. The tonics and horseback riding he had prescribed seemed to have little effect. "I am going to take you away and send you to bed," he said jovially. "No sitting up after nine o'clock until you are yourself again, and not another ball this winter. A wife is a great responsibility, Masters. Any other woman is easier to prescribe for, but the wife of your bosom knows you so well she can fool you, as no woman who expects a bill twice a year would dare to do. Still, she's pretty good, pretty good. She's never had an attack of nerves, nor fainted yet. And as for 'blues' she doesn't know the meaning of the word. Come along, sweetheart." Madeleine smiled half cynically, half wistfully, shook hands with her host and made him a pretty little speech, nodded to the others and went obediently to bed. The doctor, whose manners were courtly, escorted her to the door of their parlor and returned to Masters' rooms. The other women left immediately afterward, and as it was Saturday night, he and his host and Mr. McLane talked until nearly morning. XI By the first of June Fashion had deserted the city with its winds and fogs and dust, and Madeleine was one of the few that remained. Her husband had intended to send her to Congress Springs in the mountains of the Santa Clara Valley, but she seemed to be so much better that he willingly let her stay on, congratulating himself on the results of his treatment. She was no longer listless and was always singing at the piano when he rushed in for his dinner. If he had been told that the cure was effected by books he would have been profoundly skeptical, and perhaps wisely so. But although Madeleine felt an almost passionate gratitude for Masters, she gave him little thought except when a new package of books arrived, or when she discussed them briefly with him in Society. He had never called. But her mind flowered like a bit of tropical country long neglected by rain. She had thought that the very seeds of her mental desires were dead, but they sprouted during a long uninterrupted afternoon and grew so rapidly they intoxicated her. Masters had sent her in that first offering poets who had not become fashionable in Boston when she left it: Browning, Matthew Arnold and Swinburne; besides the Byron and Shelley and Keats of her girlhood. He sent her Letters and Essays and Memoirs and Biographies that she had never read and those that she had and was glad to read again. He sent her books on art and she re-lived her days in the galleries of Europe, understanding for the first time what she had instinctively admired. It was not only the sense of mental growth and expansion that exhilarated her, after her long drought, but the translation to a new world. She lived in the past in these lives of dead men; and as she read the biographies of great painters and musicians she shared their disappointments and forgot her own. Her emotional nature was in constant vibration, and this phenomenon was the more dangerous, as she would have argued--had she thought about it at all--that having been diverted to the intellect it must necessarily remain there. If she had belonged to a later generation no doubt she would have taken to the pen herself, and artistic expression would--possibly--have absorbed and safe-guarded her during the remainder of her genetic years; but such a thing never occurred to her. She was too modest in the face of master work, and only queer freakish women wrote, anyhow, not ladies of her social status. Although her thoughts rarely strayed to Masters, he hovered a sort of beneficent god in the background of her consciousness, the author of her new freedom and content; but it was only after an unusually long talk with him at a large dinner given to a party of distinguished visitors from Europe, shortly before Society left town, that she found herself longing to discuss with him books that a week before would have been sufficient in themselves. The opportunity did not arise however until she had been for more than a fortnight "alone" in San Francisco. She was returning from her daily brisk walk when she met him at the door of the hotel. They naturally entered and walked up the stairs together. She had immediately begun to ply him with questions, and as she unlocked the door of her parlor she invited him to enter. He hesitated a moment. Nothing was farther from his intention than to permit his interest in this charming lonely woman to deepen; entanglements had proved fatal before to ambitious men; moreover he was almost an intimate friend of her husband. But he had no reasonable excuse, he had manifestly been sauntering when they met, and he had all the fine courtesy of the South. He followed her into the hotel parlor she had made unlike any other room in San Francisco, with the delicate French furniture and hangings her mother had bought in Paris and given her as a wedding present. A log fire was blazing. She waved her hand toward an easy chair beside the hearth, threw aside her hat and lifted her shining crushed hair with both hands, then ran over to a panelled chest which the doctor had conceded to be handsome, but quite useless as it was not even lined with cedar. "I keep them in here," she exclaimed as gleefully as a naughty child; and he had the uneasy sense of sharing a secret with her that isolated them on a little oasis of their own in this lawless waste of San Francisco. She had opened the chest and was rummaging. "What shall it be first? How I have longed to talk with you about a dozen. On the whole I think I'd rather you'd read a poem to me. Do you mind? I know you are not lazy--oh, no!--and I am sure you read delightfully." "I don't mind in the least," he said gallantly. (At all events he was in for it.) "And I rather like the sound of my own voice. What shall it be?" And, alas, she chose "The Statue and the Bust." XII He was disconcerted, but his sense of humor come to his rescue, and although he read that passionate poem with its ominous warning to hesitant lovers, with the proper emphasis and as much feeling as he dared, he managed to make it a wholly impersonal performance. When he finished he dropped the book and glanced over at his companion. She was sitting forward with a rapt expression, her cheeks flushed, her breath coming unevenly. But there was neither challenge nor self-consciousness in her eyes. The sparkle had left them, but it was their innocence, not their melting, that stirred him profoundly. With her palimpsest mind she was a poet for the moment, not a woman. Her manners never left her and she paid him a conventional little compliment on his reading, then asked him if he believed that people who could love like that had ever lived, or if such dramas were the peculiar prerogative of the divinely gifted imagination. He replied drily that a good many people in their own time loved recklessly and even more disastrously, and then asked her irresistibly (for he was a man if a wary one) if she had never loved herself. "Oh, of course," she replied simply. "I love my husband. But domestic love--how different!" "But have you never--domestic love does not always--well--" She shrugged her shoulders and replied with the same disconcerting simplicity, "Oh, when you are married you are married. And now that your books have made me so happy I never find fault with Howard any more. I know that he cannot be changed and he loves me devotedly in his fashion. Mrs. McLane is always preaching philosophy and your books have shown me the way." "And do you imagine that books will always fill your life? After the novelty has worn off?" "Oh, that could never be! Even if you went away and took your books with you I should get others. I am quite emancipated now." "This is the first time I ever heard a young and beautiful woman declare that books were an adequate substitute for life. And one sort of emancipation is very likely to lead to another." She drew herself up and all her Puritan forefathers looked from her candid eyes. "If you mean that I would do the things that a few of our women do--not many (she was one of the loyal guardians of her anxious little circle)--if you think--but of course you do not. That is so completely out of the question that I have never given it consideration. If my husband should die--and I should feel terribly if he did--but if he should, while I was still young, I might, of course, love another man whose tastes were exactly like my own. But I'd never betray Howard--nor myself--even in thought." The words and all they implied might have been an irresistible challenge to another man. But to Masters, whose career was inexorably mapped out,--he was determined that his own fame and that of California should be synchronous--and who fled at the first hint of seduction in a woman's eyes, they came as a pleasurable reassurance. After all, mental companionship with a woman was unique, and it was quite in keeping that he should find it in this unique city of his adoption. Moreover, it would be a very welcome recreation in his energetic life. If propinquity began to sprout its deadly fruit he fancied that she would close the episode abruptly. He was positive that he should, if for no other reason than because her husband was his friend. He might elope with the wife of a friend if he lost his head, but he would never dishonor himself in the secret intrigue. And he had not the least intention of leaving San Francisco. For the time being they were safe. It was like picking wild flowers in the field after a day's hot work. "Now," she said serenely, "read me 'Pippa Passes.'" XIII Nevertheless, he stayed away from her for a week. At the end of that time he received a peremptory little note bidding him call and expound Newman's "Apologia" to her. She could not understand it and she must. He smiled at the pretty imperiousness of the note so like herself; for her circle had spoiled her, and whatever her husband's idiosyncrasies she was certainly his petted darling. He went, of course. And before long he was spending every afternoon in the charming room so like a French salon of the Eighteenth Century that the raucous sounds of San Francisco beyond the closed and curtained windows beat upon it faintly like the distant traffic of a great city. Masters had asked himself humorously, Why not? and succumbed. There was no other place to go except the Club, and Mrs. Talbot was an infinitely more interesting companion than men who discussed little besides their business, professional, or demi-monde engrossments. It was a complete relaxation from his own driving work. He was writing the entire editorial page of his newspaper, the demand for his articles from Eastern magazines and weekly journals was incessant; which not only contributed to his pride and income, but to the glory of California. He was making her known for something besides gold, gamblers, and Sierra pines. But above all he was instructing and expanding a feminine but really fine mind. She sat at his feet and there was no doubt in that mind, both naive and gifted, that his was the most remarkable intellect in the world and that from no book ever written could she learn as much. He would have been more than mortal had he renounced his pedestal and he was far too humane for the cruelty of depriving her of the stimulating happiness he had brought into her lonely life. There was no one, man or woman, to take his place. Nor was there any one to criticize. The world was out of town. They lived in the same hotel, and he rarely met any one in their common corridor. At first she mentioned his visits casually to her husband, and Howard grunted approvingly. Several times he took Masters snipe shooting in the marshes near Ravenswood, but he accepted his friend's attitude to his wife too much as a matter of course even to mention it. To him, a far better judge of men than of women, Langdon Masters was ambition epitomized, and if he wondered why such a man wasted time in any woman's salon, he concluded it was because, like men of any calling but his own (who saw far too much of women and their infernal ailments) he enjoyed a chat now and then with as charming a woman of the world as Madeleine. If anyone had suggested that Langdon Masters enjoyed Madeleine's intellect he would have told it about town as the joke of the season. Madeleine indulged in no introspection. She had suffered too much in the past not to quaff eagerly of the goblet when it was full and ask for nothing more. If she paused to realize how dependent she had become on the constant society of Langdon Masters and that literature was now no more than the background of life, she would have shrugged her shoulders gaily and admitted that she was having a mental flirtation, and that, at least, was as original as became them both. They were safe. The code protected them. He was her husband's friend and they were married. What was, was. But in truth she never went so far as to admit that Masters and the books she loved were not one and inseparable. She could not imagine herself talking with him for long on any other subject, save, perhaps, the politics of the nation--which, in truth, rather bored her. As for small talk she would as readily have thought of inflicting the Almighty in her prayers. Nor was it often they drifted into personalities or the human problems. One day, however, he did ask her tentatively if she did not think that divorce was justifiable in certain circumstances. She merely stared at him in horror. "Well, there is your erstwhile friend, Sibyl Geary. She fell in love with another man, her husband was a sot, she got her divorce without legal opposition, and married Forbes--finest kind of fellow." "Divorce is against the canons of Church and Society. No woman should break her solemn vows, no matter what her provocation. Look at Maria Groome. Do you think she would divorce Alexander? She has provocation enough." "You are both High Church, but all women are not. Mrs. Geary is a mere Presbyterian. And at least she is as happy as she was wretched before." "No woman can be happy who has lost the respect of Society." "I thought you were bored with Society." "Yes, but it is mine to have. Being bored is quite different from being cast out like a pariah." "Oh! And you think love a poor substitute?" "Love, of course, is the most wonderful thing in the world. (She might be talking of maternal or filial love, thought Masters.) But it must have the sanction of one's principles, one's creed and one's traditions. Otherwise, it weighs nothing in the balance." "You are a delectable little Puritan," said Masters with a laugh that was not wholly mirthful. "I shall now read you Tennyson's 'Maud,' as you approve of sentiment, at least. Tennyson will never cause the downfall of any woman, but if you ever see lightning on the horizon don't read 'The Statue and the Bust' with the battery therof." XIV When people returned to town they were astonished at the change in Madeleine Talbot, especially after a summer in the city that would have "torn their own nerves out by the roots." More than one had wondered anxiously if she were going into the decline so common in those days. They had known the cause of the broken spring, but none save the incurably sanguine opined that Howard Talbot had mended it. But mended it was and her eyes had never sparkled so gaily, nor her laugh rung so lightly since her first winter among them. Mrs. McLane suggested charitably that her tedium vitae had run its course and she was become a philosopher. But Madeleine _reviva_ did not suggest the philosopher to the most charitable eye (not even to Mrs. McLane's), particularly as there was a "something" about her--was it repressed excitement?--which had been quite absent from her old self, however vivacious. It was Mrs. Abbott, a lady of unquenchable virtue, whose tongue was more feared than that of any woman in San Francisco, who first verbalized what every friend of Madeleine's secretly wondered: Was there a man in the case? Many loyally cried, Impossible. Madeleine was above suspicion. Above suspicion, yes. No one would accuse her of a liaison. But who was she or any other neglected young wife to be above falling in love if some fascinating creature laid siege? Love dammed up was apt to spring a leak in time, even if it did not overflow, and--well, it was known that water sought its level, even if it could not run uphill. Mrs. Abbott had lived for twenty years in San Francisco, and in New Orleans for thirty years before that, and she had seen a good many women in love in her time. This climate made a plaything of virtue. "Virtue--you said?--Precisely. She's _not there_ or we'd see the signs of moral struggle, horror, in fact; for she's not one to succumb easily. But mark my words, _she's on the way_." That point settled, and it was vastly interesting to believe it (Madeleine Talbot, of all people!), who was the man? Duty to mundane affairs had kept many of the liveliest blades and prowling husbands in town all summer; but Madeleine had known them all for three years or more. Besides, So and So was engaged to So and So, and So and So quite reprehensibly interested in Mrs. So and So. The young gentlemen were discreetly sounded, but their lack of anything deeper than friendly interest in the "loveliest of her sex" was manifest. Husbands were ordered to retail the gossip of the Club, but exploded with fury when tactful pumping forced up the name of Madeleine Talbot. They were harridans, harpies, old-wives, infernal scandalmongers. If there was one completely blameless woman in San Francisco it was Howard Talbot's wife. No one thought of Langdon Masters. He appeared more rarely at dinners, and had never ventured in public with Madeleine even during the summer. When his acute news sense divined they were gossiping and speculating about her he took alarm and considered the wisdom of discontinuing his afternoon visits. But they had become as much a part of his life as his daily bread. Moreover, he could not withdraw without giving the reason, and it was a more intimate subject than he cared to discuss with her. Whether he was in love with her or not was a question he deliberately refused to face. If the present were destroyed there was no future to take its place, and he purposed to live in his Fool's Paradise as long as he could. It was an excellent substitute for tragedy. But Society soon began to notice that she no longer honored kettledrums or the more formal afternoon receptions with her presence, and her calls were few and late. When attentive friends called on her she was "out." The clerk at the desk had been asked to protect her, as she "must rest in the afternoon." He suspected nothing and her word was his law. When quizzed, Madeleine replied laughingly that she could keep her restored health only by curtailing her social activities; but she blushed, for lying came hardly. As calling was a serious business in San Francisco, she compromised by the ancient clearing-house device of an occasional large "At Home," besides her usual dinners and luncheons. When Masters was a dinner guest he paid her only the polite attentions due a hostess and flirted elaborately with the prettiest of the women. Madeleine, who was unconscious of the gossip, was sometimes a little hurt, and when he avoided her at other functions and was far too attentive to Sally Ballinger, or Annette McLane, a beautiful girl just out, she had an odd palpitation and wondered what ailed her. Jealous? Well, perhaps. Friends of the same sex were often jealous. Had not Sally been jealous at one time of poor Sibyl Geary? And Masters was the most complete friend a woman ever had. She thought sadly that perhaps he had enough of her in the afternoon and welcomed a change. Well, that was natural enough. She found herself enjoying the society of other bright men at dinners, now that life was fair again. Nevertheless, she experienced a sensation of fright now and again, and not because she feared to lose him. XV There is nothing so carking as the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity. They may not cause the acute distress of love and hate, but no tooth ever ached more incessantly nor more insistently demanded relief. That doughty warrior, Mrs. Abbott, in her own homely language determined to take the bull by the horns. She sailed into the Occidental Hotel one afternoon and up the stairs without pausing at the desk. The clerk gave her a cursory glance. Mrs. Abbott went where she listed, and, moreover, was obviously expected. When she reached the Talbot parlor she halted a moment, and then knocked loudly. Madeleine, who often received parcels, innocently invited entrance. Mrs. Abbott promptly accepted the invitation and walked in upon Masters and his hostess seated before the fire. The former had a book in his hand, and, judging from the murmur that had penetrated her applied ear before announcing herself, had been reading aloud. ("As cozy as two bugs in a rug," she told her friends afterward.) "Oh, Mrs. Abbott! How kind of you!" Madeleine was annoyed to find herself blushing, but she kept her head and entered into no explanation. Masters, with his most politely aloof air, handed the smiling guest to the sofa, and as she immediately announced that the room was too warm for her, Madeleine removed her dolman. Mrs. Abbott as ever was clad in righteous black satin trimmed with bugles and fringe, and a small flat bonnet whose strings indifferently supported her chins. She fixed her sharp small eyes immediately on Madeleine's beautiful house gown of nile green camel's hair, made with her usual sweeping lines and without trimming of any sort. "Charming--charming--and so becoming with that lovely color you have. New York, I suppose--" "Oh, no, a seamstress made it. You must let me get you cake and a glass of wine." The unwilling hostess crossed over to the hospitable cupboard and Mrs. Abbott amiably accepted a glass of port, the while her eyes could hardly tear themselves from the books on the table by the fire. There were at least a dozen of them and her astute old mind leapt straight at the truth. "I thought you had given all your books to the Mercantile Library," she remarked wonderingly. "We all thought it so hard on you, but Howard is set in his ways, poor old thing. He was much too old for you anyhow. I always said so. But I see he has relented. Have you been patronizing C. Beach? Nice little book store. I go there myself at Christmas time--get a set in nice bindings for one of the children every year." "Oh, these are borrowed," said Madeleine lightly. "Mr. Masters has been kind enough to lend them to me." "Oh--h--h, naughty puss! What would Howard say if he found you out?" Masters, who stood on the hearth rug, looked down at her with an expression, which, she afterward confessed, sent shivers up her spine. "Talbot is a great friend of mine," he said with deliberate emphasis, "and not likely to object to his wife's sharing my library." "Don't be too sure. The whole town knows that Howard detests bluestockings and would rather his wife had a good honest flirtation than stuffed her brains.... Pretty little head." She tweaked Madeleine's scarlet ear. "Mustn't put too much in it." "I'm afraid it doesn't hold much," said Madeleine smiling; and fancied she heard a bell in her depths toll: "It's going to end! It's going to end!" And for the first time in her life she felt like fainting. She went hurriedly over to the cupboard and poured herself out a glass of port wine. "I had almost forgotten my tonic," she said. "It has made me quite well again." "Your improvement is nothing short of miraculous," said the old lady drily. "It is the talk of the town. But you are ungrateful if you don't give all those interesting books some of the credit. I hope Howard is properly grateful to Mr. Masters.... By the way, my young friend, the men complain that you are never seen at the Club during the afternoon any more. That is ungrateful, if you like!--for they all think you are the brightest man out here, and would rather hear you talk than eat--or drink, which is more to the point. Now, I must go, dear. I won't intrude any longer. It has been delightful, meeting two such clever people at once. You are coming to my 'At Home' tomorrow. I won't take no for an answer." There was a warning note in her voice. Her pointed remarks had not been inspired by sheer felinity. It was her purpose to let Madeleine know that she was in danger of scandal or worse, and that the sooner she scrambled back to terra firma the better. Of course she could not refrain from an immediate round of calls upon impatient friends, but she salved her conscience by asserting roundly (and with entire honesty) that there was nothing in it as yet. She had seen too much of the world to be deceived on _that_ point. XVI After Masters had assisted Mrs. Abbott's large bulk into her barouche, resisting the impulse to pitch it in headfirst, he walked slowly up the stairs. He was seething with fury, and he was also aghast. The woman had unquestionably precipitated the crisis he had hoped to avoid. To use her favorite expression, the fat was in the fire; and she would see to it that it was maintained at sizzling point. He ground his teeth as he thought of the inferences, the innuendos, the expectations, the constant linking of his name with Madeleine's. Madeleine! It was true, of course, that the gossip might stop short of scandal if she entered the afternoon treadmill once more and showed herself so constantly that the most malignant must admit that she had no time for dalliance; it was well known that he spent the morning and late afternoon hours at the office. But that would mean that he must give her up. She was the last woman to consent to stolen meetings, even were he to suggest them, for the raison d'etre of their companionship would be gone. And that phase could end in but one way. What a dreamer he had been, he, a man of the world, to imagine that such an idyll could last. Perhaps four perfect months were as much as a man had any right to ask of life. Nevertheless, he experienced not the slightest symptom of resignation. He felt reckless enough to throw his future to the winds, kidnap Madeleine, and take the next boat to South America. But his unclouded mind drove inexorably to the end: her conscience and unremitting sense of disgrace would work the complete unhappiness of both. Divorce was equally out of the question. As he approached her door he felt a strong inclination to pass it and defer the inevitable interview until the morrow. He must step warily with her as with the world, and he needed all his self-control. If he lost his head and told her that he loved her he would not save a crumb from his feast. Moreover, there was the possibility of revealing her to herself if she loved him, and that would mean utter misery for her. Did she? He walked hastily past her door. His coolly reasoning brain felt suddenly full of hot vapors. Then he cursed himself for a coward and turned back. She would feel herself deserted in her most trying hour, for she needed a reassuring friend at this moment if never before. He had rarely failed to keep his head when he chose and he would keep it now. But when he entered the room his self-command was put to a severe test. She was huddled in a chair crying, and although he scoffed at woman's tears as roundly as Dr. Talbot, they never failed to rain on the softest spot in his nature. But he walked directly to the hearth rug and lit a cigarette. "I hope you are not letting that old cat worry you." He managed to infuse his tones with an amiable contempt. But Madeleine only cried the harder. "Come, come. Of course you are bruised, you are such a sensitive little plant, but you know what women are, and more especially that old woman. But even she cannot find much to gossip about in the fact that you were receiving an afternoon caller." "It--is--is--n't--only that!" "What, then?" "I--I'll be back in a moment." She ran into her bedroom, and Masters took a batch of proofs from his pocket and deliberately read them during the ten minutes of her absence. When she returned she had bathed her eyes, and looked quite composed. In truth she had taken sal volatile, and if despair was still in her soul her nerves no longer jangled. He rose to hand her a chair, but she shook her head and walked over to the window, then returned and stood by the table, leaning on it as if to steady herself. "Shall I get you a glass of port wine?" "No; more than one goes to my head." He threw the proofs on the table and retreated to the hearth-rug. "I suppose this means that you must not come here any more?" "Does it? Are you going to turn me adrift to bore myself at the Club?" "Oh, men have so many resources! And it is you who have given all. I had nothing to give you." "You forget, my dear Mrs. Talbot, that man is never so flattered as when some woman thinks him an oracle. Besides, although yours is the best mind in any pretty woman's head I know of--in any woman's head for that matter--you still have much to learn, and I should feel very jealous if you learned it elsewhere." "Oh, I could learn from books, I suppose. There are many more in the world than I shall ever be able to read. But--well, I had a friend for the first time--the kind of friend I wanted." "You are in no danger of losing him. I haven't the least intention of giving you up. Real friendships are too rare, especially those founded on mental sympathy, and a man's life is barren indeed when his friends are only men." "Have you had any woman friends before?" Her eyelids were lowered but she shot him a swift glance. "Well--no--to be honest, I cannot say I have. Flirtations and all that, yes. During the last eight years, between the war and earning my bread, I've had little time. Everything went, of course. I wrote for a while for a Richmond paper and then went to New York. That was hard sledding for a time and Southerners are not welcome in New York Society. If I bore you with my personal affairs it is merely to give you a glimpse of a rather arid life, and, perhaps, some idea of how pleasant and profitable I have found our friendship." She drooped her head. He ground his teeth and lit another cigarette. His hand trembled but his tones were even and formal. "I shall go to Mrs. Abbott's tomorrow." "Quite right. And if a man strays in flirt with him--if you know how." "There are four other At Homes and kettledrums this week and I shall go to those also. I don't know that I mind silly gossip, but it would not be fair to Howard. I shouldn't like to put him in the position of some men in this town; although they seem to console themselves! But Howard is not like that." "Not he. The best fellow in the world. I think your program admirable." He saw that he was trying her too far and added hastily: "It would be rather amusing to circumvent them, and it certainly would not amuse me to lose your charming companionship. I have fallen into the habit of imposing myself upon you from three until five or half-past. Perhaps you will admit me shortly after lunch and let me hang round until you are ready to go out?" She looked up with faintly sparkling eyes; then her face fell. "There are so many luncheons." "But surely not every day. You could refuse the informal affairs on the plea of a previous engagement, and give me the list of the inevitable ones the first of the week. And at least you are free from impertinent intrusion before three o'clock." "Yes, I'll do that! I will! It will be better than nothing." "Oh, a long sight better. And nothing can alter the procession of the seasons. Summer will arrive again in due course, and if your friends are not far more interested in something else by that time it is hardly likely that even Mrs. Abbott will sacrifice the comforts of Alta to spy on any one." "Not she! She has asthma in San Francisco in summer." Madeleine spoke gaily, but she avoided his eyes. Whether he was maintaining a pose or not she could only guess, but she had one of her own to keep up. "You must have thought me very silly to cry--but--these people have all been quite angelic to me before, and Mrs. Abbott descended upon me like the Day of Judgment." "I should think she did, the old she-devil, and if you hadn't cried you wouldn't have been a true woman! But we have a good half hour left. I'd like to read you--" At this moment Dr. Talbot's loud voice was heard in the hall. "All right. See you later. Sorry--" XVII Madeline caught at the edge of the table. Had he met Mrs. Abbott? But even in this moment of consternation she avoided a glance of too intimate understanding with Masters. She was reassured immediately, however. The Doctor burst into the room and exclaimed jovially: "You here? What luck. Thought you would be at some infernal At Home or other. Just got a call to San Jose--consultation--must take the next train. Come, help me pack. Hello, Masters. If I'd had time I'd have looked you up. Got some news for you. Wait a moment." He disappeared into his bedroom and Madeleine followed. He had not noticed the books and Masters' first impulse was to gather them up and replace them in the chest. But he sat down to his proofs instead. The Doctor returned in a few moments. "Madeleine will finish. She's a wonder at packing. Hello! What's this?" He had caught sight of the books. "Some of mine. Mrs. Talbot expressed a wish--" "Why in thunder don't you call her Madeleine? You're as much her friend as mine.... Well, I don't mind as much as I did, for I find women are all reading more than they used to, and I'm bound to say they don't have the blues while a good novel lasts. Ouida's a pretty good dose and lasts about a week. But don't give her too much serious stuff. It will only addle her brains." "Oh, she has very good brains. Mrs. Abbott was here just now, and although she is not what I should call literary--or too literate--she seemed to think your wife was just the sort of woman who should read." "Mrs. Abbott's a damned old nuisance. You must have been overjoyed at the interruption. But if Madeleine has to put on pincenez--" "Oh, never fear!" Madeleine was smiling radiantly as she entered. Her volatile spirits were soaring. "My eyes are the strongest part of me. What did you have to tell Mr. Masters?" "Jove! I'd almost forgotten, and it's great news, too. What would you say, Masters, to editing a paper of your own?" "What?" "There's a conspiracy abroad--I won't deny I had a hand in it--no light under the bushel for me--to raise the necessary capital and have a really first-class newspaper in this town. San Francisco deserves the best, and if we've had nothing but rags, so far--barring poor James King of William's _Bulletin_--it's because we've never had a man before big enough to edit a great one." "I have no words! It is almost too good to be true!" Madeleine watched him curiously. His voice was trembling and his eyes were flashing. He was tall but had drawn himself up in his excitement and seemed quite an inch taller. He looked about to wave a sword and lead a charge. Establishing a newspaper meant a hard fight and he was eager for the fray. She had had but few opportunities to study him in detail unobserved. She had never thought him handsome, for he was clean shaven, with deep vertical lines, and he wore his black hair very short. Her preference was for fair men with drooping moustaches and locks sweeping the collar; although her admiration for this somewhat standardized type had so far been wholly impersonal. Even the doctor clipped his moustache as it interfered with his soup, and his rusty brown hair was straight, although of the orthodox length. But she had not married Howard for his looks! She noted the hard line of jaw and sharp incisive profile. His face had power as well as intellect, yet there was a hint of weakness somewhere. Possibly the lips of his well-cut mouth were a trifle too firmly set to be unselfconscious. And his broad forehead lacked serenity. There was a furrow between the eyes. It was with the eyes she was most familiar. They were gray, brilliant, piercing, wide apart and deeply set. She had noted more than once something alert, watchful, in their expression, as if they were the guardians of the intellect above and defied the weakness the lower part of his face barely hinted to clash for a moment with his ambitions. She heard little of his rapid fire of questions and Howard's answers; but when the doctor had pulled out his watch, kissed her hurriedly, snatched his bag and dashed from the room, Masters took her hands in his, his eyes glowing. "Did you hear?" he cried. "Did you hear? I am to have my own newspaper. My dream has come true! A hundred thousand dollars are promised. I shall have as good a news service as any in New York." Madeleine withdrew her hands but smiled brightly and made him a pretty speech of congratulation. She knew little of newspapers and cared less, but there must be something extraordinary about owning one to excite a man like Langdon Masters. She had never seen him excited before. "Won't it mean a great deal harder work?" "Oh, work! I thrive on work. I've never had enough. Come and sit down. Let me talk to you. Let me be egotistical and talk about myself. Let me tell you all my pent-up ambitions and hopes and desires--you wonderful little Egeria!" And he poured himself out to her as he had never unbosomed himself before. He stayed on to dinner--she had no engagement--and left her only for the office. He had evidently forgotten the earlier episode, and he swept it from her own mind. That mind, subtle, feminine, yielding, melted into his. She shared those ambitions and hopes and desires. His brilliant and useful future was as real and imperative to her as to himself. It was a new, a wonderful, a thrilling experience. When she went to bed, smiling and happy, she slammed a little door in her mind and shot the bolt. A terrible fear had shaken her three hours before, but she refused to recall it. Once more the present sufficed. XVIII Madeleine went to Mrs. Abbott's reception, but there was nothing conciliatory nor apologetic in her mien. She had intended to be merely natural, but when she met that battery of eyes, amused, mocking, sympathetic, encouraging, and realized that Mrs. Abbott's tongue had been wagging, she was filled with an anger and resentment that expressed itself in a cold pride of bearing and a militant sparkle of the eye. She was gracious and aloof and Mrs. McLane approved her audibly. "Exactly as I should feel and look myself," she said to Mrs. Ballinger and Guadalupe Hathaway. "She's a royal creature and she has moved in the great world. No wonder she resents the petty gossip of this village." "Well, I'll acquit her," said Mrs. Ballinger tartly. "A more cold-blooded and unattractive man I've never met." "Langdon Masters is by no means unattractive," announced Miss Hathaway out of her ten years' experience as a belle and an unconscionable flirt. "I have sat in the conservatory with him several times. It may be that Mrs. Abbott stepped in before it was too late. And it may be that she did not." "Oh, call no woman virtuous until she is dead," said Mrs. McLane lightly. "But I won't hear another insinuation against Madeleine Talbot." Mrs. Abbott kissed the singed brand it had been her mission to snatch in the nick of time and detained her in conversation with unusual empressement. Madeleine responded with an excessive politeness, and Mrs. Abbott learned for the first time that sweet brown eyes could glitter as coldly as her own protuberant orbs when pronouncing judgment. Madeleine remained for two hours, bored and disgusted, the more as Masters' name was ostentatiously avoided. Even Sally Ballinger, who kissed her warmly, told her that she looked as if she hadn't a care in the world and that it was because she had too much sense to bother about men! She had never been treated with more friendly intimacy, and if she went home with a headache it was at least a satisfaction to know that her proud position was still scandal-proof. She wisely modified her first program and drifted back into afternoon society by degrees; a plan of defensive campaign highly approved by Mrs. McLane, who detested lack of finesse. The winter was an unsatisfactory one for Madeleine altogether. Society would not have bored her so much perhaps if that secret enchanting background had remained intact. But her intercourse with Masters was necessarily sporadic. Her conscience had never troubled her for receiving his visits, for her husband not only had expressed his approval, but had always urged her to amuse herself with men. But she felt like an intriguante when she discussed her engagement lists with Masters, and she knew that he liked it as little. His visits were now a matter for "sandwiching," to be schemed and planned for, and she dared not ask herself whether the persistent sense of fear that haunted her was that they both must betray self-consciousness in time, or that the more difficult order would bore him: their earlier intimacy had coincided with his hours of leisure. After all, he was not her lover, to delight in intrigue; and in time, it might be, he would not think the game worth the candle. She dreaded that revived gossip might drive him from the hotel, and that would be the miserable beginning of an unthinkable end. There were other interruptions. He paid a flying visit to Richmond to visit the death-bed of his mother, and he took a trip to the Sandwich Islands to recover from a severe cold on the chest. Moreover, his former placidity had left him, for one thing and another delayed the financing of his newspaper. One of its founders was temporarily embarrassed for ready money, another awaited an opportune moment to realize on some valuable stock. There was no doubt that the entire amount would be forthcoming in time, but meanwhile he fumed, and expressed himself freely to Madeleine. That he might have a more poisonous source of irritation did not occur to her. Fortunately she did not suspect that gossip was still rife. Madeleine might have a subtle mind but she had a candid personality. It was quite patent to sharp eyes that she was unhappy once more, although this time her health was unaffected. And Society was quite aware that she still saw Langdon Masters, in spite of her perfunctory appearances; for suspicion once roused develops antennae that traverse space without effort and return with accumulated minute stores of evidence. Masters had been seen entering or leaving the Talbot parlor by luncheon guests in the hotel. Old Ben Travers, who had chosen to ignore his astonishing and humiliating experience and always treated Madeleine with exaggerated deference, called one afternoon on her (in company with Mrs. Ballinger) and observed cigarette ends in the ash tray. Talbot smoked only cigars. Masters was one of the few men in San Francisco who smoked cigarettes and there was no mistaking his imported brand. Mr. Travers paid an immediate round of visits, and called again a fortnight later, this time protected by Mrs. Abbott. There were several books on the table which he happened to know Masters had received within the week. When the new wave reached Mrs. McLane she announced angrily that all the gossip in San Francisco originated in the Union Club, and refused to listen to details. But she was anxious, nevertheless, for she knew that Madeleine, whether she recognized the fact or not, was in love with Langdon Masters, and she more than suspected that he was with her. He went little into society, even before his mother's death, pleading press of work, but Mr. McLane often brought him home quietly to dinner and she saw more of him than any one did but Madeleine. Men had gone mad over her in her own time and she knew the stamp of baffled passions. It was on New Year's Day, during Masters' absence in Richmond, that an incident occurred which turned Society's attention, diverted for the moment by an open divorce scandal, to Madeleine Talbot once more. XIX New Year's Day in San Francisco was one of pomp and triumphs, and much secret heart-burning. Every woman who had a house threw it open and the many that lived in hotels were equally hospitable. There was a constant procession of family barouches, livery stable buggies and hacks. The "whips" drove their mud-bespattered traps with as grand an air as if on the Cliff House Road in fine weather; and while none was ignored whose entertaining was lavish, those who could count only on admiration and friendship compared notes eagerly during the following week. But young men in those days were more gallant or less snobbish than in these, and few pretty girls, however slenderly dowered, were forgotten by their waltzing partners. The older men went only to the great houses, and frankly for eggnog. Mrs. Abbott's was famous and so was Mrs. McLane's. Ladies who lived out of town the year round, that their husbands might "sleep in the country!" received with their more fortunate friends. It had been Madeleine's intention to have her own reception at the hotel as usual, but when Mrs. McLane craved her assistance--Marguerite was receiving with Mrs. Abbott, now her mother-in-law--she consented willingly, as it would reduce her effort to entertain progressively illuminated men to the minimum. She felt disinclined to effort of any sort. Mrs. McLane, after her daughter's marriage, had tired of the large house on Rincon Hill and the exorbitant wages of its staff of servants, and returned to her old home in South Park, furnishing her parlors with a red satin damask, which also covered the walls. She had made a trip to Paris meanwhile and brought back much light and graceful French furniture. The long double room was an admirable setting for her stately little figure in its trailing gown of wine-colored velvet trimmed with mellowed point lace (it had been privately dipped in coffee) and her white high-piled hair. There was no watchful anxiety in Mrs. McLane's lofty mien. She knew that the best, old and young, would come to her New Year's Day reception as a matter of course. Mrs. Ballinger had also gratefully accepted Mrs. McLane's invitation, for Sally had recently married Harold Abbott and was receiving on Rincon Hill, and Maria was in modest retirement. She wore a long gown of silver gray poplin as shining as her silver hair; and as she was nearly a foot taller than her hostess, the two ladies stood at opposite ends of the mantelpiece in the front parlor with Annette McLane and two young friends between. The reception was at its height at four o'clock. The rooms were crowded, and the equipages of the guests packed not only South Park but Third Street a block north and south. Madeleine sat at the end of the long double room behind a table and served the eggnog. The men hovered about her, not, as commonly, in unqualified admiration, or passed on the goblets, slices of the monumental cakes, and Peter Job's famous cream pie. She had taken a glass at once and raised her spirits to the necessary pitch; but its effect wore off in time and her hand began to tremble slightly as she ladled out the eggnog. She had not heard from Masters since he left and her days were as vacant as visible space. She had felt nervous and depressed since morning and would have spent the day in bed had she dared. Mr. McLane, Mr. Abbott, Colonel "Jack" Belmont, Alexander Groome, Mr. Ballinger, Amos Lawton and several others were chatting with her when Ben Travers sauntered up to demand his potion. He had already paid several visits, and although he carried his liquor well, it was patent to the eyes of his friends he was in that particular stage of inebriation that swamped his meagre stock of good nature and the superficial cleverness which made him an agreeable companion, and set free all the maliciousness of a mind contracted with years and disappointments: he had never made "his pile" and it was current history that he had been refused by every belle of his youth. He made Madeleine a courtly bow as he took the goblet from her hands, not forgetting to pay her a well-turned compliment on those hands, not the least of her physical perfections. Then he balanced himself on the edge of the table with a manifest intention of joining in the conversation. Madeleine felt an odd sense of terror, although she knew nothing of his discoveries and communications; there was a curious hard stare in his bleared eyes and it seemed to impale her. He began amiably enough. "Best looking frocks in this house I've seen today. At least five from Paris. Mrs. McLane brought back four of them besides her own. Seen some awful old duds today. 'Lupie Hathaway had on an old black silk with a gaping placket and three buttons off in front. Some of the other things were new enough, but the dressmakers in this town need waking up. Of course yours came from New York, Mrs. Talbot. Charming, simply charming." Madeleine wore a gown of amber-colored silk with a bertha of fine lace and mousseline de soie, exposing her beautiful shoulders. The color seemed reflected in her eyes and the bright waving masses of her hair. "Madame Deforme made it," she said triumphantly. "Now don't criticize our dressmakers again." "Never criticize anybody but can't help noticing things. Got the observing eye. Nothing escapes it. How are you off for books now that Masters has deserted us?" Madeleine turned cold, for the inference was unmistakable, and she saw Mr. McLane scowl at him ferociously, But she replied smilingly that there was always the Mercantile Library. "Never have anything new there, and even C. Beach hasn't had a new French novel for six months. If Masters were one of those considerate men, now, he'd have left you the key of his rooms. Nothing compromising in that. But it would be no wonder if he forgot it, for I hear it wasn't his mother's illness that took him to Richmond, but Betty Thornton who's still a reigning toast. Old flame and they say she's come round. Had a letter from my sister." Madeleine, who was lifting a goblet, let it fall with a crash. She had turned white and was trembling, but she lifted another with an immediate return of self-control, and said, "How awkward of me! But I have had a headache for three days and the gas makes the room so warm." And then she fainted. Mr. McLane, who was more impulsive than tactful, took Travers by the arm and pushed him through the crowd surging toward the table, and out of the front door, almost flinging him down the front steps. "Damn you for a liar and a scandalmonger and a malicious old woman!" he shouted, oblivious of many staring coachmen. "Never enter my house again." But the undaunted Travers steadied himself and replied with a leer, "Well, I made her give herself dead away, whether you like it or not. And it'll be all over town in a week." Mr. McLane turned his back, and ordering the astonished butler to take out the man's hat and greatcoat, returned to a scene of excitement. Madeleine had been placed full length on a sofa by an open window, and was evidently reviving. He asked the men who had overheard Travers' attack to follow him to his study. "I want every one of you to promise me that you will not repeat what that little brute said," he commanded. "Fortunately there were no women about. Fainting women are no novelty. And if that cur tells the story of his dastardly assault, give him the lie. Swear that he never said it. Persuade him that he was too drunk to remember." "I'll follow him and threaten to horsewhip him if he opens his mouth!" cried Colonel Belmont, who had been a dashing cavalry officer during the war. He revered all women of his own class, even his wife, who rarely saw him; and he was so critical of feminine perfections of any sort that he changed his mistresses oftener than any man in San Francisco. "I'll not lose a moment." And he left the room as if charging the enemy. "Good. Will the rest of you promise?" "Of course we'll promise." But alas, wives have means of extracting secrets when their suspicions are alert and clamoring that no husband has the wit to elude, man being too ingenuous to follow the circumlocutory methods of the subtler sex. Not that there was ever anything subtle about Mrs. Abbott's methods. Mr. Abbott had a perpetual catarrh and it had long since weakened his fibre. It was commonly believed that when Mrs. Abbott, her large bulk arrayed in a red flannel nightgown, sat up in the connubial bed and threatened to pour hot mustard up his nose unless he opened his sluices of information he ingloriously succumbed. At all events, how or wherefore, Travers' prediction was fulfilled, although he shiveringly held his own tongue. The story was all over town not in a week but in three days. But of this Madeleine knew nothing. The doctor, who feared typhoid fever, ordered her to keep quiet and see no one until he discovered what was the matter with her. Her return to Society and Masters' to San Francisco coincided, but at least her little world knew that Dr. Talbot had been responsible for her retirement. It awaited future developments with a painful and a pleasurable interest. XX The rest of the season, however, passed without notable incident. But it was known that Madeleine saw Masters constantly, and she was so narrowly observed during his second absence that the nervousness it induced made her forced gaiety almost hysterical. During the late spring her spirits grew more even and her migraines less frequent; sustained as she was by the prospect of her old uninterrupted relations with Masters. But more than Mrs. Abbott divined the cause of her ill-suppressed expectancy and never had she received so many invitations to the country. Mrs. McLane spent her summers at Congress Springs, but even she pressed Madeleine to visit her. Sally Abbott lived across the Bay on Lake Merritt and begged for three days a week at least; while as for Mrs. Abbott and Mr. and Mrs. Tom, who lived with her, they would harken to no excuses. Madeleine was almost nonplussed, but if her firm and graceful refusals to leave the doctor had led to open war she would have accepted the consequences. She was determined that this summer she had lived for throughout seven long tormented months should be as unbroken and happy as the other fates would permit. She had a full presentiment that it would be the last. Masters glided immediately into the old habit and saw her oftener when he could. Of course no phase ever quite repeats itself. The blithe unconsciousness of that first immortal summer was gone for ever; each was playing a part and dreading lest the other suspect it. Moreover, Masters was irritated almost beyond endurance at the constant postponement of the financial equipment for his newspaper. The man who had promised the largest contribution had died suddenly, and although his heir was more than eager to be associated with so illustrious an enterprise he must await the settlement of the estate. "I am beginning to believe I never shall have that newspaper," Masters said gloomily to Madeleine. "It looks like Fate. When the subject was first broached there was every prospect that I should get the money at once. It has an ugly look. Any man who has been through a war is something of a fatalist." They were less circumspect than of old and were walking out the old Mission Road. In such moods it was impossible for him to idle before a fire and read aloud. Madeleine had told her husband she would like to join Masters in his walks occasionally, and he had replied heartily: "Do you good. He'll lead you some pretty tramps! I can't keep up with him. You don't walk half enough. Neither do these other women, although my income would be cut in half if they did." It was a cool bracing day without dust or wind and Madeleine had started out in high spirits, induced in part by a new and vastly becoming walking suit of forest green poplin and a hat of the same shade rolled up on one side and trimmed with a drooping grey feather. Her gloves and shoes were of grey suede, there was soft lace about her white throat and a coquettish little veil that covered only her eyes. She always knew what to say when Masters was in one of his black moods, and today she reminded him of the various biographies of great men they had read together. Had not all of them suffered every disappointment and discouragement in the beginning of their careers? Overcome innumerable obstacles? Many had been called upon to endure grinding poverty as well until they forced recognition from the world, and he at least was spared that. If Life took with one hand while she gave with the other, the reverse was equally true; and also no doubt it was a part of her beneficence that she not only strengthened the character by preliminary hardships, but amiably planned them that success might be all the sweeter when it came. Masters laughed. "Incontrovertible. Mind you practice your own philosophy when you need it. All reverses should be temporary if people are strong enough." She lost her color for a moment, but answered lightly: "That is an easy philosophy for you. If one thing failed you would simply move on to another. Men like you never really fail, for your rare abilities give you the strength and resource of ten men." "I wonder! The roots of strength sometimes lie in slimy and corrupting waters that spread their miasma upward when Life frowns too long and too darkly. Sometimes misfortunes pile up so remorselessly, this miasma whispers that a man's chief strength consists in going straight to the devil and be done with it all. A resounding slap on Life's face. An insolent assertion of the individual will against Society. Or perhaps it is merely a disposition to run full tilt, hoping for the coup de grace--much as I felt when I lay neglected on the battlefield for twenty-four hours and longed for some Yank to come along and blow out my brains." "That is no comparison," she said scornfully. "When the body is whole nothing is impossible. I should feel that the Universe was reeling if I saw you go down before adversity. I could as readily imagine myself letting go, and I am only a woman." "Oh, I should never fear for you," he said bitterly. "What with your immutable principles, your religion, and your proud position in the Society of San Francisco to sustain you, you would come through the fiery furnace unscathed." "Yes, but the furnace! The furnace!" She threw out her hands with a gesture of despair, her high spirits routed before a sudden blinding vision of the future. "Does any woman ever escape that?" One of her hands brushed his and he caught it irresistibly. But he dropped it at once. There was a sound of horses' hoofs behind them. He had been vaguely aware of cantering hoof-beats in the distance for several minutes. Two men passed, and one of them took off his hat with a low mocking sweep and bowed almost to the saddle. It was old Ben Travers. "What on earth is he doing in town?" muttered Masters in exasperation. No one had told him of the New Year's Day episode, but he knew him for what he was. Madeleine was fallowing the small trim figure on the large chestnut with expanded eyes, but she answered evenly enough: "He has some ailment and is remaining in town under Howard's care." "Liver, no doubt," said Masters viciously. "Too bad his spleen doesn't burst once for all." He continued unguardedly, "Well, if he tries to make mischief, Howard will tell him bluntly that we walk together with his permission and invite him to go to the devil." Her own guard was up at once, although it was not any gossip carried to Howard she feared. "He has probably already forgotten us," she said coldly. "Have you finished that paper for _Putnam's?_" "Three days ago, and begun another for the _Edinburgh Review_. That is the first time I have been invited to write for an English review." "You see!" she cried gaily. "You are famous already. And ambitious! You were once thinking of writing for our _Overland Monthly_ only. Bret Harte told me you had promised him three papers this year." "I shall write them." "Perfunctory patriotism. You'd have to write the entire magazine and bring it out weekly to get rid of all your ideas and superfluous energy." "Well, and wouldn't the good Californians rather read any magazine but their own? Even Harte is far better known in the East than here. I doubt if I've heard one of his things mentioned but 'The Heathen Chinee.' He has been here so long they regard him as a mere native. If I am advancing my reputation in the East I am making it much faster than if I depended upon the local reputation alone. San Francisco is remarkably human." "When I first came here--it seems a lifetime ago!--I never saw an Eastern magazine of the higher class and rarely a book. I believe you have done as much to wake them up as even the march of time. They read newspapers if they won't read their own poor little _Overland_. And you are popular personally and inspire a sort of uneasy emulation. You are a sort of illuminated bridge. Now tell me what your new paper is about." XXI A while later they came to the old Mission Dolores, long ago the center of a flourishing colony of native Indians, who, under the driving energy of the padres, manufactured practically every simple necessity known to Spain. There was nothing left but the crumbling church and its neglected graveyard, alone in a waste of sand. The graves of the priests and grandees were overrun with periwinkle, and the only other flower was the indestructible Castilian rose. The heavy dull green bushes with their fluted dull pink blooms surrounded by tight little buds, were as dusty as the memory of the Spaniard in California. They went into the church to rest. Madeleine had never taken any interest in the history of her adopted state, and as they sat in a pew at the back, surrounded by silence and a deep twilight gloom, Masters told her the tragic story of Rezanov and Concha Arguello, who would have married before that humble altar and the history of California changed if the ironic fates had permitted. The story had been told him by Mrs. Hathaway, who was the daughter of one of the last of the grandees, and whose mother had lived in the Presidio when Rezanov sailed in through the Golden Gate and Concha Arguello had been La Favorita of Alta California. The little church was very quiet. The rest of the world seemed far away. Madeleine's fervid yielding imagination swept her back to that long-forgotten past when a woman to whom the earlier fates had been as kind as to herself had scaled all but the highest peaks of happiness and descended into the profoundest depths of despair. Her sympathies, enhanced by her own haunting premonition of disaster, shattered her guard. She dropped her head into her hands and wept hopelessly. Masters felt his own moorings shake. He half rose to flee. But he too had been living in the romantic and passionate past and he too had been visited by moments of black forebodings. Love had tormented him to the breaking point before this and his ambition had often been submerged in his impatience for the excess of work which his newspaper would demand, exhausting to body and imagination alike. He had long ceased to doubt that she loved him, but her self-command had protected them both. He had believed it would never desert her and when it did his pulses had their way. He took her in his arms and strained her to him as if with the strength of his muscles and his will he would defy the blundering fates. Madeleine made no resistance. She was oblivious of everything but the ecstasy of the moment. When he kissed her she clung to him as ardently, and felt as mortals may, when, in dissolution, they have the vision of unmortal bliss. She had the genius for completion and neither the past nor the future intruded upon the perfect moment when love was all. But the moment was brief. A priest entered and knelt before the altar. She disengaged herself and adjusted her hat with hands that trembled violently, then almost ran out of the church. Masters followed her. As they descended the steps Travers and his companion passed again, after their short canter down the peninsula. He stared so hard at Madeleine's revealing face that he almost forgot to take off his hat, and half reined in as if he would pause and gratify his curiosity; but thought better of it and rode on. Masters and Madeleine did not exchange a word until they had walked nearly a mile. But his brain was working as clearly as if passion had never clouded it, and although he could see no hope for the future he was determined to gain time and sacrifice anything rather than lose what little he might still have of her. He said finally, in a matter-of-fact voice: "I want you to use your will and imagination and forget that we ever entered that church." "Forget! The memory of it will scourge me as long as I live. I have been unfaithful to my husband!" "Oh, not quite as bad as that!" "What difference? I had surrendered completely and forgotten my vows, my religion, every principle that has guided my life. If--if--circumstances had been different that would not have been the end. I am a bad wicked woman." "Oh, no, you are not. You are a terribly good one. If you were not you would take your life in your hands and make it over." He did not dare mention the word divorce, and lest it travel from his mind to hers and cause his immediate repudiation, he added hastily: "You were immortal for a moment and it should be your glory, not a whip to scourge you. The time will come when you will remember it with gratitude and without a blush. You know now what you could be and feel. If we part at least you will have been saved from the complete aridity--" "Part?" She looked at him for the first time, and although she had believed she never could look at him again without turning scarlet, there was only terror in her eyes. "I have been afraid of banishment." "It was my fault as much as yours." "I am not so sure. We won't argue that point. Is anything perfect arguable? But if I am to stay in San Francisco I must see you." "I'll never see you alone again." "I have no intention of pressing that point! But the open is safe and you must walk with me every day." "I don't know! Oh--I don't know! And I think that I should tell Howard." "You will not tell Howard because you are neither cowardly nor cruel. Nor will you ruin a perfect memory that belongs to us alone. You do love me and that is the end of it--or the beginning of God knows what!" "Love!" She shivered. "Yes, I love you. Why do poets waste so many beautiful words over love? It is the most terrible thing in the world." "Let us try to forget it for the present," he said harshly. "Forget everything we cannot have--" "You have your work. You have only to work harder than ever. What have I?" "We will walk together every day. We can take a book out on the beach and sit on the rocks. Read more fiction. That is its mission--to translate one for a time from the terrible realities of life. Your religion should be of some use to you. It is almost a pity there is no poverty out here. Sink your prejudices and seek out poor Sibyl Forbes. Every woman in town has cut her. In healing her wounds you could forget your own. Above all, use your will. We are neither of us weaklings, and it could be a thousand times worse. Nothing shall take from us what we have, and there may be a way out." "There is none," she said sadly. "But I will do as you tell me. And I'll forget--not remember--if I can." XXII The end came swiftly. The next day Ben Travers drove down to Rincona. Mrs. Abbott listened to his garnished tale with bulging eyes and her three chins quivering with excitement. She had heard no gossip worth mentioning since she left town, and privately she hated the summer and Alta. "You should have seen her face when she came out of that church," cried Travers for the third time; he was falling into the senile habit of repeating himself. "It was fairly distorted and she looked as if she had been crying for a week. Mark my words, Masters had been making the hottest kind of love to her--he was little more composed than she. Bet you an eagle to a dime they elope within a week." "Serve Howard Talbot right for marrying a woman twenty years younger than himself and a Northerner to boot. Do you think he suspects?" "Not he. Now, I must be off. If I didn't call on the Hathaways and Montgomerys while I'm down here they'd never forgive me." "Both have house parties," said Mrs. Abbott enviously. "Just like you to get it first! I'd go with you but I must write to Antoinette McLane. She'll _have_ to believe that her paragon is headed for the rocks this time." Mrs. McLane was having an attack of the blues when the letter arrived and did not open her mail until two days later. Then she drove at once to San Francisco. She was too wise in women to remonstrate with Madeleine, but she went directly to Dr. Talbot's office. It was the most unpleasant duty she had ever undertaken, but she knew that Talbot would not doubt his wife's fidelity, and she was determined to save Madeleine. She had considered the alternative of going to Masters, but even her strong spirit quailed before the prospect of that interview. Besides, if he were as deeply in love with Madeleine as she believed him to be, it would do no good. She had little faith in the self-abnegation of men where their passions were concerned. Dr. Talbot was in his office and saw her at once, and they talked for an hour. His face was purple and she feared a stroke. But he heard her quietly, and told her she had proved her friendship by coming to him before it was too late. When she left him he sat for another hour, alone. XXIII It was six o'clock. San Francisco was enjoying one of its rare heat waves and Madeleine had put on a frock of white lawn made with a low neck and short sleeves, and tied a soft blue sash round her waist. As the hour of her husband's reasonably prompt homing approached she seated herself at the piano. She could not trust herself to sing, and played the "Adelaide." The past three days had not been as unhappy as she had expected. She had visited Sibyl Forbes, living in lonely splendor, and listened enthralled to that rebellious young woman (who had received her with passionate gratitude) as she poured out humiliations, bitter resentment, and matrimonial felicity. Madeleine had consoled and rejoiced and promised to talk to the all-powerful Mrs. McLane. Twice she had gone to hear John McCullough at his new California Theatre, with another dutiful doctor's wife who lived in the hotel, and she had walked for three hours with Masters every afternoon. He had always found it easy to turn her mind into any channel he chose, and he had never exerted himself to be more entertaining even with her. Today he had been jubilant and had swept her with him on his high tide of anticipation and triumph. Another patriotic San Franciscan had come to the rescue and the hundred thousand dollars lay to Masters' credit in the Bank of California. He had taken his offices an hour after the deposit was made; his business manager was engaged, and every writer of ability on the other newspapers was his to command. "Masters' Newspaper" had been the talk of the journalistic world for months. He had picked his staff and he now awaited only the presses he had ordered that morning from New York. Madeleine had sighed as she listened to him dilate upon an active brilliant future in which she had no place, but she was in tune with him always and she could only be happy with him now. Moreover, it was an additional safeguard. He would be too busy for dreams and human longings. As for herself she would go along somehow. Tears, after all, were a wonderful solace. Fear had driven her down a light romantic by-way of her nature. Even if days passed without a glimpse of him she could dwell on the pleasant thought that he was not far away, and now and then they would take a long walk together. The door opened and Dr. Talbot entered. His face was no longer purple. It was sallow and drawn. Her hands trailed off the keys, her arms fell limply. Not even during an epidemic, when he found little time for sleep, had his round face lost its ruddy brightness, his black eyes their look of jovial good-fellowship, his mouth its amiable cynicism. "Something has happened," she said faintly. "What is it?" "Would you mind sitting here?" He fell heavily into a chair and motioned to one opposite. She left the shelter of the piano with dragging feet, her own face drained of its color. Ben Travers! She knew what was coming. His arms lay limply along the arms of his chair. As she gazed at him fascinated it seemed to her that he grew older every minute. And she had never seen any one look as sad. "I have been a bad husband to you," he said. And the life had gone out of even his voice. "Oh! No! No! you have been the best, the kindest and most indulgent of husbands." "I have been worse than a bad husband," he went on in the same monotonous voice. "I have been a failure. I never tried to understand you. I didn't want to understand what might interfere with my own selfish life. You have a mind and I ordered you to feed it husks. You asked me for the companionship that was your right and I told you to go and amuse yourself as best you could. I fooled myself with the excuse that you were perfect as you were, but the bald truth was that I liked the society of men better, and hated any form of mental exertion unconnected with my profession. I plucked the rarest flower a good-for-nothing man ever found and I didn't even remember to give it fresh water. It is a wonder you didn't wilt before you did. You were wilting--dying mentally--when Masters came along. You found in him all that I had denied you. And now I have the punishment I deserve. You no longer love me. You love him." "Oh--Oh--" Madeleine twisted her hands in her lap and stared at them. "You--you--cannot help being what you are. I long since ceased to find fault with you--" "Yes, when you ceased to love me! When you found that we were hopelessly mismated. When you gave up." "I--I'm very fond of you still. How could I help it when you are so good to me?" "I have no doubt of your friendship--or of your fidelity. But you love Masters. Can you deny it?" "No." "Are you preparing to elope with him?" "Oh! No! No! How could you dream of such a thing?" "I am told that every one is expecting it." "I would no more elope than I would ask for a divorce. I may be sinful enough to love a man who is not my husband, but I am not bad enough for that. And people are very stupid. They know that Langdon Masters' future lies here. If I were as wicked a woman as that, at least he is not a fool. Why, only today he received the capital for his newspaper." "And do you know so little of men and women as to imagine that you two could go on indefinitely content with the mere fact that you love each other? I may not have known my own wife because I chose to be blind, but a doctor knows as much about women in general as a father confessor. Men and women are not made like that! It seems that every one but myself has known for months that Masters is in love with you; and Masters is a man of strong passions and relentless will. He has used his will so far to curb his passions, principally, no doubt, on my account; he is my friend and a man of honor. But there are moments in life when honor as well as virtue goes overboard." "But--but--we have agreed never to see each other alone again--except out of doors." "That is all very well, but there are always unexpected moments of isolation. The devil sees to that. And while I have every confidence in your virtue--under normal conditions--I know the helpless yielding of women and the ruthless passions of men. It would be only a question of time. I may have been a bad husband but I am mercifully permitted to save you, and I shall do so." He rose heavily from his chair. "Do you know where I can find Masters?" She sprang to her feet and for the first time in her life her voice was shrill. "You are not going to kill him?" "Oh, no. I am not going to kill him. There has been scandal enough already. And I have no desire to kill him. He has behaved very well, all things considered. I am almost as sorry for him as I am for you--and myself! Do you know where he is?" "He is probably dining at the Union Club--or he may be at his new offices. They are somewhere on Commercial Street." He went out and Madeleine sat staring at the door with wide eyes and parted lips. She felt no inclination to tears, nor even to faint, although her body could hardly have been colder in death. She felt suspended in a vacuum, awaiting something more dreadful than even this interview with her husband had been. XXIV Dr. Talbot turned toward the stairs, but it occurred to him that Masters might still be in his rooms and he walked to the other end of the hall. A ringing voice answered his knock. He entered. Masters grasped him by the hand, exclaiming, "I was going to look you up tonight and tell you the good news. Has Madeleine told you? I have my capital! And I have just received a telegram from New York saying that my presses will start by freight tomorrow. That means we'll have our newspaper in three weeks at the outside--But what is the matter, old chap? I never saw you look seedy before. Suppose we take a week off and go on a bear hunt? It's the last vacation I can have in a month of Sundays." "I have come to tell you that you must leave San Francisco." "Oh!" Masters' exuberance dropped like a shining cloak from a figure of steel. He walked to his citadel, the hearth rug, and lit a cigarette. "I suppose you have been listening to the chatter of that infernal old gossip, Ben Travers." "Ben Travers knows me too well to bring any of his gossip to me. But he has carried his stories up and down the state; not only his--more recent discoveries, but evidence he appears to have been collecting for months. But he is only one of many. It seems the whole town has known for a year or more that you see Madeleine for three or four hours every day, that you have managed to have those hours together, no matter what her engagements, that you are desperately in love with each other. The gossip has been infernal. I do not deny that a good deal of the blame rests on my shoulders. I not only neglected her but I encouraged her to see you. But I thought her above scandal or even gossip, and I never dreamed it was in her to love--to lose her head over any man. She was sweet and affectionate but cold--my fault again. Any man who had the good fortune to be married to Madeleine could make her love him if he were not a selfish fool. Well, I have been punished; but if I have lost her I can save her--and her reputation. You must go. There is no other way." "That is nonsense. You exaggerate because you are suffering from a shock. You know that I cannot leave San Francisco with this great newspaper about to be launched. If it is as bad as you make out I will give you my word not to see Madeleine again. And as I shall be too busy for Society it will quickly forget me." "Oh, no, it will not. It will say that you are both cleverer than you have been in the past. If you leave San Francisco--California--for good and all--it may forget you; not otherwise." "Do you know that you are asking me to give up my career? That I shall never have such an opportunity in my life again? My whole future--for usefulness as well as for the realization of my not ignoble ambitions--lies in San Francisco and nowhere else?" "Don't imagine I have not thought of that. And San Francisco can ill afford to spare you. You are one of the greatest assets this city ever had. But she will have to do without you even if you never can be replaced. I had the whole history of the affair from Mrs. McLane this afternoon. No one believes--yet--that things have reached a climax between you and Madeleine. On the contrary, they are expecting an elopement. But if you remain, nothing on God's earth can prevent an abominable scandal. Madeleine's name will be dragged through the mud. She will be cut, cast out of Society. Even I could not protect her; I should be regarded as a blind fool, or worse, for it will be known that Mrs. McLane warned me. No woman can keep her mouth shut. She and other powerful women--even that damned old cut-throat, Mrs. Abbott--are standing by Madeleine loyally, but they are all alert for a denouement nevertheless. If you go, that will satisfy them. Madeleine will be merely the heroine of an unhappy love-affair, and although nothing will stop their damned clacking tongues for a time, they will pity her and do their best to make her forget." "I cannot go. It is impossible. You are asking too much. And, I repeat, I'll never see her again. Mrs. McLane can be made to understand the truth. I'll leave the hotel tomorrow." "You love Madeleine, do you not?" "Yes--I do." "Then will you save her from ruin in the only way possible. It is not only her reputation that I fear. You know yourself, I fancy. You may avoid her, but you will hardly deny that if circumstances threw you together, alone, temptation would be irresistible--the more so as you would have ached for the mere sound of her voice every minute. I know now what it means to love Madeleine." Masters turned his back on Talbot and leaned his arms on the mantel-shelf. He saw hideous pictures in the empty grate. The doctor had not sat down. Not a muscle of his big strong body had moved as he stood and pronounced what was worse than a sentence of death on Langdon Masters. He averted his dull inexorable eyes, for he dared not give way to sympathy. For the moment he wished himself dead--and for more reasons than one! But he was far too healthy and practical to contemplate a dramatic exit. No end would be served if he did. Madeleine's sensitive spirit would recoil in horror from a union haunted by the memory of the crime and anguish of the husband she had vowed to love and obey. Not Madeleine! His remorseless solution was the only one. Masters turned after a time and his face looked as old as Talbot's. "I'll go if you are quite sure it is necessary. If you have not spoken in the heat of the moment." "If I thought for a month it would make no difference. If you remain, no matter what your circumspection Madeleine will rank in the eyes of the world with those harlots over on Dupont Street. And be as much of an outcast. You know this town. You've lived in it for a year and a half. It's not London, nor even New York. Nothing is hidden here. It lives on itself; it has nothing else to live on. It is almost fanatically loyal to its own until its loyalty is thrown in its face. Then it is bitterer than the wrath of God. You understand all this, don't you?" "Yes, I understand. But--couldn't you send Madeleine to her parents in Boston for six months--she has never paid them a visit--but no, I suppose the scandal would be worse--" "Far worse. It would look either as if she had run away from me or as if I had packed her off in disgrace. If I could leave my practice I'd take her abroad for two years, but I cannot. Nor--to be frank--do I see why I should be sacrificed further." "Oh, assuredly not." Masters' tones were even and excessively polite. "You will take the train tomorrow morning for New York?" "I cannot leave San Francisco until after the opening of the banks. The money must be refunded. Besides, I prefer to go by steamer. There is one leaving tomorrow, I believe. I want time to think before I arrive in New York." "And you will promise to have no correspondence with Madeleine whatever?" "You might leave us that much!" "The affair shall end here and now. Do you promise?" "Very well. But I should like to see her once more." "That you shall not! I shall not leave her until you are outside the Golden Gate." "Very well. If that is all--" "Good-by. You have behaved--well, as our code commands you to behave. I expected nothing less. Don't imagine I don't appreciate what this means to you. But you are a man of great ability. You will find as hospitable a field for your talents elsewhere. San Francisco is the chief loser. I wish you the best of luck." And he returned to Madeleine. XXV Madeleine came of a brave race and she was a woman of intense pride. She spent a week at Congress Springs and she took her courage in her teeth and spent another at Rincona. There was a house party and they amused themselves in the somnolent way peculiar to Alta. Bret Harte was there, a dapper little man, whose shoes were always a size too small, but popular with women as he played an excellent game of croquet and talked as delightfully as he wrote. His good humor could be counted on if no one mentioned "The Heathen Chinee." He had always admired Madeleine and did his best to divert her. Both Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Abbott were disappointed that they were given no opportunity to condole with her; but although she gave a fair imitation of the old Madeleine Talbot, and even mentioned Masters' name with a casual indifference, no one was deceived for a moment. That her nerves were on the rack was as evident as that her watchful pride was in arms, and although it was obvious that she had foresworn the luxury of tears, her eyes had a curious habit of looking through and beyond these good ladies until they had the uncomfortable sensation that they were not there and some one else was. They wondered if Langdon Masters were dead and she saw his ghost. The summer was almost over. After a visit to Sally Abbott on Lake Merritt, she returned to town with the rest of the fashionable world. People had never been kinder to her; and if their persistent attentions were strongly diluted with curiosity, who shall blame them? It was not every day they had a blighted heroine of romance, who, moreover, looked as if she were going into a decline. She grew thinner every day. Her white skin was colorless and transparent. They might not have her for long, poor darling! How they pitied her! But they never wished they had let her alone. It was all for the best. And what woman ever had so devoted a husband? He went with her everywhere. He, too, looked as if he had been through the mill, poor dear, but at least he had won a close race, and he deserved and received the sympathy of his faithful friends. As for that ungrateful brute, Langdon Masters, he had not written a line to any one in San Francisco since he left. Not one had an idea what had become of him. Did he secretly correspond with Madeleine? (They would have permitted her that much.) Would he blow out his brains if she died of consumption? He was no philanderer. If he hadn't really loved her nothing would have torn him from San Francisco and his brilliant career; of course. Duelling days were over, and the doctor was not the man to shoot another down in cold blood, with no better excuse than the poor things had given him. It was all very thrilling and romantic. Even the girls talked of little else, and regarded their complacent prosperous swains with disfavor. "The Long Long Weary Day" was their favorite song. They wished that Madeleine lived in a moated grange instead of the Occidental Hotel. Madeleine had had her own room from the beginning of her married life in San Francisco, as the doctor was frequently called out at night. When Howard had returned and told her that Masters would leave on the morrow and that she was not to see him again, she had walked quietly into her bedroom and locked the door that led to his; and she had never turned the key since. Talbot made no protest. He had no spirit left where Madeleine was concerned, but it was his humble hope to win her back by unceasing devotion and consideration, aided by time. He not only never mentioned Masters' name, but he wooed her in blundering male fashion. Not a day passed that he did not send her flowers. He bought her trinkets and several valuable jewels, and he presented her with a victoria, drawn by a fine sorrel mare, and a coachman in livery on the box. Madeleine treated him exactly as she treated her host at a dinner. She was as amiable as ever at the breakfast table, and when he deserted his club of an evening, she sat at her embroidery frame and told him the gossip of the day. XXVI One evening at the end of two long hours, when he had heroically suppressed his longing for a game of poker, he said hesitatingly, "I thought you were so fond of reading. I don't see any books about. All the women are reading a novel called 'Quits.' I'll send it up to you in the morning if you haven't read it." For the first time since Masters' departure the blood rose in Madeleine's face, but she answered calmly: "Thanks. I have little time for reading, as I have developed quite a passion for embroidery and I practice a good deal. This is a handkerchief-case for Mrs. McLane. Of course I must read 'Quits,' however, and also 'The Initials.' One mustn't be behind the times. If you'll step into Beach's tomorrow and order them I'll be grateful." "Of course I will. Should--should--you like me to read to you? I'm a pretty bad reader, I guess, but I'll do my best." "Oh--is there an earthquake?" "No! But your nerves are in a bad state. I'll get you a glass of port wine." He went heavily over to the cupboard, but his hand was shaking as he poured out the wine. He drank a glass himself before returning to her. "Thanks. You take very good care of me." And she gave him the gracious smile of a grateful patient. "I don't think you'd better go out any more at night for a while. You are far from well, you know, and you're not picking up." "A call for you, I suppose. Too bad." There had been a peremptory knock on the door. A coachman stood without. Would Dr. Talbot come at once? A new San Franciscan was imminent via Mrs. Alexander Groome on Ballinger Hill. The doctor grumbled. "And raining cats and dogs. Why couldn't she wait until tomorrow? We'll probably get stuck in the mud. Damn women and their everlasting babies." She helped him into his overcoat and wished him a pleasant good-night. It was long since she had lifted her cheek for his old hasty kiss, and he made no protest. He had time on his side. She did not return to her embroidery frame but stood for several moments looking at the chest near the fireplace. She had not opened it since Masters left. His library had been packed and sent after him by one of his friends, but no one had known of the books in her possession. Masters certainly had not thought of them and she was in no condition to remember them herself at the time. She had not dared to look at them! Tonight, however, she moved slowly toward the chest. She looked like a sleep-walker. When she reached it she knelt down and opened it and gathered the books in her arms. When her husband returned two hours later she lay on the floor in a dead faint, the books scattered about her. XXVII It was morning before he could revive her, and two days before she could leave her bed. Then she developed the hacking cough he dreaded. He took her to the Sandwich Islands and kept her there for a month. The even climate and the sea voyage seemed to relieve her, but when they returned to San Francisco she began to cough again. Do women go into a decline these days from corroding love and hope in ruins? If so, one never hears of it and the disease is unfashionable in modern fiction. But in that era woman was woman and little besides. If a woman of the fashionable world she had Society besides her family and housekeeping. She rarely travelled, certainly not from California, and if one of her band fell upon evil days and was forced to teach school, knit baby sacques, or keep a boarding-house, she was pitied but by no means emulated. Madeleine had neither house nor children, and more money than she could spend. She had nothing to ask of life but happiness and that was for ever denied her. Masters had never been out of her mind for a moment during her waking hours, and she had slept little. She ate still less, and kept herself up in Society with punch in the afternoon and champagne at night. Only in the solitude of her room did she give way briefly to excoriated nerves; but the source of her once ready tears seemed dry. There are more scientific terms for her condition these days, but she was poisoned by love and despair. Her collapse was only a matter of time. Dr. Talbot knew nothing about psychology but he knew a good deal about consumption. He had also arrested it in its earlier stages more than once. He plied Madeleine with the good old remedies: eggnog, a raw egg in a glass of sherry, port wine, mellow Bourbon whiskey and cream. She had no desire to recover and he stood over her while she drank his potions lest she pour them down the washstand; and some measure of her strength returned. She fainted no more and her cough disappeared. The stimulants gave her color and her figure began to fill out again. But her thoughts, save when muddled by her tonics, never wandered from Masters for a moment. The longing to hear from him grew uncontrollable with her returning vitality. She had hoped that he would break his promise and write to her once at least. He knew her too well not to measure the extent of her sufferings, and common humanity would have justified him. But his ship might have sunk with all on board for any sign he gave. Others had ceased to grumble at his silence; his name was rarely mentioned. If she had known his address she would have written to him and demanded one letter. She had given no promise. Her husband had commanded and she had obeyed. She had always obeyed him, as she had vowed at the altar. But she had her share of feminine guile, and if she had known where to address Masters she would have quieted her conscience with the assurance that a letter from him was a necessary part of her cure. She felt that the mere sight of his handwriting on an envelope addressed to herself would transport her back to that hour in Dolores, and if she could correspond with him life would no longer be unendurable. But although he had casually alluded to his club in New York she could not recall the name, if he had mentioned it. She went to the Mercantile Library one day and looked over files of magazines and reviews. His name appeared in none of them. It was useless to look over newspaper files, as editorials were not signed. But he must be writing for one of them. He had his immediate living to make. What should she do? As she groped her way down the dark staircase of the library she remembered the newspaper friend, Ralph Holt, who had packed his books--so the chambermaid had informed her casually--and whom she had met once when walking with Masters. He, if any one, would know Masters' address. But how meet him? He did not go in Society, and she had never seen him since. She could think of no excuse to ask him to call. Nor was it possible--to her, at least--to write a note and ask him for information outright. But by this time she was desperate. See Holt she would, and after a few moments' hard thinking her feminine ingenuity flashed a beacon. Holt was one of the sub-editors of his newspaper and although he had been about to resign and join Masters, no doubt he was on the staff still. Madeleine remembered that Masters had often spoken of a French restaurant in the neighborhood of the _Alta_ offices, patronized by newspaper men. The cooking was excellent. He often lunched there himself. She glanced at her watch. It was one o'clock. She walked quickly toward the restaurant. XXVIII She entered in some trepidation. She had never visited a restaurant alone before. And this one was crowded with men, the atmosphere thick with smoke. She asked the fat little proprietor if she might have a table alone, and he conducted her to the end of the room, astonished but flattered. A few women came to the restaurant occasionally to lunch with "their boys," but no such lady of the haut ton as this. A fashionable woman's caprice, no doubt. Her seat faced the room, and as she felt the men staring at her, she studied the menu carefully and did not raise her eyes until she gave her order. In spite of her mission and its tragic cause she experienced a fleeting satisfaction that she was well and becomingly dressed. She had intended dropping in informally on Sibyl Forbes, still an outcast, in spite of her intercession, and wore a gown of dove-colored cashmere and a hat of the same shade with a long lilac feather. She summoned her courage and glanced about the room, her eyes casual and remote. Would it be possible to recognize any one in that smoke? But she saw Holt almost immediately. He sat at a table not far from her own. She bowed cordially and received as frigid a response as Mrs. Abbott would have bestowed on Sibyl Forbes. Madeleine colored and dropped her eyes again. Of course he knew her for the cause of Masters' desertion of the city that needed him, and the disappointment of his own hopes and ambitions. Moreover, she had inferred from his conversation the day they had all walked together for half an hour that he regarded Masters as little short of a god. He was several years younger, he was clever himself, and nothing like Masters had ever come his way. He had declared that the projected newspaper was to be the greatest in America. She had smiled at his boyish enthusiasm, but without it she would probably have forgotten him. She had resented his presence at the time. Of course he hated her. But she had come too far to fail. He passed her table a few moments later and she held out her hand with her sweetest smile. "Sit down a moment," she said with her pretty air of command; and although his face did not relax he could do no less than obey. "I feel more comfortable," she said. "I had no idea I should be the only lady here. But Mr. Masters so often spoke to me of this restaurant that I have always meant to visit it." She did not flutter an eyelash as she uttered Masters' name, and her lovely eyes seemed wooing Holt to remain at her side. "Heartless, like all the rest of them," thought the young man wrathfully. "Well, I'll give her one straight." "Have you heard from him lately?" she asked, as the waiter placed the dishes on the table. "He hasn't written to one of his old friends since he left, and I've often wondered what has become of him." "He's gone to the devil!" said Holt brutally. "And I guess you know where the blame lies--Oh!--Drink this!" He hastily poured out a glass of claret. "Here! Drink it! Brace up, for God's sake. Don't give yourself away before all these fellows." Madeleine swallowed the claret but pushed back her chair. "Take me away quickly," she muttered. "I don't care what they think. Take me where you can tell me--" He drew her hand through his arm, for he was afraid she would fall, and as he led her down the room he remarked audibly, "No wonder you feel faint. There's no air in the place, and you've probably never seen so much smoke in your life before." At the door he nodded to the anxious proprietor, and when they reached the sidewalk asked if he should take her home. "No. I must talk to you alone. There is a hack. Let us drive somewhere." He handed her into the hack, telling the man to drive where he liked as long as he avoided the Cliff House Road. Madeleine shrank into a corner and began to cry wildly. He regarded her with anxiety, and less hostility in his bright blue eyes. "I'm awfully sorry," he said. "I was a brute. But I thought you would know--I thought other things--" "I knew nothing, but I can't believe it is true. There must be some mistake. He is not like that." "That's what's happened. You see, his world went to smash. That was the opportunity of his life, and such opportunities don't come twice. He has no capital of his own, and he can't raise money in New York. Besides, he didn't want a newspaper anywhere else. And--and--of-course, you know, newspaper men hear all the talk--he was terribly hard hit. I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for you when I heard you were ill and all the rest; but today you looked as if you had forgotten poor Masters had ever lived--just a Society butterfly and a coquette." "Oh, I'm not blaming you! Perhaps it is all my fault. I don't know!--But _that_! I can't believe it. I never knew a man with as strong a character. He--he--always could control himself. And he had too much pride and ambition." "I guess you don't know it, but he had a weak spot for liquor. That is the reason he drank less than the rest of us--and that did show strength of character: that he could drink at all. I only saw him half-seas over once. He told me then he was always on the watch lest it get the best of him. His father drank himself to death after the war, and his grandfather from mere love of his cups. Nothing but a hopeless smash-up, though, would ever have let it get the best of him.... He was terribly high-strung under all that fine repose of his, and although his mind was like polished metal in a way, it was full of quicksilver. When a man like that lets go--nothing left to hold on to--he goes down hill at ten times the pace of an ordinary chap. I--I--suppose I may as well tell you the whole truth. He never drew a sober breath on the steamer and he's been drunk more or less ever since he arrived in New York. Of course he writes--has to--but can't hold down any responsible position. They'd be glad to give him the best salary paid if he'd sober up, but he gets worse instead of better. He's been thrown off two papers already; and it's only because he can write better drunk than most men sober that he sells an article now and again when he has to." Madeleine had torn her handkerchief to pieces. She no longer wept. Her eyes were wide with horror. He fancied he saw awful visions in them. Fearing she might faint or have hysterics, he hastily extracted a brandy flask from his pocket. "Do you mind?" he asked diffidently. "Sorry I haven't a glass, but this is the first time I've taken the cork out." She lifted the flask obediently and took a draught that commanded his respect. She smiled faintly as she met his wide-eyed regard. "My husband makes me live on this stuff. I was threatened with consumption. It affects me very little, but it helps me in more ways than one." "Well, don't let it help you too much. I suppose the doctor knows best--but--well, it gets a hold on you when you are down on your luck." "If it ever 'gets a hold' on me it will because I deliberately wish it to," she said haughtily. "If Langdon Masters--has gone as far as you say, I don't believe it is through any inherited weakness. He has done it deliberately." "I grant that. And I'm sorry if I offended you--" "I am only grateful to you. I feel better now and can think a little. Something must be done. Surely he can be saved." "I doubt it. When a man starts scientifically drinking himself to death nothing can be done when there is nothing better to offer him. May I be frank?" "I have been frank enough!" "Masters told me nothing of course, but I heard all the talk. Old Travers let out his part of it in his cups, and news travels from the Clubs like water out of a sieve. We don't publish that sort of muck, but there were innuendoes in that blackguard sheet, _The Boom_. They stopped suddenly and I fancy the editor had a taste of the horsewhip. It wouldn't be the first time.... When Masters sent for me and told me he was leaving San Francisco for good and all, he looked like a man who had been through Dore's Hell--was there still, for that matter. Of course I knew what had happened; if I hadn't I'd have known it the next day when I saw the doctor. He looked bad enough, but nothing to Masters. He had less reason! Of course Masters threw his career to the winds to save your good name. Noblesse oblige. Too bad he wasn't more of a villain and less of a great gentleman. It, might have been better all round. This town certainly needs him." "If he were not a great gentleman nothing would have happened in the first place," she said with cool pride. "But I asked you if there were no way to save him." "I can think of only two ways. If your husband would write and ask him to return to San Francisco--" "He'd never do that." "Then you might--you might--" He was fair and blushed easily. Being secretly a sentimental youth he was shy of any of the verbal expressions of sentiment; but he swallowed and continued heroically. "You--you--I think you love him. I can see you are not heartless, that you are terribly cut up. If you love him enough you might save him. A man like Masters can quit cold no matter how far he has gone if the inducement is great enough. If you went to New York--" He paused and glanced at her apprehensively, but although she had gasped she only shook her head sadly. "I'll never break my husband's heart and the vows I made at the altar, no matter what happens." "Oh, you good women! I believe you are at the root of more disaster than all the strumpets put together!" "It may be. I remember he once said something of the sort. But he loved me for what I am and I cannot change myself." "You could get a divorce." "I have no ground. And I would not if I had. He knows that." "No wonder he is without hope! But I don't pretend to understand women. You'll leave him in the gutter then?" "Don't!--Don't--" "Well, if he isn't there literally he soon will be. I've seen men of your set in the gutter here when they'd only been on a spree for a week. Take Alexander Groome and Jack Belmont, for instance. And after the gutter it is sometimes the calaboose." "You are cruel, and perhaps I deserve it. But if you will give me his address I will write to him." "I wouldn't. He might be too drunk to read your letter, and lose it. Or he might tear it up in a fury. I don't fancy even drink could make Langdon Masters maudlin, and the sight of your handwriting would be more likely to make him empty the bottle with a curse than to awaken tender sentiment. Anyhow, it would be a risk. Some blackguard might get hold of it." "Very well, I'll not write. Will you tell the man to drive to the Occidental Hotel?" He gave the order and when he drew in his head she laid her hand on his and said in her sweet voice and with her soft eyes raised to his (he no longer wondered that Masters had lost his head over her), "I want to thank you for the kindness you have shown me and the care you took of me in that restaurant. What you have told me has destroyed the little peace of mind I had left, but at least I'm no longer in the dark. I will confess that I went to that restaurant in the hope of seeing you and learning something about Masters. Nor do I mind that I have revealed myself to you without shame. I have had no confidant throughout all this terrible time and it has been a relief. I suppose it is always easier to be frank with a stranger than with even the best of friends." "Thanks. But I'd like you to know that I am your friend. I'd do anything I could for you--for Masters' sake as well as your own. It's an awful mess. Perhaps you'll think of some solution." "I've thought of one as far as I am concerned. I shall drink myself to death." "What?" He was sitting sideways, embracing his knees, and he just managed to save himself from toppling over. "Have you gone clean out of your head?" "Oh, no. Not yet, But I shall do as I said. If I cannot follow him I can follow his example. Why should he go to the dogs and I go through life with the respect and approval of the world? He is far greater than I--and better. I can at least share his disgrace, and I shall also forget--and, it may be, delude myself that I am with him at times." "My God! The logic of women! How happy do you think _that_ will make your husband? Good old sport, the doctor--and as for religion--and vows!" "One can stand so much and no more. I have reached the breaking point here in this carriage. It is that or suicide, and that would bring open disgrace on my husband. The other would only be suspected. And I'll not last long." The hack stopped in front of the hotel. She gave him her hand after he had escorted her to the door. "Thank you once more. And I'd be grateful if you would come and tell me if you have any further news of him--no matter what. Will you?" "Yes," he said. "But I feel like going off and getting drunk, myself. I wish I hadn't told you a thing." "It wouldn't have made much difference. If you know it others must, and I'd have heard it sooner or later. I hope you'll call in any case." He promised; but the next time he saw her it was not in a drawing-room. XXIX Madeleine had reached the calmness of despair once more, and this time without a glimmer of hope. Life had showered its gifts sardonically upon her before breaking her in her youth, and there was still a resource in its budget that it had no power to withhold. She was a firm believer in the dogmas of the Church and knew that she would be punished hereafter. Well, so would he. It might be they would be permitted to endure their punishment together. And meanwhile, there was oblivion, delusions possibly, and then death. It was summer and there were no engagements to break. The doctor was caught in the whirlwind of another small-pox epidemic and lived in rooms he reserved for the purpose. He did not insist upon her departure from town as he knew her to be immune, and he thought it best she should remain where she could pursue her regimen uninterrupted; and tax her strength as little as possible. If he did not dismiss her from his mind at least he had not a misgiving. She had never disobeyed him, she appeared to have forgotten Masters at last, she took her tonics automatically, and there were good plays in town. In a few months she would be restored to health and himself. He returned to the hotel at the end of six weeks. It was the dinner hour but his wife was not at the piano. He tapped on the door that led from the parlor to her bedroom, and although there was no response he turned the knob and entered. Madeleine was lying on the bed, asleep apparently. He went forward anxiously; he had never known her to sleep at this hour before. He touched her lightly on the shoulder, but she did not awaken. Then he bent over her, and drew back with a frown. But although horrified he was far from suspecting the whole truth. He had been compelled to break more than one patient of too ardent a fidelity to his prescriptions. He forced an emetic down her throat, but it had no effect. Then he picked her up and carried her into the bath room and held her head under the shower. The blood flowed down from her congested brain. She struggled out of his arms and looked at him with dull angry eyes. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "How dared you do such a thing to me?" "You had taken too much, my dear," he said kindly. "Or else it affects you more than it did--possibly because you no longer need it. I shall taper you off by degrees, and then I think we can do without it." "Without it? I couldn't live without it. I need more--and more--" She looked about wildly. "Oh, that is all right. They always think so at first. In six months you will have forgotten it. Remember, I am a doctor--and a good one, if I say so myself." She dropped her eyes. "Very well," she said humbly. "Of course you know best." "Now, put on dry clothes and let us have dinner. It seems a year since I dined with you." "I haven't the strength." He went into the parlor and returned with a small glass of cognac. "This will brace you up, and, as I said, you must taper off. But I'll measure the doses myself, hereafter." She put on an evening gown, but with none of her old niceness of detail. She merely put it on. Her wet hair she twisted into a knot without glancing at the mirror. As she entered the parlor she staggered slightly. Talbot averted his eyes. He may have had similar cases, and, as a doctor, become hardened to all manifestations of human weakness, but this patient was his wife. It was only temporary, of course, and a not unnatural sequel. But Madeleine! He felt as a priest might if a statue of the Virgin opened its mouth and poured forth a stream of blasphemy. Then he went forward and put his arm about her. "Brace up," he said. "I hear the waiters in the dining-room. They must not see you like this. Where--where have you taken your meals?" "In my bedroom." "I hoped so. Has any one seen you?" "I don't know--no. I think not. I have been careful enough. I do not wish to disgrace you." He was obliged to give her another glass of cognac, and she sat through the dinner without betraying herself, although she would eat nothing. She was sullen and talked little, and when the meal was over she went directly to bed. Dr. Talbot followed her, however, and searched her wardrobe and bureau drawers. He found nothing. When he returned to the parlor he locked the cupboard where he kept his hospitable stores and put the key in his pocket. But he did not go out, and toward midnight he heard her moving restlessly about her room. She invited him eagerly to enter when he tapped. "I'm nervous, horribly nervous," she said. "Give me some more cognac--anything." "You'll have nothing more tonight. I shall give you a dose of valerian." She swallowed the noxious mixture with a grimace and was asleep in a few moments. XXX The doctor was still very busy but he returned to the hotel four times a day and gave her small doses of whatever liquor she demanded. In a short time he diluted them with Napa Soda water. She was always pacing the room when he entered and looked at him like a wild animal at bay. But she never mentioned Masters' name, even when her nerves whipped her suddenly to hysterics; and although he sometimes thought he should go mad with the horror of it all, he had faith in his method, and in her own pride, as soon as the first torments wore down. She refused to walk out of doors or to wear anything but a dressing gown; she took her slender meals in her room. But Madeleine's sufferings were more mental than physical, although she was willing the doctor should form the natural conclusion. She was possessed by the fear that a cure would be forced upon her; she was indifferent even to the taste of liquor, and had merely preferred it formerly to bitter or nauseous tonics; in Society it had been a necessary stimulant, when her strength began to fail, nothing more. After her grim decision she had forced large quantities down her throat by sheer strength of will. But she had found the result all that she had expected, she had alternated between exhilaration and oblivion, and was sure that it was killing her by inches. Now, she could indulge in neither wild imaginings nor forget. And if he cured her!--but her will when she chose to exert it was as strong as his, and her resource seldom failed her. One day in her eternal pacing she paused and stared at the keyhole of the cupboard, then took a hairpin from her head and tried to pick the lock. It was large and complicated and she could do nothing with it. She glanced at the clock. The doctor would not return for an hour. She dressed hastily and went out and bought a lump of soft wax. She took an impress of the keyhole and waited with what patience she could summon until her husband had come and gone. Then she went out again. The next day she had the key and that night she needed no valerian. Doctor Talbot paced the parlor himself until morning. But he did not despair. He had had not dissimilar experiences before. He removed his supplies to the cellar of the hotel and carried a flask in his pocket from which he measured her daily drams. The same chambermaid had been on her floor for years, and was devoted to her. She sent her out for gin on one pretext or another, although the woman was not deceived for a moment; she had "seen how it was" long since. But she was middle-aged, Irish, and sympathetic. If the poor lady had sorrows let her drown them. Madeleine was more wary this time. She told her husband she was determined to take her potions only at noon and at night; in the daytime she restrained herself after four o'clock, although she took enough to keep up her spirits at the dinner-table to which she had thought it best to return. The doctor, thankful, no longer neglected his practice, and left immediately after dinner for the Club as she went to her room at once and locked the door. There was no doubt of her hostility, but that, too, was not unnatural, and he was content to wait. Society returned to town, but she flatly refused to enter it. Nor would she receive any one who called. The doctor remonstrated in vain. He trusted her perfectly and a glass of champagne at dinner would not hurt her. If she expected to become quite herself again she must have diversions. She was leading an unnatural life. She deigned no answer. He warned her that tongues would wag. He had met several of the women during the summer and told them her lungs were healed.... No doubt he had been over-anxious, mistaken--in the beginning. He wished he had given her a tonic of iron arsenic and strychnine, alternated with cod-liver oil. But it was too late for regrets, and at least she was well on the road to recovery; if she snubbed people now they would take their revenge when she would be eager for the pleasures of Society again. Madeleine laughed aloud. "But, my dear, this is only a passing phase. Of course your system is depressed but that will wear off, and what you need now, even more than brandy twice a day, is a mental tonic. By the way, don't you think you might leave it off now?" "No, I do not. If my system is depressed I'd go to pieces altogether without it." "I'll give you a regular tonic--" "I'll not take it. You are not disposed to use force, I imagine." "No, I cannot do that. But you'll accept these invitations--some of them?" He indicated a pile of square envelopes on the table. He had opened them but she had not given them a passing glance. "Society would have the effect of arresting my 'cure.' I hate it. If you force me to go out I'll drink too much and disgrace you." "But what shall I tell them?" he asked in despair. "I see some of them every day and they'll quiz my head off. They can't suspect the truth, of course, but--but--" he paused and his ruddy face turned a deep brick red. He had never mentioned Masters' name to her since he announced his impending departure, but he was desperate. "They'll think you're pining, that's what! That you won't go out because you take no interest in any one but Langdon Masters." She was standing by the window with her back to him, looking down into the street. She turned and met his eyes squarely. "That would be quite true," she said. "You do not mean that!" "I have never forgotten him for a moment and I never shall as long as I live." She averted her eyes from his pallid face but went on remorselessly. "If you had been merciful you would have let me die when I was so ill. But you showed me another way, and now you would take even that from me." "Do--do you mean to say that you tried to drink yourself to death?" "Yes, I mean that. And if you really cared for me you would let me do it now." "That I'll never do," he cried violently. "I'll cure you and you'll get over this damned nonsense in time." "I never shall get over it. Don't delude yourself for an instant." He stared at her with a sickening sense of impotence--and despair. He thought she had never looked more beautiful. She wore a graceful wrapper of pale blue camel's hair and her long hair in two pendent braids. She was very white and she looked as cold and remote as the moon. "Madeleine! Madeleine! You have changed so completely! I cannot believe that you'll never be the same Madeleine again. Why--you--you look as if you were not there at all!" "Only my shell is here. The real me is with him." "Curse the man! Curse him! Curse him! I wish I'd blown out his brains!" He threw his arms about wildly and she wondered if he would strike her. But he threw himself into a chair and burst into heavy sobbing. Madeleine ran out of the room. XXXI "I tell you it's true. You needn't pooh-pooh at me, Antoinette McLane. I have it on the best authority." "Old Ben Travers, I suppose!" "No, it's not Ben Travers, although he'll find it out soon enough. Her chambermaid knows my cook. She is devoted to Madeleine, evidently, and cried after she had told it, but--well, I suppose it was too good for any mere female to keep." "Servants' gossip," replied Mrs. McLane witheringly. "I should think it would be beneath your self-respect to listen to it. Fancy gossiping with one's cook." "I didn't," replied Mrs. Abbott with dignity. "She told my maid, and if we didn't listen to our maids' gossip how much would we really know about what goes on in this town?" Mrs. McLane, Mrs. Ballinger, Guadalupe Hathaway and Sally Abbott were sitting in Mrs. Abbott's large and hideous front parlor after luncheon, and she had tormented them throughout the meal with a promise of "something that would make their hair stand on end." She had succeeded beyond her happy expectations. Mrs. McLane's eyes were flashing. Mrs. Ballinger looked like a proud silver poplar that had been seared by lightning. Sally burst into tears, and Miss Hathaway's large cold Spanish blue eyes saw visions of Nina Randolph, a brilliant creature of the early sixties, whom she had tried to save from the same fate. "Be sure the bell boys will find it out," continued Mrs. Abbott unctuously. "And when it gets to the Union Club--well, no use for us to try to hush it up." "As you are trying to do now!" "You needn't spit fire at me. I feel as badly as you do about it. If I've told just you four it's only to talk over what can be done." "I don't believe there's a word of truth in the story. Probably that wretched servant is down on her for some reason. Madeleine Talbot! Why, she's the proudest creature that ever lived." "She might have the bluest blood of the South in her veins," conceded Mrs. Ballinger handsomely. "I pride myself on my imagination but I simply cannot _see_ her in such a condition." "If it's true, it's Masters, of course," said Miss Hathaway. "The only reason I didn't fall in love with him was because it was no use. But he's the sort of man--there are not many of them!--who would make a woman love him to desperation if he loved her himself. And she'd never forget him." "I don't believe it," said Mrs. Ballinger coldly. "I never believed that Madeleine was in love with Langdon Masters. A good woman loves only her husband." "Oh, mamma!" wailed Sally. "Madeleine is young, and the doctor's a dear but he wasn't the sort of a man for her at all. He just attracted her when she was a girl because he was so different from the men she knew. But Langdon is exactly suited to her. I guessed it before any of you did. It worried me dreadfully, but I sympathized--I always admired Langdon--if he'd looked at me before I fell in love with Hal I believe I'd have married him--but I wish, oh, how I wish, Madeleine could get a divorce." "Sally Ballinger!" Her mother's voice quavered. "This terrible California! If you had been brought up in Virginia--" "But I wasn't. And I mean what I say. And--and--it's true about Madeleine. I went there the other day and she saw me--and--oh, I never meant to tell it--it's too terrible!" "So," said Mrs. McLane. "So," She added thoughtfully after a moment. "It's a curious coincidence. Langdon Masters is drinking himself to death in New York. Jack Belmont returned the other day--he told Mr. McLane." She had been interrupted several times, Madeleine for the moment forgotten. "Why didn't Alexander Groome know? He's his cousin and bad enough himself, heaven knows." "Oh, poor Langdon! Poor Langdon! I knew he could love a woman like that--" "He has remarkable powers of concentration!" "I'll wager Mr. Abbott heard it himself at the Club, the wretch! He'll hear from me!" "Oh, it's too awful," wailed Sally again. "What an end to a romance. It was quite perfect before--in a way. And now instead of pitying poor Madeleine and wishing we were her--she--which is it?--we'll all be despising her!" "It's loathsome," said Mrs. Ballinger. "I wish I had not heard it. I prefer to believe that such things do not exist." "Good heavens, mamma, I've heard that gentlemen in the good old South were as drunk as lords, oftener than not." "As lords, yes. Langdon Masters is in no position to emulate his ancestors. And Madeleine! No one ever heard of a lady in the South taking to drink from disappointed love or anything else. When life was too hard for them they went into a beautiful decline and died in the odor of sanctity." "They get terribly skinny and yellow in the last stages--" "Sally!" "Well, I don't care anything about Langdon Masters," announced Mrs. Abbott. "He's left here anyway, and like as not we'll never see him again. This is what I want to know: Can anything be done about Madeleine Talbot? Of course Howard poured whiskey down her throat until it got the best of her. But he should know how to cure her. That is if he knows the worst." "You may be sure he knows the worst," said Mrs. McLane. "How could he help it?" "That maid said she bought it on the sly all the time. Don't you suppose he'd put a stop to that if he knew it?" "Well, he will find it out. And I'll not be the one to tell him. One ordeal of that sort is enough for a lifetime." "Why not give her a talking to? She has always seemed to defer more to you than to any one else." Mrs. Abbott made the admission grudgingly. "I am willing to try, if she will see me. But--if she knows what has happened to Masters--and ten to one she does--he may have written to her--I don't believe it will do any good. Alas! Why does youth take life so tragically? When she is as old as I am she will know that no man is worth the loss of a night's sleep." "Yes, but Madeleine isn't old!" cried Sally. "She's young--young--and she can't live without him. I don't know whether she's weaker or stronger than Sibyl, but at any rate Sibyl is happy--" "How do you know?" "Can't you see it in her face at the theatre? Oh, I don't care! I'll tell it! Madeleine asked me to lunch to meet her one day last winter and I went. We had a splendid time. After lunch we sat on the rug before the fire and popped corn. Oh, you needn't all glare at me as if I'd committed a crime. It's hard to _be_ hard when you're young, and Sibyl was my other intimate friend. But that's not the question at present. I've had an idea. Perhaps I could persuade Madeleine to stay with me. Now that I know, perhaps she won't mind so much. I only got in by accident. There's a new man at the desk and he let me go up--" "Well, what is your idea?" asked Mrs. McLane impatiently. "What could you do with her if she did visit you--which she probably will not." "I might be able to cure her. She wouldn't see anything to drink. Hal has sworn off. There's not a drop in sight, and not only on his account but because the last butler got drunk and fell in the lake. We'll not have any company while she's there. And I'd lock her in at night and never leave her alone in the daytime." "That is not a bad idea at all," said Mrs. McLane emphatically. "But don't waste your time trying to persuade her. Go to Howard. Tell him the truth. He will give her a dose of valerian and take her over in a hack at night." "I don't like the idea of Sally coming into contact with such a dreadful side of life--" "But if I can save her, mamma?" "Maria is Alexander Groome's wife and she has no influence over him." "Oh, Maria! If he were my husband I'd lead him such a dance that he'd behave himself in self-defence. Maria is too much like you--" "Sally Ballinger!" "I only meant that you are an angel, mamma dear. And of course you are so enchanting and beautiful papa has always toed the mark. But Maria is good without being any too fascinating--" "Sally is right," interrupted Mrs. McLane. "I am not sure that her plan will succeed. But no one has thought of a better. If Madeleine has a deeper necessity for stupefying her brain than shattered nerves, I doubt if any one could save her. But at least Sally can try. We'd be brutes if we left her to drown without throwing her a plank." "Just what I said," remarked Mrs. Abbott complacently. "Was I not justified in telling you? And when you get her over there, Sally, and her mind is quite clear, warn her that while she may do what she chooses in private, if she elects to die that way, just let her once be seen in public in a state unbecoming a lady, and that is the end of her as far as we are concerned." "Yes," said Mrs. McLane with a sigh. "We should have no choice. Poor Madeleine!" XXXII Madeleine awoke from a heavy drugged sleep and reached out her hand automatically for the drawer of her commode. It fumbled in the air for a moment and then she raised herself on her elbow. She glanced about the room. It was not her own. She sprang out of bed. A key turned and Sally Abbott entered. "What does this mean?" cried Madeleine. "What are you doing here, Sally? Why did Howard move me into another room?" "He didn't. You are over at my house. He thought the country would be good for you for a while and I was simply dying to have you--" "Where are my clothes? I am going back to the city at once." "Now, Madeleine, dear." Sally put her arm round the tall form which was as rigid as steel in her embrace. But she was a valiant little person and strong with health and much life in the open. "You are going to stay with me until--until--you are better." "I'll not. I must get back. At once! You don't understand--" "Yes, I do. And I've something for you." She took a flask from the capacious pocket of her black silk apron and poured brandy into a glass. Madeleine drank it, then sank heavily into a chair. "That is more than he has been giving me," she said suspiciously. "How often did he tell you to give me that?" "Four times a day." "He's found out! He's found out!" "That chambermaid blabbed, and of course he heard it. I--I--saw him just after. He felt so terribly, Madeleine dear! Your heart would have ached for him. And when I asked him to let you come over here he seemed to brighten up, and said it was the best thing to do." Madeleine burst into tears, the first she had shed in many months. "Poor Howard! Poor Howard! But it will do no good." "Oh, yes, it will. Now, let me help you dress. Or would you rather stay in bed today?" "I'll dress. And I'm not going to stay, Sally. I give you fair warning." "Oh, but you are. I've locked up your outdoor things--and my own! I'll only let you have them when we go out together." "So you have turned yourself into my jailer?" "Yes, I have. And don't try to look like an outraged empress until your stays are covered up. Put on your dress and we'll have a game of battledore and shuttlecock in the hall. It's raining. Then we'll have some music this afternoon. My alto used to go beautifully with your soprano, and I'll get out our duets. I haven't forgotten one of the accompaniments--What are you doing?" Madeleine was undressing rapidly. "I haven't had my bath. I seldom forget that, even--where is the bath room? I forget." "Across the hall. And leave your clothes here. Although you'd break your bones if you tried to jump out of the window. When you've finished I'll have a cup of strong coffee ready for you. Run along." XXXIII Lake Merritt, a small sheet of water near the little town of Oakland, was surrounded by handsome houses whose lawns sloped down to its rim. Most them were closed in summer, but a few of the owners, like the Harold Abbotts, lived there the year round. At all times, however, the lawns and gardens were carefully tended, for this was one of Fashion's chosen spots, and there must be no criticism from outsiders in Oakland. The statues on the lawns were rubbed down after the heavy rains and dusted as carefully in summer. There were grape-vine arbors and wild rose hedges, and the wide verandas were embowered. In summer there were many rowboats on the lake, and they lingered more often in the deep shade of the weeping willows fringing the banks. The only blot on the aristocratic landscape was a low brown restaurant kept by a Frenchman, known as "Old Blazes." It was a resort for gay parties that were quite respectable and for others that were not. Behind the public rooms was a row of cubicles patronized by men when on a quiet spree (women, too, it was whispered). There were no cabinet particuliers. Old Blazes had his own ideas of propriety; and no mind to be ousted from Lake Merritt. Madeleine had found Sally Abbott's society far more endurable, when she paid her round of visits after Masters' departure, than that of the older women with their watchful or anxious eyes, and she had no suspicion that Sally had guessed her secret long since. If love had been her only affliction she would have been grateful for her society and amusing chatter, for they had much in common. But in the circumstances it was unthinkable. Not only was she terrified once more by the prospect of being "cured," but her shattered nerves demanded far more stimulation and tranquilizing than these small daily doses of brandy afforded. Her will was in no way affected. She controlled even her nerves in Sally's presence, escaped from it twice a day under pretext of taking a nap, and went upstairs immediately after dinner. She had a large room at the back of the house where she could pace up and down unheard. She pretended to be amiable and resigned, played battledoor and shuttlecock in the hall, or on the lawn when the weather permitted, sang in the evenings with Sally and Harold, and affected not to notice that she was locked in at night. She refused to drive, as she would have found sitting for any length of time unendurable, but she was glad to take long walks even in the rain--and was piloted away from the town and the railroad. Sally wrote jubilant letters to Dr. Talbot, who thought it best to stay away. The servants were told that Mrs. Talbot was recovering from an illness and suspected nothing. It lasted two weeks. Sally had inexorably diminished the doses after the seventh day. Madeleine's mind, tormented by her nerves, never ceased for a moment revolving plans for escape. As they returned from a walk one afternoon they met callers at the door and it was impossible to deny them admittance. Madeleine excused herself and went up to her room wearing her coat and hat instead of handing them to Sally as usual. She put them in her wardrobe and locked the door and hid the key. At dinner it was apparent, however, that Sally had not noticed the omission of this detail in her daily espionage, for the visitors had told her much interesting gossip and she was interested in imparting it. Moreover, her mind was almost at rest regarding her captive. Madeleine, some time since, had found that the key of another door unlocked her own, and secreted it. She had no money, but she had worn a heavy gold bracelet when her husband and Sally dressed her and they had pinned her collar with a pearl brooch. Sally followed her to her room after she had had time to undress and gave her the nightly draught, but did not linger; she had no mind that her husband should feel neglected and resent this interruption of an extended honeymoon. Madeleine waited until the house was quiet. Then she went down the heavily carpeted stairs and let herself out by one of the long French windows. She had made her plans and walked swiftly to the restaurant. She knew "Old Blazes," for she had dined at his famous hostelry more than once with her husband or friends. There was a party in the private restaurant. She walked directly to one of the cubicles and rang for a waiter and told him to send M'sieu to her at once. "Old Blazes" came immediately, and if she expected him to look astonished she was agreeably disappointed. Nothing astonished him. She held out her bracelet and brooch. "I want you to lend me some money on these," she said. "My husband will redeem them." "Very well, madame." (He was far too discreet to recognize her.) "I will bring you the money at once." "And I wish to buy a quart of Bourbon, which I shall take with me. You may also bring me a glass." "Very well, madame." He left the room and returned in a moment with a bottle of Bourbon, from which he had drawn the cork, a glass, and a bottle of Napa Soda. He also handed her two gold pieces. He had been a generous friend to many patrons and had reaped his reward. "I should advise you to leave by the back entrance," he said. "Shall I have a hack there--in--" "Send for it at once and I will take it when I am ready. Tell the man to drive on to the boat and to the Occidental Hotel." "Yes, Madame. Good-night, Madame." He closed the door. Madeleine left the restaurant three quarters of an hour later. XXXIV Colonel Belmont, Alexander Groome, Amos Lawton, Ogden Bascom and several other worthy citizens, were returning from a pleasant supper at Blazes'. They sat for a time in the saloon of the ferry boat El Capitan with the birds of gorgeous plumage they had royally entertained and then went outside to take the air; the ladies preferring to nap. "Hello! What's that?" exclaimed Groome. "Something's up. Let's investigate." At the end of the rear deck was a group of men and one or two women. They were crowding one another and those on the edge stood on tiptoe. Belmont was very tall and he could see over their heads without difficulty. "It's a woman," he announced to his friends. "Drunk--or in a dead faint--" A man laughed coarsely. "Drunk as they make 'em. No faint about that--Hi!--Quit yer shovin'--" Belmont scattered the crowd as if they had been children and picked up the woman in his arms. "My God!" he cried to his staring companions, and as he faced them he looked about to faint himself. "Do you see who it is? Where can we hide her?" "Whe-e-ew!" whistled Groome, and for the moment was thankful for his Maria. "What the--" "I've got my hack on the deck below," said one of the gaping crowd. "She came in it. Better take her right down, sir. I never seen her before but I seen she was a lady and tried to prevent her--" "Lead the way.... I'll take her home," he said to the others. "And let's keep this dark if we can." When the hack reached the Occidental Hotel he gave the driver a twenty-dollar gold piece and the man readily promised to "keep his mouth shut." He told the night clerk that Mrs. Talbot had sprained her ankle and fainted, and demanded a pass key if the doctor were out. A bell boy opened the parlor door of the Talbot suite and Colonel Belmont took off Madeleine's hat, placed her on the bed, and then went in search of the doctor. When Madeleine opened her eyes her husband was sitting beside her. He poured some aromatic spirits of ammonia into a glass of water and she drank it indifferently. "How did I get here?" she asked. He told her in the bitterest words he had ever used. "You are utterly disgraced. Some of those men may hold their tongues but others will not. By this time it is probably all over the Union Club. You are an outcast from this time forth." "That means nothing to me. And I warned you." "It is nothing to you that you have disgraced me also, I suppose?" "No. You made an outcast of Langdon Masters. You wrecked his life and will be the cause of his early death. Meanwhile he is in the gutter. I am glad that I am publicly beside him.... Still, I would have spared you if I could. You are a good man according to your lights. If you had heeded my warning and made no foolish attempts to cure me, no one would have been the wiser." "Several of the women knew it. And if you had taken advantage of the opportunity given you by Sally I think they would have guarded your secret. You have publicly disgraced them as well as yourself and your husband." "Well, what shall you do? Throw me into the street? I wish that you would." "No, I shall try to cure you again." "And have a wife that your friends will cut dead? You'd be far better off if I _were_ dead." "Perhaps. But I shall do my duty. And if I can cure you I'll sell my practice and go elsewhere. To South America, perhaps." "Scandal travels. You would never get away from it. Better stay here with your friends, who will not visit my sins on your head. They will never desert you. And you cannot cure me. Did you ever know any one to be cured against his will?" "I shall lock you in these rooms and you can't drink what you haven't got." "I've circumvented you before and I shall again." "Then," he cried violently, "I'll put you in the Home for Inebriates!" She laughed mockingly. "You'll never do anything of the sort. And I shouldn't care if you did. I should escape." "Have you no pride left?" "It is as dead as everything else but this miserable shell. As dead as all that was great in Langdon Masters. Won't you let me die in my own way?" "I will not." She sighed and moved her head restlessly on the pillow. "You mean to do what is right, I suppose. But you are cruel, cruel. You condemn me to live in torment." "I shall give you more for a while than I did before. I was too abrupt. I wouldn't face the whole truth, I suppose." "I'll kill myself." "I have no fear of that. You are as superstitious as all religious women--although much good your religion seems to do you. And you have the same twisted logic as all women, clever as you are. You would drink yourself to death if I would let you, but you'd never commit the overt act. If you are relying on your jewels to bribe the servants with, you will not find them. They are in the safe at the Club. And I shall discontinue your allowance." "Very well. Please go. I should like to take my bath." He was obliged to attend an important consultation an hour later, but he did not lock the doors as he had threatened. He wanted as little scandal in the hotel as possible, and he believed her to be helpless without money. The barkeeper was an old friend of his, and when he instructed him to honor no orders from his suite he knew, that the man's promise could be relied on. The chambermaid was dismissed. As soon as she was alone Madeleine wrote to her father and asked him for a thousand dollars. It was the first time she had asked him for money since her marriage; and he sent it to her with a long kindly letter, warning her against extravagance. She had given no reason for her request, but he inferred that she had been running up bills and was afraid to tell her husband. Was she ill, that she wrote so seldom? He understood that she had quite recovered. But she must remember that he and her mother were old people. Several days after her return she had sold four new gowns, recently arrived from New York and unworn, to Sibyl Forbes. XXXV Ralph Holt ran down the steps of a famous night restaurant in north Montgomery Street on the edge of Chinatown. It was a disreputable place but it had a certain air of brilliancy, although below the sidewalk, and was favored by men that worked late on newspapers, not only for its excellent cuisine but because there was likely to be some garish bit of drama to refresh the jaded mind. The large room was handsomely furnished with mahogany and lit by three large crystal chandeliers and many side brackets. It was about two thirds full. A band was playing and on a platform a woman in a Spanish costume of sorts was dancing the can-can, to the noisy appreciation of the male guests. Along one side of the room was a bar with a large painting above it of bathing nymphs. The waiters were Chinese. Holt found an unoccupied table and ordered an oyster stew, then glanced about him for possible centres of interest. There were many women present, gaudily attired, but they were not the elite of the half-world. Neither did the gentlemen who made life gay and care-free for the haughty ladies of the lower ten thousand patronize anything so blatant. They were far too high-toned themselves. Their standards were elevated, all things considered. But the women of commerce, of whatever status, had no interest for young Holt save as possible heroines of living drama. He had a lively news sense, and although an editor, and of a highly respectable sheet at that, he could become as keen on the track of a "story" as if he were still a reporter. But although the night birds were eating little and drinking a great deal, at this hour of two in the morning, the only excitement was the marvellous high kicking of the black-eyed scantily clad young woman on the stage and the ribald applause of her admirers. His eye was arrested by the slender back of a woman who sat at a table alone drinking champagne. She was so simply dressed that she was far more noticeable than if she had crowned herself with jewels. His lunch arrived at the moment, and it was not until he had satisfied his usual morning appetite that he remembered the woman and glanced her way again. Two men were sitting at her table, apparently endeavoring to engage her in conversation. They belonged to the type loosely known as men about town, of no definite position, but with money to spend and a turn for adventure. It was equally apparent that they received no response to their amiable overtures, for they shrugged their shoulders in a moment, laughed, and went elsewhere. More than one woman sat alone and these were amenable enough. They came for no other purpose. Holt paid his account and strolled over to the table. When he took one of the chairs he was shocked but not particularly surprised to see that the woman was Mrs. Talbot. The town had rung with her story all winter, and he had heard several months since that she had obtained money in some way and left her husband. The report was that Dr. Talbot had traced her to lodgings on the Plaza, but she had not only refused to return to him but to tell him where she had obtained her funds. She had informed him that she had sufficient money to keep her "long enough," but the doctor had his misgivings and directed his lawyers to pay the rent of the room and make an arrangement with a neighboring restaurant to send in her meals. Then he had gone off on a sea voyage. Holt had seen him driving his double team the day before, evidently on a round of visits. The sea, apparently, had done him little good. Nothing but age, no doubt, would shatter that superb constitution, but he had lost his ruddy color and his face was drawn and lined. Madeleine had not raised her eyes. She looked like an effigy of well-bred contempt, and Holt did not wonder that she suffered briefly from the attentions of predatory males in search of amusement. Moreover, she was very thin, and the sirens of that day were voluptuous. They fed on cream and sweets until the proper curves of bust and hips were achieved, and those that appeared in the wrong place were held flat with a broad "wooden whalebone." Holt was surprised to find her so little changed. It was evident she was one of those drinkers whom liquor made pallid not red; her skin was still smooth and her face had not lost its fine oval. But it was only a matter of time! "Mrs. Talbot." She raised her eyes with a faint start and with an expression of haughty disdain. But as she recognized him the expression faded and she regarded him sadly. "You see," she said. "It's a crime, you know." "Have you any news of him?" "Nothing new. It takes time to kill a man like that." "I hope he is more fortunate than I am! It hasn't the effect that it did. It keeps my nerves sodden, but my brain is horribly clear. I no longer forget! And death is a long time coming. I am tired always, but I don't break." "You shouldn't come to such places as this. If a man was drunk enough you couldn't discourage him." "Oh, I have been spoken to in places like this and on the street by men in every stage of intoxication and by men who were quite sober. But I am able to take care of myself. This sort of man--the only sort I meet now--likes gay clothes and gay women." "All the same it's not safe. Do you only go out at night?" "Yes--I--I sleep in the daytime." "Look here--I have a plan--I won't tell you what it is now--but meanwhile I wish you would promise me that you will not go out alone--to hells of this sort--again. I can make an arrangement for a while at the office to get off earlier, and I'll take you wherever you want to go. Is it a bargain?" "Very well," she said indifferently. Then she smiled for the first time, and her face looked sweet and almost girlish once more. "You are very kind. Why do you take so much interest? I am only one more derelict. You must have seen many." "Well, I'm just built that way. I took a shine to you the day in that old ark we ambled about in, and then I'm as fond of Masters as ever. D'you see? Now, let's get out of this. I'm going to see you home." "Home!" "Well, I'm glad the word gives you a shock, anyway. It's where you ought to be." They left the restaurant and although, when they reached the sidewalk, she took his arm, he noticed that she did not stagger. They walked up the hill past the north side of the Plaza. The gambling houses of the fifties and early sixties had moved elsewhere, and although there were low-browed shops on the east side with flaring gas jets before them even at this hour, the other three sides, devoted to offices and rooming-houses, were respectable. There were a few drunken sailors on the grass, who had wandered too far from Barbary Coast, but they were asleep. "I never am molested here," she said. "I don't think I have ever met any one. Sometimes I have stood in the shadow up there and looked down Dupont Street. What a sight! Respectable Montgomery Street is never so crowded at four in the afternoon. And the women! Sometimes I have envied them, for life has never meant anything to them but just that. I never saw one of those painted harlots who looked as if she had even the remnants of a mind." "Well, for heaven's sake keep your distance from Dupont Street. If some drunken brute caught you lurking in the shadows it might appeal to his sense of humor to toss you on his shoulder and run the length of the street with you--possibly fling you through one of the windows of those awful cottages into some harlot's lap, if she happened to be soliciting at the moment. Then she'd scratch your eyes out.... You know a lot about taking care of yourself," he fumed. "Oh, I never go there any more," she said indifferently. "I'm tired of it." "I can understand you leaving your husband and wishing to live alone--natural enough!--but what I cannot understand is that you, the quintessence of delicate breeding, should walk the streets at night and sit in dives. I wonder you can stand being in the room with such women, to say nothing of the men." "It has been my hope to forget all I represented before, and danger means nothing to me. Moreover, there are other reasons. I must have exercise and air. I do not care to risk meeting any of my old friends. I must get away from myself--from solitude--during some part of the twenty-four hours. And--well--the die was cast. I was publicly disgraced. It doesn't matter what I do now, and when I sit in that sort of place I can imagine that he is in similar ones on the other side of the continent. I told you that I intended to be no better than he--and of course as I am a woman I am worse." "I suppose you would not be half so charming if you were not so completely feminine. But just how many of these night hells have you been to?" "I can't tell. I've been to far worse dives than that. I've even been in saloons over on Barbary Coast. But although I've been hurt accidentally several times in scuffles, and a bullet nearly hit me once, I seem to bear a charmed life. I suppose those do that want to die. And although they treat me with no respect they seem to regard me as a harmless lunatic, and--and--I take very little when I am out. I have just enough pride left not to care to be taken to the calaboose by a policeman." "Good God! How can you even talk of such things? Some day you will regret all this horribly." "I'll never regret anything except that I was born." "Well, here we are. I'll not take you up to your rooms. Don't give them a chance at that sort of scandal whatever you do. It's lucky for you that alcohol doesn't send you along a still livelier road to perdition. It does most women." "I see him every moment. Even if I did not, I do not think--well, of course if things were different I should not be an outcast of any sort. And don't imagine that my refinement suffers in these new contacts. The underworld interests me; I had never even tried to imagine it before. I am permitted to remain aloof and a spectator. At times it is all as unreal as I seem to myself, sitting there. But I never feel so close to vice as to complete honesty. I have often had glimpses of blacker sins in Society." "Well, I'm glad it's no worse. To tell you the truth, I've avoided looking you up, for I didn't know--well, I didn't want to see you again if you were too different. Good-night. I'll meet you at this door tonight at twelve sharp." XXXVI There were doctors' offices on the first floor and Madeleine climbed wearily the two flights to her room. Her muscles felt as tired as her spirit, but she had an odd fancy that her skeleton was of fine flexible steel and not only indestructible but tenacious and dominant. It defied the worst she could do to organs and soul. She unlocked her door and lit the gas jet. It was a decent room, large, with the bed in an alcove, and little uglier than those grim double parlors of her past that she had graced so often. But her own rooms at the hotel had been beautiful and luxurious. They had sheltered and pampered her body for five years, and her father's house was a stately mansion, refurnished, with the exception of old colonial pieces, after the grand tour in Europe. This room, although clean and sufficiently equipped, was sordid and commonplace, and the bed was as hard as the horsehair furniture. Her body as well as her aesthetic sense had rebelled more than once. But she would never return; although she guessed that the complete dissociation from her old life and its tragic reminders had more than a little to do with the loathing for drink that had gradually possessed her. She had not admitted it to Holt, but it required a supreme effort of will to take a glass of hot whiskey and water at night, the taste disguised as much as possible by lime juice, and another in the daytime. She had no desire to reform! And she longed passionately to drown not only her heart but her pride. Now that her system was refusing its demoralizing drug she felt that horror of her descent only possible to a woman who has inherited and practised all the refinements of civilization. She longed to return to those first months of degraded oblivion, and could not! The champagne or brandy she was forced to order in the dives she haunted, in order to secure a table, merely gave her tone for the moment. Her nerves were less affected than her spirits. She had hours of such black depression that only the faint glimmering star of religion kept her from suicide. She had longer seasons for thought on Masters and his ruin--and of the hours they had spent together. One night she went out to Dolores and sat in the dark little church until dawn. She had nothing of the saint in her and felt no impulse to emulate Concha Arguello, who had become the first nun in California; moreover, Razanov had died an honorable death through no fault of his or his Concha's. She and Langdon Masters were lost souls and must expiate their sins in the eyes of the world that heaped on their heads its pitiless scorn. Madeleine threw off her hat and dropped into the armchair, oblivious of its bumps. She began to cry quietly with none of her former hysteria. Holt was nearer to Masters than any one she knew, and she was grateful that he had not seen her in her hours of supreme degradation. If he ever saw Masters again he would tell him of her downfall, of course--and the reason for it; but at least he could paint no horrible concrete picture. For the first time she felt thankful that she had not sunk lower; been compelled, indeed, against her will, to retrace her steps. She even regretted the hideous episode of the ferry boat, although she had welcomed the exposure at the time. Her pride was lifting its battered head, and although she felt no remorse, and was without hope, and her unclouded consciousness foreshadowed long years of spiritual torment and longing with not a diversion to lighten the gloom, she possessed herself more nearly that night than since Holt had given her what she had believed to be her death blow. If she could only die. But death was no friend of hers. XXXVII That afternoon Holt called on Dr. Talbot in his office. Half an hour later, looking flushed and angry, he strolled frowning down Bush street, then turned abruptly and walked in the direction of South Park. He did not know Mrs. McLane but he believed she would see him. He called at midnight--and on many succeeding nights--for Madeleine and took her to several of the dives that seemed to afford her amusement. He noticed that she drank little, and had a glimmering of the truth. Newspaper men have several extra senses. It was also apparent that the life she had led had not made her callous. As he insisted upon "treating" her she would have none of champagne but ordered ponies of brandy. Now that she had a cavalier she was stared at more than formerly, and there was some audible ribald comment which Holt did his best to ignore; but as time wore on those bent on hilarity or stupor ceased to notice two people uninterestingly sober. Holt talked of Masters constantly, relating every incident of his sojourn in San Francisco he could recall, and of his past that had come to his knowledge; expatiating bitterly upon his wasted gifts and blasted life. The more Madeleine winced the further he drove in the knife. One night they were sitting on a balcony in Chinatown. In the restaurant behind them a banquet was being given by a party of Chinese merchants, and Holt had thought the scene might amuse her. The round table was covered with dishes no larger than those played with in childhood and the portions were as minute. The sleek merchants wore gorgeously embroidered costumes, and behind them were women of their own race, dressed plainly in the national garb, their stiff oiled hair stuck with long pins lobed with glass. They were evidently an orchestra, for they sang, or rather chanted, in high monotonous voices, as mournful as their gray expressionless faces. In two recesses, extended on teakwood couches, were Chinamen presumably of the same class as the diners, but wearing their daily blue silk unadorned and leisurely smoking the opium pipe. The room was heavily gilded and decorated and on the third floor as befitted its rank. Chinamen of humbler status dined on the floor below, and the ground restaurant accommodated the coolies. On the little balcony, their chairs wedged between large vases of growing plants, Madeleine could watch the function without attracting attention; or lean over the railing and look down upon the narrow street hung with gay paper lanterns above the open doors of shops that flaunted the wares of the Orient under strange gilt signs. There were many little balconies high above the street and they were as brilliantly lit as for a festival. From several came the sound of raucous instrumental music or that same thin chant as of lost souls wandering in outer darkness. The street was thronged with Chinamen of the lower caste in dark blue cotton smocks, pendent pigtails, and round coolie hats. It was eight o'clock, but it was Holt's "night off" and as he had told her that morning he could get a pass for the dinner, and that it was time she "changed her bill," she had risen early and met him at her door. It was apparent that she took a lively interest in this bit of Shanghai but a step out of the Occident, for her face had lost its heavy brooding and she asked him many questions. It was an hour before Masters' name was mentioned, and then she said abruptly: "You tell me much of his life out here and before he came, but you hardly ever say anything about the present." "That sort of life is much of a muchness." "How do you hear?" "One of the _Bulletin_ men--Tom Lacey--went East just after Masters did. He is on the _Times_. Several of us correspond with him." "Has--has he ever been--literally, I mean--in the gutter?" "Probably. He was in a hospital for a time and when he came out several of his friends tried to buck him up. But it was no use. He did work on one of the newspapers--the _Tribune_, I believe--about half sober until he had paid his hospital bill with something to spare. Then he went to work in the same old steady painstaking way to drink himself to death." "Wh--why did he go to the hospital? Was he very ill?" "Busted the crust of a policeman and got his own busted at the same time." "How is it you spared me this before?" He pretended not to see her tears, or her working hands. "Didn't want to give you too heavy doses at once, but you are so much stronger that I chanced it. He's been in more than one spectacular affair. One night, in front of the City Prison, he tossed the driver off a van as if the man had been a dead leaf, and before the guard had time to jump to his seat he was on the box and had lashed the horses. He drove like mad all over New York for hours, the prisoners inside yelling and cursing at the top of their lungs. They thought it was a new and devilishly ingenious mode of punishment. When the horses dropped he left the van where it stood and went home. There was a frightful row over the affair. Masters was arrested, of course, but bailed out. He has friends still and some of them are influential. The trial was postponed a few times and then dropped. His rows are too numerous to mention. When he was here and sober he betrayed anger only in his eyes, which looked like steel blades run through fire, and with the most caustic tongue ever put in a man's head. But when he's in certain stages of insobriety his fighting instincts appear to take their own sweet way. At other times, Lacey writes, he is as interesting as ever and men sit round eagerly and listen to him talk. At others he simply disappears. Did I tell you he had come into a little money--just recently?" "No, you did not. Why doesn't he start a newspaper?" "He's probably forgotten he ever wanted one--no, I don't fancy he ever forgets anything. Only death will destroy that brain no matter how he may obfuscate it. And I guess there are times when he can't, poor devil. But he couldn't start a newspaper on what he's got. It's just enough to buy him all he wants without the necessity for work." "How did he get it?" "His elder brother--only remaining member of the immediate family--died and left him the old plantation in Virgina--what there is left of it; and a small income from two or three old houses in Richmond. Masters told me once that when the war left them high and dry he agreed to waive his share in the estate provided his brother would take care of his mother and the old place. The estate comes to him now, but in trust. At his death, without legal heir, it goes to a cousin." "Oh, take me home, please. I can't stand those wailing women any longer." XXXVIII A month later there was a tap on Madeleine's door. She rose earlier these days and opened it at once, assuming that it was a message from Holt. But Mr. McLane stood there. "How are you, Madeleine? May I come in?" He shook her half-extended hand as if he were paying her an afternoon call at the Occidental Hotel, and sat down on the horsehair sofa with a genial smile; placing his high silk hat and gold-headed cane beside him. "Glad to see you looking so well. I've wanted to call for a long time, but as you dropped us all like so many hot potatoes, I hesitated, and was delighted today when Howard gave me an excuse." "Howard?" "Yes, he wants you to go back to him." "That I'll never do." "Don't be hasty. He is willing to forget everything--he asked me to make you understand that he would never mention the subject. He will also put your share of your father's estate unreservedly in your hands as soon as the usual legal delays are over. You knew that your father was dead, did you not? And your mother also?" "Oh yes, I knew. It didn't seem to make any difference. I knew I never should see them again anyhow." "Howard was appointed trustee of your inheritance, but as I said, he does not mean to take advantage of the fact. I am informed, by the way, that your brother never told your parents that you had left Howard. He knew nothing beyond the fact, of course." "Well, I am glad of that." She had no intention of shedding any tears before Mr. McLane. Let him think her callous if he must. "About Howard?" "I'll never go back to him. I never want to see him again." "Not if he would take you to Europe to live? There is an opening for an American doctor in Paris." "I never want to see him again. I know he is a good man but I hate him. And if I did go back it would be worse. You may tell him that." "Is your decision irrevocable?" "Yes, it is." "Then I must tell you that if there is no prospect of your return he will divorce you." "Divorced--I divorced?" Her eyes expanded with horrified astonishment. But only for a moment. She threw back her head and laughed. "That was funny, wasn't it? Well, let him do as he thinks best. And he may be happy once more if I am out of his life altogether. He won't have much trouble getting a divorce!" "He will obtain it on the ground of desertion." "Oh! Well, he was always a very good man. Poor Howard! I hope he'll marry again and be happy." "Better think it over. I--by the way--I'm not sure the women wouldn't come round in time; particularly if you lived abroad for a few years." She curled her lip. "And I should have my precious position in Society again! How much do you suppose that means to me? Have the fatted calf killed and coals of fire poured on my humbled head! Do you think I have no pride?" "You appear to have regained it. I wish you could regain the rest and be the radiant creature you were when you came to us. God! What a lovely stunning creature you were! It hurts me like the devil, I can tell you. And it's hurt the women too. They were fond of you. Do you know that Sally is dead?" "Yes. She had everything to live for and she died. Life seems to amuse herself with us." "She's a damned old hag." He rose and took up his hat and cane. "Well, I'll wait a week, and then if you don't relent the proceedings will begin. I shan't get the divorce. Not my line. But he asked me to talk to you and I was glad to come. Good-by." She smiled as she shook hands with him. As he opened the door he turned to her again. "That young Holt is a good fellow and has a head on his shoulders. Better be guided by him if he offers you any advice." XXXIX Almost insensibly and without comment Madeleine fell into the habit of sleeping at night and going abroad with Holt in the daytime. Nor did he take her to any more dives. They went across the Bay, either to Oakland or Sausalito, and took long walks, dining at some inn where they were sure to meet no one they knew. She had asked him to buy her books, as she did not care to venture either into the bookstores or the Mercantile Library. She now had a part of her new income to spend as she chose, and moved into more comfortable rooms, although far from the fashionable quarter. She was restless and often very nervous but Holt knew that she drank no longer. There had been another revolution of the wheel: she would have a large income, freedom impended, the future was hers to dispose of at will. Her health was excellent; she had regained her old proud bearing. "What are you going to do with it?" he asked her abruptly one evening. They were sitting in the arbor of a restaurant on the water front at Sausalito and had just finished dinner. The steep promontory rose behind them a wild forest of oak and pine, madrona and chaparral. Across the sparkling dark green water San Francisco looked a pale blue in the twilight and there was a banner of soft pink above her. Lights were appearing on the military islands, the ferry boats, and yachts. "You will be free in about a month now. Have you made any plans? You will not stay here, of course." "Stay here! I shall leave the day the decree is granted, and I'll never see California again as long as I live." "But where shall you go?" "Oh--it would be interesting to live in Europe." "Whether you have admitted it to yourself or not you have not the remotest idea of going to Europe." "Oh?" "You are going to Langdon Masters. Nothing in the world could keep you away from him--or should." "I wish women smoked. You look so placid. And I am glad you smoke cigarettes." "Why not try one?" "Oh, no!" She looked scandalized. "I never did that--before. The other was for a purpose, not because I liked it." "I am used to your line of ratiocination. But you haven't answered my question." "Did you ask one?" "In the form of an assertion, yes." "You know--the Church forbids marriage after divorce." "Look here, Madeleine!" Holt brought his fist down on the table with such violence that she half started to her feet. "Do you mean to tell me you are going to let any more damn foolishness wreck your life a second time?" "You must not speak of the Church in that way." "Let that pass. I am not going to argue with you. You've argued it all out with yourself unless I'm much mistaken. Are you going to let Masters kill himself when you can save him? Are you going to condemn yourself to a miserably solitary, wandering, aimless life, in which you are no good to yourself, your Church, or any one on earth--and with a crime on your soul?" I--I--haven't admitted to myself what I shall do. It has seemed to me that when I am free I shall simply go--" "And straight to Masters. As well for a needle to try to run away from a magnet." "Oh, I wonder! I wonder!" But she did not look distressed. Her face was transfigured as if she saw a vision. But it fell in a moment, that inner glowing lamp extinguished. "He may no longer want me. He may have forgotten me. Or if he remembers it must only be to remind himself that I have ruined his life. He may hate me." "That is likely! If he hated you he'd have pulled up long ago. He knows he still has it in him to make a name for himself, whether he owns a newspaper or not. If he's gone on making a fool of himself it's because his longing for you is insupportable; he can forget you in no other way." "Can men really love like that?" The inner lamp glowed again. "A few. Not many, perhaps. Langdon's one of them. Case of a rare whole being chopped in two by fate and both halves bleeding to death without the other. There are a few immortal love affairs in the world's history, and that's just what makes 'em immortal." She did not answer, but sat staring at the rosy peaceful light above the fiery city that had burnt out so many lives. Then her face changed suddenly. It was set and determined, almost hard. He thought she looked like a beautiful Medusa. "Yes," she said. "I am going to him. I suppose I have known it all along. At all events I know it now." "And what is your plan?" "I have had no time to make one yet." "Will you listen to mine?" "Do not I always listen to you with the greatest respect?" She was the charming woman again. "Mr. McLane told me that I was to follow your advice--I have an idea you have engineered this whole affair!--But if he hadn't--well, I have every reason to be humbly grateful to you. If this terrible tangle ever unravels I shall owe it to you." "Then listen to me now. What I said--that his actions prove that he cares for you as much as ever--is true. But--you might come upon him in a condition where he would not recognize you, or was morose from too much drink or too little; and for the moment he would hate you, either because you reminded him too forcibly of what he had been and was, or because it degraded him further to be seen by you in such a state. He could make himself excessively disagreeable sober. Drunk, panic stricken, reckless, I should think he might achieve a masterpiece in that line that would make you feel like ten cents.... This is my plan. I'll go on at once and prepare him. Get him down to his home in Virginia on one pretence or another, sober him up by degrees, and then tell him all you have been through for his sake, and that as soon as you are free you will come to him. He'll be a little more like himself by that time and can stand having you look at him.... It'll be no easy task at first; and I'll have to taper him off to prevent any blow to his heart. There may be relapses, and the whole thing to do over; but I shall use the talisman of your name as soon as he is in a condition to understand, and shall succeed in the end. Once let the idea take hold of him that he can have you at last and it is only a question of time." She made no reply for a moment. She sat with her eyes on his as he spoke. At first they had opened widely, melted and flashed. But they narrowed slowly. As he finished she turned her profile toward him and he had never seen a cameo look harder. "That would be an easy way out," she said. "But it does not appeal to me. Nothing easy appeals to me these days. I'll fight my own battles and overcome my own obstacles. Besides, he's mine. He shall owe nothing to any one but to me. I'll find him and cure him myself." "But you'll have a hard time finding him. He disappears for weeks at a time. Even Tom Lacey might not be able to help you." "I'll find him." "You may have to haunt the most abominable places." "You seem to forget that I have haunted a good many abominable places. And if they are good enough for him they are good enough for me." "New York has the worst set of roughs in the world. Our hoodlums are lambs beside them." "I have no fear of anything but not finding him in time." "But that is not the worst. You should not see him in that state. You might find him literally in the gutter. He might be a sight you never could forget. No matter what you made of him you never could obliterate such a hideous memory. And he might say things to you that your outraged pride would never forgive." "I can forget anything I choose. Nor could anything he said, nor anything he may have become, horrify me. Don't you think I have pictured all that? I think of him every moment and I am not a coward. I have imagined things that may be worse than the reality." "Hardly. But there is another danger. You might kidnap him and get him sobered up, only to lose him again. He might be so overcome with shame that he would cut loose and hide where you would never find him. Remember, his pride was as great as yours." "I'd track him to the ends of the earth. He's mine and I'll have him." Holt stared at her for a moment in perplexity, then laughed. "You are a liberal education, Madeleine. Just as I think I really know you at last you break out in a new place. Masters will have an interesting life. You must be a sort of continued-in-our-next story for any one who has the right to love and live with you. But for any one else who has loved you it must be death and damnation." She stole a glance at him, wondering if he loved her. If he did he had never made a sign, and at the moment he seemed to be appraising her with his sharp cool blue eyes. "I was thinking of the doctor," he said calmly. "Although, of course, there must have been a good many in a more or less idiotic state over the reigning toast." "The reigning toast!... Well, I'll never be that again. But it won't matter if--when--You are to promise me you will not write to him!" "Oh, yes, I promise." Holt had been rapidly formulating his own plans. "But you'll let me give you a letter to Lacey? It's a wild goose chase but a little advice might help." "I should have asked you for a line to Mr. Lacey. I don't wish to waste time if I can help it." He rose. "Well, there's a pile of blank paper and a soft pencil waiting for me. I've an editorial to write on the low-lived politics of San Francisco, and another on the increasing number of murders in our fair city. Look at the fog sailing in through the Golden Gate, pushing itself along like the prow of a ship. You'll never see anything as beautiful as California again. But I suppose that worries you a lot." She smiled, a little mysterious smile, but she did not reply, and they walked down to the ferry slip in silence. XL Madeline went directly from the train to Printing House Square and had a long talk with "Tom" Lacey. He had been advised of her coming and her quest and had already made a search for Masters, but without result. This he had no intention of imparting, however, but told her a carefully prepared story. Masters had been writing regularly for some time and it was generally believed among his friends that he had pulled up in a measure, but where he was hiding himself no one knew. Cheques and suggestions were sent to the Post Office, but he had no box, nor did he call for his mail in person. He appeared no more at the restaurants in Nassau or Fulton Streets, or in Park Row, and it would be idle to look for him up town. It was apparent that he wished to avoid his friends, and to do this effectually he had probably hidden himself in one of the rabbit warrens of Nassau Street, where the King of England or the Czar of all the Russias might hide for a lifetime and never be found. But Masters could be "located," no doubt of that. "It only needs patience and alertness," said Lacey, looking straight into Madeleine's vigilant eyes. "I have a friend on the police force down there who will spot him before long and send for me hot-foot." It was Lacey's intention to sublet a small office in one of the swarming buildings, put a cot in it and a cooking stove, and transfer Masters to it as soon as he was found. He knew what some of Masters' haunts were and had no intention that this delicate proud woman should see him in any of them. When she told him that she should never leave Masters again after his whereabouts had been discovered, he warned her not to take rooms in a hotel. There would be unpleasant espionage, possibly newspaper scandal. There was nothing for it but Bleecker Street. It was outwardly quiet, the rooms were large and comfortable in many of those once-fashionable houses, and it was the one street in New York where no questions were asked and no curiosity felt. It was no place for her, of course--but under the circumstances--if she persisted in her idea of keeping Masters with her until his complete recovery-- "My neighbors will not worry me," she said, smiling for the first time. "It seems to be just the place. I already feel bewildered in this great rushing noisy city. I have lived in a small city for so long that I had almost forgotten there were great ones; and I should not know what to do without your advice. I am very grateful." "Glad to do anything I can. When Holt wrote me you were coming and there was a chance to pull Masters out of the--put him on his legs again, I went right up in the air. You may count on me. Always glad to do anything I can for a lady, too. I used to see you at the theatre and driving, Mrs. Talbot, and wished I were one of the bloods. Seems like a fairy tale to be able to help you now." He had red hair and slate-colored eyes, a snub nose and many freckles, but she thought him quite beautiful; he was her only friend in this terrifying city, and there was no doubt she could count on him. "How shall I go about finding a lodging in Bleecker Street?" she asked. "I stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel when I visited New York with my mother, and as I know nothing of the other hotels, I left my luggage at the depot until I should have seen you. I didn't dare go where I might run into any one. Californians are beginning to visit New York. Moreover, my brother and his family live here and I particularly wish to avoid them." "A theatrical troupe is just leaving town--so there should be several empty rooms. A good many of them hang out there when in New York. There is one thing in your favor. Your--pardon me--beauty won't be so conspicuous in Bleecker Street as it would be in hotels. It isn't only actresses that lodge there, but--well--those ladies so richly dowered by nature they command the longest pocketbooks, and the owners thereof sometimes have a pew in Trinity Church and a seat on the Stock Exchange. The great world averts its eyes from Bleecker Street, and you will be as safe in there as the most respectable sinner. Nor will you be annoyed by rowdyism in the street, although you may hear echoes of high old times going on in some of the houses patronized by artists and students--it's a sort of Latin Quarter, too. Little of everything, in fact. Now, come along. We'll take a hack, get your luggage, and fix you up." "And you'll vow--" "To send for you the moment Masters is located? Just rely on Tom Lacey." XLI Madeline took two floors of a large brown stone house in Bleecker Street, and the accommodating landlady found a colored wench to keep her rooms in order and cook her meals. A room at the back and facing the south was fitted up for Masters. It was a masculine-looking room with its solid mahogany furniture, and as his books were stored in the cellar of the Times Building she had shelves built to the ceiling on the west wall. Lacey obtained an order for the books without difficulty, and Madeleine disposed of several of her long evenings filling the shelves. When she had finished, one side of the large room at least looked exactly like his parlor in the Occidental Hotel. She also hung the windows with green curtains and draped the mantelpiece with the same material. Green had been his favorite color. She had rebelled at giving up her original purpose of making a personal search for Masters, but one look at New York had convinced her that if Lacey would not help her she must employ a detective. Nevertheless, she went every mid-day to one or other of the restaurants below Chambers Street; and, although nothing had ever terrified her so much, she ventured into Nassau Street at least once a day and struggled through it, peering into every face. Nassau Street was only ten blocks long and very narrow, but it would seem as if, during the hours of business, a cyclone gathered all the men in New York and hurled them in compact masses down its length until they were met by another cyclone that drove them back again. They filled the street as well as the narrow sidewalks, they poured out of the doorways as if impelled from behind, and Madeleine wondered they did not jump from the windows. No one sauntered, all rushed along with tense faces; there were many collisions and no one paused to apologize, nor did any one seem to expect it. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of offices in those buildings high for their day, and every profession, every business, every known or unique occupation, was represented. There were banks and newspaper buildings, hotels, restaurants, auction rooms, the Treasury and the old Dutch Church that had been turned into the General Post Office. There were shops containing everything likely to appeal to men, although one wondered when they found time for anything so frivolous as shopping; second-hand book stores, and street hawkers without number. In addition to the thousands of men who seemed to be hurrying to and from some business of vital import, there were the hundred thousand or more who surged through that narrow thoroughfare every day for their mail. The old church looked like a besieged fortress and Madeleine marvelled that it did not collapse. She was thankful that she was never obliged to enter it. Holt and her lawyer had been instructed to send their letters to Lacey's care, and Lacey when obliged to communicate with her, either called or sent his note by a messenger. Madeleine was so hustled, stepped on, whirled about, that she finally made friends with an old man who kept one of the secondhand shops, and, comparatively safe, used the doorway as her watch tower. One day she thought she saw Masters and darted out into the street. There she fought her way in the wake of a tall stooping man with black hair as mercilessly as if she were some frantic woman who had risked her all on the Stock Exchange. He entered the door of one of the tall buildings, and when she reached it she heard the sound of footsteps rapidly mounting. She followed as rapidly. The footsteps ceased. When she arrived at the fourth floor she knocked on every door in turn. It was evidently a building that housed men of the dingiest social status. Every man who answered her peremptory summons looked like a derelict. These were mere semblances of offices, with unmade beds, sometimes on the floor. In some were dreary looking women, partners, no doubt, of these forlorn men, whose like she sometimes saw down in the street. But her breathless search was fruitless. She knew that one of the men who grudgingly opened his door--looking as if he expected the police--was the man she had followed, and she was grateful that it was not Masters. She went slowly down the rickety staircase feeling as if she should sink at every step. It had been her first ray of hope in two weeks and she felt faint and sick under the reaction. She found a coupe in Broadway and was driven to her lodgings. The maid was waiting for her in the doorway, evidently perturbed. "There's a strange gentleman upstairs in the parlor, ma'am," she said. "Not Mr. Lacey. I didn't want to let him in but he would. He said--" She thrust the girl aside and ran up the steps. But when she burst into the parlor the man waiting for her was Ralph Holt. She dropped into a chair and began to cry hysterically. He had dealt with her in that state before, and Amanda had lived in Bleecker Street for many years. She was growing bored with the excessive respectability of her place, and was delighted to find that her mistress was human. Cold water, sal volatile, and hartshorn soon restored Madeleine's composure. She handed her hat to the woman and was alone with Holt. "I thought--perhaps you understand--" "I understand, all right. I hope you are not angry with me for following you." "I am only too glad to see you. I never knew a city could be so big and heartless. I have felt like a leaf tossed about in a perpetual cold wind. When did you arrive?" "The day after you did." "What? And you--you--have been looking for him?" "That is what I came for--partly. Yes, Lacey and I have combed the town." Madeleine sprang to her feet. "You've found him! I know it! Why don't you say so?" "Well, we know where he is. But it's no place for you." "Take me at once. I don't care what it is." "But I do. So does Lacey. His plan was to shanghai him and sober him up. But--well--it is your right to say whether he shall do that or not. You wanted to find him yourself. But Five Points is no place for you, and I want your permission to carry out Lacey's program." "What is Five Points?" "The worst sink in New York. Just imagine the Barbary Coast of San Francisco multiplied by two thousand. There is said to be nothing worse in London or Paris." "If you and Mr. Lacey do not take me there I shall go alone." "Be reasonable." "My reason works quite as clearly as if my heart were chloroformed. Langdon will know, when I track him to a place like that, what he means to me." "He probably will be in no condition to recognize you." "I'll make him recognize me. Or if I cannot you may use your force then, but he shall know later that I went there for him. Have you seen him?" Holt moved uneasily and looked away. "Yes, I have seen him." "You need not be so distressed. I shall not care what he looks like. I shall see _him_ inside. Did you speak to him?" "He either did not recognize me or pretended not to." "Well, we go now." "Won't you think it over?" "I prefer your escort to that of a policeman. I shall not be so foolish as to go alone." "Then we'll come for you at about eleven tonight. It would be useless to go look for him now. People who lead that sort of life sleep in the day time. I have not the faintest idea where he lives." "Very well, I shall have to wait, I suppose." Holt rose. "Lacey and I will come for you, and we'll bring with us two of the biggest detectives we can find. It's no joke taking a woman--a woman like you--Good God!--into a sewer like that. Even Lacey and I got into trouble twice, but we could take care of ourselves. Better dine with me at Delmonico's and forget things for a while." "I could not eat, nor sit still. Nor do I wish to run the risk of meeting my brother; or any one else I know. Come for me promptly at eleven or you will not find me here." XLII Langdon Masters awoke from a sleep that had lasted all day and glowered out upon the room he occupied in Baxter Street. It was as wretched as all tenements in the Five Points, but it had the distinguishing mark of neatness. Drunk as he might be, the drab who lived with him knew that he would detect dirt and disorder, and that her slender hold on his tolerance would be forfeited at once. There were too many of her sort in the Five Points eager for the position of mistress to this man who treated them as a sultan might treat the meanest of his concubines, rarely throwing them a word, and alternately indulgent and brutal. They regarded him with awe, even forgetting to drink when, in certain stages of his cups, he entertained by the hour in one or other of the groggeries a circle of the most abandoned characters in New York--thieves, cracksmen, murderers actual or potential, "shoulder-hitters," sailors who came ashore to drink the fieriest rum they could find, prostitutes, dead-beats, degenerates, derelicts--with a flow of talk that was like the flashing of jewels in the gutter. He related the most stupendous adventures that had ever befallen a mortal. If any one of his audience had heard of Munchausen he would have dismissed him as a poor imitation of this man who would seem to have dropped down into their filthy and lawless quarter from a sphere where things happened unknown to men on this planet. They dimly recognized that he was a fallen gentleman, for at long intervals good churchmen from the foreign territory of Broadway or Fifth Avenue came to remonstrate and plead. They never came a second time and they usually spent the following week in bed. But Masters was democratic enough in manner; it was evident that he regarded himself as no better than the worst, and nothing appeared to be further from his mind than reform of them or himself. He had now been with them for six months and came and went as he pleased. In the beginning his indestructible air of superiority had subtly irritated them in spite of his immediate acceptance of their standards, and there had been two attempts to trounce him. But he was apparently made of steel rope, he knew every trick of their none too subtle "game," and he had knocked out his assailants and won the final respect of Five Points. And if he was finical about his room he took care to be no neater in his dress than his associates. Although he had his hair cut and his face shaved he wore old and rough clothes and a gray flannel shirt. Masters, after his drab had given him a cup of strong coffee and a rasher, followed by a glass of rum, lost the horrid sensations incident upon the waking moment and looked forward to the night with a sardonic but not discontented grin. He knew that he had reached the lowest depths, and if his tough frame refused to succumb to the vilest liquor he could pour into it, he would probably be killed in some general shooting fray, or by one of the women he infatuated and cast aside when another took his drunken but ever ironic fancy. Only a week since the cyprian at present engaged in washing his dishes had been nearly demolished by the damsel she had superseded. She still wore a livid mark on her cheek and a plaster on her head whence a handful of hair had been removed by the roots. He had stood aloof during the fracas in the dirty garish dance house under the sidewalk, laughing consumedly; and had awakened the next night to find the victor mending her tattered finery. She made him an excellent cup of coffee, and he had told her curtly that she could stay. If, in his comparatively sober moments, the memory of Madeleine intruded, he cast it out with a curse. Not because he blamed her for his downfall; he blamed no one but himself; but because any recollection of the past, all it had been and promised, was unendurable. Whether he had been strong or weak in electing to go straight to perdition when Life had scourged him, he neither knew nor cared. He began to drink on the steamer, determined to forget for the present, at least; but the mental condition induced was far more agreeable than those moments of sobriety when he felt as if he were in hell with fire in his vitals and cold terror of the future in his brain. In New York, driven by his pride, he had made one or two attempts to recover himself, but the writing of unsigned editorials on subjects that interested him not at all was like wandering in a thirsty desert without an oasis in sight--after the champagne of his life in San Francisco with a future as glittering as its skies at night and the daily companionship of a woman whom he had believed the fates must give him wholly in time. He finally renounced self-respect as a game not worth the candle. Moreover, the clarity of mind necessary to sustained work embraced ever the image of Madeleine; what he had lost and what he had never possessed. And, again, he tormented himself with imaginings of her own suffering and despair; alternated with visions of Madeleine enthroned, secure, impeccable, admired, envied--and with other men in love with her! Some depth of insight convinced him that she loved him immortally, but he knew her need for mental companionship, and the thought that she might find it, however briefly and barrenly, with another man, sent him plunging once more. His friends and admirers on the newspaper staffs had been loyal, but not only was he irritated by their manifest attempts to reclaim him, but he grew to hate them as so many accusing reminders of the great gifts he was striving to blast out by the roots; and, finding it difficult to avoid them, he had, as soon as he was put in possession of his small income, deliberately transferred himself to the Five Points, where they would hardly be likely to trace him, certainly not to seek his society. And, on the whole, this experience in a degraded and perilous quarter, famous the world over as a degree or two worse than any pest-hole of its kind, was the most enjoyable of his prolonged debauch. It was only a few yards from Broadway, but he had never set foot in that magnificent thoroughfare of brown stone and white marble, aristocratic business partner of Fifth Avenue, since he entered a precinct so different from New York, as his former world knew it, that he might have been on a convict island in the South Seas. The past never obtruded itself here. He was surrounded by danger and degradation, ugliness unmitigated, and a complete indifference to anything in the world but vice, crime, liquor and the primitive appetites. Even the children in the swarming squalid streets looked like little old men and women; they fought in the gutters for scraps of refuse, or stood staring sullenly before them, the cry in their emaciated bodies dulled with the poisons of malnutrition; or making quick passes at the pocket of a thief. The girls had never been young, never worn anything but rags or mean finery, the boys were in training for a career of crime, the sodden women seemed to have no natural affection for the young they bore as lust prompted. Men beat their wives or strumpets with no interference from the police. The Sixth Ward was the worst on Manhattan, and the police had enough to do without wasting their time in this congested mass of the city's putrid dregs; who would be conferring a favor on the great and splendid and envied City of New York if they exterminated one another in a grand final orgy of blood and hate. The irony in Masters' mind might sleep when that proud and contemptuous organ was sodden, but it was deathless. When he thought at all it was to congratulate himself with a laugh that he had found the proper setting for the final exit of a man whom Life had equipped to conquer, and Fate, in her most ironic mood, had challenged to battle; with the sting of death in victory if he won. He had beaten her at her own game. He had always aimed at consummation, the masterpiece; and here, in his final degradation, he had accomplished it. This morning he laughed aloud, and the woman--or girl?--her body was young but her scarred face was almost aged--wondered if he were going mad at last. There was little time lost in the Five Points upon discussion of personal peculiarities, but all took for granted that this man was half mad and would be wholly so before long. "Is anything the matter?" she asked timidly, her eye on the door but not daring to bolt. "Oh, no, nothing! Nothing in all this broad and perfect world. Life is a sweet-scented garden where all the good are happy and all the bad receive their just and immediate deserts. You are the complete epitome of life, yourself, and I gaze upon you with a satisfaction as complete. I wouldn't change you for the most silken and secluded beauty in Bleecker Street, and you may stay here for ever. The more hideous you become the more pleased I shall be. And you needn't be afraid I have gone mad. I am damnably sane. And still more damnably sober. Go out and buy me a bottle of Lethe, and be quick about it. This is nearly finished." "Do you mean rum?" She was reassured, somewhat, but he had a fashion of making what passed for her brain feel as if it had been churned. "Yes, I mean rum, damn you. Clear out." He opened an old wallet and threw a handful of bills on the floor. "Go round into Broadway and buy yourself a gown of white satin and a wreath of lilies for your hair. You would be a picture to make the angels weep, while I myself wept from pure joy. Get out." XLIII Madeleine had forced herself to eat a light dinner, and a few minutes before eleven she drank a cup of strong coffee; but when she entered upon the sights and sounds and stenches of Worth Street she nearly fainted. The night was hot. The narrow crooked streets of the Five Points were lit with gas that shone dimly through the grimy panes of the lamp posts or through the open doors of groggeries and fetid shops. The gutter was a sewer. Probably not one of those dehumanized creatures ever bathed. Some of the children were naked and all looked as if they had been dipped in the gutters and tossed out to dry. The streets swarmed with them; and with men and women between the ages of sixteen and forty. One rarely lived longer than that in the Five Points. Some were shrieking and fighting, others were horribly quiet. Men and women lay drunk in the streets or hunched against the dripping walls, their mouths with black teeth or no teeth hanging loosely, their faces purple or pallid. Screams came from one of the tenements, but neither of the two detectives escorting the party turned his head. Madeleine had imagined nothing like this. Her only acquaintance with vice had been in the dens and dives of San Francisco, and she had pictured something of the same sort intensified. But there was hardly a point of resemblance. San Francisco has always had a genius for making vice picturesque. The outcasts of the rest of the world do their worst and let it go at that. Moreover, in San Francisco she had never seen poverty. There was work for all, there were no beggars, no hungry tattered children, no congested districts. Vice might be an agreeable resource but it was forced on no one; and always the atmosphere of its indulgence was gay. She had witnessed scenes of riotous drunkenness, but there was something debonair about even those bent upon extermination, either of an antagonist or the chandeliers and glass-ware, and she had never seen men sodden save on the water front. Even then they were often grinning. But this looked like plain Hell to Madeleine, or worse. The Hell of the Bible and Dante had a lively accompaniment of writhing flames and was presumably clean. This might be an underground race condemned to a sordid filthy and living death for unimaginable crimes of a previous existence. Even the children looked as if they had come back to Earth with the sins of threescore and ten stamped upon their weary wicked faces. Madeleine's strong soul faltered, and she grasped Holt's arm. "Well, you see for yourself," he said unsympathetically. "Better go back and let me bring him to you. One of our men can easily knock him out--" "I'm here and I shall go on. I'll stay all night if necessary." Lacey looked at her with open adoration; he had fallen truculently in love with her. If Masters no longer loved her he felt quite equal to killing him, although with no dreams for himself. He hoped that if Masters were too far gone for redemption she would recognize the fact at once, forget him, and find happiness somewhere. He was glad on the whole that she had come to Five Points. "What's the program?" asked one of the detectives, kicking a sprawling form out of the way. "Do you know where he hangs out?" "No," said Lacey. "He seems to go where fancy leads. We'll have to go from one groggery to another, and then try the dance houses, unless they pass the word in time. The police are supposed to have closed them, you know." "Yes, they have!" The man's hearty Irish laugh startled these wretched creatures, unused to laughter, and they forsook their apathy or belligerence for a moment to stare. "They simply moved to the back, or to the cellar. They know we believe in lettin' 'em go to the devil their own way. Might as well turn in here." They entered one of the groggeries. It was a large room. The ceiling was low. The walls were foul with the accumulations of many years, it was long since the tables had been washed. The bar, dripping and slimy, looked as if about to fall to pieces, and the drinks were served in cracked mugs. The bar-tender was evidently an ex-prize-fighter, but the loose skin, empty of muscle, hung from his bare arms in folds. The air was dense with vile tobacco smoke, adding to the choice assortment of stenches imported from without and conferred by Time within. Men and women, boys and girls, sat at the tables drinking, or lay on the floor. There they would remain until their drunken stupor wore off, when they would stagger home to begin a new day. A cracked fiddle was playing. The younger people and some of the older were singing in various keys. Many were drinking solemnly as if drinking were a ritual. Others were grinning with evident enjoyment and a few were hilarious. The party attracted little general attention. Investigating travellers, escorted by detectives, had visited the Five Points more than once, curious to see in what way it justified its reputation for supremacy over the East End of London and the Montmartre of Paris; and although pockets usually were picked, no violence was offered if the detectives maintained a bland air of detachment. They did not even resent the cologne-drenched handkerchiefs the visitors invariably held to their noses. As evil odors meant nothing to them, they probably mistook the gesture for modesty. Madeleine preferred her smelling salts, and at Holt's suggestion had wrapped her handkerchief about the gold and crystal bottle. But she forgot the horrible atmosphere as she peered into the face of every man who might be Masters. She wore a plain black dress and a small black hat, but her beauty was difficult to obscure. Her cheeks were white and her brown eyes had lost their sparkle long since, but men not too drunk to notice a lovely woman or her manifest close scrutiny, not only leered up into her face but would have jerked her down beside them had it not been for their jealous partners and the presence of the detectives. There was a rumor abroad that the new City Administration intended to seek approval if not fame by cleaning out the Five Points, tearing down the wretched tenements and groggeries, and scattering its denizens; and none was too reckless not to be on his guard against a calamity which would deprive him not only of all he knew of pleasure but of an almost impregnable refuge after crime. The women, bloated, emaciated with disease, few with any pretension to looks or finery, made insulting remarks as Madeleine examined their partners, or stared at her in a sort of terrible wonder. She had no eyes for them. When she reached the end of the room, looking down into the faces of the men she was forced to step over, she turned and methodically continued her pilgrimage up another lane between the tables. "Good God!" exclaimed Holt to Lacey. "There he is! I hoped we should have to visit at least twenty of these hells, and that she'd faint or give up." "How on earth can you distinguish any one in this infernal smoke?" "Got the eyes of a cat. There he is--in that corner by the door. God! What a female thing he's got with him." "Hope it'll cure her--and that we can get out of this pretty soon. Strange things are happening within me." There was an uproar on the other side of the room. One man had made up his mind to follow this fair visitor, and his woman was beating him in the face, shrieking her curses. A party of drunken sailors staggered in, singing uproariously, and almost fell over the bar. But not a sound had penetrated Madeleine's unheeding ears. She had seen Masters. His drab had not taken his invitation to bedeck herself too literally, nor had she ventured into Broadway. But after returning with the rum she had gone as far as Fell Street and bought herself all the tawdry finery her funds would command. She wore it with tipsy pride: a pink frock of slazy silk with as full a flowing skirt as any on Fifth Avenue during the hour of promenade, a green silk mantle, and a hat as flat as a plate trimmed with faded roses, soiled streamers hanging down over her impudent chignon. She was attracting far more attention than the simply dressed lady from the upper world. The eyes of the women in her vicinity were redder with envy than with liquor and they cursed her shrilly. One of the younger women, carried away by a sudden dictation of femininity, made a dart for the fringed mantle with obvious intent to appropriate it by force. She received a blow in the face from the dauntless owner that sent her sprawling, while the others mingled jeers with their curses. Masters was leaning on the table, supporting his head with his hands and laughing. He had passed the stage where he wanted to talk, but it would be morning before his brain would be completely befuddled. Madeleine's body became so stiff that her heels left the floor and she stood on her toes. Holt and Lacey grasped her arms, but she did not sway; she stood staring at the man she had come for. There was little semblance of the polished, groomed, haughty man who had won her. His face was not swollen but it was a dark uniform red and the lines cut it to the bone. The slight frown he had always worn had deepened to an ugly scowl. His eyes were injected and dull, his hair was turning gray. His mouth that he had held in such firm curves was loose and his teeth stained. She remembered how his teeth had flashed when he smiled, the extraordinary brilliancy of his gray eyes.... The groggery vanished ... they were sitting before the fire in the Occidental Hotel.... The daze and the vision lasted only a moment. She disengaged herself from her escorts and walked rapidly toward the table. XLIV Masters did not recognize her at once. Her face lay buried deep in his mind, covered with the debris of innumerable carouses, forgotten women, and every defiance he had been able to fling in the face of the civilization he had been made to adorn. As she stood quite still looking at him he had a confused idea that she was a Madonna, and his mind wandered to churches he had attended on another planet, where pretty fashionable women had commanded his escort. Then he began to laugh again. The idea of a Madonna in a groggery of the Five Points was more amusing than the fracas just over. "Langdon!" she said imperiously. "Don't you know me?" Then he recognized her, but he believed she was a ghost. He had had delirium tremens twice, and this no doubt was a new form. He gave a shaking cry and shrank back, his hands raised with the palms outward. "Curse you!" he screamed. "It's not there. I _don't_ see you!" He extended one of his trembling hands, still with his horrified eyes on the apparition, filled his mug from a bottle and drank the liquor off with a gulp. Then he flung the mug to the floor and staggered to his feet, his eyes roving to the men behind her. "What does this mean?" he stammered. "Are you here or aren't you--dead or alive?" "We're here all right," said Holt, in his matter-of-fact voice. "And this really is she. She has come for you." "Come for me--for me!" His roar of laughter was drunken but its note was even more ironic than when his mirth had been excited by the mean drama of the women. He fell back in his chair for he was unable to stand. "Well, go back where you came from. There's nothing here for you. Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse.... Here--what's your name?" he said brutally to his companion. "Go and get me another mug." But the young woman, who had been gaping at the scene, suddenly recovered herself. She ran round the table and flung her arms about his neck. "He's my man!" she shrieked. "You can't have him." And she sputtered obscenities. Madeleine reached over, tore her from Masters, dragged her across the table, whirled her about, and flung her to the floor. The neighborhood shrieked its delight. The rest of the room took no notice of them. The drunken sailors were still singing and many took up the refrain. "No," said Madeleine. "He's mine and I'll have him." "Now I know you are not Madeleine," cried Masters furiously, and trying to rise again. "She never was your sort, you damned whore, to fight over a man in a groggery. She was a lady--" "She was also a woman," said Madeleine coolly. "And never more so than now. You are coming with me." "I'll see you in hell first." "Well, I'll go there with you if you like. But you'll come home with me first." "Even if you were she, I've no use for you, I'd forgotten your existence. If I'd remembered you at all it was to curse you. I'll never--never--" His voice trailed off although his eyes still held their look of hard contempt. His companion had pulled herself to her feet with the aid of an empty chair. She made a sudden dart at Madeleine, her claws extended, recognizing a far more formidable rival than the harlot she had hammered and displaced. But Madeleine had not forgotten to give her the corner of an eye. She caught the threatening arm in her strong hand, twisted it nearly from its socket, and the woman with a wild shriek of pain collapsed once more. Masters began to laugh again, then broke off abruptly and began to shudder violently. He stared as if the nightmare of his terrible years were racing across his vision. "Now," said Madeleine. "I've fought for you on your own field and won you. You are mine. Come." "I'll come," he mumbled. He tried to rise but fell back. "I'm very drunk," he said apologetically. "Sorry." He made no resistance as Holt and Lacey took him by his arms and supported him out of the groggery and out of the Five Points to a waiting hack; Madeleine and the detectives forming a body-guard in the rear. XLV It was two months before Madeleine saw him again. He was installed in his room, two powerful nurses attended him day and night, and Holt slept on a cot near the bed. He was almost ungovernable at first, in spite of the drugs the doctor gave him, but these had their effect in time; and then the tapering-off process began, combined with hotly peppered soups and the vegetable most inimical to alcohol; finally food in increasing quantity to restore his depleted vitality. In his first sane moment he had made Holt promise that Madeleine should not see him, and she had sent word that she would wait until he sent for her. Madeleine took long walks, and drives, and read in the Astor Library. She also replenished her wardrobe. The color came back to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes. She had made all her plans. The house in Virginia was being renovated. She would take him there as soon as he could be moved. When he was strong again he would start his newspaper. Holt and Lacey were as overjoyed at the prospect of being his assistant editors as at the almost unbelievable rescue of Langdon Masters. He had remained in bed after the worst was over, sunk in torpor, with no desire to leave it or to live. But strength gradually returned to his wasted frame, the day nurse was dismissed, and he appeared to listen when Holt talked to him, although he would not reply. One day, however, when he believed himself to be alone, he opened his eyes and stared at the wall covered with his books, as he had done before through half-closed lids. Then his gaze wandered to the green curtains. But his mind was clear. He was visited by no delusions. This was not the Occidental Hotel. It was long since he had read a book! He wondered, with his first symptom of returning interest in life, if he was strong enough to cross the room and find one of his favorite volumes. But as he raised himself on his elbow Holt bent over him. "What is it, old fellow?" "Those books? How did they get here?" "Lacey brought them. You remember, you left them in the _Times_ cellar." "Are these your rooms?" "No, they are Madeleine Talbot's." He made no reply, but he did not scowl and turn his back as he had done whenever Holt had tentatively mentioned her name before. The sight of his familiar beloved books had softened his harsh spirit, and the hideous chasm between his present and his past seemed visibly shrinking. His tones, however, had not softened when he asked curtly after a moment: "What is the meaning of it all? Why is she here? Is Talbot dead?" "No, he divorced her." "Divorced her? Madeleine?" He almost sat upright. Mrs. Abbott could not have looked more horrified. "Is this some infernal joke?" "Are you strong enough to hear the whole story? I warn you it isn't a pretty one. But I've promised her I would tell you--" "What did he divorce her for?" "Desertion. There was worse behind." "Do you mean to tell me there was another man? I'll break your neck." "There was no other man. I'll give you a few drops of digitalis, although you must have the heart of an ox--" "Give me a drink. I'm sick of your damn physic. Don't worry. I'm out of that, and I shan't go back." Holt poured him out a small quantity of old Bourbon and diluted it with water. Masters regarded it with a look of scorn but tossed it off. "What was the worse behind?" "When she heard what had become of you--she got it out of me--she deliberately made a drunkard of herself. She became the scandal of the town. She was cast out, neck and crop. Every friend she ever had cut her, avoided her as if she were a leper. She left the doctor and lived by herself in one room on the Plaza. I met her again in one of the worst dives in San Francisco--" "Stop!" Masters' voice rose to a scream. He tried to get out of bed but fell back on the pillows. "You are a liar--you--you--" "You shall listen whether you relish the facts or not. I have given her my promise." And he told the story in all its abominable details, sparing the writhing man on the bed nothing. He drew upon his imagination for scenes between Madeleine and the doctor, of whose misery he gave a harrowing picture. He described the episode on the boat after her drinking bout at Blazes', of the futile attempts of Sally Abbott and Talbot to cure her. He gave graphic and hideous pictures of the dives she had frequented alone, the risks she had run in the most vicious resorts on Barbary Coast. Not until he had seared Masters' brain indelibly did he pass to Madeleine's gradual rise from her depths, the restoration of her beauty and charm and sanity. It was when she was almost herself again that Talbot had offered to forgive her and take her to Europe to live, offering divorce as the alternative. "Of course she accepted the divorce," Holt concluded. "That meant freedom to go to you." Masters had grown calm by degrees. "I should never have dreamed even Madeleine was capable of that," he said. "And there was a time when I believed there was no height to which she could not soar. She is a great woman and a great lover, and I am no more worthy of her now than I was in that sink where you found me. Nor ever shall be. Go out and bring in a barber." Holt laughed. "At least you are yourself again and I fancy she'll ask no more than that. Shall I tell her you will see her in an hour?" "Yes, I'll see her. God! What a woman." XLVI Madeleine made her toilette with trembling hands, nevertheless with no detail neglected. Her beautiful chestnut hair was softly parted and arranged in a mass of graceful curls at the back of the head. She wore a house-gown of white muslin sprigged with violets, and a long Marie Antoinette fichu, pale green and diaphanous. Where it crossed she fastened a bunch of violets. She looked like a vision of spring, a grateful vision for a sick room. When Holt tapped on her door on his way out the second time, muttering characteristically: "Coast clear. All serene," she walked down the hall with nothing of the primitive fierce courage she had exhibited in Five Points. She was terrified at the ordeal before her, afraid of appearing sentimental and silly; that he would find her less beautiful than his memory of her, or gone off and no longer desirable. What if he should die suddenly? Holt had told her of his agitation. This visit should have been postponed until he had slept and recuperated. She had sent him word to that effect but he had replied that he had no intention of waiting. She stood still for a few moments until she felt calmer, then turned the knob of Masters' door and walked in. He was sitting propped up in bed and she had an agreeable shock of surprise. In spite of all efforts of will her imagination had persisted in picturing him with a violent red face and red injected eyes, a loose sardonic mouth and lines like scars. His face was very pale, his eyes clear and bright, his hair trimmed in its old close fashion, his mouth grimly set. Although he was very thin the lines in his cheeks were less pronounced. He looked years older, of course, and the life he had led had set its indelible seal upon him, but he was Langdon Masters again nevertheless. His eyes dilated when he saw her, but he smiled whimsically. "So you want what is left of this battered old husk, Madeleine?" he asked. "You in the prime of your beauty and your youth! Better think it over." She smiled a little, too. "Do you mean that?" "No, I don't! Come here! Come here!" XLVII In the winter of 1878-79 Mrs. Ballinger gave a luncheon in honor of Mrs. McLane, who had arrived in San Francisco the day before after a long visit in Europe. The city was growing toward the west, but Ballinger House still looked like an outpost on its solitary hill and was almost surrounded by a grove of eucalyptus trees. Mrs. Abbott grumbled as she always did at the long journey, skirting far higher hills, and through sand dunes still unsubdued by man and awaiting the first dry wind of summer to transform themselves into clouds of dust. But a sand storm would not have kept her away. The others invited were her daughter-in-law, who had met Mrs. McLane at Sacramento, Guadalupe Hathaway, now Mrs. Ogden Bascom, Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Yorba, whose husband had recently built the largest and ugliest house in San Francisco, perched aloft on Nob Hill; several more of Mrs. McLane's favorites, old and young, and Maria Groome, born Ballinger, now a proud pillar of San Francisco Society. The dining-room of Ballinger House was long and narrow and from its bow window commanded a view of the Bay. It was as uncomely with its black walnut furniture and brown walls as the rest of that aristocratic abode, across whose threshold no loose fish had ever darted; but its dingy walls were more or less concealed by paintings of the martial Virginia ancestors of Mrs. Ballinger and her husband, the table linen had been woven for her in Ireland, the cut glass blown for her in England; the fragile china came from Sevres, and the massive silver had travelled from England to Virginia in the reign of Elizabeth. The room may have been ugly, nay, ponderous, but it had an air! The women who graced the board were dressed, with one or two exceptions, in the height of the mode. Save Maria Groome each had made at least one trip to Europe and left her measurements with Worth. Maria did not begin her pilgrimages to Europe until the eighties, and then it was old carved furniture she brought home; dress she always held in disdain, possibly because her husband's mistresses were ever attired in the excess of the fashion. Mrs. Ballinger was now in her fifties but still one of the most beautiful women in San Francisco; and she still wore shining gray gowns that matched the bright silver of her hair to a shade. Her descendants had inherited little of her beauty (Alexina Groome as yet roaming space, and, no doubt, having her subtle way with ghosts old and new). Mrs. McLane had discharged commissions for every woman present except Maria, and their gowns had been unpacked on the moment, that they might be displayed at this notable function. They wore the new long basque and overskirt made of cloth or cashmere, combined with satin, velvet or brocade, and with the exception of Mrs. Abbott they had removed their hats. Chignons had disappeared. Hair was elaborately dressed at the back or arranged in high puffs with two long curls suspended. Marguerite Abbott and Annette wore the new plaids. Mrs. Abbott had graduated from black satin and bugles to cloth, but her bonnet was of jet. "Now!" exclaimed Mrs. McLane, who had been plied with eager questions from oysters to dessert. "I've told you all the news about the fashions, the salon, the plays, the opera, all the scandals of Paris I can remember but you'll never guess my _piece de resistance_." "What--what--" Tea was forgotten. "Well--as you know, I was in Berlin during the Congress--" "Did you see Bismark--Disraeli--" "I did and met them. But they are not of half as much interest to you as some one else--two people--I met." "But who?" "Can't you guess?" "I know!" cried Guadalupe Bascom. "Langdon and Madeleine Masters." "No! What would they be doing in Berlin?" demanded Mrs. Ballinger. "I thought he was editing some paper in New York." "'Lupie has guessed correctly. It's evident that you don't keep up. We're just the same old stick-in-the-muds. 'Lupie, how did you guess? I'll wager you never see a New York newspaper yourself." "Not I. But one does hear a little Eastern news now and again. I happen to know that Masters has made a success of his paper and it would be just like him to go to the Congress of Berlin. What was he doing there?" "Oh, nothing in particular. Merely corresponding with his paper, and, in the eyes of many, eclipsing Blowitz." "Who is Blowitz?" "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! But after all London is farther off than New York, and I don't fancy you read the _Times_ when you are there--which is briefly and seldom. Paris is our Mecca. Well, Blowitz--" "But Madeleine? Madeleine? It is about her we want to hear. What do we care about tiresome political letters in solemn old newspapers? How did she look? How dressed? Was she ahead of the mode as ever? Does she look much older? Does she show what she has been through.... Oh, Antoinette--Mrs. McLane--Mamma--how tiresome you are!" Mrs. Abbott had not joined in this chorus. She had emitted a series of grunts--no less primitive word expressing her vocal emissions when disgusted. She now had four chins, her eyes were alarmingly protuberant, and her face, what with the tight lacing in vogue, much good food and wine, and a pious disapproval of powder or any care of a complexion which should remain as God made it, was of a deep mahogany tint; but her hand still held the iron rod, and if its veins had risen its muscles had never grown flaccid. "Abominable!" she ejaculated when she could make herself heard. "To think that a man and a woman like that should be rewarded by fame and prosperity. They were thoroughly bad and should have been punished accordingly." "Oh, no, they were not bad, ma chere," said Mrs. McLane lightly. "They were much too good. That was the whole trouble. And you must admit that for their temporary fall from grace they were sufficiently punished, poor things." "Antoinette, I am surprised." Mrs. Ballinger spoke as severely as Mrs. Abbott. She looked less the Southerner for the moment than the Puritan. "They disgraced both themselves and Society. I was glad to hear of their reform, but they should have continued to live in sackcloth for the rest of their lives. For such to enjoy happiness and success is to shake the whole social structure, and it is a blow to the fundamental laws of religion and morality." "But perhaps they are not happy, mamma." Maria spoke hopefully, although the fates seemed to have nothing in pickle for her erratic mate. "Mrs. McLane has not yet told us--" "Oh, but they are! Quite the happiest couple I have ever seen, and likely to remain so. That's a case of true love if ever there was one. I mislaid my skepticism all the time I was in Berlin--a whole month!" "Abominable!" rumbled Mrs. Abbott. "And when I think of poor Howard--dead of apoplexy--" "Howard ate too much, was too fond of Burgundy, and grew fatter every year. Madeleine could reclaim Masters, but she never had any influence over Howard." "Well, she could have waited--" "Masters was pulled up in the nick of time. A year more of that horrible life he was leading and he would have been either unreclaimable or dead. It makes me believe in Fate--and I am a good Churchwoman." "It's a sad world," commented Mrs. Ballinger with a sigh. "I confess I don't understand it. When I think of Sally--" Mrs. Montgomery, a good kind woman, whose purse was always open to her less fortunate friends, shook her head. "I do not like such a sequel. I agree with Alexina and Charlotte. They disgraced themselves and our proud little Society; they should have been more severely punished. Possibly they will be." "I doubt it," said Mrs. Bascom drily. "And not only because I am a woman of the world and have looked at life with both eyes open, but because Masters had success in him. I'll wager he's had his troubles all in one great landslide. And Madeleine was born to be some man's poem. The luxe binding got badly torn and stained, but no doubt she's got a finer one than ever, and is unchanged--or even improved--inside." "Oh, do let me get in a word edgeways," cried young Mrs. Abbott. "Tell me, Mamma--what does Madeleine look like? Has she lost her beauty?" "She looked to me more beautiful than ever. I'd vow Masters thinks so." "Has she wrinkles? Lines?" "Not one. Have we grown old since she left us? It's not so many years ago?" "Oh, I know. But after all she went through.... How was she dressed?" "What are her favorite colors?" "Who makes her gowns?" "Has she as much elegance and style as ever?" "Did she get her mother's jewels? Did she wear them in Berlin?" "Is she in Society there? Is her grand air as noticeable among all those court people as it was here?" "Oh, mamma, mamma, you are so tiresome!" Mrs. McLane had had time to drink a second cup of tea. "My head spins. Where shall I begin? The gowns she wore in Berlin were made at Worth's. Where else? She still wears golden-brown, and amber, and green--sometimes azure--blue at night. She looked like a fairy queen in blue gauze and diamond stars in her hair one night at the American Legation--" "How does she wear her hair?" "There she is not so much a la mode. She has studied her own style, and has found several ways of dressing it that become her--sometimes in a low coil, almost on her neck, sometimes on top of her head in a braid like a coronet, sometimes in a soft psyche knot. There never was anything monotonous about Madeleine." "I'm going to try every one tomorrow. Has she any children?" "One. She left him at their place in Virginia. I saw his picture. A beauty, of course." Mrs. Ballinger raised her pencilled eyebrows and glanced at Maria. Mrs. Abbott gave a deep rumbling groan. "Poor Howard!" "He dreed his weird," said Mrs. McLane indifferently. "He couldn't help it. Neither could Madeleine." "Well, I'd like to hear something more about Langdon Masters," announced Guadalupe Bascom. "That is, if you have all satisfied your curiosity about Madeleine's clothes. He is the one man I never could twist around my finger and I've never forgotten him. How does he look? He certainly should carry some stamp of the life he led." "Oh, he looks older, of course, and he has deeper lines and some gray hairs. But he's thin, at least. His figure did not suffer if his face did--somewhat. He looks even more interesting--at least women would think so. You know we good women always have a fatal weakness for the man who has lived too much." "Speak for yourself, Antoinette." Mrs. Ballinger looked like an effigy of virtue in silver. "And at your age you should be ashamed to utter such a sentiment even if you felt it." "My hair may be as white as yours," rejoined Mrs. McLane tartly. "But I remain a woman, and for that reason attract men to this day." "Is Masters as brilliant as ever--in conversation, I mean? Is he gay? Lively?" "I cannot say that I found him gay, and I really saw very little of him except at functions. He was very busy. But Mr. McLane was with him a good deal, and said that although he was rather grim and quiet at times, at others he was as brilliant as his letters." "Does he drink at all, or is he forced to be a teetotaller?" "Not a bit of it. He drinks at table as others do; no more, no less." "Then he is cured," said Mrs. Bascom contentedly. "Well, I for one am glad that it's all right. Still, if he had fallen in love with me he would have remained an eminent citizen--without a hideous interval he hardly can care to recall--and become the greatest editor in California. Have they any social position in New York?" "Probably. I did not ask. They hardly looked like outcasts. You must remember their story is wholly unknown in fashionable New York. Scarcely any one here knows any one in New York Society; or has time for it when passing through.... But I don't fancy they care particularly for Society. In Berlin, whenever it was possible, they went off by themselves. But of course it was necessary for both to go in Society there, and she must have been able to help him a good deal." "European Society! I suppose she'll be presented to the Queen of England next!--But no! Thank heaven she can't be. Good Queen Victoria is as rigid about divorce as we are. Nor shall she ever cross my threshold if she returns here." And Mrs. Abbott scalded herself with her third cup of tea and emitted terrible sounds. Mrs. Yorba, a tall, spare, severe-looking woman, who had taught school in New England in her youth, and never even powdered her nose, spoke for the first time. Her tones were slow and portentious, as became one who, owing to her unfortunate nativity, had sailed slowly into this castellated harbor, albeit on her husband's golden ship. "We may no longer have it in our power to punish Mrs. Langdon Masters," she said. "But at least we shall punish others who violate our code, even as we have done in the past. San Francisco Society shall always be a model for the rest of the world." "I hope so!" cried Mrs. McLane. "But the world has a queer fashion of changing and moving." Mrs. Ballinger rose. "I have no misgivings for the future of our Society, Antoinette McLane. Our grandchildren will uphold the traditions we have created, for our children will pass on to them our own immutable laws. Shall we go into the front parlor? I do so want to show it to you. I have a new set of blue satin damask and a crystal chandelier." THE END 
5317	----	Transcribed by Anders Thulin. Adapted for Project Gutenberg by Andrew Sly. THROUGH THE MAGIC DOOR BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE I. I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about a line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense of it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron of leather and printer's ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command. It is our familiarity also which has lessened our perception of the miraculous good fortune which we enjoy. Let us suppose that we were suddenly to learn that Shakespeare had returned to earth, and that he would favour any of us with an hour of his wit and his fancy. How eagerly we would seek him out! And yet we have him--the very best of him--at our elbows from week to week, and hardly trouble ourselves to put out our hands to beckon him down. No matter what mood a man may be in, when once he has passed through the magic door he can summon the world's greatest to sympathize with him in it. If he be thoughtful, here are the kings of thought. If he be dreamy, here are the masters of fancy. Or is it amusement that he lacks? He can signal to any one of the world's great story-tellers, and out comes the dead man and holds him enthralled by the hour. The dead are such good company that one may come to think too little of the living. It is a real and a pressing danger with many of us, that we should never find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed by the dead. Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are surely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings to most of the human race. But best of all when the dead man's wisdom and strength in the living of our own strenuous days. Come through the magic door with me, and sit here on the green settee, where you can see the old oak case with its untidy lines of volumes. Smoking is not forbidden. Would you care to hear me talk of them? Well, I ask nothing better, for there is no volume there which is not a dear, personal friend, and what can a man talk of more pleasantly than that? The other books are over yonder, but these are my own favourites--the ones I care to re-read and to have near my elbow. There is not a tattered cover which does not bring its mellow memories to me. Some of them represent those little sacrifices which make a possession dearer. You see the line of old, brown volumes at the bottom? Every one of those represents a lunch. They were bought in my student days, when times were not too affluent. Threepence was my modest allowance for my midday sandwich and glass of beer; but, as luck would have it, my way to the classes led past the most fascinating bookshop in the world. Outside the door of it stood a large tub filled with an ever-changing litter of tattered books, with a card above which announced that any volume therein could be purchased for the identical sum which I carried in my pocket. As I approached it a combat ever raged betwixt the hunger of a youthful body and that of an inquiring and omnivorous mind. Five times out of six the animal won. But when the mental prevailed, then there was an entrancing five minutes' digging among out-of-date almanacs, volumes of Scotch theology, and tables of logarithms, until one found something which made it all worth while. If you will look over these titles, you will see that I did not do so very badly. Four volumes of Gordon's "Tacitus" (life is too short to read originals, so long as there are good translations), Sir William Temple's Essays, Addison's works, Swift's "Tale of a Tub," Clarendon's "History," "Gil Blas," Buckingham's Poems, Churchill's Poems, "Life of Bacon"--not so bad for the old threepenny tub. They were not always in such plebeian company. Look at the thickness of the rich leather, and the richness of the dim gold lettering. Once they adorned the shelves of some noble library, and even among the odd almanacs and the sermons they bore the traces of their former greatness, like the faded silk dress of the reduced gentlewoman, a present pathos but a glory of the past. Reading is made too easy nowadays, with cheap paper editions and free libraries. A man does not appreciate at its full worth the thing that comes to him without effort. Who now ever gets the thrill which Carlyle felt when he hurried home with the six volumes of Gibbon's "History" under his arm, his mind just starving for want of food, to devour them at the rate of one a day? A book should be your very own before you can really get the taste of it, and unless you have worked for it, you will never have the true inward pride of possession. If I had to choose the one book out of all that line from which I have had most pleasure and most profit, I should point to yonder stained copy of Macaulay's "Essays." It seems entwined into my whole life as I look backwards. It was my comrade in my student days, it has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part of my humble kit when I went a-whaling in the Arctic. Honest Scotch harpooners have addled their brains over it, and you may still see the grease stains where the second engineer grappled with Frederick the Great. Tattered and dirty and worn, no gilt-edged morocco-bound volume could ever take its place for me. What a noble gateway this book forms through which one may approach the study either of letters or of history! Milton, Machiavelli, Hallam, Southey, Bunyan, Byron, Johnson, Pitt, Hampden, Clive, Hastings, Chatham--what nuclei for thought! With a good grip of each how pleasant and easy to fill in all that lies between! The short, vivid sentences, the broad sweep of allusion, the exact detail, they all throw a glamour round the subject and should make the least studious of readers desire to go further. If Macaulay's hand cannot lead a man upon those pleasant paths, then, indeed, he may give up all hope of ever finding them. When I was a senior schoolboy this book--not this very volume, for it had an even more tattered predecessor--opened up a new world to me. History had been a lesson and abhorrent. Suddenly the task and the drudgery became an incursion into an enchanted land, a land of colour and beauty, with a kind, wise guide to point the path. In that great style of his I loved even the faults--indeed, now that I come to think of it, it was the faults which I loved best. No sentence could be too stiff with rich embroidery, and no antithesis too flowery. It pleased me to read that "a universal shout of laughter from the Tagus to the Vistula informed the Pope that the days of the crusades were past," and I was delighted to learn that "Lady Jerningham kept a vase in which people placed foolish verses, and Mr. Dash wrote verses which were fit to be placed in Lady Jerningham's vase." Those were the kind of sentences which used to fill me with a vague but enduring pleasure, like chords which linger in the musician's ear. A man likes a plainer literary diet as he grows older, but still as I glance over the Essays I am filled with admiration and wonder at the alternate power of handling a great subject, and of adorning it by delightful detail--just a bold sweep of the brush, and then the most delicate stippling. As he leads you down the path, he for ever indicates the alluring side-tracks which branch away from it. An admirable, if somewhat old-fashioned, literary and historical education night be effected by working through every book which is alluded to in the Essays. I should be curious, however, to know the exact age of the youth when he came to the end of his studies. I wish Macaulay had written a historical novel. I am convinced that it would have been a great one. I do not know if he had the power of drawing an imaginary character, but he certainly had the gift of reconstructing a dead celebrity to a remarkable degree. Look at the simple half-paragraph in which he gives us Johnson and his atmosphere. Was ever a more definite picture given in a shorter space-- "As we close it, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke, and the tall thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up--the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing, and then comes the 'Why, sir!' and the 'What then, sir?' and the 'No, sir!' and the 'You don't see your way through the question, sir!'" It is etched into your memory for ever. I can remember that when I visited London at the age of sixteen the first thing I did after housing my luggage was to make a pilgrimage to Macaulay's grave, where he lies in Westminster Abbey, just under the shadow of Addison, and amid the dust of the poets whom he had loved so well. It was the one great object of interest which London held for me. And so it might well be, when I think of all I owe him. It is not merely the knowledge and the stimulation of fresh interests, but it is the charming gentlemanly tone, the broad, liberal outlook, the general absence of bigotry and of prejudice. My judgment now confirms all that I felt for him then. My four-volume edition of the History stands, as you see, to the right of the Essays. Do you recollect the third chapter of that work--the one which reconstructs the England of the seventeenth century? It has always seemed to me the very high-water mark of Macaulay's powers, with its marvellous mixture of precise fact and romantic phrasing. The population of towns, the statistics of commerce, the prosaic facts of life are all transmuted into wonder and interest by the handling of the master. You feel that he could have cast a glamour over the multiplication table had he set himself to do so. Take a single concrete example of what I mean. The fact that a Londoner in the country, or a countryman in London, felt equally out of place in those days of difficult travel, would seem to hardly require stating, and to afford no opportunity of leaving a strong impression upon the reader's mind. See what Macaulay makes of it, though it is no more than a hundred other paragraphs which discuss a hundred various points-- "A cockney in a rural village was stared at as much as if he had intruded into a kraal of Hottentots. On the other hand, when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. His dress, his gait, his accent, the manner in which he gazed at the shops, stumbled into gutters, ran against the porters, and stood under the waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent subject for the operations of swindlers and banterers. Bullies jostled him into the kennel, Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot, thieves explored with perfect security the huge pockets of his horseman's coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of the Lord Mayor's Show. Money-droppers, sore from the cart's tail, introduced themselves to him, and appeared to him the most honest friendly gentlemen that he had ever seen. Painted women, the refuse of Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, passed themselves on him for countesses and maids of honour. If he asked his way to St. James', his informants sent him to Mile End. If he went into a shop, he was instantly discerned to be a fit purchaser of everything that nobody else would buy, of second-hand embroidery, copper rings, and watches that would not go. If he rambled into any fashionable coffee-house, he became a mark for the insolent derision of fops, and the grave waggery of Templars. Enraged and mortified, he soon returned to his mansion, and there, in the homage of his tenants and the conversation of his boon companions, found consolation for the vexations and humiliations which he had undergone. There he was once more a great man, and saw nothing above himself except when at the assizes he took his seat on the bench near the Judge, or when at the muster of the militia he saluted the Lord Lieutenant." On the whole, I should put this detached chapter of description at the very head of his Essays, though it happens to occur in another volume. The History as a whole does not, as it seems to me, reach the same level as the shorter articles. One cannot but feel that it is a brilliant piece of special pleading from a fervid Whig, and that there must be more to be said for the other side than is there set forth. Some of the Essays are tinged also, no doubt, by his own political and religious limitations. The best are those which get right away into the broad fields of literature and philosophy. Johnson, Walpole, Madame D'Arblay, Addison, and the two great Indian ones, Clive and Warren Hastings, are my own favourites. Frederick the Great, too, must surely stand in the first rank. Only one would I wish to eliminate. It is the diabolically clever criticism upon Montgomery. One would have wished to think that Macaulay's heart was too kind, and his soul too gentle, to pen so bitter an attack. Bad work will sink of its own weight. It is not necessary to souse the author as well. One would think more highly of the man if he had not done that savage bit of work. I don't know why talking of Macaulay always makes me think of Scott, whose books in a faded, olive-backed line, have a shelf, you see, of their own. Perhaps it is that they both had so great an influence, and woke such admiration in me. Or perhaps it is the real similarity in the minds and characters of the two men. You don't see it, you say? Well, just think of Scott's "Border Ballads," and then of Macaulay's "Lays." The machines must be alike, when the products are so similar. Each was the only man who could possibly have written the poems of the other. What swing and dash in both of them! What a love of all that is and noble and martial! So simple, and yet so strong. But there are minds on which strength and simplicity are thrown away. They think that unless a thing is obscure it must be superficial, whereas it is often the shallow stream which is turbid, and the deep which is clear. Do you remember the fatuous criticism of Matthew Arnold upon the glorious "Lays," where he calls out "is this poetry?" after quoting-- "And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the Temples of his Gods?" In trying to show that Macaulay had not the poetic sense he was really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense. The baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him. But this is exactly where the true merit lies. Macaulay is giving the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour. Any high-flown sentiment would have been absolutely out of character. The lines are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and have just the dramatic quality and sense which a ballad poet must have. That opinion of Arnold's shook my faith in his judgment, and yet I would forgive a good deal to the man who wrote-- "One more charge and then be dumb, When the forts of Folly fall, May the victors when they come Find my body near the wall." Not a bad verse that for one's life aspiration. This is one of the things which human society has not yet understood--the value of a noble, inspiriting text. When it does we shall meet them everywhere engraved on appropriate places, and our progress through the streets will be brightened and ennobled by one continual series of beautiful mental impulses and images, reflected into our souls from the printed thoughts which meet our eyes. To think that we should walk with empty, listless minds while all this splendid material is running to waste. I do not mean mere Scriptural texts, for they do not bear the same meaning to all, though what human creature can fail to be spurred onwards by "Work while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work." But I mean those beautiful thoughts--who can say that they are uninspired thoughts?--which may be gathered from a hundred authors to match a hundred uses. A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament. To take the nearest example, there is a horse-trough across the road from my house, a plain stone trough, and no man could pass it with any feelings save vague discontent at its ugliness. But suppose that on its front slab you print the verse of Coleridge-- "He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small For the dear Lord who fashioned him He knows and loveth all." I fear I may misquote, for I have not "The Ancient Mariner" at my elbow, but even as it stands does it not elevate the horse-trough? We all do this, I suppose, in a small way for ourselves. There are few men who have not some chosen quotations printed on their study mantelpieces, or, better still, in their hearts. Carlyle's transcription of "Rest! Rest! Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in!" is a pretty good spur to a weary man. But what we need is a more general application of the same thing for public and not for private use, until people understand that a graven thought is as beautiful an ornament as any graven image, striking through the eye right deep down into the soul. However, all this has nothing to do with Macaulay's glorious lays, save that when you want some flowers of manliness and patriotism you can pluck quite a bouquet out of those. I had the good fortune to learn the Lay of Horatius off by heart when I was a child, and it stamped itself on my plastic mind, so that even now I can reel off almost the whole of it. Goldsmith said that in conversation he was like the man who had a thousand pounds in the bank, but could not compete with the man who had an actual sixpence in his pocket. So the ballad that you bear in your mind outweighs the whole bookshelf which waits for reference. But I want you now to move your eye a little farther down the shelf to the line of olive-green volumes. That is my edition of Scott. But surely I must give you a little breathing space before I venture upon them. II. It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the one stands for nothing, and the other for literature. From that day onwards you may return to your crudities, but at least you do so with some standard of comparison in your mind. You can never be the same as you were before. Then gradually the good thing becomes more dear to you; it builds itself up with your growing mind; it becomes a part of your better self, and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past. Yes, it was the olive-green line of Scott's novels which started me on to rhapsody. They were the first books I ever owned--long, long before I could appreciate or even understand them. But at last I realized what a treasure they were. In my boyhood I read them by surreptitious candle-ends in the dead of the night, when the sense of crime added a new zest to the story. Perhaps you have observed that my "Ivanhoe" is of a different edition from the others. The first copy was left in the grass by the side of a stream, fell into the water, and was eventually picked up three days later, swollen and decomposed, upon a mud-bank. I think I may say, however, that I had worn it out before I lost it. Indeed, it was perhaps as well that it was some years before it was replaced, for my instinct was always to read it again instead of breaking fresh ground. I remember the late James Payn telling the anecdote that he and two literary friends agreed to write down what scene in fiction they thought the most dramatic, and that on examining the papers it was found that all three had chosen the same. It was the moment when the unknown knight, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, riding past the pavilions of the lesser men, strikes with the sharp end of his lance, in a challenge to mortal combat, the shield of the formidable Templar. It was, indeed, a splendid moment! What matter that no Templar was allowed by the rules of his Order to take part in so secular and frivolous an affair as a tournament? It is the privilege of great masters to make things so, and it is a churlish thing to gainsay it. Was it not Wendell Holmes who described the prosaic man, who enters a drawing-room with a couple of facts, like ill-conditioned bull-dogs at his heels, ready to let them loose on any play of fancy? The great writer can never go wrong. If Shakespeare gives a sea-coast to Bohemia, or if Victor Hugo calls an English prize-fighter Mr. Jim-John-Jack--well, it was so, and that's an end of it. "There is no second line of rails at that point," said an editor to a minor author. "I make a second line," said the author; and he was within his rights, if he can carry his readers' conviction with him. But this is a digression from "Ivanhoe." What a book it is! The second greatest historical novel in our language, I think. Every successive reading has deepened my admiration for it. Scott's soldiers are always as good as his women (with exceptions) are weak; but here, while the soldiers are at their very best, the romantic figure of Rebecca redeems the female side of the story from the usual commonplace routine. Scott drew manly men because he was a manly man himself, and found the task a sympathetic one. He drew young heroines because a convention demanded it, which he had never the hardihood to break. It is only when we get him for a dozen chapters on end with a minimum of petticoat--in the long stretch, for example, from the beginning of the Tournament to the end of the Friar Tuck incident--that we realize the height of continued romantic narrative to which he could attain. I don't think in the whole range of our literature we have a finer sustained flight than that. There is, I admit, an intolerable amount of redundant verbiage in Scott's novels. Those endless and unnecessary introductions make the shell very thick before you come to the oyster. They are often admirable in themselves, learned, witty, picturesque, but with no relation or proportion to the story which they are supposed to introduce. Like so much of our English fiction, they are very good matter in a very bad place. Digression and want of method and order are traditional national sins. Fancy introducing an essay on how to live on nothing a year as Thackeray did in "Vanity Fair," or sandwiching in a ghost story as Dickens has dared to do. As well might a dramatic author rush up to the footlights and begin telling anecdotes while his play was suspending its action and his characters waiting wearily behind him. It is all wrong, though every great name can be quoted in support of it. Our sense of form is lamentably lacking, and Sir Walter sinned with the rest. But get past all that to a crisis in the real story, and who finds the terse phrase, the short fire-word, so surely as he? Do you remember when the reckless Sergeant of Dragoons stands at last before the grim Puritan, upon whose head a price has been set: "A thousand marks or a bed of heather!" says he, as he draws. The Puritan draws also: "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" says he. No verbiage there! But the very spirit of either man and of either party, in the few stern words, which haunt your mind. "Bows and Bills!" cry the Saxon Varangians, as the Moslem horse charges home. You feel it is just what they must have cried. Even more terse and businesslike was the actual battle-cry of the fathers of the same men on that long-drawn day when they fought under the "Red Dragon of Wessex" on the low ridge at Hastings. "Out! Out!" they roared, as the Norman chivalry broke upon them. Terse, strong, prosaic--the very genius of the race was in the cry. Is it that the higher emotions are not there? Or is it that they are damped down and covered over as too precious to be exhibited? Something of each, perhaps. I once met the widow of the man who, as a young signal midshipman, had taken Nelson's famous message from the Signal Yeoman and communicated it to the ship's company. The officers were impressed. The men were not. "Duty!" they muttered. "We've always done it. Why not?" Anything in the least highfalutin' would depress, not exalt, a British company. It is the under statement which delights them. German troops can march to battle singing Luther's hymns. Frenchmen will work themselves into a frenzy by a song of glory and of Fatherland. Our martial poets need not trouble to imitate--or at least need not imagine that if they do so they will ever supply a want to the British soldier. Our sailors working the heavy guns in South Africa sang: "Here's another lump of sugar for the Bird." I saw a regiment go into action to the refrain of "A little bit off the top." The martial poet aforesaid, unless he had the genius and the insight of a Kipling, would have wasted a good deal of ink before he had got down to such chants as these. The Russians are not unlike us in this respect. I remember reading of some column ascending a breach and singing lustily from start to finish, until a few survivors were left victorious upon the crest with the song still going. A spectator inquired what wondrous chant it was which had warmed them to such a deed of valour, and he found that the exact meaning of the words, endlessly repeated, was "Ivan is in the garden picking cabbages." The fact is, I suppose, that a mere monotonous sound may take the place of the tom-tom of savage warfare, and hypnotize the soldier into valour. Our cousins across the Atlantic have the same blending of the comic with their most serious work. Take the songs which they sang during the most bloody war which the Anglo-Celtic race has ever waged--the only war in which it could have been said that they were stretched to their uttermost and showed their true form--"Tramp, tramp, tramp," "John Brown's Body," "Marching through Georgia"--all had a playful humour running through them. Only one exception do I know, and that is the most tremendous war-song I can recall. Even an outsider in time of peace can hardly read it without emotion. I mean, of course, Julia Ward Howe's "War-Song of the Republic," with the choral opening line: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." If that were ever sung upon a battle-field the effect must have been terrific. A long digression, is it not? But that is the worst of the thoughts at the other side of the Magic Door. You can't pull one out without a dozen being entangled with it. But it was Scott's soldiers that I was talking of, and I was saying that there is nothing theatrical, no posing, no heroics (the thing of all others which the hero abominates), but just the short bluff word and the simple manly ways, with every expression and metaphor drawn from within his natural range of thought. What a pity it is that he, with his keen appreciation of the soldier, gave us so little of those soldiers who were his own contemporaries--the finest, perhaps, that the world has ever seen! It is true that he wrote a life of the great Soldier Emperor, but that was the one piece of hackwork of his career. How could a Tory patriot, whose whole training had been to look upon Napoleon as a malignant Demon, do justice to such a theme? But the Europe of those days was full of material which he of all men could have drawn with a sympathetic hand. What would we not give for a portrait of one of Murat's light-cavalrymen, or of a Grenadier of the Old Guard, drawn with the same bold strokes as the Rittmeister of Gustavus or the archers of the French King's Guard in "Quentin Durward"? In his visit to Paris Scott must have seen many of those iron men who during the preceding twenty years had been the scourge and also the redemption of Europe. To us the soldiers who scowled at him from the sidewalks in 1814 would have been as interesting and as much romantic figures of the past as the mail-clad knights or ruffling cavaliers of his novels. A picture from the life of a Peninsular veteran, with his views upon the Duke, would be as striking as Dugald Dalgetty from the German wars. But then no man ever does realize the true interest of the age in which he happens to live. All sense of proportion is lost, and the little thing hard-by obscures the great thing at a distance. It is easy in the dark to confuse the fire-fly and the star. Fancy, for example, the Old Masters seeking their subjects in inn parlours, or St. Sebastians, while Columbus was discovering America before their very faces. I have said that I think "Ivanhoe" the best of Scott's novels. I suppose most people would subscribe to that. But how about the second best? It speaks well for their general average that there is hardly one among them which might not find some admirers who would vote it to a place of honour. To the Scottish-born man those novels which deal with Scottish life and character have a quality of raciness which gives them a place apart. There is a rich humour of the soil in such books as "Old Mortality," "The Antiquary," and "Rob Roy," which puts them in a different class from the others. His old Scottish women are, next to his soldiers, the best series of types that he has drawn. At the same time it must be admitted that merit which is associated with dialect has such limitations that it can never take the same place as work which makes an equal appeal to all the world. On the whole, perhaps, "Quentin Durward," on account of its wider interests, its strong character-drawing, and the European importance of the events and people described, would have my vote for the second place. It is the father of all those sword-and-cape novels which have formed so numerous an addition to the light literature of the last century. The pictures of Charles the Bold and of the unspeakable Louis are extraordinarily vivid. I can see those two deadly enemies watching the hounds chasing the herald, and clinging to each other in the convulsion of their cruel mirth, more clearly than most things which my eyes have actually rested upon. The portrait of Louis with his astuteness, his cruelty, his superstition and his cowardice is followed closely from Comines, and is the more effective when set up against his bluff and war-like rival. It is not often that historical characters work out in their actual physique exactly as one would picture them to be, but in the High Church of Innsbruck I have seen effigies of Louis and Charles which might have walked from the very pages of Scott-Louis, thin, ascetic, varminty; and Charles with the head of a prize-fighter. It is hard on us when a portrait upsets all our preconceived ideas, when, for example, we see in the National Portrait Gallery a man with a noble, olive-tinted, poetic face, and with a start read beneath it that it is the wicked Judge Jeffreys. Occasionally, however, as at Innsbruck, we are absolutely satisfied. I have before me on the mantelpiece yonder a portrait of a painting which represents Queen Mary's Bothwell. Take it down and look at it. Mark the big head, fit to conceive large schemes; the strong animal face, made to captivate a sensitive, feminine woman; the brutally forceful features--the mouth with a suggestion of wild boars' tusks behind it, the beard which could bristle with fury: the whole man and his life-history are revealed in that picture. I wonder if Scott had ever seen the original which hangs at the Hepburn family seat? Personally, I have always had a very high opinion of a novel which the critics have used somewhat harshly, and which came almost the last from his tired pen. I mean "Count Robert of Paris." I am convinced that if it had been the first, instead of the last, of the series it would have attracted as much attention as "Waverley." I can understand the state of mind of the expert, who cried out in mingled admiration and despair: "I have studied the conditions of Byzantine Society all my life, and here comes a Scotch lawyer who makes the whole thing clear to me in a flash!" Many men could draw with more or less success Norman England, or mediaeval France, but to reconstruct a whole dead civilization in so plausible a way, with such dignity and such minuteness of detail, is, I should think, a most wonderful tour de force. His failing health showed itself before the end of the novel, but had the latter half equalled the first, and contained scenes of such humour as Anna Comnena reading aloud her father's exploits, or of such majesty as the account of the muster of the Crusaders upon the shores of the Bosphorus, then the book could not have been gainsaid its rightful place in the very front rank of the novels. I would that he had carried on his narrative, and given us a glimpse of the actual progress of the First Crusade. What an incident! Was ever anything in the world's history like it? It had what historical incidents seldom have, a definite beginning, middle and end, from the half-crazed preaching of Peter down to the Fall of Jerusalem. Those leaders! It would take a second Homer to do them justice. Godfrey the perfect soldier and leader, Bohemund the unscrupulous and formidable, Tancred the ideal knight errant, Robert of Normandy the half-mad hero! Here is material so rich that one feels one is not worthy to handle it. What richest imagination could ever evolve anything more marvellous and thrilling than the actual historical facts? But what a glorious brotherhood the novels are! Think of the pure romance of "The Talisman"; the exquisite picture of Hebridean life in "The Pirate"; the splendid reproduction of Elizabethan England in "Kenilworth"; the rich humour of the "Legend of Montrose"; above all, bear in mind that in all that splendid series, written in a coarse age, there is not one word to offend the most sensitive car, and it is borne in upon one how great and noble a man was Walter Scott, and how high the service which he did for literature and for humanity. For that reason his life is good reading, and there it is on the same shelf as the novels. Lockhart was, of course, his son-in-law and his admiring friend. The ideal biographer should be a perfectly impartial man, with a sympathetic mind, but a stern determination to tell the absolute truth. One would like the frail, human side of a man as well as the other. I cannot believe that anyone in the world was ever quite so good as the subject of most of our biographies. Surely these worthy people swore a little sometimes, or had a keen eye for a pretty face, or opened the second bottle when they would have done better to stop at the first, or did something to make us feel that they were men and brothers. They need not go the length of the lady who began a biography of her deceased husband with the words--"D--- was a dirty man," but the books certainly would be more readable, and the subjects more lovable too, if we had greater light and shade in the picture. But I am sure that the more one knew of Scott the more one would have admired him. He lived in a drinking age, and in a drinking country, and I have not a doubt that he took an allowance of toddy occasionally of an evening which would have laid his feeble successors under the table. His last years, at least, poor fellow, were abstemious enough, when he sipped his barley-water, while the others passed the decanter. But what a high-souled chivalrous gentleman he was, with how fine a sense of honour, translating itself not into empty phrases, but into years of labour and denial! You remember how he became sleeping partner in a printing house, and so involved himself in its failure. There was a legal, but very little moral, claim against him, and no one could have blamed him had he cleared the account by a bankruptcy, which would have enabled him to become a rich man again within a few years. Yet he took the whole burden upon himself and bore it for the rest of his life, spending his work, his time, and his health in the one long effort to save his honour from the shadow of a stain. It was nearly a hundred thousand pounds, I think, which he passed on to the creditors--a great record, a hundred thousand pounds, with his life thrown in. And what a power of work he had! It was superhuman. Only the man who has tried to write fiction himself knows what it means when it is recorded that Scott produced two of his long novels in one single year. I remember reading in some book of reminiscences--on second thoughts it was in Lockhart himself--how the writer had lodged in some rooms in Castle Street, Edinburgh, and how he had seen all evening the silhouette of a man outlined on the blind of the opposite house. All evening the man wrote, and the observer could see the shadow hand conveying the sheets of paper from the desk to the pile at the side. He went to a party and returned, but still the hand was moving the sheets. Next morning he was told that the rooms opposite were occupied by Walter Scott. A curious glimpse into the psychology of the writer of fiction is shown by the fact that he wrote two of his books--good ones, too--at a time when his health was such that he could not afterwards remember one word of them, and listened to them when they were read to him as if he were hearing the work of another man. Apparently the simplest processes of the brain, such as ordinary memory, were in complete abeyance, and yet the very highest and most complex faculty--imagination in its supreme form--was absolutely unimpaired. It is an extraordinary fact, and one to be pondered over. It gives some support to the feeling which every writer of imaginative work must have, that his supreme work comes to him in some strange way from without, and that he is only the medium for placing it upon the paper. The creative thought--the germ thought from which a larger growth is to come, flies through his brain like a bullet. He is surprised at his own idea, with no conscious sense of having originated it. And here we have a man, with all other brain functions paralyzed, producing this magnificent work. Is it possible that we are indeed but conduit pipes from the infinite reservoir of the unknown? Certainly it is always our best work which leaves the least sense of personal effort. And to pursue this line of thought, is it possible that frail physical powers and an unstable nervous system, by keeping a man's materialism at its lowest, render him a more fitting agent for these spiritual uses? It is an old tag that "Great Genius is to madness close allied, And thin partitions do those rooms divide." But, apart from genius, even a moderate faculty for imaginative work seems to me to weaken seriously the ties between the soul and the body. Look at the British poets of a century ago: Chatterton, Burns, Shelley, Keats, Byron. Burns was the oldest of that brilliant band, yet Burns was only thirty-eight when he passed away, "burned out," as his brother terribly expressed it. Shelley, it is true, died by accident, and Chatterton by poison, but suicide is in itself a sign of a morbid state. It is true that Rogers lived to be almost a centenarian, but he was banker first and poet afterwards. Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning have all raised the average age of the poets, but for some reason the novelists, especially of late years, have a deplorable record. They will end by being scheduled with the white-lead workers and other dangerous trades. Look at the really shocking case of the young Americans, for example. What a band of promising young writers have in a few years been swept away! There was the author of that admirable book, "David Harum"; there was Frank Norris, a man who had in him, I think, the seeds of greatness more than almost any living writer. His "Pit" seemed to me one of the finest American novels. He also died a premature death. Then there was Stephen Crane--a man who had also done most brilliant work, and there was Harold Frederic, another master-craftsman. Is there any profession in the world which in proportion to its numbers could show such losses as that? In the meantime, out of our own men Robert Louis Stevenson is gone, and Henry Seton Merriman, and many another. Even those great men who are usually spoken of as if they had rounded off their career were really premature in their end. Thackeray, for example, in spite of his snowy head, was only 52; Dickens attained the age of 58; on the whole, Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren. He employed his creative faculty for about twenty years, which is as much, I suppose, as Shakespeare did. The bard of Avon is another example of the limited tenure which Genius has of life, though I believe that he outlived the greater part of his own family, who were not a healthy stock. He died, I should judge, of some nervous disease; that is shown by the progressive degeneration of his signature. Probably it was locomotor ataxy, which is the special scourge of the imaginative man. Heine, Daudet, and how many more, were its victims. As to the tradition, first mentioned long after his death, that he died of a fever contracted from a drinking bout, it is absurd on the face of it, since no such fever is known to science. But a very moderate drinking bout would be extremely likely to bring a chronic nervous complaint to a disastrous end. One other remark upon Scott before I pass on from that line of green volumes which has made me so digressive and so garrulous. No account of his character is complete which does not deal with the strange, secretive vein which ran through his nature. Not only did he stretch the truth on many occasions in order to conceal the fact that he was the author of the famous novels, but even intimate friends who met him day by day were not aware that he was the man about whom the whole of Europe was talking. Even his wife was ignorant of his pecuniary liabilities until the crash of the Ballantyne firm told her for the first time that they were sharers in the ruin. A psychologist might trace this strange twist of his mind in the numerous elfish Fenella-like characters who flit about and keep their irritating secret through the long chapters of so many of his novels. It's a sad book, Lockhart's "Life." It leaves gloom in the mind. The sight of this weary giant, staggering along, burdened with debt, overladen with work, his wife dead, his nerves broken, and nothing intact but his honour, is one of the most moving in the history of literature. But they pass, these clouds, and all that is left is the memory of the supremely noble man, who would not be bent, but faced Fate to the last, and died in his tracks without a whimper. He sampled every human emotion. Great was his joy and great his success, great was his downfall and bitter his grief. But of all the sons of men I don't think there are many greater than he who lies under the great slab at Dryburgh. III. We can pass the long green ranks of the Waverley Novels and Lockhart's "Life" which flanks them. Here is heavier metal in the four big grey volumes beyond. They are an old-fashioned large-print edition of Boswell's "Life of Johnson." I emphasize the large print, for that is the weak point of most of the cheap editions of English Classics which come now into the market. With subjects which are in the least archaic or abstruse you need good clear type to help you on your way. The other is good neither for your eyes nor for your temper. Better pay a little more and have a book that is made for use. That book interests me--fascinates me--and yet I wish I could join heartily in that chorus of praise which the kind-hearted old bully has enjoyed. It is difficult to follow his own advice and to "clear one's mind of cant" upon the subject, for when you have been accustomed to look at him through the sympathetic glasses of Macaulay or of Boswell, it is hard to take them off, to rub one's eyes, and to have a good honest stare on one's own account at the man's actual words, deeds, and limitations. If you try it you are left with the oddest mixture of impressions. How could one express it save that this is John Bull taken to literature--the exaggerated John Bull of the caricaturists--with every quality, good or evil, at its highest? Here are the rough crust over a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder, rougher John Bull who was the great grandfather of the present good-natured Johnnie. If Boswell had not lived I wonder how much we should hear now of his huge friend? With Scotch persistence he has succeeded in inoculating the whole world with his hero worship. It was most natural that he should himself admire him. The relations between the two men were delightful and reflect all credit upon each. But they are not a safe basis from which any third person could argue. When they met, Boswell was in his twenty-third and Johnson in his fifty-fourth year. The one was a keen young Scot with a mind which was reverent and impressionable. The other was a figure from a past generation with his fame already made. From the moment of meeting the one was bound to exercise an absolute ascendency over the other which made unbiassed criticism far more difficult than it would be between ordinary father and son. Up to the end this was the unbroken relation between them. It is all very well to pooh-pooh Boswell as Macaulay has done, but it is not by chance that a man writes the best biography in the language. He had some great and rare literary qualities. One was a clear and vivid style, more flexible and Saxon than that of his great model. Another was a remarkable discretion which hardly once permitted a fault of taste in this whole enormous book where he must have had to pick his steps with pitfalls on every side of him. They say that he was a fool and a coxcomb in private life. He is never so with a pen in his hand. Of all his numerous arguments with Johnson, where he ventured some little squeak of remonstrance, before the roaring "No, sir!" came to silence him, there are few in which his views were not, as experience proved, the wiser. On the question of slavery he was in the wrong. But I could quote from memory at least a dozen cases, including such vital subjects as the American Revolution, the Hanoverian Dynasty, Religious Toleration, and so on, where Boswell's views were those which survived. But where he excels as a biographer is in telling you just those little things that you want to know. How often you read the life of a man and are left without the remotest idea of his personality. It is not so here. The man lives again. There is a short description of Johnson's person--it is not in the Life, but in the Tour to the Hebrides, the very next book upon the shelf, which is typical of his vivid portraiture. May I take it down, and read you a paragraph of it?-- "His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of King's evil. He was now in his sixty-fourth year and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak, yet so much does mind govern and even supply the deficiencies of organs that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of palsy. He appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps or convulsive contractions of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus' dance. He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings and silver buckles. Upon this tour when journeying he wore boots and a very wide brown cloth great-coat with pockets which might almost have held the two volumes of his folio dictionary, and he carried in his hand a large English oak stick." You must admit that if one cannot reconstruct the great Samuel after that it is not Mr. Boswell's fault--and it is but one of a dozen equally vivid glimpses which he gives us of his hero. It is just these pen-pictures of his of the big, uncouth man, with his grunts and his groans, his Gargantuan appetite, his twenty cups of tea, and his tricks with the orange-peel and the lamp-posts, which fascinate the reader, and have given Johnson a far broader literary vogue than his writings could have done. For, after all, which of those writings can be said to have any life to-day? Not "Rasselas," surely--that stilted romance. "The Lives of the Poets" are but a succession of prefaces, and the "Ramblers" of ephemeral essays. There is the monstrous drudgery of the Dictionary, a huge piece of spadework, a monument to industry, but inconceivable to genius. "London" has a few vigorous lines, and the "Journey to the Hebrides" some spirited pages. This, with a number of political and other pamphlets, was the main output of his lifetime. Surely it must be admitted that it is not enough to justify his predominant place in English literature, and that we must turn to his humble, much-ridiculed biographer for the real explanation. And then there was his talk. What was it which gave it such distinction? His clear-cut positiveness upon every subject. But this is a sign of a narrow finality--impossible to the man of sympathy and of imagination, who sees the other side of every question and understands what a little island the greatest human knowledge must be in the ocean of infinite possibilities which surround us. Look at the results. Did ever any single man, the very dullest of the race, stand convicted of so many incredible blunders? It recalls the remark of Bagehot, that if at any time the views of the most learned could be stamped upon the whole human race the result would be to propagate the most absurd errors. He was asked what became of swallows in the winter. Rolling and wheezing, the oracle answered: "Swallows," said he, "certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water and lie in the bed of a river." Boswell gravely dockets the information. However, if I remember right, even so sound a naturalist as White of Selborne had his doubts about the swallows. More wonderful are Johnson's misjudgments of his fellow-authors. There, if anywhere, one would have expected to find a sense of proportion. Yet his conclusions would seem monstrous to a modern taste. "Shakespeare," he said, "never wrote six consecutive good lines." He would only admit two good verses in Gray's exquisite "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," where it would take a very acid critic to find two bad ones. "Tristram Shandy" would not live. "Hamlet" was gabble. Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" was poor stuff, and he never wrote anything good except "A Tale of a Tub." Voltaire was illiterate. Rousseau was a scoundrel. Deists, like Hume, Priestley, or Gibbon, could not be honest men. And his political opinions! They sound now like a caricature. I suppose even in those days they were reactionary. "A poor man has no honour." "Charles the Second was a good King." "Governments should turn out of the Civil Service all who were on the other side." "Judges in India should be encouraged to trade." "No country is the richer on account of trade." (I wonder if Adam Smith was in the company when this proposition was laid down!) "A landed proprietor should turn out those tenants who did not vote as he wished." "It is not good for a labourer to have his wages raised." "When the balance of trade is against a country, the margin must be paid in current coin." Those were a few of his convictions. And then his prejudices! Most of us have some unreasoning aversion. In our more generous moments we are not proud of it. But consider those of Johnson! When they were all eliminated there was not so very much left. He hated Whigs. He disliked Scotsmen. He detested Nonconformists (a young lady who joined them was "an odious wench"). He loathed Americans. So he walked his narrow line, belching fire and fury at everything to the right or the left of it. Macaulay's posthumous admiration is all very well, but had they met in life Macaulay would have contrived to unite under one hat nearly everything that Johnson abominated. It cannot be said that these prejudices were founded on any strong principle, or that they could not be altered where his own personal interests demanded it. This is one of the weak points of his record. In his dictionary he abused pensions and pensioners as a means by which the State imposed slavery upon hirelings. When he wrote the unfortunate definition a pension must have seemed a most improbable contingency, but when George III., either through policy or charity, offered him one a little later, he made no hesitation in accepting it. One would have liked to feel that the violent expression of his convictions represented a real intensity of feeling, but the facts in this instance seem against it. He was a great talker--but his talk was more properly a monologue. It was a discursive essay, with perhaps a few marginal notes from his subdued audience. How could one talk on equal terms with a man who could not brook contradiction or even argument upon the most vital questions in life? Would Goldsmith defend his literary views, or Burke his Whiggism, or Gibbon his Deism? There was no common ground of philosophic toleration on which one could stand. If he could not argue he would be rude, or, as Goldsmith put it: "If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end." In the face of that "rhinoceros laugh" there was an end of gentle argument. Napoleon said that all the other kings would say "Ouf!" when they heard he was dead, and so I cannot help thinking that the older men of Johnson's circle must have given a sigh of relief when at last they could speak freely on that which was near their hearts, without the danger of a scene where "Why, no, sir!" was very likely to ripen into "Let us have no more on't!" Certainly one would like to get behind Boswell's account, and to hear a chat between such men as Burke and Reynolds, as to the difference in the freedom and atmosphere of the Club on an evening when the formidable Doctor was not there, as compared to one when he was. No smallest estimate of his character is fair which does not make due allowance for the terrible experiences of his youth and early middle age. His spirit was as scarred as his face. He was fifty-three when the pension was given him, and up to then his existence had been spent in one constant struggle for the first necessities of life, for the daily meal and the nightly bed. He had seen his comrades of letters die of actual privation. From childhood he had known no happiness. The half blind gawky youth, with dirty linen and twitching limbs, had always, whether in the streets of Lichfield, the quadrangle of Pembroke, or the coffee-houses of London, been an object of mingled pity and amusement. With a proud and sensitive soul, every day of his life must have brought some bitter humiliation. Such an experience must either break a man's spirit or embitter it, and here, no doubt, was the secret of that roughness, that carelessness for the sensibilities of others, which caused Boswell's father to christen him "Ursa Major." If his nature was in any way warped, it must be admitted that terrific forces had gone to the rending of it. His good was innate, his evil the result of a dreadful experience. And he had some great qualities. Memory was the chief of them. He had read omnivorously, and all that he had read he remembered, not merely in the vague, general way in which we remember what we read, but with every particular of place and date. If it were poetry, he could quote it by the page, Latin or English. Such a memory has its enormous advantage, but it carries with it its corresponding defect. With the mind so crammed with other people's goods, how can you have room for any fresh manufactures of your own? A great memory is, I think, often fatal to originality, in spite of Scott and some other exceptions. The slate must be clear before you put your own writing upon it. When did Johnson ever discover an original thought, when did he ever reach forward into the future, or throw any fresh light upon those enigmas with which mankind is faced? Overloaded with the past, he had space for nothing else. Modern developments of every sort cast no first herald rays upon his mind. He journeyed in France a few years before the greatest cataclysm that the world has ever known, and his mind, arrested by much that was trivial, never once responded to the storm-signals which must surely have been visible around him. We read that an amiable Monsieur Sansterre showed him over his brewery and supplied him with statistics as to his output of beer. It was the same foul-mouthed Sansterre who struck up the drums to drown Louis' voice at the scaffold. The association shows how near the unconscious sage was to the edge of that precipice and how little his learning availed him in discerning it. He would have been a great lawyer or divine. Nothing, one would think, could have kept him from Canterbury or from the Woolsack. In either case his memory, his learning, his dignity, and his inherent sense of piety and justice, would have sent him straight to the top. His brain, working within its own limitations, was remarkable. There is no more wonderful proof of this than his opinions on questions of Scotch law, as given to Boswell and as used by the latter before the Scotch judges. That an outsider with no special training should at short notice write such weighty opinions, crammed with argument and reason, is, I think, as remarkable a tour de force as literature can show. Above all, he really was a very kind-hearted man, and that must count for much. His was a large charity, and it came from a small purse. The rooms of his house became a sort of harbour of refuge in which several strange battered hulks found their last moorings. There were the blind Mr. Levett, and the acidulous Mrs. Williams, and the colourless Mrs. De Moulins, all old and ailing--a trying group amid which to spend one's days. His guinea was always ready for the poor acquaintance, and no poet was so humble that he might not preface his book with a dedication whose ponderous and sonorous sentences bore the hall-mark of their maker. It is the rough, kindly man, the man who bore the poor street-walker home upon his shoulders, who makes one forget, or at least forgive, the dogmatic pedantic Doctor of the Club. There is always to me something of interest in the view which a great man takes of old age and death. It is the practical test of how far the philosophy of his life has been a sound one. Hume saw death afar, and met it with unostentatious calm. Johnson's mind flinched from that dread opponent. His letters and his talk during his latter years are one long cry of fear. It was not cowardice, for physically he was one of the most stout-hearted men that ever lived. There were no limits to his courage. It was spiritual diffidence, coupled with an actual belief in the possibilities of the other world, which a more humane and liberal theology has done something to soften. How strange to see him cling so desperately to that crazy body, with its gout, its asthma, its St. Vitus' dance, and its six gallons of dropsy! What could be the attraction of an existence where eight hours of every day were spent groaning in a chair, and sixteen wheezing in a bed? "I would give one of these legs," said he, "for another year of life." None the less, when the hour did at last strike, no man could have borne himself with more simple dignity and courage. Say what you will of him, and resent him how you may, you can never open those four grey volumes without getting some mental stimulus, some desire for wider reading, some insight into human learning or character, which should leave you a better and a wiser man. IV. Next to my Johnsoniana are my Gibbons--two editions, if you please, for my old complete one being somewhat crabbed in the print I could not resist getting a set of Bury's new six-volume presentment of the History. In reading that book you don't want to be handicapped in any way. You want fair type, clear paper, and a light volume. You are not to read it lightly, but with some earnestness of purpose and keenness for knowledge, with a classical atlas at your elbow and a note-book hard by, taking easy stages and harking back every now and then to keep your grip of the past and to link it up with what follows. There are no thrills in it. You won't be kept out of your bed at night, nor will you forget your appointments during the day, but you will feel a certain sedate pleasure in the doing of it, and when it is done you will have gained something which you can never lose--something solid, something definite, something that will make you broader and deeper than before. Were I condemned to spend a year upon a desert island and allowed only one book for my companion, it is certainly that which I should choose. For consider how enormous is its scope, and what food for thought is contained within those volumes. It covers a thousand years of the world's history, it is full and good and accurate, its standpoint is broadly philosophic, its style dignified. With our more elastic methods we may consider his manner pompous, but he lived in an age when Johnson's turgid periods had corrupted our literature. For my own part I do not dislike Gibbon's pomposity. A paragraph should be measured and sonorous if it ventures to describe the advance of a Roman legion, or the debate of a Greek Senate. You are wafted upwards, with this lucid and just spirit by your side upholding and instructing you. Beneath you are warring nations, the clash of races, the rise and fall of dynasties, the conflict of creeds. Serene you float above them all, and ever as the panorama flows past, the weighty measured unemotional voice whispers the true meaning of the scene into your ear. It is a most mighty story that is told. You begin with a description of the state of the Roman Empire when the early Caesars were on the throne, and when it was undisputed mistress of the world. You pass down the line of the Emperors with their strange alternations of greatness and profligacy, descending occasionally to criminal lunacy. When the Empire went rotten it began at the top, and it took centuries to corrupt the man behind the spear. Neither did a religion of peace affect him much, for, in spite of the adoption of Christianity, Roman history was still written in blood. The new creed had only added a fresh cause of quarrel and violence to the many which already existed, and the wars of angry nations were mild compared to those of excited sectaries. Then came the mighty rushing wind from without, blowing from the waste places of the world, destroying, confounding, whirling madly through the old order, leaving broken chaos behind it, but finally cleansing and purifying that which was stale and corrupt. A storm-centre somewhere in the north of China did suddenly what it may very well do again. The human volcano blew its top off, and Europe was covered by the destructive debris. The absurd point is that it was not the conquerors who overran the Roman Empire, but it was the terrified fugitives, who, like a drove of stampeded cattle, blundered over everything which barred their way. It was a wild, dramatic time--the time of the formation of the modern races of Europe. The nations came whirling in out of the north and east like dust-storms, and amid the seeming chaos each was blended with its neighbour so as to toughen the fibre of the whole. The fickle Gaul got his steadying from the Franks, the steady Saxon got his touch of refinement from the Norman, the Italian got a fresh lease of life from the Lombard and the Ostrogoth, the corrupt Greek made way for the manly and earnest Mahommedan. Everywhere one seems to see a great hand blending the seeds. And so one can now, save only that emigration has taken the place of war. It does not, for example, take much prophetic power to say that something very great is being built up on the other side of the Atlantic. When on an Anglo-Celtic basis you see the Italian, the Hun, and the Scandinavian being added, you feel that there is no human quality which may not be thereby evolved. But to revert to Gibbon: the next stage is the flight of Empire from Rome to Byzantium, even as the Anglo-Celtic power might find its centre some day not in London but in Chicago or Toronto. There is the whole strange story of the tidal wave of Mahommedanism from the south, submerging all North Africa, spreading right and left to India on the one side and to Spain on the other, finally washing right over the walls of Byzantium until it, the bulwark of Christianity, became what it is now, the advanced European fortress of the Moslem. Such is the tremendous narrative covering half the world's known history, which can all be acquired and made part of yourself by the aid of that humble atlas, pencil, and note-book already recommended. When all is so interesting it is hard to pick examples, but to me there has always seemed to be something peculiarly impressive in the first entrance of a new race on to the stage of history. It has something of the glamour which hangs round the early youth of a great man. You remember how the Russians made their debut--came down the great rivers and appeared at the Bosphorus in two hundred canoes, from which they endeavoured to board the Imperial galleys. Singular that a thousand years have passed and that the ambition of the Russians is still to carry out the task at which their skin-clad ancestors failed. Or the Turks again; you may recall the characteristic ferocity with which they opened their career. A handful of them were on some mission to the Emperor. The town was besieged from the landward side by the barbarians, and the Asiatics obtained leave to take part in a skirmish. The first Turk galloped out, shot a barbarian with his arrow, and then, lying down beside him, proceeded to suck his blood, which so horrified the man's comrades that they could not be brought to face such uncanny adversaries. So, from opposite sides, those two great races arrived at the city which was to be the stronghold of the one and the ambition of the other for so many centuries. And then, even more interesting than the races which arrive are those that disappear. There is something there which appeals most powerfully to the imagination. Take, for example, the fate of those Vandals who conquered the north of Africa. They were a German tribe, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired, from somewhere in the Elbe country. Suddenly they, too, were seized with the strange wandering madness which was epidemic at the time. Away they went on the line of least resistance, which is always from north to south and from east to west. South-west was the course of the Vandals--a course which must have been continued through pure love of adventure, since in the thousands of miles which they traversed there were many fair resting-places, if that were only their quest. They crossed the south of France, conquered Spain, and, finally, the more adventurous passed over into Africa, where they occupied the old Roman province. For two or three generations they held it, much as the English hold India, and their numbers were at the least some hundreds of thousands. Presently the Roman Empire gave one of those flickers which showed that there was still some fire among the ashes. Belisarius landed in Africa and reconquered the province. The Vandals were cut off from the sea and fled inland. Whither did they carry those blue eyes and that flaxen hair? Were they exterminated by the negroes, or did they amalgamate with them? Travellers have brought back stories from the Mountains of the Moon of a Negroid race with light eyes and hair. Is it possible that here we have some trace of the vanished Germans? It recalls the parallel case of the lost settlements in Greenland. That also has always seemed to me to be one of the most romantic questions in history--the more so, perhaps, as I have strained my eyes to see across the ice-floes the Greenland coast at the point (or near it) where the old "Eyrbyggia" must have stood. That was the Scandinavian city, founded by colonists from Iceland, which grew to be a considerable place, so much so that they sent to Denmark for a bishop. That would be in the fourteenth century. The bishop, coming out to his see, found that he was unable to reach it on account of a climatic change which had brought down the ice and filled the strait between Iceland and Greenland. From that day to this no one has been able to say what has become of these old Scandinavians, who were at the time, be it remembered, the most civilized and advanced race in Europe. They may have been overwhelmed by the Esquimaux, the despised Skroeling--or they may have amalgamated with them--or conceivably they might have held their own. Very little is known yet of that portion of the coast. It would be strange if some Nansen or Peary were to stumble upon the remains of the old colony, and find possibly in that antiseptic atmosphere a complete mummy of some bygone civilization. But once more to return to Gibbon. What a mind it must have been which first planned, and then, with the incessant labour of twenty years, carried out that enormous work! There was no classical author so little known, no Byzantine historian so diffuse, no monkish chronicle so crabbed, that they were not assimilated and worked into their appropriate place in the huge framework. Great application, great perseverance, great attention to detail was needed in all this, but the coral polyp has all those qualities, and somehow in the heart of his own creation the individuality of the man himself becomes as insignificant and as much overlooked as that of the little creature that builds the reef. A thousand know Gibbon's work for one who cares anything for Gibbon. And on the whole this is justified by the facts. Some men are greater than their work. Their work only represents one facet of their character, and there may be a dozen others, all remarkable, and uniting to make one complex and unique creature. It was not so with Gibbon. He was a cold-blooded man, with a brain which seemed to have grown at the expense of his heart. I cannot recall in his life one generous impulse, one ardent enthusiasm, save for the Classics. His excellent judgment was never clouded by the haze of human emotion--or, at least, it was such an emotion as was well under the control of his will. Could anything be more laudable--or less lovable? He abandons his girl at the order of his father, and sums it up that he "sighs as a lover but obeys as a son." The father dies, and he records the fact with the remark that "the tears of a son are seldom lasting." The terrible spectacle of the French Revolution excited in his mind only a feeling of self-pity because his retreat in Switzerland was invaded by the unhappy refugees, just as a grumpy country gentleman in England might complain that he was annoyed by the trippers. There is a touch of dislike in all the allusions which Boswell makes to Gibbon--often without even mentioning his name--and one cannot read the great historian's life without understanding why. I should think that few men have been born with the material for self-sufficient contentment more completely within himself than Edward Gibbon. He had every gift which a great scholar should have, an insatiable thirst for learning in every form, immense industry, a retentive memory, and that broadly philosophic temperament which enables a man to rise above the partisan and to become the impartial critic of human affairs. It is true that at the time he was looked upon as bitterly prejudiced in the matter of religious thought, but his views are familiar to modern philosophy, and would shock no susceptibilities in these more liberal (and more virtuous) days. Turn him up in that Encyclopedia, and see what the latest word is upon his contentions. "Upon the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters it is not necessary to dwell," says the biographer, "because at this time of day no Christian apologist dreams of denying the substantial truth of any of the more important allegations of Gibbon. Christians may complain of the suppression of some circumstances which might influence the general result, and they must remonstrate against the unfair construction of their case. But they no longer refuse to hear any reasonable evidence tending to show that persecution was less severe than had been once believed, and they have slowly learned that they can afford to concede the validity of all the secondary causes assigned by Gibbon and even of others still more discreditable. The fact is, as the historian has again and again admitted, that his account of the secondary causes which contributed to the progress and establishment of Christianity leaves the question as to the natural or supernatural origin of Christianity practically untouched." This is all very well, but in that case how about the century of abuse which has been showered upon the historian? Some posthumous apology would seem to be called for. Physically, Gibbon was as small as Johnson was large, but there was a curious affinity in their bodily ailments. Johnson, as a youth, was ulcerated and tortured by the king's evil, in spite of the Royal touch. Gibbon gives us a concise but lurid account of his own boyhood. "I was successively afflicted by lethargies and fevers, by opposite tendencies to a consumptive and dropsical habit, by a contraction of my nerves, a fistula in my eye, and the bite of a dog, most vehemently suspected of madness. Every practitioner was called to my aid, the fees of the doctors were swelled by the bills of the apothecaries and surgeons. There was a time when I swallowed more physic than food, and my body is still marked by the indelible scars of lancets, issues, and caustics." Such is his melancholy report. The fact is that the England of that day seems to have been very full of that hereditary form of chronic ill-health which we call by the general name of struma. How far the hard-drinking habits in vogue for a century or so before had anything to do with it I cannot say, nor can I trace a connection between struma and learning; but one has only to compare this account of Gibbon with Johnson's nervous twitches, his scarred face and his St. Vitus' dance, to realize that these, the two most solid English writers of their generation, were each heir to the same gruesome inheritance. I wonder if there is any picture extant of Gibbon in the character of subaltern in the South Hampshire Militia? With his small frame, his huge head, his round, chubby face, and the pretentious uniform, he must have looked a most extraordinary figure. Never was there so round a peg in a square hole! His father, a man of a very different type, held a commission, and this led to poor Gibbon becoming a soldier in spite of himself. War had broken out, the regiment was mustered, and the unfortunate student, to his own utter dismay, was kept under arms until the conclusion of hostilities. For three years he was divorced from his books, and loudly and bitterly did he resent it. The South Hampshire Militia never saw the enemy, which is perhaps as well for them. Even Gibbon himself pokes fun at them; but after three years under canvas it is probable that his men had more cause to smile at their book-worm captain than he at his men. His hand closed much more readily on a pen-handle than on a sword-hilt. In his lament, one of the items is that his colonel's example encouraged the daily practice of hard and even excessive drinking, which gave him the gout. "The loss of so many busy and idle hours were not compensated for by any elegant pleasure," says he; "and my temper was insensibly soured by the society of rustic officers, who were alike deficient in the knowledge of scholars and the manners of gentlemen." The picture of Gibbon flushed with wine at the mess-table, with these hard-drinking squires around him, must certainly have been a curious one. He admits, however, that he found consolations as well as hardships in his spell of soldiering. It made him an Englishman once more, it improved his health, it changed the current of his thoughts. It was even useful to him as an historian. In a celebrated and characteristic sentence, he says, "The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the Phalanx and the Legions, and the captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire." If we don't know all about Gibbon it is not his fault, for he wrote no fewer than six accounts of his own career, each differing from the other, and all equally bad. A man must have more heart and soul than Gibbon to write a good autobiography. It is the most difficult of all human compositions, calling for a mixture of tact, discretion, and frankness which make an almost impossible blend. Gibbon, in spite of his foreign education, was a very typical Englishman in many ways, with the reticence, self-respect, and self-consciousness of the race. No British autobiography has ever been frank, and consequently no British autobiography has ever been good. Trollope's, perhaps, is as good as any that I know, but of all forms of literature it is the one least adapted to the national genius. You could not imagine a British Rousseau, still less a British Benvenuto Cellini. In one way it is to the credit of the race that it should be so. If we do as much evil as our neighbours we at least have grace enough to be ashamed of it and to suppress its publication. There on the left of Gibbon is my fine edition (Lord Braybrooke's) of Pepys' Diary. That is, in truth, the greatest autobiography in our language, and yet it was not deliberately written as such. When Mr. Pepys jotted down from day to day every quaint or mean thought which came into his head he would have been very much surprised had any one told him that he was doing a work quite unique in our literature. Yet his involuntary autobiography, compiled for some obscure reason or for private reference, but certainly never meant for publication, is as much the first in that line of literature as Boswell's book among biographies or Gibbon's among histories. As a race we are too afraid of giving ourselves away ever to produce a good autobiography. We resent the charge of national hypocrisy, and yet of all nations we are the least frank as to our own emotions--especially on certain sides of them. Those affairs of the heart, for example, which are such an index to a man's character, and so profoundly modify his life--what space do they fill in any man's autobiography? Perhaps in Gibbon's case the omission matters little, for, save in the instance of his well-controlled passion for the future Madame Neckar, his heart was never an organ which gave him much trouble. The fact is that when the British author tells his own story he tries to make himself respectable, and the more respectable a man is the less interesting does he become. Rousseau may prove himself a maudlin degenerate. Cellini may stand self-convicted as an amorous ruffian. If they are not respectable they are thoroughly human and interesting all the same. The wonderful thing about Mr. Pepys is that a man should succeed in making himself seem so insignificant when really he must have been a man of considerable character and attainments. Who would guess it who read all these trivial comments, these catalogues of what he had for dinner, these inane domestic confidences--all the more interesting for their inanity! The effect left upon the mind is of some grotesque character in a play, fussy, self-conscious, blustering with women, timid with men, dress-proud, purse-proud, trimming in politics and in religion, a garrulous gossip immersed always in trifles. And yet, though this was the day-by-day man, the year-by-year man was a very different person, a devoted civil servant, an eloquent orator, an excellent writer, a capable musician, and a ripe scholar who accumulated 3000 volumes--a large private library in those days--and had the public spirit to leave them all to his University. You can forgive old Pepys a good deal of his philandering when you remember that he was the only official of the Navy Office who stuck to his post during the worst days of the Plague. He may have been--indeed, he assuredly was--a coward, but the coward who has sense of duty enough to overcome his cowardice is the most truly brave of mankind. But the one amazing thing which will never be explained about Pepys is what on earth induced him to go to the incredible labour of writing down in shorthand cipher not only all the trivialities of his life, but even his own very gross delinquencies which any other man would have been only too glad to forget. The Diary was kept for about ten years, and was abandoned because the strain upon his eyes of the crabbed shorthand was helping to destroy his sight. I suppose that he became so familiar with it that he wrote it and read it as easily as he did ordinary script. But even so, it was a huge labour to compile these books of strange manuscript. Was it an effort to leave some memorial of his own existence to single him out from all the countless sons of men? In such a case he would assuredly have left directions in somebody's care with a reference to it in the deed by which he bequeathed his library to Cambridge. In that way he could have ensured having his Diary read at any date he chose to name after his death. But no allusion to it was left, and if it had not been for the ingenuity and perseverance of a single scholar the dusty volumes would still lie unread in some top shelf of the Pepysian Library. Publicity, then, was not his object. What could it have been? The only alternative is reference and self-information. You will observe in his character a curious vein of method and order, by which he loved, to be for ever estimating his exact wealth, cataloguing his books, or scheduling his possessions. It is conceivable that this systematic recording of his deeds--even of his misdeeds--was in some sort analogous, sprung from a morbid tidiness of mind. It may be a weak explanation, but it is difficult to advance another one. One minor point which must strike the reader of Pepys is how musical a nation the English of that day appear to have been. Every one seems to have had command of some instrument, many of several. Part-singing was common. There is not much of Charles the Second's days which we need envy, but there, at least, they seem to have had the advantage of us. It was real music, too--music of dignity and tenderness--with words which were worthy of such treatment. This cult may have been the last remains of those mediaeval pre-Reformation days when the English Church choirs were, as I have read somewhere, the most famous in Europe. A strange thing this for a land which in the whole of last century has produced no single master of the first rank! What national change is it which has driven music from the land? Has life become so serious that song has passed out of it? In Southern climes one hears poor folk sing for pure lightness of heart. In England, alas, the sound of a poor man's voice raised in song means only too surely that he is drunk. And yet it is consoling to know that the germ of the old powers is always there ready to sprout forth if they be nourished and cultivated. If our cathedral choirs were the best in the old Catholic days, it is equally true, I believe, that our orchestral associations are now the best in Europe. So, at least, the German papers said on the occasion of the recent visit of a north of England choir. But one cannot read Pepys without knowing that the general musical habit is much less cultivated now than of old. V. It is a long jump from Samuel Pepys to George Borrow--from one pole of the human character to the other--and yet they are in contact on the shelf of my favourite authors. There is something wonderful, I think, about the land of Cornwall. That long peninsula extending out into the ocean has caught all sorts of strange floating things, and has held them there in isolation until they have woven themselves into the texture of the Cornish race. What is this strange strain which lurks down yonder and every now and then throws up a great man with singular un-English ways and features for all the world to marvel at? It is not Celtic, nor is it the dark old Iberian. Further and deeper lie the springs. Is it not Semitic, Phoenician, the roving men of Tyre, with noble Southern faces and Oriental imaginations, who have in far-off days forgotten their blue Mediterranean and settled on the granite shores of the Northern Sea? Whence came the wonderful face and great personality of Henry Irving? How strong, how beautiful, how un-Saxon it was! I only know that his mother was a Cornish woman. Whence came the intense glowing imagination of the Brontes--so unlike the Miss-Austen-like calm of their predecessors? Again, I only know that their mother was a Cornish woman. Whence came this huge elfin creature, George Borrow, with his eagle head perched on his rocklike shoulders, brown-faced, white-headed, a king among men? Where did he get that remarkable face, those strange mental gifts, which place him by himself in literature? Once more, his father was a Cornishman. Yes, there is something strange, and weird, and great, lurking down yonder in the great peninsula which juts into the western sea. Borrow may, if he so pleases, call himself an East Anglian--"an English Englishman," as he loved to term it--but is it a coincidence that the one East Anglian born of Cornish blood was the one who showed these strange qualities? The birth was accidental. The qualities throw back to the twilight of the world. There are some authors from whom I shrink because they are so voluminous that I feel that, do what I may, I can never hope to be well read in their works. Therefore, and very weakly, I avoid them altogether. There is Balzac, for example, with his hundred odd volumes. I am told that some of them are masterpieces and the rest pot-boilers, but that no one is agreed which is which. Such an author makes an undue claim upon the little span of mortal years. Because he asks too much one is inclined to give him nothing at all. Dumas, too! I stand on the edge of him, and look at that huge crop, and content myself with a sample here and there. But no one could raise this objection to Borrow. A month's reading--even for a leisurely reader--will master all that he has written. There are "Lavengro," "The Bible in Spain," "Romany Rye," and, finally, if you wish to go further, "Wild Wales." Only four books--not much to found a great reputation upon--but, then, there are no other four books quite like them in the language. He was a very strange man, bigoted, prejudiced, obstinate, inclined to be sulky, as wayward as a man could be. So far his catalogue of qualities does not seem to pick him as a winner. But he had one great and rare gift. He preserved through all his days a sense of the great wonder and mystery of life--the child sense which is so quickly dulled. Not only did he retain it himself, but he was word-master enough to make other people hark back to it also. As he writes you cannot help seeing through his eyes, and nothing which his eyes saw or his ear heard was ever dull or commonplace. It was all strange, mystic, with some deeper meaning struggling always to the light. If he chronicled his conversation with a washer-woman there was something arresting in the words he said, something singular in her reply. If he met a man in a public-house one felt, after reading his account, that one would wish to know more of that man. If he approached a town he saw and made you see--not a collection of commonplace houses or frowsy streets, but something very strange and wonderful, the winding river, the noble bridge, the old castle, the shadows of the dead. Every human being, every object, was not so much a thing in itself, as a symbol and reminder of the past. He looked through a man at that which the man represented. Was his name Welsh? Then in an instant the individual is forgotten and he is off, dragging you in his train, to ancient Britons, intrusive Saxons, unheard-of bards, Owen Glendower, mountain raiders and a thousand fascinating things. Or is it a Danish name? He leaves the individual in all his modern commonplace while he flies off to huge skulls at Hythe (in parenthesis I may remark that I have examined the said skulls with some care, and they seemed to me to be rather below the human average), to Vikings, Berserkers, Varangians, Harald Haardraada, and the innate wickedness of the Pope. To Borrow all roads lead to Rome. But, my word, what English the fellow could write! What an organ-roll he could get into his sentences! How nervous and vital and vivid it all is! There is music in every line of it if you have been blessed with an ear for the music of prose. Take the chapter in "Lavengro" of how the screaming horror came upon his spirit when he was encamped in the Dingle. The man who wrote that has caught the true mantle of Bunyan and Defoe. And, observe the art of it, under all the simplicity--notice, for example, the curious weird effect produced by the studied repetition of the word "dingle" coming ever round and round like the master-note in a chime. Or take the passage about Britain towards the end of "The Bible in Spain." I hate quoting from these masterpieces, if only for the very selfish reason that my poor setting cannot afford to show up brilliants. None the less, cost what it may, let me transcribe that one noble piece of impassioned prose-- "O England! long, long may it be ere the sun of thy glory sink beneath the wave of darkness! Though gloomy and portentous clouds are now gathering rapidly around thee, still, still may it please the Almighty to disperse them, and to grant thee a futurity longer in duration and still brighter in renown than thy past! Or, if thy doom be at hand, may that doom be a noble one, and worthy of her who has been styled the Old Queen of the waters! May thou sink, if thou dost sink, amidst blood and flame, with a mighty noise, causing more than one nation to participate in thy downfall! Of all fates, may it please the Lord to preserve thee from a disgraceful and a slow decay; becoming, ere extinct, a scorn and a mockery for those self-same foes who now, though they envy and abhor thee, still fear thee, nay even against their will, honour and respect thee.... Remove from thee the false prophets, who have seen vanity and divined lies; who have daubed thy wall with untempered mortar, that it may fall; who see visions of peace where there is no peace; who have strengthened the hands of the wicked, and made the heart of the righteous sad. Oh, do this, and fear not the result, for either shall thy end be a majestic and an enviable one; or God shall perpetuate thy reign upon the waters, thou Old Queen!" Or take the fight with the Flaming Tinman. It's too long for quotation--but read it, read every word of it. Where in the language can you find a stronger, more condensed and more restrained narrative? I have seen with my own eyes many a noble fight, more than one international battle, where the best of two great countries have been pitted against each other--yet the second-hand impression of Borrow's description leaves a more vivid remembrance upon my mind than any of them. This is the real witchcraft of letters. He was a great fighter himself. He has left a secure reputation in other than literary circles--circles which would have been amazed to learn that he was a writer of books. With his natural advantages, his six foot three of height and his staglike agility, he could hardly fail to be formidable. But he was a scientific sparrer as well, though he had, I have been told, a curious sprawling fashion of his own. And how his heart was in it--how he loved the fighting men! You remember his thumb-nail sketches of his heroes. If you don't I must quote one, and if you do you will be glad to read it again-- "There's Cribb, the Champion of England, and perhaps the best man in England; there he is, with his huge, massive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a lion. There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one, who is gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific pugilist that ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be I won't say what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did that evening, with his white hat, white great coat, thin genteel figure, springy step, and keen determined eye. Crosses him, what a contrast! Grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word for nobody, and a hard blow for anybody. Hard! One blow given with the proper play of his athletic arm will unsense a giant. Yonder individual, who strolls about with his hands behind him, supporting his brown coat lappets, undersized, and who looks anything but what he is, is the king of the light-weights, so-called--Randall! The terrible Randall, who has Irish blood in his veins; not the better for that, nor the worse; and not far from him is his last antagonist, Ned Turner, who, though beaten by him, still thinks himself as good a man, in which he is, perhaps, right, for it was a near thing. But how shall I name them all? They were there by dozens, and all tremendous in their way. There was Bulldog Hudson, and fearless Scroggins, who beat the conqueror of Sam the Jew. There was Black Richmond--no, he was not there, but I knew him well; he was the most dangerous of blacks, even with a broken thigh. There was Purcell, who could never conquer until all seemed over with him. There was--what! shall I name thee last? Ay, why not? I believe that thou art the last of all that strong family still above the sod, where mayst thou long continue--true piece of English stuff--Tom of Bedford. Hail to thee, Tom of Bedford, or by whatever name it may please thee to be called, Spring or Winter! Hail to thee, six-foot Englishman of the brown eye, worthy to have carried a six-foot bow at Flodden, where England's yeomen triumphed over Scotland's King, his clans and chivalry. Hail to thee, last of English bruisers, after all the many victories which thou hast achieved--true English victories, unbought by yellow gold." Those are words from the heart. Long may it be before we lose the fighting blood which has come to us from of old! In a world of peace we shall at last be able to root it from our natures. In a world which is armed to the teeth it is the last and only guarantee of our future. Neither our numbers, nor our wealth, nor the waters which guard us can hold us safe if once the old iron passes from our spirit. Barbarous, perhaps--but there are possibilities for barbarism, and none in this wide world for effeminacy. Borrow's views of literature and of literary men were curious. Publisher and brother author, he hated them with a fine comprehensive hatred. In all his books I cannot recall a word of commendation to any living writer, nor has he posthumous praise for those of the generation immediately preceding. Southey, indeed, he commends with what most would regard as exaggerated warmth, but for the rest he who lived when Dickens, Thackeray, and Tennyson were all in their glorious prime, looks fixedly past them at some obscure Dane or forgotten Welshman. The reason was, I expect, that his proud soul was bitterly wounded by his own early failures and slow recognition. He knew himself to be a chief in the clan, and when the clan heeded him not he withdrew in haughty disdain. Look at his proud, sensitive face and you hold the key to his life. Harking back and talking of pugilism, I recall an incident which gave me pleasure. A friend of mine read a pugilistic novel called "Rodney Stone" to a famous Australian prize-fighter, stretched upon a bed of mortal sickness. The dying gladiator listened with intent interest but keen, professional criticism to the combats of the novel. The reader had got to the point where the young amateur fights the brutal Berks. Berks is winded, but holds his adversary off with a stiff left arm. The amateur's second in the story, an old prize-fighter, shouts some advice to him as to how to deal with the situation. "That's right. By --- he's got him!" yelled the stricken man in the bed. Who cares for critics after that? You can see my own devotion to the ring in that trio of brown volumes which stand, appropriately enough, upon the flank of Borrow. They are the three volumes of "Pugilistica," given me years ago by my old friend, Robert Barr, a mine in which you can never pick for half an hour without striking it rich. Alas! for the horrible slang of those days, the vapid witless Corinthian talk, with its ogles and its fogles, its pointless jokes, its maddening habit of italicizing a word or two in every sentence. Even these stern and desperate encounters, fit sports for the men of Albuera and Waterloo, become dull and vulgar, in that dreadful jargon. You have to tum to Hazlitt's account of the encounter between the Gasman and the Bristol Bull, to feel the savage strength of it all. It is a hardened reader who does not wince even in print before that frightful right-hander which felled the giant, and left him in "red ruin" from eyebrow to jaw. But even if there be no Hazlitt present to describe such a combat it is a poor imagination which is not fired by the deeds of the humble heroes who lived once so vividly upon earth, and now only appeal to faithful ones in these little-read pages. They were picturesque creatures, men of great force of character and will, who reached the limits of human bravery and endurance. There is Jackson on the cover, gold upon brown, "gentleman Jackson," Jackson of the balustrade calf and the noble head, who wrote his name with an 88-pound weight dangling from his little finger. Here is a pen-portrait of him by one who knew him well-- "I can see him now as I saw him in '84 walking down Holborn Hill, towards Smithfield. He had on a scarlet coat worked in gold at the buttonholes, ruffles and frill of fine lace, a small white stock, no collar (they were not then invented), a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches and long silk strings, striped white silk stockings, pumps and paste buckles; his waistcoat was pale blue satin, sprigged with white. It was impossible to look on his fine ample chest, his noble shoulders, his waist (if anything too small), his large but not too large hips, his balustrade calf and beautifully turned but not over delicate ankle, his firm foot and peculiarly small hand, without thinking that nature had sent him on earth as a model. On he went at a good five miles and a half an hour, the envy of all men and the admiration of all women." Now, that is a discriminating portrait--a portrait which really helps you to see that which the writer sets out to describe. After reading it one can understand why even in reminiscent sporting descriptions of those old days, amid all the Tonis and Bills and Jacks, it is always Mr. John Jackson. He was the friend and instructor of Byron and of half the bloods in town. Jackson it was who, in the heat of combat, seized the Jew Mendoza by the hair, and so ensured that the pugs for ever afterwards should be a close-cropped race. Inside you see the square face of old Broughton, the supreme fighting man of the eighteenth century, the man whose humble ambition it was to begin with the pivot man of the Prussian Guard, and work his way through the regiment. He had a chronicler, the good Captain Godfrey, who has written some English which would take some beating. How about this passage?-- "He stops as regularly as the swordsman, and carries his blows truly in the line; he steps not back distrusting of himself, to stop a blow, and puddle in the return, with an arm unaided by his body, producing but fly-flap blows. No! Broughton steps boldly and firmly in, bids a welcome to the coming blow; receives it with his guardian arm; then, with a general summons of his swelling muscles, and his firm body seconding his arm, and supplying it with all its weight, pours the pile-driving force upon his man." One would like a little more from the gallant Captain. Poor Broughton! He fought once too often. "Why, damn you, you're beat!" cried the Royal Duke. "Not beat, your highness, but I can't see my man!" cried the blinded old hero. Alas, there is the tragedy of the ring as it is of life! The wave of youth surges ever upwards, and the wave that went before is swept sobbing on to the shingle. "Youth will be served," said the terse old pugs. But what so sad as the downfall of the old champion! Wise Tom Spring--Tom of Bedford, as Borrow calls him--had the wit to leave the ring unconquered in the prime of his fame. Cribb also stood out as a champion. But Broughton, Slack, Belcher, and the rest--their end was one common tragedy. The latter days of the fighting men were often curious and unexpected, though as a rule they were short-lived, for the alternation of the excess of their normal existence and the asceticism of their training undermined their constitution. Their popularity among both men and women was their undoing, and the king of the ring went down at last before that deadliest of light-weights, the microbe of tubercle, or some equally fatal and perhaps less reputable bacillus. The crockiest of spectators had a better chance of life than the magnificent young athlete whom he had come to admire. Jem Belcher died at 30, Hooper at 31, Pearce, the Game Chicken, at 32, Turner at 35, Hudson at 38, Randall, the Nonpareil, at 34. Occasionally, when they did reach mature age, their lives took the strangest turns. Gully, as is well known, became a wealthy man, and Member for Pontefract in the Reform Parliament. Humphries developed into a successful coal merchant. Jack Martin became a convinced teetotaller and vegetarian. Jem Ward, the Black Diamond, developed considerable powers as an artist. Cribb, Spring, Langan, and many others, were successful publicans. Strangest of all, perhaps, was Broughton, who spent his old age haunting every sale of old pictures and bric-a-brac. One who saw him has recorded his impression of the silent old gentleman, clad in old-fashioned garb, with his catalogue in his hand--Broughton, once the terror of England, and now the harmless and gentle collector. Many of them, as was but natural, died violent deaths, some by accident and a few by their own hands. No man of the first class ever died in the ring. The nearest approach to it was the singular and mournful fate which befell Simon Byrne, the brave Irishman, who had the misfortune to cause the death of his antagonist, Angus Mackay, and afterwards met his own end at the hands of Deaf Burke. Neither Byrne nor Mackay could, however, be said to be boxers of the very first rank. It certainly would appear, if we may argue from the prize-ring, that the human machine becomes more delicate and is more sensitive to jar or shock. In the early days a fatal end to a fight was exceedingly rare. Gradually such tragedies became rather more common, until now even with the gloves they have shocked us by their frequency, and we feel that the rude play of our forefathers is indeed too rough for a more highly organized generation. Still, it may help us to clear our minds of cant if we remember that within two or three years the hunting-field and the steeple-chase claim more victims than the prize-ring has done in two centuries. Many of these men had served their country well with that strength and courage which brought them fame. Cribb was, if I mistake not, in the Royal Navy. So was the terrible dwarf Scroggins, all chest and shoulders, whose springing hits for many a year carried all before them until the canny Welshman, Ned Turner, stopped his career, only to be stopped in turn by the brilliant Irishman, Jack Randall. Shaw, who stood high among the heavy-weights, was cut to pieces by the French Cuirassiers in the first charge at Waterloo. The brutal Berks died greatly in the breach of Badajos. The lives of these men stood for something, and that was just the one supreme thing which the times called for--an unflinching endurance which could bear up against a world in arms. Look at Jem Belcher--beautiful, heroic Jem, a manlier Byron--but there, this is not an essay on the old prize-ring, and one man's lore is another man's bore. Let us pass those three low-down, unjustifiable, fascinating volumes, and on to nobler topics beyond! VI. Which are the great short stories of the English language? Not a bad basis for a debate! This I am sure of: that there are far fewer supremely good short stories than there are supremely good long books. It takes more exquisite skill to carve the cameo than the statue. But the strangest thing is that the two excellences seem to be separate and even antagonistic. Skill in the one by no means ensures skill in the other. The great masters of our literature, Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Reade, have left no single short story of outstanding merit behind them, with the possible exception of Wandering Willie's Tale in "Red Gauntlet." On the other hand, men who have been very great in the short story, Stevenson, Poe, and Bret Harte, have written no great book. The champion sprinter is seldom a five-miler as well. Well, now, if you had to choose your team whom would you put in? You have not really a large choice. What are the points by which you judge them? You want strength, novelty, compactness, intensity of interest, a single vivid impression left upon the mind. Poe is the master of all. I may remark by the way that it is the sight of his green cover, the next in order upon my favourite shelf, which has started this train of thought. Poe is, to my mind, the supreme original short story writer of all time. His brain was like a seed-pod full of seeds which flew carelessly around, and from which have sprung nearly all our modern types of story. Just think of what he did in his offhand, prodigal fashion, seldom troubling to repeat a success, but pushing on to some new achievement. To him must be ascribed the monstrous progeny of writers on the detection of crime--"quorum pars parva fui!" Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point. After all, mental acuteness is the one quality which can be ascribed to the ideal detective, and when that has once been admirably done, succeeding writers must necessarily be content for all time to follow in the same main track. But not only is Poe the originator of the detective story; all treasure-hunting, cryptogram-solving yarns trace back to his "Gold Bug," just as all pseudo-scientific Verne-and-Wells stories have their prototypes in the "Voyage to the Moon," and the "Case of Monsieur Valdemar." If every man who receives a cheque for a story which owes its springs to Poe were to pay tithe to a monument for the master, he would have a pyramid as big as that of Cheops. And yet I could only give him two places in my team. One would be for the "Gold Bug," the other for the "Murder in the Rue Morgue." I do not see how either of those could be bettered. But I would not admit _perfect_ excellence to any other of his stories. These two have a proportion and a perspective which are lacking in the others, the horror or weirdness of the idea intensified by the coolness of the narrator and of the principal actor, Dupin in the one case and Le Grand in the other. The same may be said of Bret Harte, also one of those great short story tellers who proved himself incapable of a longer flight. He was always like one of his own gold-miners who struck a rich pocket, but found no continuous reef. The pocket was, alas, a very limited one, but the gold was of the best. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "Tennessee's Partner" are both, I think, worthy of a place among my immortals. They are, it is true, so tinged with Dickens as to be almost parodies of the master, but they have a symmetry and satisfying completeness as short stories to which Dickens himself never attained. The man who can read those two stories without a gulp in the throat is not a man I envy. And Stevenson? Surely he shall have two places also, for where is a finer sense of what the short story can do? He wrote, in my judgment, two masterpieces in his life, and each of them is essentially a short story, though the one happened to be published as a volume. The one is "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," which, whether you take it as a vivid narrative or as a wonderfully deep and true allegory, is a supremely fine bit of work. The other story of my choice would be "The Pavilion on the Links"--the very model of dramatic narrative. That story stamped itself so clearly on my brain when I read it in Cornhill that when I came across it again many years afterwards in volume form, I was able instantly to recognize two small modifications of the text--each very much for the worse--from the original form. They were small things, but they seemed somehow like a chip on a perfect statue. Surely it is only a very fine work, of art which could leave so definite an impression as that. Of course, there are a dozen other of his stories which would put the average writer's best work to shame, all with the strange Stevenson glamour upon them, of which I may discourse later, but only to those two would I be disposed to admit that complete excellence which would pass them into such a team as this. And who else? If it be not an impertinence to mention a contemporary, I should certainly have a brace from Rudyard Kipling. His power, his compression, his dramatic sense, his way of glowing suddenly into a vivid flame, all mark him as a great master. But which are we to choose from that long and varied collection, many of which have claims to the highest? Speaking from memory, I should say that the stories of his which have impressed me most are "The Drums of the Fore and Aft," "The Man who Would be King," "The Man who Was," and "The Brushwood Boy." Perhaps, on the whole, it is the first two which I should choose to add to my list of masterpieces. They are stories which invite criticism and yet defy it. The great batsman at cricket is the man who can play an unorthodox game, take every liberty which is denied to inferior players, and yet succeed brilliantly in the face of his disregard of law. So it is here. I should think the model of these stories is the most dangerous that any young writer could follow. There is digression, that most deadly fault in the short narrative; there is incoherence, there is want of proportion which makes the story stand still for pages and bound forward in a few sentences. But genius overrides all that, just as the great cricketer hooks the off ball and glides the straight one to leg. There is a dash, an exuberance, a full-blooded, confident mastery which carries everything before it. Yes, no team of immortals would be complete which did not contain at least two representatives of Kipling. And now whom? Nathaniel Hawthorne never appealed in the highest degree to me. The fault, I am sure, is my own, but I always seemed to crave stronger fare than he gave me. It was too subtle, too elusive, for effect. Indeed, I have been more affected by some of the short work of his son Julian, though I can quite understand the high artistic claims which the senior writer has, and the delicate charm of his style. There is Bulwer Lytton as a claimant. His "Haunted and the Haunters" is the very best ghost story that I know. As such I should include it in my list. There was a story, too, in one of the old Blackwoods--"Metempsychosis" it was called, which left so deep an impression upon my mind that I should be inclined, though it is many years since I read it, to number it with the best. Another story which has the characteristics of great work is Grant Allen's "John Creedy." So good a story upon so philosophic a basis deserves a place among the best. There is some first-class work to be picked also from the contemporary work of Wells and of Quiller-Couch which reaches a high standard. One little sketch--"Old Oeson" in "Noughts and Crosses"--is, in my opinion, as good as anything of the kind which I have ever read. And all this didactic talk comes from looking at that old green cover of Poe. I am sure that if I had to name the few books which have really influenced my own life I should have to put this one second only to Macaulay's Essays. I read it young when my mind was plastic. It stimulated my imagination and set before me a supreme example of dignity and force in the methods of telling a story. It is not altogether a healthy influence, perhaps. It turns the thoughts too forcibly to the morbid and the strange. He was a saturnine creature, devoid of humour and geniality, with a love for the grotesque and the terrible. The reader must himself furnish the counteracting qualities or Poe may become a dangerous comrade. We know along what perilous tracks and into what deadly quagmires his strange mind led him, down to that grey October Sunday morning when he was picked up, a dying man, on the side-walk at Baltimore, at an age which should have seen him at the very prime of his strength and his manhood. I have said that I look upon Poe as the world's supreme short story writer. His nearest rival, I should say, was Maupassant. The great Norman never rose to the extreme force and originality of the American, but he had a natural inherited power, an inborn instinct towards the right way of making his effects, which mark him as a great master. He produced stories because it was in him to do so, as naturally and as perfectly as an apple tree produces apples. What a fine, sensitive, artistic touch it is! How easily and delicately the points are made! How clear and nervous is his style, and how free from that redundancy which disfigures so much of our English work! He pares it down to the quick all the time. I cannot write the name of Maupassant without recalling what was either a spiritual interposition or an extraordinary coincidence in my own life. I had been travelling in Switzerland and had visited, among other places, that Gemmi Pass, where a huge cliff separates a French from a German canton. On the summit of this cliff was a small inn, where we broke our journey. It was explained to us that, although the inn was inhabited all the year round, still for about three months in winter it was utterly isolated, because it could at any time only be approached by winding paths on the mountain side, and when these became obliterated by snow it was impossible either to come up or to descend. They could see the lights in the valley beneath them, but were as lonely as if they lived in the moon. So curious a situation naturally appealed to one's imagination, and I speedily began to build up a short story in my own mind, depending upon a group of strong antagonistic characters being penned up in this inn, loathing each other and yet utterly unable to get away from each other's society, every day bringing them nearer to tragedy. For a week or so, as I travelled, I was turning over the idea. At the end of that time I returned through France. Having nothing to read I happened to buy a volume of Maupassant's Tales which I had never seen before. The first story was called "L'Auberge" (The Inn)--and as I ran my eye down the printed page I was amazed to see the two words, "Kandersteg" and "Gemmi Pass." I settled down and read it with ever-growing amazement. The scene was laid in the inn I had visited. The plot depended on the isolation of a group of people through the snowfall. Everything that I imagined was there, save that Maupassant had brought in a savage hound. Of course, the genesis of the thing is clear enough. He had chanced to visit the inn, and had been impressed as I had been by the same train of thought. All that is quite intelligible. But what is perfectly marvellous is that in that short journey I should have chanced to buy the one book in all the world which would prevent me from making a public fool of myself, for who would ever have believed that my work was not an imitation? I do not think that the hypothesis of coincidence can cover the facts. It is one of several incidents in my life which have convinced me of spiritual interposition--of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves, which tries to help us where it can. The old Catholic doctrine of the Guardian Angel is not only a beautiful one, but has in it, I believe, a real basis of truth. Or is it that our subliminal ego, to use the jargon of the new psychology, or our astral, in the terms of the new theology, can learn and convey to the mind that which our own known senses are unable to apprehend? But that is too long a side track for us to turn down it. When Maupassant chose he could run Poe close in that domain of the strange and weird which the American had made so entirely his own. Have you read Maupassant's story called "Le Horla"? That is as good a bit of diablerie as you could wish for. And the Frenchman has, of course, far the broader range. He has a keen sense of humour, breaking out beyond all decorum in some of his stories, but giving a pleasant sub-flavour to all of them. And yet, when all is said, who can doubt that the austere and dreadful American is far the greater and more original mind of the two? Talking of weird American stories, have you ever read any of the works of Ambrose Bierce? I have one of his works there, "In the Midst of Life." This man had a flavour quite his own, and was a great artist in his way. It is not cheering reading, but it leaves its mark upon you, and that is the proof of good work. I have often wondered where Poe got his style. There is a sombre majesty about his best work, as if it were carved from polished jet, which is peculiarly his own. I dare say if I took down that volume I could light anywhere upon a paragraph which would show you what I mean. This is the kind of thing-- "Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi--in the iron-bound melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories of the heaven and of the earth, and of the mighty sea--and of the genius that overruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There were much lore, too, in the sayings which were said by the Sybils, and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves which trembled round Dodona, but as Allah liveth, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all." Or this sentence: "And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends." Is there not a sense of austere dignity? No man invents a style. It always derives back from some influence, or, as is more usual, it is a compromise between several influences. I cannot trace Poe's. And yet if Hazlitt and De Quincey had set forth to tell weird stories they might have developed something of the kind. Now, by your leave, we will pass on to my noble edition of "The Cloister and the Hearth," the next volume on the left. I notice, in glancing over my rambling remarks, that I classed "Ivanhoe" as the second historical novel of the century. I dare say there are many who would give "Esmond" the first place, and I can quite understand their position, although it is not my own. I recognize the beauty of the style, the consistency of the character-drawing, the absolutely perfect Queen Anne atmosphere. There was never an historical novel written by a man who knew his period so thoroughly. But, great as these virtues are, they are not the essential in a novel. The essential in a novel is interest, though Addison unkindly remarked that the real essential was that the pastrycooks should never run short of paper. Now "Esmond" is, in my opinion, exceedingly interesting during the campaigns in the Lowlands, and when our Machiavelian hero, the Duke, comes in, and also whenever Lord Mohun shows his ill-omened face; but there are long stretches of the story which are heavy reading. A pre-eminently good novel must always advance and never mark time. "Ivanhoe" never halts for an instant, and that just makes its superiority as a novel over "Esmond," though as a piece of literature I think the latter is the more perfect. No, if I had three votes, I should plump them all for "The Cloister and the Hearth," as being our greatest historical novel, and, indeed, as being our greatest novel of any sort. I think I may claim to have read most of the more famous foreign novels of last century, and (speaking only for myself and within the limits of my reading) I have been more impressed by that book of Reade's and by Tolstoi's "Peace and War" than by any others. They seem to me to stand at the very top of the century's fiction. There is a certain resemblance in the two--the sense of space, the number of figures, the way in which characters drop in and drop out. The Englishman is the more romantic. The Russian is the more real and earnest. But they are both great. Think of what Reade does in that one book. He takes the reader by the hand, and he leads him away into the Middle Ages, and not a conventional study-built Middle Age, but a period quivering with life, full of folk who are as human and real as a 'bus-load in Oxford Street. He takes him through Holland, he shows him the painters, the dykes, the life. He leads him down the long line of the Rhine, the spinal marrow of Mediaeval Europe. He shows him the dawn of printing, the beginnings of freedom, the life of the great mercantile cities of South Germany, the state of Italy, the artist-life of Rome, the monastic institutions on the eve of the Reformation. And all this between the covers of one book, so naturally introduced, too, and told with such vividness and spirit. Apart from the huge scope of it, the mere study of Gerard's own nature, his rise, his fall, his regeneration, the whole pitiable tragedy at the end, make the book a great one. It contains, I think, a blending of knowledge with imagination, which makes it stand alone in our literature. Let any one read the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini," and then Charles Reade's picture of Mediaeval Roman life, if he wishes to appreciate the way in which Reade has collected his rough ore and has then smelted it all down in his fiery imagination. It is a good thing to have the industry to collect facts. It is a greater and a rarer one to have the tact to know how to use them when you have got them. To be exact without pedantry, and thorough without being dull, that should be the ideal of the writer of historical romance. Reade is one of the most perplexing figures in our literature. Never was there a man so hard to place. At his best he is the best we have. At his worst he is below the level of Surreyside melodrama. But his best have weak pieces, and his worst have good. There is always silk among his cotton, and cotton among his silk. But, for all his flaws, the man who, in addition to the great book, of which I have already spoken, wrote "It is Never Too Late to Mend," "Hard Cash," "Foul Play," and "Griffith Gaunt," must always stand in the very first rank of our novelists. There is a quality of heart about his work which I recognize nowhere else. He so absolutely loves his own heroes and heroines, while he so cordially detests his own villains, that he sweeps your emotions along with his own. No one has ever spoken warmly enough of the humanity and the lovability of his women. It is a rare gift--very rare for a man--this power of drawing a human and delightful girl. If there is a better one in nineteenth-century fiction than Julia Dodd I have never had the pleasure of meeting her. A man who could draw a character so delicate and so delightful, and yet could write such an episode as that of the Robber Inn in "The Cloister and the Hearth," adventurous romance in its highest form, has such a range of power as is granted to few men. My hat is always ready to come off to Charles Reade. VII. It is good to have the magic door shut behind us. On the other side of that door are the world and its troubles, hopes and fears, headaches and heartaches, ambitions and disappointments; but within, as you lie back on the green settee, and face the long lines of your silent soothing comrades, there is only peace of spirit and rest of mind in the company of the great dead. Learn to love, learn to admire them; learn to know what their comradeship means; for until you have done so the greatest solace and anodyne God has given to man have not yet shed their blessing upon you. Here behind this magic door is the rest house, where you may forget the past, enjoy the present, and prepare for the future. You who have sat with me before upon the green settee are familiar with the upper shelf, with the tattered Macaulay, the dapper Gibbon, the drab Boswell, the olive-green Scott, the pied Borrow, and all the goodly company who rub shoulders yonder. By the way, how one wishes that one's dear friends would only be friends also with each other. Why should Borrow snarl so churlishly at Scott? One would have thought that noble spirit and romantic fancy would have charmed the huge vagrant, and yet there is no word too bitter for the younger man to use towards the elder. The fact is that Borrow had one dangerous virus in him--a poison which distorts the whole vision--for he was a bigoted sectarian in religion, seeing no virtue outside his own interpretation of the great riddle. Downright heathendom, the blood-stained Berserk or the chaunting Druid, appealed to his mind through his imagination, but the man of his own creed and time who differed from him in minutiae of ritual, or in the interpretation of mystic passages, was at once evil to the bone, and he had no charity of any sort for such a person. Scott therefore, with his reverent regard for old usages, became at once hateful in his eyes. In any case he was a disappointed man, the big Borrow, and I cannot remember that he ever had much to say that was good of any brother author. Only in the bards of Wales and in the Scalds of the Sagas did he seem to find his kindred spirits, though it has been suggested that his complex nature took this means of informing the world that he could read both Cymric and Norse. But we must not be unkind behind the magic door--and yet to be charitable to the uncharitable is surely the crown of virtue. So much for the top line, concerning which I have already gossipped for six sittings, but there is no surcease for you, reader, for as you see there is a second line, and yet a third, all equally dear to my heart, and all appealing in the same degree to my emotions and to my memory. Be as patient as you may, while I talk of these old friends, and tell you why I love them, and all that they have meant to me in the past. If you picked any book from that line you would be picking a little fibre also from my mind, very small, no doubt, and yet an intimate and essential part of what is now myself. Hereditary impulses, personal experiences, books--those are the three forces which go to the making of man. These are the books. This second line consists, as you see, of novelists of the eighteenth century, or those of them whom I regard as essential. After all, putting aside single books, such as Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," and Miss Burney's "Evelina," there are only three authors who count, and they in turn wrote only three books each, of first-rate importance, so that by the mastery of nine books one might claim to have a fairly broad view of this most important and distinctive branch of English literature. The three men are, of course, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett. The books are: Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe," "Pamela," and "Sir Charles Grandison"; Fielding's "Tom Jones", "Joseph Andrews," and "Amelia"; Smollett's "Peregrine Pickle," "Humphrey Clinker," and "Roderick Random." There we have the real work of the three great contemporaries who illuminated the middle of the eighteenth century--only nine volumes in all. Let us walk round these nine volumes, therefore, and see whether we cannot discriminate and throw a little light, after this interval of a hundred and fifty years, upon their comparative aims, and how far they have justified them by the permanent value of their work. A fat little bookseller in the City, a rakehell wit of noble blood, and a rugged Scotch surgeon from the navy--those are the three strange immortals who now challenge a comparison--the three men who dominate the fiction of their century, and to whom we owe it that the life and the types of that century are familiar to us, their fifth generation. It is not a subject to be dogmatic upon, for I can imagine that these three writers would appeal quite differently to every temperament, and that whichever one might desire to champion one could find arguments to sustain one's choice. Yet I cannot think that any large section of the critical public could maintain that Smollett was on the same level as the other two. Ethically he is gross, though his grossness is accompanied by a full-blooded humour which is more mirth-compelling than the more polished wit of his rivals. I can remember in callow boyhood--puris omnia pura--reading "Peregrine Pickle," and laughing until I cried over the Banquet in the Fashion of the Ancients. I read it again in my manhood with the same effect, though with a greater appreciation of its inherent bestiality. That merit, a gross primitive merit, he has in a high degree, but in no other respect can he challenge comparison with either Fielding or Richardson. His view of life is far more limited, his characters less varied, his incidents less distinctive, and his thoughts less deep. Assuredly I, for one, should award him the third place in the trio. But how about Richardson and Fielding? There is indeed a competition of giants. Let us take the points of each in turn, and then compare them with each other. There is one characteristic, the rarest and subtlest of all, which each of them had in a supreme degree. Each could draw the most delightful women--the most perfect women, I think, in the whole range of our literature. If the eighteenth-century women were like that, then the eighteenth-century men got a great deal more than they ever deserved. They had such a charming little dignity of their own, such good sense, and yet such dear, pretty, dainty ways, so human and so charming, that even now they become our ideals. One cannot come to know them without a double emotion, one of respectful devotion towards themselves, and the other of abhorrence for the herd of swine who surrounded them. Pamela, Harriet Byron, Clarissa, Amelia, and Sophia Western were all equally delightful, and it was not the negative charm of the innocent and colourless woman, the amiable doll of the nineteenth century, but it was a beauty of nature depending upon an alert mind, clear and strong principles, true womanly feelings, and complete feminine charm. In this respect our rival authors may claim a tie, for I could not give a preference to one set of these perfect creatures over another. The plump little printer and the worn-out man-about-town had each a supreme woman in his mind. But their men! Alas, what a drop is there! To say that we are all capable of doing what Tom Jones did--as I have seen stated--is the worst form of inverted cant, the cant which makes us out worse than we are. It is a libel on mankind to say that a man who truly loves a woman is usually false to her, and, above all, a libel that he should be false in the vile fashion which aroused good Tom Newcome's indignation. Tom Jones was no more fit to touch the hem of Sophia's dress than Captain Booth was to be the mate of Amelia. Never once has Fielding drawn a gentleman, save perhaps Squire Alworthy. A lusty, brawling, good-hearted, material creature was the best that he could fashion. Where, in his heroes, is there one touch of distinction, of spirituality, of nobility? Here I think that the plebeian printer has done very much better than the aristocrat. Sir Charles Grandison is a very noble type--spoiled a little by over-coddling on the part of his creator, perhaps, but a very high-souled and exquisite gentleman all the same. Had _he_ married Sophia or Amelia I should not have forbidden the banns. Even the persevering Mr. B--- and the too amorous Lovelace were, in spite of their aberrations, men of gentle nature, and had possibilities of greatness and tenderness within them. Yes, I cannot doubt that Richardson drew the higher type of man--and that in Grandison he has done what has seldom or never been bettered. Richardson was also the subtler and deeper writer, in my opinion. He concerns himself with fine consistent character-drawing, and with a very searching analysis of the human heart, which is done so easily, and in such simple English, that the depth and truth of it only come upon reflection. He condescends to none of those scuffles and buffetings and pantomime rallies which enliven, but cheapen, many of Fielding's pages. The latter has, it may be granted, a broader view of life. He had personal acquaintance of circles far above, and also far below, any which the douce citizen, who was his rival, had ever been able or willing to explore. His pictures of low London life, the prison scenes in "Amelia," the thieves' kitchens in "Jonathan Wild," the sponging houses and the slums, are as vivid and as complete as those of his friend Hogarth--the most British of artists, even as Fielding was the most British of writers. But the greatest and most permanent facts of life are to be found in the smallest circles. Two men and a woman may furnish either the tragedian or the comedian with the most satisfying theme. And so, although his range was limited, Richardson knew very clearly and very thoroughly just that knowledge which was essential for his purpose. Pamela, the perfect woman of humble life, Clarissa, the perfect lady, Grandison the ideal gentleman--these were the three figures on which he lavished his most loving art. And now, after one hundred and fifty years, I do not know where we may find more satisfying types. He was prolix, it may be admitted, but who could bear to have him cut? He loved to sit down and tell you just all about it. His use of letters for his narratives made this gossipy style more easy. First _he_ writes and he tells all that passed. You have his letter. _She_ at the same time writes to her friend, and also states her views. This also you see. The friends in each case reply, and you have the advantage of their comments and advice. You really do know all about it before you finish. It may be a little wearisome at first, if you have been accustomed to a more hustling style with fireworks in every chapter. But gradually it creates an atmosphere in which you live, and you come to know these people, with their characters and their troubles, as you know no others of the dream-folk of fiction. Three times as long as an ordinary book, no doubt, but why grudge the time? What is the hurry? Surely it is better to read one masterpiece than three books which will leave no permanent impression on the mind. It was all attuned to the sedate life of that, the last of the quiet centuries. In the lonely country-house, with few letters and fewer papers, do you suppose that the readers ever complained of the length of a book, or could have too much of the happy Pamela or of the unhappy Clarissa? It is only under extraordinary circumstances that one can now get into that receptive frame of mind which was normal then. Such an occasion is recorded by Macaulay, when he tells how in some Indian hill station, where books were rare, he let loose a copy of "Clarissa." The effect was what might have been expected. Richardson in a suitable environment went through the community like a mild fever. They lived him, and dreamed him, until the whole episode passed into literary history, never to be forgotten by those who experienced it. It is tuned, for every ear. That beautiful style is so correct and yet so simple that there is no page which a scholar may not applaud nor a servant-maid understand. Of course, there are obvious disadvantages to the tale which is told in letters. Scott reverted to it in "Guy Mannering," and there are other conspicuous successes, but vividness is always gained at the expense of a strain upon the reader's good-nature and credulity. One feels that these constant details, these long conversations, could not possibly have been recorded in such a fashion. The indignant and dishevelled heroine could not sit down and record her escape with such cool minuteness of description. Richardson does it as well as it could be done, but it remains intrinsically faulty. Fielding, using the third person, broke all the fetters which bound his rival, and gave a freedom and personal authority to the novel which it had never before enjoyed. There at least he is the master. And yet, on the whole, my balance inclines towards Richardson, though I dare say I am one in a hundred in thinking so. First of all, beyond anything I may have already urged, he had the supreme credit of having been the first. Surely the originator should have a higher place than the imitator, even if in imitating he should also improve and amplify. It is Richardson and not Fielding who is the father of the English novel, the man who first saw that without romantic gallantry, and without bizarre imaginings, enthralling stories may be made from everyday life, told in everyday language. This was his great new departure. So entirely was Fielding his imitator, or rather perhaps his parodist, that with supreme audacity (some would say brazen impudence) he used poor Richardson's own characters, taken from "Pamela," in his own first novel, "Joseph Andrews," and used them too for the unkind purpose of ridiculing them. As a matter of literary ethics, it is as if Thackeray wrote a novel bringing in Pickwick and Sam Weller in order to show what faulty characters these were. It is no wonder that even the gentle little printer grew wroth, and alluded to his rival as a somewhat unscrupulous man. And then there is the vexed question of morals. Surely in talking of this also there is a good deal of inverted cant among a certain class of critics. The inference appears to be that there is some subtle connection between immorality and art, as if the handling of the lewd, or the depicting of it, were in some sort the hallmark of the true artist. It is not difficult to handle or depict. On the contrary, it is so easy, and so essentially dramatic in many of its forms, that the temptation to employ it is ever present. It is the easiest and cheapest of all methods of creating a spurious effect. The difficulty does not lie in doing it. The difficulty lies in avoiding it. But one tries to avoid it because on the face of it there is no reason why a writer should cease to be a gentleman, or that he should write for a woman's eyes that which he would be justly knocked down for having said in a woman's ears. But "you must draw the world as it is." Why must you? Surely it is just in selection and restraint that the artist is shown. It is true that in a coarser age great writers heeded no restrictions, but life itself had fewer restrictions then. We are of our own age, and must live up to it. But must these sides of life be absolutely excluded? By no means. Our decency need not weaken into prudery. It all lies in the spirit in which it is done. No one who wished to lecture on these various spirits could preach on a better text than these three great rivals, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. It is possible to draw vice with some freedom for the purpose of condemning it. Such a writer is a moralist, and there is no better example than Richardson. Again, it is possible to draw vice with neither sympathy nor disapprobation, but simply as a fact which is there. Such a writer is a realist, and such was Fielding. Once more, it is possible to draw vice in order to extract amusement from it. Such a man is a coarse humorist, and such was Smollett. Lastly, it is possible to draw vice in order to show sympathy with it. Such a man is a wicked man, and there were many among the writers of the Restoration. But of all reasons that exist for treating this side of life, Richardson's were the best, and nowhere do we find it more deftly done. Apart from his writings, there must have been something very noble about Fielding as a man. He was a better hero than any that he drew. Alone he accepted the task of cleansing London, at that time the most dangerous and lawless of European capitals. Hogarth's pictures give some notion of it in the pre-Fielding days, the low roughs, the high-born bullies, the drunkenness, the villainies, the thieves' kitchens with their riverside trapdoors, down which the body is thrust. This was the Augean stable which had to be cleaned, and poor Hercules was weak and frail and physically more fitted for a sick-room than for such a task. It cost him his life, for he died at 47, worn out with his own exertions. It might well have cost him his life in more dramatic fashion, for he had become a marked man to the criminal classes, and he headed his own search-parties when, on the information of some bribed rascal, a new den of villainy was exposed. But he carried his point. In little more than a year the thing was done, and London turned from the most rowdy to what it has ever since remained, the most law-abiding of European capitals. Has any man ever left a finer monument behind him? If you want the real human Fielding you will find him not in the novels, where his real kindliness is too often veiled by a mock cynicism, but in his "Diary of his Voyage to Lisbon." He knew that his health was irretrievably ruined and that his years were numbered. Those are the days when one sees a man as he is, when he has no longer a motive for affectation or pretence in the immediate presence of the most tremendous of all realities. Yet, sitting in the shadow of death, Fielding displayed a quiet, gentle courage and constancy of mind, which show how splendid a nature had been shrouded by his earlier frailties. Just one word upon another eighteenth-century novel before I finish this somewhat didactic chat. You will admit that I have never prosed so much before, but the period and the subject seem to encourage it. I skip Sterne, for I have no great sympathy with his finicky methods. And I skip Miss Burney's novels, as being feminine reflections of the great masters who had just preceded her. But Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" surely deserves one paragraph to itself. There is a book which is tinged throughout, as was all Goldsmith's work, with a beautiful nature. No one who had not a fine heart could have written it, just as no one without a fine heart could have written "The Deserted Village." How strange it is to think of old Johnson patronizing or snubbing the shrinking Irishman, when both in poetry, in fiction, and in the drama the latter has proved himself far the greater man. But here is an object-lesson of how the facts of life may be treated without offence. Nothing is shirked. It is all faced and duly recorded. Yet if I wished to set before the sensitive mind of a young girl a book which would prepare her for life without in any way contaminating her delicacy of feeling, there is no book which I should choose so readily as "The Vicar of Wakefield." So much for the eighteenth-century novelists. They have a shelf of their own in the case, and a corner of their own in my brain. For years you may never think of them, and then suddenly some stray word or train of thought leads straight to them, and you look at them and love them, and rejoice that you know them. But let us pass to something which may interest you more. If statistics could be taken in the various free libraries of the kingdom to prove the comparative popularity of different novelists with the public, I think that it is quite certain that Mr. George Meredith would come out very low indeed. If, on the other hand, a number of authors were convened to determine which of their fellow-craftsmen they considered the greatest and the most stimulating to their own minds, I am equally confident that Mr. Meredith would have a vast preponderance of votes. Indeed, his only conceivable rival would be Mr. Hardy. It becomes an interesting study, therefore, why there should be such a divergence of opinion as to his merits, and what the qualities are which have repelled so many readers, and yet have attracted those whose opinion must be allowed to have a special weight. The most obvious reason is his complete unconventionality. The public read to be amused. The novelist reads to have new light thrown upon his art. To read Meredith is not a mere amusement; it is an intellectual exercise, a kind of mental dumb-bell with which you develop your thinking powers. Your mind is in a state of tension the whole time that you are reading him. If you will follow my nose as the sportsman follows that of his pointer, you will observe that these remarks are excited by the presence of my beloved "Richard Feverel," which lurks in yonder corner. What a great book it is, how wise and how witty! Others of the master's novels may be more characteristic or more profound, but for my own part it is the one which I would always present to the new-comer who had not yet come under the influence. I think that I should put it third after "Vanity Fair" and "The Cloister and the Hearth" if I had to name the three novels which I admire most in the Victorian era. The book was published, I believe, in 1859, and it is almost incredible, and says little for the discrimination of critics or public, that it was nearly twenty years before a second edition was needed. But there are never effects without causes, however inadequate the cause may be. What was it that stood in the way of the book's success? Undoubtedly it was the style. And yet it is subdued and tempered here with little of the luxuriance and exuberance which it attained in the later works. But it was an innovation, and it stalled off both the public and the critics. They regarded it, no doubt, as an affectation, as Carlyle's had been considered twenty years before, forgetting that in the case of an original genius style is an organic thing, part of the man as much as the colour of his eyes. It is not, to quote Carlyle, a shirt to be taken on and off at pleasure, but a skin, eternally fixed. And this strange, powerful style, how is it to be described? Best, perhaps, in his own strong words, when he spoke of Carlyle with perhaps the arriere pensee that the words would apply as strongly to himself. "His favourite author," says he, "was one writing on heroes in a style resembling either early architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed. A wind-in-the-orchard style that tumbled down here and there an appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster, sentences without commencements running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea-wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street slang, and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind of electrical agitation in the mind and joints." What a wonderful description and example of style! And how vivid is the impression left by such expressions as "all the pages in a breeze." As a comment on Carlyle, and as a sample of Meredith, the passage is equally perfect. Well, "Richard Feverel" has come into its own at last. I confess to having a strong belief in the critical discernment of the public. I do not think good work is often overlooked. Literature, like water, finds its true level. Opinion is slow to form, but it sets true at last. I am sure that if the critics were to unite to praise a bad book or to damn a good one they could (and continually do) have a five-year influence, but it would in no wise affect the final result. Sheridan said that if all the fleas in his bed had been unanimous, they could have pushed him out of it. I do not think that any unanimity of critics has ever pushed a good book out of literature. Among the minor excellences of "Richard Feverel"--excuse the prolixity of an enthusiast--are the scattered aphorisms which are worthy of a place among our British proverbs. What could be more exquisite than this, "Who rises from prayer a better man his prayer is answered"; or this, "Expediency is man's wisdom. Doing right is God's"; or, "All great thoughts come from the heart"? Good are the words "The coward amongst us is he who sneers at the failings of humanity," and a healthy optimism rings in the phrase "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness; from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom whence we see that this world is well designed." In more playful mood is "Woman is the last thing which will be civilized by man." Let us hurry away abruptly, for he who starts quotation from "Richard Feverel" is lost. He has, as you see, a goodly line of his brothers beside him. There are the Italian ones, "Sandra Belloni," and "Vittoria"; there is "Rhoda Fleming," which carried Stevenson off his critical feet; "Beauchamp's Career," too, dealing with obsolete politics. No great writer should spend himself upon a temporary theme. It is like the beauty who is painted in some passing fashion of gown. She tends to become obsolete along with her frame. Here also is the dainty "Diana," the egoist with immortal Willoughby Pattern, eternal type of masculine selfishness, and "Harry Richmond," the first chapters of which are, in my opinion, among the finest pieces of narrative prose in the language. That great mind would have worked in any form which his age had favoured. He is a novelist by accident. As an Elizabethan he would have been a great dramatist; under Queen Anne a great essayist. But whatever medium he worked in, he must equally have thrown the image of a great brain and a great soul. VIII. We have left our eighteenth-century novelists--Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett--safely behind us, with all their solidity and their audacity, their sincerity, and their coarseness of fibre. They have brought us, as you perceive, to the end of the shelf. What, not wearied? Ready for yet another? Let us run down this next row, then, and I will tell you a few things which may be of interest, though they will be dull enough if you have not been born with that love of books in your heart which is among the choicest gifts of the gods. If that is wanting, then one might as well play music to the deaf, or walk round the Academy with the colour-blind, as appeal to the book-sense of an unfortunate who has it not. There is this old brown volume in the corner. How it got there I cannot imagine, for it is one of those which I bought for threepence out of the remnant box in Edinburgh, and its weather-beaten comrades are up yonder in the back gallery, while this one has elbowed its way among the quality in the stalls. But it is worth a word or two. Take it out and handle it! See how swarthy it is, how squat, with how bullet-proof a cover of scaling leather. Now open the fly-leaf "Ex libris Guilielmi Whyte. 1672" in faded yellow ink. I wonder who William Whyte may have been, and what he did upon earth in the reign of the merry monarch. A pragmatical seventeenth-century lawyer, I should judge, by that hard, angular writing. The date of issue is 1642, so it was printed just about the time when the Pilgrim Fathers were settling down into their new American home, and the first Charles's head was still firm upon his shoulders, though a little puzzled, no doubt, at what was going on around it. The book is in Latin--though Cicero might not have admitted it--and it treats of the laws of warfare. I picture some pedantic Dugald Dalgetty bearing it about under his buff coat, or down in his holster, and turning up the reference for every fresh emergency which occurred. "Hullo! here's a well!" says he. "I wonder if I may poison it?" Out comes the book, and he runs a dirty forefinger down the index. "Ob fas est aquam hostis venere," etc. "Tut, tut, it's not allowed. But here are some of the enemy in a barn? What about that?" "Ob fas est hostem incendio," etc. "Yes; he says we may. Quick, Ambrose, up with the straw and the tinder box." Warfare was no child's play about the time when Tilly sacked Magdeburg, and Cromwell turned his hand from the mash tub to the sword. It might not be much better now in a long campaign, when men were hardened and embittered. Many of these laws are unrepealed, and it is less than a century since highly disciplined British troops claimed their dreadful rights at Badajos and Rodrigo. Recent European wars have been so short that discipline and humanity have not had time to go to pieces, but a long war would show that man is ever the same, and that civilization is the thinnest of veneers. Now you see that whole row of books which takes you at one sweep nearly across the shelf? I am rather proud of those, for they are my collection of Napoleonic military memoirs. There is a story told of an illiterate millionaire who gave a wholesale dealer an order for a copy of all books in any language treating of any aspect of Napoleon's career. He thought it would fill a case in his library. He was somewhat taken aback, however, when in a few weeks he received a message from the dealer that he had got 40,000 volumes, and awaited instructions as to whether he should send them on as an instalment, or wait for a complete set. The figures may not be exact, but at least they bring home the impossibility of exhausting the subject, and the danger of losing one's self for years in a huge labyrinth of reading, which may end by leaving no very definite impression upon your mind. But one might, perhaps, take a corner of it, as I have done here in the military memoirs, and there one might hope to get some finality. Here is Marbot at this end--the first of all soldier books in the world. This is the complete three-volume French edition, with red and gold cover, smart and debonnaire like its author. Here he is in one frontispiece with his pleasant, round, boyish face, as a Captain of his beloved Chasseurs. And here in the other is the grizzled old bull-dog as a full general, looking as full of fight as ever. It was a real blow to me when some one began to throw doubts upon the authenticity of Marbot's memoirs. Homer may be dissolved into a crowd of skin-clad bards. Even Shakespeare may be jostled in his throne of honour by plausible Baconians; but the human, the gallant, the inimitable Marbot! His book is that which gives us the best picture by far of the Napoleonic soldiers, and to me they are even more interesting than their great leader, though his must ever be the most singular figure in history. But those soldiers, with their huge shakoes, their hairy knapsacks, and their hearts of steel--what men they were! And what a latent power there must be in this French nation which could go on pouring out the blood of its sons for twenty-three years with hardly a pause! It took all that time to work off the hot ferment which the Revolution had left in men's veins. And they were not exhausted, for the very last fight which the French fought was the finest of all. Proud as we are of our infantry at Waterloo, it was really with the French cavalry that the greenest laurels of that great epic rested. They got the better of our own cavalry, they took our guns again and again, they swept a large portion of our allies from the field, and finally they rode off unbroken, and as full of fight as ever. Read Gronow's "Memoirs," that chatty little yellow volume yonder which brings all that age back to us more vividly than any more pretentious work, and you will find the chivalrous admiration which our officers expressed at the fine performance of the French horsemen. It must be admitted that, looking back upon history, we have not always been good allies, nor yet generous co-partners in the battlefield. The first is the fault of our politics, where one party rejoices to break what the other has bound. The makers of the Treaty are staunch enough, as the Tories were under Pitt and Castlereagh, or the Whigs at the time of Queen Anne, but sooner or later the others must come in. At the end of the Marlborough wars we suddenly vamped up a peace and, left our allies in the lurch, on account of a change in domestic politics. We did the same with Frederick the Great, and would have done it in the Napoleonic days if Fox could have controlled the country. And as to our partners of the battlefield, how little we have ever said that is hearty as to the splendid staunchness of the Prussians at Waterloo. You have to read the Frenchman, Houssaye, to get a central view and to understand the part they played. Think of old Blucher, seventy years old, and ridden over by a regiment of charging cavalry the day before, yet swearing that he would come to Wellington if he had to be strapped to his horse. He nobly redeemed his promise. The loss of the Prussians at Waterloo was not far short of our own. You would not know it, to read our historians. And then the abuse of our Belgian allies has been overdone. Some of them fought splendidly, and one brigade of infantry had a share in the critical instant when the battle was turned. This also you would not learn from British sources. Look at our Portuguese allies also! They trained into magnificent troops, and one of Wellington's earnest desires was to have ten thousand of them for his Waterloo campaign. It was a Portuguese who first topped the rampart of Badajos. They have never had their due credit, nor have the Spaniards either, for, though often defeated, it was their unconquerable pertinacity which played a great part in the struggle. No; I do not think that we are very amiable partners, but I suppose that all national history may be open to a similar charge. It must be confessed that Marbot's details are occasionally a little hard to believe. Never in the pages of Lever has there been such a series of hairbreadth escapes and dare-devil exploits. Surely he stretched it a little sometimes. You may remember his adventure at Eylau--I think it was Eylau--how a cannon-ball, striking the top of his helmet, paralyzed him by the concussion of his spine; and how, on a Russian officer running forward to cut him down, his horse bit the man's face nearly off. This was the famous charger which savaged everything until Marbot, having bought it for next to nothing, cured it by thrusting a boiling leg of mutton into its mouth when it tried to bite him. It certainly does need a robust faith to get over these incidents. And yet, when one reflects upon the hundreds of battles and skirmishes which a Napoleonic officer must have endured--how they must have been the uninterrupted routine of his life from the first dark hair upon his lip to the first grey one upon his head, it is presumptuous to say what may or may not have been possible in such unparalleled careers. At any rate, be it fact or fiction--fact it is, in my opinion, with some artistic touching up of the high lights--there are few books which I could not spare from my shelves better than the memoirs of the gallant Marbot. I dwell upon this particular book because it is the best; but take the whole line, and there is not one which is not full of interest. Marbot gives you the point of view of the officer. So does De Segur and De Fezensac and Colonel Gonville, each in some different branch of the service. But some are from the pens of the men in the ranks, and they are even more graphic than the others. Here, for example, are the papers of good old Cogniet, who was a grenadier of the Guard, and could neither read nor write until after the great wars were over. A tougher soldier never went into battle. Here is Sergeant Bourgogne, also with his dreadful account of that nightmare campaign in Russia, and the gallant Chevillet, trumpeter of Chasseurs, with his matter-of-fact account of all that he saw, where the daily "combat" is sandwiched in betwixt the real business of the day, which was foraging for his frugal breakfast and supper. There is no better writing, and no easier reading, than the records of these men of action. A Briton cannot help asking himself, as he realizes what men these were, what would have happened if 150,000 Cogniets and Bourgognes, with Marbots to lead them, and the great captain of all time in the prime of his vigour at their head, had made their landing in Kent? For months it was touch-and-go. A single naval slip which left the Channel clear would have been followed by an embarkation from Boulogne, which had been brought by constant practice to so incredibly fine a point that the last horse was aboard within two hours of the start. Any evening might have seen the whole host upon the Pevensey Flats. What then? We know what Humbert did with a handful of men in Ireland, and the story is not reassuring. Conquest, of course, is unthinkable. The world in arms could not do that. But Napoleon never thought of the conquest of Britain. He has expressly disclaimed it. What he did contemplate was a gigantic raid in which he would do so much damage that for years to come England would be occupied at home in picking up the pieces, instead of having energy to spend abroad in thwarting his Continental plans. Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Sheerness in flames, with London either levelled to the ground or ransomed at his own figure--that was a more feasible programme. Then, with the united fleets of conquered Europe at his back, enormous armies and an inexhaustible treasury, swollen with the ransom of Britain, he could turn to that conquest of America which would win back the old colonies of France and leave him master of the world. If the worst happened and he had met his Waterloo upon the South Downs, he would have done again what he did in Egypt and once more in Russia: hurried back to France in a swift vessel, and still had force enough to hold his own upon the Continent. It would, no doubt, have been a big stake to lay upon the table--150,000 of his best--but he could play again if he lost; while, if he won, he cleared the board. A fine game--if little Nelson had not stopped it, and with one blow fixed the edge of salt water as the limit of Napoleon's power. There's the cast of a medal on the top of that cabinet which will bring it all close home to you. It is taken from the die of the medal which Napoleon had arranged to issue on the day that he reached London. It serves, at any rate, to show that his great muster was not a bluff, but that he really did mean serious business. On one side is his head. On the other France is engaged in strangling and throwing to earth a curious fish-tailed creature, which stands for perfidious Albion. "Frappe a Londres" is printed on one part of it, and "La Descente dans Angleterre" upon another. Struck to commemorate a conquest, it remains now as a souvenir of a fiasco. But it was a close call. By the way, talking of Napoleon's flight from Egypt, did you ever see a curious little book called, if I remember right, "Intercepted Letters"? No; I have no copy upon this shelf, but a friend is more fortunate. It shows the almost incredible hatred which existed at the end of the eighteenth century between the two nations, descending even to the most petty personal annoyance. On this occasion the British Government intercepted a mail-bag of letters coming from French officers in Egypt to their friends at home, and they either published them, or at least allowed them to be published, in the hope, no doubt, of causing domestic complications. Was ever a more despicable action? But who knows what other injuries had been inflicted to draw forth such a retaliation? I have myself seen a burned and mutilated British mail lying where De Wet had left it; but suppose the refinement of his vengeance had gone so far as to publish it, what a thunder-bolt it might have been! As to the French officers, I have read their letters, though even after a century one had a feeling of guilt when one did so. But, on the whole, they are a credit to the writers, and give the impression of a noble and chivalrous set of men. Whether they were all addressed to the right people is another matter, and therein lay the poisoned sting of this most un-British affair. As to the monstrous things which were done upon the other side, remember the arrest of all the poor British tourists and commercials who chanced to be in France when the war was renewed in 1803. They had run over in all trust and confidence for a little outing and change of air. They certainly got it, for Napoleon's steel grip fell upon them, and they rejoined their families in 1814. He must have had a heart of adamant and a will of iron. Look at his conduct over the naval prisoners. The natural proceeding would have been to exchange them. For some reason he did not think it good policy to do so. All representations from the British Government were set aside, save in the case of the higher officers. Hence the miseries of the hulks and the dreadful prison barracks in England. Hence also the unhappy idlers of Verdun. What splendid loyalty there must have been in those humble Frenchmen which never allowed them for one instant to turn bitterly upon the author of all their great misfortunes. It is all brought vividly home by the description of their prisons given by Borrow in "Lavengro." This is the passage-- "What a strange appearance had those mighty casernes, with their blank, blind walls, without windows or grating, and their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from their airy height. Ah! there was much misery in those casernes; and from those roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the direction of lovely France. Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said--of England, in general so kind and bountiful. Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and captive; and such, alas! was the fare in those casernes. And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place 'straw-plait hunts,' when in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making, red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who, with the bayonet's point, carried havoc and ruin into every poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant exit with the miserable booty, and worst of all, the accursed bonfire, on the barrack parade of the plait contraband, beneath the view of glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amid the hurrahs of the troops frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in the terrific war-whoop of 'Vive l'Empereur!'" There is a little vignette of Napoleon's men in captivity. Here is another which is worth preserving of the bearing of his veterans when wounded on the field of battle. It is from Mercer's recollections of the Battle of Waterloo. Mercer had spent the day firing case into the French cavalry at ranges from fifty to two hundred yards, losing two-thirds of his own battery in the process. In the evening he had a look at some of his own grim handiwork. "I had satisfied my curiosity at Hougoumont, and was retracing my steps up the hill when my attention was called to a group of wounded Frenchmen by the calm, dignified, and soldier-like oration addressed by one of them to the rest. I cannot, like Livy, compose a fine harangue for my hero, and, of course, I could not retain the precise words, but the import of them was to exhort them to bear their sufferings with fortitude; not to repine, like women or children, at what every soldier should have made up his mind to suffer as the fortune of war, but above all, to remember that they were surrounded by Englishmen, before whom they ought to be doubly careful not to disgrace themselves by displaying such an unsoldier-like want of fortitude. "The speaker was sitting on the ground with his lance stuck upright beside him--an old veteran with thick bushy, grizzly beard, countenance like a lion--a lancer of the old guard, and no doubt had fought in many a field. One hand was flourished in the air as he spoke, the other, severed at the wrist, lay on the earth beside him; one ball (case-shot, probably) had entered his body, another had broken his leg. His suffering, after a night of exposure so mangled, must have been great; yet he betrayed it not. His bearing was that of a Roman, or perhaps an Indian warrior, and I could fancy him concluding appropriately his speech in the words of the Mexican king, 'And I too; am I on a bed of roses?'" What a load of moral responsibility upon one man! But his mind was insensible to moral responsibility. Surely if it had not been it must have been crushed beneath it. Now, if you want to understand the character of Napoleon--but surely I must take a fresh start before I launch on so portentous a subject as that. But before I leave the military men let me, for the credit of my own country, after that infamous incident of the letters, indicate these six well-thumbed volumes of "Napier's History." This is the story of the great Peninsular War, by one who fought through it himself, and in no history has a more chivalrous and manly account been given of one's enemy. Indeed, Napier seems to me to push it too far, for his admiration appears to extend not only to the gallant soldiers who opposed him, but to the character and to the ultimate aims of their leader. He was, in fact, a political follower of Charles James Fox, and his heart seems to have been with the enemy even at the moment when he led his men most desperately against them. In the verdict of history the action of those men who, in their honest zeal for freedom, inflamed somewhat by political strife, turned against their own country, when it was in truth the Champion of Freedom, and approved of a military despot of the most uncompromising kind, seems wildly foolish. But if Napier's politics may seem strange, his soldiering was splendid, and his prose among the very best that I know. There are passages in that work--the one which describes the breach of Badajos, that of the charge of the Fusiliers at Albuera, and that of the French advance at Fuentes d'Onoro--which once read haunt the mind for ever. The book is a worthy monument of a great national epic. Alas! for the pregnant sentence with which it closes, "So ended the great war, and with it all memory of the services of the veterans." Was there ever a British war of which the same might not have been written? The quotation which I have given from Mercer's book turns my thoughts in the direction of the British military reminiscences of that period, less numerous, less varied, and less central than the French, but full of character and interest all the same. I have found that if I am turned loose in a large library, after hesitating over covers for half an hour or so, it is usually a book of soldier memoirs which I take down. Man is never so interesting as when he is thoroughly in earnest, and no one is so earnest as he whose life is at stake upon the event. But of all types of soldier the best is the man who is keen upon his work, and yet has general culture which enables him to see that work in its due perspective, and to sympathize with the gentler aspirations of mankind. Such a man is Mercer, an ice-cool fighter, with a sense of discipline and decorum which prevented him from moving when a bombshell was fizzing between his feet, and yet a man of thoughtful and philosophic temperament, with a weakness for solitary musings, for children, and for flowers. He has written for all time the classic account of a great battle, seen from the point of view of a battery commander. Many others of Wellington's soldiers wrote their personal reminiscences. You can get them, as I have them there, in the pleasant abridgement of "Wellington's Men" (admirably edited by Dr. Fitchett)--Anton the Highlander, Harris the rifleman, and Kincaid of the same corps. It is a most singular fate which has made an Australian nonconformist clergyman the most sympathetic and eloquent reconstructor of those old heroes, but it is a noble example of that unity of the British race, which in fifty scattered lands still mourns or rejoices over the same historic record. And just one word, before I close down this over-long and too discursive chatter, on the subject of yonder twin red volumes which flank the shelf. They are Maxwell's "History of Wellington," and I do not think you will find a better or more readable one. The reader must ever feel towards the great soldier what his own immediate followers felt, respect rather than affection. One's failure to attain a more affectionate emotion is alleviated by the knowledge that it was the last thing which he invited or desired. "Don't be a damned fool, sir!" was his exhortation to the good citizen who had paid him a compliment. It was a curious, callous nature, brusque and limited. The hardest huntsman learns to love his hounds, but he showed no affection and a good deal of contempt for the men who had been his instruments. "They are the scum of the earth," said he. "All English soldiers are fellows who have enlisted for drink. That is the plain fact--they have all enlisted for drink." His general orders were full of undeserved reproaches at a time when the most lavish praise could hardly have met the real deserts of his army. When the wars were done he saw little, save in his official capacity, of his old comrades-in-arms. And yet, from major-general to drummer-boy, he was the man whom they would all have elected to serve under, had the work to be done once more. As one of them said, "The sight of his long nose was worth ten thousand men on a field of battle." They were themselves a leathery breed, and cared little for the gentler amenities so long as the French were well drubbed. His mind, which was comprehensive and alert in warfare, was singularly limited in civil affairs. As a statesman he was so constant an example of devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and high disinterested character, that the country was the better for his presence. But he fiercely opposed Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bill, and everything upon which our modern life is founded. He could never be brought to see that a pyramid should stand on its base and not on its apex, and that the larger the pyramid, the broader should be the base. Even in military affairs he was averse from every change, and I know of no improvements which came from his initiative during all those years when his authority was supreme. The floggings which broke a man's spirit and self-respect, the leathern stock which hampered his movements, all the old traditional regime found a champion in him. On the other hand, he strongly opposed the introduction of the percussion cap as opposed to the flint and steel in the musket. Neither in war nor in politics did he rightly judge the future. And yet in reading his letters and dispatches, one is surprised sometimes at the incisive thought and its vigorous expression. There is a passage in which he describes the way in which his soldiers would occasionally desert into some town which he was besieging. "They knew," he writes, "that they must be taken, for when we lay our bloody hands upon a place we are sure to take it, sooner or later; but they liked being dry and under cover, and then that extraordinary caprice which always pervades the English character! Our deserters are very badly treated by the enemy; those who deserted in France were treated as the lowest of mortals, slaves and scavengers. Nothing but English caprice can account for it; just what makes our noblemen associate with stage-coach drivers, and become stage-coach drivers themselves." After reading that passage, how often does the phrase "the extraordinary caprice which always pervades the English character" come back as one observes some fresh manifestation of it! But let not my last note upon the great duke be a carping one. Rather let my final sentence be one which will remind you of his frugal and abstemious life, his carpetless floor and little camp bed, his precise courtesy which left no humblest letter unanswered, his courage which never flinched, his tenacity which never faltered, his sense of duty which made his life one long unselfish effort on behalf of what seemed to him to be the highest interest of the State. Go down and stand by the huge granite sarcophagus in the dim light of the crypt of St. Paul's, and in the hush of that austere spot, cast back your mind to the days when little England alone stood firm against the greatest soldier and the greatest army that the world has ever known. Then you feel what this dead man stood for, and you pray that we may still find such another amongst us when the clouds gather once again. You see that the literature of Waterloo is well represented in my small military library. Of all books dealing with the personal view of the matter, I think that "Siborne's Letters," which is a collection of the narratives of surviving officers made by Siborne in the year 1827, is the most interesting. Gronow's account is also very vivid and interesting. Of the strategical narratives, Houssaye's book is my favourite. Taken from the French point of view, it gets the actions of the allies in truer perspective than any English or German account can do; but there is a fascination about that great combat which makes every narrative that bears upon it of enthralling interest. Wellington used to say that too much was made of it, and that one would imagine that the British Army had never fought a battle before. It was a characteristic speech, but it must be admitted that the British Army never had, as a matter of fact, for many centuries fought a battle which was finally decisive of a great European war. There lies the perennial interest of the incident, that it was the last act of that long-drawn drama, and that to the very fall of the curtain no man could tell how the play would end--"the nearest run thing that ever you saw"--that was the victor's description. It is a singular thing that during those twenty-five years of incessant fighting the material and methods of warfare made so little progress. So far as I know, there was no great change in either between 1789 and 1805. The breech-loader, heavy artillery, the ironclad, all great advances in the art of war, have been invented in time of peace. There are some improvements so obvious, and at the same time so valuable, that it is extraordinary that they were not adopted. Signalling, for example, whether by heliograph or by flag-waving, would have made an immense difference in the Napoleonic campaigns. The principle of the semaphore was well known, and Belgium, with its numerous windmills, would seem to be furnished with natural semaphores. Yet in the four days during which the campaign of Waterloo was fought, the whole scheme of military operations on both sides was again and again imperilled, and finally in the case of the French brought to utter ruin by lack of that intelligence which could so easily have been conveyed. June 18th was at intervals a sunshiny day--a four-inch glass mirror would have put Napoleon in communication with Gruchy, and the whole history of Europe might have been altered. Wellington himself suffered dreadfully from defective information which might have been easily supplied. The unexpected presence of the French army was first discovered at four in the morning of June 15. It was of enormous importance to get the news rapidly to Wellington at Brussels that he might instantly concentrate his scattered forces on the best line of resistance--yet, through the folly of sending only a single messenger, this vital information did not reach him until three in the afternoon, the distance being thirty miles. Again, when Blucher was defeated at Ligny on the 16th, it was of enormous importance that Wellington should know at once the line of his retreat so as to prevent the French from driving a wedge between them. The single Prussian officer who was despatched with this information was wounded, and never reached his destination, and it was only next day that Wellington learned the Prussian plans. On what tiny things does History depend! IX. The contemplation of my fine little regiment of French military memoirs had brought me to the question of Napoleon himself, and you see that I have a very fair line dealing with him also. There is Scott's life, which is not entirely a success. His ink was too precious to be shed in such a venture. But here are the three volumes of the physician Bourrienne--that Bourrienne who knew him so well. Does any one ever know a man so well as his doctor? They are quite excellent and admirably translated. Meneval also--the patient Meneval--who wrote for untold hours to dictation at ordinary talking speed, and yet was expected to be legible and to make no mistakes. At least his master could not fairly criticize his legibility, for is it not on record that when Napoleon's holograph account of an engagement was laid before the President of the Senate, the worthy man thought that it was a drawn plan of the battle? Meneval survived his master and has left an excellent and intimate account of him. There is Constant's account, also written from that point of view in which it is proverbial that no man is a hero. But of all the vivid terrible pictures of Napoleon the most haunting is by a man who never saw him and whose book was not directly dealing with him. I mean Taine's account of him, in the first volume of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine." You can never forget it when once you have read it. He produces his effect in a wonderful, and to me a novel, way. He does not, for example, say in mere crude words that Napoleon had a more than mediaeval Italian cunning. He presents a succession of documents--gives a series of contemporary instances to prove it. Then, having got that fixed in your head by blow after blow, he passes on to another phase of his character, his coldhearted amorousness, his power of work, his spoiled child wilfulness, or some other quality, and piles up his illustrations of that. Instead, for example, of saying that the Emperor had a marvellous memory for detail, we have the account of the head of Artillery laying the list of all the guns in France before his master, who looked over it and remarked, "Yes, but you have omitted two in a fort near Dieppe." So the man is gradually etched in with indelible ink. It is a wonderful figure of which you are conscious in the end, the figure of an archangel, but surely of an archangel of darkness. We will, after Taine's method, take one fact and let it speak for itself. Napoleon left a legacy in a codicil to his will to a man who tried to assassinate Wellington. There is the mediaeval Italian again! He was no more a Corsican than the Englishman born in India is a Hindoo. Read the lives of the Borgias, the Sforzas, the Medicis, and of all the lustful, cruel, broad-minded, art-loving, talented despots of the little Italian States, including Genoa, from which the Buonapartes migrated. There at once you get the real descent of the man, with all the stigmata clear upon him--the outward calm, the inward passion, the layer of snow above the volcano, everything which characterized the old despots of his native land, the pupils of Machiavelli, but all raised to the dimensions of genius. You can whitewash him as you may, but you will never get a layer thick enough to cover the stain of that cold-blooded deliberate endorsement of his noble adversary's assassination. Another book which gives an extraordinarily vivid picture of the man is this one--the Memoirs of Madame de Remusat. She was in daily contact with him at the Court, and she studied him with those quick critical eyes of a clever woman, the most unerring things in life when they are not blinded by love. If you have read those pages, you feel that you know him as if you had yourself seen and talked with him. His singular mixture of the small and the great, his huge sweep of imagination, his very limited knowledge, his intense egotism, his impatience of obstacles, his boorishness, his gross impertinence to women, his diabolical playing upon the weak side of every one with whom he came in contact--they make up among them one of the most striking of historical portraits. Most of my books deal with the days of his greatness, but here, you see, is a three-volume account of those weary years at St. Helena. Who can help pitying the mewed eagle? And yet if you play the great game you must pay a stake. This was the same man who had a royal duke shot in a ditch because he was a danger to his throne. Was not he himself a danger to every throne in Europe? Why so harsh a retreat as St. Helena, you say? Remember that he had been put in a milder one before, that he had broken away from it, and that the lives of fifty thousand men had paid for the mistaken leniency. All this is forgotten now, and the pathetic picture of the modern Prometheus chained to his rock and devoured by the vultures of his own bitter thoughts, is the one impression which the world has retained. It is always so much easier to follow the emotions than the reason, especially where a cheap magnanimity and second-hand generosity are involved. But reason must still insist that Europe's treatment of Napoleon was not vindictive, and that Hudson Lowe was a man who tried to live up to the trust which had been committed to him by his country. It was certainly not a post from which any one would hope for credit. If he were slack and easy-going all would be well. But there would be the chance of a second flight with its consequences. If he were strict and assiduous he would be assuredly represented as a petty tyrant. "I am glad when you are on outpost," said Lowe's general in some campaign, "for then I am sure of a sound rest." He was on outpost at St. Helena, and because he was true to his duties Europe (France included) had a sound rest. But he purchased it at the price of his own reputation. The greatest schemer in the world, having nothing else on which to vent his energies, turned them all to the task of vilifying his guardian. It was natural enough that he who had never known control should not brook it now. It is natural also that sentimentalists who have not thought of the details should take the Emperor's point of view. What is deplorable, however, is that our own people should be misled by one-sided accounts, and that they should throw to the wolves a man who was serving his country in a post of anxiety and danger, with such responsibility upon him as few could ever have endured. Let them remember Montholon's remark: "An angel from heaven would not have satisfied us." Let them recall also that Lowe with ample material never once troubled to state his own case. "Je fais mon devoir et suis indifferent pour le reste," said he, in his interview with the Emperor. They were no idle words. Apart from this particular epoch, French literature, which is so rich in all its branches, is richest of all in its memoirs. Whenever there was anything of interest going forward there was always some kindly gossip who knew all about it, and was ready to set it down for the benefit of posterity. Our own history has not nearly enough of these charming sidelights. Look at our sailors in the Napoleonic wars, for example. They played an epoch-making part. For nearly twenty years Freedom was a Refugee upon the seas. Had our navy been swept away, then all Europe would have been one organized despotism. At times everybody was against us, fighting against their own direct interests under the pressure of that terrible hand. We fought on the waters with the French, with the Spaniards, with the Danes, with the Russians, with the Turks, even with our American kinsmen. Middies grew into post-captains, and admirals into dotards during that prolonged struggle. And what have we in literature to show for it all? Marryat's novels, many of which are founded upon personal experience, Nelson's and Collingwood's letters, Lord Cochrane's biography--that is about all. I wish we had more of Collingwood, for he wielded a fine pen. Do you remember the sonorous opening of his Trafalgar message to his captains?-- "The ever to be lamented death of Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, the Commander-in-Chief, who fell in the action of the 21st, in the arms of Victory, covered with glory, whose memory will be ever dear to the British Navy and the British Nation; whose zeal for the honour of his king and for the interests of his country will be ever held up as a shining example for a British seaman--leaves to me a duty to return thanks, etc., etc." It was a worthy sentence to carry such a message, written too in a raging tempest, with sinking vessels all around him. But in the main it is a poor crop from such a soil. No doubt our sailors were too busy to do much writing, but none the less one wonders that among so many thousands there were not some to understand what a treasure their experiences would be to their descendants. I can call to mind the old three-deckers which used to rot in Portsmouth Harbour, and I have often thought, could they tell their tales, what a missing chapter in our literature they could supply. It is not only in Napoleonic memoirs that the French are so fortunate. The almost equally interesting age of Louis XIV. produced an even more wonderful series. If you go deeply into the subject you are amazed by their number, and you feel as if every one at the Court of the Roi Soleil had done what he (or she) could to give away their neighbours. Just to take the more obvious, there are St. Simon's Memoirs--those in themselves give us a more comprehensive and intimate view of the age than anything I know of which treats of the times of Queen Victoria. Then there is St. Evremond, who is nearly as complete. Do you want the view of a woman of quality? There are the letters of Madame de Sevigne (eight volumes of them), perhaps the most wonderful series of letters that any woman has ever penned. Do you want the confessions of a rake of the period? Here are the too salacious memoirs of the mischievous Duc de Roquelaure, not reading for the nursery certainly, not even for the boudoir, but a strange and very intimate picture of the times. All these books fit into each other, for the characters of the one reappear in the others. You come to know them quite familiarly before you have finished, their loves and their hates, their duels, their intrigues, and their ultimate fortunes. If you do not care to go so deeply into it you have only to put Julia Pardoe's four-volumed "Court of Louis XIV." upon your shelf, and you will find a very admirable condensation--or a distillation rather, for most of the salt is left behind. There is another book too--that big one on the bottom shelf--which holds it all between its brown and gold covers. An extravagance that--for it cost me some sovereigns--but it is something to have the portraits of all that wonderful galaxy, of Louis, of the devout Maintenon, of the frail Montespan, of Bossuet, Fenelon, Moliere, Racine, Pascal, Conde, Turenne, and all the saints and sinners of the age. If you want to make yourself a present, and chance upon a copy of "The Court and Times of Louis XIV.," you will never think that your money has been wasted. Well, I have bored you unduly, my patient friend, with my love of memoirs, Napoleonic and otherwise, which give a touch of human interest to the arid records of history. Not that history should be arid. It ought to be the most interesting subject upon earth, the story of ourselves, of our forefathers, of the human race, the events which made us what we are, and wherein, if Weismann's views hold the field, some microscopic fraction of this very body which for the instant we chance to inhabit may have borne a part. But unfortunately the power of accumulating knowledge and that of imparting it are two very different things, and the uninspired historian becomes merely the dignified compiler of an enlarged almanac. Worst of all, when a man does come along with fancy and imagination, who can breathe the breath of life into the dry bones, it is the fashion for the dryasdusts to belabour him, as one who has wandered away from the orthodox path and must necessarily be inaccurate. So Froude was attacked. So also Macaulay in his day. But both will be read when the pedants are forgotten. If I were asked my very ideal of how history should be written, I think I should point to those two rows on yonder shelf, the one M'Carthy's "History of Our Own Times," the other Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century." Curious that each should have been written by an Irishman, and that though of opposite politics and living in an age when Irish affairs have caused such bitterness, both should be conspicuous not merely for all literary graces, but for that broad toleration which sees every side of a question, and handles every problem from the point of view of the philosophic observer and never of the sectarian partisan. By the way, talking of history, have you read Parkman's works? He was, I think, among the very greatest of the historians, and yet one seldom hears his name. A New England man by birth, and writing principally of the early history of the American Settlements and of French Canada, it is perhaps excusable that he should have no great vogue in England, but even among Americans I have found many who have not read him. There are four of his volumes in green and gold down yonder, "The Jesuits in Canada," and "Frontenac," but there are others, all of them well worth reading, "Pioneers of France," "Montcalm and Wolfe," "Discovery of the Great West," etc. Some day I hope to have a complete set. Taking only that one book, "The Jesuits in Canada," it is worth a reputation in itself. And how noble a tribute is this which a man of Puritan blood pays to that wonderful Order! He shows how in the heyday of their enthusiasm these brave soldiers of the Cross invaded Canada as they did China and every other place where danger was to be faced, and a horrible death to be found. I don't care what faith a man may profess, or whether he be a Christian at all, but he cannot read these true records without feeling that the very highest that man has ever evolved in sanctity and devotion was to be found among these marvellous men. They were indeed the pioneers of civilization, for apart from doctrines they brought among the savages the highest European culture, and in their own deportment an object-lesson of how chastely, austerely, and nobly men could live. France has sent myriads of brave men on to her battlefields, but in all her long record of glory I do not think that she can point to any courage so steadfast and so absolutely heroic as that of the men of the Iroquois Mission. How nobly they lived makes the body of the book, how serenely they died forms the end to it. It is a tale which cannot even now be read without a shudder--a nightmare of horrors. Fanaticism may brace a man to hurl himself into oblivion, as the Mahdi's hordes did before Khartoum, but one feels that it is at least a higher development of such emotion, where men slowly and in cold blood endure so thankless a life, and welcome so dreadful an end. Every faith can equally boast its martyrs--a painful thought, since it shows how many thousands must have given their blood for error--but in testifying to their faith these brave men have testified to something more important still, to the subjugation of the body and to the absolute supremacy of the dominating spirit. The story of Father Jogue is but one of many, and yet it is worth recounting, as showing the spirit of the men. He also was on the Iroquois Mission, and was so tortured and mutilated by his sweet parishioners that the very dogs used to howl at his distorted figure. He made his way back to France, not for any reason of personal rest or recuperation, but because he needed a special dispensation to say Mass. The Catholic Church has a regulation that a priest shall not be deformed, so that the savages with their knives had wrought better than they knew. He received his dispensation and was sent for by Louis XIV., who asked him what he could do for him. No doubt the assembled courtiers expected to hear him ask for the next vacant Bishopric. What he did actually ask for, as the highest favour, was to be sent back to the Iroquois Mission, where the savages signalized his arrival by burning him alive. Parkman is worth reading, if it were only for his account of the Indians. Perhaps the very strangest thing about them, and the most unaccountable, is their small numbers. The Iroquois were one of the most formidable of tribes. They were of the Five Nations, whose scalping-parties wandered over an expanse of thousands of square miles. Yet there is good reason to doubt whether the whole five nations could have put as many thousand warriors in the field. It was the same with all the other tribes of Northern Americans, both in the east, the north, and the west. Their numbers were always insignificant. And yet they had that huge country to themselves, the best of climates, and plenty of food. Why was it that they did not people it thickly? It may be taken as a striking example of the purpose and design which run through the affairs of men, that at the very moment when the old world was ready to overflow the new world was empty to receive it. Had North America been peopled as China is peopled, the Europeans might have founded some settlements, but could never have taken possession of the continent. Buffon has made the striking remark that the creative power appeared to have never had great vigour in America. He alluded to the abundance of the flora and fauna as compared with that of other great divisions of the earth's surface. Whether the numbers of the Indians are an illustration of the same fact, or whether there is some special cause, is beyond my very modest scientific attainments. When one reflects upon the countless herds of bison which used to cover the Western plains, or marks in the present day the race statistics of the French Canadians at one end of the continent, and of the Southern negro at the other, it seems absurd to suppose that there is any geographical reason against Nature being as prolific here as elsewhere. However, these be deeper waters, and with your leave we will get back into my usual six-inch wading-depth once more. X. I don't know how those two little books got in there. They are Henley's "Song of the Sword" and "Book of Verses." They ought to be over yonder in the rather limited Poetry Section. Perhaps it is that I like his work so, whether it be prose or verse, and so have put them ready to my hand. He was a remarkable man, a man who was very much greater than his work, great as some of his work was. I have seldom known a personality more magnetic and stimulating. You left his presence, as a battery leaves a generating station, charged up and full. He made you feel what a lot of work there was to be done, and how glorious it was to be able to do it, and how needful to get started upon it that very hour. With the frame and the vitality of a giant he was cruelly bereft of all outlet for his strength, and so distilled it off in hot words, in warm sympathy, in strong prejudices, in all manner of human and stimulating emotions. Much of the time and energy which might have built an imperishable name for himself was spent in encouraging others; but it was not waste, for he left his broad thumb-mark upon all that passed beneath it. A dozen second-hand Henleys are fortifying our literature to-day. Alas that we have so little of his very best! for that very best was the finest of our time. Few poets ever wrote sixteen consecutive lines more noble and more strong than those which begin with the well-known quatrain-- "Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from Pole to Pole, I thank whatever Gods there be For my unconquerable soul." It is grand literature, and it is grand pluck too; for it came from a man who, through no fault of his own, had been pruned, and pruned again, like an ill-grown shrub, by the surgeon's knife. When he said-- "In the fell clutch of Circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud, Beneath the bludgeonings of Chance My head is bloody but unbowed." It was not what Lady Byron called "the mimic woe" of the poet, but it was rather the grand defiance of the Indian warrior at the stake, whose proud soul can hold in hand his quivering body. There were two quite distinct veins of poetry in Henley, each the very extreme from the other. The one was heroic, gigantic, running to large sweeping images and thundering words. Such are the "Song of the Sword" and much more that he has written, like the wild singing of some Northern scald. The other, and to my mind both the more characteristic and the finer side of his work, is delicate, precise, finely etched, with extraordinarily vivid little pictures drawn in carefully phrased and balanced English. Such are the "Hospital Verses," while the "London Voluntaries" stand midway between the two styles. What! you have not read the "Hospital Verses!" Then get the "Book of Verses" and read them without delay. You will surely find something there which, for good or ill, is unique. You can name--or at least I can name--nothing to compare it with. Goldsmith and Crabbe have written of indoor themes; but their monotonous, if majestic metre, wearies the modern reader. But this is so varied, so flexible, so dramatic. It stands by itself. Confound the weekly journals and all the other lightning conductors which caused such a man to pass away, and to leave a total output of about five booklets behind him! However, all this is an absolute digression, for the books had no business in this shelf at all. This corner is meant for chronicles of various sorts. Here are three in a line, which carry you over a splendid stretch of French (which usually means European) history, each, as luck would have it, beginning just about the time when the other leaves off. The first is Froissart, the second de Monstrelet, and the third de Comines. When you have read the three you have the best contemporary account first hand of considerably more than a century--a fair slice out of the total written record of the human race. Froissart is always splendid. If you desire to avoid the mediaeval French, which only a specialist can read with pleasure, you can get Lord Berners' almost equally mediaeval, but very charming English, or you can turn to a modern translation, such as this one of Johnes. A single page of Lord Berners is delightful; but it is a strain, I think, to read bulky volumes in an archaic style. Personally, I prefer the modern, and even with that you have shown some patience before you have reached the end of that big second tome. I wonder whether, at the time, the old Hainault Canon had any idea of what he was doing--whether it ever flashed across his mind that the day might come when his book would be the one great authority, not only about the times in which he lived, but about the whole institution of chivalry? I fear that it is far more likely that his whole object was to gain some mundane advantage from the various barons and knights whose names and deeds be recounts. He has left it on record, for example, that when he visited the Court of England he took with him a handsomely-bound copy of his work; and, doubtless, if one could follow the good Canon one would find his journeys littered with similar copies which were probably expensive gifts to the recipient, for what return would a knightly soul make for a book which enshrined his own valour? But without looking too curiously into his motives, it must be admitted that the work could not have been done more thoroughly. There is something of Herodotus in the Canon's cheery, chatty, garrulous, take-it-or-leave-it manner. But he has the advantage of the old Greek in accuracy. Considering that he belonged to the same age which gravely accepted the travellers' tales of Sir John Maundeville, it is, I think, remarkable how careful and accurate the chronicler is. Take, for example, his description of Scotland and the Scotch. Some would give the credit to Jean-le-Bel, but that is another matter. Scotch descriptions are a subject over which a fourteenth-century Hainaulter might fairly be allowed a little scope for his imagination. Yet we can see that the account must on the whole have been very correct. The Galloway nags, the girdle-cakes, the bagpipes--every little detail rings true. Jean-le-Bel was actually present in a Border campaign, and from him Froissart got his material; but he has never attempted to embroider it, and its accuracy, where we can to some extent test it, must predispose us to accept his accounts where they are beyond our confirmation. But the most interesting portion of old Froissart's work is that which deals with the knights and the knight-errants of his time, their deeds, their habits, their methods of talking. It is true that he lived himself just a little after the true heyday of chivalry; but he was quite early enough to have met many of the men who had been looked upon as the flower of knighthood of the time. His book was read too, and commented on by these very men (as many of them as could read), and so we may take it that it was no fancy portrait, but a correct picture of these soldiers which is to be found in it. The accounts are always consistent. If you collate the remarks and speeches of the knights (as I have had occasion to do) you will find a remarkable uniformity running through them. We may believe then that this really does represent the kind of men who fought at Crecy and at Poictiers, in the age when both the French and the Scottish kings were prisoners in London, and England reached a pitch of military glory which has perhaps never been equalled in her history. In one respect these knights differ from anything which we have had presented to us in our historical romances. To turn to the supreme romancer, you will find that Scott's mediaeval knights were usually muscular athletes in the prime of life: Bois-Guilbert, Front-de-Boeuf, Richard, Ivanhoe, Count Robert--they all were such. But occasionally the most famous of Froissart's knights were old, crippled and blinded. Chandos, the best lance of his day, must have been over seventy when he lost his life through being charged upon the side on which he had already lost an eye. He was well on to that age when he rode out from the English army and slew the Spanish champion, big Marten Ferrara, upon the morning of Navaretta. Youth and strength were very useful, no doubt, especially where heavy armour had to be carried, but once on the horse's back the gallant steed supplied the muscles. In an English hunting-field many a doddering old man, when he is once firmly seated in his familiar saddle, can give points to the youngsters at the game. So it was among the knights, and those who had outlived all else could still carry to the wars their wiliness, their experience with arms, and, above all, their cool and undaunted courage. Beneath his varnish of chivalry, it cannot be gainsayed that the knight was often a bloody and ferocious barbarian. There was little quarter in his wars, save when a ransom might be claimed. But with all his savagery, he was a light-hearted creature, like a formidable boy playing a dreadful game. He was true also to his own curious code, and, so far as his own class went, his feelings were genial and sympathetic, even in warfare. There was no personal feeling or bitterness as there might be now in a war between Frenchmen and Germans. On the contrary, the opponents were very softspoken and polite to each other. "Is there any small vow of which I may relieve you?" "Would you desire to attempt some small deed of arms upon me?" And in the midst of a fight they would stop for a breather, and converse amicably the while, with many compliments upon each other's prowess. When Seaton the Scotsman had exchanged as many blows as he wished with a company of French knights, he said, "Thank you, gentlemen, thank you!" and galloped away. An English knight made a vow, "for his own advancement and the exaltation of his lady," that he would ride into the hostile city of Paris, and touch with his lance the inner barrier. The whole story is most characteristic of the times. As he galloped up, the French knights around the barrier, seeing that he was under vow, made no attack upon him, and called out to him that he had carried himself well. As he returned, however, there stood an unmannerly butcher with a pole-axe upon the side-walk, who struck him as he passed, and killed him. Here ends the chronicler; but I have not the least doubt that the butcher had a very evil time at the hands of the French knights, who would not stand by and see one of their own order, even if he were an enemy, meet so plebeian an end. De Comines, as a chronicler, is less quaint and more conventional than Froissart, but the writer of romance can dig plenty of stones out of that quarry for the use of his own little building. Of course Quentin Durward has come bodily out of the pages of De Comines. The whole history of Louis XI. and his relations with Charles the Bold, the strange life at Plessis-le-Tours, the plebeian courtiers, the barber and the hangman, the astrologers, the alternations of savage cruelty and of slavish superstition--it is all set forth here. One would imagine that such a monarch was unique, that such a mixture of strange qualities and monstrous crimes could never be matched, and yet like causes will always produce like results. Read Walewski's "Life of Ivan the Terrible," and you will find that more than a century later Russia produced a monarch even more diabolical, but working exactly on the same lines as Louis, even down to small details. The same cruelty, the same superstition, the same astrologers, the same low-born associates, the same residence outside the influence of the great cities--a parallel could hardly be more complete. If you have not supped too full of horrors when you have finished Ivan, then pass on to the same author's account of Peter the Great. What a land! What a succession of monarchs! Blood and snow and iron! Both Ivan and Peter killed their own sons. And there is a hideous mockery of religion running through it all which gives it a grotesque horror of its own. We have had our Henry the Eighth, but our very worst would have been a wise and benevolent rule in Russia. Talking of romance and of chivalry, that tattered book down yonder has as much between its disreputable covers as most that I know. It is Washington Irving's "Conquest of Granada." I do not know where he got his material for this book--from Spanish Chronicles, I presume--but the wars between the Moors and the Christian knights must have been among the most chivalrous of exploits. I could not name a book which gets the beauty and the glamour of it better than this one, the lance-heads gleaming in the dark defiles, the red bale fires glowing on the crags, the stern devotion of the mail-clad Christians, the debonnaire and courtly courage of the dashing Moslem. Had Washington Irving written nothing else, that book alone should have forced the door of every library. I love all his books, for no man wrote fresher English with a purer style; but of them all it is still "The Conquest of Granada" to which I turn most often. To hark back for a moment to history as seen in romances, here are two exotics side by side, which have a flavour that is new. They are a brace of foreign novelists, each of whom, so far as I know, has only two books. This green-and-gold volume contains both the works of the Pomeranian Meinhold in an excellent translation by Lady Wilde. The first is "Sidonia the Sorceress," the second, "The Amber Witch." I don't know where one may turn for a stranger view of the Middle Ages, the quaint details of simple life, with sudden intervals of grotesque savagery. The most weird and barbarous things are made human and comprehensible. There is one incident which haunts one after one has read it, where the executioner chaffers with the villagers as to what price they will give him for putting some young witch to the torture, running them up from a barrel of apples to a barrel and a half, on the grounds that he is now old and rheumatic, and that the stooping and straining is bad for his back. It should be done on a sloping hill, he explains, so that the "dear little children" may see it easily. Both "Sidonia" and "The Amber Witch" give such a picture of old Germany as I have never seen elsewhere. But Meinhold belongs to a bygone generation. This other author, in whom I find a new note, and one of great power, is Merejkowski, who is, if I mistake not, young and with his career still before him. "The Forerunner" and "The Death of the Gods" are the only two books of his which I have been able to obtain, but the pictures of Renaissance Italy in the one, and of declining Rome in the other, are in my opinion among the masterpieces of fiction. I confess that as I read them I was pleased to find how open my mind was to new impressions, for one of the greatest mental dangers which comes upon a man as he grows older is that he should become so attached to old favourites that he has no room for the new-comer, and persuades himself that the days of great things are at an end because his own poor brain is getting ossified. You have but to open any critical paper to see how common is the disease, but a knowledge of literary history assures us that it has always been the same, and that if the young writer is discouraged by adverse comparisons it has been the common lot from the beginning. He has but one resource, which is to pay no heed to criticism, but to try to satisfy his own highest standard and leave the rest to time and the public. Here is a little bit of doggerel, pinned, as you see, beside my bookcase, which may in a ruffled hour bring peace and guidance to some younger brother-- "Critics kind--never mind! Critics flatter--no matter! Critics blame--all the same! Critics curse--none the worse! Do your best-- ---- the rest!" XI. I have been talking in the past tense of heroes and of knight-errants, but surely their day is not yet passed. When the earth has all been explored, when the last savage has been tamed, when the final cannon has been scrapped, and the world has settled down into unbroken virtue and unutterable dulness, men will cast their thoughts back to our age, and will idealize our romance and--our courage, even as we do that of our distant forbears. "It is wonderful what these people did with their rude implements and their limited appliances!" That is what they will say when they read of our explorations, our voyages, and our wars. Now, take that first book on my travel shelf. It is Knight's "Cruise of the Falcon." Nature was guilty of the pun which put this soul into a body so named. Read this simple record and tell me if there is anything in Hakluyt more wonderful. Two landsmen--solicitors, if I remember right--go down to Southampton Quay. They pick up a long-shore youth, and they embark in a tiny boat in which they put to sea. Where do they turn up? At Buenos Ayres. Thence they penetrate to Paraquay, return to the West Indies, sell their little boat there, and so home. What could the Elizabethan mariners have done more? There are no Spanish galleons now to vary the monotony of such a voyage, but had there been I am very certain our adventurers would have had their share of the doubloons. But surely it was the nobler when done out of the pure lust of adventure and in answer to the call of the sea, with no golden bait to draw them on. The old spirit still lives, disguise it as you will with top hats, frock coats, and all prosaic settings. Perhaps even they also will seem romantic when centuries have blurred them. Another book which shows the romance and the heroism which still linger upon earth is that large copy of the "Voyage of the Discovery in the Antarctic" by Captain Scott. Written in plain sailor fashion with no attempt at over-statement or colour, it none the less (or perhaps all the more) leaves a deep impression upon the mind. As one reads it, and reflects on what one reads, one seems to get a clear view of just those qualities which make the best kind of Briton. Every nation produces brave men. Every nation has men of energy. But there is a certain type which mixes its bravery and its energy with a gentle modesty and a boyish good-humour, and it is just this type which is the highest. Here the whole expedition seem to have been imbued with the spirit of their commander. No flinching, no grumbling, every discomfort taken as a jest, no thought of self, each working only for the success of the enterprise. When you have read of such privations so endured and so chronicled, it makes one ashamed to show emotion over the small annoyances of daily life. Read of Scott's blinded, scurvy-struck party staggering on to their goal, and then complain, if you can, of the heat of a northern sun, or the dust of a country road. That is one of the weaknesses of modern life. We complain too much. We are not ashamed of complaining. Time was when it was otherwise--when it was thought effeminate to complain. The Gentleman should always be the Stoic, with his soul too great to be affected by the small troubles of life. "You look cold, sir," said an English sympathizer to a French emigre. The fallen noble drew himself up in his threadbare coat. "Sir," said he, "a gentleman is never cold." One's consideration for others as well as one's own self-respect should check the grumble. This self-suppression, and also the concealment of pain are two of the old noblesse oblige characteristics which are now little more than a tradition. Public opinion should be firmer on the matter. The man who must hop because his shin is hacked, or wring his hand because his knuckles are bruised should be made to feel that he is an object not of pity, but of contempt. The tradition of Arctic exploration is a noble one among Americans as well as ourselves. The next book is a case in point. It is Greely's "Arctic Service," and it is a worthy shelf-companion to Scott's "Account of the Voyage of the Discovery." There are incidents in this book which one can never forget. The episode of those twenty-odd men lying upon that horrible bluff, and dying one a day from cold and hunger and scurvy, is one which dwarfs all our puny tragedies of romance. And the gallant starving leader giving lectures on abstract science in an attempt to take the thoughts of the dying men away from their sufferings--what a picture! It is bad to suffer from cold and bad to suffer from hunger, and bad to live in the dark; but that men could do all these things for six months on end, and that some should live to tell the tale, is, indeed, a marvel. What a world of feeling lies in the exclamation of the poor dying lieutenant: "Well, this _is_ wretched," he groaned, as he turned his face to the wall. The Anglo-Celtic race has always run to individualism, and yet there is none which is capable of conceiving and carrying out a finer ideal of discipline. There is nothing in Roman or Grecian annals, not even the lava-baked sentry at Pompeii, which gives a more sternly fine object-lesson in duty than the young recruits of the British army who went down in their ranks on the Birkenhead. And this expedition of Greely's gave rise to another example which seems to me hardly less remarkable. You may remember, if you have read the book, that even when there were only about eight unfortunates still left, hardly able to move for weakness and hunger, the seven took the odd man out upon the ice, and shot him dead for breach of discipline. The whole grim proceeding was carried out with as much method and signing of papers, as if they were all within sight of the Capitol at Washington. His offence had consisted, so far as I can remember, of stealing and eating the thong which bound two portions of the sledge together, something about as appetizing as a bootlace. It is only fair to the commander to say, however, that it was one of a series of petty thefts, and that the thong of a sledge might mean life or death to the whole party. Personally I must confess that anything bearing upon the Arctic Seas is always of the deepest interest to me. He who has once been within the borders of that mysterious region, which can be both the most lovely and the most repellent upon earth, must always retain something of its glamour. Standing on the confines of known geography I have shot the southward flying ducks, and have taken from their gizzards pebbles which they have swallowed in some land whose shores no human foot has trod. The memory of that inexpressible air, of the great ice-girt lakes of deep blue water, of the cloudless sky shading away into a light green and then into a cold yellow at the horizon, of the noisy companionable birds, of the huge, greasy-backed water animals, of the slug-like seals, startlingly black against the dazzling whiteness of the ice--all of it will come back to a man in his dreams, and will seem little more than some fantastic dream itself, go removed is it from the main stream of his life. And then to play a fish a hundred tons in weight, and worth two thousand pounds--but what in the world has all this to do with my bookcase? Yet it has its place in my main line of thought, for it leads me straight to the very next upon the shelf, Bullen's "Cruise of the Cachelot," a book which is full of the glamour and the mystery of the sea, marred only by the brutality of those who go down to it in ships. This is the sperm-whale fishing, an open-sea affair, and very different from that Greenland ice groping in which I served a seven-months' apprenticeship. Both, I fear, are things of the past--certainly the northern fishing is so, for why should men risk their lives to get oil when one has but to sink a pipe in the ground. It is the more fortunate then that it should have been handled by one of the most virile writers who has described a sailor's life. Bullen's English at its best rises to a great height. If I wished to show how high, I would take that next book down, "Sea Idylls." How is this, for example, if you have an ear for the music of prose? It is a simple paragraph out of the magnificent description of a long calm in the tropics. "A change, unusual as unwholesome, came over the bright blue of the sea. No longer did it reflect, as in a limpid mirror, the splendour of the sun, the sweet silvery glow of the moon, or the coruscating clusters of countless stars. Like the ashen-grey hue that bedims the countenance of the dying, a filmy greasy skin appeared to overspread the recent loveliness of the ocean surface. The sea was sick, stagnant, and foul, from its turbid waters arose a miasmatic vapour like a breath of decay, which clung clammily to the palate and dulled all the senses. Drawn by some strange force, from the unfathomable depths below, eerie shapes sought the surface, blinking glassily at the unfamiliar glare they had exchanged for their native gloom--uncouth creatures bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them, fathom-long, medusae with coloured spots like eyes clustering all over their transparent substance, wriggling worm-like forms of such elusive matter that the smallest exposure to the sun melted them, and they were not. Lower down, vast pale shadows creep sluggishly along, happily undistinguishable as yet, but adding a half-familiar flavour to the strange, faint smell that hung about us." Take the whole of that essay which describes a calm in the Tropics, or take the other one "Sunrise as seen from the Crow's-nest," and you must admit that there have been few finer pieces of descriptive English in our time. If I had to choose a sea library of only a dozen volumes I should certainly give Bullen two places. The others? Well, it is so much a matter of individual taste. "Tom Cringle's Log" should have one for certain. I hope boys respond now as they once did to the sharks and the pirates, the planters, and all the rollicking high spirits of that splendid book. Then there is Dana's "Two Years before the Mast." I should find room also for Stevenson's "Wrecker" and "Ebb Tide." Clark Russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not miss out "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Marryat, of course, must be represented, and I should pick "Midshipman Easy" and "Peter Simple" as his samples. Then throw in one of Melville's Otaheite books--now far too completely forgotten--"Typee" or "Omoo," and as a quite modern flavour Kipling's "Captains Courageous" and Jack London's "Sea Wolf," with Conrad's "Nigger of the Narcissus." Then you will have enough to turn your study into a cabin and bring the wash and surge to your cars, if written words can do it. Oh, how one longs for it sometimes when life grows too artificial, and the old Viking blood begins to stir! Surely it must linger in all of us, for no man who dwells in an island but had an ancestor in longship or in coracle. Still more must the salt drop tingle in the blood of an American when you reflect that in all that broad continent there is not one whose forefather did not cross 3000 miles of ocean. And yet there are in the Central States millions and millions of their descendants who have never seen the sea. I have said that "Omoo" and "Typee," the books in which the sailor Melville describes his life among the Otaheitans, have sunk too rapidly into obscurity. What a charming and interesting task there is for some critic of catholic tastes and sympathetic judgment to undertake rescue work among the lost books which would repay salvage! A small volume setting forth their names and their claims to attention would be interesting in itself, and more interesting in the material to which it would serve as an introduction. I am sure there are many good books, possibly there are some great ones, which have been swept away for a time in the rush. What chance, for example, has any book by an unknown author which is published at a moment of great national excitement, when some public crisis arrests the popular mind? Hundreds have been still-born in this fashion, and are there none which should have lived among them? Now, there is a book, a modern one, and written by a youth under thirty. It is Snaith's "Broke of Covenden," and it scarce attained a second edition. I do not say that it is a Classic--I should not like to be positive that it is not--but I am perfectly sure that the man who wrote it has the possibility of a Classic within him. Here is another novel--"Eight Days," by Forrest. You can't buy it. You are lucky even if you can find it in a library. Yet nothing ever written will bring the Indian Mutiny home to you as this book will do. Here's another which I will warrant you never heard of. It is Powell's "Animal Episodes." No, it is not a collection of dog-and-cat anecdotes, but it is a series of very singularly told stories which deal with the animal side of the human, and which you will feel have an entirely new flavour if you have a discriminating palate. The book came out ten years ago, and is utterly unknown. If I can point to three in one small shelf, how many lost lights must be flitting in the outer darkness! Let me hark back for a moment to the subject with which I began, the romance of travel and the frequent heroism of modern life. I have two books of Scientific Exploration here which exhibit both these qualities as strongly as any I know. I could not choose two better books to put into a young man's hands if you wished to train him first in a gentle and noble firmness of mind, and secondly in a great love for and interest in all that pertains to Nature. The one is Darwin's "Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle." Any discerning eye must have detected long before the "Origin of Species" appeared, simply on the strength of this book of travel, that a brain of the first order, united with many rare qualities of character, had arisen. Never was there a more comprehensive mind. Nothing was too small and nothing too great for its alert observation. One page is occupied in the analysis of some peculiarity in the web of a minute spider, while the next deals with the evidence for the subsidence of a continent and the extinction of a myriad animals. And his sweep of knowledge was so great--botany, geology, zoology, each lending its corroborative aid to the other. How a youth of Darwin's age--he was only twenty-three when in the year 1831 he started round the world on the surveying ship Beagle--could have acquired such a mass of information fills one with the same wonder, and is perhaps of the same nature, as the boy musician who exhibits by instinct the touch of the master. Another quality which one would be less disposed to look for in the savant is a fine contempt for danger, which is veiled in such modesty that one reads between the lines in order to detect it. When he was in the Argentina, the country outside the Settlements was covered with roving bands of horse Indians, who gave no quarter to any whites. Yet Darwin rode the four hundred miles between Bahia and Buenos Ayres, when even the hardy Gauchos refused to accompany him. Personal danger and a hideous death were small things to him compared to a new beetle or an undescribed fly. The second book to which I alluded is Wallace's "Malay Archipelago." There is a strange similarity in the minds of the two men, the same courage, both moral and physical, the same gentle persistence, the same catholic knowledge and wide. sweep of mind, the same passion for the observation of Nature. Wallace by a flash of intuition understood and described in a letter to Darwin the cause of the Origin of Species at the very time when the latter was publishing a book founded upon twenty years' labour to prove the same thesis. What must have been his feelings when he read that letter? And yet he had nothing to fear, for his book found no more enthusiastic admirer than the man who had in a sense anticipated it. Here also one sees that Science has its heroes no less than Religion. One of Wallace's missions in Papua was to examine the nature and species of the Birds-of-Paradise; but in the course of the years of his wanderings through those islands he made a complete investigation of the whole fauna. A footnote somewhere explains that the Papuans who lived in the Bird-of-Paradise country were confirmed cannibals. Fancy living for years with or near such neighbours! Let a young fellow read these two books, and he cannot fail to have both his mind and his spirit strengthened by the reading. XII. Here we are at the final seance. For the last time, my patient comrade, I ask you to make yourself comfortable upon the old green settee, to look up at the oaken shelves, and to bear with me as best you may while I preach about their contents. The last time! And yet, as I look along the lines of the volumes, I have not mentioned one out of ten of those to which I owe a debt of gratitude, nor one in a hundred of the thoughts which course through my brain as I look at them. As well perhaps, for the man who has said all that he has to say has invariably said too much. Let me be didactic for a moment! I assume this solemn--oh, call it not pedantic!--attitude because my eye catches the small but select corner which constitutes my library of Science. I wanted to say that if I were advising a young man who was beginning life, I should counsel him to devote one evening a week to scientific reading. Had he the perseverance to adhere to his resolution, and if he began it at twenty, he would certainly find himself with an unusually well-furnished mind at thirty, which would stand him in right good stead in whatever line of life he might walk. When I advise him to read science, I do not mean that he should choke himself with the dust of the pedants, and lose himself in the subdivisions of the Lepidoptera, or the classifications of the dicotyledonous plants. These dreary details are the prickly bushes in that enchanted garden, and you are foolish indeed if you begin your walks by butting your head into one. Keep very clear of them until you have explored the open beds and wandered down every easy path. For this reason avoid the text-books, which repel, and cultivate that popular science which attracts. You cannot hope to be a specialist upon all these varied subjects. Better far to have a broad idea of general results, and to understand their relations to each other. A very little reading will give a man such a knowledge of geology, for example, as will make every quarry and railway cutting an object of interest. A very little zoology will enable you to satisfy your curiosity as to what is the proper name and style of this buff-ermine moth which at the present instant is buzzing round the lamp. A very little botany will enable you to recognize every flower you are likely to meet in your walks abroad, and to give you a tiny thrill of interest when you chance upon one which is beyond your ken. A very little archaeology will tell you all about yonder British tumulus, or help you to fill in the outline of the broken Roman camp upon the downs. A very little astronomy will cause you to look more intently at the heavens, to pick out your brothers the planets, who move in your own circles, from the stranger stars, and to appreciate the order, beauty, and majesty of that material universe which is most surely the outward sign of the spiritual force behind it. How a man of science can be a materialist is as amazing to me as how a sectarian can limit the possibilities of the Creator. Show me a picture without an artist, show me a bust without a sculptor, show me music without a musician, and then you may begin to talk to me of a universe without a Universe-maker, call Him by what name you will. Here is Flammarion's "L'Atmosphere"--a very gorgeous though weather-stained copy in faded scarlet and gold. The book has a small history, and I value it. A young Frenchman, dying of fever on the west coast of Africa, gave it to me as a professional fee. The sight of it takes me back to a little ship's bunk, and a sallow face with large, sad eyes looking out at me. Poor boy, I fear that he never saw his beloved Marseilles again! Talking of popular science, I know no better books for exciting a man's first interest, and giving a broad general view of the subject, than these of Samuel Laing. Who would have imagined that the wise savant and gentle dreamer of these volumes was also the energetic secretary of a railway company? Many men of the highest scientific eminence have begun in prosaic lines of life. Herbert Spencer was a railway engineer. Wallace was a land surveyor. But that a man with so pronounced a scientific brain as Laing should continue all his life to devote his time to dull routine work, remaining in harness until extreme old age, with his soul still open to every fresh idea and his brain acquiring new concretions of knowledge, is indeed a remarkable fact. Read those books, and you will be a fuller man. It is an excellent device to talk about what you have recently read. Rather hard upon your audience, you may say; but without wishing to be personal, I dare bet it is more interesting than your usual small talk. It must, of course, be done with some tact and discretion. It is the mention of Laing's works which awoke the train of thought which led to these remarks. I had met some one at a table d'hote or elsewhere who made some remark about the prehistoric remains in the valley of the Somme. I knew all about those, and showed him that I did. I then threw out some allusion to the rock temples of Yucatan, which he instantly picked up and enlarged upon. He spoke of ancient Peruvian civilization, and I kept well abreast of him. I cited the Titicaca image, and he knew all about that. He spoke of Quaternary man, and I was with him all the time. Each was more and more amazed at the fulness and the accuracy of the information of the other, until like a flash the explanation crossed my mind. "You are reading Samuel Laing's 'Human Origins'!" I cried. So he was, and so by a coincidence was I. We were pouring water over each other, but it was all new-drawn from the spring. There is a big two-volumed book at the end of my science shelf which would, even now, have its right to be called scientific disputed by some of the pedants. It is Myers' "Human Personality." My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that it will be recognized a century hence as a great root book, one from which a whole new branch of science will have sprung. Where between four covers will you find greater evidence of patience, of industry, of thought, of discrimination, of that sweep of mind which can gather up a thousand separate facts and bind them all in the meshes of a single consistent system? Darwin has not been a more ardent collector in zoology than Myers in the dim regions of psychic research, and his whole hypothesis, so new that a new nomenclature and terminology had to be invented to express it, telepathy, the subliminal, and the rest of it, will always be a monument of acute reasoning, expressed in fine prose and founded upon ascertained fact. The mere suspicion of scientific thought or scientific methods has a great charm in any branch of literature, however far it may be removed from actual research. Poe's tales, for example, owe much to this effect, though in his case it was a pure illusion. Jules Verne also produces a charmingly credible effect for the most incredible things by an adept use of a considerable amount of real knowledge of nature. But most gracefully of all does it shine in the lighter form of essay, where playful thoughts draw their analogies and illustrations from actual fact, each showing up the other, and the combination presenting a peculiar piquancy to the reader. Where could I get better illustration of what I mean than in those three little volumes which make up Wendell Holmes' immortal series, "The Autocrat," "The Poet," and "The Professor at the Breakfast Table"? Here the subtle, dainty, delicate thought is continually reinforced by the allusion or the analogy which shows the wide, accurate knowledge behind it. What work it is! how wise, how witty, how large-hearted and tolerant! Could one choose one's philosopher in the Elysian fields, as once in Athens, I would surely join the smiling group who listened to the human, kindly words of the Sage of Boston. I suppose it is just that continual leaven of science, especially of medical science, which has from my early student days given those books so strong an attraction for me. Never have I so known and loved a man whom I had never seen. It was one of the ambitions of my lifetime to look upon his face, but by the irony of Fate I arrived in his native city just in time to lay a wreath upon his newly-turned grave. Read his books again, and see if you are not especially struck by the up-to-dateness of them. Like Tennyson's "In Memoriam," it seems to me to be work which sprang into full flower fifty years before its time. One can hardly open a page haphazard without lighting upon some passage which illustrates the breadth of view, the felicity of phrase, and the singular power of playful but most suggestive analogy. Here, for example, is a paragraph--no better than a dozen others--which combines all the rare qualities:-- "Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust upon them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are called religious mental disturbances. I confess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their wits and enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums. Any decent person ought to go mad if he really holds such and such opinions.... Anything that is brutal, cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind, and perhaps for entire races--anything that assumes the necessity for the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated--no matter by what name you call it--no matter whether a fakir, or a monk, or a deacon believes it--if received, ought to produce insanity in every well-regulated mind." There's a fine bit of breezy polemics for the dreary fifties--a fine bit of moral courage too for the University professor who ventured to say it. I put him above Lamb as an essayist, because there is a flavour of actual knowledge and of practical acquaintance with the problems and affairs of life, which is lacking in the elfin Londoner. I do not say that the latter is not the rarer quality. There are my "Essays of Elia," and they are well-thumbed as you see, so it is not because I love Lamb less that I love this other more. Both are exquisite, but Wendell Holmes is for ever touching some note which awakens an answering vibration within my own mind. The essay must always be a somewhat repellent form of literature, unless it be handled with the lightest and deftest touch. It is too reminiscent of the school themes of our boyhood--to put a heading and then to show what you can get under it. Even Stevenson, for whom I have the most profound admiration, finds it difficult to carry the reader through a series of such papers, adorned with his original thought and quaint turn of phrase. Yet his "Men and Books" and "Virginibus Puerisque" are high examples of what may be done in spite of the inherent unavoidable difficulty of the task. But his style! Ah, if Stevenson had only realized how beautiful and nervous was his own natural God-given style, he would never have been at pains to acquire another! It is sad to read the much-lauded anecdote of his imitating this author and that, picking up and dropping, in search of the best. The best is always the most natural. When Stevenson becomes a conscious stylist, applauded by so many critics, he seems to me like a man who, having most natural curls, will still conceal them under a wig. The moment he is precious he loses his grip. But when he will abide by his own sterling Lowland Saxon, with the direct word and the short, cutting sentence, I know not where in recent years we may find his mate. In this strong, plain setting the occasional happy word shines like a cut jewel. A really good stylist is like Beau Brummell's description of a well-dressed man--so dressed that no one would ever observe him. The moment you begin to remark a man's style the odds are that there is something the matter with it. It is a clouding of the crystal--a diversion of the reader's mind from the matter to the manner, from the author's subject to the author himself. No, I have not the Edinburgh edition. If you think of a presentation--but I should be the last to suggest it. Perhaps on the whole I would prefer to have him in scattered books, rather than in a complete set. The half is more than the whole of most authors, and not the least of him. I am sure that his friends who reverenced his memory had good warrant and express instructions to publish this complete edition--very possibly it was arranged before his lamented end. Yet, speaking generally, I would say that an author was best served by being very carefully pruned before being exposed to the winds of time. Let every weak twig, every immature shoot be shorn away, and nothing but strong, sturdy, well-seasoned branches left. So shall the whole tree stand strong for years to come. How false an impression of the true Stevenson would our critical grandchild acquire if he chanced to pick down any one of half a dozen of these volumes! As we watched his hand stray down the rank, how we would pray that it might alight upon the ones we love, on the "New Arabian Nights" "The Ebb-tide," "The Wrecker," "Kidnapped," or "Treasure Island." These can surely never lose their charm. What noble books of their class are those last, "Kidnapped" and "Treasure Island"! both, as you see, shining forth upon my lower shelf. "Treasure Island" is the better story, while I could imagine that "Kidnapped" might have the more permanent value as being an excellent and graphic sketch of the state of the Highlands after the last Jacobite insurrection. Each contains one novel and admirable character, Alan Breck in the one, and Long John in the other. Surely John Silver, with his face the size of a ham, and his little gleaming eyes like crumbs of glass in the centre of it, is the king of all seafaring desperadoes. Observe how the strong effect is produced in his case: seldom by direct assertion on the part of the story-teller, but usually by comparison, innuendo, or indirect reference. The objectionable Billy Bones is haunted by the dread of "a seafaring man with one leg." Captain Flint, we are told, was a brave man; "he was afraid of none, not he, only Silver--Silver was that genteel." Or, again, where John himself says, "there was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat was Flint's. The devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well, now, I will tell you. I'm not a boasting man, and you seen yourself how easy I keep company; but when I was quartermaster, lambs wasn't the word for Flint's old buccaneers." So, by a touch here and a hint there, there grows upon us the individuality of the smooth-tongued, ruthless, masterful, one-legged devil. He is to us not a creation of fiction, but an organic living reality with whom we have come in contact; such is the effect of the fine suggestive strokes with which he is drawn. And the buccaneers themselves, how simple and yet how effective are the little touches which indicate their ways of thinking and of acting. "I want to go in that cabin, I do; I want their pickles and wine and that." "Now, if you had sailed along o' Bill you wouldn't have stood there to be spoke twice--not you. That was never Bill's way, not the way of sich as sailed with him." Scott's buccaneers in "The Pirate" are admirable, but they lack something human which we find here. It will be long before John Silver loses his place in sea fiction, "and you may lay to that." Stevenson was deeply influenced by Meredith, and even in these books the influence of the master is apparent. There is the apt use of an occasional archaic or unusual word, the short, strong descriptions, the striking metaphors, the somewhat staccato fashion of speech. Yet, in spite of this flavour, they have quite individuality enough to constitute a school of their own. Their faults, or rather perhaps their limitations, lie never in the execution, but entirely in the original conception. They picture only one side of life, and that a strange and exceptional one. There is no female interest. We feel that it is an apotheosis of the boy-story--the penny number of our youth in excelsis. But it is all so good, so fresh, so picturesque, that, however limited its scope, it still retains a definite and well-assured place in literature. There is no reason why "Treasure Island" should not be to the rising generation of the twenty-first century what "Robinson Crusoe" has been to that of the nineteenth. The balance of probability is all in that direction. The modern masculine novel, dealing almost exclusively with the rougher, more stirring side of life, with the objective rather than the subjective, marks the reaction against the abuse of love in fiction. This one phase of life in its orthodox aspect, and ending in the conventional marriage, has been so hackneyed and worn to a shadow, that it is not to be wondered at that there is a tendency sometimes to swing to the other extreme, and to give it less than its fair share in the affairs of men. In British fiction nine books out of ten have held up love and marriage as the be-all and end-all of life. Yet we know, in actual practice, that this may not be so. In the career of the average man his marriage is an incident, and a momentous incident; but it is only one of several. He is swayed by many strong emotions--his business, his ambitions, his friendships, his struggles with the recurrent dangers and difficulties which tax a man's wisdom and his courage. Love will often play a subordinate part in his life. How many go through the world without ever loving at all? It jars upon us then to have it continually held up as the predominating, all-important fact in life; and there is a not unnatural tendency among a certain school, of which Stevenson is certainly the leader, to avoid altogether a source of interest which has been so misused and overdone. If all love-making were like that between Richard Feverel and Lucy Desborough, then indeed we could not have too much of it; but to be made attractive once more, the passion must be handled by some great master who has courage to break down conventionalities and to go straight to actual life for his inspiration. The use of novel and piquant forms of speech is one of the most obvious of Stevenson's devices. No man handles his adjectives with greater judgment and nicer discrimination. There is hardly a page of his work where we do not come across words and expressions which strike us with a pleasant sense of novelty, and yet express the meaning with admirable conciseness. "His eyes came coasting round to me." It is dangerous to begin quoting, as the examples are interminable, and each suggests another. Now and then he misses his mark, but it is very seldom. As an example, an "eye-shot" does not commend itself as a substitute for "a glance," and "to tee-hee" for "to giggle" grates somewhat upon the ear, though the authority of Chaucer might be cited for the expressions. Next in order is his extraordinary faculty for the use of pithy similes, which arrest the attention and stimulate the imagination. "His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock." "I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind." "His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell." "His voice shook like a taut rope." "My mind flying like a weaver's shuttle." "His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs." "The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk like rabbits from a hill." Nothing could be more effective than these direct and homely comparisons. After all, however, the main characteristic of Stevenson is his curious instinct for saying in the briefest space just those few words which stamp the impression upon the reader's mind. He will make you see a thing more clearly than you would probably have done had your eyes actually rested upon it. Here are a few of these word-pictures, taken haphazard from among hundreds of equal merit-- "Not far off Macconochie was standing with his tongue out of his mouth, and his hand upon his chin, like a dull fellow thinking hard. "Stewart ran after us for more than a mile, and I could not help laughing as I looked back at last and saw him on a hill, holding his hand to his side, and nearly burst with running. "Ballantrae turned to me with a face all wrinkled up, and his teeth all showing in his mouth.... He said no word, but his whole appearance was a kind of dreadful question. "Look at him, if you doubt; look at him, grinning and gulping, a detected thief. "He looked me all over with a warlike eye, and I could see the challenge on his lips." What could be more vivid than the effect produced by such sentences as these? There is much more that might be said as to Stevenson's peculiar and original methods in fiction. As a minor point, it might be remarked that he is the inventor of what may be called the mutilated villain. It is true that Mr. Wilkie Collins has described one gentleman who had not only been deprived of all his limbs, but was further afflicted by the insupportable name of Miserrimus Dexter. Stevenson, however, has used the effect so often, and with such telling results, that he may be said to have made it his own. To say nothing of Hyde, who was the very impersonation of deformity, there is the horrid blind Pew, Black Dog with two fingers missing, Long John with his one leg, and the sinister catechist who is blind but shoots by ear, and smites about him with his staff. In "The Black Arrow," too, there is another dreadful creature who comes tapping along with a stick. Often as he has used the device, he handles it so artistically that it never fails to produce its effect. Is Stevenson a classic? Well, it is a large word that. You mean by a classic a piece of work which passes into the permanent literature of the country. As a rule, you only know your classics when they are in their graves. Who guessed it of Poe, and who of Borrow? The Roman Catholics only canonize their saints a century after their death. So with our classics. The choice lies with our grandchildren. But I can hardly think that healthy boys will ever let Stevenson's books of adventure die, nor do I think that such a short tale as "The Pavilion on the Links" nor so magnificent a parable as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" will ever cease to be esteemed. How well I remember the eagerness, the delight with which I read those early tales in "Cornhill" away back in the late seventies and early eighties. They were unsigned, after the old unfair fashion, but no man with any sense of prose could fail to know that they were all by the same author. Only years afterwards did I learn who that author was. I have Stevenson's collected poems over yonder in the small cabinet. Would that he had given us more! Most of them are the merest playful sallies of a freakish mind. But one should, indeed, be a classic, for it is in my judgment by all odds the best narrative ballad of the last century--that is if I am right in supposing that "The Ancient Mariner" appeared at the very end of the eighteenth. I would put Coleridge's tour de force of grim fancy first, but I know none other to compare in glamour and phrase and easy power with "Ticonderoga." Then there is his immortal epitaph. The two pieces alone give him a niche of his own in our poetical literature, just as his character gives him a niche of his own in our affections. No, I never met him. But among my most prized possessions are several letters which I received from Samoa. From that distant tower he kept a surprisingly close watch upon what was doing among the bookmen, and it was his hand which was among the first held out to the striver, for he had quick appreciation and keen sympathies which met another man's work half-way, and wove into it a beauty from his own mind. And now, my very patient friend, the time has come for us to part, and I hope my little sermons have not bored you over-much. If I have put you on the track of anything which you did not know before, then verify it and pass it on. If I have not, there is no harm done, save that my breath and your time have been wasted. There may be a score of mistakes in what I have said--is it not the privilege of the conversationalist to misquote? My judgments may differ very far from yours, and my likings may be your abhorrence; but the mere thinking and talking of books is in itself good, be the upshot what it may. For the time the magic door is still shut. You are still in the land of faerie. But, alas, though you shut that door, you cannot seal it. Still come the ring of bell, the call of telephone, the summons back to the sordid world of work and men and daily strife. Well, that's the real life after all--this only the imitation. And yet, now that the portal is wide open and we stride out together, do we not face our fate with a braver heart for all the rest and quiet and comradeship that we found behind the Magic Door? 
18104	----	AMONG FAMOUS BOOKS BY JOHN KELMAN, D.D. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON; NEW YORK; TORONTO _Printed in 1912_ PREFACE The object of the following lectures is twofold. They were delivered in the first place for the purpose of directing the attention of readers to books whose literary charm and spiritual value have made them conspicuous in the vast literature of England. Such a task, however, tends to be so discursive as to lose all unity, depending absolutely upon the taste of the individual, and the chances of his experience in reading. I have accordingly taken for the general theme of the book that constant struggle between paganism and idealism which is the deepest fact in the life of man, and whose story, told in one form or another, provides the matter of all vital literature. This will serve as a thread to give continuity of thought to the lectures, and it will keep them near to central issues. Having said so much, it is only necessary to add one word more by way of explanation. In quest of the relations between the spiritual and the material, or (to put it otherwise) of the battle between the flesh and the spirit, we shall dip into three different periods of time: (1) Classical, (2) Sixteenth Century, (3) Modern. Each of these has a character of its own, and the glimpses which we shall have of them ought to be interesting in their own right. But the similarity between the three is more striking than the contrast, for human nature does not greatly change, and its deepest struggles are the same in all generations. CONTENTS LECTURE I The Gods of Greece LECTURE II Marius the Epicurean LECTURE III The Two Fausts LECTURE IV Celtic Revivals of Paganism LECTURE V John Bunyan LECTURE VI Pepys' Diary LECTURE VII Sartor Resartus LECTURE VIII Pagan Reactions LECTURE IX Mr. G.K. Chesterton's Point of View LECTURE X The Hound of Heaven LECTURE I THE GODS OF GREECE It has become fashionable to divide the rival tendencies of modern thought into the two classes of Hellenistic and Hebraistic. The division is an arbitrary and somewhat misleading one, which has done less than justice both to the Greek and to the Hebrew genius. It has associated Greece with the idea of lawless and licentious paganism, and Israel with that of a forbidding and joyless austerity. Paganism is an interesting word, whose etymology reminds us of a time when Christianity had won the towns, while the villages still worshipped heathen gods. It is difficult to define the word without imparting into our thought of it the idea of the contrast between Christian dogma and all other religious thought and life. This, however, would be an extremely unfair account of the matter, and, in the present volume, the word will be used without reference either to nationality or to creed, and it will stand for the materialistic and earthly tendency as against spiritual idealism of any kind. Obviously such paganism as this, is not a thing which has died out with the passing of heathen systems of religion. It is terribly alive in the heart of modern England, whether formally believing or unbelieving. Indeed there is the twofold life of puritan and pagan within us all. A recent well-known theologian wrote to his sister: "I am naturally a cannibal, and I find now my true vocation to be in the South Sea Islands, not after your plan, to be Arnold to a troop of savages, but to be one of them, where they are all selfish, lazy, and brutal." It is this universality of paganism which gives its main interest to such a study as the present. Paganism is a constant and not a temporary or local phase of human life and thought, and it has very little to do with the question of what particular dogmas a man may believe or reject. Thus, for example, although the Greek is popularly accepted as the type of paganism and the Christian of idealism, yet the lines of that distinction have often been reversed. Christianity has at times become hard and cold and lifeless, and has swept away primitive national idealisms without supplying any new ones. The Roman ploughman must have missed the fauns whom he had been accustomed to expect in the thicket at the end of his furrow, when the new faith told him that these were nothing but rustling leaves. When the swish of unseen garments beside the old nymph-haunted fountain was silenced, his heart was left lonely and his imagination impoverished. Much charm and romance vanished from his early world with the passing of its pagan creatures, and indeed it is to this cause that we must trace the extraordinarily far-reaching and varied crop of miraculous legends of all sorts which sprang up in early Catholic times. These were the protest of unconscious idealism against the bare world from which its sweet presences had vanished. "In th' olde dayes of the King Arthour, Of which that Britons speken greet honour, Al was this land fulfild of fayerye. The elf-queen, with hir joly companye, Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede; This was the olde opinion, as I rede. But now can no man see none elves mo. For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitours and othere holy freres, * * * * * This maketh that there been no fayeryes. For ther as wont to walken was an elf, Ther walketh now the limitour himself." Against this impoverishment the human revolt was inevitable, and it explains the spirit in such writers as Shelley and Goethe. Children of nature, who love the sun and the grass, and are at home upon the earth, their spirits cry for something to delight and satisfy them, nearer than speculations of theology or cold pictures of heaven. Wordsworth, in his famous lines, has expressed the protest in the familiar words:-- "Great God, I'd rather be A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn." The early classic thought which found its most perfect expression in the mythology of Greece was not originally or essentially pagan. It was humanistic, and represented the response of man's spirit to that free and beautiful spirit which he found in nature around him. All such symbolism of Greek religion as that of the worship of Dionysus and Ceres, shows this. In these cults the commonest things of life, the wine and corn wherewith man sustained himself, assumed a higher and richer meaning. Food and drink were not mere sensual gratifications, but divine gifts, as they are in the twenty-third Psalm; and the whole material world was a symbol and sacrament of spiritual realities and blessings. Similarly the ritual of Eleusis interpreted man's common life into a wonderful world of mystic spirituality. Thus there was a great fund of spiritual insight of the finest and most beautiful sort in the very heart of that life which has thoughtlessly been adopted as the type of paganism. Yet the history of Greece affords the explanation and even the justification of the popular idea. The pagan who is in us all, tends ever to draw us downwards from sacramental and symbolic ways of thinking to the easier life of the body and the earth. On the one hand, for blood that is young and hot, the life of sense is overwhelming. On the other hand, for the weary toiler whose mind is untrained, the impression of the world is that of heavy clay. Each in his own way finds idealism difficult to retain. The spirituality of nature floats like a dream before the mind of poets, and is seen now and then in wistful glimpses by every one; but it needs some clearer and less elusive form, as well as some definite association with conscience, if it is to be defended against the pull of the green earth. It has been well said that, for the Greek, God was the view; but when the traveller goes forward into the view, he meets with many things which it is dangerous to identify with God. For the young spirit of the early times the temptation to earthliness was overwhelming. The world was fair, its gates were open, and its barriers all down. Men took from literature and from religion just as much of spirituality as they understood and as little as they desired, and the effect was swift and inevitable in that degeneration which reached its final form in the degraded sensuality of the later Roman Empire. The confusing element in all such inquiry lies in the fact that one can never get an unmixed paganism nor a perfect idealism. Just as the claims of body and spirit are in our daily life inextricably interwoven, so the Greek thought hung precariously between the two, and was always more or less at the mercy of the individual interpreter and of the relative strength of his tastes and passions. So we shall find it all through the course of these studies. It would be preposterous to deny some sort of idealism to almost any pagan who has ever lived. The contrast between pagan and idealist is largely a matter of proportion and preponderating tendency: yet the lines are clear enough to enable us to work with this distinction and to find it valuable and illuminating. The fundamental fact to remember in studying any of the myths of Greece is, that we have here a composite and not a simple system of thought and imagination. There are always at least two layers: the primitive, and the Olympian which came later. The primitive conceptions were those afforded by the worship of ghosts, of dead persons, and of animals. Miss Jane Harrison has pointed out in great detail the primitive elements which lingered on through the Olympian worship. Perhaps the most striking instance which she quotes is the Anthesteria, or festival of flowers, at the close of which the spirits were dismissed with the formula, "Depart, ye ghosts, the revels now are ended." Mr. Andrew Lang has suggested that the animals associated with gods and goddesses (such as the mouse which is found in the hand, or the hair, or beside the feet of the statues of Apollo, the owl of Minerva, etc.) are relics of the earlier worship. This would satisfactorily explain much of the disreputable element which lingered on side by side with the noble thoughts of Greek religion. The Olympians, a splendid race of gods, representing the highest human ideals, arrived with the Greeks; but for the sake of safety, or of old association, the primitive worship was retained and blended with the new. In the extreme case of human sacrifice, it was retained in the form of surrogates--little wooden images, or even actual animals, being sacrificed in lieu of the older victims. But all along the line, while the new gods brought their spiritual conceptions, the older ones held men to a cruder and more fleshly way of thinking. There is a similar blend of new and old in all such movements as that of the Holy Grail and the Arthurian legends, where we can see the combination of Christian and pagan elements so clearly as to be able to calculate the moral and spiritual effect of each. Thus we have in the early Greek mythology much of real paganism involved in the retention of the old and earth-bound gods which attached themselves to the nobler Olympians as they came, and dragged them down to the ancient level. This blending may be seen very clearly in the mythology of Homer and Hesiod. There it has been so thorough that the only trace of superposition which we can find is the succession of the dynasties of Chronos and Jupiter. The result is the most appalling conception of the morality of celestial society. No earthly state could hope to continue for a decade upon the principles which governed the life of heaven; and man, if he were to escape the sudden retributions which must inevitably follow anything like an imitation of his gods, must live more decently than they. Now Homer was, in a sense, the Bible of the Greeks, and as society improved in morals, and thought was directed more and more fearlessly towards religious questions, the puzzle as to the immoralities of the gods became acute. The religious and intellectual developments of the sixth century B.C. led to various ways of explaining the old stories. Sophocles is conciliatory, conceiving religion in a sunny good temper which will make the best of the situation whatever it is. Æschylus is sombre and deeply tragic, while yet he remains orthodox on the side of the gods. But Euripides is angry at the old scandals, and in the name of humanity his scepticism rises in protest. It may be interesting, at this point, to glance for a little at the various theories which have been brought forward to explain the myths. The commonest of all such theories is that the divine personalities stand for the individual powers of nature. Most especially, the gods and goddesses symbolise the sun, moon, and stars, night and morning, summer and winter, and the general story of the year. No one will deny that the personification of Nature had a large share in all mythology. The Oriental mythologies rose to a large extent in this fashion. The Baals of Semitic worship all stood for one or other of the manifestations of the fructifying powers of nature, and the Chinese dragon is the symbol of the spiritual mystery of life suggested by the mysterious and protean characteristics of water. It is very natural that this should be so, and every one who has ever felt the power of the sun in the East will sympathise with Turner's dying words, "The sun, he is God." As a key to mythology this theory was especially associated with the name of Plutarch among ancient writers, and it has been accepted more or less completely by a vast number of moderns. In the late Sir George Cox's fascinating stories it was run to utter absurdity. The story is beautifully told in every case, and when we have enjoyed it and felt something of the exquisiteness of the conception and of the variety and range of thought exhibited in the fertile minds of those who had first told it, Sir George Cox draws us back sharply to the assertion that all we have been hearing really meant another phase of sunset or sunrise, until we absolutely rebel and protest that the effect is unaccountable upon so meagre a cause. It is an easy method of dealing with folk-lore. If you take the rhyme of Mary and her little lamb, and call Mary the sun and the lamb the moon, you will achieve astonishing results, both in religion and astronomy, when you find that the lamb followed Mary to school one day. This nature element, however, had undoubtedly a very considerable part in the origin of myths, and when Max Müller combines it with philology it opens a vast field of extraordinarily interesting interpretations resting upon words and their changes. A further theory of myths is that which regards them as the stories of races told as if they had been the lives of individuals. This, as is well known, has had permanent effects upon the interpretation not only of Greek but of Hebrew ancient writings, and it throws light upon some of those chapters of Genesis which, without it, are but strings of forgotten and unpronounceable names. But beyond all such explanations, after we have allowed for them in every possible way, there remains a conviction that behind these fascinating stories there is a certain irreducible remainder of actual fact. Individual historic figures, seen through the mists of time, walk before our eyes in the dawn. Long before history was written men lived and did striking deeds. Heroic memories and traditions of such distinguished men passed in the form of fireside tales from one generation to another through many centuries. Now they come to us, doubtless hugely exaggerated and so far away from their originals as to be unrecognisable, and yet, after all, based upon things that happened. For the stories have living touches in them which put blood into the glorious and ghostly figures, and when we come upon a piece of genuine human nature there is no possibility of mistaking it. This thing has been born, not manufactured: nor has any portrait that is lifelike been drawn without some model. Thus, through all the mist and haze of the past, we see men and women walking in the twilight--dim and uncertain forms indeed, yet stately and heroic. Now all this has a bearing upon the main subject of our present study. Meteorology and astronomy are indeed noble sciences, but the proper study of mankind is man. While, no doubt, the sources of all early folk-lore are composite, yet it matters greatly for the student of these things whether the beginnings of religious thought were merely in the clouds, or whether they had their roots in the same earth whereon we live and labour. The heroes and great people of the early days are eternal figures, because each new generation gives them a resurrection in its own life and experience. They have eternal human meanings, beneath whatever pageantry of sun and stars the ancient heroes passed from birth to death. Soon everything of them is forgotten except the ideas about human life for which they stand. Then each of them becomes the expression of a thought common to humanity, and therefore secure of its immortality to the end of time; for the undying interest is the human interest, and all ideas which concern the life of man are immortal while man's race lasts. In the case of such legends as those we are discussing, it is probable that beyond the mere story some such ideal of human life was suggested from the very first. Certainly, as time went on, the ideal became so identified with the hero, that to thoughtful men he came to stand for a particular idealism of human experience. Thus Pater speaks of Dionysus as from first to last a type of second birth, opening up the hope of a possible analogy between the resurrections of nature and something else, reserved for human souls. "The beautiful, weeping creatures, vexed by the wind, suffering, torn to pieces, and rejuvenescent again at last, like a tender shoot of living green out of the hardness and stony darkness of the earth, becomes an emblem or ideal of chastening and purification, and of final victory through suffering." This theory would also explain the fact that one nation's myths are not only similar to, but to a large extent practically identical with, those of other nations. There is a common stock of ideas supplied by the common elements of human nature in all lands and times; and these, when finely expressed, produce a common fund of ideals which will appeal to the majority of the human race. Thus mythology was originally simple storytelling. But men, even in the telling of the story, began to find meanings for it beyond the mere narration of events; and thus there arose in connection with all stories that were early told, a certain number of judgments of what was high and admirable in human nature. These were not grounded upon philosophical or scientific bases, but upon the bed-rock of man's experience. Out of these judgments there grew the great ideals which from first to last have commanded the spirit of man. In this connection it is interesting to remember that in Homer the men were regarded as the means of revealing ideas and characters, and not as mere natural objects in themselves. The things among which they lived are described and known by their appearances; the men are known by their words and deeds. "There is no inventory of the features of men, or of fair women, as there is in the Greek poets of the decline or in modern novels. Man is something different from a curious bit of workmanship that delights the eye. He is a 'speaker of words and a doer of deeds,' and his true delineation is in speech and action, in thought and emotion." Thus, from the first, ideas are the central and important element. They spring from and cling to stories of individual human lives, and the finest of them become ideals handed down for the guidance of the future race. The myths, with their stories of gods and men, and their implied or declared religious doctrines, are but the forms in which these ideals find expression. The ideals remain, but the forms of their expression change, advancing from cruder to finer and from more fanciful to more exactly true, with the advance of thought and culture. Meanwhile, the ideals are above the world,--dwelling, like Plato's, in heaven,--and there are always two alternatives for every man. He may go back either with deliberate intellectual assent, or passion-led in sensual moods, to the powers of nature and the actual human stories in their crude and earthly form; or he may follow the idealisation of human experience, and discover and adopt the ideals of which the earthly stories and the nature processes are but shadows and hints. In the former case he will be a pagan; in the latter, a spiritual idealist. In what remains of this lecture, we shall consider four of the most famous Greek legends--those of Prometheus, Medusa, Orpheus, and Apollo--in the light of what has just been stated. Prometheus, in the early story, is a Titan, who in the heavenly war had fought on the side of Zeus. It is, however, through the medium of the later story that Prometheus has exercised his eternal influence upon the thought of men. In this form of the legend he appears constantly living and striving for man's sake as the foe of God. We hear of him making men and women of clay and animating them with celestial fire, teaching them the arts of agriculture, the taming of horses, and the uses of plants. Again we hear of Zeus, wearied with the race of men--the new divinity making a clean sweep, and wishing to begin with better material. Zeus is the lover of strength and the despiser of weakness, and from the earth with its weak and pitiful mortals he takes away the gift of fire, leaving them to perish of cold and helplessness. Then it is that Prometheus climbs to heaven, steals back the fire in his hollow cane, and brings it down to earth again. For this benefaction to the despised race Zeus has him crucified, fixed for thirty thousand years on a rock in the Asian Caucasus, where, until Herakles comes to deliver him, the vulture preys upon his liver. Such a story tempts the allegorist, and indeed the main drift of its meaning is unmistakable. Cornutus, a contemporary of Christ, explained it "of forethought, the quick inventiveness of human thought chained to the painful necessities of human life, its liver gnawed unceasingly by cares." In the main, and as a general description, this is quite unquestionable. Prometheus is the prototype of a thousand other figures of the same kind, not in mythology only, but in history, which tell the story of the spiritual effort of man frustrated and brought to earth. It is the story of Tennyson's youth who "Rode a horse with wings that would have flown But that his heavy rider bore him down." Only, in the Prometheus idea, it is not a man's senses, as in Tennyson's poem, but the outward necessity of things, the heavy and cruel powers of nature around him, that prove too much for his aspirations. In this respect the story is singularly characteristic of the Greek spirit. That spirit was always daring with truth, feeling the risks of knowledge and gladly taking them, passionately devoted to the love of knowledge for its own sake. The legend has, however, a deeper significance than this. One of the most elemental questions that man can ask is, What is the relation of the gods to human inquiry and freedom of thought? There always has been a school of thinkers who have regarded knowledge as a thing essentially against the gods. The search for knowledge thus becomes a phase of Titanism; and wherever it is found, it must always be regarded in the light of a secret treasure stolen from heaven against the will of contemptuous or jealous divinities. On the other hand, knowledge is obviously the friend of man. Prometheus is man's champion, and no figure could make a stronger appeal than his. Indeed, in not a few respects he approaches the Christian ideal, and must have brought in some measure the same solution to those who were able to receive it. Few touches in literature, for instance, are finer than that in which he comforts the daughters of Ocean, speaking to them from his cross. The idea of Titanism has become the commonplace of poets. It is familiar in Milton, Byron, Shelley, and countless others, and Goethe tells us that the fable of Prometheus lived within him. Many of the Titanic figures, while they appeared to be blaspheming, were really fighting for truth and justice. The conception of the gods as jealous and contemptuous was not confined to the Greek mythology, but has appeared within the pale of Christian faith as well as in all heathen cults. Nature, in some of its aspects, seems to justify it. The great powers appear to be arrayed against man's efforts, and present the appearance of cruel and bullying strength. Evidently upon such a theory something must go, either our faith in God or our faith in humanity; and when faith has gone we shall be left in the position either of atheists or of slaves. There have been those who accepted the alternative and went into the one camp or the other according to their natures; but the Greek legend did not necessitate this. There was found, as in Æschylus, a hint of reconciliation, which may be taken to represent that conviction so deep in the heart of humanity, that there is "ultimate decency in things," if one could only find it out; although knowledge must always remain dangerous, and may at times cost a man dear. The real secret lies in the progress of thought in its conceptions of God and life. Nature, as we know and experience it, presents indeed an appalling spectacle against which everything that is good in us protests. God, so long as He is but half understood, is utterly unpardonable; and no man yet has succeeded in justifying the ways of God to men. But "to understand all is to forgive all"--or rather, it is to enter into a larger view of life, and to discover how much there is in _us_ that needs to be forgiven. This is the wonderful story which was told by the Hebrews so dramatically in their Book of Job; and the phases through which that drama passes might be taken as the completest commentary on the myth of Prometheus which ever has been or can be written. In two great battlegrounds of the human spirit the problem raised by Prometheus has been fought out. On the ground of science, who does not know the defiant and Titanic mood in which knowledge has at times been sought? The passion for knowing flames through the gloom and depression and savagery of the darker moods of the student. Difficulties are continually thrust into the way of knowledge. The upper powers seem to be jealous and outrageously thwarting, and the path of learning becomes a path of tears and blood. That is all that has been reached by many a grim and brave student spirit. But there is another possible explanation; and there are those who have attained to a persuasion that the gods have made knowledge difficult in order that the wise may also be the strong. The second battleground is that of philanthropy. Here also there has been an apparently reasonable Titanism. Men have struggled in vain, and then protested in bitterness, against the waste and the meaninglessness of the human _débâcle_. The only aspect of the powers above them has seemed to many noble spirits that of the sheer cynic. He that sitteth in the heavens must be laughing indeed. In Prometheus the Greek spirit puts up its daring plea for man. It pleads not for pity merely, but for the worth of human nature. The strong gods cannot be justified in oppressing man upon the plea that might is right, and that they may do what they please. The protest of Prometheus, echoed by Browning's protest of Ixion, appeals to the conscience of the world as right; and, kindling a noble Titanism, puts the divine oppressor in the wrong. Finally, there dawns over the edge of the ominous dark, the same hope that Prometheus vaguely hinted to the Greek. To him who has understood the story of Calvary, the ultimate interpretation of all human suffering is divine love. That which the cross of Prometheus in all its outrageous cruelty yet hints as in a whisper, the Cross of Christ proclaims to the end of time, shouting down the centuries from its blood and pain that God is love, and that in all our affliction He is afflicted. Another myth of great beauty and far-reaching significance is that of Medusa. It is peculiarly interesting on account of its double edge, for it shows us both the high possibilities of ideal beauty and the deepest depths of pagan horror. Robert Louis Stevenson tells us how, as he hung between life and death in a flooded river of France, looking around him in the sunshine and seeing all the lovely landscape, he suddenly felt the attack of the other side of things. "The devouring element in the universe had leaped out against me, in this green valley quickened by a running stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but I had heard some of the hollow notes of _Pan's_ music. Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, indeed? and look so beautiful all the time?" It was in this connection that he gave us that striking and most suggestive phrase, "The beauty and the terror of the world." It is this combination of beauty and terror for which the myth of Medusa stands. It finds its meaning in a thousand instances. On the one hand, it is seen in such ghastly incidents as those in which the sheer horror of nature's action, or of man's crime, becomes invested with an illicit beauty, and fascinates while it kills. On the other hand, it is seen in all of the many cases in which exquisite beauty proves also to be dangerous, or at least sinister. "The haunting strangeness in beauty" is at once one of the most characteristic and one of the most tragic things in the world. There were three sisters, the Gorgons, who dwelt in the Far West, beyond the stream of ocean, in that cold region of Atlas where the sun never shines and the light is always dim. Medusa was one of them, the only mortal of the trio. She was a monster with a past, for in her girlhood she had been the beautiful priestess of Athene, golden-haired and very lovely, whose life had been devoted to virgin service of the goddess. Her golden locks, which set her above all other women in the desire of Neptune, had been her undoing: and when Athene knew of the frailty of her priestess, her vengeance was indeed appalling. Each lock of the golden hair was transformed into a venomous snake. The eyes that had been so love-inspiring were now bloodshot and ferocious. The skin, with its rose and milk-white tenderness, had changed to a loathsome greenish white. All that remained of Medusa was a horrid thing, a mere grinning mask with protruding beast-like tusks and tongue hanging out. So dreadful was the aspect of the changed priestess, that her face turned all those who chanced to catch sight of it to stone. There is a degree of hideousness which no eyes can endure; and so it came to pass that the cave wherein she dwelt, and all the woods around it, were full of men and wild beasts who had been petrified by a glance of her,--grim fossils immortalised in stone,--while the snakes writhed and the red eyes rolled, waiting for another victim. This was not a case into which any hope of redemption could enter, and there was nothing for it but to slay her. To do this, Perseus set out upon his long journey, equipped with the magic gifts of swiftness and invisibility, and bearing on his arm the shield that was also a mirror. The whole picture is infinitely dreary. As he travels across the dark sea to the land where the pillars of Atlas are visible far off, towering into the sky, the light decreases. In the murky and dangerous twilight he forces the Graiai, those grey-haired sisters with their miserable fragmentary life, to bestir their aged limbs and guide him to the Gorgons' den. By the dark stream, where the yellow light brooded everlastingly, he reached at last that cave of horrors. Well was it then for Perseus that he was invisible, for the snakes that were Medusa's hair could see all round. But at that time Medusa was asleep and the snakes asleep, and in the silence and twilight of the land where there is "neither night nor day, nor cloud nor breeze nor storm," he held the magic mirror over against the monster, beheld her in it without change or injury to himself, severed the head, and bore it away to place it on Athene's shield. It is very interesting to notice how Art has treated the legend. It was natural that so vivid an image should become a favourite alike with poets and with sculptors, but there was a gradual development from the old hideous and terrible representations, back to the calm repose of a beautiful dead face. This might indeed more worthily record the maiden's tragedy, but it missed entirely the thing that the old myth had said. The oldest idea was horrible beyond horror, for the darker side of things is always the most impressive to primitive man, and sheer ugliness is a category with which it is easy to work on simple minds. The rudest art can achieve such grotesque hideousness long before it can depict beauty. Later, as we have seen, Art tempered the face to beauty, but in so doing forgot the meaning of the story. It was the old story that has been often told, of the fair and frail one who had fallen among the pitiless. For her there was no compassion either in mortals or in immortals. It was the tragedy of sweet beauty desecrated and lost, the petrifying horror of which has found its most unflinching modern expression in Thomas Hardy's _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_. _Corruptio optimi pessima_. To interpret such stories as these by any reference to the rising sun, or the rivalry between night and dawn, is simply to stultify the science of interpretation. It may, indeed, have been true that most of those who told and heard the tale in ancient times accepted it in its own right, and without either the desire or the thought of further meanings. Yet, even told in that fashion, as it clung to memory and imagination, it must continually have reminded men of certain features of essential human nature, which it but too evidently recorded. Here was one of the sad troop of soulless women who appear in the legends of all the races of mankind. Medusa had herself been petrified before she turned others to stone. The horror that had come upon her life had been too much to bear, and it had killed her heart within her. So far of passion and the price the woman's heart has paid for it. But this story has to do also with Athene, on whose shield Medusa's head must rest at last. For it is not passion only, but knowledge, that may petrify the soul. Indeed, the story of passion can only do this when the dazzling glamour of temptation has passed, and in place of it has come the cold knowledge of remorse. Then the sight of one's own shame, and, on a wider scale, the sight of the pain and the tragedy of the world, present to the eyes of every generation the spectacle of victims standing petrified like those who had seen too much at the cave's mouth in the old legend. It is peculiarly interesting to contrast the story of Medusa with its Hebrew parallel in Lot's wife. Both are women presumably beautiful, and both are turned to stone. But while the Greek petrifaction is the result of too direct a gaze upon the horrible, the Hebrew is the result of too loving and desirous a gaze upon the coveted beauty of the world. Nothing could more exactly represent and epitomise the diverse genius of the nations, and we understand the Greek story the better for the strong contrast with its Hebrew parallel. To the Greek, ugliness was dangerous; and the horror of the world, having no explanation nor redress, could but petrify the heart of man. To the Hebrew, the beauty of the world was dangerous, and man must learn to turn away his eyes from beholding vanity. The legend of Medusa is a story of despair, and there is little room in it for idealism of any kind; and yet there may be some hint, in the reflecting shield of Perseus, of a brighter and more heartening truth. The horror of the world we have always with us, and for all exquisite spirits like those of the Greeks there is the danger of their being marred by the brutality of the universe, and made hard and cold in rigid petrifaction by the too direct vision of evil. Yet for such spirits there is ever some shield of faith, in whose reflection they may see the darkest horrors and yet remain flesh and blood. Those who believe in life and love, whose religion--or at least whose indomitable clinging to the beauty they have once descried--has taught them sufficient courage in dwelling upon these things, may come unscathed through any such ordeal. But for that, the story is one of sheer pagan terror. It came out of the old, dark pre-Olympian mythology (for the Gorgons are the daughters of Hades), and it embodied the ancient truth that the sorrow of the world worketh death. It is a tragic world, and the earth-bound, looking upon its tragedy, will see in it only the _macabre_, and feel that graveyard and spectral air which breathes about the haunted pagan sepulchre. Another myth in which we see the contrast between essential paganism and idealism is that of Orpheus. The myth appears in countless forms and with innumerable excrescences, but in the main it is in three successive parts. The first of these tells of the sweet singer loved by all the creatures, the dear friend of all the world, whose charm nothing that lived on earth could resist, and whose spell hurt no creature whom it allured. The conception stands in sharp contrast to the ghastly statuary that adorned Medusa's precincts. Here, with a song whose sweetness surpassed that of the Sirens, nature, dead and living both (for all lived unto Orpheus), followed him with glad and loving movement. Nay, not only beasts and trees, but stones themselves and even mountains, felt in the hard heart of them the power of this sweet music. It is one of the most perfect stories ever told--the precursor of the legends that gathered round Francis of Assisi and many a later saint and artist. It is the prophecy from the earliest days of that consummation of which Isaiah was afterwards to sing and St. Paul to echo the song, when nature herself would come to the perfect reconciliation for which she had been groaning and travailing through all the years. The second part of the story tells of the tragedy of love. Such a man as Orpheus, if he be fortunate in his love, will love wonderfully, and Eurydice is his worthy bride. Dying, bitten by a snake in the grass as she flees from danger, she descends to Hades. But the surpassing love of the sweet singer dares to enter that august shadow, not to drink the Waters of Lethe only and to forget, but also to drink the waters of Eunoe and to remember. His music charms the dead, and those who have the power of death. Even the hard-hearted monarch of hell is moved for Orpheus, who "Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made hell grant what love did seek." But the rescue has one condition. He must restrain himself, must not look upon the face of his beloved though he bears her in his arms, until they have passed the region of the shadow of death, and may see one another in the sunlight of the bright earth again. The many versions of the tragic disobedience to this condition bear eloquent testimony, not certainly to any changing phase of the sky, but to the manifold aspects of human life. According to some accounts, it was the rashness of Orpheus that did the evil--love's impatience, that could not wait the fitting time, and, snatching prematurely that which was its due, sacrificed all. According to other accounts, it was Eurydice who tempted Orpheus, her love and pain having grown too hungry and blind. However that may be, the error was fatal, and on the very eve of victory all was lost. It was lost, not by any snatching back in which strong hands of hell tore his beloved from the man's grasp. Within his arms the form of Eurydice faded away, and as he clutched at her his fingers closed upon the empty air. That, too, is a law deep in the nature of things. It is by no arbitrary decree that self-restraint has been imposed on love. In this, as in all other things, a man must consent to lose his life in order to find it; and those who will not accept the conditions, will be visited by no melodramatic or violent catastrophe. Love which has broken law will simply fade away and vanish. The third part of the story is no less interesting and significant. Maddened with this second loss, so irrevocable and yet due to so avoidable a cause, Orpheus, in restless despair, wandered about the lands. For him the nymphs had now no attractions, nor was there anything in all the world but the thought of his half-regained Eurydice, now lost for ever. His music indeed remained, nor did he cast away his lute; but it was heard only in the most savage and lonely places. At length wild Thracian women heard it, furious in the rites of Dionysus. They desired him, but his heart was elsewhere, and, in the mad reaction of their savage breasts, when he refused them they tore him limb from limb. He was buried near the river Hebrus, and his head was thrown into the stream. But as the waters bore it down, the lips whose singing had charmed the world still repeated the beloved name Eurydice to the waters as they flowed. Here again it is as if, searching for the dead in some ancient sepulchre, we had found a living man and friend. The symbolism of the story, disentangled from detail which may have been true enough in a lesser way, is clear to every reader. It tells that love is strong as death--that old sweet assurance which the lover in Canticles also discovered. Love is indeed set here under conditions, or rather it has perceived the conditions which the order of things has set, and these conditions have been violated. But still the voice of the severed head, crying out the beloved name as the waters bore it to the sea, speaks in its own exquisite way the final word. It gives the same assurance with the same thrill which we feel when we read the story of Herakles wrestling with death for the body of Alkestis, and winning the woman back from her very tomb. But before love can be a match for death, it first must conquer life, and the early story of the power of Orpheus over the wild beasts, restoring, as it does, an earthly paradise in which there is nothing but gentleness, marks the conquest of life by love. All life's wildness and savagery, which seem to give the lie to love continually, are after all conquerable and may be tamed. And the lesson of it all is the great persuasion that in the depth of things life is good and not evil. When we come to the second conflict, and that love which has mastered life now pits itself against death, it goes forward to the greater adventure with a strange confidence. Who that has looked upon the face of one dearly beloved who is dead, has not known the leap of the spirit, not so much in rebellion as in demand? Love is so great a thing that it obviously ought to have this power, and somehow we are all persuaded that it has it--that death is but a puppet king, and love the master of the universe after all. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is but a faltering expression of this great assurance, yet it does express it. For it explains to all who have ears to hear, what are the real enemies of love which can weaken it in its conflict with death. The Thracian women, those drunken bacchanals that own no law but their desires, stand for the lawless claim and attack of the lower life upon the higher. They but repeat, in exaggerated and delirious form, the sad story of the forfeiture of Eurydice. It is the touch of lawlessness, of haste, of selfishness, that costs love its victory and finally slays it, so far as love can be slain. In this wonderful story we have a pure Greek creation in the form of one of the finest sagas of the world. The battle between the pagan and ideal aspects of life is seen in countless individual touches throughout the story; but the whole tale is one continuous symbolic warning against paganism, and a plea for idealism urged in the form of a mighty contrast. Love is here seen in its most spiritual aspect. Paganism enters with the touch of lawlessness. On the large scale the battle was fought out some centuries later, in the days of the Roman Empire, for all the world to see. The two things which give their character to the centuries from Augustus to Constantine are the persistent cry of man for immortality, and the strong lusts of the flesh which silenced it. On the smaller scale of each individual life, men and women will understand to the end of time, from their own experience, the story of Orpheus. It is peculiarly interesting to remember that the figure of the sweet singer grew into the centre of a great religious creed. The cult of Orphism, higher and more spiritual than that of either Eleusis or Dionysus, appears as early as the sixth century B.C., and reaches its greatest in the fifth and fourth centuries. The Orphic hymns proclaim the high doctrine of the divineness of all life, and open, at least for the hopes of men, the gates of immortality. The secret societies which professed the cult had the strongest possible influence upon the thought of early Athens, but their most prominent effect is seen in Plato, who derived from them his main doctrines of pre-existence, penance, reincarnation and the final purification of the soul. Even the early Christians, who hated so bitterly many of the myths of paganism, and found in them nothing but doctrines of devils, treated this story tenderly, blended the picture of Orpheus with that of their own Good Shepherd, and found it edifying to Christian faith. One more instance may be given in the story of Apollo, in which, more perhaps than in any other, there is an amazing combination of bad and good elements. On the one hand there are the innumerable immoralities and savageries that are found in all the records of mythology. On the other hand, he who flays Marsias alive and visits the earth with plagues is also the healer of men. He is the cosmopolitan god of the brotherhood of mankind, the spirit of wisdom whose oracle acknowledged and inspired Socrates, and, generally, the incarnation of the "glory of the Lord." We cannot here touch upon the marvellous tales of Delos and of Delphi, nor repeat the strains that Pindar sang, sitting in his iron chair beside the shrine. This much at least we may say, that both the Apollo of Delos and the Apollo of Delphi are foreign gods, each of whom appropriated to his own use a sacred place where the ancient earth-bound religion had already established its rites. The Greeks brought with them a splendid god from their former home, but in his new shrine he was identified with a local god, very far from splendid; and this seems to be the most reasonable explanation of the inconsistency between the revolting and the beautiful elements in his worship. Pindar at least repudiated the relics of the poorer cult, and cried concerning such stories as were current then, "Oh, my tongue, fling this tale from thee; it is a hateful cleverness that slanders gods." No one who has realised the power and glory of the Eastern sun, can wonder at the identification both of the good and bad symbolism with the orb of day. Sun-worship is indeed a form of nature-worship, and there are physical reasons obvious enough for its being able to incorporate both the clean and unclean, both the deadly and the benign legends. Yet there is a splendour in it which is seen in its attraction for such minds as those of Aurelian and Julian, and which is capable of refinement in the delicate spirituality of Mithra, that worship of the essential principle of light, the soul of sunshine. In the worship of Apollo we have a combination, than which none on record is more striking, of the finest spirituality with the crudest paganism. Here then, in the magical arena of the early world of Greece, we see in one of its most romantic forms the age-long strife between paganism and spirituality. We have taken at random four of the most popular stories of Greece. We have found in each of them pagan elements partly bequeathed by that earlier and lower earth-bound worship which preceded the Olympians, partly added in decadent days when the mind of man was turned from the heights and grovelling again. But we have seen a deeper meaning in them, far further-reaching than any story of days and nights or of years and seasons. It is a story of the aspiring spirit which is ever wistful here on the green earth (although that indeed is pleasant), and which finds its home among high thoughts, and ideas which dwell in heaven. We shall see many aspects of the same twofold thought and life, as we move about from point to point among the literature of later days. Yet we shall seldom find any phase of the conflict which has not been prophesied, or at least foreshadowed, in these legends of the dawn. The link that binds the earliest to the latest page of literature is just that human nature which, through all changes of country and of time, remains essentially the same. It is this which lends to our subject its individual as well as its historical interest. The battle is for each of us our own battle, and its victories and defeats are our own. LECTURE II MARIUS THE EPICUREAN Much has been written, before and after the day of Walter Pater, concerning that singularly pure and yet singularly disappointing character, Marcus Aurelius, and his times. The ethical and religious ferment of the period has been described with great fullness and sympathy by Professor Dill. Yet it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that no book has ever been written, nor is likely ever to appear, which has conveyed to those who came under its spell a more intimate and familiar conception of that remarkable period and man than that which has been given by Walter Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_. Opinion is divided about the value of Pater's work, and if it be true that some of his admirers have provoked criticism by their unqualified praise, it is no less true that many of his detractors appear never to have come in contact with his mind at all. Born in 1839, he spent the greater part of his life in Queen's College, Oxford, where he died in 1894. As literary critic, humanist, and master of a thoroughly original style, he made a considerable impression upon his generation from the first; but it may be safely said that it is only now, when readers are able to look upon his work in a more spacious and leisurely way, that he and his contribution to English thought and letters have come to their own. The family was of Dutch extraction, and while the sons of his grandfather were trained in the Roman Catholic religion, the daughters were Protestants from their childhood. His father left the Roman Catholic communion early in life, without adopting any other form of Christian faith. It is not surprising that out of so strongly marked and widely mingled a heredity there should have emerged a writer prone to symbolism and open to the sense of beauty in ritual, and yet too cosmopolitan to accept easily the conventional religious forms. Before his twentieth year he had come under the influence of Ruskin's writings, but he soon parted from that wayward and contradictory master, whose brilliant dogmatism enslaved so thoroughly, but so briefly, the taste of young England. Ruskin, however, had awakened Pater, although to a style of criticism very different from his own, and for this service we owe him much. The environment of Oxford subjected his spirit to two widely different sets of influences. On the one hand, he was in contact with such men as Jowett, Nettleship, and Thomas Hill Green: on the other hand, with Swinburne, Burne-Jones, and the pre-Raphaelites. Thus the awakened spirit felt the dominion both of a high spiritual rationalism, and of the beauty of flesh and the charm of the earth. A visit to Italy in company with Shadwell, and his study of the Renaissance there, made him an enthusiastic humanist. The immediate product of this second awakening was the _Renaissance_ Essays, a very remarkable volume of his early work. Twelve years later, _Marius the Epicurean_, his second book, appeared in 1885. In Dr. Gosse, Pater has found an interpreter of rare sympathy and insight, whose appreciations of his contemporaries are, in their own right, fine contributions to modern literature. The characteristics of his style were also those both of his thought and of his character. Dr. Gosse has summed up the reserve and shy reticence and the fastidious taste which always characterise his work, in saying that he was "one of the most exquisite, most self-respecting, the most individual prose writers of the age." Even in the matter of style he consciously respected his own individuality, refusing to read either Stevenson or Kipling for fear that their masterful strength might lead him out of his path. Certainly his bitterest enemies could not accuse him of borrowing from either of them. Mr. Kipling is apt to sacrifice everything to force, while Pater is perhaps the gentlest writer of our time. In Stevenson there is a delicate and yet vigorous human passion, but also a sense of fitness, a consciousness of style that is all his own. He is preaching, and not swearing at you, as you often feel Mr. Kipling to be doing. To preach at one may be indeed to take a great liberty, but of course much will depend upon whether the preaching is good preaching. Be that as it may, Pater is distinctive, and borrows nothing from any writer whose influence can be traced in his work. He neither swears nor preaches, but weaves about his reader a subtle film of thought, through whose gossamer all things seem to suffer a curious change, and to become harmonious and suggestive, as dark and quiet-coloured things often are. The writer does not force himself upon his readers, nor tempt even the most susceptible to imitate him; rather he presupposes himself, and dominates without appearing. His reticence, to which we have already referred, is one of his most characteristic qualities. Dr. Gosse ascribes it to a somewhat low and sluggish vitality of physical spirits. For one in this condition "the first idea in the presence of anything too vivacious is to retreat, and the most obvious form of social retreat is what we call affectation." That Pater's style has impressed many readers as affected there can be no question, and it is as unquestionable that Dr. Gosse's explanation is the true one. His style has been much abused by critics who have found it easy to say smart things about such tempting peculiarities. We may admit at once that the writing is laboured and shows constant marks of the tool. The same criticism applies, for that matter, to much that Stevenson has written. But unless a man's style is absolutely offensive, which Pater's emphatically is not, it is a wise rule to accept it rather as a revelation of the man than as a chance for saying clever things. As one reads the work of some of our modern critics, one cannot but perceive and regret how much of pleasure and of profit their cleverness has cost them. Acknowledging his laboriousness and even his affectation, we still maintain that the style of Walter Pater is a very adequate expression of his mind. There is a calm suggestive atmosphere, a spirit half-childish and half-aged about his work. It is the work of a solemn and sensitive child, who has kept the innocence of his eye for impressions, and yet brought to his speech the experience, not of years only, but of centuries. He has many things to teach directly; but even when he is not teaching so, the air you breathe with its delicate suggestion of faint odours, the perfect taste in selection, the preferences and shrinkings and shy delights, all proclaim a real and high culture. And, after all, the most notable point in his style is just its exactness. Over-precise it may be sometimes, and even meticulous, yet that is because it is the exact expression of a delicate and subtle mind. In his _Appreciations_ he lays down, as a first canon for style, Flaubert's principle of the search, the unwearied search, not for the smooth, or winsome, or forcible word as such, but, quite simply and honestly, for the word's adjustment to its meaning. It will be said in reply to any such defence that the highest art is to conceal art. That is an old saying and a hard one, and it is not possible to apply its rule in every instance. Pater's immense sense of the value of words, and his choice of exact expressions, resulted in language marvellously adapted to indicate the almost inexpressible shades of thought. When a German struggles for the utterance of some mental complexity he fashions new compounds of words; a Frenchman helps out his meaning by gesture, as the Greek long ago did by tone. Pater knows only one way of overcoming such situations, and that is by the painful search for the unique word that he ought to use. One result of this habit is that he has enriched our literature with a large number of pregnant phrases which, it is safe to prophesy, will take their place in the vernacular of literary speech. "Hard gem-like flame," "Drift of flowers," "Tacitness of mind,"--such are some memorable examples of the exact expression of elusive ideas. The house of literature built in this fashion is a notable achievement in the architecture of language. It reminds us of his own description of a temple of Æsculapius: "His heart bounded as the refined and dainty magnificence of the place came upon him suddenly, in the flood of early sunshine, with the ceremonial lights burning here and there, and with all the singular expression of sacred order, a surprising cleanliness and simplicity." Who would not give much to be able to say the thing he wants to say so exactly and so beautifully as that is said? Indeed the love of beauty is the key both to the humanistic thought and to the simple and lingering style of Pater's writing. If it is not always obviously simple, that is never due either to any vagueness or confusion of thought, but rather to a struggle to express precise shades of meaning which may be manifold, but which are perfectly clear to himself. A mind so sensitive to beauty and so fastidious in judging of it and expressing it, must necessarily afford a fine arena for the conflict between the tendencies of idealism and paganism. Here the great struggle between conscience and desire, the rivalry of culture and restraint, the choice between Athens and Jerusalem, will present a peculiarly interesting spectacle. In Walter Pater both elements are strongly marked. The love of ritual, and a constitutional delight in solemnities of all kinds, was engrained in his nature. The rationalism of Green and Jowett, with its high spirituality lighting it from within, drove off the ritual for a time at least. The result of these various elements is a humanism for which he abandoned the profession of Christianity with which he had begun. Yet he could not really part from that earlier faith, and for a time he was, as Dr. Gosse has expressed it, "not all for Apollo, and not all for Christ." The same writer quotes as applicable to him an interesting phrase of Daudet's, "His brain was a disaffected cathedral," and likens him to that mysterious face of Mona Lisa, of whose fantastic enigma Pater himself has given the most brilliant and the most intricate description. From an early Christian idealism, through a period of humanistic paganism, he passed gradually and naturally back to the abandoned faith again, but in readopting it he never surrendered the humanistic gains of the time between. He accepted in their fullness both ideals, and so spiritualised his humanism and humanised his idealism. Anything less rich and complete than this could never have satisfied him. Self-denial is obviously not an end in itself; and yet the real end, the fulfilment of nature, can never by any possibility be attained by directly aiming at it, but must ever involve self-denial as a means towards its attainment. It is Pater's clear sight of the necessity of these two facts, and his lifelong attempt to reconcile them, that give him, from the ethical and religious point of view, his greatest importance. The story of this reconciliation is _Marius the Epicurean_. It is a spiritual biography telling the inner history of a Roman youth of the time of Marcus Aurelius. It begins with an appreciative interpretation of the old Roman religion as it was then, and depicts the family celebrations by which the devout were wont to seek "to produce an agreement with the gods." Among the various and beautiful tableaux of that Roman life, we see the solemn thoughtful boy reading hard and becoming a precocious idealist, too old already for his years, but relieving the inward tension by much pleasure in the country and the open air. A time of delicate health brings him and us to a temple of Æsculapius. The priesthood there is a kind of hospital college brotherhood, whose teaching and way of life inculcate a mysteriously sacramental character in all matters of health and the body. Like all other vital youths, Marius must eat of the tree of knowledge and become a questioner of hitherto accepted views. "The tyrannous reality of things visible," and all the eager desire and delight of youth, make their strong appeal. Two influences favour the temptation. First there is his friend, Flavian the Epicurean, of the school that delights in pleasure without afterthought, and is free from the burden and restraint of conscience; and later on, _The Golden Book_ of Apuleius, with its exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche, and its search for perfectness in the frankly material life. The moral of its main story is that the soul must not look upon the face of its love, nor seek to analyse too closely the elements from which it springs. Spirituality will be left desolate if it breaks this ban, and its wiser course is to enjoy without speculation. Thus we see the youth drawn earthwards, yet with a clinging sense of far mystic reaches, which he refuses as yet to explore. The death of Flavian rudely shatters this phase of his experience, and we find him face to face with death. The section begins with the wonderful hymn of the Emperor Hadrian to his dying soul-- Dear wanderer, gipsy soul of mine, Sweet stranger, pleasing guest and comrade of my flesh, Whither away? Into what new land, Pallid one, stoney one, naked one? But the sheer spectacle and fact of death is too violent an experience for such sweet consolations, and the death of Flavian comes like a final revelation of nothing less than the soul's extinction. Not unnaturally, the next phase is a rebound into epicureanism, spiritual indeed in the sense that it could not stoop to low pleasures, but living wholly in the present none the less, with a strong and imperative appreciation of the fullness of earthly life. The next phase of the life of Marius opens with a journey to Rome, during which he meets a second friend, the soldier Cornelius. This very distinctly drawn character fascinates the eye from the first. In him we meet a kind of earnestness which seems to interpret and fit in with the austere aspects of the landscape. It is different from that disciplined hardness which was to be seen in Roman soldiers as the result of their military training; indeed, it seems as if this were some new kind of knighthood, whose mingled austerity and blitheness were strangely suggestive of hitherto unheard-of achievements in character. The impression made by Rome upon the mind of Marius was a somewhat morbid one. He was haunted more or less by the thought of its passing and its eventual ruin, and he found much, both in its religion and its pleasure, to criticise. The dominant figure in the imperial city was that of Marcus Aurelius the Emperor, so famous in his day that for two hundred years after his death his image was cherished among the Penates of many pious families. Amid much that was admirable in him, there was a certain chill in his stoicism, and a sense of lights fading out into the night. His words in praise of death, and much else of his, had of course a great distinction. Yet in his private intercourse with Marcus Aurelius, Marius was not satisfied, nor was it the bleak sense that all is vanity which troubled him, but rather a feeling of mediocrity--of a too easy acceptance of the world--in the imperial philosophy. For in the companionship of Cornelius there was a foil to the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, and his friend was more truly an aristocrat than his Emperor. Cornelius did not accept the world in its entirety, either sadly or otherwise. In him there was "some inward standard ... of distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the period and the corrupt life across which they were moving together." And, apparently as a consequence of this spirit of selection, "with all the severity of Cornelius, there was a breeze of hopefulness--freshness and hopefulness--as of new morning, about him." Already, it may be, the quick intelligence of the reader has guessed what is coming. Jesus Christ said of Himself on one occasion, "For distinctions I am come into the world." Marius' criticism of the Emperor reached its climax in his disgust at the amusements of the amphitheatre, which also Marcus Aurelius accepted. There follows a long account of Roman life and thought, with much speculation as to the ideal commonwealth. That dream of the philosophers remains for ever in the air, detached from actual experiences and institutions, but Marius felt himself passing beyond it to something in which it would be actually realised and visibly localised, "the unseen Rome on high." Thus in correcting and supplementing the philosophies, and in insisting upon some actual embodiment of them on the earth, he is groping his way point by point to Christ. The late Dean Church has said: "No one can read the wonderful sayings of Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius, without being impressed, abashed perhaps, by their grandeur. No one can read them without wondering the next moment why they fell so dead--how little response they seem to have awakened round them." It is precisely at this point that the young Christian Church found its opportunity. Pagan idealisms were indeed in the air. The Christian idealism was being realised upon the earth, and it was this with which Marius was now coming into contact. So he goes on until he is led up to two curious houses. The first of these was the house of Apuleius, where in a subtle and brilliant system of ideas it seemed as if a ladder had been set up from earth to heaven. But Marius discovered that what he wanted was the thing itself and not its mere theory, a life of realised ideals and not a dialectic. The second house was more curious still. Much pains is spent upon the description of it with its "quiet signs of wealth, and of a noble taste," in which both colour and form, alike of stones and flowers, seemed expressive of a rare and potent beauty in the personality that inhabited them. There were inscriptions there to the dead martyrs, inscriptions full of confidence and peace. Old pagan symbols were there also--Herakles wrestling with death for possession of Alkestis, and Orpheus taming the wild beasts--blended naturally with new symbols such as the Shepherd and the sheep, and the Good Shepherd carrying the sick lamb upon his shoulder. The voice of singers was heard in the house of an evening singing the candle hymn, "Hail, Heavenly Light." Altogether there seemed here to be a combination of exquisite and obvious beauty with "a transporting discovery of some fact, or series of facts, in which the old puzzle of life had found its solution." It was none other than the Church of the early Christian days that Marius had stumbled on, under the guidance of his new friend; and already in heart he had actually become a Christian without knowing it, for these friends of comeliness seemed to him to have discovered the secret of actualising the ideal as none others had done. At such a moment in his spiritual career it is not surprising that he should hesitate to look upon that which would "define the critical turning-point," yet he looked. He saw the blend of Greek and Christian, each at its best--the martyrs' hope, the singers' joy and health. In this "minor peace of the Church," so pure, so delicate, and so vital that it made the Roman life just then "seem like some stifling forest of bronze-work, transformed, as if by malign enchantment, out of the generations of living trees," he seemed to see the possibility of satisfaction at last. For here there was a perfect love and self-sacrifice, outwardly expressed with a mystic grace better than the Greek blitheness, and a new beauty which contrasted brightly with the Roman insipidity. It was the humanism of Christianity that so satisfied him, standing as it did for the fullness of life, in spite of all its readiness for sacrifice. And it was effective too, for it seemed to be doing rapidly what the best paganism was doing very slowly--attaining, almost without thinking about it, the realisation of the noblest ideals. "And so it came to pass that on this morning Marius saw for the first time the wonderful spectacle--wonderful, especially, in its evidential power over himself, over his own thoughts--of those who believe. There were noticeable, among those present, great varieties of rank, of age, of personal type. The Roman _ingenuus_, with the white toga and gold ring, stood side by side with his slave; and the air of the whole company was, above all, a grave one, an air of recollection. Coming thus unexpectedly upon this large assembly, so entirely united, in a silence so profound, for purposes unknown to him, Marius felt for a moment as if he had stumbled by chance upon some great conspiracy. Yet that could scarcely be, for the people here collected might have figured as the earliest handsel, or pattern, of a new world, from the very face of which discontent had passed away. Corresponding to the variety of human type there present, was the various expression of every form of human sorrow assuaged. What desire, what fulfilment of desire, had wrought so pathetically on the features of these ranks of aged men and women of humble condition? Those young men, bent down so discreetly on the details of their sacred service, had faced life and were glad, by some science, or light of knowledge they had, to which there had certainly been no parallel in the older world. Was some credible message from beyond 'the flaming rampart of the world'--a message of hope regarding the place of men's souls and their interest in the sum of things--already moulding anew their very bodies, and looks, and voices, now and here? At least, there was a cleansing and kindling flame at work in them, which seemed to make everything else Marius had ever known look comparatively vulgar and mean." The spectacle of the Sacrament adds its deep impression, "bread and wine especially--pure wheaten bread, the pure white wine of the Tusculan vineyards. There was here a veritable consecration, hopeful and animating, of the earth's gifts, of old dead and dark matter itself, now in some way redeemed at last, of all that we can touch and see, in the midst of a jaded world that had lost the true sense of such things." The sense of youth in it all was perhaps the dominating impression--the youth that was yet old as the world in experience and discovery of the true meaning of life. The young Christ was rejuvenating the world, and all things were being made new by him. This is the climax of the book. He meets Lucian the aged, who for a moment darkens his dawning faith, but that which has come to him has been no casual emotion, no forced or spectacular conviction. He does not leap to the recognition of Christianity at first sight, but very quietly realises and accepts it as that secret after which his pagan idealism had been all the time groping. The story closes amid scenes of plague and earthquake and martyrdom in which he and Cornelius are taken prisoners, and he dies at last a Christian. "It was the same people who, in the grey, austere evening of that day, took up his remains, and buried them secretly, with their accustomed prayers; but with joy also, holding his death, according to their generous view in this matter, to have been of the nature of a martyrdom; and martyrdom, as the Church had always said, was a kind of Sacrament with plenary grace." Such is some very brief and inadequate conception of one of the most remarkable books of our time, a book "written to illustrate the highest ideal of the æsthetic life, and to prove that beauty may be made the object of the soul in a career as pure, as concentrated, and as austere as any that asceticism inspires. _Marius_ is an apology for the highest Epicureanism, and at the same time it is a texture which the author has embroidered with exquisite flowers of imagination, learning, and passion. Modern humanism has produced no more admirable product than this noble dream of a pursuit through life of the spirit of heavenly beauty." Nothing could be more true, so far as it goes, than this admirable paragraph, yet Pater's book is more than that. The main drift of it is the reconciliation of Hellenism with Christianity in the experience of a man "bent on living in the full stream of refined sensation," who finds Christianity in every point fulfilling the ideals of Epicureanism at its best. The spiritual stages through which Marius passes on his journey towards this goal are most delicately portrayed. In the main these are three, which, though they recur and intertwine in his experience, yet may be fairly stated in their natural order and sequence as normal types of such spiritual progress. The first of these stages is a certain vague fear of evil, which seems to be conscience hardly aware of itself as such. It is "the sense of some unexplored evil ever dogging his footsteps," which reached its keenest poignancy in a constitutional horror of serpents, but which is a very subtle and undefinable thing, observable rather as an undertone to his consciousness of life than as anything tangible enough to be defined or accounted for by particular causes. On the journey to Rome, the vague misgivings took shape in one definite experience. "From the steep slope a heavy mass of stone was detached, after some whisperings among the trees above his head, and rushing down through the stillness fell to pieces in a cloud of dust across the road just behind him, so that he felt the touch upon his heel." That was sufficient, just then, to rouse out of its hiding-place his old vague fear of evil--of one's "enemies." Such distress was so much a matter of constitution with him, that at times it would seem that the best pleasures of life could but be snatched hastily, in one moment's forgetfulness of its dark besetting influence. A sudden suspicion of hatred against him, of the nearness of enemies, seemed all at once to alter the visible form of things. When tempted by the earth-bound philosophy of the early period of his development, "he hardly knew how strong that old religious sense of responsibility, the conscience, as we call it, still was within him--a body of inward impressions, as real as those so highly valued outward ones--to offend against which, brought with it a strange feeling of disloyalty, as to a person." Later on, when the "acceptance of things" which he found in Marcus Aurelius had offended him, and seemed to mark the Emperor as his inferior, we find that there is "the loyal conscience within him, deciding, judging himself and every one else, with a wonderful sort of authority." This development of conscience from a vague fear of enemies to a definite court of appeal in a man's judgment of life, goes side by side with his approach to Christianity. The pagan idealism of the early days had never been able to cope with that sense of enemies, nor indeed to understand it; but in the light of his growing Christian faith, conscience disentangles itself and becomes clearly defined. Another element in the spiritual development of Marius is that which may be called his consciousness of an unseen companion. Marius was constitutionally _personel_, and never could be satisfied with the dry light of pure reason, or with any impersonal ideal whatsoever. For him the universe was alive in a very real sense. At first, however, this was the vaguest of sentiments, and it needed much development before it became clear enough to act as one of the actual forces which played upon his life. We first meet with it in connection with the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and his habit of inward conversation with himself, made possible by means of the _Logos_, "the reasonable spark in man, common to him with the gods." "There could be no inward conversation with oneself such as this, unless there were indeed some one else aware of our actual thoughts and feelings, pleased or displeased at one's disposition of oneself." This, in a dim way, seemed a fundamental necessity of experience--one of those "beliefs, without which life itself must be almost impossible, principles which had their sufficient ground of evidence in that very fact." So far Marcus Aurelius. But the conviction of some august yet friendly companionship in life beyond the veil of things seen, took form for Marius in a way far more picturesque. The passage which describes it is one of the finest in the book, and may be given at length. "Through a dreamy land he could see himself moving, as if in another life, and like another person, through all his fortunes and misfortunes, passing from point to point, weeping, delighted, escaping from various dangers. That prospect brought him, first of all, an impulse of lively gratitude: it was as if he must look round for some one else to share his joy with: for some one to whom he might tell the thing, for his own relief. Companionship, indeed, familiarity with others, gifted in this way or that, or at least pleasant to him, had been, through one or another long span of it, the chief delight of the journey. And was it only the resultant general sense of such familiarity, diffused through his memory, that in a while suggested the question whether there had not been--besides Flavian, besides Cornelius even, and amid the solitude which in spite of ardent friendship he had perhaps loved best of all things--some other companion, an unfailing companion, ever at his side throughout; doubling his pleasure in the roses by the way, patient of his peevishness or depression, sympathetic above all with his grateful recognition, onward from his earliest days, of the fact that he was there at all? Must not the whole world around have faded away for him altogether, had he been left for one moment really alone in it?" One can see in this sense of constant companionship the untranslated and indeed the unexamined Christian doctrine of God. And, because this God is responsive to all the many-sided human experience which reveals Him, it will be an actual preparation not for Theism only, but for that complexity in unity known as the Christian Trinity. Nothing could better summarise this whole achievement in religion than Pater's apt sentence, "To have apprehended the _Great Ideal_, so palpably that it defined personal gratitude and the sense of a friendly hand laid upon him amid the shadows of the world." The third essential development of Marius' thought is that of the City of God, which for him assumes the shape of a perfected and purified Rome, the concrete embodiment of the ideals of life and character. This is indeed the inevitable sequel of any such spiritual developments as the fear of enemies and the sense of an unseen companion. Man moves inevitably to the city, and all his ideals demand an embodiment in social form before they reach their full power and truth. In that house of life which he calls society, he longs to see his noblest dreams find a local habitation and a name. This is the grand ideal passed from hand to hand by the greatest and most outstanding of the world's seers--from Plato to Augustine, from Augustine to Dante--the ideal of the City of God. It is but little developed in the book which we are now considering, for that would be beside the purpose of so intimate and inward a history. Yet we see, as it were, the towers and palaces of this "dear City of Zeus" shining in the clear light of the early Christian time, like the break of day over some vast prospect, with the new City, as it were some celestial new Rome, in the midst of it. These are but a few glimpses at this very significant and far-reaching book, which indeed takes for its theme the very development from pagan to Christian idealism with which we are dealing. In it, in countless bright and vivid glances, the beauty of the world is seen with virgin eye. Many phases of that beauty belong to the paganism which surrounds us as we read, yet these are purified from all elements that would make them pagan in the lower sense, and under our eyes they free themselves for spiritual flights which find their resting-place at last and become at once intelligible and permanent in the faith of Jesus Christ. LECTURE III THE TWO FAUSTS It may seem strange to pass immediately from the time of Marcus Aurelius to Marlowe and Goethe, and yet the tale upon which these two poets wrought is one whose roots are very deep in history, and which revives in a peculiarly vital and interesting fashion the age-long story of man's great conflict. Indeed the saga on which it is founded belongs properly to no one period, but is the tragic drama of humanity. It tells, through all the ages, the tale of the struggle between earth and the spiritual world above it; and the pagan forms which are introduced take us back into the classical mythology, and indeed into still more ancient times. The hero of the story must be clearly distinguished from Fust the printer, a wealthy goldsmith of Mayence, who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, was partner with Gutenberg in the new enterprise of printing. Robert Browning, in _Fust and his Friends_, tells us, with great vivacity, the story of the monks who tried to exorcise the magic spirits from Fust, but forgot their psalm, and so caused an awkward pause during which Fust retired and brought out a printed copy of the psalm for each of them. The only connection with magic which this Fust had, was that so long as this or any other process was kept secret, it was attributed to supernatural powers. Faust, although a contemporary of Fust the printer, was a very different character. Unfortunately, our information about him comes almost entirely from his enemies, and their accounts are by no means sparing in abuse. Trithemius, a Benedictine abbot of Spanheim in the early part of the sixteenth century, writes of him with the most virulent contempt, as a debauched person and a criminal whose overweening vanity arrogated to itself the most preposterous supernatural powers. It would appear that he had been some sort of travelling charlatan, whose performing horse and dog were taken for evil spirits, like Esmeralda's goat in Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame_. Even Melanchthon and Luther seem to have shared the common view of him, and at last there was published at Frankfurt the _Historie of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus_. The date of this work is 1587, and a translation of it appeared in London in 1592. It is a discursive composition, founded upon reminiscences of some ancient stroller who lived very much by his wits; but it took such a hold upon the imagination of the time that, by the latter part of the sixteenth century, Faust had become the necromancer _par excellence_. Into the Faust-book there drifted endless necromantic lore from the Middle Ages and earlier times. It seems to have had some connection with Jewish legends of magicians who invoked the _Satanim_, or lowest grade of elemental spirits not unlike the "elementals" of modern popular spiritualism. It was the story of a Christian selling his soul to the powers of darkness, and it had behind it one of the poems of Hrosvitha of Gandersheim which relates a similar story of an archdeacon of Cilicia of the sixth century, and also the popular tradition of Pope Sylvester the Second, who was suspected of having made the same bargain. Yet, as Lebahn says, "The Faust-legend in its complete form was the creation of orthodox Protestantism. Faust is the foil to Luther, who worsted the Devil with his ink-bottle when he sought to interrupt the sacred work of rendering the Bible into the vulgar tongue." This legend, by the way, is a peculiarly happy one, for Luther not only aimed his ink-bottle at the Devil, but most literally and effectively hit him with it, when he wrote those books that changed the face of religious Europe. The _Historie_ had an immense and immediate popularity, and until well into the nineteenth century it was reproduced and sold throughout Europe. As we read it, we cannot but wonder what manner of man it really was who attracted to himself such age-long hatred and fear, and held the interest of the centuries. In many respects, doubtless, his story was like that of Paracelsus, in whom the world has recognised the struggle of much good with almost inevitable evil, and who, if he had been born in another generation, might have figured as a commanding spiritual or scientific authority. Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury in 1564, two months before Shakespeare. He was the son of a shoemaker, and was the pupil of Kett, a fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi College. This tutor was probably accountable for much in the future Marlowe, for he was a mystic, and was burnt for heresy in 1589. After a short and extremely violent life, the pupil followed his master four years later to the grave, having been killed in a brawl under very disgraceful circumstances. He only lived twenty-nine years, and yet he, along with Kyd, changed the literature of England. Lyly's Pastorals had been the favourite reading of the people until these men came, keen and audacious, to lead and sing their "brief, fiery, tempestuous lives." When they wrote their plays and created their villains, they were not creating so much as remembering. Marlowe's plays were four, and they were all influential. His _Edward the Second_ was the precursor of the historical plays of Shakespeare. His other plays were _Tamburlaine the Great_, _Dr. Faustus_, and _The Jew of Malta_ (Barabbas). These three were all upon congenial lines, expressing that Titanism in revolt against the universe which was the inspiring spirit of Marlowe. But it was the character of Faust that especially fascinated him, for he found in the ancient magician a pretty clear image of his own desires and ambitions. He was one of those who loved "the dangerous edge of things," and, as Charles Lamb said, "delighted to dally with interdicted subjects." The form of the plays is loose and broken, and yet there is a pervading larger unity, not only of dramatic action, but of spirit. The laughter is loud and coarse, the terror unrelieved, and the splendour dazzling. There is no question as to the greatness of this work as permanent literature. It has long outlived the amazing detractions of Hallam and of Byron, and will certainly be read so long as English is a living tongue. The next stage in this curious history is a peculiarly interesting one. In former days there sprang up around every great work of art a forest of slighter literature, in the shape of chap-books, ballads, and puppet plays. By far the most popular of the puppet plays was that founded upon Marlowe's _Faust_. The German version continued to be played in Germany until three hundred years later. Goethe constructed his masterpiece largely by its help. English actors travelling abroad had brought back the story to its native land of Germany, and in every town the bands of strolling players sent Marlowe's great conception far and wide. In England also the puppet play was extremely popular. The drama had moved from the church to the market-place, and much of the Elizabethan drama appeared in this quaint form, played by wooden figures upon diminutive boards. To the modern mind nothing could be more incongruous than the idea of a solemn drama forced to assume a guise so grotesque and childish; but, according to Jusserand, much of the stage-work was extremely ghastly, and no doubt it impressed the multitude. There is even a story of some actors who had gone too far, and into the midst of whose play the real devil suddenly descended with disastrous results. It must, however, be allowed that even the serious plays were not without an abundant element of grotesqueness. The occasion for Faustus' final speech of despair, for instance, was the lowering and raising before his eyes of two or three gilded arm-chairs, representing the thrones in heaven upon which he would never sit. It does not seem to have occurred to the audience as absurd that heaven should be regarded as a kind of drawing-room floating in the air, and indeed that idea is perhaps not yet obsolete. However that may be, it is quite evident that such machinery, ill-suited though it was to the solemnities of tragedy, must have been abundantly employed in the puppet plays. The German puppet play of _Faust_ has been transcribed by Dr. Hamm and translated by Mr. Hedderwick into English. It was obtained at first with great difficulty, for the showmen kept the libretto secret, and could not be induced to lend it. Dr. Hamm, however, followed the play round, listening and committing much of it to memory, and his version was finally completed when his amanuensis obtained for a day or two the original manuscript after plying one of the assistants with much beer and wine. It was a battered book, thumb-marked and soaked with lamp oil, but it has passed on to posterity one of the most remarkable pieces of dramatic work which have come down to us from those times. In all essentials the play is the same as that of Marlowe, except for the constant interruptions of the clown Casper, who intrudes with his absurdities even into the most sacred parts of the action, and entirely mars the dreadful solemnity of the end by demanding his wages from Faust while the clock is striking the diminishing intervals of the last hour. It was through this curious intermediary that Goethe went back to Marlowe and created what has been well called "the most mystic poetic work ever created," and "the _Divina Commedia_ of the eighteenth century." Goethe's _Faust_ is elemental, like _Hamlet_. Readers of _Wilhelm Meister_ will remember how profound an impression _Hamlet_ had made upon Goethe's mind, and this double connection between Goethe and the English drama forms one of the strongest and most interesting of all the links that bind Germany to England. His _Faust_ was the direct utterance of Goethe's own inner life. He says: "The marionette folk of _Faust_ murmured with many voices in my soul. I, too, had wandered into every department of knowledge, and had returned early enough, satisfied with the vanity of science. And life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and always came back sorrowing and unsatisfied." Thus _Faust_ lay in the depths of Goethe's life as a sort of spiritual pool, mirroring all its incidents and thoughts. The play was begun originally in the period of his _Sturm und Drang_, and it remained unpublished until, in old age, the ripened mind of the great poet took it over practically unchanged, and added the calmer and more intellectual parts. The whole of the Marguerite story belongs to the earlier days. There is nothing in the whole of literature which could afford us a finer and more fundamental account of the battle between paganism and idealism in the soul of man, than the comparison between the _Fausts_ of Marlowe and of Goethe. But before we come to this, it may be interesting to notice two or three points of special interest in the latter drama, which show how entirely pagan are the temptations of Faust. The first passage to notice is that opening one on Easter Day, where the devil approaches Faust in the form of a dog. Choruses of women, disciples, and angels are everywhere in the air; and although the dog appears first in the open, yet the whole emphasis of the passage is upon the contrast between that brilliant Easter morning with its sunshine and its music, and the close and darkened study into which Faust has shut himself. It is true he goes abroad, but it is not to join with the rest in their rejoicing, but only as a spectator, with all the superiority as well as the wistfulness of his illicit knowledge. Evidently the impression intended is that of the wholesomeness of the crowd and the open air. He who goes in with the rest of men in their sorrow and their rejoicing cannot but find the meaning of Easter morning for himself. It is a festival of earth and the spring, an earth idealised, whose spirit is incarnate in the risen Christ. Faust longs to share in that, and on Easter Eve tries in vain to read his Gospel and to feel its power. But the only cure for such morbid introspectiveness as his, is to cast oneself generously into the common life of man, and the refusal to do this invites the pagan devil. Another point of interest is the coming of the _Erdgeist_ immediately after the _Weltschmerz_. The sorrow that has filled his heart with its melancholy sense of the vanity and nothingness of life, and the thousandfold pity and despondency which go to swell that sad condition, are bound to create a reaction more or less violent towards that sheer worldliness which is the essence of paganism. In Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ it is immediately after his floundering in the Slough of Despond that Christian is accosted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Precisely the same experience is recorded here in Faust, although the story is subtler and more complex than that of Bunyan. The _Erdgeist_ which comes to the saddened scholar is a noble spirit, vivifying and creative. It is the world in all its glorious fullness of meaning, quite as true an idealism as that which is expressed in the finest spirit of the Greeks. But for Faust it is too noble. His morbid gloom has enervated him, and the call of the splendid earth is beyond him. So there comes, instead of it, a figure as much poorer than that of Worldly Wiseman as the _Erdgeist_ is richer. Wagner represents the poor commonplace world of the wholly unideal. It is infinitely beneath the soul of Faust, and yet for the time it conquers him, being nearer to his mood. Thus Mephistopheles finds his opportunity. The scholar, embittered with the sense that knowledge is denied to him, will take to mere action; and the action will not be great like that which the _Erdgeist_ would have prompted, but poor and unsatisfying to any nobler spirit than that of Wagner. The third incident which we may quote is that of _Walpurgis-Night_. Some critics would omit this part, which, they say, "has naught of interest in bearing on the main plot of the poem." Nothing could be more mistaken than such a judgment. In the _Walpurgis-Night_ we have the play ending in that sheer paganism which is the counterpart to Easter Day at the beginning. Walpurgis has a strange history in German folklore. It is said that Charlemagne, conquering the German forests for the Christian faith, drove before him a horde of recalcitrant pagans, who took a last shelter among the trees of the Brocken. There, on the pagan May-day, in order to celebrate their ancient rites unmolested, they dressed themselves in all manner of fantastic and bestial masks, so as to frighten off the Christianising invaders from the revels. The Walpurgis of _Faust_ exhibits paganism at its lowest depths. Sir Mammon is the host who invites his boisterous guests to the riot of his festive night. The witches arrive on broomsticks and pitchforks; singing, not without significance, the warning of woe to all climbers--for here aspiration of any sort is a dangerous crime. The Crane's song reveals the fact that pious men are here, in the Blocksberg, united with devils; introducing the same cynical and desperate disbelief in goodness which Nathaniel Hawthorne has told in similar fashion in his tale of _Young Goodman Brown_; and the most horrible touch of all is introduced when Faust in disgust leaves the revel, because out of the mouth of the witch with whom he had been dancing there had sprung a small red mouse. Throughout the whole play the sense of holy and splendid ideals shines at its brightest in lurid contrast with the hopeless and sordid dark of the pagan earth. Returning now to our main point, the comparison of Marlowe's play with Goethe's, let us first of all contrast the temptations in the two. Marlowe's play is purely theological. Jusserand finely describes the underlying tragedy of it. "Faust, like Tamburlaine, and like all the heroes of Marlowe, lives in thought, beyond the limit of the possible. He thirsts for a knowledge of the secrets of the universe, as the other thirsted for domination over the world." Both are Titanic figures exactly in the pagan sense, but the form of Faustus' Titanism is the revolt against theology. From the early days of the Christian persecutions, there had been a tendency to divorce the sacred from the secular, and to regard all that was secular as being of the flesh and essentially evil. The mediæval views of celibacy, hermitage, and the monastic life, had intensified this divorce; and while many of the monks were interested in human secular learning, yet there was a feeling, which in many cases became a kind of conscience, that only the divine learning was either legitimate or safe for a man's eternal well-being. The Faust of Marlowe is the Prometheus of his own day. The new knowledge of the Renaissance had spread like fire across Europe, and those who saw in it a resurrection of the older gods and their secrets, unhesitatingly condemned it. The doctrine of immortality had entirely supplanted the old Greek ideal of a complete earthly life for man, and all that was sensuous had come to be regarded as intrinsically sinful. Thus we have for background a divided universe, in which there is a great gulf fixed between this world and the next, and a hopeless cleavage between the life of body and that of spirit. In this connection we may also consider the women of the two plays. Charles Lamb has asked, "What has Margaret to do with Faust?" and has asserted that she does not belong to the legend at all. Literally, this is true, in so far as there is no Margaret in the earlier form of the play, whose interest was, as we have seen, essentially theological. Yet Margaret belongs to the essential story and cannot be taken out of it. She is the "eternal feminine," in which the battle between the spirit and the flesh, between idealism and paganism, will always make its last stand. Even Marlowe has to introduce a woman. His Helen is, indeed, a mere incident, for the real bride of the soul must be either theological or secular science; and yet so essential and so poignant is the question of woman to the great drama, that the passage in which the incident of Helen is introduced far surpasses anything else in Marlowe's play, and indeed is one of the grandest and most beautiful in all literature. "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burned the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. * * * * * O, thou art fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." Still, Marlowe's _motif_ is not sex but theology. The former heretics whom we named had been saved--Theophilus by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Pope Sylvester snatched from the very jaws of hell--by a return to orthodoxy. That was in the Roman Catholic days, but the savage antithesis between earth and heaven had been taken over by the conscience of Protestantism, making a duality which rendered life always intellectually anxious and almost impossible. It is this condition in which Marlowe finds himself. The good and the evil angels stand to right and left of his Faustus, pleading with him for and against secular science on the one side and theological knowledge on the other. For that is the implication behind the contest between magic and Christianity. "The Faust of the earlier Faust-books and ballads, dramas, puppet shows, which grew out of them, is damned because he prefers the human to the divine knowledge. He laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called Doctor of Theology, but preferred to be called Doctor of Medicine." Obviously here we find ourselves in a very lamentable _cul-de-sac_. Idealism has floated apart from the earth and all its life, and everything else than theology is condemned as paganism. Goethe changes all that. In the earlier _Weltschmerz_ passages some traces of it still linger, where Faust renounces theology; but even there it is not theology alone that he renounces, but philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence as well, so that his renunciation is entirely different from that of Marlowe's Faustus. In Goethe it is no longer one doctrine or one point of view against another doctrine or another point of view. It is life, vitality in all its forms, against all mere doctrine whatsoever. "Grey, dearest friend, is every theory, But golden-green is the tree of life." Thus the times had passed into a sense of the limits of theology such as has been well expressed in Rossetti's lines-- "Let lore of all theology Be to thee all it can be, But know,--the power that fashions man Measured not out thy little span For thee to take the meting-rod In turn and so approve on God." So in Goethe we have the unsatisfied human spirit with its infinite cravings and longings for something more than earth can give--something, however, which is not separated from the earth, and which is entirely different from theological dogma or anything of that sort. In this, Goethe is expressing a constant yearning of his own, which illuminated all his writings like a gentle hidden fire within them, hardly seen in many passages and yet always somehow felt. It is _through_ the flesh that he will find the spirit, _through_ this world that he will find the next. The quest is ultimately the same as that of Marlowe, but the form of it is absolutely opposed to his. Goethe is as far from Marlowe's theological position as _Peer Gynt_ is, and indeed there is a considerable similarity between Ibsen's great play and Goethe's. As the drama develops, it is true that the love of Faust becomes sensual and his curiosity morbid; but the tragedy lies no longer in the belief that sense and curiosity are in themselves wrong, but in the fact that Faust fails to distinguish their high phases from their low. We have already seen that the _Erdgeist_ which first appeals to Faust is too great for him, and it is there that the tragedy really lies. The earth is not an accursed place, and the _Erdgeist_ may well find its home among the ideals; but Wagner is neither big enough nor clean enough to be man's guide. The contrast between the high and low ideals comes to its finest and most tragic in the story of Margaret. Spiritual and sensual love alternate through the play. Its tragedy and horror concentrate round the fact that love has followed the lower way. Margaret has little to give to Faust of fellowship along intellectual or spiritual lines. She is a village maiden, and he takes from her merely the obvious and lower kind of love. It is a way which leads ultimately to the dance of the witches and the cellar of Auerbach, yet Faust can never be satisfied with these, and from the witch's mouth comes forth the red mouse--the climax of disgust. In Auerbach's cellar he sees himself as the pagan man in him would like to be. In Martha one sees the pagan counterpart to the pure and simple Margaret, just as Mephistopheles is the pagan counterpart to Faust. The lower forms of life are the only ones in which Martha and Mephistopheles are at home. For Faust and Margaret the lapse into the lower forms brings tragedy. Yet it must be remembered also that Faust and Mephistopheles are really one, for the devil who tempts every man is but himself after all, the animal side of him, the dog. The women thus stand for the most poignant aspect of man's great temptation. It is not, as we have already said, any longer a conflict between the secular and the sacred that we are watching, nor even the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. It is between a higher and a lower way of treating life, flesh and spirit both. Margaret stands for all the great questions that are addressed to mankind. There are for every man two ways of doing work, of reading a book, of loving a woman. He who keeps his spiritual life pure and high finds that in all these things there is a noble path. He who yields to his lower self will prostitute and degrade them all, and the tragedy that leads on to the mad scene at the close, where the cries of Margaret have no parallel in literature except those of Lady Macbeth, is the inevitable result of choosing the pagan and refusing the ideal. The Blocksberg is the pagan heaven. A still more striking contrast between the plays meets us when we consider the respective characters of Mephistopheles. When we compare the two devils we are reminded of that most interesting passage in Professor Masson's great essay, which describes the secularisation of Satan between _Paradise Lost_ and the _Faust_ of Goethe:-- "We shall be on the right track if we suppose Mephistopheles to be what Satan has become after six thousand years.... Goethe's Mephistopheles is this same being after the toils and vicissitudes of six thousand years in his new vocation: smaller, meaner, ignobler, but a million times sharper and cleverer.... For six thousand years he has been pursuing the walk he struck out at the beginning, plying his self-selected function, dabbling devilishly in human nature, and abjuring all interest in the grander physics; and the consequence is, as he himself anticipated, that his nature, once great and magnificent, has become small, virulent, and shrunken. He, the scheming, enthusiastic Archangel, has been soured and civilised into the clever, cold-hearted Mephistopheles." Marlowe's devil is of the solemn earlier kind, not yet degraded into the worldling whom Goethe has immortalised. Marlowe's Mephistophilis is essentially the idealist, and it is his Faust who is determined for the world. One feels about Mephistophilis that he is a kind of religious character, although under a cloud. The things he does are done to organ music, and he might be a figure in some stained-glass window of old. Not only is he "a melancholy devil, with a soul above the customary hell," but he actually retains a kind of despairing idealism which somehow ranks him on the side rather of good than of evil. The puppet play curiously emphasises this. "Tell me," says Faust, "what would you do if you could attain to everlasting salvation?" "Hear and despair! Were I to attain to everlasting salvation, I would mount to heaven on a ladder, though every rung were a razor edge." The words are exactly in the spirit of the earlier play. So sad is the devil, so oppressed with a sense of the horror of it all, that, as we read, it almost seems as if Faust were tempting the unwilling Mephistophilis to ruin him. "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it; Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!" To which Faust replies-- "What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate For being deprived of the joys of heaven? Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude, And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess." Goethe's Mephistopheles near the end of the play taunts Faust in the words, "Why dost thou seek our fellowship if thou canst not go through with it?... Do we force ourselves on thee, or thou on us?" And one has the feeling that, like most other things the fiend says, it is an apparent truth which is really a lie; but it would have been entirely true if Marlowe's devil had said it. The Mephistopheles of Goethe is seldom solemnised at all. Once indeed on the Harz Mountains he says-- "Naught of this genial influence do I know! Within me all is wintry. * * * * * How sadly, yonder, with belated glow, Rises the ruddy moon's imperfect round!" Yet there it is merely by discomfort, and not by the pain and hideous sorrow of the world surrounding him, that he is affected. He is like Satan in the Book of Job, except that he is offering his victim luxuries instead of pains. In the prologue in Heaven he speaks with such a jaunty air that Professor Blackie's translation has omitted the passage as irreverent. He is the spirit that _denies_--sceptical and cynical, the anti-Christian that is in us all. His business is to depreciate spiritual values, and to persuade mortals that there is no real distinction between good and bad, or between high and low. We have seen in the character of Cornelius in _Marius the Epicurean_ "some inward standard ... of distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the period." Here is the extreme opposite. There is no divine discontent in him, nor longing for happier things. He would never have said that he would climb to heaven upon a ladder of razor edges. There is nothing of the fallen angel about him at all, for he is a spirit perfectly content with an intolerable past, present, and future. Before the throne of God he swaggers with the same easy insolence as in Martha's garden. He is the very essence and furthest reach of paganism. So we have this curious fact, that Marlowe's Faust is the pagan and Mephistophilis the idealist; while Goethe reverses the order, making paganism incarnate in the fiend and idealism in the nobler side of the man. It is a far truer and more natural story of life than that which had suggested it; for in the soul of man there is ever a hunger and thirst for the highest, however much he may abuse his soul. At the worst, there remains always that which "a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." One more contrast marks the difference of the two plays, namely, the fate of Faust. Marlowe's Faust is utterly and irretrievably damned. On the old theory of an essential antagonism between the secular and the sacred, and upon the old cast-iron theology to which the intellect of man was enjoined to conform, there is no escape whatsoever for the rebel. So the play leads on to the sublimely terrific passage at the close, when, with the chiming of the bell, terror grows to madness in the victim's soul, and at last he envies the beasts that perish-- "For, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolved in elements; But mine must live still to be plagued in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven." Goethe, with his changed conception of life in general, could not have accepted this ending. It was indeed Lessing who first pointed out that the final end for Faust must be his salvation and not his doom; but Goethe must necessarily have arrived at the same conclusion even if Lessing had not asserted it. It is clearly visible throughout the play, by touches here and there, that Faust is not "wholly damnable" as Martha is. His pity for women, relevant to the main plot of the play, breaks forth in horror when he discovers the fate of Margaret. "The misery of this one pierces me to the very marrow, and harrows up my soul; thou art grinning calmly over the doom of thousands!" And these words follow immediately after an outbreak of blind rage called forth by Mephistopheles' famous words, "She is not the first." Such a Faust as this, we feel, can no more be ultimately lost than can the Mephistophilis of Marlowe. As for Marlowe's Faust, the plea for his destruction is the great delusion of a hard theology, and the only really damnable person in the whole company is the Mephistopheles of Goethe, who seems from first to last continually to be committing the sin against the Holy Ghost. The salvation of Faust is implicit in the whole structure and meaning of the play. It is worked out mystically in the Second Part, along lines of human life and spiritual interest far-flung into the sphere that surrounds the story of the First. But even in the First Part, the happy issue is involved in the terms of Faust's compact with the devil. Only on the condition that Mephistopheles shall be able to satisfy Faust and cheat him "into self-complacent pride, or sweet enjoyment," only "If ever to the passing hour I say, So beautiful thou art! thy flight delay"-- only then shall his soul become the prey of the tempter. But from the first, in the scorn of Faust for this poor fiend and all he has to bestow, we read the failure of the plot. Faust may sign a hundred such bonds in his blood with little fear. He knows well enough that a spirit such as his can never be satisfied with what the fiend has to give, nor lie down in sleek contentment to enjoy the earth without afterthought. It is the strenuous and insatiable spirit of the man that saves him. It is true that "man errs so long as he is striving," but the great word of the play is just this, that no such errors can ever be final. The deadly error is that of those who have ceased to strive, and who have complacently settled down in the acceptance of the lower life with its gratifications and delights. But such striving is, as Robert Browning tells us in _Rabbi ben Ezra_ and _The Statue and the Bust_, the critical and all-important point in human character and destiny. It is this which distinguishes pagan from idealist in the end. Faust's errors fall off from him like a discarded robe; the essential man has never ceased to strive. He has gone indeed to hell, but he has never made his bed there. He is saved by want of satisfaction. LECTURE IV CELTIC REVIVALS OF PAGANISM OMAR KAYYÁM AND FIONA MACLEOD It is extremely difficult to judge justly and without prejudice the literature of one's own time. So many different elements are pouring into it that it assumes a composite character, far beyond the power of definition or even of epigram to describe as a whole. But, while this is true, it is nevertheless possible to select from this vast amalgam certain particular elements, and to examine them and judge them fairly. The field in which we are now wandering may be properly included under the head of ancient literature, although in another sense it is the most modern of all. The two authors whom we shall consider in this lecture, although they have come into our literature but recently, yet represent very ancient thought. There is nothing whatsoever that is modern about them. They describe bed-rock human passions and longings, sorrowings and consolations. Each may be claimed as a revival of ancient paganism, but only one of them is capable of translation into a useful idealism. OMAR KAYYÁM In the twelfth century, at Khorassán in Persia Omar Kayyám the poet was born. He lived and died at Naishápúr, following the trade of a tent-maker, acquiring knowledge of every available kind, but with astronomy for his special study. His famous poem, the _Rubáiyát_, was first seen by Fitzgerald in 1856 and published in 1868. So great was the sensation produced in England by the innovating sage, that in 1895 the Omar Kayyám Club was founded by Professor Clodd, and that club has since come to be considered "the blue ribbon of literary associations." In Omar's time Persian poetry was in the hands of the Súfis, or religious teachers of Persia. He found them writing verses which professed to be mystical and spiritual, but which might sometimes be suspected of earthlier meanings lurking beneath the pantheistic veil. It was against the poetry of such Súfis that Omar Kayyám rose in revolt. Loving frankness and truth, he threw all disguises aside, and became the exponent of materialistic epicureanism naked and unashamed. A fair specimen of the finest Súfi poetry is _The Rose Garden of Sa'di_, which it may be convenient to quote because of its easy accessibility in English translation. Sa'di also was a twelfth-century poet, although of a later time than Omar. He was a student of the College in Baghdad, and he lived as a hermit for sixty years in Shiraz, singing of love and war. His mind is full of mysticism, wisdom and beauty going hand in hand through a dim twilight land. Dominating all his thought is the primary conviction that the soul is essentially part of God, and will return to God again, and meanwhile is always revealing, in mysterious hints and half-conscious visions, its divine source and destiny. Here and there you will find the deep fatalism of the East, as in the lines-- "Fate will not alter for a thousand sighs, Nor prayers importunate, nor hopeless cries. The guardian of the store-house of the wind Cares nothing if the widow's lantern dies." These, however, are relieved by that which makes a friend of fate-- "To God's beloved even the dark hour Shines as the morning glory after rain. Except by Allah's grace thou hast no power Nor strength of arm such rapture to attain." It was against this sort of poetry that Omar Kayyám revolted. He had not any proof of such spiritual assurances, and he did not want that of which he had no proof. He understood the material world around him, both in its joy and sorrow, and emphatically he did not understand any other world. He became a sort of Marlowe's Faust before his time, and protested against the vague spirituality of the Súfis by an assertion of what may be called a brilliant animalism. He loved beauty as much as they did, and there is an oriental splendour about all his work, albeit an earthly splendour. He became, accordingly, an audacious epicurean who "failed to find any world but this," and set himself to make the best of what he found. His was not an exorbitant ambition nor a fiery passion of any kind. The bitterness and cynicism of it all remind us of the inscription upon Sardanapalus' tomb--"Eat, drink, play, the rest is not worth the snap of a finger." Drinking-cups have been discovered with such inscriptions on them--"The future is utterly useless, make the most of to-day,"--and Omar's poetry is full both of the cups and the inscription. The French interpreter, Nicolas, has indeed spiritualised his work. In his view, when Omar raves about wine, he really means God; when he speaks of love, he means the soul, and so on. As a matter of fact, no man has ever written a plainer record of what he means, or has left his meaning less ambiguous. When he says wine and love he means wine and love--earthly things, which may or may not have their spiritual counterparts, but which at least have given no sign of them to him. The same persistent note is heard in all his verses. It is the grape, and wine, and fair women, and books, that make up the sum total of life for Omar as he knows it. "Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing. A Book of verses underneath the Bough, A jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show." It would show a sad lack of humour if we were to take this too seriously, and shake our heads over our eastern visitor. The cult of Omar has been blamed for paganising English society. Really it came in as a foreign curiosity, and, for the most part, that it has remained. When we had a visit some years ago from that great oriental potentate Li Hung Chang, we all put on our best clothes and went out to welcome him. That was all right so long as we did not naturalise him, a course which neither he nor we thought of our adopting. Had we naturalised him, it would have been a different matter, and even Mayfair might have found the fashions of China somewhat _risqué_. One remembers that introductory note to Browning's _Ferishtah's Fancies_--"You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian; but let them be changed."[1] The only safe way of dealing with Omar Kayyám is to insist that his garments be _not_ changed. If you naturalise him he will become deadly in the West. The East thrives upon fatalism, and there is a glamour about its most materialistic writings, through which far spiritual things seem to quiver as in a sun-haze. The atmosphere of the West is different, and fatalism, adopted by its more practical mind, is sheer suicide. Not that there is much likelihood of a nation with the history and the literature of England behind it, ever becoming to any great extent materialistic in the crude sense of Omar's poetry. The danger is subtler. The motto, "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die," is capable of spiritualisation, and if you spiritualise that motto it becomes poisonous indeed. For there are various ways of eating and drinking, and many who would not be tempted with the grosser appetites may become pagans by devoting themselves to a rarer banquet, the feast of reason and the flow of soul. It is possible in that way also to take the present moment for Eternity, to live and think without horizons. Mr. Peyton has said, "You see in some little house a picture of a cottage on a moor, and you wonder why these people, living, perhaps, in the heart of a great city, and in the most commonplace of houses, put such a picture there. The reason for it is, that that cottage is for them the signal of the immortal life of men, and the moor has infinite horizons." That is the root of the matter after all--the soul and horizons. He who says, "To-day shall suffice for me," whether it be in the high intellectual plane or in the low earthly one, has fallen into the grip of the world that passeth away; and that is a danger which Omar's advent has certainly not lessened. The second reason for care in this neighbourhood is that epicureanism is only safe for those whose tastes lie in the direction of the simple life. Montaigne has wisely said that it is pernicious to those who have a natural tendency to vice. But vice is not a thing which any man loves for its own sake, until his nature has suffered a long process of degradation. It is simply the last result of a habit of luxurious self-indulgence; and the temptation to the self-indulgent, the present world in one form or another, comes upon everybody at times. There are moods when all of us want to break away from the simple life, and feel the splendour of the dazzling lights and the intoxication of the strange scents of the world. To surrender to these has always been, and always will be, deadly. It is the old temptation to cease to strive, which we have already found to be the keynote of Goethe's _Faust_. Kingsley, in one of the most remarkable passages of _Westward Ho!_ describes two of Amyas Leigh's companions, settled down in a luscious paradise of earthly delights, while their comrades endured the never-ending hardships of the march. By the sight of that soft luxury Amyas was tempted of the devil. But as he gazed, a black jaguar sprang from the cliff above, and fastened on the fair form of the bride of one of the recreants. "O Lord Jesus," said Amyas to himself, "Thou hast answered the devil for me!" It does not, however, need the advent of the jaguar to introduce the element of sheer tragedy into luxurious life. In his _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, Parkman tells with rare eloquence the character of the Ojibwa Indians: "In the calm days of summer, the Ojibwa fisherman pushes out his birch canoe upon the great inland ocean of the North; ... or he lifts his canoe from the sandy beach, and, while his camp-fire crackles on the grass-plot, reclines beneath the trees, and smokes and laughs away the sultry hours, in a lazy luxury of enjoyment.... But when winter descends upon the North, sealing up the fountains ... now the hunter can fight no more against the nipping cold and blinding sleet. Stiff and stark, with haggard cheek and shrivelled lip, he lies among the snow-drifts; till, with tooth and claw, the famished wild-cat strives in vain to pierce the frigid marble of his limbs." Meredith tells of a bird, playing with a magic ring, and all the time trying to sing its song; but the ring falls and has to be picked up again, and the song is broken. It is a good parable of life, that impossible compromise between the magic ring and the simple song. Those who choose the earth-magic of Omar's epicureanism will find that the song of the spirit is broken, until they cease from the vain attempt at singing and fall into an earth-bound silence. Thus Omar Kayyám has brought us a rich treasure from the East, of splendid diction and much delightful and fascinating sweetness of poetry. All such gifts are an enrichment to the language and a decoration to the thought of a people. When, however, they are taken more seriously, they may certainly bring plague with them, as other Eastern things have sometimes done. FIONA MACLEOD To turn suddenly from this curious Persian life and thought to the still more curious life and thought of ancient Scotland is indeed a violent change. Nothing could be more dissimilar than the two types of paganism out of which they spring; and if Fiona Macleod's work may have its dangers for the precarious faith of modern days, they are certainly dangers which attack the soul in a different fashion from those of Omar. The revelation of Fiona Macleod's identity with William Sharp came upon the English-reading world as a complete surprise. Few deaths have been more lamented in the literary world than his, and that for many reasons. His biography is one of the most fascinating that could be imagined. His personality was a singularly attractive one,--so vital, so indefatigable,--with interests so many-sided, and a heart so sound in all of them. It is characteristic of him that in his young days he ran away for a time with gipsies, for he tells us, "I suppose I was a gipsy once, and before that a wild man of the woods." The two great influences of his life were Shelley and D.G. Rossetti. The story of his literary struggles is brimful of courage and romance, and the impression of the book is mainly that of ubiquity. His insatiable curiosity seems to have led him to know everybody, and every place, and everything. At length Fiona Macleod was born. She arose out of nowhere, so far as the reading public could discover. Really there was a hidden shy self in Sharp, which must find expression impossible except in some secret way. We knew him as the brilliant critic, the man of affairs, and the wide and experienced traveller. We did not know him, until we discovered that he was Fiona, in that second life of his in the borderland where flesh and spirit meet. First there came _Pharais_ in 1893, and that was the beginning of much. Then came _The Children of To-morrow_, the forerunner of Fiona Macleod. It was his first prose expression of the subjective side of his nature, together with the element of revolt against conventionalities, which was always strongly characteristic of him. It introduced England to the hidden places of the Green Life. The secret of his double personality was confided only to a few friends, and was remarkably well kept. When pressed by adventurous questioners, some of these allies gave answers which might have served for models in the art of diplomacy. So Sharp wrote on, openly as William Sharp, and secretly as Fiona Macleod. Letters had to reach Fiona somehow, and so it was given out that she was his cousin, and that letters sent to him would be safely passed on to her. If, however, it was difficult to keep the secret from the public, it was still more difficult for one man to maintain two distinct personalities. William Sharp of course had to live, while Fiona might die any day. Her life entailed upon him another burden, not of personification only, but of subject and research, and he was driven to sore passes to keep both himself and her alive. For each was truly alive and individual--two distinct people, one of whom thought of the other as if she were "asleep in another room." Even the double correspondence was a severe burden and strain, for Fiona Macleod had her own large post-bag which had to be answered, just as William Sharp had his. But far beyond any such outward expressions of themselves as these, the difficulty of the double personality lay in deep springs of character and of taste. Sharp's mind was keenly intellectual, observant, and reasoning; while Fiona Macleod was the intuitional and spiritual dreamer. She was indeed the expression of the womanly element in Sharp. This element certainly dominated him, or rather perhaps he was one of those who have successfully invaded the realm of alien sex. In his earlier work, such as _The Lady of the Sea_,--"the woman who is in the heart of woman,"--we have proof of this; for in that especially he so "identified himself with woman's life, seeing it through her own eyes that he seems to forget sometimes that he is not she." So much was this the case that Fiona Macleod actually received at least one proposal of marriage. It was answered quite kindly, Fiona replying that she had other things to do, and could not think of it; but the little incident shows how true the saying about Sharp was, that "he was always in love with something or another." This loving and love-inspiring element in him has been strongly challenged, and some of the women who have judged him, have strenuously disowned him as an exponent of their sex. Yet the fact is unquestionable that he was able to identify himself in a quite extraordinary degree with what he took to be the feminine soul. It seems to have something to do with the Celtic genius. One can always understand a Scottish Celt better by comparing him with an Irish one or a Welsh; and it will certainly prove illuminative in the present case to remember Mr. W.B. Yeats while one is thinking of Fiona Macleod. To the present writer it seems that the woman-soul is apparent in both, and that she is singing the same tune; the only difference being, as it were, in the quality of the voice, Fiona Macleod singing in high soprano, and Mr. Yeats in deep and most heart-searching contralto. The Fiona Macleod side of Sharp never throve well in London. Hers was the fate of those who in this busy world have retained the faculty and the need for dreaming. So Sharp had to get away from London--driven of the spirit into the wilderness--that his other self might live and breathe. One feels the power of this second self especially in certain words that recur over and over again, until the reader is almost hypnotised by their lilting, and finds himself in a kind of sleep. That dreaming personality, with eyes half closed and poppy-decorated hair, could never live in the bondage of the city cage. The spirit must get free, and the longing for such freedom has been well called "a barbaric passion, a nostalgia for the life of the moor and windy sea." There are two ways of loving and understanding nature. Meredith speaks of those who only see nature by looking at it along the barrel of a gun. The phrase describes that large company of people who feel the call of the wild indeed, and long for the country at certain seasons, but must always be doing something with nature--either hunting, or camping out, or peradventure going upon a journey like Baal in the Old Testament. But there is another way, to which Carlyle calls attention as characteristic of Robert Burns, and which he pronounces the test of a true poet. The test is, whether he can wander the whole day beside a burn "and no' think lang." Such was Fiona's way with nature. She needed nothing to interest her but the green earth itself, and its winds and its waters. It was surely the Fiona side of Sharp that made him kiss the grassy turf and then scatter it to the east and west and north and south; or lie down at night upon the ground that he might see the intricate patterns of the moonlight, filtering through the branches of the trees. In all this, it is needless to say, Mr. Yeats offers a close parallel. He understands so perfectly the wild life, that one knows at once that it is in him, like a fire in his blood. Take this for instance-- "They found a man running there; He had ragged long grass-coloured hair; He had knees that stuck out of his hose; He had puddle water in his shoes; He had half a cloak to keep him dry, Although he had a squirrel's eye." Such perfect observation is possible only to the detached spirit, which is indeed doing nothing to nature, but only letting nature do her work. In the sharp outline of this imagery, and in the mind that saw and the heart that felt it, there is something of the keenness of the squirrel's eye for nature. Fiona's favourite part of nature is the sea. That great and many-sided wonder, whether with its glare of phosphorescence or the stillness of its dead calm, fascinates the poems of Sharp and lends them its spell. But of the prose of Fiona it may be truly said that everything "... doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange." These marvellous lines were never more perfectly illustrated than here. As we read we behold the sea, now crouching like a gigantic tiger, now moaning with some Celtic consciousness of the grim and loathsome treasures in its depths, ever haunted and ever haunting. It is probable that Sharp never wrote anything that had not for his ear an undertone of the ocean. Sitting in London in his room, he heard, on one occasion, the sound of waves so loud that he could not hear his wife knocking at the door. Similarly in Fiona Macleod's writing seas are always rocking and swinging. Gulfs are opening to disclose the green dim mysteries of the deeper depths. The wind is running riot with the surface overhead, and the sea is lord in all its mad glory and wonder and fear. Mr. Yeats has the same characteristic, but again it is possible to draw a fantastic distinction like that between the soprano and the alto. It is lake water rather than the ocean that sounds the under-tone of Mr. Yeats' poetry-- "I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core." The oldest sounds in the world, Mr. Yeats tells us are wind and water and the curlew: and of the curlew he says-- "O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the waters of the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind." In all this you hear the crying of the wind and the swiftly borne scream of the curlew on it, and you know that lake water will not be far away. This magic power of bringing busy city people out of all their surroundings into the green heart of the forest and the moorland, and letting them hear the sound of water there, is common to them both. Fiona Macleod is a lover and worshipper of beauty. Long before her, the Greeks had taught the world their secret, and the sweet spell had penetrated many hearts beyond the pale of Greece. It was Augustine who said, "Late I have loved thee, oh beauty, so old and yet so new, late I have loved thee." And Marius the Epicurean, in Pater's fine phrase, "was one who was made perfect by love of visible beauty." It is a direct instinct, this bracing and yet intoxicating love of beauty for its own sake. Each nation produces a spiritual type of it, which becomes one of the deepest national characteristics, and the Celtic type is easily distinguished. No Celt ever cared for landscape. "It is loveliness I ask, not lovely things," says Fiona; and it is but a step from this to that abstract mystical and spiritual love of beauty, which is the very soul of the Celtic genius. It expresses itself most directly in colours, and the meaning of them is far more than bright-hued surfaces. The pale green of running water, the purple and pearl-grey of doves, still more the remote and liquid colours of the sky, and the sad-toned or the gay garments of the earth--these are more by far to those who know their value than pigments, however delicate. They are either a sensuous intoxication or else a mystic garment of the spirit. Seumas, the old islander, looking seaward at sunrise, says, "Every morning like this I take my hat off to the beauty of the world." And as we read we think of Mr. Neil Munro's lord of Doom Castle walking uncovered in the night before retiring to his rest, and with tears welling in his eyes exclaiming that the mountains are his evening prayer. Such mystics as these are in touch with far-off things. Sharp, indeed, was led definitely to follow such leading into regions of spiritualism where not many of his readers will be able or willing to follow him, but Fiona Macleod left the mystery vague. It might easily have defined itself in some sort of pantheistic theory of the universe, but it never did so. "The green fire" is more than the sap which flows through the roots of the trees. It is as Alfred de Musset has called it, the blood that courses through the veins of God. As we realise the full force of that imaginative phrase, the dark roots of trees instinct with life, and the royal liquor rising to its foam of leaves, we have something very like Fiona's mystic sense of nature. Any extreme moment of human experience will give an interpretation of such symbolism--love or death or the mere springtide of the year. It is not without significance that Sharp and Mr. Yeats and Mr. Symons all dreamed on the same night the curious dream of a beautiful woman shooting arrows among the stars. All the three had indeed the beautiful woman in the heart of them, and in far-darting thoughts and imaginations she was ever sending arrows among the stars. But Mr. Yeats is calmer and less passionate than Fiona, as though he were crooning a low song all the time, while the silent arrows flash from his bow. Sometimes, indeed, he will blaze forth flaming with passion in showers of light of the green fire. Yet from first to last, there is less of the green fire and more of the poppies in Mr. Yeats and it is Fiona who shoots most constantly and farthest among the stars. _Haunted_, that is the word for this world into which we have entered. The house without its guests would be uninhabitable for such poets as these. The atmosphere is everywhere that of a haunted earth where strange terrors and beauties flit to and fro--phantoms of spectral lives which seem to be looking on while we play out our bustling parts upon the stage. They are separate from the body, these shadows, and belong to some former life. They are an ancestral procession walking ever behind us, and often they are changing the course of our visible adventures by the power of sins and follies that were committed in the dim and remotest past. Certainly the author is, as he says, "Aware of things and living presences hidden from the rest." "The shadows are here." The spirits of the dead and the never born are out and at large. These or others like them were the folk that Abt Vogler encountered as he played upon his instrument--"presences plain in the place." One of the most striking chapters in that very remarkable book of Mr. Fielding Hall's, _The Soul of a People_, is that in which he describes the nats, the little dainty spirits that haunt the trees of Burmah. But it is not only the Eastern trees that are haunted, and Sharp is always seeing tree-spirits, and nature-spirits of every kind, and talking with them. Now and again he will give you a natural explanation of them, but that always jars and sounds prosaic. In fact, we do not want it; we prefer the "delicate throbbing things" themselves, to any facts you can give us instead of them, for to those who have heard and seen beyond the veil, they are far more real than any of your mere facts. Here we think of Mr. Yeats again with his cry, "Come into the world again wild bees, wild bees." But he hardly needed to cry upon them, for the wild bees were buzzing in every page he wrote. A world haunted in this fashion has its sinister side, allied with the decaying corpses deep in the earth. When passion has gone into the world beyond that which eye hath seen and ear heard, it takes, in presence of the thought of death, a double form. It is in love with death and yet it hates death. So we come back to that singular sentence of Robert Louis Stevenson's, "The beauty and the terror of the world," which so adequately describes the double fascination of nature for man. Her spell is both sweet and terrible, and we would not have it otherwise The menace in summer's beauty, the frightful contrast between the laughing earth and the waiting death, are all felt in the prolonged and deep sense of gloom that broods over much of Fiona's work, and in the second-sight which very weirdly breaks through from time to time, forcing our entrance into the land from which we shrink. Mr. Yeats is not without the same sinister and moving undergloom, although, on the whole, he is aware of kindlier powers and of a timid affection between men and spirits. He actually addresses a remonstrance to Scotsmen for having soured the disposition of their ghosts and fairies, and his reconstructions of the ancient fairyland are certainly full of lightsome and pleasing passages. Along either lane you may arrive at peace, which is the monopoly neither of the Eastern nor of the Western Celt, but it is a peace never free from a great wistfulness. "How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face." That there is much paganism in all this must be obvious to any one who has given any attention to the subject. The tale of _The Annir-Choille_ confesses it frankly enough, where the young Christian prince is brought back by the forest maiden from his new faith to the ancient pagan world. Old gods are strewn everywhere upon the waysides down which Fiona leads us, and there are many times when we cannot disentangle the spiritual from the material, nor indeed the good from the evil influences. Dr. John Brown used to tell the story of a shepherd boy near Biggar, who one day was caught out on the hill in a thunder-storm. The boy could not remember whether thunder-storms were sent by God or Satan, and so to be quite safe, he kept alternately repeating the ejaculations, "Eh, guid God," and "Eh, bonny deil." One often thinks of Fiona in connection with that story. You are seldom quite sure whether it is a Christian or a pagan deity whom you are invoking, but there is no question as to the paganism of the atmosphere which you often breathe. As a matter of fact, William Sharp began in frank and avowed paganism, and passed from that through various phases into a high spirituality. His early utterances in regard to Art, in which he deprecated any connection between Art and a message, and insisted upon its being mere expression, were of course sheer paganism. In 1892, before Fiona was born, he published one of those delightful magazines which run through a short and daring career and then vanish as suddenly as they arose. In fact his magazine, _The Pagan Review_, from first to last had only one number. It was edited by Mr. Brooks and William Sharp, and its articles were contributed by seven other people. But these seven, and Mr. Brooks as well, turned out eventually all to be William Sharp himself. It was "frankly pagan; pagan in sentiment, pagan in convictions, pagan in outlook.... The religion of our forefathers has not only ceased for us personally, but is no longer in any vital and general sense a sovereign power in the realm." He finished up with the interesting phrase, "Sic transit gloria Grundi," and he quotes Gautier: "'Frankly I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-coloured vest, apple-green trousers, a pouch, a crook; in short, the entire outfit of a Lignon shepherd. I shall have a lamb washed to complete the pastoral....' This is the lamb." The magazine was an extraordinarily clever production, and the fact that he was its author is significant. For to the end of her days Fiona was a pagan still, albeit sometimes a more or less converted pagan. In _The Annir-Choille_, _The Sin-Eater_, _The Washer of the Ford_, and the others, you never get away from the ancient rites, and there is one story which may be taken as typical of all the rest, _The Walker in the Night_:-- "Often he had heard of her. When any man met this woman his fate depended on whether he saw her before she caught sight of him. If she saw him first, she had but to sing her wild strange song, and he would go to her; and when he was before her, two flames would come out of her eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry tinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl, and she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a year and a day. And on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is let go a furlong beyond a greyhound. Then it would fly like a windy shadow from glade to glade, or from dune to dune, in the vain hope to reach a wayside Calvary: but ever in vain. Sometimes the Holy Tree would almost be reached; then, with a gliding swiftness, like a flood racing down a valley, the Walker in the Night would be alongside the fugitive. Now and again unhappy nightfarers--unhappy they, for sure, for never does weal remain with any one who hears what no human ear should hearken--would be startled by a sudden laughing in the darkness. This was when some such terrible chase had happened, and when the creature of the night had taken the captive soul, in the last moments of the last hour of the last day of its possible redemption, and rent it this way and that, as a hawk scatters the feathered fragments of its mutilated quarry." We have said that nature may be either an intoxication or a sacrament, and paganism might be defined as the view of nature in the former of these two lights. But where you have a growing spirituality like that of William Sharp, you are constantly made aware of the hieratic or sacramental quality in nature also. It is this which gives its peculiar charm and spell to Celtic folklore in general. The Saxon song of Beowulf is a rare song, and its story is the swinging tale of a "pagan gentleman very much in the rough," but for the most part it is quite destitute of spiritual significance. It may be doubted if this could be said truly of any Celtic tale that was ever told. Fiona Macleod describes _The Three Marvels_ as "studies in old religious Celtic sentiment, so far as that can be recreated in a modern heart that feels the same beauty and simplicity in the early Christian faith"; and there is a constant sense that however wild and even wicked the tale may be, yet it has its Christian counterpart, and is in some true sense a strayed idealism. At this point we become aware of one clear distinction between William Sharp and Fiona Macleod. To him, literature was a craft, laboured at most honestly and enriched with an immense wealth both of knowledge and of cleverness; but to her, literature was a revelation, with divine inspirations behind it--inspirations authentically divine, no matter by what name the God might be called. So it came to pass that _The Pagan Review_ had only one number. That marked the transition moment, when Fiona Macleod began to predominate over William Sharp, until finally she controlled and radically changed him into her own likeness. He passes on to the volume entitled _The Divine Adventure_, which interprets the spirit of Columba. Nature and the spiritual meet in the psychic phase into which Sharp passed, not only in the poetic and native sense, but in a more literal sense than that. For the Green Life continually leads those who are akin to it into opportunities of psychical research among obscure and mysterious forces which are yet very potent. With a nature like his it was inevitable that he should be eventually lured irresistibly into the enchanted forest, where spirit is more and more the one certainty of existence. For most of us there is another guide into the spirit land. In the region of the spectral and occult many of us are puzzled and ill at ease, but we all, in some degree, understand the meaning of ordinary human love. Even the most commonplace nature has its magical hours now and then, or at least has had them and has not forgotten; and it is love that "leads us with a gentle hand into the silent land." This may form a bond of union between Fiona Macleod and many who are mystified rather than enlightened by psychic phenomena in the technical meaning of the phrase. Here, perhaps, we find the key to the double personality which has been so interesting in this whole study. It was William Sharp who chose for his tombstone the inscription, "Love is more great than we conceive, and death is the keeper of unknown redemptions." Fiona's work, too, is full of the latent potency of love. Like Marius, she has perceived an unseen companion walking with men through the gloom and brilliance of the West and North, and sometimes her heart is so full that it cannot find utterance at all. In the "dream state," that which is mere nature for the scientist reveals itself, obscurely indeed and yet insistently, as very God. God is dwelling in Fiona. He is smiling in all sunsets. He is filling the universe with His breath and holding us all in His "Mighty Moulding Hand." The relation in which all this stands to Christianity is a very curious question. The splendour, beauty, and spirituality of it all are evident enough, but the references to anything like dogmatic or definite Christian doctrine are confusing and obscure. Perhaps it was impossible that one so literally a child of nature, and who had led such an open-air life from his childhood, could possibly have done otherwise than to rebel. It was the gipsy in him that revolted against Christianity and every other form and convention of civilised life, and claimed a freedom far beyond any which he ever used. We read that in his sixth year, when already he found the God of the pulpit remote and forbidding, he was nevertheless conscious of a benign and beautiful presence. On the shore of Loch Long he built a little altar of rough stones beneath a swaying pine, and laid an offering of white flowers upon it. In the college days he turned still more definitely against orthodox Presbyterianism; but he retained all along, not only belief in the central truths that underlie all religions, but great reverence and affection for them. It is probable that towards the close he was approaching nearer to formal Christianity than he knew. We are told that he "does not reverence the Bible or Christian Theology in themselves, but for the beautiful spirituality which faintly breathes through them like a vague wind blowing through intricate forests." His quarrel with Christianity was that it had never done justice to beauty, that it had a gloom upon it, and an unlovely austerity. This indeed is a strange accusation from so perfect an interpreter of the Celtic gloom as he was, and the retort _tu quoque_ is obvious enough. There have indeed been phases of Christianity which seemed to love and honour the ugly for its own sake, yet there is a rarer beauty in the Man of Sorrows than in all the smiling faces of the world. This is that hidden beauty of which the saints and mystics tell us. They have seen it in the face more marred than any man's, and their record is that he who would find a lasting beauty that will satisfy his soul, must find it through pain conquered and ugliness transformed and sorrow assuaged. The Christ Beautiful can never be seen when you have stripped him of the Crown of Thorns, nor is there any loveliness that has not been made perfect by tears. Thus though there is truth in Sharp's complaint that Christianity has often done sore injustice to beauty as such, yet it must be repeated that this exponent of the Celtic heart somehow missed the element in Christianity which was not only like, but actually identical with, his own deepest truth. Sharp often reminds one of Heine, with his intensely human love of life, both in its brightness and in its darkness. Where that love is so intense as it was in these hearts, it is almost inevitable that it should sometimes eclipse the sense of the divine. Thus Sharp tells us that "Celtic paganism lies profound still beneath the fugitive drift of Christianity and civilisation, as the deep sea beneath the coming and going of the tides." He was indeed so aware of this underlying paganism, that we find it blending with Christian ideas in practically the whole of his work. Nothing could be quoted as a more distinctive note of his genius than that blend. It is seen perhaps most clearly in such stories as _The Last Supper_ and _The Fisher of Men_. In these tales of unsurpassable power and beauty, Fiona Macleod has created the Gaelic Christ. The Christ is the same as He of Galilee and of the Upper Room in Jerusalem, and His work the same. But he talks the sweet Celtic language, and not only talks it but _thinks_ in it also. He walks among the rowan trees of the Shadowy Glen, while the quiet light flames upon the grass, and the fierce people that lurk in shadow have eyes for the helplessness of the little lad who sees too far. Such tales are full of a strange light that seems to be, at one and the same time, the Celtic glamour and the Light of the World. All the lovers of Mr. Yeats must have remembered many instances of the same kind in his work. "And are there not moods which need heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland for their expression, no less than this dilapidated earth? Nay, are there not moods which shall find no expression unless there be men who dare to mix heaven, hell, purgatory, and faeryland together, or even to set the heads of beasts to the bodies of men, or to thrust the souls of men into the heart of rocks? Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart longs for, and have no fear." Mr. Yeats is continually identifying these apparently unrelated things; and youth and peace, faith and beauty, are ever meeting in converging lines in his work. No song of his has a livelier lilt than the _Fiddler of Dooney_. "I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer; I read in my book of songs I bought at Sligo fair. When we come at the end of time, To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits, But call me first through the gate. And when the folk there spy me, They will all come up to me, With, 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!' And dance like a wave of the sea." In a few final words we may try to estimate what all this amounts to in the long battle between paganism and idealism. There is no question that Fiona Macleod may be reasonably claimed by either side. Certainly it is true of her work, that it is pure to the pure and dangerous to those who take it wrongly. Meredith's great line was never truer than it is here, "Enter these enchanted woods, ye who dare." The effect upon the mind, and the tendency in the life, will depend upon what one brings to the reading of it. All this bringing back of the discarded gods has its glamour and its risk. Such gods are excellent as curiosities, and may provide the quaintest of studies in human nature. They give us priceless fragments of partial and broken truth, and they exhibit cross-sections of the evolution of thought in some of its most charming moments. Besides all this, they are exceedingly valuable as providing us with that general sense of religion, vague and illusive, which is deeper than all dogma. But, for the unwary, there is the double danger in all this region that they shall, on the one hand, be tempted to worship the old gods; or that, on the other hand, even in loving them without definite worship, the old black magic may spring out upon them. As to the former alternative, light minds will always prefer the wonderfully coloured but more or less formless figure in a dream, to anything more definite and commanding. They will cry, "Here is the great god"; and, intoxicated by the mystery, will fall down to worship. But that which does not command can never save, and for a guiding faith we need something more sure than this. Moreover, there is the second alternative of the old black magic. A discarded god is always an uncanny thing to take liberties with. While the earth-spirit in all its grandeur may appeal to the jaded and perplexed minds of to-day as a satisfying object of faith, the result will probably be but a modern form of the ancient Baal-worship. It will in some respects be a superior cult to its ancient prototype. Its devotees will not cut themselves with knives. They will cut themselves with sweet and bitter poignancies of laughter and tears, when the sun shines upon wet forests in the green earth. This, too, is Baal-worship, hardly distinguishable in essence from that cruder devotion to the fructifying and terrifying powers of nature against which the prophets of Israel made their war. In much that Fiona Macleod has written we feel the spirit struggling like Samson against its bonds of green withes, though by no means always able to break them as he did; or lying down in an earth-bound stupor, content with the world that nature produces and sustains. Here, among the elemental roots of things, when the heart is satisfying itself with the passionate life of nature, the red flower grows in the green life, and the imperative of passion becomes the final law. On the other hand, a child of nature may remember that he is also a child of the spirit; and, even in the Vale Perilous, the spirit may be an instinctive and faithful guide. Because we love the woods we need not worship the sacred mistletoe. Because we listen to the sea we need not reject greater and more intelligible voices of the Word of Life. And the mention of the sea, and the memory of all that it has meant in Fiona Macleod's writing, reminds us strangely of that old text, "Born of water and of the Spirit." While man lives upon the sea-girt earth, the voices of the ocean, that seem to come from the depths of its green heart, will always call to him, reminding him of the mysterious powers and the terrible beauties among which his life is cradled. Yet there are deeper secrets which the spirit of man may learn--secrets that will still be told when the day of earth is over, when the sea has ceased from her swinging, and the earth-spirit has fled for ever. It is well that a man should remember this, and remain a spiritual man in spite of every form of seductive paganism. Sharp has said in his _Green Fire_:-- "There are three races of man. There is the myriad race which loses all, through (not bestiality, for the brute world is clean and sane) perverted animalism; and there is the myriad race which denounces humanity, and pins all its faith and joy to a life the very conditions of whose existence are incompatible with the law to which we are subject; the sole law, the law of nature. Then there is that small untoward class which knows the divine call of the spirit through the brain, and the secret whisper of the soul in the heart, and for ever perceives the veils of mystery and the rainbows of hope upon our human horizons: which hears and sees, and yet turns wisely, meanwhile, to the life of the green earth, of which we are part, to the common kindred of living things, with which we are at one--is content, in a word, to live, because of the dream that makes living so mysteriously sweet and poignant; and to dream, because of the commanding immediacy of life." There are indeed the three races. There is the pagan, which knows only the fleshly aspect of life, and seeks nothing beyond it. There is the spiritual, which ignores and seeks to flee from that to which its body chains it. There is also that wise race who know that all things are theirs, flesh and spirit both, and who have learned how to reap the harvests both of time and of eternity. LECTURE V JOHN BUNYAN We have seen the eternal battle in its earlier phases surging to and fro between gods of the earth that are as old as Time, and daring thoughts of men that rose beyond them and claimed a higher inheritance. Between that phase of the warfare and the same battle as it is fought to-day, we shall look at two contemporary men in the latter part of the seventeenth century who may justly be taken as examples of the opposing types. John Bunyan and Samuel Pepys, however, will lead us no dance among the elemental forces of the world. They will rather show us, with very fascinating _naïveté_, true pictures of their own aspirations, nourished in the one case upon the busy and crowded life of the time, and in the other, upon the definite and unquestioned conceptions of a complete and systematic theology. Yet, typical though they are, it is easy to exaggerate their simplicity, and it will be interesting to see how John Bunyan, supposed to be a pure idealist, aloof from the world in which he lived, yet had the most intimate and even literary connection with that world. Pepys had certain curious and characteristic outlets upon the spiritual region, but he seems to have closed them all, and become increasingly a simple devotee of things seen and temporal. Bunyan comes upon us full grown and mature in the work by which he is best known and remembered. His originality is one of the standing wonders of history. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ was written at a time when every man had to take sides in a savage and atrocious ecclesiastical controversy. The absolute judgments passed on either side by the other, the cruelties practised and the dangers run, were such as to lead the reader to expect extreme bitterness and sectarian violence in every religious writing of the time. Bunyan was known to his contemporaries as a religious writer, pure and simple, and a man whose convictions had caused him much suffering at the hands of his enemies. Most of the first readers of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ had no thought of any connection between that book and worldly literature; and the pious people who shook their heads over his allegory as being rather too interesting for a treatise on such high themes as those which it handled, might perhaps have shaken their heads still more solemnly had they known how much of what they called the world was actually behind it. Bunyan was a voluminous writer of theological works, and the complete edition of them fills three enormous volumes, closely printed in double column. But it is the little allegory embedded in one of these volumes which has made his fame eternal, and for the most part the rest are remembered now only in so far as they throw light upon that story. One exception must be made in favour of _Grace Abounding_. This is Bunyan's autobiography, in which he describes, without allegory, the course of his spiritual experience. For an understanding of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ it is absolutely necessary to know that companion volume. It is very curious to watch the course of criticism as it was directed to him and to his story. The eighteenth century had lost the keenness of former controversies, and from its classic balcony it looked down upon what seemed to it the somewhat sordid arena of the past. _The Examiner_ complains that he never yet knew an author that had not his admirers. Bunyan and Quarles have passed through several editions and pleased as many readers as Dryden and Tillotson. Even Cowper, timidly appreciative and patronising, wrote of the "ingenious dreamer"-- "I name thee not, lest so despised a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame," --lines which have a pathetic irony in them, as we contrast the anxious Cowper, with the occasional revivals of interest and the age-long tone of patronage which have been meted out to him, with the robust and sturdy immortality of the man he shrank from naming. Swift discovered Bunyan's literary power, and later Johnson and Southey did him justice. In the nineteenth century his place was secured for ever, and Macaulay's essay on him will probably retain its interest longer than anything else that Macaulay wrote. We are apt to think of him as a mere dreamer, spinning his cobwebs of imagination wholly out of his own substance--a pure idealist, whose writing dwells among his ideals in a region ignorant of the earth. In one of his own apologies he tells us, apparently in answer to accusations that had been made against him, that he did not take his work from anybody, but that it came from himself alone. Doubtless that is true so far as the real originality of his work is concerned, its general conception, and the working out of its details point by point. Yet, to imagine that if there had been no other English literature the _Pilgrim's Progress_ would have been exactly what it is, is simply to ignore the facts of the case. John Bunyan is far more interesting just because his work is part of English literature, because it did feel the influences of his own time and of the past, than it could ever have been as the mere monstrosity of detachment which it has been supposed to be. The idealist who merely dreams and takes no part in the battle, refusing to know or utilise the writing of any other man, can be no fair judge of the life which he criticises, and no reliable guide among its facts. Bunyan might very easily indeed have been a pagan of the most worldly type. It was extremely difficult for him to be a Puritan, not only on account of outward troubles, but also of inward ones belonging to his own disposition and experience. Accepting Puritanism, the easiest course for him would have been that of fanaticism, and had he taken that course he would certainly have had no lack of companions. It was far more difficult to remain a Puritan and yet to keep his heart open to the beauty and fascination of human life. Yet he was interested in what men were writing or had written. All manner of songs and stories, heard in early days in pot-houses, or in later times in prison, kept sounding in his ears, and he wove them into his work. The thing that he meant to say, and did say, was indeed one about which controversy and persecution were raging, but, except in a very few general references, his writing shows no sign of this. His eye is upon far-off things, the things of the soul of man and the life of God, but the way in which he tells these things shows innumerable signs of the bright world of English books. It is worth while to consider this large and human Bunyan, who has been very erroneously supposed to be a mere literary freak, detached from all such influences as go to the making of other writers. He tells us, indeed, that "when I pulled it came," and that is delightfully true. Yet, it came not out of nowhere, and it is our part in this essay to inquire as to the places from which it did come. As we have said, it came out of two worlds, and the web is most wonderfully woven and coloured, but our present concern is rather with the earthly part of it than the heavenly. No one can read John Bunyan without thinking of George Herbert. Few of the short biographies in our language are more interesting reading than Isaac Walton's life of Herbert. That master of simplicity is always fascinating, and in this biography he gives us one of the most beautiful sketches of contemporary narrative that has ever been penned. Herbert was the quaintest of the saints. He lived in the days of Charles the First and James the First, a High Churchman who had Laud for his friend. Shy, sensitive, high-bred, shrinking from the world, he was at the same time a man of business, skilful in the management of affairs, and yet a man of morbid delicacy of imagination. The picture of his life at Little Gidding, where he and Mr. Farrer instituted a kind of hermitage, or private chapel of devotion, in which the whole of the Psalms were read through once in every twenty-four hours, grows peculiarly pathetic when we remember that the house and chapel were sacked by the parliamentary army, in which for a time John Bunyan served. No two points of view, it would seem, could be more widely contrasted than those of Bunyan and Herbert, and yet the points of agreement are far more important than the differences between them, and _The Temple_ has so much in common with the _Pilgrim's Progress_ that one is astonished to find that the likenesses seem to be entirely unconscious. Matthew Henry is perpetually quoting _The Temple_ in his Commentary. Writing only a few years earlier, Bunyan reproduces in his own fashion many of its thoughts, but does not mention its existence. In order to know Bunyan's early life, and indeed to understand the _Pilgrim's Progress_ at all adequately, one must read _Grace Abounding_. It is a short book, written in the years when he was already growing old, for those whom he had brought into the fold of religion. From this autobiography it has usually been supposed that he had led a life of the wildest debauchery before his Christian days; but the more one examines the book, and indeed all his books, the less is one inclined to believe in any such desperate estimate of the sins of his youth. The measure of sin is the sensitiveness of a man's conscience; and where, as in Bunyan's case, the conscience is abnormally delicate and subject to violent reactions, a life which in another man would be a pattern of innocence and respectability may be regarded as an altogether blackguardly and vicious one. It was, however evidently a life of strong and intense worldly interest stepping over the line here and there into positive wrong-doing, but for the most part blameworthy mainly on account of its absorption in the passing shows of the hour. What then was that world which interested Bunyan so intensely, and cost him so many pangs of conscience? No doubt it was just the life of the road as he travelled about his business; for though by no means a tinker in the modern sense of the word, he was an itinerant brazier, whose business took him constantly to and fro among the many villages of the district of Bedford. He must have heard in inns and from wayside companions many a catch of plays and songs, and listened to many a lively story, or read it in the chap-books which were hawked about the country then. It must also be remembered that these were the days of puppet shows. The English drama, as we have already mentioned in connection with _Faust_, was by no means confined to the boards of actual theatres where living actors played the parts. Little mimic stages travelled about the country in all directions reproducing the plays, very much after the fashion of Punch and Judy; and even the solemnest of Shakespeare's tragedies were exhibited in this way. There is no possibility of doubt that Bunyan must have often stood agape at these exhibitions, and thus have received much of the highest literature at second hand. As to how much of it he had actually read, that is a different question. One is tempted to believe that he must have read George Herbert, but of this there is no positive proof. We are quite certain about five books, for which we have his own express statements. His wife brought him as her dowry the very modest furniture of two small volumes, Baily's _Practice of Piety_ and Dent's _The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven_. The first is a very complicated and elaborate statement of Christian dogma, which Bunyan passes by with the scant praise, "Wherein I also found some things that were somewhat pleasing to me." The other is a much more vital production. Even to this day it is an immensely interesting piece of reading. It consists of conversations between various men who stand for types of worldling, ignoramus, theologian, etc., and there are very clear traces of it in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, especially in the talks between Bunyan's pilgrims and the man Ignorance. Another book which played a large part in Bunyan's life was the short biography of Francis Spira, an Italian, who had died shortly before Bunyan's time. Spira had been a Protestant lawyer in Italy, but had found it expedient to abate the open profession of Protestantism with which he began, and eventually to transfer his allegiance to the Roman Church. The biography is for the most part an account of his death-bed conversation, which lasted a long time, since his illness was even more of the mind than of the body. It is an extremely ghastly account of a morbid and insane melancholia. It was the fashion of the time to take such matters spiritually rather than physically, and we read that many persons went to his death-bed and listened to his miserable cries and groanings in the hope of gaining edification for their souls. How the book came into Bunyan's hands no one can tell, but evidently he had found it in English translation, and many of the darkest parts of _Grace Abounding_ are directly due to it, while the Man in the Iron Cage quotes the very words of Spira. Another book which Bunyan had read was Luther's _Commentary on the Galatians_. The present writer possesses a copy of that volume dated 1786, at the close of which there are fourteen pages, on which long lists of names are printed. The names are those of weavers, shoe-makers, and all sorts of tradesmen in the western Scottish towns of Kilmarnock, Paisley, and others of that neighbourhood, who had subscribed for a translation of the commentary that they might read it in their own tongue. This curious fact reminds us that the book had among the pious people of our country an audience almost as enthusiastic as Bunyan himself was. Another of his books, and the only one quoted by name in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ or _Grace Abounding_, with the exception of Luther on Galatians, is Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, traces of which are unmistakable in such incidents as the trial and death of Faithful and in other parts. In these few volumes may be summed up the entire literary knowledge which Bunyan is known to have possessed. He stands apart from mere book-learning, and deals with life rather through his eyes and ears directly than through the medium of books. But then those eyes and ears of his were no ordinary organs; and his imagination, whose servants they were, was quick to enlist every vital and suggestive image and idea for its own uses. Thus the rich store of observation which he had already laid up through the medium of puppet plays, fragments of song and popular story, was all at his disposal when he came to need it. Further, even in his regenerate days, there was no dimming of the imaginative faculty nor of the observant. The whole neighbourhood in which he lived was an open book, in which he read the wonderful story of life in many tragic and comic tales of actual fact; and in the prison where he spent twelve years, he must often have heard from his fellow-prisoners such fragments as they knew and remembered, with which doubtless they would beguile the tedium of their confinement. That would be for the most part in the first and second imprisonments, extending from the years 1660 to 1672. The third imprisonment was a short affair of only some nine months, spent in the little prison upon the bridge of Bedford, where there would be room for very few companions. The modern bridge crosses the river at almost exactly the same spot; and if you look over the parapet you may see, when the river is low, traces of what seem to be the foundations of the old prison bridge. When we would try to estimate the processes by which the great allegory was built up, the first fact that strikes us is its extreme aloofness from current events which must have been very familiar to him. In others of his works he tells many stories of actual life, but these are of a private and more or less gossiping nature, many of them fantastic and grotesque, such as those appalling tales of swearers, drunkards, and other specially notorious sinners being snatched away by the devil--narratives which bear the marks of crude popular imagination in details like the actual smell of sulphur left behind. In the whole _Pilgrim's Progress_ there is no reference whatever to the Civil War, in which we know that Bunyan had fought, although there are certain parts of it which were probably suggested by events of that campaign. The allegory is equally silent concerning the Great Fire and the Great Plague of London, which were both fresh in the memory of every living man. The only phrase which might have been suggested by the Fire, is that in which the Pilgrim says, "I hear that our little city is to be destroyed by fire"--a phrase which obviously has much more direct connection with the destruction of Sodom than with that of London. The only suggestions of those disastrous latter years of the reign of Charles the Second, are some doubtful allusions to the rise and fall of persecution, few of which can be clearly identified with any particular events. There are several interesting indications that Bunyan made use of recent and contemporary secular literature. The demonology of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ is quite different from that of the _Holy War_. It used to be suggested that Bunyan had altered his views in consequence of the publication of Milton's _Paradise Regained_, which appeared in 1671. That was when it was generally supposed that he had written the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in his earlier imprisonment. If, as is now conceded, it was in the later imprisonment that he wrote the book, this theory loses much of its plausibility, for Milton published his _Paradise Regained_ before the first edition of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ was penned. It is, of course, always possible that between the _Pilgrim's Progress_ and the _Holy War_ Bunyan may have seen Milton's work, or may have been told about it, for he certainly changed his demonology and made it more like Milton's. Again, there are certain passages in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ which bear so close a resemblance to Bunyan's description of the Celestial City, that it is difficult not to suppose that either directly or indirectly that poem had influenced Bunyan's creation; while in at least one of his songs he approaches so near both the language and the rhythm of a song of Shakespeare's as to make it very probable that he had heard it sung.[2] These suppositions are not meant in any way to detract from the originality of the great allegory, but rather to link the writer in with that English literature of which he is so conspicuous an ornament. They are no more significant and no less, than the fact that so much of the geography of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ seems not to have been created by his imagination, but to have been built up from well-remembered landscapes. From his prison window he could not but see the ruins of old Bedford Castle, which stood demolished upon its hill even in his time. This, together with Cainhoe Castle, only a few miles away, may well have suggested the Castle of Despair in Bypath Meadow near the River of God. Again, memories of Elstow play a notable part in the story. A cross stood there, at the foot of which, when he was playing the game of cat upon a certain Sunday, the voice came to his soul with its tremendous question, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven or have thy sins and go to hell?" There stood the Moot Hall as it stands to-day, in which, during his worldly days, he had danced with the rest of the villagers and gained his personal knowledge of Vanity Fair. There, as he tells us expressly, is the wicket gate, the rough old oak and iron gate of Elstow parish church. Close beside it, just as you read in the story, stands that great tower which suggested a devil's castle beside the wicket gate, whence Satan showered his arrows on those who knocked below. Not only so, but there was a special reason why for Bunyan that ancient church tower may well have been symbolic of the stronghold of the devil; for it had bells in it, and he was so fond of bell-ringing that it got upon his conscience and became his darling sin. It is easy to make light of his heart-searchings about so innocent an employment, but doubtless there were other things that went along with it. We have all seen those large drinking-vessels, known as bell-ringers' jugs; and these perhaps may suggest an explanation of the sense of sin which burdened his conscience so heavily. Anyhow, there the tower stands, and in the Gothic doorway of it there are one or two deeply cut grooves, obviously made by the ropes of the bell-ringers when, instead of standing below their ropes, they preferred the open air, and drew the ropes through the archway of the door, so as to cut into its moulding. The little fact gains much significance in the light of Bunyan's own confession that he was so afraid that the bell would fall upon him and kill him as a punishment from God, that he used to go outside the door to ring it. Then again there was the old convent at Elstow, where, long before Bunyan's time, nuns had lived, who were known to tradition as "the ladies of Elstow." Very aristocratic and very human ladies they seem to have been, given to the entertainment of their friends in the intervals of their tasteful devotion, and occasionally needing a rebuke from headquarters. Yet it seems not improbable that there is some glorified memory of those ladies in the inhabitants of the House Beautiful, which house itself appears to have been modelled upon Houghton House on the Ampthill heights, built by Sir Philip Sidney's sister but a century before. The silver mine of Demas might seem to have come from some far-off source in chap-book or romance, until we remember that at the village of Pulloxhill, which had been the original home of the Bunyan family, and near which Bunyan was arrested and brought for examination to the house of Justice Wingate, there are the actual remains of an ancient gold mine whose tradition still lingers among the villagers. All these things seem to indicate that the great allegory is by no means so remote from the earth as has sometimes been imagined; and perhaps the most touching commentary upon this statement is the curious and very unlovely burying-ground in Bunhill fields, cut through by a straight path that leads from one busy thoroughfare to another. A few yards to the left of that path is the tomb and monument of John Bunyan, while at an equal distance to the right lies Daniel Defoe. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ and _Robinson Crusoe_ are perhaps the two best-known stories in the world, and they are not so far remote from one another as they seem. Nor was it only in the outward material with which he worked that John Bunyan had much in common with the romance and poetry of England. He could indeed write verses which, for sheer doggerel, it would be difficult to match, but in spite of that there was the authentic note of poetry in him. Some of his work is not only vigorous, inspiring, and full of the brisk sense of action, but has an unconscious strength and worthiness of style, whose compression and terseness have fulfilled at least one of the canons of high literature. Take, for example, the lines on Faithful's death-- "Now Faithful, play the man, speak for thy God: Fear not the wicked's malice, nor their rod: Speak boldly, man, the truth is on thy side; Die for it, and to life in triumph ride." Or take this as a second example, from his _Prison Meditations_-- "Here come the angels, here come saints, Here comes the Spirit of God, To comfort us in our restraints Under the wicked's rod. This gaol to us is as a hill, From whence we plainly see Beyond this world, and take our fill Of things that lasting be. We change our drossy dust for gold, From death to life we fly: We let go shadows, and take hold Of immortality." This whole poem has in it not merely the bright march of a very vigorous mind, but also a great many of the elements which long before had built up the ancient romances. In it, and in much else that he wrote, he finds a congenial escape from the mere middle-class respectability of his time, and ranges himself with the splendid chivalry both of the past and of the present. There is an elfin element in him as there was in Chaucer, which now and again twinkles forth in a quaint touch of humour, or escapes from the merely spiritual into an extremely interesting human region. In _Grace Abounding_ he very pleasantly tells us that he could have written in a much higher style if he had chosen to do so, but that for our sakes he has refrained. He does, however, sometimes "step into" his finer style. There is some exquisite pre-Raphaelite work that comes unexpectedly upon the reader, in which he is not only a poet, but a writer capable of seeing and of describing the most highly coloured and minute detail: "Besides, on the banks of this river on either side were green trees, that bore all manner of fruit...." "On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies; and it was green the year long." At other times he affrights us with a sudden outburst of the most terrifying imagination, as in the close of the poem of _The Fly at the Candle_-- "At last the Gospel doth become their snare, Doth them with burning hands in pieces tear." His imagination was sometimes as quaint and sweet as at other times it could be lurid and powerful. _Upon a Snail_ is not a very promising subject for a poem, but its first lines justify the experiment-- "She goes but softly, but she goeth sure; She stumbles not, as stronger creatures do." He can adopt the methods of the stately poets of nature, and break into splendid descriptions of natural phenomena-- "Look, look, brave Sol doth peep up from beneath, Shews us his golden face, doth on us breathe; Yea, he doth compass us around with glories, Whilst he ascends up to his highest stories, Where he his banner over us displays, And gives us light to see our works and ways." Again in the art of childlike interest and simplicity he can write such lines as these-- OF THE CHILD WITH THE BIRD ON THE BUSH "My little bird, how canst thou sit And sing amidst so many thorns? Let me but hold upon thee get, My love with honour thee adorns. 'Tis true it is sunshine to-day, To-morrow birds will have a storm; My pretty one, come thou away, My bosom then shall keep thee warm. My father's palace shall be thine, Yea, in it thou shalt sit and sing; My little bird, if thou'lt be mine, The whole year round shall be thy spring. I'll keep thee safe from cat and cur, No manner o' harm shall come to thee: Yea, I will be thy succourer, My bosom shall thy cabin be." The last line might have been written by Ben Jonson, and the description of sunrise in the former poem might almost have been from Chaucer's pen. Yet the finest poetry of all is the prose allegory of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. English prose had taken many centuries to form, in the moulding hands of Chaucer, Malory, and Bacon. It had come at last to Bunyan with all its flexibility and force ready to his hand. He wrote with virgin purity, utterly free from mannerisms and affectations; and, without knowing himself for a writer of fine English, produced it. The material of the allegory also is supplied from ancient sources. One curious paragraph in Bunyan's treatise entitled _Sighs from Hell_, gives us a broad hint of this. "The Scriptures, thought I then, what are they? A dead letter, a little ink and paper, of three or four shillings price. Alack! what is Scripture? Give me a ballad, a news-book, _George on Horseback_ or _Bevis of Southampton_. Give me some book that teaches curious Arts, that tells old Fables." In _The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven_ there is a longer list of such romances as these, including _Ellen of Rummin_, and many others. As has been already stated, these tales of ancient folklore would come into his hands either by recitation or in the form of chap-books. The chap-book literature of Old England was most voluminous and interesting. It consisted of romances and songs, sold at country fairs and elsewhere, and the passing reference which we have quoted proves conclusively, what we might have known without any proof, that Bunyan knew them. _George on Horseback_ has been identified by Professor Firth with the _Seven Champions of England_, an extremely artificial romance, which may be taken as typical of hundreds more of its kind. The 1610 edition of it is a very lively book with a good deal of playing to the gallery, such as this: "As for the name of Queen, I account it a vain title; for I had rather be an English lady than the greatest empress in the world." There is not very much in this romance which Bunyan has appropriated, although there are several interesting correspondences. It is very courtly and conventional. The narrative is broken here and there by lyrics, quite in Bunyan's manner, but it is difficult to imagine Bunyan, with his direct and simple taste, spending much time in reading such sentences as the following: "By the time the purple-spotted morning had parted with her grey, and the sun's bright countenance appeared on the mountain-tops, St. George had rode twenty miles from the Persian Court." On the other hand, when Great-Heart allows Giant Despair to rise after his fall, showing his chivalry in refusing to take advantage of the fallen giant, we remember the incident of Sir Guy and Colebrand in the _Seven Champions_. "Good sir, an' it be thy will, Give me leave to drink my fill, For sweet St. Charity, And I will do thee the same deed Another time if thou have need, I tell thee certainly." St. George, like Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, traverses an Enchanted Vale, and hears "dismal croakings of night ravens, hissing of serpents, bellowing of bulls, and roaring of monsters."[3] St. Andrew traverses a land of continual darkness, the Vale of Walking Spirits, amid similar sounds of terror, much as the pilgrims of the Second Part of Bunyan's story traverse the Enchanted Ground. And as these pilgrims found deadly arbours in that land, tempting them to repose which must end in death, so St. David was tempted in an Enchanted Garden, and fell flat upon the ground, "when his eyes were so fast locked up by magic art, and his waking senses drowned in such a dead slumber, that it was as impossible to recover himself from sleep as to pull the sun out of the firmament." _Bevis of Southampton_ has many points in common with St. George in the _Seven Champions_. The description of the giant, the escape of Bevis from his dungeon, and a number of other passages show how much was common stock for the writers of these earlier romances. There is the same rough humour in it from first to last, and the wonderful swing and stride of vigorous rhyming metre. Of the humour, one quotation will be enough for an example. It is when they are proposing to baptize the monstrous giant at Cologne, whom Bevis had first conquered and then engaged as his body-servant. At the christening of Josian, wife of Bevis, the Bishop sees the giant. "'What is,' sayde he, 'this bad vysage?' 'Sir,' sayde Bevys, 'he is my page-- I pray you crysten hym also, Thoughe he be bothe black and blo!' The Bysshop crystened Josian, That was as white as any swan; For Ascaparde was made a tonne, And whan he shulde therein be done, He lept out upon the brenche And sayde: 'Churle, wylt thou me drenche? The devyl of hel mot fetche the I am to moche crystened to be!' The folke had gode game and laughe, But the Bysshop was wrothe ynoughe." There is a curious passage which is almost exactly parallel to the account of the fight with Apollyon in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and which was doubtless in Bunyan's mind when he wrote that admirable battle sketch-- "Beves is swerde anon upswapte, He and the geaunt togedre rapte; And delde strokes mani and fale, The nombre can i nought telle in tale. The geaunt up is clubbe haf, And smot to Beves with is staf, But his scheld flegh from him thore, Three acres brede and somedel more, Tho was Beves in strong erur And karf ato the grete levour, And on the geauntes brest a-wonde That negh a-felde him to the grounde. The geaunt thoughte this bataile hard, Anon he drough to him a dart, Throgh Beves scholder he hit schet, The blold ran doun to Beves' fet, The Beves segh is owene blod Out of his wit he wex negh wod, Unto the geaunt ful swithe he ran, And kedde that he was doughti man, And smot ato his nekke bon; The geant fel to grounde anon." It is part of his general sympathy with the spirit of the romances that Bunyan's giants were always real giants to him, and he evidently enjoyed them for their own sake as literary and imaginative creations, as well as for the sake of any truths which they might be made to enforce. Despair and Slay-Good are distinct to his imagination. His interest remains always twofold. On the one hand there is allegory, and on the other hand there is live tale. Sometimes the allegory breaks through and confuses the tale a little, as when Mercy begs for the great mirror that hangs in the dining-room of the shepherds, and carries it with her through the remainder of her journey. Sometimes the allegory has to stop in order that a sermon may be preached on some particular point of theology, and such sermons are by no means short. Still the story is so true to life that its irresistible simplicity and naturalness carry it on and make it immortal. When we read such a conversation as that between old Honest and Mr. Standfast about Madam Bubble, we feel that the tale has ceased to be an allegory altogether and has become a novel. This is perhaps more noticeable in the Second Part than in the First. The First Part is indeed almost a perfect allegory; although even there, from time to time, the earnestness and rush of the writer's spirit oversteps the bounds of consistency and happily forgets the moral because the story is so interesting, or forgets for a moment the story because the moral is so important. In the Second Part the two characters fall apart more definitely. Now you have delightful pieces of crude human nature, naïve and sparkling. Then you have long and intricate theological treatises. Neither the allegorical nor the narrative unity is preserved to anything like the same extent as on the whole is the case in Part I. The shrewd and humorous touches of human nature are especially interesting. Bunyan was by no means the gentle saint who shrank from strong language. When the gate of Doubting Castle is opening, and at last the pilgrims have all but gone free, we read that "the lock went damnable hard." When Great-Heart is delighted with Mr. Honest, he calls him "a cock of the right kind." The poem _On Christian Behaviour_, which we have quoted, contains the lines-- "When all men's cards are fully played, Whose will abide the light?" These are quaint instances of the way in which even the questionable parts of the unregenerate life of the dreamer came in the end to serve the uses of his religion. There are many gems in the Second Part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ which are full of mother-wit and sly fun. Mr. Honest confesses, "I came from the town of Stupidity; it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction." Then there is Mr. Fearing, that morbidly self-conscious creature, who is so much at home in the Valley of Humiliation that he kneels down and kisses the flowers in its grass. He is a man who can never get rid of himself for a moment, and who bores all the company with his illimitable and anxious introspection. Yet, in Vanity Fair, when practical facts have to be faced instead of morbid fancies and inflamed conscience, he is the most valiant of men, whom they can hardly keep from getting himself killed, and for that matter all the rest of them. Here, again, is an inimitable flash of insight, where Simple, Sloth, and Presumption have prevailed with "one Short-Wind, one Sleepy-Head, and with a young woman, her name was Dull, to turn out of the way and become as they." Every now and then these natural touches of portraiture rise to a true sublimity, as all writing that is absolutely true to the facts of human nature tends to do. Great-Heart says to Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, "Let me see thy sword," and when he has taken it in his hand and looked at it for awhile, he adds, "Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade." That sword lingers in Bunyan's imagination, for, at the close of Valiant's life, part of his dying speech is this "My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles." Bunyan is so evidently an idealist and a prince of spiritual men, that no one needs to point out this characteristic of the great dreamer, nor to advertise so obvious a thing as his spiritual idealism. We have accordingly taken that for granted and left it to the reader to recognise in every page for himself. We have sought in this to show what has sometimes been overlooked, how very human the man and his work are. Yet his humanism is ever at the service of the spirit, enlivening his book and inspiring it with a perpetual and delicious interest, but never for a moment entangling him again in the old yoke of bondage, from which at his conversion he had been set free. For the human as opposed to the divine, the fleshly as the rival of the spiritual, he has an open and profound contempt, which he expresses in no measured terms in such passages as that concerning Adam the First and Madam Wanton. These are for him sheer pagans. At the cave, indeed, which his pilgrim visits at the farther end of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we read that Pope and Pagan dwelt there in old time, but that Pagan has been dead many a day. Yet the pagan spirit lives on in many forms, and finds an abiding place and home in Vanity Fair. As Professor Firth has pointed out, Ben Jonson, in his play _Bartholomew Fair_, had already told the adventures of two Puritans who strayed into the Fair, and who regarded the whole affair as the shop of Satan. There were many other Fairs, such as that of Sturbridge, and the Elstow Fair itself, which was instituted by the nuns on the ground close to their convent, and which is held yearly to the present day. Such Fairs as these have been a source of much temptation and danger to the neighbourhood, and represent in its popular form the whole spirit of paganism at its worst. All the various elements of Bunyan's world live on in the England of to-day. Thackeray, with a stroke of characteristic genius, has expanded and applied the earlier conception of paganism in his great novel whose title _Vanity Fair_ is borrowed from Bunyan. But the main impression of the allegory is the victory of the spiritual at its weakest over the temporal at its mightiest. His descriptions of the supper and bed chamber in the House Beautiful, and of the death of Christiana at the end of the Second Part, are immortal writings, in the most literal sense, amid the shows of time. They have indeed laid hold of immortality not for themselves only, but for the souls of men. Nothing could sum up the whole story of Bunyan better than the legend of his flute told by Mr. S.S. M'Currey in his book of poems entitled _In Keswick Vale_. The story is that in his prison Bunyan took out a bar from one of the chairs in his cell, scooped it hollow, and converted it into a flute, upon which he played sweet music in the dark and solitary hours of the prison evening. The jailers never could find out the source of that music, for when they came to search his cell, the bar was replaced in the chair, and there was no apparent possibility of flute-playing; but when the jailers departed the music would mysteriously recommence. It is very unlikely that this legend is founded upon fact, or indeed that Bunyan was a musician at all (although we do have from his pen one touching and beautiful reference to the finest music in the world being founded upon the bass), but, like his own greater work, the little legend is an allegory. The world for centuries has heard sweet music from Bunyan, and has not known whence it came. It has seemed to most men a miracle, and indeed they were right in counting it so. Yet there was a flute from which that music issued, and the flute was part of the rough furniture of his imprisoned world. He was no scholar, nor delicate man of _belles lettres_, like so many of his contemporaries. He took what came to his hand; and in this lecture we have tried to show how much did come thus to his hand that was rare and serviceable for the purposes of his spirit, and for the expression of high spiritual truth. LECTURE VI PEPYS' DIARY It is doubtful whether any of Bunyan's contemporaries had so strong a human interest attaching to his person and his work as Samuel Pepys. There is indeed something in common to the two men,--little or nothing of character, but a certain _naïveté_ and sincerity of writing, which makes them remind one of each other many times. All the more because of this does the contrast between the spirit of the two force itself upon every reader; and if we should desire to find a typical pagan to match Bunyan's spirituality and idealism, it would be difficult to go past Samuel Pepys. There were, as everybody knows, two famous diarists of the Restoration period, Pepys and Evelyn. It is interesting to look at the portraits of the two men side by side. Evelyn's face is anxious and austere, suggesting the sort of stuff of which soldiers or saints are made. Pepys is a voluptuous figure, in the style of Charles the Second, with regular and handsome features below his splendid wig, and eyes that are both keen and heavy, penetrating and luxurious. These two men (who, in the course of their work, had to compare notes on several occasions, and between whom we have the record of more than one meeting) were among the most famous gossips of the world. But Evelyn's gossip is a succession of solemnities compared with the racy scandal, the infantile and insatiable curiosity, and the incredible frankness of the pagan diarist. Look at his face again, and you will find it impossible not to feel a certain amount of surprise. Of all the unlikely faces with which history has astonished the readers of books, there are none more surprising than those of three contemporaries in the later seventeenth century. Claverhouse, with his powerful character and indomitable will, with his Titanic daring and relentless cruelty, has the face of a singularly beautiful young girl. Judge Jeffreys, whose delight in blood was only equalled by the foulness and extravagance of his profanity, looks in his picture the very type of spiritual wistfulness. Samuel Pepys, whose large oval eyes and clear-cut profile suggest a somewhat voluptuous and very fastidious aristocrat, was really a man of the people, sharp to a miracle in all the detail of the humblest kind of life, and apparently unable to keep from exposing himself to scandal in many sorts of mean and vulgar predicament. Since the deciphering and publication of his Diary, a great deal has been written concerning it. The best accounts of it are Henry B. Wheatley's _Samuel Pepys and the World he Lived in_, and Robert Louis Stevenson's little essay in his _Short Studies of Men and Books_. The object of the present lecture is not to give any general account of the time and its public events, upon which the Diary touches at a thousand points, but rather to set the spirit of this man in contrast with that of John Bunyan, which we have just considered. The men are very typical, and any adequate conception of the spirit of either will give a true cross-section of the age in which he lived. Pepys, it must be confessed, is much more at home in his times than Bunyan ever could be. One might even say that the times seem to have been designed as a background for the diarist. There is as little of the spirit of a stranger and pilgrim in Pepys, even in his most pathetic hours, as there is in John Bunyan the spirit of a man at home, even in his securest. It was a very pagan time, and Pepys is the pagan _par excellence_ of that time, the bright and shining example of the pagan spirit of England. His lot was cast in high places, to which he rose by dint of great ability and indomitable perseverance in his office. He talks with the King, the Duke of York, the Archbishop, and all the other great folks of the day; and no volume has thrown more light on the character of Charles the Second than his. We see the King at the beginning kissing the Bible, and proclaiming it to be the thing which he loves above all other things. He rises early in the morning, and practises others of the less important virtues. We see him touching all sorts of people for the King's evil, a process in which Pepys is greatly interested at first, but which palls when it has lost its novelty. Similarly, the diarist is greatly excited on the first occasion when he actually hears the King speak, but soon begins to criticise him, finding that he talks very much like other people. He describes the starvation of the fleet, the country sinking to the verge of ruin, and the maudlin scenes of drunkenness at Court, with a minuteness which makes one ashamed even after so long an interval. However revolting or shameful the institution may be, the fact that it is an institution gives it zest for the strange mind of Pepys. He is, however, capable also of moralising. "Oh, that the King would mind his business!" he would exclaim, after having delighted himself and his readers with the most droll accounts of His Majesty's frivolities. "How wicked a wretch Cromwell was, and yet how much better and safer the country was in his hands than it is now." And often he will end the bewildering account with some such bitter comment as the assertion "that every one about the Court is mad." In politics he had been a republican in his early days, and when Charles the First's head fell at Whitehall, he had confided to a friend the dangerous remark that if he were to preach a sermon on that event he would choose as his text the words, "The memory of the wicked shall rot." The later turn of events gave him abundant opportunities for repenting of that indiscretion, and he repents at intervals all through his Diary. For now he is a royalist in his politics, having in him not a little of the spirit of the Vicar of Bray, and of Bunyan's Mr. By-ends. The political references lead him beyond England, and we hear with consternation now and again about the dangerous doings of the Covenanters in Scotland. We hear much also of France and Holland, and still more of Spain. Outside the familiar European lands there is a fringe of curious places like Tangier, which is of great account at that time, and is destined in Pepys' belief to play an immense part in the history of England, and of the more distant Bombain in India, which he considers to be a place of little account. Here and there the terror of a new Popish plot appears. The kingdom is divided against itself, and the King and the Commons are at drawn battle with the Lords, while every one shapes his views of things according as his party is in or out of power. Three great historic events are recorded with singular minuteness and interest in the Diary, namely, the Plague, the Dutch War, and the Fire of London. As to the Plague, we have all the vivid horror of detail with which Defoe has immortalised it, with the additional interest that here no consecutive history is attempted, but simply a record of daily impressions of the streets and houses. On his first sight of the red cross upon a door, the diarist cries out, "Lord, have mercy upon us," in genuine terror and pity. The coachman sickens on his box and cannot drive his horses home. The gallant draws the curtains of a sedan chair to salute some fair lady within, and finds himself face to face with the death-dealing eyes and breath of a plague-stricken patient. Few people move along the streets, and at night the passenger sees and shuns the distant lights of the link-boys guiding the dead to their burial. A cowardly parson flies upon some flimsy excuse from his dangerous post, and makes a weak apology on his first reappearance in the pulpit. Altogether it is a picture unmatched in its broken vivid flashes, in which the cruelty and wildness of desperation mingle with the despairing cry of pity. The Dutch War was raging then, not on the High Seas only, but at the very gates of England; and Pepys, whose important and responsible position as Clerk of the Acts of the Navy gave him much first-hand information, tells many great stories in his casual way. We hear the guns distinctly and loud, booming at the mouth of the Thames. The press-gang sweeps the streets, and starving women, whose husbands have been taken from them, weep loudly in our ears. Sailors whose wages have not been paid desert their ships, in some cases actually joining the Dutch and fighting against their comrades. One of the finest passages gives a heartrending and yet bracing picture of the times. "About a dozen able, lusty, proper men came to the coach-side with tears in their eyes, and one of them that spoke for the rest began, and said to Sir W. Coventry, 'We are here a dozen of us, that have long known and loved, and served our dead commander, Sir Christopher Mings, and have now done the last office of laying him in the ground. We would be glad we had any other to offer after him, and in revenge of him. All we have is our lives; if you will please to get His Royal Highness to give us a fire-ship among us all, here are a dozen of us, out of all which, choose you one to be commander; and the rest of us, whoever he is, will serve him; and, if possible, do that which shall show our memory of our dead commander, and our revenge.' Sir W. Coventry was herewith much moved, as well as I, who could hardly abstain from weeping, and took their names, and so parted." Perhaps, however, the finest work of all is found in the descriptions of the Fire of London. From that night when he is awakened by the red glare of the fire in his bedroom window, on through the days and weeks of terror, when no man knew how long he would have a home, we follow by the light of blazing houses the story of much that is best and much that is worst in human nature. The fire, indeed, cleanses the city from the last dregs of the plague which are still lingering there, but it also stirs up the city until its inhabitants present the appearance of ants upon a disturbed ant-hill. And not the least busy among them, continually fussing about in all directions, is the diarist himself, eagerly planning for the preservation of his money, dragging it hither and thither from hiding-place to hiding-place in the city, and finally burying it in bags at dead of night in a garden. Nothing is too small for him to notice. The scrap of burnt paper blown by the wind to a lady's hand, on which the words are written, "Time is, it is done," is but one of a thousand equally curious details. His own character, as reflected in the narrative of these events, is often little to his credit, and the frank and unblushing selfishness of his outlook upon things in general is as amusing as it is shameful. And yet, on the other hand, when most men deserted London, Pepys remained in it through the whole dangerous time of the plague, taking his life in his hand and dying daily in his imagination in spite of the quaint precautions against infection which he takes care on every occasion to describe. Through the whole dismal year, with plague and fire raging around him, he sticks to his post and does his work as thoroughly as the disorganised circumstances of his life allow. If we could get back to the point of view of those who thought about Pepys and formed a judgment of him before his Diary had been made public, we should be confronted with the figure of a man as different from the diarist as it is possible for two men to be. His contemporaries took him for a great Englishman, a man who did much for his country, and whose character was a mirror of all the national and patriotic ideals. His public work was by no means unimportant, even in a time so full of dangers and so critical for the destinies of England. Little did the people who loved and hated him in his day and afterwards dream of the contents of that small volume, so carefully written in such an unintelligible cipher, locked nightly with its little key, and hidden in some secure place. When at last the writing was deciphered, there came forth upon us, from the august and honourable state in which the Navy Commissioner had lain so long, this flood of small talk, the greatest curiosity known to English literature. Other men than Pepys have suffered in reputation from the yapping of dogs and the barn-door cackle that attacked their memories. England blushed as she heard the noise when the name of Carlyle became the centre of such commotion. But if Samuel Pepys has suffered in the same way he has no one to thank for it but himself; for, if his own hand-writing had not revealed it, no one could possibly have guessed it from the facts of his public career. Yet what a rare show it is, that multitude of queer little human interests that intermingle with the talk about great things! It may have been quite wrong to translate it, and undoubtedly much of it was disreputable enough for any man to write, yet it will never cease to be read; nor will England cease to be glad that it was translated, so long as the charm of history is doubled by touches of strange imagination and confessions of human frailty. Pepys' connection with literature is that rather of a virtuoso than of a student in the strict sense of the term. He projected a great History of the Navy, which might have immortalised him in a very different fashion from that of the immortality which the Diary has achieved. But his life was crowded with business and its intervals with pleasures. The weakness of his eyes also militated against any serious contribution to literature, and instead of the History, for which he had gathered much material and many manuscripts, he gave us only the little volume entitled _Memoirs of the Navy_, which, however, shows a remarkable grasp of his subject, and of all corresponding affairs, such as could only have been possessed by a man of unusually thorough knowledge of his business. He collected what was for his time a splendid library, consisting of some three thousand volumes, now preserved in his College (Magdalene College, Cambridge), very carefully arranged and catalogued. We read much of this library while it is accumulating--much more about the mahogany cases in which the books were to stand than about the books themselves, or his own reading of them. The details of their arrangement were very dear to his curious mind. He tells us that where the books would not fit exactly to the shelves, but were smaller than the space, he had little gilded stilts made, adjusted to the size of each book, and placed under the volumes, which they lifted to the proper height. Little time can have been left over for the study of at least the stiffer works in that library, although there are many notes which show that he was in some sense a reader, and that books served the same purpose as events and personalities in leading him up and down the byways of what he always found to be a curious and interesting world. But the immortal part of Pepys is undoubtedly his Diary. Among others of the innumerable curious interests which this man cultivated was that of studying the secret ciphers which had been invented and used by literary people in the past. From his knowledge of these he was enabled to invent a cipher of his own, or rather to adopt one which he altered somewhat to serve his uses. Having found this sufficiently secret code, he was now able to gratify his immense interest in himself and his inordinate personal vanity by writing an intimate narrative of his own life. The Diary covers nine and a half years in all, from January 1660 to May 1669. For nearly a century and a half it lay dead and silent, until Rev. J. Smith, with infinite diligence and pains, discovered the key to it, and wrote his translation. A later translation has been made by Rev. Mynors Bright, which includes some passages by the judgment of the former translator considered unnecessary or inadvisable. Opinions differ as to the wisdom, and indeed the morality, of forcing upon the public ear the accidentally discovered secrets which a dead man had guarded so carefully. There is, of course, the possibility that, as some think, Pepys desired that posterity should have the complete record in all its frankness and candour. If this be so, one can only say that the wish is evidence of a morbid and unbalanced mind. It seems much more probable that he wrote the Diary for the luxury of reading it to himself, always intending to destroy it before his death. But a piece of work so intimate as this is, in a sense, a living part of the man who creates it, and one can well imagine him putting off the day of its destruction, and grudging that it should perish with all its power of awakening old chords of memory and revitalising buried years. For his own part he was no squeamish moralist and if it were only for his own eyes he would enjoy passages which the more fastidious public might judge differently. So it comes to pass that this amazing _omnium gatherum_ of a book is among the most living of all the gifts of the past to the present, telling everything and telling it irresistibly. His hat falls through a hole, and he writes down all about the incident as faithfully as he describes the palace of the King of France, and the English war with Holland. His nature is amazingly complicated, and yet our judgment of it is simplified by his passion for telling everything, no matter how discreditable or how ignoble the detail may be. He is a great man and a great statesman, and he is the liveliest of our English crickets on the hearth. One set of excerpts would present him as the basest, another set as the pleasantest and kindliest of men; and always without any exception he is refreshing by his intense and genial interest in the facts of the world. Of the many summaries of himself which he has given us, none is more characteristic than the following, with which he closes the month of April of the year 1666: "Thus ends this month; my wife in the country, myself full of pleasure and expence; in some trouble for my friends, and my Lord Sandwich, by the Parliament, and more for my eyes, which are daily worse and worse, that I dare not write or read almost anything." He is essentially a virtuoso who has been forced by circumstances into the necessity of being also a public man, and has developed on his own account an extraordinary passion for the observation of small and wayside things. At the high table of those times, where Milton and Bunyan sit at the mighty feast of English literature, he is present also: but he is under the table, a mischievous and yet observant child, loosening the neckerchiefs of those who are too drunk, and picking up scraps of conversation which he will retail outside. There is something peculiarly pathetic in the whole picture. One remembers Defoe, who for so many years lived in the reputation of honourable politics and in the odour of such sanctity as Robinson Crusoe could give, until the discovery of certain yellow papers revealed the base political treachery for which the great island story had been a kind of anodyne to conscience. So Samuel Pepys would have passed for a great naval authority and an anxious friend of England when her foes were those of her own household, had he only been able to make up his mind to destroy these little manuscript volumes. Why did he write them, one still asks? Readers of Robert Browning's poems, _House_ and _Shop_, will remember the scorn which that poet pours upon any one who unlocks his heart to the general public. And these narrations of Pepys' are certainly of such a kind that if he intended them to be read by any public in any generation of England, he must be set down as unique among sane men. Stevenson indeed considers that there was in the Diary a side glance at publication, but the proof which he adduces from the text does not seem sufficient to sustain so remarkable a freak of human nature, nor does the fact that on one occasion Pepys set about destroying all his papers except the Diary, appear to prove very much one way or another. Stevenson calls it inconsistent and unreasonable in a man to write such a book and to preserve it unless he wanted it to be read. But perhaps no writing of diaries is quite reasonable; and as for his desire to have it read by others than himself, we find that his Diary was so close a secret that he expresses regret for having mentioned it to Sir William Coventry. No other man ever heard of it in Pepys' lifetime, "it not being necessary, nor maybe convenient, to have it known." Why, then, did he write it? Why does anybody write a diary? Probably the answer nearest to the truth will be that every one finds himself interesting, and some people have so keen an interest in themselves that it becomes a passion, clamorous to be gratified. Now as Bacon tells us, "Writing maketh an exact man," and the writing of diaries reduces to the keenest vividness our own impressions of experience and thoughts about things. Pepys was, above all other men, interested in himself. He was intensely in love with himself. The beautiful, jealous, troublesome, and yet inevitable Mrs. Pepys was but second in her husband's affections after all. He was his own wife. One remembers fashionable novels of the time of _Evelina_ or the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, and recollects how the ladies there speak lover-like of their diaries, and, when writing them, feel themselves always in the best possible company. For Pepys, his Diary does not seem to have been so much a refuge from daily cares and worries, nor a preparation for the luxury of reading it in his old age, as an indulgence of intense and poignant pleasure in the hour of writing. His interest in himself was quite extraordinary. When his library was collected and his books bound and gilded they were doubtless a treasured possession of which he was hugely proud. But this was not so much a possession as it was a kind of _alter ego_, a fragment of his living self, hidden away from all eyes but his own. No trifle in his life is too small for record. He cannot change his seat in the office from one side of the fireplace to another without recording it. The gnats trouble him at an inn in the country. His wig takes fire and crackles, and he is mighty merry about it until he discovers that it is his own wig that is burning and not somebody else's. He visits the ships, and, remembering former days, notes down without a blush the sentence, "Poor ship, that I have been twice merry in." Any one could have written the Diary, so far as intellectual or even literary power is concerned, though perhaps few would have chosen precisely Pepys' grammar in which to express themselves. But nobody else that ever lived could have written it with such sheer abandonment and frankness. He has a positive talent, nay, a genius for self-revelation, for there must be a touch of genius in any man who is able to be absolutely true. Other men have struggled hard to gain sincerity, and when it is gained the struggle has made it too conscious to be perfectly sincere. Pepys, with utter unconsciousness, is sincere even in his insincerities. Some of us do not know ourselves and our real motives well enough to attempt any formal statement of them. Others of us may suspect ourselves, but would die before we would confess our real motives even to ourselves, and would fiercely deny them if any other person accused us of them. But this man's barriers are all down. There is no reserve, but frankness everywhere and to an unlimited extent. There is no pose in the book either of good or bad, and it is one of the very few books of which such a statement could be made. He has been accused of many things, but never of affectation. The bad actions are qualified by regrets, and the disarmed critic feels that they have lost any element of tragedy which they might otherwise have had. The good actions are usually spoiled by some selfish _addendum_ which explains and at the same time debases them. Surely the man who could do all this constantly through so many hundreds of pages, must be in his way a unique kind of genius, to have so clear an eye and so little self-deception. The Diary is full of details, for he is the most curious man in the world. One might apply to him the word catholicity if it were not far too big and dignified an epithet. The catholicity of his mind is that of the _Old Curiosity Shop_. The interest of the book is inexhaustible, because to him the whole world was just such a book. His world was indeed So full of a number of things He was sure we should all be as happy as kings. Like Chaucer's Pardoner he was "meddlesome as a fly." Now he lights upon a dane's skin hung in a church. Again, upon a magic-lantern. Yet again upon a traitor's head, and the prospect of London in the distance. He will drink four pints of Epsom water. He will learn to whistle like a bird, and he will tell you a tale of a boy who was disinherited because he crowed like a cock. He will walk across half the country to see anything new. His heart is full of a great love of processions, raree-shows of every kind, and, above all, novelty. His confession that the sight of the King touching for the evil gave him no pleasure because he had seen it before, applies to most things in his life. For such a man, this world must indeed have been an interesting place. We join him in well-nigh every meal he sits down to, from the first days when they lived so plainly, on to the greater times of the end, when he gives a dinner to his friends, which was "a better dinner than they understood or deserved." He delights in all the detail of the table. The cook-maid, whose wages were £4 per annum, had no easy task to satisfy her fastidious master, and Mrs. Pepys must now and then rise at four in the morning to make mince-pies. Any new kind of meat or drink especially delights him. He finds ortolans to be composed of nothing but fat, and he often seems, in his thoughts on other nations, to have for his first point of view the sight of foreigners at dinner. But this is only part of the insatiable and omnivorous interest in odds and ends which is everywhere apparent. The ribbons he has seen at a wedding, the starving seamen who are becoming a danger to the nation, the drinking of wine with a toad in the glass, a lightning flash that melted fetters from the limbs of slaves, Harry's chair (the latest curiosity of the drawing-rooms, whose arms rise and clasp you into it when you sit down), the new Messiah, who comes with a brazier of hot coals and proclaims the doom of England--these, and a thousand other details, make up the furniture of this most miscellaneous mind. Everything in the world amuses him, and from first to last there is an immense amount of travelling, both physical and mental. With him we wander among companies of ladies and gentlemen walking in gardens, or are rowed up and down the Thames in boats, and it is always exciting and delightful. That is a kind of allegory of the man's view of life. But nothing is quite so congenial to him, after all, as plays at the theatre. One feels that he would never have been out of theatres had it been possible, and in order to keep himself to his business he has to make frequent vows (which are generally more or less broken) that he will not go to see a play again until such and such a time. When the vow is broken and the play is past he lamentably regrets the waste of resolution, and stays away for a time until the next outburst comes. The plays were then held in the middle of the day, and must have cut in considerably upon the working-time of business men; although, to be sure, the office hours began with earliest morning, and by the afternoon things were growing slacker. The light, however, was artificial, and the flare of the candles often hurt his eyes, and gave him a sufficient physical reason to fortify his moral ones for abstention. His taste in the dramatic art would commend itself to few moderns. He has no patience with Shakespeare, and speaks disparagingly of _Twelfth Night_, _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and _Othello_; while he constantly informs us that he "never saw anything so good in his life" as the now long-forgotten productions of little playwrights of his time. He would, we suspect, prefer at all times a puppet show to a play; partly, no doubt, because that was the fashion, and partly because that type of drama was nearer his size. Throughout the volumes of the Diary there are few things of which he speaks with franker and more enthusiastic delight than the enjoyment which he derives from punchinello. Next to the delight which he derived from the theatre must be mentioned that which he continually found in music. He seems to have made an expert and scientific study of it, and the reader hears continually the sound of lutes, harpsichords, violas, theorbos, virginals, and flageolets. He takes great numbers of music lessons, but quarrels with his teacher from time to time. He praises extravagantly such music as he hears, or criticises it unsparingly, passing on one occasion the desperate censure "that Mrs. Turner sings worse than my wife." His interest in science is as curious and miscellaneous as his interest in everything else. He was indeed President of the Royal Society of his time, and he is immensely delighted with Boyle and his new discoveries concerning colours and hydrostatics. Yet so rare a dilettante is he, in this as in other things, that we find this President of the Royal Society bringing in a man to teach him the multiplication table. He has no great head for figures, and we find him listening to long lectures upon abstruse financial questions, not unlike the bimetallism discussions of our own day, which he finds so clear, while he is listening, that nothing could be clearer, but half an hour afterwards he does not know anything whatever about the subject. Under the category of his amusements, physic must be included; for, like other egoists, he was immensely interested in his real or imaginary ailments, and in the means which were taken to cure them. On some days he will sit all day long taking physic. He derives an immense amount of amusement from the process of doctoring himself, and still more from writing down in all their detail both his symptoms and their treatment. His pharmacopoeia is by no means scientific, for he includes within it charms which will cure one of anything, and he always keeps a hare's foot by him, and will sometimes tell of troubles which came to him because he had forgotten it. He is constantly passing the shrewdest of judgments upon men and things, or retailing them from the lips of others. "Sir Ellis Layton is, for a speech of forty words, the wittiest man that ever I knew in my life, but longer he is nothing." "Mighty merry to see how plainly my Lord and Povy do abuse one another about their accounts, each thinking the other a fool, and I thinking they were not either of them, in that point, much in the wrong." "How little merit do prevail in the world, but only favour; and that, for myself, chance without merit brought me in; and that diligence only keeps me so, and will, living as I do among so many lazy people that the diligent man becomes necessary, that they cannot do anything without him." "To the Cocke-pitt where I hear the Duke of Albemarle's chaplain make a simple sermon: among other things, reproaching the imperfection of humane learning, he cried, 'All our physicians cannot tell what an ague is, and all our arithmetique is not able to number the days of a man'--which, God knows, is not the fault of arithmetique, but that our understandings reach not the thing." "The blockhead Albemarle hath strange luck to be loved, though he be, and every man must know it, the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country." "He advises me in what I write to him, to be as short as I can, and obscure." "But he do tell me that the House is in such a condition that nobody can tell what to make of them, and, he thinks, they were never in before; that everybody leads and nobody follows." "My Lord Middleton did come to-day, and seems to me but a dull, heavy man; but he is a great soldier, and stout, and a needy Lord." A man who goes about the world making remarks of that kind, would need a cipher in which to write them down. His world is everything to him, and he certainly makes the most of it so far as observation and remark are concerned. If Pepys' curiosity and infinitely varied shrewdness and observation may be justly regarded as phenomenal, the complexity of his moral character is no less amazing. He is full of industry and ambition, reading for his favourite book Bacon's _Faber Fortunæ_, "which I can never read too often." He is "joyful beyond myself that I cannot express it, to see, that as I do take pains, so God blesses me, and has sent me masters that do observe that I take pains." Again he is "busy till night blessing myself mightily to see what a deal of business goes off a man's hands when he stays at it." Colonel Birch tells him "that he knows him to be a man of the old way of taking pains." This is interesting in itself, and it is a very marked trait in his character, but it gains a wonderful pathos when we remember that this infinite taking of pains was done in a losing battle with blindness. There is a constantly increasing succession of references in the Diary to his failing eyesight and his fears of blindness in the future. The references are made in a matter-of-fact tone, and are as free from self-pity as if he were merely recording the weather or the date. All the more on that account, the days when he is weary and almost blind with writing and reading, and the long nights when he is unable to read, show him to be a very brave and patient man. He consults Boyle as to spectacles, but fears that he will have to leave off his Diary, since the cipher begins to hurt his eyes. The lights of the theatre become intolerable, and even reading is a very trying ordeal, notwithstanding the paper tubes through which he looks at the print, and which afford him much interest and amusement. So the Diary goes on to its pathetic close:--"And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my Journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and, therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear; and, therefore, resolve, from this time forward, to have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if there be anything, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in shorthand with my own hand. "And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave; for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!--S.P." It is comforting to know that, in spite of these fears, he did not grow blind, but preserved a certain measure of sight to the end of his career. In regard to money and accounts, his character and conduct present the same extraordinary mixture as is seen in everything else that concerns him. Money flows profusely upon valentines, gloves, books, and every sort of thing conceivable; yet he grudges the price of his wife's dress although it is a sum much smaller than the cost of his own. He allows her £30 for all expenses of the household, and she is immensely pleased, for the sum is much larger than she had expected. The gift to her of a necklace worth £60 overtops all other generosity, and impresses himself so much that we hear of it till we are tired. A man in such a position as his, is bound to make large contributions to public objects, both in the forms of donations and of loans; but caution tempers his public spirit. A characteristic incident is that in which he records his genuine shame that the Navy Board had not lent any money towards the expenses caused by the Fire and the Dutch War. But when the loan is resolved upon, he tells us, with delicious naïveté, how he rushes in to begin the list, lest some of his fellows should head it with a larger sum, which he would have to equal if he came after them. He hates gambling,--it was perhaps the one vice which never tempted him,--and he records, conscientiously and very frequently, the gradual growth of his estate from nothing at all to thousands of pounds, with constant thanks to God, and many very quaint little confessions and remarks. He was on the one hand confessedly a coward, and on the other hand a man of the most hasty and violent temper. Yet none of his readers can despise him very bitterly for either of these vices. For he disarms all criticism by the incredibly ingenious frankness of his confessions; and the instances of these somewhat contemptible vices alternate with bits of real gallantry and fineness, told in the same perfectly natural and unconscious way. His relations with his wife and other ladies would fill a volume in themselves. It would not be a particularly edifying volume, but it certainly would be without parallel in the literature of this or any other country for sheer extremity of frankness. Mrs. Pepys appears to have been a very beautiful and an extremely difficult lady, disagreeable enough to tempt him into many indiscretions, and yet so virtuous as to fill his heart with remorse for all his failings, and still more with vexation for her discoveries of them. But below all this surface play of pretty disreputable outward conduct, there seems to have been a deep and genuine love for her in his heart. He can say as coarse a thing about her as has probably ever been recorded, but he balances it with abundance of solicitous and often ineffective attempts to gratify her capricious and imperious little humours. These curious mixtures of character, however, are but byplay compared with the phenomenal and central vanity, which alternately amazes and delights us. After all the centuries there is a positive charm about this grown man who, after all, never seems to have grown up into manhood. He is as delighted with himself as if he were new, and as interested in himself as if he had been born yesterday. He prefers always to talk with persons of quality if he can find them. "Mighty glad I was of the good fortune to visit him (Sir W. Coventry), for it keeps in my acquaintance with him, and the world sees it, and reckons my interest accordingly." His public life was distinguished by one great speech made in answer to the accusations of some who had attacked him and the Navy Board in the House of Commons. That speech seems certainly to have been distinguished and extraordinarily able, but it certainly would have cost him his soul if he had not already lost that in other ways. Every sentence of flattery, even to the point of being told that he is another Cicero, he not only takes seriously, but duly records. There is an immense amount of snobbery, blatant and unashamed. A certain Captain Cooke turns out to be a man who had been very great in former days. Pepys had carried clothes to him when he was a little insignificant boy serving in his father's workshop. Now Captain Cooke's fortunes are reversed, and Pepys tells us of his many and careful attempts to avoid him, and laments his failure in such attempts. He hates being seen on the shady side of any street of life, and is particularly sensitive to such company as might seem ridiculous or beneath his dignity. His brother faints one day while walking with him in the street, on which his remark is, "turned my head, and he was fallen down all along upon the ground dead, which did put me into a great fright; and, to see my brotherly love! I did presently lift him up from the ground." This last sentence is so delightful that, were it not for the rest of the Diary, it would be quite incredible in any human being past the age of short frocks. All this side of his character culminates in the immense amount of information which we have concerning his coach. He has great searching of heart as to whether it would be good policy or bad to purchase it. All that is within him longs to have a coach of his own, but, on the other hand, he fears the jealousy of his rivals and the increased demands upon his generosity which such a luxury may be expected to bring. At last he can resist no longer, and the coach is purchased. No sooner does he get inside it than he assumes the air of a gentleman whose ancestors have ridden in coaches since the beginning of time. "The Park full of coaches, but dusty, and windy, and cold, and now and then a little dribbling of rain; and what made it worse, there were so many hackney coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen's." A somewhat amazing fact in this strange and contradictory character is the constant element of subtlety which blends with so much frankness. He wants to do wrong in many different ways but he wants still more to do it with propriety, and to have some sort of plausible excuse which will explain it in a respectable light. Nor is it only other people whom he is bent on deceiving. Were that all, we should have a very simple type of hypocritical scoundrel, which would be as different as possible from the extraordinary Pepys. There is a sense of propriety in him, and a conscience of obeying the letter of the law and keeping up appearances even in his own eyes. If he can persuade himself that he has done that, all things are open to him. He will receive a bribe, but it must be given in such a way that he can satisfy his conscience with ingenious words. The envelope has coins in it, but then he opens it behind his back and the coins fall out upon the floor. He has only picked them up when he found them there, and can defy the world to accuse him of having received any coins in the envelope. That was the sort of conscience which he had, and whose verdicts he never seems seriously to have questioned. He vows he will drink no wine till Christmas, but is delighted to find that hippocras, being a mixture of two wines, is not necessarily included in his vow. He vows he will not go to the play until Christmas, but then he borrows money from another man and goes with the borrowed money; or goes to a new playhouse which was not open when the vow was made. He buys books which no decent man would own to having bought, but then he excuses himself on the plea that he has only read them and has not put them in his library. Thus, along the whole course of his life, he cheats himself continually. He prefers the way of honour if it be consistent with a sufficient number of other preferences, and yet practises a multitude of curiously ingenious methods of being excusably dishonourable. On the whole, in regard to public business and matters of which society takes note, he keeps his conduct surprisingly correct, but all the time he is remembering, not without gusto, what he might be doing if he were a knave. It is a curious question what idea of God can be entertained by a man who plays tricks with himself in this fashion. Of Pepys certainly it cannot be said that God "is not in all his thoughts," for the name and the remembrance are constantly recurring. Yet God seems to occupy a quite hermetically sealed compartment of the universe; for His servant in London shamelessly goes on with the game he is playing, and appears to take a pride in the very conscience he systematically hoodwinks. It is peculiarly interesting to remember that Samuel Pepys and John Bunyan were contemporaries. There is, as we said, much in common between them, and still more in violent contrast. He had never heard of the Tinker or his Allegory so far as his Diary tells us, nor is it likely that he would greatly have appreciated the _Pilgrim's Progress_ if it had come into his hands. Even _Hudibras_ he bought because it was the proper thing to do, and because he had met its author, Butler; but he never could see what it was that made that book so popular. Bunyan and Pepys were two absolutely sincere men. They were sincere in opposite ways and in diametrically opposite camps, but it was their sincerity, the frank and natural statement of what they had to say, that gave its chief value to the work of each of them. It is interesting to remember that Pepys was sent to prison just when Bunyan came out of it, in the year 1678. The charge against the diarist was indeed a false one, and his imprisonment cast no slur upon his public record: while Bunyan's charge was so true that he neither denied it nor would give any promise not to repeat the offence. Pepys, had he known of Bunyan, would probably have approved of him, for he enthusiastically admired people who were living for conscience' sake, like Dr. Johnson's friend, Dr. Campbell, of whom it was said he never entered a church, but always took off his hat when he passed one. On the whole Pepys' references to the Fanatiques, as he calls them, are not only fair but favourable. He is greatly interested in their zeal, and impatient with the stupidity and brutality of their persecutors. In regard to outward details there are many interesting little points of contact between the Diary and the _Pilgrims Progress_. We hear of Pepys purchasing Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_; Bartholomew and Sturbridge Fairs come in for their own share of notice; nor is there wanting a description of such a cage as Christian and Faithful were condemned to in Vanity Fair. Justice Keelynge, the judge who condemned Bunyan, is mentioned on several occasions by Pepys, very considerably to his disadvantage. But by far the most interesting point that the two have in common is found in that passage which is certainly the gem of the whole Diary. Bunyan, in the second part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, introduces a shepherd boy who sings very sweetly upon the Delectable Mountains. It is the most beautiful and idyllic passage in the whole allegory, and has become classical in English literature. Yet Pepys' passage will match it for simple beauty. He rises with his wife a little before four in the morning to make ready for a journey into the country in the neighbourhood of Epsom. There, as they walk upon the Downs, they come "where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I made the boy read to me, which he did.... He did content himself mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did bless God for him, the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in my life, and it brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my mind for two or three days after." Such is some slight conception, gathered from a few of many thousands of quaint and sparkling revelations of this strange character. Over against the "ingenious dreamer," Bunyan, here is a man who never dreams. He is the realist, pure and unsophisticated; and the stray touches of pathos, on which here and there one chances in his Diary, are written without the slightest attempt at sentiment, or any other thought than that they are plain matters of fact. He might have stood for this prototype of many of Bunyan's characters. Now he is Mr. Worldly Wiseman, now Mr. By-ends, and Mr. Hold-the-World; and taken altogether, with all his good and bad qualities, he is a fairly typical citizen of Vanity Fair. There are indeed in his character exits towards idealism and possibilities of it, but their promise is never fulfilled. There is, for instance, his kindly good-nature. That quality was the one and all-atoning virtue of the times of Charles the Second, and it was supposed to cover a multitude of sins. Yet Charles the Second's was a reign of constant persecution, and of unspeakable selfishness in high places. Pepys persecutes nobody, and yet some touch of unblushing selfishness mars every kindly thing he does. If he sends a haunch of venison to his mother, he lets you know that it was far too bad for his own table. He loves his father with what is obviously a quite genuine affection, but in his references to him there is generally a significant remembrance of himself. He tells us that his father is a man "who, besides that he is my father, and a man that loves me, and hath ever done so, is also, at this day, one of the most careful and innocent men of the world." He advises his father "to good husbandry and to be living within the bounds of £50 a year, and all in such kind words, as not only made both them but myself to weep." He hopes that his father may recover from his illness, "for I would fain do all I can, that I may have him live, and take pleasure in my doing well in the world." Similarly, when his uncle is dying, we have a note "that he is very ill, and so God's Will be done." When the uncle is dead, Pepys' remark is, "sorry in one respect, glad in my expectations in another respect." When his predecessor dies, he writes, "Mr. Barlow is dead; for which God knows my heart, I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger, by whose death he gets £100 per annum." Another exit towards idealism of the Christian and spiritual sort might be supposed to be found in his abundant and indeed perpetual references to churches and sermons. He is an indomitable sermon taster and critic. But his criticisms, although they are among the most amusing of all his notes, soon lead us to surrender any expectation of escape from paganism along this line. "We got places, and staid to hear a sermon; but it, being a Presbyterian one, it was so long, that after above an hour of it we went away, and I home, and dined; and then my wife and I by water to the Opera." This is not, perhaps, surprising, and may in some measure explain his satisfaction with Dr. Creeton's "most admirable, good, learned, and most severe sermon, yet comicall," in which the preacher "railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin, and his brood, the Presbyterians," and ripped up Hugh Peters' preaching, calling him "the execrable skellum." One man preaches "well and neatly"; another "in a devout manner, not elegant nor very persuasive, but seems to mean well, and that he would preach holily"; while Mr. Mills makes "an unnecessary sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself nor the people." On the whole, his opinion of the Church is not particularly high, and he seems to share the view of the Confessor of the Marquis de Caranen, "that the three great trades of the world are, the lawyers, who govern the world; the Churchmen who enjoy the world; and a sort of fellows whom they call soldiers, who make it their work to defend the world." It must be confessed that, when there were pretty ladies present and when his wife was absent, the sermons had but little chance. "To Westminster to the parish church, and there did entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many very fine women; and what with that, and sleeping, I passed away the time till sermon was done." Sometimes he goes further, as at St. Dunstan's, where "I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again--which, seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design." He visits cathedrals, and tries to be impressed by them, but more interesting things are again at hand. At Rochester, "had no mind to stay there, but rather to our inne, the White Hart, where we drank." At Canterbury he views the Minster and the remains of Beckett's tomb, but adds, "A good handsome wench I kissed, the first that I have seen a great while." There is something ludicrously incongruous about the idea of Samuel Pepys in a cathedral, just as there is about his presence in the Great Plague and Fire. Among any of these grand phenomena he is altogether out of scale. He is a fly in a thunderstorm. His religious life and thought are an amazing complication. He can lament the decay of piety with the most sanctimonious. He remembers God continually, and thanks and praises Him for each benefit as it comes, with evident honesty and refreshing gratitude. He signs and seals his last will and testament, "which is to my mind, and I hope to the liking of God Almighty." But in all this there is a curious consciousness, as of one playing to a gallery of unseen witnesses, human or celestial. On a fast-day evening he sings in the garden "till my wife put me in mind of its being a fast-day; and so I was sorry for it, and stopped, and home to cards." He does not indeed appear to regard religion as a matter merely for sickness and deathbeds. When he hears that the Prince, when in apprehension of death, is troubled, but when told that he will recover, is merry and swears and laughs and curses like a man in health, he is shocked. Pepys' religion is the same in prosperous and adverse hours, a thing constantly in remembrance, and whose demands a gentleman can easily satisfy. But his conscience is of that sort which requires an audience, visible or invisible. He hates dissimulation in other people, but he himself is acting all the time. "But, good God! what an age is this, and what a world is this! that a man cannot live without playing the knave and dissimulation." Thus his religion gave him no escape from the world. He was a man wholly governed by self-interest and the verdict of society, and his religion was simply the celestial version of these motives. He has conscience enough to restrain him from damaging excesses, and to keep him within the limits of the petty vices and paying virtues of a comfortable man--a conscience which is a cross between cowardice and prudence. We are constantly asking why he restrained himself so much as he did. It seems as if it would have been so easy for him simply to do the things which he unblushingly confesses he would like to do. It is a question to which there is no answer, either in his case or in any other man's. Why are all of us the very complex and unaccountable characters that we are? Pepys was a pagan man in a pagan time, if ever there was such a man. The deepest secret of him is his intense vitality. Here, on the earth, he is thoroughly alive, and puts his whole heart into most of his actions. He is always in the superlative mood, finding things either the best or the worst that "he ever saw in all his life." His great concern is to be merry, and he never outgrows the crudest phases of this desire, but carries the monkey tricks of a boy into mature age. He will draw his merriment from any source. He finds it "very pleasant to hear how the old cavaliers talk and swear." At the Blue Ball, "we to dancing, and then to a supper of French dishes, which yet did not please me, and then to dance and sing; and mighty merry we were till about eleven or twelve at night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I did, as I love to do, enjoy myself." "This day my wife made it appear to me that my late entertainment of this week cost me above £12, an expence which I am almost ashamed of, though it is but once in a great while, and is the end for which, in the most part, we live, to have such a merry day once or twice in a man's life." The only darkening element in his merriment is his habit of examining it too anxiously. So greedy is he of delight that he cannot let himself go, but must needs be measuring the extent to which he has achieved his desire. Sometimes he finds himself "merry," but at other times only "pretty merry." And there is one significant confession in connection with some performance of a favourite play, "and indeed it is good, though wronged by my over great expectations, as all things else are." This is one of the very few touches of anything approaching to cynicism which are to be found in his writings. His greed of merriment overleaps itself, and the confession of that is the deepest note in all his music. Thus all the avenues leading beyond the earth were blocked. Other men escape along the lines of kindliness, love of friends, art, poetry, or religion. In all these avenues he walks or dances, but they lead him nowhere. At the bars he stands, an absolute worldling and pagan, full of an insatiable curiosity and an endless hunger and thirst. There is no touch of eternity upon his soul: his universe is Vanity Fair. LECTURE VII SARTOR RESARTUS We now begin the study of the last of the three stages in the battle between paganism and idealism. Having seen something of its primitive and classical forms, we took a cross section of it in the seventeenth century, and now we shall review one or two of its phases in our own time. The leap from the seventeenth century to the twentieth necessarily omits much that is vital and interesting. The eighteenth century, in its stately and complacent fashion, produced some of the most deliberate and finished types of paganism which the world has seen, and these were opposed by memorable antagonists. We cannot linger there, however, but must pass on to that great book which sounded the loudest bugle-note which the nineteenth century heard calling men to arms in this warfare. Nothing could be more violent than the sudden transition from Samuel Pepys, that inveterate tumbler in the masque of life, whose absurdities and antics we have been looking at but now, to this solemn and tremendous book. Great in its own right, it is still greater when we remember that it stands at the beginning of the modern conflict between the material and spiritual development of England. Every student of the fourteenth century is familiar with two great figures, typical of the two contrasted features of its life. On the one hand stands Chaucer, with his infinite human interest, his good-humour, and his inexhaustible delight in man's life upon the earth. On the other hand, dark in shadows as Chaucer is bright with sunshine, stands Langland, colossal in his sadness, perplexed as he faces the facts of public life which are still our problems, earnest as death. There is no one figure which corresponds to Chaucer in the modern age, but Carlyle is certainly the counterpart of Langland. Standing in the shadow, he sends forth his great voice to his times, now breaking into sobs of pity, and anon into shrieks of hoarse laughter, terrible to hear. He, too, is bewildered, and he comes among his fellows "determined to pluck out the heart of the mystery"--the mystery alike of his own times and of general human life and destiny. The book is in a great measure autobiographical, and is drawn from deep wells of experience, thought, and feeling. Inasmuch as its writer was a very typical Scotsman, it also was in a sense a manifesto of the national convictions which had made much of the noblest part of Scottish history, and which have served to stiffen the new races with which Scottish emigrants have blended, and to put iron into their blood. It is a book of incalculable importance, and if it be the case that it finds fewer readers in the rising generation than it did among their fathers, it is time that we returned to it. It is for want of such strong meat as this that the spirit of an age tends to grow feeble. The object of the present lecture is neither to explain _Sartor Resartus_ nor to summarise it. It certainly requires explanation, and it is no wonder that it puzzled the publishers. Before it was finally accepted by Fraser, its author had "carried it about for some two years from one terrified owl to another." When it appeared, the criticisms passed on it were amusing enough. Among those mentioned by Professor Nichol are, "A heap of clotted nonsense," and "When is that stupid series of articles by the crazy tailor going to end?" A book which could call forth such abuse, even from the dullest of minds, is certainly in need of elucidation. Yet here, more perhaps than in any other volume one could name, the interpretation must come from within. The truth which it has to declare will appeal to each reader in the light of his own experience of life. And the endeavour of the present lecture will simply be to give a clue to its main purpose. Every reader, following up that clue for himself, may find the growing interest and the irresistible fascination which the Victorians found in it. And when we add that without some knowledge of _Sartor_ it is impossible to understand any serious book that has been written since it appeared, we do not exaggerate so much as might be supposed on the first hearing of so extraordinary a statement. The first and chief difficulty with most readers is a very obvious and elementary one. What is it all about? As you read, you can entertain no doubt about the eloquence, the violent and unrestrained earnestness of purpose, the unmistakable reserves of power behind the detonating words and unforgettable phrases. But, after all, what is it that the man is trying to say? This is certainly an unpromising beginning. Other great prophets have prophesied in the vernacular; but "he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God; for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries." Yet there are some things which cannot convey their full meaning in the vernacular, thoughts which must coin a language for themselves; and although at first there may be much bewilderment and even irritation, yet in the end we shall confess that the prophecy has found its proper language. Let us go back to the time in which the book was written. In the late twenties and early thirties of the nineteenth century a quite exceptional group of men and women were writing books. It was one of those galaxies that now and then over-crowd the literary heavens with stars. To mention only a few of the famous names, there were Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, Dickens, Tennyson, and the Brownings. It fills one with envy to think of days when any morning might bring a new volume from any one of these. Emerson was very much alive then, and was already corresponding with Carlyle. Goethe died in 1832, but not before he had found in Carlyle one who "is almost more, at home in our literature than ourselves," and who had penetrated to the innermost core of the German writings of his day. At that time, too, momentous changes were coming upon the industrial and political life of England. In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened, and in 1832 the Reform Bill was passed. Men were standing in the backwash of the French Revolution. The shouts of acclamation with which the promise of that dawn was hailed, had been silenced long ago by the bloody spectacle of Paris and the career of Napoleon Buonaparte. The day of Byronism was over, and polite England was already settling down to the conventionalities of the Early Victorian period. The romantic school was passing away, and the new generation was turning from it to seek reality in physical science. But deep below the conventionality and the utilitarianism alike there remained from the Revolution its legacy of lawlessness, and many were more intent on adventure than on obedience. It was in the midst of this confused _mêlée_ of opinions and impulses that Thomas Carlyle strode into the lists with his strange book. On the one hand it is a Titanic defence of the universe against the stage Titanism of Byron's _Cain_. On the other hand it is a revolt of reality against the empire of proprieties and appearances and shams. In a generation divided between the red cap of France and the coal-scuttle bonnet of England Carlyle stands bareheaded under the stars. Along with him stand Benjamin Disraeli, combining a genuine sympathy for the poor with a most grotesque delight in the aristocracy; and John Henry Newman, fierce against the Liberals, and yet the author of "Lead, kindly Light." The book was handicapped more heavily by its own style than perhaps any book that ever fought its way from neglect and vituperation to idolatrous popularity. There is in it an immense amount of gag and patter, much of which is brilliant, but so wayward and fantastic as to give a sense of restlessness and perpetual noise. The very title is provoking, and not less so is the explanation of it--the pretended discovery of a German volume upon "Clothes, their origin and influence," published by Stillschweigen and Co., of Weissnichtwo, and written by Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. The puffs from the local newspaper, and the correspondence with Hofrath "Grasshopper," in no wise lessen the odds against such a work being taken seriously. Again, as might be expected of a Professor of "Things in General," the book is discursive to the point of bewilderment. The whole progeny of "aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial devils" breaks loose upon us just as we are about to begin such a list of human apparel as never yet was published save in the catalogue of a museum collected by a madman. A dog with a tin kettle at his tail rushes mad and jingling across the street, leaving behind him a new view of the wild tyranny of Ambition. A great personage loses much sawdust through a rent in his unfortunate nether garments. Sirius and the Pleiades look down from above. The book is everywhere, and everywhere at once. The _asides_ seem to occupy more space than the main thesis, whatever that may be. Just when you think you have found the meaning of the author at last, another display of these fireworks distracts your attention. It is not dark enough to see their full splendour, yet they confuse such daylight as you have. Yet the main thesis cannot long remain in doubt. Through whatever amazement and distraction, it becomes clear enough at last. Clothes, which at once reveal and hide the man who wears them, are an allegory of the infinitely varied aspects and appearances of the world, beneath which lurk ultimate realities. But essential man is a naked animal, not a clothed one, and truth can only be arrived at by the most drastic stripping off of unreal appearances that cover it. The Professor will not linger upon the consideration of the lord's star or the clown's button, which are all that most men care to see: he will get down to the essential lord and the essential clown. And this will be more than an interesting literary occupation to him, or it will not long be that. Truth and God are one, and the devil is the prince of lies. This philosophy of clothes, then, is religion and not _belles lettres_. The reason for our sojourn on earth, and the only ground of any hope for a further sojourn elsewhere, is that in God's name we do battle with the devil. The quest of reality must obviously be wide as the universe, but if we are to engage in it to any purpose we must definitely begin it _somewhere_. A treatise on reality may easily be the most unreal of things--a mere battle in the air. So long as it is a discussion of theories it has this danger, and the first necessity is to bring the search down to the region of experience and rigorously insist on its remaining there. For this end the device of biography is adopted, and we see the meaning of all that apparent byplay of the six paper bags, and of the Weissnichtwo allusions which drop as puzzling fragments into Book I. The second book is wholly biographical. It is in human life and experience that we must fight our way through delusive appearances to reality; and Carlyle constructs a typical and immortal biography. To the childless old people, Andreas and Gretchen Futteral, leading their sweet orchard life, there comes, in the dusk of evening, a stranger of reverend aspect--comes, and leaves with them the "invaluable Loan" of the baby Teufelsdröckh. Thenceforward, beside the little Kuhbach stream, we watch the opening out of a human life, from infancy to boyhood, and from boyhood to manhood. The story has been told a million times, but never quite in this fashion before. For rough delicacy, for exquisitely tender sternness, the biography is unique. From the sleep of mere infancy the child is awakened to the consciousness of creatorship by the gift of tools with which to make things. Tales open up for him the long vistas of history; and the stage-coach with its slow rolling blaze of lights teaches him geography, and the far-flung imaginative suggestiveness of the road; while the annual cattle-fair actually gathers the ends of the earth about his wondering eyes, and gives him his first impression of the variety of human life. Childhood brings with it much that is sweet and gentle, flowing on like the little Kuhbach; and yet suggests far thoughts of Time and Eternity, concerning which we are evidently to hear more before the end. The formal education he receives--that "wood and leather education"--calls forth only protest. But the development of his spirit proceeds in spite of it. So far as the passive side of character goes, he does excellently. On the active side things go not so well. Already he begins to chafe at the restraints of obedience, and the youthful spirit is beating against its bars. The stupidities of an education which only appeals to the one faculty of memory, and to that mainly by means of birch-rods, increase the rebellion, and the sense of restraint is brought to a climax when at last old Andreas dies. Then "the dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open; the pale kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable silent nations and generations, stood before him; the inexorable word NEVER! now first showed its meaning." The youth is now ready to enter, as such a one inevitably must, upon the long and losing battle of faith and doubt. He is at the theorising stage as yet, not having learned to make anything, but only to discuss things. And yet the time is not wasted if the mind have been taught to think. For "truly a Thinking Man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have." The immediate consequence and employment of this unripe time of half-awakened manhood is, however, unsatisfactory enough. There is much reminiscence of early Edinburgh days, with their law studies, and tutoring, and translating, in Teufelsdröckh's desultory period. The climax of it is in those scornful sentences about Aesthetic Teas, to which the hungry lion was invited, that he might feed on chickweed--well for all concerned if it did not end in his feeding on the chickens instead! It is an unwholesome time with the lad--a time of sullen contempt alternating with loud rebellion, of mingled vanity and self-indulgence, and of much sheer devilishness of temper. Upon this exaggerated and most disagreeable period, lit by "red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, yet also in the blackness of darkness," there comes suddenly the master passion of romantic love. Had this adventure proved successful, we should have simply had the old story, which ends in "so they lived happily ever after." What the net result of all the former strivings after truth and freedom would have been, we need not inquire. For this is another story, equally old and to the end of time ever newly repeated. There is much of Werther in it, and still more of Jean Paul Richter. Its finest English counterpart is Longfellow's _Hyperion_--the most beautiful piece of our literature, surely, that has ever been forgotten--in which Richter's story lives again. But never has the tale been more exquisitely told than in _Sartor Resartus_. For one sweet hour of life the youth has been taken out of himself and pale doubt flees far away. Life, that has been but a blasted heath, blooms suddenly with unheard-of blossoms of hope and of delight. Then comes the end. "Their lips were joined, their two souls, like two dewdrops, rushed into one,--for the first time, and for the last! Thus was Teufelsdröckh made immortal by a Kiss. And then? Why, then--thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the ruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the Abyss." The sorrows of Teufelsdröckh are but too well known. Flung back upon his former dishevelment of mind from so great and calm a height, the crash must necessarily be terrible. Yet he will not take up his life where he left it to follow Blumine. Such an hour inevitably changes a man, for better or for worse. There is at least a dignity about him now, even while the "nameless Unrest" urges him forward through his darkened world. The scenes of his childhood in the little Entepfuhl bring no consolation. Nature, even in his wanderings among her mountains, is equally futile, for the wanderer can never escape from his own shadow among her solitudes. Yet is his nature not dissolved, but only "compressed closer," as it were, and we watch the next stage of this development with a sense that some mysteriously great and splendid experience is on the eve of being born. Thus we come to those three central chapters--chapters so fundamental and so true to human life, that it is safe to prophesy that they will be familiar so long as books are read upon the earth--"The Everlasting No," "Centre of Indifference" and "The Everlasting Yea." In "The Everlasting No" we watch the work of negation upon the soul of man. His life has capitulated to the Spirit that denies, and the unbelief is as bitter as it is hopeless. "Doubt had darkened into Unbelief; shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black." "Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and _seeing_ it go? Has the word Duty no meaning?" "Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many have done, shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and receive no Answer but an Echo." Faith, indeed, lies dormant but alive beneath the doubt. But in the meantime the man's own weakness paralyses action; and, while this paralysis lasts, all faith appears to have departed. He has ceased to believe in himself, and to believe in his friends. "The very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind men limb from limb. O, the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death!" He is saved from suicide simply by the after-shine of Christianity. The religion of his fathers lingers, no longer as a creed, but as a powerful set of associations and emotions. It is a small thing to cling to amid the wrack of a man's universe; yet it holds until the appearance of a new phase in which he is to find escape from the prison-house. He has begun to realise that fear--a nameless fear of he knows not what--has taken hold upon him. "I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous." Fear affects men in widely different ways. We have seen how this same vague "sense of enemies" obsessed the youthful spirit of Marius the Epicurean, until it cleared itself eventually into the conscience of a Christian man. But Teufelsdröckh is prouder and more violent of spirit than the sedate and patrician Roman, and he leaps at the throat of fear in a wild defiance. "What _art_ thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! What is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee? Death? Well, Death: and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will or can do against thee! Hast thou not a Heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it!" This is no permanent or stable resting-place, but it is the beginning of much. It is the assertion of self in indignation and wild defiance, instead of the former misery of a man merely haunted by himself. This is that "Baphometic Fire-baptism" or new-birth of spiritual awakening, which is the beginning of true manhood. The Everlasting No had said: "Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's); to which my whole Me now made answer: I am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!" The immediate result of this awakening is told in "Centre of Indifference"--_i.e._, indifference to oneself, one's own feelings, and even to fate. It is the transition from subjective to objective interests, from eating one's own heart out to a sense of the wide and living world by which one is surrounded. It is the same process which, just about this time, Robert Browning was describing in _Paracelsus_ and _Sordello_. Once more Teufelsdröckh travels, but this time how differently! Instead of being absorbed by the haunting shadow of himself, he sees the world full of vital interests--cities of men, tilled fields, books, battlefields. The great questions of the world--the true meanings alike of peace and war--claim his interest. The great men, whether Goethe or Napoleon, do their work before his astonished eyes. "Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away from his own sorrows, over the many-coloured world, and pertinently enough note what is passing there." He has reached--strangely enough through self-assertion--the centre of indifference to self, and of interest in other people and things. And the supreme lesson of it all is the value of _efficiency_. Napoleon "was a Divine Missionary, though unconscious of it; and preached, through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, _La carrière ouverte aux talens_ (the tools to him that can handle them)." This bracing doctrine carries us at once into The Everlasting Yea. It is not enough that a man pass from the morbid and self-centered mood to an interest in the outward world that surrounds him. That might transform him simply into a curious but heartless dilettante, a mere tourist of the spirit, whose sole desire is to see and to take notes. But that could never satisfy Carlyle; for that is but self-indulgence in its more refined form of the lust of the eyes. It was not for this that the Everlasting No had set Teufelsdröckh wailing, nor for this that he had risen up in wrath and bidden defiance to fear. From his temptation in the wilderness the Son of Man must come forth, not to wander open-mouthed about the plain, but to work his way "into the higher sunlit slopes of that Mountain which has no summit, or whose summit is in Heaven only." In other words, a great compassion for his fellow-men has come upon him. "With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my fellow-man: with an infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my Brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears from thy eyes!" The words remind us of the famous passage, occurring early in the book, which describes the Professor's Watchtower. It was suggested by the close-packed streets of Edinburgh's poorer quarter, as seen from the slopes of the hills which stand close on her eastern side. Probably no passage ever written has so vividly and suggestively massed together the various and contradictory aspects of the human tragedy. One more question, however, has yet to be answered before we have solved our problem. What about happiness? We all cry aloud for it, and make its presence or absence the criterion for judging the worth of days. Teufelsdröckh goes to the heart of the matter with his usual directness. It is this search for happiness which is the explanation of all the unwholesomeness that culminated in the Everlasting No. "Because the THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly cared-for? Foolish soul! What Act of Legislature was there that _thou_ shouldst be Happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to _be_ at all. What if thou wert born and predestined not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after somewhat to _eat_; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not given thee? Close thy _Byron_; open thy _Goethe_." In effect, happiness is a relative term, which we can alter as we please by altering the amount which we demand from life. "Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp." Such teaching is neither sympathetic enough nor positive enough to be of much use to poor mortals wrestling with their deepest problems. Yet in the very negation of happiness he discovers a positive religion--the religion of the Cross, the Worship of Sorrow. Expressed crudely, this seems to endorse the ascetic fallacy of the value of self-denial for its own sake. But from that it is saved by the divine element in sorrow which Christ has brought--"Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him." This still leaves us perilously near to morbidness. The Worship of Sorrow might well be but a natural and not less morbid reaction from the former morbidness, the worship of self and happiness. From that, however, it is saved by the word "works," which is spoken with emphasis in this connection. So we pass to the last phase of the Everlasting Yea, in which we return to the thesis upon which we began, viz., that "Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by action." "Do the Duty which _lies nearest thee_, which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.... Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free.... Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee; out with it, then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can work." Thus the goal of human destiny is not any theory, however true; not any happiness, however alluring. It is for practical purposes that the universe is built, and he who would be "in tune with the universe" must first and last be practical. In various forms this doctrine has reappeared and shown itself potent. Ritschl based his system on practical values in religion, and Professor William James has proclaimed the same doctrine in a still wider application in his Pragmatism. The essential element in both systems is that they lay the direct stress of life, not upon abstract theory but upon experience and vital energy. This transference from theorising and emotionalism to the prompt and vigorous exercise of will upon the immediate circumstance, is Carlyle's understanding of the word Conversion. When it comes to the particular question of what work the Professor is to do, the answer is that he has within him the Word Omnipotent, waiting for a man to speak it forth. And here in this volume upon Clothes, this _Sartor Resartus_, is his deliberate response to the great demand. At first he seems here to relapse from the high seriousness of the chapters we have just been reading, and to come with too great suddenness to earth again. Yet that is not the case; for, as we shall see, the rest of the volume is the attempt to reconstruct the universe on the principles he has discovered within his own experience. The story to which we have been listening is Teufelsdröckh's way of discovering reality; now we are to have the statement of it on the wider planes of social and other philosophy. This we shall briefly review, but the gist of the book is in what we have already found. To most readers the quotations must have been old and well-remembered friends. Yet they will pardon the reappearance of them here, for they have been amongst the most powerful of all wingéd words spoken in England for centuries. The reason for the popularity of the book is that these biographical chapters are the record of normal and typical human experience. This, or something like this, will repeat itself so long as human nature lasts; and men, grown discouraged with the mystery and bewilderment of life, will find heart from these chapters to start "once more on their adventure, brave and new." This, then, is Teufelsdröckh's reconstruction of the world; and the world of each one of us requires some such reconstruction. For life is full of deceptive outward appearances, from which it is the task of every man to come back in his own way to the realities within. The shining example of such reconstruction is that of George Fox, who sewed himself a suit of leather and went out to the woods with it--"Every stitch of his needle pricking into the heart of slavery, and world-worship, and the Mammon god." The leather suit is an allegory of the whole. The appearances of men and things are but the fantastic clothes with which they cover their nakedness. They take these clothes of theirs to be themselves, and the first duty and only hope of a man is to divest himself of all such coverings, and discover what manner of man he really is. This process of divesting, however, may yield either of two results. A man may take, for the reality of himself, either the low view of human nature, in which man is but "a forked straddling animal with bandy legs," or the high view, in which he is a spirit, and unutterable Mystery of Mysteries. It is the latter view which Thomas Carlyle champions, through this and many other volumes, against the materialistic thought of his time. The chapter on Dandies is a most extraordinary attack on the keeping up of appearances. The Dandy is he who not only keeps up appearances but actually worships them. He is their advocate and special pleader. His very office and function is to wear clothes. Here we have the illusion stripped from much that we have taken for reality. Sectarianism is a prominent example of it, the reading of fashionable novels is another. In the former two are seen the robes of eternity flung over one very vulgar form of self-worship, and in the latter the robe of fashionable society is flung over another. The reality of man's intercourse with Eternity and with his fellow-men has died within these vestures, but the eyes of the public are satisfied, and never guess the corpse within. Sectarianism and Vanity Fair are but common forms of self-worship, in which every one is keeping up appearances, and is so intent upon that exercise that all thought of reality has vanished. A shallower philosopher would have been content with exposing these and other shams; and consequently his philosophy would have led nowhere. Carlyle is a greater thinker, and one who takes a wider view. He is no enemy of clothes, although fools have put them to wrong uses and made them the instruments of deception. His choice is not between worshipping and abandoning the world and its appearances. He will frankly confess the value of it and of its vesture, and so we have the chapter on Adamitism, in defence of clothes, which acknowledges in great and ingenious detail the many uses of the existing order of institutions. But still, through all such acknowledgment, we are reminded constantly of the main truth. All appearance is for the sake of reality, and all tools for expressing the worker. When the appearance becomes a substitute for the reality, and the tools absorb the attention that should be devoted to the work for whose accomplishment they exist, then we have relapsed into the fundamental human error. The object of the book is to plunge back from appearance to reality, from clothes to him who wears them. "Who am I? What is this ME?... some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal Mind." This swift retreat upon reality occurs at intervals throughout the whole book, and in connection with every conceivable department of human life and interest. In many parts there is little attempt at sequence or order. The author has made voluminous notes on men and things, and the whole fantastic structure of _Sartor Resartus_ is a device for introducing these disjointedly. In the remainder of this lecture we shall select and displace freely, in order to present the main teachings of the book in manageable groups. 1. _Language and Thought._--Language is the natural garment of thoughts, and while sometimes it performs its function of revealing them, it often conceals them. Many people's whole intellectual life is spent in dealing with words, and they never penetrate to the thoughts at all. Still more commonly, people get lost among words, especially words which have come to be used metaphorically, and again fail to penetrate to the thought. Thus the _Name_ is the first garment wrapped around the essential ME; and all speech, whether of science, poetry, or politics, is simply an attempt at right naming. The names by which we call things are apt to become labelled pigeon-holes in which we bury them. Having catalogued and indexed our facts, we lose sight of them thenceforward, and think and speak in terms of the catalogue. If you are a Liberal, it is possible that all you may know or care to know about Conservatism is the name. Nay, having catalogued yourself a Liberal, you may seldom even find it necessary to inquire what the significance of Liberalism really is. If you happen to be a Conservative, the corresponding risks will certainly not be less. The dangers of these word-garments, and the habit of losing all contact with reality in our constant habit of living among mere words, naturally suggest to Carlyle his favourite theme--a plea for silence. We all talk too much, and the first lesson we have to learn on our way to reality is to be oftener silent. This duty of silence, as has been wittily remarked, Carlyle preaches in thirty-seven volumes of eloquent English speech. "SILENCE and SECRECY! Altars might still be raised to them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule.... Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but _hold thy tongue for one day_: on the morrow how much clearer are thy purposes and duties." Andreas, in his old camp-sentinel days, once challenged the emperor himself with the demand for the password. "Schweig, Hund!" replied Frederich; and Andreas, telling the tale in after years would add, "There is what I call a King." Yet silence may be as devoid of reality as words, and most minds require something external to quicken thought and fill up the emptiness of their silences. So we have symbols, whose doctrine is here most eloquently expounded. Man is not ruled by logic but by imagination, and a thousand thoughts will rise at the call of some well-chosen symbol. In itself it may be the poorest of things, with no intrinsic value at all--a clouted shoe, an iron crown, a flag whose market value may be almost nothing. Yet such a thing may so work upon men's silences as to fill them with the glimmer of a divine idea. Other symbols there are which _have_ intrinsic value--works of art, lives of heroes, death itself, in all of which we may see Eternity working through Time, and become aware of Reality amid the passing shows. Religious symbols are the highest of all, and highest among these stands Jesus of Nazareth. "Higher has the human Thought not yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom; a symbol of quite perennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be anew enquired into, and anew made manifest." In other words, Jesus stands for all that is permanently noble and permanently real in human life. Such symbols as have intrinsic value are indeed perennial. Time at length effaces the others; they lose their associations, and become but meaningless lumber. But these significant works and personalities can never grow effete. They tell their own story to the succeeding generations, blessing them with visions of reality and preserving them from the Babel of meaningless words. 2. _Body and Spirit._--Souls are "rendered visible in bodies that took shape and will lose it, melting into air." Thus bodies, and not spirits, are the true apparitions, the souls being the realities which they both reveal and hide. In fact, body is literally a garment of flesh--a garment which the soul has for a time put on, but which it will lay aside again. One of the greatest of all the idolatries of appearance is our constant habit of judging one another by the attractiveness of the bodily vesture. Many of the judgments which we pass upon our fellows would be reversed if we trained ourselves to look through the vestures of flesh to the men themselves--the souls that are hidden within. The natural expansion of this is in the general doctrine of matter and spirit. Purely material science--science which has lost the faculty of wonder and of spiritual perception--is no true science at all. It is but a pair of spectacles without an eye. For all material things are but emblems of spiritual things--shadows or images of things in the heavens--and apart from these they have no reality at all. 3. _Society and Social Problems._--It follows naturally that a change must come upon our ways of regarding the relations of man to man. If every man is indeed a temple of the divine, and therefore to be revered, then much of our accepted estimates and standards of social judgment will have to be abandoned. Society, as it exists, is founded on class distinctions which largely consist in the exaltation of idleness and wealth. Against this we have much eloquent protest. "Venerable to me is the hard hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living man like." How far away we are from all this with our mammon-worship and our fantastic social unrealities, every student of our times must know, or at least must have often heard. He would not have heard it so often, however, had not Thomas Carlyle cried it out with that harsh voice of his, in this and many others of his books. It was his gunpowder, more than any other explosive of the nineteenth century, that broke up the immense complacency into which half England always tends to relapse. He is not hopeless of the future of society. Society is the true Phoenix, ever repeating the miracle of its resurrection from the ashes of the former fire. There are indestructible elements in the race of man--"organic filaments" he calls them--which bind society together, and which ensure a future for the race after any past, however lamentable. Those "organic filaments" are Carlyle's idea of Social Reality--the real things which survive all revolution. There are four such realities which ensure the future for society even when it seems extinct. First, there is the fact of man's brotherhood to man--a fact quite independent of man's willingness to acknowledge that brotherhood. Second, there is the common bond of tradition, and all our debt to the past, which is a fact equally independent of our willingness to acknowledge it. Third, there is the natural and inevitable fact of man's necessity for reverencing some one above him. Obedience and reverence are forthcoming, whenever man is in the presence of what he _ought_ to reverence, and so hero-worship is secure. These three bonds of social reality are inseparable from one another. The first, the brotherhood of man, has often been used as the watchword of a false independence. It is only possible on the condition of reverence and obedience for that which is higher than oneself, either in the past or the present. "Suspicion of 'Servility,' of reverence for Superiors, the very dog-leech is anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible freedom." These three, then, are the social realities, and all other social distinctions and conventionalities are but clothes, to be replaced or thrown away at need. But there is a fourth bond of social reality--the greatest and most powerful of all. That reality is Religion. Here, too, we must distinguish clothes from that which they cover--forms of religion from religion itself. Church-clothes, indeed, are as necessary as any other clothes, and they will harm no one who remembers that they are but clothes, and distinguishes between faith and form. The old forms are already being discarded, yet Religion is so vital that it will always find new forms for itself, suited to the new age. For religion, in one form or in another, is absolutely essential to society; and, being a grand reality, will continue to keep society from collapse. 4. From this we pass naturally to the great and final doctrine in which the philosophy of clothes is expounded. That doctrine, condensed into a single sentence, is that "the whole Universe is the Garment of God." This brings us back to the song of the _Erdgeist_ in Goethe's _Faust_:-- "In Being's floods, in Action's storm, I walk and work, above, beneath, Work and weave in endless motion! Birth and Death, An infinite ocean; A seizing and giving The fire of Living: 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by." This is, of course, no novelty invented by Goethe. We find it in Marius the Epicurean, and he found it in ancient wells of Greek philosophy. Carlyle's use of it has often been taken for Pantheism. In so mystic a region it is impossible to expect precise theological definition, and yet it is right to remember that Carlyle does not identify the garment with its Wearer. The whole argument of the book is to distinguish appearance from reality in every instance, and this is no exception. "What is Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'living garment of God'? O Heavens, is it in very deed He, then, that ever speaks through thee? that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me?... The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spectres: but godlike and my Father's." "This fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star-domed City of God; through every star, through every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a present God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish." Such is some very broken sketch of this great book. It will at least serve to recall to the memory of some readers thoughts and words which long ago stirred their blood in youth. No volume could so fitly be chosen as a background against which to view the modern surge of the age-long battle. But the charm of _Sartor Resartus_ is, after all, personal. We go back to the life-story of Teufelsdröckh, out of which such varied and such lofty teachings sprang, and we read it over and over again because we find in it so much that is our own story too. LECTURE VIII PAGAN REACTIONS In the last lecture we began the study of the modern aspects of our subject with Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_. Now, in a rapid sketch, we shall look at some of the writings which followed that great book; and, with it as background, we shall see them in stronger relief. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the influence which was wielded by Carlyle, and especially by his _Sartor Resartus_. His was a gigantic power, both in literature and in morals. At first, as we have already noted, he met with neglect and ridicule in abundance, but afterwards these passed into sheer wonder, and then into a wide and devoted worship. Everybody felt his power, and all earnest thinkers were seized in the strong grip of reality with which he laid hold upon his time. The religious thought and faith both of England and of Scotland felt him, but his mark was deepest upon Scotland, because of two interesting facts. First of all, Carlyle represented that old Calvinism which had always fitted so exactly the national character and spirit; and second, there were in Scotland many people who, while retaining the Calvinistic spirit, had lost touch with the old definite creed. Nothing could be more characteristic of Carlyle than this Calvinism of the spirit which had passed beyond the letter of the old faith. He stands like an old Covenanter in the mist; and yet a Covenanter grasping his father's iron sword. It is because of these two facts _Sartor Resartus_ has taken so prominent a place in our literature. It stands for a kind of conscience behind the manifold modern life of our day. Beneath the shrieks and the laughter of the time we hear in it the boom of great breakers. Never again can we forget, amidst the gaieties of any island paradise, the solemn ocean that surrounds it. Carlyle's teaching sounds and recurs again and again like the Pilgrims' March in _Tannhäuser_ breaking through the overture, and rivalling until it vanquishes the music of the Venusberg. Yet it was quite inevitable that there should be strong reaction from any such work as this. To the warm blood and the poignant sense of the beauty of the world it brought a sense of chill, a forbidding sombreness and austerity. Carlyle's conception of Christianity was that of the worship of sorrow; and, while the essence of his gospel was labour, yet to many minds self-denial seemed to be no longer presented, as in the teaching of Jesus, as a means towards the attainment of further spiritual ends. It had become an end in itself, and one that few would desire or feel to be justified. In the reaction it was felt that self-development had claims upon the human spirit as well as self-denial, and indeed that the happy instincts of life had no right to be so winsome unless they were meant to be obeyed. The beauty of the world could not be regarded as a mere trap for the tempting of people, if one were to retain any worthy conception of the Powers that govern the world. From this point of view the Carlylians appeared to enter into life maimed. That, indeed, we all must do, as Christ told us; but they seemed to do it like the beggars of Colombo, with a deliberate and somewhat indecent exhibition of their wounds. Carlyle found many men around him pagan, worshipping the earth without any spiritual light in them. He feared that many others were about to go in the same direction, so he cried aloud that the earth was too small, and that they must find a larger object of worship. For the earth he substituted the universe, and led men's eyes out among the immensities and eternities. Professor James tells a story of Margaret Fuller, the American transcendentalist, having said with folded hands, "I accept the universe," and how Carlyle, hearing this, had answered, "Gad, she'd better!" It was this insistence upon the universe, as distinguished from the earth, which was the note of _Sartor Resartus_. The reactionaries took Carlyle at his word. They said, "Yes, we shall worship the universe"; but they went on to add that Carlyle's universe is not universal. It is at once too vague and too austere. There are other elements in life besides those to which he called attention--elements very definite and not at all austere--and they too have a place in the universe and a claim upon our acceptance. Many of these are in every way more desirable to the type of mind that rebelled than the aspects of the universe on which Carlyle had insisted, and so they went out freely among these neglected elements, set them over against his kind of idealism, and became themselves idealists of other sorts. Matthew Arnold, the apostle of culture, found his idealism in the purely mental region. Rossetti was the idealist of the heart, with its whole world of emotions, and that subtle and far-reaching inter-play between soul and body for which Carlyle had always made too little allowance. Mr. H.G. Wells and Mr. Bernard Shaw, proclaiming themselves idealists of the social order, have been reaching conclusions and teaching doctrines at which Carlyle would have stood aghast. These are but random examples, but they are one in this, that each has protested against that one-sidedness for which Carlyle stood. Yet each is a one-sided protest, and falls again into the snare of setting the affections upon things which are not eternal, and so wedding man to the green earth again. Thus we find paganism--in some quarters paganism quite openly confessed--occupying a prominent place in our literature to-day. Before we examine some of its aspects in detail a word or two of preliminary warning may be permissible. It is a mistake to take the extremer forms of this reaction too seriously, although at the present time this is very frequently done. One must remember that such a spirit as this is to be found in every age, and that it always creates an ephemeral literature which imagines itself to be a lasting one. It is nothing new. It is as old and as perennial as the complex play of the human mind and human society. Another reason for not taking this phase too seriously is that it was quite inevitable that some such reaction should follow upon the huge solemnities of Carlyle. Just as in literature, after the classic formality of Johnson and his contemporaries, there must come the reaction of the Romantic School, which includes Sir Walter Scott, Byron, and Burns; so here there must be an inevitable reaction from austerity to a daring freedom which will take many various forms. From Carlyle's solemnising liturgy we were bound to pass to the slang and colloquialism of the man in the street and the woman in the modern novel. Body and spirit are always in unstable equilibrium, and an excess of either at once swings the fashion back to the other extreme. Carlyle had his day largely in consequence of what one may call the eighteenth-century glut--the Georgian society and its economics, and the Byronic element in literature. The later swing back was as inevitable as Carlyle had been. Perhaps it was most clearly noticed after the deaths of Browning and Tennyson, in the late eighties and the early nineties. But both before and since that time it has been very manifest in England. But beyond all these things there is the general fact that before any literature becomes pagan the land must first have been paganised. Of course there is always here again a reaction of mutual cause and effect between literature and national spirit. Carlyle himself, in his doctrine of heroes, was continually telling us that it is the personality which produces the _zeitgeist_, and not _vice versa_. On the other hand it is equally certain that no personality is independent of his age and the backing he finds in it, or the response which he may enlist for his revolt from it. Both of these are true statements of the case; as to which is ultimate, that is the old and rather academic question of whether the oak or the acorn comes first. We repeat that it is impossible, in this double play of cause and effect, to say which is the ultimate cause and which the effect. The controversy which was waged in the nineteenth century between the schools of Buckle and Carlyle is likely to go on indefinitely through the future. But what concerns us at present is this, that all paganism which finds expression in a literature has existed in the age before it found that expression. The literature is indeed to some extent the creator of the age, but to a far greater extent it is the expression of the age, whose creation is due to a vast multiplicity of causes. Among these causes one of the foremost was political advance and freedom--the political doctrines, and the beginnings of Socialistic thought, which had appeared about the time when _Sartor Resartus_ was written. The Reform Bill of 1832 tended to concentrate men's attention upon questions of material welfare. Commercial and industrial prosperity followed, keeping the nation busy with the earth. In very striking language Lord Morley describes this fact, in language specially striking as coming from so eminently progressive a man.[4] "Far the most penetrating of all the influences that are impairing the moral and intellectual nerve of our generation, remain still to be mentioned. The first of them is the immense increase of material prosperity, and the second is the immense decline in sincerity of spiritual interest. The evil wrought by the one fills up the measure of the evil wrought by the other. We have been, in spite of momentary declensions, on a flood-tide of high profits and a roaring trade, and there is nothing like a roaring trade for engendering latitudinarians. The effect of many possessions, especially if they be newly acquired, in slackening moral vigour, is a proverb. Our new wealth is hardly leavened by any tradition of public duty such as lingers among the English nobles, nor as yet by any common custom of devotion to public causes, such as seems to live and grow in the United States. Under such conditions, with new wealth come luxury and love of ease and that fatal readiness to believe that God has placed us in the best of possible worlds, which so lowers men's aims and unstrings their firmness of purpose. Pleasure saps high interests, and the weakening of high interests leaves more undisputed room for pleasure." "The political spirit has grown to be the strongest element in our national life; the dominant force, extending its influence over all our ways of thinking in matters that have least to do with politics, or even nothing at all to do with them. There has thus been engendered among us the real sense of political responsibility. In a corresponding degree has been discouraged ... the sense of intellectual responsibility.... Practically, and as a matter of history, a society is seldom at the same time successfully energetic both in temporals and spirituals; seldom prosperous alike in seeking abstract truth and nursing the political spirit." The result of the new phase of English life was, on the one hand, industrialism with its material values, and on the other hand the beginnings of a Socialism equally pagan. The motto of both schools was that a man's life consisteth in the abundance of the things that he possesseth, that you should seek first all these things, and that the Kingdom of God and His righteousness may be added unto you, if you have any room for them. Make yourself secure of all these other things; seek comfort whether you be rich or poor; make this world as agreeable to yourself as your means will allow, and seek to increase your means of making it still more agreeable. After you have done all that, anything that is left over will do for your idealism. Your God can be seen to after you have abundantly provided for the needs of your body. Nothing could be more characteristic paganism than this, which makes material comfort the real end of life, and all spiritual things a residual element. It is the story which Isaiah tells, with such sublimity of sarcasm, of the huntsman and craftsman who warms his hands and cries to himself, "Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire." He bakes bread and roasts flesh, and, with the residue of the same log which he has used for kindling his fire, he maketh a god. So this modern god of England, when England had become materialised, was just that ancient fire-worship and comfort-worship in its nineteenth-century phase. In the first demand of life there is no thought of God or of idealism of any kind. These, if they appear at all, have to be made out of what is left. "Of the residue he maketh a god." It is by insidious degrees that materialism invades a nation's life. At first it attacks the externals, appearing mainly in the region of work, wealth, and comfort. But, unless some check is put upon its progress, it steadily works its way to the central depths, attacking love and sorrow, and changing them to sensuality and cynicism. Then the nation's day is over, and its men and women are lost souls. Many instances might be quoted in which this progress has actually been made in the literature of England. At present we are only pointing to the undoubted fact that the forces of materialism have been at work among us. If proof of this were needed, nothing could afford it more clearly than our loss of peace and dignity in modern society. Many costly luxuries have become necessities, and they have increased the pace of life to a rush and fury which makes business a turmoil and social life a fever. A symbolic embodiment of this spirit may be seen in the motor car and the aeroplane as they are often used. These indeed need not be ministers of paganism. The glory of swift motion and the mounting up on wings as eagles reach very near to the spiritual, if not indeed across its borderland, as exhilarating and splendid stimuli to the human spirit. But, on the other hand, they may be merely instruments for gratifying that insane human restlessness which is but the craving for new sensations. Along the whole line of our commercial and industrial prosperity there runs one great division. There are some who, in the midst of all change, have preserved their old spiritual loyalties, and there are others who have substituted novelty for loyalty. These are the idealists and the pagans of the twentieth century. Another potent factor in the making of the new times was the scientific advance which has made so remarkable a difference to the whole outlook of man upon the earth. Darwin's great discovery is perhaps the most epoch-making fact in science that has yet appeared upon the earth. The first apparent trend of evolution seemed to be an entirely materialistic reaction. This was due to the fact that believers in the spiritual had identified with their spirituality a great deal that was unnecessary and merely casual. If the balloon on which people mount up above the earth is any such theory as that of the six days' creation, it is easy to see how when that balloon is pricked the spiritual flight of the time appears to have ended on the ground. Of course all that has long passed by. Of late years Haeckel has been crying out that all his old friends have deserted him and have gone over to the spiritual side--a cry which reminds one of the familiar juryman who finds his fellows the eleven most obstinate men he has ever known. The conception of evolution has long since been taken over by the idealists, and has become perhaps the most splendidly Christian and idealistic idea of the new age. When Darwin published his _Origin of Species_, Hegel cried out in Germany, "Darwin has destroyed design." To-day Darwin and Hegel stand together as the prophets of the unconquerable conviction of the reality of spirit. From the days of Huxley and Haeckel we have passed over to the days of Bergson and Sir Oliver Lodge. The effect of all this upon individuals is a very interesting phenomenon to watch. Every one of us has been touched by the pagan spirit which has invaded our times at so many different points of entrance. It has become an atmosphere which we have all breathed more or less. If some one were to say to any company of British people, one by one, that they were pagans, doubtless many of them would resent it, and yet more or less it would be true. We all are pagans; we cannot help ourselves, for every one of us is necessarily affected by the spirit of his generation. Nobody indeed says, "Go to, I will be a pagan"; but the old story of Aaron's golden calf repeats itself continually. Aaron, when Moses rebuked him, said naïvely, "There came out this calf." That exactly describes the situation. That calf is the only really authentic example of spontaneous generation, of effect without cause. Nobody expected it. Nobody wanted it. Everybody was surprised to see it when it came. It was the Melchizedek among cattle--without father, without mother, without descent. Unfortunately it seems also to have been without beginning of days or end of life. Every generation simply puts in its gold and there comes out this calf--it is a way such calves have. Thus it is with our modern paganism. We all of us want to be idealists, and we sometimes try, but there are hidden causes which draw us back again to the earth. These causes lie in the opportunities that occur one by one: in politics, in industrial and commercial matters, in scientific theories, or by mere reaction. The earth is more habitable than once it was, and we all desire it. It masters us, and so the golden calf appears. We shall now glance very rapidly at a few out of the many literary forces of our day in which we may see the various reactions from Carlyle. First, there was the Early Victorian time, the eighteenth century in homespun. It was not great and pompous like that century, but it lived by formality, propriety, and conventionality. It was horribly shocked when George Eliot published _Scenes of Clerical Life_ and _Adam Bede_ in 1858 and 1859. Outwardly it was eminently respectable, and its respectability was its particular method of lapsing into paganism. It was afraid of ideals, and for those who cherish this fear the worship of respectability comes to be a very dangerous kind of worship, and its idol is perhaps the most formidable of all the gods. Meanwhile that glorious band of idealists, whose chief representatives were Tennyson, Browning, and Ruskin, to be joined later by George Meredith, were fighting paganism in the spirit of Arthur's knights, keen to drive the heathen from the land. Tennyson, the most popular of them all, probably achieved more than any other in this conflict. Ruskin was too contradictory and bewildering, and so failed of much of his effect. Browning and Meredith at first were reckoned unintelligible, and had to wait their day for a later understanding. Still, all these, and many others of lesser power than theirs, were knights of the ideal, warring against the domination of dead and unthinking respectability. Matthew Arnold came upon the scene, with his great protest against the preponderance of single elements in life, and his plea for wholeness. In this demand for whole and not one-sided views of the world, he is more nearly akin to Goethe than perhaps any other writer of our time. His great protest was against the worship of machinery, which he believed to be taking the place of its own productions in England. He conceived of the English people as being under a general delusion which led them to mistake means for ends. He spoke of them as "Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace," according to the rank in life they held; and accused them of living for such ends as field sports, the disestablishment of the Church of England, and the drinking of beer. He pointed out that, so far as real culture is concerned, these can at best be but means towards other ends, and can never be in themselves sufficient to satisfy the human soul. He protested against Carlyle, although in the main thesis the two are entirely at one. "I never liked Carlyle," he said; "he always seemed to me to be carrying coals to Newcastle." He took Carlyle for the representative of what he called "Hebraism," and he desired to balance the undue preponderance of that by insisting upon the necessity of the Hellenistic element in culture. Both of these are methods of idealism, but Arnold protested that the human spirit is greater than any of the forces that bear it onwards; and that after you have said all that Carlyle has to say, there still remains on the other side the intellect, with rights of its own. He did not exclude conscience, for he held that conduct made up three-fourths of life. He was the idealist of a whole culture as against all one-sidedness; but curiously, by flinging himself upon the opposite side from Carlyle, he became identified in the popular mind with what it imagined to be Hellenic paganism. This was partly due to his personal idiosyncrasies, his fastidiousness of taste, and the somewhat cold style of the _exquisite_ in expression. These deceived many of his readers, and kept them from seeing how great and prophetic a message it was that came to England beneath Arnold's mannerisms. Dante Gabriel Rossetti appeared, and many more in his train. He, more perfectly than any other, expressed the marriage of sense and soul in modern English poetry. He was the idealist of emotion, who, in the far-off dim borderlands between sense and spirit, still preserved the spiritual search, nor ever allowed himself to be completely drugged with the vapours of the region. There were others, however, who tended towards decadence. Some of Rossetti's readers, whose sole interest lay in the lower world, claimed him as well as the rest for their guides, and set a fashion which is not yet obsolete. There is no lack of solemnity among these. The scent of sandalwood and of incense is upon their work, and you feel as you read them that you are worshipping in some sort of a temple with strange and solemnising rites. Indeed they insist upon this, and assiduously cultivate a kind of lethargic and quasi-religious manner which is supposed to be very impressive. But their temple is a pagan temple, and their worship, however much they may borrow for it the language of a more spiritual cult, is of the earth, earthy. Mr. Thomas Hardy was the inevitable sequel to George Eliot. Everybody knows how beautiful and how full of charm his lighter writings can be; and in his more tragic work there is much that is true, terrifically expressed. Yet he has got upon the wrong side of the world, and can never see beyond the horror of its tragedy. Consequently in him we have another form of paganism, not this time that which the seductive earth with its charms is suggesting, but the hopeless paganism which sees the earth only in its bitterness. In _The Return of the Native_ he says: "What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their Aeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary man is in by their operation." It is no wonder that he who expressed the spirit of the modern age in these words should have closed his well-known novel with the bitter saying that the upper powers had finished their sport with _Tess_. "To have lost the God-like conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a mind that, though disappointed, forswears compromise." Here is obviously a man who would love the highest if he saw it, who would fain welcome and proclaim the ideals if he could only find them on the earth; but who has found instead the bitterness of darkness, the sarcasm and the sensationalism of an age that the gods have left. He is too honest to shout _pour encourager les autres_ when his own heart has no hope in it; and his greater books express the wail and despair of our modern paganism. Breaking away from him and all such pessimistic voices came the glad soul of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose old-fashioned revelling in the situation is the exact counter-blast to Hardy's modernism, and is one of those perennial human things which are ever both new and old. It is not that Stevenson has not seen the other side of life. He has seen it and he has suffered from it deeply, both in himself and in others; yet still indomitably he "clings to his paddle." "I believe," he says, "in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it." Then there came the extraordinary spirit of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. At first sight some things that he has written appear pagan enough, and have been regarded as such. The God of Christians seems to inhabit and preside over an amazing Valhalla of pagan divinities; and indeed throughout Mr. Kipling's work the heavens and the earth are mingled in a most inextricable and astonishing fashion. It is said that not long ago, during the launch of a Chinese battleship at one of our British yards, they were burning papers to the gods in a small joss-house upon the pier, while the great vessel, fitted with all the most modern machinery, was leaving the stocks. There is something about the tale that reminds us of Mr. Kipling. Now he is the prophet of Jehovah, now the Corybantic pagan priest, now the interpreter of the soul of machines. He is everything and everybody. He knows the heart of the unborn, and, telling of days far in the future, can make them as living and real as the hours of to-day. It was the late Professor James who said of him, "Kipling is elemental; he is down among the roots of all things. He is universal like the sun. He is at home everywhere. When he dies they won't be able to get any grave to hold him. They will have to bury him under a pyramid." In our reckoning such a man hardly counts. It would be most interesting, if it were as yet possible, to speculate as to whether his permanent influence has been more on the side of a kind of a wild Titanic paganism, or of that ancient Calvinistic God whom Macandrew worships in the temple of his engine-room. We now come to a later phase, for which we may take as representative writers the names of Mr. H.G. Wells and Mr. Bernard Shaw. Science, for the meantime at least, has disentangled herself from her former materialism, and a nobly ideal and spiritual view of science has come again. It may even be hoped that the pagan view will never be able again to assert itself with the same impressiveness as in the past. But social conditions are to-day in the throes of their strife, and from that quarter of the stage there appear such writers as those we are now to consider. They both present themselves as idealists. Mr. Wells has published a long volume about his religion, and Mr. Shaw prefaces his plays with essays as long or even longer than the plays themselves, dealing with all manner of the most serious subjects. The surface flippancy both of prefaces and plays has repelled some readers in spite of all their cleverness, and tended towards an unjust judgment that he is upsetting the universe with his tongue in his cheek all the time. Later one comes to realise that this is not the case, that Mr. Shaw does really take himself and his message seriously, and from first to last conceives himself as the apostle of a tremendous creed. Among many other things which they have in common, these writers have manifested the tendency to regard all who ever went before them as, in a certain sense, thieves and robbers; at least they give one the impression that the present has little need for long lingering over the past. Mr. Wells, for instance, cannot find words strong enough to describe the emancipation of the modern young man from Mr. Kipling with his old-fashioned injunction, "Keep ye the law." There are certain laws which Mr. Wells proclaims on the housetops that he sees no necessity for keeping, and so Mr. Kipling is buried under piles of opprobrium--"the tumult and the bullying, the hysteria and the impatience, the incoherence and the inconsistency," and so on. As for Mr. Bernard Shaw, we all know his own view of the relation in which he stands to William Shakespeare. Mr. Wells has written many interesting books, and much could be said of him from the point of view of science, or of style, or of social theory. That, however, is not our present concern, either with him or with Mr. Shaw. It is as idealist or pagan influences that we are discussing them and the others. Mr. Wells boasts a new morality in his books, and Mr. Shaw in his plays. One feels the same startling sense of a _volte face_ in morality as a young recruit is said to do when he finds all the precepts of his childhood reversed by the ethics of his first battlefield. Each in his own way falls back upon crude and primitive instincts and justifies them.[5] Mr. Wells takes the change with zest, and seems to treat the adoption of a new morality in the same light-hearted spirit as he might consider the buying of a new hat. From the first he has a terrifying way of dealing familiarly with vast things. Somehow he reminds one of those jugglers who, for a time, toss heavy balls about, and then suddenly astonish the audience by introducing a handkerchief, which flies lightly among its ponderous companions. So Mr. Wells began to juggle with worlds. He has latterly introduced that delicate thing, the human soul and conscience, into the play, and you see it precariously fluttering among the immensities of leaping planets. He persuades himself that the common morality has not gripped people, and that they really don't believe in it at all. He aims at a way of thinking which will be so great as to be free from all commonplace and convention. Honesty is to be practically the only virtue in the new world. If you say what you mean, you will earn the right to do anything else that you please. Mr. Wells in this is the counterpart of those plain men in private life so well known to us all, who perpetually remind us that they are people who call a spade a spade. Such men are apt to interpret this dictum as a kind of charter which enables a man to say anything foolish, or rude, or bad that may occur to him, and earn praise for it instead of blame. Some of us fail to find the greatness of this way of thinking, however much we may be impressed by its audacity. Indeed there seems to be much smallness in it which masquerades as immensity. This smallness is due first of all to sheer ignorance. When a man tells us that he prefers Oliver Goldsmith to Jesus Christ, he merely shows that upon the subject he is discussing he is not educated, and does not know what he is talking about. A second source of pettiness is to be found in the mistake of imagining that mere smartness of diction and agility of mind are signs of intellectual keenness. The mistake is as obvious as it is unfortunate. Smartness can be learned with perhaps the least expenditure of intellect that is demanded by any literary exercise of the present day. It is a temptation which a certain kind of clever man always has to face, and it only assumes a serious aspect when it leads the unthinking to mistake it for a new and formidable element of opposition to things which he has counted sacred. The whole method is not so very subtle after all. Pick out a vice or a deformity. Do not trouble to acquaint yourself too intimately with the history of morals in the past, but boldly canonise your vice or your deformity with ritual of epigram and paradox. Proclaim loudly and eloquently that this is your faith, and give it a pathetic aspect by dwelling tenderly upon any trouble which it may be likely to cost those who venture to adopt it. It is not perhaps a very admirable way to deal with such subjects. The whole world of tradition and the whole constitution of human nature are against you. Men have wrestled with these things for thousands of years, and they have come to certain conclusions which the experience of all time has enforced upon them. By a dash of bold imagination you may discount all that laborious past, and leave an irrevocable stain upon the purity of the mind of a generation. Doubtless you will have a following--such teachers have ever had those who followed them--and yet time is always on the side of great traditions. If enlightened thought has in any respect to change them, it changes them reverently, and knowing what their worth has been. Sooner or later all easy ignoring of them is condemned as sheer impertinence. There is singularly little reason for being impressed by this hasty, romantic, and loud-sounding crusade against Christian morality and its Ideal. In Mr. George Bernard Shaw we have a very different man. Nobody denies Mr. Shaw's cleverness, least of all Mr. Shaw himself. He is depressingly clever. He exhibits the spectacle of a man trying to address his audience while standing on his head--and succeeding. He has been singularly fortunate in his biographer, Mr. Chesterton, and one of the things that make this biography such pleasing reading is the personal element that runs through it all. The introduction is characteristic and delightful: "Most people either say that they agree with Bernard Shaw, or that they do not understand him. I am the only person who understands him, and I do not agree with him." It is not unnatural that he should take his friend a little more seriously than most of us will be prepared to do. It really is a big thing to stand on the shoulders of William Shakespeare, and we shall need time to consider it before we subscribe to the statue. For there is here an absolutely colossal egotism. There are certain newspapers which usually begin with a note of the hours of sunrise and sunset. During the recent coal strike, some of these newspapers inserted first of all a notice that they would not be sent out so early as usual, and then cheered our desponding hearts by assuring us that the sun rises at 5.37 notwithstanding--as if by permission of the newspaper. Mr. Shaw somehow gives us a similar impression. Most things in the universe seem to go on by his permission, and some of them he is not going to allow to go on much longer. He will tilt without the slightest vestige of humility against any existing institution, and the tourney is certainly one of the most entertaining and most extraordinary of our time. No one can help admiring Mr. Shaw. The dogged persistence which has carried him, unflinching, through adversity into his present fame, without a single compromise or hesitation, is, apart altogether from the question of the truth of his opinions, an admirable quality in a man. We cannot but admire his immense forcefulness and agility, the fertility of his mind, and the swiftness of its play. But we utterly refuse to fall down and worship him on account of these. Indeed the kind of awe with which he is regarded in some quarters seems to be due rather to the eccentricities of his expression than to the greatness of his message or the brilliance of his achievements. There is no question of his earnestness. The Puritan is deep in Mr. Shaw, in his very blood. He has indeed given to the term Puritan a number of unexpected meanings, and yet no one can justly question his right to it. His _Plays for Puritans_ are not exceptional in this matter, for all his work is done in the same spirit. His favourite author is John Bunyan, about whom he tells us that he claims him as the precursor of Nietzsche, and that in his estimation John Bunyan's life was one long tilt against morality and respectability. The claim is sufficiently grotesque, yet there is a sense in which he has a right to John Bunyan, and is in the same line as Thomas Carlyle. He is trying sincerely to speak the truth and get it spoken. He appears as another of the destroyers of shams, the breakers of idols. He may indeed be claimed as a pagan, and his influence will certainly preponderate in that direction; and yet there is a strain of high idealism which runs perplexingly through it all. The explanation seems to be, as Mr. Chesterton suggests, that the man is incomplete. There are certain elementary things which, if he had ever seen them as other people do, would have made many of his positions impossible. "Shaw is wrong," says Mr. Chesterton, "about nearly all the things one learns early in life while one is still simple." Among those things which he has never seen are the loyalties involved in love, country, and religion. The most familiar proof of this in regard to religion is his extraordinary tirade against the Cross of Calvary. It is one of the most amazing passages in print, so far as either taste or judgment is concerned. It is significant that in this very passage he actually refers to the "stable at Bethany," and the slip seems to indicate from what a distance he is discussing Christianity. It is possible for any of us to measure himself against the Cross and Him who hung upon it, only when we have travelled very far away from them. When we are sufficiently near, we know ourselves to be infinitesimal in comparison. Nor in regard to home, and all that sanctifies and defends it, does Mr. Shaw seem ever to have understood the real morality that is in the heart of the average man. The nauseating thing which he quotes as morality is a mere caricature of that vital sense of honour and imperative conscience of righteousness which, thank God, are still alive among us. "My dear," he says, "you are the incarnation of morality, your conscience is clear and your duty done when you have called everybody names." Similar, and no less unfortunate, is his perversion of that instinct of patriotism which, however mistaken in some of its expressions, has yet proved its moral and practical worth during many a century of British history. There is the less need to dwell upon this, because those who discard patriotism have only to state their case clearly in order to discredit it. We do not fear greatly the permanent influence of these fundamental errors. The great heart of the civilised world still beats true, and is healthy enough to disown so maimed an account of human nature. Yet there is danger in any such element in literature as this. Mr. Shaw's biographer has virtually told us that in these matters he is but a child in whom "Irish innocence is peculiar and fundamental." The pleadings of the nurse for the precocious and yet defective infant are certainly very touching. He may be the innocent creature that Mr. Chesterton takes him for, but he has said things which will exactly suit the views of libertines who read him. Such pleadings are quite unavailing to excuse any such child if he does too much innocent mischief. His puritanism and his childlikeness only make his teaching more dangerous because more piquant. It has the air of proceeding from the same source as the ten commandments, and the effect of this upon the unreflecting is always considerable. If a child is playing in a powder magazine, the more childish and innocent he is the more dangerous he will prove; and the explosion, remember, will be just as violent if lit by a child's hand as if it had been lit by an anarchist's. We have in England borne long enough with people trifling with the best intentions among explosives, moral and social, and we must consider our own safety and that of society when we are judging them. As to the relation in which Mr. Shaw stands to paganism, his relations to anything are so "extensive and peculiar" that they are always difficult to define. But the later phase of his work, which has become famous in connection with the word "Superman," is due in large part to Nietzsche, whose strange influence has reversed the Christian ideals for many disciples on both sides of the North Sea. So this idealist, who, in _Major Barbara_, protests so vigorously against paganism, has become one of its chief advocates and expositors. One of his characters somewhere says, "I wish I could get a country to live in where the facts were not brutal and the dreams were not unreal." It may be admitted that there are many brutal facts and perhaps more unreal dreams; but, for our part, that which keeps us from becoming pagans is that we have found facts that are not brutal and dreams which are the realest things in life. LECTURE IX MR. G.K. CHESTERTON'S POINT OF VIEW There is on record the case of a man who, after some fourteen years of robust health, spent a week in bed. His illness was apparently due to a violent cold, but he confessed, on medical cross-examination, that the real and underlying cause was the steady reading of Mr. Chesterton's books for several days on end. No one will accuse Mr. Chesterton of being an unhealthy writer. On the contrary, he is among the most wholesome writers now alive. He is irresistibly exhilarating, and he inspires his readers with a constant inclination to rise up and shout. Perhaps his danger lies in that very fact, and in the exhaustion of the nerves which such sustained exhilaration is apt to produce. But besides this, he, like so many of our contemporaries, has written such a bewildering quantity of literature on such an amazing variety of subjects, that it is no wonder if sometimes the reader follows panting, through the giddy mazes of the dance. He is the sworn enemy of specialisation, as he explains in his remarkable essay on "The Twelve Men." The subject of the essay is the British jury, and its thesis is that when our civilisation "wants a library to be catalogued, or a solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity." For the judging of a criminal or the propagation of the gospel, it is necessary to procure inexpert people--people who come to their task with a virgin eye, and see not what the expert (who has lost his freshness) sees, but the human facts of the case. So Mr. Chesterton insists upon not being a specialist, takes the world for his parish, and wanders over it at will. This being so, it is obvious that he cannot possibly remember all that he has said, and must necessarily abound in inconsistencies and even contradictions. Yet that is by no means always unconscious, but is due in many instances to the very complex quality and subtle habit of his mind. Were he by any chance to read this statement he would deny it fiercely, but we would repeat it with perfect calmness, knowing that he would probably have denied any other statement we might have made upon the subject. His subtlety is partly due to the extraordinary rapidity with which his mind leaps from one subject to another, partly to the fact that he is so full of ideas that many of his essays (like Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays) find it next to impossible to get themselves begun. He is so full of matter that he never seems to be able to say what he wants to say, until he has said a dozen other things first. The present lecture is mainly concerned with his central position, as that is expounded in _Heretics_ and _Orthodoxy_. Our task is not to criticise, nor even to any considerable extent to characterise his views, but to state them as accurately as we can. It is a remarkable phenomenon of our time that all our literary men are bent on giving us such elaborate and solemnising confessions of their faith. It is an age notorious for its aversion to dogma, and yet here we have Mr. Huxley, Mr. Le Gallienne, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Wells (to mention only a few of many), who in this creedless age proclaim in the market-place, each his own private and brand-new creed. Yet Mr. Chesterton has perhaps a special right to such a proclamation. He believes in creeds vehemently. And, besides, the spiritual biography of a man whose mental development has been so independent and so interesting as his, must be well worth knowing. Amid the many weird theologies of our time we have met with nothing so startling, so arresting, and so suggestive since Mr. Mallock published his _New Republic_ and his _Contemporary Superstitions_. There is something common to the two points of view. To some, they come as emancipating and most welcome reinforcements, relieving the beleaguered citadel of faith. But others, who differ widely from them both, may yet find in them so much to stimulate thought and to rehabilitate strongholds held precariously, as to awaken both appreciation and gratitude. Mr. Chesterton's political opinions do not concern us here. It is a curious fact, of which innumerable illustrations may be found in past and present writers, that political radicalism so often goes along with conservative theology, and _vice versa_. Mr. Chesterton is no exception to the rule. His orthodoxy in matters of faith we shall find to be altogether above suspicion. His radicalism in politics is never long silent. He openly proclaims himself at war with Carlyle's favourite dogma, "The tools to him who can use them." "The worst form of slavery," he tells us, "is that which is called Cæsarism, or the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because he is suitable. For that means that men choose a representative, not because he represents them but because he does not." And if it be answered that the worst form of cruelty to a nation or to an individual is that abuse of the principle of equality which is for ever putting incompetent people into false positions, he has his reply ready: "The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle--the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen." But this, and much else of its kind, although he works it into his general scheme of thinking, is not in any sense an essential part of that scheme. Our subject is his place in the conflict between the paganism and the idealism of the times, and it is a sufficiently large one. But before we come to that, we must consider another matter, which we shall find to be intimately connected with it. That other matter is his habit of paradox, which is familiar to all his readers. It is a habit of style, but before it became that it was necessarily first a habit of mind, deeply ingrained. He disclaims it so often that we cannot but feel that he protesteth too much. He acknowledges it, and explains that "paradox simply means a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief." Whether the explanation is or is not perfectly intelligible, it must occur to every one that a writer who finds it necessary to give so remarkable an explanation can hardly be justified in his astonishment when people of merely average intelligence confess themselves puzzled. His aversion to Walter Pater--almost the only writer whom he appears consistently to treat with disrespect--is largely due to Pater's laborious simplicity of style. But it was a greater than either Walter Pater or Mr. Chesterton who first pointed out that the language which appealed to the understanding of the common man was also that which expressed the highest culture. Mr. Chesterton's habit of paradox will always obscure his meanings for the common man. He has a vast amount to tell him, but much of it he will never understand. Paradox, when it has become a habit, is always dangerous. Introduced on rare and fitting occasions, it may be powerful and even convincing, but when it is repeated constantly and upon all sorts of subjects, we cannot but dispute its right and question its validity. Its effect is not conviction but vertigo. It is like trying to live in a house constructed so as to be continually turning upside down. After a certain time, during which terror and dizziness alternate, the most indulgent reader is apt to turn round upon the builder of such a house with some asperity. And, after all, the general judgment may be right and Mr. Chesterton wrong. Upon analysis, his paradox reveals as its chief and most essential element a certain habit of mind which always tends to see and appreciate the reverse of accepted opinions. So much is this the case that it is possible in many instances to anticipate what he will say upon a subject. It is on record that one reader, coming to his chapter on Omar Khayyám, said to himself, "Now he will be saying that Omar is not drunk enough"; and he went on to read, "It is not poetical drinking, which is joyous and instinctive; it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as an investment, as unsavoury as a dose of camomile." Similarly we are told that Browning is only felt to be obscure because he is too pellucid. Such apparent contradictoriness is everywhere in his work, but along with it goes a curious ingenuity and nimbleness of mind. He cannot think about anything without remembering something else, apparently out of all possible connection with it, and instantly discovering some clever idea, the introduction of which will bring the two together. Christianity "is not a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for a shot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern of the cross." In all this there are certain familiar mechanisms which constitute almost a routine of manipulation for the manufacture of paradoxes. One such mechanical process is the play with the derivatives of words. Thus he reminds us that the journalist is, in the literal and derivative sense, a _journalist_, while the missionary is an eternalist. Similarly "lunatic," "evolution," "progress," "reform," are etymologically tortured into the utterance of the most forcible and surprising truths. This curious word-play was a favourite method with Ruskin; and it has the disadvantage in Mr. Chesterton which it had in the earlier critic. It appears too clever to be really sound, although it must be confessed that it frequently has the power of startling us into thoughts that are valuable and suggestive. Another equally simple process is that of simply reversing sentences and ideas. "A good bush needs no wine." "Shakespeare (in a weak moment, I think) said that all the world is a stage. But Shakespeare acted on the much finer principle that a stage is all the world." Perhaps the most brilliant example that could be quoted is the plea for the combination of gentleness and ferocity in Christian character. When the lion lies down with the lamb, it is constantly assumed that the lion becomes lamblike. "But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion, instead of the lion eating the lamb." By this process it is possible to attain results which are extraordinarily brilliant in themselves and fruitful in suggestion. It is a process not difficult to learn, but the trouble is that you have to live up to it afterwards, and defend many curious propositions which may have been arrived at by its so simple means. Take, for instance, the sentence about the stage being all the world. That is undeniably clever, and it contains an idea. But it is a haphazard idea, arrived at by a short-cut, and not by the high road of reasonable thinking. Sometimes a truth may be reached by such a short-cut, but such paradoxes are occasionally no better than chartered errors. Yet even when they are that, it may be said in their favour that they startle us into thought. And truly Mr. Chesterton is invaluable as a quickener and stimulator of the minds of his readers. Moreover, by adopting the method of paradox, he has undoubtedly done one remarkable thing. He has proved what an astonishing number of paradoxical surprises there actually are, lying hidden beneath the apparent commonplace of the world. Every really clever paradox astonishes us not merely with the sense of the cleverness of him who utters it, but with the sense of how many strange coincidences exist around us, and how many sentences, when turned outside in, will yield new and startling truths. However much we may suspect that the performance we are watching is too clever to be trustworthy, yet after all the world does appear to lend itself to such treatment. There is, for example, the paradox of the love of the world--"Somehow one must love the world without being worldly." Again, "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die." The martyr differs from the suicide in that he cherishes a disdain of death, while the motive of the suicide is a disdain of life. Charity, too, is a paradox, for it means "one of two things--pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people." Similarly Christian humility has a background of unheard-of arrogance, and Christian liberty is possible only to the most abject bondsmen in the world. This long consideration of Mr. Chesterton's use of paradox is more relevant to our present subject than it may seem. For, curiously enough, the habit of paradox has been his way of entrance into faith. At the age of sixteen he was a complete agnostic, and it was the reading of Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh which brought him back to orthodox theology. For, as he read, he found that Christianity was attacked on all sides, and for all manner of contradictory reasons; and this discovery led him to the conviction that Christianity must be a very extraordinary thing, abounding in paradox. But he had already discovered the abundant element of paradox in life; and when he analysed the two sets of paradoxes he found them to be precisely the same. So he became a Christian. It may seem a curious way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who are accustomed to regard the strait gate as of Gothic architecture may be shocked to find a man professing to have entered through this Alhambra-like portal. But it is a lesson we all have to learn sooner or later, that there are at least eleven gates besides our own, and that every man has to enter by that which he finds available. Paradox is the only gate by which Mr. Chesterton could get into any place, and the Kingdom of Heaven is no exception to the rule. His account of this entrance is characteristic. It is given in the first chapter of his _Orthodoxy_. There was an English yachtsman who set out upon a voyage, miscalculated his course, and discovered what he thought to be a new island in the South Seas. It transpired afterwards that he had run up his flag on the pavilion of Brighton, and that he had discovered England. That yachtsman is Mr. Chesterton himself. Sailing the great sea of moral and spiritual speculation, he discovered a land of facts and convictions to which his own experience had guided him. On that strange land he ran up his flag, only to make the further and more astonishing discovery that it was the Christian faith at which he had arrived. Nietzsche had preached to him, as to Mr. Bernard Shaw, his great precept, "Follow your own will." But when Mr. Chesterton obeyed he arrived, not at Superman, but at the ordinary old-fashioned morality. That, he found, is what we like best in our deepest hearts, and desire most. So he too "discovered England." He begins, like Margaret Fuller, with the fundamental principle of accepting the universe. The thing we know best and most directly is human nature in all its breadth. It is indeed the one thing immediately known and knowable. Like R.L. Stevenson, he perceives how tragically and comically astonishing a phenomenon is man. "What a monstrous spectre is this man," says Stevenson, "the disease of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown upon with hair like grass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter in his face; a thing to set children screaming;--and yet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows know him, how surprising are his attributes!" In like manner Mr. Chesterton discovers man--that appalling mass of paradox and contradiction--and it is the supreme discovery in any spiritual search. Having discovered the fundamental fact of human nature, he at once gives in his allegiance to it. "Our attitude towards life can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than in terms of criticism and approval. My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is, the less we should leave it." There is a splendid courage and heartiness in his complete acceptance of life and the universe. In a time when clever people are so busy criticising life that they are in danger of forgetting that they have to live it, so busy selecting such parts of it as suit their taste that they ignore the fact that the other parts are there, he ignores nothing and wisely accepts instead of criticising. Mr. Bernard Shaw, as we have seen, will consent to tolerate the universe _minus_ the three loyalties to the family, the nation, and God. Mr. Chesterton has no respect whatever for any such mutilated scheme of human life. His view of the institution of the family is full of wholesome common sense. He perceives the immense difficulties that beset all family life, and he accepts them with immediate and unflinching loyalty, as essential parts of our human task. His views on patriotism belong to the region of politics and do not concern us here. In regard to religion, he finds the modern school amalgamating everything in characterless masses of generalities. They deny the reality of sin, and in matters of faith generally they have put every question out of focus until the whole picture is blurred and vague. He attacks this way of dealing with religion in one of his most amusing essays, "The Orthodox Barber." The barber has been sarcastic about the new shaving--presumably in reference to M. Gillett's excellent invention. "'It seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone or a pole or a poker' (here I began for the first time to detect a sarcastic intonation) 'or a shovel or a----' Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. 'Or a button-hook,' I said, 'or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a piston-rod----' He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, 'Or a curtain-rod or a candlestick or a----' 'Cow-catcher,' I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. 'The funny part of it is,' he said, 'that the thing isn't new at all. It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before.'" Mr. Chesterton rejoins in a long and eloquent and most amusing sermon, the following extracts from which are not without far-reaching significance. "'What you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, with such evident experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not really new. My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing it shifts on to another.... It would be nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. It would be nicer still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, Brother, nor you nor I have made the world. Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure.... But every now and then men jump up with the new something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man.... I have been profoundly interested in what you have told me about the New Shaving. Have you ever heard of a thing called the New Theology?' He smiled and said that he had not." In contrast with all this, it is Mr. Chesterton's conviction that the facts must be unflinchingly and in their entirety accepted. With characteristic courage he goes straight to the root of the matter and begins with the fact of sin. "If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat." It is as if he said, Here you have direct and unmistakable experience. A man knows his sin as he knows himself. He may explain it in either one way or another way. He may interpret the universe accordingly in terms either of heaven or of hell. But the one unreasonable and impossible thing to do is to deny the experience itself. It is thus that he treats the question of faith all along the line. If you are going to be a Christian, or even fairly to judge Christianity, you must accept the whole of Christ's teaching, with all its contradictions, paradoxes, and the rest. Some men select his charity, others his social teaching, others his moral relentlessness, and so on, and reject all else. Each one of these aspects of the Christian faith is doubtless very interesting, but none of them by itself is an adequate representation of Christ. "They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, labelled egoism and altruism, and they are equally puzzled by His insane magnificence and His insane meekness. They have parted His garments among them, and for His vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout." The characteristic word for Mr. Chesterton and his attitude to life is _vitality_. He has been seeking for human nature, and he has found it at last in Christian idealism. But having found it, he will allow no compromise in its acceptance. It is life he wants, in such wholeness as to embrace every element of human nature. And he finds that Christianity has quickened and intensified life all along the line. It is the great source of vitality, come that men might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He finds an essential joy and riot in creation, a "tense and secret festivity." And Christianity corresponds to that riot. "The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild." It has let loose the wandering, masterless, dangerous virtues, and has insisted that not one or another of them shall run wild, but all of them together. The ideal of wholeness which Matthew Arnold so eloquently advocated, is not a dead mass of theories, but a world of living things. Christ will put a check on none of the really genuine elements in human nature. In Him there is no compromise. His love and His wrath are both burning. All the separate elements of human nature are in full flame, and it is the only ultimate way of peace and safety. The various colours of life must not be mixed but kept distinct. The red and white of passion and purity must not be blended into the insipid pink of a compromising and consistent respectability. They must be kept strong and separate, as in the blazing Cross of St. George on its shield of white. Chaucer's "Daisy" is one of the greatest conceptions in all poetry. It has stood for centuries as the emblem of pure and priceless womanhood, with its petals of snowy white and its heart of gold. Mr. Chesterton once made a discovery that sent him wild with joy-- "Then waxed I like the wind because of this, And ran like gospel and apocalypse From door to door, with wild, anarchic lips, Crying the very blasphemy of bliss." The discovery was that "the Daisy has a ring of red." Purity is not the enemy of passion; nor must passion and purity be so toned down and blent with one another, as to give a neutral result. Both must remain, and both in full brilliance, the virgin white and the passionate blood-red ring. In the present age of reason, the cry is all for tolerance, and for redefinition which will remove sharp contrasts and prove that everything means the same as everything else. In such an age a doctrine like this seems to have a certain barbaric splendour about it, as of a crusader risen from the dead. But Mr. Chesterton is not afraid of the consequences of his opinions. If rationalism opposes his presentation of Christianity, he will ride full tilt against reason. In recent years, from the time of Newman until now, there has been a recurring habit of discounting reason in favour of some other way of approach to truth and life. Certainly Mr. Chesterton's attack on reason is as interesting as any that have gone before it, and it is even more direct. Even on such a question as the problem of poverty he frankly prefers imagination to study. In art he demands instinctiveness, and has a profound suspicion of anybody who is conscious of possessing the artistic temperament. As a guide to truth he always would follow poetry in preference to logic. He is never tired of attacking rationality, and for him anything which is rationalised is destroyed in the process. In one of his most provokingly unanswerable sallies, he insists that the true home of reason is the madhouse. "The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason." When we say that a man is mad, we do not mean that he is unable to conduct a logical argument. On the contrary, any one who knows madmen knows that they are usually most acute and ingeniously consistent in argument. They isolate some one fixed idea, and round that they build up a world that is fiercely and tremendously complete. Every detail fits in, and the world in which they live is not, as is commonly supposed, a world of disconnected and fantastic imaginations, but one of iron-bound and remorseless logic. No task is more humiliating, nor more likely to shake one's sense of security in fundamental convictions, than that of arguing out a thesis with a lunatic. Further, beneath this rationality there is in the madman a profound belief in himself. Most of us regard with respect those who trust their own judgment more than we find ourselves able to trust ours. But not the most confident of them all can equal the unswerving confidence of a madman. Sane people never wholly believe in themselves. They are liable to be influenced by the opinion of others, and are willing to yield to the consensus of opinion of past or present thinkers. The lunatic cares nothing for the views of others. He believes in himself against the world, with a terrific grip of conviction and a faith that nothing can shake. Mr. Chesterton applies his attack upon rationality to many subjects, with singular ingenuity. In the question of marriage and divorce, for instance, the modern school which would break loose from the ancient bonds can present their case with an apparently unassailable show of rationality. But his reply to them and to all other rationalists is that life is not rational and consistent but paradoxical and contradictory. To make life rational you have to leave out so many elements as to make it shrink from a big world to a little one, which may be complete, but can never be much of a world. Its conception of God may be a complete conception, but its God is not much of a God. But the world of human nature is a vast world, and the God of Christianity is an Infinite God. The huge mysteries of life and death, of love and sacrifice, of the wine of Cana and the Cross of Calvary--these outwit all logic and pass all understanding. So for sane men there comes in a higher authority. You may call it common sense, or mysticism, or faith, as you please. It is the extra element by virtue of which all sane thinking and all religious life are rendered possible. It is the secret spring of vitality alike in human nature and in Christian faith. At this point it may be permissible to question Mr. Chesterton's use of words in one important point. He appears to fall into the old error of confounding reason with reasoning. Reason is one thing and argument another. It may be impossible to express either human nature or religious faith in a series of syllogistic arguments, and yet both may be reasonable in a higher sense. Reason includes those extra elements to which Mr. Chesterton trusts. It is the synthesis of our whole powers of finding truth. Many things which cannot be proved by reasoning may yet be given in reason--involved in any reasonable view of things as a whole. Thus faith includes reason--it _is_ reason on a larger scale--and it is the only reasonable course for a man to take in a world of mysterious experience. If the matter were stated in that way, Mr. Chesterton would probably assent to it. Put crudely, the fashion of pitting faith against reason and discarding reason in favour of faith, is simply sawing off the branch on which you are sitting. The result is that you must fall to the ground at the feet of the sceptic, who asks, "How can you believe that which you have confessed there is no reason to believe?" We have abundant reason for our belief, and that reason includes those higher intuitions, that practical common sense, and that view of things as a whole, which the argument of the mere logician necessarily ignores. With this reservation,[6] Mr. Chesterton's position in regard to faith is absolutely unassailable. He is the most vital of our modern idealists, and his peculiar way of thinking himself into his idealism has given to the term a richer and more spacious meaning, which combines excellently the Greek and the Hebrew elements. His great ideal is that of manhood. Be a man, he cries aloud, not an artist, not a reasoner, not any other kind or detail of humanity, but be a man. But then that means, Be a creature whose life swings far out beyond this world and its affairs--swings dangerously between heaven and hell. Eternity is in the heart of every man. The fashionable modern gospel of Pragmatism is telling us to-day that we should not vex ourselves about the ultimate truth of theories, but inquire only as to their value for life here and now, and the practical needs which they serve. But the most practical of all man's needs is his need of some contact with a higher world than that of sense. "To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man." In the scale of differences between important and unimportant earthly things, it is the spiritual and not the material that counts. "An ignorance of the other world is boasted by many men of science; but in this matter their defect arises, not from ignorance of the other world, but from ignorance of this world." "The moment any matter has passed through the human mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes of science. It has become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite; this mortal has put on immortality." Here we begin to see the immense value of paradox in the matter of faith. Mr. Chesterton is an optimist, not because he fits into this world, but because he does not fit into it. Pagan optimism is content with the world, and subsists entirely in virtue of its power to fit into it and find it sufficient. This is that optimism of which Browning speaks with scorn-- "Tame in earth's paddock as her prize," and which he repudiates in the famous lines, "Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!" Mr. Chesterton insists that beyond the things which surround us here on the earth there are other things which claim us from beyond. The higher instincts which discover these are not tools to be used for making the most of earthly treasures, but sacred relics to be guarded. He is an idealist who has been out beyond the world. There he has found a whole universe of mysterious but commanding facts, and has discovered that these and these alone can satisfy human nature. The question must, however, arise, as to the validity of those spiritual claims. How can we be sure that the ideals which claim us from beyond are realities, and not mere dream shapes? There is no answer but this, that if we question the validity of our own convictions and the reality of our most pressing needs, we have simply committed spiritual suicide, and arrived prematurely at the end of all things. With the habit of questioning ultimate convictions Mr. Chesterton has little patience. Modesty, he tells us, has settled in the wrong place. We believe in ourselves and we doubt the truth that is in us. But we ourselves, the crude reality which we actually are, are altogether unreliable; while the vision is always trustworthy. We are for ever changing the vision to suit the world as we find it, whereas we ought to be changing the world to bring it into conformity with the unchanging vision. The very essence of orthodoxy is a profound and reverent conviction of ideals that cannot be changed--ideals which were the first, and shall be the last. If Mr. Chesterton often strains his readers' powers of attention by rapid and surprising movements among very difficult themes, he certainly has charming ways of relieving the strain. The favourite among all such methods is his reversion to the subject of fairy tales. In "The Dragon's Grandmother" he introduces us to the arch-sceptic who did not believe in them--that fresh-coloured and short-sighted young man who had a curious green tie and a very long neck. It happened that this young man had called on him just when he had flung aside in disgust a heap of the usual modern problem-novels, and fallen back with vehement contentment on _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. "When he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy tales, I broke out beyond control. 'Man,' I said, 'who are you that you should not believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there are green ties which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million fairy tales than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories as if they were thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of my heart that there can be such a man as you; that you are not some temptation of the devil or some delusion from the void.'" The reason for this unexpected outbreak is a very deep one. "Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tale the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos." In other words, the ideals, the ultimate convictions, are the trustworthy things; the actual experience of life is often matter not for distrust only but for scorn and contempt. And this philosophy Mr. Chesterton learned in the nursery, from that "solemn and star-appointed priestess," his nurse. The fairy tale, and not the problem-novel, is the true presentment of human nature and of life. For, in the first place it preserves in man the faculty most essential to human nature--the faculty of wonder, without which no man can live. To regain that faculty is to be born again, out of a false world into a true. The constant repetition of the laws of Nature blunts our spirits to the amazing character of every detail which she reproduces. To catch again the wonder of common things-- "the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower" --is to pass from darkness into light, from falsehood to truth. "All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption: a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead: a piece of clockwork." But that is mere blindness to the mystery and surprise of everything that goes to make up actual human experience. "The repetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, like that of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again. The grass seemed signalling to me with all its fingers at once; the crowded stars seemed bent on being understood. The sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times." That is one fact, which fairy tales emphasise--the constant demand for wonder in the world, and the appropriateness and rightness of the wondering attitude of mind, as man passes through his lifelong gallery of celestial visions. The second fact is that all such vision is conditional, and "hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing which is forbidden." This is the very note of fairyland. "You may live in a palace of gold and sapphire, _if_ you do not say the word 'cow'; or you may live happily with the King's daughter, _if_ you do not show her an onion." The conditions may seem arbitrary, but that is not the point. The point is that there always _are_ conditions. The parallel with human life is obvious. Many people in the modern world are eagerly bent on having the reward without fulfilling the condition, but life is not made that way. The whole problem of marriage is a case in point. Its conditions are rigorous, and people on all sides are trying to relax them or to do away with them. Similarly, all along the line, modern society is seeking to live in a freedom which is in the nature of things incompatible with the enjoyment or the prosperity of the human spirit. There is an _if_ in everything. Life is like that, and we cannot alter it. Quarrel with the seemingly arbitrary or unreasonable condition, and the whole fairy palace vanishes. "Life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane." From all this it is but a step to the consideration of dogma and the orthodox Christian creed. Mr. Chesterton is at war to the knife with vague modernism in all its forms. The eternal verities which produce great convictions are incomparably the most important things for human nature. No "inner light" will serve man's turn, but some outer light, and that only and always. "Christianity came into the world, firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain." This again is human nature. No man can live his life out fully without being mastered by convictions that he cannot challenge, and for whose origin he is not responsible. The most essentially human thing is the sense that these, the supreme conditions of life, are not of man's own arranging, but have been and are imposed upon him. At almost every point this system may be disputed. Mr. Chesterton, who never shrinks from pressing his theories to their utmost length, scoffs at the modern habit of "saying that such-and-such a creed can be held in one age, but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four." That is precisely what many of us do say. Our powers of dogmatising vary to some extent with our moods, and to a still greater extent with the reception of new light. There are many days on which the dogmas of early morning are impossible and even absurd when considered in the light of evening. But it is not our task to criticise Mr. Chesterton's faith nor his way of dealing with it. Were we to do so, most of us would probably strike a balance. We would find many of his views and statements unconvincing; and yet we would acknowledge that they had the power of forcing the mind to see fresh truth upon which the will must act decisively. The main point in his orthodoxy is unquestionably a most valuable contribution to the general faith of his time and country. That point is the adventure which he narrates under the similitude of the voyage that ended in the discovery of England. He set out to find the empirical truth of human nature and the meaning of human life, as these are to be explored in experience. When he found them, it was infinitely surprising to him to become aware that the system in which his faith had come at last to rest was just Christianity--the only system which could offer any adequate and indeed exact account of human nature. The articles of its creed he recognised as the points of conviction which are absolutely necessary to the understanding of human nature and to the living of human life. Thus it comes to pass that in the midst of a time resounding with pagan voices old and new, he stands for an unflinching idealism. It is the mark of pagans that they are children of Nature, boasting that Nature is their mother: they are solemnised by that still and unresponsive maternity, or driven into rebellion by discovering that the so-called mother is but a harsh stepmother after all. Mr. Chesterton loves Nature, because Christianity has revealed to him that she is but his sister, child of the same Father. "We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate." It follows that two worlds are his, as is the case with all true idealists. The modern reversion to paganism is founded on the fundamental error that Christianity is alien to Nature, setting up against her freedom the repellent ideal of asceticism, and frowning upon her beauty with the scowl of the harsh moralist. For Mr. Chesterton the bleakness is all on the side of the pagans, and the beauty with the idealists. They do not look askance at the green earth at all. They gaze upon it with steady eyes, until they are actually looking through it, and discovering the radiance of heaven there, and the sublime brightness of the Eternal Life. The pagan virtues, such as justice and temperance, are painfully reasonable and often sad. The Christian virtues are faith, hope, and charity--each more unreasonable than the last, from the point of view of mere mundane common sense; but they are gay as childhood, and hold the secret of perennial youth and unfading beauty, in a world which upon any other terms than these is hastening to decay. LECTURE X THE HOUND OF HEAVEN In bringing to a close these studies of the long battle between paganism and idealism,--between the life which is lived under the attraction of this world and which seeks its satisfaction there, and that wistful life of the spirit which has far thoughts and cannot settle down to the green and homely earth,--it is natural that we should look for some literary work which will describe the decisive issue of the whole conflict. Such a work is Francis Thompson's _Hound of Heaven_, which is certainly one of the most remarkable poems that have been published in England for many years. To estimate its full significance it is necessary in a few words to recapitulate the course of thought which has been followed in the preceding chapters. We began with the ancient Greeks, and distinguished the high idealism of their religious conceptions from the paganism into which these declined. The sense of the sacredness of beauty, forced upon the Greek spirit by the earth itself, was a high idealism, without which no conception of life or of the universe can be anything but a maimed and incomplete expression of their meaning. Yet, for lack of some sufficiently powerful element of restraint and some sufficiently daring faith in spiritual reality, Hellenism sank back upon the mere earth, and its dying fires lit up a world too sordid for their sacred flame. In _Marius the Epicurean_ the one thing lacking was supplied by the faith of early Christianity. The Greek idealism of beauty was not only conserved but enriched, and the human spirit was revived, by that heroic faith which endured as seeing the invisible. The two _Fausts_ revealed the struggle at later stages of the development of Christianity. Marlowe's showed it under the light of mediæval theology and Goethe's under that of modern humanism, with the curious result that in the former tragedy the man is the pagan and the devil the idealist, while in the latter this order is reversed. Omar Khayyám and Fiona Macleod introduce the Oriental and the Celtic strains. In both there is the cry of the senses and the strong desire and allurement of the green earth; but in Fiona Macleod there is the dominant undertone of the eternal and the spiritual, never silent and finally overwhelming. The next two lectures, in a cross-section of the seventeenth century, showed John Bunyan keenly alive to the literature and the life of the world of Charles the Second's time, yet burning straight flame of spiritual idealism with these for fuel. Over against him stood Samuel Pepys, lusty and most amusing, declaring in every page of his _Diary_ the lengths to which unblushing paganism can go. Representative of modern literature, Carlyle comes first with his _Sartor Resartus_. At the ominous and uncertain beginning of our modern thought he stood, blowing loud upon his iron trumpet a great blast of harsh but grand idealism, before which the walls of the pagan Jericho fell down in many places. Yet such an inspiring challenge as his was bound to produce _reactions_, and we have them in many forms. Matthew Arnold presses upon his time, in clear and unimpassioned voice, the claim of neglected Hellenism. Rossetti, with heavy, half-closed eyes, hardly distinguishes the body from the soul. Mr. Thomas Hardy, the Titan of the modern world, whose heart is sore with disillusion and the bitterness of the earth, and yet blind to the light of heaven that still shines upon it, has lived into the generation which is reading Mr. Wells and Mr. Shaw. These appear to be outside of all such distinctions as pagan and idealist; but their influence is strongly on the pagan side. Mr. Chesterton appears, with his quest of human nature, and he finds it not on earth but in heaven. He is the David of Christian faith, come to fight against the heretic Goliaths of his day; and, so far as his style and literary manner go, he continues the ancient rôle, smiting Goliath with his own sword. Francis Thompson's _Hound of Heaven_ is for many reasons a fitting close and climax to these studies. He is as much akin to Shelley and Swinburne as Mr. Chesterton is akin to Mr. Bernard Shaw. From them he has gathered not a little of his style and diction. He is with them, too, in his passionate love of beauty, without which no idealist can possibly be a fair judge of paganism. "With many," he tells us in that _Essay on Shelley_ which Mr. Wyndham pronounces the most important contribution to English letters during the last twenty years--"with many the religion of beauty must always be a passion and a power, and it is only evil when divorced from the worship of the Primal Beauty." In this confession we are brought back to the point where we began. The gods of Greece were ideals of earthly beauty, and by them, while their worship remained spiritual, men were exalted far above paganism. And now, as we are drawing to a close, it is fitting that we should again remind ourselves that religious idealism must recover "the Christ beautiful," if it is to retain its hold upon humanity. In this respect, religion has greatly and disastrously failed, and he who can redeem that failure for us will indeed be a benefactor to his race. Religion should lead us not merely to inquire in God's holy place, but to behold the beauty of the Lord; and to behold it in all places of the earth until they become holy places for us. Christ, the Man of Sorrows, has taught the world that wild joy of which Mr. Chesterton speaks such exciting things. It remains for Thompson to remind us that he whose visage was more marred than any man yet holds that secret of surpassing beauty after which the poets' hearts are seeking so wistfully. Besides all this, we shall find here something which has not as yet been hinted at in our long quest. The sound of the age-long battle dies away. Here is a man who does not fight for any flag, but simply tells us the mysterious story of his own soul and ours. It is a quiet and a fitting close for our long tale of excursions and alarums. But into the quiet ending there enters a very wonderful and exciting new element. We have been watching successive men following after the ideal, which, like some receding star, travelled before its pilgrims through the night. Here the ideal is no longer passive, a thing to be pursued. It halts for its pilgrims--"the star which chose to stoop and stay for us." Nay, more, it turns upon them and pursues them. The ideal is alive and aware--a real and living force among the great forces of the universe. It is out after men, and in this great poem we are to watch it hunting a soul down. The whole process of idealism is now suddenly reversed, and the would-be captors of celestial beauty are become its captives. As has been already stated, we must be in sympathetic understanding with the pagan heart in order to be of any account as advocates of idealism. No reader of Thompson's poetry can doubt for a moment his fitness here. From the days of Pindar there has been a brilliant succession of singers and worshippers of the sun, culminating in the matchless song of Shelley. In Francis Thompson's poems of the sun, the succession is taken up again in a fashion which is not unworthy of the splendours of paganism at its very highest. "And the sun comes with power amid the clouds of heaven, Before his way Went forth the trumpet of the March Before his way, before his way, Dances the pennon of the May! O Earth, unchilded, widowed Earth, so long Lifting in patient pine and ivy-tree Mournful belief and steadfast prophecy, Behold how all things are made true! Behold your bridegroom cometh in to you Exceeding glad and strong!" The great song takes us back to the days of Mithra and the _sol invictus_ of Aurelian. That outburst of sunshine in the evening of the Roman Empire, rekindling the fires of Apollo's ancient altars for men who loved the sunshine and felt the wonder of it, is repeated with almost added glory in Thompson's marvellous poems. Yet for Francis Thompson all this glory of the sun is but a symbol. The world where his spirit dwells is beyond the sun, and in nature it displays itself to man but brokenly. In the bloody fires of sunset, in the exquisite white artistry of the snow-flake, this supernatural world is but showing us a few of its miracles, by which the miracles of Christian faith are daily and hourly matched for sheer wonder and beauty. The idealist claims as his inheritance all those things in which the pagan finds his gods, and views them as the revelations of the Master Spirit. It is difficult to write about Thompson's poetry without writing mainly about himself. In _The Hound of Heaven_, as in much else that he has written, there is abundance of his own experience, and indeed his poems often remind us of the sorrows of Teufelsdröckh. That, however, is not the purpose of this lecture; and, beyond a few notes of a general kind, we shall leave him to reveal himself. Except for Mr. Meynell's illuminative and all too short introduction to his volume of _Thompson's Selected Poems_, there are as yet only scattered articles in magazines to tell his strange and most pathetic story. His writings are few, comprising three short books of poetry, his prose _Essay on Shelley_, and a _Life of St. Ignatius_, which is full of interest and almost overloaded with information, but which may be discounted from the list of his permanent contributions to literature or to thought. Yet that small output is enough to establish him among the supreme poets of our land. Apart from its poetic power and spiritual vision, his was an acute and vivid mind. On things political and social he could express himself in little casual flashes whose shrewd and trenchant incisiveness challenge comparison with Mr. Chesterton's own asides. His acquaintance with science seems to have been extensive, and at times he surprises us with allusions and metaphors of an unusually technical kind, which he somehow renders intelligible even to the non-scientific reader. These are doubly illuminative, casting spiritual light on the material world, and strengthening with material fact the tenuous thoughts of the spiritual. The words which he used of Shelley are, in this respect, applicable to himself. "To Shelley's ethereal vision the most rarefied mental or spiritual music traced its beautiful corresponding forms on the sand of outward things." His style and choice of words are an achievement in themselves, as distinctive as those of Thomas Carlyle. They, and the attitude of mind with which they are congruous, have already set a fashion in our poetry, and some of its results are excellent. In _Rose and Vine_, and in other poems of Mrs. Rachel Annand Taylor, we have the same blend of power and beauty, the same wildness in the use of words, and the same languor and strangeness as if we had entered some foreign and wonderfully coloured world. In _Ignatius_ the style and diction are quite simple, ordinary, and straightforward, but that biography is decidedly the least effective of his works. It would seem that here as elsewhere among really great writings the style is the natural and necessary expression of the individual mind and imagination. The _Life of Shelley_, which is certainly one of the masterpieces of English prose, has found for its expression a style quite unique and distinctive, in which there are constant reminders of other stylists, yet no imitation of any. The poetry is drugged, and as we read his poems through in the order of their publication, we feel the power of the poppy more and more. At last the hand seems to lose its power and the will its control, though in flashes of sheer flame the imagination shows wild and beautiful as ever. His gorgeousness is beyond that of the Orient. The eccentric and arresting words that constantly amaze the ear, bring with them a sense of things occult yet dazzling, as if we were assisting at some mystic rite, in a ritual which demanded language choice and strange. Something of this may be due to narcotics, and to the depressing tragedy of his life. More of it is due to Shelley, Keats, and Swinburne. But these do not explain the style, nor the thoughts which clothed themselves in it. Both style and thoughts are native to the man. What he borrows he first makes his own, and thus establishes his right to borrow--a right very rarely to be conceded. Much that he has learned from Shelley he passes on to his readers, but before they receive it, it has become, not Shelley's, but Francis Thompson's. To stick a lotos-flower in our buttonhole--harris-cloth or broadcloth, it does not matter--is an impertinent folly that makes a guy of the wearer. But this man's raiment is his own, not that of other men, and Shelley himself would willingly have put his own flowers there. Those who stumble at the prodigality and licence of his style, and the unchartered daring of his imagination, will find a most curious and brilliant discussion of the whole subject in his _Essay on Shelley_, which may be summed up in the injunction that "in poetry, as in the Kingdom of God, we should not take thought too greatly wherewith we shall be clothed, but seek first--seek _first_, not seek _only_--the spirit, and all these things will be added unto us." He discusses his own style with an unexpected frankness. His view of the use of imagination is expressed in the suggestive and extraordinary words--"To sport with the tangles of Neæra's hair may be trivial idleness or caressing tenderness, exactly as your relation to Neræa is that of heartless gallantry or of love. So you may toy with imagery in mere intellectual ingenuity, and then you might as well go write acrostics; or you may toy with it in raptures, and then you may write a _Sensitive Plant_." If a man is passionate, and passion is choosing her own language in his work, he may be forgiven much. If he chooses strange words deliberately and in cold blood, there is no reason why we should forgive him anything. So much has been necessary as an introduction, but our subject is neither the man Francis Thompson nor his poetry in general, but the one poem which is at once the most characteristic expression of his personality and of his poetic genius. _The Hound of Heaven_ has for its idea the chase of man by the celestial huntsman. God is out after the soul, pursuing it up and down the universe. God,--but God incarnate in Jesus Christ, whose love and death are here the embodiment and revelation of the whole ideal world. The hunted one flees, as men so constantly flee from the Highest, and seeks refuge in every possible form of earthly experience--at least in every clean and noble form, for there is nothing suggestive of low covert or the mire. It is simply the second-best as a refuge from the best that is depicted here--the earth at its pagan finest, in whose charm or homeliness the soul would fain hide itself from the spiritual pursuit. And the Great Huntsman is remorseless in his determination to win the soul for the very best of all. The soul longs for beauty, for interest, for comfort; and in the beautiful, various, comfortable life of the earth she finds them. The inner voice still tells of a nobler heritage; but she understands and loves these earthly things, and would fain linger among them, shy of the further flight. The whole conception of the poem is the counterpart of Browning's _Easter Day_, where the soul chooses and is allowed to choose the same regions of the lesser good and beauty for its home. In that poem the soul is permitted to devote itself for ever to the finest things that earth can give--life, literature, scientific knowledge, love. The permission sends it wild with joy, and having chosen, it settles down for ever to the earth-bound life. But eternity is too long for the earth and all that is upon it. It wears time out, and all the desire of our mortality ages and grows weary. The spirit, made for immortal thoughts and loves and life, finds itself the ghastly prisoner of that which is inevitably decaying; but its immortality postpones the decent and appropriate end to an eternal mockery and doom. At last, in the tremendous close, it wakens to the unspeakable blessedness of _not_ being satisfied with anything that earth can give, and so proves itself adequate for its own inheritance of immortality. In Thompson's poem the soul is never allowed, even in dream, to rest in lower things until satiety brings disillusion. The higher destiny is swift at her heels; and ever, just as she would nestle in some new covert, she is torn from it by the imperious Best of All that claims her for its own. There is no obvious sequence of the phases of the poem, nor any logical order connecting them into a unity of experience. They may or may not be a rescript of Thompson's own inner life, but every detail might be placed in another order without the slightest loss to the meaning or the truth. The only guiding and unifying element is a purely artistic one--that of the Hound in full cry, and the unity of the poem is but that of a day's hunting. One would like to know what remote origin it is to which we owe the figure. Thompson was a Greek scholar, and some such legend as that of Actæon may well have been in his mind. But the chase of dogs was a common horror in the Middle Ages, and many of the mediæval fiends are dog-faced. In those days, when conscience had as yet received none of our modern soporifics, and men believed in hell, many a guilty sinner knew well the baying of the hell-hounds, masterless and bloody-fanged, that chased the souls of even good men up to the very gates of heaven. Conscience and remorse ran wild, and the Hound of Hell was a characteristic part of the machinery that made the tragedy of life so terrific in those old days. But here, by a _tour de force_ in which is summed up the entire transformation from ancient to modern thought, the hell-hounds are transformed into the Hound of Heaven. That something or some one is out after the souls of men, no man who has understood his inner life can question for a moment. But here the great doctrine is proclaimed, that the Huntsman of the soul is Love and not Hate, eternal Good and not Evil. No matter what cries may freeze the soul with horror in the night, what echoes of the deep-voiced dogs upon the trail of memory and of conscience, it is God and not the devil that is pursuing. The poem, by a strange device of rhythm, keeps up the chase in the most vividly dramatic realism. The metre throughout is irregular, and the verses swing onward for the most part in long, sweeping lines. But five times, at intervals in the poem, the sweep is interrupted by a stanza of shorter lines, varied slightly but yet in essence the same-- "But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat--and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet-- All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." By this device of rhythm the footfall of the Hound is heard in all the pauses of the poem. In the short and staccato measures you hear the patter of the little feet padding after the soul from the unseen distance behind. It is a daring use of the onomatopoeic device in poetry, and it is effective to a wonder, binding the whole poem into the unity of a single chase. The first nine lines are the story of a soul subjective as yet and self-absorbed. The first covert in which it seeks to hide is its own life--the thoughts and tears and laughter, the hopes and fears of a man. This is in most men's lives the first attempt at escape. The verses here give the inner landscape, the country of a soul's experience, with wonderful compression. Then comes the patter of the Hound's feet, and for the rest we are no longer in the thicket of the inner life, but in the open country of the outer world. This is but the constantly repeated transition which, as we have already seen, Browning illustrates in his _Sordello_, the turning-point between the early introspective and the later dramatic periods. Having gained the open country of the outward and objective world, the inevitable first thought is of love as a refuge from spiritual pursuit. The story is shortly told in nine lines. The human and the divine love are rivals here; pagan _versus_ ideal affection. The hunted heart is not allowed to find refuge or solace in human love. The man knows that it is Love that follows him: yet it is the warm, red, earthly passion that he craves for, and the divine pursuer seems cold, exacting, and austere. Finding no refuge in human love from this "tremendous Lover," he seeks it next in a kind of imaginative materialism, half-scientific, half-fantastic. He appeals at "the gold gateways of the stars" and at "the pale ports o' the moon" for shelter. He seeks to hide beneath the vague and blossom-woven veil of far sky-spaces, or, in lust of swift motion, "clings to the whistling mane of every wind!" Here is a choice of paganism at its most modern and most impressive. The cosmic imagination, revelling in the limitless fields of time and space, will surely be sufficient for a man's idealism, without any insistence upon further definition. Here are Carlyle's Eternities and Immensities--are they not enough? The answer is that these are but the servants of One mightier than they. Incorruptible and steadfast in their allegiance, they will neither offer pity nor will they allow peace to him who is not loyal to their Master. And the hunted soul is stung by a fever of restlessness that chases him back across "the long savannahs of the blue" to earth again, with the recurring patter of the little feet behind him. Doubling upon the course, the quarry seeks the surest refuge to be found on earth. Children are still here, and in their simplicity and innocence there is surely a hiding-place that will suffice. Here is no danger of earthly passion, no Titanic stride among the vast things of the universe. Are they not the true idealists, the children? Are they not the authentic guardians of fairyland and of heaven? Francis Thompson is an authority here, and his love of children has expressed itself in much exquisite prose and poetry. "Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space." "To the last he [Shelley] was the enchanted child.... He is still at play, save only that his play is such as manhood stops to watch, and his playthings are those which the gods give their children. The universe is his box of toys. He dabbles his fingers in the day-fall. He is gold-dusty with tumbling amidst the stars. He makes bright mischief with the moon. The meteors nuzzle their noses in his hand. He teases into growling the kennelled thunder, and laughs at the shaking of its fiery chain. He dances in and out of the gates of heaven; its floor is littered with his broken fancies. He runs wild over the fields of ether. He chases the rolling world." He who could write thus, and who could melt our hearts with _To Monica Thought Dying_ and its refrain, "A cup of chocolate, One farthing is the rate, You drink it through a straw, a straw, a straw" --surely he must have had some wonderful right of entrance into the innocent fellowships of childhood. Still more intimate, daring in its incredible humility and simpleness, is his _Ex Ore Infantium_:-- "Little Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just as small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me?... Hadst Thou ever any toys, Like us little girls and boys? And didst Thou play in Heaven with all The angels, that were not too tall?... So, a little Child, come down And hear a child's tongue like Thy own; Take me by the hand and walk, And listen to my baby-talk." But not even this refuge is open to the rebel soul. "I turned me to them very wistfully; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair." Driven from the fairyland of childhood, he flees, as a last resort, to Nature. This time it is not in science that he seeks her, but in pure abandonment of his spirit to her changing moods. He will be one with cloud and sky and sea, will be the brother of the dawn and eventide. "I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes, I triumphed and I saddened with all weather." Here again Francis Thompson is on familiar ground. If, like Mr. Chesterton, he holds the key of fairyland, like him also he can retain through life his wonder at the grass. His nature-poetry is nearer Shelley than anything that has been written since Shelley died. In it "The leaves dance, the leaves sing, The leaves dance in the breath of spring," or-- "The great-vanned Angel March Hath trumpeted His clangorous 'Sleep no more' to all the dead-- Beat his strong vans o'er earth and air and sea And they have heard; Hark to the _Jubilate_ of the bird." These, and such exquisite detailed imagery as that of the poem _To a Snowflake_--the delicate silver filigree of verse--rank him among the most privileged of the ministrants in Nature's temple, standing very close to the shrine. Yet here again there is repulse for the flying soul. This fellowship, like that of the children, is indeed fair and sheltering, but it is not for him. It is as when sunset changes the glory from the landscape into the cold and dead aspect of suddenly fallen night. Nature, that seemed so alive and welcoming, is dead to him. Her austerity and aloofness change her face; she is not friend but stranger. Her language is another tongue from his-- "In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek," --and the padding of the feet is heard again. Thus has he compassed the length and breadth of the universe in the vain attempt to flee from God. Now at last he finds himself at bay. God has been too much for him. Against his will, and wearied out with the vain endeavour to escape, he must face the pursuing Love at last. "Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee. I am defenceless utterly." So, faced by ultimate destiny in the form of Divine Love at last, he remembers the omnipotence that once had seemed to dwell in him, when "In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me," and, "The linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist." All that is gone, and he is face to face with the grim demands of God. There follows a protest against those demands. To him it appears that they are the call for sheer sacrifice and death. He had sought self-realisation in every lovely field that lay open to the earth. But now the trumpeter is sounding, "from the hid battlements of Eternity," the last word and final meaning of human life. His is a dread figure, "enwound with glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned." His demand is for death and sacrifice, calling the reluctant children of the green earth out from this pleasance to face the awful will of God. It is the Cross that he has seen in nature and beyond it. Long ago it was set up in England, that same Cross, when Cynewulf sang his _Christ_. On Judgment Day he saw it set on high, streaming with blood and flame together, amber and crimson, illuminating the Day of Doom. Thompson has found it, not on Calvary only, but everywhere in nature, and by _tour de force_ he blends the sunset with Golgotha and finds that the lips of Nature proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the garden of the monastery there stands a cross, and the sun is setting over it. "Thy straight Long beam lies steady on the Cross. Ah me! What secret would thy radiant finger show? Of thy bright mastership is this the key? Is _this_ thy secret then, and is it woe? Thou dost image, thou dost follow That king-maker of Creation Who ere Hellas hailed Apollo Gave thee, angel-god, thy station; Thou art of Him a type memorial. Like Him thou hangst in dreadful pomp of blood Upon thy Western rood; And His stained brow did veil like thine to night. Now, with wan ray that other sun of Song Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul. One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long 'Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole. Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory, Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields; Brightness may emanate in Heaven from Thee: Here Thy dread symbol only shadow yields." This is ever the first appearance of the Highest when men see it. And, to the far-seeing eyes of the poet, nature must also wear the same aspect. Apollo, when his last word is said, must speak the same language as Christ. Paganism is an elaborate device to do without the Cross. Yet it is ever a futile device, for the Cross is in the very grain and essence of all life; it is absolutely necessary to all permanent and satisfying gladness. Francis Thompson is not the first who has shrunk back from the bitter truth. Many others have found the bitterness of the Cross a lesson too dreadful for their joyous or broken hearts to learn. Who are we that we should judge them? Have we not all rebelled at this bitter aspect of the Highest, and said, in our own language-- "Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?" Finally we have the answer of Christ to the soul He has chased down after so long a following-- "Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of nought (He said), And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou mightst seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp my hand, and come." And the poem ends upon the patter of the little feet-- "Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou drovest love from thee, who drovest Me." It is a perfect ending for this very wonderful song of life, and it tells the old and constantly repeated story of the victory of the Cross over the pagan gods. It is through pain and not through indulgence that the ideals gain for themselves eternal life. Until the soul has been transformed and strengthened by pain, its attempt to fulfil itself and be at peace in a pagan settlement on the green earth must ever be in vain. And in our hearts we all know this quite well. We really desire the Highest, and yet we flee in terror from it always, until the day of the wise surrender. This is perhaps the greatest of all our paradoxes and contradictions. As has been already pointed out, the new feature which is introduced to the aspect of the age-long conflict by _The Hound of Heaven_ is that the parts are here reversed, and instead of the soul seeking the Highest, the Highest is out in full cry after the soul. In this the whole quest crosses over into the supernatural, and can no longer be regarded simply as a study of human nature. Beyond the human region, out among those Eternities and Immensities where Carlyle loved to roam, there is that which loves and seeks. This is the very essence of Christian faith. The Good Shepherd seeketh the lost sheep until He find it. He is found of those that sought Him not. Until the search is ended the silly sheep may flee before His footsteps in terror, even in hatred, for the bewildered hour. Yet it is He who gives all reality and beauty even to those things which we would fain choose instead of Him--He alone. The deep wisdom of the Cross knows that it is pain which gives its grand reality to love, so making it fit for Eternity, and that sacrifice is the ultimate secret of fulfilment. Truly those who lose their life for His sake shall find it. Not to have Him is to renounce the possibility of having anything: to have Him is to have all things added unto us. So far we have considered this poem as a record of personal experience, but it may be taken also as a message for the age in which we live. Regarded so, it is an appeal to pagan England to come back from all its idols, from its attempt to force upon the earth a worship which she repudiates: "Worship not me but God, the angels urge." The angels of earth say that, as well as those of heaven--the angels of nature and the open field, of homes and the love of women and of men, of little children and of grave science and all learning. The desire of the soul is very near it, nay, is pursuing it with patient and remorseless footsteps down every quiet and familiar street. The land of heart's desire is no strange land, nor has heaven been lifted from about our heads. "Not where the whirling systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving soars!-- The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. The angels keep their ancient places;-- Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing. But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross. Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, Cry;--clinging Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water, Not of Genesareth, but Thames."[7] _Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_ FOOTNOTES: [1] _King Lear_, Act III. scene vi. [2] Compare the song of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth beginning, "Who would true valour see" with Shakespeare's "Who doth ambition shun." _As You Like It_, II. v. [3] For these and other points of resemblance, cf. Professor Firth's Leaflet on Bunyan (_English Association Papers_, No. 19). [4] _On Compromise_, published 1874. [5] In his latest volume (_Marriage_), Mr. Wells has spoken in a different tone from that of his other recent works. It is a welcome change, and it may be the herald of something more positive still, and of a wholesome and inspiring treatment of the human problems. But behind it lie _First and Last Things_, _Tono Bungay_, _Ann Veronica_, and _The New Macchiavelli_. [6] Mr. Chesterton perceives this, though he does not always express it unmistakably. He tells us that he does not mean to attack the authority of reason, but that his ultimate purpose is rather to defend it. [7] These verses, probably unfinished and certainly left rough for future perfecting, were found among Francis Thompson's papers when he died. 
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17857	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17857-h.htm or 17857-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/8/5/17857/17857-h/17857-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/8/5/17857/17857-h.zip) Transcriber's note: A number of typographical errors have been maintained in the current version of this book. A complete list is found at the end of the text. FORGOTTEN BOOKS OF THE AMERICAN NURSERY A History of the Development of the American Story-Book by ROSALIE V. HALSEY [Illustration: _The Devil and the Disobedient Child_] Boston Charles E. Goodspeed & Co. 1911 Copyright, 1911, by C.E. Goodspeed & Co. Of this book seven hundred copies were printed in November 1911, by D.B. Updike, at The Merrymount Press, Boston TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 3 II. The Play-Book in England 33 III. Newbery's Books in America 59 IV. Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery 89 V. The Child and his Book at the End of the Eighteenth Century 121 VI. Toy-Books in the early Nineteenth Century 147 VII. American Writers and English Critics 191 Index 233 ILLUSTRATIONS _The Devil and the Disobedient Child_ Frontispiece From "The Prodigal Daughter." Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5, Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?] Facing Page _The Devil appears as a French Gentleman_ 26 From "The Prodigal Daughter." Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5, Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?] _Title-page from "The Child's New Play-thing"_ 44 Printed by J. Draper; J. Edwards in Boston [1750]. Now in the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations _Title-page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_ 47 Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations _A page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_ 49 Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations _John Newbery's Advertisement of Children's Books_ 60 From the "Pennsylvania Gazette" of November 15, 1750 _Title-page of "The New Gift for Children"_ 70 Printed by Zechariah Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania _Miss Fanny's Maid_ 74 Illustration from "The New Gift for Children," printed by Zechariah Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania _A page from a Catalogue of Children's Books printed by Isaiah Thomas_ 106 From "The Picture Exhibition," Worcester, MDCCLXXXVIII _Illustration of Riddle XIV_ 110 From "The Puzzling-Cap," printed by John Adams, Philadelphia, 1805 _Frontispiece from "The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes"_ 117 From one of _The First Worcester Edition_, printed by Isaiah Thomas in MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania _Sir Walter Raleigh and his Man_ 125 Copper-plate illustration from "Little Truths," printed in Philadelphia by J. and J. Crukshank in 1800 _Foot Ball_ 126 Copper-plate illustration from "Youthful Recreations," printed in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson about 1802 _Jacob Johnson's Book-Store in Philadelphia about 1800_ 155 _A Wall-paper Book-Cover_ 165 From "Lessons for Children from Four to Five Years Old," printed in Wilmington (Delaware) by Peter Brynberg in 1804 _Tom the Piper's Son_ 170 Illustration and text engraved on copper by William Charles, of Philadelphia, in 1808 _A Kind and Good Father_ 172 Woodcut by Alexander Anderson for "The Prize for Youthful Obedience," printed in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson in 1807 _A Virginian_ 174 Illustration from "People of all Nations," printed in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson in 1807 _A Baboon_ 174 Illustration from "A Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds," printed in Boston by Lincoln and Edmands in 1813 _Drest or Undrest_ 176 Illustration from "The Daisy," published by Jacob Johnson in 1808 _Little Nancy_ 182 Probably engraved by William Charles for "Little Nancy, or, the Punishment of Greediness," published in Philadelphia by Morgan & Yeager about 1830 _Children of the Cottage_ 196 Engraved by Joseph I. Pease for "The Youth's Sketch Book," published in Boston by Lilly, Wait and Company in 1834 _Henrietta_ 200 Engraved by Thomas Illman for "The American Juvenile Keepsake," published in Brockville, U.C., by Horace Billings & Co. in 1835 _A Child and her Doll_ 206 Illustration from "Little Mary," Part II, published in Boston by Cottons and Barnard in 1831 _The Little Runaway_ 227 Drawn and engraved by J.W. Steel for "Affection's Gift," published in New York by J.C. Riker in 1832 CHAPTER I _Introductory_ Thy life to mend This _book_ attend. _The New England Tutor_ London (1702-14) To be brought up in fear And learn A B C. FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_ _Forgotten Books of the American Nursery_ CHAPTER I _Introductory_ A shelf full of books belonging to the American children of colonial times and of the early days of the Republic presents a strangely unfamiliar and curious appearance. If chronologically placed, the earliest coverless chap-books are hardly noticeable next to their immediate successors with wooden sides; and these, in turn, are dominated by the gilt, silver, and many colored bindings of diminutive dimensions which hold the stories dear to the childish heart from Revolutionary days to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then bright blue, salmon, yellow, and marbled paper covers make a vivid display which, as the century grows older, fades into the sad-colored cloth bindings thought adapted to many children's books of its second quarter. An examination of their contents shows them to be equally foreign to present day ideas as to the desirable characteristics for children's literature. Yet the crooked black type and crude illustrations of the wholly religious episodes related in the oldest volumes on the shelf, the didactic and moral stories with their tiny type-metal, wood, and copper-plate pictures of the next groups; and the "improving" American tales adorned with blurred colored engravings, or stiff steel and wood illustrations, that were produced for juvenile amusement in the early part of the nineteenth century,--all are as interesting to the lover of children as they are unattractive to the modern children themselves. The little ones very naturally find the stilted language of these old stories unintelligible and the artificial plots bewildering; but to one interested in the adult literature of the same periods of history an acquaintance with these amusement books of past generations has a peculiar charm and value of its own. They then become not merely curiosities, but the means of tracing the evolution of an American literature for children. To the student desiring an intimate acquaintance with any civilized people, its lighter literature is always a great aid to personal research; the more trivial, the more detailed, the greater the worth to the investigator are these pen-pictures as records of the nation he wishes to know. Something of this value have the story-books of old-fashioned childhood. Trivial as they undoubtedly are, they nevertheless often contain our best sketches of child-life in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,--a life as different from that of a twentieth century child as was the adult society of those old days from that of the present time. They also enable us to mark as is possible in no other way, the gradual development of a body of writing which, though lagging much behind the adult literature, was yet also affected by the local and social conditions in America. Without attempting to give the history of the evolution of the A B C book in England--the legitimate ancestor of all juvenile books--two main topics must be briefly discussed before entering upon the proper matter of this volume. The first relates to the family life in the early days of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, the province that produced the first juvenile book. The second topic has to do with the literature thought suitable for children in those early Puritan days. These two subjects are closely related, the second being dependent upon the first. Both are necessary to the history of these quaint toy volumes, whose stories lack much meaning unless the conditions of life and literature preceding them are understood. When the Pilgrim Fathers, seeking freedom of faith, founded their first settlements in the new country, one of their earliest efforts was directed toward firmly establishing their own religion. This, though nominally free, was eventually, under the Mathers, to become a theocracy as intolerant as that faith from which they had fled. The rocks upon which this religion was builded were the Bible and the Catechism. In this history of toy-books the catechism is, however, perhaps almost the more important to consider, for it was a product of the times, and regarded as indispensable to the proper training of a family. The Puritan conception of life, as an error to be rectified by suffering rather than as a joy to be accepted with thanksgiving, made the preparation for death and the dreadful Day of Judgment the chief end of existence. The catechism, therefore, with its fear-inspiring description of Hell and the consequences of sin, became inevitably the chief means of instructing children in the knowledge of their sinful inheritance. In order to insure a supply of catechisms, it was voted by the members of the company in sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, when preparing to emigrate, to expend "3 shillings for 2 dussen and ten catechismes."[6-A] A contract was also made in the same year with "sundry intended ministers for catechising, as also in teaching, or causing to be taught the Companyes servants & their children, as also the salvages and their children."[6-B] Parents, especially the mothers, were continually exhorted in sermons preached for a century after the founding of the colony, to catechize the children every day, "that," said Cotton Mather, "you may be continually dropping something of the _Catechism_ upon them: Some Honey out of the Rock"! Indeed, the learned divine seems to have regarded it as a soothing and toothsome morsel, for he even imagined that the children cried for it continuously, saying: _"O our dear Parents, Acquaint us with the Great God.... Let us not go from your Tender Knees, down to the Place of Dragons. Oh! not Parents, but Ostriches: Not Parents, but Prodigies."_[6-C] Much dissension soon arose among the ministers of the settlements as to which catechism should be taught. As the result of the discussion the "General Corte," which met in sixteen hundred and forty-one, "desired that the elders would make a catechism for _the instruction of youth in the grounds of religion_."[6-D] To meet this request, several clergymen immediately responded. Among them was John Cotton, who presumably prepared a small volume which was entitled "_Milk for Babes_. Drawn out of the Breast of Both Testaments. Chiefly for the spiritual nourishment of _Boston_ Babes in either England: But may be of like use for any children." For the present purpose the importance of this little book lies in the supposition that it was printed at Cambridge, by Daye, between sixteen hundred and forty-one and sixteen hundred and forty-five, and therefore was the first book of any kind written and printed in America for children;--an importance altogether different from that attached to it by the author's grandson, Cotton Mather, when he asserted that "Milk for Babes" would be "valued and studied and improved till New England cease to be New England."[7-A] To the little colonials this "Catechism of New England" was a great improvement upon any predecessor, even upon the Westminster Shorter Catechism, for it reduced the one hundred and seven questions of that famous body of doctrine to sixty-seven, and the longest answer in "Milk for Babes" contained only eighty-four words.[7-B] As the century grew older other catechisms were printed. The number produced before the eighteenth century bears witness to the diverse views in a community in which they were considered an essential for every member, adult or child. Among the six hundred titles roughly computed as the output of the press by seventeen hundred in the new country, eleven different catechisms may be counted, with twenty editions in all; of these the titles of four indicate that they were designed for very little children. In each community the pastor appointed the catechism to be taught in the school, and joined the teacher in drilling the children in its questions and answers. Indeed, the answers were regarded as irrefutable in those uncritical days, and hence a strong shield and buckler against manifold temptations provided by "yt ould deluder Satan." To offset the task of learning these doctrines of the church, it is probable that the mothers regaled the little ones with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or asked eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twilight. Tales such as "Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and "Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists. In fact, it is known that John Dunton, in sixteen hundred and eighty-six, sold in his Boston warehouse "The History of Tom Thumb," which he facetiously offered to an ignorant customer "in folio with Marginal notes." Besides these orally related tales of enchantment, the children had a few simple pastimes, but at first the few toys were necessarily of home manufacture. On the whole, amusements were not encouraged, although "In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-five Mr. Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Massachusetts to his brother in England, that if toys were imported in small quantity to America, they would sell." And a venture of this character was certainly made by seventeen hundred and twelve in Boston. Still, these were the exception in a commonwealth where amusements were considered as wiles of the Devil, against whom the ministers constantly warned the congregations committed to their charge. Home in the seventeenth century--and indeed in the eighteenth century--was a place where for children the rule "to be seen, not heard," was strictly enforced. To read Judge Sewall's diary is to be convinced that for children to obtain any importance in life, death was necessary. Funerals of little ones were of frequent occurrence, and were conducted with great ceremony, in which pomp and meagre preparation were strangely mingled. Baby Henry Sewall's funeral procession, for instance, included eight ministers, the governor and magistrates of the county, and two nurses who bore the little body to the grave, into which, half full of water from the raging storm, the rude coffin was lowered. Death was kept before the eyes of every member of the colony; even two-year-old babies learned such mournful verse as this: "I, in the Burying Place may See Graves Shorter than I; From Death's Arrest no age is free Young Children too may die; My God, may such an awful Sight Awakening be to me! Oh! that by Grace I might For Death prepared be." When the younger members of the family are otherwise mentioned in the Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents' pride in the eighteen-months-old infant's knowledge of the catechism, an acquirement rewarded by the gift of a red apple, but which suggests the reason for many funerals. Or, again, difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully put down; and also deliquencies at the age of four in attending family prayer, with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit. Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stern conditions imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms large in the foreground of any sketch of family life handed down from the first century of the Massachusetts colony. Perhaps the very earliest picture in which a colonial child with a book occupies the centre of the canvas is that given in a letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and seventy-one he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first Volume of the Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at night after her daily task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Martyrs" seems gruesome reading for a little girl at bedtime, but it was so popular in England that, with the Bible and Catechism, it was included in the library of all households that could afford it. Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel Green, and, being easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the "Book of Martyrs" as a household treasure. Bunyan's dream, according to Macaulay, was the daily conversation of thousands, and was received in New England with far greater eagerness than in the author's own country. The children undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic into Puritan literature. To Bunyan the children in both old and New England were indebted for another book, entitled "A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhimes for Children. By J.B. Licensed and Entered according to Order."[11-A] Printed in London, it probably soon made its way to this country, where Bunyan was already so well known. "This little octavo volume," writes Mrs. Field in "The Child and his Book," "was considered a perfect child's book, but was in fact only the literary milk of the unfortunate babes of the period." In the light of modern views upon juvenile reading and entertainment, the Puritan ideal of mental pabulum for little ones is worth recording in an extract from the preface. The following lines set forth this author's three-fold purpose: "To show them how each Fingle-fangle, On which they doting are, their souls entangle, As with a Web, a Trap, a Gin, or Snare. While by their Play-things, I would them entice, To mount their Thoughts from what are childish Toys To Heaven for that's prepar'd for Girls and Boys. Nor do I so confine myself to these As to shun graver things, I seek to please, Those more compos'd with better things than Toys: Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys." In the seventy-four Meditations composing this curious medley--"tho but in Homely Rhimes"--upon subjects familiar to any little girl or boy, none leaves the moral to the imagination. Nevertheless, it could well have been a relaxation, after the daily drill in "A B abs" and catechism, to turn the leaves and to spell out this: UPON THE FROG The Frog by nature is both damp and cold, Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be Croaking in gardens tho' unpleasantly. _Comparison_ The hypocrite is like unto this frog; As like as is the Puppy to the Dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true Goodness to deride. Doubtless, too, many little Puritans quite envied the child in "The Boy and the Watchmaker," a jingle wherein the former said, among other things: "This Watch my Father did on me bestow A Golden one it is, but 'twill not go, Unless it be at an Uncertainty; I think there is no watch as bad as mine. Sometimes 'tis sullen, 'twill not go at all, And yet 'twas never broke, nor had a fall." The same small boys may even have enjoyed the tedious explanation of the mechanism of the time-piece given by the _Watchmaker_, and after skipping the "Comparison" (which made the boy represent a convert and the watch in his pocket illustrative of "Grace within his Heart"), they probably turned eagerly to the next Meditation _Upon the Boy and his Paper of Plumbs_. Weather-cocks, Hobby-horses, Horses, and Drums, all served Bunyan in his effort "to point a moral" while adorning his tales. In a later edition of these grotesque and quaint conceptions, some alterations were made and a primer was included. It then appeared as "A Book for Boys and Girls; or Temporal Things Spiritualized;" and by the time the ninth edition was reached, in seventeen hundred and twenty-four, the book was hardly recognizable as "Divine Emblems; or Temporal Things Spiritualized." At present there is no evidence that these rhymes were printed in the colonies until long after this ninth edition was issued. It is possible that the success attending a book printed in Boston shortly after the original "Country Rhimes" was written, made the colonial printers feel that their profit would be greater by devoting spare type and paper to the now famous "New England Primer." Moreover, it seems peculiarly in keeping with the cast of the New England mind of the eighteenth century that although Bunyan had attempted to combine play-things with religious teaching for the English children, for the little colonials the first combination was the elementary teaching and religious exercises found in the great "Puritan Primer." Each child was practically, if not verbally, told that "This little Catechism learned by heart (for so it ought) The Primer next commanded is for Children to be taught." The Primer, however, was not a product wholly of New England. In sixteen hundred and eighty-five there had been printed in Boston by Green, "The Protestant Tutor for Children," a primer, a mutilated copy of which is now owned by the American Antiquarian Society. "This," again to quote Mr. Ford, "was probably an abridged edition of a book bearing the same title, printed in London, with the expressed design of bringing up children in an aversion to Popery." In Protestant New England the author's purpose naturally called forth profound approbation, and in "Green's edition of the Tutor lay the germ of the great picture alphabet of our fore-fathers."[14-A] The author, Benjamin Harris, had immigrated to Boston for personal reasons, and coming in contact with the residents, saw the latent possibilities in "The Protestant Tutor." "To make it more salable," writes Mr. Ford in "The New England Primer," "the school-book character was increased, while to give it an even better chance of success by an appeal to local pride it was rechristened and came forth under the now famous title of 'The New England Primer.'"[14-B] A careful examination of the titles contained in the first volume of Evans's "American Bibliography" shows how exactly this infant's primer represented the spirit of the times. This chronological list of American imprints of the first one hundred years of the colonial press is largely a record in type of the religious activity of the country, and is impressive as a witness to the obedience of the press to the law of supply and demand. With the Puritan appetite for a grim religion served in sermons upon every subject, ornamented and seasoned with supposedly apt Scriptural quotations, a demand was created for printed discourses to be read and inwardly digested at home. This demand the printers supplied. Amid such literary conditions the primer came as light food for infants' minds, and as such was accepted by parents to impress religious ideas when teaching the alphabet. It is not by any means certain that the first edition of this great primer of our ancestors contained illustrations, as engravers were few in America before the eighteenth century. Yet it seems altogether probable that they were introduced early in the next century, as by seventeen hundred and seventeen Benjamin Harris, Jr., had printed in Boston "The Holy Bible in Verse," containing cuts identical with those in "The New England Primer" of a somewhat later date, and these pictures could well have served as illustrations for both these books for children's use, profit, and pleasure. At all events, the thorough approval by parents and clergy of this small school-book soon brought to many a household the novelty of a real picture-book. Hitherto little children had been perforce content with the few illustrations the adult books offered. Now the printing of this tiny volume, with its curious black pictures accompanying the text of religious instruction, catechism, and alphabets, marked the milestone on the long lane that eventually led to the well-drawn pictures in the modern books for children. It is difficult at so late a day to estimate correctly the pleasure this famous picture alphabet brought to the various colonial households. What the original illustrations were like can only be inferred from those in "The Holy Bible in Verse," and in the later editions of the primer itself. In the Bible Adam (or is it Eve?) stands pointing to a tree around which a serpent is coiled. By seventeen hundred and thirty-seven the engraver was sufficiently skilled to represent two figures, who stand as colossal statues on either side of the tree whose fruit had such disastrous effects. However, at a time when art criticism had no terrors for the engraver, it could well have been a delight to many a family of little ones to gaze upon "The Lion bold The Lamb doth hold" and to speculate upon the exact place where the lion ended and the lamb began. The wholly religious character of the book was no drawback to its popularity, for the two great diaries of the time show how absolutely religion permeated the atmosphere surrounding both old and young. Cotton Mather's diary gives various glimpses of his dealing with his own and other people's children. His son Increase, or "Cressy," as he was affectionately called, seems to have been particularly unresponsive to religious coercion. Mather's method, however, appears to have been more efficacious with the younger members of his family, and of Elizabeth and Samuel (seven years of age) he wrote: "My two younger children shall before the Psalm and prayer answer a Quæstion in the catechism; and have their Leaves ready turned unto the proofs of the Answer in the Bible; which they shall distinctly read unto us, and show what they prove. This also shall supply a fresh matter for prayer." Again he tells of his table talk: "Tho' I will have my table talk facetious as well as instructive ... yett I will have the Exercise continually intermixed. I will set before them some sentence of the Bible, and make some useful Remarks upon it." Other people's children he taught as occasion offered; even when "on the Road in the Woods," he wrote on another day, "I, being desirous to do some Good, called some little children ... and bestowed some Instruction with a little Book upon them." To children accustomed to instruction at all hours, the amusement found in the pages of the primer was far greater than in any other book printed in the colonies for years. Certain titles indicate the nature of the meagre juvenile literary fare in the beginning of the new eighteenth century. In seventeen hundred Nicholas Boone, in his "Shop over against the old Meeting-house" in Boston, reprinted Janeway's "Token for Children." To this was added by the Boston printer a "Token for the children of New England, or some examples of children in whom the fear of God was remarkably budding when they dyed; in several parts of New England." Of course its author, the Reverend Mr. Mather, found colonial "examples" as deeply religious as any that the mother country could produce; but there is for us a grim humor in these various incidents concerning pious and precocious infants "of thin habit and pale countenance," whose pallor became that of death at so early an age. If it was by the repetition of such tales that the Puritan divine strove to convert Cressy, it may well be that the son considered it better policy, since Death claimed the little saints, to remain a sinner. By seventeen hundred and six two juvenile books appeared from the press of Timothy Green in Boston. The first, "A LITTLE BOOK for children wherein are set down several directions for little children: and several remarkable stories both ancient and modern of little children, divers whereof are lately deceased," was a reprint from an English book of the same title, and therefore has not in this chronicle the interest of the second book. The purpose of its publication is given in Mather's diary: [1706] 22d. Im. Friday. About this Time sending my little son to School, Where ye Child was Learning to Read, I did use every morning for diverse months, to Write in a plain Hand for the Child, and send thither by him, _a Lesson in Verse_, to be not only _read_, but also _Gott_ by Heart. My proposal was to have the Child improve in goodness, at the same time that he improved in _Reading_. Upon further Thoughts I apprehended that a Collection of some of them would be serviceable to ye Good Education of other children. So I lett ye printer take them & print them, in some hope of some Help to thereby contributed unto that great Intention of a _Good Education_. The book is entituled _Good Lessons for Children_; or Instruction provided for a little Son to learn at School, when learning to Read. Although this small book lives only by record, it is safe to assume from the extracts of the author's diary already quoted, that it lacked every quality of amusement, and was adapted only to those whom he described, in a sermon preached before the Governor and Council, as "verie Sharpe and early Ripe in their capacities." "Good Lessons" has the distinction of being the first American book to be composed, like many a modern publication, for a particular young child; and, with its purpose "to improve in goodness," struck clearly the keynote of the greater part of all writing for children during the succeeding one hundred and seventy-five years. The first glimpse of the amusement book proper appears in that unique "History of Printing in America," by Isaiah Thomas. This describes, among other old printers, one Thomas Fleet, who established himself in Boston about 1713. "At first," wrote Mr. Thomas, "he printed pamphlets for booksellers, small books for children and ballads" in Pudding Lane.[19-A] "He owned several negroes, one of which ... was an ingenious man and cut on wooden blocks all the pictures which decorated the ballads and small books for his master."[19-B] As corroborative of these statements Thomas also mentions Thomas Fleet, Sr., as "the putative compiler of Mother Goose Melodies, which he first published in 1719, bearing the title of 'Songs for the Nursery.'" Much discussion has arisen as to the earliest edition of Mother Goose. Thomas's suggestion as to the origin of the first American edition has been of late years relegated to the region of myth. Nevertheless, there is something to be said in favor of the existence of some book of nonsense at that time. The Boston "News Letter" for April 12-19, 1739, contained a criticism of Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms, in which the reviewer wrote that in Psalm VI the translators used the phrase, "a wretch forlorn." He added: "(1) There is nothing of this in the original or the English Psalter. (2) 'Tis a low expression and to add a low one is the less allowable. But (3) what I am most concerned for is, that it will be apt to make our Children think of the line in their vulgar Play song; much like it, 'This is the maiden all forlorn.'" We recognize at once a reference to our nursery friend of the "House that Jack Built;" and if this and "Tom Thumb" were sold in Boston, why should not other ditties have been among the chap-books which Thomas remembered to have set up when a 'prentice lad in the printing-house of Zechariah Fowle, who in turn had copied some issued previously by Thomas Fleet? In further confirmation of Thomas's statement is a paragraph in the preface to an edition of Mother Goose, published in Boston in 1833, by Monroe & Francis. The editor traces the origin of these rhymes to a London book entitled, "Rhymes for the Nursery or Lullabies for Children," "that," he writes, "contained many of the identical pieces handed down to us." He continues: "The first book of the kind known to be printed in this country _bears_ [_the italics are mine_] the title, '_Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Goose's Melodies for Children_.' Something probably intended to represent a goose, with a very long neck and mouth wide open, covered a large part of the title-page; at the bottom of which was: 'Printed by T. Fleet, at his printing house, Pudding Lane (Boston) 1719.' Several pages were missing, so that the whole number could not be ascertained." The editor clearly writes as if he had either seen, or heard accurately described, this piece of _Americana_, which the bibliophile to-day would consider a treasure trove. Later writers doubt whether any such book existed, for it is hardly credible that the Puritan element which so largely composed the population of Boston in the first quarter of the eighteenth century would have encouraged the printing of any nonsensical jingles. Boston, however, was not at this time the only place in the colonies where primers and religious books were written and printed. In Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, famous as the founder of the "American Weekly Mercury," had in 1714 put through his press, probably upon subscription, the "Last Words and Dyeing Expressions of Hannah Hill, aged 11 years and near three Months." This morbid account of the death of a little Quakeress furnished the Philadelphia children with a book very similar to Mather's "Token." Not to be outdone by any precocious example in Pennsylvania, the Reverend Mr. Mather soon found an instance of "Early Piety in Elizabeth Butcher of Boston, being just 8 years and 11 months old," when she died in 1718. In two years two editions of her life had been issued "to instruct and to invite little children to the exercise of early piety." Such mortuary effusions were so common at the time that Benjamin Franklin's witty skit upon them is apropos in this connection. In 1719, at the age of sixteen, under the pseudonym of Mrs. Dogood, he wrote a series of letters for his brother's paper, "The New England Courant." From the following extract, taken from these letters, it is evident that these children's "Last Words" followed the prevailing fashion: _A Receipt_ to make a _New England_ Funeral _Elegy_. _For the title of your Elegy_. Of these you may have enough ready made at your Hands: But if you should chuse to make it yourself you must be sure not to omit the Words _Aetatis Suae_, which will beautify it exceedingly. _For the subject of your Elegy_. Take one of your neighbors who has lately departed this life; it is no great matter at what age the Party Dy'd, but it will be best if he went away suddenly, being _Kill'd_, _Drown'd_ or _Froze to Death_. Having chosen the Person, take all his Virtues, Excellencies, &c. and if he have not enough, you may borrow some to make up a sufficient Quantity: To these add his last Words, dying Expressions, &c. if they are to be had: mix all these together, and be sure you strain them well. Then season all with a Handful or two of Melancholy Expressions, such as _Dreadful, Dreadly, cruel, cold, Death, unhappy, Fate, weeping Eyes_, &c. Having mixed all these Ingredients well, put them in an empty Scull of some _young Harvard_; (but in case you have ne'er a One at Hand, you may use your _own_,) then let them Ferment for the Space of a Fortnight, and by that Time they will be incorporated into a Body, which take out and having prepared a sufficient Quantity of double Rhimes, such as _Power, Flower; Quiver, Shiver; Grieve us, Leave us; tell you, excel you; Expeditions, Physicians; Fatigue him, Intrigue him_; &c. you must spread all upon Paper, and if you can procure a Scrap of Latin to put at the _End_, it will garnish it mightily: then having affixed your Name at the bottom with a _Maestus Composuit_, you will have an Excellent Elegy. N.B. This Receipt will serve when a Female is the subject of your Elegy, provided you borrow a greater Quantity of Virtues, Excellencies &c. Of other original books for children of colonial parents in the first quarter of that century, "A Looking-glass" did but mirror more religious episodes concerning infants, while Mather in his zeal had also published "An Earnest Exhortation" to New England children, and "The A, B, C, of religion. Fitted unto the youngest and lowest capacities." To this, taking advantage of the use of rhymes, he appended further instruction, including "The Body of Divinity versified." With our knowledge of the clergyman's methods with his congregation it is not difficult to imagine that he insisted upon the purchase of these godly aids for every household. In attempting to reproduce the conditions of family life in the early settlements and towns of colonial days, we turn quite naturally to the newspapers, whose appearance in the first quarter of the eighteenth century was gladly welcomed by the people of their time, and whose files are now eagerly searched for items of great or small importance. Indeed, much information can be gathered from their advertisements, which often filled the major part of these periodicals. Apparently shop-keepers were keen to take advantage of such space as was reserved for them, as sometimes a marginal note informed the public that other advertisements must wait for the next issue to appear. Booksellers' announcements, however, are not too frequent in Boston papers, and are noticeably lacking in the early issues of the Philadelphia "Weekly Mercury." This dearth of book-news accounts for the difficulty experienced by book-lovers of that town in procuring literature--a lack noticed at once by the wide-awake young Franklin upon his arrival in the city, and recorded in his biography as follows: "At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania [1728] there was not a bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Phil'a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., ballads, and a few books. Those who lov'd reading were obliged to send for their books from London." Franklin undertook to better this condition by opening a shop for the sale of foreign books. Both he and his rival in journalism, Andrew Bradford, had stationer's shops, in which were to be had besides "Good Writing Paper; Cyphering Slates; Ink Powders, etc., Chapmens Books and Ballads." Bradford also advertised in seventeen hundred and thirty that all persons could be supplied with "Primers and small Histories of many sorts." "Small histories" were probably chap-books, which, hawked about the country by peddlers or chapmen, contained tales of "Fair Rosamond," "Jane Grey," "Tom Thumb" or "Tom Hick-a-Thrift," and though read by old and young, were hardly more suitable for juvenile reading than the religious elegies then so popular. These chap-books were sold in considerable quantities on account of their cheapness, and included religious subjects as well as tales of adventure. One of the earliest examples of this chap-book literature, thought suitable for children, was printed in the colonies by the press of Thomas Fleet, already mentioned as a printer of small books. This book of 1736, being intended for ready sale, was such as every Puritan would buy for the family library. Entitled "The Prodigal Daughter," it told in Psalm-book metre of a "proud, vain girl, who, because her parents would not indulge her in all her extravagances, bargained with the devil to poisen them." The parents, however, were warned by an angel of her intentions: "One night her parents sleeping were in bed Nothing but troubled dreams run in their head, At length an angel did to them appear Saying awake, and unto me give ear. A messenger I'm sent by Heaven kind To let you know your lives are both design'd; Your graceless child, whom you love so dear, She for your precious lives hath laid a snare. To poison you the devil tempts her so, She hath no power from the snare to go: But God such care doth of his servants take, Those that believe on Him He'll not forsake. "You must not use her cruel or severe, For though these things to you I do declare, It is to show you what the Lord can do, He soon can turn her heart, you'll find it so." The daughter, discovered in her attempt to poison their food, was reproached by the mother for her evil intention and swooned. Every effort failed to "bring her spirits to revive:" "Four days they kept her, when they did prepare To lay her body in the dust we hear, At her funeral a sermon then was preach'd, All other wicked children for to teach.... But suddenly they bitter groans did hear Which much surprized all that then were there. At length they did observe the dismal sound Came from the body just laid in the ground." The Puritan pride in funeral display is naïvely exhibited in the portrayal of the girl when she "in her coffin sat, and did admire her winding sheet," before she related her experiences "among lonesome wild deserts and briary woods, which dismal were and dark." But immediately after her description of the lake of burning misery and of the fierce grim Tempter, the Puritan matter-of-fact acceptance of it all is suggested by the concluding lines: "When thus her story she to them had told, She said, put me to bed for I am cold." The illustrations of a later edition entered thoroughly into the spirit of the author's intent. The contemporary opinion of the French character is quaintly shown in the portrait of the Devil dressed as a French gentleman, his cloven foot discovering his identity. Whatever deficiencies are revealed in these early attempts to illustrate, they invariably expressed the artist's purpose, and in this case the Devil, after the girl's conversion, is drawn in lines very acceptable to Puritan children's idea of his personality. Almanacs also were in demand, and furnished parents and children, in many cases, with their entire library for week-day reading. "Successive numbers hung from a string by the chimney or ranked by years and generations on cupboard shelves."[26-A] But when Franklin made "Poor Richard" an international success, he, by giving short extracts from Swift, Steele, Defoe, and Bacon, accustomed the provincial population, old and young, to something better than the meagre religious fare provided by the colonial press. Such, then, were the literary conditions for children when an advertisement inserted in the "Weekly Mercury" gave promise of better days for the little Philadelphians.[26-B] Strangely enough, this attempt to make learning seem attractive to children did not appear in the booksellers' lists; but crowded in between Tandums, Holland Tapes, London Steel, and good Muscavado Sugar,--"Guilt horn books" were advertised by Joseph Sims in 1740 as "for sale on reasonable Terms for Cash." [Illustration: _The Devil appears as a French Gentleman_] Horn-books in themselves were only too common, and not in the least delightful. Made of thin wood, whereon was placed a printed sheet of paper containing the alphabet and Lord's Prayer, a horn-book was hardly, properly speaking, a book at all. But when the printed page was covered with yellowish transparent horn, secured to the wooden back by strips of brass, it furnished an economical and practically indestructible elementary text-book for thousands of English-speaking children on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes an effort was also made to guard against the inconvenient faculty of children for losing school-books, by attaching a cord, which, passing through a hole in the handle of the board, was hung around the scholar's neck. But since nothing is proof against the ingenuity of a schoolboy, many were successfully disposed of. Although printed by thousands, few in England or in America have survived the century that has elapsed since they were used. Occasionally, in tearing down an old building, one of these horn-books has been found; dropped in a convenient hole, it has remained secure from parents' sight, until brought to light by workmen and prized as a curiosity by grown people of the present generation. This notice of little gilt horn-books was inserted in the "Weekly Mercury" but once. Whether the supply was quickly exhausted, or whether they did not prove a successful novelty, can never be known; but at least they herald the approach of the little gilt story-books which ten years later were to make the name of John Newbery well known in English households, and hardly less familiar in the American colonies. So far the only attractions to induce children to read have been through the pictures in the Primer of New England, and by the gilding of the horn-book. From further south comes the first note of amusement in reading, as well as the first expression of pleasure from the children themselves in regard to a book. In 1741, in Virginia, two letters were written and received by R.H. Lee and George Washington. These letters, which afford the first in any way authentic account of tales of real entertainment, are given by Mr. Lossing in "The Home of Washington," and tell their own tale: [_Richard Henry Lee to George Washington_] PA brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin bids me send you one of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little indian boy on his back like uncle jo's Sam pa says if I learn my tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let you come to see me. RICHARD HENRY LEE. [_G. Washington to R.H. Lee_] DEAR DICKEY--I thank you very much for the pretty picture book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the pictures and I showed him all the pictures in it; and I read to him how the tame Elephant took care of the Master's little boy, and put him on his back and would not let anybody touch his master's little son. I can read three or four pages sometimes without missing a word.... I have a little piece of poetry about the picture book you gave me but I mustn't tell you who wrote the poetry. G.W.'s compliments to R.H.L. And likes his book full well, Henceforth will count him his friend And hopes many happy days he may spend. Your good friend GEORGE WASHINGTON. In a note Mr. Lossing states that he had copies of these two letters, sent him by a Mr. Lee, who wrote: "The letter of Richard Henry Lee was written by himself, and uncorrected sent by him to his boy friend George Washington. The poetical effusion was, I have heard, written by a Mr. Howard, a gentleman who used to visit at the house of Mr. Washington." It would be gratifying to know the titles of these two books, so evidently English chap-book tales. It is probable that they were imported by a shop-keeper in Alexandria, as in seventeen hundred and forty-one there was only one press in Virginia, owned by William Sharps, who had moved from Annapolis in seventeen hundred and thirty-six. Luxuries were so much more common among the Virginia planters, and life was so much more roseate in hue than was the case in the northern colonies, that it seems most natural that two southern boys should have left the earliest account of any real story-books. Though unfortunately nameless, they at least form an interesting coincidence. Bought in seventeen hundred and forty-one, they follow just one hundred years later than the meeting of the General Court, which was responsible for the preparation of Cotton's "Milk for Babes," and precede by a century the date when an American story-book literature was recognized as very different from that written for English children. FOOTNOTES: [6-A] _Records of Mass. Bay_, vol. i, p. 37 h. [6-B] _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 37 e. [6-C] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 83. [6-D] _Records of Mass. Bay_, vol. i, p. 328. [7-A] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 92. [7-B] _Ibid._ [11-A] In the possession of the British Museum. [14-A] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 38. [14-B] _Ibid._ [19-A] Thomas, _History of Printing in America_, vol. iii, p. 145. [19-B] _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 294. [26-A] Sears, _American Literature_, p. 86. [26-B] Although this appears to be the first advertisement of gilt horn-books in Philadelphia papers, an inventory of the estate of Michael Perry, a Boston bookseller, made in seventeen hundred, includes sixteen dozen gilt horn-books. CHAPTER II 1747-1767 He who learns his letters fair, Shall have a coach and take the air. _Royal Primer_, Newbery, 1762 Our king the good No man of blood. _The New England Primer_, 1762 CHAPTER II 1747-1767 _The Play-Book in England_ The vast horde of story-books so constantly poured into modern nurseries makes it difficult to realize that the library of the early colonial child consisted of such books as have been already described. The juvenile books to-day are multiform. The quantities displayed upon shop-counters or ranged upon play-room shelves include a variety of subjects bewildering to all but those whose business necessitates a knowledge of this kind of literature. For the little child there is no lack of gayly colored pictures and short tales in large print; for the older boys and girls there lies a generous choice, ranging from Bunny stories to Jungle Books, or they "May see how all things are, Seas and cities near and far. And the flying fairies' looks In the picture story-books." The contrast is indeed extreme between that scanty fare of dull sermons and "The New England Primer" given to the little people of the early eighteenth century, and this superabundance prepared with lavish care for the nation of American children. The beginning of this complex juvenile literature is, therefore, to be regarded as a comparatively modern invention of about seventeen hundred and forty-five. From that date can be traced the slow growth of a literature written with an avowed intention of furnishing amusement as well as instruction; and in the toy-books published one hundred and fifty years ago are found the prototypes of the present modes of bringing fun and knowledge to the American fireside. The question at once arises as to the reason why this literature came into existence; why was it that children after seventeen hundred and fifty should have been favored in a way unknown to their parents? To even the casual reader of English literature the answer is plain, if this subject of toy-books be regarded as of near kin to the larger body of writing. It has been somewhat the custom to consider children's literature as a thing wholly apart from that of adults, probably because the majority of the authors of these little tales have so generally lacked the qualities indispensable for any true literary work. In reality the connection between the two is somewhat like that of parent and child; the smaller body, though lacking in power, has closely imitated the larger mass of writing in form and kind, and has reflected, sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, the good or bad fashions that have shared the successive periods of literary history, like a child who unconsciously reproduces a parent's foibles or excellences. It is to England, then, that we must look to find the conditions out of which grew the necessity for this modern invention--the story-book. The love of stories has been the splendid birthright of every child in all ages and in all lands. "Stories," wrote Thackeray,--"stories exist everywhere; there is no calculating the distance through which the stories have come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated almost in their present shape for thousands of years to the little copper-coloured Sanscrit children, listening to their mothers under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the Northern Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and the Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when their flocks were gathered in, and their mares were picketed by the tents." This picturesque description leads exactly to the point to be emphasized: that children shared in the simple tales of their people as long as those tales retained their freshness and simplicity; but when, as in England in the eighteenth century, the literature lost these qualities and became artificial, critical, and even skeptical, it lost its charm for the little ones and they no longer cared to listen to it. Fashion and taste were then alike absorbed in the works of Dryden, Pope, Addison, Steele, and Swift, and the novels from the pens of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett had begun to claim and to hold the attention of the English reading public. The children, however, could neither comprehend nor enjoy the witty criticism and subtle treatment of the topics discussed by the older men, although, as will be seen in another chapter, the novels became, in both the original and in the abridged forms, the delight of many a "young master and miss." Meanwhile, in the American colonies the people who could afford to buy books inherited their taste for literature as well as for tea from the Puritans and fashionables in the mother country; although it is a fact familiar to all, that the works of the comparatively few native authors lagged, in spirit and in style, far behind the writings of Englishmen of the time. The reading of one who was a boy in the older era of the urbane Addison and the witty Pope, and a man in the newer period of the novelists, is well described in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. "All the little money," wrote that book-lover, "that came into my hands was laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, my collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate volumes. I afterwards sold them to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were Chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all." Burton's "Historical Collections" contained history, travels, adventures, fiction, natural history, and biography. So great was the favor in which they were held in the eighteenth century that the compiler, Nathaniel Crouch, almost lost his identity in his pseudonym, and like the late Mr. Clemens, was better known by his nom-de-plume than by his family name. According to Dunton, he "melted down the best of the English histories into twelve-penny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities and curiosities." Although characterized by Dr. Johnson as "very proper to allure backward readers," the contents of many of the various books afforded the knowledge and entertainment eagerly grasped by Franklin and other future makers of the American nation. The scarcity of historical works concerning the colonies made Burton's account of the "English Empire in America" at once a mine of interest to wide-awake boys of the day. Number VIII, entitled "Winter Evenings' Entertainment," was long a source of amusement with its stories and riddles, and its title was handed down to other books of a similar nature. To children, however, the best-known volume of the series was Burton's illustrated versification of Bible stories called "The Youth's Divine Pastime." But the subjects chosen by Burton were such as belonged to a very plain-spoken age; and as the versifier was no euphuist in his relation of facts, the result was a remarkable "Pastime for Youth." The literature read by English children was, of course, the same; the little ones of both countries ate of the same tree of knowledge of facts, often either silly or revolting. To deliver the younger and future generations from such unpalatable and indigestible mental food, there was soon to appear in London a man, John Newbery by name, who, already a printer, publisher, and vendor of patent medicines, seized the opportunity to issue stories written especially for the amusement of little children. While Newbery was making his plans to provide pleasure for young folks in England, in the colonies the idea of a child's need of recreation through books was slowly gaining ground. It is well to note the manner in which the little colonists were prepared to receive Newbery's books as recreative features crept gradually into the very few publications of which there is record. In seventeen hundred and forty-five native talent was still entirely confined to writing for little people lugubrious sermons or discourses delivered on Sunday and "Catechize days," and afterwards printed for larger circulation. The reprints from English publications were such exotics as, "A Poesie out of Mr. Dod's Garden," an alluring title, which did not in the least deceive the small colonials as to the religious nature of its contents. In New York the Dutch element, until the advent of Garrat Noel, paid so little attention to the subject of juvenile literature that the popularity of Watts's "Divine Songs" (issued by an Englishman) is well attested by the fact that at present it is one of the very few child's books of any kind recorded as printed in that city before 1760. But in Boston, old Thomas Fleet, in 1741, saw the value of the element of some entertainment in connection with reading, and, when he published "The Parents' Gift, containing a choice collection of God's judgments and Mercies," lives of the Evangelists, and other religious matter, he added a "variety of pleasant Pictures proper for the Entertainment of Children." This is, perhaps, the first printed acknowledgment in America that pictures were commendable to parents _because_ entertaining to their offspring. Such an idea put into words upon paper and advertised in so well-read a sheet as the "Boston Evening Post," must surely have impressed fathers and mothers really solicitous for the family welfare and anxious to provide harmless pleasure. This pictorial element was further encouraged by Franklin, when, in 1747, he reprinted, probably for the first time in this country, "Dilworth's New Guide to the English Tongue." In this school-book, after the alphabets and spelling lessons, a special feature was introduced, that is, illustrated "Select Fables." The cuts at the top of each fable possess an added interest from the supposition that they were engraved by the printer himself; and the constant use of the "Guide" by colonial school-masters and mistresses made their pupils unconsciously quite ready for more illustrated and fewer homiletic volumes. Indeed, before the middle of the century pictures had become an accepted feature of the few juvenile books, and "The History of the Holy Jesus" versified for little ones was issued by at least two old Boston printers in 1747 and 1748 with more than a dozen cuts. Among the rare extant copies of this small chap-book is one that, although torn and disfigured by tiny fingers and the century and a half since it pleased its first owner, bears the personal touch of this inscription "Ebenezer ... Bought June ... 1749 ... price 0=2=d." Was the price marked upon its page as a reminder that two shillings was a large price to pay for a boy's book? Perhaps for this reason it received the careful handling that has enabled us to examine it, when so many of its contemporaries and successors have vanished. The versified story, notwithstanding its quaintness of diction, begins with a dignified directness: "The glorious blessed Time had come, The Father had decreed, Jesus of _Mary_ there was born, And in a Manger laid." At the end are two _Hymns_, entitled "Delight in the Lord Jesus," and "Absence from Christ intolerable." The final stanza is typical of one Puritan doctrine: "The Devil throws his fiery Darts, And wicked Ones do act their parts, To ruin me when Christ is gone, And leaves me all alone." The woodcuts are not the least interesting feature of this old-time duodecimo, from the picture showing the mother reading to her children to the illustration of the quaking of the earth on the day of the crucifixion. Crude and badly drawn as they now seem, they were surely sufficient to attract the child of their generation. About the same time old Zechariah Fowle, who apprenticed Isaiah Thomas, and both printed and vended chap-books in Back Street, Boston, advertised among his list of books "Lately Publish'd" this same small book, together with "A Token for Youth," the "Life and Death of Elizabeth Butcher," "A Preservative from the Sins and Follies of Childhood and Youth," "The Prodigal Daughter," "The Happy Child," and "The New Gift for Children with Cuts." Of these "The New Gift" was certainly a real story-book, as one of a later edition still extant readily proves. Thus the children in both countries were prepared to enjoy Newbery's miniature story-books, although for somewhat different reasons: in England the literature had reached a point too artificial to be interesting to little ones; in America the product of the press and the character of the majority of the juvenile importations, the reprints, or home-made chap-books, has been shown to be such as would hardly attract those who were to be the future arbiters of the colonies' destiny. The reasons for the coming to light of this new form of infant literature have been dwelt upon in order to show the necessity for some change in the kind of reading-matter to be put in the hands of the younger members of the family. The natural order of consideration is next to point out the phase it assumed upon its appearance in England,--a phase largely due to the influence of one man,--and once there, the modifications effected by the fashions in adult fiction. Although there was already much interest in the education and welfare of children still in the nursery, the character of the first play-books was probably due to the esteem in which the opinions of the philosopher, John Locke, were held. He it was who gradually moved the vane of public opinion around to serious consideration of recreation as a factor in the well-being of these nursery inmates. Although it took time for Locke's ideas upon the subject to sink into the public mind, it is impossible to compare one of the first attempts to produce a play-book, "The Child's New Play-thing," with the advice written to his friend, Edward Clarke, without feeling that the progress from the religious books to primers and readers (such as "Dilworth's Guide"), and then onward to story-books, was largely the result of the publication of his letters under the title of "Thoughts on Education." In these letters Locke took an extraordinary course: he first made a quaint plea for the _general welfare_ of Mr. Clarke's little son. "I imagine," he wrote, "the minds of children are as easily turned this or that way as Water itself, and though this be the principal Part, and our main Care should be about the inside, yet the Clay Cottage is not to be neglected. I shall therefore begin with the case, and consider first the _Health_ of the body." Under Health he discussed clothing, including thin shoes, "that they may leak and let in Water." A pause was then made to show the benefits of wet feet as against the apparent disadvantages of filthy stockings and muddy boots; for mothers even in that time were inclined to consider their floors and steps. Bathing next received attention. Bathing every day in cold water, Locke regarded as exceedingly desirable; no exceptions were to be made, even in the case of a "puleing and tender" child. The beneficial effects of air, sunlight, the establishment of good conduct, diet, sleep, and "physick" were all discussed by the doctor and philosopher, before the development of the mind was touched upon. "Education," he wrote, "concerns itself with the forming of Children's Minds, giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their Lives later." This seasoning referred to the training of children in matters pertaining to their general government and to the reverence of parents. For the Puritan population it was undoubtedly a shock to find Locke interesting himself in, and moreover advocating, dancing as a part of a child's education; and worst of all, that he should mention it before their hobby, LEARNING. In this connection it is worth while to make mention of a favorite primer, which, published about the middle of the eighteenth century, was entitled "The Hobby Horse." Locke was quite aware that his method would be criticised, and therefore took the bull by the horns in the following manner. He admitted that to put the subject of learning last was a cause for wonder, "especially if I tell you I think it the least part. This may seem strange in the mouth of a bookish man, and this making usually the chief, if not only bustle and stir about children; this being almost that alone, which is thought on, when People talk about Education, make it the greater Paradox." An unusual piece of advice it most surely was to parents to whose children came the task of learning to read as soon as they were given spoon-food. Even more revolutionary to the custom of an eighteenth century mother was the admonition that reading "be never made a Task." Locke, however, was not the man to urge a cure for a bad habit without prescribing a remedy, so he went on to say that it was always his "Fancy that Learning be made a Play and Recreation to Children"--a "Fancy" at present much in vogue. To accomplish this desirable result, "Dice and Play-things with the Letters on them" were recommended to teach children the alphabet; "and," he added, "twenty other ways may be found ... to make this kind of Learning a Sport to them." Letter-blocks were in this way made popular, and formed the approved and advanced method until in these latter days pedagogy has swept aside the letter-blocks and syllabariums and carried the sport to word-pictures. This theory had a practical result in the introduction to many households of "The Child's New Play-thing." This book, already mentioned, was printed in England in seventeen hundred and forty-three, and dedicated to Prince George. In seventeen hundred and forty-four we find through the "Boston Evening Post" of January 23 that the third edition was sold by Joseph Edwards, in Cornhill, and it was probably from this edition that the first American edition was printed in seventeen hundred and fifty. From the following description of this American reprint (one of which is happily in the Lenox Collection), it will be seen that the "Play-thing" was an attempt to follow Locke's advice, as well as a connecting link between the primer of the past and the story-book of the near future. The title, which the illustration shows, reads, "The Child's New Play-thing being a spelling-book intended to make Learning to read a diversion instead of a task. Consisting of Scripture-histories, fables, stories, moral and religious precepts, proverbs, songs, riddles, dialogues, &c. The whole adapted to the capacities of children, and divided into lessons of one, two, three and four syllables. The fourth edition. To which is added three dialogues; 1. Shewing how a little boy shall make every body love him. 2. How a little boy shall grow wiser than the rest of his school-fellows. 3. How a little boy shall become a great man. Designed for the use of schools, or for children before they go to school." [Illustration: _Title-page from "The Child's new Play-Thing"_] Coverless and faded, hard usage is written in unmistakable characters upon this play-thing of a whole family. Upon a fly-leaf are the autographs of "Ebenezer Ware and Sarah Ware, Their Book," and upon another page these two names with the addition of the signatures of "Ichabod Ware and Cyrus Ware 1787." One parent may have used it when it was fresh from the press of Draper & Edwards in Boston; then, through enforced economy, handed it down to the next generation, who doubtless scorned the dedication so eminently proper in seventeen hundred and fifty, so thoroughly out of place thirty-seven years later. There it stands in large black type: To his ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE GEORGE This Little Play-thing is most humbly dedicated By His ROYAL HIGHNESS'S Devoted Servant Of especial interest are the alphabets in "Roman, Italian, and English Names" on the third page, while page four contains the dear old alphabet in rhyme, fortunately not altogether forgotten in this prosaic age. We recognize it as soon as we see it. "A Apple-Pye B bit it C cut it," and involuntarily add, D divided it. After the spelling lessons came fables, proverbs, and the splendid "Stories proper to raise the Attention and excite the Curiosity of Children" of any age; namely, "St. George and the Dragon," "Fortunatus," "Guy of Warwick," "Brother and Sister," "Reynard the Fox," "The Wolf and the Kid." "The Good Dr. Watts," writes Mrs. Field, "is supposed to have had a hand in the composition of this toy book especially in the stories, one of which is quite in the style of the old hymn writer." Here it is: "Once on a time two dogs went out to walk. Tray was a good dog, and would not hurt the least thing in the world, but Snap was cross, and would snarl and bite at all that came in his way. At last they came to a town. All the dogs came round them. Tray hurt none of them, but Snap would grin at one, snarl at the next, and bite a third, till at last they fell on him and tore him limb from limb, and as poor Tray was with him, he met with his death at the same time. _Moral_ "By this fable you see how dangerous it is to be in company with bad boys. Tray was a quiet harmless dog, and hurt nobody, but, &c."[45-A] Thus we find that Locke sowed the seed, Watts watered the soil in which the seed fell, and that Newbery, after mixing in ideas from his very fertile brain, soon reaped a golden harvest from the crop of readers, picture-books, and little histories which he, with the aid of certain well-known authors, produced. According to his biographer, Mr. Charles Welsh, John Newbery was born in a quaint parish of England in seventeen hundred and thirteen. Although his father was only a small farmer, Newbury inherited his bookish tastes from an ancestor, Ralph or Rafe Newbery, who had been a great publisher of the sixteenth century. Showing no inclination toward the life of a farmer, the boy, at sixteen, had already entered the shop of a merchant in Reading. The name of this merchant is not known, but inference points to Mr. Carnan, printer, proprietor, and editor of one of the earliest provincial newspapers. In seventeen hundred and thirty-seven, at the death of Carnan, John Newbery, then about twenty-four years of age, found himself one of the proprietor's heirs and an executor of the estate. Carnan left a widow, to whom, to quote her son, Newbery's "love of books and acquirements as a printer rendered him very acceptable." The amiable and well-to-do widow and Newbery were soon married, and their youngest son, Francis Newbery, eventually succeeded his father in the business of publishing. [Illustration: _Title-page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_] Shortly after Newbery's marriage his ambition and enterprise resulted in the establishment of his family in London, where, in seventeen hundred and forty-four, he opened a warehouse at _The Bible and Crown_, near Devereux Court, without Temple Bar. Meanwhile he had associated himself with Benjamin Collins, a printer in Salisbury. Collins both planned and printed some of Newbery's toy volumes, and his name likewise was well-known to shop-keepers in the colonies. Newbery soon found that his business warranted another move nearer to the centre of trade. He therefore combined two establishments into one at the now celebrated corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, and at the same time decided to confine his attention exclusively to book publishing and medicine vending. Before his departure from Devereux Court, Newbery had published at least one book for juvenile readers. The title reads: "Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly, with an agreeable Letter to read from Jack the Giant Killer, as also a Ball and Pincushion, the use of which will infallibly make Tommy a good Boy, and Polly a good Girl. To the whole is prefixed a letter on education humbly addressed to all Parents, Guardians, Governesses, &c., wherein rules are laid down for making their children strong, healthy, virtuous, wise and happy." To this extraordinarily long title were added couplets from Dryden and Pope, probably because extracts from these poets were usually placed upon the title-page of books for grown people; possibly also in order to give a finish to miniature volumes that would be like the larger publications. A wholly simple method of writing title-pages never came into even Newbery's original mind; he did for the juvenile customer exactly what he was accustomed to do for his father and mother. And yet the habit of spreading out over the page the entire contents of the book was not without value: it gave the purchaser no excuse for not knowing what was to be found within its covers; and in the days when books were a luxury and literary reviews non-existent, the country trade was enabled to make a better choice. [Illustration: _A page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_] The manner in which the "Little Pretty Pocket-Book" is written is so characteristic of those who were the first to attempt to write for the younger generation in an amusing way, that it is worth while to examine briefly the topics treated. An American reprint of a later date, now in the Lenox Collection, will serve to show the method chosen to combine instruction with amusement. The book itself is miniature in size, about two by four inches, with embossed gilt paper covers--Newbery's own specialty as a binding. The sixty-five little illustrations at the top of its pages were numerous enough to afford pleasure to any eighteenth century child, although they were crude in execution and especially lacked true perspective. The first chapter after the "Address to Parents" and to the other people mentioned on the title-page gives letters to Master Tommy and Miss Polly. First, Tommy is congratulated upon the good character that his Nurse has given him, and instructed as to the use of the "Pocket-Book," "which will teach you to play at all those innocent games that good Boys and Girls divert themselves with." The boy reader is next advised to mark his good and bad actions with pins upon a red and black ball. Little Polly is then given similar congratulations and instructions, except that in her case a pincushion is to be substituted for a ball. Then follow thirty pages devoted to "alphabetically digested" games, from "The _great A Play_" and "The _Little_ _a Play_" to "The _great and little Rs_," when plays, or the author's imagination, give out and rhymes begin the alphabet anew. Modern picture alphabets have not improved much upon this jingle: "Great A, B and C And tumble down D, The Cat's a blind buff, And she cannot see." Next in order are four fables with morals (written in the guise of letters), for in Newbery's books and in those of a much later period, we feel, as Mr. Welsh writes, a "strong determination on the part of the authors to place the moral plainly in sight and to point steadily to it." Pictures also take a leading part in this effort to inculcate good behaviour; thus _Good Children_ are portrayed in cuts, which accompany the directions for attaining perfection. Proverbs, having been hitherto introduced into school-books, appear again quite naturally in this source of diversion, which closes--at least in the American edition--with sixty-three "Rules for Behaviour." These rules include those suitable for various occasions, such as "At the Meeting-House," "Home," "The Table," "In Company," and "When abroad with other Children." To-day, when many such rules are as obsolete as the tiny pages themselves, this chapter affords many glimpses of the customs and etiquette of the old-fashioned child's life. Such a direction as "Be not hasty to run out of Meeting-House when Worship is ended, as if thou weary of being there" (probably an American adaptation of the English original), recalls the well-filled colonial meeting-house, where weary children sat for hours on high seats, with dangling legs, or screwed their small bodies in vain efforts to touch the floor. Again we can see the anxious mothers, when, after the long sermon was brought to a close, they put restraining hands upon the little ones, lest they, in haste to be gone, should forget this admonition. The formalism of the time is suggested in this request, "Make a Bow always when come Home, and be instantly uncovered," for the ceremony of polite manners in these bustling days has so much relaxed that the modern boy does all that is required if he remembers to be "instantly uncovered when come Home." Among the numerous other requirements only one more may be cited--a rule which reveals the table manners of polite society in its requisite for genteel conduct: "Throw not anything under the Table. Pick not thy teeth at the Table, unless holding thy Napkin before thy mouth with thine other Hand." With such an array of intellectual and moral contents, the little "Pocket-Book" may appear to-day to be almost anything except an amusement book. Yet this was the phase that the English play-book first assumed, and it must not be forgotten that English prose fiction was only then coming into existence, except such germs as are found in the character sketches in the "Spectator" and in the cleverly told incidents by Defoe. In 1744, when Newbery published this duodecimo, Dr. Samuel Johnson was the presiding genius of English letters; four years earlier, fiction had come prominently into the foreground with the publication of "Pamela" by Samuel Richardson; and between seventeen hundred and forty and seventeen hundred and fifty-two, Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe," Smollett's "Roderick Random" and "Peregrine Pickle," and Fielding's "Tom Jones" were published. This fact may seem irrelevant to the present subject; nevertheless, the idea of a veritable story-book, that is a book relating a tale, does not seem to have entered Newbery's mind until after these novels had met with a deserved and popular success. The result of Newbery's first efforts to follow Locke's advice was so satisfactory that his wares were sought most eagerly. "Very soon," said his son, Francis Newbery, "he was in the full employment of his talents in writing and publishing books of amusement and instruction for Children. The call for them was immense, an edition of many thousands being sometimes exhausted during the Christmas holidays. His friend, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, like other grave characters, could now and then be jocose, had used to say of him, 'Newbery is an extraordinary man, for I know not whether he has read or written most Books.'"[51-A] The bookseller was no less clever in his use of other people's wits. No one knows how many of the tiny gilt bindings covered stories told by impecunious writers, to whom the proceeds in times of starvation were bread if not butter. Newbery, though called by Goldsmith "the philanthropic publisher of St. Paul's Churchyard," knew very well the worth to his own pocket of these authors' skill in story-writing. Between the years seventeen hundred and fifty-seven and seventeen hundred and sixty-seven, the English publisher was at the height of his prosperity; his name became a household word in England, and was hardly less well known to the little colonials of America. Newbery's literary associations, too, were both numerous and important. Before Oliver Goldsmith began to write for children, he is thought to have contributed articles for Newbery's "Literary Magazine" about seventeen hundred and fifty-eight, while Johnson's celebrated "Idler" was first printed in a weekly journal started by the publisher about the same time. For the "British Magazine" Newbery engaged Smollett as editor. In this periodical appeared Goldsmith's "History of Miss Stanton." When later this was published as "The Vicar of Wakefield," it contained a characterization of the bookseller as a good-natured man with red, pimpled face, "who was no sooner alighted than he was in haste to be gone, for he was ever on business of the utmost importance, and he was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of Mr. Thomas Trip."[52-A] With such an acquaintance it is probable that Newbery often turned to Goldsmith, Giles Jones, and Tobias Smollett for assistance in writing or abridging the various children's tales; even the pompous Dr. Johnson is said to have had a hand in their production--since he expressed a wish to do so. Newbery himself, however, assumed the responsibility as well as the credit of so many little "Histories," that it is exceedingly difficult to fix upon the real authors of some of the best-known volumes in the publisher's juvenile library. The histories of "Goody Two-Shoes" and "Tommy Trip" (once such nursery favorites, and now almost, if not quite, forgotten) have been attributed to various men; but according to Mr. Pearson in "Banbury Chap-Books," Goldsmith confessed to writing both. Certainly, his sly wit and quizzical vein of humor seem to pervade "Goody Two-Shoes"--often ascribed to Giles Jones--and the notes affixed to the rhymes of Mother Goose before she became Americanized. Again his skill is seen in the adaptation of "Wonders of Nature and Art" for juvenile admirers; and for "Fables in Verse" he is generally considered responsible. As all these tales were printed in the colonies or in the young Republic, their peculiarities and particularities may be better described when dealing with the issues of the American press. John Newbery, the most illustrious of publishers in the eyes of the old-fashioned child, died in 1767, at the comparatively early age of fifty-four. Yet before his death he had proved his talent for producing at least fifty original little books, to be worth considerably more than the Biblical ten talents. No sketch of Newbery's life should fail to mention another large factor in his successful experiment--the insertion in the "London Chronicle" and other newspapers of striking and novel advertisements of his gilt volumes, which were to be had for "six-pence the price of binding." An instance of his skill appeared in the "London Chronicle" for December 19, 1764-January 1, 1765: "The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the learned in every faculty are desired to observe that on the 1st of January, being New Year's Day (oh, that we may all lead new lives!) Mr. Newbery intends to publish the following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby invites all his little friends who are good to call for them at the Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Churchyard, but those who are naughty to have none."[54-A] Christopher Smart, his brother-in-law, who was an adept in the art of puffing, possibly wrote many of the advertisements of new books--notices so cleverly phrased that they could not fail to attract the attention of many a country shop-keeper. In this way thousands were sold to the country districts; and book-dealers in the American commonwealths, reading the English papers and alert to improve their trade, imported them in considerable quantities. After Newbery's death, his son, Francis, and Carnan, his stepson, carried on the business until seventeen hundred and eighty-eight; from that year until eighteen hundred and two Edward Newbery (a nephew of the senior Newbery), who in seventeen hundred and sixty-seven had set up a rival establishment, continued to publish new editions of the same little works. Yet the credit of this experiment of printing juvenile stories belongs entirely to the older publisher. Through them he made a strong protest against the reading by children of the lax chap-book literature, so excellently described by Mr. John Ashton in "Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century;" and although his stories occasionally alluded to disagreeable subjects or situations, these were unfortunately familiar to his small patrons. The gay little covers of gilt or parti-colored paper in which this English publisher dressed his books expressed an evident purpose to afford pleasure, which was increased by the many illustrations that adorned the pages and added interest to the contents. To the modern child, these books give no pleasure; but to those who love the history of children of the past, they are interesting for two reasons. In them is portrayed something of the life of eighteenth century children; and by them the century's difference in point of view as to the constituents of a story-book can be gauged. Moreover, all Newbery's publications are to be credited with a careful preparation that later stories sadly lacked. They were always written with a certain art; if the language was pompous, we remember Dr. Johnson; if the style was formal, its composition was correct; if the tales lacked ease in telling, it was only the starched etiquette of the day reduced to a printed page; and if they preached, they at least were seldom vulgar. The preaching, moreover, was of different character from that of former times. Hitherto, the fear of the Lord had wholly occupied the author's attention when he composed a book "proper for a child as soon as he can read;" now, material welfare was dwelt upon, and a good boy's reward came to him when he was chosen the Lord Mayor of London. Good girls were not forgotten, and were assured that, like Goody Two-Shoes, they should attain a state of prosperity wherein "Their Fortune and their Fame would fix And gallop in their Coach and Six." Goody Two-Shoes, with her particular method of instilling the alphabet, and such books as "King Pippin" (a prodigy of learning) may be considered as tiny commentaries upon the years when Johnson reigned supreme in the realm of learning. These and many others emphasized not the effects of piety,--Cotton Mather's forte,--but the benefits of learning; and hence the good boy was also one who at the age of five spelt "apple-pye" correctly and therefore eventually became a great man. At the time of Newbery's death it was more than evident that his experiment had succeeded, and children's stories were a printed fact. FOOTNOTES: [45-A] Field, _The Child and his Book_, p. 223. [51-A] Welsh, _Bookseller of the Last Century_, pp. 22, 23. [52-A] Foster, _Life of Goldsmith_, vol. i, p. 244. [54-A] Welsh, _Bookseller of the Last Century_, p. 109. CHAPTER III 1750-1776 Kings should be good Not men of blood. _The New England Primer_, 1791 If Faith itself has different dresses worn What wonder modes in wit should take their turn. POPE: _Essay on Man_ CHAPTER III 1750-1776 _Newbery's Books in America_ In the middle of the eighteenth century Thursdays were red-letter days for the residents of the Quaker town of Philadelphia. On that day Thomas Bradford sent forth from the "Sign of the Bible" in Second Street the weekly number of the "Pennsylvania Journal," and upon the same day his rival journalists, Franklin and Hall, issued the "Pennsylvania Gazette." On Thursday, the fifteenth of November, seventeen hundred and fifty, Old Style, the good people of the town took up their newspapers with doubtless a feeling of comfortable anticipation, as they drew their chairs to the fireside and began to look over the local occurrences of the past week, the "freshest foreign advices," and the various bits of information that had filtered slowly from the northern and more southern provinces. On this particular evening the subscribers to both newspapers found a trifle more news in the "Journal," but in each paper the same domestic items of interest, somewhat differently worded. The latest news from Boston was that of November fifth, from New York, November eighth, the Annapolis item was dated October tenth, and the few lines from London had been written in August. The "Gazette" (a larger sheet than the "Journal") occasionally had upon its first page some timely article of political or local interest. But more frequently there appeared in its first column an effusion of no local color, but full of sentimental or moral reflections. In this day's issue there was a long letter, dated New York, from one who claimed to be "Beauty's Votary." This expressed the writer's disappointment that an interesting "Piece" inserted in the "Gazette" a fortnight earlier had presented in its conclusion "an unexpected shocking Image." The shock to the writer it appears was the greater, because the beginning of the article had, he thought, promised a strong contrast between "Furious Rage in our rough Sex, and Gentle mildness adorn'd with Beauty's charms in the other." The rest of the letter was an apostrophe to the fair sex in the sentimental and florid language of the period. To the women, we imagine, this letter was more acceptable than to the men, who found the shipping news more to their taste, and noted with pleasure the arrival of the ship Carolina and the Snow Strong, which brought cargoes valuable for their various industries. Advertisements filled a number of columns. Among them was one so novel in its character that it must have caught the eye of all readers. The middle column on the second page was devoted almost entirely to an announcement that John Newbery had for "Sale to Schoolmasters, Shopkeepers, &c, who buy in quantities to sell again," "The Museum," "A new French Primer," "The Royal Battledore," and "The Pretty Book for Children." This notice--a reduced fac-simile of which is given--made Newbery's début in Philadelphia; and it must not be forgotten that but a short period had elapsed since his first book had been printed in England. [Illustration: _John Newbery's Advertisement of Children's Books_] Franklin had doubtless heard of the publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard through Mr. Strahan, his correspondent, who filled orders for him from London booksellers; but the omission of the customary announcement of special books as "to be had of the Printer hereof" points to Newbery's enterprise in seeking a wider market for his wares, and Franklin's business ability in securing the advertisement, as it is not repeated in the "Journal." This "Museum" was probably a newer book than the "Royal Primer," "Battledore," and "Pretty Book," and consequently was more fully described; and oddly enough, all of these books are of earlier editions than Mr. Welsh, Newbery's biographer, was able to trace in England. "The Museum" still clings to the same idea which pervaded "The Play-thing." Its second title reads: "A private TUTOR for little MASTERS and MISSES." The contents show that this purpose was carried out. It tutored them by giving directions for reading with eloquence and propriety; by presenting "the antient and present State of _Great Britain_ with a compendious History of _England_;" by instructing them in "the Solar System, geography, Arts and Sciences" and the inevitable "Rules for Behaviour, Religion and Morality;" and it admonished them by giving the "Dying Words of Great Men when just quitting the Stage of Life." As a museum it included descriptions of the Seven Wonders of the World, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Churchyard, and the Tower of London, with an ethnological section in the geographical department! All of this amusement was to be had for the price of "One Shilling," neatly bound, with, thrown in as good measure, "Letters, Tales and Fables illustrated with Cuts." Such a library, complete in itself, was a fine and most welcome reward for scholarship, when prizes were awarded at the end of the school session. Importations of "Parcels of entertaining books for children" had earlier in the year been announced through the columns of the "Gazette;" but these importations, though they show familiarity with Newbery's quaint phraseology in advertising, probably also included an assortment of such little chap-books as "Tom Thumb," "Cinderella" (from the French of Monsieur Perrault), and some few other old stories which the children had long since appropriated as their own property. In 1751 we find New York waking up to the appreciation of children's books. There J. Waddell and James Parker were apparently the pioneers in bringing to public notice the fact that they had for sale little novel-books in addition to horn-books and primers; and moreover the "Weekly Post-Boy" advertised that these booksellers had "Pretty Books for little Masters and Misses" (clearly a Newbery imitation), "with Blank Flourished Christmas pieces for Scholars." But as yet even Franklin had hardly been convinced that the old way of imparting knowledge was not superior to the then modern combination of amusement and instruction; therefore, although with his partner, David Hall, he without doubt sold such children's books as were available, for his daughter Sally, aged seven, he had other views. At his request his wife, in December, 1751, wrote the following letter to William Strahan: MADAM,--I am ordered by my Master to write for him Books for Sally Franklin. I am in Hopes She will be abel to write for herself by the Spring. 8 Sets of the Perceptor best Edit. 8 Doz. of Croxall's Fables. 3 Doz. of Bishop Kenns Manual for Winchester School. 1 Doz. Familiar Forms, Latin and Eng. Ainsworth's Dictionaries, 4 best Edit. 2 Doz. Select Tales and Fables. 2 Doz. Costalio's Test. Cole's Dictionarys Latin and Eng. 6 a half doz. 3 Doz. of Clarke's Cordery. 1 Boyle's Pliny 2 vols. 8vo. 6 Sets of Nature displayed in 7 vols. 12mo. One good Quarto Bibel with Cudes bound in calfe. 1 Penrilla. 1 Art of making Common Salt. By Browning. My Dafter gives her duty to Mr. Stroyhan and his Lady, and her compliments to Master Billy and all his brothers and Sisters.... Your humbel Servant DEBORAH FRANKLIN Little Sally Franklin could not have needed eight dozen copies of Aesop's Fables, nor four Ainsworth's Dictionaries, so it is probable that Deborah Franklin's far from ready pen put down the book order for the spring, and that Sally herself was only to be supplied with the "Perceptor," the "Fables," and the "one good Quarto Bibel." As far as it is now possible to judge, the people of the towns soon learned the value of Newbery's little nursery tales, and after seventeen hundred and fifty-five, when most of his books were written and published, they rapidly gained a place on the family book-shelves in America. By seventeen hundred and sixty Hugh Gaine, printer, publisher, patent medicine seller, and employment agent for New York, was importing practically all the Englishman's juvenile publications then for sale. At the "Bible and Crown," where Gaine printed the "Weekly Mercury," could be bought, wholesale and retail, such books as, "Poems for Children Three Feet High," "Tommy Trapwit," "Trip's Book of Pictures," "The New Year's Gift," "The Christmas Box," etc. Gaine himself was a prominent printer in New York in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Until the Revolution his shop was a favorite one and well patronized. But when the hostilities began, the condition of his pocket seems to have regulated his sympathies, and he was by turn Whig and Tory according to the possession of New York by so-called Rebels, or King's Servants. When the British army evacuated New York, Gaine, wishing to keep up his trade, dropped the "Crown" from his sign. Among the enthusiastic patriots this ruse had scant success. In Freneau's political satire of the bookseller, the first verse gives a strong suggestion of the ridicule to follow: "And first, he was, in his own representation, A printer, once of good reputation. He dwelt in the street called Hanover-Square, (You'll know where it is if you ever was there Next door to the dwelling of Mr. Brownjohn, Who now to the drug-shop of Pluto is gone) But what do I say--who e'er came to town, And knew not Hugh Gaine at the _Bible_ and _Crown_." A contemporary of, and rival bookseller to, Gaine in seventeen hundred and sixty was James Rivington. Mr. Hildeburn has given Rivington a rather unenviable reputation; still, as he occasionally printed (?) a child's book, Mr. Hildeburn's remarks are quoted: "Until the advent of Rivington it was generally possible to tell from an American Bookseller's advertisement in the current newspapers whether the work offered for sale was printed in America or England. But the books he received in every fresh invoice from London were 'just published by James Rivington' and this form was speedily adopted by other booksellers, so that after 1761 the advertisement of books is no longer a guide to the issues of the colonial press." Although Rivington did not set up a press until about seventeen hundred and seventy-three,--according to Mr. Hildeburn,--he had a book-shop much earlier. Here he probably reprinted the title-page and then put an elaborate notice in the "Weekly Mercury" for November 17, 1760, as follows: JAMES RIVINGTON _Bookseller and Stationer from London over against the Golden Key in Hanover Square._ This day is published, Price, seven Shillings, and sold by the said JAMES RIVINGTON, adorned with two hundred Pictures THE FABLES OF AESOP with a moral to each Fable in Verse, and an Application in Prose, intended for the Use of the youngest of readers, and proper to be put into the hands of Children, immediately after they have done with the Spelling-Book, it being adapted to their tender Capacities, the Fables are related in a short and lively Manner, and they are recommended to all those who are concerned in the education of Children. This is an entire new Work, elegantly printed and ornamented with much better Cuts than any other Edition of Aesop's Fables. Be pleased to ask for DRAPER'S AESOP. From such records of parents' care as are given in Mrs. Charles Pinckney's letters to her husband's agent in London, and Josiah Quincy's reminiscences of his early training, it seems very evident that John Locke's advice in "Thoughts on Education" was read and followed at this time in the American colonies. Therefore, in accordance with the bachelor philosopher's theory as to reading-matter for little children, the bookseller recommended the "Fables" to "those concerned in the education of children." It is at least a happy coincidence that one of the earliest books (as far as is known to the writer), aside from school and religious books, issued as published in America for children, should have been the one Locke had so heartily recommended. This is what he had said many years previously: "When by these gentle ways he begins to _read_, some easy pleasant Book, suited to his capacities, should be put into his Hands, wherein the Entertainment that he finds might draw him on, and reward his Pains in Reading, and yet not such as will fill his head with perfectly useless Trumpery, or lay the Principles of Vice and Folly. To this Purpose, I think Aesop's Fables the best which being Stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful Reflections to a grown Man.... If his Aesop has pictures in it, it will entertain him much better and encourage him to read." The two hundred pictures in Rivington's edition made it, of course, high priced in comparison with Newbery's books: but New York then contained many families well able to afford this outlay to secure such an acquisition to the family library. Hugh Gaine at this time, as a rule, received each year two shipments of books, among which were usually some for children, yet about 1762 he began to try his own hand at reprinting Newbery's now famous little duodecimos. In that year we find an announcement through the "New York Mercury" that he had himself printed "Divers diverting books for infants." The following list gives some idea of their character: _Just published by Hugh Gaine_ A pretty Book for Children; Or an Easy Guide to the English Tongue. The private Tutor for little Masters and Misses. Food for the Mind; or a new Riddle Book compiled for the use of little Good Boys and Girls in America. By Jack the Giant-Killer, Esq. A Collection of Pretty Poems, by Tommy Tag, Esq. Aesop's Fables in Verse, with the Conversation of Beasts and Birds, at their several Meetings. By Woglog the great Giant. A Little pretty Book, intended for the Amusement of Little Master Tommy and pretty Miss Polly, with two Letters from Jack the Giant-Killer. Be Merry and Wise: Or the Cream of the Jests. By Tommy Trapwit, Esq. The title of "Food for the Mind" is of special importance, since in it Gaine made a clever alteration by inserting the words "Good Boys and Girls in _America_." The colonials were already beginning to feel a pride in the fact of belonging to the new country, America, and therefore Gaine shrewdly changed the English title to one more likely to induce people to purchase. Gaine and Rivington alone have left records of printing children's story-books in the town of New York before the Revolution; but before they began to print, other booksellers advertised their invoices of books. In 1759 Garrat Noel, a Dutchman, had announced that he had "the very prettiest gilt Books for little Masters and Misses that ever were invented, full of wit and wisdom, at the surprising low Price of only one Shilling each finely bound and adorned with a number of curious Cuts." By 1762 Noel had increased his stock and placed a somewhat larger advertisement in the "Mercury" of December 27. The late arrival of his goods may have been responsible for the bargains he offered at this holiday sale. GARRAT NOEL _Begs Leave to Inform the Public, that according to his Annual Custom, he has provided a very large Assortment of Books for Entertainment and Improvement of Youth, in Reading, Writing, Cyphering, and Drawing, as Proper Presents at _CHRISTMAS_ and _New-Year_._ The following Small, but improving Histories, are sold at _Two Shillings_, each, neatly bound in red, and adorn'd with Cuts. [Symbol: hand]Those who buy _Six_, shall have a _Seventh Gratis_, and buying only _Three_, they shall have a present of a fine large Copper-Plate Christmas Piece: [_List of histories follows._] The following neat Gilt Books, very instructive and Amusing being full of Pictures, are sold at _Eighteen Pence_ each. Fables in Verse and Prose, with the Conversation of Birds & Beasts at their several meetings, Routs and Assemblies for the Improvement of Old and Young, etc. To-day none of these gay little volumes sold in New York are to be seen. The inherent faculty of children for losing and destroying books, coupled with the perishable nature of these toy volumes, has rendered the children's treasures of seventeen hundred and sixty-two a great rarity. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is the fortunate possessor of one much prized story-book printed in that year; but though it is at present in the Quaker City, a printer of Boston was responsible for its production. In Isaiah Thomas's recollections of the early Boston printers, he described Zechariah Fowle, with whom he served his apprenticeship, and Samuel Draper, Fowle's partner. These men, about seventeen hundred and fifty-seven, took a house in Marlborough Street. Here, according to Thomas, "they printed and opened a shop. They kept a great supply of ballads, and small pamphlets for book pedlars, of whom there were many at that time. Fowle was bred to the business, but he was an indifferent hand at the press, and much worse at the case." This description of the printer's ability is borne out by the "New-Gift for Children," printed by this firm. It is probably the oldest story-book bearing an American imprint now in existence, and for this reason merits description, although its contents can be seen in the picture of the title-page. Brown with age and like all chap-books without a cover--for it was Newbery who introduced this more durable and attractive feature--all sizes in type were used to print its fifteen stories. The stories in themselves were not new, as it is called the "Fourth edition." It is possible that they were taken from the Banbury chap-books, which also often copied Newbery's juvenile library, as the list of his publications compiled by Mr. Charles Welsh does not contain this title. The loyalty of the Boston printers found expression on the third page by a very black cut of King George the Third, who appears rather puzzled and not a little unhappy; but it found favor with customers, for as yet the colonials thought their king "no man of blood." On turning the page Queen Charlotte looks out with goggle-eyes, curls, and a row of beads about the size of pebbles around her thick neck. The picture seems to be a copy from some miniature of the queen, as an oval frame with a crown surmounting it encircles the portrait. The stories are so much better than some that were written even after the nineteenth century, that extracts from them are worth reading. The third tale, called "The Generosity of Confessing a Fault," begins as follows: "Miss _Fanny Goodwill_ was one of the prettiest children that ever was seen; her temper was as sweet as her looks, and her behavior so genteel and obliging that everybody admir'd her; for nobody can help loving good children, any more than they can help being angry with those that are naughty. It is no wonder then that her papa and mama lov'd her dearly, they took a great deal of pains to improve her mind so that before she was seven years old, she could read, and talk, and work like a little woman. One day as her papa was sitting by the fire, he set her upon his knees, kiss'd her, and told her how very much he lov'd her; and then smiling, and taking hold of her hand, My dear Fanny, said he, take care never to tell a lye, and then I shall always love you as well as I do now. You or I may be guilty of a fault; but there is something noble and generous in owning our errors, and striving to mend them; but a lye more than doubles the fault, and when it is found out, makes the lyar appear mean and contemptible.... Thus, my dear, the lyar is a wretch, whom nobody trusts, nobody regards, nobody pities. Indeed papa, said Miss _Fanny_, I would not be such a creature for all the world. You are very good, my little _charmer_, said her papa and kiss'd her again." [Illustration: _Title-page from "The New Gift for Children"_] The inevitable temptation came when Miss Fanny went on "a visit to a Miss in the neighborhood; her mama ordered her to be home at eight o'clock; but she was engag'd at play, and did not mind how the time pass'd, so that she stay'd till near ten; and then her mama sent for her." The child of course was frightened by the lateness of the hour, and the maid--who appears in the illustration with cocked hat and musket!--tried to calm her fears with the advice to "tell her mama that the Miss she went to see had taken her out." "_No Mary_, said Miss _Fanny_, wiping her pretty eyes, I am above a lye;" and she rehearsed for the benefit of the maid her father's admonition. Story IX tells of the _Good Girl and Pretty Girl_. In this the pretty child had bright eyes and pretty plump cheeks and was much admired. She, however, was a meanly proud girl, and so naughty as not to want to grow wiser, but applied to those good people who happened to be less favored in looks such terms as "bandy-legs, crump, and all such naughty names." The good sister "could read before the pretty miss could tell a letter; and though her shape was not so genteel her behavior was a great deal more so. But alas! the pretty creature fell sick of the small-pox, and all her beauty vanished." Thus in the eighteenth century was the adage "Beauty is but skin deep" brought to bear upon conduct. On the last page is a cut of "Louisburg demolished," which had served its time already upon almanacs, but the eight cuts were undoubtedly made especially for children. Moreover, since they do not altogether illustrate the various stories, they are good proof that similar chap-book tales were printed by Fowle and Draper for little ones before the War of Independence. In the southern provinces the sea afforded better transportation facilities for household necessities and luxuries than the few post-lines from the north could offer. Bills of exchange could be drawn against London, to be paid by the profits of the tobacco crops, a safer method of payment than any that then existed between the northern and southern towns. In the regular orders sent by George Washington to Robert Carey in London, twice we find mention of the children's needs and wishes. In the very first invoice of goods to be shipped to Washington after his marriage with Mrs. Custis in seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, he ordered "10 Shillings worth of Toys, 6 little books for children beginning to read and a fashionable dressed baby to cost 10 Shillings;" and again later in ordering clothes, "Toys, Sugar, Images and Comfits" for his step-children he added: "Books according to the enclosed list to be charged equally to John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis." But in Boston the people bought directly from the booksellers, of whom there were already many. One of these was John Mein, who played a part in the historic Non-Importation Agreement. In seventeen hundred and fifty this Englishman had opened in King Street a shop which he called the "London Book-Store." Here he sold many imported books, and in seventeen hundred and sixty-five, when the population of Boston numbered some twenty thousand, he started the "earliest circulating library, advertised to contain ten thousand volumes."[73-A] This shop was both famous and notorious: famous because of its "Very Grand Assortment of the most modern Books;" notorious because of the accusations made against its owner when the colonials, aroused by the action of Parliament, passed the Non-Importation Agreement. Before the excitement had culminated in this "Agreement," John Mein's lists of importations show that the children's pleasure had not been forgotten, and after it their books singularly enough were connected with this historic action. In 1766, in the "Boston Evening Post," we find Mein's announcement that "Little Books with Pictures for Children" could be purchased at the London Book-Store; in December, 1767, he advertised through the columns of the "Boston Chronicle," among other books, "in every branch of polite literature," a "Great Variety of entertaining Books for CHILDREN, proper for presents at Christmas or New-year's day--Prices from Two Coppers to Two Shillings." In August of the following year Mein gave the names of seven of Newbery's famous gilt volumes, as "to be sold" at his shop. These "pretty little entertaining and instructive Books" were "Giles Gingerbread," the "Adventures of little TOMMY TRIP with his dog JOULER," "Tommy Trip's Select Fables," and "an excellent Pastoral Hymn," "The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book," "Leo, the Great Giant," and "URAX, or the Fair Wanderer--price eight pence lawful money. _A very interesting tale in which the protection of the Almighty_ is proved to be the first and chief support of the FEMALE SEX." Number seven in the list was the story of the "Cruel Giant Barbarico," and it is one of this edition that is now among the rare Americana of the Boston Public Library. The imprint upon its title-page coincides with Isaiah Thomas's statement that though "Fleming was not concerned with Mein in book-selling, several books were printed at their house for Mein." Its date, 1768, would indicate that Mein had reproduced one of his importations to which allusion has already been made. The book in marbled covers, time-worn and faded now, was sold for only "six-pence lawful" when new, possibly because it lacked illustrations. [Illustration: _Miss Fanny's Maid_] One year later, when the Non-Importation Agreement had passed and was rigorously enforced in the port of Boston, these same little books were advertised again in the "Chronicle" of December 4-7 under the large caption, PRINTED IN AMERICA AND TO BE SOLD BY JOHN MEIN. Times had so changed within one year's space that even a child's six-penny book was unpopular, if known to have been imported. Mein was among those accused of violating the "Agreement;" he was charged with the importation of materials for book-making. In a November number of the "Chronicle" of seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, Mein published an article entitled "A State of the Importation from Great Britain into the Port of BOSTON with the advertisement of a set of Men, who assume to themselves THE TITLE of _ALL the Well Disposed Merchants_." In this letter the London Book-Store proprietor vigorously defended himself, and protested that the quantity of his work necessitated some importations not procurable in Boston. He also made sarcastic references to other men whom he thought the cap fitted better with less excuse. It was in the following December that he tried to keep this trade in children's books by his apparently patriotic announcement regarding them. His protests were useless. Already in disfavor with some because he was supposed to print books in America but used a London imprint, his popularity waned; he was marked as a loyalist, and there was little of the spirit of tolerance for such in that hot-bed of patriotism. The air was so full of the growing differences between the colonials and the king's government, that in seventeen hundred and seventy Mein closed out his stock and returned to England. On the other hand, the patriotic booksellers did not fail to take note of the crystallization of public opinion. Robert Bell in Philadelphia appended a note to his catalogue of books, stating that "The Lovers and Practisers of Patriotism are requested to note that all the Books in this Catalogue are either of American manufacture, or imported before the Non-Importation Agreement." The supply of home-made paper was of course limited. So much was needed to circulate among the colonies pamphlets dealing with the injustice of the king's government toward his American subjects, that it seems remarkable that any juvenile books should have been printed in those stirring days before the war began. It is rather to be expected that, with the serious turn that events had taken and the consequent questions that had arisen, the publications of the American press should have received the shadow of the forthcoming trouble--a shadow sufficient to discourage any attempt at humor for adult or child. Evidence, however, points to the fact that humor and amusement were not totally lacking in the issues of the press of at least one printer in Boston, John Boyle. The humorous satire produced by his press in seventeen hundred and seventy-five, called "The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times," purported to set forth the state of political affairs during the troubles "wherein all our calamities are seen to flow from the fact that the king had set up for our worship the god of the heathen--The Tea Chest." This pamphlet has been one to keep the name of John Boyle among the prominent printers of pre-Revolutionary days. Additional interest accrues for this reason to a play-book printed by Boyle--the only one extant of this decade known to the writer. This quaint little chap-book, three by four inches in size, was issued in seventeen hundred and seventy-one, soon after Boyle had set up his printing establishment and four years before the publication of the famous pamphlet. It represents fully the standard for children's literature in the days when Newbery's tiny classics were making their way to America, and was indeed advertised by Mein in seventeen hundred and sixty-eight among the list of books "Printed in America." Its title, "The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book: Containing his Life and Adventures," has rather a familiar sound, but its contents would not now be allowed upon any nursery table. Since the days of the Anglo-Saxons, Tom Thumb's adventures have been told and retold; each generation has given to the rising generation the version thought proper for the ears of children. In Boyle's edition this method resulted in realism pushed to the extreme; but it is not to be denied that the yellowed pages contain the wondrous adventures and hairbreadth escapes so dear to the small boy of all time. The thrilling incidents were further enlivened, moreover, by cuts called by the printer "_curious_" in the sense of very fine: and _curious_ they are to-day because of the crudeness of their execution and the coarseness of their design. Nevertheless, the grotesque character of the illustrations was altogether effective in impressing upon the reader the doughty deeds of his old friend, Tom Thumb. The book itself shows marks of its popularity, and of the hard usage to which it was subjected by its happy owner, who was not critical of the editor's freedom of speech. The coarseness permitted in a nursery favorite makes it sufficiently clear that the standard for the ideal toy-book of the eighteenth century is no gauge for that of the twentieth. Child-life differed in many particulars, as Mr. Julian Hawthorne pointed out some years ago, when he wrote that the children of the eighteenth century "were urged to grow up almost before they were short-coated." We must bear this in mind in turning to another class of books popular with adult and child alike in both England and America before and for some years after the Revolution. This was the period when the novel in the hands of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett was assuming hitherto unsuspected possibilities. Allusion must be made to some of the characteristics of their work, since their style undoubtedly affected juvenile reading and the tales written for children. Taking for the sake of convenience the novels of the earliest of this group of men, Samuel Richardson, as a starting-point, we find in Pamela and Mr. Lovelace types of character that merge from the Puritanical concrete examples of virtue and vice into a psychological attempt to depict the emotion and feeling preceding every act of heroine and villain. Through every stage of the story the author still clings to the long-established precedent of giving moral and religious instruction. Afterwards, when Fielding attempted to parody "Pamela," he developed the novel of adventure in high and low life, and produced "Joseph Andrews." He then followed this with the character-study represented by "Tom Jones, Foundling." Richardson in "Pamela" had aimed to emphasize virtue as in the end prospering; Fielding's characters rather embody the principle of virtue being its own reward and of vice bringing its own punishment. Smollett in "Humphrey Clinker's Adventures" brought forth fun from English surroundings instead of seeking for the hero thrilling and daring deeds in foreign countries. He also added to the list of character-studies "Roderick Random," a tale of the sea, the mystery of which has never palled since "Robinson Crusoe" saw light. There was also the novel of letters. In the age of the first great novelists letter-writing was among the polite arts. It was therefore counted a great but natural achievement when the epistolary method of revealing the plot was introduced. "Clarissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison" were the results of this style of writing; they comprehended the "most Important Concerns of private life"--"concerns" which moved with lingering and emotional persistency towards the inevitable catastrophe in "Clarissa," and the happy issue out of the misunderstandings and misadventures which resulted in Miss Byron's alliance with Sir Charles. Until after the next (nineteenth) century had passed its first decade these tales were read in full or abridged forms by many children among the fashionable and literary sets in England and America. Indeed, the art of writing for children was so unknown that often attempts to produce child-like "histories" for them resulted in little other than novels upon an abridged scale. But before even abridged novels found their way into juvenile favor, it was "customary in Richardson's time to read his novels aloud in the family circle. When some pathetic passage was reached the members of the family would retire to separate apartments to weep; and after composing themselves, they would return to the fireside to have the reading proceed. It was reported to Richardson, that, on one of these occasions, 'an amiable little boy sobbed as if his sides would burst and resolved to mind his books that he might be able to read Pamela through without stopping.' That there might be something in the family novel expressly for children, Richardson sometimes stepped aside from the main narrative to tell them a moral tale."[80-A] Mr. Cross gives an example of this which, shorn of its decoration, was the tale of two little boys and two little girls, who never told fibs, who were never rude and noisy, mischievous or quarrelsome; who always said their prayers when going to bed, and therefore became fine ladies and gentlemen. To make the tales less difficult for amiable children to read, an abridgment of their contents was undertaken; and Goldsmith is said to have done much of the "cutting" in "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," "Sir Charles Grandison," and others. These books were included in the lists of those sent to America for juvenile reading. In Boston, Cox and Berry inserted in the "Boston Gazette and Country Journal" a notice that they had the "following little Books for all good Boys and Girls: The Brother's Gift, or the Naughty Girl Reformed. The Sister's Gift, or the Naughty Boy Reformed. The Hobby Horse, or Christmas Companion. The Cries of London as Exhibited in the Streets. The Puzzling Cap. The History of Tom Jones. The History of Joseph Andrews. Abridg'd from the works of H. Fielding The History of Pamela. abridg'd from the works of Samuel Richardson, Esq. The History of Grandison. The History of Clarissa." Up to this time the story has been rather of the books read by the Puritan and Quaker population of the colonies. There had arisen during the first half of the eighteenth century, however, a merchant class which owed its prosperity to its own ability. Such men sought for their families the material results of wealth which only a place like Boston could bestow. Many children, therefore, were sent to this town to acquire suitable education in books, accomplishments, and deportment. A highly interesting record of a child of well-to-do parents has been left by Anna Green Winslow, who came to Boston to stay with an aunt for the winters of 1771 and 1772. Her diary gives delightful glimpses of children's tea-parties, fashions, and schools, all put down with a childish disregard of importance or connection. It is in these jottings of daily occurrences that proof is found that so young a girl read, quite as a matter of course, the abridged works of Fielding and Richardson. On January 1, 1772, she wrote in her diary, "a Happy New Year, I have bestowed no new year's gifts, as yet. But have received one very handsome one, Viz, the History of Joseph Andrews abreviated. In nice Guilt and Flowers covers." Again, she put down an account of a day's work, which she called "a piecemeal for in the first place I sew'd on the bosom of unkle's shirt, and mended two pairs of gloves, mended for the wash two handkerch'fs, (one cambrick) sewed on half a border of a lawn apron of aunt's, read part of the xxist chapter of Exodous, & a story in the Mother's Gift." Later she jotted in her book the loan of "3 of Cousin Charles' books to read, viz.--The puzzling Cap, the female Orators & the history of Gaffer Two Shoes." Little Miss Winslow, though only eleven years of age, was a typical child of the educated class in Boston, and, according to her journal, also followed the English custom of reading aloud "with Miss Winslow, the Generous Inconstant and Sir Charles Grandison." It is to be regretted that her diary gives no information as to how she liked such tales. We must anticipate some years to find a comment in the Commonplace Book of a Connecticut girl. Lucy Sheldon lived in Litchfield, a thriving town in eighteen hundred, and did much reading for a child in those days. Upon "Sir Charles Grandison" she confided to her book this offhand note: "Read in little Grandison, which shows that, virtue always meets its reward and vice is punished." The item is very suggestive of Goldsmith's success in producing an abridgment that left the moral where it could not be overlooked. To discuss in detail this class of writings is not necessary, but a glance at the story of "Clarissa" gives an instructive impression of what old-fashioned children found zestful. "Clarissa Harlowe" in its abridged form was first published by Newbery, Senior. The book that lies before the writer was printed in seventeen hundred and seventy-two by his son, Francis Newbery. In size five by three and one-half inches, it is decked in once gay parti-colored heavy Dutch paper, with a delicate gold tracery over all. This paper binding, called by Anna Winslow "Flowery Guilt," can no longer be found in Holland, the place of its manufacture; with sarsinet and other fascinating materials it has vanished so completely that it exists only on the faded bindings of such small books as "Clarissa." The narrative itself is compressed from the original seven volumes into one volume of one hundred and seventy-six closely printed pages, with several full-page copper-plate illustrations. The plot, however, gains rather than loses in this condensed form. The principal distressing situations follow so fast one upon the other that the intensity of the various episodes in the _affecting_ history is increased by the total absence of all the "moving" letters found in the original work. The "lordly husband and father," "the imperious son," "the proud ambitious sister, Arabella," all combined to force the universally beloved and unassuming Clarissa to marry the wealthy Mr. Somers, who was to be the means of "the aggrandisement of the family." Clarissa, in this perplexing situation, yielded in a desperate mood to "the earnest entreaties of the artful Lovelace to accept the protection of the Ladies of his family." Who these ladies were, to whom the designing Lovelace conducted the agitated heroine, is set forth in unmistakable language; and thereafter follow the treacherous behaviour exhibited by Lovelace, the various attempts to escape by the unhappy beauty, and her final exhaustion and death. An example of the style may be given in this description of the death-scene: "Clarissa had before remarked that all would be most conveniently over in bed: The solemn, the most important moment approached, but her soul ardently aspiring after immorality [immortality was of course the author's intention], she imagined the time moved slowly; and with great presence of mind, she gave orders in relation to her body, directing her nurse and the maid of the house, as soon as she was cold, to put her into her coffin. The Colonel [her cousin], after paying her another visit, wrote to her uncle, Mr. John Harlowe, that they might save themselves the trouble of having any further debates about reconciliation; for before they could resolve, his dear cousin would probably be no more.... "A day or two after, Mr. Belford [a friend] was sent for, and immediately came; at his entrance he saw the Colonel kneeling by her bed-side with the ladies right hand in both his, which his face covered bathing it with tears, though she had just been endeavoring to comfort him, in noble and elevated strains. On the opposite side of the bed was seated Mrs. Lovick, who leaning against the bed's-head in a most disconsolate manner, turned to him as soon as she saw him, crying, O Mr. Belford, the dear lady! a heavy sigh not permitting her to say more. Mrs. Smith [the landlady] was kneeling at the bed's feet with clasped fingers and uplifted eyes, with tears trickling in large drops from her cheeks, as if imploring help from the source of all comfort. "The excellent lady had been silent a few minutes, and was thought speechless, she moving her lips without uttering a word; but when Mrs. Lovick, on Mr. Belford's approach, pronounced his name, O Mr. Belford! cried she, in a faint inward voice, Now!--now!--I bless God, all will soon be over--a few minutes will end this strife--and I shall be happy," etc. Her speech was long, although broken by dashes, and again she resumed, "in a more faint and broken accent," the blessing and directions. "She then sunk her head upon the pillow; and fainting away, drew from them her hands." Once more she returned to consciousness, "when waving her hand to him [Mr. Belford] and to her cousin, and bowing her head to every one present, not omitting the nurse and maid servant, with a faltering and inward voice, she added Bless--Bless--you all!--" The illustrations, in comparison with others of the time, are very well engraved, although the choice of subjects is somewhat singular. The last one represents Clarissa's friend, "Miss Howe" (the loyal friend to whom all the absent letters were addressed), "lamenting over the corpse of Clarissa," who lies in the coffin ordered by the heroine "to be covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin." As one lays aside this faded duodecimo, the conviction is strong that the texture of the life of an old-fashioned child was of coarser weave than is pleasant to contemplate. How else could elders and guardians have placed without scruple such books in the hands of children? The one explanation is to be found in such diaries as that of Anna Winslow, who quaintly put down in her book facts and occurrences denoting the maturity already reached by a little miss of eleven. FOOTNOTES: [73-A] Winsor, _Memorial History of Boston_, vol. ii, p. xix. [80-A] Cross, _Development of the English Novel_, pp. 38, 39. CHAPTER IV 1776-1790 The British King Lost States thirteen. _The New England Primer_, Philadelphia, 1797 The good little boy That will not tell a lie, Shall have a plum-pudding Or hot apple-pye. _Jacky Dandy's Delight_, Worcester, 1786 CHAPTER IV 1776-1790 _Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery_ When John Mein was forced to close his London Book-Store in Boston and to return to England in 1770, the children of that vicinity had need to cherish their six-penny books with increased care. The shadow of impending conflict was already deep upon the country when Mein departed; and the events of the decade following seventeen hundred and seventy-three--the year of the Boston Tea-Party--were too absorbing and distressing for such trifling publications as toy-books to be more than occasionally printed. Indeed, the history of the American Revolution is so interwoven with tales of privation of the necessities of life that it is astonishing that any printer was able to find ink or paper to produce even the nursery classic "Goody Two-Shoes," printed by Robert Bell of Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and seventy-six. In New York the conditions were different. The Loyalists, as long as the town was held by the British, continued to receive importations of goods of all descriptions. Among the booksellers, Valentine Nutter from time to time advertised children's as well as adults' books. Hugh Gaine apparently continued to reprint Newbery's duodecimos; and, in a rather newer shop, Roger and Berry's, in Hanover Square, near Gaine's, could be had "Gilt Books, together with Stationary, Jewelry, a Collection of the most books, bibles, prayer-books and patent medicines warranted genuine." Elsewhere in the colonies, as in Boston, the children went without new books, although very occasionally such notices as the following were inserted in the newspapers: _Just imported and to be Sold by Thomas Bradford_ At his Book-Store in Market-Street, adjoining the Coffee-house _The following Books_ ... Little Histories for Children, Among which are, Book of Knowledge, Joe Miller's Jests, Jenny Twitchells' ditto, the Linnet, The Lark (being collections of best Songs), Robin Redbreast, Choice Spirits, Argalus & Parthenia, Valentine and Orson, Seven Wise Masters, Seven Wise Mistresses, Russell's seven Sermons, Death of Abel, French Convert, Art's Treasury, Complete Letter-Writer, Winter Evening Entertainment, Stories and Tales, Triumphs of Love, being a Collection of Short Stories, Joseph Andrews, Aesop's Fables, Scotch Rogue, Moll Flanders, Lives of Highwaymen, Lives of Pirates, Buccaneers of America, Robinson Crusoe, Twelve Caesars. Such was the assortment of penny-dreadfuls and religious tracts offered in seventeen hundred and eighty-one to the Philadelphia public for juvenile reading. It is typical of the chapmen's library peddled about the colonies long after they had become states. "Valentine and Orson," "The Seven Wise Masters," "The Seven Wise Mistresses," and "Winter Evening Entertainment" are found in publishers' lists for many years, and, in spite of frequent vulgarities, there was often no discrimination between them and Newbery's far superior stories; but by eighteen hundred and thirty almost all of these undesirable reprints had disappeared, being buried under the quantities of Sunday-school tales held in high favor at that date. Meanwhile, the six years of struggle for liberty had rendered the necessaries of life in many cases luxuries. As early as seventeen hundred and seventy-five, during the siege of Boston, provisions and articles of dress had reached such prices that we find thrifty Mrs. John Adams, in Braintree, Massachusetts, foreseeing a worse condition, writing her husband, who was one of the Council assembled in Philadelphia, to send her, if possible, six thousand pins, even if they should cost five pounds. Prices continued to rise and currency to depreciate. In seventeen hundred and seventy-nine Mrs. Adams reported in her letters to her husband that potatoes were ten dollars a bushel, and writing-paper brought the same price per pound. Yet family life went on in spite of these increasing difficulties. The diaries and letters of such remarkable women as the patriotic Abigail Adams, the Quakeress, Mrs. Eliza Drinker, the letters of the Loyalist and exile, James Murray, the correspondence of Eliza Pinckney of Charleston, and the reminiscences of a Whig family who were obliged to leave New York upon the occupation of the town by British forces, abound in those details of domestic life that give a many sided picture. Joys derived from good news of dear ones, and family reunions; anxieties occasioned by illness, or the armies' depredations; courageous efforts on the part of mothers not to allow their children's education and occupations to suffer unnecessarily; tragedies of death and ruined homes--all are recorded with a "particularity" for which we are now grateful to the writers. It is through these writings, also, that we are allowed glimpses of the enthusiasm for the cause of Liberty, or King, which was imbibed from the parents by the smallest children. On the Whig side, patriotic mothers in New England filled their sons with zeal for the cause of freedom and with hatred of the tyranny of the Crown; while in the more southern colonies the partisanship of the little ones was no less intense. "From the constant topic of the present conversation," wrote the Rev. John J. Zubly (a Swiss clergyman settled in South Carolina and Georgia), in an address to the Earl of Dartmouth in seventeen hundred and seventy-five,--"from the constant topic of the present conversation, every child unborn will be impressed with the notion--it is slavery to be bound at the will of another 'in all things whatsoever.' Every mother's milk will convey a detestation of this maxim. Were your lordship in America, you might see little ones acquainted with the word of command before they can distinctly speak, and shouldering of a gun before they are well able to walk."[92-A] The children of the Tories had also their part in the struggle. To some the property of parents was made over, to save it from confiscation in the event of the success of the American cause. To others came the bitterness of separation from parents, when they were sent across the sea to unknown relatives; while again some faint manuscript record tells of a motherless child brought from a comfortable home, no longer tenable, to whatever quarters could be found within the British lines. Fortunately, children usually adapt themselves easily to changed conditions, and in the novelty and excitement of the life around them, it is probable they soon forgot the luxuries of dolls and hobby-horses, toy-books and drums, of former days. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the sentiment of the period was expressed in two or three editions of "The New England Primer." Already in 1770 one had appeared containing as frontispiece a poor wood-cut of John Hancock. In 1775 the enthusiasm over the appointment of George Washington as commander-in-chief brought out another edition of the A B C book with the same picture labelled "General Washington." The custom of making one cut do duty in several representations was so well understood that this method of introducing George Washington to the infant reader naturally escaped remark. Another primer appeared four years later, which was advertised by Walters and Norman in the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" as "adorned with a beautiful head of George Washington and other copper-plates." According to Mr. Hildeburn, this small book had the honor of containing the first portrait of Washington engraved in America. While such facts are of trifling importance, they are, nevertheless, indications of the state of intense feeling that existed at the time, and point the way by which the children's books became nationalized. In New England the very games of children centred in the events which thrilled the country. Josiah Quincy remembered very well in after life, how "at the age of five or six, astride my grandfather's cane and with my little whip, I performed prodigies of valor, and more than once came to my mother's knees declaring that I had driven the British out of Boston." Afterwards at Phillips Academy, in Andover, between seventeen hundred and seventy-eight and seventeen hundred and eighty-six, Josiah and his schoolfellows "established it as a principle that every hoop, sled, etc., should in some way bear _Thirteen_ marks as evidence of the political character of the owner,--if which were wanting the articles became fair prize and were condemned and forfeited without judge, jury, or decree of admiralty."[94-A] Other boys, such as John Quincy Adams, had tutors at home as a less expensive means of education than the wartime price of forty dollars a week for each child that good boarding-schools demanded. But at their homes the children had plenty of opportunity to show their intense enthusiasm for the cause of liberty. Years later, Mr. Adams wrote to a Quaker friend: "For the space of twelve months my mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and of the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried to Boston as hostages. My mother lived in uninterrupted danger of being consumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a torch in the same hands which on the Seventeenth of June [1775] lighted the fires of Charlestown."[94-B] He was, of course, only one of many boys who saw from some height near their homes the signs of battle, the fires of the enemy's camps, the smoke rising from some farm fired by the British, or burned by its owner to prevent their occupation of it. With hearts made to beat quickly by the news that filtered through the lines, and heads made old by the responsibility thrust upon them,--in the absence of fathers and older brothers,--such boys as John Quincy Adams saw active service in the capacity of post-riders bearing in their several districts the anxiously awaited tidings from Congress or battlefield. Fortunate indeed were the families whose homes were not disturbed by the military operations. From Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, families were sent hastily to the country until the progress of the war made it possible to return to such comforts as had not been destroyed by the British soldiers. The "Memoirs of Eliza Morton," afterward Mrs. Josiah Quincy, but a child eight years of age in seventeen hundred and seventy-six, gives a realistic account of the life of such Whig refugees. Upon the occupation of New York by the British, her father, a merchant of wealth, as riches were then reckoned, was obliged to burn his warehouse to save it from English hands. Mr. Morton then gathered together in the little country village of Basking Ridge, seven miles from Morristown, New Jersey, such of his possessions as could be hastily transported from the city. Among the books saved in this way were the works of Thurston, Thomson, Lyttleton, and Goldsmith, and for the children's benefit, "Dodsley's Collection of Poems," and "Pilgrim's Progress." "This," wrote Mrs. Quincy, "was a great favorite; Mr. Greatheart was in my opinion a hero, well able to help us all on our way." During the exile from New York, as Eliza Morton grew up, she read all these books, and years afterward told her grandchildren that while she admired the works of Thurston, Thomson, and Lyttleton, "those of Goldsmith were my chief delight. When my reading became afterward more extensive I instinctively disliked the extravagant fiction which often injures the youthful mind." The war, however, was not allowed to interfere with the children's education in this family. In company with other little exiles, they were taught by a venerable old man until the evacuation of Philadelphia made it possible to send the older children to Germantown, where a Mr. Leslie had what was considered a fine school. The schoolroom walls were hung with lists of texts of Scripture beginning with the same letter, and for globes were substituted the schoolmaster's snuffbox and balls of yarn. If these failed to impress a child with the correct notions concerning the solar system, the children themselves were made to whirl around the teacher. In Basking Ridge the children had much excitement with the passing of soldiers to Washington's headquarters in Morristown, and with watching for "The Post" who carried the news between Philadelphia, Princeton, and Morristown. "'The Post,' Mr. Martin," wrote Mrs. Quincy, "was an old man who carried the mail, ... he was our constant medium of communication; and always stopped at our house to refresh himself and horse, tell the news, and bring packets. He used to wear a blue coat with yellow buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, leathern small-clothes, blue yarn stockings, and a red wig and cocked hat, which gave him a sort of military appearance. He usually traveled in a sulky, but sometimes in a chaise, or on horseback.... Mr. Martin also contrived to employ himself in knitting coarse yarn stockings while driving or rather jogging along the road, or when seated on his saddle-bags on horseback. He certainly did not ride _post_, according to the present [1821] meaning of that term." Deprived like many other children of Newbery's peaceful biographies and stories, the little Mortons' lives were too full of an intense daily interest to feel the lack of new literature of this sort. Tales of the campaigns told in letters to friends and neighbors were reëchoed in the ballads and songs that formed part of the literary warfare waged by Whig or Loyal partisans. Children of to-day sing so zestfully the popular tunes of the moment, that it requires very little imagination to picture the schoolboy of Revolutionary days shouting lustily verses from "The Battle of the Kegs," and other rhymed stories of military incidents. Such a ballad was "A Song for the Red Coats," written after the successful campaign against Burgoyne, and beginning: "Come unto me, ye heroes, Whose hearts are true and bold, Who value more your honor, Than others do their gold! Give ear unto my story, And I the truth will tell, Concerning many a soldier, Who for his country fell." Children, it has been said, are good haters. To the patriot boy and girl, the opportunity to execrate Benedict Arnold was found in these lines of a patriotic "ditty" concerning the fate of Major André: "When he was executed He looked both meek and mild; He looked upon the people, And pleasantly he smiled. It moved each eye to pity, Caused every heart to bleed; And every one wished him released-- And _Arnold_ in his stead."[98-A] Loyalist children had an almost equal supply of satirical verse to fling back at neighbors' families, where in country districts some farms were still occupied by sympathizers with Great Britain. A vigorous example of this style of warfare is quoted by Mr. Tyler in his "Literature of the American Revolution," and which, written in seventeen hundred and seventy-six, is entitled "The Congress." It begins: "These hardy knaves and stupid fools, Some apish and pragmatic mules, Some servile acquiescing tools,-- These, these compose the Congress!"[98-B] Or, again, such taunts over the general poverty of the land and character of the army as were made in a ballad called "The Rebels" by a Loyalist officer: "With loud peals of laughter, your sides, Sirs, would crack, To see General Convict and Colonel Shoe-black, With their hunting-shirts and rifle-guns, See Cobblers and quacks, rebel priests and the like, Pettifoggers and barbers, with sword and with pike." Those Loyalists who lived through this exciting period in America's history bore their full share in the heavy personal misfortunes of their political party. The hatred felt toward such colonials as were true to the king has until recently hardly subsided sufficiently to permit any sympathy with the hardships they suffered. Driven from their homes, crowded together in those places occupied by the English, or exiled to England or Halifax, these faithful subjects had also to undergo separation of families perhaps never again united. Such a Loyalist was James Murray. Forced to leave his daughter and grandchildren in Boston with a sister, he took ship for Halifax to seek a living. There, amid the pressing anxieties occasioned by this separation, he strove to reëstablish himself, and sent from time to time such articles as he felt were necessary for their welfare. Thus he writes a memorandum of articles sent in seventeen hundred and eighty by "Mr. Bean's Cartel to Miss Betsy Murray:--viz: Everlasting 4 yards; binding 1 piece, Nankeen 4-7/8 yards. Of Gingham 2 gown patterns; 2 pairs red shoes from A.E.C. for boys, Jack and Ralph, a parcel--to Mrs. Brigden, 1 pair silk shoes and some flowers--Arthur's Geographical Grammar,--Locke on Education,--5 children's books," etc. And in return he is informed that "Charlotte goes to dancing and writing school, improves apace and grows tall. Betsy and Charles are much better but not well. The rest of the children are in good health, desiring their duty to their Uncle and Aunt Inman, and thanks for their cake and gloves." To such families the end of the war meant either the necessity for making permanent their residence in the British dominion, or of bearing both outspoken and silent scorn in the new Republic. For the Americans the peace of Yorktown brought joy, but new beginnings had also to be made. Farms had been laid waste, or had suffered from lack of men to cultivate them; industries were almost at a standstill from want of material and laborers. Still the people had the splendid compensation of freedom with victory, and men went sturdily back to their homes to take up as far as possible their various occupations. An example of the way in which business undertaken before the war was rapidly resumed, or increased, is afforded by the revival of prosperity for the booksellers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Renewals of orders to London agents were speedily made, for the Americans still looked to England for their intellectual needs. In Philadelphia--a town of forty thousand inhabitants in seventeen hundred and eighty-three--among the principal booksellers and printers were Thomas Bradford, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Oswald, Mr. Pritchard,--who had established a circulating library,--Robert Aitkin, Mr. Liddon, Mr. Dunlap, Mr. Rice, William and David Hall, Benjamin Bache, J. Crukshank, and Robert Bell. Bell had undoubtedly the largest bookstore, but seems not to have been altogether popular, if an allusion in "The Philadelphiad" is to be credited. This "New Picture of the City" was anonymously published in seventeen hundred and eighty-four, and described, among other well-known places, Robert Bell's book-shop: BELL'S BOOK STORE Just by St. Paul's where dry divines rehearse, Bell keeps his store for vending prose and verse, And books that's neither ... for no age nor clime, Lame languid prose begot on hobb'ling rhyme. Here authors meet who ne'er a spring have got, The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot, Smart politicians wrangling here are seen, Condemning Jeffries or indulging spleen. In 1776 Bell's facilities for printing had enabled him to produce an edition of "Little Goody Two-Shoes," which seems likely to have been the only story-book printed during the troubled years of the Revolution. Besides this, Bell printed in 1777 "Aesop's Fables," as did also Robert Aitkin; and J. Crukshank had issued during the war an A B C book, written by the old schoolmaster, A. Benezet, who had drilled many a Philadelphian in his letters. After the Revolution Benjamin Bache apparently printed children's books in considerable quantities, and orders were sent by other firms to England for juvenile reading-matter. New England also has records of the sale of these small books in several towns soon after peace was established. John Carter, "at Shakespeare's Head," in Providence, announced by a broadside issued in November, seventeen hundred and eighty-three, that he had a large assortment of stationers' wares, and included in his list "Gilt Books for _Children_," among which were most of Newbery's publications. In Hartford, Connecticut, where there had been a good press since seventeen hundred and sixty-four, "The Children's Magazine" was reprinted in seventeen hundred and eighty-nine. Its preposterous titles are noteworthy, since it is probable that this was the first attempt at periodical literature made for young people in America. One number contains: An easy Introduction to Geography. The Schoolboy addressed to the Editors. Moral Tales continued. Tale VIII. The Jealous Wife. The Affectionate Sisters. Familiar Letters on Various Subjects,--Continued.... Letter V from _Phillis Flowerdale_ to _Miss Truelove_. Letter VI from _Miss Truelove_ to _Phillis Flowerdale_. Poetry.--The Sweets of May. The Cottage Retirement. Advice to the Fair. The Contented Cottager. The Tear. The Honest Heart. The autograph of Eben Holt makes the contents of the magazine ludicrous as subjects of interest to a boy But having nothing better, Eben most surely read it from cover to cover. In Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Wells imported the books read by the members of the various branches of the Ravenel, Pinckney, Prioleau, Drayton, and other families. Boston supplied the juvenile public largely through E. Battelle and Thomas Andrews, who were the agents for Isaiah Thomas, the American Newbery. An account of the work of this remarkable printer of Worcester, Massachusetts, has been given in Dr. Charles L. Nichols's "Bibliography of Worcester." Thomas's publications ranked as among the very best of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and were sought by book-dealers in the various states. At one time he had sixteen presses, seven of which were in Worcester. He had also four bookstores in various towns of Massachusetts, one in Concord, New Hampshire, one in Baltimore, and one in Albany. In 1761, at the age of ten, Thomas had set up as his "'Prentice's Token," a primer issued by A. Barclay in Cornhill, Boston, entitled "Tom Thumb's Play-Book, To Teach Children their letters as soon as they can speak." Although this primer was issued by Barclay, Thomas had already served four years in a printer's office, for according to his own statement he had been sent at the age of six to learn his trade of Zechariah Fowle. Here, as 'prentice, he may have helped to set up the stories of the "Holy Jesus" and the "New Gift," and upon the cutting of their rude illustrations perhaps took his first lessons in engraving. For we know that by seventeen hundred and sixty-four he did fairly good work upon the "Book of Knowledge" from the press of the old printer. Upon the fly-leaf of a copy of this owned by the American Antiquarian Society, founded by Thomas, is the statement in the Worcester printer's handwriting, "Printed and cuts engraved by I. Thomas then 13 years of age for Z. Fowle when I.T. was his Apprentice: bad as the cuts are executed, there was not at that time an artist in Boston who could have done them much better. Some time before, and soon after there were better engravers in Boston." These cuts, especially the frontispiece representing a boy with a spy-glass and globe, and with a sextant at his feet, are far from poor work for a lad of thirteen. "The battered dictionary," says Dr. Nichols, "and the ink-stained Bible which he found in Fowle's office started him in his career, and the printing-press, together with an invincible determination to excel in his calling, carried him onward, until he stands to-day with Franklin and Baskerville, a type of the man who with few educational advantages succeeds because he loves his art for his art's sake." In supplying to American children a home-made library, Thomas, although he did no really original work for children, such as his English prototype, Newbery, had accomplished, yet had a motive which was not altogether selfish and pecuniary. The prejudice against anything of British manufacture was especially strong in the vicinity of Boston; and it was an altogether natural expression of this spirit that impelled the Worcester printer, as soon as his business was well established, to begin to reprint the various little histories. These reprints were all pirated from Newbery and his successors, Newbery and Carnan; but they compare most favorably with them, and so far surpassed the work of any other American printer of children's books (except possibly those of Bache in Philadelphia) that his work demands more than a passing mention. Beginning, like most printers, with the production of a primer in seventeen hundred and eighty-four, by seventeen hundred and eighty-six Thomas was well under way in his work for children. In that year at least eleven little books bore his imprint and were sent to his Boston agents to be sold. In the "Worcester Magazine" for June, 1786, Thomas addressed an "Advertisement to Booksellers," as follows: "A large assortment of all the various sizes of CHILDREN'S Books, known by the name of Newbery's Little Books for Children, are now republished by I. Thomas in Worcester, Massachusetts. They are all done excellently in his English Method, and it is supposed the paper, printing, cuts, and binding are in every way equal to those imported from England. As the Subscriber has been at great expense to carry on this particular branch of Printing extensively, he hopes to meet with encouragement from the Booksellers in the United States." Evidently he did meet with great encouragement from parents as well as booksellers; and it is suspected that the best printed books bearing imprints of other booksellers were often printed in Worcester and bound according to the taste and facilities of the dealer. That this practice of reprinting the title-page and rebinding was customary, a letter from Franklin to his nephew in Boston gives indisputable evidence: Philada. Nov. 26, 1788. LOVING COUSIN: I have lately set up one of my grand-children, Benja. F. Bache, as a Printer here, and he has printed some very pretty little Books for Children. By the Sloop Friendship, Capt. Stutson, I have sent a Box address'd to you, containing 150 of each volume, in Sheets, which I request you would, according to your wonted Goodness, put in a way of being dispos'd of for the Benefit of my dear Sister. They are sold here, bound in marbled Paper at 1 S. a Volume; but I should suppose it best, if it may be done, to sell the whole to some Stationer, at once, unbound as they are; in which case I imagine that half a Dollar a Quire may be thought a reasonable Price, allowing usual Credit if necessary. My Love to your Family, & believe me ever, Your affectionate Uncle B. FRANKLIN. JONA. WILLIAMS, ESQ. Franklin's reference to the Philadelphia manner of binding toy-books in marbled paper indicates that this home-made product was already displacing the attractive imported gilt embossed and parti-colored covers used by Thomas, who seems never to have adopted this ugly dress for his juvenile publications. As the demand for his wares increased, Thomas set up other volumes from Newbery's stock, until by seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he had reproduced practically every item for his increasing trade. It was his custom to include in many of these books a Catalogue of the various tales for sale, and in "The Picture Exhibition" we find a list of fifty-two stories to be sold for prices varying from six pence to a shilling and a half. These books may be divided into several classes, all imitations of the English adult literature then in vogue. The alphabets and primers, such as the "Little Lottery Book," "Christmas Box," and "Tom Thumb's Play-thing," are outside the limits of the present subject, since they were written primarily to instruct; and while it is often difficult to draw the line where amusement begins and instruction sinks to the background, the title-pages can usually be taken as evidence at least of the author's intention. These other books, however, fall naturally under the heads of jest and puzzle books, nature stories, fables, rhymes, novels, and stories--all prototypes of the nursery literature of to-day. The jest and joke books published by Thomas numbered, as far as is known to the writer, only five. Their titles seem to offer a feast of fun unfulfilled by the contents. "Be Merry & Wise, or the Cream of the Jests and the Marrow of Maxims," by Tommy Trapwit, contained concentrated extracts of wisdom, and jokes such as were current among adults. The children for whom they were meant were accustomed to nothing more facetious than the following jest: "An arch wag said, _Taylors_ were like _Woodcocks_ for they got their substance by their long bills." Perhaps they understood also the point in this: "A certain lord had a termagant wife, and at the same time a chaplain that was a tolerable poet, whom his lordship desired to write a copy of verses upon a shrew. I can't imagine, said the chaplain, why your lordship should want a copy, who has so good an original." Other witticisms are not quotable. [Illustration: _A page from a Catalogue of Children's Books printed by Isaiah Thomas_] Conundrums played their part in the eighteenth century juvenile life, much as they do to-day. These were to be found in "A Bag of Nuts ready Cracked," and "The Big and Little Puzzling Caps." "Food for the Mind" was the solemn title of another riddle-book, whose conundrums are very serious matters. Riddle XIV of the "Puzzling Cap" is typical of its rather dreary contents: "There was a man bespoke a thing, Which when the maker home did bring, This same maker did refuse it; He who bespoke it did not use it And he who had it did not know Whether he had it, yea or no." This was a nut also "ready cracked" by the answer reproduced in the illustration. Nature stories were attempted under the titles of "The Natural History of Four Footed Beasts," "Jacky Dandy's Delight; or the History of Birds and Beasts in Verse and Prose," "Mr. Telltruth's Natural History of Birds," and "Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." All these were written after Oliver Goldsmith's "Animated Nature" had won its way into great popularity. As a consequence of the favorable impression this book had made, Goldsmith is supposed to have been asked by Newbery to try his hand upon a juvenile natural history. Possibly it was as a result of Newbery's request that we have the anonymous "Jacky Dandy's Delight" and "Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." The former appears to be a good example of Goldsmith's facility for amusing himself when doing hack-work for Newbery. How like Goldsmith's manner is this description of a monkey: "The monkey mischievous Like a naughty boy looks; Who plagues all his friends, And regards not his books. "He is an active, pert, busy animal, who mimicks human actions so well that some think him rational. The Indians say, he can speak if he pleases, but will not lest he should be set to work. Herein he resembles those naughty little boys who will not learn A, lest they should be obliged to learn B, too. He is a native of warm countries, and a useless beast in this part of the world; so I shall leave him to speak of another that is more bulky, and comes from cold countries: I mean the Bear." To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children's books of the period, if we except the "Jests" and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on the title-pages. The title of "The Picture Exhibition; containing the Original Drawings of Eighteen Disciples.... Published under the Inspection of Mr. Peter Paul Rubens,..." is evidently one of Newbery's efforts to be facetious. To the author, the pretence that the pictures were by "Disciples of Peter Paul Rubens" evidently conveyed the same idea of wit that "Punch" has at times represented to others of a later century. Fables have always been a mine of interest to young folks, and were interspersed liberally with all moral tales, but "Entertaining Fables" bears upon its title-page a suggestion that the children's old friend, "Aesop," appeared in a new dress. Another series of books contained the much abridged novels written for the older people. "Peregrine Pickle" and "Roderick Random" were both reprinted by Isaiah Thomas as early as seventeen hundred and eighty-eight. These tales of adventure seem to have had their small reflections in such stories as "The Adventures of a Pincushion," and "The Adventures of a Peg-top," by Dorothy Kilner, an Englishwoman. Mention has already been made of "Pamela" and "Clarissa" in condensed form. These were books of over two hundred pages; but most of the toy-books were limited to less than one hundred. A remarkable instance of the pith of a long plot put into small compass was "The History of Tom Jones." A dog-eared copy of such an edition of "Tom Jones" is still in existence. Its flowery Dutch binding covers only thirty-one pages, four inches long, with a frontispiece and five wood-cut illustrations. In so small a space no detailed account of the life of the hero is to be expected; nevertheless, the first paragraph introduces Tom as no ordinary foundling. Mr. Allworthy finds the infant in his bed one evening and rings up his housekeeper Mrs. Deborah Wilkins. "She being a strict observer of decency was exceedingly alarmed, on entering her master's room, to find him undressed, but more so on his presenting her with the child, which he ordered immediately to be taken care of." The story proceeds--with little punctuation to enable the reader to take breath--to tell how the infant is named, and how Mr. Allworthy's nephew, Master Bilfil, is also brought under that generous and respectable gentleman's protection. Tommy turned out "good," as Mr. Allworthy had hoped when he assumed charge of him; and therefore eventually inherited riches and gained the hand of Miss Sophia Western, with whom he rode about the country in their "Coach and Six." Of the stories in this juvenile library, the names, at least, of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody Two-Shoes" have been handed down through various generations. One hundred years ago every child knew that "Little King Pippin" attained his glorious end by attention to his books in the beginning of his career; that "Giles Gingerbread" first learned his alphabet from gingerbread letters, and later obtained the patronage of a fine gentleman by spelling "apple-pye" correctly. Thus did his digestion prove of material assistance in mental gymnastics. [Illustration: _Illustration of Riddle XIV in "The Puzzling-Cap"_] But the nursery favorite was undoubtedly "Margery, or Little Goody Two-Shoes." She was introduced to the reader in her "state of rags and care," from which she gradually emerged in the chapters entitled, "How and about Little Margery and her Brother;" "How Little Margery obtained the name of Goody Two-Shoes;" "How she became a Tutoress" to the farmers' families in which she taught spelling by a game; and how they all sang the "Cuz's Chorus" in the intervals between the spelling lesson and the composition of sentences like this: "I pray God to bless the whole country, and all our friends and all our enemies." Like the usual heroine of eighteenth century fiction, she married a title, and as Lady Jones was the Lady Bountiful of the district. From these tales it is clear that piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been succeeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still pushed into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly translated the ethical sign-boards along the progress of the tale into Biblical admonitions. All the books were didactic in the extreme. A series of four, called "The Mother's," "Father's," "Sister's," and "Brother's Gifts," is a good example of this didactic method of story-telling. "The Father's Gift" has lessons in spelling preceded by these lines: "Let me not join with those in Play, Who fibs and stories tell, I with my Book will spend the Day, And not with such Boys dwell. For one rude Boy will spoil a score As I have oft been told; And one bad sheep, in Time, is sure To injure all the Fold." "The Mother's Gift" was confined largely to the same instructive field, but had one or two stories which conformed to the sentiment of the author of "The Adventures of a Pincushion," who stated her motive to be "That of providing the young reader with a few pages which should be innocent of corrupting if they did not amuse." "The Brother's" and "Sister's Gifts," however, adopt a different plan of instruction. In "The Brother's Gift" we find a brother solicitous concerning his sister's education: "Miss Kitty Bland was apt, forward and headstrong; and had it not been for the care of her brother, Billy, would have probably witnessed all the disadvantages of a modern education"! Upon Kitty's return from boarding-school, "she could neither read, nor sew, nor write grammatically, dancing stiff and awkward, her musick inelegant, and everything she did bordered strongly on affectation." Here was a large field for reformation for Billy to effect. He had no doubts as to what method to pursue. She was desired to make him twelve shirts, and when the first one was presented to him, "he was astonished to find her lacking in so useful a female accomplishment." Exemplary conversation produced such results that the rest of the garments were satisfactory to the critical Billy, who, "as a mark of approbation made her a present of a fine pair of stays." "The Sister's Gift" presents an opposite picture. In this case it is Master Courtley who, a "youth of Folly and Idleness," received large doses of advice from his sister. This counsel was so efficient with Billy's sensitive nature that before the story ends, "he wept bitterly, and declared to his sister that she had painted the enormity of his vices in such striking colors, that they shocked him in the greatest degree; and promised ever after to be as remarkable for generosity, compassion and every other virtue as he had hitherto been for cruelty, forwardness and ill-nature." Virtue in this instance was its own reward, as Billy received no gift in recognition of his changed habits. To the modern lover of children such tales seem strangely ill-suited to the childish mind, losing, as they do, all tenderness in the effort of the authors (so often confided to parents in the preface) "to express their sentiments with propriety." Such criticism of the style and matter of these early attempts to write for little people was probably not made by either infant or adult readers of that old-time public. The children read what was placed before them as intellectual food, plain and sweetened, as unconcernedly as they ate the food upon their plates at meal-time. That their own language was the formal one of the period is shown by such letters as the following one from Mary Wilder, who had just read "The Mother's Gift:" Lancaster, October 9th, 1789. HOND. MADM: Your goodness to me I cannot express. My mind is continually crowded with your kindness. If your goodness could be rewarded, I hope God will repay you. If you remember, some time ago I read a story in "The Mother's Gift," but I hope I shall never resemble Miss Gonson. O Dear! What a thing it is to disobey one's parents. I have one of the best Masters. He gave me a sheet of paper this morning. I hope Uncle Flagg will come up. I am quite tired of looking for Betsy, but I hope she will come. When school is done keeping, I shall come to Sudbury. What a fine book Mrs. Chapone's Letters is: My time grows short and I must make my letter short. Your dutiful daughter, P.W. Nursery rhymes and jingles of these present days have all descended from song-books of the eighteenth century, entitled "Little Robin Red Breast," "A Poetical Description of Song Birds," "Tommy Thumb's Song-Book," and the famous "Melodies of Mother Goose," whose name is happily not yet relegated to the days of long ago. Two extracts from the "Poetical Description of Song Birds" will be sufficient to show how foreign to the birds familiar to American children were the descriptions: THE BULLFINCH This lovely bird is charming to the sight: The back is glossy blue, the belly white, A jetty black shines on his neck and head; His breast is flaming with a beauteous red. THE TWITE Green like the Linnet it appears to sight, And like the Linnet sings from morn till night. A reddish spot upon his rump is seen, Short is his bill, his feathers always clean: When other singing birds are dull or nice, To sing again the merry Twites entice. Reflections of the prevailing taste of grown people for biography are suggested in three little books, of two of which the author was Mrs. Pilkington, who had already written several successful stories for young ladies. Her "Biography for Girls" contains various novelettes, in each of which the heroine lives the conventional life and dies the conventional death of the period, and receives a laudatory epitaph. They are remarkable only as being devoid of any interest. Her "Biography for Boys" does not appear to have attained the same popularity as that for girls. A third book, "The Juvenile Biographers," containing the "Lives of Little Masters and Misses," is representative of the changes made in many books by the printer to cater to that pride in the young Republic so manifest in all local literary productions. In one biography we note a Representative to the Massachusetts Assembly: "As Master Sammy had always been a very sober and careful child, and very attentive to his Books, it is no wonder that he proved, in the End, to be an excellent Scholar. "Accordingly, when he had reached the age of fourteen, Mr. William Goodall, a wealthy merchant in the city of Boston, took him into his counting house, in order to bring him up in the merchantile Way, and thereby make his Fortune. "This was a sad Stroke to his poor Sister Nancy, who having lost both her Papa and Mama, was now likely to lose her Brother likewise; but Sammy did all he could to appease her, and assured her, that he would spend all his leisure Time with her. This he most punctually performed, and never were Brother and Sister as happy in each other's company as they were. "Mr. William Goodall was highly satisfied with Sammy's Behaviour, and dying much about the Time that Miss Nancy was married to the Gentleman, he left all his business to Sammy, together with a large Capital to carry it on. So much is Mr. Careful esteemed (for we must now no longer call him Master Sammy) that he was chosen in the late General Election, Representative in the General Court, for one of the first Towns in New England, without the least expense to himself. We here see what are the Effects of Good Behaviour." This adaptation of the English tale to the surroundings of the American child is often found in Thomas's reprints, and naturally, owing to his enthusiasm over the recent change in the form of government, is made wholly by political references. Therefore while the lark and the linnet still sang in songs and the cowslips were scattered throughout the nature descriptions, Master Friendly no longer rode in the Lord Mayor's coach, but was seated as a Congressman in a sedan chair, "and he looked--he looked--I do not know what he looked like, but everybody was in love with him." The engraver as well as the biographer of the recently made Representative was evidently at a loss as to his appearance, as the four dots indicating the young gentleman's features give but a blank look perhaps intended to denote amazement at his election. The illustrations of Thomas's toy reprints should not be overlooked. The Worcester printer seems to have rewritten the "Introduction" to "Goody Two-Shoes," and at the end he affixed a "Letter from the Printer which he desires may be inserted. SIR: I have come with your copy, and so you may return it to the Vatican, if you please; and pray tell Mr. Angelo to brush up his cuts; that in the next edition they may give us a good impression." This apology for the character of the illustrations serves as an introduction to a most interesting subject of conjecture as to the making of the cuts, and particularly as to the engraving of the frontispiece in "Goody Two-Shoes." [Illustration: _Goody Twoshoes._] It will be remembered that Isaiah Thomas in his advertisement to booksellers had expressly mentioned the great expense he had incurred in bringing out the juvenile books in "the English method." But Mr. Edwin Pearson, in his delightful discussion of "Banbury Chap-Books," has also stated that the wood-cut frontispiece in the first American edition of "Goody Two-Shoes," printed by Thomas, was engraved by Bewick, the famous English illustrator. A comparison of the reproduction of the Bewick engraving in Mr. Pearson's book with the frontispiece in Thomas's edition shows so much difference that it is a matter of regret that Mr. Pearson withheld his authority for attributing to Bewick the representation of Margery Two-Shoes. Besides the inference from Thomas's letter that the poor cuts would be improved before another edition should be printed, there are several points to be observed in comparing the cuts. In the first place, the execution in the Thomas cut suggests a different hand in the use of the tools; again, the reversed position of the figure of "Goody" indicates a copy of the English original. Also the expression of Thomas's heroine, although slightly mincing, is less distressed than the British dame's, to say nothing of the variation in the fashion of the gowns. And such details as the replacing of the English landscape by the spire of a meeting-house in the distance seem to confirm the impression that the drawing was made after, but not by Bewick. In the cuts scattered throughout the text the same difference in execution and portrayal of the little schoolmistress is noticeable. Margery, upon her rounds to teach the farmers' children to spell such words as "plumb-pudding" "(and who can suppose a better?)," presents her full face in the Newbery edition, and but a three-quarter view to her American admirers. These facts, together with the knowledge that Isaiah Thomas was a fair engraver himself, make it possible that his apology for the first impression of the tiny classic was for his own engraving, which he thought to better. Thomas not only copied and pirated Newbery's juvenile histories, but he adopted his method of advertising by insertions in the text of these tales. For example, in "The Travels of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself," the little reader was told, "If you learn this Book well and are good, you can buy a larger and more complete History of Mr. Crusoe at your friend the Bookseller's in Worcester near the Court House." In "The Mother's Gift," there is described well-brought-up Miss Nugent displaying to ill-bred Miss Jones, "a pretty large collection of books neatly bound and nicely kept," all to be had of Mr. Thomas; and again Mr. Careful, in "Virtue and Vice," "presented at Christmas time to the sons and daughters of his friends, little Gilt Books to read, such as are sold at Mr. Thomas' near the Court House in Worcester." Thomas and his son continued to send out these toy-books until their gay bindings faded away before the novelty of the printed paper covers of the nineteenth century. FOOTNOTES: [92-A] Tyler, _Literary History of the American Revolution_, vol. i, p. 485. [94-A] _Life of Josiah Quincy_, p. 27. Boston, 1866. [94-B] Earle, _Child Life in Colonial Days_, p. 171. [98-A] Tyler, _Literature of the American Revolution_, vol. ii, p. 182. [98-B] _Ibid._, p. 156. CHAPTER V 1790-1800 By Washington Great deeds were done. _The New England Primer_, New York, 1794 Line after line their wisdom flows Page after page repeating. T.G. HAKE CHAPTER V 1790-1800 _The Child and his Book at the End of the Century_ Any attempt to trace the slow development of the American child's story of the nineteenth century must inevitably be made through the school-books written during the previous one. Before this, English books had been adapted to the American trade. But now the continued interest in education produced text-books pervaded with the American spirit. They cannot, therefore, be ignored as sporadically in the springtime of the young Republic, they, like crocuses, thrust forward in the different states their blue and yellow covers. Next to clergymen, schoolmasters received the veneration of the people, for learning and godliness went hand in hand. It was the schoolmaster who reinforced the efforts of the parents to make good Americans of the young folks, by compiling text-books which outsold the English ones hitherto used. In the new editions of the old "New England Primer," laudatory verse about General Washington replaced the alphabet rhyme: "Whales in the Sea God's Voice obey." Proud parents thereafter heard their infants lisp: "By Washington Great deeds were done." For older pupils Noah Webster's speller almost superseded Dilworth's, and his "Little Readers' Assistant" became the First Reader of many children. Webster as schoolmaster in a country district prepared this book for his own scholars. It was printed in Hartford in seventeen hundred and ninety, and contained a list of subjects suitable for farmers' children: I. A number of Stories mostly taken from the history of America, and adorned with Cuts. II. Rudiments of English Grammar. III. The Federal Catechism, being a short and easy explanation of the Constitution of the United States. IV. General principles of Government and Commerce. V. Farmers' Catechism containing plain rules of husbandry. Bennington, Vermont, contributed in "The Little Scholar's Pretty Pocket Companion in Rhyme and Verse," this indirect allusion to political affairs: "'Twas a toy of royalty, of late almost forgot, 'Tis said she represented France On English Monarchies arms, But lately broke his chains by chance And widely spread alarms." But the most naïve attempt to inculcate patriotism together with a lesson in obedience is found in "The Child's Instructor," published about seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and written by a Philadelphian. Philadelphia had become the residence of the President--a fact that may account for one of the stories in this book about an infant prodigy called Billy. "The child at five years of age was always good and obedient, and prone to make such a remark as, 'If you would be wise you must always attend to your vowels and consonants.' When General Washington came to town Billy's mama asked him to say a speech to the ladies, and he began, 'Americans! place constantly before your eyes, the deplorable scenes of your servitude, and the enchanting picture of your deliverance. Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be _Washington_.' The ladies were all delighted to hear Billy speak so well. One said he should be a lawyer, and another said he should be President of the United States. But Billy said he could not be either unless his mama gave him leave."[123-A] Another Philadelphian attempted to embody political sentiment in "A Tale--The Political Balance; or, The Fate of Britain and America Compared." This juvenile has long since disappeared, but it was advertised by its printer, Francis Bailey, in seventeen hundred and ninety-two, together with "The History of the Little Boy found under a Haycock," and several other books for children. One year later a "History of the American Revolution" for children was also printed in Philadelphia for the generation who had been born since the war had ended. This was written in the Biblical phraseology introduced and made popular by Franklin in his famous "Parable against Persecution." This enthusiasm over the results of the late war and scorn for the defeated English sometimes indeed cropped out in the Newbery reprints. An edition (1796) of "Goody Two-Shoes" contains this footnote in reference to the tyranny of the English landlord over Goody's father: _"Such is the state of things in Britain. AMERICANS prize your liberty, guard your rights and be happy._"[123-B] In this last decade of the century that had made a nation of the colonial commonwealths, the prosperity of the country enabled more printers to pirate the generally approved Newbery library. Samuel Hall in Boston, with a shop near the court-house, printed them all, using at times the dainty covers of flowery Dutch or gilt paper, and again another style of binding occasionally used in England. "The Death and Burial of Cock Robin," for instance, has a quaint red and gilt cover, which according to Mr. Charles Welsh was made by stamping paper with dies originally used for printing old German playing-cards. He says: "To find such a cover can only be accounted for by the innocence of the purchasers as to the appearance of his Satanic Majesty's picture cards and hence [they] did not recognize them." In one corner of the book cover is impressed the single word "Münch," which stamps this paper as "made in Germany." Hall himself was probably as ignorant of the original purpose of the picture as the unsuspecting purchaser, who would cheerfully have burned it rather than see such an instrument of the Devil in the hands of its owner, little Sally Barnes. [Illustration: Frontispiece. Sr. Walter Raleigh and his man.] Of Samuel Hall's reprints from the popular English publications, "Little Truths" was in all probability one of the most salable. So few books contained any information about America that one of these two volumes may be regarded as of particular interest to the young generation of his time. The author of "Little Truths," William Darton, a Quaker publisher in London, does not divulge from what source he gleaned his knowledge. His information concerning Americans is of that misty description that confuses Indians ("native Americans") with people of Spanish and English descent. The usual "Introduction" states that "The author has chose a method after the manner of conversations between children and their instructor," and the dialogue is indicated by printing the children's observations in italics. These volumes were issued for twenty years after they were introduced by Hall, and those of an eighteen hundred Philadelphia edition are bound separately. Number one is in blue paper with copper-plate pictures on both covers. This volume gives information regarding farm produce, live-stock, and about birds quite unfamiliar to American children. But the second volume, in white covers, introduces the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his pipe-smoking incident, made very realistic in the copper-plate frontispiece. The children's question, "_Did Sir Walter Raleigh find out the virtues of tobacco?_" affords an excellent opportunity for a discourse upon smoking and snuff-taking. These remarks conclude with this prosaic statement: "Hundreds of sensible people have fell into these customs from example; and, when they would have left them off, found it a very great difficulty." Next comes a lesson upon the growth of tobacco leading up to a short account of the slave-trade, already a subject of differing opinion in the United States, as well as in England. Of further interest to small Americans was a short tale of the discovery of this country. Perhaps to most children their first book-knowledge of this event came from the pages of "Little Truths." Hall's books were not all so proper for the amusement of young folks. A perusal of "Capt. Gulliver's Adventures" leaves one in no doubt as to the reason that so many of the old-fashioned mothers preferred to keep such tales out of children's hands, and to read over and over again the adventures of the Pilgrim, Christian. Mrs. Eliza Drinker of Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and ninety-six was re-reading for the third time "Pilgrim's Progress," which she considered a "generally approved book," although then "ridiculed by many." The "Legacy to Children" Mrs. Drinker also read aloud to her grandchildren, having herself "wept over it between fifty and sixty years ago, as did my grandchildren when it was read to them. She, Hannah Hill, died in 1714, and ye book was printed in 1714 by Andrew Bradford." But Mrs. Drinker's grandchildren had another book very different from the pious sayings of the dying Hannah. This contained "64 little stories and as many pictures drawn and written by Nancy Skyrin," the mother of some of the children. P. Widdows had bound the stories in gilt paper, and it was so prized by the family that the grandmother thought the fact of the recovery of the book, after it was supposed to have been irretrievably lost, worthy of an entry in her journal. Careful inquiry among the descendants of Mrs. Drinker has led to the belief that these stories were read out of existence many years ago. What they were about can only be imagined. Perhaps they were incidents in the lives of the same children who cried over the pathetic morbidity of Hannah's dying words; or possibly rhymes and verses about school and play hours of little Philadelphians; with pictures showing bait-the-bear, trap-ball, and other sports of days long since passed away, as well as "I Spie Hi" and marbles, familiar still to boys and girls. [Illustration: _Foot Ball_] From the fact that these stories were written for the author's own children, another book, composed less than a century before, is brought to mind. Comparison of even the meagre description of Mrs. Skyrin's book with Cotton Mather's professed purpose in "Good Lessons" shows the stride made in children's literature to be a long one. Yet a quarter of a century was still to run before any other original writing was done in America for children's benefit. Nobody else in America, indeed, seems to have considered the question of writing for nursery inmates. Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons for Children from Two to Five Years old," written for English children, were considered perfectly adapted to gaining knowledge and perhaps amusement. It is true that when Benjamin Bache of Philadelphia issued "Easy Lessons," he added this note: "Some alterations were thought necessary to be made in this ... American edition, to make it agree with the original design of rendering instruction easy and useful.... The climate and the familiar objects of this country suggested these alterations." Except for the substitution of such words as "Wheat" for "Corn," the intentions of the editor seem hardly to have had result, except by way of advertisement; and are of interest merely because they represent one step further in the direction of Americanizing the story-book literature. All Mrs. Barbauld's books were considered excellent for young children. As a "Dissenter," she gained in the esteem of the people of the northern states, and her books were imported as well as reprinted here. Perhaps she was best known to our grandparents as the joint author, with Dr. Aikin, of "Evenings at Home," and of "Hymns in Prose and Verse." Both were read extensively for fifty years. The "Hymns" had an enormous circulation, and were often full of fine rhythm and undeserving of the entire neglect into which they have fallen. Of course, as the fashion changed in the "approved" type of story, Mrs. Barbauld suffered criticism. "Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth in their 'Practical Education' insisted that evil lurked behind the phrase in 'Easy Lessons,' 'Charles wants his dinner' because of the implication 'that Charles must have whatever he desires,' and to say 'the sun has gone to bed,' is to incur the odium of telling the child a falsehood."[128-A] But the manner in which these critics of Mrs. Barbauld thought they had improved upon her method of story-telling is a tale belonging to another chapter. When Miss Edgeworth's wave of popularity reached this country Mrs. Barbauld's ideas still flourished as very acceptable to parents. A contemporary and rival writer for the English nursery was Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. Her works for little children were also credited with much information they did not give. After the publication of Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons" (which was the result of her own teaching of an adopted child), Mrs. Trimmer's friends urged her to make a like use of the lessons given to her family of six, and accordingly she published in seventeen hundred and seventy-eight an "Easy Introduction into the Knowledge of Nature," and followed it some years after its initial success by "Fabulous Histories," afterwards known as the "History of the Robins." Although Mrs. Trimmer represents more nearly than Mrs. Barbauld the religious emotionalism pervading Sunday-school libraries,--in which she was deeply interested,--the work of both these ladies exemplifies the transitional stage to that Labor-in-Play school of writing which was to invade the American nursery in the next century when Parley and Abbott throve upon the proceeds of the educational narrative. Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Thomas Day's "Sanford and Merton" occupied the place in the estimation of boys that the doings of Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's works held in the opinion of the younger members of the nursery. Edition followed upon edition of the adventures of the famous island hero. In Philadelphia, in seventeen hundred and ninety-three, William Young issued what purported to be the sixth edition. In New York many thousands of copies were sold, and in eighteen hundred and twenty-four we find a Spanish translation attesting its widespread favor. In seventeen hundred and ninety-four, Isaiah Thomas placed the surprising adventures of the mariner as on the "Coast of America, lying near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque." Parents also thought very highly of Thomas Day's "Children's Miscellany" and "Sanford and Merton." To read this last book is to believe it to be possibly in the style that Dr. Samuel Johnson had in mind when he remarked to Mrs. Piozzi that "the parents buy the books but the children never read them." Yet the testimony of publishers of the past is that "Sanford and Merton" had a large and continuous sale for many years. "'Sanford and Merton,'" writes Mr. Julian Hawthorne, "ran 'Robinson Crusoe' harder than any other work of the eighteenth century particularly written for children." "The work," he adds, "is quaint and interesting rather to the historian than to the general, especially the child, reader. Children would hardly appreciate so amazingly ancient a form of conversation as that which resulted from Tommy [the bad boy of the story] losing a ball and ordering a ragged boy to pick it up: "'Bring my ball directly!' "'I don't choose it,' said the boy. "'Sirrah,' cried Tommy, 'if I come to you I will make you choose it.' "'Perhaps not, my pretty master,' said the boy. "'You little rascal,' said Tommy, who now began to be very angry, 'if I come over the hedge I will thrash you within an inch of your life.'" The gist of Tommy's threat has often been couched in modern language by grandsons of the boys from whom the Socratic Mr. Day wrote to expose the evils of too luxurious an education. His method of compilation of facts to be taught may best be given in the words of his Preface: "All who have been conversant in the education of very young children, have complained of the total want of proper books to be put in their hands, while they are taught the elements of reading.... The least exceptional passages of books that I could find for the purpose were 'Plutarch's Lives' and Xenophon's 'History of the Institution of Cyrus,' in English translation; with some part of 'Robinson Crusoe,' and a few passages from Mr. Brooke's 'Fool of Quality.' ... I therefore resolved ... not only to collect all such stories as I thought adapted to the faculties of children, but to connect these by continued narration.... As to the histories themselves, I have used the most unbounded licence.... As to the language, I have endeavored to throw into it a greater degree of elegance and ornament than is usually to be met with in such compositions; preserving at the same time a sufficient degree of simplicity to make it intelligible to very young children, and rather choosing to be diffuse than obscure." With these objects in mind, we can understand small Tommy's embellishment of his demand for the return of his ball by addressing the ragged urchin as "Sirrah." Mr. Day's "Children's Miscellany" contained a number of stories, of which one, "The History of Little Jack," about a lost child who was adopted by a goat, was popular enough to be afterwards published separately. It is a debatable question as to whether the parents or the children figuring in this "Miscellany" were the more artificial. "Proud and unfeeling girl," says one tender mother to her little daughter who had bestowed half her pin money upon a poor family,--"proud and unfeeling girl, to prefer vain and trifling ornaments to the delight of relieving the sick and miserable! Retire from my presence! Take away with you trinket and nosegay, and receive from them all the comforts they are able to bestow!" Why Mr. Day's stories met with such unqualified praise at the time they were published, this example of canting rubbish does not reveal. In real life parents certainly did retain some of their substance for their own pleasure; why, therefore, discipline a child for following the same inclination? In contrast to Mr. Day's method, Mrs. Barbauld's plan of simple conversation in words of one, two, and three syllables seems modern. Both aimed to afford pleasure to children "learning the elements of reading." Where Mrs. Barbauld probably judged truly the capacity of young children in the dialogues with the little Charles of "Easy Lessons," Mr. Day loaded his gun with flowers of rhetoric and overshot infant comprehension. Nevertheless, in spite of the criticism that has waylaid and torn to tatters Thomas Day's efforts to provide a suitable and edifying variety of stories, his method still stands for the distinct secularization of children's literature of amusement. Moreover, as Mr. Montrose J. Moses writes in his delightful study of "Children's Books and Reading," "he foreshadowed the method of retelling incidents from the classics and from standard history and travel,--a form which is practised to a great extent by our present writers, who thread diverse materials on a slender wire of subsidiary story, and who, like Butterworth and Knox, invent untiring families of travellers who go to foreign parts, who see things, and then talk out loud about them." Besides tales by English authors, there was a French woman, Madame de Genlis, whose books many educated people regarded as particularly suitable for their daughters, both in the original text and in the English translations. In Aaron Burr's letters we find references to his interest in the progress made by his little daughter, Theodosia, in her studies. His zeal in searching for helpful books was typical of the care many others took to place the best literature within their children's reach. From Theodosia's own letters to her father we learn that she was a studious child, who wrote and ciphered from five to eight every morning and during the same hours every evening. To improve her French, Mr. Burr took pains to find reading-matter when his law practice necessitated frequent absence from home. Thus from West Chester, in seventeen hundred and ninety-six, when Theodosia was nine years old, he wrote: I rose up suddenly from the sofa and rubbing my head--"What book shall I buy for her?" said I to myself. "She reads so much and so rapidly that it is not easy to find proper and amusing French books for her; and yet I am so flattered with her progress in that language, that I am resolved that she shall, at all events, be gratified." So ... I took my hat and sallied out. It was not my first attempt. I went into one bookseller's after another. I found plenty of fairy tales and such nonsense, for the generality of children of nine or ten years old. "These," said I, "will never do. Her understanding begins to be above such things." ... I began to be discouraged. "But I will search a little longer." I persevered. At last I found it. I found the very thing I sought. It is contained in two volumes, octavo, handsomely bound, and with prints and reprints. It is a work of fancy but replete with instruction and amusement. I must present it with my own hand. Yr. affectionate A. BURR. What speculation there must have been in the Burr family as to the name of the gift, and what joy when Mr. Burr presented the two volumes upon his return! From a letter written later by Mr. Burr to his wife, it appears that he afterward found reason to regret his purchase, which seems to have been Madame de Genlis's famous "Annales." "Your account," he wrote, "of Madame Genlis surprises me, and is new evidence of the necessity of reading books before we put them in the hands of children." Opinion differed, of course, concerning the French lady's books. In New York, in Miss Dodsworth's most genteel and fashionable school, a play written from "The Dove" by Madame de Genlis was acted with the same zest by little girls of ten and twelve years of age as they showed in another play taken from "The Search after Happiness," a drama by the Quakeress and religious writer, Hannah More. These plays were given at the end of school terms by fond parents with that appreciation of the histrionic ability of their daughters still to be seen on such occasions. No such objection as Mrs. Burr made to this lady's "Annales" was possible in regard to another French book, by Berquin. Entitled "Ami des Enfans," it received under the Rev. Mr. Cooper's translation the name "The Looking Glass for the Mind." This collection of tales supposedly mirrored the frailties and virtues of rich and poor children. It was often bound in full calf, and an edition of seventeen hundred and ninety-four contains a better engraved frontispiece than it was customary to place in juvenile publications. For half a century it was to be found in the shop of all booksellers, and had its place in the library of every family of means. There are still those among us who have not forgotten the impression produced upon their infant minds by certain of the tales. Some remember the cruel child and the canary. Others recollect their admiration of the little maid who, when all others deserted her young patroness, lying ill with the smallpox, won the undying gratitude of the mother by her tender nursing. The author, blind himself to the possibilities of detriment to the sick child by unskilled care, held up to the view of all, this example of devotion of one girl in contrast to the hard-heartedness of many others. This book seems also to have been called by the literal translation of its original title, "Ami des Enfans;" for in an account of the occupations of one summer Sunday in seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, Julia Cowles, living in Litchfield, Connecticut, wrote: "Attended meeting all day long, but do not recollect the text. Read in 'The Children's Friend.'" Many children would not have been permitted to read so nearly secular a book; but evidently Julia Cowles's parents were liberal in their view of Sunday reading after the family had attended "meeting all day long." In addition to the interest of the context of these toy-books of a past generation, one who handles such relics of a century ago sees much of the fashions for children of that day. In "The Looking Glass," for instance, the illustrations copied from engravings by the famous English artist, Bewick, show that at the end of the eighteenth century children were still clothed like their elders; the coats and waistcoats, knee breeches and hats, of boys were patterned after gentlemen's garments, and the caps and aprons, kerchiefs and gowns, for girls were reproductions of the mothers' wardrobes. Again, the fly-leaf of "The History of Master Jacky and Miss Harriot" arrests the eye by its quaint inscription: "Rozella Ford's Book. For being the second speller in the second class." At once the imagination calls up the exercises in a village school at the end of a year's session: a row of prim little maids and sturdy boys, standing before the school dame and by turn spelling in shrill tones words of three to five syllables, until only two, Rozella and a better speller, remain unconfused by Dilworth's and Webster's word mysteries. Then the two children step forward with bow and curtsey to receive their tiny gilt prizes from a pile of duodecimos upon the teacher's desk. Indeed, the giving of rewards was carried to such an extent as to become a great drain upon the meagre stipend of the teacher. Thus when in copper-plate handwriting we find in another six-penny volume the inscription: "Benjamin H. Bailey, from one he esteems and loves, Mr. Hapgood," we read between its lines the self-denial practised by Mr. Hapgood, who possibly received, like many other teachers, but seventy-five cents a week besides his board and lodging. Other books afford a glimpse of children's life: the formal every-day routine, the plays they enjoyed, and their demonstration of a sensibility as keen as was then in fashion for adults. The "History of a Doll," lying upon the writer's table, is among the best in this respect. It was evidently much read by its owner and fairly "loved to pieces." When it reached this disintegrated stage, a careful mother, or aunt, sewed it with coarse flax thread inside a home-made cover of bright blue wall-paper. Although the "History of the Pedigree and Rise of the Pretty Doll" bears no date, its companion story in the wall-paper wrapper has the imprint seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and this, together with the press-work, places it as belonging to the eighteenth century. It offers to the reader a charming insight into the formality of many an old-fashioned family: the deportment stiff with the starched customs of that day, the seriousness of their fun, and the sensibility among little maidens akin to that exhibited in the heroines of fiction created by Richardson and Fielding. The chapter concerning "The Pedigree of the Doll" treats of finding a branch of a tree by a carver, who was desired by Sir John Amiable to make one of the best dolls in his power for his "pretty little daughter who was as good as she was pretty." The carver accordingly took the branch and began carving out the head, shoulders, body, and legs, which he soon brought to their proper shape. "He then covered it with a fine, flesh-colored enamel and painted its cheeks in the most lively manner. It had the finest black and sparkling eyes that were ever beheld; its cheeks resembled the blushing rose, its neck the lilly, and its lips the coral." The doll is presented, and the next chapter tells of "an assembly of little female gossips in full debate on the clothing of the doll." "Miss Polly having made her papa a vast number of courtesies for it, prevailed on her brother to go round to all the little gossips in the neighborhood, begging their company to tea in the afternoon, in order to consult in what mode the doll should be dressed." The company assembled. "Miss Micklin undertook to make it a fine ruffled laced shift, Miss Mantua to make it a silk sacque and petticoat; and in short, every one contributed, in some measure, to dress out this beautiful creature." "Everything went on with great harmony till they came to the head-dress of the doll; and here they differed so much in opinion, that all their little clappers were going at once.... Luckily, at this instant Mrs. Amiable happened to come in, and soon brought the little gossips to order. The matter in dispute was, whether it should have a high head-dress or whether the hair should come down on the forehead, and the curls flow in natural ringlets on the shoulders. However, after some pretty warm debate, this last mode was adopted, as most proper for a little miss." In chapter third "The doll is named:--Accidents attend the Ceremony." Here we have a picture of a children's party. "The young ladies and gentlemen were entertained with tea and coffee; and when that was over, each was presented with a glass of raisin wine." During the christening ceremony an accident happened to the doll, because Master Tommy, the parson, "in endeavouring to get rid of it before the little gossips were ready to receive it, made a sad blunder.... Miss Polly, with tears in her eyes, snatched up the doll and clasped it to her bosom; while the rest of the little gossips turned all the little masters out of the room, that they might be left to themselves to inquire more privately into what injuries the dear doll had received.... Amidst these alarming considerations Tommy Amiable sent the ladies word, that, if they would permit him and the rest of the young gentlemen to pass the evening among them in the parlour, he would engage to replace the nose of the doll in such a manner that not the appearance of the late accident should be seen." Permission was accordingly granted for a surgical operation upon the nose, but "as to the fracture in one of the doll's legs, it was never certainly known how that was remedied, as the young ladies thought it very indelicate to mention anything about the matter." The misadventures of the doll include its theft by a monkey in the West Indies, and at this interesting point the only available copy of the tale is cut short by the loss of the last four pages. The charm of this book lies largely in the fact that the owner of the doll does not grow up and marry as in almost every other novelette. This difference, of course, prevents the story from being a typical one of its period, but it is, nevertheless, a worthy forerunner of those tales of the nineteenth century in which an effort was made to write about incidents in a child's life, and to avoid the biographical tendency. Before leaving the books of the eighteenth century, one tale must be mentioned because it contains the germ of the idea which has developed into Mr. George's "Junior Republic." It was called "Juvenile Trials for Robbing Orchards, Telling Tales and other Heinous Offenses." "This," said Dr. Aikin--Mrs. Barbauld's brother and collaborator in "Evenings at Home"--"is a very pleasing and ingenious little Work, in which a Court of Justice is supposed to be instituted in a school, composed of the Scholars themselves, for the purpose of trying offenses committed at School." In "Trial the First" Master Tommy Tell-Truth charges Billy Prattle with robbing an orchard. The jury, after hearing Billy express his contrition for his act, brings in a verdict of guilty; but the judge pardons the culprit because of his repentant frame of mind. Miss Delia, the offender in case _Number Two_, does not escape so lightly. Miss Stirling charges her with raising contention and strife among her school-fellows over a piece of angelica, "whereby," say her prosecutors, "one had her favorite cap torn to pieces, and her hair which had been that day nicely dressed, pulled all about her shoulders; another had her sack torn down the middle; a third had a fine flowered apron of her own working, reduced to rags; a fourth was wounded by a pelick, or scratch of her antagonist, and in short, there was hardly one among them who had not some mark to shew of having been concerned in this unfortunate affair." That the good Dr. Aikin approved of the punishment decreed, we are sure. The little prisoner was condemned to pass three days in her room, as just penalty for such "indelicate" behaviour. By the close of the century Miss Edgeworth was beginning to supersede Mrs. Barbauld in England; but in America the taste in juvenile reading was still satisfied with the older writer's little Charles, as the correct model for children's deportment, and with Giles Gingerbread as the exemplary student. The child's lessons had passed from "Be good or you will go to Hell" to "Be good and you will be rich;" or, with the Puritan element still so largely predominant, "Be good and you will go to Heaven." Virtue as an ethical quality had been shown in "Goody Two-Shoes" to bring its reward as surely as vice brought punishment. It is to be doubted if this was altogether wholesome; and it may well be that it was with this idea in mind that Dr. Johnson made his celebrated criticism of the nursery literature in vogue, when he said to Mrs. Piozzi, "Babies do not want to be told about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds."[141-A] The learned Doctor, having himself been brought up on "Jack the Giant Killer" and "The History of Blue Beard," was inclined to scorn Newbery's tales as lacking in imaginative quality. That Dr. Johnson was really interested in stories for the young people of his time is attested by a note written in seventeen hundred and sixty-three on the fly-leaf of a collection of chap-books: "I shall certainly, sometime or other, write a little Story-Book in the style of these. I shall be happy to succeed, for he who pleases children will be remembered by them."[141-B] In America, however, it is doubtful whether any true critical spirit regarding children's books had been reached. Fortunately in England, at the beginning of the next century, there was a man who dared speak his opinion. Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer (who had contributed "Fabulous Histories" to the juvenile library, and for them had shared the approval which greeted Mrs. Barbauld's efforts) were the objects of Charles Lamb's particular detestation. In a letter to Coleridge, written in 1802, he said: "Goody Two Shoes is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery, and the shopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for them. Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems, must come to a child in the shape of knowledge; and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learned that a horse is an animal and Billy is better than a horse, and such like, instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales, which made the child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than of men. Is there no possibility of arresting this force of evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history. Hang them! I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child."[142-A] To Lamb's extremely sensitive nature, the vanished hand of the literary man of Grub Street could not be replaced by Mrs. Barbauld's wish to instruct by using simple language. It is possible that he did her some injustice. Yet a retrospective glance over the story-book literature evolved since Newbery's juvenile library was produced, shows little that was not poor in quality and untrue to life. Therefore, it is no wonder that Lamb should have cried out against the sore evil which had "beset a child's mind." All the poetry of life, all the imaginative powers of a child, Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Trimmer, and Mr. Day ignored; and Newbery in his way, and the old ballads in their way, had appealed to both. In both countries the passion for knowledge resulted in this curious literature of amusement. In England books were written; in America they were reprinted, until a religious revival left in its wake the series of morbid and educational tales which the desire to write original stories for American children produced. FOOTNOTES: [123-A] Miss Hewins, _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. lxi, p. 112. [123-B] Brynberg. Wilmington, 1796. [128-A] Miss Repplier, _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. lvii, p. 509. [141-A] Hill, _Johnsonian Miscellany_, vol. i, p. 157. [141-B] _Ibid._ [142-A] Welsh, _Introduction to Goody Two Shoes_, p. x. CHAPTER VI 1800-1825 Her morals then the Matron read, Studious to teach her Children dear, And they by love or Duty led, With Pleasure read. _A Mother's Remarks_, Philadelphia, 1810 Mama! see what a pretty book At Day's papa has bought, That I may at its pictures look, And by its words be taught. CHAPTER VI 1800-1825 _Toy-Books in the Early Nineteenth Century_ On the 23d of December, 1823, there appeared anonymously in the "Troy (New York) Sentinel," a Christmas ballad entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas." This rhymed story of Santa Claus and his reindeer, written one year before its publication by Clement Clarke Moore for his own family, marks the appearance of a truly original story in the literature of the American nursery. We have seen the somewhat lugubrious influence of Puritan and Quaker upon the occasional writings for American children; and now comes a story bearing upon its face the features of a Dutchman, as the jolly old gentleman enters nursery lore with his happy errand. Up to this time children of wholly English extraction had probably little association with the Feast of St. Nicholas. The Christmas season had hitherto been regarded as pagan in its origin by people of Puritan or Scotch descent, and was celebrated only as a religious festival by the descendants of the more liberal adherents to the Church of England. The Dutch element in New York, however, still clung to some of their traditions; and the custom of exchanging simple gifts upon Christmas Day had come down to them as a result of a combination of the church legend of the good St. Nicholas, patron of children, and the Scandinavian myth of the fairy gnome, who from his bower in the woods showered good children with gifts.[148-A] But to celebrate the day quietly was altogether a different thing from introducing to the American public the character of Santa Claus, who has become in his mythical entity as well known to every American as that other Dutch legendary personage, Rip Van Winkle. In the "Visit from St. Nicholas" Mr. Moore not only introduced Santa Claus to the young folk of the various states, but gave to them their first story of any lasting merit whatsoever. It is worthy of remark that as every impulse to write for juvenile readers has lagged behind the desire to write for adults, so the composition of these familiar verses telling of the arrival in America of the mysterious and welcome visitor on "The night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse," fell at the end of that quarter of the nineteenth century to which we are accustomed to refer as the beginning of the national period of American literature. It is, of course, true that the older children of that period had already begun to enjoy some of the writings of Irving and Cooper, and to learn the fortunately still familiar verses by Hopkinson, Key, Drake, and Halleck. School-readers have served to familiarize generation after generation with "Hail Columbia," "The Star Spangled Banner," and sometimes with "The American Flag." It is, doubtless, their authors' jubilant enthusiasm over the freedom of the young Republic that has caused the children of the more mature nation to delight in the repetition of the patriotic verses. The youthful extravagance of expression pervading every line is reëchoed in the heart of the schoolboy, who likes to imagine himself, before anything else, a patriot. But until "Donder and Blitzen" pranced into the foreground as Santa Claus' steeds, there was nothing in American nursery literature of any lasting fame. Thereafter, as the custom of observing Christmas Day gradually became popular, the perennial small child felt--until automobiles sent reindeer to the limbo of bygone things--the thrill of delight and fear over the annual visit of Santa Claus that the bigger child experiences in exploding fire-crackers on the Fourth of July. There are possibilities in both excitements which appeal to one of the child's dearest possessions--his imagination. It is this direct appeal to the imagination that surprises and delights us in Mr. Moore's ballad. To re-read it is to be amazed that anything so full of merriment, so modern, so free from pompousness or condescension, from pedantry or didacticism, could have been written before the latter half of the nineteenth century. Not only its style is simple in contrast with the labored efforts at simplicity of its contemporaneous verse, but its story runs fifty years ahead of its time in its freedom from the restraining hand of the moralist and from the warning finger of the religious teacher, if we except Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wonder Book." In our examination of the toy-books of twenty years preceding its publication, we shall find nothing so attractive in manner, nor so imaginative in conception. Indeed, we shall see, upon the one hand, that fun was held in with such a tight curb that it hardly ever escaped into print; and upon the other hand that the imagination had little chance to develop because of the prodigal indulgence in realities and in religious experience from which all authors suffered. We shall also see that these realities were made very uncompromising and uncomfortable to run counter to. Duty spelled in capital letters was a stumbling-block with which only the well-trained story-book child could successfully cope; recreation followed in small portions large shares of instruction, whether disguised or bare faced. The Religion-in-Play, the Ethics-in-Play, and the Labor-in-Play schools of writing for children had arrived in America from the land of their origin. The stories in vogue in England during this first quarter of the nineteenth century explain every vagary in America. There fashionable and educational authorities had hitched their wagon to the literary star, Miss Edgeworth, and the followers of her system; while the religiously inclined pinned their faith also upon tracts written by Miss Hannah More. In this still imitative land the booksellers simply reprinted the more successful of these juvenile publications. The changes, therefore, in the character of the juvenile literature of amusement of the early nineteenth century in America were due to the adoption of the works of these two Englishwomen, and to the increased facilities for reproducing toy-books, both in press-work and in illustrations. Hannah More's allegories and religious dramas, written to coöperate with the teachings of the first Sabbath Day schools, are, of course, outside the literature of amusement. Yet they affected its type in America as they undoubtedly gave direction to the efforts of the early writers for children. Miss More, born in seventeen hundred and fifty-four, was a woman of already established literary reputation when her attention was attracted by Robert Raikes's successful experiment of opening a Sunday-school, in seventeen hundred and eighty-one. During the religious revival that attended the preaching of George Whitefield, Raikes, already interested in the hardships and social condition of the working-classes, was further aroused by his intimate knowledge of the manner of life of some children in a pin factory. To provide instruction for these child laborers, who, without work or restrictions on Sundays, sought occupation far from elevating, Raikes founded the first "Sabbath Day school." The movement spread rapidly in England, and ten years later, in seventeen hundred and ninety-one, under the inspiration of Bishop White, the pioneer First Day school in America was opened in Philadelphia. The good Bishop was disturbed mentally by the religious and moral degeneracy of the poor children in his diocese, and annoyed during church services by their clamor outside the churches--a noise often sufficient to drown the prayers of his flock and the sermons of his clergy. To occupy these restless children for a part of the day, two sessions of the school were held each Sunday: one before the morning service, from eight until half-past ten o'clock, and the other in the afternoon for an hour and a half. The Bible was used as a reader, and the teaching was done regularly by paid instructors. The first Sunday-school library owed its origin to a wish to further the instruction given in the school, and hence contained books thought admirably adapted to Sunday reading. Among the somewhat meagre stock provided for this purpose were Doddridge's "Power of Religion," Miss More's tracts and the writings of her imitators, together with "The Fairchild Family," by Mrs. Sherwood, "The Two Lambs," by Mrs. Cameron, "The Economy of Human Life," and a little volume made up of selections from Mrs. Barbauld's works for children. "The Economy of Human Life," said Miss Sedgwick (who herself afterwards wrote several good books for girls), "was quite above my comprehension, and I thought it unmeaning and tedious." Testimony of this kind about a book which for years appeared regularly upon booksellers' lists enables us to realize that the average intelligent child of the year eighteen hundred was beginning to be as bored by some of the literature placed in his hands as a child would be one hundred years later. To increase this special class of books, Hannah More devoted her attention. Her forty tracts comprising "The Cheap Repository" included "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" and "The Two Shoemakers," which, often appearing in American booksellers' advertisements, were for many years a staple article in Sunday-school libraries, and even now, although pushed to the rear, are discoverable in some such collections of books. Their objective point is best given by their author's own words in the preface to an edition of "The Search after Happiness; A Pastoral Drama," issued by Jacob Johnson of Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and eleven. Miss More began in the self-depreciatory manner then thought modest and becoming in women writers: "The author is sensible it may have many imperfections, but if it may be happily instrumental in producing a regard to Religion and Virtue in the minds of Young Persons, and afford them an innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful amusement in the exercise of recitation, the end for which it was originally composed ... will be fully answered." A drama may seem to us above the comprehension of the poor and illiterate class of people whose attention Miss More wished to hold, but when we feel inclined to criticise, let us not forget that the author was one who had written little eight-year-old Thomas Macaulay: "I think we have nearly exhausted the epics. What say you to a little good prose? Johnson's 'Hebrides,' or Walton's 'Lives,' unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems or 'Paradise Lost.'" Miss More's influence upon the character of Sunday-school books in England undoubtedly did much to incline many unknown American women of the nineteenth century to take up this class of books as their own field for religious effort and pecuniary profit. Contemporary with Hannah More's writings in the interest of religious life of Sunday-school scholars were some of the literary products of the painstaking pen of Maria Edgeworth. Mention of Miss Edgeworth has already been made. About her stories for children criticism has played seriously, admiringly, and contemptuously. It is not the present purpose, however, to do other than to make clear her own aim, and to try to show the effect of her extremely moral tales upon her own generation of writers for American children. It is possible that she affected these authors more than the child audience for whom she wrote. Little ones have a wonderful faculty for seizing upon what suits them and leaving the remainder for their elders to discuss. Maria Edgeworth's life was a long one. Born in seventeen hundred and sixty-seven, when John Newbery's books were at the height of their fame, she lived until eighteen hundred and forty-nine, when they were scarcely remembered; and now her own once popular tales have met a similar fate. She was educated by a father filled with enthusiasm by the teachings of Rousseau and with advice from the platitudinous family friend, Thomas Day, author of "Sanford and Merton." Only the truly genial nature and strong character of Miss Edgeworth prevented her genius from being altogether swamped by this incongruous combination. Fortunately, also, her busy practical home life allowed her sympathies full sway and counteracted many of the theories introduced by Mr. Edgeworth into his family circle. Successive stepmothers filled the Edgeworth nursery with children, for whom the devoted older sister planned and wrote the stories afterward published. In seventeen hundred and ninety-one Maria Edgeworth, at her father's suggestion, began to note down anecdotes of the children of the family, and later these were often used as copy to be criticised by the little ones themselves before they were turned over to the printer. Her father's educational conversations with his family were often committed to paper, and these also furnished material from which Miss Edgeworth made it her object in life to interweave knowledge, amusement, and ethics. Indeed, it has been most aptly said that between the narrow banks of Richard Edgeworth's theories "his daughter's genius flowed through many volumes of amusement." [Illustration: _Jacob Johnson's Book-Store._] Her first collection of tales was published under the title of "The Parent's Assistant," although Miss Edgeworth's own choice of a name had been the less formidable one of "The Parent's Friend." Based upon her experience as eldest sister in a large and constantly increasing family, these tales necessarily struck many true notes and gave valuable hints to perplexed parents. In "The Parent's Assistant" realities stalked full grown into the nursery as "Every object in creation Furnished hints for contemplation." The characters were invariably true to their creator's original drawing. A good girl was good from morning to night; a naughty child began and ended the day in disobedience, and by it bottles were smashed, strawberries spilled, and lessons disregarded in unbroken sequence. In later life Miss Edgeworth confessed to having occasionally introduced in "Harry and Lucy" some nonsense as an "alloy to make the sense work well;" but as all her earlier children's tales were subjected to the pruning scissors of Mr. Edgeworth, this amalgam is to-day hardly noticeable in "Popular Tales," "Early Lessons," and "Frank," which preceded the six volumes of "Harry and Lucy." Although a contemporary of Mrs. Barbauld, who had written for little children "Easy Lessons," Miss Edgeworth does not seem to have been well known in America until about eighteen hundred and five. Then "Harry and Lucy" was brought out by Jacob Johnson, a Philadelphia book-dealer. This was issued in six small red and blue marbled paper volumes, although other parts were not completed until eighteen hundred and twenty-three. Between the first and second parts of volume one the educational hand of Mr. Edgeworth is visible in the insertion of a "Glossary," "to give a popular meaning of the words." "This Glossary," the editor, Mr. Edgeworth, thought, "should be read to children a little at a time, and should be made the subject of conversation. Afterwards they will read it with more pleasure." The popular meaning of words may be succinctly given by one definition: "Dry, what is not wet." Could anything be more lucid? Among the stories by Miss Edgeworth are three rarely mentioned by critics, and yet among the most natural and entertaining of her short tales. They were also printed by Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia, in eighteen hundred and five, under the simple title, "Three Stories for Children." "Little Dog Trusty" is a dog any small child would like to read about; "The Orangeman" was a character familiar to English children; and "The Cherry Orchard" is a tale of a day's pleasure whose spirit American children could readily seize. In each Miss Edgeworth had a story to tell, and she told it well, even though "she walked," as has been often said, "as mentor beside her characters." Of Miss Edgeworth's many tales, "Waste Not, Want Not" was long considered a model. In it what Mr. Edgeworth styled the "shafts of ridicule" were aimed at the rich nephew of Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham (whose prototype we strongly suspect was Mr. Edgeworth himself) "lived neither in idleness nor extravagance," and was desirous of adopting an heir to his considerable property. Therefore, he invited two nephews to visit him, with the object of choosing the more suitable for his purpose; apparently he had only to signify his wish and no parental objection to his plan would be interposed. The boys arrive: Hal, whose mama spends her days at Bath over cards with Lady Diana Sweepstake, is an ill-bred child, neither deferential to his uncle, nor with appetite for buns when queen-cakes may be had. His cousin Ben, on the contrary, has been taught those virtuous habits that make for a respectful attitude toward rich uncles and assure a dissertation upon the beneficial effect of buns _versus_ queen-cakes. The boys, having had their characters thus definitely shown, proceed to live up to them in every particular. From start to finish it is the virtuous Ben--his generosity, thrift, and foresight are never allowed to lapse for an instant--who triumphs in every episode. He saves his string, "good whipcord," when requested by Mr. Gresham to untie a parcel, and it thereafter serves to spin a fine new top, to help Hal out of a difficulty with his toy, and in the final incident of the story, an archery contest, our provident hero, finding his bowstring "cracked," calmly draws from his pocket the still excellent piece of cord, and affixing it to his bow, wins the match. Hal betrays his great lack of self-control by exclaiming, "The everlasting whipcord, I declare," and thereupon Patty, Mr. Gresham's only child, who has suffered from Hal's defects of character, openly rejoices when the prize is given to Ben. As is usual with Miss Edgeworth's badly behaved children, the reader now sees the error of Hal's ways, and perceives also that in the lad's acknowledgment of the truth of the formerly scorned motto, "Waste not, want not," the era of his reformation has begun. Perpetual action was the key to the success of Miss Edgeworth's writings. If to us her fictitious children seem like puppets whose strings are too obviously jerked, the monotonous moral cloaked in the variety of incident was liked by her own generation, Miss Edgeworth not only pleased the children, but received the applause of their parents and friends. Sir Walter Scott, the prince of story-tellers, found much to admire in her tales, and wrote of "Simple Susan:" "When the boy brings back the lamb to the little girl, there is nothing for it but to put down the book and cry." Susan was the pattern child in the tale, "clean as well as industrious," while Barbara--a violent contrast--was conceited and lazy, and a _lady_ who "could descend without shame from the height of insolent pride to the lowest measure of fawning familiarity." Therefore it is small wonder that Sir Walter passed her by without mention. However much we may value an English author's admiration for Miss Edgeworth's story-telling gifts, it is to America that we naturally turn to seek contemporary opinion. In educational circles there is no doubt that Miss Edgeworth won high praise. That her books were not always easy to procure, however, we know from a letter written from Washington by Mrs. Josiah Quincy, whose life as a child during the Revolution has already been described. When Mrs. Quincy was living in the capital city in eighteen hundred and ten, during her husband's term as Congressman, she found it difficult to provide her family with books. She therefore wrote to Boston to a friend, requesting to have sent her Miss Edgeworth's "Moral Tales," "if the work can be obtained in one of the bookstores. If not," she continued, "borrow one ... and I will replace it with a new copy. Cut the book out of its binding and enclose the pages in packets.... Be careful to send the entire text and title page." The scarcity in Washington of books for young people Mrs. Quincy thought justified the hope that reprinting these tales would be profitable to a bookseller in whose efforts to introduce a better taste among the inhabitants she took a keen interest. But Mrs. Quincy need not have sent to Boston for them. Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia had issued most of the English author's books by eighteen hundred and five, and New York publishers probably made good profit by printing them. Reading aloud was both a pastime and an education to families in those early days of the Republic. Although Mrs. Quincy made every effort to procure Miss Edgeworth's stories for her family because, in her opinion, "they obtained a decided preference to the works of Hannah More, Mrs. Trimmer and Mrs. Chapone," for reading aloud she chose extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed, if it were possible to ask our great-grandparents what books they remembered reading in their childhood, I think we should find that beyond somewhat hazy recollections of Miss Edgeworth's books and Berquin's "The Looking Glass for the Mind," they would either mention "Robinson Crusoe," Newbery's tales of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody Two-Shoes" (written fifty years before their own childhood), or remember only the classic tales and sketches read to them by their parents. Certainly this is the case if we may take as trustworthy the recollections of literary people whose childhood was passed in the first part of the nineteenth century. Catharine Sedgwick, for instance, has left a charming picture of American family life in a country town in eighteen hundred--a life doubtless paralleled by many households in comfortable circumstances. Among the host of little prigs and prudes in story-books of the day, it is delightful to find in Catharine Sedgwick herself an example of a bookish child who was natural. Her reminiscences include an account of the way the task of sweeping out the schoolhouse after hours was made bearable by feasts of Malaga wine and raisins. These she procured from the store where her father kept an open account, until the bill having been rendered dotted over with such charges "per daughter Catharine," these treats to favorite schoolmates ceased. Also a host of intimate details of this large family's life in the country brings us in touch with the times: fifteen pairs of calfskin shoes ordered from the village shoemaker, because town-bought morocco slippers were few and far between; the excitement of a silk gown; the distress of a brother, whose trousers for fête occasions were remodelled from an older brother's "blue broadcloth worn to fragility--so that Robert [the younger brother] said he could not look at them without making a rent;" and again the anticipation of the father's return from Philadelphia with gifts of necessaries and books. After seventeen hundred and ninety-five Mr. Sedgwick was compelled as a member of Congress to be away the greater part of each year, leaving household and farm to the care of an invalid wife. Memories of Mr. Sedgwick's infrequent visits home were mingled in his daughter's mind with the recollections of being kept up until nine o'clock to listen to his reading from Shakespeare, Don Quixote, or Hudibras. "Certainly," wrote Miss Sedgwick, "I did not understand them, but some glances of celestial light reached my soul, and I caught from his magnetic sympathy some elevation of feeling, and that love of reading which has been to me an 'education.'" "I was not more than twelve years old," she continues, "I think but ten--when one winter I read Rollin's Ancient History. The walking to our schoolhouse was often bad, and I took my lunch (how well I remember the bread and butter, and 'nut cake' and cold sausage, and nuts and apples that made the miscellaneous contents of that enchanting lunch-basket!), and in the interim between morning and afternoon school I crept under my desk (the desks were so made as to afford little close recesses under them) and read and munched and forgot myself in Cyrus' greatness." It is beyond question that the keen relish induced by the scarcity of juvenile reading, together with the sound digestion it promoted, overbalanced in mental gain the novelties of a later day. The Sedgwick library was probably typical of the average choice in reading-matter of the contemporary American child. Half a dozen little story-books, Berquin's "Children's Friend" (the very form and shade of color of its binding with its green edges were never forgotten by any member of the Sedgwick family), and the "Looking Glass for the Mind" were shelved side by side with a large volume entitled "Elegant Extracts," full of ballads, fables, and tales delightful to children whose imagination was already excited by the solemn mystery of Rowe's "Letters from the Dead to the Living." Since none of these books except those containing an infusion of religion were allowed to be read on Sunday, the Sedgwick children extended the bounds by turning over the pages of a book, and if the word "God" or "Lord" appeared, it was pounced upon as sanctified and therefore permissible. Where families were too poor to buy story-books, the children found what amusement they could in the parents' small library. In ministers' families sermons were more plentiful than books. Mrs. H.B. Stowe, when a girl, found barrels of sermons in the garret of her father, the Rev. Dr. Beecher, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Through these sermons his daughter searched hungrily for mental food. It seemed as if there were thousands of the most unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man's marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel by the dozens, until she despaired of finding an end of it. At last an ancient volume of "Arabian Nights" was unearthed. Here was the one inexhaustible source of delight to a child so eager for books that at ten years of age she had pored over the two volumes of the "Magnalia." The library advantages of a more fortunately placed old-fashioned child we know from Dr. Holmes's frequent reference to incidents of his boyhood. He frankly confessed that he read in and not through many of the two thousand books in his father's library; but he found much to interest him in the volumes of periodicals, especially in the "Annual Register" and Rees's "Encyclopedia." Although apparently allowed to choose from the book-shelves, there were frequent evidences of a parent's careful supervision. "I remember," he once wrote to a friend, "many leaves were torn out of a copy of Dryden's Poems, with the comment 'Hiatus haud diflendus,' but I had like all children a kind of Indian sagacity in the discovery of contraband reading, such as a boy carries to a corner for perusal. Sermons I had enough from the pulpit. I don't know that I ever read one sermon of my own accord during my childhood. The 'Life of David,' by Samuel Chandler, had adventures enough, to say nothing of gallantry, in it to stimulate and gratify curiosity." "Biographies of Pious Children," wrote Dr. Holmes at another time, "were not to my taste. Those young persons were generally sickly, melancholy, and buzzed around by ghostly comforters or discomforters in a way that made me sick to contemplate." Again, Dr. Holmes, writing of the revolt from the commonly accepted religious doctrines he experienced upon reading the Rev. Thomas Scott's Family Bible, contrasted the gruesome doctrines it set forth with the story of Christian told in "Pilgrim's Progress," a book which captivated his imagination. As to story-books, Dr. Holmes once referred to Mrs. Barbauld and Dr. Aikin's joint production, "Evenings at Home," with an accuracy bearing testimony to his early love for natural science. He also paid a graceful tribute to Lady Bountiful of "Little King Pippin" in comparing her in a conversation "At the Breakfast Table" with the appearance of three maiden ladies "rustling through the aisles of the old meeting-house, in silk and satin, not gay but more than decent." Although Dr. Holmes was not sufficiently impressed with the contents of Miss Edgeworth's tales to mention them, at least one of her books contained much of the sort of information he found attractive in "Evenings at Home." "Harry and Lucy," besides pointing a moral on every page, foreshadowed that taste for natural science which turned every writer's thought toward printing geographical walks, botanical observations, natural history conversations, and geological dissertations in the guise of toy-books of amusement. A batch of books issued in America during the first two decades of the nineteenth century is illustrative of this new fashion. These books, belonging to the Labor-in-Play school, may best be described in their American editions. One hundred years ago the American publishers of toy works were devoting their attention to the make-up rather than to the contents of their wares. The steady progress of the industrial arts enabled a greater number of printers to issue juvenile books, whose attractiveness was increased by better illustrations; and also with the improved facilities for printing and publishing, the issues of the various firms became more individual. At the beginning of the century the cheaper books entirely lost their charming gilt, flowery Dutch, and silver wrappers, as home products came into use. Size and illustrations also underwent a change. [Illustration: _A Wall-paper Book-Cover_] In Philadelphia, Benjamin and Jacob Johnson, and later Johnson and Warner, issued both tiny books two inches square, and somewhat larger volumes containing illustrations as well as text. These firms used for binding gray and blue marbled paper, gold-powdered yellow cardboard, or salmon pink, blue, and olive-green papers, usually without ornamentation. In eighteen hundred J. and J. Crukshank, of the same town, began to decorate with copper-plate cuts the outside of the white or blue paper covers of their imprints for children. Other printers followed their example, especially after wood-engraving became more generally used. In Wilmington, Delaware, John Adams printed and sold "The New History of Blue Beard" in both peacock-blue and olive-green paper covers; but Peter Brynberg, also of that town, was still in eighteen hundred and four using quaint wall-paper to dress his toy imprints. Matthew Carey, the well-known printer of school-books for the children of Philadelphia, made a "Child's Guide to Spelling and Reading" more acceptable by a charming cover of yellow and red striped paper dotted over with little black hearts suggestive of the old Primer rhyme for the letter B: "My Book and Heart Shall never part." In New York the dealers in juvenile books seem either to have bound in calf such classics as "The Blossoms of Morality," published by David Longworth at the Shakespeare Gallery in eighteen hundred and two, or in decorated but unattractive brown paper. This was the cover almost invariably used for years by Samuel Wood, the founder of the present publishing-house of medical works. He began in eighteen hundred and six to print the first of his many thousands of children's religious, instructive, and nursery books. As was the custom in order to insure a good sale, Wood first brought out a primer, "The Young Child's A B C." He decorated its Quaker gray cover with a woodcut of a flock of birds, and its title-page with a picture, presumably by Alexander Anderson, of a girl holding up a dove in her left hand and holding down a lamb with her right. In New England, Nathaniel Coverly of Salem sometimes used a watered pink paper to cover his sixteen page toy-books, and in Boston his son, as late as eighteen hundred and thirteen, still used pieces of large patterned wall-paper for six-penny books, such as "Tom Thumb," "Old Mother Hubbard," and "Cock Robin." The change in the appearance of most toy-books, however, was due largely to the increased use of illustrations. The work of the famous English engraver, Thomas Bewick, had at last been successfully copied by a physician of New York, Dr. Alexander Anderson. Dr. Anderson was born in New York in seventeen hundred and seventy-five, and by seventeen hundred and ninety-three was employed by printers and publishers in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and even Charleston to illustrate their books. Like other engravers, he began by cutting in type-metal, or engraving upon copper. In seventeen hundred and ninety-four, for Durell of New York, he undertook to make illustrations, probably for "The Looking Glass for the Mind." Beginning by copying Bewick's pictures upon type-metal, when "about one-third done, Dr. Anderson felt satisfied he could do better on wood."[166-A] In his diary we find noted an instance of his perseverance in the midst of discouragement: "Sept. 24. This morning I was quite discouraged on seeing a crack in the wood. Employed as usual at the Doctor's, came home to dinner, glued the wood and began again with fresh hopes of producing a good wood engraving." September 26 found him "pretty well satisfied with the impression and so was Durell." In eighteen hundred he engraved all the pictures on wood for a new edition of the same book, and from this time he seems to have discontinued the use of type-metal, which he had employed in his earlier work as illustrator of the "Pilgrim's Progress" issued by Hugh Gaine, and of "Tom Thumb's Folio" printed by Brewer. After eighteen hundred and twelve Anderson almost gave up engraving on copper also, and devoted himself to satisfying the great demand for his work on wood. For Durell of New York, an extensive reprinter of English books, from toy-books to a folio edition of Josephus, he reproduced the English engravings, never making, according to Mr. Lossing, more than a frontispiece for the larger volumes. Although Samuel Wood and Sons of New York also gave Dr. Anderson many orders for cuts for their various juvenile publications, he still found time to engrave for publishers of other cities. We find his illustrations in the toy-books printed in Boston and Philadelphia; and for Sidney Babcock, a New Haven publisher of juvenile literature, he supplied many of the numerous woodcuts required. The best of Anderson's work as an engraver coincided with the years of Babcock's very extensive business of issuing children's books, between 1805 and 1840. His cuts adorned the juvenile duodecimos that this printer's widely extended trade demanded; and even as far south as Charleston, South Carolina, Babcock, like Isaiah Thomas, found it profitable to open a branch shop. Anderson's illustrations are the main features of most of Babcock's little blue, pink, and yellow paper-covered books; especially of those printed in the early years of the nineteenth century. We notice in them the changes in the dress of children, who no longer were clothed exactly in the semblance of their elders, but began to assume garments more appropriate to their ages, sports, and occupations. Anderson also sometimes introduced into his pictures a negro coachman or nurse in the place of the footman or maid of the English tale he illustrated. While the demand for the engraver's work was constant, his remuneration was small, if we are to judge by Babcock's payment of only fifty shillings for fifteen cuts. For these toy-books Anderson made many reproductions from Bewick's cuts, and although he did not equal the Englishman's work, he so far surpassed his pupils and imitators of the early part of the century that his engravings are generally to be recognized even when not signed. In eighteen hundred and two Dr. Anderson began to reproduce for David Longworth Bewick's "Quadrupeds," and these "cuts were afterwards made use of, with the Bewick letter-press also, for a series of children's books."[168-A] In eighteen hundred and twelve, for Munroe & Francis of Boston, Dr. Anderson made after J. Thompson a set of cuts, mainly remarkable "as the chief of his few departures from the style of his favorite, Bewick."[169-A] The custom of not signing either text or engravings in the children's books has made it difficult to identify writers and illustrators of juvenile literature. But some of the best engravers undoubtedly practised their art on these toy-books. Nathaniel Dearborn, who was a stationer, printer, and engraver in Boston about eighteen hundred and eleven, sometimes signed the full-page illustrations on both wood and copper, and Abel Bowen, a copper-engraver, and possibly the first wood-engraver in Boston, signed a very curious publication entitled "A Metamorphosis"--a manifold paper which in its various possible combinations transformed one figure into another in keeping with the progress of the story. C. Gilbert, a pupil of Mason, who had introduced the art of wood-engraving in Philadelphia from Boston, engraved on wood certainly the two full-page illustrations for "A Present for a Little Girl," printed in eighteen hundred and sixteen for a Baltimore firm, Warner & Hanna. Adams and his pupils, Lansing and Morgan, also did work on children's books. Adams seems to have worked under Anderson's instruction, and after eighteen hundred and twenty-five did cuts for some books in the juvenile libraries of S. Wood and Mahlon Day of New York. Of the engravers on copper, many tried their hands on these toy-books. Among them may be mentioned Amos Doolittle of New Haven, James Poupard, John Neagle, and W. Ralph of Philadelphia, and Rollinson of New York, who is credited with having engraved the silver buttons on the coat worn by Washington on his inauguration as President. But of the copper-plate engravers, perhaps none did more work for children's books than William Charles of Philadelphia. Charles, who is best known by his series of caricatures of the events of the War of 1812 and of local politics, worked upon toy-books as early as eighteen hundred and eight, when in Philadelphia he published in two parts "Tom the Piper's Son; illustrated with whimsical engravings." In these books both text and pictures were engraved, as will be seen in the illustration. Charles's plates for a series of moral tales in verse were used by his successors, Mary Charles, Morgan & Yeager, and Morgan & Sons, for certainly fifteen years after the originals were made. To William Charles the children in the vicinity of Philadelphia were also probably indebted for the introduction of colored pictures. It is possible that the young folks of Boston had the novelty of colored picture-books somewhat before Charles introduced them in Philadelphia, as we find that "The History and Adventures of Little Henry exemplified in a series of figures" was printed by J. Belcher of the Massachusetts town in 1812. These "figures" exhibited little Henry suitably attired for the various incidents of his career, with a movable head to be attached at will to any of the figures, which were not engraved with the text, but each was laid in loose on a blank page. William Charles's method of coloring the pictures engraved with the text was a slight advance, perhaps, upon the illustrations inserted separately; but it is doubtful whether these immovable plates afforded as much entertainment to little readers as the separate figures similar to paper dolls which Belcher, and somewhat later Charles also, used in a few of their publications. [Illustration: _Tom the Piper's Son_] The "Peacock at Home," engraved by Charles and then colored in aqua-tint, is one of the rare early colored picture-books still extant, having been first issued in eighteen hundred and fourteen. The coloring of the illustrations at first doubled the price, and seems to have been used principally for a series of stories belonging to what may be styled the Ethics-in-Play type of juvenile literature, and entitled the "History and Adventures of Little William," "Little Nancy," etc. These tales, written after the objective manner of Miss Edgeworth, glossed over by rhyme, contained usually eight colored plates, and sold for twenty-five cents each instead of twelve cents, the price of the picture-book without colored plates. Sometimes, as in the case of "Cinderella," we find the text illustrated with a number of "Elegant Figures, to dress and undress." The paper doll could be placed behind the costumes appropriate to the various adventures, and, to prevent the loss of the heroine, the book was tied up with pink or blue ribbon after the manner of a portfolio. With engravers on wood and copper able to make more attractive the passion for instruction which marked the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the variety of toy-book literature naturally became greater. Indeed, without pictures to render somewhat entertaining the Labor-in-Play school, it is doubtful whether it could have attained its widespread popularity. It is, of course, possible to name but a few titles typical of the various kinds of instruction offered as amusement. "To present to the young Reader a Little Miscellany of Natural History, Moral Precept, Sentiment, and Narrative," Dr. Kendall wrote "Keeper's Travels in Search of his Master," "The Canary Bird," and "The Sparrow." "The Prize for Youthful Obedience" endeavored to instill a love for animals, and to promote obedient habits. Its story runs in this way: "A kind and good father had a little lively son, named Francis; but, although that little boy was six years old, he had not yet learned to read. "His mama said to him, one day, 'if Francis will learn to read well, he shall have a pretty little chaise.' "The little boy was vastly pleased with this; he presently spelt five or six words and then kissed his mama. "'Mama,' said Francis, 'I am delighted with the thoughts of this chaise, but I should like to have a horse to draw it.' "'Francis shall have a little dog, which will do instead of a horse,' replied his mama, 'but he must take care to give him some victuals, and not do him any harm.'" The dog was purchased, and named Chloe. "She was as brisk as a bee, prettily spotted, and as gentle as a lamb." We are now prepared for trouble, for the lesson of the story is surely not hidden. Chloe was fastened to the chaise, a cat secured to serve as a passenger, and "Francis drove his little chaise along the walk." But "when he had been long enough among the gooseberry trees, his mama took him in the garden and told him the names of the flowers." We are thus led to suppose that Francis had never been in the garden before! The mother is called away. We feel sure that the trouble anticipated is at hand. "As soon as she was gone Francis began whipping the dog," and of course when the dog dashed forward the cat tumbled out, and "poor Chloe was terrified by the chaise which banged on all sides. Francis now heartily repented of his cruel behaviour and went into the house crying, and looking like a very simple boy." [Illustration: _A Kind and Good Father_] "I see very plainly the cause of this misfortune," said the father, who, however, soon forgave his repentant son. Thereafter every day Francis learned his lesson, and was rewarded by facts and pictures about animals, by table-talks, or by walks about the country. Knowledge offered within small compass seems to have been a novelty introduced in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson, who had a juvenile library in High Street. In eighteen hundred and three he printed two tiny volumes entitled "A Description of Various Objects." Bound in green paper covers, the two-inch square pages were printed in bold type. The first volume contained the illustrations of the objects described in the other. The characterizations were exceedingly short, as, for example, this of the "Puppet Show:" "Here are several little boys and girls looking at a puppet show, I suppose you would like to make one of them." Four years later Johnson improved upon this, when he printed in better type "People of all Nations; an useful toy for Girl or Boy." Of approximately the same size as the other volumes, it was bound with stiff sides and calf back. The plates, engraved on copper, represent men of various nationalities in the favorite alphabetical order. A is an American. V is a Virginian,--an Indian in scant costume of feathers with a long pipe,--who, the printed description says, "is generally dressed after the manner of the English; but this is a poor African, and made a slave of." An orang-outang represents the letter O, and according to the author, is "a wild man of the woods, in the East Indies. He sleeps under trees, and builds himself a hut. He cannot speak, but when the natives make a fire in the woods he will come and warm himself." Ten years later there was still some difficulty in getting exact descriptions of unfamiliar animals. Thus in "A Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds" the baboon is drawn with a dog's body and an uncanny head with a snout. The reader is informed that "the baboon has a long face resembling a dog's; his eyes are red and very bright, his teeth are large and strong, but his swiftness renders him hard to be taken. He delights in fishing, and will stay for a considerable time under water. He imitates several of our actions, and will drink wine, and eat human food." Another series of three books, written by William Darton, the English publisher and maker of toy-books, was called "Chapters of Accidents, containing Caution and Instruction." Thrilling accounts of "Escapes from Danger" when robbing birds'-nests and hunting lions and tigers were intermingled with wise counsel and lessons to be gained from an "Upset Cart," or a "Balloon Excursion." With one incident the Philadelphia printer took the liberty of changing the title to "Cautions to Walkers on the Streets of Philadelphia." High Street, now Market Street, is represented in a picture of the young woman who, unmindful of the warning, "Never to turn hastily around the corner of a street," "ran against the porter's load and nearly lost one of her eyes." The change, of course, is worthy of notice only because of the slight effort to locate the story in America. [Illustration: _a Virginian_] [Illustration: _A Baboon_] An attempt to familiarize children with flowers resulted in two tales, called "The Rose's Breakfast" and "Flora's Gala," in which flowers were personified as they took part in fêtes. "Garden Amusements, for Improving the Minds of Little Children," was issued by Samuel Wood of New York with this advertisement: "This little treatise, (written and first published in the great emporium of the British nation) containing so many pleasing remarks for the juvenile mind, was thought worthy of an American edition.... Being so very natural, ... and its tendency so moral and amusing, it is to be hoped an advantage will be obtained from its re-publication in Freedonia." Dialogue was the usual method of instruction employed by Miss Edgeworth and her followers. In "Garden Amusements" the conversation was interrupted by a note criticising a quotation from Milton as savoring too much of poetic license. Cowper also gained the anonymous critic's disapproval, although it was his point of view and not his style that came under censure. In still another series of stories often reprinted from London editions were those moral tales with the sub-title "Cautionary Stories in Verse." Mr. William James used these "Cautionary Verses for Children" as an example of the manner in which "the muse of evangelical protestantism in England, with the mind fixed on the ideas of danger, had at last drifted away from the original gospel of freedom." "Chronic anxiety," Mr. James continued, "marked the earlier part of this [nineteenth] century in evangelical circles." A little salmon-colored volume, "The Daisy," is a good example of this series. Each rhyme is a warning or an admonition; a chronic fear that a child might be naughty. "Drest or Undrest" is typical of the sixteen hints for the proper conduct of every-day life contained in the innocent "Daisy:" "When children are naughty and will not be drest, Pray what do you think is the way? Why, often I really believe it is best To keep them in night-clothes all day! "But then they can have no good breakfast to eat, Nor walk with their mother and aunt; At dinner they'll have neither pudding nor meat, Nor anything else that they want. "Then who would be naughty and sit all the day In night-clothes unfit to be seen! And pray who would lose all their pudding and play For not being drest neat and clean." Two other sets of books with a like purpose were brought out by Charles about eighteen hundred and sixteen. One began with those familiar nursery verses entitled "My Mother," by Ann Taylor, which were soon followed by "My Father," all the family, "My Governess," and even "My Pony." The other set of books was "calculated to promote Benevolence and Virtue in Children." "Little Fanny," "Little Nancy," and "Little Sophie" were all held up as warnings of the results of pride, greed, and disobedience. [Illustration: _Drest or Undrest_] The difference between these heroines of fiction and the characters drawn by Maria Edgeworth lies mainly in the fact that they spoke in rhyme instead of in prose, and that they were almost invariably naughty; or else the parents were cruel and the children suffered. Rarely do we find a cheerful tale such as "The Cherry Orchard" in this cautionary style of toy-book. Still more rarely do we find any suspicion of that alloy of nonsense supposed by Miss Edgeworth to make the sense work well. It is all quite serious. "Little Nancy, or, the Punishment of Greediness," is representative of this sort of moral and cautionary tale. The frontispiece, "embellishing" the first scene, shows Nancy in receipt of an invitation to a garden party: "Now the day soon appear'd But she very much fear'd She should not be permitted to go. Her best frock she had torn, The last time it was worn; Which was very vexatious, you know." However, the mother consents with the _caution_: "Not to greedily eat The nice things at the treat; As she much wished to break her of this." Arrived at the party, Nancy shared the games, and "At length was seated, With her friends to be treated; So determin'd on having her share, That she drank and she eat Ev'ry thing she could get, Yet still she was loth to forbear." The disastrous consequences attending Nancy's disregard of her mother's admonition are displayed in a full-page illustration, which is followed by another depicting the sorrowful end in bed of the day's pleasure. Then the moral: "My young readers beware, And avoid with great care Such _excesses_ as these you've just read; For be sure you will find It your interest to mind What your friends and relations have said." Perhaps of all the toy imprints of the early century none are more curious in modern eyes than the three or four German translations printed by Philadelphia firms. In eighteen hundred and nine Johnson and Warner issued "Kleine Erzählungen über ein Buch mit Kupfern." This seems to be a translation of "A Mother's Remarks over a Set of Cuts," and contains a reference to another book entitled "Anecdoten von Hunden." Still another book is extant, printed in eighteen hundred and five by Zentler, "Unterhaltungen für Deutsche Kinder." This, according to its preface, was one of a series for which Jacob and Benjamin Johnson had consented to lend the plates for illustrations. Patriotism, rather than diversion, still characterized the very little original work of the first quarter of the century for American children. A book with the imposing title of "Geographical, Statistical and Political Amusement" was published in Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and six. "This work," says its advertisement, "is designed as an easy means of uniting Instruction with Pleasure ... to entice the youthful mind to an acquaintance with a species of information [about the United States] highly useful." "The Juvenile Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository of Useful Information," issued in eighteen hundred and three, contained as its only original contribution an article upon General Washington's will, "an affecting and most original composition," wrote the editor. This was followed seven years later by the well-known "Life of George Washington," by M.L. Weems, in which was printed the now famous and disputed cherry-tree incident. Its abridged form known to present day nursery lore differs from the long drawn out account by Weems, who, like Thomas Day, risked being diffuse in his desire to show plainly his moral. The last part of the story sufficiently gives his manner of writing: "Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. 'George,' said his father, 'do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?' That was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself, and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all conquering truth, he bravely cried out, 'I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet!' 'Run to my arms, you dearest boy,' cried his father in transports, 'run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism is worth more than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.'" Franklin's "Way to Wealth" was considered to be perfectly adapted to all children's comprehension, and was issued by various publishers of juvenile books. By eighteen hundred and eight it was illustrated and sold "with fine engravings for twenty-five cents." Of patriotic poetry there was much for grown folks, but the "Patriotic and Amatory Songster," advertised by S. Avery of Boston about the time Weems's biography was published, seems a title ill-suited to the juvenile public for whom Avery professed to issue it. Among the books which may be cited as furnishing instructive amusement with less of the admixture of moral purpose was the "London Cries for Children," with pictures of street peddlers. This was imitated in America by the publication of the "Cries of New York" and "Cries of Philadelphia." In the Lenox Collection there is now one of the various editions of the "Cries of New York" (published in 1808), which is valuable both as a record of the street life of the old-fashioned town of ninety-six thousand inhabitants, and as perhaps the first child's book of purely local interest, with original woodcuts very possibly designed and engraved by Alexander Anderson. The "Cries of New York" is of course modelled after the "London Cries," but the account it gives of various incidents in the daily life of old New York makes us grateful for the existence of this child's toy. A picture of a chimney-sweep, for instance, is copied, with his cry of "Sweep, O, O, O, O," from the London book, but the text accompanying it is altered to accord with the custom in New York of firing a gun at dawn: "About break of day, after the morning gun is heard from Governor's Island, and so through the forenoon, the ears of the citizens are greeted with this uncouth sound from figures as unpleasant to the sight, clothed in rags and covered with soot--a necessary and suffering class of human beings indeed--spending their childhood thus. And in regard to the unnecessary bawling of those sooty boys; it is _admirable_ in such a noisy place as this, where every needless sound should be hushed, that such disagreeable ones should be allowed. The prices for sweeping chimneys are--one story houses twelve cents; two stories, eighteen cents; three stories, twenty-five cents, and so on." "Hot Corn" was also cried by children, whose business it was to "gather cents, by distributing corn to those who are disposed to regale themselves with an ear." Baked pears are pictured as sold "by a little black girl, with the pears in an earthen dish under her arm." At the same season of the year, "Here's your fine ripe water-melons" also made itself heard above the street noises as a street cry of entirely American origin. Again there were pictured "Oyster Stands," served by negroes, and these were followed by cries of "Fine Clams: choice Clams, Here's your Rock-a-way beach Clams: here's your fine Young, sand Clams," from Flushing Cove Bay, which the text explains, "turn out as good, or perhaps better," than oysters. The introduction of negroes and negro children into the illustrations is altogether a novelty, and together with the scenes drawn from the street life of the town gave to the old-fashioned child its first distinctly American picture-book. Indeed, with the exception of this and an occasional illustration in some otherwise English reproduction, all the American publishers at this time seem to have modelled their wares for small children after those of two large London firms, J. Harris, successor to Newbery, and William Darton. To Darton, the author of "Little Truths," the children were indebted for a serious attempt to improve the character of toy-books. A copper-plate engraver by profession, Darton's attention was drawn to the scarcity of books for children by the discovery that there was not much written for them that was worth illustrating. Like Newbery, he set about to make books himself, and with John Harvey, also an engraver, he set up in Grace Church Street an establishment for printing and publishing, from which he supplied, to a great extent, the juvenile books closely imitated by American printers. Besides his own compositions, he was very alert to encourage promising authors, and through him the famous verses of Jane and Ann Taylor were brought into notice. "Original Poems," and "Rhymes for the Nursery," by these sisters, were to the old-time child what Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" is to the modern nursery. Darton and Harvey paid ten pounds for the first series of "Original Poems," and fifteen pounds for the second; while "Rhymes for the Nursery" brought to its authors the unusual sum of twenty pounds. The Taylors were the originators of that long series of verses for infants which "My Sister" and "My Governess" strove to surpass but never in any way equalled, although they apparently met with a fair sale in America. [Illustration: _Little Nancy_] Enterprising American booksellers also copied the new ways of advertising juvenile books. An instance of this is afforded by Johnson and Warner of Philadelphia, who apparently succeeded Jacob and Benjamin Johnson, and had, by eighteen hundred and ten, branch shops in Richmond, Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky. They advertised their "neatly executed books of amusement" in book notes in the "Young Gentlemen and Ladies' Magazine," by means of digressions from the thread of their stories, and sometimes by inserting as frontispiece a rhyme taken from one used by John Harris of St. Paul's Churchyard: "At JO---- store in Market Street A sure reward good children meet. In coming home the other day I heard a little master say For ev'ry three-pence there he took He had received a little book. With covers neat and cuts so pretty There's not its like in all the city; And that for three-pence he could buy A story book would make one cry; For little more a book of Riddles: Then let us not buy drums and fiddles Nor yet be stopped at pastry cooks', But spend our money all in books; For when we've learnt each bit by heart Mamma will treat us with a tart." Later, when engraving had become more general in use, William Charles cut for an advertisement, as frontispiece to some of his imprints, an interior scene containing a shelf of books labelled "W. Charles' Library for Little Folks." About the same time another form of advertisement came into use. This was the publisher's _Recommendation_, which frequently accompanied the narrative in place of a preface. The "Story of Little Henry and his Bearer," by Mrs. Sherwood, a writer of many English Sunday-school tales, contained the announcement that it was "fraught with much useful instruction. It is recommended as an excellent thing to be put in the hands of children; and grown persons will find themselves well paid for the trouble of reading it." Little Henry belonged to the Sunday-school type of hero, one whose biography Dr. Holmes doubtless avoided when possible. Yet no history of toy-books printed presumably for children's amusement as well as instruction should omit this favorite story, which represents all others of its class of Religion-in-Play books. The following incidents are taken from an edition printed by Lincoln and Edmunds of Boston. This firm made a special feature of "Books suitable for Presents in Sunday-School." They sold wholesale for eight dollars a hundred, such tales as Taylor's "Hymns for Infant Minds," "Friendly Instruction," Fenelon's "Reflections," Doddridge's "Principles of the Christian Religion," "Pleasures of Piety in Youth," "Walks of Usefulness," "Practical Piety," etc. The objective point of little Henry's melancholy history was to prove the "Usefulness of Female Missionaries," said its editor, Mrs. Cameron, a sister of the author, who at the time was herself living in India. Mrs. Sherwood based the thread of her story upon the life of a household in India, but it winds itself mainly around the conversion of the faithful Indian bearer who served five-year-old Henry. This small orphan was one of those morbidly religious children who "never said a bad word and was vexed when he heard any other person do it." He also, although himself "saved by grace," as the phrase then ran in evangelical circles, was chronically anxious lest he should offend the Lord. To quote verbatim from this relic of the former religious life would savor too much of ridiculing those things that were sacred and serious to the people of that day. Yet the main incidents of the story were these: Henry's conversion took place after a year and a half of hard work on the part of a missionary, who finally had the satisfaction of bringing little Henry "from the state of grossest heathen darkness and ignorance to a competent knowledge of those doctrines necessary to salvation." This was followed immediately by the offer of Henry to give all his toys for a Bible with a purple morocco cover. Then came the preparations for the teacher's departure, when she called him to her room and catechized him in a manner worthy of Cotton Mather a century before. After his teacher's departure the boy, mindful of the lady's final admonition, sought to make a Christian of his bearer, Boosy. Like so many story-book parents, Henry's mother was altogether neglectful of her child; and consequently he was left much to the care of Boosy--time which he improved with "arguments with Boosy concerning the great Creator of things." But it is not necessary to follow Henry through his ardent missionary efforts to the admission of the black boy of his sinful state, nor to the time when the hero was delivered from this evil world. Enough has been said to show that the religious child of fiction was not very different from little Elizabeth Butcher or Hannah Hill of colonial days, whose pious sayings were still read when "Little Henry" was introduced to the American child. Indeed, when Mrs. Sherwood's fictitious children were not sufficiently religious to come up to the standard of five-year-old Henry, their parents were invariably as pious as the father of the "Fairchild Family." This was imported and reprinted for more than one generation as a "best seller." It was almost a modernized version of Janeway's "Token for Children," with Mather's supplement of "A Token for the Children of New England," in its frequent production of death-bed scenes, together with painful object lessons upon the sinfulness of every heart. To impress such lessons Mr. Fairchild spared his family no sight of horror or distress. He even took them to see a man on the gallows, "that," said the ingenuous gentleman, "they may love each other with a perfect and heavenly love." As the children gazed upon the dreadful object the tender father described in detail its every phase, and ended by kneeling in prayer. The story of Evelyn in the third chapter was written as the result of a present of books from an American _Universalist_, whose doctrines Mrs. Sherwood thought likely to be pernicious to children and should be controverted as soon as possible. Later, other things emanating from America were considered injurious to children, but this seems to be the first indication that American ideas were noticed in English juvenile literature. But all this lady's tales were not so lugubrious, and many were immense favorites. Children were even named for the hero of the "Little Millenium Boy." Publishers frequently sent her orders for books to be "written to cuts," and the "Busy Bee," the "Errand Boy," and the "Rose" were some of the results of this method of supplying the demand for her work. Naturally, Mrs. Sherwood, like Miss Edgeworth, had many imitators, but if we could believe the incidents related as true to life, parents would seem to have been either very indifferent to their children or forever suspicious of them. In Newbery's time it had been thought no sin to wear fine buckled shoes, to be genteelly dressed with a wide "ribband;" but now the vain child was one who wore a white frock with pink sash, towards whom the finger of scorn was pointed, and from whom the moral was unfailingly drawn. Vanity was, apparently, an unpardonable sin, as when in a "Moral Tale," "Mamma observed the rising lass By stealth retiring to the glass To practise little arts unseen In the true genius of thirteen." The constant effort to draw a lesson from every action sometimes led to overstepping the bounds of truth by the parents themselves, as for example in a similar instance of love for a mirror. "What is this I see, Harriet?" asked a mother in "Emulation." "Is that the way you employ your precious time? I am no longer surprised at the alteration in your looks of late, that you have appeared so sickly, have lost your complexion; in short I have twenty times been on the point of asking you if you are ill. You look shockingly, child." "I am very well, Mamma, indeed," cried Harriet, quite alarmed. "Impossible, my dear, you can never look well, while you follow such an unwholesome practice. Looking-glasses were never intended for little girls, and very few sensible people use them as there is something really poisonous in their composition. To use them is not only prejudicial to the health but to the disposition." Although this conception of the use of looking-glasses as prejudicial to right living seems to hark back to the views expressed in the old story of the "Prodigal Daughter," who sat before a mirror when the Devil made his second appearance, yet the world of story-book literature, even though its creators were sometimes either careless or ignorant of facts, now also emphasized the value of general knowledge, which it endeavored to pour in increasing quantity into the nursery. Miss More had started the stream of goody-goody books, while Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, and Thomas Day were the originators of the deluge of conversational bores, babies, boys, and teachers that threatened to flood the family book-shelves of America when the American writers for children came upon the scene. FOOTNOTES: [148-A] As long ago as seventeen hundred and sixty-two, Garrat Noel, a Dutch bookseller in New York, advertised that, "according to his Annual Custom, he ... provided a very large Assortment of Books ... as proper Presents at Christmas." See page 68. [166-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882. [168-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882. [169-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882. CHAPTER VII 1825-1840 Old story-books! old story-books! we owe you much, old friends, Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. Who can forget? Who can spurn the ministers of joy That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf; The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half. ELIZA COOKE Their works of amusement, when not laden with more religion than the tale can hold in solution, are often admirable. _Quarterly Review_, 1843 CHAPTER VII 1825-1840 _American Writers and English Critics_ It is customary to refer to the early writings of Washington Irving as works that marked the time when literature pure and simple developed in America. Such writing as had hitherto attracted attention concerned itself, not with matters of the imagination, but with facts and theories of current and momentous interest. Religion and the affairs of the separate commonwealths were uppermost in people's minds in colonial days; political warfare and the defence of the policy of Congress absorbed attention in Revolutionary times; and later the necessity of expounding principles of government and of fostering a national feeling produced a literature of fact rather than of fancy. Gradually all this had changed. A new generation had grown up with more leisure for writing and more time to devote to the general culture of the public. The English periodical with its purpose of "improving the taste, awakening the attention, and amending the heart," had once met these requirements. Later on these periodicals had been keenly enjoyed, but at the same time there appeared American magazines, modelled after them, but largely filled by contributions from literary Americans. Early in the nineteenth century such publications were current in most large towns. From the short essays and papers in these periodicals to the tales of Cooper and Irving the step, after all, was not a long one. The children's literature of amusement developed, after the end of the eighteenth century, in a somewhat similar way, although as usual tagging along after that of their parents. With the constantly increasing population the production of children's books grew more profitable, and in eighteen hundred and two Benjamin Johnson made an attempt to publish a "Juvenile Magazine" in Philadelphia. Its purpose was to be a "Miscellaneous Repository of Useful Information;" but the contents were so largely drawn from English sources that it was probably, like the toy-books, pirated from an English publisher. Indeed, one of the few extant volumes contains only one article of distinctly American composition among essays on _Education_, the _Choice of a Wife_, _Love_, papers on natural history, selections from poems by Coleridge and Cowper; and by anonymous makers of verse about _Consumption_ and _Friendship_. The American contribution, a discussion of President Washington's will, has already been mentioned. In the same year, 1802, the "Juvenile Olio" was started, edited by "Amyntor," but like Johnson's "Juvenile Magazine," was only issued at irregular intervals and was short-lived. Other ventures in children's periodicals continued to be made, however. The "Juvenile Magazine," with "Religious, Moral, and Entertaining Pieces in Prose and Verse," was compiled by Arthur Donaldson, and sold in eighteen hundred and eleven as a monthly in Philadelphia--then the literary centre--for twelve and a half cents a number. In eighteen hundred and thirteen, in the same city, the "Juvenile Portfolio" made its appearance, possibly in imitation of Joseph Dennie's "Port Folio;" but it too failed from lack of support and interest. Boston proved more successful in arousing attention to the possibilities in a well-conducted children's periodical, although it was not until thirteen years later that Lydia Maria Child established the "Juvenile Miscellany for the Instruction and Amusement of Youth." Three numbers were issued in 1826, and thereafter it appeared every other month until August, 1834, when it was succeeded by a magazine of the same name conducted by Sarah J. Hale. This periodical is a landmark in the history of story-writing for the American child. Here at last was an opportunity for the editors to give to their subscribers descriptions of cities in their own land in place of accounts of palaces in Persia; biographies of national heroes instead of incidents in the life of Mahomet; and tales of Indians rather than histories of Arabians and Turks. For its pages Mrs. Sigourney, Miss Eliza Leslie, Mrs. Wells, Miss Sedgwick, and numerous anonymous contributors gladly sent stories of American scenes and incidents which were welcomed by parents as well as by children. In the year following the first appearance of Mrs. Hale's "Juvenile Miscellany," the March number is typical of the amusement and instruction the editor endeavored to provide. This contained a life of Benjamin Franklin (perhaps the earliest child's life of the philosopher and statesman), a tale of an Indian massacre of an entire settlement in Maine, an essay on memory, a religious episode, and extracts from a traveller's journal. The traveller, quite evidently a Bostonian, criticised New York in a way not unfamiliar in later days, as a city where "the love of literature was less strong than in some other parts of the United States;" and then in trying to soften the statement, she fell into a comparison with Philadelphia, also made many times since the gentle critic observed the difference. "New York," she wrote, "has energy, spirit, and bold, lofty enterprise, totally wanting in Philadelphia, ... a place of neat, well regulated plans." Also, like the English story-book of the previous century, this American "Miscellany" introduced _Maxims for a Student_, found, it cheerfully explained, "among the manuscripts of a deceased friend." Puzzles and conundrums made an entertaining feature, and as the literary _chef d'oeuvre_ was inserted a poem supposed to be composed by a babe in South Carolina, but of which the author was undoubtedly Mrs. Gilman, whose ideas of a baby's ability were certainly not drawn from her own nursery. A rival to the "Juvenile Miscellany" was the "Youth's Companion," established at this time in Boston by Nathaniel P. Willis and the Reverend Asa Rand. The various religious societies also began to issue children's magazines for Sunday perusal: the Massachusetts Sunday School Union beginning in 1828 the "Sabbath School Times," and other societies soon following its example. "Parley's Magazine," planned by Samuel G. Goodrich and published by Lilly, Wait and Company of Boston, ran a successful course of nine years from eighteen hundred and thirty-three. The prospectus declared the intention of its conductors "to give descriptions of manners, customs, and countries, Travels, Voyages, and Adventures in Various parts of the world, interesting historical notes, Biography, particularly of young persons, original tales, cheerful and pleasing Rhymes, and to issue the magazine every fortnight." The popularity of the name of Peter Parley insured a goodly number of subscriptions from the beginning, and the life of "Parley's Magazine" was somewhat longer than any of its predecessors. In the south the idea of issuing a juvenile magazine was taken up by a firm in Charleston, and the "Rose Bud" was started in eighteen hundred and thirty. The "Rose Bud," a weekly, was largely the result of the success of the "Juvenile Miscellany," as the editor of the southern paper, Mrs. Gilman, was a valued contributor to the "Miscellany," and had been encouraged in her plan of a paper for children of the south by the Boston conductors of the northern periodical. Mrs. Gilman was born in Boston, and at sixteen years of age had published a poem most favorably criticised at the time. Marrying a clergyman who settled in Charleston, she continued her literary work, but was best known to our grandmothers as the author of "Recollections of a New England Housekeeper." The "Rose Bud" soon blossomed into the "Southern Rose," a family paper, but faded away in 1839. Among other juvenile weeklies of the time may be mentioned the "Juvenile Rambler" and the "Hive," which are chiefly interesting by reason of the opportunity their columns offered to youthful contributors. Another series of "miscellaneous repositories" for the instructive enjoyment of little people was furnished by the Annuals of the period. These, of course, were modelled after the adult Annuals revolving in social circles and adorning the marble-topped tables of drawing-rooms in both England and America. Issued at the Christmas and New Year seasons, these children's Annuals formed the conventional gift-book for many years, and publishers spared no effort to make them attractive. Indeed, their red morocco, silk, or embossed scarlet cloth bindings form a cheerful contrast to the dreary array of black and drab cloth covering the fiction of both old and young. Better illustrations were also introduced than the ugly cuts "adorning" the other books for juvenile readers. Oliver Pelton, Joseph Andrews (who ranked well as an engraver), Elisha Gallaudet, Joseph G. Kellogg, Joseph I. Pease, and Thomas Illman were among the workers in line-engraving whose early work served to illustrate, often delightfully, these popular collections of children's stories. Among the "Annualettes," "Keepsakes," "Evening Hours," and "Infant's Hours" published at intervals after eighteen hundred and twenty-five the "Token" stands preëminent. Edited by Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley) between the years eighteen hundred and twenty-eight and eighteen hundred and forty-two, its contents and illustrations were almost entirely American. Edward Everett, Bishop Doane, A.H. Everett, John Quincy Adams, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Miss Sedgwick, Eliza Leslie, Dr. Holmes, Horace Greeley, James T. Fields, and Gulian Verplanck--all were called upon to make the "Token" an annual treat to children. Of the many stories written for it, only Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" survive; but the long list of contributors of mark in American literature cannot be surpassed to-day by any child's book by contemporary authors. The contents, although written in the style of eighty years ago, are undoubtedly good from a literary standpoint, however out of date their story-telling qualities may be. And, moreover, the "Token" assuredly gave pleasure to the public for which its yearly publication was made. [Illustration: _Children of the Cottage_] By eighteen hundred and thirty-five the "Annual" was in full swing as a popular publication. Then an international book was issued, "The American Juvenile Keepsake," edited by Mrs. Hofland, the well-known writer of English stories for children. Mrs. Hofland cried up her wares in a manner quite different from that of the earlier literary ladies. "My table of contents," she wrote in her introduction, "exhibits a list of names not exceeded in reputation by any preceding Juvenile Annual; for, although got up with a celerity almost distressing in the hurry it imposed, such has been the kindness of my literary friends, that they have left me little more to wish for." Among the English contributors were Miss Mitford, Miss Jean Roberts, Miss Browne, and Mrs. Hall, the ablest writers for English children, and already familiar to American households. Mrs. Hofland, herself, wrote one of its stories, noteworthy as an early attempt of an English author to write for an American juvenile public. She found her theme in the movement of emigration strong in England just then among the laboring people. No amount of discouragement and bitter criticism of the United States by the British press was sufficient to stem appreciably the tide of laborers that flowed towards the country whence came information of better wages and more work. Mrs. Hofland, although writing for little Americans, could not wholly resist the customary fling at American life and society. She acknowledged, however, that long residence altered first impressions and brought out the kernel of American character, whose husk only was visible to sojourners. She deplored the fact that "gay English girls used only to the polished society of London were likely to return with the impression that the men were rude and women frivolous." This impression the author was inclined to believe unjust, yet deemed it wise, because of the incredulous (perhaps even in America!), to back her own opinion by a note saying that this view was also shared by a valued friend who had lived fourteen years in Raleigh, South Carolina. Having thus done justice, in her own eyes, to conditions in the new country, Mrs. Hofland, launched the laborer's family upon the sea, and followed their travels from New York to Lexington, Kentucky, at that time a land unknown to the average American child beyond some hazy association with the name of Daniel Boone. It was thus comparatively safe ground on which to place the struggles of the immigrants, who prospered because of their English thrift and were an example to the former residents. Of course the son grew up to prove a blessing to the community, and eventually, like the heroes in old Isaiah Thomas's adaptations of Newbery's good boys, was chosen Congressman. There is another point of interest in connection with this English author's tale. Whether consciously or not, it is a very good imitation of Peter Parley's method of travelling with his characters in various lands or over new country. It is, perhaps, the first instance in the history of children's literature of an American story-writer influencing the English writer of juvenile fiction. And it was not the only time. So popular and profitable did Goodrich's style of story become that somewhat later the frequent attempts to exploit anonymously and profitably his pseudonymn in England as well as in America were loudly lamented by the originator of the "Tales of Peter Parley." It is, moreover, suggestive of the gradual change in the relations between the two countries that anything written in America was thought worth imitating. America, indeed, was beginning to supply incidents around which to weave stories for British children and tales altogether made at home for her own little readers. In the same volume Mrs. S.C. Hall also boldly attempted to place her heroine in American surroundings. Philadelphia was the scene chosen for her tale; but, having flattered her readers by this concession to their sympathies and interest, the author was still sufficiently insular to doubt the existence of a competent local physician in this the earliest medical centre in the United States. An English family had come to make their home in the city, where the mother's illness necessitated the attendance of a French doctor to make a correct diagnosis of her case. An operation was advised, which the mother, Mrs. Allen, hesitated to undergo in an unknown land. Emily, the fourteen-year-old daughter, urged her not to delay, as she felt quite competent to be in attendance, having had "five teeth drawn without screaming; nursed a brother through the whooping-cough and a sister through the measles." "Ma foi, Mademoiselle," said the French doctor, "you are very heroic; why, let me see, you talk of being present at an operation, which I would not hardly suffer my junior pupils to attend." "Put," said the heroic damsel, "my resolution, sir, to any test you please; draw one, two, three teeth, I will not flinch." And this courage the writer thought could not be surpassed in a London child. It is needless to say that Emily's fortitude was sufficient to endure the sight of her mother's suffering, and to nurse her to complete recovery. Evidently residence in America had not yet sapped the young girl's moral strength, or reduced her to the frivolous creature an American woman was reputed in England to be. Among the home contributors to "The American Juvenile Keepsake" were William L. Stone, who wrote a prosy article about animals; and Mrs. Embury, called the Mitford of America (because of her stories of village life), who furnished a religious tale to controvert the infidel doctrines considered at the time subtly undermining to childish faith, with probable reference to the Unitarian movement then gaining many adherents. Mrs. Embury's stories were so generally gloomy, being strongly tinged with the melancholy religious views of certain church denominations, that one would suppose them to have been eminently successful in turning children away from the faith she sought to encourage. For this "Keepsake" the same lady let her poetical fancy take flight in "The Remembrance of Youth is a Sigh," a somewhat lugubrious and pessimistic subject for a child's Christmas Annual. Occasionally a more cheerful mood possessed "Ianthe," as she chose to call herself, and then we have some of the earliest descriptions of country life in literature for American children. There is one especially charming picture of a walk in New England woods upon a crisp October day, when the children merrily hunt for chestnuts among the dry brown leaves, and the squirrels play above their heads in the many colored boughs. [Illustration: _Henrietta_] Dr. Holmes has somewhere remarked upon the total lack of American nature descriptions in the literature of his boyhood. No birds familiar to him were ever mentioned; nor were the flowers such as a New England child could ever gather. Only English larks and linnets, cowslips and hawthorn, were to be found in the toy-books and little histories read to him. "Everything was British: even the robin, a domestic bird," wrote the doctor, "instead of a great fidgety, jerky, whooping thrush." But when Peter Parley, Jacob Abbott, Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. Embury, and Eliza Leslie began to write short stories, the Annuals and periodicals abounded in American scenes and local color. There was also another great incentive for writers to work for children. This was the demand made for stories from the American Sunday School Union, whose influence upon the character of juvenile literature was a force bearing upon the various writers, and whose growth was coincident with the development of the children's periodical literature. The American Sunday School Union, an outgrowth of the several religious publication societies, in eighteen hundred and twenty-four began to do more extensive work, and therefore formed a committee to judge and pronounce upon all manuscripts, which American writers were asked to submit. The sessions of the Sunday-schools were no longer held for illiterate children only. The younger members of each parish or church were found upon its benches each Sunday morning or afternoon. To promote and to impress the religious teaching in these schools, rewards were offered for well-prepared lessons and regular attendance. Also the scholars were encouraged to use the Sunday-school library. For these different purposes many books were needed, but naturally only those stamped with the approval of the clergyman in charge were circulated. The board of publication appointed by the American Sunday School Union--composed chiefly of clergymen of certain denominations--passed upon the merits of the many manuscripts sent in by piously inclined persons, and edited such of them as proved acceptable. The marginal notes on the pages of the first edition of an old Sunday-school favorite bear witness to the painstaking care of the editors that the leaflets, tracts, and stories poured in from all parts of the country should "shine by reason of the truth contained," and "avoid the least appearance, the most indirect insinuations, of anything which can militate against the strictest ideas of propriety." The tales had also to keep absolutely within the bounds of religion. Many were the stories found lacking in direct religious teaching, or returned because religion was not vitally connected with the plot, to be rewritten or sent elsewhere for publication. The hundreds of stories turned out in what soon became a mechanical fashion were of two patterns: the one of the good child, a constant attendant upon Sabbath School and Divine Worship, but who died young after converting parent or worldly friend during a painful illness; the other of the unregenerate youth, who turned away from the godly admonition of mother and clergyman, refused to attend Sunday-school, and consequently fell into evil ways leading to the thief's or drunkard's grave. Often a sick mother was introduced to claim emotional attention, or to use as a lay figure upon which to drape Scripture texts as fearful warnings to the black sheep of the family. Indeed, the little reader no sooner began to enjoy the tale of some sweet and gentle girl, or to delight in the mischievous boy, than he was called upon to reflect that early piety portended an early death, and youthful pranks led to a miserable old age. Neither prospect offered much encouragement to hope for a happy life, and from conversations with those brought up on this form of religious culture, it is certain that if a child escaped without becoming morbid and neurotic, there were dark and secret resolves to risk the unpleasant future in favor of a happy present. The stories, too, presented a somewhat paradoxical familiarity with the ways of a mysterious Providence. This was exceedingly perplexing to the thoughtful child, whose queries as to justice were too often hushed by parent or teacher. In real life, every child expected, even if he did not receive, a tangible reward for doing the right thing; but Providence, according to these authors, immediately caused a good child to become ill unto death. It is not a matter for surprise that the healthy-minded, vigorous child often turned in disgust from the Sunday-school library to search for Cooper's tales of adventure on his father's book-shelves. The correct and approved child's story, even if not issued under religious auspices, was thoroughly saturated with religion. Whatever may have been the practice of parents in regard to their own reading, they wished that of the nursery to show not only an educational and moral, but a religious tendency. The books for American children therefore divided themselves into three classes: the denominational story, to set forth the doctrines of one church; the educational tale; and the moral narrative of American life. The denominational stories produced by the several Sunday-school societies were, as has been said, only a kind of scaffolding upon which to build the teachings of the various churches. But their sale was enormous, and a factor to be reckoned with because of their influence upon the educational and moral tales of their period. By eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, fifty-thousand books and tracts had been sent out by one Sunday-school society alone.[204-A] There are few things more remarkable in the history of juvenile literature than the growth of the business of the American Sunday School Union. By eighteen hundred and twenty-eight it had issued over seven hundred of these religious trifles, varying from a sixteen-page duodecimo to a small octavo volume; and most of these appear to have been written by Americans trying their inexperienced pens upon a form of literature not then recognized as difficult. The influence of such a flood of tiny books could hardly have been other than morbid, although occasionally there floated down the stream duodecimos which were grasped by little readers with eagerness. Such volumes, one reader of bygone Sunday-school books tells us, glimmered from the dark depths of death and prison scenes, and were passed along with whispered recommendation until their well-worn covers attracted the eye of the teacher, and were quickly found to be missing from library shelves. Others were commended in their stead, such as described the city boy showing the country cousin the town sights, with most edifying conversation as to their history; or, again, amusement of a light and alluring character was presumably to be found in the story of a little maid who sat upon a footstool at her mother's knee, and while she hemmed the four sides of a handkerchief, listened to the account of missionary enterprises in the dark corners of the earth. To us of to-day the small illustrations are perhaps the most interesting feature, preserving as they do children's occupations and costumes. In one book we see quaintly frocked and pantaletted girls and much buttoned boys in Sunday-school. In another, entitled "Election Day," are pictured two little lads watching, from the square in front of Independence Hall, the handing in of votes for the President through a window of the famous building--a picture that emphasizes the change in methods of casting the ballot since eighteen hundred and twenty-eight. That engravers were not always successful when called upon to embellish the pages of the Sunday-school books, many of them easily prove. That the designers of woodcuts were sometimes lacking in imagination when obliged to depict Bible verses can have no better example than the favorite vignette on title-pages portraying "My soul doth magnify the Lord" as a man with a magnifying glass held over a blank space. Perhaps equal in lack of imagination was the often repeated frontispiece of "Mercy streaming from the Cross," illustrated by a large cross with an effulgent rain beating upon the luxuriant tresses of a languishing lady. There were many pictures but little art in the old-fashioned Sunday-school library books. It was in Philadelphia that one of the first, if not the first children's library was incorporated in 1827 as the Apprentices' Library. Eleven years later this library contained more than two thousand books, and had seven hundred children as patrons. The catalogue of that year is indicative of the prevalence of the Sunday-school book. "Adventures of Lot" precedes the "Affectionate Daughter-in-Law," which is followed by "Anecdotes of Christian Missions" and "An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners." Turning the yellowed pages, we find "Hannah Swanton, the Casco Captive," histories of Bible worthies, the "Infidel Class," "Little Deceiver Reclaimed," "Letters to Little Children," "Juvenile Piety," and "Julianna Oakley." The bookish child of this decade could not escape from the "Reformed Family" and the consumptive little Christian, except by taking refuge in the parents' novels, collections of the British poets and essayists, and the constantly increasing American writings for adults. Perhaps in this way the Sunday-school books may be counted among that long list of such things as are commonly called blessings in disguise. [Illustration: _A Child and her Doll_] Aside from the strictly religious tale, the contents of the now considerable output of Harper and Brothers, Mahlon Day, Samuel Wood and Sons of New York; Cottons and Barnard, Lincoln and Edmunds, Lilly, Wait and Company, Munroe and Francis of Boston; Matthew Carey, Conrad and Parsons, Morgan and Sons, and Thomas T. Ashe of Philadelphia--to mention but a few of the publishers of juvenile novelties--are convincing proof that booksellers catered to the demand for stories with a strong religious bias. The "New York Weekly," indeed, called attention to Day's books as "maintaining an unbroken tendency to virtue and piety." When not impossibly pious, these children of anonymous fiction were either insufferable prigs with a steel moral code, or so ill-bred as to be equally impossible and unnatural. The favorite plan of their creators was to follow Miss Edgeworth's device of contrasting the good and naughty infant. The children, too, were often cousins: one, for example, was the son of a gentleman who in his choice of a wife was influenced by strict religious principles; the other boy inherited his disposition from his mother, a lady of bland manners and fine external appearance, but who failed to establish in her offspring "correct principles of virtue, religion, and morality." The author paused at this point in the narrative to discuss the frailties of the lady, before resuming its slender thread. Who to-day could wade through with children the good-goody books of that generation? Happily, many of the writers for little ones chose to be unknown, for it would be ungenerous to disparage by name these ladies who considered their productions edifying, and in their ingenuousness never dreamed that their stories were devoid of every quality that makes a child's book of value to the child. They were literally unconscious that their tales lacked that simplicity and directness in style, and they themselves that knowledge of human nature, absolutely necessary to construct a pleasing and profitable story. The watchwords of these painstaking ladies were "religion, virtue, and morality," and heedless of everything else, they found oblivion in most cases before they gained recognition from the public they longed to influence. The decade following eighteen hundred and thirty brought prominently to the foreground six American authors among the many who occasioned brief notice. Of these writers two were men and four were women. Jacob Abbott and Samuel G. Goodrich wrote the educational tales, Abbott largely for the nursery, while Goodrich devoted his attention mainly to books for the little lads at school. The four women, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Miss Eliza Leslie, Miss Catharine Sedgwick, and Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, wrote mainly for girls, and took American life as their subject. Mrs. Hale wrote much for adults, but when editor of the "Juvenile Miscellany," she made various contributions to it. Yet to-day we know her only by one of her "Poems for Children," published in Boston in eighteen hundred and thirty--"Mary had a Little Lamb." Mary's lamb has travelled much farther than to school, and has even reached that point when its authorship has been disputed. Quite recently in the "Century Magazine" Mrs. Hale's claim to its composition has been set forth at some length by Mr. Richard W. Hale, who shows clearly her desire when more than ninety years of age to be recognized as the originator of these verses, In fact, "shortly before her death," wrote Mr. Hale, "she directed her son to write emphatically that every poem in her book of eighteen hundred and thirty was of her own composition." Although rarely seen in print, "Mary had a Little Lamb" has outlived all other nursery rhymes of its day; perhaps because it had most truly the quality, unusual at the time, of being told directly and simply--a quality, indeed, that appeals to every generation. Miss Leslie, like Mrs. Hale, did much editing, beginning on adult gift-books and collections of housewife's receipts, and then giving most of her attention to juvenile literature. As editor Miss Leslie did good work on the "Violet" and the "Pearl," both gift-books for children. She also abridged, edited, and rewrote "The Wonderful Traveller," and the adventures of Munchausen, Gulliver, and Sindbad, heroes often disregarded by this period of lack of imagination and over-supply of educational theories. Also, as a writer of stories for little girls and school-maidens, Eliza Leslie met with warm approval on both sides of the Atlantic. Undoubtedly the success of Eliza Leslie's "American Girls' Book," modelled after the English "Boy's Own Book," and published in 1831, added to the popularity attained by her earlier work, although of this she was but the compiler. The "American Girls' Book" was intended for little girls, and by dialogue, the prevailing mode of conveying instruction or amusement, numerous games and plays were described. Already many of the pastimes have gone out of fashion. "Lady Queen Anne" and "Robin's Alive," "a dangerous game with a lighted stick," are altogether unknown; "Track the Rabbit" has changed its name to "Fox and Geese;" "Hot Buttered Beans" has found a substitute in "Hunt the Thimble;" and "Stir the Mush" has given place to "Going to Jerusalem." But Miss Leslie did more than preserve for us these old-fashioned games. She has left sketches of children's ways and nature in her various stories for little people. She shared, of course, in the habit of moralizing characteristic of her day, but her children are childish, and her heroines are full of the whims, and have truly the pleasures and natural emotions, of real children. Miss Leslie began her work for children in eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when "Atlantic Stories" were published, and as her sketches of child-life appeared one after another, her pen grew more sure in its delineation of characters and her talent was speedily recognized. Even now "Birthday Stories" are worth reading and treasuring because of the pictures of family life eighty years ago. The "Souvenir," for example, is a Christmas tale of old Philadelphia; the "Cadet's Sister" sketches life at West Point, where the author's brother had been a student; while the "Launch of the Frigate" and "Anthony and Clara" tell of customs and amusements quite passed away. The charming description of children shopping for their simple Christmas gifts, the narrative of the boys who paid a poor lad in a bookstore to ornament their "writing-pieces" for more "respectable presents" to parents, the quiet celebration of the day itself, can ill be spared from the history of child life and diversions in America. It is well to be reminded, in these days of complex and expensive amusements, of some of the saner and simpler pleasures enjoyed by children in Miss Leslie's lifetime. All of this writer's books, moreover, have some real interest, whether it be "Althea Vernon," with the description of summer life and fashions at Far Rockaway (New York's Manhattan Beach of 1830), or "Henrietta Harrison," with its sarcastic reference to the fashionable school where the pupils could sing French songs and Italian operas, but could not be sure of the notes of "Hail Columbia." Or again, the account is worth reading of the heroine's trip to New York from Philadelphia. "Simply habited in a plaid silk frock and Thibet shawl," little Henrietta starts, under her uncle's protection, at five o'clock in the morning to take the boat for Bordentown, New Jersey. There she has her first experience of a railway train, and looks out of the window "at all the velocity of the train will allow her to see." At Heightstown small children meet the train with fruit and cakes to sell to hungry travellers. And finally comes the wonderful voyage from Amboy to the Battery in New York, which is not reached until night has fallen. This is the simple explanation as to why Eliza Leslie's books met with so generous a reception: they were full of the incidents which children love, and unusually free from the affectations of the pious fictitious heroine. The stories of Miss Catharine Sedgwick also received most favorable criticism, and in point of style were certainly better than Miss Leslie's. Her reputation as a literary woman was more than national, and "Redwood," one of her best novels, was attributed in France to Fenimore Cooper, when it appeared anonymously in eighteen hundred and twenty-four. Miss Sedgwick's novels, however, pass out of nursery comprehension in the first chapters, although these were full of a healthy New England atmosphere, with coasting parties and picnics, Indians and gypsies, nowhere else better described. The same tone pervades her contributions to the "Juvenile Miscellany," the "Token," and the "Youth's Keepsake," together with her best-known children's books, "Stories for Children," "A Well Spent Hour," and "A Love Token for Children." In contrast to Mrs. Sherwood's still popular "Fairchild Family," Catharine Sedgwick's stories breathe a sunny, invigorating atmosphere, abounding in local incidents, and vigorous in delineation of types then plentiful in New England. "She has fallen," wrote one admirer, most truthfully, in the "North American Review" of 1827,--"she has fallen upon the view, from which the treasures of our future literature are to be wrought. A literature to have real freshness must be moulded by the influences of the society where it had its origin. Letters thrive, when they are at home in the soil. Miss Sedgwick's imaginations have such vigor and bloom because they are not exotics." Another reviewer, aroused by English criticism of the social life in America, and full of the much vaunted theory that "all men are equal," rejoiced in the author's attitude towards the so-called "help" in New England families in contrast to Miss More's portrayal of the English child's condescension towards inferiors, which he thought unsuitable to set before the children in America. All Miss Sedgwick's stories were the product of her own keen intelligence and observation, and not written in imitation of Miss More, Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Sherwood, as were the anonymous tales of "Little Lucy; or, the Pleasant Day," or "Little Helen; a Day in the Life of a Naughty Girl." They preached, indeed, at length, but the preaching could be skipped by interested readers, and unlike the work of many contemporaries, there was always a thread to take up. Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, another favorite contributor to magazines, collected her "Poetry for Children" into a volume bearing this title, in eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and published "Tales and Essays" in the same year. These were followed two years later by "Olive Buds," and thereafter at intervals she brought out several other books, none of which have now any interest except as examples of juvenile literature that had once a decided vogue and could safely be bought for the Sunday-school library. The names of Mrs. Anna M. Wells, Mrs. Frances S. Osgood, Mrs. Farrar, Mrs. Eliza L. Follen, and Mrs. Seba Smith were all well beloved by children eighty years ago, and their writings, if long since lost sight of, at least added their quota to the children's publications which were distinctly American. If the quantity of books sold is any indication of the popularity of an author's work, nothing produced by any of these ladies is to be compared with the "Tales of Peter Parley" and the "Rollo Books" of Jacob Abbott. The tendency to instruct while endeavoring to entertain was remodelled by these men, who in after years had a host of imitators. Great visions of good to children had overtaken dreams of making children good, with the result that William Darton's conversational method of instruction was compounded with Miss Edgeworth's educational theories and elaborated after the manner of Hannah More. Samuel Goodrich, at least, confessed that his many tales were the direct result of a conversation with Miss More, whom, because of his admiration for her books, he made an effort to meet when in England in eighteen hundred and twenty-three. While talking with the old lady about her "Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," the idea came to Mr. Goodrich that he, himself, might write for American children and make good use of her method of introducing much detail in description. As a child he had not found the few toy-books within his reach either amusing or interesting, with the exception of this Englishwoman's writings. He resolved that the growing generation should be better served, but little dreamed of the unprecedented success, as far as popularity was concerned, that the result of his determination would prove. After his return to America, the immediate favorable reception of the "Token," under Goodrich's direction, led to the publication in the same year (1828) of "Peter Parley's Tales about America," followed by "Tales about Europe." At this date of retrospection the first volume seems in many ways the best of any of the numerous books by the same author. The boy hero, taken as a child companion upon a journey through several states, met with adventures among Indians upon the frontiers, and saw places of historical significance. Every incident is told in imitation of Miss More, with that detailed description which Goodrich had found so fascinating. If a little overdone in this respect, the narrative has certainly a freshness sadly deficient in many later volumes. Even the second tale seems to lack the engaging spontaneity of the first, and already to grow didactic and recitative rather than personal. But both met with an equally generous and appreciative reception. Parley's educational tales were undoubtedly the American pioneers in what may be readily styled the "travelogue" manner used in later years by Elbridge Brooks and many other writers for little people. These early attempts of Parley's to educate the young reader were followed by one hundred others, which sold like hot cakes. Of some tales the sales reached a total of fifty thousand in one year, while it is estimated that seven million of Peter Parley's "Histories" and "Tales" were sold before the admiration of their style and qualities waned. Peter Parley took his heroes far afield. Jacob Abbott adopted another plan of instruction in the majority of his books. Beginning in eighteen hundred and thirty-four with the "Young Christian Series," the Reverend Mr. Abbott soon had readers in England, Scotland, Germany, France, Holland, and India, where many of his volumes were translated and republished. In the "Rollo Books" and "Franconia" an attempt was made to answer many of the questions that children of each century pour out to astonish and confound their elders. The child reader saw nothing incongruous in the remarkable wisdom and maturity of Mary Bell and Beechnut, who could give advice and information with equal glibness. The advice, moreover, was often worth following, and the knowledge occasionally worth having; and the little one swallowed chunks of morals and morsels of learning without realizing that he was doing so. Most of both was speedily forgotten, but many adults in after years were unconsciously indebted to Goodrich and Abbott for some familiarity with foreign countries, some interest in natural science. Notwithstanding the immense demand for American stories, there was fortunately still some doubt as to whether this remodelled form of instructive amusement and moral story-book literature did not lack certain wholesome features characteristic of the days when fairies and folklore, and Newbery's gilt volumes, had plenty of room on the nursery table. "I cannot very well tell," wrote the editor of the "Fairy Book"[216-A] in 1836,--"I cannot very well tell why it is that the good old histories and tales, which used to be given to young people for their amusement and instruction, as soon as they could read, have of late years gone quite out of fashion in this country. In former days there was a worthy English bookseller, one Mr. Newbery, who used to print thousands of nice little volumes of such stories, which, as he solemnly declared in print in the books themselves, he gave away to all little boys and girls, charging them only a sixpenny for the gold covers. These of course no one could be so unreasonable as to wish him to furnish at his own expense.... Yet in the last generation, American boys and girls (the fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers of the present generation) were not wholly dependent upon Mr. Newbery of St. Paul's church-yard, though they knew him well and loved him much. The great Benjamin Franklin, when a printer in Philadelphia, did not disdain to print divers of Newbery's books adorned with cuts in the likeness of his, though it must be confessed somewhat inferior.[216-B] Yet rude as they were, they were probably the first things in the way of pictures that West and Copley ever beheld, and so instilled into those future painters, the rudiments of that art by which they afterwards became so eminent themselves, and conferred such honour upon their native country. In somewhat later time there were the worthy Hugh Gaine, at the Sign of the Bible and Crown in Pearl street, and the patriotic Samuel Loudon, and the genuine and unadulterated New Yorker, Evert Duyckinck, besides others in Boston and Philadelphia, who trod in the steps of Newbery, and supplied the infant mind with its first and sweetest literary food. The munificent Newbery, and the pious and loyal Hugh Gaine, and the patriotic Samuel Loudon are departed. Banks now abound and brokers swarm where Loudon erst printed, and many millions worth of silk and woolen goods are every year sold where Gaine vended his big Bibles and his little story-books. They are all gone; the glittering covers and their more brilliant contents, the tales of wonder and enchantment, the father's best reward for merit, the good grandmother's most prized presents. They are gone--the cheap delight of childhood, the unbought grace of boyhood, the dearest, freshest, and most unfading recollections of maturer life. They are gone--and in their stead has succeeded a swarm of geological catechisms, entomological primers, and tales of political economy--dismal trash, all of them; something half-way between stupid story-books and bad school-books; being so ingeniously written as to be unfit for any useful purpose in school and too dull for any entertainment out of it." This is practically Charles Lamb's lament of some thirty years before. Lamb had despised the learned Charles, Mrs. Barbauld's peg upon which to hang instruction, and now an American Shakespeare lover found the use of toy-books as mechanical guides to knowledge for nursery inmates equally deplorable. Yet an age so in love with the acquirement of solid facts as to produce a Parley and an Abbott was the period when the most famous of all nursery books was brought out from the dark corner into which it had been swept by the theories of two generations, and presented once again as "The Only True Mother Goose Melodies." The origin of Mother Goose as the protecting genius of the various familiar jingles has been an interesting field of speculation and research. The claim for Boston as the birthplace of their sponsor has long ago been proved a poor one, and now seems likely to have been an ingenious form of advertisement. But Boston undoubtedly did once again make popular, at least in America, the lullabies and rhymes repeated for centuries around French or English firesides. The history of Mother Goose and her brood is a long one. "Mother Goose," writes Mr. Walter T. Field, "began her existence as the raconteuse of fairy tales, not as the nursery poetess. As La Mère Oye she told stories to French children more than two hundred and fifty years ago." According to the researches made by Mr. Field in the literature of Mother Goose, "the earliest date at which Mother Goose appears as the author of children's stories is 1667, when Charles Perrault, a distinguished French littérateur, published in Paris a little book of tales which he had during that and the preceding year contributed to a magazine known as 'Moejen's Recueil,' printed at The Hague. This book is entitled 'Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passé, avec des Moralitez,' and has a frontispiece in which an old woman is pictured, telling stories to a family group by the fireside while in the background are the words in large characters, 'Contes de ma Mère l'Oye.'" It seems, however, to have been John Newbery's publishing-house that made Mother Goose sponsor for the ditties in much the form in which we now have them. In Newbery's collection of "Melodies" there were numerous footnotes burlesquing Dr. Johnson and his dictionary, together with jests upon the moralizing habit prevalent among authors. There is evidence that Goldsmith wrote many of these notes when doing hack-work for the famous publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard. It is known, for instance, that in January, 1760, Goldsmith celebrated the production of his "Good Natur'd Man" by dining his friends at an inn. During the feast he sang his favorite song, said to be "There was an old woman tos't up in a blanket, Seventy times as high as the moon." This was introduced quite irrelevantly in the preface to "Mother Goose's Melodies," but with the apology that it was a favorite with the editor. There is also the often quoted remark of Miss Hawkins as confirming Goldsmith's editorship: "I little thought what I should have to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of paper on his fingers." But neither of these statements seems to have more weight in solving the mystery of the editor's name than the evidence of the whimsically satirical notes themselves. How like the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" and the children's "Fables in Verse" is this remark underneath: "'There was an old Woman who liv'd under a hill, And if she's not gone, she lives there still.' "This is a self evident Proposition, which is the very essence of Truth. She lived under the hill, and if she's not gone, she lives there still. Nobody will presume to contradict this. _Croesa._" And is not this also a good-natured imitation of that kind of seriously intended information which Mr. Edgeworth inserted some thirty years later in "Harry and Lucy:" "Dry, what is not wet"? Again this note is appended to "See Saw Margery Daw Jacky shall have a new master:" "It is a mean and scandalous Practise in Authors to put Notes to Things that deserve no Notice." Who except Goldsmith was capable of this vein of humor? When Munroe and Francis in Boston undertook about eighteen hundred and twenty-four to republish these old-fashioned rhymes, in the practice of the current theory that everything must be simplified, they omitted all these notes and changed many of the "Melodies." Sir Walter Scott's "Donnel Dhu" was included, and the beautiful Shakespeare selections, "When Daffodils begin to 'pear," "When the Bee sucks," etc., were omitted. Doubtless the American editors thought that they had vastly improved upon the Newbery publication in every word changed and every line omitted. In reality, they deprived the nursery of much that might well have remained as it was, although certain expressions were very properly altered. In a negative manner they did one surprising and fortunate thing: in leaving out the amusing notes they did not attempt to replace them, and consequently the nursery had one book free from that advice and precept, which in other verse for children resulted in persistent nagging. The illustrations were entirely redrawn, and Abel Bowen and Nathaniel Dearborn were asked to do the engraving for this Americanized edition. Of the poetry written in America for children before eighteen hundred and forty there is little that need be said. Much of it was entirely religious in character and most of it was colorless and dreary stuff. The "Child's Gem" of eighteen hundred and thirty-eight, considered a treasury of precious verse by one reviewer, and issued in embossed morocco binding, was characteristic of many contemporary _poems_, in which nature was forced to exude precepts of virtue and industry. The following stanzas are no exception to the general tone of the contents of practically every book entitled "Poetry for Children:" "'Be good, little Edmund,' your mother will say, She will whisper it soft in your ear, And often repeat it, by night and by day That you may not forget it, my dear. "And the ant at its work, and the flower-loving bee And the sweet little bird in the wood As it warbles its song, from its nest in the tree, Seems to say, 'little Eddy be good.'" The change in the character of the children's books written by Americans had begun to be seriously noticed in England. Although there were still many importations (such as the series written by Mrs. Sherwood), there was some inclination to resent the stocking of American booksellers' shelves by the work of local talent, much to the detriment of English publishers' pockets. The literary critics took up the subject, and thought themselves justified in disparaging many of the American books which found also ready sale on English book-counters. The religious books underwent scathing criticism, possibly not undeserved, except that the English productions of the same order and time make it now appear that it was but the pot calling the kettle black. Almost as much fault was found with the story-books. It apparently mattered little that the tables were now turned and British publishers were pirating American tales as freely and successfully as Thomas and Philadelphia printers had in former years made use of Newbery's, and Darton and Harvey's, juvenile novelties in book ware. In the "Quarterly Review" of 1843, in an article entitled "Books for Children," the writer found much cause for complaint in regard to stories then all too conspicuous in bookshops in England. "The same egregious mistakes," said the critic, "as to the nature of a child's understanding--the same explanations, which are all but indelicate, and always profane--seem to pervade all these American mentors; and of a number by Peter Parley, Abbott, Todd, &c., it matters little which we take up." "Under the name of Peter Parley," continued the disgruntled gentleman, after finding only malicious evil in poor Mr. Todd's efforts to explain religious doctrines, "such a number of juvenile school-books are current--some greatly altered from the originals and many more by _adopters_ of _Mr. Goodrich's_ pseudonym--that it becomes difficult to measure the merits or demerits of the said _magnus parens_, Goodrich." Liberal quotations followed from "Peter Parley's Farewell," which was censured as palling to the mind of those familiar with the English sources from which the facts had been irreverently culled. The reviewer then passed on to another section of "American abominations" which "seem to have some claim to popularity since they are easily sold." "These," continued the anonymous critic, "are works not of amusement--those we shall touch upon later--but of that half-and-half description where instruction blows with a side wind.... Accordingly after impatient investigation of an immense number of little tomes, we are come to the conclusion that they may be briefly classified--firstly, as containing such information as any child in average life who can speak plainly is likely to be possessed of; and secondly, such as when acquired is not worth having." To this second class of book the Reverend Mr. Abbott's "Rollo Books" were unhesitatingly consigned. They were regarded as curiosities for "mere occupation of the eye, and utter stagnation of the thoughts, full of empty minutiae with all the rules of common sense set aside." Next the writer considered the style of those Americans who persuaded shillings from English pockets by "ingeniously contrived series which rendered the purchase of a single volume by no means so recommendable as that of all." The "uncouth phraseology, crack-jack words, and puritan derived words are nationalized and therefore do not permit cavilling," continued the reviewer, dismayed and disgusted that it was necessary to warn his public, "but their children never did, or perhaps never will, hear any other language; and it is to be hoped they _understand_ it. At all events, we have nothing to do but keep ours from it, believing firmly that early familiarity with refined and beautiful forms ... is one of the greatest safeguards against evil, if not necessary to good." However, the critic did not close his article without a good word for those ladies in whose books we ourselves have found merit. "Their works of amusement" he considered admirable, "when not laden with more religion than the tale can hold in solution. Miss Sedgwick takes a high place for powers of description and traits of nature, though her language is so studded with Americanisms as much to mar the pleasure and perplex the mind of an English reader. Besides this lady, Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Seba Smith may be mentioned. The former, especially, to all other gifts adds a refinement, and nationality of subject, with a knowledge of life, which some of her poetical pieces led us to expect. Indeed the little Americans have little occasion to go begging to the history or tradition of other nations for topics of interest." The "Westminster Review" of eighteen hundred and forty was also in doubt "whether all this Americanism [such as Parley's 'Tales' contained] is desirable for English children, were it," writes the critic, "only for them we keep the 'pure well of English undefiled,' and cannot at all admire the improvements which it pleases that go-ahead nation to claim the right of making in our common tongue: unwisely enough as regards themselves, we think, for one of the elements in the power of a nation is the wide spread of its language." This same criticism was made again and again about the style of American writers for adults, so that it is little wonder the children's books received no unqualified praise. But Americanisms were not the worst feature of the "inundation of American children's books," which because of their novelty threatened to swamp the "higher class" English. They were feared because of the "multitude of false notions likely to be derived from them, the more so as the similarity of name and language prevents children from being on their guard, and from remembering that the representations that they read are by foreigners." It was the American view of English institutions (presented in story-book form) which rankled in the British breast as a "condescending tenderness of the free nation towards the monarchical régime" from which at any cost the English child must be guarded. In this respect Peter Parley was the worst offender, and was regarded as "a sad purveyor of slip-slop, and no matter how amusing, ignorant of his subject." That gentleman, meanwhile, read the criticisms and went on making "bread and butter," while he scowled at the English across the water, who criticised, but pirated as fast as he published in America. Gentle Miss Eliza Leslie received altogether different treatment in this review of American juvenile literature. She was considered "good everywhere, and particularly so for the meridian in which her tales were placed;" and we quite agree with the reviewer who considered it well worth while to quote long paragraphs from her "Tell Tale" to show its character and "truly useful lesson." "To America," continued this writer, "we also owe a host of little books, that bring together the literature of childhood and the people; as 'Home,' 'Live and Let Live' [by Miss Sedgwick], &c., but excellent in intention as they are, we have our doubts, as to the general reception they will meet in this country while so much of more exciting and elegant food is at hand." Even if the food of amusement in England appeared to the British mind more spiced and more _elegant_, neither Miss Leslie's nor Miss Sedgwick's fictitious children were ever anaemic puppets without wills of their own,--a type made familiar by Miss Edgeworth and persisted in by her admirers and successors,--but vitalized little creatures, who acted to some degree, at least, like the average child who loved their histories and named her dolls after favorite characters. To-day these English criticisms are only of value as showing that the American story-book was no longer imitating the English tale, but was developing, by reason of the impress of differing social forces, a new type. Its faults do not prevent us from seeing that the spirit expressed in this juvenile literature is that of a new nation feeling its own way, and making known its purpose in its own manner. While we smile at sedulous endeavors of the serious-minded writers to present their convictions, educational, religious, or moral, in palatable form, and to consider children always as a race apart, whose natural actions were invariably sinful, we still read between the lines that these writers were really interested in the welfare of the American child; and that they were working according to the accepted theories of the third decade of the nineteenth century as to the constituents of a juvenile library which, while "judicious and attractive, should also blend instruction with innocent amusement." [Illustration: _The Little Runaway_] And now as we have reached the point in the history of the American story-book when it is popular at least in both English-speaking countries, if not altogether satisfactory to either, what can be said of the value of this juvenile literature of amusement which has developed on the tiny pages of well-worn volumes? If, of all the books written for children by Americans seventy-five years and more ago, only Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" has survived to the present generation; of all the verse produced, only the simple rhyme, "Mary had a Little Lamb," and Clement Moore's "The Night before Christmas" are still quoted, has their history any value to-day? If we consider that there is nothing more rare in the fiction of any nation than the popular child's story that endures; nothing more unusual than the successful well-written juvenile tale, we can perhaps find a value not to be reckoned by the survival or literary character of these old-fashioned books, but in their silent testimony to the influence of the progress of social forces at work even upon so small a thing as a child's toy-book. The successful well-written child's book has been rare, because it has been too often the object rather than the manner of writing that has been considered of importance; because it has been the aim of all writers either to "improve in goodness" the young reader, as when, two hundred years ago, Cotton Mather penned "Good Lessons" for his infant son to learn at school, or, to quote the editor of "Affection's Gift" (published a century and a quarter later), it has been for the purpose of "imparting moral precepts and elevated sentiments, of uniting instruction and amusement, through the fascinating mediums of interesting narrative and harmony of numbers." The result of both intentions has been a collection of dingy or faded duodecimos containing a series of impressions of what each generation thought good, religiously, morally, and educationally, for little folk. If few of them shed any light upon child nature in those long-ago days, many throw shafts of illumination upon the change and progress in American ideals and thought concerning the welfare of children. As has already been said, the press supplied what the public taste demanded, and if the writers produced for earlier generations of children what may now be considered lumber, the press of more modern date has not progressed so far in this field of literature as to make it in any degree certain that our children's treasures may not be consigned to an equal oblivion. For these too are but composites made by superimposing the latest fads or theories as to instructive amusement of children upon those of previous generations of toy-books. Most of what was once considered the "perfume of youth and freshness" in a literary way has been discarded as dry and unprofitable, mistaken or deceptive; and yet, after all has been said by way of criticism of methods and subjects, these chap-books, magazines, gift and story books form our best if blurred pictures of the amusements and daily life of the old-time American child. We are learning also to prize these small "Histories" as part of the progress of the arts of book-making and illustration, and of the growth of the business of publishing in America; and already we are aware of the fulfilment of what was called by one old bookseller, "Tom Thumb's Maxim in Trade and Politics:" "He who buys this book for Two-pence, and lays it up till it is worth Three-pence, may get an hundred per cent by the bargain." FOOTNOTES: [204-A] _Election Day_, p. 71. American Sunday School Union, 1828. [216-A] Mr. G.C. Verplanck was probably the editor of this book, published by Harper & Bros. [216-B] This statement the writer has been unable to verify. _Index_ INDEX ABBOTT, Jacob, 201, 208, 213, 215, 218, 222, 223. Abbott, John S.C., 129. A, B, C Book, 101. A, B, C of religion, 22. Absence from Christ intolerable, 39. Adams, John, 165. Adams, Mrs. John, 91. Adams, J.A., 169. Adams, John Quincy, 196. Addison, Joseph, 159. Adventures of a Peg-top, 109. Adventures of a Pincushion, 109, 111, 112. Adventures of Lot, 206. Aesop, 63, 66, 67, 69, 90, 101, 109. Affectionate Daughter-in-Law, 206. Affection's Gift, 227. Aikin, Dr. John, 139, 140, 163. Ainsworth, Robert, 63. Aitkin, Robert, 100, 101. Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, An, 206. Althea Vernon, 210. American Antiquarian Society, 103. American Flag, 148. American Girls' Book, 209. American Juvenile Keepsake, 197, 200. American Sunday School Union, 201, 202, 204. American Weekly Mercury, 20. Ami des Enfans, 134, 135. Amyntor, 192. Anderson, Dr. Alexander, 166-169, 180. André, Major John, 97. Andrews, Joseph, 196. Andrews, Thomas, 102. Anecdoten von Hunden, 178. Anecdotes of Christian Missions, 206. Animated Nature, 108. Annales of Madame de Genlis, 134. Annual Register, 163. Anthony and Clara, 210. Arabian Nights, 162. Argalus & Parthenia, 90. Arnold, Benedict, 97, 98. Arthur's Geographical Grammar, 99. Art's Treasury, 90. Ashe, Thomas T., 207. Ashton, John, 54. Atlantic Stories, 210. Avery, S., 180. BABCOCK, Sidney, 167, 168. Bache, Benjamin, 100, 101, 104, 105, 127. Bag of Nuts ready Cracked, 107. Bailey, Francis, 123. Banbury Chap-Books, 53, 70, 117. Barbauld, Anna Letitia, 127-129, 132, 140-142, 152, 155, 163, 188, 218. Barclay, Andrew, 102, 103. Baskerville, John, 103. Battelle, E., 102. Battle of the Kegs, 97. Be Merry and Wise, 67, 106. Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, 162. Belcher, J., 170, 171. Bell, Robert, 75, 76, 89, 100, 101. Benezet, Anthony, 101. Berquin, Arnaud, 134, 159, 161. Bewick, Thomas, 117, 118, 135, 166, 168, 169. Bewick's Quadrupeds, 168. Bibliography of Worcester, 102. Big and Little Puzzling Caps, 107. Biography for Boys, 115. Biography for Girls, 114, 115. Birthday Stories, 210. Blossoms of Morality, 165. Blue Beard, The History of, 141, 165. Body of Divinity versified, 22. Book for Boys and Girls; or, Country Rhimes for Children, 11. Book for Boys and Girls; or, Temporal Things Spiritualized, 13. Book of Knowledge, 90, 103. Book of Martyrs, 10. Books for Children, 222. Bookseller of the last century, The, 51, 54. Boone, Daniel, 198. Boone, Nicholas, 17. Boston Chronicle, 74, 75. Boston Evening Post, 38, 43, 73. Boston Gazette and Country Journal, 80. Boston News Letter, 19. Boston Public Library, 74. Bowen, Abel, 169, 221. Boy and his Paper of Plumbs, 12. Boy and the Watchmaker, 12. Boy's Own Book, 209. Boyle, John, 76, 77. Bradford, Andrew, 20, 21, 126. Bradford, Thomas, 59, 90, 100. Brewer, printer, 167. Brooke, Henry, 130. Brooks, Elbridge, 215. Brother's Gift, 80, 111, 112. Browne, Miss, 197. Brynberg, Peter, 165. Buccaneers of America, 90. Bunyan, John, 10-13. Burr, Aaron, 132-134. Burr, Theodosia, 132, 133. Burton, R., 36, 37. Burton's Historical Collections, 36. Busy Bee, 187. Butcher, Elizabeth, 21, 40, 186. Butterworth, Hezekiah, 132. CADET'S Sister, 210. Cameron, Lucy Lyttleton, 152, 184. Canary Bird, The, 172. Carey, Matthew, 165, 206. Carey, Robert, 72. Carnan, Mr., 46, 104. Carter, John, 101. Catechism, 5, 6, 10, 15. Catechism of New England, 7. Cautionary Stories in Verse, 175. Century Magazine, 208. Chandler, Samuel, 163. Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century, 54. Chapone, Hester, 113, 114, 159. Chapters of Accidents, 174. Charles, Mary, 170. Charles, William, 170, 171, 176, 183. Cheap Repository, 152. Cherry Orchard, The, 156, 177. Child, Lydia Maria, 193, 201. Child and his Book, 11, 45. Children in the Wood, 8. Children's Books and Reading, 132. Children's Friend, 135, 161. Children's Magazine, The, 101. Children's Miscellany, 129, 131. Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson's, 182. Child's Gem, 221. Child's Guide to Spelling and Reading, 165. Child's Instructor, 122, 123. Child's New Play-thing, 41, 43-45. Choice Spirits, 90. Christmas Box, 64, 106. Cinderella, 62, 171. Clarissa Harlowe, 50, 79-85, 109. Clarke, Edward, 41. Cock Robin, 166. Collection of Pretty Poems, 67. Collins, Benjamin, 47. Complete Letter-Writer, 90. Congress, The, 98. Conrad and Parsons, 206, 207. Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, 219. Cooper, James Fenimore, 148, 191, 203, 211. Cooper, Rev. Mr., 134. Copley, John Stuart, 217. Cotton, John, 6, 9, 30. Cottons and Barnard, 206. Country Rhimes for Children, 11, 13. Coverly, Nathaniel, 166. Cowper, William, 153, 175. Cox and Berry, 80. Cries of London, 80, 180. Cries of New York, 180-182. Cries of Philadelphia, 180. Cross, Wilbur L., 80. Crouch, Nathaniel, 36. Cruel Giant Barbarico, 74. Crukshank, Joseph, 100, 101, 165. Custis, John Parke, 73. Custis, Martha Parke, 73. Cuz's Chorus, 111. DAISY, The, 176. Darton, William, 124, 174, 182, 213. Darton and Harvey, 222. Day, Mahlon, 169, 206, 207. Day, Thomas, 129-132, 142, 145, 154, 179, 188. Daye, John, 7. Dearborn, Nathaniel, 169, 221. Death and Burial of Cock Robin, 124. Death of Abel, 90. Defoe, Daniel, 129. Delight in the Lord Jesus, 39. Description of Various Objects, A, 173. Development of the English novel, 80. Dennie, Joseph, 192. Dilworth, Thomas, 38, 41, 121, 136. Divine emblems, 13. Divine Songs, 38. Doane, Bishop G.W., 196. Doddridge, Philip, 152, 184. Dodsley, Robert, 95. Don Quixote, 161. Donaldson, Arthur, 192. Donnel Dhu, 220. Doolittle, Amos, 169. Dove, The, 134. Drake, Joseph Rodman, 148. Draper, Samuel, 69. Draper and Edwards, 44. Drinker, Eliza, 91, 126. Dryden's Poems, 163. Dunlap, John, 100. Dunton, John, 8, 36. Durell, publisher, 166, 167. Duyckinck, Evert, 217. EARLY Lessons, 155. Earnest Exhortation, 22. Easy Introduction into the knowledge of Nature, 128. Easy Lessons for Children, 127, 128, 132, 155. Economy of Human Life, 152. Edgeworth, Maria, 128, 140, 150, 153-159, 164, 171, 175-177, 187, 188, 207, 212, 213, 226. Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 154-156, 220. Edwards, Joseph, 43. Elegant Extracts, 162. Embury, Emma C., 200, 201. Emulation, 187. English Empire in America, 36. Entertaining Fables, 109. Errand Boy, 187. Evenings at Home, 128, 139, 163, 164. Everett, Alexander H., 196. Everett, Edward, 196. FABLES in verse, 53, 220. Fabulous Histories, 128, 141. Fair Rosamond, 24. Fairchild Family, The, 152, 186, 212. Fairy Book, 216. Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds, 174. Farrar, Eliza Ware, 213. Father's Gift, The, 111. Female Orators, 82. Fenelon's Reflections, 184. Field, E.M., 11, 45. Field, Walter T., 218. Fielding, Henry, 51, 78, 80, 81, 137. Fields, James T., 196. First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times, 76. Fleet, Thomas, 19, 20, 24, 38. Fleming, John, 74. Flora's Gala, 175. Follen, Eliza L., 213. Food for the Mind, 67, 68, 107. Fool of Quality, 130. Ford, Paul Leicester, 14. Fowle, Zechariah, 20, 40, 69, 103. Fowle and Draper, 72. Fox and Geese, 209. Foxe, John, 10. Franconia, 215. Frank, 155. Franklin, Benjamin, 21-24, 26, 36, 38, 59-62, 103, 105, 123, 179, 193, 216. Franklin, Sally, 62, 63. Franklin and Hall, 59. French Convert, 90. Friendly Instruction, 184. GAFFER Two Shoes, 82. Gaine, Hugh, 64, 65, 67, 68, 89, 167, 217. Gallaudet, Elisha, 196. Garden Amusements, 175. Generous Inconstant, The, 82. Genlis, Madame Stéphanie-Félicité de, 132, 134. Geographical, Statistical and Political Amusement, 178. George's Junior Republic, 139. Gilbert, C., 169. Giles Gingerbread, 74, 110, 140, 159. Gilman, Caroline, 194, 195. Going to Jerusalem, 209. Goldsmith, Oliver, 51, 52, 80, 82, 95, 108, 159, 219, 220. Good Lessons for Children, 18, 127, 227. Good Natur'd Man, 219. Goodrich, Samuel G., 129, 194-196, 198, 199, 201, 208, 213-215, 218, 222-225. Goody Two-Shoes, 52, 53, 55, 89, 101, 110, 116-118, 123, 140-142, 159. Greeley, Horace, 196. Green, Samuel, 10, 13, 14. Green, Timothy, 17. Gulliver's Adventures, 125. Guy of Warwick, 8. HAIL Columbia, 148, 211. Hale, Richard W., 208. Hale, Sarah J., 193, 208, 209. Hall, Anna Maria, 197, 199. Hall, David, 59, 62, 100. Hall, Samuel, 124, 125. Hall, William, 100. Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 148. Hannah Swanton, the Casco Captive, 206. Happy Child, 40. Harper and Brothers, 206, 216. Harris, Benjamin, 14. Harris, John, 182, 183. Harry and Lucy, 155, 156, 164, 220. Harvey, John, 182. Hawkins, Laetitia Matilda, 219. Hawthorne, Julian, 78, 129, 130. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 149, 196, 227. Hebrides, 153. Henrietta Harrison, 211. Hildeburn, Charles R., 65, 93. Hill, George Birbeck, 141. Hill, Hannah, 21, 186. Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passé, 219. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 69. History of a Doll, 136. History of printing in America, 18, 19. History of the American Revolution, 123. History of the Holy Jesus, 39, 40, 103. History of the Institution of Cyrus, 130. History of the Robins, 129. Hive, The, 195. Hobby Horse, The, 42, 80. Hofland, Barbara, 197, 198. Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 162-164, 184, 196, 201. Holy Bible in Verse, 15. Home, 226. Home of Washington, 28. Hopkinson, Joseph, 148. Hot Buttered Beans, 209. House that Jack Built, 19. Howard, Mr., 29. Hudibras, 161. Hunt the Thimble, 209. Hymns for Infant Minds, 184. Hymns in Prose and Verse, 128. "IANTHE." _See_ Embury. Illman, Thomas, 196. Infidel Class, 206. Irving, Washington, 148, 191. JACK and Jill, 219. Jack the Giant Killer, 8, 141. Jacky Dandy's Delight, 107, 108. James, William, 175, 176. Jane Grey, 24. Janeway, James, 17, 186. Jenny Twitchell's Jests, 90. Joe Miller's Jests, 90. Johnson, Benjamin, 164, 178, 183, 192. Johnson, Jacob, 152, 155, 156, 159, 164, 173, 178, 183. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 36, 50-52, 129, 140, 141, 153, 219. Johnson and Warner, 164, 178, 183. Johnsonian Miscellany, 141. Jones, Giles, 52, 53. Joseph Andrews, 78, 81, 90. Josephus, 167. Julianna Oakley, 206. Juvenile Biographers, 115, 116. Juvenile Magazine, 179, 192. Juvenile Miscellany, 193-195, 208, 212. Juvenile Olio, 192. Juvenile Piety, 206. Juvenile Portfolio, 192. Juvenile Rambler, 195. Juvenile Trials for Robbing Orchards, etc., 139, 140. KEEPER'S Travels in Search of his Master, 172. Kellogg, Joseph G., 196. Kendall, Dr., 172. Key, Francis Scott, 148. Kilner, Dorothy, 109. King Pippin, 55, 110, 159, 163. Kleine Erzählungen über ein Buch mit Kupfern, 178. Knox, Thomas W., 132. LADY Queen Anne, 209. Lamb, Charles, 141, 142, 217. Lansing, G., 169. Lark, The, 90. Launch of the Frigate, 210. Lee, Richard Henry, 28, 29. Legacy to Children, 126. Lenox Collection, 180. Leo, the Great Giant, 74. Leslie, Eliza, 193, 196, 201, 208-211, 225, 226. Letters from the Dead to the Living, 162. Letters to Little Children, 206. Liddon, Mr., 100. Life of David, 163. Lilly, Wait and Company, 194, 206. Lincoln and Edmunds, 184, 206. Linnet, The, 90. Linton, William James, 166, 168, 169. Literary Magazine, 52. Literature of the American Revolution, 98. Little Book for Children, 17. Little Boy found under a Haycock, 123. Little Deceiver Reclaimed, 206. Little Dog Trusty, 156. Little Fanny, 176. Little Helen, 212. Little Henry, 170. Little Henry and his Bearer, 184, 185. Little Jack, 131. Little Lottery Book, 106. Little Lucy, 212. Little Millenium Boy, 186. Little Nancy, 171, 176-178. Little Pretty Pocket-Book, A, 47-50, 67. Little Readers' Assistant, 121, 122. Little Robin Red Breast, 114. Little Scholar's Pretty Pocket Companion, 122. Little Sophie, 176. Little Truths, 124, 125, 182. Little William, 171. Live and Let Live, 226. Lives of Highwaymen, 90. Lives of Pirates, 90. Locke, John, 41-43, 46, 51, 66, 99. London Chronicle, 53. Longfellow, Henry W., 196. Longworth, David, 165, 168. Looking-glass, A, 22. Looking Glass for the Mind, 134, 135, 159, 162, 166. Lossing, Benson J., 28, 29, 167. Loudon, Samuel, 217. Love Token for Children, 212. MACAULAY, T.B., 153. Magnalia, 162. Mary had a Little Lamb, 208, 209, 227. Mason, A.J., 169. Massachusetts Sunday School Union, 194. Master Jacky and Miss Harriot, 135. Mather, Cotton, 6, 7, 9, 16-18, 21, 22, 56, 127, 185, 186, 227. Mather, Elizabeth, 16. Mather, Increase, 16-18. Mather, Samuel, 16. Mein, John, 73-75, 77, 89. Metamorphosis, A, 169. Milk for Babes, 6, 7, 30. Milton, John, 159, 175. Mr. Telltruth's Natural History of Birds, 107. Mitford, Mary Russell, 197. Moejen's Recueil, 218. Moll Flanders, 90. Moore, Clement Clarke, 147-149, 227. Moral Tale, 187. Moral Tales, 159. More, Hannah, 134, 150-153, 159, 188, 212-214. Morgan, engraver, 169. Morgan and Sons, 170, 207. Morgan and Yeager, 170. Morton, Eliza, 95. Moses, Montrose J., 132. Mother Goose Melodies, 19, 20, 53, 114, 218-220. Mother's Gift, 82, 111, 113, 118. Mother's Remarks over a Set of Cuts, A, 178. Munroe and Francis, 20, 168, 206, 220. Murray, James, 91. Museum, The, 60, 61. My Father, 176. My Governess, 176, 182. My Mother, 176. My Pony, 176. My Sister, 182. NATURAL History of Four Footed Beasts, 107. Neagle, John, 169. New England Courant, 21, 22. New England Primer, 6, 7, 13-15, 28, 33, 93, 121. New French Primer, 60. New Gift for Children with Cuts, 40, 69-72, 103. New Guide to the English Tongue, 38. New Picture of the City, 100. New Year's Gift, 64. New York Mercury, 67. New York Weekly, 207. Newbery, Carnan, 54. Newbery, Edward, 54. Newbery, Francis, 46, 51, 54, 82. Newbery, John, 28, 37, 40, 46-56, 60-62, 64, 67, 70, 74, 77, 82, 89, 90, 97, 101, 104, 108, 118, 123, 124, 141, 142, 154, 159, 182, 187, 198, 216, 217, 219, 220, 222. Newbery, Ralph, 46. Nichols, Dr. Charles L., 102, 103. Night before Christmas, The, 147, 148, 227. Noel, Garrat, 68, 148. North American Review, 212. Nutter, Valentine, 89. OLD Mother Hubbard, 166. Olive Buds, 213. Orangeman, The, 156. Original Poems, 182. Osgood, Frances S., 213. Oswald, Ebenezer, 100. PAMELA, 50, 78, 80, 81, 109. Parable against Persecution, 123. Paradise Lost, 153. Parent's Assistant, 155. Parents' Gift, 38. Parker, James, 62. Parley, Peter. _See_ Goodrich, S.G. Pastoral Hymn, 74. Patriotic and Amatory Songster, 180. Peacock at Home, 171. Pearl, The, 209. Pearson, Edwin, 53, 117. Pease, Joseph I., 196. Pedigree and Rise of the Pretty Doll, 136-139. Pelton, Oliver, 196. Pennsylvania Evening Post, 93. Pennsylvania Gazette, 59, 62. Pennsylvania Journal, 59. People of all Nations, 173, 174. Peregrine Pickle, 51, 109. Perrault, Charles, 62, 218. Perry, Michael, 26. Philadelphiad, The, 100. Picture Exhibition, The, 106, 109. Pilgrim's Progress, 10, 36, 95, 126, 163, 167. Pilkington, Mary, 114. Pinckney, Eliza, 91. Play-thing, The, 61. Pleasures of Piety in Youth, 184. Plutarch's Lives, 130. Poems for Children, 208. Poems for Children Three Feet High, 64. Poesie out of Mr. Dod's Garden, 38. Poetical Description of Song Birds, 114. Poetry for Children, 213, 221. Popular Tales, 155. Poupard, James, 169. Power of Religion, 152. Practical Education, 128. Practical Piety, 184. Present for a Little Girl, 169. Preservative from the Sins and Follies of Childhood, 40. Pretty Book for Children, 60, 61, 67. Principles of the Christian Religion, 184. Pritchard, Mr., 100. Private Tutor for little Masters and Misses, 67. Prize for Youthful Obedience, 172, 173. Prodigal Daughter, The, 24-26, 40, 188. Protestant Tutor for Children, 13, 14. Puritan Primer, 13. Puzzling Cap, 80, 82. QUARTERLY Review, 222. Quincy, Mrs. Josiah, 158, 159. RAIKES, Robert, 151. Ralph, W., 169. Rand, Rev. Asa, 194. Rebels, The, 98. Recollections of a New England Housekeeper, 195. Redwood, 211. Rees's Encyclopedia, 163. Reformed Family, 206. Remembrance of Youth is a Sigh, 200. Rhymes for the Nursery, 20, 182. Rice, Mr., 100. Richardson, Samuel, 50, 78-81, 137. Rivington, James, 65, 67, 68. Roberts, Jean, 197. Robin Red Breast, 90. Robin's Alive, 209. Robinson Crusoe, 79, 90, 118, 129, 130, 159. Roderick Random, 51, 109. Roger and Berry, 89. Rollin's Ancient History, 161. Rollinson, William, 169. Rollo Books, 213, 215, 223. Rose, The, 187. Rose Bud, 195. Rose's Breakfast, The, 175. Rowe, Elizabeth, 162. Royal Battledore, 60, 61. Royal Primer, 61. Russell's Seven Sermons, 90. SABBATH School Times, 194. Sanford and Merton, 129, 154. Scotch Rogue, 90. Scott, Sir Walter, 158, 220. Scott's (Rev. Thomas) Family Bible, 163. Search after Happiness, 134, 152. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 152, 160, 161, 193, 196, 208, 211, 212, 224, 226. Seven Wise Masters, 90. Seven Wise Mistresses, 90. Sewall, Henry, 9. Sewall, Samuel, 9, 10. Shakespeare, William, 159, 161. Sharps, William, 29. Sheldon, Lucy, 82. Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, 152, 214. Sherwood, Mary Martha, 152, 184, 186, 187, 212, 221. Sigourney, Lydia H., 193, 208, 213, 224. Simple Susan, 158. Sims, Joseph, 27. Sir Charles Grandison, 79-82. Sister's Gift, 80, 111-113. Skyrin, Nancy, 126, 127. Smart, Christopher, 54. Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 213, 224. Smollett, Tobias, 51, 52, 78, 79. Song for the Red Coats, 97. Songs for the Nursery, 19, 20. Southern Rose, 195. Souvenir, 210. Sparrow, The, 172. Star Spangled Banner, 148. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 182. Stir the Mush, 209. Stone, William L., 200. Stories and Tales, 90. Stories for Children, 212. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 162. Strahan, William, 61-63. TALE, A: The Political Balance, 123. Tales and Essays, 213. Taylor, Ann, 176, 182. Taylor, Jane, 182, 184. Tell Tale, 225. Thackerary, W.M., 34. Thomas, Isaiah, 18-20, 40, 69, 74, 102-104, 106, 109, 116-118, 129, 168, 198, 222. Thompson, John, 168. Thoughts on Education, 41, 66, 99. Three Stories for Children, 156. Todd, John, D.D., 222. Token, The, 196, 197, 212, 214. Token for Children, 17, 186. Token for the Children of New England, 17, 21, 186. Token for Youth, 40. Tom Hick-a-Thrift, 24. Tom Jones, 51, 78, 80, 109, 110. Tom the Piper's Son, 170. Tom Thumb, 8, 19, 24, 62, 74, 77, 102, 106, 114, 166, 167. Tommy Trapwit, 64. Tommy Trip, 52, 74, 107, 108. Track the Rabbit, 209. Trimmer, Sarah, 128, 129, 141, 142, 159. Trip's Book of Pictures, 64. Triumphs of Love, 90. Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel, 147. Twelve Caesars, 90. Twice Told Tales, 196. Two Lambs, 152. Two Shoemakers, 152. Tyler, Moses Coit, 98. UNTERHALTUNGEN für Deutsche Kinder, 178. Urax, or the Fair Wanderer, 74. VALENTINE and Orson, 90. Verplanck, Gulian C., 196, 216. Vicar of Wakefield, 52, 219. Violet, The, 209. WADDELL, J., 62. Walks of Usefulness, 184. Walters and Norman, 93. Walton's Lives, 153. Warner and Hanna, 169. Washington, George, 28, 29, 72, 73, 93, 122, 123, 170, 179. Waste Not, Want Not, 156-158. Watts, Isaac, 38, 45, 46. Way to Wealth, 179. Webster, Noah, 121, 122, 136. Weekly Mercury, 23, 26, 27, 64, 65, 68. Weekly Post-Boy, 62. Weems's Life of George Washington, 179, 180. Well Spent Hour, 212. Wells, Anna M., 193, 213. Wells, Robert, 102. Welsh, Charles, 46, 49, 51, 54, 61, 70, 124, 142. West, Benjamin, 216. Westminster Review, 224. Westminster Shorter Catechism, 7. White, William, D.D., 151. Whitefield, George, 151. Widdows, P., 126. Wilder, Mary, 113. Willis, Nathaniel P., 194. Winslow, Anna Green, 81-83, 85. Winter Evenings' Entertainment, 37, 90. Wonder Book, 149, 227. Wonderful Traveller, 209. Wonders of Nature and Art, 53. Wood, Samuel, 165, 166, 169, 175. Wood, Samuel, and Sons, 167, 206. Wood-engraving in America, 166-169. Woodhouse, William, 100. Worcester Magazine, 104. XENOPHON, 130. YOUNG, William, 129. Young Child's A B C, 166. Young Christian Series, 215. Young Gentlemen and Ladies' Magazine, 183. Youth's Companion, 194. Youth's Divine Pastime, 37. Youth's Keepsake, 212. ZENTLER, publisher, 178. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The following errors and inconsistencies have been maintained. Misspelled words and typographical errors: p. ix Edmands for Edmunds p. 46 Newbury for Newbery p. 102 Period missing at end of the sentence "to a boy But" p. 158 Paragraph ends with , "her own generation," p. 208 Sentence ends with a comma: "the originator of these verses," p. 243 Thackerary for Thackeray Inconsistent hyphenation: folk-lore / folklore school-fellows / schoolfellows school-masters / schoolmasters small-pox / smallpox wood-cut / woodcut 
5957	----	This etext was created by Doug Levy, _literra scripta manet_. ART OF THE STORY-TELLER, by MARIE L. SHEDLOCK PREFACE. Some day we shall have a science of education comparable to the science of medicine; but even when that day arrives the art of education will still remain the inspiration and the guide of all wise teachers. The laws that regulate our physical and mental development will be reduced to order; but the impulses which lead each new generation to play its way into possession of all that is best in life will still have to be interpreted for us by the artists who, with the wisdom of years, have not lost the direct vision of children. Some years ago I heard Miss Shedlock tell stories in England. Her fine sense of literary and dramatic values, her power in sympathetic interpretation, always restrained within the limits of the art she was using, and her understanding of educational values, based on a wide experience of teaching, all marked her as an artist in story-telling. She was equally at home in interpreting the subtle blending of wit and wisdom in Daudet, the folk lore philosophy of Grimm, or the deeper world philosophy and poignant human appeal of Hans Christian Andersen. Then she came to America and for two or three years she taught us the difference between the nightingale that sings in the tree tops and the artificial bird that goes with a spring. Cities like New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago listened and heard, if sometimes indistinctly, the notes of universal appeal, and children saw the Arabian Nights come true. Yielding to the appeals of her friends in America and England, Miss Shedlock has put together in this little book such observations and suggestions on story-telling as can be put in words. Those who have the artist's spirit will find their sense of values quickened by her words, and they will be led to escape some of the errors into which even the greatest artists fall. And even those who tell stories with their minds will find in these papers wise generalizations and suggestions born of wide experience and extended study which well go far towards making even an artificial nightingale's song less mechanical. To those who know, the book is a revelation of the intimate relation between a child's instincts and the finished art of dramatic presentation. To those who do not know it will bring echoes of reality. Earl Barnes. CONTENTS. PART I. THE ART OF STORY-TELLING. CHAPTER. I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY. II. THE ESSENTIALS OF THE STORY. III. THE ARTIFICES OF STORY-TELLING. IV. ELEMENTS TO AVOID IN SELECTION OF MATERIAL. V. ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN THE CHOICE OF MATERIAL. VI. HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY. VII. QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS. PART II. THE STORIES. STURLA, THE HISTORIAN. A SAGA. THE LEGEND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER. ARTHUR IN THE CAVE. HAFIZ, THE STONE-CUTTER. TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH. THE PROUD COCK. SNEGOURKA. THE WATER NIXIE. THE BLUE ROSE. THE TWO FROGS. THE WISE OLD SHEPHERD. THE FOLLY OF PANIC. THE TRUE SPIRIT OF A FESTIVAL DAY. FILIAL PIETY. THREE STORIES FROM HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. THE SWINEHERD. THE NIGHTINGALE. THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA. PART III. LIST OF STORIES. BOOKS SUGGESTED TO THE STORY-TELLER AND BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE LIST OF STORIES. INTRODUCTION. Story-telling is almost the oldest art in the world--the first conscious form of literary communication. In the East it still survives, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a crowd at a street corner held by the simple narration of a story. There are signs in the West of a growing interest in this ancient art, and we may yet live to see the renaissance of the troubadours and the minstrels whose appeal will then rival that of the mob orator or itinerant politician. One of the surest signs of a belief in the educational power of the story is its introduction into the curriculum of the training-college and the classes of the elementary and secondary schools. It is just at the time when the imagination is most keen, the mind being unhampered by accumulation of facts, that stories appeal most vividly and are retained for all time. It is to be hoped that some day stories will be told to school groups only by experts who have devoted special time and preparation to the art of telling them. It is a great fallacy to suppose that the systematic study of story-telling destroys the spontaneity of narrative. After a long experience, I find the exact converse to be true, namely, that it is only when one has overcome the mechanical difficulties that one can "let one's self go" in the dramatic interest of the story. By the expert story-teller I do not mean the professional elocutionist. The name, wrongly enough, has become associated in the mind of the public with persons who beat their breast, tear their hair, and declaim blood-curdling episodes. A decade or more ago, the drawing-room reciter was of this type, and was rapidly becoming the bugbear of social gatherings. The difference between the stilted reciter and the simple story-teller is perhaps best illustrated by an episode in Hans Christian Andersen's immortal "Story of the Nightingale." The real Nightingale and the artificial Nightingale have been bidden by the Emperor to unite their forces and to sing a duet at a Court function. The duet turns out most disastrously, and while the artificial Nightingale is singing his one solo for the thirty-third time, the real Nightingale flies out of the window back to the green wood--a true artist, instinctively choosing his right atmosphere. But the bandmaster--symbol of the pompous pedagogue--in trying to soothe the outraged feelings of the courtiers, says, "Because, you see, Ladies and Gentlemen, and above all, Your Imperial Majesty, with the real nightingale you never can tell what you will hear, but in the artificial nightingale everything is decided beforehand. So it is, and so it must remain. It cannot be otherwise." And as in the case of the two nightingales, so it is with the stilted reciter and the simple narrator: one is busy displaying the machinery, showing "how the tunes go"; the other is anxious to conceal the art. Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and her the comparison with the nightingale breaks down) it is a simplicity which comes after much training in self-control, and much hard work in overcoming the difficulties which beset the presentation. I do not mean that there are not born story-tellers who _could_ hold an audience without preparation, but they are so rare in number that we can afford to neglect them in our general consideration, for this work is dedicated to the average story-tellers anxious to make the best use of their dramatic ability, and it is to them that I present my plea for special study and preparation before telling a story to a group of children--that is, if they wish for the far-reaching effects I shall speak of later on. Only the preparation must be of a much less stereotyped nature than that by which the ordinary reciters are trained for their career. Some years ago, when I was in America, I was asked to put into the form of lectures my views as to the educational value of telling stories. A sudden inspiration seized me. I began to cherish a dream of long hours to be spent in the British Museum, the Congressional Library in Washington and the Public Library in Boston--and this is the only portion of the dream which has been realized. I planned an elaborate scheme of research work which was to result in a magnificent (if musty) philological treatise. I thought of trying to discover by long and patient researches what species of lullaby were crooned by Egyptian mothers to their babes, and what were the elementary dramatic poems in vogue among Assyrian nursemaids which were the prototypes of "Little Jack Horner," "Dickory, Dickory Dock" and other nursery classics. I intended to follow up the study of these ancient documents by making an appendix of modern variants, showing what progress we had made--if any--among modern nations. But there came to me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from Racine's "Plaideurs," in which the counsel for the defence, eager to show how fundamental his knowledge, begins his speech: "Before the Creation of the World"--And the Judge (with a touch of weariness tempered by humor) suggests: "Let us pass on to the Deluge." And thus I, too, have passed on to the Deluge. I have abandoned an account of the origin and past of stories which at best would only have displayed a little recently acquired book knowledge. When I thought of the number of scholars who could treat this part of the question infinitely better than myself, I realized how much wiser it would be--though the task is more humdrum--to deal with the present possibilities of story-telling for our generation of parents and teachers. My objects in urging the use of stories in the education of children are at least fivefold: First, to give them dramatic joy, for which they have a natural craving; to develop a sense of humor, which is really a sense of proportion; to correct certain tendencies by showing the consequences in the career of the hero in the story [Of this motive the children must be quite unconscious and there should be no didactic emphasis]; to present by means of example, not precept, such ideals as will sooner or later be translated into action; and finally, to develop the imagination, which really includes all the other points. But the art of story-telling appeals not only to the educational world and to parents as parents, but also to a wider public interested in the subject from a purely human point of view. In contrast to the lofty scheme I had originally proposed to myself, I now simply place before all those who are interested in the art of story-telling in any form the practical experiences I have had in my travels in America and England. I hope that my readers may profit by my errors, improve on my methods, and thus help to bring about the revival of an almost lost art. In Sir Philip Sydney's "Defence of Poesie: we find these words: "Forsooth he cometh to you with a tale, which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner, and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste." MARIE L. SHEDLOCK, LONDON. PART I. THE ART OF THE STORY-TELLER. CHAPTER I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY. I propose to deal in this chapter with the difficulties or dangers which beset the path of the story-teller, because, until we have overcome these, we cannot hope to bring out the full value of the story. The difficulties are many, and yet they ought not to discourage the would-be narrators, but only show them how all-important is the preparation for the story, if it is to have the desired effect. I propose to illustrate by concrete examples, thereby serving a twofold purpose: one to fix the subject more clearly in the mind of the student, the other to use the art of story-telling to explain itself. I have chosen one or two instances from my own personal experience. The grave mistakes made in my own case may serve as a warning to others who will find, however, that experience is the best teacher. For positive work, in the long run, we generally find out our own method. On the negative side, however, it is useful to have certain pitfalls pointed out to us, in order that we may save time by avoiding them. It is for this reason that I sound a note of warning. 1. There is _the danger of side issues_. An inexperienced story-teller is exposed to the temptation of breaking off from the main dramatic interest in a short exciting story in order to introduce a side issue which is often interesting and helpful but which must be left for a longer and less dramatic story. If the interest turns on some dramatic moment, the action must be quick and uninterrupted, or it will lose half its effect. I had been telling a class of young children the story of Polyphemus and Ulysses, and just at the most dramatic moment in the story some impulse for which I cannot account prompted me to go off on a side issue to describe the personal appearance of Ulysses. The children were visibly bored, but with polite indifference they listened to my elaborate description of the hero. If I had given them an actual description from Homer, I believe that the strength of the language would have appealed to their imagination (all the more strongly because the might not have understood the individual words) and have lessened their disappointment at the dramatic issue being postponed; but I trusted to my own lame verbal efforts, and signally failed. Attention flagged, fidgeting began, the atmosphere was rapidly becoming spoiled in spit of the patience and toleration still shown by the children. At last, however, one little girl in the front row, as spokeswoman for the class, suddenly said: "If you please, before you go on any further, do you mind telling us whether, after all, that Poly . . . [slight pause] . . . that . . . [final attempt] . . . _Polyanthus_ died?" Now, the remembrance of this question has been of extreme use to me in my career as a story-teller. I have realized that in a short dramatic story the mind of the listeners must be set at ease with regard to the ultimate fate of the special Polyanthus who takes the center of the stage. I remember, too, the despair of a little boy at a dramatic representation of "Little Red Riding-Hood," when that little person delayed the thrilling catastrophe with the Wolf, by singing a pleasant song on her way through the wood. "Oh, why," said the little boy, "does she not get on?" And I quite shared his impatience. This warning is necessary only in connection with the short dramatic narrative. There are occasions when we can well afford to offer short descriptions for the sake of literary style, and for the purpose of enlarging the vocabulary of the child. I have found, however, in these cases, it is well to take the children into your confidence, warning them that they are to expect nothing particularly exciting in the way of dramatic event. They will then settle down with a freer mind (though the mood may include a touch of resignation) to the description you are about to offer them. 2. _Altering the story to suit special occasions_ is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt to "turn and rend" the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the Siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the class, namely, nine years. I threw, therefore, a domestic coloring over the whole subject and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was strong-minded woman thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[1] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never went to Troy, but was detained in Egypt. The children were much thrilled by the story, and responded most eagerly when, in my inexperience, I invited them to reproduce in writing for the next day the story I had just told them. A small child presented _me_, as you will see, with the ethical problem from which I had so laboriously protected _her_. The essay ran: Once upon a time the King of Troy's son was called Paris. And he went over to _Greace_ to see what it was like. And here he saw the beautiful Helen_er,_ and likewise her husband Menela_yus_. And one day, Menelayus went out hunting, and left Paris and Helener alone, and Paris said: "Do you not feel _dul_ in this _palis_?"_[2] And Helener said: "I feel very dull in this _pallice_," and Paris said: "Come away and see the world with me." So they _sliped_ off together, and they came to the King of Egypt, and _he_ said: "Who _is_ the young lady"? So Paris told him. "But," said the King, "it is not _propper_ for you to go off with other people's _wifes_. So Helener shall stop here." Paris stamped his foot. When Menelayus got home, _he_ stamped his foot. And he called round him all his soldiers, and they stood round Troy for eleven years. At last they thought it was no use _standing_ any longer, so they built a wooden horse in memory of Helener and the Trojans and it was taken into the town. Now, the mistake I made in my presentation was to lay any particular stress on the reason for elopement by my careful readjustment, which really called more attention to the episode than was necessary for the age of my audience; and evidently caused confusion in the minds of some of the children who knew the story in its more accurate original form. While traveling in America, I was provided with a delightful appendix to this story. I had been telling Miss Longfellow and her sister the little girl's version of the Siege of Troy, and Mrs. Thorpe made the following comment, with the American humor the dryness of which adds so much to its value: "I never realized before," she said, "how glad the Greeks must have been to sit down even inside a horse, when they had been standing for eleven years." 3. _The danger of introducing unfamiliar words_ is the very opposite danger of the one to which I have just alluded; it is the taking for granted that children are acquainted with the meaning of certain words upon which turns some important point in the story. We must not introduce, without at least a passing explanation, words which, if not rightly understood, would entirely alter the picture we wish to present. I had once promised to tell stories to an audience of Irish peasants, and I should like to state here that, though my travels have brought me in touch with almost every kind of audience, I have never found one where the atmosphere is so "self-prepared" as in that of a group of Irish peasants. To speak to them, especially on the subject of fairy- tales, is like playing on a delicate harp: the response is so quick and the sympathy so keen. Of course, the subject of fairy-tales is one which is completely familiar to them and comes into their everyday life. They have a feeling of awe with regard to fairies, which is very deep in some parts of Ireland. On this particular occasion I had been warned by an artist friend who had kindly promised to sing songs between the stories, that my audience would be of varying age and almost entirely illiterate. Many of the older men and women, who could neither read nor write, had never been beyond their native village. I was warned to be very simple in my language and to explain any difficult words which might occur in the particular Indian story I had chosen for that night, namely, "The Tiger, the Jackal and the Brahman."[3]--at a proper distance, however, lest the audience should class him with the wild animals. I then went on with my story, in the course of which I mentioned a buffalo. In spite of the warning I had received, I found it impossible not to believe that the name of this animal would be familiar to any audience. I, therefore, went on with the sentence containing this word, and ended it thus: "And then the Brahman went a little further and met an old buffalo turning a wheel." The next day, while walking down the village street, I entered into conversation with a thirteen-year-old girl who had been in my audience the night before and who began at once to repeat in her own words the Indian story in questions. When she came to the particular sentence I have just quoted, I was greatly startled to hear _her_ version, which ran thus: "And the priest went on a little further, and he met another old gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow." I stopped her at once, and not being able to identify the sentence as part of the story I had told, I questioned her a little more closely. I found that the word "buffalo," had evidently conveyed to her mind an old "buffer" whose name was "Lo," probably taken to be an Indian form of appellation, to be treated with tolerance though it might not be Irish in sound. Then, not knowing of any wheel more familiarly than that attached to a barrow, the young narrator completed the picture in her own mind--but which, one must admit, had lost something of the Indian atmosphere which I had intended to gather about. 4. _The danger of claiming cooperation of the class by means of questions_ is more serious for the teacher than the child, who rather enjoys the process and displays a fatal readiness to give any sort of answer if only he can play a part in the conversation. If we could in any way depend on the children giving the kind of answer we expect, all might go well and the danger would be lessened; but children have a perpetual way of frustrating our hopes in this direction, and of landing us in unexpected bypaths from which it is not always easy to return to the main road without a very violent reaction. As illustrative of this, I quote from the "The Madness of Philip," by Josephine Daskam Bacon, a truly delightful essay on child psychology in the guise of the lightest of stories. The scene takes place in a kindergarten, where a bold and fearless visitor has undertaken to tell a story on the spur of the moment to a group of restless children. She opens thus: "Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think I saw?" The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested, "An el'phunt." "Why, no. Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It was not _nearly_ so big as that--it was a little thing." "A fish," ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently. "Now, how could a fish, a live fish, get into my front yard?" "A dead fish," says Eddy. He had never been known to relinquish voluntarily an idea. "No; it was a little kitten," said the story-teller decidedly. "A little white kitten. She was standing right near a big puddle of water. Now, what else do you think I saw?" "Another kitten," suggests Marantha, conservatively. "No; it was a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water. Now, cats don't like water, do they? What do they like?" "Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky abruptly. "Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like _water_, _what_ do they like?" "Milk," cried Sarah Fuller confidently. "They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. Smith. "Now, what do you suppose the dog did?" It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners. Itmay be that the very range of choice presented to them and the dog alike dazzled their imagination. At all events, they made no answer. "Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little kitten like that?" And Philip remarked gloomily: "I'd pull its tail." "And what do the rest of you think? I hope you are not as cruel as that little boy." A jealous desire to share Philip's success prompted the quick response: "I'd pull it too." Now, the reason of the total failure of this story was the inability to draw any real response from the children, partly because of the hopeless vagueness of the questions, partly because, there being no time for reflection, children say the first thing that comes into their heads without any reference to their real thoughts on the subject. I cannot imagine anything less like the enlightened methods of the best kindergarten teaching. Had Mrs. R. B. Smith been a real, and not a fictional, person, it would certainly have been her last appearance as a raconteuse in this educational institution. 5. _The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story upon the audience_ rises from lack of observation and experience; it is the want of these qualities which leads to the adoption of such a method as I have just presented. We learn in time that want of expression on the faces of the audience and want of any kind of external response do not always mean either lack of interest or attention. There is often real interest deep down, but no power, or perhaps no wish, to display that interest, which is deliberately concealed at times so as to protect oneself from questions which may be put. 6. _The danger of overillustration_. After long experience, and after considering the effect produced on children when pictures are shown to them during the narration, I have come to the conclusion that the appeal to the eye and the ear at the same time is of doubtful value, and has, generally speaking, a distracting effect: the concentration on one channel of communication attracts and holds the attention more completely. I was confirmed in this theory when I addressed an audience of blind people[4] for the first time, and noticed how closely they attended, and how much easier it seemed to them because they were so completely "undistracted by the sights around them." I have often suggested to young teachers two experiments in support of this theory. They are not practical experiments, nor could they be repeated often with the same audience, but they are intensely interesting, and they serve to show the _actual_ effect of appealing to one sense at a time. The first of these experiments is to take a small group of children and suggest that they should close their eyes while you tell them a story. You will then notice how much more attention is given to the intonation and inflection of the voice. The reason is obvious. With nothing to distract the attention, it is concentrated on the only thing offered the listeners, that is, sound, to enable them to seize the dramatic interest of the story. We find an example of the dramatic power of the voice in its appeal to the imagination in one of the tributes brought by an old pupil to Thomas Edward Brown, Master at Clifton College: "My earliest recollection is that his was the most vivid teaching I ever received; great width of view and poetical, almost passionate, power of presentment. We were reading Froude's History, and I shall never forget how it was Brown's words, Brown's voice, not the historian's, that made me feel the great democratic function which the monasteries performed in England; the view became alive in his mouth." And in another passage: "All set forth with such dramatic force and aided by such a splendid voice, left an indelible impression on my mind."[5] A second experiment, and a much more subtle and difficult one, is to take the same group of children on another occasion, telling them a story in pantomime form, giving them first the briefest outline of the story. In this case it must be of the simplest construction, until the children are able, if you continue the experiment, to look for something more subtle. I have never forgotten the marvelous performance of a play given in London many years ago entirely in pantomime form. The play was called "L'Enfant Prodigue," and was presented by a company of French artists. It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the strength of that "silent appeal" to the public. One was so unaccustomed to reading meaning and development of character into gesture and facial expression that it was really a revelation to most of those present--certainly to all Anglo-Saxons. I cannot touch on this subject without admitting the enormous dramatic value connected with the cinematograph. Though it can never take the place of an actual performance, whether in story form or on the stage, it has a real educational value in its possibilities of representation which it is difficult to overestimate, and I believe that its introduction into the school curriculum, under the strictest supervision, will be of extraordinary benefit. The movement, in its present chaotic condition, and in the hands of commercial management, is more likely to stifle than to awaken or stimulate the imagination, but the educational world is fully alive to the danger, and I am convinced that in the future of the movement good will predominate. The real value of the cinematograph in connection with stories is that it provides the background that is wanting to the inner vision of the average child, and does not prevent its imagination from filling in the details later. For instance, it would be quite impossible for the average child to get an idea from mere word-painting of the atmosphere of the polar regions as represented lately on the film in connection with Captain Scott's expedition, but any stories told later on about these regions would have an infinitely greater interest. There is, however, a real danger in using pictures to illustrate the story, especially if it be one which contains a direct appeal to the imagination of the child and one quite distinct from the stories which deal with facts, namely, that you force the whole audience of children to see the same picture, instead of giving each individual child the chance of making his own mental picture. That is of far greater joy, and of much great educational value, since by this process the child cooperates with you instead of having all the work done for him. Queyrat, in his works on "La Logique chez l'Enfant," quotes Madame Necker de Saussure:[6] "To children and animals actual objects present themselves, not the terms of their manifestations. For them thinking is seeing over again, it is going through the sensations that the real object would have produced. Everything which goes on within them is in the form of pictures, or rather, inanimate scenes in which life is partially reproduced. . . . Since the child has, as yet, no capacity for abstraction, he finds a stimulating power in words and a suggestive inspiration which holds him enchanted. They awaken vividly colored images, pictures far more brilliant than would be called into being by the objects themselves." Surely, if this be true, we are taking from children that rare power of mental visualization by offering to their outward vision an _actual_ picture. I was struck with the following note by a critic of the _Outlook_, referring to a Japanese play but which bears quite directly on the subject in hand. "First, we should be inclined to put insistence upon appeal by _imagination_. Nothing is built up by lath and canvas; everything has to be created by the poet's speech." He alludes to the decoration of one of the scenes which consists of three pines, showing what can be conjured up in the mind of the spectator. Ah, yes. Unfolding now before my eyes The views I know: the Forest, River, Sea And Mist--the scenes of Ono now expand. I have often heard objections raised to this theory by teachers dealing with children whose knowledge of objects outside their own circle is so scanty that words we use without a suspicion that they are unfamiliar are really foreign expressions to them. Such words as sea, woods, fields, mountains, would mean nothing to them, unless some explanation were offered. To these objections I have replied that where we are dealing with objects that can actually be seen with the bodily eyes, then it is quite legitimate to show pictures before you begin the story, so that the distraction between the actual and mental presentation may not cause confusion; but, as the foregoing example shows, we should endeavor to accustom the children to seeing much more than mere objects themselves, and in dealing with abstract qualities we must rely solely on the power and choice of words and dramatic qualities of presentation, and we need not feel anxious if the response is not immediate, nor even if it is not quick and eager.[7] 7. _The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many details_ is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it shown only in the narrative form. I have often heard really brilliant after-dinner stories marred by this defect. One remembers the attempt made by Sancho Panza to tell a story to Don Quixote. I have always felt a keen sympathy with the latter in his impatience over the recital. "In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd--no, I mean a goatherd--which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called Lope Ruiz--and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich herdsman---" "If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say no more." "I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country," answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to require me to make new customs." "Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate that I should here it, go on." Sancho continued: "He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him, but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The fisherman got into the boat and carried over on goat; he returned and carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir, keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for another goat, and another, and another and another---" "_Suppose_ them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not have finished carrying them this twelve months!" "Tell me, how many have passed already?" said Sancho. "How should I know?" answered Don Quixote. "See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is an end of the story. I can go no further." "How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error be made the story can proceed no further?" "Even so," said Sancho Panza. 8. _The danger of overexplanation_ is fatal to the artistic success of any story, but it is even more serious in connection with stories told from an educational point of view, because it hampers the imagination of the listener, and since the development of that faculty is one of our chief aims in telling these stories, we must leave free play, we must not test the effect, as I have said before, by the material method of asking questions. My own experience is that the fewer explanations you offer, provided you have been careful with the choice of your material and artistic in the presentation, the more the child will supplement by his own thinking power what is necessary for the understanding of the story. Queyrat says: "A child has no need of seizing on the exact meaning of words; on the contrary, a certain lack of precision seems to stimulate his imagination only the more vigorously, since it gives him a broader liberty and firmer independence."[8] 9. _The danger of lowering the standard_ of the story in order to appeal to the undeveloped taste of the child is a special one. I am alluding here only to the story which is presented from the educational point of view. There are moments of relaxation in a child's life, as in that of an adult, when a lighter taste can be gratified. I allude now to the standard of story for school purposes. There is one development of story-telling which seems to have been very little considered, either in America or in our own country, namely, the telling of stories to _old_ people, and that not only in institutions or in quiet country villages, but in the heart of the busy cities and in the homes of these old people. How often, when the young people are able to enjoy outside amusements, the old people, necessarily confined to the chimney-corner and many unable to read much for themselves, might return to the joy of their childhood by hearing some of the old stories told them in dramatic form. Here is a delightful occupation for those of the leisured class who have the gift, and a much more effective way of reading aloud. Lady Gregory, in talking to the workhouse folk in Ireland, was moved by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the splendors of the tale. She says: "The stories they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors, and of lovers' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for seven hundred years." I fear it is only the Celtic imagination that will glory in such romantic material; but I am sure the men and women of the poorhouse are much more interested than we are apt to think in stories outside the small circle of their lives. CHAPTER II. THE ESSENTIALS OF THE STORY. It would be a truism to suggest that dramatic instinct and dramatic power of expression are naturally the first essentials for success in the art of story-telling, and that, without these, no story-teller would go very far; but I maintain that, even with these gifts, no high standard of performance will be reached without certain other qualities, among the first of which I place _apparent_ simplicity, which is really the _art_ of concealing_ the art. I am speaking here of the public story-teller, or of the teacher with a group of children, not the spontaneous (and most rare) power of telling stories such as Beranger gives us in his poem, "Souvenirs du Peuple": Mes enfants, dans ce village, Suivi de rois, il passa; Voila; bien longtemps de cela! Je venais d'entrer en menage, A pied grimpant le coteau, Ou pour voir je m'tais mise. Il avait petit chapeau et redingote grise. Il me dit: Bon jour, ma chere. Il vous a parle, grand mere? Il vous a parle? I am skeptical enough to think that it is not the spontaneity of the grandmother but the art of Beranger which enhances the effect of the story told in the poem. This intimate form of narration, which is delightful in its special surroundings, would fail to _reach_, much less _hold_, a large audience, not because of its simplicity, but often because of the want of skill in arranging material and of the artistic sense of selection which brings the interest to a focus and arranges the side lights. In short, the simplicity we need for the ordinary purpose is that which comes from ease and produces a sense of being able to let ourselves go, because we have thought out our effects. It is when we translate our instinct into art that the story becomes finished and complete. I find it necessary to emphasize this point because people are apt to confuse simplicity of delivery with carelessness of utterance, loose stringing of sentences of which the only connections seem to be the ever-recurring use of "and" and "so," and "er . . .," this latter inarticulate sound having done more to ruin a story and distract the audience than many more glaring errors of dramatic form. Real simplicity holds the audience because the lack of apparent effort in the artist has the most comforting effect upon the listener. It is like turning from the whirring machinery of process to the finished article, which bears no traces of the making except the harmony and beauty of the whole, which make one realize that the individual parts have received all proper attention. What really brings about this apparent simplicity which insures the success of the story? It has been admirably expressed in a passage from Henry James' lecture on Balzac: "The fault in the artist which amounts most completely to a failure of dignity is the absence of _saturation with his idea_. When saturation fails, no other real presence avails, as when, on the other hand, it operates, no failure of method fatally interferes." I now offer two illustrations of the effect of this saturation, one to show that the failure of method does not prevent successful effect, the other to show that when it is combined with the necessary secondary qualities the perfection of the art is reached. In illustration of the first point, I recall an experience in the north of England when the head mistress of an elementary school asked me to hear a young inexperienced girl tell a story to a group of very small children. When she began, I felt somewhat hopeless, because of the complete failure of method. She seemed to have all the faults most damaging to the success of a speaker. Her voice was harsh, her gestures awkward, her manner was restless and melodramatic; but, as she went on I soon began to discount all these faults and, in truth, I soon forgot about them, for so absorbed was she in her story, so saturated with her subject, that she quickly communicated her own interest to her audience, and the children were absolutely spellbound. The other illustration is connected with a memorable peep behind the stage, when the late M. Coquelin had invited me to see him in the greenroom between the first and second acts of "L'abbe Constantin," one of the plays given during his last season in London, the year before his death. The last time I had met M. Coquelin was at a dinner party, where I had been dazzled by the brilliant conversation of this great artist in the role of a man of the world. But on this occasion I met the simple, kindly priest, so absorbed in his role that he inspired me with the wish to offer a donation for his poor, and, on taking leave, to ask for his blessing for myself. While talking to him, I had felt puzzled. It was only when I had left him that I realized what had happened, namely, that he was too thoroughly saturated with his subject to be able to drop his role during the interval, in order to assume the more ordinary one of host and man of the world. Now, it is this spirit I would wish to inculcate into the would-be story-tellers. If they would apply themselves in this manner to their work, it would bring about a revolution in the art of presentation, that is, in the art of teaching. The difficulty of the practical application of this theory is the constant plea, on the part of teachers, that there is not the time to work for such a standard in an art which is so apparently simple that the work expended on it would never be appreciated. My answer to this objection is that, though the counsel of perfection would be to devote a great deal of time to the story, so as to prepare the atmosphere quite as much as the mere action of the little drama (just as photographers use time exposure to obtain sky effects, as well as the more definite objects in the picture), yet it is not so much a question of time as concentration on the subject, which is one of the chief factors in the preparation of the story. So many story-tellers are satisfied with cheap results, and most audiences are not critical enough to encourage a high standard.[9] The method of "showing the machinery" has more immediate results, and it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and the means for reaching it. Therefore, I maintain that capacity for work, and even drudgery, is among the essentials of story-telling. Personally, I know of nothing more interesting than watching the story grow gradually from mere outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine, which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under adverse conditions in a certain time and which is similar to thousands of other pieces of work; but that work, upon which we can bestow unlimited time and concentrated thought. The special joy in the slowly-prepared story comes in the exciting moment when the persons, or even the inanimate objects, become alive and move as of themselves. I remember spending two or three discouraging weeks with Andersen's story of the "Adventures of a Beetle." I passed through times of great depression, because all the little creatures, beetles, ear-wigs, frogs, etc., behaved in such a conventional way, instead of displaying the strong individuality which Andersen had bestowed upon them that I began to despair of presenting a live company at all. But one day, the _Beetle_, so to speak, "took the stage," and at once there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of guiding the movement of the little drama, suggesting side issues and polishing the details, always keeping a careful eye on the Beetle, that he might "gang his ain gait" and preserve to the full his own individuality. There is a tendency in preparing stories to begin with detail work, often a gesture or side issue which one has remembered from hearing a story told, but if this is done before the contemplative period, only scrappy, jerky and ineffective results are obtained, on which one cannot count for dramatic effects. This kind of preparation reminds one of a young peasant woman who was taken to see a performance of "Wilhelm Tell," and when questioned as to the plot could only sum it up saying, "I know some fruit was shot at."[10] I realize the extreme difficulty teachers have to devote the necessary time to perfecting the stories they tell in school, because this is only one of the subjects they have to teach in an already over-crowded curriculum. To them I would offer this practical advice: Do not be afraid to repeat your stories.[11] If you do not undertake more than seven stories a year, chosen with infinite care, and if you repeated these stories six times during the year of forty-two weeks, you would be able to do artistic and, therefore, lasting work; you would also be able to avoid the direct moral application, for each time a child hears a story artistically told, a little more of the meaning underlying the simple story will come to him without any explanation on your part. The habit of doing one's best instead of one's second- best means, in the long run, that one has no interest except in the preparation of the best, and the stories, few in number, polished and finished in style, will have an effect of which one can scarcely overstate the importance. In the story of the "Swineherd," Hans Andersen says: "On the grave of the Prince's father there grew a rose-tree. It only bloomed once in five years, and only bore one rose. But what a rose! Its perfume was so exquisite that whoever smelt it forgot at once all his cares and sorrows." Lafcadio Hearn says: "Time weeds out the errors and stupidities of cheap success, and presents the Truth. It takes, like the aloe, a long time to flower, but the blossom is all the more precious when it appears." CHAPTER III. THE ARTIFICES OF STORY-TELLING. By this term I do not mean anything against the gospel of simplicity which I am so constantly preaching, but, for want of a better term, I use the word "artifice" to express the mechanical devices by which we endeavor to attract and hold the attention of the audience. The art of telling stories is, in truth, much more difficult than acting a part on the stage: First, because the narrator is responsible for the whole drama and the whole atmosphere which surrounds it. He has to live the life of each character and understand the relation which each bears to the whole. Secondly, because the stage is a miniature one, gestures and movements must all be so adjusted as not to destroy the sense of proportion. I have often noticed that actors, accustomed to the more roomy public stage, are apt to be too broad in their gestures and movements when they tell a story. The special training for the story-teller should consist not only in the training of the voice and in choice of language, but above all in power of delicate suggestion, which cannot always be used on the stage because this is hampered by the presence of actual things. The story-teller has to present these things to the more delicate organism of the "inward eye." So deeply convinced am I of the miniature character of the story- telling art that I believe one never gets a perfectly artistic presentation of this kind in a very large hall or before a very large audience. I have made experiments along this line, having twice told a story to an audience in America[12] exceeding five thousand, but on both occasions, though the dramatic reaction upon oneself from the response of so large an audience was both gratifying and stimulating, I was forced to sacrifice the delicacy of the story and to take from its artistic value by the necessity of emphasis, in order to be heard by all present. Emphasis is the bane of all story-telling, for it destroys the delicacy, and the whole performance suggests a struggle in conveying the message. The indecision of the victory leaves the audience restless and unsatisfied. Then, again, as compared with acting on the stage, in telling a story one misses the help of effective entrances and exits, the footlights, the costume, the facial expression of your fellow-actor which interprets so much of what you yourself say without further elaboration on your part; for, in the story, in case of a dialogue which necessitates great subtlety and quickness in facial expression and gesture, one has to be both speaker and listener. Now, of what artifices can we make use to take the place of all the extraneous help offered to actors on the stage? First and foremost, as a means of suddenly pulling up the attention of the audience, is the judicious art of pausing. For those who have not actually had experience in the matter, this advice will seem trite and unnecessary, but those who have even a little experience will realize with me the extraordinary efficacy of this very simple means. It is really what Coquelin spoke of as a "high light," where the interest is focused, as it were, to a point. I have tried this simple art of _pausing_ with every kind of audience, and I have rarely know it to fail. It is very difficult to offer a concrete example of this, unless one is giving a "live" representation, but I shall make an attempt, and at least I shall hope to make myself understood by those who have heard me tell stories. In Hans Andersen's "Princess and the Pea," the King goes down to open the door himself. Now, one may make this point in two ways. One may either say: "And then the King went to the door, and at the door there stood a real Princess," or, "And then the King went to the door, and at the door there stood--(pause)--a real Princess." It is difficult to exaggerate the difference of effect produced by so slight a pause.[13] With children it means an unconscious curiosity which expresses itself in a sudden muscular tension. There is just time during that instant's pause to _feel_, though not to _formulate, the question: "What is standing at the door?" By this means, half your work of holding the attention is accomplished. It is not necessary for me to enter into the psychological reason of this, but I strongly recommend those who are interested in the question to read the chapter in Ribot's work on this subject, "Essai sur L'Imagination Creatrice," as well as Mr. Keatinge's work on "Suggestion." I would advise all teachers to revise their stories with a view to introducing the judicious pause, and to vary its use according to the age, the number, and, above all, the mood of the audience. Experience alone can insure success in this matter. It has taken me many years to realize the importance of this artifice. Among other means for holding the attention of the audience and helping to bring out the points of the story is the use of gesture. I consider, however, that it must be a sparing use, and not of a broad or definite character. We shall never improve on the advice given by Hamlet to the actors on this subject: "See that ye o'erstep not the modesty of Nature." And yet, perhaps it is not necessary to warn story-tellers against abuse of gesture. It is more helpful to encourage them in the use of it, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, where we are fearful of expressing ourselves in this way, and when we do the gesture often lacks subtlety. The Anglo-Saxon, when he does move at all, moves in solid blocks--a whole arm, a whole leg, the whole body but if one watches a Frenchman or an Italian in conversation, one suddenly realizes how varied and subtle are the things which can be suggested by the mere turn of the wrist or the movement of a finger. The power of the hand has been so wonderfully summed up in a passage from Quintillian that I am justified in offering it to all those who wish to realize what can be done by a gesture: "As to the hands, without the aid of which all delivery would be deficient and weak, it can scarcely be told of what a variety of motions they are susceptible, since they almost equal in expression the power of language itself. For other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these, I may almost say, speak themselves. With our hands we ask, promise, call persons to us and send them away, threaten, supplicate, intimate dislike or fear; with out hands we signify joy, grief, doubt, acknowledgement, penitence, and indicate measure, quantity, number and time. Have not our hands the power of inciting, of restraining, or beseeching, of testifying approbation? . . . So that amidst the great diversity of tongues pervading all nations and people, the language of the hands appears to be a language common to all men."[14] One of the most effective of artifices in telling stories to young children is the use of mimicry--the imitation of animals' voices and sound in general is of never-ending joy to the listeners. However, I should wish to introduce a note of grave warning in connection with this subject. This special artifice can only be used by such narrators as have special aptitude and gifts in this direction. There are many people with good imaginative power but who are wholly lacking in the power of mimicry, and their efforts in this direction, however painstaking, remain grotesque and therefore ineffective. When listening to such performances, of which children are strangely critical, one is reminded of the French story in which the amateur animal painter is showing her picture to an undiscriminating friend: "Ah!" says the friend, "this is surely meant for a lion?" "No," says the artist (?), with some slight show of temper, "it is my little lap-dog." Another artifice which is particularly successful with very small children is to insure their attention by inviting their cooperation before one actually begins the story. The following has proved quite effective as a short introduction to my stories when I was addressing large audiences of children: "Do you know that last night I had a very strange dream, which I am going to tell you before I begin the stories? I dreamed that I was walking along the streets of---[here would follow the town in which I happened to be speaking], with a large bundle on my shoulders, and this bundle was full of stories which I had been collecting all over the world in different countries; and I was shouting at the top of my voice: 'Stories! Stories! Stories! Who will listen to my stories?' And the children came flocking round me in my dream, saying: 'Tell _us_ your stories. _We_ will listen to your stories.' So I pulled out a story from my big bundle and I began in a most excited way, "Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen who had no children, and they---' Here a little boy, _very_ much like that little boy I see sitting in the front row, stopped me, saying: 'Oh, I know _that_ old story: it's Sleeping Beauty.' "So I pulled out a second story, and began: 'Once upon a time there was a little girl who was sent by her mother to visit her grandmother ---' Then a little girl, _so_ much like the one sitting at the end of the second row, said: 'Oh! everybody knows that story! It's---'" Here I would like to make a judicious pause, and then the children in the audience would shout in chorus, with joyful superiority: "Little Red Riding-Hood!" before I had time to explain that the children in my dream had done the same. This method I repeated two or three times, being careful to choose very well-known stories. By this time the children were all encouraged and stimulated. I usually finished with congratulations on the number of stories they knew, expressing a hope that some of those I was going to tell that afternoon would be new to them. I have rarely found this plan to fail to establish a friendly relation between oneself and the juvenile audience. It is often a matter of great difficulty, not to _win_ the attention of an audience but to _keep_ it, and one of the most subtle artifices is to let the audience down (without their perceiving it) after a dramatic situation, so that the reaction may prepare them for the interest of the next situation. An excellent instance of this is to be found in Rudyard Kipling's story of "The Cat That Walked . . ." where the repetition of words acts as a sort of sedative until one realizes the beginning of a fresh situation. The great point is never to let the audience quite down, that is, in stories which depend on dramatic situations. It is just a question of shade and color in the language. If you are telling a story in sections, and one spread over two or three occasions, you should always stop at an exciting moment. It encourages speculation in the children's minds, which increases their interest when the story is taken up again. Another very necessary quality in the mere artifice of story-telling is to watch your audience, so as to be able to know whether its mood is for action or reaction, and to alter your story accordingly. The moods of reaction are rarer, and you must use them for presenting a different kind of material. Here is your opportunity for introducing a piece of poetic description, given in beautiful language, to which the children cannot listen when they are eager for action and dramatic excitement. Perhaps one of the greatest artifices is to take a quick hold of your audience by a striking beginning which will enlist their attention from the start. You can then relax somewhat, but you must be careful also of the end because that is what remains most vivid to the children. If you question them as to which story they like best in a program, you will constantly find it to be the last one you have told, which has for the moment blurred out the others. Here are a few specimens of beginnings which seldom fail to arrest the attention of the child: "There was once a giant ogre, and he lived in a cave by himself." From "The Giant and Jack-straws," David Starr Jordan. "There were once twenty-five tin soldiers, who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon." From "The Tin Soldier," Hans Christian Andersen. "There was once an Emperor who had a horse shod with gold." From "The Beetle," Hans Christian Andersen. "There was once a merchant who was so rich that he could have paved the whole street with gold, and even then he would have had enough for a small alley." From the "The Flying Trunk," Hans Christian Andersen. "There was once a shilling which came forth from the mint springing and shouting, 'Hurrah! Now I am going out into the wide world.'" From "The Silver Shilling," Hans Christian Andersen. "In the High and Far Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk." From "The Elephant's Child": "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling. "Not always was the Kangaroo as now we behold him, but a Different Animal with four short legs." From "Old Man Kangaroo": "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling. "Whichever way I turn," said the weather-cock on a high steeple, "no one is satisfied." From "Fire-side Fables," Edwin Barrow. "A set of chessmen, left standing on their board, resolved to alter the rules of the game." From the same source. "The Pink Parasol had tender whalebone ribs and a slender stick of cherry-wood." From "Very Short Stories," Mrs. W. K. Clifford. "There was once a poor little Donkey on Wheels: it had never wagged its tail, or tossed its head, or said 'Hee-haw,' or tasted a tender thistle." From the same source. Now, some of these beginnings are, of course, for very young children, but they all have the same advantage, that of plunging _in medias res_, and, therefore, arrest attention at once, contrary to the stories which open on a leisurely note of description. In the same way we must be careful about the endings of stories. They must impress themselves either in a very dramatic climax to which the whole story has worked up, as in the following: "Then he goes out the Wet Wild Woods, or up the Wet Wild Trees, or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his Wild Tail, and walking by his Wild Lone." From "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling. Or by an anti-climax for effect: "We have all this straight from the alderman's newspaper, but it is not to be depended on." From "Jack the Dullard," Hans Christian Andersen. Or by evading the point: "Whoever does not believe this must buy shares in the Tanner's yard." From "A Great Grief," Hans Christian Andersen. Or by some striking general comment: "He has never caught up with the three days he missed at the beginning of the world, and he has never learnt how to behave." From "How the Camel got his Hump": "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling. I have only suggested in this chapter a few of the artifices which I have found useful in my own experience, but I am sure that many more might be added. CHAPTER IV. ELEMENTS TO AVOID IN THE SELECTION OF MATERIAL. I am confronted in this portion of my work with a great difficulty, because I cannot afford to be as catholic as I could wish (this rejection or selection of material being primarily intended for those story-tellers dealing with normal children); but I do wish from the outset to distinguish between a story told to an individual child in the home circle or by a personal friend, and a story told to a group of children as part of the school curriculum. And if I seem to reiterate this difference, it is because I wish to show very clearly that the recital of parents and friends may be quite separate in content and manner from that offered by the teaching world. In the former case, almost any subject can be treated, because, knowing the individual temperament of the child, a wise parent or friend knows also what can be presented or not presented to the child; but in dealing with a group of normal children in school much has to be eliminated that could be given fearlessly to the abnormal child; I mean the child who, by circumstances or temperament, is developed beyond his years. I shall now mention some of the elements which experience has shown me to be unsuitable for class stories. I. _Stories dealing with analysis of motive and feeling_. This warning is specially necessary today, because this is, above all, an age of introspection and analysis. We have only to glance at the principal novels and plays during the last quarter of a century, more especially during the last ten years, to see how this spirit has crept into our literature and life. Now, this tendency to analyze is obviously more dangerous for children than for adults, because, from lack of experience and knowledge of psychology, the child's analysis is incomplete. It cannot see all the causes of the action, nor can it make that philosophical allowance for mood which brings the adult to truer conclusions. Therefore, we should discourage the child who shows a tendency to analyze too closely the motives of its action, and refrain from presenting to them in our stories any example which might encourage them to persist in this course. I remember, on one occasion, when I went to say good night to a little girl of my acquaintance, I found her sitting up in bed, very wide- awake. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed, and when I asked her what had excited her so much, she said: "I _know_ I have done something wrong today, but I cannot quite remember what it was." I said: "But, Phyllis, if you put your hand, which is really quite small, in front of your eyes, you could not see the shape of anything else, however large it might be. Now, what you have done today appears very large because it is so close, but when it is a little further off, you will be able to see better and know more about it. So let us wait till tomorrow morning." I am happy to say that she took my advice. She was soon fast asleep, and the next morning she had forgotten the wrong over which she had been unhealthily brooding the night before. 2. _Stories dealing too much with sarcasm and satire_. These are weapons which are too sharply polished, and therefore too dangerous, to place in the hands of children. For here again, as in the case of analysis, they can only have a very incomplete conception of the case. They do not know the real cause which produces the apparently ridiculous appearance, and it is only the abnormally gifted child or grown-up person who discovers this by instinct. It takes a lifetime to arrive at the position described in Sterne's words: "I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of misery to be entitled to all the with which Rabelais has ever scattered." I will hasten to add that I should not wish children to have their sympathy too much drawn out, of their emotions kindled too much to pity, because this would be neither healthy nor helpful to themselves or others. I only want to protect children from the dangerous critical attitude induced by the use of satire which sacrifices too much of the atmosphere of trust and belief in human beings which ought to be an essential of child life. By indulging in satire, the sense of kindness in children would become perverted, their sympathy cramped, and they themselves would be old before their time. We have an excellent example of this in Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen." When Kay gets the piece of broken mirror into his eye, he no longer sees the world from the normal child's point of view; he can no longer see anything but the foibles of those about him, a condition usually reached by a course of pessimistic experience. Andersen sums up the unnatural point of view in these words: "When Kay tried to repeat the Lord's Prayer, he could only remember the multiplication table." Now, without taking these words in any literal sense, we can admit that they represent the development of the head at the expense of the heart. An example of this kind of story to avoid is Andersen's "Story of the Butterfly." The bitterness of the Anemones, the sentimentality of the Violets, the schoolgirlishness of the Snowdrops, the domesticity of the Sweetpeas--all this tickles the palate of the adult, but does not belong to the place of the normal child. Again, I repeat, that the unusual child may take all this in and even preserve his kindly attitude towards the world, but it is dangerous atmosphere for the ordinary child. 3. _Stories of a sentimental character_. Strange to say, this element of sentimentality appeals more to the young teachers than to the children themselves. It is difficult to define the difference between real sentiment and sentimentality, but the healthy normal boy or girl of, let us say, ten or eleven years old, seems to feel it unconsciously, though the distinction is not so clear a few years later. Mrs. Elisabeth McCracken contributed an excellent article some years ago to the _Outlook_ on the subject of literature for the young, in which we find a good illustration of this power of discrimination on the part of a child. A young teacher was telling her pupils the story of the emotional lady who, to put her lover to the test, bade him pick up the glove which she had thrown down into the arena between the tiger and the lion. The lover does her bidding in order to vindicate his character as a brave knight. One boy after hearing the story at once states his contempt for the knight's acquiescence, which he declares to be unworthy. "But," says the teacher, "you see he really did it to show the lady how foolish she was." The answer of the boy sums up what I have been trying to show: "There was no sense in _his_ being sillier than _she_ was, to show her _she_ was silly." If the boy had stopped there, we might have concluded that he was lacking in imagination or romance, but his next remark proves what a balanced and discriminating person he was, for he added: "Now, if _she_ had fallen in, and he had leapt after her to rescue her, that would have been splendid and of some use." Given the character of the lady, we might, as adults, question the last part of the boy's statement, but this is pure cynicism and fortunately does not enter into the child's calculations. In my own personal experience, and I have told this story often in the German ballad form to girls of ten and twelve in the high schools in England, I have never found one girl who sympathized with the lady or who failed to appreciate the poetic justice meted out to her in the end by the dignified renunciation of the knight. Chesterton defines sentimentality as "a tame, cold, or small and inadequate manner of speaking about certain matters which demand very large and beautiful expression." I would strongly urge upon young teachers to revise, by this definition, some of the stories they have included in their repertories, and see whether they would stand the test or not. 4. _Stories containing strong sensational episodes_. The danger of this kind of story is all the greater because many children delight in it and some crave for it in the abstract, but fear it in the concrete.[15] An affectionate aunt, on one occasion, anxious to curry favor with a four-year-old nephew, was taxing her imagination to find a story suitable for his tender years. She was greatly startled when he suddenly said, in a most imperative tone: "Tell me the story of a bear eating a small boy." This was so remote from her own choice of subject that she hesitated at first, but coming to the conclusion that as the child had chosen the situation he would feel no terror in the working up of its details, she a most thrilling and blood-curdling story, leading up to the final catastrophe. But just as she reached the great dramatic moment, the child raised his hands in terror and said: "Oh! Auntie, don't let the bear really eat the boy!" "Don't you know," said an impatient boy who had been listening to a mild adventure story considered suitable to his years, "that I don't take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore?" Here we have no opportunity of deciding whether or not the actual description demanded would be more alarming than the listener had realized. Here is a poem of James Stephens, showing a child's taste for sensational things: A man was sitting underneath a tree Outside the village, and he asked me What name was upon this place, and said he Was never here before. He told a Lot of stories to me too. His nose was flat. I asked him how it happened, and he said, The first mate of the _Mary Ann_ done that With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead, And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have killed him. A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile, bedad, That's what he said: He taught me how to chew. He was a real nice man. He liked me too. The taste that is fed by the sensational contents of the newspapers and the dramatic excitement of street life, and some of the lurid representations of the cinematograph, is so much stimulated that the interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell on the deleterious effects of over-dramatic stimulation, which has been known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when the mischief is done. Kate Douglas Wiggin has said: "Let us be realistic, by all means, but beware, O story-teller, of being too realistic. Avoid the shuddering tale of 'the wicked boy who stoned the birds,' lest some hearer should be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill." I must emphasize the fact, however, that it is only the excess of this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement is necessary, but this question belongs to the positive side of the subject, and I shall deal with it later on. 5. _Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of a child's interests, unless they are wrapped in mystery_. Experience with children ought to teach us to avoid stories which contain too much _allusion_ to matters of which the hearers are entirely ignorant. But judging from the written stories of today, supposed to be for children, it is still a matter of difficulty to realize that this form of allusion to "foreign" matters, or making a joke, the appreciation of which depends solely on a special and "inside" knowledge, is always bewildering and fatal to sustained dramatic interest. It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to understand the taste and point of view of the _normal_ child. There is a passage in the "Brownies," by Mrs. Ewing, which illustrates the confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment. When the nursery toys have all gone astray, one little child exclaims joyfully: "Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!" "It couldn't," remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious to be funny than to sympathized with the child, "it was the purest Grecian, modeled from the Elgin marbles." Now, for grownup people this is an excellent joke, but for a child has not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the whole remark is pointless and hampering.[16] 6. _Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness_. This is a class of story which scarcely counts today and against which the teacher does not need a warning, but I wish to make a passing allusion to these stories, partly to round off my subject and partly to show that we have made some improvement in choice of subject. When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that, though our progress may be slow, it is real and sure. One has only to take some examples from the Chaps Books of the beginning of last century to realize the difference of appeal. Everything offered then was either an appeal to fear or to priggishness, and one wonders how it is that our grandparents and their parents every recovered from the effects of such stories as were offered to them. But there is the consoling thought that no lasting impression was made upon them, such as I believe _may_ be possible by the right kind of story. I offer a few examples of the old type of story: Here is an encouraging address offered to children by a certain Mr. Janeway about the year 1828: "Dare you do anything which your parents forbid you, and neglect to do what they command? Dare you to run up and down on the Lord's Day, or do you keep in to read your book, and learn what your good parents command?" Such an address would have almost tempted children to envy the lot of orphans, except that the guardians and less close relations might have been equally, if not more, severe. From "The Curious Girl," published about 1809: "Oh! papa, I hope you will have no reason to be dissatisfied with me, for I love my studies very much, and I am never so happy at my play as when I have been assiduous at my lessons all day." "Adolphus: How strange it is, papa, you should believe it possible for me to act so like a child, now that I am twelve years old!" Here is a specimen taken from a Chap Book about 1835: Edward refuses hot bread at breakfast. His hostess asks whether he likes it. "Yes, I am extremely fond of it." "Why did you refuse it?" "Because I know that my papa does not approve of my eating it. Am I to disobey a Father and Mother I love so well, and forget my duty, because they are a long way off? I would not touch the cake, were I sure nobody would see me. I myself should know it, and that would be sufficient. "Nobly replied!" exclaimed Mrs. C. "Act always thus, and you must be happy, for although the whole world should refuse the praise that is due, you must enjoy the approbation of your conscience, which is beyond anything else." Here is a quotation of the same kind from Mrs. Sherwood: Tender-souled little creatures, desolated by a sense of sin, if they did but eat a spoonful of cupboard jam without Mamma's express permission. . . . Would a modern Lucy, jealous of her sister Emily's doll, break out thus easily into tearful apology for her guilt: 'I know it is wicked in me to be sorry that Emily is happy, but I feel that I cannot help it'? And would a modern mother retort with heartfelt joy: 'My dear child, I am glad you have confessed. Now I shall tell you why you feel this wicked sorrow'?--proceeding to an account of the depravity of human nature so unredeemed by comfort for a childish mind of common intelligence that one can scarcely imagine the interview ending in anything less tragic than a fit of juvenile hysteria. Description of a good boy: A good boy is dutiful to his Father and Mother, obedient to his master and loving to his playfellows. He is diligent in learning his book and takes a pleasure in improving himself in everything that is worthy of praise. He rises early in the morning, makes himself clean and decent, and says his prayers. He loves to hear good advice, is thankful to those who give it and always follows it. He never swears[17] or calls names or uses ill words to companions. He is never peevish and fretful, always cheerful and good-tempered. 7. _Stories of exaggerated and coarse fun_. In the chapter on the positive side of this subject I shall speak more in detail of the educational value of robust and virile representation of fun and of sheer nonsense, but as a preparation to these statements, I should like to strike a note of warning against the element of exaggerated and coarse fun being encouraged in our school stories, partly, because of the lack of humor in such presentations (a natural product of stifling imagination) and partly, because the strain of the abnormal has the same effect as the too frequent use of the melodramatic. In an article in _Macmillans's Magazine_, December, 1869, Miss Yonge writes: "A taste for buffoonery is much to be discouraged, an exclusive taste for extravagance most unwholesome and even perverting. It becomes destructive of reverence and soon degenerates into coarseness. It permits nothing poetical or imaginative, nothing sweet or pathetic to exist, and there is a certain self-satisfaction and superiority in making game of what others regard with enthusiasm and sentiment which absolutely bars the way against a higher or softer tone." Although these words were written nearly half a century ago, they are so specially applicable today that they seem quite "up-to-date." Indeed, I think they will hold equally good fifty years hence. In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly and brutal, I am sure that we ought to eliminate this element as far as possible from the school stories, especially among poor children. Not because I think children should be protected from all knowledge of evil, but because so much of this knowledge comes into their life outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school hours. At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story illustration the difference between brutal ugliness without anything to redeem it and surface ugliness, which may be only a veil over the beauty that lies underneath. It might be possible, for instance, to show children the difference between the real ugliness in the priest's face of the "Laocoon" group, because of the motive of courage and endurance behind the suffering. Many stories in everyday life could be found to illustrate this. 8. _Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes_. The stories for children forty years ago contained much of this element, and the following examples will illustrate this point: Notes from poems written by a child between six and eight years of age, by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter: Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more, Thy joys and sorrows all are o'er. Through Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod, But now art sunk beneath the sod. Here lost and gone poor Robin lies, He trembles, lingers, falls and dies. He's gone, he's gone, forever lost, No more of him they now can boast. Poor Robin's dangers all are past, He struggled to the very last. Perhaps he spent a happy Life, Without much struggle and much strife.[18] The prolonged gloom of the main theme is somewhat lightened by the speculative optimism of the last verse. Life, transient Life, is but a dream, Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seem Till dawn of day, when the bird's lay Doth charm the soul's first peeping gleam. Then farewell to the parting year, Another's come to Nature dear. In every place, thy brightening face Does welcome winter's snowy drear. Alas! our time is much mis-spent. Then we must haste and now repent. We have a book in which to look, For we on Wisdom should be bent. Should God, the Almighty, King of all, Before His judgment-seat now call Us to that place of Joy and Grace Prepared for us since Adam's fall. I think there is no doubt that we have made considerable progress in this matter. Not only do we refrain from telling these highly moral (_sic_) stories but we have reached the point of parodying them, in sign of ridicule, as, for instance, in such writing as Belloc's "Cautionary Tales." These would be a trifle too grim for a timid child, but excellent fun for adults. It should be our study today to prove to children that the immediate importance to them is not to think of dying and going to Heaven, but of living and--shall we say?--of going to college, which is a far better preparation for the life to come than the morbid dwelling upon the possibility of an early death. In an article signed "Muriel Harris," I think, from a copy of the _Tribune_, appeared a delightful article on Sunday books, from which I quote the following: "All very good little children died young in the storybooks, so that unusual goodness must have been the source of considerable anxiety to affectionate parents. I came across a little old book the other day called 'Examples for Youth.' On the yellow fly-leaf was written, in childish, carefully-sloping hand: 'Presented to Mary Palmer Junior, by her sister, to be read on Sundays,' and was dated 1828. The accounts are taken from a work on "Piety Promoted," and all of them begin with unusual piety in early youth and end with the death-bed of the little paragon, and his or her dying words." 9. _Stories containing a mixture of fairy tale and science_. By this combination one loses what is essential to each, namely, the fantastic on the one side, and accuracy on the other. The true fairy tale should be unhampered by any compromise of probability even; the scientific representation should be sufficiently marvelous along its own lines to need no supernatural aid. Both appeal to the imagination in different ways. As an exception to this kind of mixture, I should quote "The Honey Bee, and Other Stories," translated from the Danish of Evald by C. G. Moore Smith. There is a certain robustness in these stories dealing with the inexorable laws of Nature. Some of them will appear hard to the child but they will be of interest to all teachers. Perhaps the worst element in the choice of stories is that which insists upon the moral detaching itself and explaining the story. In "Alice in Wonderland" the Duchess says, "'And the moral of _that_ is: Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.' "How fond she is of finding morals in things," thought Alice to herself." (This gives the point of view of the child.) The following is a case in point, found in a rare old print in the British Museum: Jane S. came home with her clothes soiled and hands badly torn. "Where have you been?" asked her mother. "I fell down the bank near the mill," said Jane, "and I should have been drowned, if Mr. M. had not seen me and pulled me out." "Why did you go so near the edge of the brink?" "There was a pretty flower there that I wanted, and I only meant to take one step, but I slipped and fell down." _Moral_: Young people often take but one step in sinful indulgence [Poor Jane!], but they fall into soul-destroying sins. They can do it by a single act of sin. [The heinous act of picking a flower!] They do it; but the act leads to another, and they fall into the gulf of Perdition, unless God interposes. Now, quite apart from the folly of this story we must condemn it on moral grounds. Could we imagine a lower standard of a Deity than that presented here to the child? Today the teacher would commend Jane for a laudable interest in botany, but might add a word of caution about choosing inclined planes in the close neighborhood of a body of running water as a hunting ground for specimens and a popular, lucid explanation of the inexorable law of gravity. Here we have an instance of applying a moral when we have finished our story, but there are many stories where nothing is left to chance in this matter and where there is no means for the child to use ingenuity or imagination in making out the meaning for himself. Henry Morley has condemned the use of this method as applied to fairy stories. He says: "Moralizing in a fairy story is like the snoring of _Bottom_ in _Titania's_ lap." But I think this applies to all stories, and most especially to those by which we do wish to teach something. John Burroughs says in his article, "Thou Shalt Not Preach":[19] "Didactic fiction can never rank high. Thou shalt not preach or teach; thou shalt portray and create, and have ends as universal as nature. . . . What Art demands is that the artist's personal convictions and notions, his likes and dislikes, do not obtrude themselves at all; that good and evil stand judged in his work by the logic of events, as they do in nature, and not by any special pleading on his part. He does non hold a brief for either side; he exemplifies the working of the creative energy. . . . The great artist works in and _through_ and _from_ moral ideas; his works are indirectly a criticism of life. He is moral without having a moral. The moment a moral obtrudes itself, that moment he begins to fall from grace as an artist. . . . The great distinction of Art is that it aims to see life steadily and to see it whole. . . . It affords the one point of view whence the world appears harmonious and complete." It would seem, then, from this passage, that it is of _moral_ importance to put things dramatically. In Froebel's "Mother Play" he demonstrates the educational value of stories, emphasizing that their highest use consists in their ability to enable the child, through _suggestion_, to form a pure and noble idea of what a man may be or do. The sensitiveness of a child's mind is offended if the moral is forced upon him, but if he absorbs it unconsciously, he has received its influence for all time. To me the idea of pointing out the moral of the story has always seemed as futile as tying a flower on a stalk instead of letting the flower grow out of the stalk, as Nature has intended. In the first case, the flower, showy and bright for the moment, soon fades away. In the second instance, it develops slowly, coming to perfection in fullness of time because of the life within. Lastly, the element to avoid is that which rouses emotions which cannot be translated into action. Mr. Earl Barnes, to whom all teachers owe a debt of gratitude for the inspiration of his educational views, insists strongly on this point. The sole effect of such stories is to produce a form of hysteria, fortunately short-lived, but a waste of force which might be directed into a better channel.[20] Such stories are so easy to recognize that it would be useless to make a formal list, but I make further allusion to them, in dealing with stories from the lives of the saints. These, then, are the main elements to avoid in the selection of material suitable for normal children. Much might be added in the way of detail, and the special tendency of the day may make it necessary to avoid one class of story more than another, but this care belongs to another generation of teachers and parents. CHAPTER V. ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL. In his "Choice of Books," Frederic Harrison has said: "The most useful help to reading is to know what we shall _not_ read, what we shall keep from that small, cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of information which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing knowledge." Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied myself during the last chapter with "clearing my small spot" by cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am no going to suggest what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have "reclaimed from the jungle." Again, I repeat, I have no wish to be dogmatic and in offering suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am catering only for a group of normal school children. My list of subjects does not pretend to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in choice of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any subject to the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation to him and know his powers of apprehension. In this matter, age has very little to say; it is a question of the stage of development. Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children, irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable for them will contain an appeal to conditions to which the child is accustomed. The reason for this is obvious: the child, having limited experience, can only be reached by this experience, until his imagination is awakened and he is enabled to grasp through this faculty what he has not actually passed through. Before this awakening has taken place he enters the realm of fiction, represented in the story, by comparison with his personal experience. Every story and every point in the story mean more as that experience widens, and the interest varies, of course, with temperament, quickness of perception, power of visualizing and of concentration. In "The Marsh King's Daughter," Hans Christian Andersen says: "The storks have a great many stories which they tell their little ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with _kribble, krabble_, or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want something with more meaning." One of the most interesting experiments to be made in connection with this subject is to tell the same story at intervals of a year or six months to an individual child.[21] The different incidents in the story which appeal to him (and one must watch it closely, to be sure the interest is real and not artificially stimulated by any suggestion on one's own part) will mark his mental development and the gradual awakening of his imagination. This experiment is a very delicate one and will not be infallible, because children are secretive and the appreciation is often simulated (unconsciously) or concealed through shyness or want of articulation. But it is, in spite of this, a deeply interesting and helpful experiment. To take a concrete example: Let us suppose the story Andersen's "Tin Soldier" told to a child of five or six years. At the first recital, the point which will interest the child most will be the setting up of the tin soldiers on the table, because he can understand this by means of his own experience, in his own nursery. It is an appeal to conditions to which he is accustomed and for which no exercise of the imagination is needed, unless we take the effect of memory to be, according to Queyrat, retrospective imagination. The next incident that appeals is the unfamiliar behavior of the toys, but still in familiar surroundings; that is to say, the _unusual_ activities are carried on in the safe precincts of the nursery--the _usual_ atmosphere of the child. I quote from the text: Late in the evening the other soldiers were put in their box, and the people of the house went to bed. Now was the time for the toys to play; they amused themselves with paying visits, fighting battles and giving balls. The tin soldiers rustled about in their box, for they wanted to join the games, but they could not get the lid off. The nut-crackers turned somersaults, and the pencil scribbled nonsense on the slate. Now, from this point onwards in the story, the events will be quite outside the personal experience of the child and there will have to be a real stretch of imagination to appreciate the thrilling and blood- curdling adventures of the tin soldier, namely, the terrible sailing down the gutter under the bridge, the meeting with the fierce rat who demands the soldier's passport, the horrible sensation in the fish's body, etc. Last of all, perhaps, will come the appreciation of the best qualities of the hero: his modesty, his dignity, his reticence, his courage and his constancy. He seems to combine all the qualities of the best soldier with those of the best civilian, without the more obvious qualities which generally attract first. As for the love story, we must _expect_ any child to see its tenderness and beauty, though the individual child may intuitively appreciate these qualities, but it is not what we wish for or work for at this period of child life. This method could be applied to various stories. I have chosen the "Tin Soldier" because of its dramatic qualities and because it is marked off, probably quite unconsciously on the part of Andersen, into periods which correspond to the child's development. In Eugene Field's exquisite little poem of "The Dinkey Bird," we find the objects familiar to the child in _unusual_ places, so that some imagination is needed to realize that "big red sugar-plums are clinging to the cliffs beside the sea"; but the introduction of the fantastic bird and the soothing sound of amfalula tree are new and delightful sensations, quite out of the child's personal experience. Another such instance is to be found in Mrs. W. K. Clifford's story of "Master Willie." The abnormal behavior of familiar objects, such as a doll, leads from the ordinary routine to the paths of adventure. This story is to be found in a little book called "Very Short Stories," a most interesting collection for teachers and children. We now come to the second element we should seek in material, namely, the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the story of the "Tin Soldier." This element is necessary in response to the demand of the child who expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: "I want to go to the place where the shadows are real." This is the true definition of "faerie" lands and is the first sign of real mental development in the child when he is no longer content with the stories of his own little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to appreciate sounds different from the words in his own everyday language, and when he begins to separate his own personality from the action of the story. George Goschen says: "What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply deal with our daily life. I like the fancy even of little children to have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and I confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not sometimes stimulated by beautiful fairy tales which carry them to worlds different from those in which their future will be passed. . . . I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is better than what reminds them of it at every step."[22] It is because of the great value of leading children to something beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the artificially prepared public school stories for boys. Why not give them the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket match or a football triumph could present a finer appeal to boys and girls than the description of the Peacestead in the "Heroes of Asgaard": "This was the playground of the Aesir, where they practiced trials of skill one with another and held tournaments and sham fights. These last were always conducted in the gentlest and most honorable manner; for the strongest law of the Peacestead was that no angry blow should be struck or spiteful word spoken upon the sacred field." For my part, I would unhesitatingly give to boys and girls an element of strong romance in the stories which are told them even before they are twelve. Miss Sewell says: "The system that keeps girls in the schoolroom reading simple stories, without reading Scott and Shakespeare and Spenser, and then hands them over to the unexplored recesses of the Circulating Library, has been shown to be the most frivolizing that can be devised." She sets forth as the result of her experience that a good novel, especially a romantic one, read at twelve or fourteen, is really a beneficial thing. At present, so many of the children from the elementary schools get their first idea of love, if one can give it such a name from vulgar pictures displayed in the shop windows or jokes on marriage, culled from the lowest type of paper, or the proceedings of a divorce court. What an antidote to such representation might be found in the stories of Hector and Andromache, Siegfried and Brunnehilde, Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus and Eurydice, St. Francis and St. Clare! One of the strongest elements we should introduce into our stories for children of all ages is that which calls forth love of beauty. And the beauty should stand out, not only in the delineation of noble qualities in our heroes and heroines, but in the beauty and strength of language and form. In this latter respect, the Bible stories are of such inestimable value; all the greater because a child is familiar with the subject and the stories gain fresh significance from the spoken or winged word as compared with the mere reading. As to whether we should keep to the actual text is a matter of individual experience. Professor R. G. Moulton, whose interpretations of the Bible stories are so well known both in England and America, does not always confine himself to the actual text, but draws the dramatic elements together, rejecting what seems to him to break the narrative, but introducing the actual language where it is the most effective. Those who have heard him will realize the success of his method. There is one Bible story which can be told with scarcely any deviation from the text, if only a few hints are given beforehand, and that is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. Thus, I think it wise, if the children are to succeed in partially visualizing the story, that they should have some idea of the dimensions of the Golden Image as it would stand out in a vast plain. It might be well to compare those dimension with some building with which the child is familiar. In London, the matter is easy as the height will compare, roughly speaking, with Westminster Abbey. The only change in text I should adopt is to avoid the constant enumeration of the list of rulers and the musical instruments. In doing this, I am aware that I am sacrificing something of beauty in the rhythm, but, on the other hand, for narrative purpose the interest is not broken. The first time the announcement is made, that is, by the Herald, it should be in a perfectly loud, clear and toneless voice, such as you would naturally use when shouting through a trumpet to a vast concourse of people scattered over a wide plain, reserving all the dramatic tone of voice for the passage where Nebuchadnezzar is making the announcement to the three men by themselves. I can remember Professor Moulton saying that all the dramatic interest of the story is summed up in the words "But if not . . ." This suggestion is a very helpful one, for it enables us to work up gradually to this point, and then, as it were, _unwind_, until we reach the words of Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic recantation. In this connection, it is a good plan occasionally during the story hour to introduce really good poetry, which delivered in a dramatic manner (far removed, of course, from the melodramatic), might give children their first love of beautiful form in verse. And I do not think it necessary to wait for this. Even the normal child of seven, though there is nothing arbitrary in the suggestion of this age, will appreciate the effect, if only on the ear, of beautiful lines well spoken. Mahomet has said, in his teaching advice: "Teach your children poetry: it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes heroic virtues hereditary." To begin with the youngest children of all, here is a poem which contains a thread of story, just enough to give a human interest: MILKING-TIME When the cows come home, the milk is coming; Honey's made when the bees are humming. Duck, drake on the rushy lake, And the deer live safe in the breezy brake, And timid, funny, pert little bunny Winks his nose, and sits all sunny. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Now, in comparing this poem with some of the doggerel verse offered to small children, one is struck with the literary superiority in the choice of words. Here, in spite of the simplicity of the poem, there is not the ordinary limited vocabulary, nor the forced rhyme, nor the application of a moral, by which the artist falls from grace. Again, Eugene Field's "Hushaby Lady," of which the language is most simple, yet the child is carried away by the beauty of the sound. I remember hearing some poetry repeated by the children in one of the elementary schools in Sheffield which made me feel that they had realized romantic possibilities which would prevent their lives from ever becoming quite prosaic again, and I wish that this practice were more usual. There is little difficulty with the children. I can remember, in my own experience as a teacher in London, making the experiment of reading or repeating passages from Milton and Shakespeare to children from nine to eleven years of age, and the enthusiastic way they responded by learning those passages by heart. I have taken with several sets of children such passages from Milton as the "Echo Song," "Sabrina," "By the Rushy-fringed Bank," "Back, Shepherds, Back," from "Comus"; "May Morning," "Ode to Shakespeare," "Samson," "On His Blindness," etc. I even ventured on several passage from "Paradise Lost," and found "Now came still evening on" a particular favorite with the children. It seemed even easier to interest them in Shakespeare, and they learned quite readily and easily many passages from "As You Like It," "The Merchant of Venice," "Julius Caesar," "Richard II," "Henry IV," and "Henry V." The method I should recommend in the introduction of both poets occasionally into the story-hour would be threefold. First, to choose passages which appeal for beauty of sound or beauty of mental vision called up by those sounds; such as "Tell me where is Fancy bred," "Titania's Lullaby," "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." Secondly, passages for sheer interest of content, such as the Trial Scene from "The Merchant of Venice," or the Forest Scene in "As You Like It." Thirdly, for dramatic and historical interest, such as, "Men at some time are masters of their fates," the whole of Mark Antony's speech, and the scene with Imogen and her foster brothers in the Forest. It may not be wholly out of place to add here that the children learned and repeated these passages themselves, and that I offered them the same advice as I do to all story-tellers. I discussed quite openly with them the method I considered best, trying to make them see that simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most effective means to use and, by the end of a few months, when they had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began to see that mere ranting was not force and that a sense of reserve power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere external presentation. I encouraged them to criticize each other for the common good, and sometimes I read a few lines with overemphasis and too much gesture, which they were at liberty to point out that they might avoid the same error. Excellent collections of poems for this purpose of narrative are: Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series of "Song and Story," published by Adam Black, and "The Posy Ring," chosen and classified by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, published by Doubleday. For older children, "The Call of the Homeland," selected and arranged by Dr. R. P. Scott and Katharine T. Wallas, published by Houghton, Mifflin, and "Golden Numbers," chosen and classified by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, published by Doubleday. I think it is well to have a goodly number of stories illustrating the importance of common-sense and resourcefulness. For this reason, I consider the stories treating of the ultimate success of the youngest son[23] very admirable for the purpose, because the youngest child who begins by being considered inferior to the older ones triumphs in the end, either from resourcefulness or from common-sense or from some higher quality, such as kindness to animals, courage in overcoming difficulties, etc.[24] Thus, we have the story of Cinderella. The cynic might imagine that it was the diminutive size of her foot that insured her success. The child does not realize any advantage in this, but, though the matter need not be pressed, the story leaves us with the impression that Cinderella had been patient and industrious, and forbearing with her sisters. We know that she was strictly obedient to her godmother, and in order to be this she makes her dramatic exit from the ball which is the beginning of her triumph. There are many who might say that these qualities do not meet with reward in life and that they end in establishing a habit of drudgery, but, after all, we must have poetic justice in a fairy story, occasionally, at any rate, even if the child is confused by the apparent contradiction. Such a story is "Jesper and the Hares." Here, however, it is not at first resourcefulness that helps the hero, but sheer kindness of heart, which prompts him first to help the ants, and then to show civility to the old woman, without for a moment expecting any material benefit from such actions. At the end, he does win on his own ingenuity and resourcefulness, and if we regret that his trickery has such wonderful results, we must remember the aim was to win the princess for herself, and that there was little choice left him. I consider that the end of this story is one of the most remarkable I have found in my long years of browsing among fairy tales. I should suggest stopping at the words: "The Tub is full," as any addition seems to destroy the subtlety of the story.[25] Another story of this kind, admirable for children from six years and upwards, is, "What the Old Man Does is Always Right." Here, perhaps, the entire lack of common-sense on the part of the hero would serve rather as a warning than a stimulating example, but the conduct of the wife in excusing the errors of her foolish husband is a model of resourcefulness. In the story of "Hereafter-this,"[26] we have just the converse: a perfectly foolish wife shielded by a most patient and forbearing husband, whose tolerance and common-sense save the situation. One of the most important elements to seek in our choice of stories is that which tends to develop, eventually, a fine sense of humor in a child. I purposely use the word, "eventually," because I realize, first, that humor has various stages, and that seldom, if ever, can one expect an appreciation of fine humor from a normal child, that is, from an elemental mind. It seems as if the rough-and-tumble element were almost a necessary stage through which children must pass, and which is a normal and healthy stage; but up to now we have quite unnecessarily extended the period of elephantine fun, and, though we cannot control the manner in which children are catered to along this line in their homes, we can restrict the folly of appealing too strongly or too long to this elemental faculty in our schools. Of course, the temptation is strong because the appeal is so easy, but there is a tacit recognition that horseplay and practical jokes are no longer considered as an essential part of a child's education. We note this in the changed attitude in the schools, taken by more advanced educators, towards bullying, fagging, hazing, etc. As a reaction, then, from more obvious fun, there should be a certain number of stories which make appeal to a more subtle element, and in the chapter on the questions put to me by teachers on various occasions I speak more in detail as to the educational value of a finer humor in our stories. At some period there ought to be presented in our stories the superstitions connected with the primitive history of the race, dealing with the fairy proper, giants, dwarfs, gnomes, nixies, brownies and other elemental beings. Andrew Lang says: "Without our savage ancestors we should have had no poetry. Conceive the human race born into the world in its present advanced condition, weighing, analyzing, examining everything. Such a race would have been destitute of poetry and flattened by common-sense. Barbarians did the _dreaming_ of the world." But it is a question of much debate among educators as to what should be the period of the child's life in which these stories are to be presented. I, myself, was formerly of the opinion that they belonged to the very primitive age of the individual, just as they belong to the primitive age of the race, but experience in telling stories has taught me to compromise. Some people maintain that little children, who take things with brutal logic, ought not to be allowed the fairy tale in its more limited form of the supernatural; whereas, if presented to older children, this material can be criticized, catalogued and (alas!) rejected as worthless, or retained with flippant toleration. While realizing a certain value in this point of view, I am bound to admit that if we regulate our stories entirely on this basis, we lose the real value of the fairy tale element. It is the one element which causes little children to _wonder_, simply because no scientific analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat heartrending to feel that "Jack and the Bean Stalk" and stories of that ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and wonder why _Jack_ was not playing football on the school team instead of climbing trees in search of imaginary adventures. A wonderful plea for the telling of early superstitions to children is to be found in an old Indian allegory called, "The Blazing Mansion." An old man owned a large rambling Mansion. The pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The distracted Father said: "I will run in and save my children. I will seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the falling rafters and the blazing beams." Then the sad thought came to him that the children were romping and ignorant. "If I say the house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize them, they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a moment to be lost!" Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's mind. "My children are ignorant," he said; "they love toys and glittering playthings. I will promise them playthings of unheard-of beauty. Then they will listen." So the old man shouted: "Children, come out of the house and see these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such goats as these? Children, children come quickly, or they will all be gone!" Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The word, "plaything," was almost the only word they could understand. Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring were freed from peril, procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen. The chariot had a canopy like a pagoda; it had tiny rails and balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew the chariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.[27] Perhaps, as a compromise, one might give the gentler superstitions to very small children, and leave such a blood-curdling story as "Bluebeard" to a more robust age. There is one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this we are tampering with folklore and confusing stages of development. Now, I know that there are individual children that, at a tender age, might be alarmed at such a story, for instance, as "Little Red Riding- Hood"; in which case, it is better to sacrifice the "wonder stage" and present the story later on. I live in dread of finding one day a bowdlerized form of "Bluebeard," prepared for a junior standard, in which, to produce a satisfactory finale, all the wives come to life again, and "live happily ever after" with Bluebeard and each other! And from this point it seems an easy transition to the subject of legends of different kinds. Some of the old country legends in connection with flowers are very charming for children, and so long as we do not tread on the sacred ground of the nature students, we may indulge in a moderate use of such stories, of which a few will be found in the List of Stories, given later. With regard to the introduction of legends connected with saints into the school curriculum, my chief plea is the element of the unusual which they contain and an appeal to a sense of mysticism and wonder which is a wise antidote to the prosaic and commercial tendencies of today. Though many of the actions of the saints may be the result of a morbid strain of self-sacrifice, at least none of them was engaged in the sole occupation of becoming rich: their ideals were often lofty and unselfish; their courage high, and their deeds noble. We must be careful, in the choice of our legends, to show up the virile qualities rather than to dwell on the elements of horror in details of martyrdom, or on the too-constantly recurring miracles, lest we should defeat our own ends. For the children might think lightly of the dangers to which the saints were exposed if they found them too often preserved at the last moment from the punishment they were brave enough to undergo. For one or another of these reasons, I should avoid the detailed history of St. Juliana, St. Vincent, St. Quintin, St. Eustace, St. Winifred, St. Theodore, St. James the More, St. Katharine, St. Cuthbert, St. Alphage, St. Peter of Milan, St. Quirine and Juliet, St. Alban and others. The danger of telling stories connected with sudden conversions is that they are apt to place too much emphasis on the process, rather than on the goal to be reached. We should always insist on the splendid deeds performed after a real conversion, not the details of the conversion itself; as, for instance, the beautiful and poetical work done by St. Christopher when he realized what work he could do most effectively. On the other hand, there are many stories of the saints dealing with actions and motives which would appeal to the imagination and are not only worthy of imitation, but are not wholly outside the life and experience even of the child.[28] Having protested against the elephantine joke and the too-frequent use of exaggerated fun, I now endeavor to restore the balance by suggesting the introduction into the school curriculum of a few purely grotesque stories which serve as an antidote to sentimentality or utilitarianism. But they must be presented as nonsense, so that the children may use them for what they are intended as--pure relaxation. Such a story is that of "The Wolf and the Kids," which I present in my own version at the end of the book. I have had serious objections offered to this story by several educational people, because of the revenge taken by the goat on the wolf, but I am inclined to think that if the story is to be taken as anything but sheer nonsense, it is surely sentimental to extend our sympathy toward a caller who has devoured six of his hostess' children. With regard to the wolf being cut open, there is not the slightest need to accentuate the physical side. Children accept the deed as they accept the cutting off of a giant's head, because they do not associate it with pain, especially if the deed is presented half humorously. The moment in the story where their sympathy is aroused is the swallowing of the kids, because the children do realize the possibility of being disposed of in the mother's absence. (Needless to say, I never point out the moral of the kids' disobedience to the mother in opening the door.) I have always noticed a moment of breathlessness even in a grown-up audience when the wolf swallows the kids, and that the recovery of them "all safe and sound, all huddled together" is quite as much appreciated by the adult audience as by the children, and is worth the tremor caused by the wolf's summary action. I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers the fact that this story _must_ be taken lightly. A very earnest young student came to me once after the telling of this story and said in an awe- struck voice: "Do you cor-relate?" Having recovered from the effect of this word, which she carefully explained, I said that, as a rule, I preferred to keep the story quite apart from the other lessons, just an undivided whole, because it had effects of its own which were best brought about by not being connected with other lessons. She frowned her disapproval and said: "I am sorry, because I thought I would take the Goat for my nature study lesson and then tell your story at the end." I thought of the terrible struggle in the child's mind between his conscientious wish to be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of the abnormal habits of a goat who went out with scissors, needle and thread; but I have been most careful since to repudiate any connection with nature study in this and a few other stories in my repertoire. One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's "Nonsense Rhymes." For instance: There was an Old Man of Cape Horn Who wished he had never been born. So he sat in a chair Till he died of despair, That dolorous Old Man of Cape Horn. Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly be taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would recognize the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents an old man from at least an attempt to rise from his chair. The following I have chosen as repeated with intense appreciation and much dramatic vigor by a little boy just five years old: There was an old man who said: "Hush! I perceive a young bird in that bush." When they said: "Is it small?" He replied, "Not at all. It is four times as large as the bush."[29] One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our stories is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very young children this is easy, because during those early years when the mind is not clogged with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination enables them to enter into the feeling of animals. Andersen has an illustration of this point in his "Ice Maiden": "Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small, and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail. With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit of saying strange things." Felix Adler says: "Perhaps the chief attraction of fairy tales is due to their representing the child as living in brotherly friendship with nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals, wild and tame, even the stars are represented as comrades of children. That animals are only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the fairy tales. Animals are humanized, that is, the kinship between animal and human life is still keenly felt, and this reminds us of those early animistic interpretations of nature which subsequently led to doctrines of metempsychosis."[30] I think that beyond question the finest animal stories are to be found in the Indian collections, of which I furnish a list in the last chapter. With regard to the development of the love of Nature through the telling of stories, we are confronted with a great difficulty in the elementary schools because so many of the children have never been out of the towns, have never seen a daisy, a blade of grass and scarcely a tree, so that in giving, in the form of a story, a beautiful description of scenery, you can make no appeal to the retrospective imagination, and only the rarely gifted child well be able to make pictures while listening to a style which is beyond his everyday use. Nevertheless, once in a while, when the children are in a quiet mood, not eager for action but able to give themselves up to the pure joy of sound, then it is possible to give them a beautiful piece of writing in praise of Nature, such as the following, taken from "The Divine Adventure," by Fiona Macleod: Then he remembered the ancient wisdom of the Gael and came out of the Forest Chapel and went into the woods. He put his lip to the earth, and lifted a green leaf to his brow, and held a branch to his ear; and because he was no longer heavy with the sweet clay of mortality, though yet of human clan, he heard that which we do not hear, and saw that which we do not see, and knew that which we do not know. All the green life was his. In that new world he saw the lives of trees, now pale green, now of woodsmoke blue, now of amethyst; the gray lives of stone; breaths of the grass and reed, creatures of the air, delicate and wild as fawns, or swift and fierce and terrible tigers of that undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost invisible but for their luminous wings, and opalescent crests. The value of this particular passage is the mystery pervading the whole picture, which forms so beautiful an antidote to the eternal explaining of things. I think it of the highest importance for the children to realize that the best and most beautiful things cannot be expressed in everyday language and that they must content themselves with a flash here and there of the beauty which may come later. One does not enhance the beauty of the mountain by pulling to pieces some of the earthy clogs; one does not increase the impression of a vast ocean by analyzing the single drops of water. But at a reverent distance one gets a clear impression of the whole, and can afford to leave the details in the shadow. In presenting such passages (and it must be done very sparingly), experience has taught me that we should take the children into our confidence by telling them frankly that nothing exciting is going to happen, so that they well be free to listen to the mere words. A very interesting experiment might occasionally be made by asking the children some weeks afterwards to tell you in their own words what pictures were made on their minds. This is a very different thing from allowing the children to reproduce the passage at once, the danger of which proceeding I speak of later in detail.[31] We now come to the question as to what proportion of _dramatic excitement_ we should present in the stories for a normal group of children. Personally, I should like, while the child is very young, I mean in main, not in years, to exclude the element of dramatic excitement, but though this may be possible for the individual child, it is quite Utopian to hope that we can keep the average child free from what is in the atmosphere. Children crave for excitement, and unless we give it to them in legitimate form, they will take it in any riotous form it presents itself, and if from our experience we can control their mental digestion by a moderate supply of what they demand, we may save them from devouring too eagerly the raw material they can so easily find for themselves. There is a humorous passage bearing on this question in the story of the small Scotch boy, when he asks leave of his parents to present the pious little book--a gift to himself from an aunt to a little sick friend, hoping probably that the friend's chastened condition will make him more lenient towards this mawkish form of literature. The parents expostulate, pointing out to their son how ungrateful he is, and how ungracious it would be to part with his aunt's gift. Then the boy can contain himself no longer. He bursts out, unconsciously expressing the normal attitude of children at a certain stage of development: "It's a _daft_ book ony way: there's naebody gets kilt ent. I like stories about folk gettin' their heids cut off, or there's nae wile beasts. I I like stories about black men gettin' ate up, an' white men killin' lions and tigers an' bears an'---" Then, again, we have the passage from George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss": "Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?" "Hurt me? No," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocketknife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added: "I gave Spooner a black eye--that's what he got for wanting to leather me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me." "Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at men, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?" "How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows." "No, but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa where it's very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it." "Well, I should get a gun and shoot him." "But if you hadn't a gun?--we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you do, Tom?" Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: "But the lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?" This passage illustrates also the difference between the highly- developed imagination of the one and the stodgy prosaical temperament of the other. Tom could enter into the elementary question of giving his schoolfellow a black eye, but could not possibly enter into the drama of the imaginary arrival of a lion. He was sorely in need of fairy stories. It is to this element we have to cater, and we cannot shirk our responsibilities. William James says: "Living things, moving things or things that savor of danger or blood, that have a dramatic quality, these are the things natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and the teacher of young children, until more artificial interests have grown up, will keep in touch with his pupils by constant appeal to such matters as these."[32] Of course the savor of danger and blood is only _one_ of the things to which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point clearer. This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for "blugginess" is slaked. And here I should like to say that, while wishing to encourage in children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine qualities which have been displayed in times of war and which have mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession as soldiers. Thus, we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sydney and the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his dead friends to receive the blessing of the Archbishop after the battle of Roncesvall;[33] and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England. There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of the slaughter of his enemies, and says, "I wonder if I am less base than others, because I kill men less willingly than they." And in the "Burning of Njal,"[34] we have the words of the boy, Thord, when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges him to go out of the burning house. "'You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I should never go from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you than live after you.'" Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown: none of these heroes feared to die in battle or in open single fight; but to face death by fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to the child. In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our soldiers and sailors, should we not try to offer also in our stories the romance and excitement of saving as well as taking life? I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures of the Lifeboat and the Fire Brigade, of which I shall present examples in the final story list. Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with death, especially with children who are of an age to realize that it must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories of death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and unselfishness; or of death coming as a result of treachery, such as we find in the death of Baldur, the death of Siegfried, and others, so that children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done, and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of a leaf from the tree. In this way, we can give children the first idea that the individual is so much less than the whole. Little children often take death very naturally. A boy of five met two of his older companions at the school door. They said sadly and solemnly: "We have just seen a dead man!" "Well," said the little philosopher, "that's all right. We've _all_ got to die when our work is done." In one of the Buddha stories which I reproduce at the end of this book, the little Hare (who is, I think, a symbol of nervous individualism) constantly says: "Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would become of me?" As an antidote to the ordinary attitude towards death, I commend an episode from a German folklore story which is called "Unlucky John," and which is included in the list of stories recommended at the end of this book. The following sums up in poetic form some of the material necessary for the wants of a child. THE CHILD The little new soul has come to earth, He has taken his staff for the pilgrim's way. His sandals are girt on his tender feet, And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may. What will you give to him, Fate Divine? What for his scrip on the winding road? A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath? A sword to wield, or is gold his load? What will you give him for weal or woe? What for the journey through day and night? Give or withhold from him power and fame, But give to him love of the earth's delight. Let him be lover of wind and sun And of falling rain; and the friend of trees; With a singing heart for the pride of noon, And a tender heart for what twilight sees. Let him be lover of you and yours-- The Child and Mary; but also Pan And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills, And the god that is hid in his fellowman. Love and a song and the joy of the earth, These be gifts for his scrip to keep Till, the journey ended, he stands at last In the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep. ETHEL CLIFFORD And so our stories should contain all the essentials for the child's scrip on the road of life, providing the essentials and holding or withholding the non-essentials. But, above all, let us fill the scrip with gifts that the child need never reject, even when he passes through to "the gate of sleep." CHAPTER V. HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY. We are now come to the most important part of the question of story- telling, to which all the foregoing remarks have been gradually leading, and that is the effect of these stories upon the child, quite apart from the dramatic joy he experiences in listening to them, which would in itself be quite enough to justify us in the telling. But, since I have urged the extreme importance of giving so much time to the manner of telling and of bestowing so much care in the selection of the material, it is right that we should expect some permanent results or else those who are not satisfied with the mere enjoyment of the children will seek other methods of appeal--it is to them that I most specially dedicate this chapter. I think we are of the threshold of the re-discovery of an old truth, that _dramatic presentation_ is the quickest and the surest method of appeal, because it is the only one with which memory plays no tricks. If a thing has appeared before us in a vital form nothing can really destroy it; it is because things are often given in a blurred, faint light that they gradually fade out of our memory. A very keen scientist was deploring to me, on one occasion, the fact that stories were told so much in the schools, to the detriment of science, for which he claimed the same indestructible element that I recognize in the best-told stories. Being very much interested in her point of view, I asked her to tell me, looking back on her school days, what she could remember as standing out from other less clear information. After thinking some little time over the matter, she said with some embarrassment, but with candor that did her much honor: "Well, now I come to think of it, it was the story of Cinderella." Now, I am not holding any brief for this story in particular. I think the reason it was remembered was because of the dramatic form in which it was presented to her, which fired her imagination and kept the memory alight. I quite realize that a scientific fact might also have been easily remembered if it had been presented in the form of a successful chemical experiment; but this also has something of the dramatic appeal and will be remembered on that account. Sully says: "We cannot understand the fascination of a story for children save in remembering that for their young minds, quick to imagine, and unversed in abstract reflection, words are not dead things but _winged_, as the old Greeks called them."[35] The _Red Queen_, in "Alice Through the Looking-Glass," was more psychological than she was aware of when she made the memorable statement: "When once you've _said_ a thing, that _fixes_ it, and you must take the consequences." In Curtin's "Introduction to Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians", he says: "I remember well the feeling roused in my mind at the mention or sight of the name _Lucifer_ during the early years of my life. It stood for me as the name of a being stupendous, dreadful in moral deformity, lurid, hideous and mighty. I remember the surprise with which, when I had grown somewhat older and began to study Latin, I came upon the name in Virgil where it means _light-bringer_--the herald of the Sun." Plato has said that "the end of education should be the training by suitable habits of the instincts of virtue in the child." About two thousand years later, Sir Philip Sydney, in his "Defence of Poesy," says: "The final end of learning is to draw and lead us to so high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of." And yet it is neither the Greek philosopher nor the Elizabethan poet that makes the everyday application of these principles; but we have a hint of this application from the Pueblo tribe of Indians, of whom Lummis tells us the following: "There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to be content with a bare command: do this. For each, he learns a fairy-tale designed to explain how children first came to know that it was right to 'do this,' and detailing the sad results that befall those who did otherwise. Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories of their people and who possess, in addition to good memory, a vivid imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and having prepared a feast for him, she and her little brood, who are curled up near her, await the fairy stories of the dreamer who after his feast and smoke entertains the company for hours." In modern times, the nurse, who is now receiving such complete training for her duties with children, should be ready to imitate the "dreamer" of the Indian tribe. I rejoice to find that regular instruction in story-telling is being given in many of the institutions where the nurses are trained. Some years ago there appeared a book by Dion Calthrop called "King Peter," which illustrates very fully the effect of story-telling. It is the account of the education of a young prince which is carried on at first by means of stories, and later he is taken out into the arena of life to show what is happening there--the dramatic appeal being always the means used to awaken his imagination. The fact that only _one_ story a year is told him prevents our seeing the effect from day to day, but the time matters little. We only need faith to believe that the growth, though slow, was sure. There is something of the same idea in the "Adventures of Telemachus," written by Fenelon for his royal pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy, but whereas Calthrop trusts to the results of indirect teaching by means of dramatic stories, Fenelon, on the contrary, makes use of the somewhat heavy, didactic method, so that one would think the attention of the young prince must have wandered at times; and I imagine Telemachus was in the same condition when he was addressed at such length by Mentor, who, being Minerva, though in disguise, should occasionally have displayed that sense of humor which must always temper true wisdom. Take, for instance the heavy reproof conveyed in the following passage: "Death and shipwreck are less dreadful than the pleasures that attack Virtue. . . . Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though nothing in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies utmost levity and without any precaution." And on another occasion, when Calypso hospitably provides clothes for the shipwrecked men, and Telemachus is handling a tunic of the finest wool and white as snow, with a vest of purple embroidered with gold, and displaying much pleasure in the magnificence of the clothes, Mentor addresses him in a severe voice, saying: "Are these, O Telemachus, the thoughts that ought to occupy the heart of the son of Ulysses? A young man who loves to dress vainly, as a woman does, is unworthy of wisdom or glory." I remember, as a school girl of thirteen, having to commit to memory several books of these adventures, so as to become familiar with the style. Far from being impressed by the wisdom of Mentor, I was simply bored, and wondered why Telemachus did not escape from him. The only part in the book that really interested me was Calypso's unrequited love for Telemachus, but this was always the point where we ceased to learn by heart, which surprised me greatly, for it was here that the real human interest seemed to begin. Of all the effects which I hope for from the telling of stories in the schools, I, personally, place first the dramatic joy we bring to the children and to ourselves. But there are many who would consider this result as fantastic, if not frivolous, and not to be classed among the educational values connected with the introduction of stories into the school curriculum. I, therefore, propose to speak of other effects of story-telling which may seem of more practical value. The first, which is of a purely negative character, is that through means of a dramatic story we may counteract some of the sights and sounds of the street which appeal to the melodramatic instinct in children. I am sure that all teachers whose work lies in crowded cities must have realized the effect produced on children by what they see and hear on their way to and from school. If we merely consider the bill boards with their realistic representations, quite apart from the actual dramatic happenings in the street, we at once perceive that the ordinary school interests pale before such lurid appeals as these. How can we expect the child who has stood openmouthed before a poster representing a woman chloroformed by a burglar (while that hero escapes in safety with jewels) to display any interest in the arid monotony of the multiplication table? The illegitimate excitement created by the sight of the depraved burglar can only be counteracted by something equally exciting along the realistic but legitimate side of appeal; and this is where the story of the right kind becomes so valuable, and why the teacher who is artistic enough to undertake the task can find the short path to results which theorists seek for so long in vain. It is not even necessary to have an exceedingly exciting story; sometimes one which will bring about pure reaction may be just as suitable. I remember in my personal experience an instance of this kind. I had been reading with some children of about ten years old the story from "Cymbeline" of _Imogen_ in the forest scene, when the brothers strew flowers upon her, and sing the funeral dirge, Fear no more the heat of the sun. Just as we had all taken on this tender, gentle mood, the door opened and one of the prefects announced in a loud voice the news of the relief of Mafeking. The children were on their feet at once, cheering lustily, and for the moment the joy over the relief of the brave garrison was the predominant feeling. Then, I took advantage of a momentary reaction and said: "Now, children, don't you think we can pay England the tribute of going back to England's greatest poet?" In a few minutes we were back in the heart of the forest, and I can still hear the delightful intonation of those subdued voices repeating, Golden lads and girls all must Like chimney-sweepers come to dust. It is interesting to note that the same problem that is exercising us today was a source of difficulty to people in remote times. The following is taken from an old Chinese document, and has particular interest for us at this time: "The philosopher, Mentius (born 371 B. C.), was left fatherless at a very tender age and brought up by his mother, Changsi. The care of this prudent and attentive mother has been cited as a model for all virtuous parents. The house she occupied was near that of a butcher; she observed at the first cry of the animals that were being slaughtered, the little Mentius ran to be present at the sight, and that, on his return, he sought to imitate what he had seen. Fearful lest his heart might become hardened, and accustomed to the sights of blood, she removed to another house which was in the neighborhood of a cemetery. The relations of those who were buried there came often to weep upon their graves, and make their customary libations. The lad soon took pleasure in their ceremonies and amused himself by imitating them. This was a new subject of uneasiness to his mother: she feared her son might come to consider as a jest what is of all things the most serious, and that he might acquire a habit of performing with levity, and as a matter of routine merely, ceremonies which demand the most exact attention and respect. Again, therefore, she anxiously changed the dwelling, and went to live in the city, opposite a school, where her son found examples the most worthy of imitation, and began to profit by them. This anecdote has become incorporated by the Chinese into a proverb, which they constantly quote: The mother of Mentius seeks a neighborhood." Another influence we have to counteract is that of newspaper headings and placards which catch the eye of children in the streets and appeal so powerfully to their imagination. Shakespeare has said: Tell me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? It is engendered in the eyes With gazing fed, And Fancy dies in the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring Fancy's knell. I'll begin it--ding, dong, bell. "Merchant of Venice." If this be true, it is of importance to decide what our children shall look upon as far as we can control the vision, so that we can form some idea of the effect upon their imagination. Having alluded to the dangerous influence of the street, I should hasten to say that this influence is very far from being altogether bad. There are possibilities of romance in street life which may have just the same kind of effect on children as the telling of exciting stories. I am indebted to Mrs. Arnold Glover, Honorary Secretary of the National Organization of Girls' Clubs,[36] one of the most widely informed people on this subject, for the two following experiences gathered from the streets and which bear indirectly on the subject of story-telling: Mrs. Glover was visiting a sick woman in a very poor neighborhood, and found, sitting on the door-step of the house, two little children, holding something tightly grasped in their little hands, and gazing with much expectancy towards the top of the street. She longed to know what they were doing, but not being one of those unimaginative and tactless folk who rush headlong into the mysteries of children's doings, she passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still in the same silent and expectant posture half an hour later that she said tentatively: "I wonder whether you would tell me what you are doing here?" After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy voice: "We're waitin' for the barrer." It then transpired that, once a week, a vegetable-and-flower-cart was driven through this particular street, on its way to a more prosperous neighborhood, and on a few red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell out of the back of the cart; and these two little children were sitting there in hope, with their hands full of soil, ready to plant anything which might by some golden chance fall that way, in their secret garden of oyster shells. This seems to me as charming a fairy tale as any that our books can supply. On another occasion, Mrs. Glover was collecting the pennies for the Holiday Fund Savings Bank from the children who came weekly to her house. She noticed on three consecutive Mondays that one little lad deliberately helped himself to a new envelope from her table. Not wishing to frighten or startle him, she allowed this to continue for some weeks, and then one day, having dismissed the other children, she asked him quite quietly why he was taking the envelopes. At first he was very sulky, and said: "I need them more than you do." She quite agreed this might be, but reminded him that, after all, they belonged to her. She promised, however, that if he would tell her for what purpose he wanted the envelopes, she would endeavor to help him in the matter. Then came the astonishing announcement: "I am building a navy." After a little more gradual questioning, Mrs. Glover drew from the boy the information that the Borough water carts passed through the side street once a week, flushing the gutter; that then the envelope ships were made to sail on the water and pass under the covered ways which formed bridges for wayfarers and tunnels for the "navy." Great was the excitement when the ships passed out of sight and were recognized as they arrived safely at the other end. Of course, the expenses in raw material were greatly diminished by the illicit acquisition of Mrs. Glover's property, and in this way she had unconsciously provided the neighborhood with a navy and a commander. Her first instinct, after becoming acquainted with the whole story, was to present the boy with a real boat, but on second thought she collected and gave him a number of old envelopes with names and addresses upon them, which added greatly to the excitement of the sailing, because they could be more easily identified as they came out of the other end of the tunnel, and had their respective reputations as to speed. Here is indeed food for romance, and I give both instances to prove that the advantages of street life are to be taken into consideration as well as the disadvantages, though I think we are bound to admit that the latter outweigh the former. One of the immediate results of dramatic stories is the escape from the commonplace, to which I have already alluded in quoting Mr. Goschen's words. The desire for this escape is a healthy one, common to adults and children. When we wish to get away from our own surroundings and interests, we do for ourselves what I maintain we ought to do for children: we step into the land of fiction. It has always been a source of astonishment to me that, in trying to escape from our own everyday surroundings, we do not step more boldly into the land of pure romance, which would form a real contrast to our everyday life, but, in nine cases out of ten, the fiction which is sought after deals with the subjects of our ordinary existence, namely, frenzied finance, sordid poverty, political corruption, fast society, and religious doubts. There is the same danger in the selection of fiction for children: namely, a tendency to choose very utilitarian stories, both in form and substance, so that we do not lift the children out of the commonplace. I remember once seeing the titles of two little books, the contents of which were being read or told to children; one was called, "Tom the Bootblack"; the other, "Dan the Newsboy." My chief objection to these stories was the fact that neither of the heroes rejoiced in his work for the work's sake. Had _Tom_ even invented a new kind of blacking, or if _Dan_ had started a newspaper, it might have been encouraging for those among the listeners who were thinking of engaging in similar professions. It is true, both gentlemen amassed large fortunes, but surely the school age is not to be limited to such dreams and aspirations as these! One wearies of the tales of boys who arrive in a town with one cent in their pocket and leave it as millionaires, with the added importance of a mayoralty. It is undoubtedly true that the romantic prototype of these worthy youths is _Dick Whittingon_, for whom we unconsciously cherish the affection which we often bestow on a far-off personage. Perhaps--who can say?--it is the picturesque adjunct of the cat, lacking to modern millionaires. I do not think it Utopian to present to children a fair share of stories which deal with the importance of things "untouched by hand." They, too, can learn at an early age that "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are spiritual." To those who wish to try the effect of such stories on children, I present for their encouragement the following lines from James Whitcomb Riley: THE TREASURE OF THE WISE MAN[37] Oh, the night was dark and the night was late, When the robbers came to rob him; And they picked the lock of his palace-gate, The robbers who came to rob him--; They picked the lock of the palace-gate, Seized his jewels and gems of State, His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,-- The robbers that came to rob him. But loud laughed he in the morning red!-- For of what had the robbers robbed him? Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed, When the robbers came to rob him,-- They robbed him not of a golden shred Of the childish dreams in his wise old head- "And they're welcome to all things else," he said, When the robbers came to rob him. There is a great deal of this romantic spirit, combined with a delightful sense of irresponsibility, which I claim above all things for small children, to be found in our old nursery rhymes. I quote from the following article written by the Rev. R. L. Gales for the _Nation_. After speaking on the subject of fairy stories being eliminated from the school curriculum, the writer adds: "This would be lessening the joy of the world and taking from generations yet unborn the capacity for wonder, the power to take a large unselfish interest in the spectacle of things, and putting them forever at the mercy of small private cares. "A nursery rhyme is the most sane, the most unselfish thing in the world. It calls up some delightful image--a little nut-tree with a silver walnut and a golden pear; some romantic adventure only for the child's delight and liberation from the bondage of unseeing dullness: it brings before the mind the quintessence of some good thing: "'The little dog laughed to see such sport'--there is the soul of good humor, of sanity, of health in the laughter of that innocently wicked little dog. It is the laughter of pure frolic without unkindness. To have laughed with the little dog as a child is the best preservative against mirthless laughter in later years--the horse laughter of brutality, the ugly laughter of spite, the acrid laughter of fanaticism. The world of nursery rhymes, the old world of Mrs. Slipper-Slopper, is the world of natural things, of quick, healthy motion, of the joy of living. "In nursery rhymes the child is entertained with all the pageant of the world. It walks in fairy gardens, and for it the singing birds pass. All the King's horses and all the King's men pass before it in their glorious array. Craftsmen of all sorts, bakers, confectioners, silversmiths, blacksmiths are busy for it with all their arts and mysteries, as at the court of an eastern King." In insisting upon the value of this escape from the commonplace, I cannot prove the importance of it more clearly than by showing what may happen to a child who is deprived of his birthright by having none of the fairy tale element presented to him. In "Father and Son," Mr. Edmund Gosse says: "Meanwhile, capable as I was of reading, I found my greatest pleasure in the pages of books. The range of these was limited, for storybooks of every description were sternly excluded. No fiction of any kind, religious or secular, was admitted into the house. In this it was to my Mother, not to my Father, that the prohibition was due. She had a remarkable, I confess, to me somewhat unaccountable impression that to 'tell a story,' that is, to compose fictitious narrative of any king, was a sin. . . . Nor would she read the chivalrous tales in the verse of Sir Walter Scott, obstinately alleging that they were not true. She would nothing but lyrical and subjective poetry. As a child, however, she had possessed a passion for making up stories, and so considerable a skill in it, that she was constantly being begged to indulge others with its exercise. . . . 'When I was a very little child,' she says, 'I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, I suppose, a naturally restless mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore, a Calvinistic governess, finding it out, lectured me severely and told me it was wicked. From that time forth, I considered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin. . . . But the longing to do so grew with violence. . . . The simplicity of Truth was not enough for me. I must needs embroider imagination upon it, and the vanity and wickedness which disgraced my heart are more than I am able to express.' This [the author, her son, adds] is surely a very painful instance of the repression of an instinct." In contrast to the stifling of the imagination, it is good to recall the story of the great Hermite who, having listened to the discussion of the Monday sitting at the Academie des Sciences (Insitut de France) as to the best way to teach the "young idea how to shoot" in the direction of mathematical genius, said: "_Cultivez l'imagination, messieurs. Tout est La. Si vous voulez des mathematiciens, donnez a vos enfants a; lire--des Contes de Fees._" Another important effect of the story is to develop at an early age sympathy for children of other countries where conditions are different from our own. I have so constantly to deal with the question of confusion between truth and fiction in the minds of children that it might be useful to offer here an example of the way they make the distinction for themselves. Mrs. Ewing says on this subject: "If there are young intellects so imperfect as to be incapable of distinguishing between fancy and falsehood, it is most desirable to develop in them the power to do so, but, as a rule, in childhood, we appreciate the distinction with a vivacity which as elders our care- clogged memories fail to recall." Mr. P. A. Barnett, in his book on the "Common-sense of Education," says, alluding to fairy-tales: "Children will _act_ them but not act _upon_ them, and they will not accept the incidents as part of their effectual belief. They will imagine, to be sure, grotesque worlds, full of admirable and interesting personages to whom strange things might have happened. So much the better: this largeness of imagination is one of the possessions that distinguish the better nurtured child from others less fortunate." The following passage from Stevenson's essay on _"Child Play"_[38] will furnish an instance of children's aptitude for creating their own dramatic atmosphere: "When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a device to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with milk, and explained it to be country suffering gradual inundation. You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and traveled on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew furious as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and grew smaller every moment; and how, in fine, the food was of altogether secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we seasoned it with these dreams. But perhaps the most exciting moments I ever had over a meal were in the case of calf's foot jelly. It was hardly possible not to believe--and you may be quite sure, so far from trying, I did all I could to favor the illusion--that some part of it was hollow and that sooner or later my spoon would lay open the secret tabernacle of the golden rock. There, might some _Red-Beard_ await his hour; there might one find the treasures of the Forty Thieves. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savoring the interest. Believe me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and though I preferred the taste when I tool cream with it, I used often to go without because the cream dimmed the transparent fractures." In his work on "Imagination," Ribot says: "The free initiative of children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make for them." The passage from Robert Louis Stevenson becomes more clear from a scientific point of view when taken in connection with one from Karl Groos' book on the "Psychology of Animal Play": "The child is wholly absorbed in his play, and yet under the ebb and flow of thought and feeling like still water under wind-swept waves, he has the knowledge that it is pretense after all. Behind the sham 'I' that takes part in the game, stands the unchanged 'I' which regards the sham 'I' with quiet superiority." Queyrat speaks of play as one of the distinct phases of a child's imagination; it is "essentially a metamorphosis of reality, a transformation of places and things." Now to return to the point which Mrs. Ewing makes, namely, that we should develop in normal children the power of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. I should suggest including two or three stories which would test that power in children, and if they fail to realize the difference between romancing and telling lies, then it is evident that they need special attention and help along this line. I give the titles of two stories of this kind in the collection at the end of the book.[39] Thus far we have dealt only with the negative results of stories, but there are more important effects, and I am persuaded that if we are careful in our choice of stories, and artistic in our presentation, so that the truth is framed, so to speak, in the memory, we can unconsciously correct evil tendencies in children which they recognize in themselves only when they have already criticized them in the characters of the story. I have sometimes been misunderstood on this point, and, therefore, I should like to make it quite clear. I do _not_ mean that stories should take the place entirely of moral or direct teaching, but that on many occasions they could supplement and strengthen moral teaching, because the dramatic appeal to the imagination is quicker than the moral appeal to the conscience. A child will often resist the latter lest it should make him uncomfortable or appeal to his personal sense of responsibility: it is often not in his power to resist the former, because it has taken possession of him before he is aware of it. As a concrete example, I offer three verses from a poem entitled, "A Ballad for a Boy," written some twelve years ago by W. Cory, an Eton master. The whole poem is to be found in a book of poems known as "Ionica."[40] The poem describes a fight between two ships, the French ship, _Temeraire_, and the English ship, _Quebec_. The English ship was destroyed by fire; Farmer, the captain, was killed, and the officers take prisoners: They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead, And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head. Then spoke the French lieutenant: "'Twas the fire that won, not we. You never struck your flag to _us_; You'll go to England free."[41] 'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred seventy-nine, A year when nations ventured against us to combine, _Quebec_ was burned and Farmer slain, by us remembered not; But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot. And you, if you've got to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mind Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind; Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest, And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest. But in all our stories, in order to produce desired effects we must refrain from holding, as Burroughs says, "a brief for either side," and we must let the people in the story be judged by their deeds and leave the decision of the children free in this matter.[42] In a review of Ladd's "Psychology" in the _Academy_, we find a passage which refers as much to the story as to the novel: "The psychological novelist girds up his loins and sets himself to write little essays on each of his characters. If he have the gift of the thing he may analyze motives with a subtlety which is more than their desert, and exhibit simple folk passing through the most dazzling rotations. If he be a novice, he is reduced to mere crude invention--the result in both cases is quite beyond the true purpose of Art. Art--when all is said and done--a suggestion, and it refuses to be explained. Make it obvious, unfold it in detail, and you reduce it to a dead letter." Again, there is a sentence by Schopenhauer applied to novels which would apply equally well to stories: "Skill consists in setting the inner life in motion with the smallest possible array of circumstances, for it is this inner life that excites our interest." In order to produce an encouraging and lasting effect by means of our stories, we should be careful to introduce a certain number from fiction where virtue is rewarded and vice punished, because to appreciate the fact that "virtue is its own reward" it takes a developed and philosophic mind, or a born saint, of whom there will not, I think, be many among normal children: a comforting fact, on the whole, as the normal teacher is apt to confuse them with prigs. A grande dame visiting an elementary school listened to the telling of an exciting story from fiction, and was impressed by the thrill of delight which passed through the children. But when the story was finished, she said: "But _oh!_ what a pity the story was not taken from actual history!" Now, not only was this comment quite beside the mark, but the lady in question did not realize that pure fiction has one quality which history cannot have. The historian, bound by fact and accuracy, must often let his hero come to grief. The poet (or, in this case we may call him, in the Greek sense, the "maker" of stories) strives to show _ideal_ justice. What encouragement to virtue, except for the abnormal child, can be offered by the stories of good men coming to grief, such as we find Miltiades, Phocion, Socrates, Severus, Cicero, Cato and Caesar? Sir Philip Sydney says in his "Defence of Poesy": "Only the poet declining to be held by the limitations of the lawyer, the _historian_, the grammarian, the rhetorician, the logician, the physician, the metaphysician is lifted up with the vigor of his own imagination; doth grow in effect into another nature in making things either better than Nature bringeth forth or quite anew, as the Heroes, Demi-gods, Cyclops, Furies and such like so as he goeth hand- in-hand with Nature, not inclosed in the narrow range of her gifts but freely ranging within the Zodiac of his own art--_her_ world is brazen; the poet only delivers a golden one." The effect of the story need not stop at the negative task of correcting evil tendencies. There is the positive effect of translating the abstract ideal of the story into concrete action. I was told by Lady Henry Somerset that when the first set of children came down from London for a fortnight's holiday in the country, she was much startled and shocked by the obscenity of the games they played amongst themselves. Being a sound psychologist, Lady Henry wisely refrained from appearing surprised or from attempting any direct method of reproof. "I saw," she said, "that the 'goody' element would have no effect, so I changed the whole atmosphere by reading to them or telling them the most thrilling medieval tales without any commentary. By the end of the fortnight the activities had all changed. The boys were performing astonishing deeds of prowess, and the girls were allowing themselves to be rescued from burning towers and fetid dungeons." Now, if these deeds of chivalry appear somewhat stilted to us, we can at least realize that, having changed the whole atmosphere of the filthy games, it is easier to translate the deeds into something a little more in accordance with the spirit of the age, and boys will more readily wish later on to save their sisters from dangers more sordid and commonplace than fiery towers and dark dungeons, if they have once performed the deeds in which they had to court danger and self-sacrifice for themselves. And now we come to the question as to how these effects are to be maintained. In what has already been stated as to the danger of introducing the dogmatic and direct appeal into the story, it is evident that the avoidance of this element is the first means of preserving the story in all its artistic force in the memory of the child. We must be careful, as I point out in the chapter on Questions, not to interfere by comment or question with the atmosphere we have made round the story, or else, in the future, that story will become blurred and overlaid with the remembrance, not of the artistic whole, as presented by the teller of the story, but by some unimportant small side issue raised by an irrelevant question or a superfluous comment. Many people think that the dramatization of the story by the children themselves helps to maintain the effect produced. Personally, I fear there is the same danger as in the immediate reproduction of the story, but by some unimportant small side issue raised by an irrelevant question or a superfluous comment. Many people think that the dramatization of the story by the children themselves helps to maintain the effect produced. Personally, I fear there is the same danger as in the immediate reproduction of the story, namely, that the general dramatic effect may be weakened. If, however, there is to be dramatization (and I do not wish to dogmatize on the subject), I think it should be confined to facts and not fancies, and this is why I realize the futility of the dramatization of fairy tales. Horace E. Scudder says on this subject: "Nothing has done more to vulgarize the fairy than its introduction on the stage. The charm of the fairy tale is its divorce from human experience: the charm of the stage is its realization in miniature of human life. If a frog is heard to speak, if a dog is changed before our eyes into a prince by having cold water dashed over it, the charm of the fairy tale has fled, and, in its place, we have the perplexing pleasure of _legerdemain_. Since the real life of a fairy is in the imagination, a wrong is committed when it is dragged from its shadowy hiding-place and made to turn into ashes under the calcium light of the understanding."[43] I am bound to admit that the teachers have a case when they plead for this reproducing of the story, and there are three arguments they use the validity of which I admit, but which have nevertheless not converted me, because the loss, to my mind, would exceed the gain. The first argument they put forward is that the reproduction of the story enables the child to enlarge and improve his vocabulary. Now I greatly sympathize with this point of view, but, as I regard the story hour as a very precious and special one, which I think may have a lasting effect on the character of a child, I do not think it important that, during this hour, a child should be called upon to improve his vocabulary at the expense of the dramatic whole, and at the expense of the literary form in which the story has been presented. It would be like using the Bible for parsing or paraphrase or pronunciation. So far, I believe, the line has been drawn here, though there are blasphemers who have laid impious hands on Milton or Shakespeare for this purpose. There are surely other lessons, as I have already said in dealing with the reproduction of the story quite apart from the dramatization, lessons more utilitarian in character, which can be used for this purpose: the facts of history (I mean the mere facts as compared with the deep truths), and those of geography. Above all, the grammar lessons are those in which the vocabulary can be enlarged and improved. But I am anxious to keep the story hour apart as dedicated to something higher than these excellent but utilitarian considerations. The second argument used by the teachers is the joy felt by the children in being allowed to dramatize the stories. This, too, appeals very strongly to me, but there is a means of satisfying their desire and yet protecting the dramatic whole, and that is occasionally to allow children to act out their own dramatic inventions; this, to my mind, has great educational significance: it is original and creative work and, apart from the joy of the immediate performance, there is the interesting process of comparison which can be presented to the children, showing them the difference between their elementary attempts and the finished product of the experienced artist. This difference they can be led to recognize by their own powers of observation if the teachers are not in too great a hurry to point it out themselves. Here is a short original story, quoted by the French psychologist, Queyrat, in his "Jeux de l'Enfance," written by a child of five: "One day I went to sea in a life-boat--all at once I saw an enormous whale, and I jumped out of the boat to catch him, but he was so big that I climbed on his back and rode astride, and all the little fishes laughed to see." Here is a complete and exciting drama, making a wonderful picture and teeming with adventure. We could scarcely offer anything to so small a child for reproduction that would be a greater stimulus to the imagination. Here is another, offered by Loti, but the age of the child is not given: "Once upon a time a little girl out in the Colonies cut open a huge melon, and out popped a green beast and stung her, and the little child died." Loti adds: "The phrases 'out in the Colonies' and 'a huge melon' were enough to plunge me suddenly into a dream. As by an apparition, I beheld tropical trees, forests alive with marvelous birds. Oh! the simple magic of the words 'the Colonies'! In my childhood they stood for a multitude of distant sun-scorched countries, with their palm-trees, their enormous flowers, their black natives, their wild beasts, their endless possibilities of adventure." I quote this in full because it shows so clearly the magic force of words to evoke pictures, without any material representation. It is just the opposite effect of the pictures presented to the bodily eye without the splendid educational opportunity for the child to form his own mental image. I am more and more convinced that the rare power of visualization is accounted for by the lack of mental practice afforded along these lines. The third argument used by teachers in favor of the dramatization of the stories is that it is a means of discovering how much the child has really learned from the story. Now this argument makes absolutely no appeal to me. My experience, in the first place, has taught me that a child very seldom gives out any account of a deep impression made upon him: it is too sacred and personal. But he very soon learns to know what is expected of him, and he keeps a set of stock sentences which he has found out are acceptable to the teacher. How can we possibly gauge the deep effects of a story in this way, or how can a child, by acting out a story, describe the subtle elements which one has tried to introduce? One might as well try to show with a pint measure how the sun and rain have affected a plant, instead of rejoicing in the beauty of the sure, if slow, growth. Then, again, why are we in such a hurry to find out what effects have been produced by our stories? Does it matter whether we know today or tomorrow how much a child has understood? For my part, so sure do I feel of the effect that I am willing to wait indefinitely. Only, I must make sure that the first presentation is truly dramatic and artistic. The teachers of general subjects have a much easier and more simple task. Those who teach science, mathematics, even, to a certain extent, history and literature, are able to gauge with a fair amount of accuracy by means of examination what their pupils have learned. The teaching carried on by means of stories can never be gauged in the same manner. Carlyle has said: "Of this thing be certain: wouldst thou plant for Eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his Fantasy and Heart. Wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmetical understanding, what will grow there."[44] If we use this marvelous art of story-telling in the way I have tried to show, then the children who have been confided to our care will one day be able to bring _us_ the tribute which Bjornson brought to Hans Christian Andersen: Wings you gave to my Imagination, Me uplifting to the strange and great; Gave my heart the poet's revelation, Glorifying things of low estate. When my child-soul hungered all-unknowing, With great truths its need you satisfied: Now, a world-worn man, to you is owing That the child in me has never died. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY EMILIE POULSON. CHAPTER VII. QUESTIONS ASKED BY TEACHERS. The following questions have been put to me so often by teachers, in my own country and in America, that I have thought it might be useful to give in my book some of the attempts I have made to answer them; and I wish to record here an expression of gratitude to the teachers who have asked these questions at the close of my lectures. It has enabled me to formulate my views on the subject and to clear up, by means of research and thought, the reason for certain things which I had more or less taken for granted. It has also constantly modified my own point of view, and has prevented me from becoming too dogmatic in dealing with other people's methods. QUESTION I: _Why do I consider it necessary to spend so many years on the art of story-telling, which takes in, after all, such a restricted portion of literature?_ Just in the same way that an actor thinks it worth while to go through so many years' training to fit him for the stage, although dramatic literature is also only one branch of general literature. The region of storyland is the legitimate stage for children. They crave drama as we do, and because there are comparatively few good story-tellers, children do not have their dramatic needs satisfied. What is the result? We either take them to dramatic performances for grown-up people, or we have children's theaters where the pieces, charming as they may be, are of necessity deprived of the essential elements which constitute a drama--or they are shriveled up to suit the capacity of the child. Therefore, it would seem wiser, while the children are quite young, to keep them to the simple presentation of stories, because with their imagination keener at that period, they have the delight of the inner vision and they do not need, as we do, the artificial stimulus provided by the machinery of the stage. QUESTION II: _What is to be done if a child asks you: "Is the story true?"_ I hope I shall be considered Utopian in my ideas if a say that it is quite easy, even with small children, to teach them that the seeing of truth is a relative matter which depends on the eyes of the seer. If we were not afraid to tell our children that all through life there are grown-up people who do not see things that others see, their own difficulties would be helped. In his "Imagination Creatrice," Queyrat says: "To get down into the recesses of a child's mind, one would have to become even as he is; we are reduced to interpreting that child in the terms of an adult. The children we observe live and grow in a civilized community, and the result of this is that the development of their imagination is rarely free or complete, for as soon as it rises beyond the average level, the rationalistic education of parents and schoolmasters at once endeavors to curb it. It is restrained in its flight by an antagonistic power which treats it as a kind of incipient madness." It is quite easy to show children that if one keeps things where they belong, they are true with regard to each other, but that if one drags these things out of the shadowy atmosphere of the "make-believe," and forces them into the land of actual facts, the whole thing is out of gear. To take a concrete example: The arrival of the coach made from a pumpkin and driven by mice is entirely in harmony with the _Cinderella_ surroundings, and I have never heard one child raise any question of the difficulty of traveling in such a coach or of the uncertainty of mice in drawing it. But, suggest to the child that this diminutive vehicle could be driven among the cars of Broadway, or amongst the motor omnibuses in the Strand, and you would bring confusion at once into his mind. Having once grasped this, the children will lose the idea that fairy stories are just for them, and not for their elders, and from this they will go on to see that it is the child-like mind of the poet and seer that continues to appreciate these things; that it is the dull, heavy person whose eyes so soon become dim and unable to see any more the visions which were once his own. In his essay on "Poetry and Life" (Glasgow, 1889), Professor Bradley says: "It is the effect of poetry, not only by expressing emotion but in other ways also, to bring life into the dead mass of our experience, and to make the world significant." This applies to children as well as to adults. There may come to the child in the story hour, by some stirring poem or dramatic narration, a sudden flash of the possibilities of life which he had not hitherto realized in the even course of school experience. "Poetry," says Professor Bradley, "is a way of representing truth; but there is in it, as its detractors have always insisted, a certain untruth or illusion. We need not deny this, so long as we remember that the illusion is conscious, that no one wishes to deceive, and that no one is deceived. But it would be better to say that poetry is false to literal fact for the sake of obtaining a higher truth. First, in order to represent the connection between a more significant part of experience and a less significant, poetry, instead of linking them together by a chain which touches one by one the intermediate objects that connect them, leaps from one to the other. It thus falls at once into conflict with common-sense." Now, the whole of this passage bears as much on the question of the truth embodied in a fairy tale as a poem, and it would be interesting to take some of these tales and try to discover where they are false to actual fact for the sake of a higher truth. Let us take, for instance, the Story of Cinderella: The coach and pumpkins to which I have alluded and all the magic part of the story, are false to actual facts as we meet them in our every life; but is it not a higher truth that _Cinderella_ could escape from her chimney corner by thinking of the brightness outside? In this sense we all travel in pumpkin coaches. Take the Story of Psyche, in any one of the many forms it is presented to us in folk-story. The magic transformation of the lover is false to actual fact; but is it not a higher truth that we are often transformed by circumstance, and that love and courage can overcome most difficulties? Take the Story of the Three Bears. It is not in accordance with established fact that bears should extend hospitality to children who invade their territory. Is it not true in a higher sense that fearlessness often lessens or averts danger? Take the Story of Jack and the Bean Stalk. The rapid growth of the bean stalk and the encounter with the giant are false to literal fact; but is it not a higher truth that the spirit of courage and high adventure leads us straight out of the commonplace and often sordid facts of life? Now, all these considerations are too subtle for the child, and, if offered in explanation, would destroy the excitement and interest of the story; but they are good for those of us who are presenting such stories: they provide not only an argument against the objection raised by unimaginative people as to the futility, if not immorality, of presenting these primitive tales, but clear up our own doubt and justify us in the use of them, if we need such justification. For myself, I am perfectly satisfied that, being part of the history of primitive people, it would be foolish to ignore them from an evolutionary point of view, which constitutes their chief importance; and it is only from the point of view of expediency that I mention the potential truths they contain. QUESTION III: _What are you to do if a child says he does not like fairy tales_? This is not an uncommon case. What we have first to determine, under these circumstances, is whether this dislike springs from a stolid, prosaic nature, whether it springs from a real inability to visualize such pictures as the fairy or marvelous element in the story present, or whether (and this is often the real reason) it is from a fear of being asked to believe what his judgment resents as untrue, or whether he thinks it is "grown-up" to reject such pleasure as unworthy of his years. In the first case, it is wise to persevere, in hopes of developing the dormant imagination. If the child resents the apparent want of truth we can teach him how many-sided truth is, as I suggested in my answer to the first question. In the other cases, we must try to make it clear that the delight he may venture to take now will increase, not decrease, with years; that the more one brings _to_ a thing, in the way of experience and knowledge, the more one will draw _out_ of it. Let us take as a concrete example the question of Santa Claus. This joy has almost disappeared, for we have torn away the last shred of mystery about the personage by allowing him to be materialized in the Christmas shops and bazaars. But the original myth need never have disappeared; the link could easily have been kept by gradually telling the child that the Santa Claus they worshiped as a mysterious and invisible power is nothing but the spirit of charity and kindness that makes us remember others, and that this spirit often takes the form of material gifts. We can also lead them a step higher and show them that this spirit of kindness can do more than provide material things; so that the old nursery tale has laid a beautiful foundation which need never be pulled up: we can build upon it and add to it all through our lives. Is not _one_ of the reasons that children reject fairy tales this, that such very _poor_ material is offered them? There is a dreary flatness about all except the very best which revolts the child of literary appreciation and would fail to strike a spark in the more prosaic. QUESTION IV: _Do I recommend learning a story by heart, or telling it in one's own words_? This would largely depend on the kind of story. If the style is classic or if the interest of the story is closely connected with the style, as in Andersen, Kipling or Stevenson, then it is better to commit it absolutely to memory. But if this process should take too long (I mean for those who cannot afford the time to specialize), or if it produces a stilted effect, then it is wiser to read the story many times over, let it soak in, taking notes of certain passages which would add to the dramatic interest of the story, and not trouble about the word accuracy of the whole. For instance, for very young children the story of _Pandora_, as told in the "Wonder-Book" could be shortened so as to leave principally the dramatic dialogue between the two children, which could be easily committed to memory by the narrator and would appeal most directly to the children. Or for older children: in taking a beautiful medieval story such as "Our Lady's Tumbler," retold by Wickstead, the original text could hardly be presented so as to hold an audience; but while giving up a great deal of the elaborate material, we should try to present many of the characteristic passages which seem to sum up the situation. For instance, before his performance, the _Tumbler_ cries: "What am I doing? For there is none here so caitiff but who vies with all the rest in serving God after his trade." And after his act of devotion: "Lady, this is a choice performance. I do it for no other but for you; so aid me God, I do not--for you and for your Son. And this I dare avouch and boast, that for me it is no play-work. But I am serving you, and that pays me." On the other hand, there are some very gifted narrators who can only tell the story in their own words. I consider that both methods are necessary to the all-round story-teller. QUESTION V: _How do I set about preparing a story_? Here again the preparation depends a great deal on the kind of story: whether it has to be committed to memory or rearranged to suit a certain age of child, or told entirely in one's own words. But there is one kind of preparation which is the same for any story, that is, living with it for a long time, until one has really obtained the right atmosphere, especially in the case of inanimate objects. This is where Hans Christian Andersen reigns supreme. Horace Scudder says of him: "By some transmigration, souls have passed into tin soldiers, balls, tops, money-pigs, coins, shoes and even such attenuated things as darning-needles, and when, informing these apparent dead and stupid bodies, they begin to make manifestations, it is always in perfect consistency with the ordinary conditions of the bodies they occupy, though the several objects become, by the endowment of souls, suddenly expanded in their capacity."[45] Now, my test of being ready with such stories is whether I have ceased to look upon such objects _as_ inanimate. Let us take some of those quoted from Andersen. First, the _Tin Soldier_. To me, since I have lived in the story, he is a real live hero, holding his own with some of the bravest fighting heroes in history or fiction. As for his being merely of tin, I entirely forget it, except when I realize against what odds he fights, or when I stop to admire the wonderful way Andersen carries out his simile of the old tin spoon--the stiffness of the musket, and the tears of tin. Take the _Top_ and the _Ball_, and, except for the delightful way they discuss the respective merits of cork and mahogany in their ancestors, you would completely forget that they are not real human beings with the live passions and frailties common to youth. As for the _Beetle_--who ever thinks of him as a mere entomological specimen? Is he not the symbol of the self-satisfied traveler who learns nothing en route but the importance of his own personality? And the _Darning-Needle_? It is impossible to divorce human interest from the ambition of this little piece of steel. And this same method applied to the preparation of any shows that one can sometimes rise from the role of mere interpreter to that of creator--that is to say, the objects live afresh for you in response to the appeal you make in recognizing their possibilities of vitality. As a mere practical suggestion, I would advise that, as soon as one has overcome the difficulties of the text (if actually learning by heart, there is nothing but the drudgery of constant repetition), and as one begins to work the story into true dramatic form, always say the words aloud, and many times aloud, before trying them even on one person. More suggestions come to one in the way of effects from hearing the sounds of the words, and more complete mental pictures, in this way than any other--it is a sort of testing period, the results of which may or may not have to be modified when produced in public. In case of committing to memory, I advise word perfection first, not trying dramatic effects before this is reached; but, on the other hand, if you are using your own words, you can think out the effects as you go along--I mean, during the preparation. Gestures, pauses, facial expression often help to fix the choice of words one decides to use, though here again the public performance will often modify the result. I strongly advise that all gestures be studied before the glass, because this most faithfully recording friend, whose sincerity we dare not question, will prevent glaring errors, and also help by the correction of these to more satisfactory results along positive lines. If your gesture does not satisfy you (and practice will make one more and more critical), it is generally because you have not made sufficient allowance for the power of imagination in your audience. Emphasis in gesture is just as inartistic--and therefore ineffective--as emphasis in tone or language. Before deciding, however, either on the facial expression or gesture, we must consider the chief characters in the story, and study how we can best--_not_ present them, but allow them to present themselves, which is a very different thing. The greatest tribute which can be paid to a story-teller, as to an actor, is that his own personality is temporarily forgotten, because he has so completely identified himself with his role. When we have decided what the chief characters really mean to do, we can let ourselves go in the impersonation. I shall now take a story as a concrete example, namely, the Buddhist legend of the "Lion and the Hare."[46] We have here the _Lion_ and the _Hare_ as types--the other animals are less individual and therefore display less salient qualities. The little hare's chief characteristics are nervousness, fussiness, and misdirected imagination. We must bear this all in mind when she appears on the stage--fortunately these characteristics lend themselves easily to dramatic representation. The _Lion_ is not only large-hearted but broad-minded. It is good to have an opportunity of presenting to the children a lion who has other qualities than physical beauty or extraordinary strength (here again there will lurk the danger of alarming the nature students). He is even more interesting than the magnanimous lion whom we have sometimes been privileged to meet in fiction. Of course we grown-up people know that the _Lion_ is the Buddha in disguise. Children will not be able to realize this, nor is it the least necessary that they should do so; but they will grasp the idea that he is a very unusual lion, not to be met with in Paul Du Chaillu's adventures, still less in the quasi-domestic atmosphere of the Zoological Gardens. If our presentation is life-like and sincere, we shall convey all we intend to the child. This is part of what I call the atmosphere of the story, which, as in a photograph, can only be obtained by long exposure, that is to say, in the case of preparation we must bestow much reflection and sympathy. Because these two animals are the chief characters, they must be painted in fainter colors--they should be suggested rather than presented in detail. It might be well to give a definite gesture to the _Elephant_--say, a characteristic movement with his trunk--a scowl to the _Tiger_, a supercilious and enigmatic smile to the _Camel_ (suggested by Kipling's wonderful creation). But if a gesture were given to each of the animals, the effect would become monotonous, and the minor characters would crowd the foreground of the picture, impeding the action and leaving little to the imagination of the audience. I personally have found it effective to repeat the gestures of these animals as they are leaving the stage, but less markedly, as it is only a form of reminder. Now, what is the impression we wish to leave on the mind of the child, apart from the dramatic joy and interest we have endeavored to provide? Surely it is that he may realize the danger of a panic. One method of doing this (alas! a favorite one still) is to say at the end of the story: "Now, children, what do we learn from this?" Of this method Lord Morley has said: "It is a commonplace to the wise, and an everlasting puzzle to the foolish, that direct inculcation of morals should invariably prove so powerless an instrument, so futile a method." If this direct method were really effective, we might as well put the little drama aside, and say plainly: "It is foolish to be nervous; it is dangerous to make loose statements. Large-minded people understand things better than those who are narrow-minded." All these abstract statements would be as true and as tiresome as the multiplication table. The child might or might not fix them in his mind, but he would not act upon them. But, put all the artistic warmth of which you are capable into the presentation of the story, and, without one word of comment from you, the children will feel the dramatic intensity of that vast concourse of animals brought together by the feeble utterance of one irresponsible little hare. Let them feel the dignity and calm of the _Lion_, which accounts for his authority; his tender but firm treatment of the foolish little _Hare_; and listen to the glorious finale when all the animals retire convinced of their folly; and you will find that you have adopted the same method as the _Lion_ (who must have been an unconscious follower of Froebel), and that there is nothing to add to the picture. QUESTION VI: _Is it wise to talk over a story with children and to encourage them in the habit of asking questions about it_? At the time, no! The effect produced is to be by dramatic means, and this would be destroyed any attempt at analysis by means of questions. The medium that has been used in the telling of the story is (or ought to be) a purely artistic one which will reach the child through the medium of the emotions: the appeal to the intellect or the reason is a different method, which must be used at a different time. When you are enjoying the fragrance of a flower or the beauty of its color, it is not the moment to be reminded of its botanical classification, just as in the botany lesson it would be somewhat irrelevant to talk of the part that flowers play in the happiness of life. From a practical point of view, it is not wise to encourage questions on the part of the children, because they are apt to disturb the atmosphere by bringing in entirely irrelevant matter, so that in looking back on the telling of the story, the child often remembers the irrelevant conversation to the exclusion of the dramatic interest of the story itself.[47] I remember once making what I considered at the time a most effective appeal to some children who had been listening to the Story of the Little Tin Soldier, and, unable to refrain from the cheap method of questioning, of which I have now recognized the futility, I asked: "Don't you think it was nice of the little dancer to rush down into the fire to join the brave little soldier?" "Well," said a prosaic little lad of six: "_I_ thought the draught carried her down." QUESTION VII: _Is it wise to call upon children to repeat the story as soon as it has been told_? My answer here is decidedly in the negative. While fully appreciating the modern idea of children expressing themselves, I very much deprecate this so-called self-expression taking the form of mere reproduction. I have dealt with this matter in detail in another portion of my book. This is one of the occasions when children should be taking in, not giving out (even the most fanatic of moderns must agree that there _are_ such moments). When, after much careful preparation, an expert has told a story to the best of his ability, to encourage the children to reproduce this story with their imperfect vocabulary and with no special gift of speech (I am always alluding to the normal group of children) is as futile as if, after the performance of a musical piece by a great artist, some individual member of the audience were to be called upon to give _his_ rendering of the original rendering. The result would be that the musical joy of the audience would be completely destroyed and the performer himself would share in the loss.[48] I have always maintained that five minutes of complete silence after the story would do more to fix the impression on the mind of the child than any amount of attempt at reproducing it. The general statement made in Dr. Montessor's wonderful chapter on "Silence" would seem to me of special application to the moments following on the telling of a story. QUESTION VIII: _Should children be encouraged to illustrate the stories which they have heard_? As a dramatic interest to the teachers and the children, I think it is a very praiseworthy experiment, if used somewhat sparingly. But I seriously doubt whether these illustrations in any way indicate the impression made on the mind of the child. It is the same question that arises when that child is called upon, or expresses a wish, to reproduce the story in his own words: the unfamiliar medium in both instances makes it almost impossible for the child to convey his meaning, unless he is an artist in the one case or he has real literary power of expression in the other. My own impression, confirmed by many teachers who have made the experiment, is that a certain amount of disappointment is mixed up with the daring joy in the attempt, simply because the children can get nowhere near the ideal which has presented itself to the "inner eye." I remember a kindergarten teacher saying that on one occasion, when she had told to the class a thrilling story of a knight, one of the children immediately asked for permission to draw a picture of him on the blackboard. So spontaneous a request could not, of course, be refused, and, full of assurance, the would-be artist began to give his impression of the knight's appearance. When the picture was finished, the child stood back for a moment to judge for himself of the result. He put down the chalk and said sadly: "And I _thought_ he was so handsome." Nevertheless, except for the drawback of the other children seeing a picture which might be inferior to their own mental vision, I should quite approve of such experiments, as long as they are not taken as literal data of what the children have really received. It would, however, be better not to have the picture drawn on a blackboard but at the child's private desk, to be seen by the teacher and not, unless the picture were exceptionally good, to be shown to the other children. One of the best effects of such an experiment would be to show a child how difficult it is to give the impression one wishes to record, and which would enable him later on to appreciate the beauty of such work in the hands of a finished artist. I can anticipate the jeers with which such remarks would be received by the Futurist School, but, according to their own theory, I ought to be allowed to express the matter _as I see it_, however faulty the vision may appear to them.[49] QUESTION IX: _In what way can the dramatic method of story-telling be used in ordinary class teaching_? This is too large a question to answer fully in so general a survey as this work, but I should like to give one or two examples as to how the element of story-telling could be introduced. I have always thought that the only way in which we could make either a history or literature lesson live, so as to take a real hold on the mind of the pupil at any age, would be that, instead of offering lists of events, crowded into the fictitious area of one reign, one should take a single event, say in one lesson out of five, and give it in the most splendid language and in the most dramatic manner. To come to a concrete example: Supposing that one is talking to the class of Greece, either in connection with its history, its geography or its literature, could any mere accumulation of facts give a clearer idea of the life of the people than a dramatically told story from Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides? What in the history of Iceland could give any more graphic idea of the whole character of the life and customs of the inhabitants than one of the famous sagas, such as "The Burning of Njal" or "The Death of Gunnar"? In teaching the history of Spain, what could make the pupils understand better the spirit of knight-errantry, its faults and its qualities, than a recital from "Don Quixote" or from the tale of "The Cid"? In a word, the stories must appeal so vividly to the imagination that they will light up the whole period of history which we wish them to illustrate and keep it alive in the memory for all time. But quite apart from the dramatic presentation of history, there are very great possibilities for the short story introduced into the portrait of some great personage, insignificant in itself, but which throws a sudden sidelight on his character, showing the mind behind the actual deeds; this is what I mean by using the dramatic method. To take a concrete example: Suppose, in giving an account of the life of Napoleon, after enlarging upon his campaigns, his European policy, his indomitable will, one were suddenly to give an idea of his many- sidedness by relating how he actually found time to compile a catechism which was used for some years in the elementary schools of France. What sidelights might be thrown in this way on such characters as Nero, Caesar, Henry VIII, Luther, Goethe! To take one example from these: Instead of making the whole career of Henry VIII center round the fact that he was a much-married man, could we not present his artistic side and speak of his charming contributions to music? So much for the history lessons. But could not the dramatic form and interest be introduced into our geography lessons? Think of the romance of the Panama Canal, the position of Constantinople, as affecting the history of Europe, the shape of Greece, England as an island, the position of Thibet, the interior of Africa--to what wonderful story-telling would these themes lend themselves! QUESTION X: _Which should predominate in the story--the dramatic or the poetic element_? This is a much debated point. From experience I have come to the conclusion that, though both should be found in the whole range of stories, the dramatic element should prevail from the very nature of the presentation, and also because it reaches the larger number of children, at least of normal children. Almost every child is dramatic, in the sense that it loves action (not necessarily an action in which it has to bear a part). It is the exceptional child who is reached by the poetic side, and just as on the stage the action must be quicker and more concentrated than in a poem--than even a dramatic poem--the poetical side, which must be painted in more delicate colors or presented in less obvious form, often escapes them. Of course, the very reason why we must include the poetical element is that it is an unexpressed need of most children. Their need of the dramatic is more loudly proclaimed and more easily satisfied. QUESTION XI: _What is the educational value of humor in the stories told to our children_? My answer to this is that humor means so much more than is usually understood by this term. So many people seem to think that to have a sense of humor is merely to be tickled by a funny element in a story. It surely means something much more subtle than this. It is Thackeray who says: "If humor only meant laughter, but the humorist profess to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness, your scorn for untruth and pretension, your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy." So that, in our stories, the introduction of humor should not merely depend on the doubtful amusement that follows on a sense of incongruity. It should inculcate a sense of proportion brought about by an effort of imagination; it shows a child its real position in the universe and prevents hasty conclusions. It shortens the period of joy in horse-play and practical jokes. It brings about a clearer perception of all situations, enabling the child to get the point of view of another person. It is the first instilling of philosophy into the mind of a child and prevents much suffering later on when the blows of life fall upon him; for a sense of humor teaches us at an early age not to expect too much: and this philosophy can be developed with cynicism or pessimism, without even destroying the _joie de vivre_. One cannot, however, sufficiently emphasize the fact that these far- reaching results can be brought about only by humor quite distinct from the broader fun and hilarity which have also their use in an educational scheme. From my own experience, I have learned that development of humor is with most children extremely slow. It _is_ quite natural and quite right that at first pure fun, obvious situations and elementary jokes should please them, but we can very gradually appeal to something more subtle, and if I were asked what story would educate our children most thoroughly in appreciation of humor, I should say that "Alice in Wonderland" was the most effective. What better object lesson could be given in humorous form of taking somebody else's point of view than that given to _Alice_ by the _Mock Turtle_ in speaking of the _Whiting_-- "You know what they're like?" "I believe so," said Alice. "They have their tails in their mouths-- and they're all over crumbs." "You're wrong about the crumbs," said the Mock Turtle. "Crumbs would all wash off in the sea." Or when _Alice_ is speaking to the _Mouse_ of her cat, and says: "She is such a dear quiet thing--and a capital one for catching mice---" and then suddenly realizes the point of view of the _Mouse_, who was "trembling down to the end of its tail." Then, as an instance of how a lack of humor leads to illogical conclusions (a condition common to most children), we have the conversation between _Alice_ and the _Pigeon_: ALICE: "But little girls eat quite as much as serpents, you know." PIGEON: "I don't believe it. But if they do, why then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say." Then, as an instance of how a sense of humor would prevent too much self-importance: "I have a right to think," said Alice sharply. "Just about as much right," said the Duchess, "as pigs have to fly." PART II. THE STORIES. The following stories do not form a comprehensive selection; this I have endeavored to give in the List of Stories. The stories given are chiefly taken from my own repertoire, and have been so constantly asked by teachers that I am glad of an opportunity of presenting them in full. I regret that I have been unable to furnish many of the stories I consider good for narration, but the difficulty of obtaining permission has deterred me from further efforts in this direction. STURLA, THE HISTORIAN.[50] Then Sturla got ready to sail away with the king, and his name was put on the list. He went on board before many men had come; he had a sleeping bag and a travelling chest, and took his place on the foredeck. A little later the king came on to the quay, and a company of men with him. Sturla rose and bowed, and bade the king "hail," but the king answered nothing, and went aft along the ship to the quarter-deck. They sailed that day to go south along the coast. But in the evening when men unpacked their provisions Sturla sat still, and no one invited him to mess. Then a servant of the king's came and asked Sturla if he had any meat and drink. Sturla said "NO." Then the king's servant went to the king and spoke with him, out of hearing, and then went forward to Sturla and said: "You shall go to mess with Thorir Mouth and Erlend Maw." They took him into their mess, but rather stiffly. When men were turning in to sleep, a sailor of the king's asked who should tell them stories. There was little answer. Then said he: "Sturla the Icelander, will you tell stories?" "As you will," said Sturla. So he told them the story of Huld, better and fuller than any one there had ever heard it told before. Then many men pushed forward to the fore-deck, wanting to hear as clearly as might be, and there was a great crowd. The queen asked: "What is that crowd on deck there?" A man answered: "The men are listening to the story that the Icelander tells." "What story is that?" said she. He answers: "It is about a great troll-wife, and it is a good story and well told." The king bade her pay no heed to that, and go to sleep. She says: "I think this Icelander must be a good fellow, and less to blame than he is reported." The King was silent. So the night passed, and the next morning there was no wind for them, and the king's ship lay in the same place. Later in the day, when men sat at their drink, the king sent dishes from his table to Sturla. Sturla's messmates were pleased with this: "You bring better luck than we thought, if this sort of thing goes on." After dinner the queen sent for Sturla and asked him to come to her and bring the troll-wife story along with him. So Sturla went aft to the quarter- deck, and greeted the king and queen. The king answered little, the queen well and cheerfully. She asked him to tell the same story he had told overnight. He did so, for a great part of the day. When he finished, the queen thanked him, and many others besides, and made him out in their minds to be a learned man and sensible. But the king said nothing; only he smiled a little. Sturla thought he saw that the king's whole frame of mind was brighter than the day before. So he said to the king that he had made a poem about him, and another about his father: "I would gladly get a hearing for them." The queen said: "Let him recite his poem; I am told that he is the best of poets, and his poem will be excellent." The king bade him say on, if he would, and repeat the poem he professed to have made about him. Sturla chanted it to the end. The queen said: "To my mind that is a good poem." The king said to her: "Can you follow the poem so clearly?" "I would be fain to have you think so, Sir," said the queen. The king said: "I have learned that Sturla is good at verses." Sturla took his leave of the king and queen and went to his place. There was no sailing for the king all that day. In the evening before he went to bed he sent for Sturla. And when he came he greeted the king and said: "What will you have me to do, Sir?" The king called for a silver goblet full of wine, and drank some and gave it to Sturla and said: "A health to a friend in wine!" (_Vin skal til vinar drekka_). Sturla said: "God be praised for it!" "Even so," says the king, "and now I wish you to say the poem you have made about my father." Sturla repeated it: and when it was finished men praised it much and most of all the queen. The king said: "To my thinking, you are a better reciter than the Pope." Sturlunga Saga, vol.ii, p.269. A SAGA. In the grey beginnings of the world, or ever the flower of justice had rooted in the heart, there lived among the daughters of men two children, sisters, of one house. In childhood did they leap and climb and swim with the men children of their race, and were nurtured on the same stories of gods and heroes. In maidenhood they could do all that a maiden might and more--delve could they no less than spin, hunt no less than weave, brew pottage and helm ships, wake the harp and tell the stars, face all danger and laugh at all pain. Joyous in toil-time and rest-time were they as the days and years of their youth came and went. Death had spared their house, and unhappiness knew they none. Yet often as at falling day they sat before sleep round the hearth of red fire, listening with the household to the brave songs of gods and heroes, there would surely creep into their hearts a shadow--the thought that whatever the years of their lives, and whatever the generous deeds, there would for them, as women, be no escape at the last from the dire mists of Hela, the fogland beyond the grave for all such as die not in battle; no escape for them from Hela, and no place for ever for them or for their kind among the glory-crowned, sword-shriven heroes of echoing Valhalla. That shadow had first fallen in their lusty childhood, had slowly gathered darkness through the overflowing days of maidenhood, and now, in the strong tide of full womanhood, often lay upon their future as the moon Odin's wrath lies upon the sun. But stout were they to face danger and laugh at pain, and for all the shadow upon their hope they lived brave and songful days--the one a homekeeper and in her turn a mother of men: the other unhusbanded, but gentle to ignorance and sickness and sorrow through the width and length of the land. And thus, facing life fearlessly and ever with a smile, those two women lived even unto extreme old age, unto the one's children's children's children, labouring truly unto the end and keeping strong hearts against the dread day of Hela, and the fate-locked gates of Valhalla. But at the end a wonder. As these sisters looked their last upon the sun, the one in the ancestral homestead under the eyes of love, the other in a distant land among strange faces, behold the wind of Thor, and out of the deep of heaven the white horses of Odin, All-Father, bearing Valkyrie, shining messengers of Valhalla. And those two world-worn women, faithful in all their lives, were caught up in death in divine arms and borne far from the fogs of Hela to golden thrones among the battle heroes, upon which the Nornir, sitting at the loom of life, had from all eternity graven their names. And from that hour have the gates of Valhalla been thrown wide to all faithful endeavour whether of man or woman. JOHN RUSSELL Headmaster of the King Alfred School. THE LEGEND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER. Christopher was of the lineage of the Canaaneans and he was of a right great stature, and had a terrible and fearful cheer and countenance. And he was twelve cubits of length. And, as it is read in some histories, when he served and dwelled with the king of Canaaneans, it came in his mind that he would seek the greatest prince that was in the world and him he would serve and obey. And so far he went that he came to a right great king, of whom the renown generally was that he was the greatest of the world. And when the king saw him received him into his service and made him to dwell in his court. Upon a time a minstrel sung tofore him a song in which he named oft the devil. And the king which was a Christian man, when he heard him name the devil, made anon the sign of the cross in his visage. And when Christopher saw that, he had great marvel what sign it was and wherefore the king made it. And he demanded it of him. And because the king would not say, he said, "If thou tell me not, I shall no longer dwell with thee." And then the king told to him saying, "Alway when I hear the devil named, I fear that he should have power over me, and I garnish me with this sign that he grieve not nor annoy me." Then Christopher said to him, "Thou doubtest the devil that he hurt thee not? Then is the devil more mighty and greater than thou art. I am then deceived of my hope and purpose; for I supposed that I had found the most mighty and the most greatest lord of the world. But I commend thee to God, for I will go seek him to be my lord and I his servant." And then he departed from this king and hasted him to seek the devil. And as he went by a great desert he saw a great company of knights. Of which a knight cruel and horrible came to him and demanded whither he went. And Christopher answered to him and said, "I go to seek the devil for to be my master." And he said, "I am he that thou seekest." And then Christopher was glad and bound himself to be his servant perpetual, and took him for his master and lord. And as they went together by a common way, they found there a cross erect and standing. And anon as the devil saw the cross, he was afeard and fled, and left the right way and brought Christopher about by a sharp desert, and after, when they were past the cross, he brought him to the highway that they had left. And when Christopher saw that, he marvelled and demanded whereof he doubted that he had left high and fair way and had gone so far about by so hard desert. And the devil would not tell him in no wise. Then Christopher said to him, "If thou wilt not tell me I shall anon depart from thee and shall serve thee no more." Therefore the devil was constrained to tell him, and said "There was a man called Christ which was hanged on the cross, and when I see his sign, I am sore afeard and flee from it wheresomever I find it." To whom Christopher said, "Then he is greater and more mightier than thou, when thou art afraid of his sign. And I see well that I have laboured in vain since I have not founden the greatest lord of all the earth. And I will serve thee no longer. Go thy way then: for I will go seek Jesus Christ." And when he had long sought and demanded where he should find Christ, at last he came into a great desert to an hermit that dwelled there. And this hermit preached to him of Jesus Christ and informed him in the faith diligently. And he said to him, "This king whom thou desirest to serve, requireth this service that thou must oft fast." And Christopher said to him, "Require of me some other thing and I shall do it. For that which thou requirest I may not do." And the hermit said, "Thou must then wake and make many prayers." And Christopher said to him, "I wot not what it is. I may do no such thing." And then the hermit said unto him, "Knowest thou such a river in which many be perished and lost?" To whom Christopher said, "I know it well." Then said the hermit, "Because thou art noble and high of stature and strong in thy members, thou shalt be resident by that river and shalt bear over all them that shall pass there. Which shall be a thing right convenable to Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom thou desirest to serve, and I hope He shall shew Himself to thee." Then said Christopher, "Certes, this service may I well do, and I promise to Him for to do it." Then went Christopher to this river, and made there his habitation for him. And he bare a great pole in his hand instead of a staff, by which he sustained him in the water; and bare over all manner of people without ceasing. And there he abode, thus doing, many days. And on a time, as he slept in his lodge, he heard the voice of a child which called him and said, "Christopher, come out and bear me over." Then he awoke and went out; but he found no man. And when he was again in his house, he heard the same voice, and he ran out and found no body. The third time he was called, and came thither, and found a child beside the rivage of the river: which prayed him goodly to bear him over the water. And then Christopher lift up the child on his shoulders and took his staff and entered in to the river for to pass. And the water of the river arose and swelled more and more. And the child was heavy as lead. And always as he went further the water increased and grew more, and the child more and more waxed heavy: in so much that Christopher had great anguish and feared to be drowned. And when he was escaped with great pain and passed the water, and set the child aground, he said to the child, "Child, thou hast put me in great peril. Thou weighest almost as I had had all the world upon me. I might bear no greater burden." And the child answered, "Christopher, marvel thou no thing. For thou hast not only borne all the world upon thee; but thou hast borne Him that created and made the world upon thy shoulders. I am Jesus Christ, the king to whom thou servest in this work. And that thou mayest know that I say to thee truth, set thy staff in the earth by the house, and thou shalt see to-morrow that it shall bear flowers and fruit." And anon he vanished from his eyes. And then Christopher set his staff in the earth and when he arose on the morrow, he found his staff like a palm-tree bearing flowers, leaves and dates. From THE LEGENDA AUREA TEMPLE CLASSICS. ARTHUR IN THE CAVE. Once upon a time a Welshman was walking on London Bridge, staring at the traffic and wondering why there were so many kites hovering about. He had come to London, after many adventures with thieves and highwaymen, which need not be related here, in charge of a herd of black Welsh cattle. He had sold them with much profit, and with jingling gold in his pocket he was going about to see the sights of the city. He was carrying a hazel staff in his hand, for you must know that a good staff is as necessary to a drover as teeth are to his dogs. He stood still to gaze at some wares in a shop (for at that time London Bridge was shops from beginning to end), when he noticed that a man was looking at his stick with a long fixed look. The man after a while came to him and asked him where he came from. "I come from my own country," said the Welshman, rather surlily, for he could not see what business the man had to ask such a question. "Do not take it amiss," said the stranger: "if you will only answer my questions, and take my advice, it will be of greater benefit to you than you imagine. Do you remember where you cut that stick?" The Welshman was still suspicious, and said: "What does it matter where I cut it?" "It matters," said the questioner, "because there is a treasure hidden near the spot where you cut that stick. If you can remember the place and conduct me to it, I will put you in possession of great riches." The Welshman now understood he had to deal with a sorcerer, and he was greatly perplexed as to what to do. On the one hand, he was tempted by the prospect of wealth; on the other hand, he knew that the sorcerer must have derived his knowledge from devils, and he feared to have anything to do with the powers of darkness. The cunning man strove hard to persuade him, and at length made him promise to shew the place where he cut his hazel staff. The Welshman and the magician journeyed together to Wales. They went to Craig y Dinas, the Rock of the Fortress, at the head of the Neath valley, near Pont Nedd Fechan, and the Welshman, pointing to the stock or root of an old hazel, said: "This is where I cut my stick." "Let us dig," said the sorcerer. They digged until they came to a broad, flat stone. Prying this up, they found some steps leading downwards. They went down the steps and along a narrow passage until they came to a door. "Are you brave?" asked the sorcerer; "will you come in with me?" "I will," said the Welshman, his curiosity getting the better of his fear. They opened the door, and a great cave opened out before them. There was a faint red light in the cave, and they could see everything. The first thing they came to was a bell. "Do not touch that bell," said the sorcerer, "or it will be all over with us both." As they went further in, the Welshman saw that the place was not empty. There were soldiers lying down asleep, thousands of them, as far as ever the eye could see. Each one was clad in bright armour, the steel helmet of each was on his head, the shining shield of each was on his arm, the sword of each was near his hand, each had his spear stuck in the ground near him, and each and all were asleep. In the midst of the cave was a great round table at which sat warriors whose noble features and richly-dight armour proclaimed that they were not as the roll of common men. Each of these, too, had his head bent down in sleep. On a golden throne on the further side of the round table was a king of gigantic stature and august presence. In his hand, held below the hilt, was a mighty sword with scabbard and haft of gold studded with gleaming gems; on his head was a crown set with precious stones which flashed and glinted like so many points of fire. Sleep had set its seal on his eyelids also. "Are they asleep?" asked the Welshman, hardly believing his own eyes. "Yes, each and all of them," answered the sorcerer. "But, if you touch yonder bell, they will all awake." "How long have they been asleep?" "For over a thousand years." "Who are they?" "Arthur's warriors, waiting for the time to come when they shall destroy all the enemy of the Cymry and re-possess the strand of Britain, establishing their own king once more at Caer Lleon." "Who are these sitting at the round table?" "These are Arthur's knights--Owain, the son of Urien; Cai, the son of Cynyr; Gnalchmai, the son of Gwyar; Peredir, the son of Efrawe; Geraint, the son of Erbin; Ciernay, the son of Celhddon; Edeyrn, the son of Nudd; Cymri, the son of Clydno." "And on the golden throne?" broke in the Welshman. "Is Arthur himself, with his sword Excalibur in his hand," replied the sorcerer. Impatient by this time at the Welshman's questions, the sorcerer hastened to a great heap of yellow gold on the floor of the cave. He took up as much as he could carry, and bade his companion do the same. "It is time for us to go," he then said, and he led the way towards the door by which they had entered. But the Welshman was fascinated by the sight of the countless soldiers in their glittering arms--all asleep. "How I should like to see them all awaking!" he said to himself. "I will touch the bell--I _must_ see them all arising from their sleep." When they came to the bell, he struck it until it rang through the whole place. As soon as it rang, lo! the thousands of warriors leapt to their feet and the ground beneath them shook with the sound of the steel arms. And a great voice came from their midst: "Who rang the bell? Has the day come?" The sorcerer was so much frightened that he shook like an aspen leaf. He shouted in answer: "No, the day has not come. Sleep on." The mighty host was all in motion, and the Welshman's eyes were dazzled as he looked at the bright steel arms which illumined the cave as with the light of myriad flames of fire. "Arthur," said the voice again, "awake; the bell has rung, the day is breaking. Awake, Arthur the Great." "No," shouted the sorcerer, "it is still night. Sleep on, Arthur the Great." A sound came from the throne. Arthur was standing, and the jewels in his crown shone like bright stars above the countless throng. His voice was strong and sweet like the sound of many waters, and he said: "My warriors, the day has not come when the Black Eagle and the Golden Eagle shall go to war. It is only a seeker after gold who has rung the bell. Sleep on, my warriors; the morn of Wales has not yet dawned." A peaceful sound like the distant sigh of the sea came over the cave, and in a trice the soldiers were all asleep again. The sorcerer hurried the Welshman out of the cave, moved the stone back to its place and vanished. Many a time did the Welshman try to find his way into the cave again, but though he dug over every inch of the hill, he has never again found the entrance to Arthur's Cave. From "THE WELSH FAIRY BOOK," by W. JENKYN THOMAS. published by FISHER UNWIN. HAFIZ, THE STONE-CUTTER. There was once a stone-cutter whose name was Hafiz, and all day long he chipped, chipped, chipped at his block. And often he grew very weary of his task and he would say to himself impatiently, "Why should I not have pleasure and amusement as other folk have?" One day, when the sun was very hot and when he felt specially weary, he suddenly heard the sound of many feet, and, looking up from his work, he saw a great procession coming his way. It was the King, mounted on a splendid charger, all his soldiers to the right, in their shining armour, and the servants to the left, dressed in gorgeous clothing, ready to do his behests. And Hafiz said: "How splendid to be a King! If only I could be a King, if only for ten minutes, so that I might know what it feels like!" And then, even as he spoke, he seemed to be dreaming, and in his dream he sang this little song: "Ah me! Ah me! If Hafiz only the King could be!"[51] And then a voice from the air around seemed to answer him and to say: "Be thou the King." And Hafiz became the King, and he it was that sat on the splendid charger, and they were his soldiers to the right and his servants to the left. And Hafiz said: "I am King, and there is no one stronger in the whole world than I." But soon, in spite of the golden canopy over his head, Hafiz began to feel the terrible heat of the rays of the sun, and soon he noticed that the soldiers and servants were weary, that his horse drooped, and that he, Hafiz, was overcome, and he said angrily: "What! Is there something stronger in the world than a King?" And, almost without knowing it, he again sang his song more boldly than the first time: "Ah me! Ah me! If Hafiz only the Sun could be!" And the Voice answered: "Be thou the Sun." And Hafiz became the Sun, and shone down upon the Earth, but, because he did not know how to shine very wisely, he shone very fiercely, so that the crops dried up, and folk grew sick and died. And then there arose from the East a little cloud which slipped between Hafiz and the Earth, so that he could no longer shine down upon it, and he said: "Is there something stronger in the world than the Sun?" "Ah me! Ah me! If Hafiz only the Cloud could be!" "Be thou the Cloud. And Hafiz became the Cloud, and rained down water upon the Earth, but, because he did not know how to do so wisely, there fell so much rain that all the little rivulets became great rivers, and all the great rivers overflowed their banks, and carried everything before them in swift torrent--all except one great rock which stood unmoved. And Hafiz said: "Is there something stronger than the Cloud?" "Ah me! Ah me! If Hafiz only the Rock could be!" And the Voice said: "Be thou the Rock." And Hafiz became the Rock, and the Cloud disappeared and the waters went down. And Hafiz the Rock, saw coming towards him a man--he could not see the face. As the man approached he suddenly raised a hammer and struck Hafiz, so that he felt it through all his stony body. And Hafiz said: "Is there something stronger in the world than the Rock? "Ah me! Ah me! If Hafiz only that Man might be!" And the Voice said: "Be thou---Thyself." And Hafiz seized the hammer and said: "The Sun was stronger than the King, the Cloud was stronger than the sun, the Rock was stronger then the Cloud, but I, Hafiz, was stronger than all." Adapted and arranged by the Author. TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH. (From the Russian) Long long ago there lived a King who was such a mighty monarch that whenever he sneezed everyone in the whole country had to say, "To your good health!" Everyone said it except the Shepherd with the bright blue eyes, and he would not say it. The King heard of this and was very angry, and sent for the Shepherd to appear before him. The Shepherd came and stood before the throne, where the King sat looking very grand and powerful. But however grand or powerful he might be, the Shepherd did not feel a bit afraid of him. "Say at once 'To my good health'!" cried the King. "To my good health," replied the Shepherd. "To mine--to _mine_, you rascal, you vagabond!" stormed the King. "To mine, to mine, Your Majesty," was the answer. "But to _mine_--to my own!" roared the King, and beat on his breast in a rage. "Well, yes; to mine, of course, to my own," cried the Shepherd, and gently tapped his breast. The King was beside himself with fury and did not know what to do, when the Lord chamberlain interfered: "Say at once--say this very moment, 'To your health, Your Majesty,' for if you don't say it you will lose your life," he whispered. "No, I won't say it tell I get the Princess for my wife," was the Shepherd's answer. Now the Princess was sitting on a little throne beside the King, her father, and she look as sweet and lovely as a little golden dove. When she heard what the Shepherd said, she could not help laughing, for there is no denying the fact that this young shepherd with the blue eyes pleased her very much; indeed, he pleased her better than any king's son she had yet seen. But the King was not as pleasant as his daughter, and gave orders to throw the Shepherd into the white bear's pit. The guards led him away and thrust him into the pit with the white bear, who had had nothing to eat for two days and was very hungry. The door of the pit was hardly closed when the bear rushed at the shepherd; but when it saw his eyes it was so frightened that it was ready to eat itself. It shrank away into a corner and gazed at him from there, and in spite of being so famished, did not dare to touch him, but sucked its own paws from sheer hunger. The Shepherd felt that if he once removed his eyes off the beast he was a dead man, and in order to keep himself awake he made songs and sang them, and so the night went by. Next morning the Lord Chamberlain came to see the Shepherd's bones, and was amazed to find him alive and well. He led him to the King, who fell into a furious passion, and said: "Well, you have learned what it is to be very near death, and now will you say, 'To my very good health'?" But the Shepherd answered: "I am not afraid of ten deaths! I will only say it if I may have the Princess for my wife." "Then go to your death," cried the King, and ordered him to be thrown into the den with the wild boars. The wild boars had not been fed for a week, and when the Shepherd was thrust into their den they rushed at him to tear him to pieces. But the Shepherd took a little flute out of the sleeve of his jacket, and began to play a merry tune, on which the wild boars first of all shrank shyly away, and then got up on their hind legs and danced gaily. The Shepherd would have given anything to be able to laugh, they looked so funny; but he dared not stop playing, for he knew well enough that the moment he stopped they would fall upon him and tear him to pieces. His eyes were of no use to him here, for he could not have stared ten wild boars in the face at once; so he kept playing, and the wild boars danced very slowly, as if in a minuet; then by degrees he played faster and faster, till they could hardly twist and turn quickly enough, and ended by all falling over each other in a heap, quite exhausted and out of breath. Then the Shepherd ventured to laugh at last; and he laughed so long and so loud that when the Lord Chamberlain came early in the morning, expecting to find only his bones, the tears were still running down his cheeks from laughter. As soon as the King was dressed the Shepherd was again brought before him; but he was more angry than ever to think the wild boars had not torn the man to bits, and he said: "Well, you have learned what it feels to be near ten deaths, _now_ say 'To my good health'!" But the shepherd broke in with: "I do not fear a hundred deaths; and I will only say it if I may have the Princess for my wife." "Then go to a hundred deaths!" roared the King, and ordered the Shepherd to be thrown down the deep vault of scythes. The guards dragged him away to a dark dungeon, in the middle of which was a deep well with sharp scythes all round it. At the bottom of the well was a little light by which one could see, if anyone was thrown in, whether he had fallen to the bottom. When the Shepherd was dragged to the dungeon he begged the guards to leave him alone a little while that he might look down into the pit of scythes; perhaps he might after all make up his mind to say, "To your good health" to the King. So the guards left him alone, and he stuck up his long stick near the wall, hung his cloak round the stick and put his hat on the top. He also hung his knapsack up beside the cloak, so that it might seem to have some body within it. When this was done, he called out to the guards and said that he had considered the matter, but after all he could not make up his mind to say what the King wished. The guards came in, threw the hat and cloak, knapsack and stick all down in the well together, watched to see how they put out the light at the bottom, and came away, thinking that now there was really an end to the Shepherd. But he had hidden in a dark corner, and was now laughing to himself all the time. Quite early next morning came the Lord Chamberlain with a lamp, and he nearly fell backwards with surprise when he saw the Shepherd alive and well. He brought him to the King, whose fury was greater than ever, but who cried: "Well, now you have been near a hundred deaths; will you say, 'To your good health'?" But the Shepherd only gave the answer: "I won't say it till the Princess is my wife." "Perhaps, after all, you may do it for less," said the King, who saw that there was no chance of making away with the shepherd; and he ordered the state coach to be got ready; then he made the Shepherd get in with him and sit beside him, and ordered the coachman to drive to the silver wood. When they reached it, he said: "Do you see this silver wood? Well, if you will say 'To your good health,' I will give it to you." The shepherd turned hot and cold by turns, but he still persisted: "I will not say it till the Princess is my wife." The King was much vexed; he drove further on till they came to a splendid castle, all of gold, and then he said: "Do you see this golden castle? Well, I will give you that too, the silver wood and the gold castle, if only you will say one thing to me: 'To your good health.'" The Shepherd gaped and wondered, and was quite dazzled but he still said: "No, I will not say it till I have the Princess for my wife." This time the King was overwhelmed with grief, and gave orders to drive on to the diamond pond and there he tried once more: "You shall have the all--all, if you will but say 'To your good health.'" The Shepherd had to shut his staring eyes tight not to be dazzled with the brilliant pond, but still he said: "No, no; I will not say it till I have the Princess for my wife." Then the King saw that all his efforts were useless, and that he might as well give in; so he said: "Well, well, it is all the same to me--I will give you my daughter to wife; but then you really must say to me, 'To your good health.'" "Of course I'll say it; why should I not say it? It stands to reason that I shall say it then." At this the King was more delighted than anyone could have believed. He made it known all through the country that there were going to be great rejoicings, as the Princess was going to be married. And everyone rejoiced to think that the Princess who had refused so many royal suitors, should have ended by falling in love with the staring- eyed Shepherd. There was such a wedding as had never been seen. Everyone ate and drank and danced. Even the sick were feasted, and quite tiny new-born children had presents given them. But the greatest merrymaking was in the King's palace; there the best bands played and the best food was cooked. A crowd of people sat down to table, and all was fun and merrymaking. And when the groomsman, according to custom, brought in the great boar's head on a big dish and placed it before the King, so that he might carve it and give everyone a share, the savoury smell was so strong that the King began to sneeze with all his might. "To your very good health!" cried the Shepherd before anyone else, and the King was so delighted that he did not regret having given him his daughter. In time, when the old King died, the Shepherd succeeded him. He made a very good king, and never expected his people to wish him well against their wills: but, all the same, everyone did wish him well, because they loved him. THE PROUD COCK. There was once a cock who grew so dreadfully proud that he would have nothing to say to anybody. He left his house, it being far beneath his dignity to have any trammel of that sort in his life, and as for his former acquaintance, he cut them all. One day, whilst walking about, he came to a few little sparks of fire which were nearly dead. They cried out to him: "Please fan us with your wings, and we shall come to the full vigour of life again." But he did not deign to answer, and as he was going away one of the sparks said; "Ah well! we shall die, but our big brother, the Fire will pay you out for this one day." On another day he was airing himself in a meadow, showing himself off in a very superb set of clothes. A voice calling from somewhere said: "Please be so good as to drop us into the water again." He looked about and saw a few drops of water: they had got separated from their friends in the river, and were pining away with grief. "Oh! please be so good as to drop us into the water again," they said; but, without any answer, he drank up the drops. He was too proud and a great deal too big to talk to a poor little puddle of water; but the drops said: "Our big brother, the Water, will one day take you in hand, you proud and senseless creature." Some days afterwards, during a great storm of rain, thunder and lightning, the cock took shelter in a little empty cottage, and shut to the door; and he thought: "I am clever; I am in comfort. What fools people are to top out in a storm like this! What's that?" thought he. "I never heard a sound like that before." In a little while it grew much louder, and when a few minutes had passed, it was a perfect howl. "Oh!" thought he, "this will never do. I must stop it somehow. But what is it I have to stop?" He soon found it was the wind, shouting through the keyhole, so he plugged up the keyhole with a bit of clay, and then the wind was able to rest. He was very tired with whistling so long through the keyhole, and he said: "Now, if ever I have at any time a chance of doing a good turn to that princely domestic fowl, I well do it." Weeks afterwards, the cock looked in at a house door: he seldom went there, because the miser to whom the house belonged almost starved himself, and so, of course, there was nothing over for anybody else. To his amazement the cock saw the miser bending over a pot on the fire. At last the old fellow turned round to get a spoon with which to stir his pot, and then the cock, waking up, looked in and saw that the miser was making oyster-soup, for he had found some oyster-shells in an ash-pit, and to give the mixture a colour he had put in a few halfpence in the pot. The miser chanced to turn quickly round, while the cock was peering into the saucepan, and, chuckling to himself, he said: "I shall have chicken broth after all." He tripped up the cock into the pot and shut the lid on. The bird, feeling warm, said: "Water, water, don't boil!" But the water only said: "You drank up my young brothers once: don't ask a favour of _me_." Then he called out to the Fire: "Oh! kind Fire, don't boil the water." But the fire replied: "You once let my young sisters die: you cannot expect any mercy from me." So he flared up and boiled the water all the faster. At last, when the cock got unpleasantly warm, he thought of the wind, and called out: "Oh, Wind, come to my help!" and the Wind said: "Why, there is that noble domestic bird in trouble. I will help him." So he came down the chimney, blew out the fire, blew the lid off the pot, and blew the cock far away into the air, and at last settled him on a steeple, where the cock remained ever since. And people say that the halfpence which were in the pot when it was boiling have given him the queer brown colour he still wears. From the Spanish. SNEGOURKA. There lived once, in Russia, a peasant and his wife who would have been as happy as the day is long, if only God had given them a little child. One day, as they were watching the children playing in the snow, the man said to the woman: "Wife, shall we go out and help the children make a snowball?" But the wife answered, smiling: "Nay, husband, but since God has given us no little child, let us go and fashion one from the snow." And she put on her long blue cloak, and he put on his long brown coat, and they went out onto the crisp snow, and began to fashion the little child. First, they made the feet and the legs and the little body, and then they took a ball of snow for the head. And at that moment a stranger in a long cloak, with his hat well drawn over his face, passed that way, and said: "Heaven help your undertaking!" And the peasants crossed themselves and said: "It is well to ask help from Heaven in all we do." Then they went on fashioning the little child. And they made two holes for the eyes and formed the nose and the mouth. And then-- wonder of wonders--the little child came alive, and breath came from its nostrils and parted lips. And the man was feared, and said to his wife: "What have we done?" And the wife said: "This is the little girl child God has sent us." And she gathered it into her arms, and the loose snow fell away from the little creature. Her hair became golden and her eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots--but there was no colour in her cheeks, because there was no blood in her veins. In a few days she was like a child of three or four, and in a few weeks she seemed to be the age of nine or ten, and ran about gaily and prattled with the other children, who loved her so dearly, though she was so different from them. Only, happy as she was, and dearly as her parents loved her, there was one terror in her life, and that was the sun. And during the day she would run and hide herself in cool, damp places away from the sunshine, and this the other children could not understand. As the Spring advanced and the days grew longer and warmed, little Snegourka (for this was the name by which she was known) grew paler and thinner, and her mother would often ask her: "What ails you, my darling?" and Snegourka would say: "Nothing, Mother but I wish the sun were not so bright." One day, on St. John's Day, the children of the village came to fetch her for a day in the woods, and they gathered flowers for her and did all they to make her happy, but it was only when the great red sun went down that Snegourka drew a deep breath of relief and spread her little hands out to the cool evening air. And the boys, glad at her gladness, said: "Let us do something for Snegourka. Let us light a bonfire." And Snegourka not knowing what a bonfire was, she clapped her hands and was as merry and eager as they. And she helped them gather the sticks, and then they all stood round the pile and the boys set fire to the wood. Snegourka stood watching the flames and listening to the crackle of the wood: and then suddenly they heard a tiny sound and looking at the place where Snegourka had been standing, they saw nothing but a little snow-drift fast melting. And they called and called, "Snegourka! Snegourka!" thinking she had run into the forest. But there was no answer. Snegourka had disappeared from this life as mysteriously as she had come into it. Adapted by the author. THE WATER NIXIE. The river was so clear because it was the home of a very beautiful Water Nixie who lived in it, and who sometimes could emerge from her home and sit in woman's form upon the bank. She had a dark green smock upon her, the colour of the water-weed that waves as the water wills it, deep, deep down. And in her long wet hair were the white flowers of the water-violet, and she held a reed mace in her hand. Her face was very sad because she had lived a long life, and known so many adventures, ever since she was a baby, which was nearly a hundred years ago. For creatures of the streams and trees live a long, long time, and when they die they lose themselves in Nature. That means that they are forever clouds, or trees, or rivers, and never have the form of men and women again. All water creatures would live, if they might choose it, in the sea, where they are born. It is in the sea they float hand-in-hand upon the crested billows, and sink deep in the great troughs of the strong waves, that are as green as jade. They follow the foam and lose themselves in the wide ocean-- "Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail with unshut eye;" and they store in the Sea King's palace the golden phosphor of the sea. But this Water Nixie had lost her happiness through not being good. She had forgotten many things that had been told her, and she had done many things that grieved others. She had stolen somebody else's property--quite a large bundle of happiness--which belonged elsewhere and not to her. Happiness is generally made to fit the person who owns it, just as do your shoes, or clothes; so that when you take someone else's it's very little good to you, for it fits badly, and you can never forget it isn't yours. So what with one thing and another, this Water Nixie had to be punished, and the Queen of the Sea had banished her from the waves.[52] "You shall live for a long time in little places where you will weary of yourself. You will learn to know yourself so well that everything you want will seem too good for you, and you will cease to claim it. And so, in time, you shall get free." Then the Nixie had to rise up and go away, and be shut into the fastness of a very small space, according to the words of the Queen. And this small space was--a tear. At first she could hardly express her misery, and by thinking so continuously of the wideness and savour of the sea, she brought a dash of the brine with her, that makes the saltness of our tears. She became many times smaller than her own stature; even then, by standing upright and spreading wide her arms, she touched with her finger-tips the walls of her tiny crystal home. How she longed that this tear might be wept, and the walls of her prison shattered! But the owner of this tear was of a very proud nature, and she was so sad that tears seemed to her in no wise to express her grief. She was a Princess who lived in a country that was not her home. What were tears to her? If she could have stood on the top of the very highest hill and with both hands caught the great winds of heaven, strong as they, and striven with them, perhaps she might have felt as if she expressed all she knew. Or, if she could have torn down the stars from the heavens, or cast her mantle over the sun. But tears! Would they have helped to tell her sorrow? You cry if you soil your copybook, don't you? or pinch your hand? So you may imagine the Nixie's home was a safe one, and she turned round and round in the captivity of that tear. For twenty years she dwelt in that strong heart, till she grew to be accustomed to her cell. At last, in this wise came her release. An old gipsy came one morning to the Castle and begged to see the Princess. She must see her, she cried. And the Princess came down the steps to meet her, and the gipsy gave her a small roll of paper, but in the midst of the page was a picture, small as the picture reflected in the iris of an eye. The picture shewed a hill, with one tree on the sky-line, and a long road wound round the hill. And suddenly in the Princess' memory a voice spoke to her. Many sounds she heard, gathered up into one great silence, like the quiet there is in forest spaces, when it is Summer and the green is deep:-- "Blessed are they that have the home longing, For they shall go home." Then the Princess gave the gipsy two golden pieces, and went up to her chamber, and long that night she sat, looking out upon the sky. She had no need to look upon the honeyed scroll, though she held it closely. Clearly before her did she see that small picture: the hill, and the tree, and the winding road, imaged as if mirrored in the iris of an eye. And in her memory she was upon that road, and the hill rose beside her, and the little tree was outlined, every twig of it, against the sky. And as she saw all this, an overwhelming love of the place arose in her, a love of that certain bit of country that was so sharp and strong, that it stung and swayed her, as she leaned on the window-sill. And because the love of a country is one of the deepest loves you may feel, the band of her control was loosened, and the tears came welling to her eyes. Up they brimmed and over in salty rush and follow, dimming her eyes, magnifying everything, speared for a moment on her eyelashes, then shimmering to their fall. And at last came the tear that held the disobedient Nixie. Splish! it fell. And she was free. If you could have seen how pretty she looked standing there, about the height of a grass-blade, wringing out her long wet hair. Every bit of moisture she wrung out of it, she was so glad to be quit of that tear. Then she raised her two arms above her in one delicious stretch, and if you had been the size of a mustard-seed perhaps you might have heard her laughing. Then she grew a little, and grew and grew, till she was about the height of a bluebell, and as slender to see. She stood looking at the splash on the window-sill that had been her prison so long, and then with three steps of her bare feet, she reached the jessamine that was growing by the window, and by this she swung herself to the ground. Away she sped over the dew-drenched meadows till she came to the running brook, and with all her longing in her outstretched hands, she kneeled down by the crooked willows among all the comfry and the loosestrife, and the yellow irises and the reeds. Then she slid into the wide, cool stream. From "THE CHILDREN AND THE PICTURES." PAMELA TENNANT (LADY GLENCONNER). THE BLUE ROSE. There lived once upon a time in China a wise Emperor who had one daughter. His daughter was remarkable for her perfect beauty. Her feet were the smallest in the world; her eyes were long and slanting and bright as brown onyxes, and when you heard her laugh it was like the listening to a tinkling stream or to the chimes of a silver bell. Moreover, the Emperor's daughter was as wise as she was beautiful, and she chanted the verse of the great poets better than anyone in the land. The Emperor was old in years; his son was married and had begotten a son; he was, therefore, quite happy with regard to the succession to the throne, but he wished before he died to see his daughter wedded to someone who should be worthy of her. Many suitors presented themselves to the palace as soon as it became know that the Emperor desired a son-in-law, but when they reached the palace they were met by the Lord Chamberlain, who told them that the Emperor had decided that only the man who found and brought back the blue rose should marry his daughter. The suitors were much puzzled by this order. What was the blue rose and where was it to be found? In all, a hundred and fifty at once put away from them all thought of winning the hand of the Emperor's daughter, since they considered the condition imposed to be absurd. The other hundred set about trying to find the blue rose. One of them-- his name was Ti-Fun-Ti--he was a merchant and was immensely rich, at once went to the largest shop in the town and said to the shopkeeper, "I want a blue rose, the best you have." The shopkeeper, with many apologies, explained that he did not stock blue roses. He had red roses in profusion, white, pink and yellow roses, but no blue roses. There had hitherto been no demand for the article. "Well," said Ti-Fun-Ti, "you must get one for me. I do not mind how much money it costs, but I must have a blue rose." The shopkeeper said he would do his best, but he feared it would be an expensive article and difficult to procure. Another of the suitors, whose name I have forgotten, was a warrior, and extremely brave; he mounted his horse, and taking with him a hundred archers and a thousand horsemen, he marched into the territory of the King of the Five Rivers, whom he knew to be the richest king in the world and the possessor of the rarest treasures, and demanded of him the blue rose, threatening him with a terrible doom should he be reluctant to give it up. The King of the Five Rivers, who disliked soldiers, and had a horror of noise, physical violence, and every kind of fuss (his bodyguard was armed solely with fans and sunshades), rose from the cushions on which he was lying when the demand was made, and, tinkling a small bell, said to the servant who straightway appeared, "Fetch me the blue rose." The servant retired and returned presently bearing on a silken cushion a large sapphire which was carved so as to imitate a full-blown rose with all its petals. "This," said the king of the Five Rivers, "is the blue rose. You are welcome to it." The warrior took it, and after making brief, soldier-like thanks, he went straight back to the Emperor's palace, saying that he had lost no time in finding the blue rose. He was ushered into the presence of the Emperor, who as soon as he heard the warrior's story and saw the blue rose which had been brought sent for his daughter and said to her: "This intrepid warrior has brought you what he claims to be the blue rose. Has he accomplished the quest?" The Princess took the precious object in her hands, and after examining it for a moment, said: "This is not a rose at all. It is a sapphire; I have no need of precious stones." And the warrior went away in discomfiture. The merchant, hearing of the warrior's failure, was all the more anxious to win the prize. He sought the shopkeeper and said to him: "Have you got me the blue rose?" I trust you have; because, if not, I shall most assuredly be the means of your death. My brother-in-law is chief magistrate, and I am allied by marriage to all the chief officials in the kingdom." The shopkeeper turned pale and said: "Sir, give me three days and I will procure you the rose without fail." The merchant granted him the three days and went away. Now the shopkeeper was at his wit's end as to what to do, for he knew well there was no such thing as a blue rose. For two days he did nothing but moan and wring his hands, and on the third day he went to his wife and said, "Wife, we are ruined." But his wife, who was a sensible woman, said: "Nonsense. If there is no such thing as a blue rose we must make one. Go to the chemist and ask him for a strong dye which well change a white rose into a blue one." So the shopkeeper went to the chemist and asked him for a dye, and the chemist gave him a bottle of red liquid, telling him to pick a white rose and to dip its stalk into the liquid and the rose would turn blue. The shopkeeper did as he was told; the rose turned into a beautiful blue and the shopkeeper took it to the merchant, who at once went with it to the palace saying that he had found the blue rose. He was ushered into the presence of the Emperor, who as soon as he saw the blue rose sent for his daughter and said to her: "This wealthy merchant has brought you what he claims to be the blue rose. Has he accomplished the quest?" The Princess took the flower in her hands and after examining it for a moment said: "This is a white rose, its stalk has been dipped in a poisonous dye and it has turned blue. Were a butterfly to settle upon it it would die of the potent fume. Take it back. I have no need of a dyed rose." And she returned it to the merchant with many elegantly expressed thanks. The other ninety-eight suitors all sought in various ways for the blue rose. Some of them traveled all over the world seeking it; some of them sought the aid of wizards and astrologers, and one did not hesitate to invoke the help of the dwarfs that live underground; but all of them, whether they traveled in far countries or took counsel with wizards and demons or sat pondering in lonely places, failed to find the blue rose. At last they all abandoned the quest except the Lord Chief Justice, who was the most skillful lawyer and statesman in the country. After thinking over the matter for several months he sent for the most famous artist in the country and said to him: "Make me a china cup. Let it be milk-white in colour and perfect in shape, and paint on it a rose, a blue rose." The artist made obeisance and withdrew, and worked for two months at the Lord Chief Justice's cup. In two months' time it was finished, and the world has never seen such a beautiful cup, so perfect in symmetry, so delicate in texture, and the rose on it, the blue rose, was a living flower, picked in fairyland and floating on the rare milky surface of the porcelain. When the Lord Chief Justice saw it he gasped with surprise and pleasure, for he was a great lover of porcelain, and never in his life had he seen such a piece. He said to himself, "Without doubt the blue rose is here on this cup and nowhere else." So, after handsomely rewarding the artist, he went to the Emperor's palace and said that he had brought the blue rose. He was ushered into the Emperor's presence, who as he saw the cup sent for his daughter and said to her: "This eminent lawyer has brought you what he claims to be the blue rose. Has he accomplished the quest?" The Princess took the bowl in her hands, and after examining it for a moment said: "This bowl is the most beautiful piece of china I have ever seen. If you are kind enough to let me keep it I will put it aside until I receive the blue rose. For so beautiful is it that no other flower is worthy to be put in it except the blue rose." The Lord Chief Justice thanked the Princess for accepting the bowl with many elegantly turned phrases, and he went away in discomfiture. After this there was no one in the whole country who ventured on the quest of the blue rose. It happened that not long after the Lord Chief Justice's attempt a strolling minstrel visited the kingdom of the Emperor. One evening he was playing his one-stringed instrument outside a dark wall. It was a summer's evening, and the sun had sunk in a glory of dusty gold, and in the violet twilight one or two stars were twinkling like spearheads. There was an incessant noise made by the croaking of frogs and the chatter of grasshoppers. The minstrel was singing a short song over and over again to a monotonous tune. The sense of it was something like this: I watched beside the willow trees The river, as the evening fell, The twilight came and brought no breeze, Nor dew, nor water for the well. When from the tangled banks of grass A bird across the water flew, And in the river's hard grey glass I saw a flash of azure blue. As he sang he heard a rustle on the wall, and looking up he saw a slight figure white against the twilight, beckoning him. He walked along under the wall until he came to a gate, and there someone was waiting for him, and he was gently led into the shadow of a dark cedar tree. In the dim twilight he saw two bright eyes looking at him, and he understood their message. In the twilight a thousand meaningless nothings were whispered in the light of the stars, and the hours fled swiftly. When the East began to grow light, the Princess (for it was she) said it was time to go. "But," said the minstrel, "to-morrow I shall come to the palace and ask for your hand." "Alas!" said the Princess, "I would that were possible, but my father has made a foolish condition that only he may wed me who finds the blue rose." "That is simple," said the minstrel. "I will find it." And they said good night to each other. The next morning the minstrel went to the palace, and on his way he picked a common white rose from a wayside garden. He was ushered into the Emperor's presence, who sent for his daughter and said to her: "This penniless minstrel has brought you what he claims to be the blue rose. Has he accomplished the quest?" The Princess took the rose in her hands and said: "Yes, this is without doubt the blue rose." But the Lord Chief Justice and all who were present respectfully pointed out that the rose was a common white rose and not a blue one, and the objection was with many forms and phrases conveyed to the Princess. "I think the rose is blue," said the Princess. "Perhaps you are all colour blind." The Emperor, with whom the decision rested, decided that if the Princess thought the rose was blue it was blue, for it was well known that her perception was more acute than that of any one else in the kingdom. So the minstrel married the Princess, and they settled on the sea coast in a little seen house with a garden full of white roses, and they lived happily ever afterwards. And the Emperor, knowing that his daughter had made a good match, died in peace. MAURICE BARING. THE TWO FROGS. Once upon a time in the country of Japan there lived two frogs, one of whom made his home in a ditch near the town of Osaka, on the sea coast, while the other dwelt in a clear little stream which ran through the city of Kioto. At such a great distance apart, they had never even heard of each other; but, funnily enough, the idea came into both their heads at once that they should like to see a little of the world, and the frog who lived at Kioto wanted to visit Osaka, and the frog who lived at Osaka wished to go to Kioto, where the great Mikado had his palace. So one fine morning in the spring, they both set out along the road that led from Kioto to Osaka, one from one end and the other from the other. The journey was more tiring than they expected, for they did not know much about travelling, and half-way between the two towns there rose a mountain which had to be climbed. It took them a long time and a great many hops to reach the top, but there they were at last, and what was the surprise of each to see another frog before him! They looked at each other for a moment without speaking, and then fell into conversation, and explained the cause of their meeting so far from their homes. It was delightful to find that they both felt the same wish--to learn a little more of their native country--and as there was no sort of hurry they stretched themselves out in a cool, damp place, and agreed that they would have a good rest before they parted to go their ways. "What a pity we are not bigger," said the Osaka frog, "and then we could see both towns from here and tell if it worth our while going on." "Oh, that is easily manage," returned the Kioto frog. "We have only got to stand up on our hind legs, and hold on to each other, and then we can each look at the town he is travelling to." This idea pleased the Osaka frog so much that he at once jumped up and put his front paws on the shoulder of his friend, who had risen also. There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could, and holding each other tightly, so that they might not fall down. The Kioto frog turned his nose towards Osaka, and the Osaka frog turned his nose toward Kioto; but the foolish thing forgot that when the stood up their great eyes lay in the backs of their heads, and that though their noses might point to the places to which they wanted to go, their eyes beheld the places from which they had come. "Dear me!" cried the Osaka frog; "Kioto is exactly like Osaka. It is certainly not worth such a long journey. I shall go home." "If I had had any idea that Osaka was only a copy of Kioto I should never have travelled all this way," exclaimed the frog from Kioto, and as he spoke, he took his hands from his friend's shoulders and they both fell down to the grass. Then they took a polite farewell of each other, and set off for home, again, and to the end of their lives they believed that Osaka and Kioto, which are as different to look at as two towns can be, were as like as two peas. THE VIOLET LOVING BOOK. THE WISE OLD SHEPHERD. Once upon a time a Snake went out of his hole to take an airing. He crawled about, greatly enjoying the scenery and the fresh whiff of the breeze, until, seeing an open door, he went in. Now this door was the door of the palace of the King, and inside was the King himself, with all his courtiers. Imagine their horror at seeing a huge Snake crawling in at the door. They all ran away except the king, who felt that his rank forbade him to be a coward, and the King's son. The King called out for somebody to come and kill the Snake; but this horrified them still more, because in that country the people believed it to be wicked to kill any living thing, even snakes and scorpion and wasps. So the courtiers did nothing, but the young Prince obeyed his father, and killed the Snake with his stick. After a while the Snake's wife became anxious and set out in search of her husband. She too saw the open door of the palace, and in she went. O horror! there on the floor lay the body of her husband all covered with blood and quite dead. No one saw the Snake's wife crawl in; she inquired of a white ant what had happened, and when she found that the young prince had killed her husband, she made a vow that, as he had made her a widow, so she would make his wife a widow. That night, when all the world was asleep, the Snake crept into the Prince's bedroom, and coiled round his neck. The Prince slept on, and when he awoke in the morning, he was surprised to find his neck encircled with the coils of a snake. He was afraid to stir, so there he remained, until the Prince's mother became anxious and went to see what was the matter. When she entered his room, and saw him in this plight, she gave a loud shriek, and ran off to tell the king. "Call the archers," said the King. The archers came in a row, fitted the arrows to the bows, the bows were raised and ready to shoot, when, on a sudden, from the Snake there issued a voice which spoke as follows: "O archers, wait, wait and hear me before you shoot. It is not fair to carry out the sentence before you have heard the case. Is not this a good law: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth? Is it not so, O King?" "Yes," replied the King, "that is our law." "Then," said the snake, "I plead the law. Your son has made me a widow, so it is fair and right that I should make his wife a widow." "That sounds right enough," said the King, "but right and law are not always the same thing. We had better ask somebody who knows." They asked all the judges, but none of them could tell the law of the matter. They shook their heads, and said they would look up all their law-books, and see whether anything of the sort had ever happened before, and if so, how it had been decided. That is the way judges used to decide cases in that country, though I dare say it sounds to you a very funny way. It looked as if they had not much sense in their own heads, and perhaps that was true. The upshot of it all was that not a judge would give an opinion; so the King sent messengers all over the countryside, to see if they could find somebody somewhere who knew something. One of these messengers found a party of five shepherds, who were sitting upon a hill and trying to decide a quarrel of their own. They gave their opinions so freely, and in language so very strong, that the King's messenger said to himself, "Here are the men for us. Here are five men, each with an opinion of his own, and all different." Posthaste he scurried back to the King, and told him that he had found at last some one ready to judge the knotty point. So the King and the Queen, and the Prince and Princess, and all the courtiers, got on horseback, and away they galloped to the hill whereupon the five shepherds were sitting, and the Snake too went with them, coiled around the neck of the Prince. When they got to the shepherds' hill, the shepherds were dreadfully frightened. At first they thought the strangers were a gang of robbers, and when they saw it was the King their next thought was that one of their misdeeds had been found out; and each of them began thinking what was the last thing he had done, and wondering, was it that? But the King and the courtiers got off their horses, and said good day, in the most civil way. So the shepherds felt their minds set at ease again. Then the King said: "Worthy shepherds, we have a question to put to you, which not all the judges in all the courts of my city have been able to solve. Here is my son, and here, as you see, is a snake coiled round his neck. Now, the husband of this Snake came creeping into my palace hall, and my son the Prince killed him; so this Snake, who is the wife of the other, says that, as my son has made her a widow, so she has a right to widow my son's wife. What do you think about it?" The first shepherd said: "I think she is quite right, my Lord the King. If anyone made my wife a widow, I would pretty soon do the same to him." This was brave language, and the other shepherds shook their heads and looked fierce. But the King was puzzled, and could not quite understand it. You see, in the first place, if the man's wife were a widow, the man would be dead; and then it is hard to see that he could do anything. So to make sure, the King asked the second shepherd whether that was his opinion too. "Yes," said the second shepherd; "now the Prince has killed the Snake, the Snake has a right to kill the Prince if he can." But that was not of much use either, as the Snake was as dead as a doornail. So the King passed on to the third. "I agree with my mates," said the third shepherd. "Because, you see, a Prince is a Prince, but then a Snake is a Snake." That was quite true, they all admitted, but it did not seem to help the matter much. Then the King asked the fourth shepherd to say what he thought. The fourth shepherd said: "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; so I think a widow should be a widow, if so be she don't marry again." By this time the poor King was so puzzled that he hardly knew whether he stood on his head or his heels. But there was still the fifth shepherd left; the oldest and wisest of them all; and the fifth shepherd said: "King, I should like to ask two questions." "Ask twenty, if you like," said the King. He did not promise to answer them, so he could afford to be generous. "First. I ask the Princess how many sons she has." "Four," said the Princess. "And how many sons has Mistress Snake here?" Seven," said the Snake. "Then," said the old shepherd, "it will be quite fair for Mistress Snake to kill his Highness the Prince when her Highness the Princess has had three sons more." "I never thought of that," said the Snake. "Good-bye, King, and all you good people. Send a message when the Princess has had three more sons, and you may count upon me--I will not fail you." So saying, she uncoiled from the Prince's neck and slid away among the grass. The King and the Prince and everybody shook hands with the wise old shepherd, and went home again. And the Princess never had any more sons at all. She and the Prince lived happily for many years; and if they are not dead they are living still. From "THE TALKING THRUSH." THE FOLLY OF PANIC. And it came to pass that the Buddha (to be) was born again as a Lion. Just as he had helped his fellow-men, he now began to help his fellow- animals, and there was a great deal to be done. For instance, there was a little nervous Hare who was always afraid that something dreadful was going to happen to her. She was always saying: "Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would happen to me?" And she said this so often that at last she thought it really was about to happen. One day, when she had been saying over and over again, "Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would happen to me?" she heard a slight noise: it really was only a heavy fruit which had fallen upon a rustling leaf, but the little Hare was so nervous she was ready to believe anything, and she said in a frightened tone: "The Earth is falling in." She ran away as fast as she could go, and presently she met an old brother Hare, who said: "Where are you running to Mistress Hare?" And the little Hare said: "I have no time to stop and tell you anything. The Earth is falling in, and I am running away." "The Earth is falling in, is it?" said the old brother Hare, in a tone of much astonishment; and he repeated this to _his_ brother hare, and _he_ to _his_ brother hare, and he to his brother hare, until at last there were a hundred thousand brother hares, all shouting: "The Earth is falling in." Now presently the bigger animals began to take the cry up. First the deer, and then the sheep, and then the wild boar, and then the buffalo, and then the camel, and then the tiger, and then the elephant. Now the wise Lion heard all this noise and wondered at it. "There are no signs," he said, "of the Earth falling in. They must have heard something." And then he stopped them all short and said: "What is this you are saying?" And the Elephant said: "I remarked that the Earth was falling in." "How do you know this?" asked the Lion. "Why, now I come to think of it, it was the Tiger that remarked it to me." And the Tiger said: "I had it from the Camel," and the Camel said: "I had it from the Buffalo." And the buffalo from the wild boar, and the wild boar from the sheep, and the sheep from the deer, and the deer from the hares, and the Hares said: "Oh! _we_ heard it from _that_ little Hare." And the Lion said: "Little Hare, _what_ made you say that the Earth was falling in?" And the little Hare said: "I _saw_ it." "You saw it?" said the Lion. "Where?" "Yonder, by that tree." "Well," said the Lion, "come with me and I will show you how---" "No, no," said the Hare, "I would not go near that tree for anything, I'm _so_ nervous." "But," said the Lion, "I am going to take you on my back." And he took her on his back, and begged the animals to stay where they were until they returned. Then he showed the little Hare how the fruit had fallen upon the leaf, making the noise that had frightened her, and she said: "Yes, I see--the Earth is _not_ falling in." and the Lion said: "Shall we go back and tell the other animals?" And they went back. The little Hare stood before the animals and said: "The Earth is _not_ falling in." And all the animals began to repeat this to one another, and they dispersed gradually, and you heard the words more and more softly: "The Earth is _not_ falling in," etc., etc., etc., until the sound died away altogether. From "EASTERN STORIES AND LEGENDS." [NOTE:--This story I have told in my own words, using the language I have found most effective for very young children.] THE TRUE SPIRIT OF A FESTIVAL DAY. And it came to pass that the Buddha was born a Hare and lived in a wood; on one side was the foot of a mountain, on another a river, on the third side a border village. And with him lived three friends: a Monkey, a Jackal and an Otter; each of these creatures got food on his own hunting ground. In the evening they met together, and the Hare taught his companions many wise things: that the moral law should be observed, that alms should be given to the poor, and that holy days should be kept. One day the Buddha said: "To-morrow is a fast day. Feed any beggars that come to you by giving food from your own table." They all consented. The next day the Otter went down to the bank of the Ganges to seek his prey. Now a fisherman had landed seven red fish and had buried them in the sand on the river's bank while he went down the stream catching more fish. The Otter scented the buried fish, dug up the sand till he came upon them, and he called aloud: "Does any one own these fish?" And, not seeing the owner, he laid the fish in the jungle where he dwelt, intending to eat them at a fitting time. Then he lay down, thinking how virtuous he was. The Jackal also went off in search of food, and found in the hut of a field watcher a lizard, two spits, and a pot of milk-curd. And, after thrice crying aloud, "To whom do these belong?" and not finding an owner, he put on his neck the rope for lifting the pot, and grasping the spits and lizard with his teeth, he laid them in his own lair, thinking, "In due season I will devour them," and then he lay down, thinking how virtuous he had been. But the Hare (who was the Buddha-to-be) in due time came out, thinking to lie (in contemplation) on the Kuca grass. "It is impossible for me to offer _grass_ to any beggars who may chance to come by, and I have no oil or rice or fish. If any beggar comes to me, I will give him (of) my own flesh to eat." Now when Sakka, the King of the Gods, heard this thing, he determined to put the Royal Hare to the test. So he came in disguise of a Brahmin to the Otter and said: "Wise Sir, if I could get something to eat, I would perform _all_ my priestly duties." The Otter said: "I will give you food. Seven red fish have I safely brought to land from the sacred river of the Ganges. Eat thy fill, O Brahmin, and stay in this wood." And the Brahmin said: "Let it be until to-morrow, and I will see to it then." Then he went to the Jackal, who confessed that he had stolen the food, but he begged the Brahmin to accept it and remain in the wood: but the Brahmin said: "Let it be until the morrow, and then I well see to it." Then the Brahmin went to the wise Hare, and the Hare said: "Behold, I will give you of my flesh to eat. But you must not take life on this holy day. When you have piled up the logs I will sacrifice myself by falling into the midst of the flames, and when my body is roasted you shall eat my flesh and perform all your priestly duties." Now when Sakka heard these words he caused a heap of burning coals to appear, and the Wisdom Being, rising from the grass, came to the place, but before casting himself into the flames he shook himself, lest perchance there should be any insects in his coat who might suffer death. Then, offering his body as a free gift, he sprang up, and like a royal swan, lighting on a bed of lotus in an ecstasy of joy, he fell on the heap of live coals. But the flame failed even to heat the pores or the hair on the body of the Wisdom Being, and it was as if he had entered a region of frost. Then he addressed the Brahmin in these words: "Brahmin, the fire that you have kindled is icy cold; it fails to heat the pores of the hair on my body. What is the meaning of this?" "O most wise Hare! I am Sakka, and have come to put your virtue to the test." And the Buddha in a sweet voice said: "No god or man could find in me an unwillingness to die." Then Sakka said: "O wise Hare, be thy virtue known to all the ages to come." And seizing the mountain he squeezed out the juice and daubed on the moon the signs of the young hare. Then he placed him back on the grass that he might continue his Sabbath meditation, and returned to Heaven. And the four creatures lived together and kept the moral law. From "EASTERN STORIES AND LEGENDS." FILIAL PIETY Now it came to pass that the Buddha was reborn in the shape of a parrot, and he greatly excelled all other parrots in his strength and beauty. And when he was full grown his father, who had long been the leader of the flock in their flights to other climes, said to him: "My son, behold, thou shalt rest. I will lead the birds." And the parrots rejoiced in the strength of their new leader, and willingly did they follow him. Now from that day on, the Buddha undertook to feed his parents, and would not consent that they should do any more work. Each day he led his flock to the Himalaya Hills, and when he had eaten his fill of the clumps of rice that grew there, he filled his beak with food for the dear parents who were waiting his return. Now there was a man appointed to watch the rice-fields, and he did his best to drive the parrots away, but there seemed to be some secret power in the leader of this flock which the keeper could not overcome. He noticed that the parrots ate their fill and then flew away, but that the Parrot-King not only satisfied his hunger, but carried away rice in his beak. Now he feared there would be no rice left, and he went to his master, the Brahmin, to tell him what had happened; and even as the master listened there came to him the thought that the Parrot-King was something higher than he seemed, and he loved him even before he saw him. But he said nothing of this, and only warned the Keeper that he should set a snare and catch the dangerous bird. So the man did as he was bidden: he made a small cage and set the snare, and sat down in his hut waiting for the birds to come. And soon he saw the Parrot-King amidst his flock, who, because he had no greed, sought no richer spot, but flew down to the same place in which he had fed the day before. Now, no sooner had he touched the ground than he felt his feet caught in the noose. Then fear crept into his bird heart, but a stronger feeling was there to crush it down, for he thought: "If I cry out the Cry of the Captured, my Kinsfolk will be terrified, and they will fly away foodless. But if I lie still, then their hunger will be satisfied, and may they safely come to my aid." Thus, was the parrot both brave and prudent. But alas! he did not know that his Kinsfolk had nought of his brave spirit. When _they_ had eaten their fill, though they heard the thrice-uttered cry of the captured, they flew away, nor heed the sad plight of their leader. Then was the heart of the Parrot-King sore within him, and he said: "All these my kith and kin, and not one to look back on me. Alas! what sin have I done?" The watchman now heard the cry if the Parrot-King, and the sound of the other parrots flying through the air. "What is that?" he cried, and leaving his hut he came to the place where he had laid the snare. There he found the captive parrot; he tied his feet together and brought him to the Brahmin, his master. Now, when the Brahmin saw the Parrot-King, he felt his strong power, and his heart was full of love to him, but he hid his feelings, and said in a voice of anger: "Is thy greed greater than that of all other birds? They eat their fill, but thou canst takest away each day more food than thou canst eat. Doest thou this out of hatred for me, or dost thou store up the food in same granary for selfish greed?" And the Great Being made answer in a sweet human voice: "I hate thee not, O Brahmin. Nor do I store the rice in a granary for selfish greed. But this thing I do. Each day I pay a debt which is due--each day I grant a loan, and each day I store up a treasure." Now the Brahmin could not understand the words of the Buddha (because true wisdom had not entered his heart) and he said: "I pray thee, O Wondrous Bird, to make these words clear unto me." And then the Parrot-King made answer: "I carry food to my ancient parents who can no longer seek that food for themselves: thus I pay my daily debt. I carry food to my callow chicks whose wings are yet ungrown. When I am old they will care for me--this my loan to them. And for other birds, weak and helpless of wing, who need the aid of the strong, for them I lay up a store; to these I give in charity." Then was the Brahmin much moved and showed the love that was in his heart. "Eat thy fill, O Righteous Bird, and let thy Kinsfolk eat, too, for thy sake." And he wished to bestow a thousand acres of land upon him, but the Great Being would only take a tiny portion round which were set boundary stores. And the parrot returned with a head of rice, and said: "Arise, dear parents, that I may take you to a place of plenty." And he told them the story of his deliverance. From "EASTERN STORIES AND LEGENDS." THREE STORIES FROM HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.[53] THE SWINEHERD. There was once a poor Prince. He owned a Kingdom--a very small one, but it was big enough to allow him to marry, and he was determined to marry. Now, it was really very bold on his part to say to a King's daughter: "Will you marry me?" But he dared to do so, for his name was known far and wide, and there were hundreds of princesses who would willingly have said: "Yes, thank you." But, would _she_? We shall hear what happened. On the grave of the Prince's father, there grew a rose-tree--such a wonderful rose-tree! It bloomed only once in five years, and then it bore only one rose--but what a rose! Its perfume was so sweet that whoever smelt it forgot all his cares and sorrows. The Prince had also a nightingale which could sing as if all the delicious melodies in the world were contained in its little throat. The rose and the nightingale were both to be given to the Princess, and were therefore placed in two great silver caskets and sent to her. The Emperor had them carried before him into the great hall where the Princess was playing at "visiting" with her ladies-in-waiting--they had nothing else to do. When she saw the caskets with the presents in them, she clapped her hands with joy. "If it were only a little pussy-cat," she cried. But out came a beautiful rose. "How elegantly it is made," said all the ladies of the court. "It is more than elegant," said the Emperor, "It is _neat_. "Fie, papa," she said, "it is not made at all; it is a _natural_ rose." "Let us see what the other casket contains before we lose our temper," said the Emperor, and then out came the little nightingale and sang so sweetly that at first nobody could think of anything to say against it." "_Superbe, superbe_," cried the ladies of the court, for they all chattered French, one worse than the other. "How the bird reminds me of the late Empress' musical-box!" said an old Lord-in-Waiting. "Ah, me! the same tone, the same execution." "The very same," said the Emperor, and he cried like a little child. "I hope it is not a real bird," said the Princess. Oh, yes! it is a real bird," said those who had brought it. "Then let the bird fly away," she said, and she would on no account allow the Prince to come in. But he was not to be disheartened; he smeared his face with black and brown, drew his cap over his forehead, and knocked at the Palace door. The Emperor opened it. "Good day, Emperor," he said. "Could I get work at the Palace?" "Well, there are so many wanting places," said the Emperor; "but let me see!--I need a Swineherd. I have a good many pigs to keep." So the Prince was made Imperial Swineherd. He had a wretched little room near the pig-sty and here he was obliged to stay. But the whole day he sat and worked, and by the evening he had made a neat little pipkin, and round it was a set of bells, and as soon as the pot began to boil, the bells fell to jingling most sweetly and played the old melody: "Ach du lieber Augustin, Alles is weg, weg, weg!"[54] But the most wonderful thing was that when you held your finger in the steam of the pipkin, you could immediately smell what dinner was cooking on every hearth in the town. That was something very different from a rose. The Princess was walking out with her ladies-in-waiting, and when she heard the melody, she stopped short, and looked pleased, for she could play "Ach du lieber Augustin" herself; it was the only tune she knew, and that she played with one finger. "Why, that is the tune I play," she said. "What a cultivated Swineherd he must be. Go down and ask him how much his instrument costs." So one of the ladies-in-waiting was obliged to go down, but she put on pattens first. "How much do you want for your pipkin?" asked the Lady-in-waiting. "I will have ten kisses from the Princess," said the Swineherd. "Good gracious!" said the Lady-in-waiting. "I will not take less," said the Swineherd. "Well, what did he say?" asked the Princess. "I really cannot tell you," said the Lady-in-waiting. "It is too dreadful." "Then you must whisper it," said the Princess. So she whispered it. "He is very rude," said the Princess, and she walked away. But she had gone only a few steps when the bells sounded so sweetly: "Ach du lieber Augustin Alles ist weg, weg, weg!" "Listen," said the Princess, "ask him whether he will have his kisses from my Ladies-in-waiting." "No, thank you," said the Swineherd. "I will have ten kisses from the Princess, or, I will keep my pipkin." "How tiresome!" said the Princess; "but you must stand round me, so that nobody shall see." So the ladies-in-waiting stood round her and they spread out their skirts. The Swineherd got the kisses, and she got the pipkin. How delighted she was. All the evening and the whole of the next day, that pot was made to boil. And you might have known what everybody was cooking on every hearth in town, from the Chamberlain's to the shoemaker's. The court ladies danced and clapped their hands. "We know who is to have fruit-soup and pancakes, and we know who is going to have porridge, and cutlets. How very interesting it is!" "Most interesting, indeed," said the first Lady-of-Honor. "Yes, but hold your tongues, for I am the Emperor's daughter." "Of course we will," they cried in one breath. The Swineherd, or the Prince, nobody knew that he was not a real Swineherd, did not let the day pass without doing something, and he made a rattle which could play all the waltzes, and the polkas and the hop-dances which had been know since the creation of the world. "But this is _superbe_!" said the Princess, who was just passing: "I have never heard more beautiful composition. Go and as him what the instrument costs. But I will give no more kisses." "He insists on a hundred kisses from the Princess," said the ladies- in-waiting who had been down to ask. "I think he must be quite mad," said the Princess, and she walked away. But when she had taken a few steps, she stopped short, and said: "One must encourage the fine arts, and I am the emperor's daughter. Tell him he may have ten kisses, as before, and the rest he can take from my ladies-in-waiting." "Yes, but we object to that," said the ladies-in-waiting. "That is nonsense," said the Princess. "If I can kiss him, surely you can do the same. Go down at once. Don't I give you board and wages?" So the ladies-in-waiting were obliged to go down to the Swineherd again. "A hundred kisses from the Princess, or each keeps his own." "Stand round me," she said. And all the ladies-in-waiting stood round her, and the Swineherd began to kiss her. "What can all the crowd be down by the pig-sty?" said the Emperor, stepping out onto the balcony. He rubbed his eyes and put on his spectacles. "It is the court ladies up to some of their tricks. I must go down and look after them." He pulled up his slippers, for they were shoes which he had trodden down at heel. Gracious goodness, how he hurried! As soon as he came into the garden, he walked very softly, and the ladies-in-waiting had so much to do counting the kisses, so that everything could be done fairly, and that the Swineherd should get neither too many nor too few, that they never noticed the Emperor at all. He stood on tip-toe. "What is this all about?" he said, when he saw the kissing that was going on, and he hit them on the head with his slipper, just as the Swineherd was getting the eighty-sixth kiss. "Heraus!" said the Emperor, for he was angry, and both the Princess and the Swineherd were turned out of his Kingdom. The Princess wept, the Swineherd scolded, and the rain streamed down. "Oh! wretched creature that I am," said the Princess. "If I had only taken the handsome Prince! Oh, how unhappy I am!" Then the Swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown off his face, threw of his ragged clothes, and stood forth in his royal apparel, looking so handsome that she was obliged to curtsey. "I have learned to despise you," he said. "You would not have an honorable Prince. You could not appreciate a rose or a nightingale, but for a musical toy, you kissed the Swineherd. Now you have your reward." So he went into his Kingdom, shut the door and bolted it, and she had to stand outside singing: "Ach, du lieber Augustin, Alles is weg, weg, weg!" THE NIGHTINGALE. In China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all those around him are Chinamen, too. It is many years since all this happened, and for that very reason it is worth hearing, before it is forgotten. The Emperor's palace was the most beautiful in the world; built all of fine porcelain and very costly, but so fragile that it was very difficult to touch, and you had to be very careful in doing so. The most wonderful flowers were to be seen in the garden, and to the most beautiful silver bells, tinkling bells were tied, for fear people should pass by without noticing them. How well everything had been thought out in the Emperor's garden! This was so big, that the gardener himself did not know where it ended. If you walked on and on you came to the most beautiful forest, with tall trees and big lakes. The wood stretched right down to the sea which was blue and deep; great ships could pass underneath the branches, and here a nightingale had made its home, and its singing was so entrancing that the poor fisherman, though he had so many other things to do, would lie still and listen when he was out at night drawing in his nets. "How beautiful it is!" he said; but then he was forced to think about his own affairs, and the Nightingale was forgotten. The next day, when it sang again, the fisherman said the same thing: "How beautiful it is!" Travellers from all the countries of the world came to the emperor's town, and expressed their admiration of the palace and the garden, but when they heard the Nightingale, they all said: "This is the best of all!" Now, when these travellers came home, they told of what they had seen. And scholars wrote many books about the town, the palace and the garden, but nobody left out the Nightingale; it was always spoken of as the most wonderful of all they had seen. And those who had the gift of the Poet, wrote the most delightful poems all about the Nightingale in the wood near the deep lake. The books went round the world, and in the course of time some of them reached the Emperor. He sat in his golden chair, and read and read, nodding his head every minute; for it pleased him to read the beautiful descriptions of the town, the palace and the garden. "But the Nightingale is the best of all," he read. "What is this?" said the Emperor. "The Nightingale! I now nothing whatever about it. To think of there being such a bird in my Kingdom-- nay in my very garden--and I have never heard it. And to think one should learn such a thing for the first time from a book!" Then he summoned his Lord-in-Waiting, who was such a grand personage that if anyone inferior in rank ventured to speak to him, or ask him about anything, he merely answered "P," which meant nothing whatever. "There is said to be a most wonderful bird, called the Nightingale," said the Emperor; "they say it is the best thing in my great Kingdom. Why have I been told nothing about it?" "I have never heard it mentioned before," said the Lord-in-Waiting. "It has certainly never been presented at court." "It is my good pleasure that it shall appear to-night and sing before me!" said the Emperor. "The whole world knows what is mine, and I myself do not know it." "I have never heard it mentioned before," said the Lord-in-Waiting. "I will seek it, and I shall find it." But where was it to be found? The Lord-in-Waiting ran up and down all the stairs, through halls and passages, but not one of all those whom he met had ever heard a word about the Nightingale; so the Lord-in- Waiting ran back to the Emperor and told him that it must certainly be a fable invented by writers of books. "Your Majesty must not believe all that is written in books. It is pure invention, something which is called the Black Art." "But," said the Emperor, "the book in which I have read this was sent to me by His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, and therefore this cannot be a falsehood. I will hear the Nightingale. It must appear this evening! It has my Imperial favor, and if it fails to appear the Court shall be trampled upon after the Court has supped." "Tsing-pe!" said the Lord-in-Waiting, and again he ran up and down all the stairs, through all the passages, and half the Court ran with him, for they had no wish to be trampled upon. And many questions were asked about the wonderful Nightingale, of whom all had heard except those who lived at Court. At last, they met a poor little girl in the kitchen. She said: "Oh, yes! The Nightingale! I know it well. How it can sing! Every evening I have permission to take the broken pieces from the table to my poor sick mother who lives near the sea-shore, and on my way back, when I feel tired, and rest a while in the wood, then I hear the Nightingale sing, and my eyes are filled with tears; it is as if my mother kissed me." "Little kitchen-maid," said the Lord-in-Waiting, "I will get a permanent place for you in the Court Kitchen and permission to see the Emperor dine, if you can lead us to the Nightingale; for it has been commanded to appear at Court to-night." So they started off all together where the bird used to sing; half the Court went, too. They were going along at a good pace, when suddenly they heard a cow lowing. "Oh," said a Court-Page. "There it is! What a wonderful power for so small a creature! I have certainly heard it before." "No, those are the cows lowing," said the little kitchen-maid. "We are a long way from the place yet." Then the frogs began to croak in the marsh. "Glorious," said the Court- Preacher. "Now, I hear it--it is just like little church-bells." "No, those are the frogs," said the little kitchen-maid. "But now I think we shall soon hear it." And then the Nightingale began to sing. "There it is," said the little girl. "Listen, listen--there it sits!" And she pointed to a little gray bird in the branches. "Is it possible!" said the Lord-in-Waiting. "I had never supposed it would look like that. How very plain it looks! It has certainly lost its color from seeing so many grand folk here." "Little Nightingale," called out the little kitchen-maid, "our gracious Emperor wishes you to sing for him." "With the greatest pleasure," said the Nightingale, and it sang, and it was a joy to hear it. "It sounds like little glass bells," said the Lord-in-Waiting; "and just look at its little throat, how it moves! It is astonishing to think we have never heard it before! It will have a real _success_ at Court." "Shall I sing for the Emperor again?" asked the Nightingale, who thought that the Emperor was there in person. "Mine excellent little Nightingale," said the Lord-in-Waiting, "I have the great pleasure of bidding you to a Court-Festival this night, when you will enchant His Imperial Majesty with your delightful warbling." "My voice sounds better among the green trees," said the Nightingale. But it came willingly when it knew the Emperor wished it. There was a great deal of furbishing up at the palace. The walls and ceiling which were of porcelain, shone with the light of a thousand golden lamps. The most beautiful flowers of the tinkling kind were placed in the passages. There was a running to and fro and a great draught, but that is just what made the bells ring, and one could not hear oneself speak. In the middle of the great hall where the Emperor sat, a golden rod had been set up on which the Nightingale was to perch. The whole Court was present, and the little kitchen-maid was allowed to stand behind the door, for she had now the actual title of Court Kitchen-Maid. All were there in their smartest clothes, and they all looked toward the little gray bird to which the Emperor nodded. And then the Nightingale sang, so gloriously that tears sprang into the Emperor's eyes and rolled down his cheeks, and the Nightingale sang even more sweetly. The song went straight to the heart, and the Emperor was so delighted that he declared that the Nightingale should have his golden slipper to hang round its neck. But the Nightingale declined. It had already had its reward. "I have seen tears in the Emperor's eyes. That is my greatest reward. An Emperor's tears have a wonderful power. God knows I am sufficiently rewarded," and again its sweet, glorious voice was heard. "That is the most delightful coquetting I have ever known," said the ladies sitting round, and they took water into their mouths, in order to gurgle when anyone spoke to them, and they really thought they were like the Nightingale. Even the footmen and the chambermaids sent word that they were satisfied, and that means a great deal, for they are always the most difficult people to please. Yes, indeed, there was no doubt as to the Nightingale's success. It was to stay at Court, and have its own cage, with liberty to go out twice in the daytime, and once at night. Twelve footmen went out with it, and each held a silk ribbon which was tied to the bird's leg, and which they held very tightly. There was not much pleasure in an outing of that sort. The whole town was talking about the wonderful bird, and when two people met, one said: "Nightin--" and the other said "gale," and they sighed and understood one another. Eleven cheese-mongers' children were called after the bird, though none of them could sing a note. One day a large parcel came for the Emperor. Outside was written the word: "Nightingale." "Here we have a new book about our wonderful bird," said the Emperor. But it was not a book; it was a little work of art which lay in a box-- an artificial Nightingale, which looked exactly like the real one, but it was studded all over with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. As soon as you wound it up, it could sing one of the songs which the real bird sang, and its tail moved up and down and glittered with silver and gold. Round its neck was a ribbon on which was written: "The Emperor of Japan's Nightingale is poor indeed, compared with the Emperor of China's." "That is delightful," they all said, and on the messenger who had brought the artificial bird, they bestowed the title of "Imperial Nightingale-Bringer-in-Chief." "Let them sing together, and _what_ a duet that will be!" And so they had to sing, but the thing would not work, because the real Nightingale could only sing in its own way, and the artificial Nightingale went by clockwork. "That is not its fault," said the band-master. "Time is its strong point and it has quite my method." Then the artificial Nightingale had to sing alone. It had just as much success as the real bird, and it was so much handsomer to look at; it glittered like bracelets and breast-pins. It sang the same tune three and thirty times, and still it was not tired; the people would willingly listen to the whole performance over again from the start, but the Emperor suggested that the real Nightingale should sing for a while--where was it? Nobody had noticed it had flown out of the open window back to its green woods. "But what is the meaning of all this?" said the Emperor. All the courtiers railed at the Nightingale and said it was a most ungrateful creature. "We have the better of the two," they said, and the artificial Nightingale had to sing again, and this was the thirty-fourth time they had heard the same tune. But they did not know it properly event then because it was so difficult, and the band-master praised the wonderful bird in the highest terms and even asserted that it was superior to the real bird, not only as regarded the outside, with the many lovely diamonds, but the inside as well. "You see, ladies and gentlemen, and above all your Imperial Majesty, that with the real Nightingale, you can never predict what may happen, but with the artificial bird, everything is settled beforehand; so it remains and it cannot be changed. One can account for it. One can rip it open, and show the human ingenuity, explaining how the cylinders lie, how they work, and how one thing is the result of another." "That is just what we think," they all exclaimed, and the bandmaster received permission to exhibit the bird to the people on the following Sunday. The Emperor said they would hear it sing. They listened and were as much delighted as if they had been drunk with tea, which is Chinese, you know, and they all said: "Oh!" and stuck their forefingers in the air, and nodded their heads. But the poor fisherman who had heard the real Nightingale, said: "It sounds quite well, and a little like it, but there is something wanting, I do not know what." The real Nightingale was banished from the Kingdom. The artificial bird had its place on a silken cushion close to the Emperor's bed. All the presents it had received, the gold and precious stones, lay all round it, and it had been honored with the title of High-Imperial-Bed-Room-Singer--in the first rank, on the left side, for even the Emperor considered that side the grander on which the heart is placed, and even an Emperor has his heart on the left side. The band-master wrote twenty-five volumes about the wonderful artificial bird. The book was very learned and very long, filled with the most difficult words in the Chinese language, and everybody said they had read and understood it, for otherwise they would have been considered stupid, and would have been trampled upon. And thus a whole year passed away. The Emperor, the Court, and all the Chinamen knew every little gurgle in the artificial bird's song, and just for this reason, they were all the better pleased with it. They could sing it themselves--which they did. The boys in the street sang "Iodizing," and, "cluck, cluck," and even the Emperor sang it. Yes, it was certainly beautiful! But one evening, while the bird was singing, and the Emperor lay in bed listening to it, there was a whirring sound inside the bird, and something whizzed; all the wheels ran round, and the music stopped. The Emperor sprang out of bed and sent for the Court Physician, but what could he do? Then they sent for the watch-maker, and after much talk and examination, he patched the bird up, but he said it must be spared as much as possible, because the hammers were so worn out--and he could not put new ones in so that the music could be counted on. This was a great grief. The bird could only be allowed to sing once a year, and even that was risky, but on these occasions, the band-master would make a little speech, full of difficult words, saying the bird was just as good as ever--and that was true. Five years passed away, and a great sorrow had come to the country. The people all really cared for their Emperor, and now he was ill and it was said he could not live. A new Emperor had been chosen, and the people stood about the streets, and questioned the Lord-in-Waiting about their Emperor's condition. "P!" he said, and shook his head. The Emperor lay pale and cold on his great, gorgeous bed; the whole Court believed that he was dead, and they all hastened to pay homage to the new Emperor. The footmen hurried off to discuss matters, and the chambermaids gave a great coffee-party. Cloth had been laid down in all the rooms and passages, so that not even a footstep should be heard and it was all so very quiet. But the Emperor was not yet dead. He lay stiff and pale in the sumptuous bed, with its long velvet curtains and heavy gold tassels; high above was an open window, and the moon shone in upon the Emperor and the artificial bird. The poor Emperor could hardly breathe; he felt as if someone were sitting on his chest; he opened his eyes and saw that it was Death sitting on his chest, wearing his golden crown, holding in one hand his golden sword, and in the other his splendid banner. And from the folds of the velvet curtains strange faces peered forth; some terrible to look on, others mild and friendly--these were the Emperor's good and bad deeds, which gazed upon him now that Death sat upon his heart. "Do you remember this?" whispered one after the other. "Do you remember that?" They told him so much that the sweat poured down his face. "I never knew that," said the Emperor. "Music! music! Beat the great Chinese drum!" he called out, "so that I may not hear what they are saying!" But they kept on, and Death nodded his head, like a Chinaman, at everything they said. "Music, music," cried the Emperor. "You precious little golden bird! Sing to me, ah! sing to me! I have given you gold and costly treasure. I have hung my golden slipper about your neck. Sing to me. Sing to me!" But the bird was silent; there was no one to wind him up, and therefore he could not sing. Death went on, staring at the Emperor with his great hollow eyes, and it was terribly still. Then suddenly, close to the window, came the sound of a lovely song. It was the little live Nightingale perched on a branch outside. It had heard of its Emperor's need, and had therefore flown hither to bring him comfort and hope, and as he sang, the faces became paler and the blood coursed more freely through the Emperor's veins. Even Death himself listened and said: "Go on, little Nightingale. Go on." "Yes, if you will give me the splendid sword. Yes, if you will give me the Imperial banner! Yes, if you will give me the Emperor's crown!" And Death gave back all these treasures for a song. And still the Nightingale sang on. He sang of the quiet churchyard, where the white roses grow, where the elder flowers bloom, and where the grass is kept moist by the tears of those left behind, and there came to Death such a longing to see his garden, that he floated out of the window, like a could white mist. "Thank you, thank you," said the Emperor. "You heavenly little bird, I know you well! I banished you from the land, and you have charmed away the evil spirits from my bed and you have driven Death from my heart. How shall I reward you?" "You have rewarded me," said the Nightingale. "I brought tears to your eyes the first time I sang, and I shall never forget that. Those are the jewels which touched the heart of the singer; but sleep now, that you may wake fresh and strong. I will sing to you." Then it sang again, and the Emperor fell into a sweet sleep. The sun shone in upon him through the window, when he woke the next morning feeling strong and well. None of his servants had come back, because they thought he was dead, but the Nightingale was still singing. You will always stay with me," said the Emperor. "You shall only sing when it pleases you, and I will break the artificial Nightingale into a thousand pieces." "Do not do that," said the Nightingale. "It has done the best it could. Keep it with you. I cannot build my nest in a palace, but let me come just as I please. I well sit on the branch near the window, and sing to you that you may both joyful and thoughtful. I will sing to you of the happy folk, and of those that suffer; I will sing of the evil and of the good, which is being hidden from you. The little singing bird flies hither and thither, to the poor fisherman, to the peasant's hut, to many who live far from your Court. Your heart is dearer to me than your crown, and yet the crown has a breath of sanctity, too. I will come, I will sing to you! But one thing you must promise me!" "All that you ask," said the Emperor, and stood there in his imperial robes which he had put on himself, and held the heavy golden sword on his heart. "I beg you, let no one know that you have a little bird who tells you everything. It will be far better so!" Then the Nightingale flew away. The servants came to look upon their dead Emperor. Yes, there they stood; and the Emperor said: "Good morning!" THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA. There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess, but she must be a _real_ Princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but there was always something wrong. There were plenty of Princesses, but whether they were _real_ or not he could not be sure. There was always something that was not quite right. So he came home again, feeling very sad, for he was so anxious to have a real Princess. One evening there was a terrible storm; it lightened and thundered, and the rain came down in torrents; it was a fearful night. In the midst of the storm there came a knocking at the town-gate, and the old King himself went down to open it. There, outside stood a princess. But what a state she was in from the rain and the storm! The water was running out of her hair on to her clothes, into he shoes and out at the heels; and yet she said she was a _real_ Princess. "We shall soon find out about that," thought the old Queen. But she said never a word. She went into the bedroom, took off all the bedclothes and put a pea on the bedstead. Then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea and twenty eider-down quilts on the mattresses. And the Princess was to sleep on the top of all. In the morning they came to her and asked her how she had slept. "Oh! wretchedly," said the Princess. "I scarcely closed my eyes the whole night long. Heaven knows what could have been in the bed! I have lain upon something hard, so that my whole body is black and blue. It is quite dreadful." They could see now that she was a _real_ Princess, because she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down quilts. Nobody but a real Princess could be so sensitive. So the Prince married her, for now he knew that he had found a _real_ Princess, and the pea was sent to an Art Museum, where it can still be seen, if nobody has taken it away. Now, mark you: This is a true story. PART III. LIST OF STORIES. BOOKS SUGGESTED TO THE STORY-TELLER AND BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE LIST OF STORIES. AUTHOR'S NOTE:-- I had intended, in this section, to offer an appendix of titles of stories and books which should cover all the ground of possible narrative in schools; but I have found so many lists containing standard books and stories, that I have decided that this original plan would be a work of supererogation. What is really needed is a supplementary list to those already published--a specialized list which is the result of private research and personal experience. I have for many years spent considerable time in the British Museum and some of the principal libraries in America. I now offer the fruit of my labor. LIST OF STORIES. CLASSICAL STORIES. THE STORY OF THESEUS. From Kingsley's "Heroes." How Theseus lifted the stone. How Theseus slew the Corynetes. How Theseus slew Sinis. How Theseus slew Kerkyon and Procrustes. How Theseus slew the Medea and was acknowledged the son of Aegeus. How Theseus slew the Minotaur. To be told in six parts as a series. THE STORY OF CROESUS. THE CONSPIRACY OF THE MAGI. ARION AND THE DOLPHIN. From "Wonder Tales from Herodotus," by N. Barrington D'Almeida. These stories are intended for reading, but could be shortened for effective narration. CORIOLANUS. JULIUS CAESAR. ARISTIDES. ALEXANDER. From "Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls," by W. H. Weston. These stories must be shortened and adapted for narration. THE GOD OF THE SPEARS: THE STORY OF ROMULUS. HIS FATHER'S CROWN: THE STORY OF ALCIBIADES. From "Tales from Plutarch," by F. J. Rowbotham. These stories may be shortened and told in sections. EAST INDIAN STORIES. THE WISE OLD SHEPHERD. THE RELIGIOUS CAMEL. From "The Talking Thrush," by W. H. D. Rouse. LESS INEQUALITY THAN MEN DEEM. From "Old Deccan Days," by Mary Frere. THE BRAHMAN, THE TIGER AND THE SIX JUDGES. This story may be found in "The Fairy Ring," edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith; also in "Tales of the Punjab," by F. A. Steel, under the title of "The Tiger, the Brahman and the Jackal." TIT FOR TAT. From "Old Deccan Days," by Mary Frere. This story may be found in "The Fairy Ring," edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. "PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL." HARISARMAN. From "Indian Fairy Tales," by Joseph Jacobs. THE BEAR'S BAD BARGAIN. LITTLE ANKLEBONE. PEASIE AND BEANSIE. From "Tales of the Punjab," by F. A. Steel. THE WEAVER AND THE WATERMELON. THE TIGER AND THE HARE. From "Indian Nights Entertainment," by Synnerton. THE VIRTUOUS ANIMALS. This story should be abridged for narration. THE ASS AS SINGER. THE WOLF AND THE SHEEP. From "Tibetan Tales," by F. A. Schiefner. A STORY ABOUT ROBBERS. From "Out of the East," by Lafcadio Hearn. DRIPPING. From "Indian Fairy Tales," by Mark Thornhill. THE BUDDHA AS TREE-SPIRIT. THE BUDDHA AS PARROT. THE BUDDHA AS KING. From "A Collection of Eastern Stories and Legends," by M. L. Shedlock. RAKSHAS AND BAKSHAS. This story may be found in "Tales of Laughter," edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, under the title of "The Blind Man, the Deaf Man and the Donkey." THE BREAD OF DISCONTENT. From "Legendary Lore of all Nations." A GERM DESTROYER. NAMGARY DOOLA. A good story for boys, to be given in shortened form. From "The Kipling Reader," by Rudyard Kipling. A STUPID BOY. THE CLEVER JACKAL. One of the few stories wherein the Jackal shows skill combined with gratitude. From "Folk Tales of Kashmir," by J. H. Knowles. WHY THE FISH LAUGHED. From "Folk Tales of Kashmir," by J. H. Knowles. MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES. HOW THE HERRING BECAME KING. JOE MOORE'S STORY. THE MERMAID OF GOB NY OOYL. KING MAGNUS BAREFOOT. From "Manx Tales," by Sophia Morrison. THE GREEDY MAN. From "Contes Populaires Malgaches," by Gariel Ferrand. ARBUTUS. BASIL. BRIONY. DANDELION. From "Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants," by C. M. Skinner. THE MAGIC PICTURE. THE STONE MONKEY. STEALING PEACHES. THE COUNTRY OF GENTLEMEN. FOOTBALL ON A LAKE. From "Chinese Fairy Tales", by H. A. Giles. THE LIME TREE. INTELLIGENCE AND LUCK. THE FROST, THE SUN AND WIND. From "Sixty Folk Tales from Slavonic Sources," by O. H. Wratislaw. THE BOY WHO SLEPT. THE GODS KNOW. From "Chinese Fairy Stories," by N. A. Pitnam. This story must be shortened and adapted for narration. THE IMP TREE. THE PIXY FLOWER. TOM TIT TOT. THE PRINCESS OF COLCHESTER. From "Fairy Gold," by Ernest Rhys. THE ORIGIN OF THE MOLE. From "Cossack Fairy Tales," by R. N. Bain. DOLLS AND BUTTERFLIES. From "Myths and Legends of Japan," by F. H. Davis. THE CHILD OF THE FOREST. THE SPARROW'S WEDDING. THE MOON MAIDEN. From "Old World Japan," by Frank Rinder. THE STORY OF MERLIN. From "Stories of Early British Heroes," by C. G. Hartley. THE ISLE OF THE MYSTIC LAKE. From "The Voyage of Maildun," in "Old Celtic Romances," by P. W. Joyce. THE STORY OF BALDUR. From "Heroes of Asgard," by M. R. Earle. In three parts for young children. ADALHERO. From "Evenings with the Old Story Tellers." MARTIN THE PEASANT'S SON. From "Russian Wonder Tales," by Post Wheeler. This is more suitable for reading. THE LEGEND OF RIP VAN WINKLE. From "Rip Van Winkle," by Washington Irving. URASHIMA. From "Myths and Legends of Japan," by F. H. Davis. THE MONK AND THE BIRD. From "The Book of Legends Told Over Again," by H. E. Scudder. CAROB. From "Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruit and Plants," by C. M. Skinner. A Talmud legend. THE LAND OF ETERNAL YOUTH. From "Child-Lore." CATSKIN. GUY OF GISBORNE. KING HENRY AND THE MILLER. From "A Book of Ballad Stories," by Mary Macleod. THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK PRINCE. WHY THE WOLVES NO LONGER DEVOUR THE LAMBS OF CHRISTMAS NIGHT. From "Au Pays des Legendes," by Eugene Herepin. THE COYOTE AND THE LOCUST. THE COYOTE AND THE RAVENS WHO RACED THEIR EYES. From "Zuni Folk Tales," by F. H. Cushing. THE PEACEMAKER. From "Legends of the Iroquois," by W. V. Canfield. THE STORY OF THE GREAT CHIEF OF THE ANIMALS. THE STORY OF LION AND LITTLE JACKAL. From "Kaffir Folk Tales," by G. M. Theal. THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT ST. NICHOLAS. THE THREE COUNSELS. From "Bulletin De Folk Lore, Liege." THE TALE OF THE PEASANT DEMYAR. THE MONKEY AND THE POMEGRANATE TREE. THE ANT AND THE SNOW. THE VALUE OF AN EGG. THE PADRE AND THE NEGRO. PAPRANKA. From "Tales of Old Lusitania," by Coelho. KOJATA. THE LOST SPEAR. (To be shortened.) THE HERMIT. (By Voltaire.) THE BLUE CAT. (From the French.) THE SILVER PENNY. THE THREE SISTERS. THE SLIPPERS OF ABOU-KAREM. From "The Golden Fairy Book." THE FAIRY BABY. From "Uncle Remus in Hansaland," by Mary and Newman Tremearne. WHY THE SOLE OF A MAN'S FOOT IS UNEVEN. THE WONDERFUL HAIR. THE EMPEROR TROJAN'S GOAT EARS. THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS. HANDICRAFT ABOVE EVERYTHING. JUST EARNINGS ARE NEVER LOST. THE MAIDEN WHO WAS SWIFTER THAN A HORSE. From "Servian Stories and Legends." THE COUPLE SILENCIEUX. LE MORT PARLANT. LA SOTTE FIANCEE. LE CORNACON. PERSIN AU POT. From "Contes Populaires du Pays Wallon," by August Gittee. THE RAT AND THE CAT. THE TWO THIEVES. THE TWO RATS. THE DOG AND THE RAT. From "Contes Populaires Malgaches," by Gabriel Ferrand. RUA AND TOKA. From "The Maori Tales," by Baroness Orczy and Montagu Marstow. This story is given for the same purpose as "A Long Bow Story" from Andrew Lang's "Olive Fairy Book." LADY CLARE. THE WOLF-CHILD. From "Tales from the Land of Grapes and Nuts," by Charles Sellers. THE UNGRATEFUL MAN. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. (In part.) JOVINIAN, THE PROUD EMPEROR. THE KNIGHT AND THE KING OF HUNGARY. THE WICKED PRIEST. THE EMPEROR AND CONRAD AND THE COUNT'S SON. From the "Gesta Romanorum." VIRGIL, THE EMPEROR AND THE TRUFFLES. From "Unpublished Legends of Virgil," collected by C. G. Leland. SEEING THAT ALL WAS RIGHT. (A good story for boys.) LA FORTUNA. THE LANTERNS OF THE STOZZI PALACE. From "Legends of Florence," by C. G. Leland. THE THREE KINGDOMS. YELENA THE WISE. SEVEN SIMEONS. IVAN, THE BIRD AND THE WOLF. THE PIG, THE DEER AND THE STEED. WATERS OF YOUTH. THE USELESS WAGONER. From "Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars," by Jeremiah Curtin. These stories need shortening and adapting. THE COMICAL HISTORY OF THE KING AND THE COBBLER. This story should be shortened to add to the dramatic power. [From a Chap Book.] THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE. From "Fairy Tales," by Hans Christian Andersen. HEREAFTER THIS. From "More English Fairy Tales," by Joseph Jacobs. This story and "The Fisherman and his Wife" are great favorites and could be told one after the other, one to illustrate the patient life, and the other the patient husband. HOW A MAN FOUND HIS WIFE IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD. This is a very dramatic and pagan story, to be used with discretion. THE MAN WITHOUT HANDS AND FEET. THE COCKEREL. From "Papuan Fairy Tales." by Annie Ker. THE STORY OF SIR TRISTRAM AND LA BELLE ISEULT. From "Cornwall's Wonderland," by Mabel Quiller-Couch. To be told in shortened form. THE CAT THAT WENT TO THE DOCTOR. THE WOOD ANEMONE. SWEETER THAN SUGAR. THE RASPBERRY CATERPILLAR. From "Fairy Tales from Finland," by Zachris Topelius. DINEVAN, THE EMU. GOOMBLE GUBBON, THE BUSTARD. From "Australian Legendary Tales," by Mrs. K. L. Parker. THE TULIP BED. From "The English Fairy Book," by Ernest Rhys. I have been asked so often for this particular story I am glad to be able to provide it in very poetical language. STORIES FROM GRIMM AND ANDERSEN. THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE. THE WOLF AND THE KIDS. THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET. THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON. RUMPELSTILTSKIN. THE QUEEN BEE. THE WOLF AND THE MAN. THE GOLDEN GOOSE. From Grimm's Fairy Tales, edited by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. OLE-LUK-OIE. Series of seven stories. WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT. THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA. THUMBELINA. For younger children. From Andersen's Fairy Tales. IT'S QUITE TRUE. FIVE OUT OF ONE POD. GREAT CLAUS AND LITTLE CLAUS. JACK THE DULLARD. THE BUCKWHEAT. THE FIR-TREE. THE LITTLE TIN SOLDIER. THE NIGHTINGALE. THE UGLY DUCKLING. THE SWINEHERD. THE SEA SERPENT. THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL. THE GARDENER AND HIS FAMILY. For older children. From Andersen's Fairy Tales. The two best editions of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales are the translation by Mrs. Edgar Lucas and the only complete English edition by W. A. and J. K. Craigie. STORIES FROM THE FAIRY BOOK SERIES. EDITED BY ANDREW LANG. THE SERPENT'S GIFTS. UNLUCKY JOHN. From "All Sorts of Stories Book," by Mrs. L. B. Lang. MAKOMA. From "The Orange Fairy Book." A story for boys. THE LADY OF SOLACE. HOW THE ASS BECAME A MAN AGAIN. AMYS AND AMILE. THE BURNING OF NJAL. OGIER THE DANE. From "The Red Romance Book." THE HEART OF A DONKEY. THE WONDERFUL TUNE. A FRENCH PUCK. A FISH STORY. From "The Lilac Fairy Book." EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON. As a preparation for Cupid and Psyche. From "The Blue Fairy Book." THE HALF CHICK. THE STORY OF HOK LEE AND THE DWARFS. From "The Green Fairy Book". HOW TO FIND A TRUE FRIEND. From "The Crimson Fairy Book." To be given in shorter form. A LONG-BOW STORY. From "The Olive Fairy Book." This story makes children learn to distinguish between falsehood and romance. KANNY, THE KANGAROO. THE STORY OF TOM THE BEAR. From "The Animal Story Book." THE STORY OF THE FISHERMAN. ALADDIN AND THE LAMP. This story should be divided and told in two sections. THE STORY OF ALI COGIA. From "The Arabian Nights Entertainment," edited by Andrew Lang. STORIES ILLUSTRATING COMMON-SENSE RESOURCEFULNESS AND HUMOR. THE THIEF AND THE COCOANUT TREE. THE WOMAN AND THE LIZARD. SADA SADA. THE SHOP-KEEPER AND THE ROBBER. THE RECITER. RICH MAN'S POTSHERD. THE SINGER AND THE DONKEY. CHILD AND MILK. RICH MAN GIVING A FEAST. KING SOLOMON AND THE MOSQUITOES. THE KING WHO PROMISED TO LOOK AFTER TENNAL RANAN'S FAMILY. VIKADAKAVI. HORSE AND COMPLAINANT. THE WOMAN AND THE STOLEN FRUIT. From "An Indian Tale or Two," by William Swinton. STORIES DEALING WITH THE SUCCESS OF THE YOUNGER CHILD. [This is sometimes due to a kind action shown to some humble person or to an animal.] THE THREE SONS. From "The Kiltartan Wonder Book," by Lady Gregory. THE FLYING SHIP. From "Russian Fairy Tales," by F. B. Bain. HOW JESPER HERDED THE HARES. From "The Violet Fairy Book," by Andrew Lang. YOUTH, LIFE AND DEATH. From "Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars," by Jeremiah Curtin. JACK THE DULLARD. From "Fairy Tales," by Hans Christian Andersen. THE ENCHANTED WHISTLE. From "The Golden Fairy Book." THE KING'S THREE SONS. HUNCHBACK AND BROTHERS. From "Legends of the French Provinces." THE LITTLE HUMPBACKED HORSE. From "Russian Wonder Tales," by Post Wheeler. This story is more suitable for reading than telling. THE QUEEN BEE. From Grimm's Fairy Tales, edited by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. THE WONDERFUL BIRD. From "Roumanian Fairy Tales," by J. M. Percival. STORIES FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS. THE STORY OF SAINT BRANDONS. Vol. 7, page 52. THE STORY OF SAINT FRANCIS. Vol. 5, page 125. THE STORY OF SANTA CLARA AND THE ROSES. SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY. Vol. 6, page 213. SAINT MARTIN AND THE CLOAK. Vol. 6, page 142. From the "Legenda Aurea." THE LEGEND OF SAINT MARJORY. From "Tales Facetiae." MELANGELL'S LAMBS. From "The Welsh Fairy Book," by W. J. Thomas. OUR LADY'S TUMBLER. Twelfth Century Legend Done Out of Old French into English, by J. H. Wickstead. This story may be shortened and adapted without sacrificing too much of the beauty of the style. THE SONG OF THE MINISTER. From "A Child's Book of Saints," by William Canton. This should be shortened and somewhat simplified for narration, especially in the technical, ecclesiastical terms. THE STORY OF SAINT KENELM, THE LITTLE KING. THE STORY OF KING ALFRED AND SAINT CUTHBERT. THE STORY IF AEDBURG, THE DAUGHTER OF EDWARD. THE STORY OF KING HAROLD'S SICKNESS AND RECOVERY. From "Old English History for Children," by E. A. Freeman. I commend all those who tell these stories to read the comments made on them by E. A. Freeman himself. MODERN STORIES. THE SUMMER PRINCESS. From "The Enchanted Garden," by Mrs. M. L. Molesworth. This may be shortened and arranged for narration. THOMAS AND THE PRINCESS. From "Twenty-six Ideal Stories for Girls," by Helena M. Conrad. A fairy tale for grown-ups, for pure relaxation. THE TRUCE OF GOD. From "All-Fellows Seven Legends of Lower Redemption," by Laurence Housman. THE SELFISH GIANT. From "Fairy Tales," by Oscar Wilde. THE LIGEND OF THE TORTOISE. From "Windlestraw, Legends in Rhyme of Plants and Animals," by Pamela Glenconner. From the Provencal. FAIRY GRUMBLESNOOKS. A BIT OF LAUGHTER'S SMILE. From "Tales for Little People," Nos. 323 and 318, by Maud Symonds. THE FAIRY WHO JUDGED HER NEIGHBORS. From "The Little Wonder Box," in "Stories Told to a Child," by Jean Ingelow. LE COURAGE. LE'ECOLE. LE JOUR DE CATHERINE. JACQUELINE ET MIRANT. From "Nos Enfants," by Anatole France. THE GIANT AND THE JACKSTRAW. From "The Book of Knight and Barbara," by David Starr Jordan. For very small children. THE MUSICIAN. THE LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS ROSE. From "The Girl from the Marshcroft," by Selma Lagerlof. Both stories should be shortened and adapted for narration. I trust that the grouping of my stories in this section may not be misleading. Under "Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales" I have included many stories which contain valuable ethical teaching, deep philosophy and stimulating examples for conduct in life. I regret that I have been unable to find a good collection of stories from history for narrative purposes. I have made a careful and lengthy search, but the stories are all written from the _reading_ point of view rather than the _telling_. BOOKS SUGGESTED TO THE STORY-TELLER AND BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE LIST OF STORIES. ANDERSEN, HANS CHRISTIAN Fairy Tales; translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. Dutton. Fairy Tales; edited by W. A. and J. K. Craigie. Oxford University Press. BABBITT, E. C. Jataka Tales. Century. BAIN, R. N. Cossack Fairy Tales. Burt. Russian Fairy Tales. Burt. BRIANT, EGBERT History of English Balladry. Badger. BUDDHA The Jataka; or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births; translated from the Pali by Various Hands. In Six Volumes. University Press. BUCKLEY, E. F. Children of the Dawn. Stokes. BULLETIN, OF FOLK LORE. Liege. CALTHORPE, DION C. King Peter. Duckworth. CANFIELD, W. W. The Legends of the Iroquois. Wessels. CANTON, WILLIAM A Child's Book of Saints. Dutton. A Child's Book of Warriors. Dutton. CHILD LORE. Nimmo. CHODZKO, A. E. B. Slav Fairy Tales; translated by E. J. Harding. Burt. CLARK, K. M. Maori Tales. Nutt. COELHO, Tales of Old Lusitania. Swan Sonnenschein. CONRAD, JOSEPH Twenty-six Ideal Stories for Girls. Hutchinson. COUCH, MABEL QUILLER- Cornwall's Wonderland. Dutton. CURTIN, JEREMIAH Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars. Little. CUSHING, F. H. Zuni Folk Tales. Putnam. DARTON, E. J. H. Pilgrim Tales; from Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Dodge. Wonder Book of Old Romance. Stokes. DASENT, SIR, G. W. Norse Fairy Tales. Putnam. DAVIDS, T. W. RHYS Buddhist Birth Stories. Trubner. DAVIS, F. H. Myths and Legends of Japan. Crowell. EARLE, M. R. Heroes of Asgard. Macmillan. Evenings with the Old Story Tellers. Leavitt and Allen. EWALD, CARL The Queen Bee and Other Nature Tales; translated by C. C. Moore-Smith. Nelson. FERRAND, GABRIEL Contes Populaires Malgaches. Leroux. FIELDE, ADELE Chinese Nights' Entertainment. Putnam FRANCE, ANATOLE Nos Enfants. Hachette. FREEMAN, E. A. Old English History for Children. Dutton. FRERE, MARY Old Deccan Days. Murray. FROISSART Stories from Froissart; edited by Henry Nebolt. Macmillan. GESTA ROMANORUM. Swan Sonnenschein. GILES, H. A. Chinese Fairy Tales. Gowans. GITTEE, AUGUST Contes Populaires du Pays Wallon. Vanderpooten. GLENCONNER, LADY (PAMELA TENNANT) Windlestraw, Legends in Rhyme of Plants and Animals. Chiswick Press. GOLDEN FAIRY BOOK. Hutchinson. GREGORY, LADY AUGUSTA The Kiltartan Wonder Book. Dutton. GRIMM, J. L. K. AND W. K. GRIMM Fairy Tales; translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. Leppincott. HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings. Appleton. HARTLEY, C. G. Stories of Early British Heroes. Dent. HEARN, LAFCADIO Out of the East. Houghton. HERODOTUS Wonder Storied from Herodotus; edited by N. Barrington D'Almeida. Harper. HERPIN, EUGENE Au Pays Du Legendes. Calliere. HIGGINS, M. M. Stories from the History of Ceylon for Children. Capper. HOUSMAN, LAURENCE All-Fellows Seven Legends of Lower Redemption. Kegan Paul. INGELOW, JEAN The Little Wonder Box. Griffeths, Farren and Company. Stories Told to a Child. Little. IRVING, WASHINGTON Rip Van Winkle. Macmillan. JACOBS, JOSEPH Indian Fairy Tales. Putnam. More English Fairy Tales. Putnam. JORDAN, DAVID STARR The Book of Knight and Barbara. Appleton. JOYCE, P. W. Old Celtic Romances. Longmans. KEARY, ANNIE AND ELIZA Heroes of Asgard. Macmillan. KER, ANNIE Papuan Fairy Tales. Macmillan. KINGSLEY, CHARLES Heroes. Macmillan. KIPLING, RUDYARD The Jungle Book. Macmillan. The Kipling Reader. Appleton. The Second Jungle Book. Macmillan. KNOWLES, J. H. Folk Tales of Kashmir. Trubner. LAGERLOF, SELMA The Girl from Marshcroft. Little. LANG, ANDREW Arabian Nights' Entertainment. Longmans. The Blue Fairy Book. Longmans. The Crimson Fairy Book Longmans. The Green Fairy Book. Longmans. The Lilac Fairy Book. Longmans. The Olive Fairy Book. Longmans. The Orange Fairy Book. Longmans. The Red Fairy Book. Longmans. The Violet Fairy Book. Longmans. LANG. L. B. All Sorts of Stories Book. Longmans. LEGENDA AUREA. LELAND, C. G. Legends of Florence. Macmillan Unpublished Legends of Virgil. Stock. MACKENZIE Indian Myths and Legends. Gresham Publishing House. MACLEOD, MARY A Book of Ballad Stories. Stokes. MOLESWORTH, MRS. M. L. The Enchanted Garden. Unwin. MONCRIEFF, A. H. HOPE Classic Myths and Legends. Gresham Publishing House. MORRISON, SOPHIA Manx Fairy Tales. Nutt. NAAKE, J. T. Slavonic Fairy Tales. King. NOBLE, M. E. AND K. COOMARASWAMY Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists. Holt. ORCZY, BARONESS AND MONTAGU BARSTOW Old Hungarian Fairy Tales. Dean. PARKER, MRS. K. L. Australian Legendary Tales. Nutt. PEARSE, W. G. The Children's Library of the Saints. Jackson. PERCIVAL, J. M. Roumanian Fairy Tales. Holt. PERRAULT, CHARLES Fairy Tales. Dutton. PITMAN, N. H. Chinese Fairy Stories. Crowell. PLUTARCH Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls; retold by W. H. Weston. Stokes Tales from Plutarch, by F. J. Rowbotham. Crowell. RAGOZIN, Z. A. Tales of the Heroic Ages; Frithjof, Viking of Norway, and Roland, Paladin of France. Putnam. Tales of the Heroic Ages; Siegfried, Hero of the North, and Beowulf, Hero of Anglo-Saxons. Putnam. RATTRAY, R. S. Hansa Folk Lore, Customs, Proverbs, etc. Clarendon Press. RHYS, ERNEST The English Fairy Book. Stokes. Fairy Gold. Dutton. The Garden of Romance. Kegan Paul. RINDER, FRANK Old World Japan. Allen. ROBINSON, T. H. Tales and Talks from History. Caldwell. ROUSE, W. H. D. The Talking Thrush. Dutton. SCHIEFNER, F. A. Tibetan Tales. Trubner. SCUDDER, H. E. The Book of Legends Told Over Again. Houghton. SELLERS, CHARLES Tales from the Land of Grapes and Nuts. Field and Tuer. SERVIAN STORIES AND LEGENDS. SHEDLOCK, M. L. A Collection of Eastern Stories and Legends. Dutton. SKINNER, C. M. Myths and Legends of Flowers, Fruits and Plants. Lippincott. SMITH, J. C. AND G. SOUTAR Book of Ballads for Boys and Girls. Oxford University Press. STEEL, MRS. F. A. Tales of the Punjab. Macmillan. STRICKLAND, W. W. Northwest Slav Legends and Fairy Stories. Erben. SWINTON An Indian Tale or Two; Reprinted from Blackheath Local Guide. SWINTON AND CATHCART Legendary Lore of all Nations. Ivison, Taylor & Company. SYNNERTON Indian Nights' Entertainment. Stock. TALES FACETLAE. TENNANT, PAMELA (LADY GLENCONNER) The Children and the Pictures. Macmillan. THEAL, G. M. Kaffir Folk Lore. Swan Sonnenschein. THOMAS, W. J. The Welsh Fairy Book. Stokes. THORNHILL, MARK Indian Fairy Tales. Hatchard. TOPELIUS, ZACHRIS Fairy Tales from Finland. Unwin. TREMEARNE, MARY AND NEWMAN Uncle Remus in Hansaland. WHEELER, POST Russian Wonder Tales. Century. WICKSTEAD, J. H. Our Lady's Tumbler; Twelfth Century Legend Done Out of Old French into English. Mosher. WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH The Fairy Ring. Doubleday. Tales of Laughter. Doubleday. WILDE, OSCAR Fairy Tales. Putnam. WILSON, RICHARD The Indian Story Book. Macmillan. WRATISLAW, A. H. Sixty Folk Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources. Stock. FOOTNOTES. 1. I venture to hope (at this long distance of years) that my language in telling the story was more simple than appears from this account. 2. This difference of spelling in the same essay will be much appreciated by those who know how gladly children offer an orthographical alternative, in hopes that one if not the other may satisfy the exigency of the situation. 3. See "List of Stories." 4. At the Congressional Library in Washington. 5. Letters of T. E. Brown, page 55. 6. Page 55. 7. In further illustration of this point see "When Burbage Played," Austen Dobson, and "In the Nursery," Hans Andersen. 8. "Les jeux des enfants," page 16. 9. A noted Greek gymnast struck his pupil, though he was applauded by the whole assembly. "You did it clumsily, and not as you ought, for these people would never have praised you for anything really artistic." 10. For further details on the question of preparation of the story, see chapter on "Questions Asked by Teachers." 11. Sully says that children love exact repetition because of the intense enjoyment bound up with the process of imaginative realization. 12. At the Summer School at Chautauqua, New York, and at Lincoln Park, Chicago. 13. There must be no more emphasis in the second manner than the first. 14. From "Education of an Orator," Book II, Chapter 3. 15. One child's favorite book bore the exciting title of "Birth, Life and Death of Crazy Jane." 16. This does not imply that the child would not appreciate in the right context the thrilling and romantic story in connection with the finding of the Elgin marbles. 17. One is almost inclined to prefer Marjorie Fleming's little innocent oaths. "But she was more than usual calm, She did not give a single dam." 18. Published by John Loder, bookseller, Woodbridge, in 1829. 19. From "Literary Values." 20. A story is told of Confucius, who, having attended a funeral, presented his horse to the chief mourner. When asked why he bestowed this gift, he replied: "I wept with the man, so I felt I ought to _do_ something for him." 21. This experiment cannot be made with a group of children for obvious reasons. 22. From an address on "The Cultivation of the Imagination." 23. "The House in the Wood" (Grimm), is another instance of triumph for the youngest child. 24. See list of stories under this heading. 25. To be found in Andrew Lang's "The Violet Fairy Book." 26. To be found in Jacob's "More English Fairy Tales." 27. From the "Thabagata." 28. For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, see list of stories under the heading, "Stories from the Lives of the Saints." 29. These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang. 30. From "The Use of Fairy Tales," in "Moral Instruction of Children". 31. See Chapter on Questions asked by Teachers. 32. From "Talks to Teachers," page 93. 33. An excellent account of this is to be found in "The Song of Roland," by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender. 34. Njal's Burning, from "The Red Book of Romance," by Andrew Lang. 35. From "Studies of Childhood." 36. England. 37. From "The Lockerbie Book," by James Whitcomb Riley, copyright, 1911. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merril Company. 38. From "Virginibus Puerisque." 39. See "Long Bow Story;" "John and the Pig." 40. Published by George Allen & Co. 41. This is even a higher spirit than that shown in the advice given in the "Agamemnon" (speaking of the victor's attitude after the taking of Troy): "Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed." 42. It is curious to find that the story of Puss-in-Boots in its variants is sometimes presented with a moral, sometimes without. In the Valley of the Ganges it has _none_. In Cashmere it has one moral, in Zanzibar another. 43. From Hans Christian Andersen, in "Childhood in Literature and Art." 44. "Sartor Resartus," Book III, page 218. 45. From "Childhood in Literature and Art." 46. See "Eastern Stories and Fables," published by Routledge. 47. See Chapter I. 48. In this matter I have, in England, the support of Dr. Kimmins, Chief Inspector of Education in the London County Council, who is strongly opposed to the immediate reproduction of stories. 49. These remarks refer only to the illustrations of stories told. Whether children should be encouraged to self-expression in drawing (quite apart form reproducing in one medium what has been conveyed to them in another), is too large a question to deal with in this special work on story-telling. 50. I give the following story, quoted by Professor Ker in his Romanes lecture, 1906, as an encouragement to those who develop the art of story-telling. 51. The melody to be crooned at first and to grow louder at each incident. 52. "The punishment that can most affect Merfolk is to restrict their freedom. And this is how the Queen of the Sea punished the Nixie of our tale." 53. The three stories from Hans Christian Andersen have for so long formed part of my repertoire that I have been requested to include them. I am offering a free translation of my own from the Danish version. 54. Alas! dear Augustin, All is lost, lost! NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT My thanks are due to: Mrs. Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, for permission to use an extract from "The Madness of Philip," and to her publishers. To Messrs. Houghton Mifflin, for permission to use extract from "Thou Shalt Not Preach," by Mr. John Burroughs. To Messrs. Macmillan and Co., for permission to use, "Milking Time," of Miss Rossetti. To Mrs. William Sharp, for permission to use passage from "The Divine Adventure," by Fiona MacLeod. To Miss Ethel CLifford, for permission to use the poem of "The Child." To Mr. James Whitcomb Riley and the Bobbs Merrill Co., for permission to use "The Treasure of the Wise Man." To Professor Ker, for permission to quote from "Sturla the Historian." To Mr. John Russell, for permission to print in full, "A Saga." To Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co., for permission to use "The Two Frogs," from the Violate Fairy Book, and "To Your Good Health," from the Crimson Fairy Book. To Mr. Heinemann and Lady Glenconner, for permission to reprint "The Water Nixie," by Pamela Tennant, from "The Children and the Pictures." To Mr. Maurice Baring and the Editor of _The Morning Post_, for permission to reprint "The Blue Rose" from _The Morning Post_. To Dr. Walter Rouse and Mr. J. M. Dent, for permission to reprint from "The Talking Thrush" the story of "The Wise Old Shepherd." To Rev. R. L. Gales, for permission to use the article on "Nursery Rhymes" from the _Nation_. To Mr. Edmund Gosse, for permission to use extracts from "Father and Son." To Messrs. Chatto & Windus, for permission to use "Essay on Child's Play" (from _Virginibus Puerisque_) and other papers. To Mr. George Allen & Co., for permission to use "Ballad for a Boy," by W. Cory, from "Ionica." To Professor Bradley, for permission to quote from his essay on "Poetry and Life." To Mr. P. A. Barnett, for permission to quote from "The Commonsense of Education." To Mr. James Stephens, for permission to reprint "The Man and the Boy." To Mr. Harold Barnes, for permission to use version of the "The Proud Cock." To Mrs. Arnold Glover, for permission to print two of her stories. To Miss Emilie Poulson, for permission to use her translation of Bjornsen's Poem. To George Routledge & Son, for permission to use stories from "Eastern Stories and Fables." To Mrs. W. K. Clifford, for permission to quote from "Very Short Stories." To Mr. W. Jenkyn Thomas and Mr. Fisher Unwin, for permission to use "Arthur in the Cave" from the Welsh Fairy Book. 
38873	----	produced from images generously available at The Internet Archive) THE GENTLE READER The Gentle Reader BY SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1904 _Copyright, 1903 By Samuel McChord Crothers All rights reserved Published October, 1903_ Preface When Don Quixote was descanting on the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the Duchess interrupted him by expressing a doubt as to that lady's existence. "Much may be said on that point," said Don Quixote. "God only knows whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world. These are things the proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths." But this admission does not in the least interfere with the habitual current of his thoughts, or cool the ardor of his loyalty. He proceeds after the momentary digression as if nothing had happened. "I behold her as she needs must be, a lady who contains within herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world; beautiful, without blemish; dignified, without haughtiness; tender, and yet modest; gracious from courtesy, and courteous from good breeding; and lastly of illustrious birth." If in the following pages I begin by admitting that there is much to be said in behalf of the popular notion that the Gentle Reader no longer exists, let this pass simply as an evidence of my decent respect for the opinion of mankind. To my mind the Gentle Reader is the most agreeable of companions, and to make his acquaintance is one of the pleasures of life. Of so elusive a personality it is not always possible to give a consistent account. I have no doubt that I may have occasionally attributed to him sentiments which are really my own; on the other hand, I suspect that some views that I have set down as my own may have been unconsciously derived from him. I have particular reference to the opinions expressed on the subject of Ignorance. Such confusion of mental properties the Gentle Reader will readily pardon, for there is no one in all the world so careless of the distinctions between Meum and Tuum. CONTENTS PAGE THE GENTLE READER 1 THE ENJOYMENT OF POETRY 35 THE MISSION OF HUMOR 64 CASES OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING WITCHCRAFTS 101 THE HONORABLE POINTS OF IGNORANCE 135 THAT HISTORY SHOULD BE READABLE 167 THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENTLEMAN 201 THE HINTER-LAND OF SCIENCE 227 THE GENTLE READER'S FRIENDS AMONG THE CLERGY 243 QUIXOTISM 271 INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE AND DELIGHT 303 The Gentle Reader What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved. "Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle Reader, and find out what he thinks about it." And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature, until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story." The thirteenth book of Tom Jones leaves the heroine in the greatest distress. The last words are, "Nor did this thought once suffer her to close her eyes during the whole succeeding night." Had Fielding been addressing the Intelligent Modern Public he would have intensified the interest by giving an analysis of Sophia's distress so that we should all share her insomnia. But not at all! While the dear girl is recovering her spirits it is such an excellent opportunity to have uninterrupted discourse with the Gentle Reader, who doesn't take these things too hard, having long since come to "the years that bring the philosophic mind." So the next chapter is entitled An Essay to prove that an author will write better for having some knowledge of the subject on which he treats. The discussion is altogether irrelevant; that is what the Gentle Reader likes. "It is a paradoxical statement you make," he says, trying to draw the author out. "What are your arguments?" Then the author moderates his expressions. "To say the truth I require no more than that an author should have some little knowledge of the subject of which he treats." "That sounds more reasonable," says the Gentle Reader. "You know how much I dislike extreme views. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that a writer may know a little about his subject. I hope that this may not prove the opening wedge for erudition. By the way, where was it we left the sweet Sophy; and do you happen to know anything more about that scapegrace Jones?" That was the way books were written and read in the good old days before the invention of the telephone and the short story. The generation that delighted in Fielding and Richardson had some staying power. A book was something to tie to. No one would say jauntily, "I have read Sir Charles Grandison," but only, "I am reading." The characters of fiction were not treated as transient guests, but as lifelong companions destined to be a solace in old age. The short story, on the other hand, is invented for people who want a literary "quick lunch." "Tell me a story while I wait," demands the eager devourer of fiction. "Serve it hot, and be mighty quick about it!" In rushes the story-teller with love, marriage, jealousy, disillusion, and suicide all served up together before you can say Jack Robinson. There is no time for explanation, and the reader is in no mood to allow it. As for the suicide, it must end that way; for it is the quickest. The ending, "They were happy ever after," cannot be allowed, for the doting author can never resist the temptation to add another chapter, dated ten years after, to show how happy they were. I sometimes fear that reading, in the old-fashioned sense, may become a lost art. The habit of resorting to the printed page for information is an excellent one, but it is not what I have in mind. A person wants something and knows where to get it. He goes to a book just as he goes to a department store. Knowledge is a commodity done up in a neat parcel. So that the article is well made he does not care either for the manufacturer or the dealer. Literature, properly so called, is quite different from this, and literary values inhere not in things or even in ideas, but in persons. There are some rare spirits that have imparted themselves to their words. The book then becomes a person, and reading comes to be a kind of conversation. The reader is not passive, as if he were listening to a lecture on The Ethics of the Babylonians. He is sitting by his fireside, and old friends drop in on him. He knows their habits and whims, and is glad to see them and to interchange thought. They are perfectly at their ease, and there is all the time in the world, and if he yawns now and then nobody is offended, and if he prefers to follow a thought of his own rather than theirs there is no discourtesy in leaving them. If his friends are dull this evening, it is because he would have it so; that is why he invited them. He wants to have a good, cosy, dull time. He has had enough to stir him up during the day; now he wants to be let down. He knows a score of good old authors who have lived long in the happy poppy fields. In all good faith he invokes the goddess of the Dunciad:-- "Her ample presence fills up all the place, A veil of fogs dilates her awful face. Here to her Chosen all her works she shews, Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose." The Gentle Reader nods placidly and joins in the ascription:-- "Great tamer of all human art! First in my care and ever at my heart; Dullness whose good old cause I still defend. * * * * * O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind, Still shed a healing mist before the mind; And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light, Secure us kindly in our native night." I would not call any one a gentle reader who does not now and then take up a dull book, and enjoy it in the spirit in which it was written. Wise old Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, advises the restless person to "read some pleasant author till he be asleep." Many persons find the Anatomy of Melancholy to answer this purpose; though Dr. Johnson declares that it was the only book that took him out of bed two hours before he wished to rise. It is hard to draw the line between stimulants and narcotics. This insistence on the test of the enjoyment of the dullness of a dull book is not arbitrary. It arises from the characteristic of the Gentle Reader. He takes a book for what it is and never for what it is not. If he doesn't like it at all he doesn't read it. If he does read it, it is because he likes its real quality. That is the way we do with our friends. They are the people of whom we say that "we get at them." I suppose every one of us has some friend of whom we would confess that as thinker he is inferior to Plato. But we like him no less for that. We might criticise him if we cared,--but we never care. We prefer to take him as he is. It is the flavor of his individuality that we enjoy. Appreciation of literature is the getting at an author, so that we like what he is, while all that he is not is irrelevant. There are those who endeavor to reduce literary criticism to an exact science. To this end they would eliminate the personal element, and subject our admirations to fixed standards. In this way it is hoped that we may ultimately be able to measure the road to Parnassus by kilometers. All this is much more easily said than done. Personal likings will not stay eliminated. We admire the acuteness of the critic who reveals the unsuspected excellence of our favorite writer. It is a pleasure like that which comes when a friend is received into a learned society. We don't know much about his learning, but we know that he is a good fellow, and we are glad to learn that he is getting on. We feel also a personal satisfaction in having our tastes vindicated and our enjoyment treated as if it were a virtue, just as Mr. Pecksniff was pleased with the reflection that while he was eating his dinner, he was at the same time obeying a law of the Universe. But the rub comes when the judgment of the critic disagrees with ours. We discover that his laws have no penalties, and that if we get more enjoyment from breaking than from obeying, then we are just that much ahead. As for giving up an author just because the judgment of the critic is against him, who ever heard of such a thing? The stanchest canons of criticism are exploded by a genuine burst of admiration. That is what happens whenever a writer of original force appears. The old rules do not explain him, so we must make new rules. We first enjoy him, and then we welcome the clever persons who assure us that the enjoyment is greatly to our credit. But-- "You must love him ere to you He shall seem worthy of your love." I asked a little four-year-old critic, whose literary judgments I accept as final, what stories she liked best. She answered, "I like Joseph and Aladdin and The Forty Thieves and The Probable Son." It was a purely individual judgment. Some day she may learn that she has the opinion of many centuries behind her. When she studies rhetoric she may be able to tell why Aladdin is better than The Shaving of Shagpat, and why the story of "The Probable Son" delights her, while the half-hour homily on the parable makes not the slightest impression on her mind. The fact is, she knows a good story just as she knows a good apple. How the flavor got there is a scientific question which she has not considered; but being there, trust the uncloyed palate to find it out! She does not set up as a superior person having good taste; but she says, "I can tell you what tastes good." The Gentle Reader is not greatly drawn to any formal treatises. He does not enjoy a bare bit of philosophy that has been moulded into a fixed form. Yet he dearly loves a philosopher, especially if he turns out to be a sensible sort of man who doesn't put on airs. He likes the old Greek way of philosophizing. What a delight it was for him to learn that the Academy in Athens was not a white building with green blinds set upon a bleak hilltop, but a grove where, on pleasant days, Plato could be found, ready to talk with all comers! That was something like; no board of trustees, no written examinations, no text-books--just Plato! You never knew what was to be the subject or where you were coming out; all you were sure of was that you would come away with a new idea. Or if you tired of the Academy, there were the Peripatetics, gentlemen who were drawn together because they imagined they could think better on their legs; or there were the Stoics, elderly persons who liked to sit on the porch and discuss the "cosmic weather." No wonder the Greeks got such a reputation as philosophers! They deserve no credit for it. Any one would like philosophy were it served up in that way. All that has passed. Were Socrates to come back and enter a downtown office to inquire after the difference between the Good and the Beautiful, he would be confronted with one of those neatly printed cards, intended to discourage the Socratic method during business hours: "This is our busy day." The Gentle Reader also has his business hours, and has learned to submit to their inexorable requirements; but now and then he has a few hours to himself. He declines an invitation to a progressive euchre party, on the ground of a previous engagement he had made long ago, in his college days, to meet some gentlemen of the fifth century B. C. The evening passes so pleasantly, and the world seems so much fresher in interest, that he wonders why he doesn't do that sort of thing oftener. Perhaps there are some other progressive euchre parties he could cut, and the world be none the worse. How many people there have been who have gone through the world with their eyes open, and who have jotted down their impressions by the way! How quickly these philosophers come to know their own. Listen to Izaak Walton in his Epistle to the Reader: "I think it fit to tell thee these following truths, that I did not undertake to write or publish this discourse of Fish and Fishing to please myself, and that I wish it may not displease others. And yet I cannot doubt but that by it some readers may receive so much profit that if they be not very busy men, may make it not unworthy the time of their perusal. And I wish the reader to take notice that in the writing of it I have made a recreation of a recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not to read dully and tediously, I have in several places mixed some innocent mirth; of which if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.... I am the willinger to justify this innocent mirth because the whole discourse is a kind of picture of my own disposition, at least of my disposition on such days and times as I allow myself--when Nat and I go fishing together." How cleverly he bows out the ichthyologists! How he rebukes the sordid creature who has come simply to find out how to catch fish! That is the very spirit of Simon Magus! "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter!" The Gentle Reader has no ulterior aims. All he wants to know is how Izaak Walton felt when he went fishing, and what he was thinking about. "A kind of picture of a man's own disposition," that is literature. Even the most futile attempt at self-revelation evokes sympathy. I remember, as a boy, gazing at an austere volume in my grandfather's library. It was, as far as I could ascertain, an indigestible mixture of theology and philology. But my eye was caught by the title, The Diversions of Purley. I had not the slightest idea who Purley was, but my heart went out to him at once. "Poor Purley!" I said. "If these were your diversions, what a dog's life you must have led!" I could see Purley gazing vaguely through his spectacles as he said: "Don't pity me! It's true I have had my trials,--but then again what larks! See that big book; I did it!" Only long after did I learn that my sympathy was un-called for, as Purley was not a person but a place. * * * * * Of all the devices for promoting a good understanding the old-fashioned Preface was the most excellent. It was not an introduction to the subject, its purpose was personal. In these days the Preface, where it survives, is reduced to the smallest possible space. It is like the platform of an electric car which affords the passenger a precarious foothold while he strives to obey the stern demand of the conductor that he move forward. But time was when the Preface was the broad hospitable porch on which the Author and Reader sat for an hour or so and talked over the enterprise that was before them. Sometimes they would talk so long that they almost forgot their ostensible subject. The very title of Sir William Davenant's "Preface before Gondibert" suggests the hospitable leisure of the seventeenth century. Gondibert is a poetical masterpiece not to be lightly adventured upon. The mind must be duly prepared for it. Sir William, therefore, discourses about poetry in general, and then takes up special instances. "I will (according as all times have applied their reverence) begin with Homer." "Homer is an admirable point of departure, and I have no doubt but that you will also tell what you think of Virgil," says the Gentle Reader, who when he is asked to go a mile is glad to go twain. Then follows discourse on Lucan, Statius, Tasso, and the rest. "But I feel (sir) that I am falling into the dangerous Fit of a hot writer; for instead of performing the promise which begins this Preface, and doth oblige me (after I had given you the judgement of some upon others), to present myself to your censure, I am wandering after new thoughts; but I shall ask your pardon and return to my undertaking." "No apologies are necessary, I assure you. With new thoughts the rule is first come, first served, while an immortal masterpiece can wait till such time as we can enjoy it together." After some reflections on the fallibility of the clergy and the state of the country, the author proceeds to describe the general structure of his poem. "I have now given you an account of such provisions as I have made for this new Building, and you may next please, having examined the substance, to take a view of the form." He points out the "shadowings, happy strokes, and sweet graces" of his work. This is done with an intimacy of knowledge and fullness of appreciation that could not be possible in a stranger. "'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survey of the Building, to render you some account of the Builder, that you may know by what times, pains, and assistance I have already proceeded." The time passes with much pleasure and profit until at last the host says: "And now (sir) I shall after my busy vanitie in shewing and describing my new Building, with great quietness, being almost as weary as yourself, bring you to the Back-dore." It is all so handsomely done that the reader is prepared to begin upon the poem itself, and would do so were it not that the distinguished friend of the author, Mr. Hobbes, has prepared An Answer to the Preface--a point of politeness which has not survived the seventeenth century. Mr. Hobbes is of the opinion that there is only one point in which Gondibert is inferior to the masterpieces of antiquity, and that is that it is written in English instead of in Greek or Latin. The Preface and Answer to the Preface having been read, the further discovery is made that there is a Postscript. The Author, it appears, has fallen on evil days, and is in prison charged with High Treason. "I am arrived here at the middle of the Third Book which makes an equal half of the Poem, and I was now by degrees to present you (as I promised in the Preface) the several keys to the Main Building, which should convey you through such short walks as give you an easie view of the whole Frame. But 'tis high time to strike sail and cast anchor (though I have but run half my course), when at the Helme I am threatened with Death, who though he can trouble us but once seems troublesome, and even in the Innocent may beget such gravitie as diverts the Musick of Verse. I beseech thee if thou art as civill as to be pleased with what is written, not to take it ill that I run not till my last gasp.... If thou art a malicious Reader thou wilt remember my Preface boldly confessed that a main motive to this undertaking was a desire of Fame, and thou maist likewise say that I may not possibly live to enjoy it.... If thou (Reader) art one of those who has been warmed with Poetick Fire, I reverence thee as my Judge, and whilst others tax me with Vanitie as if the Preface argued my good Opinion of the Work, I appeal to thy Conscience whether it be much more than such a necessary assurance as thou hast made to thyself in like Undertakings." The Gentle Reader feels that whatever may be the merits of Gondibert, Sir William Davenant is a gallant gentleman and worthy of his lasting friendship. * * * * * The Gentle Reader has a warm place in his heart for those whom he calls the paradisaical writers. These are the unfallen spirits who reveal their native dispositions and are not ashamed. They write about that which they find most interesting--themselves. They not only tell us what happens, but what they think and how they feel. We are made partners of their joys and sorrows. The first person singular is glorified by their use. "But," says the Severe Moralist, "don't you frequently discover that these persons are vain?" "Precisely so," answers the Gentle Reader, "and that's what I want to find out. How are you going to discover what an author thinks about himself if he hides behind a mask of impersonality? There is no getting acquainted with such hypocrites. In five hundred pages you may not have a glimpse of the man behind the book, though he may be bubbling over with self-conceit. There was Alexander Cruden, one of the most eccentric persons of the eighteenth century. Fully persuaded of his own greatness, he called himself Alexander the Corrector and announced that he was destined to be 'the second Joseph and a great man at court.' He haunted the ante-chambers of the nobility, but found only one nobleman who would listen to him, Earl Paulett, 'who being goutish in his feet could not run away from the Corrector as other men are apt to do.' Cruden appears to have spent his leisure moments in going about London with a large piece of sponge with which he erased any offensive chalk marks on the walls. 'This employment,' says his biographer, 'occasionally made his walks very tedious.' Now one might consult Cruden's 'Concordance of the Holy Scriptures' in vain for any hint of these idiosyncrasies of the author. Perhaps the nature of the work made this impossible. But what shall we say of writers who, having no such excuse, take pains to conceal from us what manner of men they were. Even David Hume, whose good opinion of himself is a credit to his critical sagacity, assumes an apologetic tone when he ventures upon a sketch of his own life. 'It is difficult,' he says, 'for a man to speak long about himself without vanity; therefore I shall be brief.' What obtuseness that shows in a philosopher who actually wrote a treatise on human nature! What did he know about human nature if he thought anybody would read an auto-biography that was without vanity? Vanity is one of the most lovable of weaknesses. If in our contemporaries it sometimes troubles us, that is only because two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. But when it is all put in a book and the pure juices of self-satisfaction have been allowed to mellow for a few centuries, nothing can be more delicious." His heart was won by a single sentence in one of Horace Walpole's letters: "I write to you as I think." To the writer who gives him this mark of confidence he is as faithful as is the Arab to the guest who has eaten salt in his tent. The books which contain the results of thought are common enough, but it is a rare privilege to share with a pleasant gentleman the act of thinking. If the thoughts are those which arise spontaneously out of the incidents of the passing day, so much the better. He therefore warmly resents Wordsworth's remark about "that cold and false-hearted, frenchified coxcomb, Horace Walpole." "What has Horace Walpole done except to give us a picture of his own disposition and incidentally of the world he lived in? It is an instance of the ingratitude of Republics--and the Republic of Letters is the most ungrateful of them all--that this should be made the ground of a railing accusation against him. Walpole might answer as Timoleon did, when, after having restored the liberties of Syracuse, a citizen denounced him in the popular assembly. The Liberator replied: 'I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to the gods for granting my request in permitting me to see all the Syracusans enjoy the liberty of saying what they think fit.' A man who could write letters for sixty-two years revealing every phase of feeling for the benefit of posterity earns the right of making as magnanimous a retort as that of any of Plutarch's men. He might well thank the gods for permitting him to furnish future generations with ample material for passing judgment upon him. For myself, I do not agree with Wordsworth. I have summered and wintered with Horace Walpole and he has never played me false; he has shown himself exactly as he is. To be sure, he has his weaknesses, but he is always ready to share them with his friends. I suppose that is the reason why he is accused of being frenchified. A true born Englishman would have kept his faults to himself as if they were incommunicable attributes. I am not going to allow a bit of criticism to come between us at this late day. The relation between Reader and Author is not to be treated so lightly. I believe that there is no reason for separation in such cases except incompatibility of temper." Then he makes his way to Strawberry Hill and listens to its master describing his possession. "It is set in enameled meadows with filigree hedges,-- 'A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled And little finches wave their wings of gold.' Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as barons of the exchequer move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; but thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight." It is pleasant to sit in the Gothic villa on Strawberry Hill and see the world pass by. The small Euphrates, the filigree hedges, and the gossiping dowagers, being in the foreground, appear more important than they do in the formal histories which have no perspective. But the great world does pass by, and the master of the house is familiar with it and recognizes every important person in the procession. Was he not a Prime Minister's son, and were not his first letters written from Downing Street? How rapidly the procession moves, giving only time for a nod and a word! The reader is like a country cousin in the metropolis bewildered by a host of new sensations. Now and then he smiles as some one whose name has been long familiar is pointed out. The chief wonder is that there are so many notabilities of whom he has never heard before. What an unconscionable number of Duchesses there are, and each one has a history! How different the Statesmen are from what he had imagined; not nearly so wise but ever so much more amusing. Even the great William Pitt appears to be only "Sir William Quixote," and a fantastic figure he is! Strawberry Hill has its prejudices. It listens incredulously to the stories illustrative of incorruptible political virtue. They are tales to be told to Posterity. In regard to the historical drama that unfolds there is a pleasant ambiguity. Which is it that sees behind the scenes,--the writer or the present-day reader? The reader representing Posterity has a general notion of the progress of events. He thinks he knows how things actually came out and which were the more important. He is anxious to know how they strike a contemporary. But he is chastened by the discovery of the innumerable incidents which Posterity has forgotten, but which made a great stir in their day. "The Tower guns have sworn through thick and thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and city bonfires all believe it." Prince Ferdinand "is the most fashionable man in England. Have not the Tower guns and all the parsons in London been ordered to pray for him?" The Gentle Reader is almost tempted to look up Prince Ferdinand, but is diverted from this inquiry by a bit of gossip about the Duke of Marlborough and the silver spoons. When he comes to the glorious year 1775 he is eager to learn the sensations of Walpole when the echoes of the "shot heard round the world" come to him. The shot is heard, but its effect is not so startling as might have been imagined. "I did but put my head into London on Thursday, and more bad news from America. I wonder when it will be bad enough to make folks think it so, without going on?" Then Walpole turns to something more interesting. "I have a great mind to tell you a Twickenham story." It is about a certain Captain Mawhood who had "applied himself to learn the classics and free-thinking and was always disputing with the parson of the parish about Dido and his own soul." It is not just what the Gentle Reader was expecting, but he adapts himself cheerfully to the situation. "I was about to inquire what you thought about the American war, but we may come to that at some other time. Now let us have the Twickenham story." * * * * * The Gentle Reader loves the writers who reveal their intellectual limitations, but he does not care for those who insist upon telling him their physical ailments. He is averse to the letters and journals which are merely contributions to pathology. Indeed, he would, if he had his own way, allow the mention of only one malady, the gout. This is doubtless painful enough in the flesh, but in a book it has many pleasant associations. Its intervals seem conducive to reminiscence, and its twinges are the occasions of eloquent objurgations which light up many an otherwise colorless page. With all his tolerance of vanity he dislikes that inverted kind which induces certain morbid persons to write out painful confessions of their own sins. He is willing to believe that they are far from perfect, but he is sceptical in regard to their claims to be the chief of sinners. It is hard to attain distinction in a line where there is so much competition. When he finds a book of Life and Letters unreadable, he does not bring a railing accusation against either the biographer or the biographee. They may both have been interesting persons, though the result in cold print is not exhilarating. He knows how volatile is the charm of personality, and how hard it is to preserve the best things. His friend, who is a great diner-out, says: "Those were delightful people I met at dinner yesterday, and what a capital story the judge told! I laugh every time I think about it." "What story?" asks the Gentle Reader, eager for the crumbs that fall from the witty man's table. "I can't remember just what it was about, or what was the point of it; but it was a good story, and you would have thought so, too, if you had heard the judge tell it." "I certainly should," replies the Gentle Reader, "and I shall always believe, on your testimony, that the judge is one of the best story-tellers in existence." In like manner he believes in interesting things that great men must have done which unfortunately were not taken down by any one at the time. * * * * * The Gentle Reader himself is not much at home in fashionable literary society. He is a shy person, and his embarrassment is increased by the consciousness that he seldom gets round to a book till after people are through talking about it. Not that he prides himself on this fact; for he is far from cherishing the foolish prejudice against new books. "'David Copperfield' was a new book once, and it was as good then as it is now." It simply happens that there are so many good books that it is hard to keep up with the procession. Besides, he has discovered that the books that are talked about can be talked about just as well without being read; this leaves him more time for his old favorites. "I have a sweet little story for you," says the charming authoress. "I am sure you like sweet little stories." "Only one lump, if you please," says the Gentle Reader. In spite of his genial temperament there are some subjects on which he is intolerant. When he picks up a story that turns out to be only a Tract for the Times, he turns indignantly on the author. "Sirrah," he cries, under the influence of deep feeling, relapsing into the vernacular of romance, "you gained access to me under the plea that you were going to please me; and now that you have stolen a portion of my time, you throw off all disguise, and admit that you entered with intent to instruct, and that you do not care whether you please me or not! I've a mind to have you arrested for obtaining my attention under false pretenses! How villainously we are imposed upon! Only the other day a man came to me highly recommended as an architect. I employed him to build me a Castle in Spain, regardless of expense. When I suggested a few pleasant embellishments, the wretch refused on the ground that he never saw anything of the kind in the town he came from,--Toledo, Ohio. If he had pleaded honest poverty of invention I should have forgiven him, but he took a high and mighty tone with me, and said that it was against his principles to allow any incident that was not probable. 'Who said that it should be probable?' I replied. 'It is your business to make it _seem_ probable.'" He highly disapproves of what he considers the cheese-paring economy on the part of certain novelists in the endowment of their characters. "Their traits are so microscopic, and require such minute analysis, that I get half through the book before I know which is which. It seems as if the writers were not sure that there was enough human nature to go around. They should study the good old story of Aboukir and Abousir. "'There were in the city of Alexandria two men,--one was a dyer, and his name was Aboukir; the other was a barber, and his name was Abousir. They were neighbors, and the dyer was a swindler, a liar, and a person of exceeding wickedness.' "Now, there the writer and reader start fair. There are no unnecessary concealments. You know that the dyer is a villain, and you are on your guard. You are not told in the first paragraph about the barber, but you take it for granted that he is an excellent, well-meaning man, who is destined to become enormously wealthy. And so it turns out. If our writers would only follow this straightforward method we should hear less about nervous prostration among the reading classes." He is very severe on the whimsical notion, that never occurred to any one until the last century, of saying that the heroine is not beautiful. "Such a remark is altogether gratuitous. When I become attached to a young lady in fiction she always appears to me to be an extraordinarily lovely creature. It's sheer impertinence for the author to intrude, every now and then, just to call my attention to the fact that her complexion is not good, and that her features are irregular. It's bad manners,--and, besides, I don't believe that it's true." Nothing, however, so offends the Gentle Reader as the trick of elaborating a plot and then refusing to elucidate it, and leaving everything at loose ends. He feels toward this misdirected ingenuity as Miss Edgeworth's Harry did toward the conundrum which his sister proposed. "This is quite different," he said, "from the others. The worst of it is that after laboring ever so hard at one riddle it does not in the least lead to another. The next is always on some other principle." "Yes, to be sure," said Lucy. "Nobody who knows how to puzzle would give two riddles of the same kind; that would be too easy." "But then, without something to guide one," said Harry, "there is no getting on." "Not in your regular way," said Lucy. "That is the very thing I complain of," said Harry. "Complain! But my dear Harry, riddles are meant only to divert one." "But they do not divert me," said Harry; "they only puzzle me." The Gentle Reader is inclined to impute unworthy motives to the writer whose work merely puzzles him. "The lazy unscrupulous fellow takes a job, and then throws it up and leaves me to finish it for him. It's a clear breach of contract! That sort of thing would never have been allowed in any well-governed community. Fancy what would have happened in the court of Shahriar, where story-telling was taken seriously." Sheherazade has got Sindbad on the moving island. "How did he get off?" asks the Sultan. "That's for your majesty to find out," answers Sheherazade archly. "Maybe he got off, and maybe he didn't. That's the problem." "Off with her head!" says the Sultan. When sore beset by novelists who, under the guise of fiction, attempt to saddle him with "the weary weight of all this unintelligible world," the Gentle Reader takes refuge with one who has never deceived him. "What shall it be?" says Sir Walter. "As you please, Sir Walter." "No! As _you_ please, Gentle Reader. If you have nothing else in mind, how would this do for a start?-- 'Waken! Lords and Ladies gay! On the mountain dawns the day.' It's a fine morning, and it's a gallant company! Let's go with them!" "Let's!" cries the Gentle Reader. The Enjoyment of Poetry Browning's description of the effect of the recital of classic poetry upon a band of piratical Greeks must seem to many persons to be exaggerated:-- "Then, because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts, And poetry is power, they all outbroke In a great joyous laughter with much love." Because Americans are Americans, and business is business, and time is money, and life is earnest, we take our poetry much more seriously than that. We are ready to form classes to study it and to discuss it, but these solemn assemblies are not likely to be disturbed by outbursts of "great joyous laughter." We usually accept poetry as mental discipline. It is as if the poet said, "Go to, now. I will produce a masterpiece." Thereupon the conscientious reader answers, "Very well; I can stand it. I will apply myself with all diligence, that by means of it I may improve my mind." Who has not sometimes quailed before the long row of British Poets in uniform binding, standing stiffly side by side, like so many British grenadiers on dress parade? Who has not felt his courage ooze away at the sight of those melancholy volumes labeled Complete Poetical Works? Poetical Remains they used to call them, and there is something funereal in their aspect. The old hymn says, "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less," and the same thing ought to be said about poetry. The distaste for poetry arises largely from the habit of treating it as if it were only a more difficult kind of prose. We are so much under the tyranny of the scientific method that the habits of the school-room intrude, and we try to extract instruction from what was meant to give us joy. The prosaic commentary obscures the beauty of the text, so that "The glad old romance, the gay chivalrous story, With its fables of faery, its legends of glory, Is turned to a tedious instruction, not new, To the children, who read it insipidly through." One of the most ruthless invasions of the prosaic faculties into the realm of poetry comes from the thirst for general information. When this thirst becomes a disease, it is not satisfied with census reports and encyclopædia articles, but values literature according to the number of facts presented. Suppose these lines from "Paradise Lost" to be taken for study:-- "Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry." What an opportunity this presents to the schoolmaster! "Come now," he cries with pedagogic glee, "answer me a few questions. Where is Vallombrosa? What is the character of its autumnal foliage? Bound Etruria. What is sedge? Explain the myth of Orion? Point out the constellation on the map of the heavens. Where is the Red Sea? Who was Busiris? By what other name was he known? Who were the Memphian Chivalry?" Here is material for exhaustive research in geography, ancient and modern, history, botany, astronomy, meteorology, chronology, and archæology. The industrious student may get almost as much information out of "Paradise Lost" as from one of those handy compilations of useful knowledge, which are sold on the railway cars for twenty-five cents. As for the poetry of Milton, that is another matter. * * * * * Next to the temptation to use a poem as a receptacle for a mass of collateral information is that to use it for the display of one's own penetration. As in the one case it is treated as if it were an encyclopædia article, in the other it is treated as if it were a verbal puzzle. It is taken for granted that the intention of the poet is to conceal thought, and the game is for the reader to find it out. We are hunting for hidden meanings, and we greet one another with the grim salutation of the creatures in the jungle: "Good hunting!" "What is the meaning of this passage?" Who has not heard this sudden question propounded in regard to the most transparent sentence from an author who is deemed worthy of study? The uninitiated, in the simplicity of his heart, might answer that he probably means what he says. Not at all; if that were so, "what are we here for?" We are here to find hidden meanings, and one who finds the meaning simple must be stopped, as Armado stops Moth, with "Define, define, well-educated infant." It is a verbal masquerade to which we have been invited. No knowing what princes in disguise, as well as anarchists and nihilists and other objectionably interesting persons, may be discovered when the time for unmasking comes. Now, the effect of all this is that many persons turn away from the poets altogether. Why should they spend valuable time in trying to unravel the meaning of lines which were invented to baffle them? There are plenty of things we do not understand, without going out of our way to find them. Then, as Pope observes, "True No-meaning puzzles more than Wit." The poets themselves, as if conscious that they are objects of suspicion, are inclined to be apologetic, and endeavor to show that they are doing business on a sound prosaic basis. Wordsworth set the example of such painstaking self-justification. His conscience compelled him to make amends to the literal minded Public for poetic indiscretions, and to offer to settle all claims for damages. What a shame-faced excuse he makes for the noble lines on Rob Roy's grave. "I have since been told that I was misinformed as to the burial-place of Rob Roy; if so, I may plead in excuse that I wrote on apparently good authority, namely that of a well-educated lady who lived at the head of the lake." One is reminded of the preface to the works of The Sweet Singer of Michigan: "This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those which speak of being killed, died, or drowned are truthful songs, others are more truth than poetry." It is against this mistaken conscientiousness that the Gentle Reader protests. He insists that the true "defense of poesy" is that it has an altogether different function from prose. It is not to be appreciated by the prosaic understanding; unless, indeed, that awkward faculty be treated to some Delsartean decomposing exercises to get rid of its stiffness. "When I want more truth than poetry," he says, "I will go directly to The Sweet Singer of Michigan, or I will inquire of the well-educated lady who lives at the head of the lake. I do not like to have a poet troubled about such small matters." Then he reads with approval the remarks of one of his own order who lived in the seventeenth century, who protests against those "who take away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in the shackles of an historian. For why should a poet doubt in story to mend the intrigues of fortune by more delightful conveyances of probable fictions because austere historians have entered into bond to truth; an obligation which were in poets as foolish and unnecessary as is the bondage of false martyrs, who lie in chains for a mistaken opinion. But by this I would imply that truth, narrative and past, is the idol of historians (who worship a dead thing), and truth operative and by effects continually alive is the mistress of poets, who hath not her existence in matter but in reason." I am well aware that the attitude of the Gentle Reader seems to many strenuous persons to be unworthy of our industrial civilization. These persons insist that we shall make hard work of our poetry, if for no other reason than to preserve our self-respect. Here as elsewhere they insist upon the stern law that if a man will not labor neither shall he eat. Even the poems of an earlier and simpler age which any child can understand must be invested with some artificial difficulty. The learned guardians of these treasures insist that they cannot be appreciated unless there has been much preliminary wrestling with a "critical apparatus," and much delving among "original sources." This is the same principle that makes the prudent householder provide a sharp saw and a sufficient pile of cord wood as a test to be applied to the stranger who asks for a breakfast. There is much academic disapproval of one who in defiance of all law insists on enjoying poetry after his own "undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion." I, however, so thoroughly sympathize with the Gentle Reader that I desire to present his point of view. To understand poetry is a vain ambition. That which we fully understand is the part that is not poetry. It is that which passes our understanding which has the secret in itself. There is an incommunicable grace that defies all attempts at analysis. Poetry is like music; it is fitted, not to define an idea or to describe a fact, but to voice a mood. The mood may be the mood of a very simple person,--the mood of a shepherd watching his flocks, or of a peasant in the fields; or, on the other hand, it may be the mood of a philosopher whose mind has been engrossed with the most subtle problems of existence. But in each case the mood, by some suggestion, must be communicated to us. Thoughts and facts must be transfigured; they must come to us as through some finer medium. As we are told that we must experience religion before we know what religion is, so we must experience poetry. The poet is the enchanter, and we are the willing victims of his spells:-- "Would'st thou see A man i' th' clouds and hear him speak to thee? Would'st thou be in a dream and yet not sleep? Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm? And find thyself again without a charm? * * * * * O then come hither And lay my book, thy head and heart together." Only the reader who yields to the charm can dream the dream. The poet may weave his story of the most common stuff, but "there's magic in the web of it." If we are conscious of this magical power, we forgive the lack of everything else. The poet may be as ignorant as Aladdin himself, but he has a strange power over our imaginations. At his word they obey, traversing continents, building palaces, painting pictures. They say, "We are ready to obey as thy slaves, and the slaves of all that have that lamp in their hands,--we and the other slaves of the lamp." This is the characteristic of the poet's power. He does not construct a work of the imagination,--he makes our imaginations do that. That is why the fine passages of elaborate description in verse are usually failures. The verse-maker describes accurately and at length. The poet speaks a word, and Presto! change! We are transported into a new land, and our eyes are "baptized into the grace and privilege of seeing." Many have taken in hand to write descriptions of spring; and some few painstaking persons have nerved themselves to read what has been written. I turn to the prologue of the "Canterbury Tales;" it is not about spring, it is spring, and I am among those who long to go upon a pilgrimage. A description of a jungle is an impertinence to one who has come under the spell of William Blake's "Tiger! tiger! burning bright In the forest of the night." Those fierce eyes glowing there in the darkness sufficiently illuminate the scene. Immediately it is midsummer, and we feel all its delicious languor when Browning's David sings of "The sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well." The first essential to the enjoyment of poetry is leisure. The demon Hurry is the tempter, and knowledge is the forbidden fruit in the poet's paradise. To enjoy poetry, you must renounce not only your easily besetting sins, but your easily besetting virtues as well. You must not be industrious, or argumentative, or conscientious, or strenuous. I do not mean that you must be a person of unlimited leisure and without visible means of support. I have known some very conscientious students of literature who, when off duty, found time to enjoy poetry. I mean that if you have only half an hour for poetry, for that half hour you must be in a leisurely frame of mind. The poet differs from the novelist in that he requires us to rest from our labors. The ordinary novel is easy reading, because it takes us as we are, in the midst of our hurry. The mind has been going at express speed all the day; what the novelist does is to turn the switch, and off we go on another track. The steam is up, and the wheels go around just the same. The great thing is still action, and we eagerly turn the pages to see what is going to happen next,--unless we are reading some of our modern realistic studies of character. Even then we are lured on by the expectation that, at the last moment, something may happen. But when we turn to the poets, we are in the land of the lotus-eaters. The atmosphere is that of a perfect day, "Whereon it is enough for me Not to be doing, but to be." Into this land our daily cares cannot follow us. It is an "enchanted land, we know not where, But lovely as a landscape in a dream." Once in this enchanted country, haste seems foolish. Why should we toil on as if we were walking for a wager? It is as if one had the privilege of joining Izaak Walton as he loiters in the cool shade of a sweet honeysuckle hedge, and should churlishly trudge on along the dusty highway rather than accept the gentle angler's invitation: "Pray, let us rest ourselves in this sweet, shady arbor of jessamine and myrtle; and I will requite you with a bottle of sack, and when you have pledged me, I will repeat the verses I promised you." One may, as a matter of strict conscience, be both a pedestrian and a prohibitionist, and yet not find it in his heart to decline such an invitation. The poets who delight us with their verses are not always serious-minded persons with an important thought to communicate. When I read, "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree," I am not a bit wiser than I was before, but I am a great deal happier; although I have not the slightest idea where Xanadu was, and only the vaguest notion of Kublai Khan. There are poems whose charm lies in their illusiveness. Fancy any one trying to explain Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Yet when the mood is on us we see her as she leans "From the gold bar of Heaven: Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand And the stars in her hair were seven." We look over the mystic ramparts and are dimly conscious that "the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames." This is not astronomy nor theology, nor any of the things we know all about--it is only poetry. Let no one trouble me by attempting to elucidate "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." I do not care for a Baedeker. I prefer to lose my way. I love the darkness rather than light. I do not care for a topographical chart of the hills that "like giants at a hunting lay, Chin upon hand." The mood in which we enjoy such poetry is that described in Emerson's "Forerunners." "Long I followed happy guides, I could never reach their sides. * * * * * But no speed of mine avails To hunt upon their shining trails. * * * * * On eastern hills I see their smokes, Mixed with mist by distant lochs. I met many travelers Who the road had surely kept: They saw not my fine revelers." If our thoughts make haste to join these "fine revelers," rejoicing in the sense of freedom and mystery, delighting in the mist and the wind, careless of attaining so that we may follow the shining trails, all is well. As there are poems which are not meant to be understood, so there are poems that are not meant to be read; that is, to be read through. There is Keats's "Endymion," for instance. I have never been able to get on with it. Yet it is delightful,--that is the very reason why I do not care to get on with it. Wherever I begin, I feel that I might as well stay where I am. It is a sweet wilderness into which the reader is introduced. "Paths there were many, Winding through palmy fern and rushes fenny And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly To a wide lawn... Who could tell The freshness of the space of heaven above, Edged round with dark tree-tops?--through which a dove Would often beat its wings, and often, too, A little cloud would move across the blue." We are brought into the very midst of this pleasantness. Deep in the wood we see fair faces and garments white. We see the shepherds coming to the woodland altar. "A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks As may be read of in Arcadian books; Such as sat list'ning round Apollo's pipe When the great deity, for earth too ripe, Let his divinity o'erflowing die In music, through the vales of Thessaly." We see the venerable priest pouring out the sweet-scented wine, and then we see the young Endymion himself:-- "He seemed To common lookers-on like one who dreamed Of idleness in groves Elysian." What happened next? What did Endymion do? Really, I do not know. It is so much pleasanter, at this point, to close the book, and dream "of idleness in groves Elysian." The chances are that when one turns to the poem again he will not begin where he left off, but at the beginning, and read as if he had never read it before; or rather, with more enjoyment because he has read it so many times:-- "A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." Shelley describes a mood such as Keats brings to us:-- "My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing Far away into regions dim Of rapture, as a boat with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river." He who finds himself afloat upon the "many-winding river" throws aside the laboring oar. It is enough to float on,--he cares not whither. What greater pleasure is there than in the "Idylls of the King" provided we do not study them, but dream them. We must enter into the poet's own mood:-- "I seemed To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day." It is good to be there, in that far-off time, good to come to Camelot:-- "Built by old kings, age after age, So strange and rich and dim." All we see of kings, and magicians, and ladies, and knights is "strange and rich and dim." Over everything is a luminous haze. There are "hollow tramplings up and down, And muffled voices heard, and shadows past." There is the flashing of swords, the weaving of spells, the seeing of visions. All these things become real to us; not simply the stainless king and the sinful queen, the prowess of Lancelot and the love of Elaine, but the magic of Merlin and the sorceries of Vivien, with her charms "Of woven paces and of waving hands." And we must stand at last with King Arthur on the shore of the mystic sea, and see the barge come slowly with the three queens, "black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream;" and hear across the water a cry, "As it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world." But what good is there in all this? Why waste time on idle dreams? We hear Walt Whitman's challenge to romantic poetry:-- "Arthur vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation; Embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths, Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames, Passed to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armor on, Blazoned with Shakspere's purple page And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme." Away with the old romance! Make room for the modern bard, who is "Bluffed not a bit by drain-pipes, gasometers, and artificial fertilizers." The Gentle Reader, also, is not to be bluffed by any useful things, however unpleasant they may be, but he winces a little as he reads that the "far superber themes for poets and for art" include the teaching by the poet of how "To use the hammer and the saw (rip or cross-cut), To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, To invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning." The Muse of Poetry shrieks at the mighty lines in praise of "leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making," and the rest. Boiler-making, she protests, is a useful industry and highly to be commended, but it is not music. When asked to give a reason why she should not receive all these things as poetry, the Muse is much embarrassed. "It's all true," she says. "Leather-dressing and boiler-making are undoubted realities, while Arthur and Lancelot may be myths." Yet she is not quite ready to be off with the old love and on with the new,--it's all so sudden. Whitman himself furnishes the best illustrations of the difference between poetry and prose. He comes like another Balaam to prophesy against those who associate poetry with beauty of form and melody of words; and then the poetic spirit seizes upon him and lifts him into the region of harmony. In the Song of the Universal he declares that-- "From imperfection's murkiest cloud Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, One flash of heaven's glory. To fashion's, customs discord, To the mad Babel's din, the deafening orgies, Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard From some far shore, the final chorus sounding. O the blest eyes, the happy hearts That see, that know the guiding thread so fine Along the mighty labyrinth." There speaks the poet declaring the true faith, which except a man believe he is condemned everlastingly to the outer darkness. His task is selective. No matter about the murkiness of the cloud he must make us see the ray of perfect light. In the mad Babel-din he must hear and repeat the strain of pure music. As to the field of choice, it may be as wide as the world, but he must choose as a poet, and not after the manner of the man with the muck-rake. "In this broad earth of ours Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Inclosed and safe within the central heart Nestles the seed perfection." When the poet delves in the grossness and the slag, he does so as one engaged in the search for the perfect. "My feeling," says the Gentle Reader, "about the proper material for poetry, is very much like that of Whitman in regard to humanity-- 'When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.' "So I say, when drain pipes and cross-cut saws and the beef on the butcher's stalls are invested with beautiful associations and thrill my soul in some mysterious fashion, then I will make as much of these things as I do of the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. When a poet makes bank clerks and stevedores and wood-choppers to loom before my imagination in heroic proportions, I will receive them as I do the heroes of old. But, mind you, the miracle must be actually performed; I will not be put off with a prospectus." Now and then the miracle is performed. We are made to feel the romance that surrounds the American pioneer, we hear the "Crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms." But, for the most part, Whitman, when under the influence of deep feeling, forgets his theory, and uses as his symbols those things which have already been invested with poetical associations. Turn to that marvelous dirge, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloomed." There is here no catalogue of facts or events, no parade of glaring realism. Tennyson's "sweet sad rhyme" has nowhere more delicious music than we find in the measured cadence of these lines. We are not told the news of the assassination of Lincoln as a man on the street might tell it. It comes to us through suggestion. We are made to feel a mood, not to listen to the description of an event. There is symbolism, suggestion, color mystery. We inhale the languorous fragrance of the lilacs; we see the drooping star; in secluded recesses we hear "a shy and hidden bird" warbling a song; there are dim-lit churches and shuddering organs and tolling bells, and there is one soul heart-broken, seeing all and hearing all. "Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim." This is real poetry, and yet while we yield to the charm we are conscious that it is made up of the old familiar elements. Tennyson's apology to a utilitarian age was not needed:-- "Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness." The "modern touches" we can spare. The modern life we have always with us; but it is a rare privilege to enjoy the best things of the past. It is the poet who is the minister of this fine grace. The historian tells us what men of the past did, the philosopher tells us how their civilizations developed and decayed; we smile at their superstitions, and pride ourselves upon our progress. But the ethereal part has vanished, that which made their very superstitions beautiful and cast a halo over their struggles. These are the elements out of which the poet creates his world, into which we may enter. In the order of historic development chivalry must give way before democracy, and loyalty to the king must fade before the increasing sense of liberty and equality; but the highest ideals of chivalry may remain. Imaginative and romantic poetry has this high mission to preserve what otherwise would be lost. It lifts the mind above the daily routine into the region of pure joy. Whatever necessary changes take place in the world we find, in "All lovely tales which we have heard or read, An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink." I have said that one may be a true poet without having any very important thought to communicate, but it must be said that most of the great poets have been serious thinkers as well. They have had their philosophy of life, their thoughts about nature and about human duty and destiny. It is the function of the poet not only to create for us an ideal world and to fill it with ideal creatures, but also to reveal to us the ideal element in the actual world. "I do not know what poetical is," says Audrey. "Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?" We must not answer with Touchstone: "No, truly! for the truest poetry is the most feigning." The poetical interpretation of the world is not feigning; it is a true thing,--the truest thing of which we can know. The grace and sublimity which we see through the poet's eyes are real. We must, however, still insist on our main contention. The poet, if he is to hold us, must always be a poet. His thought must be in solution, and not appear as a dull precipitate of prose. He may be philosophical, but he must not philosophize. He may be moral, but he must not moralize. He may be religious, but let him spare his homilies. "Whatever the philosopher saith should be done," said Sir Philip Sidney; "the peerless poet giveth a perfect picture of it. He yieldeth to the power of the mind an image of that of which the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description.... The poet doth not only show the way, but doth give so sweet a prospect unto the way as will entice any man to enter it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at first give you a cluster of grapes." We have a right to ask our poets to be pleasant companions even when they discourse on the highest themes. Even when they have theories of their own about what we should enjoy, let us not allow them to foist upon us "wordish descriptions" of excellent things instead of poetry. When the poet invites me to go with him I first ask, "Let me taste your grapes." You remember Mr. By-ends in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"--how he said of Christian and Hopeful, "They are headstrong men who think it their duty to rush on in their journey in all weathers, while I am for waiting for wind or tide. I am for Religion when he walks in his silver slippers in the sunshine." That was very reprehensible in Mr. By-ends, and he richly deserved the rebuke which was afterward administered to him. But when we change the subject, and speak, not of religion, but of poetry, I confess that I am very much of Mr. By-ends' way of thinking. There are literary Puritans who, when they take up the study of a poet, make it a point of conscience to go on to the bitter end of his poetical works. If they start with Wordsworth on his "Excursion," they trudge on in all weathers. They _do_ the poem, as when going abroad they do Europe in six weeks. As the revival hymn says, "doing is a deadly thing." Let me say, good Christian and Hopeful, that though I admire your persistence, I cannot accompany you. I am for a poet only when he puts on his singing robes and walks in the sunshine. As for those times when he goes on prosing in rhyme from force of habit, I think it is more respectful as well as more pleasurable to allow him to walk alone. * * * * * Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds" suggests the whole duty of the reader. All that is required of him is to obey the Golden Rule. There must be perfect reciprocity and fraternal sympathy. The poet, being human, has his unhappy hours, when all things are full of labor. Upon such hours the Gentle Reader does not intrude. In their happiest moments they meet as if by chance. In this encounter they are pleased with one another and with the world they live in. How could it be otherwise? It is indeed a wonderful world, transfigured in the light of thought. Familiar objects lose their sharp outlines and become symbols of universal realities. Likenesses, before unthought of, appear. Nature becomes a mirror of the soul, and answers instantly to each passing mood. Words are no longer chosen, they come unbidden as the poet and his reader "mount to Paradise By the stairway of surprise." The Mission of Humor In "The Last Tournament" we are told how "Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his moods Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall." That is the view which many worthy people take of the humorist. He is Sir Dagonet. Among the serious persons who are doing the useful work of the world, discovering its laws, classifying its facts, forecasting its future, this light-minded, light-hearted creature comes with his untimely jests. In their idle moments they tolerate the mock-knight, but when important business is on hand they dismiss him, as did Sir Tristram, with "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?" This half-contemptuous view is very painful to the Gentle Reader who, though he may seem to some to take his poetry too lightly, is disposed to take his humor rather seriously. Humor seems to him to belong to the higher part of our nature. It is not the enjoyment of a grotesque image in a convex mirror, but, rather, the recognition of fleeting forms of truth. "I have brought you a funny book, Gentle Reader," says the Professional Humorist. "Thank you," he answers, struggling against his melancholy forebodings. "You will pardon me if I seem to take my pleasures sadly." It is hard for him to force a smile as he watches the procession of jokes, each as broad as it is long. This ostentatious jocosity is not to his liking. "Thackeray," he says, "defines humor as a mixture of love and wit. Humor, therefore, being of the nature of love, should not behave itself unseemly." He cannot bear to see it obtruding itself upon the public. Its proper habit is to hide from observation "as if the wren taught it concealment." When a Happy Thought ventures abroad it should be as a royal personage traveling _incognito_. This is a big world, and it is serious business to live in it. It makes many demands. It requires intensity of thought and strenuousness of will and solidity of judgment. Great tasks are set before us. We catch fugitive glimpses of beauty, and try to fix them forever in perfect form,--that is the task of art. We see thousands of disconnected facts, and try to arrange them in orderly sequence,--that is the task of science. We see the ongoing of eternal force, and seek some reason for it,--that is the task of philosophy. But when art and science and philosophy have done their best, there is a great deal of valuable material left over. There are facts that will not fit into any theory, but which keep popping up at us from the most unexpected places. Nobody can tell where they come from or why they are here; but here they are. Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectnesses. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways. Everything is under the reign of strict law; but many queer things happen, nevertheless. What are we to do with all the waifs and strays? What are we to do with all the sudden incongruities which mock at our wisdom and destroy the symmetry of our ideas? The solemnly logical intelligence ignores their existence. It does not trouble itself about anything which does not belong to its system. The system itself has such perfect beauty that it is its own excuse for being. More sensitive and less self-centred natures do not find the way so easy. They allow themselves to be worried by the incongruities which they cannot ignore. It seems to them that whenever they are in earnest the world conspires to mock them. Continually they feel that intellect and conscience are insulted by whipper-snappers of facts that have no right to be in an orderly universe. They can expose a lie, and feel a certain superiority in doing it; but a little unclassified, irreconcilable truth drives them to their wit's end. There it stands in all its shameless actuality asking, "What do you make of me?" Just here comes the beneficent mission of humor. It takes these unassorted realities that are the despair of the sober intelligence, and extracts from them pure joy. If life depends on the perpetual adjustment of the organism to its environment, humor is the means by which the intellectual life is sustained on those occasions when the expected environment is not there. The adjustment must be made, without a moment's warning, to an altogether new set of conditions. We are called upon to swap horses while crossing the stream. It is a method which the serious minded person does not approve. While arguing the matter he is unhorsed, and finds himself floundering in the water. The humorist accepts the situation instantly. As he scrambles upon his new nag it is with a sense of triumph, for the moment at least, he feels that he has the best of the bargain. One may have learned to enjoy the sublime, the beautiful, the useful, the orderly, but he has missed something if he has not also learned to enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected. Artistic sensibility finds its satisfaction only in the perfect. Humor is the frank enjoyment of the imperfect. Its objects are not so high,--but there are more of them. Evolution is a cosmic game of Pussy wants a corner. Each creature has its eye on some snug corner where it would rest in peace. Each corner is occupied by some creature that is not altogether satisfied and that is on the lookout for a larger sphere. There is much beckoning between those who are desirous of making a change. Now and then some bold spirit gives up his assured position and scrambles for something better. The chances are that the adventurer finds it harder to attain the coveted place than he had thought. For the fact is that there are not corners enough to go around. If there were enough corners, and every one were content to stay in the one where he found himself at the beginning, then the game would be impossible. It is well that this never happens. Nature looks after that. When things are too homogeneous she breaks them up into new and amazing kinds of heterogeneity. It is a good game, and one learns to like it after he enters into the spirit of it. If the Universe had a place for everything and everything was in its place, there would be little demand for humor. As a matter of fact the world is full of all sorts of people, and they are not all in their proper places. There are amazing incongruities between station and character. It is not a world that has been reduced to order; it is still in the making. One may easily grow misanthropic and pessimistic by dwelling upon the misfits. "As to behold desert a beggar born And needy nothing trimmed in jollity. * * * * * And art made tongue-tied by authority, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And folly doctor-like, controlling skill, And captive good attending captive ill." But fortunately these incongruities are not altogether tragical. There are certain moods when we rather enjoy seeing "needy nothing trimmed in jollity." We are pleased when Justice Shallow slaps Sir John Falstaff on the back and says, "Ha! it was a merry night, Sir John." We are not irritated beyond endurance because in this world where so many virtuous people have a hard time, such trifling fellows as Sir Toby and Sir Andrew have their cakes and ale. When folly puts on doctor-like airs it is not always disagreeable. We would not have Dogberry put off the watch to give place to some one who could pass the civil service examination. The humorist, when asked what he thinks of the actual world, would turn upon his questioner as Touchstone turned upon Corin when he was asked how he liked the shepherd's life:-- "Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?" The world is not at all like the descriptions of it, and yet he cannot take a very gloomy view of it. In respect to itself it is a good world, and yet in respect that it is not finished it leaves much to be desired. Yet in respect that it leaves much to be desired, and much to be done by us, it is perhaps better _for us_ than if it were finished. In respect that many things happen that are opposed to our views of the eternal fitness of things, it is a perplexing world. Yet in respect that we have a faculty for enjoying the occasional unfitness of things, it is delightful. On the whole, he sums up with Touchstone, "It suits my humor well." Humor is impossible to the man of one idea. There must be at least two ideas moving in opposite directions, so that there may be a collision. Such an accident does not happen in a mind under economical management that runs only one train of thought a day. There are many ideas that have a very insecure tenure. They hold their own as squatters. By and by Science will come along and evict them, but in the mean time these homely folk make very pleasant neighbors. All they ask is that we shall not take them too seriously. That a thing is not to be taken too seriously does not imply that it is either unreal or unimportant:--it only means that it is not to be taken that way. There is, for example, a pickaninny on a Southern plantation. The anthropologist measures his skull and calls it by a long Latin name. The psychologist carefully records his nervous reactions. The pedagogical expert makes him the victim of that form of inquisition known as "child study." The missionary perplexes himself in vain attempting to get at his soul. Then there comes along a person of another sort. At the first look, a genial smile of recognition comes over the face of this new spectator. He is the first one who has seen the pickaninny. The one essential truth about a black, chubby, kinky-haired pickaninny is that, when he rolls up his eyes till only the whites are visible, he is irresistibly funny. This is what theologians term "the substance of doctrine" concerning the pickaninny. When Charles Lamb slipped on the London pavement, he found delight in watching the chimney sweep who stood laughing at his misfortune. "There he stood irremovable, as though the jest were to last forever, with such a maximum of glee and minimum of mischief in his mirth--for the grin of a genuine sweep hath no malice in it--that I could have been content, if the honor of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight." There were many middle-aged London citizens who could no more appreciate that kind of pleasure than a Hottentot could appreciate an oratorio. That is only saying that the average citizen and the average Hottentot have, as Wordsworth mildly puts it, "faculties which they have never used." The high place that humor holds among our mental processes is evident when we consider that it is almost the only one that requires that we shall be thoroughly awake. In our dreams we have many æsthetic enjoyments, as vague splendors pass before us. At other times there is an abnormal sensitiveness to the sovereignty, not to say the despotism of ethics. We feel burdened with the weight of unpardonable sins. We are able also in our sleep to philosophize after a fashion which is, for the time, quite satisfactory. At such times we are sure that we have made important discoveries; if we could only remember what they were. A thousand incongruities pass through our minds, but there is one thing which we cannot do. We cannot recognize that they are incongruous. Such a discovery would immediately awaken us. Tennyson tells how "half awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church commissioners, Now hawking at Geology and schism." It would be possible for the parson and his congregation to keep on with that sort of thing Sunday after Sunday. They would discover nothing absurd in the performance, so long as they were in their usual semi-somnolent condition. Humor implies mental alertness and power of discrimination. It also implies a hospitality toward all the differences that are recognized. Psychologists speak of the Association of Ideas. It is a pleasant thought, but it is, in reality, difficult to induce Ideas to associate in a neighborly way. In many minds the different groups are divided by conventional lines, and there are aristocratic prejudices separating the classes from the masses. The Working Hypothesis, honest son of toil that he is, does not expect so much as a nod of recognition from the High Moral Principle who walks by in his Sunday clothes. The steady Habit does not associate with the high-bred Sentiment. They do not belong to the same set. Only in the mind of the humorist is there a true democracy. Here everybody knows everybody. Even the priggish Higher Thought is not allowed to enjoy a sense of superiority. Plain Common Sense slaps him on the back, calls him by his first name, and bids him not make a fool of himself. Of the two ingredients which Thackeray mentions, the first, love, is that which gives body; the addition of wit gives the effervescence. The pleasure of wit lies in its unexpectedness. In humor there is the added pleasure of really liking that which surprises us. It is like meeting an old friend in an unexpected place. "What, you here?" we say. This is the kind of pleasure we get from Dr. Johnson's reply to the lady who asked why he had put a certain definition in his dictionary: "Pure ignorance, madam." The fact is that long ago we made the acquaintance of one whom Bunyan describes as "a brisk young lad named Ignorance." He is a dear friend of ours, and we are on very familiar terms with him when we are at home; but we do not expect to meet him in fine society. Suddenly we turn the corner, and we see him walking arm in arm with so great a man as Dr. Samuel Johnson. At once we are at our ease in the presence of the great man; it seems we have a mutual acquaintance. Another element in real humor is a certain detachment of mind. We must not be afraid, or jealous, or angry; in order to take a really humorous view of any character, we must be in a position to see all around it. If I were brought before Fielding's Squire Western on charge of poaching, and if I had a pheasant concealed under my coat, I should not be able to appreciate what an amusing person the squire is. I should be inclined to take him very seriously. The small boy who pins a paper to the schoolmaster's coat tail imagines that he has achieved a masterpiece of humor. But he is not really in a position to reap the fruits of his perilous adventure. It is a fearful and precarious joy which he feels. What if the schoolmaster should turn around? That would be tragedy. Neither the small boy nor the schoolmaster gets the full flavor of humor. But suppose an old friend of the schoolmaster happens just then to look in at the door. His delight in the situation has a mellowness far removed from the anxious, ambiguous glee of the urchin. He knows that the small boy is not so wicked as he thinks he is, and the schoolmaster is not so terrible as he seems. He remembers the time when the schoolmaster was up to the same pranks. So, from the assured position of middle age, he looks upon the small boy that was and upon the small boy that is, and finds them both very good,--much better, indeed, than at this moment they find each other. It is this sense of the presence of a tolerant spectator, looking upon the incidents of the passing hour, which we recognize in the best literature. Books that are meant simply to be funny are very short-lived. The first reception of a joke awakens false expectations. It is received with extravagant heartiness. But when, encouraged by this hospitality, it returns again and again, its welcome is worn out. There is something melancholy in a joke deserted in its old age. The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight. This bars out all mere jocosity. A certain kind of wit, which depends for its force on mere verbal brilliancy, has the same effect. The writers whom we love are those whose humor does not glare or glitter, but which has an iridescent quality. It is the perpetual play of light and color which enchants us. We are conscious all the time that the light is playing on a real thing. It is something more than a clever trick; there is an illumination. Erasmus, in dedicating his "Praise of Folly" to Sir Thomas More, says:-- "I conceived that this would not be least approved by you, inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such kind of pleasantry as is neither unlearned nor altogether insipid. Such is your sweetness of temper that you can and like to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Unless an overweening opinion of myself may have made me blind, I have praised folly not altogether foolishly. I have moderated my style, that the understanding reader may perceive that my endeavor is to make mirth rather than to bite." Erasmus has here described a kind of humor that is consistent with seriousness of purpose. The characteristics he notes are good temper, insight into human nature, a certain reserve, and withal a gentle irony that makes the praise of folly not unpleasing to the wise. It is a way of looking at things characteristic of men like Chaucer and Cervantes and Montaigne and Shakespeare, and Bunyan and Fielding and Addison, Goldsmith, Charles Lamb and Walter Scott. In America, we have seen it in Irving and Dr. Holmes and James Russell Lowell. I have left out of the list one whom nature endowed for the supreme man of humor among Englishmen,--Jonathan Swift. Charles Lamb argues against the common notion that it is a misfortune to a man to have a surly disposition. He says it is not his misfortune; it is the misfortune of his neighbors. It is our misfortune that the man who might have been the English Cervantes had a surly disposition. Dean Swift's humor would have been irresistible, if it had only been good humor. One of the best examples of humor pervading a work of the utmost seriousness of purpose is Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The "Pilgrim's Progress" is not a funny book; the humor is not tacked on as a moral is tacked on to a fable, nor does it appear by way of an interlude to relieve the tension of the mind. It is so deeply interfused, so a part and parcel of the religious teaching, that many readers overlook it altogether. One may read the book a dozen times without a smile, and after that he may recognize the touch of the born humorist on every page. Bunyan himself recognized the quality of his work:-- "Some there be that say he laughs too loud, And some do say his head is in a cloud. * * * * * One may, I think, say both his laughs and cries May well be guessed at by his wat'ry eyes. Some things are of that nature as to make One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." There speaks the real humorist; not the Merry Andrew laughing at his meaningless pranks, but one whose quick imagination is at play when his conscience is most overtasked. Even in the Valley of Humiliation, where the fierce Apollyon was wont to fright the pilgrims, they heard a boy singing cheerily,-- "He that is down need fear no fall." And Mr. Great Heart said: "Do you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called heart's-ease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet." It is a fine spirit that can find time, on such a strenuous pilgrimage, to listen to these wayside songs. Take the character sketch of Mr. Fearing:-- "Now as they walked together, the guide asked the old gentleman if he did not know one Mr. Fearing that came on a pilgrimage out of his parts? "_Honest_. Yes, very well, said he. He was a man that had the root of the matter in him, but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that ever I met in all my days. "_Great Heart_. Why, he was always afraid he should come short of whither he had a desire to go. Everything frightened him that he heard anybody speak of that had but the least appearance of opposition in it. I hear that he lay roaring in the Slough of Despond for about a month together.... Well, after he had lain in the Slough of Despond a great while, as I have told you, one sunshine morning, I do not know how, he ventured and so got over; but when he was over he would scarce believe it. He had, I believe, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough he carried everywhere with him.... When he came to the Hill Difficulty he made no stick at that; nor did he much fear the lions; for you must know his trouble was not about such things as those.... When he was come at Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought with all the men at the fair.... He was a man of choice spirit though he kept himself very low." Poor Mr. Fearing. We all have been made uncomfortable by him. But we love Bunyan for that touch about the lions, for we know it is true. Easy things go hard with Mr. Fearing; but give him something difficult, like going up San Juan hill in the face of a withering fire, and Mr. Fearing can keep up with the best Rough Rider of them all. It takes Mr. Great Heart to do justice to Mr. Fearing. It is the mission of a kindly humor to take a person full of foibles and weaknesses and suddenly to reveal his unsuspected nobleness. And there is considerable room for this kind of treatment; for there are a great many lovable people whose virtues are not chronic, but sporadic. These virtues grow up, one knows not how, without visible means of support in the general character, and in defiance of moral science; and yet it is a real pleasure to see them. There are two very different kinds of humor. One we naturally describe as a flavor, the other as an atmosphere. We speak of the flavor of the essays of Charles Lamb. It is a discovery we make very much as Bobo made the discovery of roast pig. The mind of Charles Lamb was like a capacious kettle hanging from the crane in the fireplace; all sorts of savory ingredients were thrown into it, and the whole was kept gently simmering, but never allowed to come to the boil. Lamb says, "C. declares that a man cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling, and I confess that I am of the same opinion." I am inclined to pass that kind of judgment on the person who does not have a comfortable feeling of satisfaction in reading for the twentieth time The Complaint on the Decay of Beggars, and the Praise of Chimney Sweepers. Charles Lamb is not jocose. He likes to theorize. Now, your prosaic theorist has a very laborious task. He tries to get all the facts under one formula. This is very ticklish business. It is like the game of Pigs in Clover. He gets all the facts but one into the inner circle. By a dexterous thrust he gets that one in, and the rest are out. Lamb is a philosopher who does not have this trouble. He does not try to fit all the facts to one theory. That seems to him too economical, when theories are so cheap. With large-hearted generosity he provides a theory for every fact. He clothes the ragged exception with all the decent habiliments of a universal law. He picks up a little ragamuffin of a fact, and warms its heart and points out its great relations. He is not afraid of generalizing from insufficient data; he has the art of making a delightful summer out of a single swallow. When we turn to the essay on the Melancholy of Tailors, we do not think of asking for statistics. If one tailor was melancholy, that was enough to justify the generalization. When we find a tailor who is not melancholy, it will be time to make another theory to fit his case. This is the charm of Lamb's letter to the gentleman who inquired "whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no more proficiency than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of the English alphabet amounts to, by dint of persevering application and good masters, may hope to arrive within a presumable number of years at that degree of attainment that would entitle the possessor to the character of a _learned man_." The answer is candid, serious, and exhaustive. No false hopes are encouraged. The difficulties are plainly set forth. "However," it is said, "where all cannot be compassed, much may be accomplished; but I must not, in fairness, conceal from you that you have much to do." The question is thoroughly discussed as to whether it would be well for him to enter a primary school. "You say that you stand in need of emulation; that this incitement is nowhere to be had but in the public school. But have you considered the nature of the emulation belonging to those of tender years which you would come in competition with?" Do you think these dissertations a waste of time? If you do, it is sufficient evidence that you sadly need them; for they are the antitoxin to counteract the bacillus of pedantry. Were I appointed by the school board to consider the applicants for teachers' certificates, after they had passed the examination in the arts and sciences, I should subject them to a more rigid test. I should hand each candidate Lamb's essays on The Old and New Schoolmaster and on Imperfect Sympathies. I should make him read them to himself, while I sat by and watched. If his countenance never relaxed, as if he were inwardly saying, "That's so," I should withhold the certificate. I should not consider him a fit person to have charge of innocent youth. Just as we naturally speak of the flavor of Charles Lamb, so we speak of the atmosphere of Cervantes or of Fielding. We are out of doors in the sunshine. All sorts of people are doing all sorts of things in all sorts of ways; and we are glad that we are there to see them. It is one of the "charmèd days When the Genius of God doth flow; The wind may alter twenty ways But a tempest cannot blow." On such days it doesn't matter what happens. We are not "under the weather," but consciously superior to it. We are in no mood to grumble over mishaps,--the more the merrier. The master of the revels has made the brave announcement that his programme shall be carried out "rain or shine," and henceforth we have no anxieties. This diffused good-humor can only come from a mind which is free from any taint of morbidness. It is that merry-heartedness that "doth good like medicine." It is an overflowing friendliness, which brings a laughter that is without scorn. This kind of humor is possible only among persons who are thoroughly congenial, and who take mutual good-will for granted. It is for this reason that it is so difficult to translate it or to carry it from one community to another. It is customary for every nation to bring the accusation against foreigners that they are destitute of the sense of humor. Even peoples so near akin as the English and Americans cherish such suspicions. The American is likely to feel that his English friends do not receive his pleasantries with that punctuality which is the politeness of kings. They are conscientious enough and eventually do the right thing; but procrastination is the thief of wit as well as of time. But we, on our side, are equally slow, and Mr. Punch often causes anxious thoughts. The real difficulty is not in understanding what is said but in appreciating that which should be taken for granted. The stranger does not see the serious background of sober thought and genuine admiration, into which the amusing figures suddenly intrude. The frontiersman would see no point in a story that might delight a common room in Oxford. What if a bishop did act in an undignified manner or commit a blunder? Why shouldn't he--like the rest of us? To enjoy his foibles one must first have a realizing sense of what a great man a bishop is, and how surprising it is that, now and then, he should step down from his pedestal. On the other hand, the real humor of the frontier is missed by one who has not learned to take seriously the frontiersman's life and who has not entered into his habitual point of view. Dickens is an example of the way in which a man's humor is limited to the sphere of his sympathies. How genial is the atmosphere which surrounds Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Sam Weller! Whatever they do, they can never go wrong. But when we turn to the "American Notes" or to the American part of "Martin Chuzzlewit," we are conscious of a difference. There is no atmosphere to relieve the dreariness. Mr. Jefferson Brick is not amusing; he is odious. The people on the Ohio River steamer do not make us smile by their absurdities. Dickens lets us see how he despises them all. He is fretful and peevish. He fails utterly to catch the humor of the frontier. He is unable to follow out the hint which Mark Tapley gave when, looking over the dreary waste of Eden on the Mississippi, he said apologetically, "Eden ain't all built yet." To an Englishman that does not mean much, but to an American it is wonderfully appealing. Martin Chuzzlewit saw only the ignominious contrast between the prospectus and the present reality. Eden was a vulgar fraud, and that was the whole of it. The American, with invincible optimism, looking upon the same scene, sees something more! He smiles, perhaps, a little cynically at the incongruity between the prospectus and the present development, and then his fancy chuckles at what his fancy sees in the future. "Eden ain't all built yet,"--that's a fact. But just think what Eden will be when it is all built! * * * * * By the way, there is one particularly good thing about the atmosphere; it prevents our being hit by meteors. The meteor, when it strikes the upper air, usually ignites, and that is the end of it. There are some minds that have not enough atmosphere to protect them. They are pelted continually; whatever is unpleasant comes to them in solid chunks. There are others more fortunately surrounded, who escape this impact. All that is seen is a flash in the upper air. They are none the worse for passing through a meteoric shower of petty misfortunes. The mind that is surrounded by an atmosphere of humorous suggestiveness is also favored in its outlook upon the shortcomings of mankind. Their angularities are softened and become less uniformly unpleasing. That fine old English divine, Dr. South, has a sermon in which he defends the thesis that it is a greater guilt to enjoy the contemplation of our neighbor's sins than to commit the same offences in our proper persons. That seems to me to be very hard doctrine. I am inclined to make a distinction. There are some faults which ought to be taken seriously at all times, but there are others which the neighbors should be allowed to enjoy, if they can. Indeed, it is the genuine reformer who is seeking to right great wrongs who most needs the capacity to distinguish between grave evils and peccadillos. A measure of good-humored tolerance for human weakness is a part of his equipment for effective work. Lacking in this, he is doomed to perpetual irritation and disappointment. He mistakes friends for foes and wages a losing battle. He is likely to be the victim of a moral egoism which distorts the facts of experience and confuses his personal whims with his disinterested purposes. His great ideal is lost sight of in some petty strife. Above all, he loses the power of endurance in the time of partial failure. The contest of wits between the inventors of projectiles and the makers of armor plate seemed at one time settled by Harvey's process for rendering the surface of the resisting steel so hard that the missiles hurled against it were shattered. The answer of the gun-makers was made by attaching a tip of softer metal to the shell. The soft tip received the first shock of the impact, and it was found that the penetrating power of the shell was increased enormously. The scientific explanation I have forgotten. I may, however, hazard an anthropomorphic explanation. If there is any human nature in the atoms of steel, I can see a great advantage in having the softer particles go before the hard, to have a momentary yielding before the inevitable crash. When they are hurtling through the air, tense and strained by the initial velocity till it seems that they must fly apart, it is a great thing to have a group of good-humored, happy-go-lucky atoms in the front, who call out cheerily: "Come along, boys! Don't take it too hard; we're in for it." And sure enough, before they have time to fall apart they are in. Those whose thoughts and purposes have most penetrated the hard prejudices of their time have learned this lesson. Your unhumorous reformer, with painful intensity of moral self-consciousness, cries out:-- "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!" He takes himself and his cause always with equal seriousness. He hurls himself against the accumulated wrongs and the invincible ignorance of the world, and there is a great crash; but somehow, the world seems to survive the shock better than he does. It is a tough old world, and bears a great deal of pounding. Indeed, it has been pounded so much and so long that it has become quite solid. Now and then, however, there comes along a reformer whose zeal is tipped with humor. His thought penetrates where another man's is only shattered. That is what made Luther so effective. He struck heavy blows at the idols men adored. But he was such a genial, whole-souled iconoclast that those who were most shocked at him could not help liking him--between times. He would give a smashing blow at the idol, and then a warm hand grasp and a hearty "God bless you" to the idolater; and then idolater and iconoclast would be down on the floor together, trying to see if there were any pieces of the idol worth saving. It was all so unexpected and so incongruous and so shocking, and yet so unaffectedly religious and so surprisingly the right thing to do, that the upshot of it all was that people went away saying, "Dr. Martin isn't such a bad fellow, after all." Luther's "Table Talk" penetrated circles which were well protected against his theological treatises. Men were conscious of a good humor even in his invective; for he usually gave them time to see the kindly twinkle in his eye before he knocked them down. In order to engage Karlstadt in a controversy, Luther drew out a florin from his pocket and cried heartily, "Take it! Attack me boldly!" Karlstadt took it, put it in his purse, and gave it to Luther. Luther then drank to his health. Then Karlstadt pledged Luther. Then Luther said, "The more violent your attacks, the more I shall be delighted." Then they gave each other their hands and parted. One can almost be reconciled to theological controversy, when it is conducted in a manner so truly sportsmanlike. Luther had a way of characterizing a person in a sentence, that was much more effective than his labored vituperation (in which, it must be confessed, he was a master). Thus, speaking of the attitude of Erasmus, he said, "Erasmus stands looking at creation like a calf at a new door." It was very unjust to Erasmus, and yet the picture sticks in the mind; for it is such a perfect characterization of the kind of mind that we are all acquainted with, which looks at the marvels of creation with the wide-eyed gaze of bovine youthfulness, curious, not to know how that door came there, but only to know whether it leads to something to eat. The humor of Luther suggests that of Abraham Lincoln. Both were men of the people, and their humor had a flavor of the soil. They were alike capable of deep dejection, but each found relief in spontaneous laughter. The surprise of the grave statesman when Lincoln would preface a discussion with a homely anecdote of the frontier was of the same kind felt by the sixteenth-century theologians when Luther turned aside from his great arguments, which startled Europe, to tell a merry tale in ridicule of the pretensions of the monks. If I were to speak of the humorist as a philosopher, some of the gravest of the philosophers would at once protest. Humor, they say, has no place in their philosophy; and they are quite right. Indeed, it is doubtful if a humorist would ever make a good, systematic philosopher. He is a modest person. He is only a gleaner following the reapers; but he manages to pick up a great many grains of wisdom which they overlook. Dante pictures the sages of antiquity as forever walking on a verdant mead, "with eyes slow and grave, and with great authority in their looks;" as if, in the other world, they were continually oppressed by the wisdom they had acquired in this. But I can imagine a gathering of philosophers in a different fashion. Gravely they have come, each bearing his ponderous volume, in which he has explained the universe and settled the destiny of mankind. Then, suddenly, in contrast with their theories, the reality is disclosed. The incorrigible pedants and dogmatists turn away in sullen disappointment; but from all true lovers of wisdom there arises a peal of mellow laughter, as each one realizes the enormous incongruity between what he knew and what he thought he knew. The discovery that things are not always as they seem is one that some people make in this world. They get a glimpse of something that is going on behind the scenes, and their smile is very disconcerting to the sober spectators around them. Sometimes it is the bitter smile of disillusion. Matthew Arnold wrote of Heine:-- "The Spirit of the world, Beholding the absurdity of men,-- Their vaunts, their feats,--let a sardonic smile, For one short moment, wander o'er his lips. That smile was Heine." But there is another kind of smile evoked by the incongruity between the appearance and the reality. It is the smile that comes when behind some mask that had affrighted us we recognize a familiar and friendly face. There is a smile which is not one of disillusion. There is a philosophy which is dissolved in humor. The wise man sees the incongruities involved in the very nature of things. They are the result of the free play of various forces. To his quick insight the actual world is no more like the formal descriptions of it than the successive attitudes of a galloping horse are like the pose of an equestrian statue. His mind catches instantaneous views of this world as its elements are continually dissolving and recombining. It is all very surprising, and he smiles as he sees how much better they turn out than might be expected. "Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say Endless dirges to decay. * * * * * And yet it seemeth not to me That the high gods love tragedy; For Saadi sat in the sun. * * * * * Sunshine in his heart transferred, Lighted each transparent word. * * * * * And thus to Saadi said the Muse: 'Eat thou the bread which men refuse; Flee from the goods which from thee flee; Seek nothing,--Fortune seeketh thee. * * * * * On thine orchard's edge belong All the brags of plume and song. * * * * * Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, A poet or a friend to find: Behold, he watches at the door! Behold his shadow on the floor!'" In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom says, "I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence." But there is another member of the household. It is Humor, sister of serene Wisdom and of the heavenly Prudence. She does not often laugh, and when she does it is mostly at her sister Wisdom, who cannot long resist the infection. There is not one set smile upon her face, as if she contemplated an altogether amusing world. The smiles that come and go are shy, elusive things, but they cannot remain long in hiding. Wisdom, from her high house, takes wide views, and Prudence peers anxiously into the future; but gentle Humor loves to take short views; she delights in homely things, and continually finds surprises in that which is most familiar. Wisdom goes on laborious journeys, and comes home bringing her treasures from afar; and Humor matches them, every one, with what she has found in the dooryard. Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts That was a curious state of things in Salem village. There was the Meeting-House in plain sight, with sermons every Sunday and lectures on week-days. There were gospel privileges for all, and the path of duty was evident enough for the simplest understanding. Nevertheless, certain persons who should have listened to the sermons, when they heard the sound of a trumpet hied to the rendezvous of witches. When haled before the court their only answer was that they couldn't help it. The ministers were disturbed, but being thorough-going men, they did not rest content with academic discussion of the question of the falling-off in church attendance. They inquired into its cause, and became convinced that they were dealing with sorcery. All this is duly set down in Increase Mather's treatise on "Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcrafts." This method of inquisition is commended to those writers who look upon the Gentle Reader's love of Romance as a deadly sin. The trouble, as I understand it, is this. A number of gentlemen devoted to literature have cultivated style till it is as near a state of utter perfection as human nature will tolerate. Indeed, they emulate that classic writer of whom Roger Ascham remarked that he labored "with uncontented care to write better than he could." They have attained such accuracy of observation and such skill in the choice of words that the man in the book is as like to the man on the street as two peas. They are also skilled in criticism and are able to prove that it is our duty not only to admire but also to read their books. The complaint is that the readers, instead of walking in the path of duty, troop off after some mere story-teller who has never passed an examination in Pathology, and who is utterly incapable of making an exhaustive analysis of motives. The Gentle Reader when he hears the accusations of the stern realists makes no denial of the facts. He admits that he likes a good story better than an involved study of character. He listens to the reproofs with the helplessness of one who has only the frail barrier of a personal taste to shield him from the direct blow of the categorical imperative. If personal taste were to be accepted as a sufficient plea, he is aware that the most besotted inebriate would go unwhipped of justice. In this predicament he shields himself behind his favorite authors. If there be a fault it is theirs, not his. They have bewitched him by their spells. It is impossible for him to withstand the potent enchantments of these wizards. I am inclined to think that there is much justice in this view of the matter and that the militant realists should turn their attention from the innocent reader to those who have power to bewitch him. The accepted signs of witchcraft, as enumerated by the Mathers, are present. Thus we are told: "A famous Divine recites among other Convictions of a Witch, the Testimony of the Party bewitched, together with the joint Oaths of sufficient Persons that they have seen Prodigious Pranks or Feats wrought by the Party accused." This was the kind of evidence relied upon in the case of G. B. in the Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Salem in 1692. "He was accused by Nine Persons for extraordinary Lifting and such Feats of Strength as could not be done without Diabolical Assistance." It was said that "though he was a Puny Man yet he had done things beyond the strength of a Giant. A Gun of about seven foot Barrel, and so heavy that strong Men could not steadily hold it out with both hands; there were several Testimonies that he made nothing of taking up such a Gun behind the Lock, with one hand, and holding it out like a Pistol at arm's end." Any readers of romance can tell of many such prodigious pranks which, while the spell was upon them, seemed altogether credible. The test which was looked upon as infallible by those judicious judges who put little confidence in the flotation of witches on the mill pond, was that of the lack of intellectual consistency. "Faltering, faulty, inconstant, and contrary answers upon judicial and deliberate Examination are accounted unlucky symptoms of guilt." Such inconsistencies may be found in all romantic fiction; yet the magicians seem to have the power to make all things appear probable. I might tell what a pleasant thrill is sometimes produced by these sorceries, but I had better follow the policy of Cotton Mather, who declined to tell all he knew about the Invisible World, lest he might make witchcraft too attractive. "I will not speak plainly lest I should, unaware, poison some of my Readers, as the pious Hermingius did one of his Pupils when he only by way of Diversion recited a Spell." Cotton Mather makes a suggestion which is of value in regard to the different grades of witches and other wonder-working spirits. His remarks upon this head are so judicious that they should be quoted in full. "Thirdly, 'tis to be supposed, that some _Devils_ are more peculiarly _Commission'd_, and perhaps _Qualify'd_, for some Countries, while others are for others. This is intimated when in _Mar_. 5. 10. The Devils _besought_ our Lord much, _that he would not send them away out of the Countrey_. Why was that? But in all probability, because _these Devils_ were more able to _do the works of the Devil_, in such a Countrey, than in another. It is not likely that every Devil does know every _Language_; or that every Devil can do every _Mischief_. 'Tis possible, that the _Experience_, or, if I may call it so, the _Education_ of all Devils is not alike, and that there may be some difference in their _Abilities_. If one might make an Inference from what the Devils _do_, to what they _are_, One cannot forbear dreaming, that there are _degrees_ of Devils. Who can allow, that such Trifling _Demons_, as that of _Mascon_, or those that once infested our New-berry, are of so much Grandeur, as those _Demons_, whose Games are mighty Kingdoms? Yea, 'tis certain, that all Devils do not make a like figure in the _Invisible World_. Nor does it look agreeably, That the _Demons_, which were Familiars of such a Man as the old _Apollonius_, differ not from those baser Goblins that chuse to Nest in the filthy and loathsome Rags of a beastly Sorceress. Accordingly, why may not some Devils be more accomplished for what is to be done in such and such places, when others must be _detach'd_ for other Territories? Each Devil, as he sees his advantage, cries out, _Let me be in this Countrey, rather than another_." It is only on the theory of bewitchment by a trifling demon who belongs to the lower orders of the literary world that I can account for the sad fall of the reader whose confession follows. Carefully shielded in his youth from all the enticements of the imagination, he yet fell from grace. The unfortunate person seems to be lacking in strength of will, and yet to have some good in him. In my opinion he was more sinned against than sinning. But I will let him tell his story in his own way. A CONFESSION One half the world does not know what the other half reads; but good people are now taught that the first requisite of sociological virtue is to interest themselves in the other half. I therefore venture to call attention to a book that has pleased me, though my delight in it may at once class me with the "submerged tenth" of the reading public. It is "The Pirate's Own Book." By way of preface to a discussion of this volume, let me make a personal explanation of the causes which led me to its perusal. My reading of such a book cannot be traced to early habit. In my boyhood I had no opportunity to study the careers of pirates, for I was confined to another variety of literature. On Sunday afternoons I read aloud a book called "The Afflicted Man's Companion." The unfortunate gentleman portrayed in this work had a large assortment of afflictions,--if I remember rightly, one for each day of the month,--but among them was nothing so exciting as being marooned in the South Seas. Indeed, his afflictions were of a generalized and abstract kind, which he could have borne with great cheerfulness had it not been for the consolations which were remorselessly administered to him. If I have become addicted to tales of piracy, I must attribute it to the literary criticisms of too strenuous realists. Before I read them, I took an innocent pleasure in romantic fiction. Without any compunction of conscience I rejoiced in Walter Scott; and when he failed I was pleased even with his imitators. My heart leaped up when I beheld a solitary horseman on the first page, and I did not forsake the horseman, even though I knew he was to be personally conducted through his journey by Mr. G. P. R. James. Fenimore Cooper, in those days, before I was awakened to the nature of literary sin, I found altogether pleasant. The cares of the world faded away, and a soothing conviction of the essential rightness of things came over me, as the pioneers and Indians discussed in deliberate fashion the deepest questions of the universe, between shots. As for stories of the sea, I never thought of being critical. I was ready to take thankfully anything with a salty flavor, from "Sindbad the Sailor" to Mr. Clark Russell. I had no inconvenient knowledge to interfere with my enjoyment. All nautical language was alike impressive, and all nautical manoeuvres were to me alike perilous. It would have been a poor Ancient Mariner who could not have enthralled me, when "He held me with his skinny hand; 'There was a ship,' quoth he." And if the ship had raking masts and no satisfactory clearance papers, that was enough; as to what should happen, I left that altogether to the author. That the laws of probability held on the Spanish Main as on dry land, I never dreamed. But after being awakened to the sin of romance, I saw that to read a novel merely for recreation is not permissible. The reader must be put upon oath, and before he allows himself to enjoy any incident must swear that everything is exactly true to life as he has seen it. All vagabonds and sturdy vagrants who have no visible means of support, in the present order of things, are to be driven out of the realm of well-regulated fiction. Among these are included all knights in armor; all rightful heirs with a strawberry mark; all horsemen, solitary or otherwise; all princes in disguise; all persons who are in the habit of saying "prithee," or "Odzooks," or "by my halidome;" all fair ladies who have no irregularities of feature and no realistic incoherencies of speech; all lovers who fall in love at first sight, and who are married at the end of the book and live happily ever after; all witches, fortune-tellers, and gypsies; all spotless heroes and deep-dyed villains; all pirates, buccaneers, North American Indians with a taste for metaphysics; all scouts, hunters, trappers, and other individuals who do not wear store clothes. According to this decree, all readers are forbidden to aid and abet these persons, or to give them shelter in their imagination. A reader who should incite a writer of fiction to romance would be held as an accessory before the fact. After duly repenting of my sins and renouncing my old acquaintances, I felt a preëminent virtue. Had I met the Three Guardsmen, one at a time or all together, I should have passed them by without stopping for a moment's converse. I should have recognized them for the impudent Gascons that they were, and should have known that there was not a word of truth in all their adventures. As for Stevenson's fine old pirate, with his contemptible song about a "dead men's chest and a bottle of rum," I should not have tolerated him for an instant. Instead, I should have turned eagerly to some neutral-tinted person who never had any adventure greater than missing the train to Dedham, and I should have analyzed his character, and agitated myself in the attempt to get at his feelings, and I should have verified his story by a careful reference to the railway guide. I should have treated that neutral-tinted character as a problem, and I should have noted all the delicate shades in the futility of his conduct. When, on any occasion that called for action, he did not know his own mind, I should have admired him for his resemblance to so many of my acquaintances who do not know their own minds. After studying the problem until I came to the last chapter, I should suddenly have given it up, and agreed with the writer that it had no solution. In my self-righteousness, I despised the old-fashioned reader who had been lured on in the expectation that at the last moment something thrilling might happen. But temptations come at the unguarded point. I had hardened myself against romance in fiction, but I had not been sufficiently warned against romance in the guise of fact. When in a book-stall I came upon "The Pirate's Own Book," it seemed to answer a felt want. Here at least, outside the boundaries of strict fiction, I could be sure of finding adventure, and feel again with Sancho Panza "how pleasant it is to go about in expectation of accidents." I am well aware that good literature--to use Matthew Arnold's phrase--is a criticism of life. But the criticism of life, with its discriminations between things which look very much alike, is pretty serious business. We cannot keep on criticising life without getting tired after a while, and longing for something a little simpler. There is a much-admired passage in Ferishtah's Fancies, in which, after mixing up the beans in his hands and speculating on their color, Ferishtah is not able to tell black from white. Ferishtah, living in a soothing climate, could stand an indefinite amount of this sort of thing; and, moreover, we must remember that he was a dervish, and dervishry, although a steady occupation, is not exacting in its requirements. In our more stimulating climate, we should bring on nervous prostration if we gave ourselves unremittingly to the discrimination between all the possible variations of blackishness and whitishness. We must relieve our minds by occasionally finding something about which there can be no doubt. When my eyes rested on the woodcut that adorns the first page of "The Pirate's Own Book," I felt the rest that comes from perfect certainty in my own moral judgment. Ferishtah himself could not have mixed me up. Here was black without a redeeming spot. On looking upon this pirate, I felt relieved from any criticism of life; here was something beneath criticism. I was no longer tossed about on a chop sea, with its conflicting waves of feeling and judgment, but was borne along triumphantly on a bounding billow of moral reprobation. As I looked over the headings of the chapters, I was struck by their straightforward and undisguised character. When I read the chapter entitled The Savage Appearance of the Pirates, and compared this with the illustrations, I said, "How true!" Then there was a chapter on the Deceitful Character of the Malays. I had always suspected that the Malays were deceitful, and here I found my impressions justified by competent authority. Then I dipped into the preface, and found the same transparent candor. "A piratical crew," says the author, "is generally formed of the desperadoes and renegades of every clime and nation." Again I said, "Just what I should have expected. The writer is evidently one who 'nothing extenuates.'" Then follows a further description of the pirate: "The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, when not cruising on the ocean, that great highway of nations, selects the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or secretes himself near the shores of bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited countries." Just the places where I should have expected him to settle. "The pirate, when not engaged in robbing, passes his time in singing old songs with choruses like,-- 'Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! Let the world wag as it will; Let the heavens growl, let the devil howl, Drain, drain the deep bowl and fill!' Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics, amongst the lofty forests and spicy groves of the torrid zone, and amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable products of that region." Again: "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich plunder,--caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the-way places, or buried about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored seacoasts, near rocks and trees bearing mysterious marks, indicating where the treasure is hid." "As it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, and from the perilous life he lives being often killed, he can never revisit the spot again, immense sums remaining buried in these places are irrevocably lost." Is it any wonder that, with such an introduction, I became interested? After a perusal of the book, I am inclined to think that a pirate may be a better person to read about than some persons who stand higher in the moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as to be born into a world which is inadequate to his expectations. Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his grievance he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the universe is no better than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad character; yet as a subject of biography he is more inspiring than the pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of one good man in a totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the contrast with an unmitigated pirate. My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On the fly-leaf it bore in prim handwriting the name of a lady who for many years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile philanthropy, and that every moment she had the ability to make two duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, attending the requisite number of lectures to improve her mind, and considering in committees plans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel a creepy sensation that would be an effectual counter-irritant to all her anxieties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book. In fact, it is expressly stated that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and who would not be annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the society appear almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of disposition is a great key to do good." Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read about than a philanthropist. The minute the philanthropist is introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is made the victim of the most cruel kind of vivisection,--a character-study. Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: "'That was really heroic,' said Felix. 'That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,--that's how he likes to feel.'" This leaves the mind in a painful state of suspense. The first instinct of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrude has made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about pirates. You cannot make a character-study out of a pirate,--he has no character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly elated. For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was "affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces would have been so highly appreciated. So our author feels a righteous glow when speaking of the natives of the Malabar coasts, and accounting for their truthfulness: "For as they had been used to deal with pirates, they always found them men of honor in the way of trade,--a people enemies of deceit, and that scorned to rob but in their own way." He is a very literal-minded person, and takes all his pirates seriously, but often we are surprised by some touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. There was the ferocious Benevedes, who flourished on the west coast of South America, and who, not content with sea power, attempted to gather an army. It is said that "a more finished picture of a pirate cannot be conceived," and the description that follows certainly bears out this assertion. Yet he had his own ideas of civilization, and a power of adaptation that reminds us of the excellent and ingenious Swiss Family Robinson. When he captures the American whaling-ship Herculia, we are prepared for a wild scene of carnage; but instead we are told that Benevedes immediately dismantled the ship, and "out of the sails made trousers for half his army." After the trousers had been distributed, Benevedes remarked that his army was complete except in one essential particular,--he had no trumpets for the cavalry: whereupon, at the suggestion of the New Bedford skipper, he ripped off the copper sheets of the vessel, out of which a great variety of copper trumpets were quickly manufactured, and soon "the whole camp resounded with the warlike blasts." While the delighted pirates were enjoying their instrumental music, the skipper and nine of the crew took occasion to escape in a boat which had been imprudently concealed on the river bank. In the "Proverbial Philosophy" we are told that "Many virtues weighted by excess sink among the vices, Many vices, amicably buoyed, float among the virtues." Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis. Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order. Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding. After a sloop had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:-- "In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected. He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech." The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident would succeed." This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared on deck in white shirts, which making an appearance of numbers the Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire. Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations, and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the court." There was also on board the daughter of the Great Mogul, who was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves, with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,-- "Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul! Let the world wag as it will." Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from the ship he sailed off with the treasure, leaving them to their evil ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story. With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time in other cities--he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds, "Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged for the current coin of the realm; but his early education had been neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated nature--when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them. That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and dreary. To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life, Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn Pirate, is a relief to the overstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were. "On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common vegetables." This shows that the New England environment gave an industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of them--Thomas Veal--took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent. There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this interesting narration. No overt act of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it is given in this book, is largely circumstantial. There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable practice of pirates. Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country "there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure, confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition. The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the "spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious cavern after that earthquake. No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist, escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them believe that he was only a pirate. I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of the doctrine of total depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books to read--after one is tired of reading books that are better. I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo. "'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one that is not true?' "'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'" But there must have been times--though none are recorded--when Rollo tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information of Jonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only. No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a pirate's cave. The Honorable Points of Ignorance I happen to live in a community where there is a deeply rooted prejudice in favor of intelligence, with many facilities for its advancement. I may, therefore, be looked upon as unmindful of my privileges when I confess that my chief pleasures have been found in the more secluded paths of ignorance. I am no undiscriminating lover of Ignorance. I do not like the pitch-black kind which is the negation of all thought. What I prefer is a pleasant intellectual twilight, where one sees realities through an entrancing atmosphere of dubiety. In visiting a fine old Elizabethan mansion in the south of England our host took us to a room where he had discovered the evidences of a secret panel. "What is behind it?" we asked. "I do not know," he answered; "while I live it shall never be opened, for then I should have no secret chamber." There was a philosopher after my own heart. He was wise enough to resist the temptation to sell his birthright of mystery for a mess of knowledge. The rural New Englander expresses his interest by saying, "I want to know!" But may one not have a real interest in persons and things which is free from inquisitiveness? For myself, I frequently prefer not to know. Were Bluebeard to do me the honor of intrusting me with his keys, I should spend a pleasant half-hour speculating on his family affairs. I might even put the key in the lock, but I do not think I should turn it. Why should I destroy twenty exciting possibilities for the sake of a single discovery? I like to watch certain impressive figures as they cross the College Yard. They seem like the sages whom Dante saw:-- "People were there with solemn eyes and slow, Of great authority in their countenance." Do I therefore inquire their names, and intrusively seek to know what books they have written, before I admire their scholarship? No, to my old-fashioned way of thinking, scholarship is not a thing to be measured; it is a mysterious effluence. Were I to see-- "Democritus who puts the world on chance, Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus, * * * * * Tully and Livy and moral Seneca, Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy, Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna," I should not care to ask, "Which is which?" still less should I venture to interview Galen on the subject of medicine, or put leading questions to Diogenes. The combined impression of ineffable wisdom would be more to me than any particular information I might get out of them. But, as I said, I am not an enthusiast for Ignorance. Mine is not the zeal of a new convert, but the sober preference of one to the manner born. I do not look upon it as a panacea, nor, after the habit of reformers, would I insist that it should be taught in the public schools. There are important spheres wherein exact information is much to be preferred. Because Ignorance has its own humble measure of bliss I would not jump at the conclusion that it is folly to be wise. That is an extravagant statement. If real wisdom were offered me I should accept it gratefully. Wisdom is an honorable estate, and, doubtless, it has pleasures of its own. I only have in mind the alternative that is usually presented to us, conscious ignorance or a kind of knowingness. It is necessary, at this point, to make a distinction. A writer on the use of words has a chapter on Ignorantism, which is a term he uses to indicate Ignorance that mistakes itself, or seeks to make others mistake it, for Knowledge. For Ignorantism I make no plea. If Ignorance puts on a false uniform and is caught within the enemy's lines, it must suffer the penalties laid down in the laws of war. Nor would I defend what Milton calls "the barbarous ignorance of the schools." This scholastic variety consists of the scientific definition and classification of "things that aren't so." It has no value except as a sort of gelatine culture for the propagation of verbal bacteria. But the affectations of the pedants or the sciolists should not be allowed to cast discredit on the fair name of Ignorance. It is only natural Ignorance which I praise; not that which is acquired. It was a saying of Landor that if a man had a large mind he could afford to let the greater part of it lie fallow. Of course we small proprietors cannot do things on such a generous scale; but it seems to me that if one has only a little mind it is a mistake to keep it all under cultivation. I hope that this praise of Ignorance may not give offense to any intelligent reader who may feel that he is placed by reason of his acquirements beyond the pale of our sympathies. He need fear no such exclusion. My Lady Ignorance is gracious and often bestows her choicest gifts on those who scorn her. The most erudite person is intelligent only in spots. Browning's Bishop Blougram questioned whether he should be called a skeptic or believer, seeing that he could only exchange "a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt: We called the chess-board white,--we call it black." Whether a person thinks of his own intellectual state as one of knowledge diversified by ignorance or one of ignorance diversified by knowledge is a matter of temperament. We like him better when he frankly calls his intellectual chess-board black. That, at any rate, was the original color, the white is an afterthought. Let me, then, without suspicion of treasonable intent, be allowed to point out what we may call in Shakespearean phrase "the honorable points of ignorance." The social law against "talking shop" is an indication of the very widespread opinion that the exhibition of unmitigated knowledge is unseemly, outside of business hours. When we meet for pleasure we prefer that it should be on the humanizing ground of not knowing. Nothing is so fatal to conversation as an authoritative utterance. When a man who is capable of giving it enters, "All talk dies, as in a grove all song Beneath the shadow of a bird of prey." Conversation about the weather would lose all its easy charm in the presence of the Chief of the Weather Bureau. It is possible that the fear of exhibiting unusual information in a mixed company may be a survival of primitive conditions. Just as the domesticated dog will turn around on the rug before lying down, for hereditary reasons which I do not remember, so it is with civilized man. Once ignorance was universal and enforced by penalties. In the progress of the race the environment has been modified, but so strong is the influence of heredity that The Man Who Knows no sooner enters the drawing-room than he is seized by guilty fears. His ancestors for having exhibited a moiety of his intelligence were executed as wizards. But perhaps the ordinary working of natural selection may account for the facts. The law of the survival of the fittest admits of no exceptions, and the fittest to give us pleasure in conversation is the sympathetic person who appears to know very little more than we do. In the commerce of ideas there must be reciprocity. We will not deal with one who insists that the balance of trade shall always be in his favor. Moreover there must be a spice of incertitude about the transaction. The real joy of the intellectual traffic comes when we sail away like the old merchant adventurers in search of a market. There must be no prosaic bills of exchange: it must be primitive barter. We have a choice cargo of beads which we are willing to exchange for frankincense and ivory. If on some strange coast we should meet simple-minded people who have only wampum, perhaps even then we might make a trade. Have you never when engaged in such commerce felt something of the spirit of the grave Tyrian trader who had sailed away from the frequented marts, and held on "O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits, and unbent sails There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; And on the beach undid his corded bales." It is not every day that one meets with such shy traffickers, for the world is becoming very sophisticated. One does not ask that those with whom we converse should be ignorant of everything; it is enough that they should not know what is in our bales before we undo them. One very serious drawback to our pleasure in conversation with a too well-informed person is the nervous strain that is involved. We are always wondering what will happen when he comes to the end of his resources. After listening to one who discourses with surprising accuracy upon any particular topic, we feel a delicacy in changing the subject. It seems a mean trick, like suddenly removing the chair on which a guest is about to sit down for the evening. With one who is interested in a great many things he knows little about there is no such difficulty. If he has passed the first flush of youth, it no longer embarrasses him to be caught now and then in a mistake; indeed your correction is welcomed as an agreeable interruption, and serves as a starting point for a new series of observations. The pleasure of conversation is enhanced if one feels assured not only of wide margins of ignorance, but also of the absence of uncanny quickness of mind. I should not like to be neighbor to a wit. It would be like being in proximity to a live wire. A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse. There are certain minds whose processes convey the impression of alternating currents of high voltage on a wire that is not quite large enough for them. From such I would withdraw myself. One is freed from all such apprehensions in the companionship of people who make no pretensions to any kind of cleverness. "The laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot." What cheerful sounds! The crackling of the dry thorns! and the merry bubbling of the pot! There is an important part played by what I may call defensive Ignorance. It was said of Robert Elsmere that he had a mind that was defenseless against the truth. It is a fine thing to be thus open to conviction, but the mental hospitality of one who is without prejudices is likely to be abused. All sorts of notions importunately demand attention, and he who thinks to examine all their credentials will find no time left for his own proper affairs. For myself, I like to have a general reception-room in my mind for all sorts of notions with which I desire to keep up only a calling acquaintance. Here let them all be welcomed, good, bad, and indifferent, in the spacious antechamber of my Ignorance. But I am not able to invite them into my private apartments, for I am living in a small way in cramped quarters, where there is only room for my own convictions. There are many things that are interesting to hear about which I do not care to investigate. If one is willing to give me the result of his speculations on various esoteric doctrines I am ready to receive them in the spirit in which they are offered, but I should not think of examining them closely; it would be too much like looking a gift horse in the mouth. I should like to talk with a Mahatma about the constitution of the astral body. I do not know enough about the subject to contradict his assertions, and therefore he would have it all his own way. But were he to become insistent and ask me to look into the matter for myself, I should beg to be excused. I would not take a single step alone. In such a case I agree with Sir Thomas Browne that "it is better to sit down in modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our own reasons." There are zealous persons of a proselyting turn of mind who insist upon our accepting their ideas or giving reasons for our rejection of them. When we see the flames of controversy sweeping upon us, the only safety lies in setting a back fire which shall clear the ground of any fuel for argument. If we can only surround ourselves with a bare space of nescience we may rest in peace. I have seen a simple Chinese laundry-man, by adopting this plan, resist a storm of argument and invective without losing his temper or yielding his point. Serene, imperturbable, inscrutable, he stood undisturbed by the strife of tongues. He had one supreme advantage,--he did not know the language. It was thus in the sixteenth century, when religious strife waxed mad around him, that Montaigne preserved a little spot of tolerant thought. "O what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity whereon to compose a well-contrived head!" This sounds like mere Epicureanism, but Montaigne had much to say for himself: "Great abuse in the world is begot, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begot by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute.... They make me hate things that are likely when they impose upon me for infallible. I love those words which mollify and moderate the temerity of our propositions, 'Peradventure, in some sort, 'tis said, I think,' and the like.... There is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honor and courage to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than knowledge itself." Not only is protection needed from the dogmatic assaults of our neighbors, but also from our own premature ideas. There are opinions which we are willing to receive on probation, but these probationers must be taught by judicious snubbing to know their place. The plausibilities and probabilities that are pleasantly received must not airily assume the place of certainties. Because you say to a stranger, "I'm glad to see you," it is not certain that you are ready to sign his note at the bank. When one happens to harbor any ideas of a radical character, he is fortunate if he is so constituted that it is not necessary for his self-respect that he should be cock-sure. The consciousness of the imperfection of his knowledge serves as a buffer when the train of progress starts with a jerk. Sir Thomas More was, it is evident, favorably impressed with many of the sentiments of the gentleman from Utopia, but it was a great relief to him to be able to give them currency without committing himself to them. He makes no dogmatic assertion that the constitution of Utopia was better than that of the England of Henry VIII. In fact, he professes to know nothing about Utopia except from mere hearsay. He gracefully dismisses the subject, allowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas to float away on the thistle-down of polite Ignorance. "When Raphael had made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to me both concerning the manners and laws of that country that seemed very absurd ... yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary and I was not sure whether he could bear contradiction ... I only commended their constitution and the account he had given of it in general; and so, taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would find some other time for examining this subject more particularly and discoursing more copiously upon it." * * * * * One whose quiet tastes lead him away from the main traveled roads into the byways of Ignorance is likely to retain a feeling in regard to books which belongs to an earlier stage of culture. Time was when a book was a symbol of intellectual mysteries rather than a tool to be used. When Omar Khayyám sang of the delights of a jug of wine and a book, I do not think he was intemperate in the use of either. The same book and the same jug of wine would last him a long time. The chief thing was that it gave him a comfortable feeling to have them within reach. The primitive feeling in regard to a book as a kind of talisman survives chiefly among bibliophiles, but with them it is overlaid by matters of taste which are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As for myself, I know nothing of such niceties. I know nothing of rare bindings or fine editions. My heart is never disturbed by coveting the contents of my neighbor's bookshelves. Indeed, I have always listened to the tenth commandment with a tranquil heart since I learned, in the Shorter Catechism, that "the tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his." If that be all, it is not aimed at me, particularly in this matter of books. I feel no discontentment at the disorderly array of bound volumes that I possess. I know that they are no credit either to my taste or to my scholarship, but if that offends my neighbor, the misery is his, not mine. If he should bring a railing accusation against me, let him remember that there is a ninth commandment which "forbiddeth anything that is injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name." As for any inordinate motions or affections toward his literary treasures, I have no more than toward his choice collection of stamps. Yet I have one weakness in common with the bibliophile; I have a liking for certain books which I have neither time nor inclination to read. Just as according to the mediæval theory there was a sanctity about a duly ordained clergyman altogether apart from his personal character, so there is to my mind an impressiveness about some volumes which has little to do with their contents, or at least with my knowledge of them. Why should we be too curious in regard to such matters? There are books which I love to see on the shelf. I feel that virtue goes out of them, but I should think it undue familiarity to read them. The persons who have written on "Books that have helped me" have usually confined their list to books which they have actually read. One book has clarified their thoughts, another has stimulated their wills, another has given them useful knowledge. But are there no Christian virtues to be cultivated? What about humility, that pearl of great price? To be constantly reminded that you have not read Kant's "Critique of the Pure Reason," and that therefore you have no right to express a final opinion on philosophy, does not that save you from no end of unnecessary dogmatism? The silent monitor with its accusing, uncut pages is a blessed help to the meekness of wisdom. A book that has helped me is "The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England," by Edward, Earl of Clarendon. I am by nature and education a Cromwellian, of a rather narrow type. I am more likely than not to think of Charles I. as a man of sin. When, therefore, I brought home Clarendon's History I felt a glow of conscious virtue; the volume was an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace,--the grace of tolerance; and so it has ever been to me. Years have passed, and the days of leisure have not yet come when I could devote myself to the reading of it. Perhaps the fact that I discovered that the noble earl's second sentence contains almost three hundred words may have had a discouraging influence,--but we will let that pass. Because I have not crossed the Rubicon of the second chapter, will you say that the book has not influenced me? "When in my sessions of sweet, silent thought," with the Earl of Clarendon, "I summon up remembrance of time past," is it necessary that I should laboriously turn the pages? It is enough that I feel my prejudices oozing away, and that I am convinced, when I look at the much prized volume, that there are two sides to this matter of the English Commonwealth. Could the most laborious reading do more for me? Indeed, it is dangerous, sometimes, not to let well-enough alone. Wordsworth's fickle Muse gave him several pretty fancies about the unseen banks of Yarrow. "Yarrow Unvisited" was so delightful that he was almost tempted to be content with absent treatment. "We will not see them, will not go To-day nor yet to-morrow, Enough if in our hearts we know There's such a place as Yarrow. Be Yarrow's stream unseen, unknown, It must, or we shall rue it, We have a vision of our own, Ah, why should we undo it?" Ah, why, indeed? the reader asks, after reading Yarrow Visited and Yarrow Re-visited. The visits were a mistake. Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell? * * * * * There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are not always sufficiently appreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown. That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more upon his travels. "For my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." "It may be"--there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their looming shores they should see the great Achilles--why all the better! What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands, territories, isles and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,--but if it was not one thing it was another! Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,--the great South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington! Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance. But my heart goes out to Billington. He also was a discoverer, according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the advantage of us. Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance. Of course even then all the possibilities of discovery are not shut out. The best-informed person cannot be completely guarded against surprise. Accidents will happen, and there is always the chance that one may have been misinformed. I remember a depressed looking lady whom I encountered as she trudged through the galleries of the Vatican with grim conscientiousness. She had evidently a stern duty to perform for the cause of Art. But in the Sistine Chapel the stillness was broken by her voice, which had a note of triumph as she spoke to her daughter. She had discovered an error in Baedeker. It infused new life into her tired soul. "Some flowerets of Eden we still inherit Though the trail of the serpent is over them all." Speaking of the Vatican, that suggests the weak point in my argument. It suggests that there are occasions when knowledge is very convenient. On the Peak in Darien the first comer, with the wild surmise of ignorance, has the advantage in the quality of his sensation; but it is different in Jerusalem or Rome. There the pleasure consists in the fact that a great many interesting people have been there before and done many interesting things, which it might be well to know about. At this point I am quite willing to grant an inch; with the understanding that it shall not be lengthened into an ell. The Camel of Knowledge may push his head into the tent, and we shall have to resist his further encroachments as we may. What we call the historic sense is not consistent with a state of nescience. The picture which the eye takes in is incomplete without the thousand associations which come from previous thought. Still, it remains true that the finest pleasure does not come when the mental images are the most precise. Before entering Paradise the mediæval pilgrims tasted of the streams of Eunoë and Lethe,--the happy memory and the happy forgetfulness. The most potent charm comes from the judicious mingling of these waters. There is a feeling of antiquity that only comes now and then, but which it is worth traveling far to experience. It is the thrill that comes when we consciously stand in the presence of the remote past. Some scene brings with it an impression of immemorial time. In almost every case we find that it comes from being reminded of something which we have once known and more than half forgotten. What are the "mists of time" but imperfect memories? Modern psychologists have given tardy recognition to the "Subliminal Self,"--the self that lodges under the threshold of consciousness. He is a shy gnome, and loves the darkness rather than the light; not, as I believe, because his deeds are evil, but for reasons best known to himself. To all appearances he is the most ignorant fellow in the world, and yet he is no fool. As for the odds and ends that he stores up under the threshold, they are of more value than the treasures that the priggish Understanding displays in his show windows upstairs. In traveling through historic lands the Subliminal Self overcomes his shyness. There are scenes and even words that reach back into hoar antiquity, and bring us into the days of eld. Each person has his own chronology. If I were to seek to bring to mind the very ancientest time, I should not think of the cave-dwellers: I should repeat, "The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites." There is antiquity! It is not only a long time since these tribes dwelt in the land; it has been a long time since I first heard of them. My memory goes back to the time when a disconsolate little boy sat on a bench in a Sunday-school and asked himself, "What is a Girgashite?" The habit of the Sunday-school of mingling the historical and ethical elements in one inextricable moral had made it uncertain whether the Girgashite was a person or a sin. In either case it happened a long time ago. There upon the very verge of Time stood the Girgashite, like the ghost in Ossian, "His spear was a column of mist, and the stars looked dim through his form." Happily my studies have not led in that direction, and there is nothing to disturb the first impression. If some day wandering over Oriental hills I should come upon some broken monuments of the Girgashites, I am sure that I should feel more of a thrill than could possibly come to my more instructed companion. To him it would be only the discovery of another fact, to fit into his scheme of knowledge: to me it would be like stumbling unawares into the primeval world. What is more delightful than in a railway train in Italy to hear voices in the night calling out names that recall the lost arts of our childhood! There is a sense "Of something here like something there, Of something done, I know not where, Such as no language can declare." There is a bittersweet to it, for there is a momentary fear that you may be called upon to construe; but when that is past it is pure joy. "Monte Soracte," said the Italian gentleman on the train between Foligno and Rome, as he pointed out a picturesque eminence. My answering smile was intended to convey the impression that one touch of the classics makes the whole world kin. Had I indeed kept up my Horace, a host of clean-cut ideas would have instantly rushed into my mind. "Is that Soracte! It is not what I had reason to expect. As a mountain I prefer Monadnock." Fortunately I had no such prepossessions. I had expected nothing. There only came impressions of lessons years ago in a dingy school-room presided over by a loved instructor whom we knew as "Prof. Ike." Looking back through the mists of time, I felt that I had been the better for having learned the lessons, and none the worse for having long since forgotten them. In those days Soracte had been a noun standing in mysterious relations to a verb unknown; but now it was evident that it was a mountain. There it stood under the clear Italian sky just as it had been in the days of Virgil and Horace. Thoughts of Horace and of the old professor mingled pleasantly so long as the mountain was in sight. * * * * * It may seem to some timid souls that this praise of Ignorance may have a sinister motive, and may be intended to deter from the pursuit of knowledge. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage those who are "faint yet pursuing." It must have occurred to every serious person that the pursuit of knowledge is not what it once was. Time was when to know seemed the easiest thing in the world. All that a man had to do was to assert dogmatically that a thing was so, and then argue it out with some one who had even less acquaintance with the subject than he had. He was not hampered by a rigid, scientific method, nor did he need to make experiments, which after all might not strengthen his position. The chief thing was a certain tenacity of opinion which would enable him, in Pope's phrase, to "hold the eel of science by the tail." There were no troublesome experts to cast discredit on this slippery sport. If a man had a knack at metaphysics and a fine flow of technical language he could satisfy all reasonable curiosity about the Universe. Or with the minimum of effort he might attain a jovial scholarship adequate for all convivial purposes, like Chaucer's pilgrim "Whan that he wel dronken had the win, Than wold he speken no word but Latin." It was the golden age of the amateur, when certainty could be had for the asking, and one could stake out any part of the wide domain of human interest and hold it by the right of squatter sovereignty. But in these days the man who aspires to know must do something more than assert his conviction. He must submit to all sorts of mortifying tests, and at best he can obtain a title to only the tiniest bit of the field he covets. With the severer definitions of knowledge and the delimitation of the territory which any one may call his own there has come a curious result. While the aggregate of intellectual wealth has increased, the individual workers are being reduced to penury. It is a pathetic illustration of Progress and Poverty. The old and highly respected class of gentlemen and scholars is being depleted. Scholarship has become so difficult that those who aspire after it have little time for the amenities. It is not as it was in the "spacious times of great Elizabeth." Enter any company of modern scholars and ask what they know about any large subject, and you will find that each one hastens to take the poor debtor's oath. How can they be expected to know so much? On this minute division of intellectual labor the exact sciences thrive, but conversation, poetry, art, and all that belongs to the humanities languish. Your man of highly specialized intelligence has often a morbid fear of half-knowledge, and he does not dare to express an opinion that has not been the result of original research. He shuns the innocent questioners who would draw him out, as if they were so many dunning creditors. He becomes a veritable Dick Swiveller as one conversational thoroughfare after another is closed against him, until he no longer ventures abroad. The worst of it is that he has a haunting apprehension that even the bit of knowledge which he calls his own may be taken away from him by some new discovery, and he may be cast adrift upon the Unknowable. It is then that he should remember the wisdom of the unjust steward, so that when he is cast out of the House of Knowledge he may find congenial friends in the habitations of Ignorance. There are a great many mental activities that stop short of strict knowledge. Where we do not know, we may imagine, and hope, and dare; we may laugh at our neighbor's mistakes, and occasionally at our own. We may enjoy the delicious moments of suspense when we are on the verge of finding out; and if it should happen that the discovery is postponed, then we have a chance to go over the delightful process again. To say "I do not know" is not nearly as painful as it seems to those who have not tried it. The active mind, when the conceit of absolute knowledge has been destroyed, quickly recovers itself and cries out, after the manner of Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox threw him into the brier patch, "Bred en bawn in a brier patch, Brer Fox--bred en bawn in a brier patch!" That History should be Readable That was a clever device which a writer of "mere literature" hit upon when he boldly dedicated his book to a man of prodigious learning. "Who so guarded," he says, "can suspect his safety even when he travels through the Enemy's Country, for such is the vast field of Learning, where the Learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie in small Parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all New Men who look into their Quarters." It is doubtful, however, whether in these days a lover of Ignorance--or, if you prefer, an ignorant lover of good things--could be safe in the enemy's country, even under the protection of such a Mr. Great Heart. It is no longer true that the Learned are not numerous enough to be an army and are content with guerrilla warfare; on the contrary, they have increased to multitudes, and their well-disciplined forces hold all the strategic points. As for those who love to read and consider, rather than to enter into minute researches, it is as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anoth, when "the highways were unoccupied and the people walked through byways." There is one field, however, that the Gentle Reader will not give up without a struggle--it is that of history. He claims that it belongs to Literature as much as to Science. History and Story are variations of the same word, and the historian who is master of his art must be a story-teller. Clio was not a school-mistress, but a Muse, and the papyrus roll in her hand does not contain mere dates and statistics, it is filled with the record of heroic adventures. The primitive form of history was verbal tradition, as one generation told the story of the past to the generation that followed. "There was a great advantage in that method," says the Gentle Reader, "the irrelevant details dropped out. It is only the memorable things that can be remembered. What a pleasant invitation that was in the eighty-first psalm to the study of Hebrew History, in order to learn what had happened when Israel went out through the land of Egypt:-- 'Take up the psalm and bring hither the timbrel, The pleasant harp with the psaltery, Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, And the full moon on our solemn feast days.' "The Jews had a way of setting their history to music, and bringing in the great events as a glorious refrain, which they never feared repeating too often; perhaps that is one reason why their history has lasted so long." The Gentle Reader's liking for histories that might be read to the accompaniment of the "pleasant harp and psaltery," and which now and then stir him as with the sound of a trumpet, brings upon him many a severe rebuke. He is told that his favorite writers are frequently inaccurate and one-sided. The true historian, he is informed, is a prodigy of impartiality, who has divested himself of all human passions, in order that he may set down in exact sequence the course of events. The Gentle Reader turns to these highly praised volumes and finds himself adrift, without human companionship, on a bottomless sea of erudition,--writings, writings everywhere and not a page to read! Returning from this perilous excursion, he ever after adheres to his original predilection for histories that are readable. He is of the opinion that a history must be essentially a work of the imagination. This does not mean that it must not be true, but it means that the important truth about any former generation can only be reproduced through the imagination. The important thing is that these people were once alive. No critical study of their meagre memorials can make us enter into their joys, their griefs, and their fears. The memorials only suggest to the historic imagination what the reality must have been. Peter Bell could recognize a fact when he saw it:-- "A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." As long as the primrose was there, he could be trusted to describe it accurately enough. But set Peter Bell the task of describing last year's primrose. "There aren't any last year's primroses on the river's brim," says Peter, "so you must be content with a description of the one in my herbarium. Last year's primroses, you will observe, are very much flattened out." To Mr. Peter Bell, after he has spent many years in the universities, a document is a document, and it is nothing more. When he has compared a great many documents, and put them together in a mechanical way, he calls his work a history. That's where he differs from the Gentle Reader who calls it only the crude material out of which a man of genius may possibly make a history. To the Gentle Reader it is a profoundly interesting reflection that since this planet has been inhabited people have been fighting, and working, and loving, and hating, with an intensity born of the conviction that, if they went at it hard enough, they could finish the whole business in one generation. He likes to get back into any one of these generations just "to get the feel of it." He does not care so much for the final summing up of the process, as to see it in the making. Any one who can give him that experience is his friend. He is interested in the stirring times of the English Revolution, and goes to the historical expert to find what it was all about. The historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intellectual forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. At last he comes to the time of the Stuarts, and there is much talk of the royal prerogative, and ship money, and attainders, and acts of Parliament. There are exhaustive arguments, now on the one side and now on the other, which exactly balance one another. There are references to bulky volumes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text. The Gentle Reader calls out: "I have had enough of this. What I want to know is what it's all about, and which side, on the whole, has the right of it. Which side are you on? Are you a Roundhead or a Cavalier? Are your sympathies with the Whigs or the Tories?" "Sympathies!" says the expert. "Who ever heard of a historian allowing himself to sympathize? I have no opinions of my own to present. My great aim is not to prejudice the mind of the student." "Nonsense," says the Gentle Reader; "I am not a student, nor is this a school-room. It's all in confidence; speak out as one gentleman to another under a friendly roof! What do you think about it? No matter if you make a mistake or two, I'll forget most that you say, anyway. All that I care for is to get the gist of the matter. As for your fear of warping my mind, there's not the least danger in the world. My mind is like a tough bit of hickory; it will fly back into its original shape the moment you let go. I have a hundred prejudices of my own,--one more won't hurt me. I want to know what it was that set the people by the ears. Why did they cut off the head of Charles I., and why did they drive out James II.? I can't help thinking that there must have been something more exciting than those discussions of yours about constitutional theories. Do you know, I sometimes doubt whether most of the people who went to the wars knew that there was such a thing as the English Constitution; the subject hadn't been written up then. I suspect that something happened that was not set down in your book; something that made those people fighting mad." Then the Gentle Reader turns to his old and much criticised friend Macaulay, and asks,-- "What do you think about it?" "Think about it!" says Macaulay. "I'll tell you what I think about it. To begin with, that Charles I., though good enough as a family man, was a consummate liar." "That's the first light I've had on the subject," says the Gentle Reader. "Charles lied, and that made the people mad?" "Precisely! I perceive that you have the historic sense. We English can't abide a liar; so at last when we could not trust the king's word we chopped off his head. Mind you, I'm not defending the regicides, but between ourselves I don't mind saying that I think it served him right. At any rate our blood was up, and there was no stopping us. I wish I had time to tell you all about Hampden, and Pym, and Cromwell, but I must go on to the glorious year 1688, and tell you how it all came about, and how we sent that despicable dotard, James, flying across the Channel, and how we brought in the good and wise King William, and how the great line of Whig statesmen began. I take for granted--as you appear to be a sensible man--that you are a Whig?" "I'm open to conviction," says the Gentle Reader. In a little while he is in the very thick of it. He is an Englishman of the seventeenth century. He has taken sides and means to fight it out. He knows how to vote on every important question that comes before Parliament. No Jacobite sophistry can beguile him. When William lands he throws up his hat, and after that he stands by him, thick or thin. When you tell him that he ought to be more dispassionate in his historical judgments, he answers: "That would be all very well if we were not dealing with living issues,--but with Ireland in an uproar and the Papists ready to swarm over from France, there is a call for decision. A man must know his own mind. You may stand off and criticise William's policy; but the question is, What policy do you propose? You say that I have not exhausted the subject, and that there are other points of view. Very likely. Show me another point of view, only make it as clear to me as Macaulay makes his. Let it be a real view, and not a smudge. Some other day I may look at it, but I must take one thing at a time. What I object to is the historian who takes both sides in the same paragraph. That is what I call offensive bi-partisanship." The Gentle Reader is interested not only in what great men actually were, but in the way they appeared to those who loved or hated them. He is of the opinion that the legend is often more significant than the colorless annals. When a legend has become universally accepted and has lived a thousand years, he feels that it should be protected in its rights of possession by some statute of limitation. It has come to have an independent life of its own. He has, therefore, no sympathy with Gibbon in his identification of St. George of England with George of Cappadocia, a dishonest army contractor who supplied the troops of the Emperor Julian with bacon. Says Gibbon: "His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious that George was compelled to escape from the pursuit of his enemies.... This odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter." "That is a serious indictment," says the Gentle Reader. "I have no plea to make for the Cappadocian; I can readily believe that his bacon was bad. But why not let bygones be bygones? If he managed to transform himself into a saint, and for many centuries avoid all suspicion, I believe that it was a thorough reformation. St. George of England has long been esteemed as a valiant gentleman,--and, at any rate, that affair with the dragon was greatly to his credit." Sometimes the Gentle Reader is disturbed by finding that different lines of tradition have been mixed, and his mind becomes the battleground whereon old blood feuds are fought out. Thus it happens that as a child he was brought up on the tales of the Covenanters and imbibed their stern resentment against their persecutors. He learned to hate the very name of Graham of Claverhouse who brought desolation upon so many innocent homes. On the other hand, his heart beats high when he hears the martial strains of Bonnie Dundee. "There was a man for you!" "Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat. * * * * * 'Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks-- Ere I own as usurper, I'll couch with the fox! And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee, You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!' * * * * * He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown, The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermeston's lee Died away the wild war notes of Bonnie Dundee." "When I see him wave his proud hand," says the Gentle Reader, "I am his clansman, and I'm ready to be off with him." "I thought you were a Whig," says the student of history. "I thought so too,--but what's politics where the affections are enlisted? Don't you hear those wild war notes?" "But are you aware that the Bonnie Dundee is the same man whom you have just been denouncing under the name of Graham of Claverhouse?" "Are you sure they are the same?" sighs the Gentle Reader. "I cannot make them seem the same. To me there are two of them: Graham of Claverhouse, whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dundee, whom I love. If it's all the same to you, I think I shall keep them separate and go on loving and hating as aforetime." * * * * * But though the Gentle Reader has the defects of his qualities and is sometimes led astray by his sympathies, do not think that he is altogether lacking in solidity of judgment. He has a genuine love of truth and finds it more interesting than fiction--when it is well written. If he objects to the elimination of myth and fable it is because he is profoundly interested in the history of human feeling. The story that is the embodiment of an emotion is itself of the greatest significance. In Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, before Jupiter himself is revealed, the Phantasm of Jupiter appears and speaks. Prometheus addresses him:-- "Tremendous Image, as thou art must be He whom thou shadowest forth." On the stage of history each great personage has a phantasmal counterpart; sometimes there are many of them. Each phantasm becomes a centre of love and hate. The cold-blooded historian gives us what he calls the real Napoleon. He is, he asserts, neither the Corsican Ogre of the British imagination nor the Heroic Emperor for whom myriads of Frenchmen gladly died. Perhaps not; but when the Napoleonic legend has been banished, what about the Napoleonic wars? The Phantasms of Napoleon appear on every battlefield. The men of that day saw them, and were nerved to the conflict. The reader must, now and then, see them, or he can have no conception of what was going on. He misses "the moving why they did it." And as for the real Napoleon, what was the magic by which he was able to call such phantasms from the vasty deep? The careful historian who would trace the history of Europe in the centuries that followed the barbarian invasion is sorely troubled by the intrusion of legendary elements. After purging his work of all that savors of romance, he has a very neat and connected narrative. "But is it true?" asks the Gentle Reader. "I for one do not believe it. The course of true history never did run so smooth. Here is a worthy person who undertakes to furnish me with an idea of the Dark Ages, and he forgets the principal fact, which is that it was dark. His picture has all the sharp outlines of a noon-day street scene. I don't believe he ever spent a night alone in a haunted house. If he had he would have known that if you don't see ghosts, you see shapes that look like them. At midnight mysterious forms loom large. The historian must have a genius for depicting Chaos. He must make me dimly perceive 'the fragments of forgotten peoples,' with their superstitions, their formless fears, their vague desires. They were all fighting them in the dark. "'For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; And some had visions out of golden youth, And some beheld the faces of old ghosts Look in upon the battle; and in the mist Was many a noble deed, and many a base And chance and craft and strength in single fights, And ever and anon with host to host Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle axes on shattered helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Looked up for heaven and only saw the mist.'" "But, Gentle Reader," says the Historian, "that is poetry, not history." "Perhaps it is, but it's what really happened." * * * * * He is of the opinion that many histories owe their quality of unreadableness to the virtues of their authors. The kind-hearted historians over-load their works through their desire to rescue as many events and persons as possible from oblivion. When their better judgment tells them that they should be off, they remain to drag in one more. Alas, their good intention defeats itself; their frail craft cannot bear the added burden, and all hands go to the bottom. There is no surer oblivion than that which awaits one whose name is recorded in a book that undertakes to tell all. The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. Here are millions of happenings every day. Each one has its infinite series of antecedents and consequents; and each takes longer in the telling than in the doing. Evidently there must be some principle of selection. Naturalists with a taste for mathematics tell us of the appalling catastrophe which would impend if every codfish were to reach maturity. It would be equaled by the state of things which would exist were every incident duly chronicled. A foretaste of this calamity has been given in our recent war,--and yet there were some of our military men who did not write reminiscences. What the principle of selection shall be depends upon the predominant interest of the writer. But there must be a clear sequence; one can relate only what is related to the chosen theme. The historian must reverse the order of natural evolution and proceed from the heterogeneous to the homogeneous. Alas for the ill-fated pundit who, forgetting his aim, flounders in the bottomless morass of heterogeneity. The moment he begins to tell how things are he remembers some incongruous incident which proves that they were quite otherwise. The genius for narrative consists in the ability to pick out the facts which belong together and which help each other along. The company must keep step, and the stragglers must be mercilessly cut off. One cannot say of any fact that it is important in itself. The important thing is that which has a direct bearing on the subject. The definition of dirt as matter in the wrong place is suggestive. All the details that throw light on the main action are of value. Those that obscure it are but petty dust. It is no sufficient plea that the dust is very real and that it took a great deal of trouble to collect it. As vivid a bit of history as one may read is the Journal of Sally Wister, a Quaker girl who lived near Philadelphia during the period of the American Revolution. She gives a narrative of the things which happened to her during those fateful years. In October, 1777, she says, "Here, my dear, passes an interval of several weeks in which nothing happened worth the time and paper it would take to write it." The editor is troubled at this remark, because during that very week the Battle of Germantown and been fought not far away. But Sally Wister had the true historical genius. The Battle of Germantown was an event, and so was the coming of a number of gay young officers to the hospitable country house; and this latter event was much more important to Sally Wister. So omitting all irrelevant incidents, she gives a circumstantial account of what was happening on the centre of the stage. "Cousin Prissa and myself were sitting at the door; I in my green skirt, dark gown, etc. Two genteel men of the military order rode up to the door. 'Your servant, ladies,' etc. Asked if they could have quarters for General Smallwood." "I can see just how they did it," says the Gentle Reader, "and what a commotion the visit made. Now when a person who is just as much absorbed in the progress of the Revolutionary War as Sally Wister was in those young officers writes about it I will read his history gladly." * * * * * Some otherwise excellent histories fall into the abyss of unreadableness because of the author's unnecessary pains to justify his heroes to the critical intelligence of the reader. He is continually making apologies when he should be telling a story. He is comparing the deeds of one age with the ethical standards of another; and the result is a series of moral anachronisms. There is a running fire of more or less irrelevant comment. What a delightful plan that was, which the author of the Book of Judges hit upon to avoid this difficulty! He had a hard task. His worthies were not persons of settled habits, and they did many things that might appear shocking to later generations. They were called upon to do rough work and they did it in their own way. If the author had undertaken to justify their conduct by any conventional standard he would have made sorry work of it. What he did was much better than that. Whenever he came to a point where there was danger of the mind of the reader becoming turbid with moral reflections that belonged to a later age, he threw in the clarifying suggestion, "And there was no King in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes." This precipitated all the disturbing elements, and the story ran on swift and clear. It was as if when the reader was about to protest the author anticipated him with, "What would you do, reader, if the Philistines were upon you and there were no King in Israel?" Undoubtedly under such circumstances it would be a great relief to catch sight of Gideon or Samson. It would not be a time for fastidiousness about their shortcomings; they would be hailed as strong deliverers. "That is just the point of it," cries the Gentle Reader. "They were on our side. The important thing is to recognize our friends. To teach us who our friends are is the purpose of history. Here is a conflict that has been going on for ages. The men who have done valiant service are not all smooth-spoken gentlemen in black coats--but what of it? They have done what they could. We can't say that each act was absolutely right, but they were moving in the right direction. When a choice was offered they took the better part. The historian should not only know what they did, but what was the alternative offered them. There was the Prophet Samuel. Some persons will have no further respect for him after they learn that he hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord. They think he ought to have stood up for Free Religion. They take for granted that the alternative offered him was religious toleration as we understand it. It was nothing of the sort. The question for a man of that age was, Shall Samuel hew Agag in pieces, or shall Agag hew Samuel in pieces, and my sympathies are with Samuel." Having once made allowance for the differences of time and place, he follows with eager interest the fortunes of the men who have made the world what it is. What if they do have their faults? He does not care for what he calls New England Primer style of History:-- "Young Obadias, David, Josias All were pious." Such monotony of excellence wearies him, and the garment of praise is accompanied by a spirit of heaviness. "I like saints best in the state of nature," he says; "the process of canonization does not seem good for them. When too many of them are placed together in a book their virtues kill one another, and at a little distance all halos look very much alike." There are certain histories which he finds readable, not because he cares very much for their ostensible subject, but because of the light they throw on the author's personality. He, good man, thinks he is telling the story of the Carlovingian Dynasty, or the rise of the Phoenician sea power, while in reality he is giving an intimate account of his own state of mind. The author is like a bee which wanders far afield and visits many flowers, but always brings back the spoil to one hollow tree. The Gentle Reader, like a practiced bee hunter, is careless of the outward journeys, but watches closely the direction of the return flight. "If you would know a person's limitations," he says, "induce him to write on some large subject like the History of Civilization, or the History of the Origin and Growth of the Moral Sentiment. You will find his particular hobby writ large." He takes up a History of the Semites. "What a pertinacious fellow he is," alluding not to any ancient Semite but to the Author, "how closely he sticks to his point! He has discovered a new fact about the Amalekites,--I wonder what he will do with it. Just as I expected! there he is back with it to that controversy he is having with his Presbytery. I notice that he calls the children of Israel the Beni-Israel. He knows that that sort of thing irritates the conservative party. It suggests that he is following Renan, and yet it may only prove that he thinks in Hebrew." * * * * * The Gentle Reader regards ambitious works on the Philosophy of History with mingled suspicion and curiosity. So much depends, in such cases, upon the philosopher. In spite of many misadventures, curiosity generally gets the better of caution. He opens Comte's "Positive Philosophy" and reads, "In order to understand the true value and character of the 'Positive Philosophy' we must take a brief, general view of the progressive course of the human mind regarded as a whole." Then he is conducted through the three stages of the theological or fictitious, the metaphysical or abstract, and the scientific or positive; which last circle proves large enough only for Comte's own opinions. He is caught in a trap and goes round and round without finding the hole through which he came in. "When a learned person asks one," says the Gentle Reader, "to accompany him on a brief general survey of the progressive course of the human mind, regarded as a whole, I am apt to be wary. I want to know what he is up to. I fear the philosopher bearing historical gifts." Yet where the trap is made of slighter fabric, and he feels that he can break through at will, he enjoys watching the author and his work. How marvelous are the powers of the human mind! How the facts of experience can be bent to a sternly logical formula! And how the whole trend of things seems to yield to an imperious will that is stronger than fate! Here is a book published in Wheeling, Virginia, in 1809. It is "A Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland, before the Reformation; and the Progress of Religion since in Scotland and America." We are told that the history was read paragraph by paragraph at a meeting of the Reformed Dissenting Presbytery at the Three Ridge Meeting House, and unanimously approved. At the beginning we are taken into a wide place and given a comprehensive view of early Christianity. Then we are shown how in the sixteenth century began a series of godly reformations. Christianity, bursting through the barriers of Popery, began its resistless flow toward the pure theology of the Three Ridge Meeting House. As the articles of the true faith were increased the number of persons who were able to hold correct opinions upon them all diminished. The history, by perfectly logical processes, brings us down to the year 1799, when secession had done its perfect work and the true church had attained to an apostolic purity of doctrine and a more than apostolic paucity of membership. It is with a fearful joy that the historians proclaim the culmination of the age-long evolution. "O! the times we live in! There were but two of us to defend the doctrine of the Bible and the Westminster Confession." At the time the history of the Progress of Christianity was written there were but two ministers who held the uncorrupted faith; namely, Robert Warwick and Alexander McCoy. These two brethren were the joint authors of the history, and in their capacity as church council gave it ecumenical authority. Had McCoy disagreed with Warwick about Preterition, or had Warwick suspected McCoy of Sublapsarianism, then we should have had two histories of Christianity instead of one. It would have appeared that all the previous developments of Christianity were significant only as preparing for the Great Schism. "There is a great deal of this Three Ridge Meeting House kind of history," says the Gentle Reader, "and I confess I find it very instructive. I like to find out what the writers think on the questions of the day." The fact is that there is a great deal of human nature even in learned people, and they cannot escape from the spell of the present moment. They are like the rest of us, and feel that they are living at the terminus of the road and not at a way station. The cynical reflection on the way in which the decisions of the Supreme Court follow the election returns suggests the way in which historical generalizations follow the latest telegraphic dispatches. Something happens and then we look up its historical antecedents. It seems as if everything had been pointing to this one event from the beginning. "Here is a very readable History of Fans. The writer justly says that the subject is one that has been much neglected. 'In England brief sketches on the subject have occasionally appeared in the magazines, but thus far a History of Fans has not been published in book form.... The subject amply repays careful study, and will not fail to interest the reader, provided the demands on both his patience and his time are not too great.' I confess that it is a line of research I have never taken up, but it is evident that there is ample material. The beginning inspires confidence. 'The chain of tradition, followed as far as possible into the past, carries us but to the time when the origin of the fan is derived from tradition.' It appears that we come out upon firm ground when we reach the Mahabharata. But the question which arouses my curiosity is, How did it occur to any one that there should be a history of fans? The author reveals the inciting cause,--'The Loan Exhibition held at South Kensington in 1870 gave a great impulse to the collection and decoration of fans.' I suspect that almost all readable histories have some such origin." The title of Professor Freeman's "History of Federal Government from the Foundation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United States" was timely when the first volume was published in 1863. The terminal points seemed closely connected in 1862 and the spring of 1863. Gettysburg and Appomattox destroyed the line of communication. But there was a time when the subject had great dramatic unity. One May morning the Gentle Reader saw in the newspapers the account of the victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and learned how the English people rejoiced over the success of American arms. "This will remake a great deal of history," he said, "and there will be a great revival of interest in Hengist and Horsa. These primitive Anglo-Saxon expansionists kept their own counsel, but it's evident that the movement they set on foot must go on to its logical conclusion. When a competent scholar takes hold of the history it will be seen that it couldn't stop with the Heptarchy or the destruction of the Spanish Armada. It was a foregone conclusion that these Anglo-Saxons would eventually take the Philippines." When one by one the books began to come out he read them with eager interest. That there should be histories of the triumphant progress of Anglo-Saxondom, after the Spanish-American war, he looked upon as something as inevitable as the history of fans, after the South Kensington Exhibition. It was manifest destiny. * * * * * There is one page in the history books which the Gentle Reader looks upon with a skeptical smile; it is that which contains the words, "The End." "The writer may think that the subject has been exhausted, and that he has said the last word; but in reality there is no end." He is well aware that at best he gets but a glimpse of what is going on. The makers of history are for the most part unknown to the writers of it. He loves now and then to catch sight of one of these unremembered multitudes. For a moment the searchlight of history falls upon him, and he stands blinking in the unaccustomed glare, and then the light shifts and oblivion swallows him up. He stops to meditate when he comes upon this paragraph in Bishop Burnet's "History of his Own Times." "When King James I. was in Scotland he erected a new Bishopric, and made one Forbes Bishop. He was a very learned and pious man; he had a strange faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time. His way of life and devotion was thought monastic, and his learning lay in antiquity; he studied to be a reconciler between Papists and Protestants, leaning rather to the first; he was a simple-hearted man and knew little of the world, so he fell into several errors of conduct, but died soon after suspected of Popery." "That man Forbes," says the Gentle Reader, "doesn't cut much of a figure on the pages of history. Indeed, that is all that is said of him, yet I doubt not but that he was a much more influential man in his day than many of those bishops and reformers that I have been reading about. A learned man who has a faculty for preaching five or six hours at a time is a great conservative force. He keeps things from going too fast. When one reads about the Reformation of the sixteenth century, one wonders that it didn't make a clean sweep. We must remember the number of good Protestants who died suspected of Popery." But though he loves to get a glimpse of Forbes and men of his kind, he knows that they are not of the stuff that readable histories are made of. The retarding influences of the times must be taken into account, but after all the historian is concerned with the people who are "in the van of circumstance." They may be few in number, but their achievements are the things worth telling. "Every history," says the Gentle Reader, "should be a Book of Genesis. I want to see things in their beginnings and in their fresh growth. I do not care to follow the processes of decay. Fortunately there is no period when something is not beginning. 'Sweet is the genesis of things.' History is a perpetual spring-time. New movements are always on foot. Even when I don't approve of them I want to know what they are like. When the band strikes up 'See the Conquering Hero come,' it's sheer affectation not to look up. The conquering hero is always worth looking at, even if you do not approve of him. The historian who undertakes to tell what men at any period were about must be quick to detect their real enthusiasms. He must join the victorious army and not cling to a lost cause. I have always thought that it was a mistake for Gibbon to call his great work, 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' The declining power of the Roman Empire was not the great fact of those ten centuries. There were powers which were not declining, but growing. How many things were in the making,--Christianity, Mohammedanism, the new chivalry, the Germanic civilization. As for the Roman Empire, one could see that _that_ game was lost, and it wasn't worth while to play it out to the last move. I couldn't make those shadowy Emperors at Constantinople seem like Caesars--and, for that matter, they weren't." On this last point I think that the Gentle Reader is correct, and that the great historian is one who has a certain prophetic gift. He is quick to discern the signs of the times. He identifies himself so thoroughly with the age of which he writes that he always seems to be at the beginning of an era peering into the yet dim future. In this way he shares the hopes and aspirations of the men of whom he writes. For there was a day when all our familiar institutions were new. There was a time when the Papacy was not an established fact, but a vague dream of spiritual power and unity, a challenge to a barbarian world. It appealed to young idealists as the federation of the world or a socialistic commonwealth appeals to-day. There was a time when constitutional government was a Utopian experiment which a few brave men were willing to try. There was a time when Calvinism was a spiritual adventure. The historian whom we love is one who stands at the parting of the ways, and sees ideals grow into actualities. He is not reminiscent. He is forward-looking as he speaks to each age out of intimate acquaintance with its new hopes, as one "Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones For prophecies of thee, and for the sake Of loveliness new born." The Evolution of the Gentleman "What is your favorite character, Gentle Reader?" "I like to read about gentlemen," he answers; "it's a taste I have inherited, and I find it growing upon me." And yet it is not easy to define a gentleman, as the multitudes who have made the attempt can testify. It is one of the cases in which the dictionary does not help one. Perhaps, after all, definitions are to be looked upon as luxuries, not as necessities. When Alice told her name to Humpty Dumpty, that intolerable pedant asked,-- "'What does it mean?' "'Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully. "'Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh. 'My name means the shape I am,--and a good handsome shape it is, too.'" I suppose that almost any man, if he were asked what a gentleman is, would answer with Humpty Dumpty, "It is the shape I am." I judge this because, though the average man would not feel insulted if you were to say, "You are no saint," it would not be safe to say, "You are no gentleman." And yet the average man has his misgivings. For all his confident talk, he is very humble minded. The astral body of the gentleman that he is endeavoring to project at his neighbors is not sufficiently materialized for his own imperfect vision. The word "gentleman" represents an ideal. Above whatever coarseness and sordidness there may be in actual life, there rises the ideal of a finer kind of man, with gentler manners and truer speech and braver action. In every age we shall find the true gentleman--that is, the man who represents the best ideal of his own time, and we shall find the mimicry of him the would-be gentleman who copies the form while ignorant of the substance. These two characters furnish the material, on the one hand for the romancer, and on the other for the satirist. If there had been no real gentlemen, the epics, the solemn tragedies, and the stirring tales of chivalry would have remained unwritten; and if there had been no pretended gentlemen, the humorist would have lost many a pleasure. Always the contrasted characters are on the stage together; simple dignity is followed by strutting pomposity, and after the hero the braggart swaggers and storms. So ridicule and admiration bear rule by turns. The idea of the gentleman involves the sense of personal dignity and worth. He is not a means to an end; he is an end in itself. How early this sense arose we may not know. Professor Huxley made merry over the sentimentalists who picture the simple dignity of primitive man. He had no admiration to throw away on "the dignified and unclothed savage sitting in solitary meditation under trees." And yet I am inclined to think that the gentleman must have appeared even before the advent of tailors. The peasants who followed Wat Tyler sang,-- "When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman?" But a writer in the age of Queen Elizabeth published a book in which he argued that Adam himself was a perfect gentleman. He had the advantage, dear to the theological mind, that though affirmative proof might be lacking, it was equally difficult to prove the negative. As civilization advances and literature catches its changing features, the outlines of the gentleman grow distinct. In the Book of Genesis we see Abraham sitting at his tent door. Three strangers appear. When he sees them, he goes to meet them, and bows, and says to the foremost, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on." There may have been giants in those days, and churls, and all manner of barbarians, but as we watch the strangers resting under the oak we say, "There were also gentlemen in those days." How simple it all is! It is like a single palm tree out-lined against the desert and the sky. We turn to the Analects of Confucius and we see the Chinese gentleman. Everything with him is exact. The disciples of Confucius are careful to tell us how he adjusted the skirts of his robe before and behind, how he insisted that his mince-meat should be cut quite small and should have exactly the right proportion of rice, and that his mat must be laid straight before he would sit on it. Such details of deportment were thought very important. But we forget the mats and the mince-meat when we read: "Three things the master had not,--he had no prejudices, he had no obstinacy, he had no egotism." And we forget the fantastic garb and the stiff Chinese genuflections, and come to the conclusion that the true gentleman is as simple-hearted amid the etiquette of the court as in the tent in the desert, when we hear the master saying: "Sincerity is the way of Heaven; the wise are the unassuming. It is said of Virtue that over her embroidered robe she puts a plain single garment." When we wish to see a masculine virtue which has no need of an embroidered garment we go to Plutarch's portrait gallery of antique gentlemen. What a breed of men they were! They were no holiday gentlemen. With the same lofty dignity they faced life and death. How superior they were to their fortunes. No wonder that men who had learned to conquer themselves conquered the world. Most of Plutarch's worthies were gentlemen, though there were exceptions. There was, for example, Cato the Censor, who bullied the Roman youth into virtue, and got a statue erected to himself as the restorer of the good old manners. Poor Plutarch, who likes to do well by his heroes, is put to his wits' end to know what to do with testy, patriotic, honest, fearless, parsimonious Cato. Cato was undoubtedly a great man and a good citizen; but when we are told how he sold his old slaves, at a bargain, when they became infirm, and how he left his war-horse in Spain to save the cost of transportation, Plutarch adds, "Whether such things be an evidence of greatness or littleness of soul let the reader judge for himself." The judicious reader will conclude that it is possible to be a great man and a reformer, and yet not be quite a gentleman. When the Roman Empire was destroyed the antique type of gentleman perished. The very names of the tribes which destroyed him have yet terrible associations. Goths, Vandals, Huns--to the civilized man of the fifth and sixth centuries these sounded like the names of wild beasts rather than of men. You might as well have said tigers, hyenas, wolves. The end had come of a civilization that had been the slow growth of centuries. Yet out of these fierce tribes, destroyers of the old order, a new order was to arise. Out of chaos and night a new kind of gentleman was to be evolved. The romances of the Middle Ages are variations on a single theme, the appearance of the finer type of manhood and its struggle for existence. In the palace built by the enchantment of Merlin were four zones of sculpture. "And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, And in the second men are slaying beasts, And on the third are warriors, perfect men, And on the fourth are men with growing wings." Europe was in the second stage, when men were slaying beasts and what was most brutal in humanity. If the higher manhood was to live, it must fight, and so the gentleman appears, sword in hand. Whether we are reading of Charlemagne and his paladins, or of Siegfried, or of Arthur, the story is the same. The gentleman has appeared. He has come into a waste land, "Thick with wet woods and many a beast therein, And none or few to scare or chase the beast." He comes amid savage anarchy where heathen hordes are "reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood." The gentleman sends forth his clear defiance. All this shall no longer be. He is ready to meet force with force; he is ready to stake his life upon the issue, the hazard of new fortunes for the race. It is as a pioneer of the new civilization that the gentleman has pitched "His tent beside the forest. And he drave The heathen, and he slew the beast, and felled The forest, and let in the sun." The ballads and romances chronicle a struggle desperate in its beginning and triumphant in its conclusion. They are in praise of force, but it is a noble force. There is something better, they say, than brute force: it is manly force. The giant is no match for the gentleman. If we would get at the mediæval idea of the gentleman, we must not listen merely to the romances as they are retold by men of genius in our own day. Scott and Tennyson clothe their characters in the old draperies, but their ideals are those of the nineteenth century rather than of the Middle Ages. Tennyson expressly disclaims the attempt to reproduce the King Arthur "whose name, a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one Touched by the adulterous finger of a time That hovered between war and wantonness." When we go back and read Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, we find ourselves among men of somewhat different mould from the knights of Tennyson's idylls. It is not the blameless King Arthur, but the passionate Sir Launcelot, who wins admiration. We hear Sir Ector crying over Launcelot's body, "Ah, Launcelot, thou wert the head of the Christian knights. Thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou wert the truest lover for a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall with ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest." We must take, not one of these qualities, but all of them together, to understand the gentleman of those ages when good and evil struggled so fiercely for the mastery. No saint was this Sir Launcelot. There was in him no fine balance of virtues, but only a wild tumult of the blood. He was proud, self-willed, passionate, pleasure-loving; capable of great sin and of sublime expiation. What shall we say of this gentlest, sternest, kindest, goodliest, sinfulest of knights,--this man who knew no middle path, but who, when treading in perilous places and following false lights, yet draws all men admiringly to himself? We can only say this: he was the prototype of those mighty men who were the makers of the modern world. They were the men who fought with Charlemagne, and with William the Conqueror, and with Richard; they were the men who "beat down the heathen, and upheld the Christ;" they were the men from whom came the crusades, and the feudal system, and the great charter. As we read the history, we say at one moment, "These men were mail-clad ruffians," and at the next, "What great-hearted gentlemen!" Perhaps the wisest thing would be to confess to both judgments at once. In this stage of his evolution the gentleman may boast of feats that would now be rehearsed only in bar-rooms. This indicates that the standard of society has improved, and that what was possible once for the nobler sort of men is now characteristic of the baser sort. The modern rowdy frequently appears in the cast-off manners of the old-time gentleman. Time, the old-clothes man, thus furnishes his customers with many strange misfits. What is of importance is that through these transition years there was a ceaseless struggle to preserve the finer types of manhood. The ideal of the mediæval gentleman was expressed in the word "gallantry." The essence of gallantry is courage; but it is not the sober courage of the stoic. It is courage charged with qualities that give it sparkle and effervescence. It is the courage that not only faces danger, but delights in it. What suggestions of physical and mental elasticity are in Shakespeare's description of the "springing, brave Plantagenet"! Scott's lines express the gallant spirit:-- "One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name." Gallantry came to have another implication, equally characteristic. The knight was gallant not only in war, but in love also. There had come a new worship, the worship of woman. In the Church it found expression in the adoration of the Madonna, but in the camp and the court it found its place as well. Chivalry was the elaborate and often fantastic ritual, and the gentleman was minister at the altar. The ancient gentleman stood alone; the mediæval gentleman offered all to the lady of his love. Here, too, gallantry implied the same overflowing joy in life. If you are anxious to have a test by which to recognize the time when you are growing old,--so old that imagination is chilled within you,--I should advise you to turn to the chapter in the Romance of King Arthur entitled "How Queen Guenever went maying with certain Knights of the Table Round, clad all in green." Then read: "So it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride maying into the woods and fields besides Westminster, and I warn you that none of you but that he be well horsed and that ye all be clothed in green.... I shall bring with me ten ladies and every knight shall have a squire and two yeomen. So upon the morn they took their horses with the Queen and rode on maying through the woods and meadows in great joy and delights." If you cannot see them riding on, a gallant company over the meadows, and if you hear no echoes of their laughter, and if there is no longer any enchantment in the vision of that time when all were "blithe and debonair," then undoubtedly you are growing old. It is time to close the romances: perhaps you may still find solace in Young's "Night Thoughts" or Pollok's "Course of Time." Happy are they who far into the seventies still see Queen Guenever riding in the pleasant month of May: these are they who have found the true fountain of youth. The gentleman militant will always be the hero of ballads and romances; and in spite of the apostles of realism, I fancy he has not lost his charm. There are Jeremiahs of evolution, who tell us that after a time men will be so highly developed as to have neither hair nor teeth. In that day, when the operating dentists have ceased from troubling, and given way to the manufacturing dentists, and the barbers have been superseded by the wig-makers, it is quite possible that the romances may give place to some tedious department of comparative mythology. In that day, Chaucer's knight who "loved chevalrie, trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie," will be forgotten, though his armor on the museum walls will be learnedly described. But that dreadful day is still far distant; before it comes, not only teeth and hair must be improved out of existence, but a substitute must be found for good red blood. Till that time "no laggard in love or dastard in war" can steal our hearts from young Lochinvar. The sixteenth century marks an epoch in the history of the gentleman, as in all else. Old ideas disappear, to come again in new combinations. Familiar words take on meanings that completely transform them. The same hands wielded the sword and the pen. The scholars, the artists, the poets, began to feel a sense of personal worth, and carried the gallant spirit of the gentleman into their work. They were not mere specialists, but men of action. The artist was not only an instrument to give pleasure to others, but he was himself a centre of admiration. Out of this new consciousness how many interesting characters were produced! There were men who engaged in controversies as if they were tournaments, and who wrote books and painted pictures and carved statues, not in the spirit of professionalism, but as those who would in this activity enjoy "one crowded hour of glorious life." Very frequently, these gentlemen and scholars, and gentlemen and artists, overdid the matter, and were more belligerent in disposition than were the warriors with whom they began to claim equality. To this self-assertion we owe the most delightful of autobiographies,--that of Benvenuto Cellini. He aspired to be not only an artist, but a fine gentleman. No one could be more certain of the sufficiency of Humpty Dumpty's definition of a gentleman than was he. If we did not have his word for it, we could scarcely believe that any one could be so valiant in fight and so uninterrupted in the pursuit of honor without its interfering with his professional work. Take, for example, that memorable day when, escaping from the magistrates, he makes an attack upon the household of his enemy, Gherardo Guascanti. "I found them at table; and Gherardo, who had been the cause of the quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed him in the breast, piercing doublet and jerkin, but doing him not the least harm in the world." After this attack, and after magnanimously pardoning Gherardo's father, mother, and sisters, he says: "I ran storming down the staircase, and when I reached the street, I found all the rest of the household, more than twelve persons: one of them seized an iron shovel, another a thick iron pipe; one had an anvil, some hammers, some cudgels. When I got among them, raging like a mad bull, I flung four or five to the earth, and fell down with them myself, continually aiming my dagger now at one, and now at another. Those who remained upright plied with both hands with all their force, giving it me with hammers, cudgels, and the anvil; but inasmuch as God does sometimes mercifully intervene, he so ordered that neither they nor I did any harm to one another." What fine old days those were, when the toughness of skin matched so wonderfully the stoutness of heart! One has a suspicion that in these degenerate times, were a family dinner-party interrupted by such an avalanche of daggers, cudgels, and anvils, some one would be hurt. As for Benvenuto, he does not so much as complain of a headache. There is an easy, gentleman-like grace in the way in which he recounts his incidental homicides. When he is hiding behind a hedge at midnight, waiting for the opportunity to assassinate his enemies, his heart is open to all the sweet influences of nature, and he enjoys "the glorious heaven of stars." He was not only an artist and a fine gentleman, but a saint as well, and "often had recourse with pious heart to holy prayers." Above all, he had the indubitable evidence of sainthood, a halo. "I will not omit to relate another circumstance, which is perhaps the most remarkable that ever happened to any one. I do so in order to justify the divinity of God and of his secrets, who deigned to grant me this great favor: forever since the time of my strange vision until now, an aureole of glory (marvelous to relate) has rested on my head. This is visible to every sort of man to whom I have chosen to point it out, but these have been few." He adds ingenuously, "I am always able to see it." He says, "I first became aware of it in France, at Paris; for the air in those parts is so much freer from mists that one can see it far better than in Italy." Happy Benvenuto with his Parisian halo, which did not interfere with the manly arts of self-defense! His self-complacency was possible only in a stage of evolution when the saint and the assassin were not altogether clearly differentiated. Some one has said, "Give me the luxuries of life, and I can get along without the necessities." Like many of his time, Benvenuto had all the luxuries that belong to the character of a Christian gentleman, though he was destitute of the necessities. An appreciation of common honesty as an essential to a gentleman seems to be more slowly developed than the more romantic sentiment that is called honor. The evolution of the gentleman has its main line of progress where there is a constant though slow advance; but, on the other hand, there are arrested developments, and quaint survivals, and abortive attempts. In each generation there have been men of fashion who have mistaken themselves for gentlemen. They are uninteresting enough while in the flesh, but after a generation or two they become very quaint and curious, when considered as specimens. Each generation imagines that it has discovered a new variety, and invents a name for it. The dude, the swell, the dandy, the fop, the spark, the macaroni, the blade, the popinjay, the coxcomb,--these are butterflies of different summers. There is here endless variation, but no advancement. One fashion comes after another, but we cannot call it better. One would like to see representatives of the different generations together in full dress. What variety in oaths and small talk! What anachronisms in swords and canes and eye-glasses, in ruffles, in collars, in wigs! What affluence in powders and perfumes and colors! But "will they know each other there"? The real gentlemen would be sure to recognize each other. Abraham and Marcus Aurelius and Confucius would find much in common. Launcelot and Sir Philip Sidney and Chinese Gordon would need no introduction. Montaigne and Mr. Spectator and the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table would fall into delightful chat. But would a "swell" recognize a "spark"? And might we not expect a "dude" to fall into immoderate laughter at the sight of a "popinjay"? Fashion has its revenges. Nothing seems so ridiculous to it as an old fashion. The fop has no toleration for the obsolete foppery. The artificial gentleman is as inconceivable out of his artificial surroundings as the waxen-faced gentleman of the clothing store outside his show window. There was Beau Nash, for example,--a much-admired person in his day, when he ruled from his throne in the pump-room in Bath. Everything was in keeping. There was Queen Anne architecture, and Queen Anne furniture, and Queen Anne religion, and the Queen Anne fashion in fine gentlemen. What a curious piece of bricabrac this fine gentleman was, to be sure! He was not fitted for any useful purpose under the sun, but in his place he was quite ornamental, and undoubtedly very expensive. Art was as self-complacent as if nature had never been invented. What multitudes of the baser sort must be employed in furnishing the fine gentleman with clothes! All Bath admired the way in which Beau Nash refused to pay for them. Once when a vulgar tradesman insisted on payment, Nash compromised by lending him twenty pounds,--which he did with the air of a prince. So great was the impression he made upon his time that a statue was erected to him, while beneath were placed the busts of two minor contemporaries, Pope and Newton. This led Lord Chesterfield to write:-- "This statue placed the busts between Adds to the satire strength, Wisdom and wit are little seen, But folly at full length." Lord Chesterfield himself had nothing in common with the absurd imitation gentlemen, and yet the gentleman whom he described and pretended to admire was altogether artificial. He was the Machiavelli of the fashionable world. He saw through it, and recognized its hollowness; but such as it was it must be accepted. The only thing was to learn how to get on in it. "In courts you may expect to meet connections without friendships, enmities without hatred, honor without virtue, appearances saved and realities sacrificed, good manners and bad morals." There is something earnestly didactic about Lord Chesterfield. He gives line upon line, and precept upon precept, to his "dear boy." Never did a Puritan father teach more conscientiously the shorter catechism than did he the whole duty of the gentleman, which was to save appearances even though he must sacrifice reality. "My dear boy," he writes affectionately, "I advise you to trust neither man nor woman more than is absolutely necessary. Accept proffered friendships with great civility, but with great incredulity." No youth was more strenuously prodded up the steep and narrow path of virtue than was little Philip Stanhope up the steep and narrow path of fashion. Worldliness made into a religion was not without its asceticism. "Though you think you dance well, do not think you dance well enough. Though you are told that you are genteel, still aim at being genteeler.... Airs, address, manners, graces, are of such infinite importance and are so essentially necessary to you that now, as the time of meeting draws near, I tremble for fear that I may not find you possessed of them." Lord Chesterfield's gentleman was a man of the world; but it was, after all, a very hard and empty world. It was a world that had no eternal laws, only changing fashions. It had no broken hearts, only broken vows. It was a world covered with glittering ice, and the gentleman was one who had learned to skim over its dangerous places, not caring what happened to those who followed him. It is a relief to get away from such a world, and, leaving the fine gentleman behind, to take the rumbling stagecoach to the estates of Sir Roger de Coverley. His is not the great world at all, and his interests are limited to his own parish. But it is a real world, and much better suited to a real gentleman. His fashions are not the fashions of the court, but they are the fashions that wear. Even when following the hounds Sir Roger has time for friendly greetings. "The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old knight, which he requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles." But even dear old Roger de Coverley cannot rest undisturbed as an ideal gentleman. He belonged, after all, to a privileged order, and there is a force at work to destroy all social privileges. A generation of farmers' sons must arise not to be so easily satisfied with a kindly nod and smile. Liberty, fraternity, and equality have to be reckoned with. Democracy has come with its leveling processes. "The calm Olympian height Of ancient order feels its bases yield." In a revolutionary period the virtues of an aristocracy become more irritating than their vices. People cease to attribute merit to what comes through good fortune. No wonder that the disciples of the older time cry:-- "What hope for the fine-nerved humanities That made earth gracious once with gentler arts?" What becomes of the gentleman in an age of democratic equality? Just what becomes of every ideal when the time for its fulfillment has come. It is freed from its limitations and enters into a larger life. Let us remember that the gentleman was always a lover of equality, and of the graces that can only grow in the society of equals. The gentleman of an aristocracy is at his best only when he is among his peers. There is a little circle within which there is no pushing, no assumption of superiority. Each member seeks not his own, but finds pleasure in a gracious interchange of services. But an aristocracy leaves only a restricted sphere for such good manners. Outside the group to which he belongs the gentleman is compelled by imperious custom to play the part of a superior being. It has always been distasteful and humiliating to him. It is only an essentially vulgar nature that can really be pleased with the servility of others. An ideal democracy is a society in which good manners are universal. There is no arrogance and no cringing, but social intercourse is based on mutual respect. This ideal democracy has not been perfected, but the type of men who are creating it has already been evolved. Among all the crude and sordid elements of modern life, we see the stirring of a new chivalry. It is based on a recognition of the worth and dignity of the common man. Milton in memorable words points out the transition which must take place from the gentleman of romance to the gentleman of enduring reality. After narrating how, in his youth, he betook himself "to those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings and thence had in renown through all Christendom," he says, "This my mind gave me that every free and gentle spirit, without that oath ought to be born a knight, nor needed to expect a gilt spur or the laying on of a sword upon his shoulder." The Hinter-land of Science A genial critic detects a note of exaggeration in my praise of Ignorance. It is, he declares, a bit of "Yellow Journalism." The reader's attention is attracted by a glaring headline which leads him to suppose that a crime has been committed, when in reality nothing out of the ordinary has happened. That a person who has emerged from the state of absolute illiteracy far enough to appear in print should express a preference for Ignorance would be important if true. After perusing the chapter, however, he is of the opinion that it is not Ignorance, at all, that is described, but something much more respectable. It is akin to a state of mind which literary persons have agreed to praise under the name of Culture. It is very natural that these literary persons should prefer a high-sounding name, and one free from vulgar associations, but I do not think that their plea will stand the test of scientific analysis. Science will not tolerate half knowledge nor pleasant imaginings, nor sympathetic appreciations; it must have definite demonstration. The knowledge of the best that has been said and thought may be very consoling, but it implies an unscientific principle of selection. It can be proved by statistics that the best things are exceptional. What about the second best, not to speak of the tenth rate? It is only when you have collected a vast number of commonplace facts that you are on the road to a true generalization. In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington there is a children's room, in which there is a case marked "Pretty Shells." The specimens fully justify the inscription. The very daintiest shapes, and the most intricate convolutions, and the most delicate tints are represented. They are pretty shells, which have not left their beauty on the shore. But the delight in all this loveliness is not scientific. The kind gentleman who arranged the shells according to this classification acted not in his capacity as a conchologist, but as the father of a family. Nor does the enjoyment of the most beautiful thoughts or words satisfy the requirements of those sciences which deal with humanity. The distinction between Literature and Science is fundamental. What is a virtue in one sphere is a vice in the other. After all that has been said about the scientific use of the imagination it remains true that the imagination is an intruder in the laboratory. Even if it were put to use, that would only mean that it is reduced to a condition of slavery. In its own realm it is accustomed to play rather than to work. It is also true that the attempts to introduce the methods of the laboratory into literature have been dismal failures. That way dullness lies. Now and then, indeed, Nature in a fit of prodigality endows one person with both gifts.--Was not Oliver Wendell Holmes a Professor of Anatomy? In such a case there is a perpetual effervescence. But even Dr. Holmes could not insinuate a sufficient knowledge of Anatomy by means of a series of discursive essays; nor could he give scientific value to the reflections of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." There was a time when the ability to read was such a rare accomplishment that it seemed to furnish the key to all knowledge. Men of the baser sort had to learn by experience, but the reader followed a royal path to the very fountain head of wisdom. Ordinary rules were not for him; he could claim the benefit of clergy. Only a generation ago young men of parts prepared themselves for the bar--and very good lawyers they made--by "reading Blackstone." Blackstone is a pleasant author, with a fund of wise observations, and many pleasant afternoons were spent in his company. In like manner other young men "read medicine." It is now coming to be understood that one cannot read a science; it must be studied in quite a different fashion. "Book-learning" in such matters has been discredited. The Gentle Reader has learned this lesson. It may be that he has cultivated some tiny field of his own, and has thus come to know how different this laborious task is from the care-free wandering in which at other hours he delights. But though he cannot read his way into the domains of strict science, yet there is an adjacent territory which he frequents. Into this territory, though he holds an ambiguous position, and finds many to molest and make him afraid, he is drawn by an insatiable curiosity. In a border-land danger has attractions and mystery is alluring. There is pleasant reading in spite of many threatening technicalities which seem to bar further progress. On the coasts of the Dark Continent of Ignorance the several sciences have gained a foothold. In each case there is a well-defined country carefully surveyed and guarded. Within its frontiers the laws are obeyed, and all affairs are carried on in an orderly fashion. Beyond it is a vague "sphere of influence," a Hinter-land over which ambitious claims of suzerainty are made; but the native tribes have not yet been exterminated, and life goes on very much as in the olden time. Into the Hinter-land the Gentle Reader wanders, and he is known to the scientific explorer as a friendly native, whose good-will is worth cultivating. He is often confounded with the "General Reader," a very different person, whose omnivorous appetite and intemperance in the use of miscellaneous information are very offensive to him. Unscrupulous adventurers carry on a thriving trade with the General Reader in damaged goods, which are foisted on him under the name of Popular Science. * * * * * In the Hinter-land there is dense ignorance of the achievements and even of the names of most of those who are recognized as authorities in their several sciences. They are as unknown as is the Lord Mayor of London to the natives on the banks of the Zambesi. The heroes of the Hinter-land are the bold explorers who in militant fashion have made their way into regions as yet unsubdued. In the middle of the nineteenth century there was an heroic period during which scientific investigation took on all the color of romance. The Gentle Reader turns to the lives and works of Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall, very much as he would turn to the tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins. Here was a field of action. Something happened. As he reads he is conscious that he has nothing of that impersonal attitude which belongs to pure science. It is not scientific but human interest which moves him. He is anxious to know what these men did, and what was the result of their deeds. It is an intellectual adventure of which the outcome is still uncertain. The new generation cannot fully realize what the word "Evolution" meant to those who saw in it a portent of mysterious change. In its early advocates there was a mingling of romantic daring and missionary zeal. Its enemies resisted with the fortitude which belongs to those who never know when they are beaten. In almost any old bookstores one may see a counter labeled "Second-hand Theology, very cheap." It is a collection of the spent ammunition which may still be found on the field of battle. It is in an unfrequented corner. Now and then a theological student may visit it, but even he seems rather to be a vague considerer of worthy things than a bargain hunter. Yet once these volumes were eagerly read. Out of the border warfare between Science and certain types of Theology and Philosophy there came a kind of literature that has a very real value and which is not lacking in charm. What a sense of relief came to the Gentle Reader when he stumbled upon John Fiske's "Excursions of an Evolutionist." This was the very thing he had been looking for; not an exhaustive survey, nor a strenuous campaign, but an excursion with a competent guide and interpreter, a friendly person acquainted with the country who would tell him the things he wanted to know, and not weary him with irrelevant and confusing details. What an admirable interpreter Fiske was! Darwin, with characteristic modesty, acknowledged his indebtedness to him for pointing out some of the larger results of his own investigations. He had the instinct which enabled him to seize the salient points; to open up new vistas, to make clear a situation. His histories are always readable because he followed the main stream and never lost himself in a sluggish bayou. The same method applied to cosmic forces makes him see their dramatic movement. It is the genius of a born man of letters using the facts discovered by scientific methods for its own purpose. That purpose is always broad and humanizing. The specialist is apt to speak patronizingly of such work, as if it were necessarily inferior to his own. It seems to bear the marks of superficiality. To appreciate it properly one must take it for what it is. Man was interested in the Universe long before he began to study it scientifically. He dreamed about it, he mused over its mysteries, he talked about its more obvious aspects. And it is as interesting now as it ever was and as fit an object of thought. The conceptions which satisfied us in the days when ignorance had not arrived at self-consciousness have to be given up; but we are anxious to know what have taken their places. We want to get our bearings and to discern the general trend of the forces which make the world. It is no mean order of mind that is fitted to answer our needs by wise interpretation. There is often a conflict between private owners and the public over the right to fish in certain waters. The landowners put up warning signs and try to prevent trespass, while the public insists on its ancient privileges. The law, with that admirable common sense for which it has such a great reputation, makes a distinction. The small pond may be privately owned and fenced in, but "boatable waters" are free to all. So we may concede to the specialist the exclusive right to have an opinion on certain subjects--subjects let us say of a size suitable for the thesis of a Doctor of Philosophy. But we are not to be shut off from the pleasure of thinking on more sizable themes. We have all equal rights on the "boatable waters." * * * * * Matthew Arnold retells the story of the Scholar-gypsy who, forsaking the university, "took to the woods,"--so far as we can learn from the poem, to his own spiritual and intellectual advantage. The combination of the scholar and gypsy has a fascination. One likes to conceive of thought as playing freely among the other forces of nature, and dealing directly with all objects and not with those especially prepared for it. Across the border-land of the physical sciences one may meet many such scholar-gypsies. They have taken to the wilderness and yet carried into it a trained intelligence. Here may be found keen observers, who might have written text-books on ornithology had they not fallen in love with birds. They follow their friends into their haunts in the thickets, and they love to gossip about their peculiarities. Here are botanists who love the growing things in the fields and woods better than the specimens in their herbariums. They love to describe better than to analyze. Now and then one may meet a renegade who carries a geologist's hammer. It is a sheer hypocrisy, like a fishing rod in the hands of a contemplative rambler. It is merely an excuse for being out of doors and among the mountains. The Gentle Reader finds unfailing delight in these wanderers. They open up to him a leafy world. Thanks to them there are places where he feels intimately at home: a certain English parish; a strip of woodland in Massachusetts; the vicinity of a farm on the Hudson; an enchanted country in the high Sierras. "I verily believe," he says, "there is more Natural History to be learned in such places than in all the museums. Besides, I never liked a museum." The fact is that he does learn a good many things in this way--and some of them he remembers. * * * * * The native African who is capable of understanding the philosophy of history may adjust his mind to the idea that his continent is intended for exploitation by a superior race. The forests in which his ancestors have hunted for generations form only a part of the Hinter-land of some colony on the coast which he has never seen. After a time, by an inevitable process of expansion, the colony will absorb and assimilate all the adjoining country. But his perplexities are not over when he has, in a general way, resigned himself to manifest destiny. He discovers that all Europeans are not alike, though they certainly look alike. There are conflicting claims. To whose sphere of influence does he belong? It is not easy to answer such questions, and mistakes are liable to bring down upon him punitive expeditions from different quarters. A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular sphere they belong. In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of existence. The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a multitude of muddled brains. Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law. Superstition magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science is when it becomes an unlimited despotism. At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining peacefully within its natural frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and climate. While learned men were geologizing through the successive stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by analogies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately at about this time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to limit colonial expansion. The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd. There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he is dealing with figures of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by the statistical method. The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible government. The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy "There has been a sad falling off in clerical character," says the Gentle Reader. "In the old books it is a pleasure to meet a parson. He is so simple and hearty that you feel at home with him at once. You know just where to find him, and he always takes himself and his profession for granted. He may be a trifle narrow, but you make allowance for that, and as for his charity it has no limits. You expect him to give away everything he can lay hands on. As for his creed it is always the same as the church to which he belongs, which is a great relief and saves no end of trouble. But the clergyman I meet with in novels nowadays is in a chronic state of fidgetiness. Nothing is as it seems or as it ought to be. He is as full of problems as an egg is full of meat. Everything resolves itself into a conflict of duties, and whichever duty he does he wishes it had been the other one. When the poor man is not fretting because of evil-doers he begins to fret because of the well-doers, who do well in the old fashion without any proper knowledge of the Higher Criticism or Sanitary Drainage. What with his creed and his congregation and his love affairs, all of which need mending, he lives a distracted life. Though the author in the first chapter praises his athletic prowess, he seems to have no staying powers and his nerves give out under the least strain. He is one of those trying characters of whom some one has said that 'we can hear their souls scrape.' I prefer the old-time parsons. They were much more comfortable and in more rugged health. I like the phrase 'Bishops and other Clergy.' The bishops are great personages whose lives are written like the lives of the Lord Chancellors; and they are not always very readable. But my heart goes out to the other clergy, the good sensible men who were neither great scholars nor reformers nor martyrs, and who therefore did not get into the Church Histories, but who kept things going." When he turns to the parson of "The Canterbury Tales" he finds the refreshment that comes from contact with a perfectly wholesome nature. Here is an enduring type of natural piety. In the person of the good man the prayers of the church for the healthful spirit of grace had been answered in full measure. In his ministry in his wide parish we cannot imagine him as being worried or hurried. There could be for him no conflict of duties; the duties plodded along one after another in sturdy English fashion. And when the duties were well done that was the end of them. Their pale uneasy ghosts did not disturb his slumbers, and point with vague menace to the unattainable. The parson had his place and his definite task. He trod the earth as firmly and sometimes as heavily as did the ploughman. If the virtues of the fourteenth-century parson were of the enduring order, so were his foibles. The Gentle Reader is familiar with his weaknesses; for has he not "sat under his preaching?" The homiletic habit is hard to break, and renders its victim strangely oblivious to the passage of time. Every incident suggests a text and every text suggests a new application. In the homiletic sphere perpetual motion is an assured success. What sinking of heart must have come to laymen like the merchant and the yeoman when the parson on the pleasant road to Canterbury called their attention to the resemblance between their journey and "...thilke parfit, glorious pilgrymage, That highte Jerusalem celestial." They knew the symptoms. When the homilist has got scent of an analogy he will run it down, however long the chase. It would be interesting to discover the origin of the impression so persistent in the lay mind that sermons are long. A sermon is seldom as long as it seems. But it is always with trepidation that the listener observes in a discourse a constitutional tendency to longevity. In his opinion the good die young. As it is to-day so it was on the afternoon when the host, with ill-concealed alarm, called upon the good parson to take his turn. "Telleth," quod he, "youre meditacioun; But hasteth yow, the sonne wole adoun. Beth fructuous, and that in litel space." It is needless to say that what the parson called his "little tale in prose" proved to be one of his old sermons which he delivered without notes. He was very unskillful in concealing his text, which was Jeremiah vi. 16. We are familiar with that interesting picture of the pilgrims as they set out in the morning, each figure alert. I wonder that some one has not painted a picture of them about sunset, as the parson was in the middle of his discourse. It is said that in every battle there is a critical moment when each side is almost exhausted. The side which at this moment receives reinforcements or rallies for a supreme effort gains the victory. So one must have noticed in every over-long discourse a critical moment when the speaker and his hearers are equally exhausted. If at that moment the speaker, who has apparently used up his material, boldly announces a new head, the hearers' discomfiture is complete. This point of strategy the parson, guileless as he was, understood and so managed to get in the last word, so that "The Canterbury Tales" end with the Canterbury sermon. By the way, there was one ministerial weakness from which Chaucer's parson was free,--the love of alliteration. One is often struck, when listening to a fervent discourse against besetting sins, with the curious fact that all the transgressions begin with the same letter of the alphabet. There is something suspicious in this circumstance. Not a great many years ago a political party suffered severely because its candidate received an address from a worthy clergyman who was addicted to this habit, and instead of the usual three R's enumerated "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." The chances are that he meant no offense to his Roman Catholic fellow citizens; but once on the toboggan slide of alliteration he could not stop. If instead of rum he had begun with whiskey, his homiletic instinct would have led him to assert that the three perils of the Republic were whiskey, war, and woman-suffrage. It is to the credit of Chaucer's parson that he distinctly repudiated alliteration with all its allurements, especially in connection with the seductive letter R. "I kan nat geeste '_rum_, _ram_, _ruf_,' by lettre; Ne, God woot, rym holde I but litel bettre." When it came to plain prose without any rhetorical embellishments, he was in his element. It must be confessed that the clergyman is not an eminently Shakespearean character. The great high ecclesiastics, like Pandulph and Wolsey, are great personages who make a fine show, but the other clergy are not always in good and regular standing. They are sometimes little better than hedge-priests. But what pleasant glimpses we get into the unwritten history of the English Church in the days when it was still Merry England. The Cranmers and the Ridleys made a great stir in those days, but no rumors of it reached the rural parishes where Holofernes kept school and Nathanael warmed over for his slumbering congregation the scraps he had stolen in his youth from the feast of the languages. As for the parishioners, they were doubtless well satisfied and could speak after the fashion of Constable Dull when he was reproved for his silence. "Goodman Dull, thou hast said no word all this while." Dull,--"Nor understood none neither, sir!" The innocent pedant whose learning lies in the dead languages and who has a contempt for the living world is a type not extinct; but what shall we say of the Welsh curate of Windsor, Hugh Evans? In Windsor Park Mrs. Ford whispers, "Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and that Welsh devil Sir Hugh?" That was her affectionate, though not respectful, way of referring to her spiritual adviser. Curate Evans was certainly not an example of what has been termed "the mild and temperate spirituality which has always characterized the Church of England." The dignity of the cloth is not in his mind as he cries, "Trib, fairies, trib, come and remember your parts, pe pold, I pray you, ... when I give the watch'ords do as I pid you." Yet though he seemed not to put so much emphasis on character in religion as we in these more serious days think fitting, this Welsh devil of a parson had enough of the professional spirit to wish to point a moral on all proper occasions. Not too obtrusive or moral, nor carrying it to the sweating point, but a good, sound approbation of right sentiment. When Master Slender declares his resolution, "After this trick I'll ne'er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, godly company. If I be drunk I'll be drunk with those who fear God," the convivial curate responds, "So God judge me that shows a virtuous mind." That Shakespeare intended any reflection on the Welsh clergy is not probable; but so late as the eighteenth century a traveler in Wales remarks that the ale house was usually kept by the parson. One wonders whether with such manifest advantages the Welsh ministers' meetings were given over to lugubrious essays on "Why we do not reach the masses." Shakespeare uses the word Puritan once, but Malvolio was a prig rather than a true Puritan. His objection to cakes and ale was rather because revelry disturbed his slumbers than because it troubled his conscience. But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and the conventicle has begun. We know the solid virtues of these sectaries from whom came some of the best things in England and New England. But we must not expect to find this side of their character in the literature of the next two or three centuries. Unfortunately the non-conformist conscience was offended at those innocent pleasures in which amiable writers and readers have always taken satisfaction. Charles Lamb inclined to the opinion of his friend who held that "a man cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling." The gastronomic argument against Puritanism has always been a strong one with the English mind. It was felt that a person must be a hypocrite who could speak disrespectfully of the creature comforts. There was no toleration for the miserable pretender who would "blaspheme custard through the nose." Tribulation Wholesome was deserving only of the pillory. There was no doubt but that the viands which were publicly reprobated were privately enjoyed. "You rail against plays to please the alderman Whose daily custard you devour. ...You call yourselves By names of Tribulation, Persecution, Restraint, Long Patience and such-like, affected Only for glory and to catch the ear Of the disciple." In "Bartholomew Fair" we meet Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy, an unlicensed exhorter, who has attained the liberty of prophesying, and is the leader of a little flock. Did history keep on repeating itself, or did literary men keep on repeating each other? At any rate Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy reappears continually. He is in every particular the prototype of those painful brethren who roused the wrath of honest Sam Weller. We recognize his unctuous speech, his unfailing appetite, and even his offensive and defensive alliance with the mother-in-law. Mr. Little-Wit introduces him as "An old elder from Banbury who puts in here at meal times to praise the painful brethren and to pray that the sweet singers may be restored; and he says grace as long as his breath lasts." To which Mrs. Little-Wit responds, "Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious time with him, what for his diet and his clothes too, he breaks his buttons and cracks seams at every saying that he sobs out." In answer to the anxious inquiry of his mother-in-law, Dame Pure-Craft, Little-Wit announces that he has found the good man "with his teeth fast in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right." In Dame Pure-Craft he finds a stanch supporter. "Slander not the brethren, wicked one," she cries. Zeal of the Land Busy attempts to lead his flock through the perils of Bartholomew Fair. "Walk in the middle of the way--turn neither to the right nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside by vanity nor your ears by noises." It was indeed a dangerous journey, for it was nothing less than "a grove of hobby horses and trinkets; the wares are the wares of devils, and the fair is the shop of Satan." But, alas, though the eyes and ears were guarded, another avenue of temptation had been forgotten. The delicious odor of roast pig came from one of the booths. It was a delicate little pig, cooked with fire of juniper and rosemary branches. Mrs. Little-Wit longed for it and her husband encouraged her weakness. Dame Pure-Craft rebukes him and bids him remember the wholesome admonition of their leader. Zeal of the Land Busy is a casuist of no mean ability, and is equal to the task of finding an exception to his own rule. "It may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think it doth in this place, huh! huh!--yes, it doth. And it were a sin of obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to resist the titillation of the famelic sense which is smell. Therefore be bold, follow the scent; enter the tents of the unclean for this once, and satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother and my suffering self will be satisfied also." Zeal of the Land Busy was like a certain English statesman of whom it was said, "His conscience, instead of being his monitor, became his accomplice." One characteristic of these unlicensed exhorters seems to be very persistent,--their almost superhuman fluency. Despising preparation and trusting to the inspiration of the moment, they are never left without words. Preaching without notes is not particularly difficult if one has something to say, but these exhorters attempt to preach without notes and also without ideas. They require nothing but a word to begin with. The speaker is like an army which, having broken away from its base of supplies, lives on the country through which it is marching. The hortatory guerrilla gets forage enough in one sentence to carry him on through the next. This was the homiletical method which Zeal of the Land used in his discourse at the fair. At a venture he cries out,-- "Down with Dagon!" Leather-Head, the hobby-horse seller, asks very imprudently,-- "What do you mean, sir!" That was enough; a torrent of impromptu eloquence is let loose. "I will remove Dagon there, I say; that idol, that heathenish idol, that remains as I may say a beam, a very beam, not a beam of the sun, nor a beam of the moon, nor a beam of the balance, neither a house beam, nor a weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, an exceeding great beam!" It was the same method employed long after by Mr. Chadband in his moving address to little Joe. "My young friend, you are to us a pearl, a diamond, you are to us a jewel. And why, my young friend?" "I don't know," replied Joe, "I don't know nothink." This gave Mr. Chadband his opportunity for continued speech. "My young friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem, a jewel. For what are you? Are you a beast of the field? No! Are you a fish of the river? No! You are a human boy! Oh, glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young friend?" Marvelous, to taciturn folk, is this flow of language. The little rill becomes a torrent, and soon there are waters to swim in. It seems to savor of the supernatural, being of the nature of creation out of nothing. And yet like many other wonderful things, it is easy when one knows how to do it. The churchmen of those days joined with the wits in laughter which greeted the tinkers and the bakers who turned to prophesying on their own account. But now and then one of the zealous independents could give as keen a thrust as any which were received. It would be hard to find more delicate satire than in the description of Parson Two Tongues of the town of Fair Speech, who was much esteemed by his distinguished parishioners, My Lord Time-Server, Mr. Facing Both-Ways, and Mr. Anything. The parson was a man of good family, though his grandfather had been a waterman, and had thus learned the art of looking one way and rowing another. It is his parishioner Mr. Bye-Ends who propounds the question of ministerial ethics. "Suppose a minister, a worthy man, possessed of but a small benefice, has in his eye a greater, more fat and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet so as being more studious, by preaching more zealously, and because the temper of the people requires it, by altering some of his principles, for my part I see no reason but a man may do this (provided he has a call), aye, and a great deal more besides, and be an honest man." As for changing his principles to suit the times, Mr. Bye-Ends argues that it shows that the minister "is of a self-sacrificing temper." The argument for conformity is put so plausibly that it is calculated to deceive the very elect; and then as if by mere inadvertence we are allowed a glimpse of the seamy side. It is evident that the wits were not all banished from the conventicles. * * * * * To those who are acquainted only with the pale and interesting tea-drinking parsons of nineteenth-century English fiction, there is something surprising in the clergymen one meets in the pages of Fielding. They are all in such rude health! There is not a suggestion of nervous prostration nor of minister's sore throat. Not one of them seems to be in need of a vacation; perhaps because they are out of doors all the time. Their professional duties were doubtless done, but they are not obtruded on the reader's attention. The odious Chaplain Thwackum is chiefly remembered for his argument with the free-thinker Square. Square having asserted that honor might exist independently of religion, Thwackum refutes him in a manner most satisfactory. "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion, and not only the Christian religion but the Protestant religion, and not only the Protestant religion but the religion of the Church of England; and when I mention honor I mean that mode of divine grace which is dependent on that religion." "Thwackum," says the Gentle Reader, "was, after all, an unworldly man. He was content to remain a mere hanger-on of the church when he was capable of thoughts which were really in great demand. I have been looking over a huge controversial volume by an author of that day, and I found nothing but Thwackum argument expanded and illustrated. The author was made a bishop for it." As for Parson Trulliber, the Falstaff of divines, the less said about him the better. The curate Barnabas is a more pleasing character, though hardly an example of spirituality. He reminds one of the good parson who, in his desire for moderation, prayed that the Lord might lead his people "in the safe middle path between right and wrong." When Joseph Andrews confessed his sins to him, Barnabas was divided between his eagerness to do his professional duty to the sinner, and the desire to prepare the punch for the company downstairs, a work in which he particularly excelled. "Barnabas asked him if he forgave his enemies 'as a Christian ought.' "Joseph desired to know what that forgiveness was. "'That is,' answered Barnabas, 'to forgive them--as--it is to forgive them as--in short, to forgive them as a Christian.' "Joseph replied 'He forgave them as much as he could.' "'Well! Well!' said Barnabas, 'that will do!' He then demanded of him if he had any more sins unrepented of, and if he had, to repent of them as fast as he could; ... for some company was waiting below in the parlor where the ingredients for punch were all in readiness, for that no one could squeeze the oranges till he came." Barnabas would have been shocked at the demands of the Methodists for immediate repentance, but on this occasion he was led into almost equal urgency. But Fielding more than atones for all the rest by the creation of Parson Adams. Dear, delightful Parson Adams! to know him is to love him! In him the Church of England appears a little out at the elbows, but in good heart. With the appetite of a ploughman, and "a fist rather less than the knuckle of an ox," he represents the true church militant. He has a pipe in his mouth, and a short great coat which half conceals his cassock, which he had "torn some ten years ago in passing over a stile." But however uncanonical his attire, his heart is in the right place. What a different world Parson Adams lived in from that of George Eliot's Amos Barton, bewildered with thoughts which he could not express. "'Mr. Barton,' said his rural parishioner, 'can preach as good a sermon as need be when he writes it down, but when he tries to preach without book he rambles about, and every now and then flounders like a sheep as has cast itself and can't get on its legs.'" One cannot imagine Parson Adams floundering about, under any circumstances. There is a sturdy strength and directness about all he says and does. His simplicity is endearing but never savors of weakness. He sets great store by his manuscript sermons, for which he seeks a publisher. The curate Barnabas throws cold water on his plans. The age, he says, is so wicked that nobody reads sermons; "'Would you think it, Mr. Adams, I intended to print a volume of sermons, myself, and they had the approbation of three bishops, but what do you think the bookseller offered me?' "'Twelve guineas,' cried Adams. "'Nay,' answered Barnabas, 'the dog refused me a concordance in exchange.... To be concise with you, three bishops said they were the best sermons that were ever writ; but indeed there are a pretty moderate number printed already, and they are not all sold yet.'" The theology of Parson Adams was genially human. "'Can anything,' he said, 'be more derogatory to the honor of God than for men to imagine that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous, Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding the constant rule of virtue and goodness in which thou walkedst upon earth; still, as thou didst not believe everything in the true orthodox manner, thy want of faith shall condemn thee? Or, on the other side, can any doctrine be more pernicious in society than the persuasion that it will be a good plea for a villain at the last day,--"Lord, it is true I never obeyed any of Thy commandments; yet punish me not, for I believe in them all?"'" This was not sound doctrine in the opinion of the itinerant bookseller. "'I am afraid,' he said, 'that you will find a backwardness in the trade to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down.'" The good parson had the clerical weakness for reading sermons in season and out of season. At a festive gathering there was a call for speeches, to which it was objected that no one was prepared for an address; "'Unless,' turning to Adams, 'you have a sermon about you.' "'Sir,' said Adams, 'I never travel without one, for fear of what might happen.'" Like other clergymen, he dabbled occasionally in politics. "'On all proper seasons, such as at the approach of an election, I throw a suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen, my neighbors.'" At one time he actively labored for the election of young Sir Thomas Booby, who had lately returned from his travels. He was elected, "'and a fine Parliament man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour long, and I have been told very fine ones; but he could never persuade Parliament to be of his opinion.'" Estimable, eloquent Sir Thomas Booby! How many orators have found the same result following their speeches of an hour long! To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him, Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith. "'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you, without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have passed the very spot where Dædalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another golden fleece.' "'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these places.' "'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams. "'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.' "'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams. "'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.' "'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'" "There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the Gentle Reader. * * * * * To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr. Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man who might be reviled and persecuted,--but he never could be hurried. The Gentle Reader rejoices in the peace of the opening chapters. "The year was spent in moral and rural amusements. We had no revolutions to fear, no fatigues to undergo, all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations were from the blue bed to the brown." And good-natured Mrs. Primrose, absorbed in making pickles and gooseberry wine, and with her ability to read any English book without much spelling, was an ideal minister's wife, before the days of missionary societies and general information. It was only her frivolous daughters who were brought into society, where there was talk of "pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses." These subjects not then being supposed to have any esoteric, religious significance, which it was the duty of the minister's wife to discover and disseminate, she busied herself with her domestic concerns without any haunting sense that she was neglecting the weightier matters. The vicar's favorite sermons were in praise of matrimony, and he preached out of a happy experience. This peaceful scene bears the same relation to the trials that afterwards befell the good man that the prologue to the Book of Job does to the main part of it. Satan has his will with Job, so also it happened with Dr. Primrose. His banker absconds to Amsterdam, his daughter elopes with the wicked young squire who has the father thrown into prison, where he hears of the death of his wretched daughter who has been cast off by her betrayer. Troubles came thick and fast; yet did not the vicar hurry, nor for a moment change the even tenor of his way. It was the middle of the eighteenth century, when piety was not treated as an elemental force. It did not lift up its voice and cry out against injustice. The church was the patient Griselda married to the state, and the clergyman was a teacher of resignation. Upon learning of his daughter's abduction, Dr. Primrose calls for his Bible and his staff, but he does not indulge in any haste unbecoming a clergyman. He finds time in his leisurely pursuit to discourse most judiciously and at considerable length on the royal prerogative. He remembers his duty to the landed gentry, and on his return from his unsuccessful quest remains several days to enjoy the squire's hospitality. Was ever poetical justice done with more placidity and completeness than in the prison scene? The vicar, feeling that he is about to die, proceeds to address his fellow wretches. He falls naturally into an old sermon on the evils of free-thinking philosophy, that being the line of the least resistance. The discourse being finished, it is without surprise and yet with real pleasure that we learn that he does not die; nor is his son, who was about to be hanged, hanged at all; on the contrary, he appears not long after handsomely dressed in regimentals, and makes a modest and distant bow to Miss Wilmot, the heiress. That young lady had just arrived and was to be married next day to the wicked young squire, but on learning that young gentleman's perfidy, "'Oh goodness!' cried the lovely girl, 'how I have been deceived.'" The vicar's son being on the spot in his handsome regimentals, they are engaged in the presence of the company, and her affluent fortune is assured to this hitherto impecunious youth. And the daughter Olivia at the same time appears, it happening that she was not dead after all, and that she has papers to show that she is the lawful wife of the young squire. And the banker who ran away with the vicar's property has been captured and the money restored. In the mean time--for happy accidents never come singly--the wretch who was in the act of carrying off the younger daughter Sophy has been foiled by the opportune arrival of Mr. Burchell. And best of all, Mr. Burchell proves not to be Mr. Burchell at all, but the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, who is loyal to the constitution and a friend of the king. The Vicar is so far restored that he leaves the jail and partakes of a bountiful repast, at which the company is "as merry as affluence and innocence could make them." Affluence as the providential, though sometimes long delayed, reward of innocence was a favorite thesis of eighteenth-century piety. "It may sound very absurd," says the Gentle Reader, "to those who insist that all the happenings should be realistic; but the Vicar of Wakefield is a very real character, nevertheless; and he is the kind of a person for whom you would expect things to come out right in the end." Quixotism When Falstaff boasted that he was not only witty himself but the cause of wit in other men, he thought of himself more highly than he ought to have thought. The very fact that he was witty prevented him from the highest efficiency in stimulating others in that direction. The atmospheric currents of merriment move irresistibly toward a vacuum. Create a character altogether destitute of humor and the most sluggish intelligence is stirred in the effort to fill the void. When we seek one who is the cause of wit in other men we pass by the jovial Falstaff and come to the preternaturally serious Don Quixote. Here we have not the chance outcropping of "the lighter vein," but the mother lode which the humorist finds inexhaustible. Don Quixote, with a lofty gravity which never for an instant relaxes, sets forth upon his mission. His is a soul impenetrable to mirth; but as he rides he enlivens the whole country-side. Everywhere merry eyes are watching him; boisterous laughter comes from the stables of village inns; from castle windows high-born ladies smile upon him; the peasants in the fields stand gaping and holding their sides; the countenances of the priests relax, and even the robbers salute the knight with mock courtesy. The dullest La Manchan is refreshed, and feels that he belongs to a choice coterie of wits. Cervantes tells us that he intended only a burlesque on the books of chivalry which were in vogue in his day. Had he done no more than he intended, he would have amused his own generation and then have been forgotten. It would be too much to ask that we should read the endless tales about Amadis and Orlando, only that we might appreciate his clever parody of them. A satire lasts no longer than its object. It must shoot folly as it flies. To keep on shooting at a folly after it is dead is unsportsmanlike. But though we have not read the old books of chivalry, we have all come in contact with Quixotism. I say we have all come in contact with it; but let no selfish, conventional persons be afraid lest they catch it. They are immune. They may do many foolish things, but they cannot possibly be quixotic. Quixotism is a malady possible only to generous minds. Listen to Don Quixote as he makes his plea before the duke and duchess. "I have redressed grievances, righted the injured, chastised the insolent, vanquished giants. My intentions have all been directed toward virtuous ends and to do good to all mankind. Now judge, most excellent duke and duchess, whether a person who makes it his study to practice all this deserves to be called a fool." Our first instinct is to answer confidently, "Of course not! Such a character as you describe is what we call a hero or a saint." But the person whose moral enthusiasm has been tempered with a knowledge of the queer combinations of goodness and folly of which human nature is capable is more wary, and answers, "That depends." In the case of Don Quixote it depends very much on the kind of world he lives in. If it should happen that in this world there are giants standing truculently at their castle doors, and forlorn maidens at every cross-roads waiting to be rescued, we will grant him the laurels that are due to the hero. But if La Mancha should not furnish these materials for his prowess,--then we must take a different view of the case. The poor gentleman is mad, that is what the curate and the barber say; but when we listen to his conversation we are in doubt. If the curate could discourse half so eloquently he would have been a bishop long before this. The most that can be said is that he has some notions which are not in accordance with the facts, and that he acts accordingly; but if that were a proof of madness there would not be enough sane persons in the world to make strait-jackets for the rest. His chief peculiarity is that he takes himself with a seriousness that is absolute. All of us have thoughts which would not bear the test of strict examination. There are vagrant fancies and random impulses which, fortunately for our reputations, come to nothing. We are just on the verge of doing something absurd when we recognize the character of our proposed action; and our neighbors lose a pleasure. We comfort ourselves by the reflection that their loss is our gain. Don Quixote has no such inhibition; he carries out his own ideas to their logical conclusion. The hero of Cervantes had muddled his wits by the reading of romances. Almost any kind of printed matter may have the same effect if one is not able to distinguish between what he has read and what he has actually experienced. One may read treatises on political economy until he mistakes the "economic man" who acts only according to the rules of enlightened self-interest for a creature of flesh and blood. One may read so many articles on the Rights of Women that he mistakes a hard-working American citizen who spends his summer in a down-town office, in order that his wife and daughter may go to Europe, for that odious monster the Tyrant Man. It is possible to read the Society columns of the daily newspapers till the reader does not know good society when he sees it. An estimable teacher in the public schools may devote herself so assiduously to pedagogical literature that she mistakes her school-room for a psychological laboratory, with results that are sufficiently tragical. There are excellent divines so learned in the history of the early church that they believe that semi-pelagianism is still the paramount issue. There were few men whose minds were, in general, better balanced than Mr. Gladstone's, yet what a fine example of Quixotism was that suggested by Queen Victoria's remark: "Mr. Gladstone always addresses me as if I were a public meeting." To address a woman as if she were a public meeting is the mistake of one who had devoted himself too much to political speeches. A thoroughly healthy mind can endure a good deal of reading and a considerable amount of speculation with impunity. It does not take the ideas thus derived too seriously. It is continually making allowances, and every once in a while there is a general clearance. It is like a gun which expels the old cartridge as the new shot is fired. When the delicate mechanism for the expulsion of exploded opinions gets out of order the mind becomes the victim of "fixed ideas." The best idea becomes dangerous when it gets stuck. When the fixed ideas are of a noble and disinterested character we have a situation which excites at once the admiration of the moralist and the apprehension of the alienist. Perhaps this border-land between spiritual reality and intellectual hallucination belongs neither to the moralist nor to the alienist, but to the wise humorist. He laughs, but there is no bitterness or scorn in his laughter. It is mellow and human-hearted. The world is full of people who have a faculty which enables them to believe whatever they wish. Thought is not, for them, a process which may go on indefinitely, a work in which they are collaborating with the universe. They do it all by themselves. It is the definite transaction of making up their minds. When the mind is made up it closes with a snap. After that, for an unwelcome idea to force an entrance would be a well-nigh impossible feat of intellectual burglary. We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe when compared with a stubborn theory. Let the theory, however extravagant in its origin, choose its own ground, and intrench itself in the mind of a well-meaning lady or gentleman of an argumentative turn, and I'll warrant you it can hold its own against a whole regiment of facts. Did you ever attend a meeting of the society for the--perhaps I had better not mention the name of the society, lest I tread on your favorite Quixotism. Suffice it to say that it has a noble purpose. It aims at nothing less than the complete transformation of human society, by the use of means which, to say the least, seem quite inadequate. After the minutes of the last meeting have been read, and the objects of the society have been once more stated with much detail, there is an opportunity for discussion from the floor. "Perhaps there is some one who may give some new suggestions, or who may desire to ask a question." You have observed what happens to the unfortunate questioner. What a sorry exhibition he makes of himself! No sooner does he open his mouth than every one recognizes his intellectual feebleness. He seems unable to grasp the simplest ideas. He stumbles at the first premise, and lies sprawling at the very threshold of the argument. "If what I have taken for granted be true," says the chairman, "do not all the fine things I have been telling you about follow necessarily?" "But," murmurs the questioner, "the things you take for granted are just what trouble me. They don't correspond to my experience." "Poor, feeble-minded questioner!" cry the members of the society, "to think that he is not even able to take things for granted! And then to set up his experience against our constitution and by-laws!" We sometimes speak of an inconsequent, harum-scarum person, who is always going off after new ideas, as quixotic. But true Quixotism is grave, self-contained, conservative. Within its own sphere it is accurate and circumstantial. There is no absurdity in its mental processes; all that is concealed in its assumptions. Granted the reality of the scheme of knight-errantry, and Don Quixote becomes a solid, dependable man who will conscientiously carry it out. There is no danger of his going off into vagaries. He has a mind that will keep the roadway. He is a sound critic, intolerant of minor incongruities. When the puppet-player tells about the bells ringing in the mosques of the Moorish town, the knight is quick to correct him. "There you are out, boy; the Moors have no bells; they only use kettledrums. Your ringing of bells in Sansuena is a mere absurdity." Such absurdities were not amusing; they were offensive to his serious taste. The quixotic mind loves greatly the appearance of strict logic. It is satisfied if one statement is consistent with another statement; whether either is consistent with the facts of the case is a curious matter which it does not care to investigate. So much does it love Logic that it welcomes even that black sheep of the logical family, the Fallacy; and indeed the impudent fellow, with all his irresponsible ways, does bear a family resemblance which is very deceiving. Above all is there delight in that alluring mental exercise known as the argument in a circle. It is an intellectual merry-go-round. A hobby-horse on rockers is sport for tame intelligences, but a hobby that can be made to go round is exciting. You may see grave divines and astute metaphysicians and even earnest sociologists rejoicing in the swift sequence of their own ideas, as conclusion follows premise and premise conclusion, in endless gyration. How the daring riders clutch the bridles and exultingly watch the flying manes of their steeds! They have the sense of getting somewhere, and at the same time the comfortable assurance that that somewhere is the very place from which they started. "Didn't we tell you so!" they cry. "Here we are again. Our arguments must be true, for we can't get away from them." Your ordinary investigator is a disappointing fellow. His opinions are always at the mercy of circumstances over which he has no control. He cuts his coat according to his cloth, and sometimes when his material runs short his intellectual garments are more scanty than decency allows. Sometimes after a weary journey into the Unknown he will return with scarcely an opinion to his back. Not so with the quixotist. His opinions not being dependent on evidence, he does not measure different degrees of probability. Half a reason is as good as a whole one, for the result in any case is perfect assurance. All things conspire, in most miraculous fashion, to confirm him in his views. That other men think differently he admits, he even welcomes their skepticism as a foil to his faith. His imperturbable tolerance is like that of some knight who, conscious of his coat of mail, good-humoredly exposes himself to the assaults of the rabble. It amuses them, and does him no harm. When Don Quixote had examined Mambrino's enchanted helmet, his candor compelled him to listen to Sancho's assertion that it was only a barber's basin. He was not disposed to controvert the evidence of the senses, but he had a sufficient explanation ready. "This enchanted helmet, by some strange accident, must have fallen into the possession of one who, ignorant of its true value as a helmet, and seeing it to be of the purest gold, hath inconsiderately melted down the one half for lucre's sake, and of the other half made this, which, as thou sayest, doth indeed look like a barber's basin; but to me, who know what it really is, its transformation is of no importance, for I will have it so repaired in the first town where there is a smith that it shall not be surpassed or even equaled. In the mean time I will wear it as I can, for something is better than nothing, and it will be sufficient to defend me from stones." Where have you heard that line of argument, so satisfying to one who has already made up his mind? Yesterday, it runs, we had several excellent reasons for the opinion which we hold. Since then, owing to investigations which we imprudently entered into before we knew where we were coming out, all our reasons have been overthrown. This, however, makes not the slightest difference. It rather strengthens our general position, as it is no longer dependent on any particular evidence for its support. We prate of the teaching of Experience. But did you ever know Experience to teach anything to a person whose ideas had set up an independent government of their own? The stern old dame has been much overrated as an instructor. Her pedagogical method is very primitive. Her instruction is administered by a series of hard whacks which the pupil is expected to interpret for himself. That something is wrong is evident; but what is it? It is only now and then that some bright pupil says, "That means that I made a mistake." As for persons of a quixotic disposition, the most adverse experience only confirms their pre-conceptions. At most the wisdom gained is prudential. After Don Quixote had made his first unfortunate trial of his pasteboard visor, "to secure it against like accidents in future he made it anew, and fenced it with thin plates of iron so skillfully that he had reason to be satisfied with his work, and so, without further experiment, resolved that it should pass for a good and sufficient helmet." One is tempted to linger over that moment when Quixote ceased to experiment and began to dogmatize. What was the reason of his sudden dread of destructive criticism? Was he quite sincere? Did he really believe that his helmet was now cutlass proof? For myself, I have no doubts of his knightly honor and of his transparent candor. He certainly believed that he believed; though under the circumstances he felt that it was better to take no further risks. In his admirable discourse with Don Fernando on the comparative merits of arms and literature, he describes the effects of the invention of gunpowder. "When I reflect on this I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I repent of having adopted the profession of knight-errantry in so detestable an age as we live in. For though no peril can make me fear, still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may rob me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout the world by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword." There is here a bit of uneasiness, such as comes to any earnest person who perceives that the times are out of joint. Still the doubt does not go very deep. In an age of artillery knight-errantry is doubtless more difficult, but it does not seem impossible. It is the same feeling that must come now and then to a gallant twentieth-century Jacobite who meets with his fellow conspirators in an American city, to lament the untimely taking off of the blessed martyr King Charles, and to plot for the return of the House of Stuart. The circumstances under which they meet are not congenial. The path of loyalty is not what it once was. A number of things have happened since 1649; still they may be treated as negligible quantities. It is a fine thing to sing about the king coming to his own again. "But what if there isn't any king to speak of?" "Well, at any rate, the principle is the same." I occasionally read a periodical devoted to the elevation of mankind by means of a combination of deep breathing and concentrated thought. The object is one in which I have long been interested. The means used are simple. The treatment consists in lying on one's back for fifteen minutes every morning with arms outstretched. Then one must begin to exhale self and inhale power. The directions are given with such exactness that no one with reasonably good lungs can go astray. The treatment is varied according to the need. One may in this way breathe in, not only health and love, but, what may seem to some more important, wealth. The treatment for chronic impecuniosity is particularly interesting. The patient, as he lies on his back and breathes deeply, repeats, "I am Wealth." This sets the currents of financial success moving in his direction. One might suppose that a theory of finance so different from that of the ordinary workaday world would be surrounded by an air of weirdness or strangeness. Not at all. Everything is most matter of fact. The Editor is evidently a sensible person when it comes to practical details, and, on occasion, gives admirable advice. A correspondent writes: "I have tried your treatment for six months, and I am obliged to say that I am harder up than ever before. What do you advise?" It is one of those obstinate cases which are met with now and then, and which test the real character of the practitioner. The matter is treated with admirable frankness, and yet with a wholesome optimism. The patient is reminded that six months is a short time, and one must not expect too quick results. A slow, sure progress is better, and the effects are more lasting. This is not the first case that has been slow in yielding to treatment. Still it may be better to make a slight change. The formula, "I am Wealth," may be too abstract, though it usually has worked well. A more concrete thought might possibly be more effective. Why not try, remembering, of course, to continue the same breathings, "I am Andrew Carnegie?" Then the practitioner adds a bit of advice which was certainly worth the moderate fee charged: "When the exercises are over, ask yourself what Andrew would do next. Andrew would hustle." A slight acquaintance with the pseudo sciences which are in vogue at the present day reveals a world to which only the genius of Cervantes could do justice. We see Absurdity clothed, and in its right mind. It is formally correct, punctiliously exact, completely serious, and withal high-minded. Until it comes in contact with the actual world we do not realize that it is absurd. Religion and medicine have always furnished tempting fields for persons of the quixotic temper. Perhaps it is because their professed objects are so high, and perhaps also because their achievements fall so far below what we have been led to expect. Neither spiritual nor mental health is so robust as to satisfy us with the usual efforts in their behalf. Sin and sickness are continual challenges. Some one ought to abolish them. An eager hearing is given to any one who claims to be able to do so. The temptation is great for those who do not perceive the difference between words and things to answer the demands. It is not necessary to go for examples either to fanatics or quacks. Not to take too modern an instance, there was Bishop Berkeley! He was a true philosopher, an earnest Christian, and withal a man of sense, and yet he was the author of "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and divers other Subjects connected together, and arising One from Another." It is one of those works which are the cause of wit in other men. It is so learned, so exhaustive, so pious, and the author takes it with such utter seriousness! Tar is the good bishop's Dulcinea. All his powers are enlisted in the work of proclaiming the matchless virtues of this mistress of his imagination, who is "black but comely." Our minds are prepared by a lyric outburst:-- "Hail, vulgar Juice of never-fading Pine! Cheap as thou art! thy virtues are divine, To show them and explain (such is thy store), There needs much modern and much ancient Lore." For this great work the author is well equipped. Plato, Aristotle, Pliny, and the rest of the ancients appear as vanquished knights compelled to do honor to my Lady Tar. Other specifics are allowed to have their virtues, but they grow pale before this paragon. Common soap has its admirers; they are treated magnanimously, but compelled to surrender at last. "Soap is allowed to be cleansing, attenuating, opening, resolving, sweetening; it is pectoral, vulnerary, diuretic, and hath other good qualities; which are also found in tar water.... Tar water therefore is a soap, and as such hath all the medicinal qualities of soaps." To those who put their faith in vinegar a like argument is made. It is shown that tar water is not only a superior kind of soap, but also a sublimated sort of vinegar; in fact, it appears to be all things to all men. To those who incline to the philosophy of the ancient fire-worshipers a special argument is made. "I had a long Time entertained an Opinion agreeable to the Sentiments of many ancient Philosophers, that Fire may be regarded as the Animal Spirit of this visible World. And it seemed to me that the attracting and secreting of this Fire in the various Pores, Tubes, and Ducts of Vegetables, did impart their specifick Virtues to each kind, that this same Light, or Fire, was the immediate Cause of Sense and Motion, and consequently of Life and Health to animals; that on Account of this Solar Light or Fire, Phoebus was in the ancient Mythology reputed the God of Medicine. Which Light as it is leisurely introduced, and fixed in the viscid juice of old Firs and Pines, so setting it free in Part, that is, the changing its viscid for a volatile Vehicle, which may mix with Water, and convey it throughout the Habit copiously and inoffensively, would be of infinite Use in Physic." It appears therefore that tar water is not only a kind of soap, but also a kind of fire. Yet is not Quixote himself more careful to avoid all appearance of extravagance? The author shrinks from imposing conclusions on another. After an elaborate argument which moves irresistibly to one conclusion, he stops short. "This regards the Possibility of a Panacea in general; as for Tar Water in particular, I do not say it is a Panacea, I only suspect it to be so." Yet he must be a churlish reader who could go with him so far and then refuse to take the next step. Nor can a right-minded person be indifferent to the moral argument in favor of "Tar Water, Temperance, and Early Hours." If tar water is to be known by the company it keeps, it is to be commended. There is a great advantage in taking our example from another age than ours. Our enjoyment of the bishop's Quixotism does not cast discredit on any similar hobby of our own day. "However," as the author of Siris remarked, "it is hoped they will not condemn one Man's Tar Water for another Man's Pill or Drop, any more than they would hang one Man for another's having stole a Horse." Indeed, of all quixotic notions the most extreme is that of those who think that Quixotism can be overcome by any direct attack. It is a state of mind which must be accepted as we accept any other curious fact. As well tilt against a cloud as attempt to overcome it by argument. It is a part of the myth-making faculty of the human mind. A myth is a quixotic notion which takes possession of multitudes rather than of a single person. Everybody accepts it; nobody knows why. You can nail a lie, but you cannot nail a myth,--there is nothing to nail it to. It is of no use to deny it, for that only gives it a greater vogue. I have great sympathy for all mythical characters. It is possible that Hercules may have been an amiable Greek gentleman of sedentary habits. Some one may have started the story of his labors as a joke. In the next town it was taken seriously, and the tale set forth on its travels. After it once had been generally accepted, what could Hercules do? What good would it have been for him to say, "There's not a word of truth in what everybody is saying about me. I am as averse to a hard day's work as any gentleman of my social standing in the community. They are turning me into a sun-myth, and mixing up my private affairs with the signs of the zodiac! I won't stand it!" Bless me! he would have to stand it! His words would but add fuel to the flame of admiration. What a hero he is; so strong and so modest! He has already forgotten those feats of strength! It is ever so with greatness. To Hercules it was all mere child's play. All the more need that we keep the stories alive in order to hand them down to our children. Perhaps we had better touch them up a bit so that they may be more interesting to the little dears. And so would begin a new cycle of myths. After Socrates had once gained the reputation for superlative wisdom, do you think it did any good for him to go about proclaiming that he knew nothing? He was suspected of having some ulterior design. Nobody would believe him except Xanthippe. When after hearing strange noises in the night Don Quixote sallies forth only to discover that the sounds come from fulling hammers instead of from giants, he rebukes the ill-timed merriment of his squire. "Come hither, merry sir! Suppose these mill hammers had really been some perilous adventure, have I not given proof of the courage requisite to undertake and achieve it? Am I, being a knight, to distinguish between sounds, and to know which are and which are not those of a fulling mill, more especially as I have never seen any fulling mills in my life?" If the mill hammers could only be transformed into giants, how easy the path of reform! for it would satisfy the primitive instinct to go out and kill something. I have heard a temperance orator denounce the Demon Drink so roundly that every one in the audience was ready to destroy the monster on sight. The solution of the liquor problem, however, was quite a different matter. The young patriot who conceives of the money power under the terrifying image of an octopus resolves at once to give it battle. When elected to the legislature he meets many smooth-spoken gentlemen whose schemes are so plausible that he readily assents to them,--but not an octopus does he see. Yet I believe that were he to see an octopus he would slay it. Perhaps there is no better test of a person's nature than his attitude toward Quixotism. The man of coarse, unfriendly humor sees in it nothing but a broad farce. He greets the misadventures of Don Quixote with a loud guffaw. What a fool he was not to know the difference between an ordinary inn and a castle! There are persons of a sensitive and refined disposition to whom it is all a tragedy, exquisitely painful to contemplate. Alas, poor gentleman, with all his lofty ideals, to be so buffeted by a world unworthy of him! But this refinement of sentiment comes perilously near to sentimentalism. Cervantes had the more wholesome attitude. He appreciated the valor of Don Quixote. It was genuine, though the knight, owing to circumstances beyond his own control, had been compelled to make his visor out of pasteboard. He had heroism of soul; but what of it! There was plenty more where it came from. A man who had fought at Lepanto, and endured years of Algerine captivity, was not inclined to treat manly virtue as if it were a rare and delicate fabric that must be preserved in a glass case. It was amply able to take care of itself. He knew that he couldn't laugh genuine chivalry away, even if he tried. It could stand not only hard knocks from its foes, but any amount of raillery from its friends. The bewildered soldier who mistakes a harmless camp follower for the enemy must expect to endure the gibes of his comrades; yet no one doubts that he would have acquitted himself nobly if the enemy had appeared. The rough humor of the camp is a part of its wholesome discipline. Quixotism is a combination of goodness and folly. To enjoy it one must be able to appreciate them both at the same time. It is a pleasure possible only to one who is capable of having mixed feelings. When we consider the faculty which many good people have of believing things that are not so, and ignoring the plainest facts and laws of nature, we are sometimes alarmed over the future of society. If any of the Quixotisms which are now in vogue should get themselves established, what then? Fortunately there is small need of anxiety. When the landsman first ventures on the waves he observes with alarm the keeling over of the boat under the breeze, for he expects the tendency to be followed to its logical conclusion. Fortunately for the equilibrium of society, tendencies which are viewed with alarm are seldom carried to their logical conclusion. They are met by other tendencies before the danger point is reached, and the balance is restored. The factor which is overlooked by those who fear the ascendency of any quixotic notion is the existence of the average man. This individual is not a striking personality, but he holds the balance of power. Before any extravagant idea can establish itself it must convert the average man. He is very susceptible, and takes a suggestion so readily that it seems to prophesy the complete overthrow of the existing order of things. But was ever a conversion absolute? The best theologians say no. A great deal of the old Adam is always left over. When the average man takes up with a quixotic notion, only so much of it is practically wrought out as he is able to comprehend. The old Adam of common sense continually asserts itself. The natural corrective of Quixotism is Sancho-Panzaism. The solemn knight, with his head full of visionary plans, is followed by a squire who is as faithful as his nature will permit. Sancho has no theories, and makes no demands on the world. He leaves that sort of thing to his master. He has the fatalism which belongs to ignorant good nature, and the tolerance which is found in easy-going persons who have neither ideals nor nerves. He has no illusions, though he has all the credulity of ignorance. He belongs to the established order of things, and can conceive no other. When knight-errantry is proposed to him, he reduces that also to the established order. He takes it up as an honest livelihood, and rides forth in search of forlorn maidens with the same contented jog with which he formerly went to the village mill. When it is explained that faithful squires become governors of islands he approves of the idea, and begins to cherish a reasonable ambition. Knight-errantry is brought within the sphere of practical politics. Sancho has no stomach for adventures. When his master warns him against attacking knights, until such time as he has himself reached their estate, he answers:-- "Never fear, I'll be sure to obey your worship in that, I'll warrant you; for I ever loved peace and quietness, and never cared to thrust myself into frays and quarrels." When Sancho becomes governor of his snug, land-locked island, there is not a trace of Quixotism in his executive policy. The laws of Chivalry have no recognition in his administration; and everything is carried on with most admirable common sense. It is an experience which is quite familiar to the readers of history. "All who knew Sancho," moralizes the author, "wondered to hear him talk so sensibly, and began to think that offices and places of trust inspire some men with understanding, as they stupefy and confound others." Mother wit has a great way of evading the consequences of theoretical absurdities. Natural law takes care of itself, and preserves the balance. So long as Don Quixote can get no other follower than Sancho Panza, we need not be alarmed. There is no call for a society for the Preservation of Windmills. After all, there is an ambiguity about Quixotism. They laugh best who laugh last; and we are not sure that satire has the last word. Was Don Quixote as completely mistaken as he seemed? He mistook La Mancha for a land of romance, and wandered through it as if it were an enchanted country. The Commentator explains to us that in this lay the jest, for no part of Spain was so vulgarly commonplace. Its villages were destitute of charm, and its landscape of beauty. La Mancha was a name for all that was unromantic. "I cannot make it appear so," says the Gentle Reader, who has come under the spell of Cervantes. "Don Quixote seems to be wandering through the most romantic country in the world. I can see 'The long, straight line of the highway, The distant town that seems so near, * * * * * White crosses in the mountain pass, Mules gay with tassels, the loud din Of muleteers, the tethered ass That crops the dusty wayside grass, And cavaliers with spurs of brass Alighting at the inn; White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat, * * * * * White sunshine flooding square and street, Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet The river-beds are dry with heat,-- All was a dream to me.' "Through this enchanted country it is pleasant to wander about in irresponsible fashion, climbing mountains, loitering in secluded valleys, where shepherds and shepherdesses still make love in Arcadian fashion, meeting with monks, merchants, muleteers, and fine gentlemen, and coming in the evening to some castle where one is lulled to sleep by the splash of fountains and the tinkle of guitars; and if it should turn out that the castle is only an inn,--why, to lodge in an inn of La Mancha would be a romantic experience!" The Spain of the sixteenth century is to us as truly a land of romance as any over which a knight-errant roamed. It seems just suited for heroic adventure. Some day our quixotic characters may appear to the future reader thus magically conformed to the world they live in, or rather, the world may be transformed by their ideals. "They do seem strange to us," the Gentle Reader of that day will say, "but then we must remember that they lived in the romantic dawn of the twentieth century." Intimate Knowledge and Delight IN the affairs of the mind we are all "Indian givers." We will part with our most cherished convictions for a merely nominal consideration, such as "for the sake of the argument,"--even when we do not really care for arguments. But let no one be deceived into thinking that this is the end. Renunciation usually has some mental reservation, or at least some saving ambiguity. You may see a saint, in his enthusiasm for disinterested virtue, give up all claim to personal happiness. But does he expect to be taken at his word and to live miserably ever after? Not he! Already, if he be a true saint, he has begun to enjoy the beatific vision. I know a teacher of religion who is inclined to rebel against what seems to him to be the undue emphasis upon faith. For himself, it seems a wholesome thing to do a little doubting now and then, and he looks upon this as a religious exercise. He affirms that the characteristic attitudes of the spiritual man can be expressed in terms of skepticism as well as of belief. It is all one whether the matter be put positively or negatively. Materialism he treats as a form of dogmatism based on the appearance of things. The religious mind is incredulous of this explanation of the universe and subjects it to a destructive criticism. The soul of man is full of "obstinate questionings of sense and outward things." Yet this same person, when he forgets his argument, is apt to talk like the rest of us. After all, it is some kind of faith that he is after, even when he pursues it by the methods of skepticism. In his most radical moods he never lets his convictions slip away from him; at least, they never go so far away that he cannot get them again. In like manner I must confess that I am an Indian giver. In giving over to Science all claim to the domain of Knowledge, and reserving to my friend the Gentle Reader only the right of way over the picturesque but less fruitful fields of Ignorance, I was actuated by the purest motives. At the time it seemed very magnanimous, and, moreover, it saved the trouble of a doubtful contest. But now that so much has been given away, I am visited by compunctions, and, if it is not too late, I will take back part of the too generous gift. Let us make a distinction, and instead of treating knowledge as if it were indivisible, let us speak, after the manner of Swedenborg, of knowledges. The greater number of knowledges we will make over without question to Science and Philosophy; the knowledges which are concerned with laws and forces and with the multitudinous facts which are capable of classification. But for the Gentle Reader and his kind let us reserve the claim to a knowledge of some things which cannot be classified. I hardly believe that they will be missed; they are not likely to be included in any scientific inventory; their value is chiefly in personal association. There is a knowledge of persons as well as of things, and in particular there is a knowledge of certain persons to whom one is drawn in close friendship. Emerson, in his essay on Milton, speaks of those who come to the poet with "intimate knowledge and delight." It is, after all, convenient to treat this feeling of delightful intimacy as a kind of knowledge. If it is not that, what is it? The peculiarity of this kind of knowledge is that it is impossible to formulate it; and that the very attempt to do so is an offence. The unpardonable sin against friendship is to merge the person in a class. Think of an individual as an adult Caucasian, "an inhabitant of North America, belonging to the better classes," as to religion a moderate churchman, in politics a Republican, and you may accumulate a number of details interesting enough in a stranger. You may in this way "know where to place him." But if you do actually place him there, and treat him accordingly, he has ceased to be your friend. A friend is unique. He belongs to no categories. He is not a case, nor the illustration of a thesis. Your interest is neither pathological nor anthropological nor statistical. You are concerned not with what he is like, but with what he is. There is an element of jealous exclusiveness in such knowledge. In the Song of Songs, after the ecstatic praise of the beloved, the question is asked:-- "What is thy beloved more than any other beloved, that thou dost so adjure us?" The answer is a description of his personal perfections:-- "My beloved is white and ruddy, * * * * * His locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks. * * * * * His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars, His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." Do you think that the daughters of Jerusalem would be so tactless as to reply that they had seen a number of handsome youths with bushy black hair and languishing eyes and fine forms, and that they represented an admirable type of manly beauty? That would be to confess that they had not seen the beloved, for he was unlike all others. "My beloved is marked out with a banner among ten thousand." The knowledge that is required is not contained in a catalogue of the points in which he resembles the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine; it is a recognition of the incommunicable grace that is his own. Even in ordinary social intercourse the most delicate compliment is to treat the person with whom you are talking as an exception to all rules. That he is a clergyman or a commercial traveler tells you nothing of his inner life. That is left for him to reveal, if it so pleases him. Even a king grows tired of being addressed in terms appropriate to royalty. It is a relief to travel incognito, and he is flattered when he is assured that no one suspects his station in life. It makes him feel that he is not like the ordinary run of kings. No one likes to be pigeon-holed or reduced to a formula. We resent being classed as old or middle-aged or young. Why should we be confounded with our coevals? We may not be any better than they are; but we are different. Nor is it pleasant to have our opinions treated as if they were the necessary product of social forces. There is something offensive in the curiosity of those who are all the time asking how we came by our ideas. What if they do bear a general resemblance to those of the honest people who belong to our party and who read the same newspaper. We do not care to be reminded of these chance coincidences. Because one has found it convenient and economical to buy a ready-made suit of clothing, it does not follow that he is willing to wear the tag which contains the statement of the price and size. These labels were very useful so long as the garment was kept in stock by the dealer, but the information that they convey is now irrelevant. This sensitiveness in regard to personal identity is strangely lacking in many modern students of literature. They treat the man of genius as a phenomenon, to be explained by other phenomena and used to illustrate a general law. They love to deal in averages and aggregates. They describe minutely the period to which a writer belongs, its currents of thought, its intellectual limitations, and its generally received notions. With a knowledge of antecedent conditions there is the expectancy of a certain type of man as the result. Our minds are prepared for some one who resembles the composite photograph which is first presented to us. We are, for example, given an elaborate account of the Puritan movement in England. We form a conception of what the Puritan was, and then we are introduced to Milton. Our preconceptions stand in the way of personal sympathy. The method of the Gentle Reader is more direct. He is fortunate enough to have read Milton before he has read much about him, and he returns to the reading with ever fresh delight. He does not think of him as belonging to a past age. He is a perpetual contemporary. The seventeenth century gave color to his words, but it did not limit his genius. Seventeenth century Independency might be, as a general thing, lacking in grace, but when we turn away from Praise-God-Barebones to John Milton we find it transformed into a-- "divine philosophy, Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets." Into its austere beauty, into its wide free spaces, into its sensuous charms, no one but Milton can conduct us. We must follow not as those who know beforehand what is to be seen or heard, but as those who are welcomed by a generous householder who brings out of his treasures things new and old. We come upon a sublime spirit-- "Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." That is Milton; but it is Milton also who can sing of-- "Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek, Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides." If this be Puritanism, it is Puritanism with a difference. Did any one in a few words give such a picture of mirth-- "So buxom, blithe, and debonair?" Was this the real Milton? Why not? His radiant youth was as real as his blindness and his old age. And Milton the political pamphleteer was real too, though his language was not always that which might have been expected from the author of "Paradise Lost." We pass lightly over pages of vituperation which any one might have written, and then come upon splendid passages which could have come from him alone. The sentiment of democratic equality is invested with a dignity which makes all the pretensions of privileged orders seem vulgar. Here is the Milton who is invoked to-- "Give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!" In these moments we become aware of a man who was not to be explained by any general rule. To one who takes delight in the personality of Milton, even "Paradise Lost" is not a piece of unmitigated sublimity. It is full of self-revelations. The reader who has come to share Milton's passion for personal liberty and scorn for a "fugitive and cloistered virtue" is curious to know how he will treat his new theme. In the "Areopagitica" he had frankly treated the "Fall of Man" as a "fall upward." "Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an increased labor to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixt. And perhaps that is the doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil; that is to say, of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil.... That virtue, therefore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure.... Since, therefore, the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely and with less danger scout into the region of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reasons." What would such an adventurous spirit make "Of man's first Disobedience and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World and all our woe, With loss of Eden"? What would Milton make of Adam in his sheltered Paradise? And what would one whose whole life had been a passionate protest against the idea of submission to mere arbitrary power do with the element of arbitrariness which the theology of his day attributed to the Divine Ruler? And what of Satan? "One who brings A mind not to be changed by Place or Time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same?" There is a note in that proud creed that could not be altogether uncongenial to one who in his blindness could-- "still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The Conscience, Friend, t' have lost them overplied In liberty's defense, my noble task; Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through this World's vain mask Content though blind, had I no better Guide." In its ostensible plot "Paradise Lost" is a tragedy; but did Milton really feel it to be so? One fancies--though he may be mistaken--that as Adam and Eve leave Paradise he hears a sigh of relief from the poet, who was himself ever a lover of "the Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty." At any rate, there is an undertone of cheer. "Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon, The World was all before them where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." Adam, when the old sheltered life is over, and the possibilities of the new life of struggle were revealed,-- "Replete with joy and wonder thus replied. O goodness infinite, goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce, And evil turn to good; more wonderful Than that which by creation first brought forth Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand, Whether I should repent me now of sin By me done and occasioned or rejoice Much more that much more good thereof shall spring." That Adam should treat the loss of Eden in such a casual manner, and that he should express a doubt as to whether the estate into which his fall plunged the race was not better than one in which no moral struggle was necessary, was not characteristic of seventeenth-century theology,--but it was just like Milton. There is no knowledge so intimate as that possessed by the reader of one book. It is an esoteric joy. The wisdom of the ages concentrated into one personality and then graciously communicated to the disciple has a flavor of which the multitudes of mere scholars know nothing. To them Wisdom is a public character. "Doth not Wisdom cry, And understanding put forth her voice? In the top of high places Where the paths meet she standeth." But the disciple is not content with such publicity. He shuns the crowded highways, and delights to hear wisdom speaking in confidential tones. In a little settlement in the far West I once met a somewhat depressed-looking man who remained silent till a chance remark brought a glow of enthusiasm to his eyes. "Oh," he cried, "you have been reading the Ruins." My remark had been of a kind that needed no special reading to account for it. It merely expressed one of those obvious truths which are likely to occur to the majority of persons. But to him it seemed so reasonable that it could only come from the one source of wise thought with which he was acquainted. "The Ruins" proved to be a translation of Volney's "Ruins of Empire." I fear that I must have given the impression of greater familiarity with that work than was warranted by the facts, for my new-found friend received me as a member of the true brotherhood. His tongue was unloosed, and his intellectual passions, so long pent up, were freed. Had we not both read "The Ruins"! It was to him more than a book; it was a symbol of the unutterable things of the mind. It was a passionate protest against the narrow opinions of his neighbors. It stood for all that was lifted above the petty gossip of the little community, and for all that united him to an intellectual world of which he dreamed. As we talked I marveled at the amount of sound philosophy this lonely reader had extracted from "The Ruins." Or had it been that he had brought the wisdom from his own meditation and deposited it at this shrine? One can never be sure whether a text has suggested the thought or the thought has illuminated the text. When it happens that the man of one book has chosen a work of intrinsic value, the result is a kind of knowledge which is of inestimable worth. It is deeply interfused with the whole imaginative life, it is involved in every personal experience. The supreme example of such intimate knowledge was that which generations of English speaking men had of the Bible. Apart from any religious theory, this familiarity was a wonderful fact in the history of culture. It meant that the ordinary man was not simply in his youth but throughout his life brought into direct contact with great poetry, sublime philosophy, vivid history. These were not reserved for state occasions; they were the daily food of the mind. Into the plain fabric of western thought was woven a thread of Oriental sentiment. Children were as familiar with the names and incidents of remote ages and lands as with their own neighborhood. The important things about this culture of the common people was that it came through mere reading. The Bible was printed "without note or comment." The lack of critical apparatus and of preliminary training was the cause of many incidental mistakes; but it prevented the greatest mistake of all,--that of obscuring the text by the commentary. In these days there has been a great advance in critical scholarship. Much more is known about the Bible, at least by those who have made it the object of special study; but there is a suspicion that fewer persons know the Bible than in the days when there were no "study classes," but only the habit of daily reading. The Protestant insistence upon publishing the Scriptures without note or comment was an effort to do away with the middle-men who stood between the Book and its readers. Private judgment, it was declared, was a sufficient interpreter even of the profoundest utterances. This is a doctrine that needs to be revived and extended till it takes in all great literature. To come to a book as to a friend, to allow it to speak for itself, without the intrusion of a third person, this is the substance of the whole matter. There must be no hard and fast rules, no preconceived opinions. Because the author has a reputation as a humorist, let him not be received with an expectant smile. Nothing can be more disconcerting to his sensitive spirit; and besides, how can you know that he has not a very serious message to communicate? Because he is said to be capable of sublimity, do not await him with overstrained sensibilities. Perhaps you may find him much less sublime and much more entertaining than you had anticipated. If the sublime vision does come, you will appreciate it all the more if it comes upon you unawares. "As cloud on cloud, as snow on snow, as the bird on the air, and the planet on space in its flight, so do nations of men and their institutions rest on thoughts." If this be so, can there be any knowledge more important than the knowledge of what a man actually thinks. "A penny for your thoughts," we say lightly, knowing well that this hidden treasure cannot be bought. The world may be described in formal fashion as if it were an unchanging reality; but how the world appears to each inhabitant of it he alone can declare. Or perhaps he cannot declare it, for most of us find it impossible to tell what we really think or feel. In attempting to do it we fall into conventionality, and succeed only in telling what we think other people would like to have us think. Only now and then is one born with the gift of true self-expression. In his speech we recognize a real person, and not the confused murmur of a multitude. Institutions and traditions do not account for him; this thought is the more fundamental fact. Here is a unique bit of knowledge. There is no other way of getting at it than that of the Gentle Reader,--to shut out the rest of the world and listen to the man himself. * * * * * The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ * * * * * The following typographical error was corrected by the etext transcriber: the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirate's immaculate attire.=>the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire. 
19157	----	[Transcriber's note: The name Zitkala-Sa is written with two dots on the S] A MOTHER'S LIST OF BOOKS FOR CHILDREN Non minima pars eruditionis est bonos nosse libros _Inscription over the doorway of Bishop Cosin's Library, Durham, England_ A MOTHER'S LIST OF BOOKS FOR CHILDREN COMPILED BY GERTRUDE WELD ARNOLD CHICAGO A.C. McCLURG & CO. 1909 Copyright A.C. McCLURG & CO. 1909 Entered at Stationer's Hall, London, England All rights reserved Published October 9, 1909 The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. TO MY LITTLE COUSINS RUTH AND ESTHER _PREFACE_ (p. ix) This little book, a revision of one privately printed a few years ago, has been prepared for home use, and for this reason the classification has been made according to the age, and not the school grade, of the child. But as children differ so greatly in capacity, it should be understood that in this respect the arrangement is only approximate. The endeavor has been made to choose those fairy tales which are most free from horrible happenings, and to omit all writings which tolerate unkindness to animals. Humorous books are designated by a star and the few sad ones by a circle. The prices given are the same as those in the publishers' catalogues; booksellers' prices are often less. My thanks are extended to those publishers who have time and again courteously provided the facilities for the examination of their publications. Miss Annie Carroll Moore, of the New York Public Library, was kind enough to read for me the notes and comments. I wish most gratefully to acknowledge the generous assistance given me by Miss Hewins, of (p. x) the Hartford Public Library, Miss Hunt, of the Brooklyn Public Library, and Miss Jordan, of the Boston Public Library, who examined the List, and suggested some changes and a few additions. Their approbation is elsewhere expressed. GERTRUDE WELD ARNOLD. NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY. _A MOTHER'S LIST_ (p. xi) It is said, in that earliest collection of English proverbs which was made by John Heywood, more than three hundred years ago, that "Children must learn to creep before they can go." This little book for which I am asked to write a brief preface is, so far as I can find out, the first consistent effort yet made towards teaching children to read on John Heywood's principle. It is safe to say that it is destined to carry light and joy into multitudes of households. It is based upon methods such as I vaguely sighed after, nearly fifty years ago, when I was writing in the _North American Review_ for January, 1866, a paper entitled Children's Books of the Year. The essay was written by request of Professor Charles Eliot Norton, then the editor of that periodical, and I can now see how immensely I should have been relieved by a book just like this Mother's List, a device such as nobody in that day had the wisdom and faithful industry to put together. In glancing over the books discussed in that early paper of mine, it is curious to see how the very titles of some of the most prominent have now disappeared from sight. Where are the Little Prudy books (p. xii) which once headed the list? Where are the stories of Oliver Optic? Where is Jacob Abbott's John Gay; or Work for Boys? Even Paul and Virginia have vanished, taking with them the philosophic Rasselas and even the pretty story of Undine. Nothing of that list of thirty titles is now well remembered except Cooper's Leatherstocking and Jane Andrews's Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air, a book which has been translated into the languages of remote nations of the globe, I myself having seen the Chinese and Japanese versions. Thus irregular is the award of time and we must accept it. Meanwhile this new book is organized on a better plan than any dreamed of at that former period, the books being arranged not merely by classes alone, but according to the age of the proposed readers and stretching in regular order from two years old until fourteen. The whole number of books being very large, there is no overdue limitation, and this forms the simple but magical method of reaching every variety of childish mind. Thus excellent have been the changes: yet it is curious to (p. xiii) observe on closer study that the two classes of books which represent the two extremes among the childish readers--Mother Hubbard and Shakespeare--may still be said to be the opposite poles between which the whole world of juvenile literature hangs suspended. A child needs to be supplied with a proper diet of fancy as well as of fact; and of fact as well as fancy. He is usually so constituted that if he were to find a fairy every morning in his bread and milk at breakfast, it would not very much surprise him; while yet his appetite for the substantial food remains the same. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland seem nowhere very strange to him, while Chaucer and Spenser need only to be simply told, while Dana's Two Years Before the Mast and Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby hold their own as well as Jack and the Bean-Stalk. Grown up people have their prejudices, but children have few or none. A pound of feathers and a pound of lead will usually be found to weigh the same in their scales. Nay, we, their grandparents, know by experience that there may be early cadences in their ears which may last all their lives. For instance, Caroline (p. xiv) Fry's Listener would now scarcely find a reader in any group of children, yet there is one passage in the book--one which forms the close of some beggar's story about "Never more beholding Margaret Somebody and her sunburnt child"--which would probably bring tears to the present writer's eyes today, although he has not seen the book since he was ten years of age. It may be that every mature reader will miss from the list some book or books of that precious childish literature which once throve and flourished behind school desks. They were books founded partly on famous history, as that of Baron Trenck and his escapes from prison, Rinaldo Rinaldini, and The Three Spaniards. I am told that children do not now find them in a pedlar's pack as we once found them, accompanied by buns and peddled like them at recess time. Even if we should find them both in such a place, they might have no such flavor for us now. It is something if the flowers of American gossip are retained in similar stories, even if their atmosphere is retreating from all the hills. It is enough to know that we have for all our children the works of Louisa Alcott and Susan Coolidge; that they (p. xv) have Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy and Mrs. Dodge's Hans Brinker and Miss Hale's Peterkin Papers and The William Henry Letters by Mrs. Diaz. We need not complain so long as our children can look inexhaustively across the ocean for Andrew Lang's latest fairy-book and Grimm's Household Stories as introduced to a new immortality by John Ruskin. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., _January 4, 1909_. _APPRECIATIONS_ (p. xvii) I think your selections very carefully made and well adapted to children who have books at home and mothers who read them.... With many congratulations on the excellence of your book, both in form and substance, believe me yours sincerely, CAROLINE M. HEWINS. _Hartford Public Library._ You do not owe me any thanks for my little assistance, for you have given me quite as much as I have given you. It is more stimulating than you can believe to discuss the subject with one whose point of view is not that of the librarian. You must not call yourself an amateur, however, for you are an expert on children's books. I have gained a great many ideas from you, and have enjoyed comparing notes with you immensely. Sincerely yours, CLARA W. HUNT. _Brooklyn Public Library._ I am sending back your book with my notes and suggestions. It is (p. xviii) an uncommonly good list, however, and there is little that I have wished to add or to take away.... Your list is so good that I know you must have spent a great deal of time and very definite thought over it. You have certainly covered the ground thoroughly.... I have enjoyed seeing your list and shall be greatly interested in seeing it in final form. Sincerely yours, ALICE M. JORDAN. _Boston Public Library._ _CONTENTS_ (p. xix) PREFACE ......................................... ix A MOTHER'S LIST BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON ... xi APPRECIATIONS ................................. xvii TWO YEARS OF AGE ................................ 21 THREE YEARS OF AGE .............................. 23 FOUR YEARS OF AGE ............................... 28 FIVE YEARS OF AGE ............................... 32 SIX YEARS OF AGE ................................ 40 SEVEN YEARS OF AGE .............................. 50 EIGHT YEARS OF AGE .............................. 59 NINE YEARS OF AGE ............................... 73 TEN YEARS OF AGE ................................ 92 ELEVEN YEARS OF AGE ............................ 114 TWELVE YEARS OF AGE ............................ 141 THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE .......................... 171 FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE .......................... 198 AUTHOR AND TITLE INDEX ......................... 233 KEY TO PUBLISHERS .............................. 269 A MOTHER'S LIST OF BOOKS FOR CHILDREN (p. 21) _TWO YEARS OF AGE_ _O Babees yonge, My Book only is made for youre lernynge._ THE BABEES BOOK. _Circa 1475._ PICTURE-BOOKS The baby's first book will naturally be a picture-book, for pictures appeal to him early, and with great force.... If we understood children better, we should realize this vitality which pictures have for them, and should be more careful to give them the best. W.T. FIELD. THE CHILDREN'S FARM. Dutton. 1.25 These colored pictures of the different farm animals, mounted on boards, will please the littlest ones. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Mother Hubbard. Lane. .25 As children are favorably influenced by good pictures, it is a pity to give them any but the best, among which Walter Crane's certainly stand. Attention is drawn to the designs of the cover-pages of the (p. 22) books of this series, which are quite as attractive as the text illustrations. The drawings for Mother Hubbard are among Mr. Crane's most successful efforts. Tiny folk will be entranced with the pictures of this marvellous white doggie. "This wonderful Dog Was Dame Hubbard's delight, He could sing, he could dance, He could read, he could write." CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). This Little Pig. Lane. .25 Let us travel to Piggy-land for a few moments, with the baby, and it will probably be the first of many trips, with these gay pictures to guide us. _THREE YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 23) _A dreary place would be this earth, Were there no little people in it; . . . . . . . . . . Life's song, indeed, would lose its charm, Were there no babies to begin it._ WHITTIER. PICTURE-BOOKS What an unprejudiced and wholly spontaneous acclaim awaits the artist who gives his best to the little ones! They do not place his work in portfolios or locked glass cases; they thumb it to death, surely the happiest of all fates for any printed book. GLEESON WHITE. BANNERMAN, HELEN. *The Story of Little Black Sambo. Stokes. .50 Written and illustrated by an Englishwoman in India for her two small daughters, Little Black Sambo, with its absurd story, and funny crude pictures in color, will delight young children of all lands. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). The Farmer's Boy. Warne. .25 These delicately colored prints, with their atmosphere of English country life, well accord with the old cumulative verses which they accompany. Mr. Caldecott has charmingly illustrated this and the (p. 24) following picture-books. Some of the illustrations in each book are in color and some in black and white. The Caldecott toy-books, They fix for all time The favorite heroes Of nursery rhyme. The Caldecott toy-books-- We never shall find A gracefuller pencil, A merrier mind! L. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go. Warne. .25 The drawings portray Mr. Frog, Mr. Rat, and the tragic ending to the festivities at Mousey's Hall. Caldecott was a fine literary artist, who was able to express himself with rare facility in pictures in place of words, so that his comments upon a simple text reveal endless subtleties of thought.... You have but to turn to any of his toy-books to see that at times each word, almost each syllable, inspired its own picture.... He studied his subject as no one else ever studied it.... Then he portrayed it simply and with inimitable vigor, with a fine economy of line and colour; when colour is added, it is mainly as a gay convention, and not closely imitative of nature. GLEESON WHITE. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). (p. 25) Hey Diddle Diddle, and Baby Bunting. Warne. .25 The pictures to Hey Diddle Diddle are instinct with joyousness. Baby Bunting's father was a jovial huntsman of the old English type. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). The House that Jack Built. Warne. .25 Children will be greatly amused by the funny Rat. "That ate the Malt, That lay in the House that Jack built." CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). The Milkmaid. Warne. .25 We are glad when the young squire, whose interest in the destination of the pretty maid the old song recounts, meets his proper deserts through the clever pencil of Mr. Caldecott. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). The Queen of Hearts. Warne. .25 These pictures suggest in color and design those found on playing cards, and they are very good indeed. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). (p. 26) Ride a-Cock Horse to Banbury Cross, and A Farmer Went Trotting upon His Grey Mare. Warne. .25 Wouldn't we all like to ride these sturdy nags through the lovely English country, even if we weren't to have the extra attraction of seeing a fine lady on a white horse? Children will love to read of the stout farmer and his pretty daughter, who went trotting to market, "Bumpety, bumpety, bump!" CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (Illustrator). Sing a Song for Sixpence. Warne. .25 The little boy and girl king and queen are fascinating to real little boys and girls, and it is pleasant to be sure from the pictures that they liked the same things that children like to-day. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). The Baby's Opera. Warne. 1.50 A Book of Old Rhymes with New Dresses by Walter Crane. The Music by the Earliest Masters.--_Title-page._ This collection of English rhymes contains The Mulberry Bush, King Arthur, Jack and Jill, and many others equally familiar, with the accompanying music for each. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). (p. 27) The Fairy Ship. Lane. .25 One of Mr. Crane's best. The duck captain and mouse sailors are utterly captivating. "There were fifty little sailors Skipping o'er the decks; They were fifty little white mice, With rings around their necks." _FOUR YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 28) _He that neer learns his A B C, For ever will a blockhead be; But he that learns these letters fair, Shall have a Coach to take the Air._ THE ROYAL BATTLEDORE. _Newbery. Circa_ 1744. PICTURE-BOOKS Summer fading, winter comes-- Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. . . . . . . . . All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children's eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, In the picture story-books. STEVENSON. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). The Baby's Own Alphabet. Lane. .25 The A B C, accompanied by old English rhymes. There are three or four illustrations to a page. FRANCIS, J.G. *A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals. Century. 1.00 Funny verses and even funnier animal pictures. A delightful book for old and young, because of the ability shown in the illustrations. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS (p. 29) The mother sits and sings her baby to sleep; here is one of the very best opportunities for the right literature at the right time. Mrs. H.L. ELMENDORF. LANG, ANDREW (Editor). The Nursery Rhyme Book. Illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke. Warne. 1.50 An exceptional collection of the ancient rhymes, songs, charms, and lullabies, accompanied by interesting pictures. "In Mr. Halliwell's Collection, from which this volume is abridged, no manuscript authority goes further back than the reign of Henry VIII, though King Arthur and Robin Hood are mentioned.... Thus our old nursery rhymes are smooth stones from the book of time, worn round by constant friction of tongues long silent." STEVENSON, R.L. A Child's Garden of Verses. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. Scribner. 2.50 It is generally admitted that no one has comprehended and written from the child's point of view as did Stevenson. This volume should be among the first to be put into the hands of our little ones. (p. 30) Besides the black and white text illustrations there are twelve full-page pictures in color, all by Jessie Willcox Smith. STEVENSON, R.L. A Child's Garden of Verses. Illustrated by Charles Robinson. Scribner. 1.50 There are some who will prefer this small edition, beautifully illustrated in black and white. WELSH, CHARLES (Editor). A Book of Nursery Rhymes. Heath. .30 Mr. Welsh has arranged this excellent collection of Mother Goose in accordance with the child's development, placing the rhymes in four divisions: Mother Play, Mother Stories, Child Play, and Child Stories. STORIES To Master John the English maid A hornbook gives, of gingerbread; And that the child may learn the better, As he can name, he eats each letter. Proceeding thus with vast delight, He spells and gnaws from left to right. PRIOR. _1718._ POTTER, BEATRIX. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Illustrated by the Author. Warne. .50 The diverting history of four little rabbits: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and naughty Peter who _would_ go into Mr. McGregor's (p. 31) garden, where he had many exciting adventures. The tiny volumes of this series, with their fascinating colored illustrations, are very delightful. SMITH, GERTRUDE. The Arabella and Araminta Stories. Illustrated by Ethel Reed. Small. 1.00 Simple every-day happenings in the lives of little twin sisters, related with much of the repetition so pleasing to very young children. There are plenty of pictures. SMITH, GERTRUDE. The Roggie and Reggie Stories. Illustrated by M.H. Squire and E. Mars. Harper. 1.50 This companion to The Arabella and Araminta Stories tells in the same pleasant reiterative style of the doings of the little girls' little twin brothers. The illustrations are in color. _FIVE YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 32) _How am I to sing your praise, Happy chimney-corner days, Sitting safe in nursery nooks, Reading picture story-books?_ STEVENSON. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION When the ice lets go the river, When the wild-geese come again, When the sugar-maple swells, When the maple swells its buds, Then the little blue birds come, Then my little Blue Bird came. _Indian lullaby from_ THE CHILDHOOD OF JI-SHIB THE OJIBWA. DEMING, T.O. Indian Child-Life. Illustrated by E.W. Deming. Stokes. 2.00 Pleasant sketches of the children of different tribes, with many full-page color plates after paintings in water-color, and black and white illustrations. The big oblong pictures, with their primitive Indian coloring, are unusually attractive. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES (p. 33) Jack, commonly called the giant-killer, and Thomas Thumb landed in England from the very same keels and war-ships which conveyed Hengist and Horsa, and Ebba the Saxon. SCOTT. BROOKE, L.L. (Illustrator). The Golden Goose Book. Warne. 2.00 Mr. Brooke has appropriately illustrated these old favorites: The Golden Goose, The Story of the Three Bears, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, and Tom Thumb. Of the four, the most popular is the tale of the adventures of little Tom, the favorite dwarf of the Court of King Arthur. "Long time he lived in jollity, Beloved of the Court, And none like Tom was so esteemed Amongst the better sort." LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE. Select Fables from La Fontaine. Illustrated by L.M. Boutet de Monvel. S.P.C.K. Stechert. 1.80 This edition is chosen because of Monsieur Boutet de Monvel's charming small illustrations in color. There are from two to eight pictures on each page, accompanying the text, which is in verse. (p. 34) As color appeals to the child before he has much notion of form, his first picture-book should be colored, and as his ideas of form develop slowly, his first pictures should be in outline, and unencumbered with detail. The French illustrator, Boutet de Monvel, has given us the ideal pictures for young children. W.T. FIELD. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS Blind Homer and the chief singer of Israel and skalds and bards and minnesingers are all gone, tradition is almost a byword, but mothers still live, and children need not wait until they have conquered the crabbed types before they begin to love literature. Mrs. H.L. ELMENDORF. ADELBORG, OTTILIA. *Clean Peter and the Children of Grubbylea. Longmans. 1.25 This large oblong book contains simple verses accompanying delightful full-page pictures in delicate colors somewhat after the French manner. It tells how Clean Peter brought tidiness to a little town. "The children out in Grubbylea Are all as clean as clean can be. And Peter's living there to-day, The children begged him so to stay." BURGESS, GELETT. (p. 35) *Goops and How To Be Them. A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants. Illustrated by the Author. Stokes. 1.50 If there ever was anyone who could cover little pills with a thick coating of sugar, it was Mr. Burgess when he wrote these clever verses and drew these ninety original and always funny pictures. Children delight in the Goops. It is almost worth while being one to have this volume of warning thrust into our hands. "I never knew a Goop to help his mother, I never knew a Goop to help his dad, And they never do a thing for one another; They are actually, absolutely bad! "If you ask a Goop to go and post a letter, Or to run upon an errand, _how_ they act! But somehow I imagine you are better, And you _try_ to go, and _cry_ to go, in fact!" BURGESS, GELETT. *More Goops and How Not To Be Them. A Manual of Manners for Impolite Infants. Illustrated by the Author. Stokes. 1.50 A delightful companion volume of dreadful examples. With ninety-seven illustrations. "You who are the oldest, You who are the tallest, Don't you think you ought to help The youngest and the smallest? "You who are the strongest, (p. 36) You who are the quickest, Don't you think you ought to help The weakest and the sickest? "Never mind the trouble, Help them all you can; Be a little woman! Be a little man!" HEADLAND, I.T. (Translator). Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes. Revell. 1.00 Mr. Headland, who is a professor in the Imperial University at Peking, tells us: "There is no language in the world, we venture to believe, which contains children's songs expressive of more keen and tender affection.... This fact, more than any other, has stimulated us in the preparation of these rhymes.... The illustrations have all been prepared by the translator specially for this work." The Oriental atmosphere of the book and the many Chinese pictures lead our children of the Western world most delightfully into this old land. "He climbed up the candlestick, The little mousey brown, To steal and eat tallow, And he couldn't get down. He called for his grandma, But his grandma was in town, So he doubled up into a wheel And rolled himself down." LEAR, EDWARD. (p. 37) *Nonsense Books. Little. 2.00 The nonsense classic, which should be among the first books secured for a child's library. This edition contains all the Nonsense Books, with all the original illustrations. "'How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,' Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough." NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume I. Rhymes, Jingles, and Fables. Heath. .25 "Mother Goose is the best primer. No matter if the rhymes be nonsense verses; many a poet might learn the lesson of good versification from them, and the child in repeating them is acquiring the accent of emphasis and of rhythmical form."--_Preface._ SAGE, BETTY (Pseudonym of Mrs. E. (S.) Goodwin). Rhymes of Real Children. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. Duffield. 1.50 These verses are written from the child's point of view, and are delightful alike to young and old. Miss Smith never did better work than in these beautiful sympathetic pictures and fascinating borders. The book is a large square one. "If you could see our Mother play (p. 38) On the floor, You'd never think she was as old As twenty-four. On Sunday, when she goes to church, It might be, But Tuesdays she is just the age Of Joe and me." UPTON, BERTHA. *The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. Illustrated by Florence K. Upton. Longmans. 2.00 Children will like the funny, brightly colored pictures in this large oblong book, and will be fascinated by the Golliwogg. The verses are not equal to the illustrations. STORIES President Thwing says: "Children rarely have but one object in reading, and that is to amuse themselves"; and surely in this playtime of life this aim should be the chief one. A.H. WIKEL. CRAIK, G.M. (Mrs. G.M. (C.) May). So-Fat and Mew-Mew. Heath. .20 An account of two little animal friends, a cat and dog, which will please small children who are outgrowing Mother Goose. HOPKINS, W.J. The Sandman: His Farm Stories. Page. 1.50 Very simple and delightful narratives of the life of a little boy (p. 39) on a farm seventy-five years ago. The atmosphere of the sketches is redolent of wholesome country life. They were used as bedtime stories at home for several years before publication. POTTER, BEATRIX. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny. Illustrated by the Author. Warne. .50 The story of little Benjamin Bunny's visit to his cousin Peter Rabbit. A companion volume to The Tale of Peter Rabbit. These colored pictures of the small bunnies seem to the compiler the cunningest of this charming series. POTTER, BEATRIX. The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. Illustrated by the Author. Warne. .50 Telling how bad little Nutkin was rude and saucy to Old Brown the owl, and what came of it. Very exciting, but not harrowing, even for tiny listeners. The pictures are in color. _SIX YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 40) _"Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds_". Dr. JOHNSON. _Recorded by Mrs. Piozzi._ AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places-- That was how, in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages. STEVENSON. WALKER, M.C. Lady Hollyhock and Her Friends. Baker. 1.25 Suggestions for making charming dollies from fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The illustrations, many in color, are attractive and explanatory, but the text must be read to the children, as it is somewhat advanced for them. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, Little frosty Eskimo, Little Turk or Japanee, O! don't you wish that you were me? . . . . . . . You have curious things to eat, (p. 41) I am fed on proper meat; You must dwell beyond the foam, But I am safe and live at home. STEVENSON. ANDREWS, JANE. The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air. Ginn. .50 These simple stories, written for the girls and boys of a generation ago, have taken their place among the charming and vivid descriptions of child-life in different lands. The round ball is the earth, and the sisters are the tribes that dwell thereon. The little book was conceived in a happy hour; its pictures are so real and so graphic, so warm and so human, that the most literal and the most imaginative of children must find in them, not only something to charm, but also to mould pleasant associations for maturer years. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES And as with the toys, so with the toy-books. They exist everywhere: there is no calculating the distance through which the stories come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated, almost in their present shape, for thousands of years since, to little copper-coloured Sanscrit children, listening to their mother under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their (p. 42) Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the Northmen Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and by Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when the flocks were gathered in and the mares were picketed by the tents. THACKERAY. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Aladdin. Lane. .25 These richly colored Eastern pictures will give even little children a suggestion of the splendor of the Orient. Let us hope that they will never be too ready to answer the call of "New lamps for old ones." Walter Crane is the serious apostle of art for the nursery, who strove to beautify its ideal, to decorate its legends with a real knowledge of architecture and costume, and to mount the fairy stories with a certain archæological splendor.... As a maker of children's books, no one ever attempted the task he fulfilled so gayly, and no one since has beaten him on his own ground. GLEESON WHITE. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Lane. .25 It seems hardly right to omit this edition of so celebrated a tale pictured by so celebrated an artist, yet Mr. Crane's work breathes mystery and Oriental cunning from every page, and should be given to our youngsters only after examination, as a highly-strung child might be frightened by it. The picture of the resourceful Morgiana filling the oil-jars, while a dreadful robber with saucer-like eyes peers (p. 43) from one of them, is awful indeed. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Beauty and the Beast. Lane. .25 Charming illustrations accompany this prose version of the ancient favorite which will long endure because of the great truth underlying the grotesque tale. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Cinderella. Lane. .25 May every little girl find the fairy prince of her imagination! CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). The Frog Prince. Lane. .25 The story of the frog who was transformed into the handsome prince is as immortal as childhood. May we all remember the King's command to his daughter: "He who helped you in the time of your trouble must not now be despised." CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Jack and the Bean-Stalk. Lane. .25 Ogre-like indeed is the giant, and we breathe a sigh of relief when verses as well as pictures make it quite certain that Jack has escaped for the third time with his golden treasure. The beans of King (p. 44) Alfred's day seem to have closely resembled the wild oats of our own. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). The Sleeping Beauty. Lane. .25 "So sweet a face, so fair--was never beauty such as this; He stands--he stoops to gaze--he kneels-- he wakes her with a kiss. He leads her forth; the magic sleep of all the Court is o'er-- They wake, they move, they talk, they laugh, just as they did of yore A hundred years ago." POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS Children seem to possess an inherent conviction that when the hole is big enough for the cat, no smaller one at the side is needed for the kitten. They don't really care for "Glimpses" of this, or "Gleanings" of that, or "Footsteps" to the other--but would rather stretch and pull, and get on tiptoe to reach the sweeter fruit above them, than confine themselves to the crabs which grow to their level. Miss RIGBY. _1844._ COWPER, WILLIAM. *The Diverting History of John Gilpin. Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. Warne. .25 A spirited delineation of the never-to-be-forgotten ride. COX, PALMER. (p. 45) *The Brownies: Their Book. Illustrated by the Author. Century. 1.50 Every child should know Mr. Cox's prankish, helpful Brownies. The verses are accompanied by many delightful pictures. HAZARD, BERTHA (Editor). Three Years with the Poets. Houghton. .50 While these selections are intended for memorization by children, and are arranged by months for the school year, the collection is so good as to fill a useful place in the home library. At the end of the book are a few pages of wisely chosen little selections of poetry and prose, truly called Helps for the Day's Work. OSTERTAG, BLANCHE (Editor and Illustrator). Old Songs for Young America. Music arranged by Clarence Forsyth. Doubleday. 2.00 The familiar songs, set to the music of the old tunes, and charmingly illustrated,--the costumes those of olden days. Some of the pictures are in color and some in black and white. The Monkey's Wedding, Bobby Shafto, and Old Dan Tucker, are included in the contents. OUR CHILDREN'S SONGS. Harper. 1.25 This carefully chosen collection--in which American poets are well represented--although made over thirty years ago, still holds its (p. 46) own as a standard. One of the divisions is devoted to hymns. TAYLOR, JANE and ANN. Little Ann, and Other Poems. Illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Warne. 1.00 It is a good thing for children to learn from these quaint verses, with their charming illustrations, the sort of reading which pleased the small folks of long ago. The Taylors seldom struck so happy a vein as in the poem called The Field Daisy, which begins: "I'm a pretty little thing, Always coming with the Spring; In the meadows green I'm found, Peeping just above the ground, And my stalk is covered flat With a white and yellow hat." I prefer the little girls and boys ... that come as you call them, fair or dark, in green ribbons or blue. I like making cowslip fields grow and apple-trees bloom at a moment's notice. That is what it is, you see, to have gone through life with an enchanted land ever beside you.--Kate Greenaway to Ruskin. RELIGION AND ETHICS Little Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me? Didst Thou sometimes think of _there_, And ask where all the angels were? (p. 47) I should think that I would cry For my house all made of sky; I would look about the air, And wonder where the angels were; And at waking 'twould distress me-- Not an angel there to dress me! Hadst Thou ever any toys, Like us little girls and boys? And didst Thou play in Heaven with all The angels, that were not too tall, With stars for marbles? Did the things Play _Can you see me?_ through their wings? FRANCIS THOMPSON. THE BIBLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. Century. 1.50 This careful chronological arrangement of Bible history, from the King James version, is very satisfactory. The book is a large one, with full-page illustrations from the Old Masters. STORIES It is enough fame for any author to be loved by children, generation after generation, long after he himself has left the scene. W.A. JONES. _1844._ ABBOTT, JACOB. A Boy on a Farm. Edited by Clifton Johnson. From Rollo at Work and Rollo at Play. Introduction by Dr. Lyman Abbott. American Book. .45 Few books axe remembered with greater affection by persons (p. 48) who were children in the middle of the last century than those written by Jacob Abbott.... The educational effect of Jacob Abbott's stories, both mental and moral, was very great.... The insistence, however, with which these virtues were proclaimed and emphasized, constitutes a weakness in the books as we view them now.--_Preface._ Here we have the very saturnalia of common-sense.... These works are invaluable to fathers; by keeping always one volume in advance of his oldest son, a man can stand before the household, an encyclopædia of every practical art. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. CRANE, WALTER (Illustrator). Goody Two Shoes. Lane. .25 The text of this famous tale, attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, is perhaps somewhat beyond the easy comprehension of children of six years, but they will enjoy the interesting pictures of Margery and her animal friends. SCUDDER, H.E. (Editor). The Children's Book. Houghton. 2.50 If a child could have but one story-book, a better choice could scarcely be made than this storehouse of fables, wonder tales, myths, songs, and ballads. Selections from Andersen, The Arabian Nights, Gulliver, and Munchausen, are included. There are many illustrations. TRIMMER, S. (K). (p. 49) The History of the Robins. Edited by E.E. Hale. Heath. .20 Small people like to hear about this father and mother robin and their four babies. Mrs. Sarah Trimmer ... was a woman of more than the average education and accomplishment of her day, and enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and nearly all of the more celebrated English authors and painters of that time. She wrote a great many books.... They are now nearly all of them dead and forgotten; but one of them at least has lived, and has been the delight of thousands of children for over three-quarters of a century.--_Introduction._ WIGGIN, K.D. (S.), and N.A. SMITH. The Story Hour. Houghton. 1.00 These fourteen little stories include some about children and some about animals. They are just the sort of narratives that small folks love, and are designed for retelling in the kindergarten and home. There are, in addition, three adaptations of well-known tales: Moufflou, Benjy in Beastland, and The Porcelain Stove, and a poem by Mrs. Wiggin. _SEVEN YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 50) _To go sailing far away To the pleasant Land of Play; To the fairy land afar Where the Little People are._ STEVENSON. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT So many, and so many, and such glee. KEATS. WHITE, MARY. The Child's Rainy Day Book. Doubleday. 1.00 This fully illustrated little volume gives clear directions for making simple toys and games, weaving baskets, working with beads, clay, et cetera. There is a good chapter on Gifts and How to Make Them. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat, Wary of the weather and steering by a star? Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat, To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar? STEVENSON. ANDREWS, JANE. Each and All. Ginn. .50 A companion volume to The Seven Little Sisters, telling more of (p. 51) these happy children and their common bond of loving friendship. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES This is fairy gold, boy, and 't will prove so. SHAKSPERE. BROWNE, FRANCES. Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of Fairy Times. Dutton. .35 A series of delightful wonder stories, through which runs a vein of true wisdom. Miss Browne was blind from infancy, and her writings stand as the accomplishment of a brave and unselfish woman. HOLBROOK, FLORENCE. The Book of Nature Myths. Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Houghton. .65 The subject-matter is of permanent value, culled from the folk-lore of the primitive races.--_Preface._ We are told The Story of the Earth and the Sky, Why the Bear has a Short Tail, Why the Cat Always Falls upon Her Feet, and many other mythical reasons for natural wonders. KIPLING, RUDYARD. (p. 52) Just So Stories. Illustrated by the Author. Doubleday. 1.20 "I keep six honest serving-men; (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, _I_ give them all a rest. . . . . . . . . . But different folk have different views; I know a person small-- She keeps ten million serving-men, Who get no rest at all! She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs, From the second she opens her eyes-- One million Hows, two million Wheres, And seven million Whys!" To this small person, Best Beloved, these twelve remarkable tales were related. We learn how the elephant got his trunk, how the first letter came to be written, and so forth. There are two editions of the book at the same price. Most children will prefer the one in large octavo. MURRAY, HILDA. Flower Legends for Children. Illustrated by J.S. Eland. Longmans. 2.00 Mothers may find the text somewhat advanced for children of seven years, but the full-page colored pictures are sure to be enjoyed. The volume is a large oblong one. NORTON, C.E. (Editor). (p. 53) Heart of Oak Books. Volume II. Fables and Nursery Tales. Heath. .35 The next step is easy, to the short stories which have been told since the world was young; old fables in which the teachings of long experience are embodied, legends, fairy tales, which form the traditional common stock of the fancies and sentiment of the race.--_Preface._ SCUDDER, H.E. (Editor). The Book of Legends. Houghton. .50 Famous tales, such as King Cophetua, The Wandering Jew, St. Christopher, and The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, retold for the children. WILSON, G.L. Myths of the Red Children. Ginn. .45 The stories are true examples of Indian folk-lore and are very old.... Care has been taken to make the drawings archæologically correct for each tribe.--_Foreword._ These traditions of various tribes were gathered from the best sources, and are here related in simple language. There is a supplement giving directions for making different articles: a tent, Indian dress, a bow and arrow, a stone axe, et cetera. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS (p. 54) Most joyful let the Poet be; It is through him that all men see. CHANNING. BLAISDELL, E.W. *The Animals at the Fair. Russell. 1.40 Mr. Blaisdell's attractive and amusing illustrations may well serve as a substitute for the ordinary comic pictures of the newspapers. WHITTIER, J.G. (Editor). Child-Life. Houghton. 1.50 Although thirty-seven years have passed since Child-Life was compiled, it stands now, as then, far ahead of most collections of poetry for American children. Our own poets are well represented. RELIGION AND ETHICS Loving Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child! Make me gentle as Thou art, Come and live within my heart. Take my childish hand in thine, (p. 55) Guide these little feet of mine. So shall all my happy days Sing their pleasant song of praise. CHARLES WESLEY. BEALE, H.S. (B.). Stories from the Old Testament for Children. Duffield. 2.00 These Bible tales are simply told, and follow closely the lines of the Old Testament, a considerable portion of the narratives being in the language of Scripture. MOULTON, R.G. (Editor). Children's Series of the Modern Reader's Bible. Bible Stories. New Testament. Macmillan. .50 The stories are in the language of Scripture, altered only by omissions.... The Revised Version is used, with the frequent substitution of the marginal renderings.... In the introductions and notes I have carefully avoided any wording which might insinuate doctrinal instruction.--_Preface._ MOULTON, R.G. (Editor). Children's Series of the Modern Reader's Bible. Bible Stories. Old Testament. Macmillan. .50 The stories which make the text are in the language of Scripture, altered only by omissions.... The volume is arranged according to the natural divisions of Bible history.... Each period is represented by its most important stories; the purpose of the introduction and notes to each section is to weave all (p. 56) together by indicating briefly the bearing of each story on the general history.--_Preface._ SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow; You've powdered your legs with gold! O brave marshmary buds, rich and yellow, Give me your money to hold! O columbine, open your folded wrapper, Where two twin turtle-doves dwell! O cuckoo-pint, toll me the purple clapper That hangs in your clear green bell! And show me your nest, with the young ones in it-- I will not steal it away; I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet-- I am seven times one to-day. JEAN INGELOW. ANDREWS, JANE. The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children. Ginn. .50 Miss Andrews's books were the pioneers of the great crowd of present-day nature-books for young children, and they still compare favorably in dignity and true interest with their successors. Amber, coal, the work of water, and seeds, are among the objects in regard to which Mother Nature told her stories. PRENTICE AND POWER. STORIES (p. 57) We take it for granted that books for children belong to the easy play rather than to the hard work of life, and that they are an utter failure if they do not win their way by their own charms. SAMUEL OSGOOD. HOPKINS, W.J. The Sandman: His Ship Stories. Page. 1.50 Simple descriptions of the building of the good ship _Industry_ and her voyages to the far-away countries in the days long gone. S�GUR, S. (R.) DE. The Story of a Donkey. Heath. .20 A translation from the Comtesse de Ségur's Memoirs of a Donkey. Neddy's account of his own life--and he was a good and faithful beastie who had many adventures--has been a favorite with children for years. WARD, M.A. (A.) (Mrs. Humphry Ward). Milly and Olly. Doubleday. 1.20 This charming story, written many years ago and now revised, tells of childish holidays spent in the Windemere region. Aunt Emma--a really, truly old lady, who owns a fascinating parrot--proves a sort of modern fairy-godmother to the little brother and sister. The atmosphere is not too pronouncedly English to interfere in the least with our children's enjoyment. WHITE, E.O. (p. 58) A Little Girl of Long Ago. Houghton. 1.00 The experiences of a little New England girl of eighty years ago, telling of her return voyage from Scotland, and of her happy life in Boston and Springfield. WHITE, E.O. When Molly was Six. Houghton. 1.00 A pleasant sunny story of the simple happenings in the every-day life of a small girl. _EIGHT YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 59) _And I wrote my happy songs, Every child may joy to hear._ BLAKE. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, The sports of children satisfy the child. GOLDSMITH. THE GAMES BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. Dutton. 2.50 Indoor and outdoor games, tricks and puzzles, the making of various articles, and the care of home pets, are some of the subjects treated in this volume of old and new pastimes. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty. EMERSON. BOUTET DE MONVEL, L.M. Joan of Arc. Illustrated by the Author. Century. 3.00 In these truly remarkable pictures, instinct with spirit, dignity, and pathos, the peasant girl of Domrémy, martyr and patron saint, lives (p. 60) for children. The book is a large oblong one with full-page illustrations in color. While the text is somewhat advanced for children of eight years, the pictures really tell, the story. EGGLESTON, EDWARD. Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans. American Book. .40 A collection of many noted tales with which all of our children should be familiar. It includes Franklin's Whistle, Putnam and the Wolf, and Daniel Boone and his Grapevine Swing. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES Even John Locke (1632-1704), in his Thoughts on Education (1693), recommends, besides the Psalter and the New Testament, �sop and Reynard the Fox, as good food for infant minds. This was an excellent basis to start upon. MONTROSE J. MOSES. ADVENTURES OF REYNARD THE FOX. Edited by W.T. Stead. Review. .05 There is no entirely satisfactory edition, for children, of this classic. The language of one edited by Jacobs seems to the compiler of this list somewhat unsuited to small people, and E.L. Smythe in her version substitutes an entirely different ending for that of the (p. 61) original. This very inexpensive little book has more than a hundred interesting small pictures, and children will love to read of bad Reynard, who is told about in diverting fashion. �SOP. The Fables of �sop. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. Illustrated by Richard Heighway. Macmillan. 1.50 It is difficult to say what are and what are not the Fables of �sop.... In the struggle for existence among all these a certain number stand out as being the most effective and the most familiar. I have attempted to bring most of these into the following pages.--_Preface._ Children cannot read an easier, nor men a wiser book. THOMAS FULLER. BROWN, A.F. The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. Houghton. 1.25 These sweet tales of the saints of long ago and their little brothers the beasts have a gentle influence. The stories include that of Saint Bridget and the King's Wolf, Saint Fronto's Camels, Saint Rigobert's Dinner, and Saint Francis of Assisi. BROWN, A.F. In the Days of Giants. Illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Houghton. 1.10 The old Norse myths acceptably told. CARROLL, LEWIS (Pseudonym of C.L. Dodgson). (p. 62) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Illustrated by John Tenniel. Macmillan. 1.00 First told in 1862 to the little Liddell girls. It was written out for Alice Liddell, was published, and the first copy given to her in 1865. The illustrations are those which appeared in the original issue. Many artists have tried their hand in making pictures for "Alice," but none have succeeded in displacing those of John Tenniel. Extract from the diary of C.L. Dodgson: July 4, 1862.--I made an expedition _up_ the river to Godstow with the three Liddells; we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church till half-past eight.... On which occasion I told them the fairy tale of Alice's Adventures Underground, which I undertook to write out for Alice. "Alice! a childish story take, And with a gentle hand Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers Plucked in a far-off land." CARROLL, LEWIS (Pseudonym of C.L. Dodgson). Alice in Wonderland. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Doubleday. 1.40 Those wishing to depart from John Tenniel's illustrations will find (p. 63) these pictures of Arthur Rackham very interesting. We are given delightful black and white work, though most of the full-page pictures are in color. Enchanting Alice! Black-and-white Has made your deeds perennial; And naught save "Chaos and old Night" Can part you now from Tenniel; But still you are a Type, and based In Truth, like Lear and Hamlet; And Types may be re-draped to taste In cloth of gold or camlet. AUSTIN DOBSON. CARROLL, LEWIS (Pseudonym of C.L. Dodgson). Through the Looking-Glass. Illustrated by John Tenniel. Macmillan. 1.00 The sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The illustrations are the same as those that appeared in the original edition. "To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said, 'I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head. Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be, Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'" COLLODI, C. (Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini). Pinocchio, The Adventures of a Marionette. Illustrated by Charles Copeland. Ginn. .40 Of all the fairy stories of Italian literature this is the (p. 64) best known and the best loved.... The Florentines call it a literary jewel, and as such it should be known to all young readers.--_Preface._ Though children can but dimly comprehend this charming allegory, they will recognize its truth. Pinocchio, the wayward and mischievous marionette, through his kindly actions grows to be a real little boy, with an unselfish loving heart. There are many attractive drawings. CRUIKSHANK, GEORGE (Illustrator). The Cruikshank Fairy Book. Putnam. 2.00 Puss in Boots, Jack and the Bean-Stalk, Hop-o'-my-Thumb, and Cinderella, are the four famous fairy tales pictured by this famous illustrator. JUDD, M.C. Wigwam Stories. Ginn. .75 The book is divided into three parts: Sketches of Various Tribes of North American Indians; Traditions and Myths; and Stories Recently Told of Hiawatha and Other Heroes. It is interesting and informing. There are three sketches by Angel de Cora, and many illustrations from photographs. LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE. La Fontaine's Fables. Translated by Edward Shirley. Illustrated by C.M. Park and Rene Bull. Nelson. 1.50 An acceptable selection in verse. There are illustrations in color (p. 65) as well as in black and white. "These fables are much more than they appear-- The simplest animals are teachers here. The bare dull moral weariness soon brings; The story serves to give it life and wings." LANG, ANDREW (Editor). The Blue Fairy Book. Longmans. 2.00 This first volume of Andrew Lang's colored fairy books contains the better known tales from the folk-lore of many nations, and is, like the others of this series, attractively illustrated. And when the cuckoo clamours six We put away our games and bricks And hasten to the shelf where hang The books of Mr. Andrew Lang. . . . . . . . . . And when we read the Red, the Blue, The Green--small matter what's the hue Since joy is there in black and white-- Remember him who cared to write, For little ones, tales old and sweet, And ask the fairies (when you meet) To always keep unharmed and well From ogre's maw and witch's spell, From genie's clutch and dragon's fang, The kind magician, Andrew Lang! ST. JOHN LUCAS. MULOCK, D.M. (Mrs. D.M. (M.) CRAIK). (p. 66) The Adventures of a Brownie. Harper. .60 "Only I think, if I could be a little child again, I should exceedingly like a Brownie to play with me. Should not you?" We should all say yes, after reading this charming modern fairy story. MUSSET, PAUL DE. Mr. Wind and Madam Rain. Illustrated by Charles Bennett. Putnam. 2.00 A famous Breton folk-tale which is made additionally attractive by the unusual quality of the illustrations. I will not say that I have added nothing to the unconnected recitals of the Breton peasants, ... but I have added only what was necessary to link together the different events, and to supply passages that were entirely wanting.--_Preface._ PAINE, A.B. The Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book. Illustrated by J.M. Condé. Harper. 1.50 Mr. Paine writes in his delightful vein of Mr. Coon, Mr. Possum, and Mr. Crow. The book is always funny, and Mr. Condé's pictures are in their way as good as the text. WILLISTON, T.P. Japanese Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Sanchi Ogawa. Rand. .50 These eight wonder stories incidentally illustrate the every-day (p. 67) life of the people. The Japanese pictures are reproduced in color. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS. So, in this matter of literature for the young, the influence of the home teaching is enormous; all the school can do pales before it. Let the mother add to the poet's rhyme the music of her soft and beloved voice; let great fiction be read to the breathless group of curly heads about the fire; and the wonders of science be enrolled, the thrilling scenes and splendid personalities of history displayed. Children thus inspired may be trusted to become sensitive to literature long before they know what the word means, or have reasoned at all upon their mental experiences. RICHARD BURTON. LUCAS, E.V. (Editor). A Book of Verses for Children. Holt. 2.00 Mr. Lucas has shown his unvarying good taste in compiling this charming volume. Most of the poems are British, and among them are many delightful old songs and rhymes, verses of bygone days, ballads, and carols. WIGGIN, K.D. (S.), and N.A. SMITH (Editors). The Posy Ring. Doubleday. 1.25 This admirable collection of poems, chosen from the standpoint of (p. 68) childish enjoyment, forms a lane of lovely verse leading into the great highway of literature. The poems are classified under different headings such as The Flower Folk, Other Little Children, Playtime, Story time, and Bedtime. RELIGION AND ETHICS Honest myrth in measure, is a pleasaunt thyng, To wryte and to rede well, be gyftes of learnyng; Remember this well, all you that be young, Exercise vertue, and rule well your toung. DIVES PRAGMATICUS. _1563._ BUNYAN, JOHN. The Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated by the Brothers Rhead. Century. 1.50 Children will enjoy the fine illustrations in this soberly bound volume, whose brown coat is much the color of the one good Pilgrim wore on the long journey where he led the way for so many earnest souls. THE PSALMS OF DAVID. With an introductory study by N.D. Hillis. Illustrated by Louis Rhead. Revell. 2.50 No David can fall so low but that Christ's mercy and God's love can lift him from the depths of selfishness and sin back to the throne of manhood and the sceptre of influence.--_Introductory Study._ Even young children can grow to love the simpler and more peaceful (p. 69) Psalms. The fine full-page pictures in this large well-printed volume add to its beauty and interest. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. Each little flower that opens, Each little bird that sings, He made their glowing colors, He made their tiny wings. . . . . . . . He gave us eyes to see them, And lips that we might tell, How great is God Almighty, Who hath made all things well. KEBLE. AIKEN, JOHN, and A.L. (A.) BARBAULD. Eyes and No Eyes, and Other Stories. Heath. 20 "Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Over the Teacups, says of the story Eyes and No Eyes: I have never seen anything of the kind half so good. I advise you, if you are a child anywhere under forty-five, and do not yet wear glasses, to send at once for Evenings at Home, and read that story. For myself, I am always grateful to the writer of it for calling my attention to common things." Eyes and No Eyes, and Travellers' Wonders, from Aiken and Barbauld's Evenings at Home, The Three Giants, by Mrs. Marcet, and A Curious (p. 70) Instrument, by Jane Taylor, are the tales given. They all encourage a child's powers of observation. PARSONS, F.T. (S.) (formerly Mrs. W.S. Dana). Plants and Their Children. American Book. .65 While these elementary talks have been arranged to accompany the school year, they give so much information about fruits and seeds, young plants, roots and stems, flowers, et cetera, told in Mrs. Dana's clear, informing way, that we shall all want our children to know the book, and to learn the great lesson of how to see, which is taught them. The many illustrations are helpful. WEED, C.M. Stories of Insect Life. Volume I. Ginn. .25 The insects described are the more interesting common forms of Spring and early Summer. The plain little volume contains twenty short, fully illustrated chapters. STORIES The fiction which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue. PLATO. AANRUD, HANS. Lisbeth Longfrock. Ginn. .65 A vivid description of Norwegian farm and saeter life. Little (p. 71) Lisbeth loses her mother and goes to live with the good Kjersti, the mistress of Hoel Farm, helping to take care of the cattle. Hans Aanrud's short stories are considered by his own countrymen as belonging to the most original and artistically finished life pictures that have been produced by the younger literati of Norway.--_Preface._ CAROV�, F.W. The Story without an End. With a preface by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Heath. .25 There is a very delightful old story which used to be given to children, though I have not seen it for a long time in the hands of any children. It was called The Story without an End. WALTER BESANT. Written by an eminent German philosopher, and translated by Mrs. Sarah Austin for her own daughter, this beautiful tale, with its exquisite language, leads a child into the land of truth and beauty. PEARY, J. (D.). The Snow Baby. Stokes. 1.20 An account of Lieutenant Peary's little daughter, who was born amid the ice and snow of the Polar regions. The book is well illustrated from photographs. SNEDDEN, G. (S.). Docas, the Indian Boy of Santa Clara. Heath. .35 Three phases of Indian life in California, given in the form of a (p. 72) story. The ways and customs of the red man are described as they existed during the early days of this boy, before the coming of the whites. Later Docas had his home at the Mission in the days of Father Junipero Serra, and last of all, an old old man, dwelt, with his children and grandchildren, on a ranch. _NINE YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 73) _Now I like a really good saga, about gods and giants, and the fire kingdoms, and the snow kingdoms, and the Aesir making men and women out of two sticks, and all that._ KINGSLEY. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle. HERBERT. CANFIELD, DOROTHY, and Others. What Shall We Do Now? Stokes. 1.50 This book of suggestions for children's games and employments will be a help to the busy mother when her own supply of indoor and outdoor amusements is exhausted. There are directions for five hundred plays and pastimes, including gardening, candy-making, and writing, guessing, and acting, games. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT What we should expect and demand is, that our children should be brought up to regard American principles as matters of course; and their books should take these principles for granted, and illustrate them with all possible interest and power. SAMUEL OSGOOD. ANDREWS, JANE. (p. 74) Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now. Ginn. .50 This account of the boyhood of ten lads illustrates different periods and civilizations from Aryan days to the present time. DRAKE, S.A. On Plymouth Rock. Lothrop. .60 The narrative of the first two years of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, based largely on Governor Bradford's history. Maps and illustrations add to the book's interest. I have given as much of Bradford's own story as possible in the following pages, interwoven with the relations of Mount and Winslow, to which Bradford himself makes frequent reference.--_Preface._ GILMAN, ARTHUR. The Discovery and Exploration of America. Lothrop. .40 The history of our country naturally divides itself into three portions. First, there is the period of Discovery and Exploration.... It is with this romantic time that the present volume deals.... The latest authorities have been made tributary to this volume, and the author has spared no pains to have it correct in every statement of facts, and in the difficult matter of dates.--_Preface._ GUERBER, H.A. The Story of the Greeks. American Book. .60 An elementary account of Hellas from legendary times to its (p. 75) becoming a Roman province. Many well-known mythical and historic tales are included. There are maps and illustrations. GUERBER, H.A. The Story of the Romans. American Book. .60 This companion to The Story of the Greeks gives, in like manner, a simple relation of Roman history from mythical days to the fall of the Empire. It contains maps and illustrations. HORNE, O.B., and K.L. SCOBEY. Stories of Great Artists. American Book. .40 Children will find this small book interesting. It tells of the lives of some of the noted painters of different lands and periods; among them Raphael, Rembrandt, Reynolds, and Millet. The illustrations are from famous paintings. HORNE, O.B., and K.L. SCOBEY. Stories of Great Musicians. American Book. .40 A companion to Stories of Great Artists, which briefly recounts the careers of famous musicians; among them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner. Many of the illustrations are from paintings. SMITH, E.B. The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. Illustrated by the Author. Houghton. 2.50 The brief pathetic life of Powhatan's daughter is well portrayed. (p. 76) This large oblong volume contains full-page pictures in color. STONE, G.L., and M.G. FICKETT. Every-Day Life in the Colonies. Heath. .35 These short sketches of colonial life picture the first New England Christmas and a Puritan Sabbath. They also tell of the use of the hornbook and the sun-dial, describe the making of soap and candles, and so forth. WRIGHT, H.C. Children's Stories in American History. Scribner. 1.25 Although we learn about our country from prehistoric days to the time of Washington, most of the book is devoted to the early exploration and settlement of North and South America. The second chapter contains an account of the Mound-builders. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION I cannot cease from praising these Japanese. They are truly the delight of my heart. ST. FRANCIS XAVIER. AYRTON, M.C. Child-Life in Japan. Heath. .20 Mrs. Ayrton took a keen interest in the Japanese people and never wearied of studying them and their beautiful country.... (p. 77) After her return to England, in 1879, she wrote this book. WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. Our young people will enjoy hearing of the amusements and festivals of these far-away boys and girls. The volume contains, in addition, child stories, and an article entitled The Games and Sports of Japanese Children, by W.E. Griffis. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. SHAKSPERE. ANDERSEN, H.C. Stories. Houghton. .60 The tales in this excellent little edition are well chosen. A prime advantage in an early acquaintance with Andersen springs from the stimulus which his quaint fancy gives to the budding imagination of childhood. It may be said without exaggeration that Andersen truly represents creative childhood in literature. H.E. SCUDDER. ASBJ�RNSEN, P.C. Fairy Tales from the Far North. Translated by H.L. Braekstad. Nutt. 2.00 "The author, a distinguished Norwegian student of folk-lore (p. 78) and zoölogy, made long journeys on foot for scientific purposes, in the course of which he collected, among others, these popular stories and legends. Mr. Braekstad in his translation endeavors to retain the atmosphere of the original." FRANCILLON, R.E. Gods and Heroes. Ginn. .40 It will be seen that the Mythology adopted throughout is strictly of the old-fashioned kind which goes to Ovid as its leading authority, and ignores the difference between the gods of Greece and the gods of Rome.--_Preface._ This small volume is included because it gives quite fully the Labors of Hercules. FRERE, MARY. Old Deccan Days. McDonough. 1.25 Hindoo fairy legends of Southern India, recorded by Miss Frere in 1865-1866, as they were related to her by her Indian _ayah_ during a tour through the Southern Mahratta country, in the Bombay Presidency, of which Sir Bartle Frere, her father, was then Governor. GRIMM, J.L. and W.K. Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Lippincott. 1.50 Barring a few horrible incidents, this is an excellent selection of these famous stories. Mr. Rackham's illustrations help to place the edition above many others. GRIMM, J.L. and W.K. (p. 79) German Household Tales. Houghton. .60 With very few exceptions, an unusually wise choice of the Tales. Grimm was the name of two German brothers.... Their studies they carried on together, though Jacob was the more learned, and made great contributions to the science of language, while Wilhelm was more artistic in his tastes and was a capital story-teller.... They lived in the province of Hesse-Cassel, ... and it was from the peasants in this province that they derived a great many tales. The best friend they had was the wife of a cowherd, a woman of about fifty, who had a genius for story-telling. H.E. SCUDDER. HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. A Wonder Book. Illustrated by Walter Crane. Houghton. 3.00 No epoch of time can claim a copyright in these immortal fables. They seem never to have been made; and certainly, so long as man exists, they can never perish.--_Preface._ Hawthorne wrote comparatively little for children. Let us be thankful that he did retell with such charm these Greek myths. The full-page pictures in color are worthy of the stories, which comprise The Gorgon's Head, The Golden Touch, The Paradise of Children, The Three Golden Apples, The Miraculous Pitcher, and The Chimæra. HOLBROOK, FLORENCE. Northland Heroes. Houghton. .60 For centuries the songs of Homer ... have delighted the (p. 80) children, young and old, of many lands. But part of our own heritage, and nearer to us in race and time, are these stories of the Danish Beowulf and the Swedish Fridthjof.--_Preface._ These simple versions of saga and epic recount for our children the bravery and endurance of a ruder age. HOUGHTON, L. (S.). The Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales. Illustrated by W.T. Benda. Scribner. 1.50 Slavonic folk-stories told by a Russian peasant to her little grandson, with the village life of Southern Russia as a background. Based on Dr. Frederich Kraus's German collection of Tales and Legends of South Slavonia. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY. Children will love to dwell for a time in Russia with the boy who was always saying "Tell me a story, little grandmamma." The character of the grandmother is drawn in a measure from that of Dr. Kraus's peasant mother, who was, though illiterate, intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore of her people. JACOBS, JOSEPH (Editor). Celtic Fairy Tales. Illustrated by J.D. Batten. Putnam. 1.25 I have endeavored to include in this volume the best and most typical stories told by the chief masters of the Celtic folk-tale, Campbell, Kennedy, Hyde, and Curtin, and to these I have added the best tales scattered elsewhere.... In making (p. 81) my selection, and in all doubtful points of treatment, I have had resource to the wide knowledge of my friend Mr. Alfred Nutt in all branches of Celtic folk-lore.... With him by my side I could venture into regions where the non-Celt wanders at his own risk.--_Preface._ The charm and humor of Celtic tradition is conveyed to the reader. JACOBS, JOSEPH (Editor). Indian Fairy Tales. Illustrated by J.D. Batten. Putnam. 1.75 From all these sources--from the Jatakas, from the Bidpai, and from the more recent collections--I have selected those stories which throw most light on the origin of fable and folk-tales, and at the same time are most likely to attract English children.--_Preface._ KEARY, ANNIE and ELIZA. The Heroes of Asgard. Macmillan. .50 This is a rather unattractive little volume, but the myths are so well told that we feel while reading them that real events of heroic days are being recounted. KINGSLEY, CHARLES. The Heroes. Illustrated by M.H. Squire and E. Mars. Russell. 2.50 In these Greek tales Kingsley is at his best for children. He writes without digression, the language is clear and dignified, and we feel the spirit of the bygone age of which the story tells. Many of the illustrations are in color. KINGSLEY, CHARLES. (p. 82) The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. Illustrated by Linley Sambourne. Macmillan. 1.25 This original and charming story is in some parts rather over the heads of children, and a few of the incidents seem gruesome to the compiler. For this reason it is better to read the book to the child, so that these portions may be omitted. LAGERL�F, S.O.L. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Doubleday. 1.50 Selma Lagerlöf, the foremost writer of Swedish fiction, in response to a commission to prepare a reader for the public schools, devoted three years to nature study, and to seeking out hitherto unpublished folk-lore and legends of the different provinces. The result, of which we have as yet only the first volume, is this remarkable book. Bad cruel Nils is transformed into an elf, and on the back of a goosey-gander, Thumbietot, as he is now called, visits distant regions, and learns kindness to his animal brothers. LANG, ANDREW (Editor). The Red Fairy Book. Longmans. 2.00 In this volume, second in order of publication, less familiar fairy stories are given, including The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Kari Woodengown, and Mother Holle. MULOCK, D.M. (Mrs. D.M. (M.) CRAIK). (p. 83) °The Little Lame Prince. Heath. .30 The story of Prince Dolor of Nomansland who floated out of Hopeless Tower on the wonderful traveling cloak of Imagination. An allegorical tale teaching patience and true kingship. PRENTICE AND POWER. This beautiful wonder story, because of its pathos, should perhaps be withheld from a very sensitive child. NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume III. Fairy Tales, Ballads, and Poems. Heath. .40 These naturally serve as the gate of entrance into the wide open fields of literature, especially into those of poetry. Poetry is one of the most efficient means of education of the moral sentiment, as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the best culture.--_Preface._ PAINE, A.B. *The Arkansaw Bear. Illustrated by Frank Verbeck. Altemus. 1.00 The altogether charmingly impossible story of the travels of a little boy and a bear who played the violin. "And they travelled on forever and they'll never, never sever, Bosephus and the fiddle and the old black bear." PYLE, HOWARD. (p. 84) The Wonder Clock. Illustrated by the Author. Harper. 2.00 Any undertaking of Mr. Pyle's is a guarantee of distinction in material, style, and production, and these four and twenty fairy tales, one for each hour of the day, are no exception. The illustrations are among the author's best, and Miss Katharine Pyle supplies charming little verses for the different hours. VALENTINE, L. (J.) (Editor). The Old, Old Fairy Tales. Warne. 1.50 The tales contained in this volume have been the delight of many generations of children, and can, in fact, claim a very distant origin, though they were retold in their present form as late as the age of Louis XIV. They are generally supposed to have come from the East, for they are to be found in varied forms in all the countries of Europe that sent forth Crusaders.... As children always like stories to be retold in the same words as far as possible, these tales have not been rewritten (except in two cases); the original translations in their quaint simplicity have been collected, and merely corrected so far as to meet the modern ideas of the kind of tale to be given to children; the old ones being occasionally a little coarse.--_Preface._ Madame D'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and La Princess de Beaumont, are represented in this collection, taken, with few exceptions, from French sources. ZITKALA-SA. (p. 85) Old Indian Legends. Illustrated by Angel de Cora. Ginn. .50 Under an open sky, nestling close to the earth, the old Dakota story-tellers have told me these legends.--_Preface._ POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. MENCIUS. LONGFELLOW, H.W. The Song of Hiawatha. Illustrated by Frederic Remington. Houghton. 2.00 "Ye who love a nation's legends, Love the ballads of a people That like voices from afar off Call to us to pause and listen, . . . . . . . . "Listen to this Indian Legend, To this Song of Hiawatha!" LUCAS, E.V. (Editor). Another Book of Verses for Children. Macmillan. 1.50 Admirable selections, chosen partly with view to reading aloud, a large proportion not being found in other children's (p. 86) anthologies. They range from Shakspere, Blake, Tennyson, to modern nonsense rhymes. Attractively illustrated. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY. RELIGION AND ETHICS What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man I would do my part-- Yet what I can I give Him, Give my heart. C.G. ROSSETTI. HODGES, GEORGE. When the King Came. Houghton. 1.25 The life of Christ told with simplicity and breadth, making real to children the events of the Gospel story. Tested by ten years' home use before publication. The biblical text is not adhered to strictly. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the skylark sings with me: O what sweet company! BLAKE. CHAMPLIN, J.D. (p. 87) The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Common Things. Holt. 3.00 In the present work the writer has attempted to furnish in simple language, aided by pictorial illustrations when thought necessary, a knowledge of things in Nature, Science, and the Arts, which are apt to awaken a child's curiosity.--_Preface._ Young people thoroughly enjoy this excellent book. MILLER, O.T. (Pseudonym of Mrs. H. (M.) MILLER). The First Book of Birds. Houghton. 1.00 Intended to interest children in birds by an account of their habits of eating, sleeping, nesting, etc., with illustrative anecdotes, many from original observation. AUDUBON SOCIETY. Though Mrs. Miller is herself an expert, she tells us that she has been careful to have the latest and the best authorities for the statements made, and presents a list of them. The author, while never a sentimentalist, constantly teaches kindness to the birds. There are both colored and plain plates. MORLEY, M.W. The Bee People. Illustrated by the Author. McClurg. 1.25 Miss Apis Mellifica, with her wonderful eyes, her queer tongue, her useful furry legs, and her marvellous ways, is described for us in (p. 88) delightfully simple fashion by Miss Morley, who has also made many instructive and interesting small illustrations. The last chapter is on Bombus, the Bumblebee. The bee has a mighty soul in a little body. _Virgil._ MURTFELDT, M.E., and C.M. WEED. Stories of Insect Life. Volume II. Ginn. .30 "This book, like its predecessor, aims to give to young pupils an accurate and readable account of the life histories of some common insects. It is designed for use during the autumn months." There are many illustrations. SAUNDERS, M.M. Beautiful Joe. American Baptist. .50 Primarily intended to inculcate kindness to dogs, and other animals. It is pleasant to know that the tale has secured an immense popularity. SEWELL, ANNA. Black Beauty. Edited by E.R. Shaw. Newson. .30 The horse gives his own account of his life with good and bad masters; the purpose of the book being to instil care and consideration for animals. Many copies have been distributed among draymen and cabmen. Children find the story very interesting. STORIES (p. 89) Consult the taste of your child in selecting or guiding his reading.... Let the boys and girls choose for themselves within certain limits, only trying to guide them to the best books upon the subject of their interest, whatever that may be. Mrs. G.R. FIELD. BURNETT, F.E. (H.). Little Lord Fauntleroy. Scribner. 1.25 Mrs. Burnett's well-known story of the little American boy who in the course of events becomes heir to an English earldom is included in this list because of the beautiful and kindly spirit shown by the child to those about him. DRUMMOND, HENRY. *The Monkey That Would Not Kill. Illustrated by Louis Wain. Dodd. 1.00 Professor Drummond wrote these two tales--his first attempt at fiction--while acting as temporary editor of a children's magazine. The first, that of Tricky, was so liked by children all over the world that the second, Gum, was written soon after. Mr. Wain's pictures are very good. JEWETT, S.O. Play Days. Houghton. 1.50 This little book for little girls has all the quiet charm of Miss Jewett's books for older people. The author has a great gift for making the fine and beautiful things which lie at the heart (p. 90) of every-day life stand forth in their true colors, and making simple pleasures seem very pleasant. PRENTICE AND POWER. LUCAS, E.V. (Editor). Old-Fashioned Tales. Illustrated by F.D. Bedford. Stokes. 1.50 Selections from the writings of Maria Edgeworth, Mary Lamb, Peter Parley, and others. "The children come, the children go; To-day grows quickly yesterday; And we, who quiz quaint fashions so, We soon shall seem as quaint as they." The children of those days--our great-great-grandfathers--expected didacticism. It was part of the game.... In the present collection there is, I think, no example either of condescension or showing-off--the two principal faults of books for children. All the authors seem to me to be simple and single-minded: they wished above all to be interesting.--_Introduction._ McINTYRE, M.A. The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone. Appleton. .40 Written in accordance with modern views of science, and calculated to give children a good idea of prehistoric man and his ways. What is more, the story is sufficiently interesting to attract them.--_The Athenæum._ OTIS, JAMES (Pseudonym of J.O. Kaler). Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus. Harper. .60 Little freckled Toby runs away and joins a circus, where he makes a (p. 91) friend of Mr. Stubbs, an old monkey. Before long, however, he is glad to be welcomed home again by old Uncle Daniel. The tawdry life of the ring is well drawn. OUIDA (Pseudonym of Louise de la Ramé). Bimbi. Lippincott. 1.50 Louise de la Ramé wrote these stories in a way that charms alike grown people and children. Little August and his beloved Hirschvogel the great Nürnberg stove, Florentine Lolo and his faithful Moufflou, Raphael the child of old Urbino, and others, are vividly pictured. _TEN YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 92) _There comes a voice that awakes my soul. It is the voice of years that are gone, they roll before me with their deeds._ OSSIAN. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT Where's the cook? is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept? SHAKSPERE. BENTON, C.F. A Little Cook-Book for a Little Girl. Estes. .75 "But Margaret said, 'I don't want to wait till I'm big; I want to cook now; and I don't want to do cooking-school cooking, but little girl cooking, all by myself.'" So they gave her this simple cook-book on her birthday, and she learned to make all the different dishes before another birthday came. BENTON, C.F. Saturday Mornings. Estes. .75 Margaret loved housekeeping, and the big people taught her on Saturday mornings how to take care of the house and its contents, how to launder, to market, et cetera. The directions, given in story form, are very clear and simple, and girls greatly enjoy the book. In fact, work becomes as joyful as play. HALL, A.N. (p. 93) The Boy Craftsman. Lothrop. 2.00 The Boy Craftsman has been undertaken with a view of helping boys with their problems of earning money, as well as furnishing recreative and entertaining work, and to this end the first portion has been devoted to suggestions for the carrying on of a number of small business enterprises, and the second and third parts to outdoor and indoor pastimes for all seasons of the year.--_Preface._ The handling and care of tools, simple carpentry, printing, photography, the making of an outdoor gymnasium and a miniature theatre, are among the topics included. There are many illustrations. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT "Here may we sit and converse hold With those whose names in ages old Were in the book of fame enrolled." BROOKS, E.S. The True Story of Christopher Columbus. Lothrop. 1.50 Columbus ... left a record of persistence in spite of discouragement and of triumph over all obstacles, that has been the inspiration and guide for Americans ever since his day.--_Preface._ The life of the great admiral is described in a simple and interesting manner. Many pictures are given. BROOKS, E.S. (p. 94) The True Story of George Washington. Lothrop. 1.50 One of the best of modern Americans, James Russell Lowell, who was born on the same day of the month as Washington, February twenty-second, wrote, shortly before his death, to a school-girl whose class proposed noticing his own birthday: "Whatever else you do on the twenty-second of February, recollect, first of all, that on that day a really great man was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts with the memory of his service, and to brace your minds with the contemplation of his character. The rest of us must wait uncovered till he be served." This is a good text for those boys and girls who may be led to read this true story of George Washington.--_Preface._ The book is fully illustrated. CATHERWOOD, M. (H.). The Heroes of the Middle West. Ginn. .50 The French discovery and settlement of this country to the time of Pontiac, and the coming of the English. A vivid, carefully drawn picture of those adventurous days. Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, and Tonty, are sketched for us. CHAMPLIN, J.D. The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Persons and Places. Holt. 3.00 A companion to The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Common Things, which tells, in the same simple way, of well-known persons and places. It is, as is the former, most satisfactory. There are many illustrations. GILMAN, ARTHUR. (p. 95) The Colonization of America. Lothrop. .45 This volume, like The Discovery and Exploration of America, of which it is a continuation, is a study of the best authorities. It is intended to present to young readers the salient points in the story of the colonization of the United States.--_Preface._ HILL, MABEL. Lessons for Junior Citizens. Introduction by A.B. Hart. Ginn. .50 By this series of talks about the make-up and workings of different civic departments and institutions Miss Hill arouses the attention and holds the interest of our children. The police, fire, and street departments, are described, and among other subjects, juvenile courts, the school system, and the village improvement association, are pleasantly discussed. McMURRY, C.A. Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains and the West. Macmillan. .40 A good account of the exploring expeditions of Coronado, Lewis and Clark, Fremont, Powell, Parkman, and others. The book contains maps and illustrations. MARSHALL, H.E. An Island Story. Illustrated by A.S. Forrest. Stokes. 2.50 The child is to put this volume, not at the lesson-book end of the shelf, but with Robinson Crusoe and the like. So the preface suggests, and rightly. It is eminently readable, a success, (p. 96) we should say, in what looks much easier than it is, telling a story in simple words.--_The Spectator._ A history of the Mother Country, from earliest legendary times delightfully related. The thirty full-page illustrations in color add to its attraction. MARSHALL, H.E. Stories of William Tell and His Friends. Dutton. .50 The Swiss national hero is told of in a series of thrilling narratives, teaching children what brave men will dare and do for freedom. There are eight pictures in color. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns. SWIFT. DU CHAILLU, P.B. The Country of the Dwarfs. Harper. 1.25 The author relates in his informal way, among many other experiences, his encounters with the little people of Herodotus; their tiny houses, curious customs, and uncommon shyness. This trip to Africa was begun in 1863. DU CHAILLU, P.B. (p. 97) Wild Life under the Equator. Harper. 1.25 The hunting of hippopotami and gorillas is most interestingly narrated by the great explorer who also tells about the method employed in catching elephants, about snake-charming, and so forth. FINNEMORE, JOHN. Switzerland. Illustrated by J.H. Lewis and A.D. McCormick. Macmillan. .75 These small books--the Peeps at Many Lands Series--"are intended to give children a glimpse at the scenes, people, and characteristics, of foreign countries.... A strong feature is made of the work and play of children in the land described." The illustrations, though as a rule somewhat highly colored, are very attractive. There are many titles in the series, but only the most important are included in this list. Besides descriptions of beautiful lakes and great mountains, this volume includes tales of the struggle for Swiss freedom, accounts of mountain-climbing, sports, and chamois-hunting. There are twelve colored plates, among which are a number of fine snow scenes. SCHWATKA, FREDERICK. The Children of the Cold. Educational. 1.25 Frederick Schwatka says: To describe these Arctic babies is the main object of this book--to tell the boys and girls what kind of toys (p. 98) and pleasures and picnics and all sorts of fun may be had where you would hardly think any could be had at all; also, some of the discomforts of living in this most uncomfortable country. TAYLOR, BAYARD. Boys of Other Countries. Putnam. 1.25 Experiences in the lives of five boys, whose respective homes were Sweden, Egypt, Iceland, Germany, and Russia. The purpose of the author, of course, was to give a glimpse of the habits and customs of these countries. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES It would be hard to estimate the amount of gentleness and mercy that has made its way among us through these slight channels. Forbearance, courtesy, consideration for the poor and aged, kind treatment of animals, the love of Nature, abhorrence of tyranny and brute force--many such good things have been nourished in the child's heart by this powerful aid. It has greatly helped to keep us ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender track, not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children, sharing their delights. DICKENS. ANDERSEN, H.C. Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen. Translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas. Illustrated by Thomas, Charles, and William Robinson. Dutton. 2.50 Most truly rendered in the edition by Mrs. E. Lucas, (p. 99) illustrated by the Robinsons. Mrs. H.L. ELMENDORF. Mrs. Lucas is well fitted for her office of translator, although there are a number of tales in this selection which, in the opinion of the compiler of this List, might well have been omitted because of their horrible character. The pictures are so remarkable that in them the stories live again. BALDWIN, JAMES. A Story of the Golden Age. Illustrated by Howard Pyle. Scribner. 1.50 Mr. Baldwin's object, as he tells us, has been to pave the way to the enjoyable reading of Homer. He has depicted for us the boyhood and youth of Odysseus, taking the various legends relating to the causes of the Trojan War, and weaving them into one continuous narrative, ending where Homer begins. CHAPIN, A.A. The Story of the Rhinegold. Harper. 1.25 A little volume intended for the use of children who may be taken to hear the operas of Richard Wagner. It gives briefly, in an interesting manner, the great myth upon which Wagner based his famous production, the Ring of the Nibelungs, following the lines of the operas. The musical motifs accompany the text. CHAPIN, A.A. (p. 100) Wonder Tales from Wagner. Harper. 1.25 This companion to The Story of the Rhinegold relates the legends of the Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, and the Mastersingers of Nuremberg. The musical motifs accompany the text. DIXON, E. (Editor). Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated by J.D. Batten. Putnam. 2.50 In Europe they were not known till 1704, when a learned Frenchman, Antoine Galland, who had travelled widely in the East, put them skillfully, if not too accurately, into the language of his own people.... Within a comparatively few years, an ancient manuscript in the Louvre at Paris has been found to remove from Galland the long-standing reproach that he introduced into his Arabian Nights stories which really did not belong to the collection, but were taken from other Eastern sources.... It will not be easy to change the form of the names which, through Galland's agency, have become classic words.--_Introduction to Stories from the Arabian Nights._ The text of the present selection from the Arabian Nights is that of Galland, 1821, slightly abridged and edited. The edition is designed virginibus puerisque. E. DIXON. Mr. Dixon presents these famous Oriental stories most acceptably, and Mr. Batten's remarkable illustrations are all that can be desired. His genii are genii indeed, and his fairy princesses creatures of grace and beauty. HARRIS, J.C. (p. 101) *Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings. Illustrated by A.B. Frost. Appleton. 2.00 I have endeavored to give to the whole a genuine flavor of the old plantation. Each legend has its variants, but in every instance I have retained that particular version which seemed to me to be the most characteristic, and have given it without embellishment and without exaggeration.--_Introduction._ All children should have the opportunity to know and to love Uncle Remus, as they cannot fail to do if they are familiar with his narratives. The Negro dialect often makes it desirable to have these read aloud. HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. Tanglewood Tales. Houghton. .75 In this second Wonder Book Hawthorne again tells us in simple language of great heroes of Greek mythical days. The Minotaur, the Pygmies, The Dragon's Teeth, Circe's Palace, The Pomegranate Seeds, and The Golden Fleece, comprise the contents of the volume. HODGSON, GERALDINE. Rama and the Monkeys. Illustrated by W.H. Robinson. Macmillan. .50 In fine and picturesque language, retained from the Indian original, Geraldine Hodgson has given us this adaptation from the Ramayana. We learn, with delight, to know the monkey hosts: "Hanuman, that strong, forgiving, wise, brave, and humble Ape," and "Sugriva, that best (p. 102) of Monkeys." KIPLING, RUDYARD. The Jungle Book. Century. 1.50 Telling of Mowgli, the child of the jungle, and his brethren, the wild creatures of the forest; together with other marvellous animal stories. "Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law!" LANG, ANDREW (Editor). The Green Fairy Book. Longmans. 2.00 This, the third of the colored fairy books, contains, as do the others, tales from many sources, among them The Half-Chick, The Magic Swan, and King Kojata. PYLE, HOWARD. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. Illustrated by the Author. Scribner. 2.50 Mr. Pyle has related these great legends right worthily. The illustrations are full of interest, and while the text is suited to a narrative of this early period, it is well within childish comprehension. Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May; Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away! Blow thro' the living world--"Let the King reign." "Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm, Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign." TENNYSON. RUSKIN, JOHN. (p. 103) The King of the Golden River. Heath. .20 An exquisite legend, beautiful in spirit and language. There have been written in our English language a few tales bearing a rich moral lesson that are an unfailing source of delight, alike to childhood and to youth, and that are at the same time not without interest to the adult. The King of the Golden River is one of these.... Its lessons are not obtruded; the reader is really not explicitly conscious of them at all.--_Introduction._ STOCKTON, F.R. Fanciful Tales. Scribner. .50 Mr. Stockton had a wise, humorous style of his own. In this small volume, which contains some of his best writing for children, will be found Old Pipes and the Dryad, The Bee-Man of Orn, and The Clocks of Rondaine. STORIES FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Houghton. .60 From centuries and peoples almost as different from those we know as the North and the South Poles are far apart, through the overthrows of dynasties and the movements of whole races of men, by the work of Arabian scholars when printing was unknown, and by the labors of Europeans almost in our own day, these stories have survived to transport us into a world of splendor and magic.--_Introduction._ A carefully edited selection of thirteen of these famous tales, with which, of course, every child should be familiar. THACKERAY, W.M. (p. 104) The Rose and the Ring. Edited by E.E. Hale. Illustrated by the Author. Heath. .25 But in the meanwhile, and for a brief holiday, let us laugh and be as pleasant as we can. And you elder folks--a little joking and dancing and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a Merry Christmas, and welcomes you to the Fireside Pantomime. M.A. TITMARSH. This fairy extravaganza--Thackeray's only production for children--was written for a little sick girl. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS. Children are lucky to be children nowadays, for the idea is pretty well disseminated that the very choicest from all the garnered riches of the great world of literature should be given them, that they may early be possessed of thoughts and feelings that are true and large, sweet and beautiful. RICHARD BURTON. GAYLEY, C.M., and M.C. FLAHERTY (Editors). Poetry of the People. Ginn. .50 Poems illustrative of the history and national spirit of England, Scotland, Ireland, and America.--_Title-Page._ The compilers have given us a volume of verse chosen from that (p. 105) which is "most simple, most hearty, most truly characteristic of the people, their tradition, history, and spirit; ... poetry sometimes by, and sometimes not, but always for, the people; poems that were household words with our fathers and mothers, and lay close to the heart because _of_ the heart." HAWEIS, M.E. (Mrs. H.R. HAWEIS). Chaucer for Children. Illustrated by the Author. Scribner. 1.25 Mrs. Haweis begins with an account of Chaucer's life and the London of his day. Portions of a number of the Tales follow, the original and the modern text being given in parallel columns, with prose abridgments connecting the selections. There are eight full-page colored pictures and a number of small woodcuts. Though possibly only an exceptional child will enjoy the book, it helps to bring the youthful reader closer to the time of Chaucer than any other version for children. RASP�, R.E. *Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen. Edited by E.E. Hale. Heath. .20 "Some travellers are apt to advance more than is strictly true; if any of the company entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only say to such, I pity their want of faith." Raspé was scholar enough to mix up with the real Munchausen's (p. 106) amusing burlesques, exaggerations and fancies which are centuries older, and which can be cited now from the crabbed language of the Middle Ages.--_Note._ SWIFT, JONATHAN. Gulliver's Travels. Educational. .40 His voyage to Lilliput, his stay with the little people, and his adventures later among the giants of Brobdingnag, are classic. Written as a political satire, the narrative has served a gentler purpose than its original one. The littleness of the Lilliputians and the greatness of the giants appeal strongly to children. And lo! the book from all its end beguiled, A harmless wonder to some happy child. BULWER-LYTTON. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS In that forest to and fro I can wander, I can go; See the spider and the fly, And the ants go marching by Carrying parcels with their feet Down the green and grassy street. STEVENSON. DUNCAN, FRANCES. Mary's Garden and How It Grew. Century. 1.25 The old gardener teaches Mary how to prepare and tend her garden (p. 107) through the year. Much practical information is given in a charming way with a thread of story. HERRICK, S.M. (B.). The Earth in Past Ages. American Book. .60 A clear account of the geological story, interestingly told. Many of the illustrations are taken from Lyell, and Winchell. MILLER, O.T. (Pseudonym of Mrs. H. (M.) MILLER). The Second Book of Birds. Houghton. 1.00 Illustrated with colored and plain plates.... Systematically arranged; non-technical descriptions. This takes the learner a step farther than The First Book, and introduces him to classification, giving examples of the best known species, east, west, and south, of thirty families of land-birds, with account of habits, and illustrative anecdotes. An appendix contains a simple non-technical characterization of the several families, in language a child can understand. AUDUBON SOCIETY. PATTERSON, A.J. The Spinner Family. Illustrated by Bruce Horsfall. McClurg. 1.25 Children, while they do not like spiders, are invariably curious about them. This description of various species, with its good illustrations, will turn childish curiosity into genuine interest. WOOD, THEODORE. (p. 108) A Natural History for Young People. Dutton. 2.50 In moderate compass this book gives us much information about the living creatures of the world. Mr. Wood is an authority. There are twelve colored and over three hundred black-and-white illustrations. WRIGHT, M.O. Gray Lady and the Birds. Macmillan. 1.75 Although as a rule story-telling and science are best kept separate, their combination in this pleasant tale, written in the interest of bird-protection, can have only our hearty commendation. It arouses the interest of children not only by its style, but because there is such a fund of information about our birds. The volume contains twelve colored plates and thirty-six full-page illustrations in half-tone. STORIES Oh for a Booke and a shadie nooke, Eyther in-a-doore or out, With the greene leaves whisp'ring overhede, Or the Streete cryes all about. Where I maie Reade all at my ease, Both of the Newe and Olde, For a jollie goode Booke, whereon to looke, Is better to me than Golde. _Old English Song._ ALCOTT, L.M. (p. 109) Under the Lilacs. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. Little. 2.00 The story tells how little Ben and good Sancho, his wonderful trained poodle, ran away from the circus, and found refuge and happiness with Bab and Betty in the old home under the lilacs. BAYLOR, F.C. (Mrs. F.C. (B.) BELGER). Juan and Juanita. Houghton. 1.50 This account of the capture of Juan and Juanita by Comanches is founded on fact. A number of years ago two Mexican children were discovered by Indians on the other side of the Rio Grande, and carried away to the Llanos Estacados. After four years of captivity they made their escape, walking back three hundred miles through a wild country, and finally reaching their mother. The tale gives an interesting picture of hacienda life. BOYESEN, H.H. The Modern Vikings. Scribner. 1.25 The author originally related these narratives of life and sport in the Norseland to his own children. "For my Vikings love song and saga, Like their conquering fathers of old; And these are some of the stories To the three little tyrants I told." CRICHTON, F.E. (p. 110) Peep-in-the-World. Longmans. 1.25 An altogether charming description of a little girl's happy year spent with her German uncle in the old family castle. Peep-in-the-World's friendship with Knut the dwarf, who lives in the forest surrounded by the animals he loves and cares for, and the founding of an Order of Knights by the children, are sweet and natural incidents. DIAZ, A. (M.). *The William Henry Letters. Lothrop. 1.00 Written by William Henry during the two years he was away at school. One of the best books for boys, and they love it. It has high standards, abounds in homely common-sense, and is very funny. EDGEWORTH, MARIA Tales from Maria Edgeworth. Illustrated by Hugh Thomson. Stokes. 1.50 Austin Dobson, in his introduction, gives us a sketch of Maria Edgeworth's upbringing and of the conditions which helped to produce the famous Parent's Assistant, from which twelve of the sixteen stories are here reprinted, accompanied by Mr. Thomson's delightful pictures. "Fairies were not much in her line," says Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, "but philanthropic manufacturers, (p. 111) liberal noblemen, and benevolent ladies in travelling carriages, do as well and appear in the nick of time to distribute rewards or to point a moral."--_Introduction._ HALE, L.P. *The Peterkin Papers. Houghton. 1.50 "Mr. Peterkin, Agamemnon, and Solomon John, took the postal card to the post-office early one morning.... It must have been read along its way: for by each mail came piles of postals and letters from town after town, in answer to the question, and all in the same tone: 'Yes, yes; publish the adventures of the Peterkin family.'" The trials and troubles of the Peterkins and the helpful suggestions of the resourceful lady from Philadelphia will long be a source of amusement to folks both old and young. JENKS, A.E. The Childhood of Ji-shib, the Ojibwa. Illustrated by the Author. The American Thresherman. 1.00 The story is written with no other thought than to have constantly in mind what the Ojibwa child believes about the events of his every-day life as given in the story. And the following incidents are taken directly from the common life of the tribe. A.E. JENKS. And now comes Dr. Jenks with a story of a Red Child, in which he displays deep insight into Indian character, and describes the Red Child as that interesting person might have described himself in his own wigwam and to his own grandchildren in the evening of his life. May many White Children read the story and learn therein of our passing race. W.J. McGEE. This mysterious tale of Ji-shib the Chippewa, and A-mi-kons the (p. 112) little beaver, his totem, follows Indian life from birth to early manhood. Dr. Jenks has prepared many small accompanying sketches. LAMB, CHARLES and MARY. Mrs. Leicester's School. Illustrated by Winifred Green. Macmillan. 2.25 Narratives of the early days of some little school-girls of long ago, related by themselves. Charmingly illustrated in color; the costumes those of the period. My Sister's part in the Leicester School (about two-thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same quantity) in the Shakespeare Tales which bear my name. I wrote only the Witch Aunt, the First Going to Church, and the final story about a little Indian Girl in a Ship. LAMB. SMITH, M.P. (W.). Jolly Good Times. Little. 1.25 Childhood days on a farm near old Deerfield, fifty or sixty years ago. The story has a fresh, wholesome atmosphere, and children of to-day love the simple happenings. SMITH, M.P. (W.). Jolly Good Times at School. Little. 1.25 A continuation of the farm life of the children we learned to know (p. 113) in Jolly Good Times, telling of school-days and winter fun. SPYRI, JOHANNA. Heidi. De Wolfe. 1.50 This delightful book is generally accepted as giving the best picture of child-life in the Swiss Alps. STODDARD, W.O. Two Arrows. Harper. .60 The exploit by which a young Nez Percé won his name, and his further prowess, are related. The adventures of a mining party and the pursuit of rebellious Apaches by a company of United States cavalry are just what boys will enjoy reading about. WYSS, J.D. The Swiss Family Robinson. Illustrated by H. Kley. Dutton. 2.50 The experiences of this shipwrecked family are thus happily characterized by the _Spectator_: They _did_ sail in the tubs, and train zebras and ostriches for riding, and grow apples and pines in the same garden; and why shouldn't they? YONGE, C.M. The Little Duke. Macmillan. 1.25 An account of the boyhood days of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, vassal of Louis IV, one of the last of the degenerate line of Charlemagne. _ELEVEN YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 114) _Clothes for the back, books for the head: Read, and remember them when they are read._ THACKERAY. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT He talks of wood: it is some carpenter. SHAKSPERE. WHEELER, C.G. Woodworking for Beginners. Putnam. 2.50 This very comprehensive volume gives information about tools, different kinds of woods, and the fitting up of workshops; with full directions for the building of simple houses, boats, toboggans, and numerous small articles. There are many working diagrams. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT I sing of heroes and of kings, In mighty numbers mighty things. COWLEY. BROOKS, E.S. The Century Book for Young Americans. Century. 1.50 Issued under the auspices of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, this volume gives an account of the visit of (p. 115) a party of young people to Washington, where they learned much of interest regarding our government and the workings of its different departments. There are many illustrations. "For Mr. Dunlop had said to his brother: 'Take them, first, to the centre of things, Tom. Go to Washington. Let them see why our government was made, how it was made, and how it is run.'" Much regret has been felt from the fact that there has been no book published heretofore in which the principles contended for in the American Revolution, and a description of the institutions of the Government, have been set forth in a sufficiently interesting form to make the study attractive to children.... This work has now been produced, and it is presented in a form which commends itself highly to the Society, and has received its cordial approval. HORACE PORTER. BROOKS, E.S. The Century Book of Famous Americans. Century. 1.50 This companion to The Century Book for Young Americans, issued under the auspices of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, gives a description of the pilgrimage of the same young people to historic homes. It is fully illustrated. BROOKS, E.S. The True Story of Benjamin Franklin. Lothrop. 1.50 As one who had a hand in shaping the destinies and securing the independence of his native land, by word and pen, by brain (p. 116) and hand, it is most fitting that the story of his life should be retold for young Americans.--_Preface._ The volume contains many pictures. Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.--_Poor Richard's Almanac._ BROOKS, E.S. The True Story of Lafayette. Lothrop. 1.50 The whole life of Lafayette was a long struggle for constitutional liberty, the freedom he had seen America secure and which he so ardently desired for France.--_Preface._ Mr. Brooks's account emphasizes the great Frenchman's disinterested services to our country at a time of dire need. Many illustrations add to the book's value. CHENOWETH, C. (V.D.). Stories of the Saints. Houghton. 1.25 "And as those of us who are men and women look with reverent and smiling interest upon the outgrown garments, and books, and toys, of our childhood, even so I think must Christendom ever look upon these outgrown beliefs of an earlier day. There is not one of the stories we can yet afford to lose. For we find, as we arrange the allegory and romance, and the real, historic bits, in a way to suit our wiser time, that the lessons they hold are as true for us as they were for the childlike people who cherished them a thousand years ago." The lives and legends of Saint George, Saint Denis, Saint Nicholas, Saint Elizabeth, and others less well known in the great brotherhood of all lands, are told with dignity and simplicity. The (p. 117) illustrations are taken from old pictures. COFFIN, C.C. The Boys of '76. Harper. 2.00 In this volume an attempt has been made to give a concise, plain, and authentic narrative of the principal battles of the Revolution as witnessed by those who took part in them.--_Preface._ A companion to Old Times in the Colonies, with maps and many pictures. COFFIN, C.C. Old Times in the Colonies. Harper. 2.00 Mr. Coffin's writings are full of reliable historical information, interestingly told. This, the first of a series, takes us from the discovery of San Salvador to the surrender of Montreal to General Amherst, in 1760. There are maps and many illustrations. CREIGHTON, L.H. (V.G.). A First History of France. Longmans. 1.25 There is no reason why history should not be made delightful, though it so often fails in this respect. This little book of Mrs. Mandell Creighton's, with its good maps, and illustrations, many of them from old prints, is truly interesting to children. GILMAN, ARTHUR. The Making of the American Nation. Lothrop. .50 The term Making of the American Nation, as used in the title (p. 118) of the present volume, is intended to mean the process by which the loosely connected American communities outgrew their colonial condition of social and political life, and developed into a nation.--_Preface._ HART, A.B., and B.E. HAZARD (Editors). Colonial Children. Macmillan. .40 This is the first of four readers which portray the life and conditions of our country at different periods by means of extracts from contemporary sources, freely edited. Many illustrations are given. The stories are the same in substance as when they were first told, two and three centuries ago; but their garb has been changed without adding a detail or altering a statement of fact.--_Introduction._ HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. Grandfather's Chair, and Biographical Stories. Houghton. .70 In writing this ponderous tome, the author's desire has been to describe the eminent characters and remarkable events of our annals in such a form and style that the YOUNG may make acquaintance with them of their own accord. For this purpose, while ostensibly relating the adventures of a chair, he has endeavored to keep a distinct and unbroken thread of authentic history.... The author, it is true, has sometimes assumed the license of filling up the outline of history with details for which he has none but imaginative authority, but which, he hopes, do not violate nor give a false coloring to the truth.--_Preface._ Grandfather's Chair records, in narrative form, New England (p. 119) chronicles from 1620 to the War for Independence. Biographical Stories are tales of West, Newton, Johnson, Cromwell, Franklin, and Queen Christina, told to a little boy with defective sight. The book has a biographical sketch, notes, and illustrations. HEMSTREET, CHARLES. The Story of Manhattan. Scribner. 1.00 Here the history of New York City is told as a story, in few words. The effort has been to make it accurate and interesting. The illustrations are largely from old prints and wood engravings. Few dates are used. Instead, a Table of Events has been added which can readily be referred to. The Index to Chapters also gives the years in which the story of each chapter occurs.--_Preface._ HILL, C.T. Fighting a Fire. Century. 1.50 An interesting account of the methods used in extinguishing fires and the thrilling experiences of the firemen in the city of New York, which will enthrall boys. McMASTER, J.B. A Primary History of the United States. American Book. .60 This book has been written in the belief that a primary history of the United States should be short, as interesting as possible, and well illustrated.... The illustrations are historically authentic.--_Preface._ PRICE, L.L. (p. 120) Wandering Heroes. Silver. .50 The deeds of great men belonging to different nomadic peoples are recounted. We are told about Abraham, Moses, Prince Siddartha, Clovis, Attila, Godwin, and Knut. TAPPAN, E.M. In the Days of Alfred the Great. Lothrop. 1.00 As stated in the preface, this narrative of the life of the famous king is the result of a thoughtful study of his character and an earnest effort to be as accurate as the scantiness of material and the thousand years' interval would permit. I have sought to live my life worthily. ALFRED THE GREAT. TAPPAN, E.M. In the Days of Queen Elizabeth. Lothrop. 1.00 Of all the sovereigns that have worn the crown of England, Queen Elizabeth is the most puzzling, the most fascinating, the most blindly praised, and the most unjustly blamed.... At a distance of three hundred years it is not easy to balance these claims to censure and to admiration, but at least no one should forget that the little white hand of which she was so vain guided the ship of state with most consummate skill in its perilous passage through the troubled waters of the latter half of the sixteenth century.--_Preface._ The book is illustrated from well-known paintings. TAPPAN, E.M. (p. 121) In the Days of William the Conqueror. Lothrop. 1.00 The story of William the Conqueror is the story of the man who for more than a quarter of a century was the most prominent personage of Western Europe.... Whatever in the character of the Conqueror the twentieth century may find worthy of blame or of praise, no student of his life will deny that his faults were those of his time, that his virtues were his own.--_Preface._ GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind. GARRISON. FINNEMORE, JOHN. England. Macmillan. .75 London Town is described, there are two chapters on Father Thames, and we are led through old Wessex, Warwickshire, the Broads and Fen-country, and the beautiful Lakeland. Twelve plates in color are given. FINNEMORE, JOHN. The Holy Land. Illustrated by John Fulleylove. Macmillan. .75 This account of peasant homes and the life of the people throughout the year makes many allusions in the Gospel story easily understood. There are chapters on Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and one entitled (p. 122) From Nazareth to Galilee. The volume contains twelve colored plates. HOPE, A.R. The World. Macmillan. 1.50 Although from its nature and size this book can give only a glimpse of each country, yet it does seem to convey, in moderate compass, a general view of the world, and quite a vivid impression of the different lands is absorbed from the colored pictures, which children always enjoy. The plates are thirty-seven in number. JUNGMAN, BEATRIX. Holland. Illustrated by Nico Jungman. Macmillan. .75 A pleasant account of the manners and customs, the costumes and feast-days, of Water land. The twelve colored plates add to the book's attraction. PELTIER, FLORENCE (Mrs. F. (P.) POPE). A Japanese Garland. Lothrop. 1.00 Charming accounts of the legends, stories, and customs, of the Flowery Kingdom, related by a little Japanese boy to his child friends in America. STRANGE LANDS NEAR HOME. Ginn. .25 This small volume contains a series of brief articles, by different persons, on Mexico and South America. Some of the subjects touched (p. 123) on are A Venezuelan Railway, The Land of the Llama, and The Argentine Capital. TOWARD THE RISING SUN. Ginn. .25 This companion volume to Strange Lands Near Home tells us of life in China, Japan, Korea, Borneo, and other Eastern countries. There is an interesting chapter on Housekeeping in East India, by Sara Jeannette Duncan. HYGIENE That man has a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of. HUXLEY. JEWETT, F.G. Good Health. Ginn. .40 A clear statement of facts concerning the body and the attention that should be given to it. There are chapters on fresh air, eyesight, the ear, the care of the nails, hair, and teeth, and valuable information about tobacco and alcohol, and their effects on animals as well as people. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES So it is; yet let us sing Honour to the old bowstring! Honour to the bugle-horn! Honour to the woods unshorn! Honour to the Lincoln green! (p. 124) Honour to the archer keen! Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon! Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood: Honour to Maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan! Though their days have hurried by Let us two a burden try. KEATS. BALDWIN, JAMES. The Story of Roland. Scribner. 1.50 This romance tells of the great Charlemagne, and of his warriors, Roland and Oliver and Ogier the Dane, all companions in arms. As James Baldwin states, Roland is unknown to history, yet he is the typical knight, the greatest hero of the Middle Ages. The story is culled from the song-writers and poets of five centuries and of as many languages. BALDWIN, JAMES. The Story of Siegfried. Illustrated by Howard Pyle. Scribner. 1.50 From the many versions, Elder and Younger Edda, Volsunga Saga, and Nibelungen Lied, including modern sources, Mr. Baldwin has reshaped this ancient tale. Though he sometimes draws material from his own imagination, the essential parts of the myth remain unaltered. CHURCH, A.J. (p. 125) The �neid for Boys and Girls. Macmillan. 1.50 The famous wanderings are retold from Virgil in simple language. Twelve illustrations in color accompany the text. CHURCH, A.J. The Iliad for Boys and Girls. Macmillan. 1.50 In a straightforward manner Mr. Church relates the incidents of the great siege. The volume contains twelve colored illustrations. HARRIS, J.C. *Nights with Uncle Remus. Houghton. 1.50 This second book of folk-lore is supplementary to Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings, and gives a large number of additional myths and legends of the South. HUTCHINSON, W.M.L. The Golden Porch. Longmans. 1.40 In adding one more to the innumerable collections of stories from the Greek, I have hoped to break fresh ground by reproducing the myths of Pindar's Odes, as far as possible in a free translation, and with such additions only as were needed to form a framework. Some of these legends are already wholly or partly familiar, but several will be new, I think, to English readers.--_Preface._ These old tales are rendered in exquisite language. They include, among others, the stories of Tantalus, the Heavenly Twins, Jason, (p. 126) and the Pansy Baby. The poet was bidden to prepare the Ode, from which this last story is taken, in honor of a friend's victory in the Olympic Games. The illustrations are in terra-cotta and black. KIPLING, RUDYARD. The Second Jungle Book. Century. 1.50 Telling more of Mowgli, the child of the jungle, and his brethren the wild creatures of the forest; together with other marvellous animal stories. "Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is--Obey!" MARVIN, F.S., R.J.C. MAYOR, and F.M. STAWELL (Editors). The Adventures of Odysseus. Illustrated by Charles Robinson. Dutton. 1.50 It has been our aim in this book to reproduce the substance of Homer's Odyssey in simple modern English. We have not hesitated to omit and compress where we thought fit, but we have done our best to make a faithful translation within our limits, and to keep what we could of the Homeric spirit.--_Preface._ PYLE, HOWARD. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Illustrated by the Author. Scribner. 3.00 Henry II and Queen Eleanor, the Lord Bishop of Hereford, the (p. 127) Sheriff of Nottingham, and Richard of the Lion's Heart, come forth from the land of mingled fact and fancy, with Robin Hood and his merry train, and live for us. While the text of this luxurious volume is dignified and somewhat archaic, children delight in reading it, nevertheless. There are many full-page illustrations. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word classic, classical), then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the same high character. MATTHEW ARNOLD. CERVANTES, MIGUEL DE. *Don Quixote of the Mancha. Edited by E.A. Parry. Illustrated by Walter Crane. Lane. 1.50 Let it be understood that all I have attempted to do is to tell a well-known story in print, as one who loves it would seek to tell it in words to those around his own fireside; in the hope that some may gather from this story that there is a vast storehouse of humour and wisdom awaiting them in the book itself.--_Preface._ HOLMES, O.W. (p. 128) *The One Hoss Shay, and Companion Poems. Illustrated by Howard Pyle. Houghton. 1.50 How the Old Horse Won the Bet, and The Broomstick Train, are the other poems. "You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, How it went to pieces all at once-- All at once, and nothing first-- Just as bubbles do when they burst." MacLEOD, MARY. Stories from the Faerie Queene. Illustrated by A.G. Walker. Stokes. 1.50 Do we not most of us belong to the group "who at present know nothing or next to nothing of what is certainly one of the masterpieces of English literature"? The tale of Spenser's great poem is simply related in acceptable prose. NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume IV. Fairy Stories and Classic Tales. Heath. .45 The imagination is the supreme intellectual faculty, and yet it is of all the one which receives least attention in our common systems of education.--_Preface._ RELIGION AND ETHICS (p. 129) The Bible itself did not begin in the dry letter, but was a rich and various life with Nature and among men before it was made into a book. SAMUEL OSGOOD. THOMAS, E.L. The Early Story of Israel. Longmans. .60 This small volume presents a general view of the early history of the Jews, in accordance with the results of the best Biblical and historical criticism. In addition to the maps and illustrations, there are six full-page plates from famous paintings. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS When I survey the bright Celestial sphere, So rich with jewels hung, that night Doth like an Ethiop bride appear; My soul her wings doth spread, And heavenward flies, The Almighty's mysteries to read In the large volumes of the skies. HABINGTON. BALL, R.S. Starland. Ginn. 1.00 The Royal Institution of Great Britain each year provides at Christmas-time a course of lectures for children. In 1881 and 1887 Sir R.S. Ball gave talks on astronomy, and on them the present volume (p. 130) is founded. BLANCHAN, NELTJE (Pseudonym of Mrs. N.B. (DeG.) DOUBLEDAY.) Bird Neighbors. With an introduction by John Burroughs. Doubleday. 2.00 Illustrated with full-page color plates. Non-technical. Birds grouped according to size and color; no specific color key. Rather full biographies. There are chapters giving the characteristics of the families, the habitats, and the seasons of occurrence. AUDUBON SOCIETY. Mr. Burroughs states that this book, which describes one hundred and fifty of our more common birds, is reliable, and is written in a vivacious strain by a real bird-lover, and should prove helpful and stimulating to any one who seeks by the aid of its pages to become better acquainted with our songsters. There are forty-eight plates in color. BLANCHAN, NELTJE (Pseudonym of Mrs. N.B. (DeG.) DOUBLEDAY). Nature's Garden. Doubleday. 3.00 Mrs. Doubleday has classified over five hundred flowers according to color, months of blooming, their preferred localities or habitats, and finally according to their proper families--by the classification adopted by the International Botanical Congress. Special attention has been given to the flowers' insect visitors. This large volume (p. 131) contains thirty-two pages of color plates, and forty-eight in black and white. Children learn so much from association with a book of this sort that it has been placed, because of the pictures, under a younger heading than the text alone would warrant. Mr. Dugmore's very beautiful photographs in color from the living flowers, and the no less exquisite portraits from life in black and white by Mr. Troth, cannot but prove the most attractive, as they are the most useful, feature of this book.--_Preface._ BURROUGHS, JOHN. Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. Houghton. 1.00 This wise old nature-lover tells us in his delightful way of the fox, mink, skunk, weasel, porcupine, muskrat, and other wild creatures. There are fifteen colored illustrations reduced from Audubon's large pictures. CRAGIN, B.S. Our Insect Friends and Foes. Putnam. 1.75 A boy of eleven once asked me, in the midst of a schoolroom talk on the uses of participles, where a grasshopper's ears were.... I did not wonder that he found grasshoppers more interesting than participles--I do myself--and so, I am sure, do the young people for whom, most of all, this book has been written.--_Preface._ Butterflies, moths, and insects, are described, and full directions for collecting, preserving, and studying them, given in this (p. 132) satisfactory volume, which contains many illustrations. A list of popular and scientific names is included. ECKSTORM, F.H. The Woodpeckers. Houghton. 1.00 Illustrated with colored plates and figures in the text; non-technical; color key. This is an introduction to the study of Woodpeckers. Not arranged as a manual, but giving information as to structure and habits of the family, with several studies of individual species. AUDUBON SOCIETY. LANG, ANDREW (Editor). The Red Book of Animal Stories. Longmans. 2.00 Creatures mythical and real, extinct monsters and animals of to-day, dwell at peace within this book of many tales. Adventures of famous men, experiences of animal trainers, and stories of a quieter nature, are included. MORLEY, M.W. Wasps and Their Ways. Illustrated by the Author. Dodd. 1.50 To learn so easily and pleasantly about the wasp from an authority may keep boys from destroying their nests and wantonly annoying them. And still, they say, in foreign lands, do men this language hold, There's nothing like your Attic wasp, so testy and so bold. ARISTOPHANES. PROCTOR, R.A. (p. 133) Half-Hours with the Stars. Putnam. 2.00 A plain and easy guide to the knowledge of the constellations, showing, in twelve maps, the position for the United States of the principal star groups night after night throughout the year, with introduction and a separate explanation of each map.--_Title-page._ STORIES The books that charmed us in youth recall the delight ever afterwards; we are hardly persuaded there are any like them, any deserving equally our affections. Fortunate if the best fall in our way during this susceptible and forming period of our lives. A. BRONSON ALCOTT. ALDEN, W.L. The Moral Pirates. Harper. .60 Four boys cruise in a large rowboat up the Hudson River and on some of the Adirondack Lakes, camping out, and having many funny and exciting experiences. BLACK, WILLIAM. The Four MacNicols, and An Adventure in Thule. Harper. .60 This volume is given because of the first of these two stories, which is not published separately. It tells of the fishing experiences of four Scotch brothers, and shows how much plucky lads can accomplish. In An Adventure in Thule two boys discover a young Frenchwoman (p. 134) stranded on an island, and succeed in rescuing her. CHURCH, A.J. Three Greek Children. Putnam. 1.25 An abundance of information about Greek life and customs is woven interestingly into the fabric of this tale. The battles of Marathon and Salamis are fought anew for the children by old men who were participants therein, and the Isthmian games are also described. COOLIDGE, SUSAN (Pseudonym of S.C. Woolsey). What Katy Did. Little. 1.25 TO FIVE Six of us once, my darlings, played together Beneath green boughs, which faded long ago, Made merry in the golden summer weather, Pelted each other with new-fallen snow. . . . . . . . . . . . So, darlings, take this little childish story, In which some gleams of the old sunshine play, And, as with careless hands you turn the pages, Look back and smile, as here I smile to-day. This account of the lively doings of the six little Carrs is full of action and interest. In the midst of her happy life poor Katy has to stop and learn, through the invalidism which comes as the result of an accident, the great lessons of patience, cheerfulness, and living for others. Happily, in the end, after her battle has been won, full health returns to her. DEFOE, DANIEL. (p. 135) Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by the Brothers Rhead. Harper. 1.50 Every child comprehends everything in Robinson Crusoe save one sole point--what conceivable reason he could have had for feeling discontented. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. The illustrations are the result of a special trip to the island of Tobago, the scene of the great narrative, and are from sketches made on the island. DODGE, M. (M.). Hans Brinker. Scribner. 1.50 First published in 1865, and since translated into many languages, this book still stands as _the_ picture of life in Holland to give to boys and girls. EGGLESTON, EDWARD. The Hoosier School-Boy. Scribner. 1.00 School life in town and village of the Middle West, in 1850. First published in 1883, the story has retained popularity. JACKSON, H.M. (F.) H. Nelly's Silver Mine. Little. 1.50 Rob and Nelly leave their New England home and journey with their parents to Colorado. There they have many interesting experiences in the silver mining country, which are told in Mrs. Jackson's (p. 136) charming natural style. JEWETT, S.O. Betty Leicester. Houghton. 1.25 Fifteen-year-old Betty spends a happy and satisfactory summer at Tideshead with her two aged aunts, bringing brightness and pleasure into their quiet lives. JOHNSON, ROSSITER. *Phaeton Rogers. Scribner. 1.50 Phaeton was so inventive that he was always in hot water. Boys love to read of his pranks and pleasures. LUCAS, E.V. Anne's Terrible Good Nature, and Other Stories for Children. Macmillan. 1.75 The atmosphere of these eleven tales is decidedly English, but they are so unusually good that our children will read them with enjoyment notwithstanding the unfamiliar setting. The Thousand Threepenny Bits, The Anti-Burglars, and the uncommonly funny one called The Monkey's Revenge, are among the number. MARRYAT, FREDERICK. Masterman Ready. Illustrated by Fred Pegram. Macmillan. 1.50 As children we parents learned to love old Masterman, the faithful (p. 137) and resourceful friend of the good Seagraves. Even now our eyes grow a little misty as we think of his brave death. Marryat began a continuation of The Swiss Family Robinson for his children, at their request, but its geographical anachronisms were too much for him, and he decided to write this story instead. No one will find fault with the change of plan. MORRISON, S.E. Chilhowee Boys. Crowell. .75 This account of pioneer days is essentially true, having been gathered from family records which tell how, in 1811, "Parson Craig," with his wife, six children, and a number of friends, made the four-hundred-mile journey from North Carolina into Tennessee. PAGE, T.N. Two Little Confederates. Scribner. 1.50 While this description of the life of two boys on a Southern plantation during the Civil War is dramatic and full of pathos, it is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Page, with his unerring touch, has not overdrawn a single detail of those days, happily long gone. PHELPS, E.S. (Mrs. E.S. (P.) WARD). Gypsy Breynton. Dodd. 1.50 Every girl will love impulsive, careless Gypsy with her many (p. 138) faults and the many more winning qualities of her warm-hearted nature. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is fun, and health, and hope, and happiness--and I think, wherever there is truthfulness and generosity--there is Gypsy, too.--_Preface._ PHELPS, E.S. (Mrs. E.S. (P.) WARD). Gypsy's Cousin Joy. Dodd. 1.50 Gypsy didn't want Joy to come and live with them at all, neither did she care for her at first, but through forbearance, gentleness, and Joy's great sorrow, they grew to love each other warmly. SEAWELL, M.E. °Little Jarvis. Appleton. 1.00 The hero, midshipman on the Constellation, in the fight between that ship and the French frigate Vengeance, gave his life with notable bravery in the service of his country. SMITH, M.P. (W.). Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack. Little. 1.25 A faithful description of farm life among the hills of Western Massachusetts seventy-five years ago. Before these times become wholly traditional, it seems good to picture them, as vividly as may be, for the benefit of the young folks who will grow up under influences differing so widely from those that shaped the youth of their ancestors.... They, and (p. 139) such as they, made the old New England the New England of glorious history and memories.--_Preface._ SMITH, N.A. Three Little Marys. Houghton. .85 Little girls of our own country will enjoy reading these three sketches which tell of faithful Gypsy Mairi of Scotland, English Molly of Sussex, and Irish Maureen. Each one of the three is natural, lovable, and worth knowing. STOWE, H.B. Little Pussy Willow. Houghton. 1.25 This old-fashioned story of the country mouse and the city mouse possesses charm, and abounds in homely common-sense. Mothers, fortunately, no longer bring up their daughters in the foolish way in which Emily Proudie was reared. The second story is included only because there is no other edition of Pussy Willow. ZOLLINGER, GULIELMA (Pseudonym of WILLIAM Z. GLAD WIN). *The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. McClurg. 1.50 An account of seven lads, who, after their father's death, help their brave little mother to keep the family together. Simply told; full of sterling common-sense and unselfish precept. The colored illustrations are delightful. The staunch widow and her seven sons are an admirable (p. 140) object-lesson in faithfulness to the claims of small things. Quite inimitable is Mrs. O'Callaghan's Irish way of putting things, which furnishes the salt to the solid nutriment of the story.--_The Nation._ _TWELVE YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 141) _The True University of these days is a collection of books._ CARLYLE. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT When Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. BYRON. BOND, A.R. The Scientific American Boy. Munn. 2.00 In the course of this camping story directions are given for making tents and other appurtenances of camp-life, bridges, windmills, ice-boats, sledges, et cetera. There are many illustrations. TAYLOR, C.M., JR. Why My Photographs Are Bad. Jacobs. 1.00 Most of this very practical volume is devoted to the mistakes so familiar to those of us who have attempted photography. The short chapters are accompanied by pictures illustrating the failures described. Examples of twelve successful photographs and information with each about the plate and time of exposure will give encouragement to the beginner. WHITE, MARY. (p. 142) How to Make Baskets. Doubleday. 1.00 A fully illustrated little book which contains clear directions for weaving many sorts of baskets, mats, bags, and other small articles. The use of dyes is taught, and information given about raffia, rattan, and other necessary materials. There is a chapter on caning chairs, and one by Neltje Blanchan on What the Basket Means to the Indian. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT There is no Past so long as Books shall live! BULWER-LYTTON. ARNOLD, E.J. Stories of Ancient Peoples. American Book. .50 An exceedingly interesting scholarly account of the ancient Orientals--Egyptians, Hittites, Medes and Persians, Chinese, and others. Descriptions of their methods of writing and translations from manuscripts and tablets are given. BARNES, JAMES. The Hero of Erie. Appleton. 1.00 The brilliant career of Oliver Hazard Perry is simply presented. There is a detailed description of the Battle of Lake Erie, accompanied (p. 143) by diagrams, and illustrations from contemporary engravings. CLEMENT, C.E. (Mrs. C.E. (C.) WATERS). Stories of Art and Artists. Houghton. 4.00 Mrs. Waters speaks with authority, and this fully illustrated volume, prepared with her own little daughter in mind, will be enjoyed by art-loving children. Many anecdotes are related. The first part is devoted to Ancient Art, including Sculpture. COFFIN, C.C. Building the Nation. Harper. 2.00 The story of our country from the Revolution to the beginning of the Civil War. Like the others of this series, it has maps and many illustrations. CUSTER, E. (B.). Boots and Saddles. Harper. 1.50 Mrs. Custer gives us a picture, drawn from her own experiences, of garrison and camp life on the frontier. The book ends with brief mention of the battle of the Little Big Horn, of Sunday, June twenty-fifth, 1876, in which General Custer lost his life. DICKENS, CHARLES. A Child's History of England. Houghton. 2.50 Its adaptation to the needs of children lies in its lively (p. 144) narrative form, and the picturesqueness of many of the scenes which it presents.--_Introduction._ This volume, written with Dickens' own eight children in mind, now more than fifty years ago, holds the interest of the boys and girls of to-day as keenly as when it first appeared. The many excellent illustrations add to its attraction and value. DOLE, C.F. The Young Citizen. Heath. .45 Permeated by the spirit of a broad and noble patriotism, and written in the interests of national peace, law, and good government, in regard to which it gives, very simply, much information. There are also chapters on voting, the proper use of the people's money, the ideal city and town, policemen and their duties, et cetera; all quite within the comprehension of a child. The book contains many illustrations. FOA, EUG�NIE. The Boy Life of Napoleon. Edited by E.S. Brooks. Lothrop. 1.25 Children will enjoy reading of the childhood days of Napoleon and his brothers and sisters, and of the school-boy life of this remarkable lad who grew up from poverty to become the most wonderful man of his time. Napoleon's experiences as a "king's scholar" in Paris, and as lieutenant of an artillery regiment, are also described. Madame (p. 145) Foa's work is historically accurate, and her style very interesting. HART, A.B., and MABEL HILL (Editors). Camps and Firesides of the Revolution. Macmillan. .50 The second volume of Source Readers is, like the first, wholly made up of pieces written at the time of the events and incidents here described. The language is modernized wherever necessary.--_Preface._ LANG, JEANIE. The Story of General Gordon. Dutton. .50 The character, as well as the deeds, of this remarkable man, whose life stands for faith, courage, and charity, is interestingly drawn. There are eight pictures in color. SCUDDER, H.E. Boston Town. Houghton. 1.50 Events in the early annals of this old city recounted in pleasant familiar fashion by a grandfather who visits the famous spots with the boys. Many illustrations help to make real the happenings described. See, saw, sacradown! Which is the way to Boston Town? One foot up, the other foot down, That is the way to Boston Town. OLD RHYME. SEAWELL, M.E. (p. 146) Paul Jones. Appleton. 1.00 Although this story is professedly and confessedly a romance, history has been consulted at every point. Log-books, journals, and biographies, have been searched, especially the logs, journals, and letters, of Paul Jones himself. Much relating to him has been left out, but nothing of consequence has been put in that is not historically true. The language ascribed to him is, whenever possible, that used by him at the time, or afterward, in his letters and journals.--_Introduction._ For Captain Paul Jones ever loved close fighting. FRANKLIN. SEAWELL, M.E. Twelve Naval Captains. Scribner. 1.25 Brief accounts of the lives of some famous American commanders, many of them of the period from 1798 to 1815. Preble, Decatur, Somers, and Lawrence, are among the number. The book contains portraits. SHEPARD, WILLIAM (Editor). Our Young Folks' Josephus. Lippincott. 1.25 "Flavius Josephus was born at Jerusalem A.D. 37.... His history of The Jewish War, which was finished A.D. 75, was undertaken at the command of Vespasian, and is a noble and pathetic narrative of events that had been witnessed by himself. His other important work, The Antiquities of the Jews, was finished about A.D. 93, and was an attempt to familiarize the Roman people with the early history of the Jews as it is recorded in the Scripture." The following pages are ... a simplification of the story of (p. 147) the Jews as related by Josephus.... Josephus wrote his histories for the Romans, and we need not therefore wonder ... at his modifying and toning down the historical statements of the Mosaic records to recommend them to the prejudices of his readers.--_Preface._ STOCKTON, F.R. Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts. Macmillan. 1.50 "When I was a boy I strongly desired to be a pirate.... In fact, I had a great desire to become what might be called a marine Robin Hood." All boys will sympathize with this point of view, and will enjoy reading of Morgan, Blackbeard, Kidd, and many less famous or infamous men who sailed our coasts. FINE ARTS Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech. SIMONIDES. STEEDMAN, AMY. Knights of Art. Jacobs. 2.00 Best book on art for children (1907). Contains sketches of eighteen Italian painters from Giotto to Paul Veronese, based on Vasari, and attractively written. Sixteen color and eight black and white reproductions. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY. This volume seems to the compiler of this List one of the few books on art which children will read with real enjoyment. It is not (p. 148) included with a view to having it take the place of a history of art, but to give a part of the information which old Vasari has handed down to us with such charm. The language is delightful, and we carry away some of the atmosphere of that sunny Italian period. It is a pity that we are not given illustrations photographed from the originals, instead of more or less modified drawings. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION Up! up! let us a voyage take; Why sit we here at ease? Find us a vessel tight and snug, Bound for the Northern Seas. WILLIAM HOWITT. BROOKS, NOAH. The Story of Marco Polo. Century. 1.50 The manner of the return of the Polos long after they had been given up for dead, the subsequent adventures of Marco Polo, the incredulity with which his book of travels was received, the gradual and slow confirmation of the truth of his reports as later explorations penetrated the mysterious Orient, and the fact that he may be justly regarded as the founder of the geography of Asia, have all combined to give to his narrative a certain fascination, with which no other story of travel has been invested.--_Preface._ As far as possible, Mr. Brooks has allowed the traveler to speak for himself. BULL, J.B. (p. 149) Fridtjof Nansen. Heath. .30 This highly interesting account of the great explorer, his crossing of Greenland, and his Polar expedition, will enthrall young people as Farthest North did their elders. CARPENTER, F.G. South America. American Book. .60 In this good geographical reader the children are taken "upon a personally conducted tour through the most characteristic parts of the South American continent.... The book has the merit of being written from original sources of information. It comprises the observations of the author gathered in a trip of more than twenty-five thousand miles along the routes herein described. Most of the descriptions were written on the ground, and a very large number of the photographs were made by the author especially for this book." DU CHAILLU, P.B. The Land of the Long Night. Scribner. 2.00 Du Chaillu visited the Northern lands in winter, traveling overland to Nordkyn, living among the Lapps, and later going in a fishing-boat off the coast of Finmarken for cod. FINNEMORE, JOHN. France. Illustrated by Nico Jungman and Others. Macmillan. .75 Three chapters are devoted to the Loire country, and we are told (p. 150) of Normandy and Brittany, as well as other parts of France, including Paris. There is a sketch of boy and girl life which will make our young people glad of their freer environment. The twelve colored pictures add to the book's interest. HORTON, EDITH. The Frozen North. Heath. .40 This account of Arctic exploration consists of a series of sketches of different Polar expeditions, from the days of Sir John Franklin to the Ziegler-Baldwin and other undertakings of 1902. Here children may read consecutively of Kane, Nordenskjöld, Greely, Nansen, and others, and acquire a general view of Polar discovery. KELLY, R.T. Egypt. Illustrated by the Author. Macmillan. .75 An interesting picture of this most interesting country. The Nile is fully described, and there are chapters on the people, the desert, and the monuments. The volume contains twelve plates in color. NORDHOFF, CHARLES. Sailor Life on a Man-of-War. Dodd. 2.00 To give a sailor's impressions of a sailor's life ... has been the aim. Neither exaggerating its hardships--they do not need it--nor highly coloring its delights, whatever those may be, the very plainest truth has been thought sufficient for the purpose in view.--_Original Preface._ Many changes and improvements have come about since 1854, when (p. 151) this volume was written, but it is republished without alteration of the text, so as to give a picture of sailor days before the introduction of steam. PLUMMER, M.W. Roy and Ray in Mexico. Holt. 1.75 Two wide-awake children, with their parents, visit modern cities and ancient ruins, learn much of customs and history, meet President Diaz, and compare things Mexican and American. Map, sixteen half-tone plates, and Mexican songs with music. Useful as a travel guide, and helpful to teachers and school children. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY. STARR, FREDERICK. Strange Peoples. Heath. .40 A series of brief accounts of some of the many peoples of the world, accompanied by authentic illustrations. The author is Professor of Anthropology in the University of Chicago. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye. KEATS. HIGGINSON, T.W. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. Illustrated by Albert Herter. Macmillan. 1.50 Hawthorne, in his Wonder Book, has described the beautiful (p. 152) Greek myths and traditions, but no one has yet made similar use of the wondrous tales that gathered for more than a thousand years about the islands of the Atlantic deep.... The order of the tales in the present work follows roughly the order of development, giving first the legends which kept near the European shore, and then those which, like St. Brandan's or Antillia, were assigned to the open sea or, like Norumbega or the Isle of Demons, to the very coast of America.... Every tale in this book bears reference to some actual legend, followed more or less closely.--_Preface._ LAMB, CHARLES. The Adventures of Ulysses. Illustrated by M.H. Squire and E. Mars. Russell. 2.50 Intended to be an introduction to the reading of Telemachus; it is done out of the Odyssey, not from the Greek. I would not mislead you; nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an older translation of one Chapman. LAMB. This children's classic, with its pure and forceful English, is presented in an attractive manner. The full-page illustrations are in black and buff. LANIER, SIDNEY (Editor). Knightly Legends of Wales, or The Boy's Mabinogion. Scribner. 2.00 The Mabinogion, or Welsh legends of King Arthur, belong to a much earlier period than Malory. In this edition the original text is scrupulously preserved, except for necessary excision, and occasional condensation which is always placed in brackets. WILSON, C.D. (p. 153) The Story of the Cid. Lothrop. 1.25 "Thus lived and died the great Cid Campeador of Spain, most wonderful of heroes, who was never defeated, and who became the ancestor of kings." This edition is founded upon the translation of Southey. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS In the best books, great men talk to us, with us, and give us their most precious thoughts. Books are the voices of the distant and the dead.... They give to all who will faithfully use them the society and the presence of the best and greatest of our race. CHANNING. DARTON, F.J.H. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Stokes. 1.50 Mr. Darton has so delightfully made real the times of Richard II, and has so well adapted the tales told by the immortal pilgrims, that we owe him a debt of thanks. I say we, for certainly we older people will enjoy them as much as our children. In retelling the tales in prose the editor has introduced material from Lydgate and others. Dr. Furnivall contributes an illuminating introduction, and Hugh Thomson's illustrations are, as usual, very satisfactory. He (Chaucer) carried his sunshine with him as he rode and (p. 154) walked about, observing with quick eye the varied life around him, and then reproducing it for us in words which enable us to recreate it, and to see the sun of his genius over the land we love. F.J. FURNIVALL. LAMB, CHARLES and MARY. Tales from Shakspeare. Illustrated by N.M. Price. Scribner. 2.50 The following Tales are meant to be submitted to the young reader as an introduction to the study of Shakspeare, for which purpose his words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; ... words introduced into our language since his time have been as far as possible avoided.... What these Tales shall have been to the _young_ readers, that and much more it is the writers' wish that the true Plays of Shakspeare may prove to them in older years--enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full.--_Preface._ I have done Othello and Macbeth, and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it will be popular among the little people, besides money. LAMB. This edition of an English classic contains engraved portraits of Charles and Mary Lamb, after those in the National Portrait Gallery, and twenty full-page illustrations in color. MACAULAY, T.B. Lays of Ancient Rome. Illustrated by J.R. Weguelin. Longmans. 1.25 This attractive edition of Macaulay's famous poems contains, in (p. 155) addition, Ivry and The Armada. NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume V. Masterpieces of Literature. Heath. .50 To make good reading more attractive than bad, to give right direction to the choice, the growing intelligence of the child should be nourished with selected portions of the best literature, the virtue of which has been approved by long consent.--_Preface._ WIGGIN, K.D. (S.) and N.A. SMITH (Editors). Golden Numbers. Doubleday. 2.00 Mrs. Wiggin tells us that she and her sister have searched the pages of the great English-speaking poets to find verses that children will love. The quest has been successful, for the collection gives us full measure of that which is among the best in English poetry. The selections are arranged under headings, such as The World Beautiful, For Home and Country, and In Merry Mood. One division is devoted to Christmas songs and carols. RELIGION AND ETHICS Oh books!... Ye are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the soldiers of the Church, with which to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. RICHARD DE BURY. GILLIE, R.C. (p. 156) The Story of Stories. Macmillan. 1.25 An exceptionally good book, describing as a connected narrative the events of Christ's life. The language is simple and dignified, and the words of the Gospel, whenever used, are given without variation. Fully illustrated from photographs of famous paintings. STRONG, SYDNEY. Talks to Boys and Girls. Revell. .50 Under three divisions, Kite Talks, Random Talks, and The Life I Ought to Live, Mr. Strong gives us practical, interesting, and helpful suggestions for leading broad spiritual lives of love and usefulness. Many anecdotes enliven the text. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old. CHESTERFIELD. BAKER, R.S. The Boy's Book of Inventions. Doubleday. 2.00 These accounts of the wonders of modern science tell of liquid air, wireless telegraphy, X-Ray photography, and other marvels. There are many illustrations. BAMFORD, M.E. (p. 157) Up and Down the Brooks. Houghton. .75 A careful observer and nature-lover gives us a familiar account of the wonderful lives of the little brook creatures. The insects mentioned in these pages are those of Alameda County, California, but members of the same families will be found in or beside almost any brook, East or West. CHAPMAN, F.M. Bird-Life. Illustrated by E.E. Thompson-Seton. Appleton. 2.00 Illustrated with seventy-five full-page plates in color and figures in the text. Non-technical, with a color key to about one hundred and fifty of the more common species. This book is in two parts. The first chapters define the bird, its place in Nature, and its relation to man, and outline the leading facts in its life-history. The second part gives a Field Key based on color, and biographies of some of the common birds. AUDUBON SOCIETY. CLODD, EDWARD. The Childhood of the World. Kegan Paul. 1.25 This book ... is an attempt, in the absence of any kindred elementary work, to narrate, in as simple language as the subject will permit, the story of man's progress from the unknown time of his early appearance upon the earth to the period from which writers of history ordinarily begin. ... The First Part of this book describes the progress of man in material things, while (p. 158) the Second Part seeks to explain his mode of advance from lower to higher stages of religious belief.--_Preface._ And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man. WHITTIER. The subject of this volume seems a little appalling for children, but it is treated in so remarkable a manner and with such simplicity that the book should be in the hands of all young people. It is not surprising to learn that it has been translated into many languages. ECKSTORM, F. (H.). The Bird Book. Heath. .60 Illustrated with full-page woodcuts and figures in the text. Written in popular style; chapters on Water-Birds in their Homes; Structure and Comparison; Problems of Bird-Life; Some Common Land-Birds. Much original matter about little-known water-birds. AUDUBON SOCIETY. GEIKIE, ARCHIBALD. Physical Geography. American Book. .35 Children of inquiring minds will find in this tiny volume expert answers to their questions about the earth and its wonders. HOLLAND, W.J. The Butterfly Book. Doubleday. 3.00 Dr. Holland, Director of the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, has given us an authoritative account of the butterfly-life of North America (p. 159) north of Mexico, and at the same time has kept this book entirely within the comprehension of the unscientific nature-lover. Directions are given for the capture, preparation, and preservation, of specimens. There are forty-eight pages of color plates, reproducing more than a thousand North American butterflies, and several hundred black and white text illustrations. INGERSOLL, ERNEST. The Book of the Ocean. Century. 1.50 Waves, tides, and currents, early exploration, war-ships and naval battles, merchantmen, yachts and yachting, marine industries, and the animal life of the ocean, are all discussed in this good-sized, fully illustrated volume. MEADOWCROFT, W.H. The ABC of Electricity. Excelsior Publishing. 50 A simple treatise on electricity and its uses in connection with the telephone, telegraph, electric light, et cetera. MORLEY, M.W. A Song of Life. Illustrated by the Author and Robert Forsyth. McClurg. 1.25 How few thoughtful parents have not been perplexed by the question of when and how best to tell their children the great truths of the beginning and development of life in the world of nature. Miss (p. 160) Morley is well qualified to treat this most difficult subject, which she does delicately and reverently, from a scientific standpoint. As there is so great a difference of opinion as to the advisability of giving books of this nature to adolescent boys and girls, it is strongly recommended that this one be carefully read beforehand by the parent. ST. JOHN, T.M. How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus. St. John. 1.00 Directions for making simple electrical appliances, such as batteries and electric bells. STONE, WITMER, and W.E. CRAM. American Animals. Doubleday. 3.00 A readable book, beautifully illustrated, ... and in many of its life-histories much fuller, fresher, and more interestingly written than any other work on animals that I know. DALLAS LORE SHARP. In preparing the present volume the aim has been to produce a work sufficiently free from technicalities to appeal to the general reader and at the same time to include such scientific information relative to our North American mammals as would be desired by one beginning their study.--_Preface._ The illustrations which accompany these descriptions of the mammals of North America north of Mexico comprise six plates in color from paintings by A.B. Dugmore, and ninety-four half-tones from (p. 161) remarkable photographs from life by Messrs. Dugmore, Carlin, Beebe, and other expert nature-photographers. Some of the photographs were taken in the New York and Washington Zoölogical Parks, and some in the open. STORIES The best romance becomes dangerous if by its excitement it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and increases the morbid thirst for scenes in which we shall never be called on to act. RUSKIN. ALCOTT, L.M. Little Women. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. Little. 2.00 Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, are as great favorites with the girls of this generation as they were with their mothers. The book gives a picture drawn from the youthful days of Miss Alcott and her sisters, and its sweet natural home atmosphere and high standards make it one that should be read by every little woman of to-day. ALDRICH, T.B. *The Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated by A.B. Frost. Houghton. 2.00 "This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself." This much loved volume should be put in the hands of every (p. 162) American lad. Mr. Frost's illustrations are delightfully sympathetic. BENNETT, JOHN. Master Skylark. Century. 1.50 A sweet fresh tale of the days when Will Shakspere trod the boards. Little Nicholas Attwood joins a company of actors, and the head player, dubbing him Master Skylark because of his wonderful voice, takes him with them to London against his will. Good Master Shakspere, however, helps him in time of need, and little Nick gets safely home again to his mother in Stratford town. BROOKS, NOAH. The Boy Emigrants. Scribner. 1.25 An account of an overland trip to California in 1849. The scenery of the book is all taken from nature; many of the characters were real people; and almost all the incidents which here befall the Boy Emigrants came under my own observation, or under that of people whom I knew on the trail or in California. NOAH BROOKS. CANAVAN, M.J. Ben Comee. Macmillan. 1.50 This eighteenth-century Colonial narrative gives a vivid description of Roger's Rangers. The Rangers were for the most part New (p. 163) Hampshire frontiersmen. COOLIDGE, SUSAN (Pseudonym of S.C. WOOLSEY). What Katy Did at School. Little. 1.25 The sequel to What Katy Did tells of the boarding-school days of Katy and Clover Carr. While the story is interesting and amusing, it is at the same time an advantage to any girl to make the acquaintance of these two delightful sisters, with their simple honorable standards. COOPER, J.F. The Deerslayer. Houghton. 1.25 "The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745.... Broad belts of the virgin wilderness ... affording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior, as he trod the secret and bloody war-path." Cooper's style is, according to present-day standards, somewhat pompous and stilted, but all boys should read this account of the New York settlers' warfare against the Iroquois and know Deerslayer, the picturesque frontiersman. And Natty won't go to oblivion quicker Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar. LOWELL. COOPER, J.F. The Last of the Mohicans. Houghton. 1.25 Story of the French and Indian war. It tells of the siege (p. 164) of Fort William Henry, the capture of two young girls by the Indians, and the adventures of an English officer while trying to rescue them. Hawk-eye the scout and Uncas, the last of the Mohicans, are two of the other characters. CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. EGGLESTON, G.C. The Last of the Flatboats. Lothrop. 1.50 The adventures of five boys on a trip down the Mississippi at the time of a great flood. The tone of the book is manly. FORBES, C.B. Elizabeth's Charm-String. Little. 1.50 Elizabeth's aunt brings home from Europe various tiny symbols relating to different famous places, buildings, and paintings. The legends connected with them are told to a group of eager girls. FRENCH, H.W. °The Lance of Kanana. Lothrop. 1.00 This Arab tale of a Bedouin boy of many years ago is so instinct with splendid patriotism that it is difficult to characterize it as sad, though in the end Kanana gives up his life for Allah and Arabia. A graphic picture of Oriental life, full of exciting experiences. HUGHES, THOMAS. (p. 165) Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby. Illustrated by E.J. Sullivan. Macmillan. 2.00 The one great story of school-boy life, telling of days at Rugby under the famous Dr. Arnold, and revealing the spiritual influence of a great master. INMAN, HENRY. The Ranche on the Oxhide. Macmillan. 1.50 Tale of pioneer days in Kansas when wolves and panthers, buffaloes and Indians, were familiar sights to the ranchman. Buffalo Bill and General Custer appear in the story. CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. Colonel Inman served under Generals Custer, Gibbs, Sully, and other famous Indian fighters, of whose staffs he was a member. Over forty years on the extreme frontier gave him a rare opportunity to study the Indian character.--_National Cyclopædia of American Biography._ JANVIER, T.A. The Aztec Treasure House. Harper. 1.50 The scene of these stirring adventures is laid in Mexico of the present day, and the heroes, a little band of plucky men, penetrate to the heart of an unknown Aztec city. The well-written narrative is so full of exciting happenings that it is a favorable substitute for the ordinary sensational volume in which many boys find delight. KIPLING, RUDYARD. (p. 166) Captains Courageous. Century. 1.50 An indulged lad, the son of rich parents, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamer and is rescued by the crew of a fishing-smack off the Banks of Newfoundland. The boy has to stay with the men and make himself useful until the fishing season is over. The hardy life of the sea makes a man of him by the time he is restored to his parents. "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow; Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear." MARTINEAU, HARRIET. Feats on the Fiord. Macmillan. .50 A vivid picture of Norwegian life of the eighteenth century. Full of action and interest, and conveying much information as to Northern ways and customs in such a manner that it becomes a part of the story. MARTINEAU, HARRIET. The Peasant and the Prince. Houghton. .40 Whatever we may think of the literary quality of Miss Martineau's work, the practical achievements of her life were remarkable.... The Peasant and the Prince is a good example of her method. It is a sketch of the condition of French society just before the outbreak of the Revolution. Only the first part can be called fiction, and that only in a superficial sense.... So deep a (p. 167) sympathy, so passionate an earnestness, informs much of her work, that it is still worth reading for its own sake as well as for the sake of the distinguished woman who produced it. H.W. BOYNTON. The book is extremely interesting. MATTHEWS, BRANDER. Tom Paulding. Century. 1.50 The description of a successful, yet unsuccessful, search for buried treasure in the streets of New York will satisfy in a harmless way the desire which all normal boys have for books of this character. MUNROE, KIRK. The Flamingo Feather. Harper. .60 The exciting experiences of a French lad during the settlement of Florida by France in the sixteenth century. Many incidents hinge on the faithful friendship existing between a young Indian and the hero. PYLE, HOWARD. Men of Iron. Harper. 2.00 A historical story of the time of Henry IV, giving an account of the training and knighting of Myles Falworth, and of his struggle as champion for his old blind father in the ordeal by battle; of Prince Hal, and the wild hard days that bred fighting men. SHAW, F.L. (p. 168) Castle Blair. Little. 1.00 This charming picture of child-life on an Irish estate was highly commended by Ruskin in these words: There is a quite lovely little book just come out about children, Castle Blair!... The book is good, and lovely, and true, having the best description of a noble child in it (Winnie) that I ever read; and nearly the best description of the next best thing--a noble dog. SMITH, M.P. (W.). More Good Times at Hackmatack. Little. 1.25 A further account of farm life in Western Massachusetts begun in Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack. Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze! WHITTIER. To fear God, do your duty, tell the truth, and be industrious--this was the New England ideal; and until we can replace it by a better, we can hardly afford to belittle it.--_Preface._ STEIN, EVALEEN. Gabriel and the Hour Book. Page. 1.00 This simply-told story presents in a charming way a sketch of French life in the reign of Louis XII. It tells of how little Gabriel helped Brother Stephen to illuminate a wonderful Book of Hours for the King to give as a wedding gift to Anne of Brittany, and of the (p. 169) happiness that came to the faithful workers therefrom. STOCKTON, F.R. The Story of Viteau. Scribner. 1.50 A tale of two French lads, the sons of the Countess of Viteau, who lived in the rude days of Louis IX. Many of the duties and pleasures of mediæval life are incidentally described. THOMPSON, A.R. Gold-Seeking on the Dalton Trail. Little. 1.50 These adventures of two New England boys in Alaska and the Northwest Territory are based on real happenings. The scenery of the region is described, and useful information given about the Klondike, and its flora and fauna. TRUE, J.P. The Iron Star. Little. 1.50 The iron star was a meteor, whose story is that of the ages from the days of the Cavemen to the time of Miles Standish. TWAIN, MARK (Pseudonym of S.L. Clemens). The Prince and the Pauper. Harper. 1.75 This never-was-but-might-have-been story is truly one "for young people of all ages." It tells of the exchange of station which occurred between young Edward Prince of Wales and Tom Canty the (p. 170) beggar's son. Tom grows to like the stately life, but the noble young prince learns many a bitter truth about his realm. We are glad for both boys when the latter, now King Edward VI, comes to his own again. The author follows closely the life and customs of the day. In spite of the main incident and its consequences being historically factitious, the tale presents a vivid picture of the young King and his people, and the London of that time. _THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 171) _Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling! Where go the children, travelling ahead? Some go to conquer things; some go to try them; Some go to dream them; and some go to bed._ RILEY. AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT To a young heart everything is fun. DICKENS. HASLUCK, P.N. (Editor). Knotting and Splicing Ropes and Cordage. Cassell. .50 A comprehensive little book on a subject about which all boys are anxious to know something. There are many illustrations. WELLS, CAROLYN. Rainy Day Diversions. Moffat. 1.00 Uncle Robert explains arithmetical puzzles, and card and other tricks. There are suggestions for celebrating the different holidays, and two children's plays are given. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT (p. 172) Where'er a single slave doth pine, Where'er one man may help another-- Thank God for such a birthright, brother-- That spot of earth is thine and mine! There is the true man's birthplace grand, His is a world-wide fatherland! LOWELL. BOLTON, S.E. (K). Lives of Girls Who Became Famous. Crowell. 1.50 The achievements of nineteen women of note are briefly recounted. Among the number are Harriet Beecher Stowe, Maria Mitchell, Madame de Stael, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Florence Nightingale. An encouraging book for ambitious girls. CHURCH, A.J. Stories of the East from Herodotus. Dodd. 1.00 The Father of History tells us of Croesus, his war with and defeat by the Persians; of Cyrus and his triumphs; of certain kings of Egypt and the manners of the people; of Cambyses and the Persian conquest; of the False Smerdis; and of Darius, lord of all Asia. DRAKE, F.S. Indian History for Young Folks. Harper. 3.00 This standard work gives a general account of the North American (p. 173) Indian, and of our various wars with the different tribes to recent times. There are maps and many illustrations. GRIFFIS, W.E. Young People's History of Holland. Houghton. 1.50 Every American should know the history of the Netherlands, the fatherland of millions of Americans and the storehouse of precedents in federal government from which those who made our nation borrowed most freely. Nowhere in Europe, except in England, can one find the origin of so much that is deepest and best in our national life--including the highest jewel of civilization, religious liberty--as in Holland, as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin long ago confessed.--_Preface._ The satisfactory illustrations to this excellent book are taken from old prints. HART, A.B., and A.B. CHAPMAN (Editors). How Our Grandfathers Lived. Macmillan. .60 This volume relates chiefly to the first half of the nineteenth century. Our grandfathers and even our fathers passed lives full of interest and of unusual incidents: the school, the field, the forest, the hunt, the stagecoach, and the steamboat, are already remote from our present generation.... Special pains have been taken to illustrate the remarkable life of the Western frontier, now fast becoming a tradition.--_Preface._ Girls will enjoy the informal letters, describing the customs and costumes at the English Court, as well as those of our own land. HIGGINSON, T.W. (p. 174) Young Folks' History of the United States. Longmans. 1.00 There are many histories of our country to choose from, but none is more satisfactory for young people than this, with its choice language and interesting style. It contains maps and numerous illustrations. It will be noticed that less space than usual is given, in these pages, to the events of war, and more to the affairs of peace. This course has been deliberately pursued.... Times of peace, the proverb says, have few historians; but this may be more the fault of the historians than of the times.--_Preface._ KIEFFER, H.M. The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy. Houghton. 1.50 The author was drummer-boy during the Civil War in the 150th regiment of Pennsylvania volunteers, and he tells his own experiences in camp and on the battlefield from the time of his enlistment to the "muster-out." CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. LANIER, SIDNEY (Editor). The Boy's Froissart. Scribner. 2.00 These tales, which retain to a considerable extent the archaic style of the original, will interest only the exceptional boy or girl. PARTON, JAMES. Captains of Industry. Houghton. Two volumes. 2.50 The careers of successful business men who had aims beyond mere (p. 175) money-getting. Among those told of are Elihu Burritt, Henry Bessemer, Sir William Phips, and Ezra Cornell. SCOTT, WALTER. Tales of a Grandfather. Edited by Edwin Ginn. Ginn. .40 This well-known book gives the history of Scotland from the earliest period to the close of the reign of James V. The present work has been slightly abridged by the omission of detailed descriptions of some of the more barbarous cruelties of those times and other unimportant matter. The story unimpaired has been given in Scott's own language.--_Preface._ SCUDDER, H.E. George Washington. Houghton. .75 A reliable conservative biography. It is not only a historical portrait, but a picture of eighteenth-century colonial life in Virginia. THE SHIP OF STATE, BY THOSE AT THE HELM. Ginn. .40 Twelve articles describing the life and duties of the servants of the nation. Among the subjects included are The Presidency, by Roosevelt; The Life of a Senator, by Lodge; How Jack Lives, by Long; Good Manners and Diplomacy, by Day; The American Post Office, by Wilson. TAPPAN, E.M. (p. 176) In the Days of Queen Victoria. Lothrop. 1.00 The celebrated reign of the good queen is faithfully portrayed. Queen, as true to womanhood as Queenhood, Glorying in the glories of her people, Sorrowing with the sorrows of the lowest! . . . . . . . . . . Henry's fifty years are all in shadow, Gray with distance Edward's fifty summers, Ev'n her Grandsire's fifty half forgotten. TENNYSON. WHITE, J.S. (Editor). The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch. Putnam. 1.75 Plutarch wrote a hundred books and was never dull. Most of these have been lost, but the portions which remain have found, with the exception of Holy Writ, more readers through eighteen centuries than the works of any other writer of ancient times.--_Introduction._ If any substitute for a full translation is desired, this abridgment will serve. It is illustrated. WRIGHT, H.C. Children's Stories of the Great Scientists. Scribner. 1.25 Miss Wright's language is picturesque and interesting. These sixteen chapters on the famous scientists from Galileo to Darwin and Huxley will fascinate intelligent children. ZIMMERN, ALICE. Greek History for Young Readers. Longmans. 1.00 A simple, scholarly history; the English excellent. There are maps (p. 177) and many uncommonly good illustrations. FINE ARTS Where gripinge grefes the hart would wounde, And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse, There musicke with her silver-sound With spede is wont to send redresse. Attributed to RICHARD EDWARDS. CHAMPLIN, J.D. The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Literature and Art. Holt. 3.00 In this an attempt has been made to give a brief account of the acknowledged masterpieces in literature and in art, the latter term being understood to include architecture, sculpture, painting, and music.--_Preface._ Short descriptions of great books, popular fairy tales, notable characters and objects in fiction, celebrated buildings, statues, pictures, and operas, are included in this fully illustrated volume. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen: Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. KINGSLEY. DANA, R.H. (p. 178) Two Years Before the Mast. Houghton. 1.00 It does not often happen that a young man of twenty-five writes a book which becomes a classic in the language.... Yet this is the history of Dana's Two Years before the Mast.--_Biographical Sketch._ The author, a boy of nineteen, left Harvard College in 1834 and shipped as a sailor, hoping by this open-air life to cure a serious weakness of the eyes. He sailed around Cape Horn, coasted along the California shore, and returned home by the same route. EASTMAN, C.A. Indian Boyhood. Illustrated by E.L. Blumenschein. Doubleday. 1.60 Dr. Eastman is himself a Sioux, and this account is the record of his own youth among this wild people when their warriors went on the warpath against the "Big Knives," and his highest ambition was to join them. FINNEMORE, JOHN. India. Illustrated by Mortimer Menpes. Macmillan. .75 We journey to the court of a native prince, travel through the bazaars, and visit village, jungle, and even the great Himalayas themselves. The book is particularly interesting, because India is less well known to young people than many other lands. Of the twelve colored pictures, two are specially good,--a tailor at work, and a (p. 179) Sikh warrior. FINNEMORE, JOHN. Japan. Illustrated by Ella du Cane. Macmillan. .75 The volume is devoted rather to the habits, manners, and customs, of this wonderful people than to a description of the country itself. Boy and girl life, games, feast-days, the occupations of a Japanese day, the police, and the soldier, are told about in an entertaining manner. There are eight plates in color. JENKS, TUDOR. The Boy's Book of Explorations. Doubleday. 2.00 A satisfactory introduction to exploration in general, and a comprehensive account of the travel and discovery of recent times in Africa, Asia, and Australia. The journeys of Livingstone, Stanley, and many other well-known African explorers, are related; Rockhill's adventures in Tibet; the experiences of Hedin and Landor; and the opening up of Australia. The beauty of Livingstone's character is dwelt upon. Maps and many illustrations add to the book's value. LANG, JOHN. The Story of Captain Cook. Dutton. .50 A brief life of England's great explorer, giving details of his three famous voyages and his tragic end. There are eight pictures in color. LEE, YAN PHOU. (p. 180) When I was a Boy in China. Lothrop. .75 This informing sketch of Chinese boyhood is by a native who left home at the age of twelve years to be educated in the United States. PARKMAN, FRANCIS. The Oregon Trail. Illustrated by Frederic Remington. Little. 2.00 Valuable not only as literature, but in that it gives the personal experiences of an intelligent observer in crossing the plains, long before the building of a trans-continental railway. Parkman made this trip in 1846. The Wild West is tamed, and its savage charms have withered. If this book can help to keep their memory alive, it will have done its part. It has found a powerful helper in the pencil of Mr. Remington, whose pictures are as full of truth as of spirit, for they are the work of one who knew the prairies and the mountains before irresistible commonplace had subdued them.--_Preface to the Illustrated Edition._ PLUMMER, M.W. Roy and Ray in Canada. Holt. 1.75 "This companion volume to Roy and Ray in Mexico embodies much that is interesting concerning Canadian history, manners, and customs.... The book will be useful as a travel guide, but it is primarily intended to cover a hitherto neglected field for children." Illustrated from photographs, with map, and words and music of Canadian national songs. Our old friends Roy and Ray enjoyed their trip through Eastern (p. 181) Canada, and so will the boys and girls who join them on their travels. STARR, FREDERICK. American Indians. Heath. .45 Mr. Starr, an acknowledged authority, tells us of many different Indian tribes; their language, customs, picture-writing, dances, and ceremonies. The author has himself had acquaintance with some thirty tribes. The book is very fully and satisfactorily illustrated. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck. SHAKSPERE. KIPLING, RUDYARD. Puck of Pook's Hill. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Doubleday. 1.50 To Dan and Una, sitting, on Midsummer's Eve, in the old fairy ring, appears Puck. By his magic power on this and succeeding visits incidents based on events in Old England's history are told to the children by those who shared in them. A series of remarkable stories, alternating with even more remarkable poems. The average child will better enjoy hearing them read aloud, as they presuppose a fuller (p. 182) knowledge of English history than most American children are likely to possess. Mr. Rackham's pictures in color are fine work. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM GREAT AUTHORS Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so. EMERSON. LANG, ANDREW. The Blue Poetry Book. Longmans. 2.00 The Editor trusts that this book may be a guide into romance and fairy-land to many children.... By way of lending no aid to what is called Education, very few notes have been added. The child does not want everything to be explained; in the unexplained is great pleasure. Nothing, perhaps, crushes the love of poetry more surely and swiftly than the use of poems as schoolbooks.--_Introduction._ This excellent collection, for the most part British verse, contains a large proportion of Scotch songs and ballads. The productions of contemporary poets are not included. LANIER, SIDNEY. The Boy's Percy. Scribner. 2.00 Old Ballads of War, Adventure, and Love, from Bishop Thomas (p. 183) Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.--_Title-page._ But, passing far beyond the plans of these small antiquarian pleasures, Percy's book immediately enriched our whole ordinary existence by making common property of those golden figures which the undying ballad-maker had enameled into the solid tissue of English life.... Each ballad is given here exactly as it stands in the original except that the spelling has been modernized and such parts cut away as cleanliness required.--_Introduction._ NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume VI. Masterpieces of Literature. Heath. .55 The worth of the masterpieces of any art increases with use and familiarity of association. They grow fresher by custom; and the love of them deepens in proportion to the time we have known them, and to the memories with which they have become invested.--_Preface._ REPPLIER, AGNES (Editor). A Book of Famous Verse. Houghton. 1.25 In selecting these few poems I have had no other motive than to give pleasure to the children who may read them; and I have tried to study their tastes, and feelings, and desires.--_Introduction._ Though issued in 1892, Miss Repplier's excellent collection still holds its own among the very best, because of the high quality and interest of the poems chosen. The little book is of a most convenient size to carry about with one. RELIGION AND ETHICS (p. 184) Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? --It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright. WORDSWORTH. CARRUTH, W.H. Letters to American Boys. American Unitarian Association. .80 Uncle William (who in real life is Vice Chancellor of the University of Kansas) has a series of clear-headed talks with the boys on reading, sports, manners, various professions, and politics. He is never patronizing, and always has the boy's point of view in mind. GILLIE, R.C. The Kinsfolk and Friends of Jesus. Macmillan. 2.25 This sequel to The Story of Stories, is told in simple language. The illustrations, part of them in color, are from famous paintings. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS (p. 185) Science is, like virtue, its own exceeding great reward. KINGSLEY. BAKER, R.S. Boy's Second Book of Inventions. Doubleday. 1.60 This second volume is like unto the first in giving accounts of recent marvellous discoveries and inventions, such as radium, flying machines, and the seismograph, used in the measurement of earthquakes. It is fully illustrated. BLANCHAN, NELTJE (Pseudonym of Mrs. N.B. (DEG.) Doubleday). Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted. Doubleday. 2.00 Illustrated with full-page color plates. Non-technical. Birds grouped according to size and color; no specific color key. Rather full biographies. There are chapters giving the characteristics of the families, the habitats, and the seasons of occurrence. AUDUBON SOCIETY. One hundred and seventy birds of prey, game birds, and water-fowls, are described. The color plates are forty-eight in number. DICKERSON, M.C. The Frog Book. Doubleday. 4.00 "The original manuscript for this book concerned Toads and (p. 186) Frogs of Northeastern North America only.... Brief accounts of the species of other parts of North America were added later." There are sixteen pages of color plates and nearly three hundred half-tones from photographs from life by the author. The wonderful transformation of the tadpole is fully described. GOOD, ARTHUR. Magical Experiments. McKay. 1.25 Some of the wonders here described are intended merely for amusement, others are of a scientific character and designed to act as an introduction to the study of Physics. No apparatus is needed beyond the simple articles, such as knives, forks, and plates, which every household possesses. The book is instructive and entertaining alike to experimenter and observer. HEILPRIN, ANGELO. The Animal Life of Our Sea-shore. Lippincott. 1.25 An authoritative manual, prepared with special reference to the New Jersey coast and the Southern shore of Long Island. It is fully illustrated. HOWARD, L.O. The Insect Book. Doubleday. 3.00 Dr. Howard, Chief of the Division of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, and the foremost authority in this (p. 187) country, gives us full life-histories of the bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, flies, and other North American insects--exclusive of the butterflies, moths, and beetles. A separate section is devoted to the subject of collecting and preserving the different specimens. There are sixteen pages of color plates, thirty-two pages of half-tones, and about three hundred black and white text illustrations. MOFFETT, CLEVELAND. Careers of Danger and Daring. Century. 1.50 Vivid accounts of the courage and achievements of steeple-climbers, deep-sea divers, balloonists, ocean and river pilots, bridge-builders, firemen, acrobats, wild-beast trainers, locomotive engineers, and the men who handle dynamite. CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. MORLEY, M.W. Grasshopper Land. McClurg. 1.25 Not only the grasshoppers but other family members of the Orthoptera are here described, including mantes, walking-sticks, katydids, and crickets. There is a long and interesting account of locusts and their migrations. The text illustrations are many and satisfactory. The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead. That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead (p. 188) In summer luxury--he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. KEATS. PARSONS, F.T. (S.) (formerly MRS. W.S. DANA). How to Know the Wild Flowers. Scribner. 2.00 Every flower-lover who has spent weary hours puzzling over a botanical key in the efforts to name unknown plants will welcome this satisfactory book, which stands ready to lead him to the desired knowledge by a royal road. The book is well fitted to the need of many who have no botanical knowledge and yet are interested in wild flowers.--_The Nation._ The primary characteristic of this guide to the names, haunts, and habits, of our common wild flowers is that, in moderate compass, it groups and describes them under their different colors. This arrangement was suggested by a passage in one of John Burroughs's Talks about Flowers. There are indices to the Latin and English names and to technical terms. The forty-eight full-page colored and one hundred and ten black and white illustrations are of value. ST. JOHN, T.M. Real Electric Toy-Making for Boys. St. John. 1.00 Sufficient directions for making and using many simple electric toys. SHALER, N.S. (p. 189) A First Book in Geology. Heath. .60 It is difficult to see how this subject could be made more interesting to beginners. The fully illustrated volume is of a handy size to be carried on geological tramps. STORIES The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. GOLDSMITH. ALCOTT, L.M. Little Men. Illustrated by R.B. Birch. Little. 2.00 This sequel to Little Women tells of the home school which Jo and her husband loved and worked for, and from which they sent out into the world, as men, the boys who had sorely needed their loving care. BARBOUR, R.H. For the Honor of the School. Appleton. 1.50 A satisfactory account of modern boarding-school life. Its standards are good and its tone healthy and sound. There are descriptions of a cross-country race, a foot-ball game, a base-ball match, and interscholastic track athletics. Lads, however, enjoy the writings of this author to such an extent that many, doubtless, read them to (p. 190) the exclusion of more worthy books. BARBOUR, R.H. Four in Camp. Appleton. 1.50 The compiler of this List believes that young people as well as old occasionally wish for light literature. This story of vacation days spent in a summer camp for boys in the New Hampshire woods is pleasantly diverting. Its standards make for self-control, courage, honesty, and good-fellowship. CHURCH, A.J. A Young Macedonian in the Army of Alexander the Great. Putnam. 1.25 Young folks of today will like to read of the lad who took part in the great struggle between Macedonia and Persia. Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, recorded by Josephus, is related, and mention is made of Demosthenes and Diogenes. COOPER, J.F. The Pilot. Houghton. 1.00 From the boy's point of view, any legitimate need for concealment gives an added charm to a narrative, and this account of the secret expedition of John Paul Jones to the English coast is no exception. COOPER, J.F. (p. 191) The Spy. Houghton. 1.00 Story of the Revolution and the "neutral grounds" around White Plains. The hero, the spy, is a cool, shrewd, fearless man, who is employed by General Washington in service which involves great personal hazard. CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. COTES, S.J. (D.). The Story of Sonny Sahib. Appleton. 1.00 The experiences of a little English boy saved, when a baby, by his ayah, at the time of the Cawnpore Massacre, and brought up at the court of the Maharajah of Lalpore. Learning that the English are about to attack the city, Sonny seeks his countrymen, refusing however to give any information in regard to the Maharajah's defenses. In the camp he finds his father, Colonel Starr. DIX, B.M. Merrylips. Macmillan. 1.50 The adventures of a little Cavalier maiden during the civil wars that led to the establishment of Cromwell. Merrylips, who had always wished to be a lad, is obliged to wander in the disguise of boy's clothing, and through her experiences learns to prefer to be herself, Mistress Sybil Venner. In all her vicissitudes she proves herself a steadfast servant of the King. While the book pictures the rude times of war, the charm of womanliness is emphasized throughout. DIX, B.M. (p. 192) Soldier Rigdale. Macmillan. 1.50 An account of Mayflower days and the founding of the Plymouth colony. Miles Rigdale and little Dolly lose both mother and father. Dolly is brought up by Mistress Brewster, while Miles finally goes to live with Captain Standish. This faithful relation of the privations our ancestors endured ends with the arrival of the ship Fortune with reinforcements for the colony. EWING, J.H. Jackanapes. Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. The Story of a Short Life. With a sketch of her life by her sister, H.K.F. Gatty. Little. .50 °JACKANAPES. We love the golden-haired army baby who lived to fight and die with glory for Old England. The atmosphere of the tale is most charming. DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT. In the beautiful English country dwell old Daddy Darwin and Jack March, the little workhouse boy. A delightful anecdote is told about the pigeons, of whom Jack says, "I love them tumblers as if they was my own." °THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. The inspiring story of the life of a boy--a short life filled with glorious bravery. This English army sketch is so sad that it should be read by the parent before deciding to give it to a child. FRENCH, ALLEN. (p. 193) Heroes of Iceland. Little. 1.50 Iceland in the tenth century is pictured for us in this adaptation from Sir George Webbe Dasent's translation of The Story of Burnt Njal--the Njal's Saga. It was this century that saw the change of faith of a brave heathen people. But at the same time, during their long winters, the Icelanders wrote the tales of their own early times, which are still too little known. This book contains the greatest of them, a saga or story which is to be compared, in interest and beauty, with the great epics of the earlier races.--_Preface._ FRENCH, ALLEN. Pelham and His Friend Tim. Little. 1.50 The affectionate fellowship of two boys, the son of the owner of a mill and the son of one of the workmen. A mill strike is the principal incident of this wholesome story. GOSS, W.L. Jed. Crowell. .75 The incidents of the book are real ones, drawn in part from the writer's personal experiences and observations, as a soldier of the Union, during that war. He is also indebted, to many comrades for reminiscences of battle and prison life.--_Preface._ The simple bravery of this boy-soldier will stimulate the latent courage and patriotism of the boys of our day. They will like the scene where Dick and Jed join the army as drummer-boys, taking (p. 194) with them Mink, Jed's "awful nice dog," who could do all sorts of cunning tricks. GREENE, HOMER. The Blind Brother. Crowell. .50 A narrative of the experiences of two little boys in the Pennsylvania coal mines. The sketch, which treats of an unusual subject and is full of stirring interest, took the first prize, offered by _The Youth's Companion._ HALE, E.E. °The Man Without a Country. Little. .75 The story of Philip Nolan was written in the darkest period of the Civil War, to show what love of country is.--_Introduction._ Nolan cursed his native land and wished that he might never hear of her again, and for fifty years his wish was fulfilled. HAMP, S.F. Dale and Fraser, Sheepmen. Wilde. 1.50 An account of Colorado sheep-raising which will interest boys greatly, especially as there is a tale of hidden gold interwoven with that of Western life. HARRIS, J.C. On the Plantation. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble. Appleton. 1.50 This description of a Georgia boy's adventures during the Civil (p. 195) War gives an unexaggerated picture of plantation life. NASH, H.A. Polly's Secret. Little. 1.50 Polly was a staunch little Maine girl of the long-ago days. She held an important trust sacred for many years, proving herself of sterling worth. PYLE, HOWARD. The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes. Century. 2.00 This exciting narrative of Colonial days tells of the notorious pirate Blackbeard and also of the kidnapping and transporting from England to the Southern colonies which was so common during the first half of the eighteenth century. A thread of romance runs through the story. STEVENSON, R.L. Treasure Island. Illustrated by Wal Paget. Scribner. 1.25 Stevenson's fascinating tale of adventure is already a classic. Nothing of the sort, perhaps, since Robinson Crusoe, has so appealed to both old boys and young ones. THANET, OCTAVE (Pseudonym of Alice French). We All. Appleton. 1.50 A good picture of boy and girl life on an Arkansas plantation. An absurd Ku-klux incident and an exciting experience with counterfeiters add to the volume's interest. THOMPSON, A.R. (p. 196) Shipwrecked in Greenland. Little. 1.50 With photographic illustrations of great interest. There is just enough story to hold together the very entertaining chapters of adventure--"based in part upon the experiences of that unfortunate expedition which, on board the steamer Miranda, came to grief off the coast of Greenland in the Summer of 1894." Manners and customs, flora and fauna, Eskimos and cameras, icebergs and polar bears, make this a capital book for boys and boys' sisters.--_The Nation._ TWAIN, MARK (Pseudonym of S.L. CLEMENS). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Harper. 1.75 Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual--he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story.--_Preface._ Boys love it, and broad-minded parents will put the volume in their children's hands before they borrow it. VAILE, C.M. The Orcutt Girls. Wilde. 1.50 Two sisters--ambitious in the best sense--by means of exertion manage, by boarding themselves, to attend Merton Academy for one term. A (p. 197) good picture of this phase of New England life of long ago. The tale is said to have a foundation of fact. WIGGIN, K.D. (S.). Polly Oliver's Problem. Houghton. 1.00 Polly bravely takes care of her invalid mother, and later when left alone helps to support herself by her beautiful gift for story-telling. The book has a bright and helpful influence. WIGGIN, K.D. (S.). Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Houghton. 1.25 Rebecca is a quaint and lovable girl whose nature, full of enthusiasm, originality, and imagination, charms all who encounter her. Mrs. Wiggin's delightful sense of humor pervades the sketch. WILKINS, M.E. (MRS. M.E. (W.) FREEMAN). In Colonial Times. Lothrop. .50 Little five-year-old Ann is made the bound girl of Samuel Wales, of Braintree. After some hard experiences Ann tries to run away, but in time she learns to love the really kind-hearted people to whose care she has fallen, and in the end becomes the adopted daughter of Mrs. Polly Wales. The Squire's Sixpence is a simple school story of long-ago days. _FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE_ (p. 198) _"God gives thee youth but once. Keep thou The Childlike heart that will His kingdom be; The soul pure-eyed that, wisdom-led, e'en now His blessed face shall see."_ AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT Let them freely feast, sing and dance, have their puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, etc., play at ball, and barley-breaks, and what sports and recreations they like best. BURTON'S _Anatomy of Melancholy_. ADAMS, J.H. Harper's Indoor Book for Boys. Harper. 1.75 This volume contains directions for work much of which is beyond the capacity of a boy of fourteen, but it is well for him to have something to which he can look forward. Instructions are given in wood-carving, metal-work, clay-modelling, bookbinding, and other occupations. The making of simple household articles and the use of paints are taught. There are many working diagrams. ADAMS, J.H., and Others. Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys. Harper. 1.75 An excellent handybook which provides the necessary information for making many worthwhile articles in which boys delight, such as (p. 199) windmills, water-wheels, aeroplanes, boats, rafts, toboggans, and snow-shoes; illustrated with working diagrams. There are also directions for camping out. The compiler of this List hopes that the article on trapping small animals may be passed over, as the little creatures so often suffer in boyish attempts to catch them. BLACK, ALEXANDER. Photography Indoors and Out. Houghton. .75 This book is addressed particularly to those amateurs who, while they acquire their chief pleasure from the pictures as pictures, have sufficient respect for the study and a strong enough purpose toward good work to seek real knowledge of the elements of photography.--_Preface._ Mr. Black gives a brief history of the development of the art, and much thorough information for those ambitious to learn. The text is perhaps somewhat advanced for young people of fourteen. BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND GOVERNMENT Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be, When we are grown and take our place, As men and women with our race. Father in Heaven who lovest all, Oh help Thy children when they call; That they may build from age to age, An undefiled heritage! . . . . . . . Teach us the strength that cannot seek, (p. 200) By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; That, under Thee, we may possess Man's strength to comfort man's distress. Teach us Delight in simple things, And Mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And Love to all men 'neath the sun! Land of our Birth, our Faith our Pride, For whose dear sake our fathers died; O Motherland, we pledge to thee, Head, heart, and hand through the years to be! KIPLING. BARING-GOULD, SABINE, and ARTHUR GILMAN. The Story of Germany. Putnam. 1.50 The present volume traces the life of this powerful nation from the time when imperial Rome was baffled by her valiant Hermann down to the hour when France fell before her, and the idea of Empire ... became, under William the First, a power making for peace and strength.... The story of such a people as the Germans could not fail to possess intense interest for anyone; but for us of another branch of the Teutonic family, it has the additional charm that it is the history of our blood-relations. ARTHUR GILMAN. While not intended primarily for children, this book will be both enjoyed and appreciated by many boys and girls of fourteen. The illustrations are taken, to a great extent, from old sources. BOLTON, S.E. (K.). Famous American Authors. Crowell. .75 The careers of eighteen well-known men of letters are described. (p. 201) Among the number are Emerson, Prescott, Hawthorne, Higginson, Gilder, and Clemens. CHAMPLIN, J.D. Young Folks' History of the War for the Union. Holt. 2.50 It is, in short, a well-written and entertaining history of the War of the Rebellion, very fair and impartial in tone.--_The Nation._ A mature boy or girl of fourteen will find this reliable work useful. The larger part of the illustrations are taken from contemporary drawings, and there are many maps. CHAPIN, A.A. Masters of Music; Their Lives and Works. Dodd 1.50 Twenty famous musicians are very interestingly characterized; among them Palestrina, Mozart, Rossini, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Wagner. FAMOUS ADVENTURES AND PRISON ESCAPES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Century. 1.50 The War Diary of a Union Woman in the South, edited by G.W. Cable, relates experiences of the Siege of Vicksburg. Among other accounts there is a description of Mosby's guerillas, and the tunnel escape from Libby Prison is told by one of the Union officers who got away and was retaken. FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. (p. 202) Autobiography. Houghton. .60 Notwithstanding its brevity, this autobiography has doubtless been a greater incentive to ambitious boys than any other. It is perhaps worth noting that a prominent Japanese merchant of Boston, when a boy in his native land, after reading the book, determined to seek his fortune in Franklin's country, and testifies to it as one of the chief factors in his successful career. This useful edition contains a sketch of the great man's life from the point where his own writing ends, drawn chiefly from his letters. There are notes and a chronological historical table. HART, A.B., and ELIZABETH STEVENS (Editors). The Romance of the Civil War. Macmillan. .60 This fourth volume of Source Readers attempts to put before teachers and children the actualities of the Civil War period. It contains something of the spirit of North and South at the beginning of the war, and much about the life of the soldier and the citizen while it was going on, with some of the battle smoke and dust.... In this book the fathers are speaking to their children.--_Preface._ LARCOM, LUCY. A New England Girlhood. Houghton. .60 An account of Miss Larcom's youth up to the age of twenty-nine, which includes her experiences as a Lowell mill-hand. It is not only a record of the efforts of an aspiring young woman, but a picture of (p. 203) one phase of New England life. LOSSING, B.J. The Story of the United States Navy, for Boys. Harper. 1.75 This little work was prepared at the suggestion of Captain S.B. Luce, U.S.N., the commander of the training-ship Minnesota. Desirous of having it correct in every particular, I submitted the manuscript to the Navy Department. It was returned to me with a letter from Commodore Earl English, U.S.N., Chief of the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting, to whom it was referred, in which he wrote: I am much pleased with your beautiful and instructive Story of the Navy, and I congratulate you on having performed a labor which will contribute so much to the pleasure and instruction of the youth of our country. Such a bright-spirited work will refresh the memory of the noble deeds of our departed naval heroes in the minds of the people.--_Preface._ The illustrations are satisfactory. MYERS, P.V.N. General History. Ginn. 1.50 One of the best world histories for young people. In the present issue the book contains several fresh chapters, an entirely new series of colored maps, many new illustrations, and carefully selected lists of books for further reading at the end of each chapter, together with suggested topics for special study. The new text brings the narration of events down to the Peace of Portsmouth and the elections to the first Russian Parliament, and aims to include all the latest important results of discovery and scholarly research in the different historical fields and periods.--_Preface._ NICOLAY, HELEN. (p. 204) The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln. Century. 1.50 This biography, condensed from Nicolay and Hay's Short Life of Lincoln, in part rewritten, is the best of the many prepared for young readers. VAN BERGEN, ROBERT. The Story of Russia. American Book. .65 The compiler knows of no altogether satisfactory history of this country for young people. The present volume, prepared for school use, is very informing and will serve. It ends with the humiliation of a great people, and the Treaty of Peace made at Portsmouth in 1905. There are maps and illustrations. WASHINGTON, GEORGE. Rules of Conduct, Diary of Adventure, Letters, and Farewell Addresses. Houghton. .25 Comprises the best of what Washington has left to us in written form. DRAMA Then to the well-trod stage anon, If _Jonsons_ learned Sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, Warble his native Wood-notes wilde. MILTON SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. Julius Cæsar. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. American Book. .56 The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar was first published in the (p. 205) Folio of 1623.... The date at which the drama was written has been variously fixed by the critics.... Halliwell has shown that it was written "in or before the year 1601." ... The only source from which Shakespeare appears to have derived his materials was Sir Thomas North's version of Plutarch's Lives.... Shakespeare has in this play and elsewhere shown the same penetration into political character and the springs of public events as into those of every-day life.--_Introduction._ The merit I see in Mr. Rolfe's school editions of Shakspere's Plays over those most widely used in England is that Mr. Rolfe edits the plays as works of a poet, and not only as productions in Tudor English. F.J. FURNIVALL. SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. Macbeth. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. American Book. .56 Macbeth was first printed in the folio of 1623.... It was written between 1604 and 1610.... Dr. Simon Forman ... saw the play performed "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday." It may then have been a new play, but it is more probable, as nearly all the critics agree, that it was written in 1605 or 1606. The accession of James made Scottish subjects popular in England, and the tale of Macbeth and Banquo would be one of the first to be brought forward, as Banquo was held to be an ancestor of the new king. Shakespeare drew the materials for the plot of Macbeth from Holinshed's Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Ireland.... The story of the drama is almost wholly apocryphal. The more authentic history is thus summarized by Sir Walter Scott: ... As a king, the tyrant so much exclaimed against was, in reality, a firm, just, and equitable prince.--_Introduction._ No one can examine these volumes and fail to be impressed (p. 206) with the conscientious accuracy and scholarly completeness with which they are edited. H.H. FURNESS. SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. The Merchant of Venice. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. American Book. .56 The plot of The Merchant of Venice is composed of two distinct stories: that of the bond, and that of the caskets. Both these fables are found in the Gesta Romanorum, a Latin compilation of allegorical tales, which had been translated into English as early as the time of Henry VI.... The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most perfect works: popular to an extraordinary degree.... Shylock the Jew is one of the inimitable masterpieces of characterization which are to be found only in Shakespeare.--_Introduction._ SHAKESPEARE. WILLIAM. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Doubleday. 5.00 The Midsummer-Night's Dream is the first play which exhibits the imagination of Shakespeare in all its fervid and creative power; for though ... it may be pronounced the offspring of youth and inexperience, it will ever in point of fancy be considered as equal to any subsequent drama of the poet. DRAKE. To the King's Theatre, where we saw Midsummer's Night's dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. PEPYS' _Diary_. Some people feel sure that it is a mistake to interfere with the play of a child's imagination by giving him illustrated editions of (p. 207) great works. This opinion would be shaken by seeing these wonderful pictures, by means of which we are indeed wafted to dreamland. There are forty plates in color, and other illustrations. FINE ARTS Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm. POPE. HURLL, E.M. Greek Sculpture. Houghton. .75 The Riverside Art Series contains twelve small volumes on Ancient and Modern Art, of which four only are included in this limited list. The very satisfactory illustrations are taken from photographs, and the major part of each book is devoted to interpretations of the pictures. This volume contains sixteen examples of Greek marbles, with an introduction, which includes other information, on some characteristics of Greek sculpture. Greek sculpture can be sympathetically understood only by catching something of the spirit which produced it. One must shake off the centuries and regard life with the childlike simplicity of the young world: one must give imagination free rein.--_Introduction._ HURLL, E.M. Michelangelo. Houghton. .75 We are given fifteen pictures by this great man, and his portrait. (p. 208) There is an introduction on Michelangelo's character as an artist, an outline table of the principal events in his life, and a list of some of his famous Italian contemporaries, with other information. This is the rugged face Of him who won a place Above all kings and lords; Whose various skill and power Left Italy a dower No numbers can compute, no tongue translate in words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . So stood this Angelo Four hundred years ago; So grandly still he stands, Mid lesser worlds of art, Colossal and apart, Like Memnon breathing songs across the desert sands. CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH. HURLL, E.M. Raphael. Houghton. .75 This volume contains a collection of fifteen pictures and a portrait of himself by the master, an introduction on Raphael's character as an artist, an outline table of the principal events in his life, and a list of some of his famous contemporaries, as well as other information. All confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious nature, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honored by men, but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps, and always loved him. VASARI. HURLL, E.M. (p. 209) Tuscan Sculpture. Houghton. .75 This book comprises sixteen examples of fifteenth-century work, with an introduction, also containing other information, on some characteristics of Tuscan sculpture of this period. The Italian sculptors of the earlier half of the fifteenth century are more than mere forerunners of the great masters of its close, and often reach perfection within the narrow limits which they chose to impose on their work. Their sculpture shares with the paintings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunelleschi that profound expressiveness, that intimate impress of an indwelling soul, which is the peculiar fascination of the art of Italy in that century. WALTER PATER. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION As the Spanish proverb says: "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling: A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge. Dr. JOHNSON. BRASSEY, A. (A.). A Voyage in the Sunbeam. Longmans. .75 This abridgment of the original book tells in pleasant narrative style of the Sunbeam's voyage around the world, which lasted from July first, 1876, to May twenty-sixth, 1877. FINNEMORE, JOHN. (p. 210) Italy. Illustrated by Alberto Pisa and Others. Macmillan. .75 We travel over the Alps, and through the country to Naples and Sicily. The wonderful cities of this historic land are described, and a brief account given of its many poor but happy people. There are twelve illustrations in color. HIGGINSON, T.W. (Editor). Young Folks' Book of American Explorers. Longmans. 1.20 It has always seemed to me that the narratives of the early discoverers and explorers of the American coast were as interesting as Robinson Crusoe, and were, indeed, very much like it. This has led me to make a series of extracts from these narratives, selecting what appeared to me the most interesting parts, and altering only the spelling.... One great thing which I have wished my readers to learn is the charm of an original narrative.... The explorers of various nations are represented in this book. There are Northmen, Italians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Dutchmen.--_Preface._ These original accounts cover the field of American exploration from the discovery of the country by the Northmen in 985 to the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. KING, C.F. Roundabout Rambles in Northern Europe. Lothrop. 1.25 This very fully illustrated volume gives a conversational account of a trip through Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and (p. 211) Russia. It is an excellent book for children to use while travelling. Mr. King has also prepared several about our own country. LUMMIS, C.F. Some Strange Corners of Our Country. Century. 1.50 Mr. Lummis describes the wonders of the Southwest,--the Grand Canon, the Petrified Forest of Arizona, and the Desert. He tells of the Moquis in their seven seldom visited Pueblo cities, of the Navajos and other Indian tribes, with their strange customs, dances, and magic. HYGIENE Life is not mere living, but the enjoyment of health. MARTIAL. WOOD-ALLEN, M. (S.). The Man Wonderful, or The Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling. Educational. 1.00 The author in this volume has united metaphor with scientific facts.... She has laid under contribution the latest scientific authorities, and believes that this book will be found abreast of the science of to-day, holding ever to truth as it now presents itself, and never sacrificing facts to the allegory.--_Preface._ Dr. Wood-Allen uses the simile of a house in explaining in a clear and interesting manner much about our body and its functions. Part Second is devoted to the articles we make use of: those which are (p. 212) beneficial, and especially those which are more or less harmful; as tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES "I, Phoebus, sang those songs that gained so much renown, I, Phoebus, sang them; Homer only wrote them down." BULFINCH, THOMAS. The Age of Fable. Edited by E.E. Hale. Lothrop. 1.25 This book is an enlarged and revised edition of a book published, with the same title, by the late Thomas Bulfinch, of Boston, in the year 1855.... What Mr. Bulfinch wanted to do, and succeeded in doing, was to connect the old stories with modern literature. His book, therefore, not only interests young people in the classical authors, but it turns their attention to many of the best authors of their own language and of our time.--_Preface._ In the revision the list of poets cited has been increased from forty to sixty-three, and the portion treating of Northern, Oriental, and Egyptian mythologies, rewritten. The illustrations are from classical sources. POETRY, COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND PROSE, AND STORIES ADAPTED FROM (p. 213) GREAT AUTHORS And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. SHAKSPERE. NORTON, C.E. (Editor). Heart of Oak Books. Volume VII. Masterpieces of Literature. Heath. .60 The youth who shall become acquainted with the contents of these volumes will share in the common stock of the intellectual life of the race to which he belongs; and will have the door opened to him of all the vast and noble resources of that life.--_Preface._ SCOTT, WALTER. The Lady of the Lake. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. Houghton. .75 The ancient manners, the habits and customs of the aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old men of the last generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael highly adapted for poetical composition.... I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard more, of that romantic country where I was in the habit of spending some time every Autumn; and the scenery of Loch (p. 214) Katrine was connected with the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expedition of former days. This poem, the action of which lay among scenes so beautiful and so deeply imprinted on my recollections, was a labor of love, and it was no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced. The frequent custom of James IV, and particularly of James V, to walk through their kingdom in disguise, afforded me the hint of an incident which never fails to be interesting if managed with the slightest address or dexterity.--_Introduction to the Edition of 1830._ The Lady of the Lake was first published in 1810. This edition has many notes by Mr. Rolfe. SCOTT, WALTER. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. Houghton. .75 The Poem, now offered to the Public, is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scotland.... The date of the Tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is Three Nights and Three Days.--_Original Preface._ The Lay of the Last Minstrel was first published in 1805. This edition has many notes by Mr. Rolfe. SCOTT, WALTER. Marmion. Edited by W.J. Rolfe. Houghton. .75 The present story turns upon the private adventures of a fictitious character, but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable (p. 215) defeat and the causes which led to it.... The poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513.--_Original Preface._ Marmion was first published in 1818. This edition has many notes by Mr. Rolfe. SCUDDER, H.E. (Editor). American Poems. Houghton. 1.00 Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Holmes, Lowell, and Emerson, are represented in this collection by poems with which every American boy and girl should be familiar. The volume, which has biographical sketches and notes by Mr. Scudder, was prepared in the interests of young people, to encourage in them a taste for the best literature. Evangeline, Snow-Bound, Sella, Grandmother's Story, The Vision of Sir Launfal, and The Adirondacks, are included in the contents. RELIGION AND ETHICS Hearing thy Master, or likewise the Preacher, wriggle not thyself, as seeming unable to contain thyself within thy skin.--_Youth's Behaviour. 1643._ HALE, E.E. How to Do It. Little. 1.00 Brimful of well-balanced advice on making life helpful and pleasant to those around us and to ourselves by the avoidance of common errors and the encouraging of agreeable virtues. The familiar friendly (p. 216) style renders this book, which could so easily be made dull, really delightful to young people. How to Talk, How to Go into Society, How to Travel, Life in Vacation, and Habits of Reading, are some of the chapter headings. SCIENCE, OUT-OF-DOOR BOOKS, AND STORIES OF ANIMALS To know that which before us lies in daily life is the prime of wisdom. MILTON. ADAMS, J.H. Harper's Electricity Book for Boys. Harper. 1.75 A large part of this volume is somewhat beyond the grasp of the average boy of fourteen, and parents should look it over carefully before letting their children carry out the instructions, though we are told that "there need be no concern whatever as to possible danger if the book is read with reasonable intelligence. Mr. Adams has taken pains to place danger-signals wherever special precautions are advisable, and, as a father of boys who are constantly working with electricity in his laboratory, he may be relied upon as a safe and sure counsellor and guide." Directions are given for making, among other things, push-buttons, switches, annunciators, dynamos, simple telephones, and line and wireless telegraphs. There is a chapter on electroplating. At the (p. 217) end of the volume is an article explaining electric light, heat, power, and traction, by J.B. Baker, technical editor, United States Geological Survey; also a dictionary of electrical terms. Many working diagrams are included. BAILEY, F.M. Handbook of Birds of the Western United States. Illustrated by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Houghton. 3.50 Systematically arranged. Descriptions technical but simplified, and illustrated with cuts in the text, which explain the technical terms and make it available for students. It has no color key, but field keys, fully illustrated in the text. Biographies popularly treated. Intended for students of the life and habits of the birds of our Western States. The only book of its character for that region. AUDUBON SOCIETY. There are thirty-three full-page plates by Mr. Fuertes, and over six hundred small illustrations. For the use of beginners a brief field color key to genera of some of the common Passerine birds is given in an appendix. BURROUGHS, JOHN. Wake-Robin. Houghton. 1.25 This is mainly a book about the birds, or more properly an invitation to the study of Ornithology.... I have reaped my harvest more in the woods than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful and conscientious record of actual observations and experiences, and is true as it stands (p. 218) written, every word of it.... A more specific title for the volume would have suited me better, but not being able to satisfy myself in this direction, I cast about for a word thoroughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book, which I hope I have found in "Wake-Robin"--the common name of the white Trillium, which blooms in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all the birds.--_Preface._ The titles of some of the different articles are: In the Hemlocks, The Adirondacks, Spring at the Capital, and The Bluebird. CHAPMAN, E.M. Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. Appleton. 3.00 Illustrated with full-page plates from photographs, and many cuts in the text. Systematically arranged; non-technical descriptions; both field and color keys. A very complete book for general use, treating all the birds of the section named, with some account of habits, etc. It has introductory chapters on Ornithology, Methods of Study, List of Dates of Spring and Fall migration, and a color chart to help in identification. AUDUBON SOCIETY. DITMARS, R.L. The Reptile Book. Doubleday. 4.00 Mr. Ditmars, Curator of Reptiles in the New York Zoölogical Park, gives us a comprehensive treatise on the structure and habits of the turtles, tortoises, crocodilians, lizards, and snakes, of the United States and Northern Mexico. There are eight pages of plates in color and one hundred and twenty-eight in black and white, from (p. 219) photographs from life, taken (with six exceptions) by the Author. In the present work the writer has sought to compile a popular review of a great fauna--the Reptiles of North America. He has excluded technical phraseology and tried to produce two results: 1. A popular book, that may be comprehended by the beginner and, 2. A book valuable in its details to the technical worker.--_Preface._ GIBSON, W.H. Sharp Eyes. Harper. 2.50 This rambler's calendar of fifty-two weeks among insects, birds, and flowers, is made attractive to young children by the unusual quality of the many illustrations. GREENE, HOMER. Coal and the Coal Mines. Houghton. .75 It has been the aim of the author to give reliable information free from minute details and technicalities. That information has been, for the most part, gathered through personal experience in the mines.--_Preface._ The composition and formation of coal, its discovery and introduction, are dealt with, and a description of the mine and its dangers, and the life of the workers therein, is given in this thoroughly satisfactory little volume. HARRINGTON, M.W. About the Weather. Appleton. .65 Treated from a broad scientific standpoint, much interesting (p. 220) information is conveyed about the laws which, discovered comparatively recently, have proved of vital importance and utility to mankind. The humidity and pressure of the air, the velocity of the wind, rain and snow, sleet and hail-storms, tornadoes and cyclones, are among the many topics discussed. HOLLAND, W.J. The Moth Book. Doubleday. 4.00 An intelligent boy or girl of fourteen, with a real interest in the subject, will enjoy this fine work on the moths of North America north of Mexico, though it is written more from the standpoint of the student than are most of the series to which it belongs. There are fifteen hundred figures in the forty-eight colored plates, and three hundred black and white text figures, illustrating a majority of the larger species. JORDAN, D.S., and B.W. EVERMANN. American Food and Game Fishes. Doubleday. 4.00 These two distinguished scientists have given in this treatise on ichthyology a popular account of the species found in America north of the Equator, with keys for ready identification, life-histories, and methods of capture. There are ten lithographed plates in color, and sixty-four in black and white from photographs from life taken by (p. 221) Mr. Dugmore, these being the first really successful photographs of live fish ever secured. KEELER, H.L. Our Native Trees, and How to Identify Them. Scribner. 2.00 A guide to the identification of the trees of the United States, with three hundred and forty illustrations, more than half of them from photographs. The book is the work of one who is a tree-lover as well as a botanist, and besides being scientifically accurate the book has a distinct literary flavor. Invaluable as an aid to firsthand acquaintance with the trees.--_Prentice and Power._ The volume is not too large to be easily carried while walking. LUCAS, F.A. Animals of the Past. Illustrated by C.R. Knight and Others. Doubleday. 2.00 The object of this book is to tell some of the interesting facts concerning a few of the better known or more remarkable of these extinct inhabitants of the ancient world.--_Introduction._ "Mr. Knight ... is the one modern artist who can picture prehistoric animals with artistic charm of presentation as well as with full scientific accuracy." While Mr. Lucas did not, in this instance, write for children, they greatly enjoy his descriptions, and are captivated by Mr. Knight's pictures of the strange creatures. There is a very interesting chapter on The Ancestry of the Horse. "Said the little Eohippus (p. 222) I am going to be a horse And on my middle finger-nails To run my earthly course." NEWCOMB, SIMON. Astronomy for Everybody. Doubleday. 2.00 When a work, by an authority as eminent as Professor Newcomb, is interesting to young people, and is to a sufficient degree within their comprehension, it should certainly be put into their hands, even if, as in the present case, it was not specially prepared for them. PARSONS, F.T. (S.) (formerly Mrs. W.S. DANA). How to Know the Ferns. Scribner. 1.50 This companion to How to Know the Wild Flowers gives in convenient form a great deal of pleasantly told information as to the names, haunts, and habits, of our common ferns. They are arranged in six groups, the classification being based on the frond differences. In almost all cases the nomenclature of Gray's Manual has been followed, and in parentheses, that used in the Illustrated Flora of Britton and Brown is given. Indices to the Latin and English names and to technical terms are included. The many illustrations are helpful. ROGERS, J.E. The Shell Book. Doubleday. 4.00 Every person interested in shells has felt the need of a (p. 223) manual of the shell-bearing animals of sea and land, comparable to the comprehensive manuals provided for those who wish to study birds or insects or trees.... The plan and nomenclature of this book follow the accepted standard, The Manual of Conchology, by Tryon and Pilsbry.--_Preface._ Miss Rogers has made an extensive study of conchology on the east and west coasts of North America. The result is this popular guide to a knowledge of the families of living mollusks, which is also an aid to the identification of shells native and foreign. There is a chapter on the maintenance of aquariums and snaileries. Eight of the plates are in color, and ninety-six in black and white for the most part from photographs by A.R. Dugmore. ROGERS, J.E. The Tree Book. Doubleday. 4.00 Most of this volume is devoted to teaching us in an interesting manner how to know the trees of North America. There are, in addition, articles on Forestry, The Uses of Wood, and The Life of the Trees. Sixteen of the plates are in color and one hundred and sixty in black and white from photographs by Mr. Dugmore. ST. JOHN, T.M. Wireless Telegraphy. St. John. 1.00 Theoretical and practical information, together with complete directions for performing numerous experiments on wireless telegraphy with simple home-made apparatus.--_Title-page._ SHARP, D.L. (p. 224) A Watcher in the Woods. Illustrated by Bruce Horsfall. Century. .84 These talks about our small animal neighbors are full of descriptive interest, and the accompanying black and white illustrations are beautiful. Mr. Burroughs says: Of all the nature books of recent years, I look upon Mr. Sharp's as the best. VOOGT, GOSEWINUS DE. Our Domestic Animals. Translated by Katharine P. Wormeley. Ginn. 3.50 While this large volume gives much information in regard to the habits, intelligence, and usefulness, of those animals which have helped man's civilization forward, the text is not nearly as interesting as it might have been made. The many illustrations, however, are very satisfactory. STORIES Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. WORDSWORTH. BULLEN, F.T. The Cruise of the Cachalot. Appleton. 1.50 I've never read anything that equals it in its deep-sea (p. 225) wonder and mystery; nor do I think that any book before has so completely covered the whole business of whale-fishing, and at the same time given such real and new sea pictures. RUDYARD KIPLING. In the following pages an attempt has been made--it is believed for the first time--to give an account of the cruise of a South Sea whaler from the seaman's standpoint.--_Preface._ A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill! Hark! don't ye hear it roar now? Lord help 'em, how I pities them Unhappy folks on shore now! WILLIAM PITT. CHARLES, E. (R.). Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. Burt. .75 This diary of Reformation days is fictitious, but it serves to bring most vividly before us Luther and the men of his time. GARLAND, HAMLIN. The Long Trail. Harper. 1.25 Develops from a conventional and unpromising opening into a vivid realistic story of an ambitious youth's perilous journey to the Klondike. Author writes from personal experience of the overland route, and principal characters reveal qualities of unselfishness, perseverance, and pluck. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY. GASKELL, E.C. (S.). Cranford. Illustrated by Hugh Thomson. Macmillan. 1.50 Mrs. Gaskell's masterpiece, which Lord Houghton described as (p. 226) "the finest piece of humoristic description that has been added to British literature since Charles Lamb." Calm and composure breathe from every page of this picture of life in a small English town during the first half of the nineteenth century. Have we not all in imagination visited Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty, played preference at Miss Betty Barker's, and helped the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson into her sedan chair? Many girls of fourteen are quite able to appreciate the book's charm. IRVING, WASHINGTON. The Alhambra. Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. Macmillan. 1.50 It will be strange indeed if these fascinating and romantic tales fail to stir the imagination of any young person who reads them and to arouse in him the laudable ambition of some day seeing for himself the three palaces, the mosque, the chapel, and the halls, of the marvellous Alhambra. The work was the amusement of his leisure moments, filling the interval between the completion of one serious, and now all but unknown, history and the beginning of the next.... And thus his name has become so closely associated with the place that, just as Diedrich Knickerbocker will be remembered while New York stands, so Washington Irving cannot be forgotten so long as the Red Palace looks down upon the Vega and the tradition of the Moor lingers in Granada. E.R. PENNELL. IRVING, WASHINGTON. (p. 227) Bracebridge Hall. Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. Macmillan. 1.50 "The reader, if he has perused the volume of the Sketch Book, will probably recollect something of the Bracebridge family, with which I once passed a Christmas. I am now on another visit at the Hall, having been invited to a wedding which is shortly to take place.... The family mansion is an old manor-house, standing in a retired and beautiful part of Yorkshire. Its inhabitants have been always regarded through the surrounding country as 'the great ones of the earth,' and the little village near the hall looks up to the squire with almost feudal homage.... While sojourning in this stronghold of old fashions, it is my intention to make occasional sketches of the scenes and characters before me." The success of Old Christmas has suggested the republication of its sequel Bracebridge Hall, illustrated by the same able pencil, but condensed so as to bring it within reasonable size and price.--_Preface._ IRVING, WASHINGTON. Old Christmas. Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. Macmillan. 1.50 No one could be better fitted to depict the old customs of an English Christmas than Mr. Caldecott, and his pictures are a perfect accompaniment to this portion of Washington Irving's Sketch Book. A man might then behold At Christmas, in each hall Good fires to curb the cold, And meat for great and small. The neighbors were friendly bidden, (p. 228) And all had welcome true, The poor from the gates were not chidden, When this old cap was new. _Old Song._ IRVING, WASHINGTON. Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Illustrated by G.H. Boughton. Macmillan. 1.50 Irving's two most popular sketches, in which young people delight. The spirits of this region must have met Washington Irving more than half way, and the rest was like play to him. How real and living are all the people of his fancy! Of all the author's work--serious and humorous ... Rip Van Winkle took the most immediate and lasting grip of his public. G.H. BOUGHTON. IRVING, WASHINGTON. Rip Van Winkle. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Doubleday. 5.00 Five dollars seems to most of us a large sum to pay for a child's book, but after seeing Mr. Rackham's remarkable work I think we shall all agree that there can be no better way of spending our book-money than in purchasing this fine edition of the famous tale, with its fifty full-page pictures in color. KING, CHARLES. Cadet Days. Harper. 1.25 Boys, especially those with military tendencies, will enjoy (p. 229) Captain King's description of life at West Point. KINGSLEY, CHARLES. Westward Ho! Illustrated by C.E. Brock. Macmillan. 1.50 A glorious tale of the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, a Devon knight of Elizabethan days. Oh, where be these gay Spaniards, Which make so great a boast O? Oh, they shall eat the grey-goose feather, And we shall eat the roast O! _Cornish Song._ SCOTT, WALTER. Ivanhoe. Macmillan. 1.25 Scott's masterpiece contains, within the compass of a single volume, sufficient material for five or six books of romance. Incident follows upon incident, and holds the reader, young or old, with entranced attention. The period is that of King Richard I. SCOTT, WALTER. Kenilworth. Macmillan. 1.25 The tragic Elizabethan story of Leicester and Amy Robsart. It is not beyond the comprehension of most young people of fourteen. SCOTT, WALTER. (p. 230) The Talisman. Macmillan. 1.25 The scene of The Talisman is in Palestine with Richard Coeur de Lion and his allies of the Third Crusade. From the contest on the desert between the Saracen cavalier and the Knight of the Sleeping Leopard to the final Battle of the Standard it is full of interest. CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH. STEVENSON, R.L. Kidnapped. Scribner. 1.50 Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called.--_Title-page._ VAILE, C.M. Sue Orcutt. Wilde. 1.50 In this sequel to The Orcutt Girls Sue continues her education, doing a little literary work meanwhile. Instead of writing, however, as she had planned, her happy marriage opens the way for home occupations. The thread of pleasant romance will, of course, add to the book's attraction for girl readers. WALLACE, DILLON. Ungava Bob. Revell. 1.50 The thrilling adventures of a young trapper in the Labrador and Ungava regions. Incidentally much information is given in an interesting (p. 231) way. Mr. Wallace is well qualified from personal experience to write of this Northern country. WIGGIN, K.D. (S.). °The Birds' Christmas Carol. Houghton. .50 It is only partially true to call this story a sad one, for it is filled from cover to cover with the Christ-like spirit of love and helpfulness. It tells of little Carol Bird, a patient crippled child, who brought sunshine to all those about her, and who touches every heart. The account of the Christmas dinner which Carol herself gave for the nine little Ruggles children is very amusing. After the happy day, while Christmas hymns were sounding, the dear little girl slipped away to her "ain countree." YONGE, C.M. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. Macmillan. 1.25 Life in the rude days of the Emperor Maximilian I, with scenes in burgh and castle. Under a woman's influence, Schloss Adlerstein is changed from a robber stronghold to an abode of peace. _AUTHOR AND TITLE INDEX_ (p. 233) _How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail._ POPE. A B C of Electricity, The. Meadowcroft............................................. 159 Aanrud. Lisbeth Longfrock........................................ 70 Abbott. A Boy on a Farm.......................................... 47 About the Weather. Harrington.............................................. 219 Adams. Harper's Electricity Book for Boys...................... 216 Harper's Indoor Book for Boys........................... 198 Adams and Others. Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys.......................... 198 Adelborg. Clean Peter and the Children of Grubbylea................ 34 Adventure in Thule, An. Black, William. _See_ The Four MacNicols. Adventures of a Brownie, The. Mulock................................................... 66 Adventures of Odysseus, The. Marvin, Mayor, and Stawell.............................. 126 Adventures of Reynard the Fox, The................................. 60 Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The. Twain................................................... 196 Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, The. Upton.................................................... 38 Adventures of Ulysses, The. Lamb.................................................... 152 �neid for Boys and Girls, The. Church.................................................. 125 �sop. The Fables of �sop....................................... 61 Age of Fable, The. Bulfinch................................................ 212 Aiken and Barbauld. Eyes and No Eyes, and Other Stories...................... 69 Aladdin. Crane.................................................... 42 Alcott. Little Men.............................................. 189 Little Women............................................ 161 Under the Lilacs........................................ 109 Alden. The Moral Pirates....................................... 133 Aldrich. The Story of a Bad Boy.................................. 161 Alhambra, The. Irving.................................................. 226 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Crane.................................................... 42 Alice in Wonderland. Carroll.................................................. 62 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll.................................................. 62 Allen, M. (S.) Wood-. _See_ Wood-Allen. American Animals. Stone, Witmer, and Cram................................. 160 American Food and Game Fishes. Jordan and Evermann..................................... 220 American Indians. Starr................................................... 181 American Poems. Scudder................................................. 215 Andersen. Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen................. 98 Stories.................................................. 77 Andrews. Each and All............................................. 50 The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air................................. 41 The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children.............. 56 Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now ..... 74 Animal Life of Our Sea-shore, The. Heilprin................................................ 186 Animals at the Fair, The. Blaisdell................................................ 54 Animals of the Past. Lucas, F.A.............................................. 221 Anne's Terrible Good Nature, and Other Stories for Children. Lucas, E.V.............................................. 136 Another Book of Verses for Children. Lucas, E.V............................................... 85 Arabella and Araminta Stories, The. Smith, Gertrude.......................................... 31 Arkansaw Bear, The. Paine.................................................... 83 Arnold. Stories of Ancient Peoples.............................. 142 Asbjörnsen. Fairy Tales from the Far North........................... 77 Astronomy for Everybody. Newcomb................................................. 222 Autobiography. Franklin................................................ 202 Ayrton. Child-Life in Japan...................................... 76 Aztec Treasure House, The. Janvier................................................. 165 Baby Bunting. Caldecott. _See_ his Hey Diddle Diddle. Baby's Opera, The. Crane.................................................... 26 Baby's Own Alphabet, The. Crane.................................................... 28 Bailey. Handbook of Birds of the Western United States.......... 217 Baker. The Boy's Book of Inventions............................ 156 Boy's Second Book of Inventions......................... 185 Baldwin. The Story of Roland..................................... 124 The Story of Siegfried.................................. 124 A Story of the Golden Age................................ 99 Ball. Starland................................................ 129 Bamford. Up and Down the Brooks.................................. 157 Bannerman. The Story of Little Black Sambo.......................... 23 Barbauld. _See_ Aiken and Barbauld. Barbour. For the Honor of the School............................. 189 Four in Camp............................................ 190 Baring-Gould and Gilman. The Story of Germany.................................... 200 Barnes. The Hero of Erie........................................ 142 Baylor. Juan and Juanita........................................ 109 Beale. Stories from the Old Testament for Children.............. 55 Beautiful Joe. Saunders................................................. 88 Beauty and the Beast. Crane.................................................... 43 Bee People, The. Morley................................................... 87 Belger. _See_ Baylor. Ben Comee. Canavan................................................. 162 Bennett. Master Skylark.......................................... 162 Benton. A Little Cook-Book for a Little Girl..................... 92 Saturday Mornings........................................ 92 Betty Leicester. Jewett, S.O............................................. 136 Bible for Young People, The........................................ 47 Bimbi. Ouida.................................................... 91 Biographical Stories. Hawthorne. _See_ his Grandfather's Chair. Bird Book, The. Eckstorm................................................ 158 Bird-Life. Chapman, F.M............................................ 157 Bird Neighbors. Blanchan................................................ 130 Birds' Christmas Carol, The. Wiggin.................................................. 231 Birds That Hunt and are Hunted. Blanchan................................................ 185 Black, Alexander. Photography Indoors and Out............................. 199 Black Beauty. Sewell................................................... 88 Black, William. The Four MacNicols, and An Adventure in Thule........... 133 Blaisdell. The Animals at the Fair.................................. 54 Blanchan. Bird Neighbors.......................................... 130 Birds That Hunt and are Hunted.......................... 185 Nature's Garden......................................... 130 Blind Brother, The. Greene.................................................. 194 Blue Fairy Book, The. Lang, Andrew............................................. 65 Blue Poetry Book, The. Lang, Andrew............................................ 182 Bolton. Famous American Authors................................. 200 Lives of Girls Who Became Famous........................ 172 Bond. The Scientific American Boy............................. 141 Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals, A. Francis.................................................. 28 Book of Famous Verse, A. Repplier................................................ 183 Book of Legends, The. Scudder.................................................. 53 Book of Nature Myths, The. Holbrook................................................. 51 Book of Nursery Rhymes, A. Welsh.................................................... 30 Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts, The. Brown.................................................... 61 Book of the Ocean, The. Ingersoll............................................... 159 Book of Verses for Children, A. Lucas, E.V............................................... 67 Boots and Saddles. Custer.................................................. 143 Boston Town. Scudder................................................. 145 Boutet de Monvel. Joan of Arc.............................................. 59 Boy Craftsman, The. Hall..................................................... 93 Boy Emigrants, The. Brooks, Noah............................................ 162 Boy Life of Napoleon, The. Foa..................................................... 144 Boy on a Farm, A. Abbott................................................... 47 Boyesen. The Modern Vikings...................................... 109 Boys' and Girls' Plutarch, The. White, J.S.............................................. 176 Boy's Book of Explorations, The. Jenks, Tudor............................................ 179 Boy's Book of Inventions, The. Baker................................................... 156 Boy's Froissart, The. Lanier.................................................. 174 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln, The. Nicolay................................................. 204 Boys of Other Countries. Taylor, Bayard........................................... 98 Boys of '76, The. Coffin.................................................. 117 Boy's Percy, The. Lanier.................................................. 182 Boy's Second Book of Inventions. Baker................................................... 185 Bracebridge Hall. Irving.................................................. 227 Brassey. A Voyage in the Sunbeam................................. 209 Brooke. The Golden Goose Book.................................... 33 Brooks, E.S. The Century Book for Young Americans.................... 114 The Century Book of Famous Americans.................... 115 The True Story of Benjamin Franklin..................... 115 The True Story of Christopher Columbus................... 93 The True Story of George Washington...................... 94 The True Story of Lafayette............................. 116 Brooks, Noah. The Boy Emigrants....................................... 162 The Story of Marco Polo................................. 148 Brown. The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts................... 61 In the Days of Giants.................................... 61 Browne. Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of Fairy Times.... 51 Brownies: Their Book, The. Cox...................................................... 45 Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts. Stockton................................................ 147 Building the Nation. Coffin.................................................. 143 Bulfinch. The Age of Fable........................................ 212 Bull. Fridtjof Nansen......................................... 149 Bullen. The Cruise of the Cachalot.............................. 224 Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress................................... 68 Burgess. Goops and How To Be Them................................. 35 More Goops and How Not To Be Them........................ 35 Burnett. Little Lord Fauntleroy................................... 89 Burroughs. Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers......................... 131 Wake-Robin.............................................. 217 Butterfly Book, The. Holland................................................. 158 Cadet Days. King, Charles........................................... 228 Caldecott. The Farmer's Boy......................................... 23 A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go.............................. 24 Hey Diddle Diddle, and Baby Bunting...................... 25 The House that Jack Built................................ 25 The Milkmaid............................................. 25 The Queen of Hearts...................................... 25 Ride a-Cock Horse to Banbury Cross, and A Farmer Went Trotting upon His Grey Mare.............. 26 Sing a Song for Sixpence................................. 26 Camps and Firesides of the Revolution. Hart and Hill, Mabel.................................... 145 Canavan. Ben Comee............................................... 162 Canfield, and Others. What Shall We Do Now?.................................... 73 Captains Courageous. Kipling................................................. 166 Captains of Industry. Parton.................................................. 174 Careers of Danger and Daring. Moffett................................................. 187 Carové. The Story without an End................................. 71 Carpenter. South America........................................... 149 Carroll. Alice in Wonderland...................................... 62 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland......................... 62 Through the Looking-Glass................................ 63 Carruth. Letters to American Boys................................ 184 Castle Blair. Shaw.................................................... 168 Catherwood. The Heroes of the Middle West............................ 94 Cave Boy of the Age of Stone, The. McIntyre................................................. 90 Celtic Fairy Tales. Jacobs................................................... 80 Century Book for Young Americans, The. Brooks, E.S............................................. 114 Century Book of Famous Americans, The. Brooks, E.S............................................. 115 Cervantes. Don Quixote of the Mancha............................... 127 Champlin. The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Common Things............. 87 The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Literature and Art....... 177 The Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Persons and Places........ 94 Young Folks' History of the War for the Union........... 201 Chapin. Masters of Music; Their Lives and Works................. 201 The Story of the Rhinegold............................... 99 Wonder Tales from Wagner................................ 100 Chapman, A.B. _See_ Hart and Chapman. Chapman, F.M. Bird-Life............................................... 157 Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America.............. 218 Charles. Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family................ 225 Chaucer for Children. Haweis.................................................. 105 Chenoweth. Stories of the Saints................................... 116 Child-Life. Whittier................................................. 54 Child-Life in Japan. Ayrton................................................... 76 Childhood of Ji-shib, the Ojibwa, The. Jenks, A.E.............................................. 111 Childhood of the World, The. Clodd................................................... 157 Children of the Cold, The. Schwatka................................................. 97 Children's Book, The. Scudder.................................................. 48 Children's Farm, The............................................... 21 Children's Series of the Modern Reader's Bible. Moulton. Bible Stories. New Testament............................. 55 Bible Stories. Old Testament............................. 55 Children's Stories in American History. Wright, H.C.............................................. 76 Children's Stories of the Great Scientists. Wright, H.C............................................. 176 Child's Garden of Verses, A. Stevenson. Illustrated by Charles Robinson............... 30 Child's Garden of Verses, A. Stevenson. Illustrated by J.W. Smith..................... 29 Child's History of England, A. Dickens................................................. 143 Child's Rainy Day Book, The. White, Mary.............................................. 50 Chilhowee Boys. Morrison................................................ 137 Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes. Headland................................................. 36 Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. Charles................................................. 225 Church. The �neid for Boys and Girls............................ 125 The Iliad for Boys and Girls............................ 125 Stories of the East from Herodotus...................... 172 Three Greek Children.................................... 134 A Young Macedonian in the Army of Alexander the Great... 190 Cinderella. Crane.................................................... 43 Clean Peter and the Children of Grubbylea. Adelborg................................................. 34 Clemens. _See_ Twain. Clement. Stories of Art and Artists.............................. 143 Clodd. The Childhood of the World.............................. 157 Coal and the Coal Mines. Greene.................................................. 219 Coffin. The Boys of '76......................................... 117 Building the Nation..................................... 143 Old Times in the Colonies............................... 117 Collodi. Pinocchio, The Adventures of a Marionette................ 63 Colonial Children. Hart and Hazard, B.E.................................... 118 Colonization of America, The. Gilman................................................... 95 Coolidge. What Katy Did........................................... 134 What Katy Did at School................................. 163 Cooper. The Deerslayer.......................................... 163 The Last of the Mohicans................................ 163 The Pilot............................................... 190 The Spy................................................. 191 Cotes. The Story of Sonny Sahib................................ 191 Country of the Dwarfs, The. Du Chaillu............................................... 96 Cowper. The Diverting History of John Gilpin..................... 44 Cox. The Brownies: Their Book................................. 45 Cragin. Our Insect Friends and Foes............................. 131 Craik, Mrs. D.M. (M.) _See_ Mulock. Craik, G.M. So-Fat and Mew-Mew....................................... 38 Cram. _See_ Stone, Witmer, and Cram. Crane. Aladdin.................................................. 42 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves........................... 42 The Baby's Opera......................................... 26 The Baby's Own Alphabet.................................. 28 Beauty and the Beast..................................... 43 Cinderella............................................... 43 The Fairy Ship........................................... 27 The Frog Prince.......................................... 43 Goody Two Shoes.......................................... 48 Jack and the Bean-Stalk.................................. 43 Mother Hubbard........................................... 21 The Sleeping Beauty...................................... 44 This Little Pig.......................................... 22 Cranford. Gaskell................................................. 225 Creighton. A First History of France............................... 117 Crichton. Peep-in-the-World....................................... 110 Cruikshank. The Cruikshank Fairy Book................................ 64 Cruikshank Fairy Book, The. Cruikshank............................................... 64 Cruise of the Cachalot, The. Bullen.................................................. 224 Custer. Boots and Saddles....................................... 143 Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. Ewing. _See_ her Jackanapes. Dale and Fraser, Sheepmen. Hamp. Dana, R.H. Two Years Before the Mast............................... 178 Dana, Mrs. W.S. _See_ Parsons. Darton. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims........................ 153 Deerslayer, The. Cooper.................................................. 163 Defoe. Robinson Crusoe......................................... 135 Deming. Indian Child-Life........................................ 32 Diaz. The William Henry Letters............................... 110 Dickens. A Child's History of England............................ 143 Dickerson. The Frog Book........................................... 185 Discovery and Exploration of America, The. Gilman................................................... 74 Ditmars. The Reptile Book........................................ 218 Diverting History of John Gilpin, The. Cowper................................................... 44 Dix. Merrylips............................................... 191 Soldier Rigdale......................................... 192 Dixon. Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights..................... 100 Docas, the Indian Boy of Santa Clara. Snedden.................................................. 71 Dodge. Hans Brinker............................................ 135 Dodgson. _See_ Carroll. Dole. The Young Citizen....................................... 144 Don Quixote of the Mancha. Cervantes............................................... 127 Doubleday. _See_ Blanchan. Dove in the Eagle's Nest, The. Yonge................................................... 231 Drake. Indian History for Young Folks.......................... 172 On Plymouth Rock......................................... 74 Drummond. The Monkey That Would Not Kill........................... 89 Du Chaillu. The Country of the Dwarfs................................ 96 The Land of the Long Night.............................. 149 Wild Life Under the Equator.............................. 97 Duncan. Mary's Garden and How It Grew........................... 106 Each and All. Andrews.................................................. 50 Early Story of Israel, The. Thomas.................................................. 129 Earth in Past Ages, The. Herrick................................................. 107 Eastman. Indian Boyhood.......................................... 178 Eckstorm. The Bird Book........................................... 158 Eckstorm. The Woodpeckers......................................... 132 Edgeworth. Tales from Maria Edgeworth.............................. 110 Eggleston, Edward. The Hoosier School-Boy.................................. 135 Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.......... 60 Eggleston, G.C. The Last of the Flatboats............................... 164 Egypt. Kelly................................................... 150 Elizabeth's Charm-String. Forbes.................................................. 164 England. Finnemore............................................... 121 Evermann. _See_ Jordan and Evermann. Every-Day Life in the Colonies. Stone, G.L., and Pickett................................. 76 Ewing. Jackanapes. Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. The Story of a Short Life............................. 192 Eyes and No Eyes, and Other Stories. Aiken and Barbauld....................................... 69 Fables of �sop, The. �sop..................................................... 61 Fairy Ship, The. Crane.................................................... 27 Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen................................................. 98 Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights. Dixon................................................... 100 Fairy Tales from the Far North. Asbjörnsen............................................... 77 Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Grimm.................................................... 78 Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War............. 201 Famous American Authors. Bolton.................................................. 200 Fanciful Tales. Stockton................................................ 103 Farmer Went Trotting upon His Grey Mare, A. Caldecott. _See_ his Ride a-Cock Horse to Banbury Cross. Farmer's Boy, The. Caldecott................................................ 23 Feats on the Fiord. Martineau............................................... 166 Fickett. _See_ Stone, G.L., and Fickett. Fighting a Fire. Hill, C.T............................................... 119 Finnemore. England................................................. 121 France.................................................. 149 The Holy Land........................................... 121 India................................................... 178 Italy................................................... 210 Japan................................................... 179 Switzerland.............................................. 97 First Book in Geology, A. Shaler.................................................. 189 First Book of Birds, The. Miller................................................... 87 First History of France, A. Creighton............................................... 117 Flaherty. _See_ Gayley and Flaherty. Flamingo Feather, The. Munroe.................................................. 167 Flower Legends for Children. Murray................................................... 52 Foa. The Boy Life of Napoleon................................ 144 For the Honor of the School. Barbour................................................. 189 Forbes. Elizabeth's Charm-String................................ 164 Four in Camp. Barbour................................................. 190 Four MacNicols, The, and An Adventure in Thule. Black, William.......................................... 133 France. Finnemore............................................... 149 Francillon. Gods and Heroes.......................................... 78 Francis. A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals....... 28 Franklin. Autobiography........................................... 202 Freeman. _See_ Wilkins. French, Alice. _See_ Thanet. French, Allen. Heroes of Iceland....................................... 193 Pelham and His Friend Tim............................... 193 French, H.W. The Lance of Kanana..................................... 164 Frere. Old Deccan Days.......................................... 78 Fridtjof Nansen. Bull.................................................... 149 Frog Book, The. Dickerson............................................... 185 Frog He Would a-Wooing Go, A. Caldecott................................................ 24 Frog Prince, The. Crane.................................................... 43 Frozen North, The. Horton.................................................. 150 Gabriel and the Hour Book. Stein. 168 Games Book for Boys and Girls, The................................. 59 Garland. The Long Trail.......................................... 225 Gaskell. Cranford................................................ 225 Gayley and Flaherty. Poetry of the People.................................... 104 Geikie. Physical Geography...................................... 158 General History. Myers................................................... 203 George Washington. Scudder................................................. 175 German Household Tales. Grimm.................................................... 79 Gibson. Sharp Eyes.............................................. 219 Gillie. The Kinsfolk and Friends of Jesus....................... 184 The Story of Stories.................................... 156 Gilman. The Colonization of America.............................. 95 The Discovery and Exploration of America................. 74 The Making of the American Nation....................... 117 Gilman. _See also_ Baring-Gould and Gilman. Gladwin. _See_ Zollinger. Gods and Heroes. Francillon............................................... 78 Gold-seeking on the Dalton Trail. Thompson................................................ 169 Golden Goose Book, The. Brooke................................................... 33 Golden Numbers. Wiggin and Smith........................................ 155 Golden Porch, The. Hutchinson.............................................. 125 Good. Magical Experiments..................................... 186 Good Health. Jewett, F.G............................................. 123 Goodwin. _See_ Sage. Goody Two Shoes. Crane.................................................... 48 Goops and How To Be Them. Burgess.................................................. 35 Goss. Jed..................................................... 193 Gould, S. Baring-. _See_ Baring-Gould. Grandfather's Chair, and Biographical Stories. Hawthorne............................................... 118 Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of Fairy Times. Browne................................................... 51 Grasshopper Land. Morley.................................................. 187 Gray Lady and the Birds. Wright, M.O............................................. 108 Greek History for Young Readers. Zimmern................................................. 176 Greek Sculpture. Hurll................................................... 207 Green Fairy Book, The. Lang, Andrew............................................ 102 Greene. The Blind Brother....................................... 194 Coal and the Coal Mines................................. 219 Griffis. Young People's History of Holland....................... 173 Grimm. Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm........................ 78 German Household Tales................................... 79 Guerber. The Story of the Greeks.................................. 74 The Story of the Romans.................................. 75 Gulliver's Travels. Swift................................................... 106 Gypsy Breynton. Phelps.................................................. 137 Gypsy's Cousin Joy. Phelps.................................................. 138 Hale, E.E. How To Do It............................................ 215 The Man Without a Country............................... 194 Hale, L.P. The Peterkin Papers..................................... 111 Half-Hours with the Stars. Proctor................................................. 133 Hall. The Boy Craftsman........................................ 93 Hamp. Dale and Fraser, Sheepmen............................... 194 Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. Chapman, F.M............................................ 218 Handbook of Birds of the Western United States. Bailey.................................................. 217 Hans Brinker. Dodge................................................... 135 Harper's Electricity Book for Boys. Adams................................................... 216 Harper's Indoor Book for Boys. Adams................................................... 198 Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys. Adams, and Others....................................... 198 Harrington. About the Weather....................................... 219 Harris. Nights with Uncle Remus................................. 125 On the Plantation....................................... 194 Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings.................. 101 Hart and Chapman, A.B. How Our Grandfathers Lived.............................. 173 Hart and Hazard, B.E. Colonial Children....................................... 118 Hart and Hill, Mabel. Camps and Firesides of the Revolution................... 145 Hart and Stevens. The Romance of the Civil War............................ 202 Hasluck. Knotting and Splicing Ropes and Cordage................. 171 Haweis. Chaucer for Children.................................... 105 Hawthorne. Grandfather's Chair and Biographical Stories............ 118 Tanglewood Tales........................................ 101 A Wonder Book............................................ 79 Hazard, B.E. _See_ Hart and Hazard. Hazard, Bertha. Three Years with the Poets............................... 45 Headland. Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes.............................. 36 Heart of Oak Books. Volumes I-VII. Norton. Volume I. Rhymes, Jingles, and Fables.................... 37 Volume II. Fables and Nursery Tales...................... 53 Volume III. Fairy Tales, Ballads, and Poems.............. 83 Volume IV. Fairy Stories and Classic Tales.............. 128 Volume V. Masterpieces of Literature.................... 155 Volume VI. Masterpieces of Literature................... 183 Volume VII. Masterpieces of Literature.................. 213 Heidi. Spyri................................................... 113 Heilprin. The Animal Life of Our Sea-shore........................ 186 Hemstreet. The Story of Manhattan.................................. 119 Hero of Erie, The. Barnes.................................................. 142 Heroes. The. Kingsley................................................. 81 Heroes of Asgard, The. Keary.................................................... 81 Heroes of Iceland. French, Allen........................................... 193 Heroes of the Middle West, The. Catherwood............................................... 94 Herrick. The Earth in Past Ages.................................. 107 Hey Diddle Diddle, and Baby Bunting. Caldecott................................................ 25 Higginson. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic.......... 151 Young Folks' Book of American Explorers................. 210 Young Folks' History of the United States............... 174 Hill, C.T. Fighting a Fire......................................... 119 Hill, Mabel. Lessons for Junior Citizens.............................. 95 _See also_ Hart and Hill. History of the Robins, The. Trimmer.................................................. 49 Hodges. When the King Came....................................... 86 Hodgson. Rama and the Monkeys.................................... 101 Holbrook. The Book of Nature Myths................................. 51 Northland Heroes......................................... 79 Holland. The Butterfly Book...................................... 158 The Moth Book........................................... 220 Holland. Jungman................................................. 122 Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book, The. Paine.................................................... 66 Holmes. The One Hoss Shay, and Companion Poems.................. 128 Holy Land, The. Finnemore............................................... 121 Hoosier School-Boy, The. Eggleston, Edward....................................... 135 Hope. The World............................................... 122 Hopkins. The Sandman: His Farm Stories............................ 38 The Sandman: His Ship Stories............................ 57 Horne and Scobey. Stories of Great Artists................................. 75 Stories of Great Musicians............................... 75 Horton. The Frozen North........................................ 150 Houghton. The Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales................... 80 House that Jack Built, The. Caldecott................................................ 25 How Our Grandfathers Lived. Hart and Chapman, A.B................................... 173 How To Do It. Hale, E.E............................................... 215 How to Know the Ferns. Parsons................................................. 222 How to Know the Wild Flowers. Parsons................................................. 188 How to Make Baskets. White, Mary............................................. 142 How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus. St. John................................................ 160 Howard. The Insect Book......................................... 186 Hughes. Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby........................ 165 Hurll. Greek Sculpture......................................... 207 Michelangelo............................................ 207 Raphael................................................. 208 Tuscan Sculpture........................................ 209 Hutchinson. The Golden Porch........................................ 125 Iliad for Boys and Girls, The. Church.................................................. 125 In Colonial Times. Wilkins................................................. 197 In the Days of Alfred the Great. Tappan.................................................. 120 In the Days of Giants. Brown.................................................... 61 In the Days of Queen Elizabeth. Tappan.................................................. 120 In the Days of Queen Victoria. Tappan.................................................. 176 In the Days of William the Conqueror. Tappan.................................................. 121 India. Finnemore............................................... 178 Indian Boyhood. Eastman................................................. 178 Indian Child-Life. Deming................................................... 32 Indian Fairy Tales. Jacobs................................................... 81 Indian History for Young Folks. Drake................................................... 172 Ingersoll. The Book of the Ocean................................... 159 Inman. The Ranche on the Oxhide................................ 165 Insect Book, The. Howard.................................................. 186 Iron Star, The. True.................................................... 169 Irving. The Alhambra............................................ 226 Bracebridge Hall........................................ 227 Old Christmas........................................... 227 Rip Van Winkle.......................................... 228 Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow......... 228 Island Story, An. Marshall................................................. 95 Italy. Finnemore............................................... 210 Ivanhoe. Scott................................................... 229 Jack and the Bean-Stalk. Crane.................................................... 43 Jackanapes. Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. The Story of a Short Life. Ewing................................................... 192 Jackson. Nelly's Silver Mine..................................... 135 Jacobs. Celtic Fairy Tales....................................... 80 Indian Fairy Tales....................................... 81 Janvier. The Aztec Treasure House................................ 165 Japan. Finnemore............................................... 179 Japanese Fairy Tales. Williston................................................ 66 Japanese Garland, A. Peltier................................................. 122 Jed. Goss.................................................... 193 Jenks, A.E. The Childhood of Ji-shib', the Ojibwa................... 111 Jenks, Tudor. The Boy's Book of Explorations.......................... 179 Jewett, P.G. Good Health............................................. 123 Jewett, S.O. Betty Leicester......................................... 136 Play Days................................................ 89 Joan of Arc. Boutet de Monvel......................................... 59 Johnson. Phaeton Rogers.......................................... 136 Jolly Good Times. Smith, M.P. (W.)........................................ 112 Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack. Smith, M.P. (W.)........................................ 138 Jolly Good Times at School. Smith, M.P. (W.)........................................ 112 Jordan and Evermann. American Food and Game Fishes........................... 220 Juan and Juanita. Baylor.................................................. 109 Judd. Wigwam Stories........................................... 64 Julius Cæsar. Shakespeare............................................. 204 Jungle Book, The. Kipling................................................. 102 Jungman. Holland................................................. 122 Just So Stories. Kipling.................................................. 52 Kaler. _See_ Otis. Keary. The Heroes of Asgard..................................... 81 Keeler. Our Native Trees, and How to Identify Them.............. 221 Kelly. Egypt................................................... 150 Kenilworth. Scott................................................... 229 Kidnapped. Stevenson............................................... 230 Kieffer. The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy...................... 174 King, C.F. Roundabout Rambles in Northern Europe................... 210 King, Charles. Cadet Days.............................................. 228 King of the Golden River, The. Ruskin.................................................. 103 Kingsley. The Heroes............................................... 81 The Water-Babies......................................... 82 Westward Ho!............................................ 229 Kinsfolk and Friends of Jesus, The. Gillie.................................................. 184 Kipling. Captains Courageous..................................... 166 The Jungle Book......................................... 102 Just So Stories.......................................... 52 Puck of Pook's Hill..................................... 181 The Second Jungle Book.................................. 126 Knightly Legends of Wales, or The Boy's Mabinogion. Lanier.................................................. 152 Knights of Art. Steedman................................................ 147 Knotting and Splicing Ropes and Cordage. Hasluck................................................. 171 Lady Hollyhock and Her Friends. Walker................................................... 40 Lady of the Lake, The. Scott................................................... 213 La Fontaine. La Fontaine's Fables..................................... 64 Select Fables from La Fontaine........................... 33 La Fontaine's Fables. La Fontaine.............................................. 64 Lagerlöf. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils......................... 82 Lamb. The Adventures of Ulysses............................... 152 Mrs. Leicester's School................................. 112 Tales from Shakespeare.................................. 154 Lance of Kanana, The. French, H.W............................................. 164 Land of the Long Night, The. Du Chaillu.............................................. 149 Lang, Andrew. The Blue Fairy Book...................................... 65 The Blue Poetry Book.................................... 182 The Green Fairy Book.................................... 102 The Nursery Rhyme Book................................... 29 The Red Book of Animal Stories.......................... 132 The Red Fairy Book....................................... 82 Lang, Jeanie. The Story of General Gordon............................. 145 Lang, John. The Story of Captain Cook............................... 179 Lanier. The Boy's Froissart..................................... 174 The Boy's Percy......................................... 182 Knightly Legends of Wales, or The Boy's Mabinogion...... 152 Larcom. A New England Girlhood.................................. 202 Last of the Flatboats, The. Eggleston, G.C.......................................... 164 Last of the Mohicans, The. Cooper.................................................. 163 Lay of the Last Minstrel, The. Scott................................................... 214 Lays of Ancient Rome. Macaulay................................................ 154 Lear. Nonsense Books........................................... 37 Lee. When I was a Boy in China............................... 180 Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The. Irving. _See_ his Rip Van Winkle. Lessons for Junior Citizens. Hill, Mabel.............................................. 95 Letters to American Boys. Carruth................................................. 184 Lisbeth Longfrock. Aanrud................................................... 70 Little Ann, and Other Poems. Taylor, Jane and Ann..................................... 46 Little Cook-Book for a Little Girl, A. Benton................................................... 92 Little Duke, The. Yonge................................................... 113 Little Girl of Long Ago, A. White, E.O............................................... 58 Little Jarvis. Seawell................................................. 138 Little Lame Prince, The. Mulock................................................... 83 Little Lord Fauntleroy. Burnett.................................................. 89 Little Men. Alcott.................................................. 189 Little Pussy Willow. Stowe................................................... 139 Little Women. Alcott.................................................. 161 Lives of Girls Who Became Famous. Bolton.................................................. 172 Long Trail, The. Garland................................................. 225 Longfellow. The Song of Hiawatha..................................... 85 Lorenzini. _See_ Collodi. Lossing. The Story of the United States Navy, for Boys........... 203 Lucas, E.V. A Book of Verses for Children............................ 67 Anne's Terrible Good Nature, and Other Stories for Children.............................................. 136 Another Book of Verses for Children...................... 85 Old-Fashioned Tales...................................... 90 Lucas, F.A. Animals of the Past..................................... 221 Lummis. Some Strange Corners of Our Country..................... 211 Macaulay. Lays of Ancient Rome.................................... 154 Macbeth. Shakespeare............................................. 205 McIntyre. The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone......................... 90 MacLeod. Stories from the Faerie Queene.......................... 128 McMaster. A Primary History of the United States.................. 119 McMurry. Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains and the West............. 95 Magical Experiments. Good.................................................... 186 Making of the American Nation, The. Gilman.................................................. 117 Man Without a Country, The. Hale, E.E............................................... 194 Man Wonderful, or the Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling, The. Wood-Allen.............................................. 211 Marmion. Scott................................................... 214 Marryat. Masterman Ready......................................... 136 Marshall. An Island Story.......................................... 95 Stories of William Tell and His Friends.................. 96 Martineau. Feats on the Fiord...................................... 166 The Peasant and the Prince.............................. 166 Marvin, Mayor, and Stawell. The Adventures of Odysseus.............................. 126 Mary's Garden and How It Grew. Duncan.................................................. 106 Master Skylark. Bennett................................................. 162 Masterman Ready. Marryat................................................. 136 Masters of Music; Their Lives and Works. Chapin.................................................. 201 Matthews. Tom Paulding............................................ 167 May. _See_ Craik, G.M. Mayor. _See_ Marvin, Mayor, and Stawell. Meadowcroft. The A B C of Electricity................................ 159 Men of Iron. Pyle.................................................... 167 Merchant of Venice, The. Shakespeare............................................. 206 Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, The. Pyle.................................................... 126 Merrylips. Dix..................................................... 191 Michelangelo. Hurll................................................... 207 Midsummer-Night's Dream, A. Shakespeare............................................. 206 Milkmaid, The. Caldecott................................................ 25 Miller. The First Book of Birds.................................. 87 The Second Book of Birds................................ 107 Milly and Oily. Ward, M.A. (A.).......................................... 57 Mr. Wind and Madam Rain. Musset................................................... 66 Mrs. Leicester's School. Lamb.................................................... 112 Modern Vikings, The. Boyesen................................................. 109 Moffett. Careers of Danger and Daring............................ 187 Monkey That Would Not Kill, The. Drummond................................................. 89 Moral Pirates, The. Alden................................................... 133 More Good Times at Hackmatack. Smith, M.P. (W.)........................................ 168 More Goops and How Not To Be Them. Burgess.................................................. 35 Morley. The Bee People........................................... 87 Grasshopper Land........................................ 187 A Song of Life.......................................... 159 Wasps and Their Ways.................................... 132 Morrison. Chilhowee Boys.......................................... 137 Moth Book, The. Holland................................................. 220 Mother Hubbard. Crane.................................................... 21 Moulton. Children's Series of the Modern Reader's Bible. Bible Stories. New Testament............................. 55 Bible Stories. Old Testament............................. 55 Mulock. The Adventures of a Brownie.............................. 66 The Little Lame Prince................................... 83 Munroe. The Flamingo Feather.................................... 167 Murray. Flower Legends for Children.............................. 52 Murtfeldt and Weed. Stories of Insect Life. Volume II........................ 88 For Volume I. _see_ Weed. Musset. Mr. Wind and Madam Rain.................................. 66 Myers. General History......................................... 203 Myths of the Red Children. Wilson, G.L.............................................. 53 Nash. Polly's Secret.......................................... 195 Natural History for Young People, A. Wood.................................................... 108 Nature's Garden. Blanchan................................................ 130 Nelly's Silver Mine. Jackson................................................. 135 New England Girlhood, A. Larcom.................................................. 202 Newcomb. Astronomy for Everybody................................. 222 Nicolay. The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln....................... 204 Nights with Uncle Remus. Harris.................................................. 125 Nonsense Books. Lear..................................................... 37 Nordhoff. Sailor Life on a Man-of-War............................. 150 Northland Heroes. Holbrook................................................ 179 Norton. Heart of Oak Books. Volumes I-VII. Volume I. Rhymes, Jingles, and Fables.................... 37 Volume II. Fables and Nursery Tales...................... 53 Volume III. Fairy Tales, Ballads, and Poems.............. 83 Volume IV. Fairy Stories and Classic Tales.............. 128 Volume V. Masterpieces of Literature.................... 155 Volume VI. Masterpieces of Literature................... 183 Volume VII. Masterpieces of Literature.................. 213 Nursery Rhyme Book, The. Lang, Andrew............................................. 29 Old Christmas. Irving.................................................. 227 Old Deccan Days. Frere.................................................... 78 Old-Fashioned Tales. Lucas, E.V............................................... 90 Old Indian Legends. Zitkala-Sa............................................... 85 Old, Old Fairy Tales, The. Valentine................................................ 84 Old Songs for Young America. Ostertag................................................. 45 Old Times in the Colonies. Coffin.................................................. 117 On Plymouth Rock. Drake.................................................... 74 On the Plantation. Harris.................................................. 194 One Hoss Shay, The, and Companion Poems. Holmes.................................................. 128 Orcutt Girls, The. Vaile................................................... 196 Oregon Trail, The. Parkman................................................. 180 Ostertag. Old Songs for Young America.............................. 45 Otis. Toby Tyler; or Ten Weeks with a Circus................... 90 Ouida. Bimbi.................................................... 91 Our Children's Songs............................................... 45 Our Domestic Animals. Voogt................................................... 224 Our Insect Friends and Foes. Cragin.................................................. 131 Our Native Trees, and How to Identify Them. Keeler.................................................. 221 Our Young Folks' Josephus. Shepard................................................. 146 Page. Two Little Confederates................................. 137 Paine. The Arkansaw Bear........................................ 83 The Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book...................... 66 Parkman. The Oregon Trail........................................ 180 Parsons. How to Know the Ferns................................... 222 How to Know the Wild Flowers............................ 188 Plants and Their Children................................ 70 Parton. Captains of Industry.................................... 174 Patterson. The Spinner Family...................................... 107 Paul Jones. Seawell................................................. 146 Peary. The Snow Baby............................................ 71 Peasant and the Prince, The. Martineau............................................... 166 Peep-in-the-World. Crichton................................................ 110 Pelham and His Friend Tim. French, Allen........................................... 193 Peltier. A Japanese Garland...................................... 122 Peterkin Papers, The. Hale, L.P............................................... 111 Phaeton Rogers. Johnson................................................. 136 Phelps. Gypsy Breynton.......................................... 137 Gypsy's Cousin Joy...................................... 138 Photography Indoors and Out. Black, Alexander........................................ 199 Physical Geography. Geikie.................................................. 158 Pilgrim's Progress, The. Bunyan................................................... 68 Pilot, The. Cooper.................................................. 190 Pinocchio, The Adventures of a Marionette. Collodi.................................................. 63 Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains and the West. McMurry.................................................. 95 Plants and Their Children. Parsons.................................................. 70 Play Days. Jewett, S.O.............................................. 89 Plummer. Roy and Ray in Canada................................... 180 Roy and Ray in Mexico................................... 151 Poetry of the People. Gayley and Flaherty..................................... 104 Polly Oliver's Problem. Wiggin.................................................. 197 Polly's Secret. Nash.................................................... 195 Pope. _See_ Peltier. Posy Ring, The. Wiggin and Smith......................................... 67 Potter. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny............................... 39 The Tale of Peter Rabbit................................. 30 The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin.............................. 39 Price. Wandering Heroes........................................ 120 Primary History of the United States, A. McMaster................................................ 119 Prince and the Pauper, The. Twain................................................... 169 Proctor. Half-Hours with the Stars............................... 133 Psalms of David, The............................................... 68 Puck of Pook's Hill. Kipling................................................. 181 Pyle. Men of Iron............................................. 167 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood...................... 126 The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes.................. 195 The Story of King Arthur and His Knights................ 102 The Wonder Clock......................................... 84 Queen of Hearts, The. Caldecott................................................ 25 Rainy Day Diversions. Wells................................................... 171 Rama and the Monkeys. Hodgson................................................. 101 Ramé. _See_ Ouida. Ranche on the Oxhide, The. Inman................................................... 165 Raphael. Hurll................................................... 208 Raspé. Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen.............. 105 Real Electric Toy-making for Boys. St. John................................................ 188 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Wiggin.................................................. 197 Recollections of a Drummer-Boy, The. Kieffer................................................. 174 Red Book of Animal Stories, The. Lang, Andrew............................................ 132 Red Fairy Book, The. Lang, Andrew............................................. 82 Repplier. A Book of Famous Verse.................................. 183 Reptile Book, The. Ditmars................................................. 218 Rhymes of Real Children. Sage..................................................... 37 Ride a-Cock Horse to Banbury Cross, and A Farmer Went Trotting upon His Grey Mare. Caldecott................................................ 26 Rip Van Winkle. Irving.................................................. 228 Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving.................................................. 228 Robinson Crusoe. Defoe................................................... 135 Rogers. The Shell Book.......................................... 222 The Tree Book........................................... 223 Roggie and Reggie Stories, The. Smith, Gertrude.......................................... 31 Romance of the Civil War, The. Hart and Stevens........................................ 202 Rose and the Ring, The. Thackeray............................................... 104 Roundabout Rambles in Northern Europe. King, C.F............................................... 210 Roy and Ray in Canada. Plummer................................................. 180 Roy and Ray in Mexico. Plummer................................................. 151 Rules of Conduct, Diary of Adventure, Letters, and Farewell Addresses. Washington.............................................. 204 Ruskin. The King of the Golden River............................ 103 Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales, The. Houghton................................................. 80 Sage. Rhymes of Real Children.................................. 37 Sailor Life on a Man-of-War. Nordhoff................................................ 150 St. John. How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus........ 160 Real Electric Toy-making for Boys....................... 188 Wireless Telegraphy..................................... 223 Sandman: His Farm Stories, The. Hopkins.................................................. 38 Sandman: His Ship Stories, The. Hopkins.................................................. 57 Saturday Mornings. Benton................................................... 92 Saunders. Beautiful Joe............................................ 88 Schwatka. The Children of the Cold................................. 97 Scientific American Boy, The. Bond.................................................... 141 Scobey. _See_ Horne and Scobey. Scott. Ivanhoe................................................. 229 Kenilworth.............................................. 229 The Lady of the Lake.................................... 213 The Lay of the Last Minstrel............................ 214 Marmion................................................. 214 Tales of a Grandfather.................................. 175 The Talisman............................................ 230 Scudder. American Poems.......................................... 215 The Book of Legends...................................... 53 Boston Town............................................. 145 The Children's Book...................................... 48 George Washington....................................... 175 Seawell. Little Jarvis........................................... 138 Paul Jones.............................................. 146 Twelve Naval Captains................................... 146 Second Book of Birds, The. Miller.................................................. 107 Second Jungle Book, The. Kipling................................................. 126 Ségur. The Story of a Donkey.................................... 57 Select Fables from La Fontaine. La Fontaine.............................................. 33 Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air, The. Andrews.................................................. 41 Sewell. Black Beauty............................................. 88 Shakespeare. Julius Cæsar............................................ 204 Macbeth................................................. 205 The Merchant of Venice.................................. 206 A Midsummer-Night's Dream............................... 206 Shaler. A First Book in Geology................................. 189 Sharp. A Watcher in the Woods.................................. 224 Sharp Eyes. Gibson.................................................. 219 Shaw. Castle Blair............................................ 168 Shell Book, The. Rogers.................................................. 222 Shepard. Our Young Folks' Josephus............................... 146 Ship of State, by Those at the Helm, The.......................... 175 Shipwrecked in Greenland. Thompson................................................ 196 Sing a Song for Sixpence. Caldecott................................................ 26 Sleeping Beauty, The. Crane.................................................... 44 Smith, E.B. The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith........... 75 Smith, Gertrude. The Arabella and Araminta Stories........................ 31 The Roggie and Reggie Stories............................ 31 Smith, M.P. (W.) Jolly Good Times........................................ 112 Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack.......................... 138 Jolly Good Times at School.............................. 112 More Good Times at Hackmatack........................... 168 Smith, N.A. Three Little Marys...................................... 139 _See also_ Wiggin and Smith. Snedden. Docas, the Indian Boy of Santa Clara..................... 71 Snow Baby, The. Peary.................................................... 71 So-Fat and Mew-Mew. Craik, G.M............................................... 38 Soldier Rigdale. Dix..................................................... 192 Some Strange Corners of Our Country. Lummis.................................................. 211 Song of Hiawatha, The. Longfellow............................................... 85 Song of Life, A. Morley.................................................. 159 South America. Carpenter............................................... 149 Spinner Family, The. Patterson............................................... 107 Spy, The. Cooper.................................................. 191 Spyri. Heidi................................................... 113 Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. Burroughs............................................... 131 Starland. Ball.................................................... 129 Starr. American Indians........................................ 181 Strange Peoples......................................... 151 Stawell. _See_ Marvin, Mayor, and Stawell. Steedman. Knights of Art.......................................... 147 Stein. Gabriel and the Hour Book............................... 168 Stevens. _See_ Hart and Stevens. Stevenson. A Child's Garden of Verses. Illustrated by Charles Robinson........................ 30 A Child's Garden of Verses. Illustrated by J.W. Smith.............................. 29 Kidnapped............................................... 230 Stevenson. Treasure Island......................................... 195 Stockton. Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts.................... 147 Fanciful Tales.......................................... 103 The Story of Viteau..................................... 169 Stoddard. Two Arrows.............................................. 113 Stone, G.L., and Fickett. Every-Day Life in the Colonies........................... 76 Stone, Witmer, and Cram. American Animals........................................ 160 Stories. Andersen................................................. 77 Stories from the Arabian Nights................................... 103 Stories from the Faerie Queene. MacLeod................................................. 128 Stories from the Old Testament for Children. Beale.................................................... 55 Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children, The. Andrews.................................................. 56 Stories of Ancient Peoples. Arnold.................................................. 142 Stories of Art and Artists. Clement................................................. 143 Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans. Eggleston, Edward........................................ 60 Stories of Great Artists. Horne and Scobey......................................... 75 Stories of Great Musicians. Horne and Scobey......................................... 75 Stories of Insect Life. Volume I. Weed........................................... 70 Stories of Insect Life. Volume II. Murtfeldt and Weed............................ 88 Stories of the East from Herodotus. Church.................................................. 172 Stories of the Saints. Chenoweth............................................... 116 Stories of William Tell and His Friends. Marshall................................................. 96 Story Hour, The. Wiggin and Smith......................................... 49 Story of a Bad Boy, The. Aldrich................................................. 161 Story of a Donkey, The. Ségur.................................................... 57 Story of a Short Life, The. Ewing. _See_ her Jackanapes. Story of Captain Cook, The. Lang, John.............................................. 179 Story of General Gordon, The. Lang, Jeanie............................................ 145 Story of Germany, The. Baring-Gould and Gilman................................. 200 Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes, The. Pyle.................................................... 195 Story of King Arthur and His Knights, The. Pyle.................................................... 102 Story of Little Black Sambo. The. Bannerman................................................ 23 Story of Manhattan, The. Hemstreet............................................... 119 Story of Marco Polo, The. Brooks, Noah............................................ 148 Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, The. Smith, E.B............................................... 75 Story of Roland, The. Baldwin................................................. 124 Story of Russia, The. Van Bergen.............................................. 204 Story of Siegfried, The. Baldwin................................................. 124 Story of Sonny Sahib, The. Cotes................................................... 191 Story of Stories, The. Gillie.................................................. 156 Story of the Cid, The. Wilson, C.D............................................. 153 Story of the Golden Age, A. Baldwin.................................................. 99 Story of the Greeks, The. Guerber.................................................. 74 Story of the Rhinegold, The. Chapin................................................... 99 Story of the Romans, The. Guerber.................................................. 75 Story of the United States Navy, for Boys, The. Lossing................................................. 203 Story of Viteau, The. Stockton................................................ 169 Story without an End, The. Carové................................................... 71 Stowe. Little Pussy Willow..................................... 139 Strange Lands Near Home........................................... 122 Strange Peoples. Starr................................................... 151 Strong. Talks to Boys and Girls................................. 156 Sue Orcutt. Vaile................................................... 230 Swift. Gulliver's Travels...................................... 106 Swiss Family Robinson, The. Wyss.................................................... 113 Switzerland. Finnemore................................................ 97 Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The. Potter................................................... 39 Tale of Peter Rabbit, The. Potter................................................... 30 Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The. Potter................................................... 39 Tales from Maria Edgeworth. Edgeworth............................................... 110 Tales from Shakespeare. Lamb.................................................... 154 Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen. Raspé................................................... 105 Tales of a Grandfather. Scott................................................... 175 Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Darton.................................................. 153 Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. Higginson............................................... 151 Talisman, The. Scott................................................... 230 Talks to Boys and Girls. Strong.................................................. 156 Tanglewood Tales. Hawthorne............................................... 101 Tappan. In the Days of Alfred the Great......................... 120 In the Days of Queen Elizabeth.......................... 120 In the Days of Queen Victoria........................... 176 In the Days of William the Conqueror.................... 121 Taylor, Bayard. Boys of Other Countries.................................. 98 Taylor, C.M., Jr. Why My Photographs Are Bad.............................. 141 Taylor, Jane and Ann. Little Ann, and Other Poems.............................. 46 Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now. Andrews.................................................. 74 Thackeray. The Rose and the Ring................................... 104 Thanet. We All.................................................. 195 This Little Pig. Crane.................................................... 22 Thomas. The Early Story of Israel............................... 129 Thompson. Gold-seeking on the Dalton Trail........................ 169 Shipwrecked in Greenland................................ 196 Three Greek Children. Church.................................................. 134 Three Little Marys. Smith, N.A.............................................. 139 Three Years with the Poets. Hazard, Bertha........................................... 45 Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll.................................................. 63 Toby Tyler; or Ten Weeks with a Circus. Otis..................................................... 90 Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby. Hughes.................................................. 165 Tom Paulding. Matthews................................................ 167 Toward the Rising Sun............................................. 123 Treasure Island. Stevenson............................................... 195 Tree Book, The. Rogers.................................................. 223 Trimmer. The History of the Robins................................ 49 True. The Iron Star........................................... 169 True Story of Benjamin Franklin, The. Brooks, E.S............................................. 115 True Story of Christopher Columbus, The. Brooks, E.S.............................................. 93 True Story of George Washington, The. Brooks, E.S.............................................. 94 True Story of Lafayette, The. Brooks, E.S............................................. 116 Tuscan Sculpture. Hurll................................................... 209 Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer............................ 196 The Prince and the Pauper............................... 169 Twelve Naval Captains. Seawell................................................. 146 Two Arrows. Stoddard................................................ 113 Two Little Confederates. Page.................................................... 137 Two Years Before the Mast. Dana, R.H............................................... 178 Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings. Harris.................................................. 101 Under the Lilacs. Alcott.................................................. 109 Ungava Bob. Wallace................................................. 230 Up and Down the Brooks. Bamford................................................. 157 Upton. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg........ 38 Vaile. The Orcutt Girls........................................ 196 Sue Orcutt.............................................. 230 Valentine. The Old, Old Fairy Tales................................. 84 Van Bergen. The Story of Russia..................................... 204 Voogt. Our Domestic Animals.................................... 224 Voyage in the Sunbeam, A. Brassey................................................. 209 Wake-Robin. Burroughs............................................... 217 Walker. Lady Hollyhock and Her Friends........................... 40 Wallace. Ungava Bob.............................................. 230 Wandering Heroes. Price................................................... 120 Ward, Mrs. E.S. (P.) _See_ Phelps. Ward, Mrs. Humphry. _See_ Ward, M.A. (A.) Ward, M.A. (A.). Milly and Olly........................................... 57 Washington. Rules of Conduct, Diary of Adventure, Letters, and Farewell Addresses............................................. 204 Wasps and Their Ways. Morley.................................................. 132 Watcher in the Woods, A. Sharp................................................... 224 Water-Babies, The. Kingsley................................................. 82 Waters. _See_ Clement. We All. Thanet.................................................. 195 Weed. Stories of Insect Life. Volume I......................... 70 For Volume II _see_ Murtfeldt and Weed. Wells. Rainy Day Diversions.................................... 171 Welsh. A Book of Nursery Rhymes................................. 30 Westward Ho! Kingsley................................................ 229 What Katy Did. Coolidge................................................ 134 What Katy Did at School. Coolidge................................................ 163 What Shall We Do Now? Canfield, and Others..................................... 73 Wheeler. Woodworking for Beginners............................... 114 When I was a Boy in China. Lee..................................................... 180 When Molly was Six. White, E.O............................................... 58 When the King Came. Hodges................................................... 86 White, E.O. A Little Girl of Long Ago................................ 58 When Molly was Six....................................... 58 White, J.S. The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch........................... 176 How to Make Baskets..................................... 142 White, Mary. The Child's Rainy Day Book............................... 50 Whittier. Child-Life............................................... 54 Why My Photographs Are Bad. Taylor, C.M., Jr........................................ 141 Widow O'Callaghan's Boys, The. Zollinger............................................... 139 Wiggin. The Birds' Christmas Carol.............................. 231 Polly Oliver's Problem.................................. 197 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.............................. 197 Wiggin and Smith. Golden Numbers.......................................... 155 The Posy Ring............................................ 67 The Story Hour........................................... 49 Wigwam Stories. Judd..................................................... 64 Wild Life Under the Equator. Du Chaillu............................................... 97 Wilkins. In Colonial Times....................................... 197 William Henry Letters, The. Diaz.................................................... 110 Williston. Japanese Fairy Tales..................................... 66 Wilson, C.D. The Story of the Cid.................................... 153 Wilson, G.L. Myths of the Red Children................................ 53 Wireless Telegraphy. St. John................................................ 223 Wonder Book, A. Hawthorne................................................ 79 Wonder Clock, The. Pyle..................................................... 84 Wonder Tales from Wagner. Chapin.................................................. 100 Wonderful Adventures of Nils, The. Lagerlöf................................................. 82 Wood. A Natural History for Young People...................... 108 Wood-Allen. The Man Wonderful, or the Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling.............................................. 211 Woodpeckers, The. Eckstorm........................................... 132 Woodworking for Beginners. Wheeler................................................. 114 Woolsey. _See_ Coolidge. World, The. Hope.................................................... 122 Wright, H.C. Children's Stories in American History................... 76 Children's Stories of the Great Scientists.............. 176 Wright, M.O. Gray Lady and the Birds................................. 108 Wyss. The Swiss Family Robinson............................... 113 Yonge. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest............................ 231 The Little Duke......................................... 113 Young Citizen, The. Dole.................................................... 144 Young Folks' Book of American Explorers. Higginson............................................... 210 Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Common Things, The. Champlin................................................. 87 Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Literature and Art, The. Champlin................................................ 177 Young Folks' Cyclopædia of Persons and Places, The. Champlin................................................. 94 Young Folks' History of the United States. Higginson............................................... 174 Young Folks' History of the War for the Union. Champlin................................................ 201 Young Macedonian in the Army of Alexander the Great, A. Church.................................................. 190 Young People's History of Holland. Griffis................................................. 173 Zimmern. Greek History for Young Readers......................... 176 Zitkala-Sa. Old Indian Legends....................................... 85 Zollinger. The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys............................ 139 _KEY TO PUBLISHERS_ Key Word ALTEMUS--Henry Altemus Co., Philadelphia. AMERICAN BAPTIST--American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia. AMERICAN BOOK--American Book Co., New York. AMERICAN THRESHERMAN--American Thresherman, Madison, Wisconsin. AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION--American Unitarian Association, Boston. APPLETON--D. Appleton & Co., New York. BAKER--The Baker & Taylor Co., New York. BURT--A.L. Burt Co., New York. CASSELL--Cassell & Co., New York. CENTURY--The Century Co., New York. CROWELL--Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. DE WOLFE--De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., Boston. DODD--Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. DOUBLEDAY--Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. DUFFIELD--Duffield & Co., New York. DUTTON--E.P. Dutton & Co., New York. EDUCATIONAL--Educational Publishing Co., Boston. ESTES--Dana Estes & Co., Boston. EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING--Excelsior Publishing House, New York. GINN--Ginn & Co., Boston. HARPER--Harper & Bros., New York. HEATH--D.C. Heath & Co., Boston. HOLT--Henry Holt & Co., New York. HOUGHTON--Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston. JACOBS--George W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia. KEGAN PAUL--Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London. LANE--John Lane Co., New York. LIPPINCOTT--J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. LITTLE--Little, Brown & Co., Boston. LONGMANS--Longmans, Green & Co., New York. LOTHROP--Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., Boston. MACMILLAN--The Macmillan Co., New York. McCLURG--A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. McDONOUGH--Joseph McDonough, Albany, N.Y. McKAY--David McKay, Philadelphia. MOFFAT--Moffat, Yard & Co., New York. MUNN--Munn & Co., New York. NELSON--Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York. NEWSON--Newson & Co., New York. NUTT--David Nutt, London. PAGE--L.C. Page & Co., Boston. PUTNAM--G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. RAND--Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago. REVELL--Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. REVIEW--Review of Reviews Office, London. RUSSELL--R.H. Russell, New York. S.P.C.K.--Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. SCRIBNER--Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. SILVER--Silver, Burdett & Co., New York. SMALL--Small, Maynard & Co., Boston. ST. JOHN--Thomas Matthew St. John, New York. STECHERT--G.E. Stechert & Co., New York. STOKES--Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York. WARNE--Frederick Warne & Co., New York. WILDE--W.A. Wilde Co., Boston. _May this volume continue in motion, And its pages each day be unfurl'd, Till an ant has drunk up the ocean, Or a tortoise has crawl'd round the world._ FROM THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. Paris, 1597. 
26312	----	The Lost Art of Reading By Gerald Stanley Lee Author of "The Shadow Christ" (A Study of the Hebrew Poets) and "About an Old New England Church" "A Little History" G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1902 BY GERALD STANLEY LEE Published, November, 1902 Reprinted January 1903 The Knickerbocker Press, New York TO JENNETTE LEE Contents BOOK I INTERFERENCES WITH THE READING HABIT CIVILISATION I--Dust II--Dust III--Dust to Dust IV--Ashes V--The Literary Rush VI--Parenthesis--To the Gentle Reader VII--More Parenthesis--But More to the Point VIII--More Literary Rush IX--The Bugbear of Being Well Informed--A Practical Suggestion X--The Dead Level of Intelligence XI--The Art of Reading as One Likes THE DISGRACE OF THE IMAGINATION I--On Wondering Why One Was Born II--The Top of the Bureau Principle THE UNPOPULARITY OF THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR I--The First Person a Necessary Evil II--The Art of Being Anonymous III--Egoism and Society IV--i + I = We V--The Autobiography of Beauty THE HABIT OF NOT LETTING ONE'S SELF GO I--The Country Boy in Literature II--The Subconscious Self III--The Organic Principle of Inspiration THE HABIT OF ANALYSIS I--If Shakespeare Came to Chicago II--Analysis Analysed LITERARY DRILL IN COLLEGE I--Seeds and Blossoms II--Private Road: Dangerous III--The Organs of Literature IV--Entrance Examinations in Joy V--Natural Selection in Theory VI--Natural Selection in Practice VII--The Emancipation of the Teacher VIII--The Test of Culture IX--Summary X--A Note LIBRARIES. WANTED: AN OLD-FASHIONED LIBRARIAN I--viz. II--cf. III--et al. IV--etc. V--O BOOK II POSSIBILITIES I--The Issue II--The First Selection III--Conveniences IV--The Charter of Possibility V--The Great Game VI--Outward Bound BOOK III DETAILS. THE CONFESSIONS OF AN UNSCIENTIFIC MIND I--UNSCIENTIFIC I--On Being Intelligent in a Library II--How It Feels III--How a Specialist Can Be an Educated Man IV--On Reading Books Through their Backs V--On Keeping Each Other in Countenance VI--The Romance of Science VII--Monads VIII--Multiplication Tables II--READING FOR PRINCIPLES I--On Changing One's Conscience II--On the Intolerance of Experienced People III--On Having One's Experience Done Out IV--On Reading a Newspaper in Ten Minutes V--General Information VI--But---- III--READING DOWN THROUGH I--Inside II--On Being Lonely with a Book III--Keeping Other Minds Off IV--Reading Backwards IV--READING FOR FACTS I--Calling the Meeting to Order II--Symbolic Facts III--Duplicates: A Principle of Economy V--READING FOR RESULTS I--The Blank Paper Frame of Mind II--The Usefully Unfinished III--Athletics VI--READING FOR FEELINGS I--The Passion of Truth II--The Topical Point of View VII--READING THE WORLD TOGETHER I--Focusing II--The Human Unit III--The Higher Cannibalism IV--Spiritual Thrift V--The City, the Church, and the College VI--The Outsiders VII--Reading the World Together BOOK IV WHAT TO DO NEXT I--See Next Chapter II--Diagnosis III--Eclipse IV--Apocalypse V--Every Man His Own Genius VI--An Inclined Plane VII--Allons Book I Interferences with the Reading Habit The First Interference: Civilisation I Dust "I see the ships," said The Eavesdropper, as he stole round the world to me, "on a dozen sides of the world. I hear them fighting with the sea." "And what do you see on the ships?" I said. "Figures of men and women--thousands of figures of men and women." "And what are they doing?" "They are walking fiercely," he said,--"some of them,--walking fiercely up and down the decks before the sea." "Why?" said I. "Because they cannot stand still and look at it. Others are reading in chairs because they cannot sit still and look at it." "And there are some," said The Eavesdropper, "with roofs of boards above their heads (to protect them from Wonder)--down in the hold--playing cards." There was silence. * * * * * "What are you seeing now?" I said. "Trains," he said--"a globe full of trains. They are on a dozen sides of it. They are clinging to the crusts of it--mountains--rivers--prairies--some in the light and some in the dark--creeping through space." "And what do you see in the trains?" "Miles of faces." "And the faces?" "They are pushing on the trains." * * * * * "What are you seeing now?" I said. "Cities," he said--"streets of cities--miles of streets of cities." "And what do you see in the streets of cities?" "Men, women, and smoke." "And what are the men and women doing?" "Hurrying," said he. "Where?" said I. "God knows." II Dust The population of the civilised world to-day may be divided into two classes,--millionaires and those who would like to be millionaires. The rest are artists, poets, tramps, and babies--and do not count. Poets and artists do not count until after they are dead. Tramps are put in prison. Babies are expected to get over it. A few more summers, a few more winters--with short skirts or with down on their chins--they shall be seen burrowing with the rest of us. One almost wonders sometimes, why it is that the sun keeps on year after year and day after day turning the globe around and around, heating it and lighting it and keeping things growing on it, when after all, when all is said and done (crowded with wonder and with things to live with, as it is), it is a comparatively empty globe. No one seems to be using it very much, or paying very much attention to it, or getting very much out of it. There are never more than a very few men on it at a time, who can be said to be really living on it. They are engaged in getting a living and in hoping that they are going to live sometime. They are also going to read sometime. When one thinks of the wasted sunrises and sunsets--the great free show of heaven--the door open every night--of the little groups of people straggling into it--of the swarms of people hurrying back and forth before it, jostling their getting-a-living lives up and down before it, not knowing it is there,--one wonders why it is there. Why does it not fall upon us, or its lights go suddenly out upon us? We stand in the days and the nights like stalls--suns flying over our heads, stars singing through space beneath our feet. But we do not see. Every man's head in a pocket,--boring for his living in a pocket--or being bored for his living in a pocket,--why should he see? True we are not without a philosophy for this--to look over the edge of our stalls with. "Getting a living is living," we say. We whisper it to ourselves--in our pockets. Then we try to get it. When we get it, we try to believe it--and when we get it we do not believe anything. Let every man under the walled-in heaven, the iron heaven, speak for his own soul. No one else shall speak for him. We only know what we know--each of us in our own pockets. The great books tell us it has not always been an iron heaven or a walled-in heaven. But into the faces of the flocks of the children that come to us, year after year, we look, wondering. They shall not do anything but burrowing--most of them. Our very ideals are burrowings. So are our books. Religion burrows. It barely so much as looks at heaven. Why should a civilised man--a man who has a pocket in civilisation--a man who can burrow--look at heaven? It is the glimmering boundary line where burrowing leaves off. Time enough. In the meantime the shovel. Let the stars wheel. Do men look at stars with shovels? * * * * * The faults of our prevailing habits of reading are the faults of our lives. Any criticism of our habit of reading books to-day, which actually or even apparently confines itself to the point, is unsatisfactory. A criticism of the reading habit of a nation is a criticism of its civilisation. To sketch a scheme of defence for the modern human brain, from the kindergarten stage to Commencement day, is merely a way of bringing the subject of education up, and dropping it where it begins. Even if the youth of the period, as a live, human, reading being (on the principles to be laid down in the following pages), is so fortunate as to succeed in escaping the dangers and temptations of the home--even if he contrives to run the gauntlet of the grammar school and the academy--even if, in the last, longest, and hardest pull of all, he succeeds in keeping a spontaneous habit with books in spite of a college course, the story is not over. Civilisation waits for him--all-enfolding, all-instructing civilisation, and he stands face to face--book in hand--with his last chance. III Dust to Dust Whatever else may be said of our present civilisation, one must needs go very far in it to see Abraham at his tent's door, waiting for angels. And yet, from the point of view of reading and from the point of view of the books that the world has always called worth reading, if ever there was a type of a gentleman and scholar in history, and a Christian, and a man of possibilities, founder and ruler of civilisations, it is this same man Abraham at his tent's door waiting for angels. Have we any like him now? Peradventure there shall be twenty? Peradventure there shall be ten? Where is the man who feels that he is free to-day to sit upon his steps and have a quiet think, unless there floats across the spirit of his dream the sweet and reassuring sound of some one making a tremendous din around the next corner--a band, or a new literary journal, or a historical novel, or a special correspondent, or a new club or church or something? Until he feels that the world is being conducted for him, that things are tolerably not at rest, where shall one find in civilisation, in this present moment, a man who is ready to stop and look about him--to take a spell at last at being a reasonable, contemplative, or even marriageable being? The essential unmarriageableness of the modern man and the unreadableness of his books are two facts that work very well together. When Emerson asked Bronson Alcott "What have you done in the world, what have you written?" the answer of Alcott, "If Pythagoras came to Concord whom would he ask to see?" was a diagnosis of the whole nineteenth century. It was a very short sentence, but it was a sentence to found a college with, to build libraries out of, to make a whole modern world read, to fill the weary and heedless heart of it--for a thousand years. We have plenty of provision made for books in civilisation, but if civilisation should ever have another man in the course of time who knows how to read a book, it would not know what to do with him. No provision is made for such a man. We have nothing but libraries--monstrous libraries to lose him in. The books take up nearly all the room in civilisation, and civilisation takes up the rest. The man is not allowed to peep in civilisation. He is too busy in being ordered around by it to know that he would like to. It does not occur to him that he ought to be allowed time in it to know who he is, before he dies. The typical civilised man is an exhausted, spiritually hysterical man because he has no idea of what it means, or can be made to mean to a man, to face calmly with his whole life a great book, a few minutes every day, to rest back on his ideals in it, to keep office hours with his own soul. The practical value of a book is the inherent energy and quietness of the ideals in it--the immemorial way ideals have--have always had--of working themselves out in a man, of doing the work of the man and of doing their own work at the same time. Inasmuch as ideals are what all real books are written with and read with, and inasmuch as ideals are the only known way a human being has of resting, in this present world, it would be hard to think of any book that would be more to the point in this modern civilisation than a book that shall tell men how to read to live,--how to touch their ideals swiftly every day. Any book that should do this for us would touch life at more points and flow out on men's minds in more directions than any other that could be conceived. It would contribute as the June day, or as the night for sleep, to all men's lives, to all of the problems of all of the world at once. It would be a night latch--to the ideal. Whatever the remedy may be said to be, one thing is certainly true with regard to our reading habits in modern times. Men who are habitually shamefaced or absent-minded before the ideal--that is, before the actual nature of things--cannot expect to be real readers of books. They can only be what most men are nowadays, merely busy and effeminate, running-and-reading sort of men--rushing about propping up the universe. Men who cannot trust the ideal--the nature of things,--and who think they can do better, are naturally kept very busy, and as they take no time to rest back on their ideals they are naturally very tired. The result stares at us on every hand. Whether in religion, art, education, or public affairs, we do not stop to find our ideals for the problems that confront us. We do not even look at them. Our modern problems are all Jerichos to us--most of them paper ones. We arrange symposiums and processions around them and shout at them and march up and down before them. Modern prophecy is the blare of the trumpet. Modern thought is a crowd hurrying to and fro. Civilisation is the dust we scuffle in each other's eyes. When the peace and strength of spirit with which the walls of temples are builded no longer dwell in them, the stones crumble. Temples are built of eon-gathered and eon-rested stones. Infinite nights and days are wrought in them, and leisure and splendour wait upon them, and visits of suns and stars, and when leisure and splendour are no more in human beings' lives, and visits of suns and stars are as though they were not, in our civilisation, the walls of it shall crumble upon us. If fulness and leisure and power of living are no more with us, nothing shall save us. Walls of encyclopædias--not even walls of Bibles shall save us, nor miles of Carnegie-library. Empty and hasty and cowardly living does not get itself protected from the laws of nature by tons of paper and ink. The only way out for civilisation is through the practical men in it--men who grapple daily with ideals, who keep office hours with their souls, who keep hold of life with books, who take enough time out of hurrahing civilisation along--to live. Civilisation has been long in building and its splendour still hangs over us, but Parthenons do not stand when Parthenons are no longer being lived in Greek men's souls. Only those who have Coliseums in them can keep Coliseums around them. The Ideal has its own way. It has it with the very stones. It was an Ideal, a vanished Ideal, that made a moonlight scene for tourists out of the Coliseum--out of the Dead Soul of Rome. IV Ashes There seem to be but two fundamental characteristic sensibilities left alive in the typical, callously-civilised man. One of these sensibilities is the sense of motion and the other is the sense of mass. If he cannot be appealed to through one of these senses, it is of little use to appeal to him at all. In proportion as he is civilised, the civilised man can be depended on for two things. He can always be touched by a hurry of any kind, and he never fails to be moved by a crowd. If he can have hurry and crowd together, he is capable of almost anything. These two sensibilities, the sense of motion and the sense of mass, are all that is left of the original, lusty, tasting and seeing and feeling human being who took possession of the earth. And even in the case of comparatively rudimentary and somewhat stupid senses like these, the sense of motion, with the average civilised man, is so blunt that he needs to be rushed along at seventy miles an hour to have the feeling that he is moving, and his sense of mass is so degenerate that he needs to live with hundreds of thousands of people next door to know that he is not alone. He is seen in his most natural state,--this civilised being,--with most of his civilisation around him, in the seat of an elevated railway train, with a crowded newspaper before his eyes, and another crowded newspaper in his lap, and crowds of people reading crowded newspapers standing round him in the aisles; but he can never be said to be seen at his best, in a spectacle like this, until the spectacle moves, until it is felt rushing over the sky of the street, puffing through space; in which delectable pell-mell and carnival of hurry--hiss in front of it, shriek under it, and dust behind it--he finds, to all appearances at least, the meaning of this present world and the hope of the next. Hurry and crowd have kissed each other and his soul rests. "If Abraham sitting in his tent door waiting for angels had been visited by a spectacle like this and invited to live in it all his days, would he not have climbed into it cheerfully enough?" asks the modern man. Living in a tent would have been out of the question, and waiting for angels--waiting for anything, in fact--forever impossible. Whatever else may be said of Abraham, his waiting for angels was the making of him, and the making of all that is good in what has followed since. The man who hangs on a strap--up in the morning and down at night, hurrying between the crowd he sleeps with and the crowd he works with, to the crowd that hurries no more,--even this man, such as he is, with all his civilisation roaring about him, would have been impossible if Abraham in the stately and quiet days had not waited at his tent door for angels to begin a civilisation with, or if he had been the kind of Abraham that expected that angels would come hurrying and scurrying after one in a spectacle like this. "What has a man," says Blank in his _Angels of the Nineteenth Century_,--"What has a man who consents to be a knee-bumping, elbow-jamming, foothold-struggling strap-hanger--an abject commuter all his days (for no better reason than that he is not well enough to keep still and that there is not enough of him to be alone)--to do with angels--or to do with anything, except to get done with it as fast as he can?" So say we all of us, hanging on straps to say it, swaying and swinging to oblivion. "Is there no power," says Blank, "in heaven above or earth beneath that will _help us to stop_?" If a civilisation is founded on two senses--the sense of motion and the sense of mass,--one need not go far to find the essential traits of its literature and its daily reading habit. There are two things that such a civilisation makes sure of in all its concerns--hurry and crowd. Hence the spectacle before us--the literary rush and mobs of books. V The Literary Rush The present writer, being occasionally addicted (like the reader of this book) to a seemly desire to have the opinions of some one besides the author represented, has fallen into the way of having interviews held with himself from time to time, which are afterwards published at his own request. These interviews appear in the public prints as being between a Mysterious Person and The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts. The author can only earnestly hope that in thus generously providing for an opposing point of view, in taking, as it were, the words of the enemy upon his lips, he will lose the sympathy of the reader. The Mysterious Person is in colloquy with The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts. As The P. G. S. of M. lives relentlessly at his elbow--dogs every day of his life,--it is hoped that the reader will make allowance for a certain impatient familiarity in the tone of The Mysterious Person toward so considerable a personage as The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts--which we can only profoundly regret. The Mysterious Person: "There is no escaping from it. Reading-madness is a thing we all are breathing in to-day whether we will or no, and it is not only in the air, but it is worse than in the air. It is underneath the foundations of the things in which we live and on which we stand. It has infected the very character of the natural world, and the movement of the planets, and the whirl of the globe beneath our feet. Without its little paling of books about it, there is hardly a thing that is left in this modern world a man can go to for its own sake. Except by stepping off the globe, perhaps, now and then--practically arranging a world of one's own, and breaking with one's kind,--the life that a man must live to-day can only be described as a kind of eternal parting with himself. There is getting to be no possible way for a man to preserve his five spiritual senses--even his five physical ones--and be a member, in good and regular standing, of civilisation at the same time. "If civilisation and human nature are to continue to be allowed to exist together there is but one way out, apparently--an extra planet for all of us, one for a man to live on and the other for him to be civilised on." P. G. S. of M.: "But----" "As long as we, who are the men and women of the world, are willing to continue our present fashion of giving up living in order to get a living, one planet will never be large enough for us. If we can only get our living in one place and have it to live with in another, the question is, To whom does this present planet belong--the people who spend their days in living into it and enjoying it, or the people who never take time to notice the planet, who do not seem to know that they are living on a planet at all?" P. G. S. of M.: "But----" "I may not be very well informed on very many things, but I am very sure of one of them," said The Mysterious Person, "and that is, that this present planet--this one we are living on now--belongs by all that is fair and just to those who are really living on it, and that it should be saved and kept as a sacred and protected place--a place where men shall be able to belong to the taste and colour and meaning of things and to God and to themselves. If people want another planet--a planet to belong to Society on,--let them go out and get it. "Look at our literature--current literature. It is a mere headlong, helpless literary rush from beginning to end. All that one can extract from it is getting to be a kind of general sound of going. We began gently enough. We began with the annual. We had Poor Richard's Almanac. Then we had the quarterly. A monthly was reasonable enough in course of time; so we had monthlies. Then the semi-monthly came to ease our literary nerves; and now the weekly magazine stumbles, rapt and wistful, on the heels of men of genius. It makes contracts for prophecy. Unborn poems are sold in the open market. The latest thoughts that thinkers have, the trend of the thoughts they are going to have--the public makes demand for these. It gets them. Then it cries 'More! More!' Where is the writer who does not think with the printing-press hot upon his track, and the sound of the pulp-mill making paper for his poems, and the buzz of editors, instead of the music of the spheres? Think of the destruction to American forests, the bare and glaring hills that face us day and night, all for a literature like this--thousands of square miles of it, spread before our faces, morning after morning, week after week, through all this broad and glorious land! Seventy million souls--brothers of yours and mine--walking through prairies of pictures Sunday after Sunday, flickered at by head-lines, deceived by adjectives, each with his long day's work, column after column, sentence after sentence, plodding--plodding--plodding down to ----. My geography may be wrong; the general direction is right." "But don't you believe in newspapers?" "Why, yes, in the abstract; _news_papers. But we do not have any news nowadays. It is not news to know a thing before it's happened, nor is it news to know what might happen, or why it might happen, or why it might not happen. To be told that it doesn't make any difference whether it happens at all, would be news, perhaps, to many people--such news as there is; but it is hardly worth while to pay three cents to be sure of that. An intelligent man can be sure of it for nothing. He has been sure of it every morning for years. It's the gist of most of the newspapers he reads. From the point of view of what can be called truly vital information, in any larger sense, the only news a daily paper has is the date at the top of the page. If a man once makes sure of that, if he feels from the bottom of his heart what really good news it is that one more day is come in a world as beautiful as this,--the rest of it----" P. G. S. of M.: "But----" "The rest of it, if it's true, is hardly worth knowing; and if it's worth knowing, it can be found better in books; and if it's not true--'Every man his own liar' is my motto. He might as well have the pleasure of it, and he knows how much to believe. The same lunging, garrulous, blindly busy habit is the law of all we do. Take our literary critical journals. If a critic can not tell what he sees at once, he must tell what he fails to see at once. The point is not his seeing or not seeing, nor anybody's seeing or not seeing. The point is the imperative 'at once.' Literature is getting to be the filling of orders--time-limited orders. Criticism is out of a car window. Book reviews are telegraphed across the sea (Tennyson's memoirs). The ---- (Daily) ---- (a spectacle for Homer!) begins a magazine to 'review in three weeks every book of permanent value that is published'--one of the gravest and most significant blows at literature--one of the gravest and most significant signs of the condition of letters to-day--that could be conceived! Three weeks, man! As if a 'book of permanent value' had ever been recognised, as yet, in three years, or reviewed in thirty years (in any proper sense), or mastered in three hundred years--with all the hurrying of this hurrying world! We have no book-reviewers. Why should we? Criticism begins where a man's soul leaves off. It comes from brilliantly-defective minds,--so far as one can see,--from men of attractively imperfect sympathies. Nordau, working himself into a mighty wrath because mystery is left out of his soul, gathering adjectives about his loins, stalks this little fluttered modern world, puts his huge, fumbling, hippopotamus hoof upon the _Blessed Damozel_, goes crashing through the press. He is greeted with a shudder of delight. Even Matthew Arnold, a man who had a way of seeing things almost, sometimes, criticises Emerson for lack of unity, because the unity was on so large a scale that Arnold's imagination could not see it; and now the chirrup from afar, rising from the east and the west, 'Why doesn't George Meredith?' etc. People want him to put guide-posts in his books, apparently, or before his sentences: 'TO ----' or 'TEN MILES TO THE NEAREST VERB'--the inevitable fate of any writer, man or woman, who dares to ask, in this present day, that his reader shall stop to think. If a man cannot read as he runs, he does not read a book at all. The result is, he ought to run; that is natural enough; and the faster he runs, in most books, the better." At this point The Mysterious Person reached out his long arm from his easy-chair to some papers that were lying near. I knew too well what it meant. He began to read. (He is always breaking over into manuscript when he talks.) "We are forgetting to see. Looking is a lost art. With our poor, wistful, straining eyes, we hurry along the days that slowly, out of the rest of heaven, move their stillness across this little world. The more we hurry, the more we read. Night and noon and morning the panorama passes before our eyes. By tables, on cars, and in the street we see them--readers, readers everywhere, drinking their blindness in. Life is a blur of printed paper. We see no more the things themselves. We see about them. We lose the power to see the things themselves. We see in sentences. The linotype looks for us. We know the world in columns. The sounds of the street are muffled to us. In papers up to our ears, we whirl along our endless tracks. The faces that pass are phantoms. In our little woodcut head-line dream we go ceaseless on, turning leaves,--days and weeks and months of leaves,--wherever we go--years of leaves. Boys who never have seen the sky above them, young men who have never seen it in a face, old men who have never looked out at sea across a crowd, nor guessed the horizons there--dead men, the flicker of life in their hands, not yet beneath the roofs of graves--all turning leaves." The Mysterious Person stopped. Nobody said anything. It is the better way, generally, with The Mysterious Person. We were beginning to feel as if he were through, when his eye fell on a copy of The ----, lying on the floor. It was open at an unlucky page. "Look at that!" said he. He handed the paper to The P. G. S. of M., pointing with his finger, rather excitedly. The P. G. S. of M. looked at it--read it through. Then he put it down; The Mysterious Person went on. "Do you not know what it means when you, a civilised, cultivated, converted human being, can stand face to face with a list--a list like that--a list headed 'BOOKS OF THE WEEK'--when, unblinking and shameless, and without a cry of protest, you actually read it through, without seeing, or seeming to see, for a single moment that right there--right there in that list--the fact that there is such a list--your civilisation is on trial for its life--that any society or nation or century that is shallow enough to publish as many books as that has yet to face the most awful, the most unprecedented, the most headlong-coming crisis in the history of the human race?" The Mysterious Person made a pause--the pause of settling things. [There are people who seem to think that the only really adequate way to settle a thing, in this world, is for them to ask a question about it.] At all events The Mysterious Person having asked a question at this point, everybody might as well have the benefit of it. In the meantime, it is to be hoped that in the next chapter The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts, or somebody--will get a word in. VI Parenthesis To the Gentle Reader This was a footnote at first. It is placed at the top of the page in the hope that it will point at itself more and let the worst out at once. I want to say I--a little--in this book. I do not propose to do it very often. Indeed I am not sure just now, that I shall be able to do it at all, but I would like to have the feeling as I go along that arrangements have been made for it, and that it is all understood, and that if I am fairly good about it--ring a little bell or something--and warn people, I am going to be allowed--right here in my own book at least--to say I when I want to. I is the way I feel on the inside about this subject. Anybody can see it. And I want to be honest, in the first place, and in the second place (like a good many other people) I never have had what could be called a real good chance to say I in this world, and I feel that if I had--somehow, it would cure me. I have tried other ways. I have tried calling myself he. I have stated my experiences in principles--called myself it, and in the first part of this book I have already fallen into the way--page after page--of borrowing other people, when all the time I knew perfectly well (and everybody) that I preferred myself. At all events this calling one's self names--now one and now another,--working one's way _incognito_, all the way through one's own book, is not making me as modest as I had hoped. There seems to be nothing for it--with some of us, but to work through to modesty the other way--backward--I it out. There is one other reason. This Mysterious Person I have arranged with in these opening chapters, to say I for me, does not seem to me to be doing it very well. I think any one--any fairly observing person--would admit that I could do it better, and if it's going to be done at all, why should a mere spiritual machine--a kind of moral phonograph like this Mysterious Person--be put forward to take the ignominy of it? I have set my "I" up before me and duly cross-examined it. I have said to it, "Either you are good enough to say I in a book or you are not," and my "I" has replied to me, "If I am not, I want everybody to know why and if I am--am----." Well of course he is not, and we will all help him to know why. We will do as we would be done by. If there is ever going to be any possible comfort in this world for me, in not being what I ought to be, it is the thought that I am not the only one that knows it. At all events, this feeling that the worst is known, even if one takes, as I am doing now, a planet for a confessional, gives one a luxurious sense--a sense of combined safety and irresponsibility which would not be exchanged for a world. Every book should have I-places in it--breathing-holes--places where one's soul can come up to the surface and look out through the ice and say things. I do not wish to seem superior and I will admit that I am as respectable as anybody in most places, but I do think that if half the time I am devoting, and am going to devote, to appearing as modest as people expect in this world, could be devoted to really doing something in it, my little modesty--such as it is--would not be missed. At all events I am persuaded that anything--almost anything--would be better than this eternal keeping up appearances of all being a little less interested in ourselves than we are, which is what Literature and Society are for, mostly. We all do it, more or less. And yet if there were only a few scattered-along places, public soul-open places to rest in, and be honest in--(in art-parlours and teas and things)--wouldn't we see people rushing to them? I would give the world sometimes to believe that it would pay to be as honest with some people as with a piece of paper or with a book. I dare say I am all wrong in striking out and flourishing about in a chapter like this, and in threatening to have more like them, but there is one comfort I lay to my soul in doing it. If there is one thing rather than another a book is for (one's own book) it is, that it furnishes the one good, fair, safe place for a man to talk about himself in, because it is the only place that any one--absolutely any one,--at any moment, can shut him up. This is not saying that I am going to do it. My courage will go from me (for saying I, I mean). Or I shall not be humble enough or something and it all will pass away. I am going to do it now, a little, but I cannot guarantee it. All of a sudden, no telling when or why, I shall feel that Mysterious Person with all his worldly trappings hanging around me again and before I know it, before you know it, Gentle Reader, I with all my I (or i) shall be swallowed up. Next time I appear, you shall see me, decorous, trim, and in the third person, my literary white tie on, snooping along through these sentences one after the other, crossing my I's out, wishing I had never been born. * * * * * Postscript. I cannot help recording at this point, for the benefit of reckless persons, how saying I in a book feels. It feels a good deal like a very small boy in a very high swing--a kind of flashing-of-everything through-nothing feeling, but it cannot be undone now, and so if you please, Gentle Reader, and if everybody will hold their breath, I am going to hold on tight and do it. VII More Parenthesis--But More to the Point I have gotten into a way lately, while I am just living along, of going out and taking a good square turn every now and then, in front of myself. It is not altogether an agreeable experience, but there seems to be a window in every man's nature on purpose for it--arranged and located on purpose for it, and I find on the whole that going out around one's window, once in so often, and standing awhile has advantages. The general idea is to stand perfectly still for a little time, in a kind of general, public, disinterested way, and then suddenly, when one is off one's guard and not looking, so to speak, take a peek backwards into one's self. I am aware that it does not follow, because I have just come out and have been looking into my window, that I have a right to hold up any person or persons who may be going by in this book, and ask them to look in too, but at the same time I cannot conceal--do not wish to conceal, even if I could--that there have been times, standing in front of my window and looking in, when what I have seen there has seemed to me to assume a national significance. There are millions of other windows like it. It is one of the daily sorrows of my life that the people who own them do not seem to know it--most of them--except perhaps in a vague, hurried pained way. Sometimes I feel like calling out to them as I stand by my window--see them go hurrying by on The Great Street: "Say there, Stranger! Halloa, Stranger! Want to see yourself? Come right over here and look at me!" Nobody believes it, of course. It's a good deal like standing and waving one's arms in the Midway--being an egotist,--but I must say, I have never got a man yet--got him in out of the rush, I mean, right up in front of my window--got him once stooped down and really looking in there, but he admitted there was something in it. Thus does it come to pass--this gentle swelling. Let me be a warning to you, Gentle Reader, when you once get to philosophising yourself over (along the line of your faults) into the disputed territory of the First Person Singular. I am not asking you to try to believe my little philosophy of types. I am trying to, in my humble way, to be sure, but I would rather, on the whole, let it go. It is not so much my philosophy I rest my case on, as my sub-philosophy or religion--viz., I like it and believe in it--saying I. (Thank Heaven that, bad as it is, I have struck bottom at last!) The best I can do under the circumstances, I suppose, is to beg (in a perfectly blank way) forgiveness--forgiveness of any and every kind from everybody, if in this and the following chapters I fall sometimes to talking of people--people at large--under the general head of myself. * * * * * I was born to read. I spent all my early years, as I remember them, with books,--peering softly about in them. My whole being was hushed and trustful and expectant at the sight of a printed page. I lived in the presence of books, with all my thoughts lying open about me; a kind of still, radiant mood of welcome seemed to lie upon them. When I looked at a shelf of books I felt the whole world flocking to me. I have been civilised now, I should say, twenty, or possibly twenty-five, years. At least every one supposes I am civilised, and my whole being has changed. I cannot so much as look upon a great many books in a library or any other heaped-up place, without feeling bleak and heartless. I never read if I can help it. My whole attitude toward current literature is grouty and snappish, a kind of perpetual interrupted "What are you ringing my door-bell now for?" attitude. I am a disagreeable character. I spend at least one half my time, I should judge, keeping things off, in defending my character. Then I spend the other half in wondering if, after all, it was worth it. What I see in my window has changed. When I used to go out around and look into it, in the old days, to see what I was like, I was a sunny, open valley--streams and roads and everything running down into it, and opening out of it, and when I go out suddenly now, and turn around in front of myself and look in--I am a mountain pass. I sift my friends--up a trail. The few friends that come, come a little out of breath (God bless them!), and a book cannot so much as get to me except on a mule's back. It is by no means an ideal arrangement--a mountain pass, but it is better than always sitting in one's study in civilisation, where every passer-by, pamphlet, boy in the street, thinks he might just as well come up and ring one's door-bell awhile. All modern books are book agents at heart, around getting subscriptions for themselves. If a man wants to be sociable or literary nowadays, he can only do it by being a more or less disagreeable character, and if he wishes to be a beautiful character, he must go off and do it by himself. This is a mere choice in suicides. The question that presses upon me is: Whose fault is it that a poor wistful, incomplete, human being, born into this huge dilemma of a world, can only keep on having a soul in it, by keeping it (that is, his soul) tossed back and forth--now in one place where souls are lost, and now in another? Is it your fault, or mine, Gentle Reader, that we are obliged to live in this undignified, obstreperous fashion in what is called civilisation? I cannot believe it. Nearly all the best people one knows can be seen sitting in civilisation on the edge of their chairs, or hurrying along with their souls in satchels. There is but one conclusion. Civilisation is not what it is advertised to be. Every time I see a fresh missionary down at the steamer wharf, as I do sometimes, starting away for other lands, loaded up with our Institutions to the eyes, Church in one hand and Schoolhouse in the other, trim, happy, and smiling over them, at everybody, I feel like stepping up to him and saying, what seem to me, a few appropriate words. I seldom do it, but the other day when I happened to be down at the _Umbria_ dock about sailing-time, I came across one (a foreign missionary, I mean) pleasant, thoughtless, and benevolent-looking, standing there all by himself by the steamer-rail, and I thought I would try speaking to him. "Where are you going to be putting--those?" I said, pointing to a lot of funny little churches and funny little schoolhouses he was holding in both hands. "From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand," he said. I looked at them a minute. "You don't think, do you?" I said--"You don't really think you had better wait over a little--bring them back and let us--finish them for you, do you? one or two--samples?" I said. He looked at me with what seemed to me at first, a kind of blurred, helpless look. I soon saw that he was pitying me and I promptly stepped down to the dining-saloon and tried to appreciate two or three tons of flowers. I do not wish to say a word against missionaries. They are merely apt to be somewhat heedless, morally-hurried persons, rushing about the world turning people (as they think) right side up everywhere, without really noticing them much, but I do think that a great deliberate corporate body like The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions ought to be more optimistic about the Church--wait and work for it a little more, expect a little more of it. It seems to me that it ought to be far less pessimistic than it is, also, about what we can do in the way of schools and social life in civilisation and about civilisation's way of doing business. Is our little knack of Christianity (I find myself wondering) quite worthy of all this attention it is getting from The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions? Why should it approve of civilisation with a rush? Does any one really suppose that it is really time to pat it on the back--yet?--to spend a million dollars a year--patting it on the back? I merely throw out the question. VIII More Literary Rush We had been talking along, in our Club, as usual, for some time, on the general subject of the world--fixing the blame for things. We had come to the point where it was nearly all fixed (most of it on other people) when I thought I might as well put forward my little theory that nearly everything that was the matter, could be traced to the people who "belong to Society." Then The P. G. S. of M. (who is always shoving a dictionary around in front of him when he talks) spoke up and said: "But who belongs to Society?" "All persons who read what they are told to and who call where they can't help it. What this world needs just now," I went on, looking The P. G. S. of M. as much in the eye as I could, "is emancipation. It needs a prophet--a man who can gather about him a few brave-hearted, intelligently ignorant men, who shall go about with their beautiful feet on the mountains, telling the good tidings of how many things there are we do not need to know. The prejudice against being ignorant is largely because people have not learned how to do it. The wrong people have taken hold of it." I cannot remember the exact words of what was said after this, but I said that it seemed to me that most people were afraid not to know everything. Not knowing too much is a natural gift, and unless a man can make his ignorance contagious--inspire people with the books he dares not read--of course the only thing he can do is to give up and read everything, and belong to Society. He certainly cannot belong to himself unless he protects himself with well-selected, carefully guarded, daring ignorance. Think of the books--the books that are dictated to us--the books that will not let a man go,--and behind every book a hundred intelligent men and women--one's friends, too--one's own kin---- P. G. S. of M.: "But the cultured man must----" The cultured man is the man who can tell me what he does not know, with such grace that I feel ashamed of knowing it. Now there's M----, for example. Other people seem to read to talk, but I never see him across a drawing-room without an impulse of barbarism, and I always get him off into a corner as soon as I can, if only to rest myself--to feel that I have a right not to read everything. He always proves to me something that I can get along without. He is full of the most choice and picturesque bits of ignorance. He is creatively ignorant. He displaces a book every time I see him--which is a deal better in these days than writing one. A man should be measured by his book-displacement. He goes about with his thinking face, and a kind of nimbus over him, of never needing to read at all. He has nothing whatever to give but himself, but I had rather have one of his _questions_ about a book I had read, than all the other opinions and subtle distinctions in the room--or the book itself. P. G. S. of M. "But the cultured man must----" NOT. It is the very essence of a cultured man that when he hears the word "must" it is on his own lips. It is the very essence of his culture that he says it to himself. His culture is his belonging to himself, and his belonging to himself is the first condition of his being worth giving to other people. One longs for Elia. People know too much, and there doesn't seem to be a man living who can charm them from the error of their way. Knowledge takes the place of everything else, and all one can do in this present day as he reads the reviews and goes to his club, is to look forward with a tired heart to the prophecy of Scripture, "Knowledge shall pass away." Where do we see the old and sweet content of loving a thing for itself? Now, there are the flowers. The only way to delight in a flower at your feet in these days is to watch with it all alone, or keep still about it. The moment you speak of it, it becomes botany. It's a rare man who will not tell you all he knows about it. Love isn't worth anything without a classic name. It's a wonder we have any flowers left. Half the charm of a flower to me is that it looks demure and talks perfume and keeps its name so gently to itself. The man who always enjoys views by picking out the places he knows, is a symbol of all our reading habits and of our national relation to books. One can glory in a great cliff down in the depths of his heart, but if you mention it, it is geology, and an argument. Even the birds sing zoölogically, and as for the sky, it has become a mere blue-and-gold science, and all the wonder seems to be confined to one's not knowing the names of the planets. I was brought up wistfully on Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. But now it is become: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Teacher's told me what you are. Even babies won't wonder very soon. That is to say, they won't wonder out loud. Nobody does. Another of my poems was: Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here. I thought of it the other day when I stepped into the library with the list of books I had to have an opinion about before Mrs. W----'s Thursday Afternoon, I felt like a literary infant. Where did you come from, baby fair? Out of the here into everywhere. And the bookcases stared at me. It is a serious question whether the average American youth is ever given a chance to thirst for knowledge. He thirsts for ignorance instead. From the very first he is hemmed in by knowledge. The kindergarten with its suave relentlessness, its perfunctory cheerfulness, closes in upon the life of every child with himself. The dear old-fashioned breathing spell he used to have after getting here--whither has it gone? The rough, strong, ruthless, unseemly, grown-up world crowds to the very edge of every beginning life. It has no patience with trailing clouds of glory. Flocks of infants every year--new-comers to this planet--who can but watch them sadly, huddled closer and closer to the little strip of wonder that is left near the land from which they came? No lingering away from us. No infinite holiday. Childhood walks a precipice crowded to the brink of birth. We tabulate its moods. We register its learning inch by inch. We draw its poor little premature soul out of its body breath by breath. Infants are well informed now. The suckling has nerves. A few days more he will be like all the rest of us. It will be: Poem: "When I Was Weaned." "My First Tooth: A Study." The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts, with his dazed, kind look, looked up and said: "I fear, my dear fellow, there is no place for you in the world." Thanks. One of the delights of going fishing or hunting is, that one learns how small "a place in the world" is--comes across so many accidentally preserved characters--preserved by not having a place in the world--persons that are interesting to be with--persons you can tell things. The real object--it seems to me--in meeting another human being is complement--fitting into each other's ignorances. Sometimes it seems as if it were only where there is something to be caught or shot, or where there is plenty of room, that the highest and most sociable and useful forms of ignorance were allowed to mature. One can still find such fascinating prejudices, such frank enthusiasms of ignorance, where there's good fishing; and then, in the stray hamlets, there is the grave whimsicalness and the calm superior air of austerity to cultured people. Ah, let me live in the Maine woods or wander by the brooks of Virginia, and rest my soul in the delights--in the pomposity--of ignorance--ignorance in its pride and glory and courage and lovableness! I never come back from a vacation without a dream of what I might have been, if I had only dared to know a little less; and even now I sometimes feel I have ignorance enough, if like Elia, for instance, I only knew how to use it, but I cannot as much as get over being ashamed of it. I am nearly gone. I have little left but the gift of being bored. That is something--but hardly a day passes without my slurring over a guilty place in conversation, without my hiding my ignorance under a bushel, where I can go later and take a look at it by myself. Then I know all about it next time and sink lower and lower. A man can do nothing alone. Of course, ignorance must be natural and not acquired in order to have the true ring and afford the most relief in the world; but every wide-awake village that has thoughtful people enough--people who are educated up to it--ought to organise an Ignoramus Club to defend the town from papers and books----. It was at about this point that The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts took up the subject, and after modulating a little and then modulating a little more, he was soon listening to himself about a book we had not read, and I sat in my chair and wrote out this. IX The Bugbear of Being Well Informed--A Practical Suggestion 1. This Club shall be known as the Ignoramus Club of ----. 4. Every member shall be pledged not to read the latest book until people have stopped expecting it. 5. The Club shall have a Standing Committee that shall report at every meeting on New Things That People Do Not Need to Know. 6. It shall have a Public Library Committee, appointed every year, to look over the books in regular order and report on Old Things That People Do Not Need to Know. (Committee instructed to keep the library as small as possible.) 8. No member (vacations excepted) shall read any book that he would not read twice. In case he does, he shall be obliged to read it twice or pay a fine (three times the price of book, net). 11. The Club shall meet weekly. 12. Any person of suitable age shall be eligible for membership in the Club, who, after a written examination in his deficiencies, shall appear, in the opinion of the Examining Board, to have selected his ignorance thoughtfully, conscientiously, and for the protection of his mind. 13. All persons thus approved shall be voted upon at the next regular meeting of the Club--the vote to be taken by ballot (any candidate who has not read _When Knighthood Was in Flower_, or _Audrey_, or _David Harum_--by acclamation). Perhaps I have quoted from the by-laws sufficiently to give an idea of the spirit and aim of the Club. I append the order of meeting: 1. Called to order. 2. Reports of Committees. 3. General Confession (what members have read during the week). 4. FINES. 5. Review: Books I Have Escaped. 6. Essay: Things Plato Did Not Need to Know. 7. Omniscience. Helpful Hints. Remedies. 8. The Description Evil; followed by an illustration. 9. _Not_ Travelling on the Nile: By One Who Has Been There. 10. Our Village Street: Stereopticon. 11. What Not to Know about Birds. 12. Myself through an Opera-Glass. 13. Sonnet: Botany. 14. Essay: Proper Treatment of Paupers, Insane, and Instructive People. 15. The Fad for Facts. 16. How to Organise a Club against Clubs. 17. Paper: How to Humble Him Who Asks, "Have You Read----?" 18. Essay, by youngest member: Infinity. An Appreciation. 19. Review: The Heavens in a Nutshell. 20. Review. Wild Animals I Do Not Want to Know. 21. Exercise in Silence. (Ten Minutes. Entire Club.) 22. Essay (Ten Minutes): _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Summary. 23. Exercise in Wondering about Something. (Selected. Ten Minutes. Entire Club.) 24. Debate: Which Is More Deadly--the Pen or the Sword? 25. Things Said To-Night That We Must Forget. 26. ADJOURNMENT. (Each member required to walk home alone looking at the stars.) I have sometimes thought I would like to go off to some great, wide, bare, splendid place--nothing but Time and Room in it--and read awhile. I would want it built in the same general style and with the same general effect as the universe, but a universe in which everything lets one alone, in which everything just goes quietly on in its great still round, letting itself be looked at--no more said about it, nothing to be done about it. No exclamations required. No one standing around explaining things or showing how they appreciated them. Then after I had looked about a little, seen that everything was safe and according to specifications, I think the first thing I would do would be to sit down and see if I could not read a great book--the way I used to read a great book, before I belonged to civilisation, read it until I felt my soul growing softly toward it, reaching up to the day and to the night with it. I have always kept on hoping that I would be allowed, in spite of being somewhat mixed up with civilisation, to be a normal man sometime. It has always seemed to me that the normal man--the highly organised man in all ages, is the man who takes the universe primarily as a spectacle. This is his main use for it. The object of his life is to get a good look at it before he dies--to be the kind of man who can get a good look at it. How any one can go through a whole life--sixty or seventy years of it--with a splendour like this arching over him morning, noon, and night, flying beneath his feet, blooming out at him on every side, and not spend nearly all his time (after the bare necessaries of life) in taking it in, listening and tasting and looking in it, is one of the seven wonders of the world. I never look out of my factory window in civilisation, see a sunset or shore of the universe,--am reminded again that there is a universe--but I wonder at myself and wonder at It. I try to put civilisation and the universe together. I cannot do it. It's as if we were afraid to be caught looking at it--most of us--spending the time to look at it, or as if we were ashamed before the universe itself--running furiously to and fro in it, lest it should look at us. It is the first trait of a great book, it seems to me, that it makes all other books--little hurrying, petulant books--wait. A kind of immeasurable elemental hunger comes to a man out of it. Somehow I feel I have not had it out with a great book if I have not faced other great things with it. I want to face storms with it, hours of weariness and miles of walking with it. It seems to ask me to. It seems to bring with it something which makes me want to stop my mere reading-and-doing kind of life, my ink-and-paper imitation kind of life, and come out and be a companion with the silent shining, with the eternal going on of things. It seems to be written in every writing that is worth a man's while that it can not--that it shall not--be read by itself. It is written that a man shall work to read, that he must win some great delight to do his reading with. Many and many a winter day I have tramped with four lines down to the edge of the night, to overtake my soul--to read four lines with. I have faced a wind for hours--been bitterly cold with it--before the utmost joy of the book I had lost would come back to me. I find that when I am being normal (vacations mostly) I scarcely know what it is to give myself over to another mind for more than an hour or so at a time. If a chapter has anything in it, I want to do something with it, go out and believe it, live with it, exercise it awhile. I am not only bored with a book when it does not interest me. I am bored with it when it does. I want to interrupt it, take it outdoors, see what the hills and clouds think, try it on, test it, see if it is good enough--see if it can come down upon me as rain or sunlight or other real things and blow upon me as the wind. It does not belong to me until it has found its way through all the weathers within and the weathers without, until it drifts with me through moods, events, sensations, and days and nights, faces and sunsets, and the light of stars,--until it is a part of life itself. I find there is no other or shorter or easier way for me to do with a great book than to greet it as it seems to ask to be greeted, as if it were a world that had come to me and sought me out--wanted me to live in it. Hundreds and hundreds of times, when I am being civilised, have I not tried to do otherwise? Have I not stopped my poor pale, hurried, busy soul (like a kind of spectre flying past me) before a great book and tried to get it to speak to it, and it would not? It requires a world--a great book does--as a kind of ticket of admission, and what have I to do, when I am being civilised, with a world--the one that's running still and godlike over me? Do I not for days and weeks at a time go about in it, guilty, shut-in, and foolish under it, slinking about--its emptied miracles all around me, mean, joyless, anxious, unable to look the littlest flower in the face--unable----. "Ah, God!" my soul cries out within me. Are not all these things mine? Do they not belong with me and I with them? And I go racing about, making things up in their presence, plodding for shadows, cutting out paper dolls to live with. All the time this earnest, splendid, wasted heaven shining over me--doing nothing with it, expecting nothing of it--a little more warmth out of it perhaps, a little more light not to see in----. Who am I that the grasses should whisper to me, that the winds should blow upon me? Now and then there are days that come, when I see a flower--when I really see a flower--and my soul cries out to it. Now and then there are days too, when I see a great book, a book that has the universe wrought in it. I find my soul feeling it vaguely, creeping toward it. I wonder if I dare to read it. I remember how I used to read it. I all but pray to it. I sit in my factory window and try sometimes. But it is all far away--at least as long as I stay in my window. It's all about some one else--a kind of splendid wistful walking in a dream. It does not really belong to me to live in a great book--a book with the universe in it. Sometimes it almost seems to. But it barely, faintly belongs to me. It is as if the sky came to me, and stooped down over me, and then went softly away in my sleep. X The Dead Level of Intelligence Your hostess introduces you to a man in a drawing-room. "Mr. C---- belongs to a Browning Club, too," she says. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to talk about Browning? Not if Browning is one of your alive places. You will reconnoitre first--James Whitcomb Riley or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. There is no telling where The Enemy will bring you up, if you do not. He may tell you something about Browning you never knew--something you have always wanted to know,--but you will be hurt that he knew it. He may be the original Grammarian of "The Grammarian's Funeral" (whom Robert Browning took--and knew perfectly well that he took at the one poetic moment of his life), but his belonging to a Browning Club--The Enemy, that is--does not mean anything to you or to any one else nowadays--either about Browning or about himself. There was a time once, when, if a man revealed in conversation, that he was familiar with poetic structure in John Keats, it meant something about the man--his temperament, his producing or delighting power. It means now, that he has taken a course in poetics in college, or teaches English in a high school, and is carrying deadly information about with him wherever he goes. It does not mean that he has a spark of the Keats spirit in him, or that he could have endured being in the same room with Keats, or Keats could have endured being in the same room with him, for fifteen minutes. If there is one inconvenience rather than another in being born in the latter half of the nineteenth century, it is the almost constant compulsion one is under in it, of finding people out--making a distinction between the people who know a beautiful thing and are worth while, and the boors of culture--the people who know all about it. One sees on every hand to-day persons occupying positions of importance who have been taken through all the motions of education, from the bottom to the top, but who always belong to the intellectual lower classes whatever their positions may be, because they are not masters. They are clumsy and futile with knowledge. Their culture has not been made over into them--selves. They have acquired it largely under mob-influence (the dead level of intelligence), and all that they can do with it, not wanting it, is to be teachery with it--force it on other people who do not want it. Whether in the origin, processes, or results of their learning, these people have all the attributes of a mob. Their influence and force in civilisation is a mob influence, and it operates in the old and classic fashion of mobs upon all who oppose it. It constitutes at present the most important and securely intrenched intimidating force that modern society presents against the actual culture of the world, whether in the schools or out of them. Its voice is in every street, and its shout of derision may be heard in almost every walk of life against all who refuse to conform to it. There are but very few who refuse. Millions of human beings, young and old, in meek and willing rows are seen on every side, standing before It--THE DEAD LEVEL,--anxious to do anything to be graded up to it, or to be graded down to it--offering their heads to be taken off, their necks to be stretched, or their waists--willing to live footless all their days--anything--anything whatever, bless their hearts! to know that they are on the Level, the Dead Level, the precise and exact Dead Level of Intelligence. The fact that this mob-power keeps its hold by using books instead of bricks is merely a matter of form. It occupies most of the strategic positions just now in the highways of learning, and it does all the things that mobs do, and does them in the way that mobs do them. It has broken into the gardens, into the arts, the resting-places of nations, and with its factories to learn to love in, its treadmills to learn to sing in, it girdles its belt of drudgery around the world and carries bricks and mortar to the clouds. It shouts to every human being across the spaces--the outdoors of life: "Who goes there? Come thou with us. Dig thou with us. Root or die!" Every vagrant joy-maker and world-builder the modern era boasts--genius, lover, singer, artist, has had to have his struggle with the hod-carriers of culture, and if a lover of books has not enough love in him to refuse to be coerced into joining the huge Intimidator, the aggregation of the Reading Labour Unions of the world, which rules the world, there is little hope for him. All true books draw quietly away from him. Their spirit is a spirit he cannot know. It would be hard to find a more significant fact with regard to the ruling culture of modern life than the almost total displacement of temperament in it,--its blank, staring inexpressiveness. We have lived our lives so long under the domination of the "Cultured-man-must" theory of education--the industry of being well informed has gained such headway with us, that out of all of the crowds of the civilised we prefer to live with to-day, one must go very far to find a cultivated man who has not violated himself in his knowledge, who has not given up his last chance at distinction--his last chance to have his knowledge fit him closely and express him and belong to him. The time was, when knowledge was made to fit people like their clothes. But now that we have come to the point where we pride ourselves on educating people in rows and civilising them in the bulk, "If a man has the privilege of being born by himself, of beginning his life by himself, it is as much as he can expect," says the typical Board of Education. The result is, so far as his being educated is concerned, the average man looks back to his first birthday as his last chance of being treated--as God made him,--a special creation by himself. "The Almighty may deal with a man, when He makes him, as a special creation by himself. He may manage to do it afterward. _We_ cannot," says The Board, succinctly, drawing its salary; "It increases the tax rate." The problem is dealt with simply enough. There is just so much cloth to be had and just so many young and two-legged persons to be covered with it--and that is the end of it. The growing child walks down the years--turns every corner of life--with Vistas of Ready-Made Clothing hanging before him, closing behind him. Unless he shall fit himself to these clothes--he is given to understand--down the pitying, staring world he shall go, naked, all his days, like a dream in the night. It is a general principle that a nation's life can be said to be truly a civilised life, in proportion as it is expressive, and in proportion as all the persons in it, in the things they know and in the things they do, are engaged in expressing what they are. A generation may be said to stand forth in history, to be a great and memorable generation in art and letters, in material and spiritual creation, in proportion as the knowledge of that generation was fitted to the people who wore it and the things they were doing in it, and the things they were born to do. If it were not contradicted by almost every attribute of what is being called an age of special and general culture, it would seem to be the first axiom of all culture that knowledge can only be made to be true knowledge, by being made to fit people, and to express them as their clothes fit them and express them. But we do not want knowledge in our civilisation to fit people as their clothes fit them. We do not even want their clothes to fit them. The people themselves do not want it. Our modern life is an elaborate and organised endeavour, on the part of almost every person in it, to escape from being fitted, either in knowledge or in anything else. The first symptom of civilisation--of the fact that a man is becoming civilised--is that he wishes to appear to belong where he does not. It is looked upon as the spirit of the age. He wishes to be learned, that no one may find out how little he knows. He wishes to be religious, that no one may see how wicked he is. He wishes to be respectable, that no one may know that he does not respect himself. The result mocks at us from every corner in life. Society is a struggle to get into the wrong clothes. Culture is a struggle to learn the things that belong to some one else. Black Mollie (who is the cook next door) presented her betrothed last week--a stable hand on the farm--with an eight-dollar manicure set. She did not mean to sum up the condition of culture in the United States in this simple and tender act. But she did. Michael O'Hennessy, who lives under the hill, sums it up also. He has just bought a brougham in which he and Mrs. O'H. can be seen almost any pleasant Sunday driving in the Park. It is not to be denied that Michael O'Hennessy, sitting in his brougham, is a genuinely happy-looking object. But it is not the brougham itself that Michael enjoys. What he enjoys is the fact that he has bought the brougham, and that the brougham belongs to some one else. Mrs. John Brown-Smith, who presides at our tubs from week to week, and who comes to us in a brilliant silk waist (removed for business), has just bought a piano to play _Hold the Fort_ on, with one finger, when the neighbours are passing by--a fact which is not without national significance, which sheds light upon schools and upon college catalogues and learning-shows, and upon educational conditions through the whole United States. It would be a great pity if a man could not know the things that have always belonged before, to other men to know, and it is the essence of culture that he should, but his appearing to know things that belong to some one else--his desire to appear to know them--heaps up darkness. The more things there are a man knows without knowing the inside of them--the spirit of them--the more kinds of an ignoramus he is. It is not enough to say that the learned man (learned in this way) is merely ignorant. His ignorance is placed where it counts the most,--generally,--at the fountain heads of society, and he radiates ignorance. There seem to be three objections to the Dead Level of Intelligence,--getting people at all hazards, alive or dead, to know certain things. First, the things that a person who learns in this way appears to know, are blighted by his appearing to know them. Second, he keeps other people who might know them from wanting to. Third, he poisons his own life, by appearing to know--by even desiring to appear to know--what is not in him to know. He takes away the last hope he can ever have of really knowing the thing he appears to know, and, unless he is careful, the last hope he can ever have of really knowing anything. He destroys the thing a man does his knowing with. It is not the least pathetic phase of the great industry of being well informed, that thousands of men and women may be seen on every hand, giving up their lives that they may appear to live, and giving up knowledge that they may appear to know, taking pains for vacuums. Success in appearing to know is success in locking one's self outside of knowledge, and all that can be said of the most learned man that lives--if he is learned in this way--is that he knows more things that he does not know, about more things, than any man in the world. He runs the gamut of ignorance. In the meantime, as long as the industry of being well informed is the main ideal of living in the world, as long as every man's life, chasing the shadow of some other man's life, goes hurrying by, grasping at ignorance, there is nothing we can do--most of us--as educators, but to rescue a youth now and then from the rush and wait for results, both good and evil, to work themselves out. Those of us who respect every man's life, and delight in it and in the dignity of the things that belong to it, would like to do many things. We should be particularly glad to join hands in the "practical" things that are being hurried into the hurry around us. But they do not seem to us practical. The only practical thing we know of that can be done with a man who does not respect himself, is to get him to. It is true, no doubt, that we cannot respect another man's life for him, but we are profoundly convinced that we cannot do anything more practical for such a man's life than respecting it until he respects it himself, and we are convinced also that until he does respect it himself, respecting it for him is the only thing that any one else can do--the beginning and end of all action for him and of all knowledge. Democracy to-day in education--as in everything else--is facing its supreme opportunity. Going about in the world respecting men until they respect themselves is almost the only practical way there is of serving them. We find it necessary to believe that any man in this present day who shall be inspired to respect his life, who shall refuse to take to himself the things that do not belong to his life, who shall break with the appearance of things, who shall rejoice in the things that are really real to him--there shall be no withstanding him. The strength of the universe shall be in him. He shall be glorious with it. The man who lives down through the knowledge that he has, has all the secret of all knowledge that he does not have. The spirit that all truths are known with, becomes his spirit. The essential mastery over all real things and over all real men is his possession forever. When this vital and delighted knowledge--knowledge that is based on facts--one's own self-respecting experience with facts, shall begin again to be the habit of the educated life, the days of the Dead Level of Intelligence shall be numbered. Men are going to be the embodiment of the truths they know--some-time--as they have been in the past. When the world is filled once more with men who know what they know, learning will cease to be a theory about a theory of life, and children will acquire truths as helplessly and inescapably as they acquire parents. Truths will be learned through the types of men the truths have made. A man was meant to learn truths by gazing up and down lives--out of his own life. When these principles are brought home to educators--when they are practised in some degree by the people, instead of merely, as they have always been before, by the leaders of the people, the world of knowledge shall be a new world. All knowledge shall be human, incarnate, expressive, artistic. Whole systems of knowledge shall come to us by seeing one another's faces on the street. XI The Art of Reading as One Likes Most of us are apt to discover by the time we are too old to get over it, that we are born with a natural gift for being interested in ourselves. We realise in a general way, that our lives are not very important--that they are being lived on a comparatively obscure but comfortable little planet, on a side street in space--but no matter how much we study astronomy, nor how fully we are made to feel how many other worlds there are for people to live on, and how many other people have lived on this one, we are still interested in ourselves. The fact that the universe is very large is neither here nor there to us, in a certain sense. It is a mere matter of size. A man has to live on it. If he had to live on all of it, it would be different. It naturally comes to pass that when a human being once discovers that he is born in a universe like this, his first business in it is to find out the relation of the nearest, most sympathetic part of it to himself. After the usual first successful experiment a child makes in making connection with the universe, the next thing he learns is how much of the universe there is that is not good to eat. He does not quite understand it at first--the unswallowableness of things. He soon comes to the conclusion that, although it is worth while as a general principle, in dealing with a universe, to try to make the connection, as a rule, with one's mouth, it cannot be expected to succeed except part of the time. He looks for another connection. He learns that some things in this world are merely made to feel, and drop on the floor. He discovers each of his senses by trying to make some other sense work. If his mouth waters for the moon, and he tries to smack his lips on a lullaby, who shall smile at him, poor little fellow, making his sturdy lunges at this huge, impenetrable world? He is making his connection and getting his hold on his world of colour and sense and sound, with infinitely more truth and patience and precision and delight than nine out of ten of his elders are doing or have ever been able to do, in the world of books. The books that were written to be breathed--gravely chewed upon by the literary infants of this modern day,--who can number them?--books that were made to live in--vast, open clearings in the thicket of life--chapters like tents to dwell in under the wide heaven, visited like railway stations by excursion trains of readers,--books that were made to look down from--serene mountain heights criticised because factories are not founded on them--in every reading-room hundreds of people (who has not seen them?), looking up inspirations in encyclopædias, poring over poems for facts, looking in the clouds for seeds, digging in the ground for sunsets; and everywhere through all the world, the whole huddling, crowding mob of those who read, hastening on its endless paper-paved streets, from the pyramids of Egypt and the gates of Greece, to Pater Noster Row and the Old Corner Book Store--nearly all of them trying to make the wrong connections with the right things or the right connections with things they have no connection with, and only now and then a straggler lagging behind perhaps, at some left-over bookstall, who truly knows how to read, or some beautiful, over-grown child let loose in a library--making connections for himself, who knows the uttermost joy of a book. In seeking for a fundamental principle to proceed upon in the reading of books, it seems only reasonable to assert that the printed universe is governed by the same laws as the real one. If a child is to have his senses about him--his five reading senses--he must learn them in exactly the way he learns his five living senses. The most significant fact about the way a child learns the five senses he has to live with is, that no one can teach them to him. We do not even try to. There are still--thanks to a most merciful Heaven--five things left in the poor, experimented-on, battered, modern child, that a board of education cannot get at. For the first few months of his life, at least, it is generally conceded, the modern infant has his education--that is, his making connection with things--entirely in his own hands. That he learns more these first few months of his life when his education is in his own hands, than he learns in all the later days when he is surrounded by those who hope they are teaching him something, it may not be fair to say; but while it cannot be said that he learns more perhaps, what he does learn, he learns better, and more scientifically, than he is ever allowed to learn with ordinary parents and ordinary teachers and text-books in the years that come afterward. With most of us, this first year or so, we are obliged to confess, was the chance of our lives. Some of us have lived long enough to suspect that if we have ever really learned anything at all we must have learned it then. The whole problem of bringing to pass in others and of maintaining in ourselves a vital and beautiful relation to the world of books, turns entirely upon such success as we may have in calling back or keeping up in our attitude toward books, the attitude of the new-born child when he wakes in the sunshine of the earth, and little by little on the edge of the infinite, groping and slow, begins to make his connections with the universe. It cannot be over-emphasised that this new-born child makes these connections for himself, that the entire value of having these connections made is in the fact that he makes them for himself. As between the books in a library that ought to be read, and a new life standing in it, that ought to read them, the sacred thing is not the books the child ought to read. The sacred thing is the way the child feels about the books; and unless the new life, like the needle of a magnet trembling there under the whole wide heaven of them all, is allowed to turn and poise itself by laws of attraction and repulsion forever left out of our hands, the magnet is ruined. It is made a dead thing. It makes no difference how many similar books may be placed within range of the dead thing afterward, nor how many good reasons there may be for the dead thing's being attracted to them, the poise of the magnet toward a book, which is the sole secret of any power that a book can have, is trained and disciplined out of it. The poise of the magnet, the magnet's poising itself, is inspiration, and inspiration is what a book is for. If John Milton had had any idea when he wrote the little book called _Paradise Lost_ that it was going to be used mostly during the nineteenth century to batter children's minds with, it is doubtful if he would ever have had the heart to write it. It does not damage a book very much to let it lie on a wooden shelf little longer than it ought to. But to come crashing down into the exquisite filaments of a human brain with it, to use it to keep a brain from continuing to be a brain--that is, an organ with all its reading senses acting and reacting warm and living in it, is a very serious matter. It always ends in the same way, this modern brutality with books. Even Bibles cannot stand it. Human nature stands it least of all. That books of all things in this world, made to open men's instincts with, should be so generally used to shut them up with, is one of the saddest signs we have of the caricature of culture that is having its way in our modern world. It is getting so that the only way the average dinned-at, educated modern boy, shut in with masterpieces, can really get to read is in some still overlooked moment when people are too tired of him to do him good. Then softly, perhaps guiltily, left all by himself with a book, he stumbles all of a sudden on his soul--steals out and loves something. It may not be the best, but listening to the singing of the crickets is more worth while than seeming to listen to the music of the spheres. It leads to the music of the spheres. All agencies, persons, institutions, or customs that interfere with this sensitive, self-discovering moment when a human spirit makes its connection in life with its ideal, that interfere with its being a genuine, instinctive, free and beautiful connection, living and growing daily of itself,--all influences that tend to make it a formal connection or a merely decorous or borrowed one, whether they act in the name of culture or religion or the state, are the profoundest, most subtle, and most unconquerable enemies of culture in the world. It is not necessary to contend for the doctrine of reading as one likes--using the word "likes" in the sense of direction and temperament--in its larger and more permanent sense. It is but necessary to call attention to the fact that the universe of books is such a very large and various universe, a universe in which so much that one likes can be brought to bear at any given point, that reading as one likes is almost always safe in it. There is always more of what one likes than one can possibly read. It is impossible to like any one thing deeply without discovering a hundred other things to like with it. One is infallibly led out. If one touches the universe vitally at one point, all the rest of the universe flocks to it. It is the way a universe is made. Almost anything can be accomplished with a child who has a habit of being eager with books, who respects them enough, and who respects himself enough, to leave books alone when he cannot be eager with them. Eagerness in reading counts as much as it does in living. A live reader who reads the wrong books is more promising than a dead one who reads the right ones. Being alive is the point. Anything can be done with life. It is the Seed of Infinity. While much might be said for the topical or purely scientific method in learning how to read, it certainly is not claiming too much for the human, artistic, or personal point of view in reading, that it comes first in the order of time in a developing life and first in the order of strategic importance. Topical or scientific reading cannot be fruitful; it cannot even be scientific, in the larger sense, except as, in its own time and in its own way, it selects itself in due time in a boy's life, buds out, and is allowed to branch out, from his own inner personal reading. As the first and most important and most far-reaching of the arts of reading is the Art of Reading as One Likes, the principles, inspirations, and difficulties of reading as one likes are the first to be considered in the following chapters. The fact that the art of reading as one likes is the most difficult, perhaps the most impossible, of all the arts in modern times, constitutes one of those serio-comic problems of civilisation--a problem which civilisation itself, with all its swagger of science, its literary braggadocio, its Library Cure, with all its Board Schools, Commissioners of Education and specialists, and bishops and newsboys, all hard at work upon it, is only beginning to realise. The Second Interference: The Disgrace of the Imagination I On Wondering Why One Was Born The real trouble with most of the attempts that teachers and parents make, to teach children a vital relation to books, is that they do not believe in the books and that they do not believe in the children. It is almost impossible to find a child who, in one direction or another, the first few years of his life, is not creative. It is almost impossible to find a parent or a teacher who does not discourage this creativeness. The discouragement begins in a small way, at first, in the average family, but as the more creative a child becomes the more inconvenient he is, as a general rule, every time a boy is caught being creative, something has to be done to him about it. It is a part of the nature of creativeness that it involves being creative a large part of the time in the wrong direction. Half-proud and half-stupefied parents, failing to see that the mischief in a boy is the entire basis of his education, the mainspring of his life, not being able to break the mainspring themselves, frequently hire teachers to help them. The teacher who can break a mainspring first and keep it from getting mended, is often the most esteemed in the community. Those who have broken the most, "secure results." The spectacle of the mechanical, barren, conventional society so common in the present day to all who love their kind is a sign there is no withstanding. It is a spectacle we can only stand and watch--some of us,--the huge, dreary kinetoscope of it, grinding its cogs and wheels, and swinging its weary faces past our eyes. The most common sight in it and the one that hurts the hardest, is the boy who could be made into a man out of the parts of him that his parents and teachers are trying to throw away. The faults of the average child, as things are going just now, would be the making of him, if he could be placed in seeing hands. It may not be possible to educate a boy by using what has been left out of him, but it is more than possible to begin his education by using what ought to have been left out of him. So long as parents and teachers are either too dull or too busy to experiment with mischief, to be willing to pay for a child's originality what originality costs, only the most hopeless children can be expected to amount to anything. If we fail to see that originality is worth paying for, that the risk involved in a child's not being creative is infinitely more serious than the risk involved in his being creative in the wrong direction, there is little either for us or for our children to hope for, as the years go on, except to grow duller together. We do not like this growing duller together very well, perhaps, but we have the feeling at least that we have been educated, and when our children become at last as little interested in the workings of their minds, as parents and teachers are in theirs, we have the feeling that they also have been educated. We are not unwilling to admit, in a somewhat useless, kindly, generalising fashion, that vital and beautiful children delight in things, in proportion as they discover them, or are allowed to make them up, but we do not propose in the meantime to have our own children any more vital and beautiful than we can help. In four or five years they discover that a home is a place where the more one thinks of things, the more unhappy he is. In four or five years more they learn that a school is a place where children are expected not to use their brains while they are being cultivated. As long as he is at his mother's breast the typical American child finds that he is admired for thinking of things. When he runs around the house he finds gradually that he is admired very much less for thinking of things. At school he is disciplined for it. In a library, if he has an uncommonly active mind, and takes the liberty of being as alive there, as he is outdoors, if he roams through the books, vaults over their fences, climbs up their mountains, and eats of their fruit, and dreams by their streams, or is caught camping out in their woods, he is made an example of. He is treated as a tramp and an idler, and if he cannot be held down with a dictionary he is looked upon as not worth educating. If his parents decide he shall be educated anyway, dead or alive, or in spite of his being alive, the more he is educated the more he wonders why he was born and the more his teachers from behind their dictionaries, and the other boys from underneath their dictionaries, wonder why he was born. While it may be a general principle that the longer a boy wonders why he was born in conditions like these, and the longer his teachers and parents wonder, the more there is of him, it may be observed that a general principle is not of very much comfort to the boy while the process of wondering is going on. There seems to be no escape from the process, and if, while he is being educated, he is not allowed to use himself, he can hardly be blamed for spending a good deal of his time in wondering why he is not some one else. In a half-seeing, half-blinded fashion he struggles on. If he is obstinate enough, he manages to struggle through with his eyes shut. Sometimes he belongs to a higher kind, and opens his eyes and struggles. With the average boy the struggle with the School and the Church is less vigorous than the struggle at home. It is more hopeless. A mother is a comparatively simple affair. One can either manage a mother or be managed. It is merely a matter of time. It is soon settled. There is something there. She is not boundless, intangible. The School and the Church are different. With the first fresh breaths of the world tingling in him, the youth stands before them. They are entirely new to him. They are huge, immeasurable, unaccountable. They loom over him--a part of the structure of the universe itself. A mother can meet one in a door. The problem is concentrated. The Church stretches beyond the sunrise. The School is part of the horizon of the earth, and what after all is his own life and who is he that he should take account of it? Out of space--out of time--out of history they come to him--the Church and the School. They are the assembling of all mankind around his soul. Each with its Cone of Ether, its desire to control the breath of his life, its determination to do his breathing for him, to push the Cone down over him, looms above him and above all in sight, before he speaks--before he is able to speak. It is soon over. He lies passive and insensible at last,--as convenient as though he were dead, and the Church and the School operate upon him. They remove as many of his natural organs as they can, put in Presbyterian ones perhaps, or School-Board ones instead. Those that cannot be removed are numbed. When the time is fulfilled and the youth is cured of enough life at last to like living with the dead, and when it is thought he is enough like every one else to do, he is given his degree and sewed up. After the sewing up his history is better imagined than described. Not being interesting to himself, he is not apt to be very interesting to any one else, and because of his lack of interest in himself he is called the average man.[1] [1] A Typical Case: "The brain was cut away neatly and dressed. A healthy yearling calf was tied down, her skull cut away, and a lobe of brain removed and fitted into the cavity in L's head. The wound was dressed and trephined, and the results awaited. The calf's head was fixed up with half a brain in it. Both the man and the calf have progressed satisfactorily, and the man is nearly as well as before the operation."--Daily Paper. The main distinction of every greater or more extraordinary book is that it has been written by an extraordinary man--a natural or wild man, a man of genius, who has never been operated on. The main distinction of the man of talent is that he has somehow managed to escape a complete operation. It is a matter of common observation in reading biography that in proportion as men have had lasting power in the world there has been something irregular in their education. These irregularities, whether they happen to be due to overwhelming circumstance or to overwhelming temperament, seem to sum themselves up in one fundamental and comprehensive irregularity that penetrates them all--namely, every powerful mind, in proportion to its power, either in school or out of it or in spite of it, has educated itself. The ability that many men have used to avoid being educated is exactly the same ability they have used afterward to move the world with. In proportion as they have moved the world, they are found to have kept the lead in their education from their earliest years, to have had a habit of initiative as well as hospitality, to have maintained a creative, selective, active attitude toward all persons and toward all books that have been brought within range of their lives. II The Top of the Bureau Principle The experience of being robbed of a story we are about to read, by the good friend who cannot help telling how it comes out, is an occasional experience in the lives of older people, but it sums up the main sensation of life in the career of a child. The whole existence of a boy may be said to be a daily--almost hourly--struggle to escape from being told things. It has been found that the best way to emphasise a fact in the mind of a bright boy is to discover some way of not saying anything about it. And this is not because human nature is obstinate, but because facts have been intended from the beginning of the world to speak for themselves, and to speak better than anyone can speak for them. When a fact speaks, God speaks. Considering the way that most persons who are talking about the truth see fit to rush in and interrupt Him, the wonder is not that children grow less and less interested in truth as they grow older, but that they are interested in truth at all--even lies about the truth. The real trouble with most men and women as parents is, that they have had to begin life with parents of their own. When the child's first memory of God is a father or mother interrupting Him, he is apt to be under the impression, when he grows up, that God can only be introduced to his own children by never being allowed to get a word in. If we as much as see a Fact coming toward a child--most of us--we either run out where the child is, and bring him into the house and cry over him, or we rush to his side and look anxious and stand in front of the Fact, and talk to him about it. And yet it is doubtful if there has ever been a boy as yet worth mentioning, who did not wish we would stand a little more one side--let him have it out with things. He is very weary--if he really amounts to anything--of having everything about him prepared for him. There has never been a live boy who would not throw a store-plaything away in two or three hours for a comparatively imperfect plaything he had made himself. He is equally indifferent to a store Fact, and a boy who does not see through a store-God, or a store-book, or a store-education sooner than ninety-nine parents out of a hundred and sooner than most synods, is not worth bringing up. No just or comprehensive principle can be found to govern the reading of books that cannot be made to apply, by one who really believes it (though in varying degrees), to the genius and to the dolt. It is a matter of history that a boy of fine creative powers can only be taught a true relation to books through an appeal to his own discoveries; but what is being especially contended for, and what most needs to be emphasised in current education, is the fact that the boy of ordinary creative powers can only be taught to read in the same way--by a slower, broader, and more patient appeal to his own discoveries. The boy of no creative powers whatever, if he is ever born, should not be taught to read at all. Creation is the essence of knowing, and teaching him to read merely teaches him more ways of not knowing. It gives him a wider range of places to be a nobody in--takes away his last opportunity for thinking of anything--that is, getting the meaning of anything for himself. If a man's heart does not beat for him, why substitute a hot-water bottle? The less a mind is able to do, the less it can afford to have anything done for it. It will be a great day for education when we all have learned that the genius and the dolt can only be educated--at different rates of speed--in exactly the same way. The trouble with our education now is, that many of us do not see that a boy who has been presented with an imitation brain is a deal worse off than a boy who, in spite of his teachers, has managed to save his real one, and has not used it yet. It is dangerous to give a program for a principle to those who do not believe in the principle, and who do not believe in it instinctively, but if a program were to be given it would be something like this: It would assume that the best way to do with an uncreative mind is to put the owner of it where his mind will be obliged to create. First. Decide what the owner of the mind most wants in the world. Second. Put this thing, whatever it may be where the owner of the mind cannot get it unless he uses his mind. Take pains to put it where he can get it, if he does use his mind. Third. Lure him on. It is education. If this principle is properly applied to books, there is not a human being living on the earth who will not find himself capable of reading books--as far as he goes--with his whole mind and his whole body. He will read a printed page as eagerly as he lives, and he will read it in exactly the same way that he lives--with his imagination. A boy lives with his imagination every hour of His life--except in school. The moment he discovers, or is allowed to discover, that reading a book and living a day are very much alike, that they are both parts of the same act, and that they are both properly done in the same way, he will drink up knowledge as Job did scorning, like water. But it is objected that many children are entirely imitative, and that the imagination cannot be appealed to with them and that they cut themselves off from creativeness at every point. While it is inevitable in the nature of things that many children should be largely imitative, there is not a child that does not do some of his imitating in a creative way, give the hint to his teachers even in his imitations, of where his creativeness would come if it were allowed to. His very blunders in imitating, point to desires that would make him creative of themselves, if followed up. Some children have many desires in behalf of which they become creative. Others are creative only in behalf of a few. But there is always a single desire in a child's nature through which his creativeness can be called out. A boy learns to live, to command his body, through the desires which make him creative with it--hunger, and movement, and sleep--desires the very vegetables are stirred with, and the boy who does not find himself responding to them, who can help responding to them, does not exist. There may be times when a boy has no desire to fill himself with food, and when he has no desire to think, but if he is kept hungry he is soon found doing both--thinking things into his stomach. A stomach, in the average boy, will all but take the part of a brain itself, for the time being, to avoid being empty. If a human being is alive at all, there is always at least one desire he can be educated with, prodded into creativeness, until he learns the habit and the pleasure of it. The best qualification for a nurse for a child whose creativeness turns on his stomach, is a natural gift for keeping food on the tops of bureaus and shelves just out of reach. The best qualification for a teacher is infinite contrivance in high bureaus. The applying of the Top of the High Bureau to all knowledge and to all books is what true education is for. It is generally considered a dangerous thing to do, to turn a child loose in a library. It might fairly be called a dangerous thing to do if it were not much more dangerous not to. The same forces that wrought themselves into the books when they were being made can be trusted to gather and play across them on the shelves. These forces are the self-propelling and self-healing forces of the creative mood. The creative mood protects the books, and it protects all who come near the books. It protects from the inside. It toughens and makes supple. Parents who cannot trust a boy to face the weather in a library should never let him outdoors. Trusting a boy to the weather in a library may have its momentary embarrassments, but it is immeasurably the shortest and most natural way to bring him into a vital connection with books. The first condition of a vital connection with books is that he shall make the connection for himself. The relation will be vital in proportion as he makes it himself. The fact that he will begin to use his five reading senses by trying to connect in the wrong way, or by connecting with the wrong books or parts of books, is a reason, not for action on the part of parents and teachers, but for inspired waiting. As a vital relation to books is the most immeasurable outfit for living and the most perfect protection against the dangers of life, a boy can have, the one point to be borne in mind is not the book but the boy--the instinct of curiosity in the boy. A boy who has all his good discoveries in books made for him--spoiled for him, if he has any good material in him--will proceed to make bad ones. The vices would be nearly as safe from interference as the virtues, if they were faithfully cultivated in Sunday-schools or by average teachers in day-schools. Sin itself is uninteresting when one knows all about it. The interest of the average young man in many a more important sin to-day is only kept up by the fact that no one stands by with a book teaching him how to do it. Whatever the expression "original sin" may have meant in the first place, it means now that we are full of original sin because we are not given a chance to be original in anything else. A virtue may be defined as an act so good that a religiously trained youth cannot possibly learn anything more about it. A classic is a pleasure hurried into a responsibility, a book read by every man before he has anything to read it with. A classical author is a man who, if he could look ahead--could see the generations standing in rows to read his book, toeing the line to love it--would not read it himself. Any training in the use of books that does not base its whole method of rousing the instinct of curiosity, and keeping it aroused, is a wholesale slaughter, not only of the minds that might live in the books, but of the books themselves. To ignore the central curiosity of a child's life, his natural power of self-discovery in books, is to dispense with the force of gravity in books, instead of taking advantage of it. The Third Interference: The Unpopularity of the First Person Singular I The First Person a Necessary Evil Great emphasis is being laid at the present time upon the tools that readers ought to have to do their reading with. We seem to be living in a reference-book age. Whatever else may be claimed for our own special generation it stands out as having one inspiration that is quite its own--the inspiration of conveniences. That these conveniences have their place, that one ought to have the best of them there can be no doubt, but it is very important to bear in mind, particularly in the present public mood, that if one cannot have all of these conveniences, or even the best of them, the one absolutely necessary reference book in reading the masters of literature is one that every man has. It is something of a commonplace--a rather modest volume with most of us, summed up on a tombstone generally, easily enough, but we are bound to believe after all is said and done that the great masterpiece among reference books, for every man,--the one originally intended by the Creator for every man to use,--is the reference book of his own life. We believe that the one direct and necessary thing for a man to do, if he is going to be a good reader, is to make, this reference book--his own private edition of it--as large and complete as possible. Everything refers to it, whatever his reading is. Shakespeare and the New York _World_, Homer and _Harper's Bazar_, Victor Hugo and _The Forum_, _Babyhood_ and the Bible all refer to it,--are all alike in making their references (when they are really looked up) to private editions. Other editions do not work. In proportion as they are powerful in modern life, all the books and papers that we have are engaged in the business of going about the world discovering people to themselves, unroofing first person singulars in it, getting people to use their own reference books on all life. Literature is a kind of vast international industry of comparing life. We read to look up references in our own souls. The immortality of Homer and the circulation of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ both conform to this fact, and it is equally the secret of the last page of _Harper's Bazar_ and of Hamlet and of the grave and monthly lunge of _The Forum_ at passing events. The difference of appeal may be as wide as the east and the west, but the east and the west are in human nature and not in the nature of the appeal. The larger selves look themselves up in the greater writers and the smaller selves spell themselves out in the smaller ones. It is here we all behold as in some vast reflection or mirage of the reading world our own souls crowding and jostling, little and great, against the walls of their years, seeking to be let out, to look out, to look over, to look up--that they may find their possible selves. When men are allowed to follow what might be called the forces of nature in the reading world they are seen to read: 1st. About themselves. 2nd. About people they know. 3rd. About people they want to know. 4th. God. Next to their interest in persons is their interest in things: 1st. Things that they have themselves. 2nd. Things that people they know, have. 3rd. Things they want to have. 4th. Things they ought to want to have. 5th. Other things. 6th. The universe--things God has. 7th. God. A scale like this may not be very complimentary to human nature. Some of us feel that it is appropriate and possibly a little religious to think that it is not. But the scale is here. It is mere psychological-matter-of-fact. It is the way things are made, and while it may not be quite complimentary to human nature, it seems to be more complimentary to God to believe, in spite of appearances, that this scale from I to God is made right and should be used as it stands. It seems to have been in general use among our more considerable men in the world and among all our great men and among all who have made others great. They do not seem to have been ashamed of it. They have climbed up frankly on it--most of them, in full sight of all men--from I to God. They have claimed that everybody (including themselves) was identified with God, and they have made people believe it. It is the few in every generation who have dared to believe in this scale, and who have used it, who have been the leaders of the rest. The measure of a man's being seems to be the swiftness with which his nature runs from the bottom of this scale to the top, the swiftness with which he identifies himself, says "I" in all of it. The measure of his ability to read on any particular subject is the swiftness with which he runs the scale from the bottom to the top on that subject, makes the trip with his soul from his own little I to God. When he has mastered the subject, he makes the run almost without knowing it, sees it as it is, _i. e._, identifies himself with God on it. The principle is one which reaches under all mastery in the world, from the art of prophecy even to the art of politeness. Tho man who makes the trip on any subject from the first person out through the second person to the farthest bounds of the third person,--that is, who identifies himself with all men's lives, is called the poet or seer, the master-lover of persons. The man who makes the trip most swiftly from his own things to other men's things and to God's things--the Universe--is called the scientist, the master-lover of things. The God is he who identifies his own personal life, with all lives and his own things with all men's things--who says "I" forever everywhere. The reason that the Hebrew Bible has had more influence in history than all other literatures combined, is that there are fewer emasculated men in it. The one really fundamental and astonishing thing about the Bible is the way that people have of talking about themselves in it. No other nation that has ever existed on the earth would ever have thought of daring to publish a book like the Bible. So far as the plot is concerned, the fundamental literary conception, it is all the Bible comes to practically--two or three thousand years of it--a long row of people talking about themselves. The Hebrew nation has been the leading power in history because the Hebrew man, in spite of all his faults has always had the feeling that God sympathised with him, in being interested in himself. He has dared to feel identified with God. It is the same in all ages--not an age but one sees a Hebrew in it, out under his lonely heaven standing and crying "God and I." It is the one great spectacle of the Soul this little world has seen. Are not the mightiest faces that come to us flickering out of the dark, their faces? Who can look at the past who does not see--who does not always see--some mighty Hebrew in it singing and struggling with God? What is it--what else could it possibly be but the Hebrew soul, like a kind of pageantry down the years between us and God, that would ever have made us guess--men of the other nations--that a God belonged to us, or that a God could belong to us and be a God at all? Have not all the other races, each in their turn spawning in the sun and lost in the night, vanished because they could not say "I" before God? The nations that are left, the great nations of the modern world, are but the moral passengers of the Hebrews, hangers-on to the race that can say "I"--I to the _n^th_ power,--the race that has dared to identify itself with God. The fact that the Hebrew, instead of saying God and I, has turned it around sometimes and said I and God is neither here nor there in the end. It is because the Hebrew has kept to the main point, has felt related to God (the main point a God cares about), that he has been the most heroic and athletic figure in human history--comes nearer to the God-size. The rest of the nations sitting about and wondering in the dark, have called this thing in the Hebrew "religious genius." If one were to try to sum up what religious genius is, in the Hebrew, or to account for the spiritual and material supremacy of the Hebrew in history, in a single fact, it would be the fact that Moses, their first great leader, when he wanted to say "It seems to me," said "The Lord said unto Moses." The Hebrews may have written a book that teaches, of all others, self-renunciation, but the way they taught it was self-assertion. The Bible begins with a meek Moses who teaches by saying "The Lord said unto Moses," and it comes to its climax in a lowly and radiant man who dies on a cross to say "I and the Father are one." The man Jesus seems to have called himself God because he had a divine habit of identifying himself, because he had kept on identifying himself with others until the first person and the second person and the third person were as one to him. The distinction of the New Testament is that it is the one book the world has seen, which dispenses with pronouns. It is a book that sums up pronouns and numbers, singular and plural, first person, second and third person, and all, in the one great central pronoun of the universe. The very stars speak it--WE. We is a developed I. The first person may not be what it ought to be either as a philosophy or an experience, but it has been considered good enough to make Bibles out of, and it does seem as if a good word might occasionally be said for it in modern times, as if some one ought to be born before long, who will give it a certain standing, a certain moral respectability once more in human life and in the education of human life. It would not seem to be an overstatement that the best possible book to give a child to read at any time is the one that makes the most cross references at that time to his undeveloped We. II The Art of Being Anonymous The main difficulty in getting a child to live in the whole of his nature, to run the scale from the bottom to the top, from "I" to God, is to persuade his parents and teachers, and the people who crowd around him to educate him, that he must begin at the bottom. The Unpopularity of the First Person Singular in current education naturally follows from The Disgrace of the Imagination in it. Our typical school is not satisfied with cutting off a boy's imagination about the outer world that lies around him. It amputates his imagination at its tap root. It stops a boy's imagination about himself, and the issues, connections, and possibilities of his own life. Inasmuch as the education of a child--his relation to books--must be conducted either with reference to evading personality, or accumulating it, the issue is one that must be squarely drawn from the first. Beginning at the bottom is found by society at large to be such an inconvenient and painstaking process, that the children who are allowed to lay a foundation for personality--to say "I" in its disagreeable stages--seem to be confined, for the most part, to either one or the other of two classes--the Incurable or the Callous. The more thorough a child's nature is, the more real his processes are, the more incurable he is bound to be--secretly if he is sensitive, and offensively if he is callous. In either case the fact is the same. The child unconsciously acts on the principle that self-assertion is self-preservation. One of the first things that he discovers is that self-preservation is the last thing polite parents desire in a child. If he is to be preserved, they will preserve him themselves. The conspiracy begins in the earliest days. The world rolls over him. The home and the church and the school and the printed book roll over him. The story is the same in all. Education--originally conceived as drawing a boy out--becomes a huge, elaborate, overwhelming scheme for squeezing him in--for keeping him squeezed in. He is mobbed on every side. At school the teachers crowd round him and say "I" for him. At home his parents say "I" for him. At church the preacher says "I" for him. And when he retreats into the privacy of his own soul and betakes himself to a book, the book is a classic and the book says "I" for him. When he says "I" himself after a few appropriate years, he says it in disguised quotation marks. If he cannot always avoid it--if in some unguarded moment he is particularly alive about something and the "I" comes out on it, society expects him to be ashamed of it, at least to avoid the appearance of not being ashamed of it. If he writes he is desired to say "we." Sometimes he shades himself off into "the present writer." Sometimes he capitulates in bare initials. There are very few people who do not live in quotation marks most of their lives. They would die in them and go to heaven in them, if they could. Nine times out of ten it is some one else's heaven they want to go to. The number of people who would know what to do or how to act in this world or the next, without their quotation marks on, is getting more limited every year. And yet one could not very well imagine a world more prostrate that this one is, before a man without quotation marks. It dotes on personality. It spends hundreds of years at a time in yearning for a great man. But it wants its great man finished. It is never willing to pay what he costs. It is particularly unwilling to pay what he costs as it goes along. The great man as a boy has had to pay for himself. The bare feat of keeping out of quotation marks has cost him generally more than he thought he was worth--and has had to be paid in advance. There is a certain sense in which it is true that every boy, at least at the point where he is especially alive, is a kind of great man in miniature--has the same experience, that is, in growing. Many a boy who has been regularly represented to himself as a monster, a curiosity of selfishness (and who has believed it), has had occasion to observe when he grew up that some of his selfishness was real selfishness and that some of it was life. The things he was selfish with, he finds as he grows older, are the things he has been making a man out of. As a boy, however, he does not get much inkling of this. He finds he is being brought up in a world where boys who so little know how to play with their things that they give them away, are pointed out to him as generous, and where boys who are so bored with their own minds that they prefer other people's, are considered modest. If he knew in the days when models are being pointed out to him, that the time would soon come in the world for boys like these when it would make little difference either to the boys themselves, or to any one else, whether they were generous or modest or not, it would make his education happier. In the meantime, in his disgrace, he does not guess what a good example to models he is. Very few other people guess it. The general truth, that when a man has nothing to be generous with, and nothing to be modest about, even his virtues are superfluous, is realised by society at large in a pleasant helpless fashion in its bearing on the man, but its bearing on the next man, on education, on the problem of human development, is almost totally overlooked. The youth who grasps at everything in sight to have his experience with it, who cares more for the thing than he does for the person it comes from, and more for his experience with the thing than he does for the thing, is by no means an inspiring spectacle while this process is going on, and he is naturally in perpetual disgrace, but in proportion as they are wise, our best educators are aware that in all probability this same youth will wield more spiritual power in the world, and do more good in it, than nine or ten pleasantly smoothed and adjustable persons. His boy-faults are his man-virtues wrongside out. There are very few lives of powerful men in modern times that do not illustrate this. The men who do not believe it--who do not approve of illustrating it, have illustrated it the most--devoted their lives to it. It would be hard to find a man of any special importance in modern biography who has not been indebted to the sins of his youth. "It is the things I ought not to have done--see page 93, 179, 321," says the average autobiography, "which have been the making of me." "They were all good things for me to do (see page 526, 632, 720), but I did not think so when I did them. Neither did any one else." "Studying Shakespeare and the theatre in the theological seminary, and taking walks instead of examinations in college," says the biography of Beecher (between the lines), "meant definite moral degeneration to me. I did habitually what I could not justify at the time, either to myself or to others, and I have had to make up since for all the moral degeneration, item by item, but the things I got with the degeneration when I got it--habits of imagination, and expression, headway of personality--are the things that have given me all my inspirations for being moral since." "What love of liberty I have," Wendell Phillips seems to say, "I got from loving my own." It is the boy who loves his liberty so much that he insists on having it to do wrong with, as well as right, who in the long run gets the most right done. The basis of character is moral experiment and almost all the men who have discovered different or beautiful or right habits of life for men, have discovered them by doing wrong long enough. (The ice is thin at this point, Gentle Reader, for many of us, perhaps, but it has held up our betters.) The fact of the matter seems to be that a man's conscience in this world, especially if it is an educated one, or borrowed from his parents, can get as much in his way as anything else. There is no doubt that The Great Spirit prefers to lead a man by his conscience, but if it cannot be done, if a man's conscience has no conveniences for being led, He leads him against his conscience. The doctrine runs along the edge of a precipice (like all the best ones), but if there is one gift rather than another to be prayed for in this world it is the ability to recognise the crucial moment that sometimes comes in a human life--the moment when The Almighty Himself gets a man--against his conscience--to do right. It seems to be the way that some consciences are meant to grow, by trying wrong things on a little. Thousands of inferior people can be seen every day stumbling over their sins to heaven, while the rest of us are holding back with our virtues. It has been intimated from time to time in this world that all men are sinners. Inasmuch as things are arranged so that men can sin in doing right things, and sin in doing wrong ones both, they can hardly miss it. The real religion of every age seems to have looked a little askance at perfection, even at purity, has gone its way in a kind of fine straightforwardness, has spent itself in an inspired blundering, in progressive noble culminating moral experiment. The basis for a great character seems to be the capacity for intense experience with the character one already has. So far as most of us can judge, experience, in proportion as it has been conclusive and economical, has had to be (literally or with one's imagination) in the first person. The world has never really wanted yet (in spite of appearances) its own way with a man. It wants the man. It is what he is that concerns it. All that it asks of him, and all that he has to give, is the surplus of himself. The trouble with our modern fashion of substituting the second person or the third person for the first, in a man's education, is that it takes his capacity for intense experience of himself, his chance for having a surplus of himself, entirely away. III Egoism and Society That the unpopularity of the first person singular is honestly acquired and heartily deserved, it would be useless to deny. Every one who has ever had a first person singular for a longer or shorter period in his life knows that it is a disagreeable thing and that every one else knows it, in nine cases out of ten, at least, and about nine tenths of the time during its development. The fundamental question does not concern itself with the first person singular being agreeable or disagreeable, but with what to do with it, it being the necessary evil that it is. It seems to be a reasonable position that what should be objected to in the interests of society, is not egoism, a man's being interested in himself, but the lack of egoism, a man's having a self that does not include others. The trouble would seem to be--not that people use their own private special monosyllable overmuch, but that there is not enough of it, that nine times out of ten, when they write "I" it should be written "i." In the face of the political objection, the objection of the State to the first person singular, the egoist defends every man's reading for himself as follows. Any book that is allowed to come between a man and himself is doing him and all who know him a public injury. The most important and interesting fact about a man, to other people, is his attitude toward himself. It determines his attitude toward every one else. The most fundamental question of every State is: "What is each man's attitude in this State toward himself? What can it be?" A man's expectancy toward himself, so far as the State is concerned, is the moral centre of citizenship. It determines how much of what he expects he will expect of himself, and how much he will expect of others and how much of books. The man who expects too much of himself develops into the headlong and dangerous citizen who threatens society with his strength--goes elbowing about in it--insisting upon living other people's lives for them as well as his own. The man who expects too much of others threatens society with weariness. He is always expecting other people to do his living for him. The man who expects too much of books lives neither in himself nor in any one else. The career of the Paper Doll is open to him. History seems to be always taking turns with these three temperaments whether in art or religion or public affairs,--the over-manned, the under-manned, and the over-read--the Tyrant, the Tramp, and the Paper Doll. Between the man who keeps things in his own hands, and the man who does not care to, and the man who has no hands, the State has a hard time. Nothing could be more important to the existence of the State than that every man in it shall expect just enough of himself and just enough of others and just enough of the world of books. Living is adjusting these worlds to one another. The central fact about society is the way it helps a man with himself. The society which cuts a man off from himself cuts him still farther off from every one else. A man's reading in the first person--enough to have a first person--enough to be identified with himself, is one of the defences of society. IV i + I = We The most natural course for a human being, who is going to identify himself with other people, is to begin by practising on himself. If he has not succeeded in identifying himself with himself, he makes very trying work of the rest of us. A man who has not learned to say "I" and mean something very real by it, has it not in his power, without dulness or impertinence, to say "you" to any living creature. If a man has not learned to say "you," if he has not taken hold of himself, interpreted and adjusted himself to those who are face to face with him, the wider and more general privilege of saying "they," of judging any part of mankind or any temperament in it, should be kept away from him. It is only as one has experienced a temperament, has in some mood of one's life said "I" in that temperament, that one has the outfit for passing an opinion on it, or the outfit for living with it, or for being in the same world with it. There are times, it must be confessed, when Christ's command, that every man shall love his neighbour as himself, seems inconsiderate. There are some of us who cannot help feeling, when we see a man coming along toward us proposing to love us a little while the way he loves himself, that our permission might have been asked. If there is one inconvenience rather than another in our modern Christian society, it is the general unprotected sense one has in it, the number of people there are about in it (let loose by Sunday-school teachers and others) who are allowed to go around loving other people the way they love themselves. A codicil or at least an explanatory footnote to the Golden Rule, in the general interest of neighbours, would be widely appreciated. How shall a man dare to love his neighbour as himself, until he loves himself, has a self that he really loves, a self he can really love, and loves it? There is no more sad or constant spectacle that this modern world has to face than the spectacle of the man who has overlooked himself, bustling about in it, trying to give honour to other people,--the man who has never been able to help himself, hurrying anxious to and fro as if he could help some one else. It is not too much to say "Charity begins at home." Everything does. The one person who has the necessary training for being an altruist is the alert egoist who does not know he is an altruist. His service to society is a more intense and comprehensive selfishness. He would be cutting acquaintance with himself not to render it. When he says "I" he means "we," and the second and third persons are grown dim to him. An absolutely perfect virtue is the conveying of a man's self, with a truth, to others. The virtues that do not convey anything are cheap and common enough. Favours can be had almost any day from anybody, if one is not too particular, and so can blank staring self-sacrifices. One feels like putting up a sign over the door of one's life, with some people: "Let no man do me a favour except he do it as a self-indulgence." Even kindness wears out, shows through, becomes impertinent, if it is not a part of selfishness. It may be that there are certain rudimentary virtues the outer form of which had better be maintained in the world, whether they can be maintained spiritually--that is, thoroughly and egotistically, or not. If my enemy who lives under the hill will continue to not-murder me, I desire him to continue whether he enjoys not-murdering me or not. But it is no credit to him. Except in some baldly negative fashion as this, however, it is literally true that a man's virtues are of little account to others except as they are of account to him, and except he enjoys them as much as his vices. The first really important shock that comes to a young man's religious sentiment in this world is the number of bored-looking people around, doing right. An absolutely substantial and perfect love is transfigured selfishness. It is no mere playing with words to say this, nor is it substituting a comfortable and pleasant doctrine for a strenuous altruism. If it were as light and graceful an undertaking to have enough selfishness to go around, to live in the whole of a universe like this, as it is to slip out of even living in one's self in it, like a mere shadow or altruist, egoism were superficial enough. As it is, egoism being terribly or beautifully alive, so far as it goes, is now and always has been, and always must be the running gear of the spiritual world--egoism socialised. The first person is what the second and third persons are made out of. Altruism, as opposed to egoism, except in a temporary sense, is a contradiction in terms. Unless a man has a life to identify other lives, with a self which is the symbol through which he loves all other selves and all other experiences, he is selfish in the true sense. With all our Galileos, Agassizes, and Shakespeares, the universe has not grown in its countless centuries. It has not been getting higher and wider over us since the human race began. It is not a larger universe. It is lived in by larger men, more all-absorbing, all-identifying, and selfish men. It is a universe in which a human being is duly born, given place with such a self as he happens to have, and he is expected to grow up to it. Barring a certain amount of wear and tear and a few minor rearrangements on the outside, it is the same universe that it was in the beginning, and is now and always will be quite the same universe, whether a man grows up to it or not. The larger universe is not one that comes with the telescope. It comes with the larger self, the self that by reaching farther and farther in, reaches farther and farther out. It is as if the sky were a splendour that grew by night out of his own heart, the tent of his love of God spreading its roof over the nature of things. The greater distance knowledge reaches, the more it has to be personal, because it has to be spiritual. The one thing that it is necessary to do in any part of the world to make any branch of knowledge or deed of mercy, a living and eager thing, is to get men to see how direct its bearing is upon themselves. The man who does not feel concerned when the Armenians are massacred, thousands of miles away, because there is a sea between, is not a different man in kind from the man who does feel concerned. The difference is one of degree. It is a matter of area in living. The man who does feel concerned has a larger self. He sees further, feels the cry as the cry of his own children. He has learned the oneness and is touched with the closeness, of the great family of the world. V The Autobiography of Beauty But the brunt of the penalty of the unpopularity of the first person singular in modern society falls upon the individual. The hard part of it, for a man who has not the daily habit of being a companion to himself, is his own personal private sense of emptiness--of missing things. All the universe gets itself addressed to some one else--a great showy heartless pantomime it rolls over him, beckoning with its nights and days and winds and faces--always beckoning, but to some one else. All that seems to be left to him in a universe is a kind of keeping up appearances in it--a looking as if he lived--a hurrying, dishonest trying to forget. He dare not sit down and think. He spends his strength in racing with himself to get away from himself, and those greatest days of all in human life--the days when men grow old, world-gentle, and still and deep before their God, are the days he dreads the most. He can only look forward to old age as the time when a man sits down with his lie at last, and day after day and night after night faces infinite and eternal loneliness in his own heart. It is the man who cuts acquaintance with himself, who dares to be lonely with himself, who dares the supreme daring in this world. He and his loneliness are hermetically sealed up together in infinite Time, infinite Space,--not a great man of all that have been, not a star or flower, not even a great book that can get at him. It is the nature of a great book that in proportion as it is beautiful it makes itself helpless before a human soul. Like music or poetry or painting it lays itself radiant and open before all that lies before it--to everything or to nothing, whatever it may be. It makes the direct appeal. Before the days and years of a man's life it stands. "Is not this so?" it says. It never says less than this. It does not know how to say more. A bare and trivial book stops with what it says itself. A great book depends now and forever upon what it makes a man say back, and if he does not say anything, if he does not bring anything to it to say, nothing out of his own observation, passion, experience, to be called out by the passing words upon the page, the most living book, in its board and paper prison, is a dead and helpless thing before a Dead Soul. The helplessness of the Dead Soul lies upon it. Perhaps there is no more important distinction between a great book and a little book than this--that the great book is always a listener before a human life, and the little book takes nothing for granted of a reader. It does not expect anything of him. The littler it is, the less it expects and the more it explains. Nothing that is really great and living explains. Living is enough. If greatness does not explain by being great, nothing smaller can explain it. God never explains. He merely appeals to every man's first person singular. Religion is not what He has told to men. It is what He has made men wonder about until they have been determined to find out. The stars have never been published with footnotes. The sun, with its huge, soft shining on people, kept on with the shining even when the people thought it was doing so trivial and undignified and provincial a thing as to spend its whole time going around them, and around their little earth, that they might have light on it perchance, and be kept warm. The moon has never gone out of its way to prove that it is not made of green cheese. And this present planet we are allowed the use of from year to year, which was so little observed for thousands of generations that all the people on it supposed it was flat, made no answer through the centuries. It kept on burying them one by one, and waited--like a work of genius or a masterpiece. In proportion as a thing is beautiful, whether of man or God, it has this heroic helplessness about it with the passing soul or generation of souls. If people are foolish, it can but appeal from one dear, pitiful fool to another until enough of us have died to make it time for a wise man again. History is a series of crises like this, in which once in so often men who say "I" have crossed the lives of mortals--have puzzled the world enough to be remembered in it, like Socrates, or been abused by it enough to make it love them forever, like Christ. The greatest revelation of history is the patience of the beauty in it, and truth can always be known by the fact that it is the only thing in the wide world that can afford to wait. A true book does not go about advertising itself, huckstering for souls, arranging its greatness small enough. It waits. Sometimes for twenty years it waits for us, sometimes for forty, sometimes sixty, and then when the time is fulfilled and we come at length and lay before it the burden of the blind and blundering years we have tried to live, it does little with us, after all, but to bring these same years singing and crying and struggling back to us, that through their shadowy doors we may enter at last the confessional of the human heart, and cry out there, or stammer or whisper or sing there, the prophecy of our own lives. Dead words out of dead dictionaries the book brings to us. It is a great book because it is a listening book, because it makes the unspoken to speak and the dead to live in it. To the vanished pen and the yellowed paper of the man who writes to us, thy soul and mine, Gentle Reader, shall call back, "This is the truth." If a book has force in it, whatever its literary form may be, or however disguised, it is biography appealing to biography. If a book has great force in it, it is autobiography appealing to autobiography. The great book is always a confession--a moral adventure with its reader, an incredible confidence. The Fourth Interference: The Habit of Not Letting One's Self Go I The Country Boy in Literature "Let not any Parliament Member," says Carlyle, "ask of the Present Editor 'What is to be done?' Editors are not here to say, 'How.'" "Which is both ungracious and tantalisingly elusive," suggests a Professor of Literature, who has been recently criticising the Nineteenth Century. This criticism, as a part of an estimate of Thomas Carlyle, is not only a criticism on itself and an autobiography besides, but it sums up, in a more or less characteristic fashion perhaps, what might be called the ultra-academic attitude in reading. The ultra-academic attitude may be defined as the attitude of sitting down and being told things, and of expecting all other persons to sit down and be told things, and of judging all authors, principles, men, and methods accordingly. If the universe were what in most libraries and clubs to-day it is made to seem, a kind of infinite Institution of Learning, a Lecture Room on a larger scale, and if all the men in it, instead of doing and singing in it, had spent their days in delivering lectures to it, there would be every reason, in a universe arranged for lectures, why we should exact of those who give them, that they should make the truth plain to us--so plain that there would be nothing left for us to do, with truth, but to read it in the printed book, and then analyse the best analysis of it--and die. It seems to be quite generally true of those who have been the great masters of literature, however, that in proportion as they have been great they have proved to be as ungracious and as tantalisingly elusive as the universe itself. They have refused, without exception, to bear down on the word "how." They have almost never told men what to do, and have confined themselves to saying something that would make them do it, and make them find a way to do it. This something that they have said, like the something that they have lived, has come to them they know not how, and it has gone from them they know not how, sometimes not even when. It has been incommunicable, incalculable, infinite, the subconscious self of each of them, the voice beneath the voice, calling down the corridors of the world. If a boy from the country were to stand in a city street before the window of a shop, gazing into it with open mouth, he would do more in five or six minutes to measure the power and calibre of the passing men and women than almost any device that could be arranged. Ninety-five out of a hundred of them, probably, would smile a superior smile at him and hurry on. Out of the remaining five, four would look again and pity him. One, perhaps, would honour and envy him. The boy who, in a day like the present one, is still vital enough to forget how he looks in enjoying something, is not only a rare and refreshing spectacle, but he is master of the most important intellectual and moral superiority a boy can be master of, and if, in spite of teachers and surroundings, he can keep this superiority long enough, or until he comes to be a man, he shall be the kind of man whose very faults shall be remembered better and cherished more by a doting world than the virtues of the rest of us. The most important fact--perhaps the only important fact--about James Boswell--the country boy of literature--is that, whatever may have been his limitations, he had the most important gift that life can give to a man--the gift of forgetting himself in it. In the Fleet Street of letters, smiling at him and jeering by him, who does not always see James Boswell, completely lost to the street, gaping at the soul of Samuel Johnson as if it were the show window of the world, as if to be allowed to look at a soul like this were almost to have a soul one's self? Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is a classic because James Boswell had the classic power in him of unconsciousness. To book-labourers, college employees, analysis-hands of whatever kind, his book is a standing notice that the prerogative of being immortal is granted by men, even to a fool, if he has the grace not to know it. For that matter, even if the fool knows he is a fool, if he cares more about his subject than he cares about not letting any one else know it, he is never forgotten. The world cannot afford to leave such a fool out. Is it not a world in which there is not a man living of us who does not cherish in his heart a little secret like this of his own? We are bound to admit that the main difference between James Boswell and the rest, consists in the fact that James Boswell found something in the world so much more worth living for, than not letting the common secret out, that he lived for it, and like all the other great naïves he will never get over living for it. Even allowing that Boswell's consistent and unfailing motive in cultivating Samuel Johnson was vanity, this very vanity of Boswell's has more genius in it than Johnson's vocabulary, and the important and inspiring fact remains, that James Boswell, a flagrantly commonplace man in every single respect, by the law of letting himself go, has taken his stand forever in English literature, as the one commonplace man in it who has produced a work of genius. The main quality of a man of genius, his power of sacrificing everything to his main purpose, belonged to him. He was not only willing to seem the kind of fool he was, but he did not hesitate to seem several kinds that he was not, to fulfil his main purpose. That Samuel Johnson might be given the ponderous and gigantic and looming look that a Samuel Johnson ought to have, Boswell painted himself into his picture with more relentlessness than any other author that can be called to mind, except three or four similarly commonplace and similarly inspired and self-forgetful persons in the New Testament. There has never been any other biography in England with the single exception of Pepys, in which the author has so completely lost himself in his subject. If the author of Johnson's life had written his book with the inspiration of not being laughed at (which is the inspiration that nine out of ten who love to laugh are likely to write with), James Boswell would never have been heard of, and the burly figure of Samuel Johnson would be a blur behind a dictionary. It may be set down as one of the necessary principles of the reading habit that no true and vital reading is possible except as the reader possesses and employs the gift of letting himself go. It is a gift that William Shakespeare and James Boswell and Elijah and Charles Lamb and a great many other happy but unimportant people have had in common. No man of genius--a man who puts his best and his most unconscious self into his utterance--can be read or listened to or interpreted for one moment without it. Except from those who bring to him the greeting of their own unconscious selves, he hides himself. He gives himself only to those with whom unconsciousness is a daily habit, with whom the joy of letting one's self go is one of the great resources of life. This joy is back of every great act and every deep appreciation in the world, and it is the charm and delight of the smaller ones. On its higher levels, it is called genius and inspiration. In religion it is called faith. It is the primal energy both of art and religion. Probably only the man who has very little would be able to tell what faith is, as a basis of art or religion, but we have learned some things that it is not. We know that faith is not a dead-lift of the brain, a supreme effort either for God or for ourselves. It is the soul giving itself up, finding itself, feeling itself drawn to its own, into infinite space, face to face with strength. It is the supreme swinging-free of the spirit, the becoming a part of the running-gear of things. Faith is not an act of the imagination--to the man who knows it. It is infinite fact, the infinite crowding of facts, the drawing of the man-self upward and outward, where he is surrounded with the infinite man-self. Perhaps a man can make himself not believe. He can not make himself believe. He can only believe by letting himself go, by trusting the force of gravity and the law of space around him. Faith is the universe flowing silently, implacably, through his soul. He has given himself up to it. In the tiniest, noisiest noon his spirit is flooded with the stars. He is let out to the boundaries of heaven and the night-sky bears him up in the heat of the day. In the presence of a great work of art--a work of inspiration or faith, there is no such thing as appreciation, without letting one's self go. II The Subconscious Self The criticism of Carlyle's remark, "Editors are not here to say 'How,'"--that it is "ungracious and tantalisingly elusive," is a fair illustration of the mood to which the habit of analysis leads its victims. The explainer cannot let himself go. The puttering love of explaining and the need of explaining dog his soul at every turn of thought or thought of having a thought. He not only puts a microscope to his eyes to know with, but his eyes have ingrown microscopes. The microscope has become a part of his eyes. He cannot see anything without putting it on a slide, and when his microscope will not focus it, and it cannot be reduced and explained, he explains that it is not there. The man of genius, on the other hand, with whom truth is an experience instead of a specimen, has learned that the probabilities are that the more impossible it is to explain a truth the more truth there is in it. In so far as the truth is an experience to him, he is not looking for slides. He will not mount it as a specimen and he is not interested in seeing it explained or focussed. He lives with it in his own heart in so far as he possesses it, and he looks at it with a telescope for that greater part which he cannot possess. The microscope is perpetually mislaid. He has the experience itself and the one thing he wants to do with it is to convey it to others. He does this by giving himself up to it. The truth having become a part of him by his thus giving himself up, it becomes a part of his reader, by his reader's giving himself up. Reading a work of genius is one man's unconsciousness greeting another man's. No author of the higher class can possibly be read without this mutual exchange of unconsciousness. He cannot be explained. He cannot explain himself. And he cannot be enjoyed, appreciated, or criticised by those who expect him to. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, that is, experienced things are discerned by experience. They are "ungracious and tantalisingly elusive." When the man who has a little talent tells a truth he tells the truth so ill that he is obliged to tell how to do it. The artist, on the other hand, having given himself up to the truth, almost always tells it as if he were listening to it, as if he were being borne up by it, as by some great delight, even while he speaks to us. It is the power of the artist's truth when he writes like this that it shall haunt his reader as it has haunted him. He lives with it and is haunted by it day after day whether he wants to be or not, and when a human being is obliged to live with a burning truth inside of him every day of his life, he will find a how for it, he will find some way of saying it, of getting it outside of him, of doing it, if only for the common and obvious reason that it burns the heart out of a man who does not. If the truth is really in a man--a truth to be done,--he finds out how to do it as a matter of self-preservation. The average man no doubt will continue now as always to consider Carlyle's "Editors are not here to say 'How'" ungracious and tantalisingly elusive. He demands of every writer not only that he shall write the truth for every man but that he shall--practically--read it for him--that is, tell him how to read it--the best part of reading it. It is by this explaining the truth too much, by making it small enough for small people that so many lies have been made out of it. The gist of the matter seems to be that if the spirit of the truth does not inspire a man to some more eager way of finding out how to do a truth than asking some other man how to do it, it must be some other spirit. The way out for the explotterating or weak man does not consist in the scientist's or the commentator's how, or the artist's how, or in any other strain of helping the ground to hold one up. It consists in the power of letting one's self go. To say nothing of appreciation of power, criticism of power is impossible, without letting one's self go. Criticism which is not the faithful remembering and reporting of an unconscious mood is not worthy of being called criticism at all. A critic cannot find even the faults of a book who does not let himself go in it, and there is not a man living who can expect to write a criticism of a book until he has given himself a chance to have an experience with it, to write his criticism with. The larger part of the professional criticism of the ages that are past has proved worthless to us, because the typical professional critic has generally been a man who professes not to let himself go and who is proud of it. If it were not for the occasional possibility of his being stunned by a book--made unconscious by it,--the professional critic of the lesser sort would never say anything of interest to us at all, and even if he did, being a maimed and defective conscious person, the evidence that he was stunned is likely to be of more significance than anything he may say about the book that stunned him, or about the way he felt when he was being stunned. Having had very little practice in being unconscious, the bare fact is all that he can remember about it. The unconsciousness of a person who has long lost the habit of unconsciousness is apt to be a kind of groping stupor or deadness at its best, and not, as with the artist, a state of being, a way of being incalculably alive, and of letting in infinite life. It is a small joy that is not unconscious. The man who knows he is reading when he has a book in his hands, does not know very much about books. People who always know what time it is, who always know exactly where they are, and exactly how they look, have it not in their power to read a great book. The book that comes to the reader as a great book is always one that shares with him the infinite and the eternal in himself. There is a time to know what time it is, and there is a time not to, and there are many places small enough to know where they are. The book that knows what time it is, in every sentence, will always be read by the clock, but the great book, the book with infinite vistas in it, shall not be read by men with a rim of time around it. The place of it is unmeasured, and there is no sound that men can make which shall tick in that place. III The Organic Principle of Inspiration Letting one's self go is but a half-principle, however, to do one's reading with. The other half consists in getting one's self together again. In proportion as we truly appreciate what we read, we find ourselves playing; at being Boswell to a book and being Johnson to it by turns. The vital reader lets himself go and collects himself as the work before him demands. There are some books, where it is necessary to let one's self go from beginning to end. There are others where a man may sit as he sits at a play, being himself between acts, or at proper intervals when the author lets down the curtain, and being translated the rest of the time. Our richest moods are those in which, as we look back upon them, we seem to have been impressing, impressionable, creative, and receptive at the same time. The alternating currents of these moods are so swift that they seem simultaneous, and the immeasurable swiftness with which they pass from one to the other is the soul's instinctive method of kindling itself--the very act of inspiration. Sometimes the subconscious self has it all its own way with us except for a corner of dim, burning consciousness keeping guard. Sometimes the conscious has it all its own way with us and the subconscious self is crowded to the horizon's edge, like Northern Lights still playing in the distance; but the result is the same--the dim presence of one of these moods in the other, when one's power is least effective, and the gradual alternating of the currents of the moods as power grows more effective. In the higher states of power, the moods are seen alternating with increasing heat and swiftness until in the highest state of power of all, they are seen in their mutual glow and splendour, working as one mood, creating miracles. The orator and the listener, the writer and the reader, in proportion as they become alive to one another, come into the same spirit--the spirit of mutual listening and utterance. At the very best, and in the most inspired mood, the reader reads as if he were a reader and writer both, and the writer writes as if he were a writer and reader both. While it is necessary in the use and development of power, that all varieties and combinations of these moods should be familiar experiences with the artist and with the reader of the artist, it remains as the climax and ideal of all energy and beauty in the human soul that these moods shall be found alternating very swiftly--to all appearances together. The artist's command of this alternating current, the swiftness with which he modulates these moods into one another, is the measure of his power. The violinist who plays best is the one who sings the most things together in his playing. He listens to his own bow, to the heart of his audience, and to the soul of the composer all at once. His instrument sings a singing that blends them together. The effect of their being together is called art. The effect of their being together is produced by the fact that they are together, that they are born and living and dying together in the man himself while the strings are singing to us. They are the spirit within the strings. His letting himself go to them, his gathering himself out of them, his power to receive and create at once, is the secret of the effect he produces. The power to be receptive and creative by turns is only obtained by constant and daily practice, and when the modulating of one of these moods into the other becomes a swift and unconscious habit of life, what is called "temperament" in an artist is attained at last and inspiration is a daily occurrence. It is as hard for such a man to keep from being inspired as it is for the rest of us to make ourselves inspired. He has to go out of his way to avoid inspiration. In proportion as this principle is recognised and allowed free play in the habits that obtain amongst men who know books, their habits will be inspired habits. Books will be read and lived in the same breath, and books that have been lived will be written. The most serious menace in the present epidemic of analysis in our colleges is not that it is teaching men to analyse masterpieces until they are dead to them, but that it is teaching men to analyse their own lives until they are dead to themselves. When the process of education is such that it narrows the area of unconscious thinking and feeling in a man's life, it cuts him off from his kinship with the gods, from his habit of being unconscious enough of what he has to enter into the joy of what he has not. The best that can be said of such an education is that it is a patient, painstaking, laborious training in locking one's self up. It dooms a man to himself, the smallest part of himself, and walls him out of the universe. He comes to its doorways one by one. The shining of them falls at first on him, as it falls on all of us. He sees the shining of them and hastens to them. One by one they are shut in his face. His soul is damned--is sentenced to perpetual consciousness of itself. What is there that he can do next? Turning round and round inside himself, learning how little worth while it is, there is but one fate left open to such a man, a blind and desperate lunge into the roar of the life he cannot see, for facts--the usual L.H.D., Ph.D. fate. If he piles around him the huge hollow sounding outsides of things in the universe that have lived, bones of soul, matter of bodies, skeletons of lives that men have lived, who shall blame him? He wonders why they have lived, why any one lives; and if, when he has wondered long enough why any one lives, we choose to make him the teacher of the young, that the young also may wonder why any one lives, why should we call him to account? He cannot but teach what he has, what has been given him, and we have but ourselves to thank that, as every radiant June comes round, diplomas for ennui are being handed out--thousands of them--to specially favoured children through all this broad and glorious land. The Fifth Interference: The Habit of Analysis I If Shakespeare Came to Chicago It is one of the supreme literary excellences of the Bible that, until the other day almost, it had never occurred to any one that it is literature at all. It has been read by men and women, and children and priests and popes, and kings and slaves and the dying of all ages, and it has come to them not as a book, but as if it were something happening to them. It has come to them as nights and mornings come, and sleep and death, as one of the great, simple, infinite experiences of human life. It has been the habit of the world to take the greatest works of art, like the greatest works of God, in this simple and straightforward fashion, as great experiences. If a masterpiece really is a masterpiece, and rains and shines its instincts on us as masterpieces should, we do not think whether it is literary or not, any more than we gaze on mountains and stop to think how sublimely scientific, raptly geological, and logically chemical they are. These things are true about mountains, and have their place. But it is the nature of a mountain to insist upon its own place--to be an experience first and to be as scientific and geological and chemical as it pleases afterward. It is the nature of anything powerful to be an experience first and to appeal to experience. When we have time, or when the experience is over, a mountain or a masterpiece can be analysed--the worst part of it; but we cannot make a masterpiece by analysing it; and a mountain has never been appreciated by pounding it into trap, quartz, and conglomerate; and it still holds good, as a general principle, that making a man appreciate a mountain by pounding it takes nearly as long as making the mountain, and is not nearly so worth while. Not many years ago, in one of our journals of the more literary sort, there appeared a few directions from Chicago University to the late John Keats on how to write an "Ode to a Nightingale." These directions were from the Head of a Department, who, in a previous paper in the same journal, had rewritten the "Ode to a Grecian Urn." The main point the Head of the Department made, with regard to the nightingale, was that it was not worth rewriting. "'The Ode to the Nightingale,'" says he, "offers me no such temptation. There is almost nothing in it that properly belongs to the subject treated. The faults of the Grecian Urn are such as the poet himself, under wise criticism" (see catalogue of Chicago University) "might easily have removed. The faults of the Nightingale are such that they cannot be removed. They inhere in the idea and structure." The Head of the Department dwells at length upon "the hopeless fortune of the poem," expressing his regret that it can never be retrieved. After duly analysing what he considers the poem's leading thought, he regrets that a poet like John Keats should go so far, apropos of a nightingale, as to sigh in his immortal stanzas, "for something which, whatever it may be, is nothing short of a dead drunk." One hears the soul of Keats from out its eternal Italy-- "Is there no one near to help me ... No fair dawn Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying To set my dull and sadden'd spirit playing?" The Head of the Department goes on, and the lines-- Still wouldst thou sing and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod-- are passed through analysis. "What the fitness is," he says, "or what the poetic or other effectiveness of suggesting that the corpse of a person who has ceased upon the midnight still has ears, only to add that it has them in vain, I cannot pretend to understand"--one of a great many other things that the Head of the Department does not pretend to understand. It is probably with the same outfit of not pretending to understand that--for the edification of the merely admiring mind--the "Ode to a Grecian Urn" was rewritten. To Keats's lines-- Oh, Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know-- he makes various corrections, offering as a substitute-conclusion to the poet's song the following outburst: Preaching this wisdom with thy cheerful mien: Possessing beauty thou possessest all; Pause at that goal, nor farther push thy quest. It would not be just to the present state of academic instruction in literature to illustrate it by such an extreme instance as this of the damage the educated mind--debauched with analysis--is capable of doing to the reading habit. It is probable that a large proportion of the teachers of literature in the United States, both out of their sense of John Keats and out of respect to themselves, would have publicly resented this astonishing exhibit of the extreme literary-academic mind in a prominent journal, had they not suspected that its editor, having discovered a literary-academic mind that could take itself as seriously as this, had deliberately brought it out as a spectacle. It could do no harm to Keats, certainly, or to any one else, and would afford an infinite deal of amusement--the journal argued--to let a mind like this clatter down a column to oblivion. So it did. It was taken by all concerned, teachers, critics, and observers alike, as one of the more interesting literary events of the season. Unfortunately, however, entertainments of this kind have a very serious side to them. It is one thing to smile at an individual when one knows that standing where he does he stands by himself, and another to smile at an individual when one knows that he is not standing by himself, that he is a type, that there must be a great many others like him or he would not be standing where he does at all. When a human being is seen taking his stand over his own soul in public print, summing up its emptiness there, and gloating over it, we are in the presence of a disheartening fact. It can be covered up, however, and in what, on the whole, is such a fine, true-ringing, hearty old world as this, it need not be made much of; but when we find that a mind like this has been placed at the head of a Department of Poetry in a great, representative American university, the last thing that should be done with it is to cover it up. The more people know where the analytical mind is to-day--where it is getting to be--and the more they think what its being there means, the better. The signs of the times, the destiny of education, and the fate of literature are all involved in a fact like this. The mere possibility of having the analysing-grinding mind engaged in teaching a spontaneous art in a great educational institution would be of great significance. The fact that it is actually there and that no particular comment is excited by its being there, is significant. It betrays not only what the general, national, academic attitude toward literature is, but that that attitude has become habitual, that it is taken for granted. One would be inclined to suppose, looking at the matter abstractly, that all students and teachers of literature would take it for granted that the practice of making a dispassionate criticism of a passion would be a dangerous practice for any vital and spontaneous nature--certainly the last kind of practice that a student of the art of poetry (that is, the art of literature, in the essential sense) would wish to make himself master of. The first item in a critic's outfit for criticising a passion is having one. The fact that this is not regarded as an axiom in our current education in books is a very significant fact. It goes with another significant fact--the assumption, in most courses of literature as at present conducted, that a little man (that is, a man incapable of a great passion), who is not even able to read a book with a great passion in it, can somehow teach other people to read it. It is not necessary to deny that analysis occasionally plays a valuable part in bringing a pupil to a true method and knowledge of literature, but unless the analysis is inspired nothing can be more dangerous to a pupil under his thirtieth year, even for the shortest period of time, or more likely to move him over to the farthest confines of the creative life, or more certain, if continued long enough, to set him forever outside all power or possibility of power, either in the art of literature or in any of the other arts. The first objection to the analysis of one of Shakespeare's plays as ordinarily practised in courses of literature is that it is of doubtful value to nine hundred and ninety-nine pupils in a thousand--if they do it. The second is, that they cannot do it. The analysing of one of Shakespeare's plays requires more of a commonplace pupil than Shakespeare required of himself. The apology that is given for the analysing method is, that the process of analysing a work of Shakespeare's will show the pupil how Shakespeare did it, and that by seeing how Shakespeare did it he will see how to do it himself. In the first place, analysis will not show how Shakespeare did it, and in the second place, if it does, it will show that he did not do it by analysis. In the third place,--to say nothing of not doing it by analysis,--if he had analysed it before he did it, he could not have analysed it afterward in the literal and modern sense. In the fourth place, even if Shakespeare were able to do his work by analysing it before he did it, it does not follow that undergraduate students can. A man of genius, with all his onset of natural passion, his natural power of letting himself go, could doubtless do more analysing, both before and after his work, than any one else without being damaged by it. What shall be said of the folly of trying to teach men of talent, and the mere pupils of men of talent, by analysis--by a method, that is, which, even if it succeeds in doing what it tries to do, can only, at the very best, reveal to the pupil the roots of his instincts before they have come up? And why is it that our courses of literature may be seen assuming to-day on every hand, almost without exception, that by teaching men to analyse their own inspirations--the inspirations they have--and teaching them to analyse the inspirations of other men--inspirations they can never have--we are somehow teaching them "English literature"? It seems to have been overlooked while we are all analytically falling at Shakespeare's feet, that Shakespeare did not become Shakespeare by analytically falling at any one's feet--not even at his own--and that the most important difference between being a Shakespeare and being an analyser of Shakespeare is that with the man Shakespeare no submitting of himself to the analysis-gymnast would ever have been possible, and with the students of Shakespeare (as students go and if they are caught young enough) the habit of analysis is not only a possibility but a sleek, industrious, and complacent certainty. After a little furtive looking backward perhaps, and a few tremblings and doubts, they shall all be seen, almost to a man, offering their souls to Moloch, as though the not having a soul and not missing it were the one final and consummate triumph that literary culture could bring. Flocks of them can be seen with the shining in their faces year after year, term after term, almost anywhere on the civilised globe, doing this very thing--doing it under the impression that they are learning something, and not until the shining in their faces is gone will they be under the impression that they have learned it (whatever it is) and that they are educated. The fact that the analytic mind is establishing itself, in a greater or less degree, as the sentinel in college life of the entire creative literature of the world is a fact with many meanings in it. It means not only that there are a great many more minds like it in literature, but that a great many other minds--nearly all college-educated minds--are being made like it. It means that unless the danger is promptly faced and acted upon the next generation of American citizens can neither expect to be able to produce literature of its own nor to appreciate or enjoy literature that has been produced. It means that another eighteenth century is coming to the world; and, as the analysis is deeper than before and more deadly-clever with the deeper things than before, it is going to be the longest eighteenth century the world has ever seen--generations with machines for hands and feet, machines for minds, machines outside their minds to enjoy the machines inside their minds with. Every man with his information-machine to be cultured with, his religious machine to be good with, and his private Analysis Machine to be beautiful with, shall take his place in the world--shall add his soul to the Machine we make a world with. For every man that is born on the earth one more joy shall be crowded out of it--one more analysis of joy shall take its place, go round and round under the stars--dew, dawn, and darkness--until it stops. How a sunrise is made and why a cloud is artistic and how pines should be composed in a landscape, all men shall know. We shall criticise the technique of thunderstorms. "And what is a sunset after all?" The reflection of a large body on rarefied air. Through analysed heaven and over analysed fields it trails its joylessness around the earth. Time was, when the setting of the sun was the playing of two worlds upon a human being's life on the edge of the little day, the blending of sense and spirit for him, earth and heaven, out in the still west. His whole being went forth to it. He watched with it and prayed and sang with it. In its presence his soul walked down to the stars. Out of the joy of his life, the finite sorrow and the struggle of his life, he gazed upon it. It was the portrait of his infinite self. Every setting sun that came to him was a compact with Eternal Joy. The Night itself--his figure faint before it in the flicker of the east--whispered to him: "Thou also--hills and heavens around thee, hills and heavens within thee--oh, Child of Time--Thou also art God!" "Ah me! How I could love! My soul doth melt," cries Keats: Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day, And thou old forest, hold ye this for true, There is no lightning, no authentic dew But in the eye of love; there's not a sound, Melodious howsoever, can confound The heavens and the earth to such a death As doth the voice of love; there's not a breath Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, Till it has panted round, and stolen a share Of passion from the heart. John Keats and William Shakespeare wrote masterpieces because they had passions, spiritual experiences, and the daily habit of inspiration. In so far as these masterpieces are being truthfully taught, they are taught by teachers who themselves know the passion of creation. They teach John Keats and William Shakespeare by rousing the same passions and experiences in the pupil that Keats and Shakespeare had, and by daily appealing to them. II Analysis Analysed There are a great many men in the world to-day, faithfully doing their stint in it (they are commonly known as men of talent), who would have been men of genius if they had dared. Education has made cowards of us all, and the habit of examining the roots of one's instincts, before they come up, is an incurable habit. The essential principle in a true work of art is always the poem or the song that is hidden in it. A work of art by a man of talent is generally ranked by the fact that it is the work of a man who analyses a song before he sings it. He puts down the words of the song first--writes it, that is--in prose. Then he lumbers it over into poetry. Then he looks around for some music for it. Then he practises at singing it, and then he sings it. The man of genius, on the other hand, whether he be a great one or a very little one, is known by the fact that he has a song sent to him. He sings it. He has a habit of humming it over afterwards. His humming it over afterwards is his analysis. It is the only possible inspired analysis. The difference between these two types of men is so great that anything that the smaller of them has to say about the spirit or the processes of the other is of little value. When one of them tries to teach the work of the other, which is what almost always occurs,--the man of talent being the typical professor of works of genius,--the result is fatal. A singer who is so little capable of singing that he can give a prose analysis of his own song while it is coming to him and before he sings it, can hardly be expected to extemporise an inspired analysis of another man's song after reading it. If a man cannot apply inspired analysis to a little common passion in a song he has of his own, he is placed in a hopeless position when he tries to give an inspired analysis of a passion that only another man could have and that only a great man would forget himself long enough to have. An inspired analysis may be defined as the kind of analysis that the real poet in his creatively critical mood is able to give to his work--a low-singing or humming analysis in which all the elements of the song are active and all the faculties and all the senses work on the subject at once. The proportions and relations of a living thing are all kept perfect in an inspired analysis, and the song is made perfect at last, not by being taken apart, but by being made to pass its delight more deeply and more slowly through the singer's utmost self to its fulfilment. What is ordinarily taught as analysis is very different from this. It consists in the deliberate and triumphant separation of the faculties from one another and from the thing they have produced--the dull, bare, pitiless process of passing a living and beautiful thing before one vacant, staring faculty at a time. This faculty, being left in the stupor of being all by itself, sits in complacent judgment upon a work of art, the very essence of the life and beauty of which is its appealing to all of the faculties and senses at once, in their true proportion, glowing them together into a unit--namely, several things made into one thing, that is--several things occupying the same time and the same place, that is--synthesis. An inspired analysis is the rehearsal of a synthesis. An analysis is not inspired unless it comes as a flash of light and a burst of music and a breath of fragrance all in one. Such an analysis cannot be secured with painstaking and slowness, unless the painstaking and slowness are the rehearsal of a synthesis, and all the elements in it are laboured on and delighted in at once. It must be a low-singing or humming analysis. The expert student or teacher of poetry who makes "a dispassionate criticism" of a passion, who makes it his special boast that he is able to apply his intellect severely by itself to a great poem, boasts of the devastation of the highest power a human being can attain. The commonest man that lives, whatever his powers may be, if they are powers that act together, can look down on a man whose powers cannot, as a mutilated being. While it cannot be denied that a being who has been thus especially mutilated is often possessed of a certain literary ability, he belongs to the acrobats of literature rather than to literature itself. The contortionist who separates himself from his hands and feet for the delectation of audiences, the circus performer who makes a battering-ram of his head and who glories in being shot out of a cannon into space and amazement, goes through his motions with essentially the same pride in his strength, and sustains the same relation to the strength of the real man of the world. Whatever a course of literary criticism may be, or its value may be, to the pupils who take it, it consists, more often than not, on the part of pupil and teacher both, in the dislocating of one faculty from all the others, and the bearing it down hard on a work of art, as if what it was made of, or how it was made, could only be seen by scratching it. It is to be expected now and then, in the hurry of the outside world, that a newspaper critic will be found writing a cerebellum criticism of a work of the imagination; but the student of literature, in the comparative quiet and leisure of the college atmosphere, who works in the same separated spirit, who estimates a work by dislocating his faculties on it, is infinitely more blameworthy; and the college teacher who teaches a work of genius by causing it to file before one of his faculties at a time, when all of them would not be enough,--who does this in the presence of young persons and trains them to do it themselves,--is a public menace. The attempt to master a masterpiece, as it were, by reading it first with the sense of sight, and then with the sense of smell, and with all the senses in turn, keeping them carefully guarded from their habit of sensing things together, is not only a self-destructive but a hopeless attempt. A great mind, even if it would attempt to master anything in this way, would find it hopeless, and the attempt to learn a great work of art--a great whole--by applying the small parts of a small mind to it, one after the other, is more hopeless still. It can be put down as a general principle that a human being who is so little alive that he finds his main pleasure in life in taking himself apart, can find little of value for others in a masterpiece--a work of art which is so much alive that it cannot be taken apart, and which is eternal because its secret is eternally its own. If the time ever comes when it can be taken apart, it will be done only by a man who could have put it together, who is more alive than the masterpiece is alive. Until the masterpiece meets with a master who is more creative than its first master was, the less the motions of analysis are gone through with by those who are not masters, the better. A masterpiece cannot be analysed by the cold and negative process of being taken apart. It can only be analysed by being melted down. It can only be melted down by a man who has creative heat in him to melt it down and the daily habit of glowing with creative heat. It is a matter of common observation that the fewer resources an artist has, the more things there are in nature and in the nature of life which he thinks are not beautiful. The making of an artist is his sense of selection. If he is an artist of the smaller type, he selects beautiful subjects--subjects with ready-made beauty in them. If he is an artist of the larger type, he can hardly miss making almost any subject beautiful, because he has so many beautiful things to put it with. He sees every subject the way it is--that is, in relation to a great many other subjects--the way God saw it, when He made it, and the way it is. The essential difference between a small mood and a large one is that in the small one we see each thing we look on, comparatively by itself, or with reference to one or two relations to persons and events. In our larger mood we see it less analytically. We see it as it is and as it lives and as a god would see it, playing its meaning through the whole created scheme into everything else. The soul of beauty is synthesis. In the presence of a mountain the sound of a hammer is as rich as a symphony. It is like the little word of a great man, great in its great relations. When the spirit is waked and the man within the man is listening to it, the sound of a hoof on a lonely road in the great woods is the footstep of cities to him coming through the trees, and the low, chocking sound of a cartwheel in the still and radiant valley throngs his being like an opera. All sights and echoes and thoughts and feelings revel in it. It is music for the smoke, rapt and beautiful, rising from the chimneys at his feet. A sheet of water--making heaven out of nothing--is beautiful to the dullest man, because he cannot analyse it, could not--even if he would--contrive to see it by itself. Skies come crowding on it. There is enough poetry in the mere angle of a sinking sun to flood the prose of a continent with, because the gentle earthlong shadows that follow it lay their fingers upon all life and creep together innumerable separated things. In the meadow where our birds are there is scarcely a tree in sight to tangle the singing in. It is a meadow with miles of sunlight in it. It seems like a kind of world-melody to walk in the height of noon there--infinite grass, infinite sky, gusts of bobolinks' voices--it's as if the air that drifted down made music of itself; and the song of all the singing everywhere--the song the soul hears--comes on the slow winds. Half the delight of a bobolink is that he is more synthetic, more of a poet, than other birds,--has a duet in his throat. He bursts from the grass and sings in bursts--plays his own obligato while he goes. One can never see him in his eager flurry, between his low heaven and his low nest, without catching the lilt of inspiration. Like the true poet, he suits the action to the word in a weary world, and does his flying and singing together. The song that he throws around him, is the very spirit of his wings--of all wings. More beauty is always the putting of more things together. They were created to be together. The spirit of art is the spirit that finds this out. Even the bobolink is cosmic, if he sings with room enough; and when the heart wakes, the song of the cricket is infinite. We hear it across stars. The Sixth Interference: Literary Drill in College I Seeds and Blossoms Four men stood before God at the end of The First Week, watching Him whirl His little globe.[2] The first man said to Him, "Tell me how you did it." The second man said, "Let me have it." The third man said, "What is it for?" The fourth man said nothing, and fell down and worshipped. Having worshipped he rose to his feet and made a world himself. [2] Recently discovered manuscript. These four men have been known in history as the Scientist, the Man of Affairs, the Philosopher, and the Artist. They stand for the four necessary points of view in reading books. Most of the readers of the world are content to be partitioned off, and having been duly set down for life in one or the other of these four divisions of human nature they take sides from beginning to end with one or the other of these four men. It is the distinction of the scholar of the highest class in every period, that he declines to do this. In so far as he finds each of the four men taking sides against each other, he takes sides against each of them in behalf of all. He insists on being able to absorb knowledge, to read and write in all four ways. If he is a man of genius as well as a scholar, he insists on being able to read and write, as a rule, in all four ways at once; if his genius is of the lesser kind, in two or three ways at once. The eternal books are those that stand this four-sided test. They are written from all of these points of view. They have absorbed into themselves the four moods of creation morning. It is thus that they bring the morning back to us. The most important question in regard to books that our schools and institutions of learning are obliged to face at present is, "How shall we produce conditions that will enable the ordinary man to keep the proportions that belong to a man, to absorb knowledge, to do his reading and writing in all four ways at once?" In other words, How shall we enable him to be a natural man, a man of genius as far as he goes? A masterpiece is a book that can only be read by a man who is a master in some degree of the things the book is master of. The man who has mastered things the most is the man who can make those things. The man who makes things is the artist. He has bowed down and worshipped and he has arisen and stood before God and created before Him, and the spirit of the Creator is in him. To take the artist's point of view, is to take the point of view that absorbs and sums up the others. The supremacy and comprehensiveness of this point of view is a matter of fact rather than argument. The artist is the man who makes the things that Science and Practical Affairs and Philosophy are merely about. The artist of the higher order is more scientific than the scientist, more practical than the man of affairs, and more philosophic than the philosopher, because he combines what these men do about things, and what these men say about things, into the things themselves, and makes the things live. To combine these four moods at once in one's attitude toward an idea is to take the artist's--that is, the creative--point of view toward it. The only fundamental outfit a man can have for reading books in all four ways at once is his ability to take the point of view of the man who made the book in all four ways at once, and feel the way he felt when he made it. The organs that appreciate literature are the organs that made it. True reading is latent writing. The more one feels like writing a book when he reads it the more alive his reading is and the more alive the book is. The measure of culture is its originating and reproductive capacity, the amount of seed and blossom there is in it, the amount it can afford to throw away, and secure divine results. Unless the culture in books we are taking such national pains to acquire in the present generation can be said to have this pollen quality in it, unless it is contagious, can be summed up in its pollen and transmitted, unless it is nothing more or less than life itself made catching, unless, like all else that is allowed to have rights in nature, it has powers also, has an almost infinite power of self-multiplication, self-perpetuation, the more cultured we are the more emasculated we are. The vegetables of the earth and the flowers of the field--the very codfish of the sea become our superiors. What is more to the point, in the minds and interests of all living human beings, their culture crowds ours out. Nature may be somewhat coarse and simple-minded and naïve, but reproduction is her main point and she never misses it. Her prejudice against dead things is immutable. If a man objects to this prejudice against dead things, his only way of making himself count is to die. Nature uses such men over again, makes them into something more worth while, something terribly or beautifully alive,--and goes on her way. If this principle--namely, that the reproductive power of culture is the measure of its value--were as fully introduced and recognised in the world of books as it is in the world of commerce and in the natural world, it would revolutionise from top to bottom, and from entrance examination to diploma, the entire course of study, policy, and spirit of most of our educational institutions. Allowing for exceptions in every faculty--memorable to all of us who have been college students,--it would require a new corps of teachers. Entrance examinations for pupils and teachers alike would determine two points. First, what does this person know about things? Second, what is the condition of his organs--what can he do with them? If the privilege of being a pupil in the standard college were conditioned strictly upon the second of these questions--the condition of his organs--as well as upon the first, fifty out of a hundred pupils, as prepared at present, would fall short of admission. If the same test were applied for admission to the faculty, ninety out of a hundred teachers would fall short of admission. Having had analytic, self-destructive, learned habits for a longer time than their pupils, the condition of their organs is more hopeless. The man who has the greatest joy in a symphony is: First, the man who composes it. Second, the conductor. Third, the performers. Fourth, those who might be composers of such music themselves. Fifth, those in the audience who have been performers. Sixth, those who are going to be. Seventh, those who are composers of such music for other instruments. Eighth, those who are composers of music in other arts--literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Ninth, those who are performers of music on other instruments. Tenth, those who are performers of music in other arts. Eleventh, those who are creators of music with their own lives. Twelfth, those who perform and interpret in their own lives the music they hear in other lives. Thirteenth, those who create anything whatever and who love perfection in it. Fourteenth, "The Public." Fifteenth, the Professional Critic--almost inevitably at the fifteenth remove from the heart of things because he is the least creative, unless he is a man of genius, or has pluck and talent enough to work his way through the other fourteen moods and sum them up before he ventures to criticise. The principles that have been employed in putting life into literature must be employed on drawing life out of it. These principles are the creative principles--principles of joy. All influences in education, family training, and a man's life that tend to overawe, crowd out, and make impossible his own private, personal, daily habit of creative joy are the enemies of books. II Private Road: Dangerous The impotence of the study of literature as practised in the schools and colleges of the present day turns largely on the fact that the principle of creative joy--of knowing through creative joy--is overlooked. The field of vision is the book and not the world. In the average course in literature the field is not even the book. It is still farther from the creative point of view. It is the book about the book. It is written generally in the laborious unreadable, well-read style--the book about the book. You are as one (when you are in the book about the book) thrust into the shadow of the endless aisles of Other Books--not that they are referred to baldly, or vulgarly, or in the text. It is worse than this (for this could be skipped). But you are surrounded helplessly. Invisible lexicons are on every page. Grammars and rhetorics, piled up in paragraphs and between the lines thrust at you everywhere. Hardly a chapter that does not convey its sense of struggling faithfulness, of infinite forlorn and empty plodding--and all for something a man might have known anyway. "I have toted a thousand books," each chapter seems to say. "This one paragraph [page 1993--you feel it in the paragraph] has had to have forty-seven books carried to it." Not once, except in loopholes in his reading which come now and then, does the face of the man's soul peep forth. One does not expect to meet any one in the book about the book--not one's self, not even the man who writes it, nor the man who writes the book that the book is about. One is confronted with a mob. Two things are apt to be true of students who study the great masters in courses employing the book about the book. Even if the books about the book are what they ought to be, the pupils of such courses find that (1) studying the master, instead of the things he mastered, they lose all power over the things he mastered; (2) they lose, consequently, not only the power of creating masterpieces out of these things themselves, but the power of enjoying those that have been created by others, of having the daily experiences that make such joy possible. They are out of range of experience. They are barricaded against life. Inasmuch as the creators of literature, without a single exception, have been more interested in life than in books, and have written books to help other people to be more interested in life than in books, this is the gravest possible defect. To be more interested in life than in books is the first essential for creating a book or for understanding one. The typical course of study now offered in literature carries on its process of paralysis in various ways: First. It undermines the imagination by giving it paper things instead of real ones to work on. Second. By seeing that these things are selected instead of letting the imagination select its own things--the essence of having an imagination. Third. By requiring of the student a rigorous and ceaselessly unimaginative habit. The paralysis of the learned is forced upon him. He finds little escape from the constant reading of books that have all the imagination left out of them. Fourth. By forcing the imagination to work so hard in its capacity of pack-horse and memory that it has no power left to go anywhere of itself. Fifth. By overawing individual initiative, undermining personality in the pupil, crowding great classics into him instead of attracting little ones out of him. Attracting little classics out of a man is a thing that great classics are always intended to do--the thing that they always succeed in doing when left to themselves. Sixth. The teacher of literature so-called, having succeeded in destroying the personality of the pupil, puts himself in front of the personality of the author. Seventh. A teacher who destroys personality in a pupil is the wrong personality to put in front of an author. If he were the right one, if he had the spirit of the author, his being in front, now and then at least, would be interpretation and inspiration. Not having the spirit of the author, he is intimidated by him, or has all he can do not to be. A classic cannot reveal itself to a groveller or to a critic. It is a book that was written standing up and it can only be studied and taught by those who stand up without knowing it. The decorous and beautiful despising of one's self that the study of the classics has come to be as conducted under unclassic teachers, is a fact that speaks for itself. Eighth. Even if the personality of the teacher of literature is so fortunate as not to be the wrong one, there is not enough of it. There is hardly a course of literature that can be found in a college catalogue at the present time that does not base itself on the dictum that a great book can somehow--by some mysterious process--be taught by a small person. The axiom that necessarily undermines all such courses is obvious enough. A great book cannot be taught except by a teacher who is literally living in a great spirit, the spirit the great book lived in before it became a book,--a teacher who has the great book in him--not over him,--who, if he took time for it, might be capable of writing, in some sense at least, a great book himself. When the teacher is a teacher of this kind, teaches the spirit of what he teaches--that is, teaches the inside,--a classic can be taught. Otherwise the best course in literature that can be devised is the one that gives the masterpieces the most opportunity to teach themselves. The object of a course in literature is best served in proportion as the course is arranged and all associated studies are arranged in such a way as to secure sensitive and contagious conditions for the pupil's mind in the presence of the great masters, such conditions as give the pupil time, freedom, space, and atmosphere--the things out of which a masterpiece is written and with which alone it can be taught, or can teach itself. All that comes between a masterpiece and its thus teaching itself, spreads ruin both ways. The masterpiece is partitioned off from the pupil, guarded to be kept aloof from him--outside of him. The pupil is locked up from himself--his possible self. Not too much stress could possibly be laid upon intimacy with the great books or on the constant habit of living on them. They are the movable Olympus. All who create camp out between the heavens and the earth on them and breathe and live and climb upon them. From their mighty sides they look down on human life. But classics can only be taught by classics. The creative paralysis of pupils who have drudged most deeply in classical training--English or otherwise--is a fact that no observer of college life can overlook. The guilt for this state of affairs must be laid at the door of the classics or at the door of the teachers. Either the classics are not worth teaching or they are not being taught properly. In either case the best way out of the difficulty would seem to be for teachers to let the classics teach themselves, to furnish the students with the atmosphere, the conditions, the points of view in life, which will give the classics a chance to teach themselves. This brings us to the important fact that teachers of literature do not wish to create the atmosphere, the conditions, and points of view that give the classics a chance to teach themselves. Creating the atmosphere for a classic in the life of a student is harder than creating a classic. The more obvious and practicable course is to teach the classic--teach it one's self, whether there is atmosphere or not. It is admitted that this is not the ideal way to do with college students who suppose they are studying literature, but it is contended--college students and college electives being what they are--that there is nothing else to do. The situation sums itself up in the attitude of self-defence. "It may be (as no one needs to point out), that the teaching of literature, as at present conducted in college, is a somewhat faithful and dogged farce, but whatever may be the faults of modern college-teaching in literature, it is as good as our pupils deserve." In other words, the teachers are not respecting their pupils. It may be said to be the constitution and by-laws of the literature class (as generally conducted) that the teachers cannot and must not respect their pupils. They cannot afford to. It costs more than most pupils are mentally worth, it is plausibly contended, to furnish students in college with the conditions of life and the conditions in their own minds that will give masterpieces a fair chance at them. _Ergo_, inasmuch as the average pupil cannot be taught a classic he must be choked with it. The fact that the typical teacher of literature is more or less grudgingly engaged in doing his work and conducting his classes under the practical working theory that his pupils are not good enough for him, suggests two important principles. First. If his pupils are good enough for him, they are good enough to be taught the best there is in him, and they must be taught this best there is in him, as far as it goes, whether all of them are good enough for it or not. There is as much learning in watching others being educated as there is in appearing to be educated one's self. Second. If his pupils are not good enough for him, the most literary thing he can do with them is to make them good enough. If he is not a sufficiently literary teacher to divine the central ganglion of interest in a pupil, and play upon it and gather delight about it and make it gather delight itself, the next most literary thing he can do is protect both the books and the pupil by keeping them faithfully apart until they are ready for one another. If the teacher cannot recognise, arouse, and exercise such organs as his pupil has, and carry them out into themselves, and free them in self-activity, the pupil may be unfortunate in not having a better teacher, but he is fortunate in having no better organs to be blundered on. The drawing out of a pupil's first faint but honest and lasting power of really reading a book, of knowing what it is to be sensitive to a book, does not produce a very literary-looking result, of course, and it is hard to give the result an impressive or learned look in a catalogue, and it is a difficult thing to do without considering each pupil as a special human being by himself,--worthy of some attention on that account,--but it is the one upright, worthy, and beautiful thing a teacher can do. Any easier course he may choose to adopt in an institution of learning (even when it is taken helplessly or thoughtlessly as it generally is) is insincere and spectacular, a despising not only of the pupil but of the college public and of one's self. If it is true that the right study of literature consists in exercising and opening out the human mind instead of making it a place for cold storage, it is not necessary to call attention to the essential pretentiousness and shoddiness of the average college course in literature. At its best--that is, if the pupils do not do the work, the study of literature in college is a sorry spectacle enough--a kind of huge girls' school with a chaperone taking its park walk. At its worst--that is, when the pupils do do the work, it is a sight that would break a Homer's heart. If it were not for a few inspired and inconsistent teachers blessing particular schools and scholars here and there, doing a little guilty, furtive teaching, whether or no, discovering short-cuts, climbing fences, breaking through the fields, and walking on the grass, the whole modern scheme of elaborate, tireless, endless laboriousness would come to nothing, except the sight of larger piles of paper in the world, perhaps, and rows of dreary, dogged people with degrees lugging them back and forth in it,--one pile of paper to another pile of paper, and a general sense that something is being done. In the meantime, human life around us, trudging along in its anger, sorrow, or bliss, wonders what this thing is that is being done, and has a vague and troubled respect for it; but it is to be noted that it buys and reads the books (and that it has always bought and read the books) of those who have not done it, and who are not doing it,--those who, standing in the spectacle of the universe, have been sensitive to it, have had a mighty love in it, or a mighty hate, or a true experience, and who have laughed and cried with it through the hearts of their brothers to the ends of the earth. III The Organs of Literature The literary problem--the problem of possessing or appreciating or teaching a literary style--resolves itself at last into a pure problem of personality. A pupil is being trained in literature in proportion as his spiritual and physical powers are being brought out by the teacher and played upon until they permeate each other in all that he does and in all that he is--in all phases of his life. Unless what a pupil is glows to the finger tips of his words, he cannot write, and unless what he is makes the words of other men glow when he reads, he cannot read. In proportion as it is great, literature is addressed to all of a man's body and to all of his soul. It matters nothing how much a man may know about books, unless the pages of them play upon his senses while he reads, he is not physically a cultivated man, a gentleman, or scholar with his body. Unless books play upon all his spiritual and mental sensibilities when he reads he cannot be considered a cultivated man, a gentleman, and a scholar in his soul. It is the essence of all great literature that it makes its direct appeal to sense-perceptions permeated with spiritual suggestion. There is no such thing possible as being a literary authority, a cultured or scholarly man, unless the permeating of the sense-perceptions with spiritual suggestion is a daily and unconscious habit of life. "Every man his own poet" is the underlying assumption of every genuine work of art, and a work of art cannot be taught to a pupil in any other way than by making this same pupil a poet, by getting him to discover himself. Continued and unfaltering disaster is all that can be expected of all methods of literary training that do not recognise this. To teach a pupil all that can be known about a great poem is to take the poetry out of him, and to make the poem prose to him forever. A pupil cannot even be taught great prose except by making a poet of him, in his attitude toward it, and by so governing the conditions, excitements, duties, and habits of his course of study that he will discover he is a poet in spite of himself. The essence of Walter Pater's essays cannot be taught to a pupil except by making a new creature of him in the presence of the things the essays are about. Unless the conditions of a pupil's course are so governed, in college or otherwise, as to insure and develop the delicate and strong response of all his bodily senses, at the time of his life when nature decrees that his senses must be developed, that the spirit must be waked in them, or not at all, the study of Walter Pater will be in vain. The physical organisation, the mere bodily state of the pupil, necessary to appreciate either the form or the substance of a bit of writing like _The Child in the House_, is the first thing a true teacher is concerned with. A college graduate whose nostrils have not been trained for years,--steeped in the great, still delights of the ground,--who has not learned the spirit and fragrance of the soil beneath his feet, is not a sufficiently cultivated person to pronounce judgment either upon Walter Pater's style or upon his definition of style. To be educated in the great literatures of the world is to be trained in the drawing out in one's own body and mind of the physical and mental powers of those who write great literatures. Culture is the feeling of the induced current--the thrill of the lives of the dead--the charging the nerves of the body and powers of the spirit with the genius that has walked the earth before us. In the borrowed glories of the great for one swift and passing page we walk before heaven with them, breathe the long breath of the centuries with them, know the joy of the gods and live. The man of genius is the man who literally gives himself. He makes every man a man of genius for the time being. He exchanges souls with us and for one brief moment we are great, we are beautiful, we are immortal. We are visited with our possible selves. Literature is the transfiguring of the senses in which men are dwelling every day and of the thoughts of the mind in which they are living every day. It is the commingling of one's life in one vast network of sensibility, communion, and eternal comradeship with all the joy and sorrow, taste, odor, and sound, passion of men and love of women and worship of God, that ever has been on the earth, since the watching of the first night above the earth, or since the look of the first morning on it, when it was loved for the first time by a human life. The artist is recognised as an artist in proportion as the senses of his body drift their glow and splendour over into the creations of his mind. He is an artist because his flesh is informed with the spirit, because in whatever he does he incarnates the spirit in the flesh. The gentle, stroking delight in this universe that Dr. Holmes took all his days, his contagious gladness in it and approval of it, his impressionableness to its moods--its Oliver-Wendell ones,--who really denies in his soul that this capacity of Dr. Holmes to enjoy, this delicate, ceaseless tasting with sense and spirit of the essence of life, was the very substance of his culture? The books that he wrote and the things that he knew were merely the form of it. His power of expression was the blending of sense and spirit in him, and because his mind was trained into the texture of his body people delighted in his words in form and spirit both. There is no training in the art of expression or study of those who know how to express, that shall not consist, not in a pupil's knowing wherein the power of a book lies, but in his experiencing the power himself, in his entering the life behind the book and the habit of life that made writing such a book and reading it possible. This habit is the habit of incarnation. A true and classic book is always the history some human soul has had in its tent of flesh, camped out beneath the stars, groping for the thing they shine to us, trying to find a body for it. In the great wide plain of wonder there they sing the wonder a little time to us, if we listen. Then they pass on to it. Literature is but the faint echo tangled in thousands of years, of this mighty, lonely singing of theirs, under the Dome of Life, in the presence of the things that books are about. The power to read a great book is the power to glory in these things, and to use that glory every day to do one's living and reading with. Knowing what is in the book may be called learning, but the test of culture always is that it will not be content with knowledge unless it is inward knowledge. Inward knowledge is the knowledge that comes to us from behind the book, from living for weeks with the author until his habits have become our habits, until God Himself, through days and nights and deeds and dreams, has blended our souls together. IV Entrance Examinations in Joy If entrance examinations in joy were required at our representative colleges very few of the pupils who are prepared for college in the ordinary way would be admitted. What is more serious than this, the honour-pupils in the colleges themselves at commencement time--those who have submitted most fully to the college requirements--would take a lower stand in a final examination in joy, whether of sense or spirit, than any others in the class. Their education has not consisted in the acquiring of a state of being, a condition of organs, a capacity of tasting life, of creating and sharing the joys and meanings in it. Their learning has largely consisted in the fact that they have learned at last to let their joys go. They have become the most satisfactory of scholars, not because of their power of knowing, but because of their willingness to be powerless in knowing. When they have been drilled to know without joy, have become the day-labourers of learning, they are given diplomas for cheerlessness, and are sent forth into the world as teachers of the young. Almost any morning, in almost any town or city beneath the sun, you can see them, Gentle Reader, with the children, spreading their tired minds and their tired bodies over all the fresh and buoyant knowledge of the earth. Knowledge that has not been throbbed in cannot be throbbed out. The graduates of the colleges for women (in The Association of Collegiate Alumnæ) have seriously discussed the question whether the college course in literature made them nearer or farther from creating literature themselves. The Editor of _Harper's Monthly_ has recorded that "the spontaneity and freedom of subjective construction" in certain American authors was only made possible, probably, by their having escaped an early academic training. The _Century Magazine_ has been so struck with the fact that hardly a single writer of original power before the public has been a regular college graduate that it has offered special prizes and inducements for any form of creative literature--poem, story, or essay--that a college graduate could write. If a teacher of literature desires to remove his subject from the uncreative methods he finds in use around him, he can only do so successfully by persuading trustees and college presidents that literature is an art and that it can only be taught through the methods and spirit and conditions that belong to art. If he succeeds in persuading trustees and presidents, he will probably find that faculties are not persuaded, and that, in the typical Germanised institution of learning at least, any work he may choose to do in the spirit and method of joy will be looked upon by the larger part of his fellow teachers as superficial and pleasant. Those who do not feel that it is superficial and pleasant, who grant that working for a state of being is the most profound and worthy and strenuous work a teacher can do,--that it is what education is for,--will feel that it is impracticable. It is thus that it has come to pass in the average institution of learning, that if a teacher does not know what education is, he regards education as superficial, and if he does know what education is, he regards education as impossible. It is not intended to be dogmatic, but it may be worth while to state from the pupil's point of view and from memory what kind of teacher a college student who is really interested in literature would like to have. Given a teacher of literature who has _carte blanche_ from the other teachers--the authorities around him--and from the trustees--the authorities over him,--what kind of a stand will he find it best to take, if he proposes to give his pupils an actual knowledge of literature? In the first place, he will stand on the general principle that if a pupil is to have an actual knowledge of literature as literature, he must experience literature as an art. In the second place, if he is to teach literature to his pupils as an art to be mastered, he will begin his teaching as a master. Instead of his pupils determining that they will elect him, he will elect them. If there is to be any candidating, he will see that the candidating is properly placed; that the privilege at least of the first-class music master, dancing master, and teacher of painting--the choosing of his own pupils--is accorded to him. Inasmuch as the power and value of his class must always depend upon him, he will not allow either the size or the character of his classes to be determined by a catalogue, or by the examinations of other persons, or by the advertising facilities of the college. If actual results are to be achieved in his pupils, it can only be by his governing the conditions of their work and by keeping these conditions at all times in his own hands. In the third place, he will see that his class is so conducted that out of a hundred who desire to belong to it the best ten only will be able to. In the fourth place, he will himself not only determine which are the best ten, but he will make this determination on the one basis possible for a teacher of art--the basis of mutual attraction among the pupils. He will take his stand on the spiritual principle that if classes are to be vital classes, it is not enough that the pupils should elect the teacher, but the teacher and pupils must elect each other. The basis of an art is the mutual attraction that exists between things that belong together. The basis for transmitting an art to other persons is the natural attraction that exists between persons that belong together. The more mutual the attraction is,--complementary or otherwise,--the more condensed and powerful teaching can it be made the conductor of. If a hundred candidates offer themselves, fifty will be rejected because the attraction is not mutual enough to insure swift and permanent results. Out of fifty, forty will be rejected probably for the sake of ten with whom the mutual attraction is so great that great things cannot help being accomplished by it. The thorough and contagious teacher of literature will hold his power--the power of conveying the current and mood of art to others--as a public trust. He owes it to the institution in which he is placed to refuse to surround himself with non-conductors; and inasmuch as his power--such as it is--is instinctive power, it will be placed where it instinctively counts the most. In proportion as he loves his art and loves his kind and desires to get them on speaking terms with each other, he will devote himself to selected pupils, to those with whom he will throw the least away. His service to others will be to give to these such real, inspired, and reproductive knowledge, that it shall pass on from them to others of its own inherent energy. From the narrower--that is, the less spiritual--point of view, it has seemed perhaps a selfish and aristocratic thing for a teacher to make distinctions in persons in the conduct of his work, but from the point of view of the progress of the world, it is heartless and sentimental to do otherwise; and without exception all of the most successful teachers in all of the arts have been successful quite as much through a kind of dictatorial insight in selecting the pupils they could teach, as in selecting the things they could teach them. In the fifth place, having determined to choose his pupils himself, the selection will be determined by processes of his own choosing. These processes, whatever form or lack of form they may take, will serve to convey to the teacher the main knowledge he desires. They will be an examination in the capacity of joy in the pupil. Inasmuch as surplus joy in a pupil is the most promising thing he can have, the sole secret of any ability he may ever attain of learning literature, the basis of all discipline, it will be the first thing the teacher takes into account. While it is obvious that an examination in joy could not be conducted in any set fashion, every great joy in the world has its natural diviners and experts, and teachers of literature who know its joy have plenty of ways of divining this joy in others. In the sixth place, pupils will be dropped and promoted by a teacher, in such a class as has been described, according to the spirit and force and creativeness of their daily work. Promotion will be by elimination--that is, the pupil will stay where he is and the class will be made smaller for him. The superior natural force of each pupil will have full sway in determining his share of the teacher's force. As this force belongs most to those who waste it least, if five tenths of the appreciation in a class belongs to one pupil, five tenths of the teacher belongs to him, and promotion is most truly effected, not by giving the best pupils a new teacher, but by giving them more of the old one. A teacher's work can only be successful in proportion as it is accurately individual and puts each pupil in the place he was made to fit. In the seventh place, the select class will be selected by the teacher as a baseball captain selects his team: not as being the nine best men, but as being the nine men who most call each other out, and make the best play together. If the teacher selects his class wisely, the principle of his selection sometimes--from the outside, at least--will seem no principle at all. The class must have its fool, for instance, and pupils must be selected for useful defects as well as for virtues. Belonging to such a class will not be allowed to have a stiff, definite, water-metre meaning in it, with regard to the capacity of a pupil. It will only be known that he is placed in the class for some quality, fault, or inspiration in him that can be brought to bear on the state of being in the class in such a way as to produce results, not only for himself but for all concerned. V Natural Selection in Theory The conditions just stated as necessary for the vital teaching of literature narrow themselves down, for the most part, to the very simple and common principle of life and art, the principle of natural selection. As an item in current philosophy the principle of natural selection meets with general acceptance. It is one of those pleasant and instructive doctrines which, when applied to existing institutions, is opposed at once as a sensational, visionary, and revolutionary doctrine. There are two most powerful objections to the doctrine of natural selection in education. One of these is the scholastic objection and the other is the religious one. The scholastic objection is that natural selection in education is impracticable. It cannot be made to operate mechanically, or for large numbers, and it interferes with nearly all of the educational machinery for hammering heads in rows, which we have at command at present. Even if the machinery could be stopped and natural selection could be given the place that belongs to it, all success in acting on it would call for hand-made teachers; and hand-made teachers are not being produced when we have nothing but machines to produce them with. The scholastic objection--that natural selection in education is impracticable under existing conditions--is obviously well taken. As it cannot be answered, it had best be taken, perhaps, as a recommendation. The religious objection to natural selection in education is not that it is impracticable, but that it is wicked. It rests its case on the defence of the weak. But the question at issue is not whether the weak shall be served and defended or whether they shall not. We all would serve and defend the weak. If a teacher feels that he can serve his inferior pupils best by making his superior pupils inferior too, it is probable that he had better do it, and that he will know how to do it, and that he will know how to do it better than any one else. There are many teachers, however, who have the instinctive belief, and who act on it so far as they are allowed to, that to take the stand that the inferior pupil must be defended at the expense of the superior pupil is to take a sentimental stand. It is not a stand in favour of the inferior pupil, but against him. The best way to respect an inferior pupil is to keep him in place. The more he is kept in place, the more his powers will be called upon. If he is in the place above him, he may see much that he would not see otherwise, much at which he will wonder, perhaps; but he deserves to be treated spiritually and thoroughly, to be kept where he will be creative, where his wondering will be to the point, both at once and eventually. It is a law that holds as good in the life of a teacher of literature as it does in the lives of makers of literature. From the point of view of the world at large, the author who can do anything else has no right to write for the average man. There are plenty of people who cannot help writing for him. Let them do it. It is their right and the world's right that they should be the ones to do it. It is the place that belongs to them, and why should nearly every man we have of the more seeing kind to-day deliberately compete with men who cannot compete with him? The man who abandons the life that belongs to him,--the life that would not exist in the world if he did not live it and keep it existing in the world, and who does it to help his inferiors, does not help his inferiors. He becomes their rival. He crowds them out of their lives. There could not possibly be a more noble, or more exact and spiritual law of progress than this--that every man should take his place in human society and do his work in it with his nearest spiritual neighbours. These nearest spiritual neighbours are a part of the economy of the universe. They are now and always have been the natural conductors over the face of the earth of all actual power in it. It has been through the grouping of the nearest spiritual neighbours around the world that men have unfailingly found the heaven-appointed, world-remoulding teachers of every age. It does not sound very much like Thomas Jefferson,--and it is to be admitted that there are certain lines in our first great national document which, read on the run at least, may seem to deny it,--but the living spirit of Thomas Jefferson does not teach that amputation is progress, nor does true Democracy admit either the patriotism or the religion of a man who feels that his legs must be cut off to run to the assistance of neighbours whose legs are cut off. An educational Democracy which expects a pupil to be less than himself for the benefit of other pupils is a mock Democracy, and it is the very essence of a Democracy of the truer kind that it expects every man in it to be more than himself. And if a man's religion is of the truer kind, it will not be heard telling him that he owes it to God and the Average Man to be less than himself. VI Natural Selection in Practice It is not going to be possible very much longer to take it for granted that natural selection is a somewhat absent-minded and heathen habit that God has fallen into in the natural world, and uses in his dealings with men, but that it is not a good enough law for men to use in their dealings with one another. The main thing that science has done in the last fifty years, in spite of conventional religion and so-called scholarship, has been to bring to pass in men a respect for the natural world. The next thing that is to be brought to pass--also in spite of conventional religion and so-called scholarship--is the self-respect of the natural man and of the instincts of human nature. The self-respect of the natural man, when once he gains it, is a thing that is bound to take care of itself, and take care of the man, and take care of everything that is important to the man. Inasmuch as, in the long run at least, education, even in times of its not being human, interests humanity more than anything else, a most important consequence of the self-respect of the natural man is going to be an uprising, all over the world, of teachers who believe something. The most important consequence of having teachers who believe something will be a wholesale and uncompromising rearrangement of nearly all our systems and methods of education. Instead of being arranged to cow the teacher with routine, to keep teachers from being human beings, and to keep their pupils from finding it out if they are human beings, they will be arranged on the principle that the whole object of knowledge is the being of a human being, and the only way to know anything worth knowing in the world is to begin by knowing how to be a human being--and by liking it. Not until our current education is based throughout on expecting great things of human nature instead of secretly despising it, can it truly be called education. Expectancy is the very essence of education. Actions not only speak louder than words, they make words as though they were not; and so long as our teachers confine themselves to saying beautiful and literary things about the instincts of the human heart, and do not trust their own instincts in their daily teaching, and the instincts of their pupils, and do not make this trust the foundation of all their work, the more they educate the more they destroy. The destruction is both ways, and whatever the subjects are they may choose to know, murder and suicide are the branches they teach. The chief characteristic of the teacher of the future is going to be that he will dare to believe in himself, and that he will divine some one thing to believe in, in everybody else, and that, trusting the laws of human nature, he will go to work on this some one thing, and work out from it to everything. Inasmuch as the chief working principle of human nature is the principle of natural selection, the entire method of the teacher of the future will be based on his faith in natural selection. All such teaching as he attempts to do will be worked out from the temperamental, involuntary, primitive choices of his own being, both in persons and in subject. His power with his classes will be his power of divining the free and unconscious and primitive choices of individual pupils in persons and subjects. Half of the battle is already won. The principle of natural selection between pupils and subjects is recognised in the elective system, but we have barely commenced to conceive as yet the principle of natural selection in its more important application--mutual attraction between teacher and pupil--natural selection in its deeper and more powerful and spiritual sense: the kind of natural selection that makes the teacher a worker in wonder, and education the handiwork of God. In most of our great institutions we do not believe in even the theory of this deeper natural selection: and if we do believe in it, sitting in endowed chairs under the Umbrella of Endowed Ideas, how can we act on that belief? And if we do, who will come out and act with us? If it does not seem best for even the single teacher, doing his teaching unattached and quite by himself, to educate in the open,--to trust his own soul and the souls of his pupils to the nature of things, how much less shall the great institution, with its crowds of teachers and its rows of pupils and its Vested Funds be expected to lay itself open--lay its teachers and pupils and its Vested Funds open--to the nature of things? We are suspicious of the nature of things. God has concealed a lie in them. We do not believe. Therefore we cannot teach. The conclusion is inevitable. As long as we believe in natural selection between pupil and subject, but do not believe in natural selection between pupil and teacher, no great results in education or in teaching a vital relation to books or to anything else will be possible. As long as natural selection between pupil and teacher is secretly regarded as an irreligious and selfish instinct, with which a teacher must have nothing to do, instead of a divine ordinance, a Heaven-appointed starting-point for doing everything, the average routine teacher in the conventional school and college will continue to be the kind of teacher he is, and will continue to belong to what seems to many, at least, the sentimental and superstitious and pessimistic profession he belongs to now. Why should a teacher allow himself to teach without inspiration in the one profession on the earth where, between the love of God and the love of the opening faces, inspiration--one would say--could hardly be missed? Certainly, if it was ever intended that artists should be in the world it was intended that teachers should be artists. And why should we be artisans? If we cannot be artists, if we are not allowed to make our work a self-expression, were it not better to get one's living by the labour of one's hands,--by digging in the wonder of the ground? A stone-crusher, as long as one works one's will with it, makes it say something, is nearer to nature than a college. "I would rather do manual labour with my hands than manual labour with my soul," the true artist is saying to-day, and a great many thousand teachers are saying it, and thousands more who would like to teach. The moment that teaching ceases to be a trade and becomes a profession again, these thousands are going to crowd into it. Until the artist-teachers have been attracted to teaching, things can only continue as they are. Young men and women who are capable of teaching will continue to do all that they can not to get into it; and young men and women who are capable of teaching, and who are still trying to teach, will continue to do all that they can to get out of it. When the schools of America have all been obliged, like the city of Brooklyn, to advertise to secure even poor teachers, we shall begin to see where we stand,--stop our machinery a while and look at it. The only way out is the return to nature, and to faith in the freedom of nature. Not until the teacher of the young has dared to return to nature, has won the emancipation of his own instincts and the emancipation of the instincts of his pupils, can we expect anything better than we have now of either of them. Not until the modern teacher has come to the point where he deliberately works with his instincts, where he looks upon himself as an artist working in the subject that attracts him most, and in the material that is attracted to him most, can we expect to secure in our crowded conditions to-day enough teaching to go around. The one practical and economical way to make our limited supply of passion and thought cover the ground is to be spiritual and spontaneous and thorough with what we have. The one practical and economical way to do this is to leave things free, to let the natural forces in men's lives find the places that belong to them, develop the powers that belong to them, until power in every man's life shall be contagious of power. In the meantime, having brought out the true and vital energies of men as far as we go, if we are obliged to be specialists in knowledge we shall be specialists of the larger sort. The powers of each man, being actual and genuine powers, shall play into the powers of other men. Each man that essays to live shall create for us a splendour and beauty and strength he was made to create from the beginning of the world. To those who sit in the seat of the scornful the somewhat lyrical idea of an examination in joy as a basis of admission to the typical college appeals as a fit subject of laughter. So it is. Having admitted the laugh, the question is,--all human life is questioning the college to-day,--which way shall the laugh point? If the conditions of the typical college do not allow for the working of the laws of nature, so much the worse for the laws of nature, or so much the worse for the college. In the meantime, it is good to record that there are many signs--thanks to these same laws of nature--that a most powerful reaction is setting in, not only in the colleges themselves, but in all the forces of culture outside and around them. The examination in joy--the test of natural selection--is already employed by all celebrated music masters the world over in the choosing of pupils, and by all capable teachers of painting; and the time is not far off when, so far as courses in literature are concerned (if the teaching of literature is attempted in crowded institutions), the examination in joy will be the determining factor with all the best teachers, not only in the conduct of their classes, but in the very structure of them. Structure is the basis of conduct. VII The Emancipation of the Teacher The custom of mowing lawns in cities, of having every grass-blade in every door-yard like every other grass-blade, is considered by many persons as an artificial custom--a violation of the law of nature. It is contended that the free-swinging, wind-blown grasses of the fields are more beautiful and that they give more various and infinite delight in colour and line and movement. If a piece of this same field, however, could be carefully cut out and moved and fitted to a city door-yard--bobolinks and daisies and shadows and all, precisely as they are--it would not be beautiful. Long grass conforms to a law of nature where nature has room, and short grass conforms to a law of nature where nature has not room. When, for whatever reason, of whatever importance, men and women choose to be so close together, that it is not fitting they should have freedom, and when they choose to have so little room to live in that development is not fitting lest it should inconvenience others, the penalty follows. When grass-blades are crowded between walls and fences, the more they can be made to look alike the more pleasing they are, and when an acre of ground finds itself covered with a thousand people, or a teacher of culture finds himself mobbed with pupils, the law of nature is the same. Whenever crowding of any kind takes place, whether it be in grass, ideas, or human nature, the most pleasing as well as the most convenient and natural way of producing a beautiful effect is with the Lawn Mower. The dead level is the logic of crowded conditions. The city grades down its hills for the convenience of reducing its sewer problem. It makes its streets into blocks for the convenience of knowing where every home is, and how far it is, by a glance at a page, and, in order that the human beings in it (one set of innumerable nobodies hurrying to another set of innumerable nobodies) may never be made to turn out perchance for an elm on a sidewalk, it cuts down centuries of trees, and then, out of its modern improvements, its map of life, its woods in rows, its wheels on tracks, and its souls in pigeonholes--out of its huge Checker-board under the days and nights--it lifts its eyes to the smoke in heaven, at last, and thanks God it is civilised! The substantial fact in the case would seem to be that every human being born into the world has a right to be treated as a special creation all by himself. Society can only be said to be truly civilised in proportion as it acts on this fact. It is because in the family each being is treated as one out of six or seven, and in the school as one out of six hundred, that the family (with approximately good parents) comes nearer to being a model school than anything we have. If we deliberately prefer to live in crowds for the larger part of our lives, we must expect our lives to be cut and fitted accordingly. It is an æsthetic as well as a practical law that this should be so. The law of nature where there is room for a man to be a man is not the law of nature where there is not room for him to be a man. If there is no playground for his individual instincts except the street he must give them up. Inasmuch as natural selection in overcrowded conditions means selecting things by taking them away from others, it can be neither beautiful nor useful to practise it. People who prefer to be educated in masses must conform to the law of mass, which is inertia, and to the law of the herd, which is the Dog. As long as our prevailing idea of the best elective is the one with the largest class, and the prevailing idea of culture is the degree from the most crowded college, all natural gifts, whether in teachers or pupils, are under a penalty. If we deliberately place ourselves where everything is done by the gross, as a matter of course and in the nature of things the machine-made man, taught by the machine-made teacher, in a teaching-machine, will continue to be the typical scholar of the modern world; and the gentleman-scholar--the man who made himself, or who gave God a chance to make him--will continue to be what he is now in most of our large teaching communities--an exception. Culture which has not the power to win the emancipation of its teachers does not produce emancipated and powerful pupils. The essence of culture is selection, and the essence of selection is natural selection, and teachers who have not been educated with natural selection cannot teach with it. Teachers who have given up being individuals in the main activity of their lives, who are not allowed to be individuals in their teaching, do not train pupils to be individuals. Their pupils, instead of being organic human beings, are manufactured ones. Literary drill in college consists in drilling every man to be himself--in giving him the freedom of himself. Probably it would be admitted by most of us who are college graduates that the teachers who loom up in our lives are those whom we remember as emancipated teachers--men who dared to be individuals in their daily work, and who, every time they touched us, helped us to be individuals. VIII The Test of Culture Looking at our great institutions of learning in a general way, one might be inclined to feel that literature cannot be taught in them, because the classes are too large. When one considers, however, the average class in literature, as it actually is, and the things that are being taught in it, it becomes obvious that the larger such a class can be made, and the less the pupil can be made to get out of it, the better. The best test of a man's knowledge of the Spanish language would be to put him in a balloon and set him down in dark night in the middle of Spain and leave him there with his Spanish words. The best test of a man's knowledge of books is to see what he can do without them on a desert island in the sea. When the ship's library over the blue horizon dwindles at last in its cloud of smoke and he is left without a shred of printed paper by him, the supreme opportunity of education will come to him. He will learn how vital and beautiful, or boastful and empty, his education is. If it is true education, the first step he takes he will find a use for it. The first bird that floats from its tree-top shall be a message from London straight to his soul. If he has truly known them, the spirits of all his books will flock to him. If he has known Shakespeare, the ghost of the great master will rise from beneath its Stratford stone, and walk oceans to be with him. If he knows Homer, Homer is full of Odysseys trooping across the seas. Shall he sit him down on the rocks, lift his voice like a mere librarian, and, like a book-raised, paper-pampered, ink-hungry babe cry to the surf for a Greek dictionary? The rhythm of the beach is Greece to him, and the singing of the great Greek voice is on the tops of waves around the world. A man's culture is his knowledge become himself. It is in the seeing of his eyes and the hearing of his ears and the use of his hands. Is there not always the altar of the heavens and the earth? Laying down days and nights of joy before it and of beauty and wonder and peace, the scholar is always a scholar, _i. e._, he is always at home. To be cultured is to be so splendidly wrought of body and soul as to get the most joy out of the least and the fewest things. Wherever he happens to be,--whatever he happens to be without,--his culture is his being master. He may be naked before the universe, and it may be a pitiless universe or a gracious one, but he is always master, knowing how to live in it, knowing how to hunger and die in it, or, like Stevenson, smiling out of his poor, worn body to it. He is the unconquerable man. Wherever he is in the world, he cannot be old in the presence of the pageant of Life. From behind the fading of his face lie watches it, child after child, spring after spring as it flies before him; he will not grow old while it still passes by. It carries delight across to him to the end. He watches and sings with it to the end, down to the edge of sleep. A bird's shadow is enough to be happy with, if a man is educated, or the flicker of light on a leaf, and when really a song is being lived in a man, all nature plays its accompaniment. To possess one's own senses, to know how to conduct one's self, is to be the conductor of orchestras in the clouds and in the grass. The trained man is not dependent on having the thing itself. He borrows the boom of the sea to live with, anywhere, and the gladness of continents. Literary training consists in the acquiring of a state of mind and body to feel the universe with; in becoming an athlete toward beauty, a giver of great lifts of joy to this poor, straining, stumbling world with its immemorial burden on its back, which, going round and round, for the most part with its eyes shut, between infinities, is the hope and sorrow of all of us for the very reason that its eyes are shut. IX Summary The proper conditions for literary drill in college would seem to sum themselves up in the general idea that literature is the spirit of life. It can therefore only be taught through the spirit. _First._ It can only be taught through the spirit by being taught as an art, through its own nature and activity, reproductively--giving the spirit body. Both the subject-matter and the method in true literary drill can only be based on the study of human experience. The intense study of human experience in a college course may be fairly said to involve three things that must be daily made possible to the pupil in college life. Everything that is given him to do, and everything that happens to him in college, should cultivate these three things in the pupil: (1) Personality--an intense first person singular, as a centre for having experience; (2) Imagination--the natural organ in the human soul for realising what an experience is and for combining and condensing it; (3) The habit of having time and room, for re-experiencing an experience at will in the imagination, until the experience becomes so powerful and vivid, so fully realises itself in the mind, that the owner of the mind is an artist with his mind. When he puts the experience of his mind down it becomes more real to other men on paper than their own experiences are to them in their own lives. It is hardly necessary to point out that whatever our conventional courses in literature may be doing, whether in college or anywhere else, they are not bringing out this creative joy and habit of creative joy in the pupils. Those who are interested in literature-courses--such as we have--for the most part do not believe in trying to bring out the creative joy of each pupil. Those who might believe in trying to do it do not believe it can be done. They do not believe it can be done because they do not realise that in the case of each and every pupil--so far as he goes--it is the only thing worth doing. They fail to see from behind their commentaries and from out of their footnotes, the fact that the one object in studying literature is joy, that the one way of studying and knowing literature is joy, and that the one way to attain joy is to draw out creative joy. _Second._ And if literature is to be taught as an art it must be taught as a way of life. As long as literature and life continue to be conceived and taught as being separate things, there can be no wide and beautiful hope for either of them. The organs of literature are precisely the same organs and they are trained on precisely the same principles as the organs of life. Except an education in books can bring to pass the right condition of these organs, a state of being in the pupil, his knowledge of no matter how long a list of masterpieces is but a catalogue of the names of things for ever left out of his life. It is little wonder, when the drudgery has done its work and the sorry show is over, and the victim of the System is face to face with his empty soul at last, if in his earlier years at least he seems overfond to some of us of receiving medals, honours, and valedictories for what he might have been and of flourishing a Degree for what he has missed. There was once a Master of Arts, Who was "nuts" upon cranberry tarts: When he'd eaten his fill He was awfully ill, But he was still a Master of Arts. The power and habit of studying and enjoying human nature as it lives around us, is not only a more human and alive occupation, but it is a more literary one than becoming another editor of Æschylus or going down to posterity in footnotes as one of the most prominent bores that Shakespeare ever had. If a teacher of literature enjoys being the editor of Æschylus, or if he is happier in appearing on a title-page with a poet than he could possibly be in being a poet, it is personally well enough, though it may be a disaster to the rest of us and to Æschylus. Men who can be said as a class to care more about literature than they do about life, who prefer the paper side of things to the real one, are at liberty as private persons to be editors and footnote hunters to the top of their bent; but why should they call it "The Study of Literature," to teach their pupils to be footnote hunters and editors? and how can they possibly teach anything else? and do they teach anything else? And if good teachers can only teach what they have, what shall we expect of poor ones? In the meantime the Manufacture of the Cultured Mind is going ruthlessly on, and thousands of young men and women who, left alone with the masters of literature, might be engaged in accumulating and multiplying inspiration, are engaged in analysing--dividing what inspiration they have; and, in the one natural, creative period of their lives, their time is entirely spent in learning how inspired work was done, or how it might have been done, or how it should have been done; in absorbing everything about it except its spirit--the power that did it--the power that makes being told how to do it uncalled for, the power that asks and answers its "Hows?" for itself. The serene powerlessness of it all, without courage or passion or conviction, without self-discovery in it, or self-forgetfulness or beauty in it, or for one moment the great contagion of the great, is one of the saddest sights in this modern day. In the meantime the most practical thing that can be done with the matter of literary drill in college is to turn the eye of the public on it. Methods will change when ideals change, and ideals will change when the public clearly sees ideals, and when the public encourages colleges that see them. The time is not far off when it will be admitted by all concerned that the true study of masterpieces consists, and always must consist, in communing with the things that masterpieces are about, in the learning and applying of the principles of human nature, in a passion for real persons, and in a daily loving of the face of the universe. This idea may not be considered very practical. It stands for a kind of education in which it is difficult to exhibit in rows actual results. We are not contending for an education that looks practical. We are contending merely for education that will be true and beautiful and natural. It will be practical the way the forces of nature are practical--whether any one notices it or not. The following announcement can already be seen on the bulletin boards of universities around the world(--if looked for twice). THEY ARE COMING! O Shades of Learning, THE LOVERS OF JOY, IMPERIOUS WITH JOY, UNCONQUERABLE! Their Sails are Flocking the East. The High Seas are Theirs. They shall command you, overwhelm you. Book-lubbers, paper-plodders, shall be as though they were not. The youth of the earth shall be renewed in the morning, the suns and the stars shall be unlocked, and the evening shall go forth with joy. The mountains shall be freed from the pick and the shovel and the book, and lift themselves to heaven. Flowers shall again outblossom botanies, and gymnasts of music shall be laid low, and Birds Through An Opera Glass shall sing. Joy shall come to knowledge, and the strength of Joy upon it. THEY ARE COMING, O Ye Shades of Learning, a thousand thousand strong. Their sails flock the Sea. The smoke and the throb of their engines is the promise of the east. The days of thirteen-thousand-ton, three-horse-power education are numbered. X A Note It is one of the danger signs of the times that the men who have most closely observed our modern life, in its social, industrial, artistic, educational, and religious aspects seem to be gradually coming to the point where they all but take it for granted in considering all social, industrial, and educational and political questions, that the conditions of modern times are such, and are going to be such that imagination and personality might as well be dropped as practical forces--forces that must be reckoned with in the movement of human life. Nearly all the old-time outlooks of the Soul, as they stand in history, have been taken for factory sites, bought up by syndicates, moral and otherwise, and are being used for chimneys. Nothing but smoke and steel and wooden Things come out of them. Poets and brokers are both telling us on every hand that imagination is impossible and personality incredible in modern life. Imagination and personality are the spirit and the dust out of which all great nations and all great religions are made. The attempt has been made in the foregoing pages to point out that they are not dead. The Altar smoulders. In pointing out how imagination and personality can be wrought into one single branch of a man's education--his relation to books--principles may have been suggested which can be concretely applied by all of us, each in our own department, to the education of the whole man. The Seventh Interference: Libraries. Wanted: An Old-Fashioned Librarian I viz. I never shall quite forget the time when the rumour was started in our town that old Mr. M----, our librarian--a gentle, furtive, silent man--a man who (with the single exception of a long white beard) was all screwed up and bent around with learning, who was always slipping invisibly in and out of his high shelves, and who looked as if his whole life had been nothing but a kind of long, perpetual salaam to books--had been caught dancing one day with his wife. "Which only goes to show," broke in The M. P., "what a man of fixed literary habits--mere book-habits--if he keeps on, is reduced to." But as I was about to remark, for a good many weeks afterward--after the rumour was started--one kept seeing people (I was one of them) as they came into the library, looking shyly at Mr. M----, as if they were looking at him all over again. They looked at him as if they had really never quite noticed him before. He sat at his desk, quiet and busy, and bent over, with his fine-pointed pen and his labels, as usual, and his big leather-bound catalogue of the universe. A few of us had had reason to suspect--at least we had had hopes--that the pedantry in Mr. M---- was somewhat superimposed, that he had possibilities, human and otherwise, but none of us, it must be confessed, had been able to surmise quite accurately just where they would break out. We were filled with a gentle spreading joy with the very thought of it, a sense of having acquired a secret possession in a librarian. The community at large, however, as it walked into its library, looked at its Acre of Books, and then looked at its librarian; felt cheated. It was shocked. The community had always been proud of its books, proud of its Book Worm. It had always paid a big salary to it. And the Worm had turned. I have only been back to the old town twice since the day I left it, as a boy--about this time. The first time I went he was there. I came across him in his big, splendid new library, his face like some live, but wrinkled old parchment, twinkling and human though--looking out from its Dust Heap. "It seems to me," I thought, as I stood in the doorway,--saw him edging around an alcove in The Syriac Department,--"that if one must have a great dreary heaped-up pile of books in a town--anyway--the spectacle of a man like this, flitting around in it, doting on them, is what one ought to have to go with it." He always seemed to me a kind of responsive every-way-at-once little man, book-alive all through. One never missed it with him. He had the literary nerves of ten dead nations tingling in him. The next time I was in town they said he had resigned. They said he lived in the little grey house around the corner from the great new glaring stone library. No one ever saw him except in one of his long, hesitating walks, or sometimes, perhaps, by the little study window, pouring himself over into a book there. It was there that I saw him myself that last morning--older and closer to the light turning leaves--the same still, swift eagerness about him. I stepped into the library next door and saw the new librarian--an efficient person. He seemed to know what time it was while we stood and chatted together. That is the main impression one had of him--that he would always know what time it was. Put him anywhere. One felt it. II cf. Our new librarian troubles me a good deal. I have not quite made out why. Perhaps it is because he has a kind of chipper air with the books. I am always coming across him in the shelves, but I do not seem to get used to him. Of course I pull myself together, bow and say things, make it a point to assume he is literary, go through the form of not letting him know what I think as well as may be, but we do not get on. And yet all the time down underneath I know perfectly well that there is no real reason why I should find fault with him. The only thing that seems to be the matter with him is that he keeps right on, every time I see him, making me try to. I have had occasion to notice that, as a general rule, when I find myself finding fault with a man in this fashion--this vague, eager fashion--the gist of it is that I merely want him to be some one else. But in this case--well, he is some one else. He is almost anybody else. He might be a head salesman in a department store, or a hotel clerk, or a train dispatcher, or a broker, or a treasurer of something. There are thousands of things he might be--ought to be--except our librarian. He has an odd, displaced look behind the great desk. He looks as if he had gotten in by mistake and was trying to make the most of it. He has a business-like, worldly-minded, foreign air about him--a kind of off-hand, pert, familiar way with books. He does not know how to bend over--like a librarian--and when one comes on him in an alcove, the way one ought to come on a librarian, with a great folio on his knees, he is--well, there are those who think, that have seen it, that he is positively comic. I followed him around only the other day for fifteen or twenty minutes, from one alcove to another, and watched him taking down books. He does not even know how to take down a book. He takes all the books down alike--the same pleasant, dapper, capable manner, the same peek and clap for all of them. He always seems to have the same indefatigable unconsciousness about him, going up and down his long aisles, no more idea of what he is about or of what the books are about; everything about him seems disconnected with a library. I find I cannot get myself to notice him as a librarian or comrade, or book-mind. He does not seem to have noticed himself in this capacity--exactly. So far as I can get at his mind at all, he seems to have decided that his mind (any librarian's mind) is a kind of pneumatic-tube, or carrier system--apparently--for shoving immortals at people. Any higher or more thorough use for a mind, such as being a kind of spirit of the books for people, making a kind of spiritual connection with them down underneath, does not seem to have occurred to him. Time was when librarians really had something to do with books. They looked it. One could almost tell a librarian on the street--tell him at sight, if he had been one long enough. One could feel a library in a man somehow. It struck in. Librarians were allowed to be persons. It was expected of them. They have not always been what so many of them are now--mere couplings, conveniences, connecting-rods, literary-beltings. They were identified--wrought in with books. They could not be unmixed. They ate books; and, like the little green caterpillars that eat green grass, the colour showed through. A sort of general brown, faded colour, a little undusted around the edges, was the proper colour for librarians. It is true that people did not expect librarians to look quite human--at least on the outside, sometimes, and doubtless the whole matter was carried too far. But it does seem to me it is some comfort (if one has to have a librarian in a library) to have one that goes with the books--same colour, tone, feeling, spirit, and everything--the kind of librarian that slips in and out among books without being noticed there, one way or the other, like the overtone in a symphony. III et al. But the trouble with our library is not merely the new librarian, who permeates, penetrates, and ramifies the whole library within and without, percolating efficiency into its farthest and loneliest alcoves. Our new librarian has a corps of assistants. And even if you manage, by slipping around a little, to get over to where a book is, alone, and get settled down with it, there is always some one who is, has been, or will be looking over your shoulder. I dare say it's a defect of temperament--this having one's shoulder looked over in libraries. Other people do not seem to be troubled much, and I suppose I ought to admit, while I am about it, that having one's shoulder looked over in a library does not in the least depend upon any one's actually looking over it. That is merely a matter of form. It is a little hard to express it. What one feels--at least in our library--is that one is in a kind of side-looking place. One feels a kind of literary detective system going silently on in and out all around one, a polite, absent-minded-looking watchfulness. Now I am not for one moment flattering myself that I can make my fault-finding with our librarian's assistants amount to much--fill out a blank with it. No one can feel more strongly than I do my failure to put my finger on the letter of our librarian's faults. I cannot even tell the difference between the faults and the virtues of our librarian's assistants. Either by doing the right thing with the wrong spirit, or the wrong thing with the right spirit they do their faults and virtues all up together. Their indefatigable unobtrusiveness, their kindly, faithful service I both dread and appreciate. I have tried my utmost to notice and emphasise every day the pleasant things about them, but I always get tangled up. I have started out to think with approval, for instance, of the hush,--the hush that clothes them as a garment,--but it has all ended in my merely wondering where they got it and what they thought they were doing with it. One would think that a hush--a hush of almost any kind--could hardly help--but I have said enough. I do not want to seem censorious, but if ever there was a visible, unctuous, tangible, actual thick silence, a silence that can be proved, if ever there was a silence that stood up and flourished and swung its hat, that silence is in our library. The way our librarian's assistants go tiptoeing and reverberating around the room--well--it's one of those things that follow a man always, follow his inmost being all his life. It gets in with the books--after a few years or so. One can feel the tiptoeing going on in a book--one of our library books--when one gets home with it. It is the spirit of the place. Everything that comes out of it is followed and tiptoed around by our librarian's assistants' silence. They are followed about by it themselves. The thick little blonde one, with the high yellow hair, lives in our ward. One feels a kind of hush rimming her around, when one meets her on the street. Now I do not wish to claim that librarians' assistants can possibly be blamed, in so many words, either for this, or for any of the other things that seem to make them (in our library, at least) more prominent than the books. Everything in a library seems to depend upon something in it that cannot be put into words. It seems to be a kind of spirit. If the spirit is the wrong spirit, not all the librarians in the world, not even the books themselves can do anything about it. * * * * * Postscript. I do hope that no one will suppose from this chapter that I am finding fault or think I am finding fault with our assistant librarians. I am merely finding fault with them (may Heaven forgive them!) because I cannot. It doesn't seem to make very much difference--their doing certain things or not doing them. They either do them or they don't do them--whichever it is--with the same spirit. They are not really down in their hearts true to the books. One can hardly help feeling vaguely, persistently resentful over having them about presiding over the past. One never catches them--at least I never do--forgetting themselves. One never comes on one loving a book. They seem to be servants,--most of them,--book chambermaids. They do not care anything about a library as a library. They just seem to be going around remembering rules in it. IV etc. The P. G. S. of M. as good as said the other day, when I had been trying as well as I could to express something of this kind, that the real trouble with the modern library was not with the modern library, but with me. He thought I tried to carry too many likes and dislikes around with me, that I was too sensitive. He seemed to think that I should learn to be callous in places of public resort. I said I had no very violent dislikes to deal with. The only thing I could think of that was the matter with me in a library was that I had a passion for books. I didn't like climbing over a barricade of catalogues to get to books. I hated to feel partitioned off from them, to stand and watch rows of people marking things between me and books. I thought that things had come to a pretty pass, if a man could not so much as touch elbows with a poet nowadays--with Plato, for instance--without carrying a redoubt of terrible beautiful young ladies. I said I thought a great many other people felt the way I did. I admitted there were other sides to it, but there were times, I said, when it almost seemed to me that this spontaneous uprising in our country--this movement of the Book Lovers, for instance--was simply a struggle on the part of the people to get away from Mr. Carnegie's libraries. They are hemming literature and human nature in, on every side, or they are going to unless Mr. Carnegie can buy up occasional old-fashioned librarians--some other kind than are turned out in steel works--to put into them. Libraries are getting to be huge Separators. Books that have been put through libraries are separated from themselves. They are depersonalised--the human nature all taken off. And yet when one thinks of it, with nine people out of ten--the best people and the worst both--the sense of having a personal relation to a book, the sense of snuggling up with one's own little life to a book, is what books are for. "To a man," I said, "to whom books are people, and the livest kind of people, brothers of his own flesh, cronies of his life, the whole business of getting a book in a library is full of resentment and rebellion. He finds his rights, or what he thinks are his rights, being treated as privileges, his most sacred and confidential relations, his relations with the great, meddled with by strangers--pleasant enough strangers, but still strangers. Perhaps he wishes to see John Milton. He goes down town to a great unhomelike-looking building, and slides in at the door. He steps up to a wall, and asks permission to see John Milton. He waits in a kind of vague, unsatisfied fashion, but he feels that machinery is being set in motion. While it is being set in motion, he sits down before the wall on one of the seats or pews where a large audience of other comfortless and lonely-looking people are. He feels the great, heartless building gathering itself together, going after John Milton for him, while he sits and waits. One after the other he hears human beings' names being called out in space, and one by one poor scared-looking people who seem to be ashamed to go with their names--most of them--step up before the audience. He sees a book being swung out to them, watches them slink gratefully away, and finally his own name echoing about among the Immortals, startles its way down to him. Then he steps up to the wall again, and John Milton at last, as on some huge transcendental derrick belonging to the city of ----, is swung into his arms. He feels of the outside gropingly--takes it home. If he can get John Milton to come to life again after all this, he communes with him. In two weeks he takes him back. Then the derrick again." The only kind of book that I ever feel close to, in the average library, is a book on war. Even if I go in, in a gentle, harmless, happy, singing sort of way, thinking I want a volume of pastoral poems, by the time I get it, I wish it were something that could be loaded, or that would go off. As for asking for a book and reading it in cold blood right in the middle of such a place, it will always be beyond me. I have never found a book I could do it with yet. However I struggle to follow the train of thought in it, it's a fuse. I find myself breaking out, when I see all these far-away-looking people coming up in rows to their faraway books. "A library," I say to myself, "is a huge barbaric, mediæval institution, where behind stone and glass a man's dearest friends in the world, the familiars of his life, lie helpless in their cells. It is the Penitentiary of Immortals. There are certain visiting days when friends and relatives are allowed to come, but it only--" At this point a gong sounds and tells me to go home. "Are not books bone of a man's bone, and flesh of his flesh? Oughtn't they to be? Shall a man ask permission to see his wife? Why should I fill out a slip to a pretty girl, when I want to be in Greece with Homer, or go to hell with Dante? Why should I write on a piece of paper, 'I promise to return--infinity--by six o'clock'? A library is a huge machine for keeping the letter with books and violating their spirit. The fact that the machinery is filled with a mirage of pleasant faces does not help. Pleasant faces make machinery worse--if they are a part of it. They make one expect something better." The P. G. S. of M. wished me to understand at this point that I was not made right, that I was incapable, helpless in a library, that I did not seem to know what to do unless I could have a simple, natural, or country relation to books. "It doesn't follow," he said, "because you are bashful in a library, cannot get your mind to work there, with other people around, that the other people oughtn't to be around. There are a great many ways of using a library, and the more people there are crowded in with the books there, other things being equal, the better. It's what a library is for," he said, and a great deal more to the same effect. I listened a while and told him that I supposed he was right. I supposed I had naturally a kind of wild mind. I allowed that the more a library in a general way took after a piece of woods, the more I enjoyed it. I did not attempt to deny that a library was made for the people, but I did think there ought to be places in libraries--all libraries--where wild ones, like me, could go. There ought to be in every library some uncultivated, uncatalogued, unlibrarianed tract where a man with a skittish or country mind will have a chance, where a man who likes to be alone with books--with books just as books--will be permitted to browze, unnoticed, bars all down, and frisk with his mind and roll himself, without turning over all of a sudden only to find a librarian's assistant standing there wondering at him, looking down to the bottom of his soul. I am not in the least denying that librarians are well enough,--that is, might be well enough,--but as things are going to-day, they all seem to contribute, somehow, toward making a library a conscious and stilted place. They hold one up to the surface of things, with books. They make impossible to a man those freedoms of the spirit--those best times of all in a library, when one feels free to find one's mood, when one gets hold of one's divining-rod, opens down into a book, discovers a new, unconscious, subterranean self there. The P. G. S. of M. broke in at this point and said this was all subjective folderol on my part--that I had better drop it--a kind of habit I had gotten into lately, of splitting the hairs of my emotions--or something to that effect. He went on at some length and took the general ground before he was through, that absolutely everything in modern libraries depended on the librarians. Librarians--I should judge--in a modern library were what books were for. He said that the more intelligent people were nowadays the more they enjoyed librarians--knew how to use them--doted on them, etc., _ad infinitum_. "The kind of people one sees at operas," I interrupted, "listening with librettos, the kind of people who puff up mountains to see views and extract geography from them, the people one meets in the fields, nowadays, flower in one hand, botany in the other, the kind of people who have to have charts to enjoy stars with--these are the people who want librarians between them and their books. The more librarians they can get standing in a row between them and a masterpiece the more they feel they are appreciating it, the more card catalogues, gazetteers, dictionaries, derricks, and other machinery they can have pulling and hauling above their heads in a library the more literary they feel in it. They feel culture--somehow--stirring around them. They are not exactly sure what culture is, but they feel that a great deal of it--whatever it is--is being poured over into them." But I must begin to bring these wanderings about libraries to a close. It can do no harm to remark, perhaps, that I am not maintaining--do not wish to maintain (I could not if I dared) that the modern librarian with all his faults is not useful at times. As a sort of pianola or æolian attachment for a library, as a mechanical contrivance for making a comparatively ignorant man draw perfectly enormous harmonies out of it (which he does not care anything about), a modern librarian helps. All that I am maintaining is, that I am not this comparatively ignorant man. I am another one. I am merely saying that the pianola way of dealing with ignorance, in my own case, up to the present at least, does not grow on me. V O I suppose that the Boston Public Library would say--if it said anything--that I had a mere Old Athenæum kind of a mind. I am obliged to confess that I dote on the Old Athenæum. It protects one's optimism. One is made to feel there--let right down in the midst of civilisation, within a stone's throw of the State House--that it is barely possible to keep civilisation off. One feels it rolling itself along, heaping itself up out on Tremont Street and the Common (the very trees cannot live in it), but one is out of reach. When one has to live in civilisation, as most of us do, nearly all of one's time every day in the week, it means a great deal. I can hardly say how much it means to me, in the daily struggle with it, to be able to dodge behind the Athenæum, to be able to go in and sit down there, if only for a minute, to be behind glass, as it were, to hear great, hungry Tremont Street chewing men up, hundreds of trainloads at a time, into wood-pulp, smoothing them out into nobody or everybody; it makes one feel, while it is not as it ought to be, as if, after all, there might be some way out, as if some provision had been made in this world, or might be made, for letting human beings live on it. The general sense of unsensitiveness in a modern library, of hurry and rush and efficiency, above all, the kind of moral smugness one feels there, the book-self-consciousness, the unprotected, public-street feeling one has--all these things are very grave and important obstacles which our great librarians, with their great systems--most of them--have yet to reckon with. A little more mustiness, gentlemen, please, silence, slowness, solitude with books, as if they were woods, unattainableness (and oh, will any one understand it?), a little inconvenience, a little old-fashioned, happy inconvenience; a chance to gloat and take pains and love things with difficulties, a chance to go around the corners of one's knowledge, to make modest discoveries all by one's self. It is no small thing to go about a library having books happen to one, to feel one's self sitting down with a book--one's own private Providence--turning the pages of events. One cannot help feeling that if a part of the money that is being spent carnegieing nowadays, that is, in arranging for a great many books and a great many people to pile up order among a great many books, could be spent in providing hundreds of thousands of small libraries, or small places in large ones, where men who would like to do it would feel safe to creep in sometimes and open their souls--nobody looking--it would be no more than fair. * * * * * Postscript. One has to be so much of one's time helpless before a librarian in this world, one has to put him on his honour as a gentleman so much, to expose such vast, incredible tracts of ignorance to him, that I know only too well that I, of all men, cannot afford, in these pages or anywhere else, to say anything that will permanently offend librarians. I do hope I have not. It is only through knowing so many good ones that I know enough to criticise the rest. If I am right, it is because I am their spokesman. If I am wrong, I am not a well-informed person, and I do not count anywhere in particular on anything. The best way, I suspect, for a librarian to deal with me is not to try to classify me. I ought to be put out of the way on this subject, tucked back into any general pigeon-hole of odds and ends of temperament. If I had not felt that I could be cheerfully sorted out at the end of this page, filed away by everybody,--almost anybody,--as not making very much difference, I would not have spoken so freely. There is not a librarian who has read as far as this, in this book, who, though he may have had moments of being troubled in it, will not be able to dispose of me with a kind of grateful, relieved certainty. However that may be, I can only beg you, Oh, librarians, and all ye kindly learned ones, to be generous with me, wherever you put me. I leave my poor, naked, shivering, miscellaneous soul in your hands. Book II Possibilities I The Issue I dreamed I lived in a day when men dared have visions. I lay in a great white Silence as one who waited for something. And as I lay and waited, the Silence groped toward me and I felt it gathering nearer and nearer about me. Then it folded me to Itself. I made Time my bedside. And it seemed to me, when I had rested my soul with years, and when I had found Space and had stretched myself upon it, I awoke. I lay in a great white empty place, and the whole world like solemn music came to me. And I looked, and behold in the shadow of the earth, which came and went, I saw Human Lives being tossed about. On the solemn rhythmic music, back and forth, I saw them lifted across Silence. And I said to my Spirit, "What is it they are doing?" "They are living," the Spirit said. So they floated before me while The Great Shadow came and went. * * * * * "O my Soul, hast thou forgotten thy days in the world, when thou didst watch the processional of it, when the faces--day-lighted, night-lighted, faces--trooped before thee, and thou didst look upon them and delight in them? What didst thou see in the world?" "I saw Two Immeasurable Hands in it," said my Soul, "over every man. I saw that the man did not see the Hands. I saw that they reached out of infinity for him down through the days and the nights. And whether he slept or prayed or wrought, I saw that they still reached out for him, and folded themselves about him." And I asked God what The Hands were. "The man calls them Heredity and Environment," God said. And God laughed. Words came from far for me and waited in tumult within me. But my mouth was filled with silence. * * * * * I know that I do not know the world, but out of my little corner of time and space I have watched in it,--watched men and truths struggling in it, and in the struggle it has seemed to me I have seen three kinds of men. I have seen the man who feels that he is being made, and the man who feels that he is making himself. But I have seen also another kind of man--the man who feels that the Universe is at work on him, but (within limits) under his own supervision. I have made a compact in my soul with this man, for a new world. He is not willing to be a mere manufactured man--one more being turned out from The Factory of Circumstance--neither does he think very much of the man who makes himself--who could make himself. If he were to try such a thing--try to make a man himself, he would really rather try it, if the truth must be told, on some one else. As near as he can define it, life seems to be (to the normal or inspired man) a kind of alternate grasping and being grasped. Sometimes he feels his destiny tossed between the Two Immeasurable Hands. Sometimes he feels that they have paused--that the Immeasurable Hands have been lent to him, that the toss of destiny is made his own. He watches these two great forces playing under heaven, before his eyes, with his immortal life, every day. His soul takes these powers of heaven, as the mariner takes the winds of the sea. He tacks to destiny. He takes the same attitude toward the laws of heredity and environment that the Creator took when He made them. He takes it for granted that a God who made these laws as conveniences for Himself, in running a Universe, must have intended them for men as conveniences in living in it. In proportion as men have been like God they have treated these laws as He does--as conveniences. Thousands of men are doing it to-day. Men did it for thousands of years before they knew what the laws were, when they merely followed their instincts with them. In a man's answer to the question, How can I make a convenience of the law of heredity and environment?--education before being born and education after being born--will be found to lie always the secret glory or the secret shame of his life. II The First Selection If the souls of the unborn could go about reconnoitering the earth a little before they settled on it, selecting the parents they would have, the places where it pleased them to be born, nine out of ten of them (judging from the way they conduct themselves in the flesh) would spend nearly all their time in looking for the best house and street to be born in, the best things to be born to. Such a little matter as selecting the right parents would be left, probably, to the last moment, or they would expect it to be thrown in. We are all of us more or less aware, especially as we advance in life, that overlooking the importance of parents is a mistake. There have been times in the lives of some of us when having parents at all seemed a mistake. We can remember hours when we were sure we had the wrong ones. After our first disappointment,--that is, when we have learned how unmanageable parents are,--we have our time--most of us--of making comparisons, of trying other people's parents on. This cannot be said to work very well, taken as a whole, and it is generally admitted that people who are most serious about it, who take unto themselves fathers- and mothers-in-law seldom do any better than at first. The conclusion of the whole matter would seem to be: Since a man cannot select his parents and his parents cannot select him, he must select himself. That is what books are for. III Conveniences It is the first importance of a true book that a man can select his neighbours with it,--can overcome space, riches, poverty, and time with it,--and the grave, and break bread with the dead. A book is a portable miracle. It makes a man's native place all over for him, for a dollar and a quarter; and many a man in this somewhat hard and despairing world has been furnished with a new heaven and a new earth for twenty-five cents. Out of a public library he has felt reached down to him the grasp of heroes. Hurrying home in the night, perhaps, with his tiny life hid under stars, but with a Book under his arm, he has felt a Greeting against his breast and held it tight. "Who art thou, my lad?" it said; "who art thou?" And the saying was not forgotten. If it is true that the spirits of the mighty dead are abroad in the night they are turning the leaves of books. There are other inspiring things in the world, but there is nothing else that carries itself among the sons of men like the book. With such divine plenteousness--seeds of the worlds in it--it goes about flocking on the souls of men. There is something so broadcast, so universal about the way of a book with a man: boundless, subtle, ceaseless, irresistible, following him and loving him, renewing him, delighting in him and hoping for him--like a god. It is as the way of Nature herself with a man. One cannot always feel it, but somehow, when I am really living a real day, I feel as if some Great Book were around me--were always around me. I feel myself all-enfolded, penetrated, surrounded with it--the vast, gentle force of it--sky and earth of it. It is as if I saw it, sometimes, building new boundaries for me, out there--softly, gently, on the edges of the night--for me and for all human life. Other inspiring things seem to be less steadfast for us. They cannot always free themselves and then come and free us. Music cannot be depended upon. It sings sometimes for and sometimes against us. Sometimes, also, music is still--absolutely still, all the way down from the stars to the grass. At best it is for some people and for others not, and is addicted to places. It is a part of the air--part of the climate in Germany, but there is but one country in the world made for listening in--where any one, every one listens, the way one breathes. The great pictures inspire, on the whole, but few people--most of them with tickets. Cathedrals cannot be unmoored, have never been seen by the majority of men at all, except in dreams and photographs. Most mountains (for all practical purposes) are private property. The sea (a look at the middle of it) is controlled by two or three syndicates. The sky--the last stronghold of freedom--is rented out for the most part, where most men live--in cities; and in New York and London the people who can afford it pay taxes for air, and grass is a dollar a blade. Being born is the only really free thing--and dying. Next to these in any just estimate of the comparatively free raw material that goes to the making of a human life comes the printed book. A library, on the whole, is the purest and most perfect form of power that exists, because it is a lever on the nature of things. If a man is born with the wrong neighbours it brings the right ones flocking to him. It is the universe to order. It makes the world like a globe in a child's hands. He turns up the part where he chooses to live--now one way and now another, that he may delight in it and live in it. If he is a poet it is the meaning of life to him that he can keep on turning it until he has delighted and tasted and lived in all of it. The second importance of true books is that they are not satisfied with the first. They are not satisfied to be used to influence a man from the outside--as a kind of house-furnishing for his soul. A true book is never a mere contrivance for arranging the right bit of sky for a man to live his life under, or the right neighbours for him to live his life with. It goes deeper than this. A mere playing upon a man's environment does not seem to satisfy a true book. It plays upon the latent infinity in the man himself. The majority of men are not merely conceived in sin and born in lies, but they are the lies; and lies as well as truths flow in their veins. Lies hold their souls back thousands of years. When one considers the actual facts about most men, the law of environment seems a clumsy and superficial law enough. If all that a book can do is to appeal to the law of environment for a man, it does not do very much. The very trees and stones do better for him, and the little birds in their nests. No possible amount of environment crowded on their frail souls would ever make it possible for most men to catch up--to overtake enough truth before they die to make their seventy years worth while. The majority of men (one hardly dares to deny) can be seen, sooner or later, drifting down to death either bitterly or indifferently. The shadows of their lives haunt us a little, then they vanish away from us and from the sound of our voices. Oh, God, from behind Thy high heaven--from out of Thy infinite wealth of years, hast Thou but the one same pittance of threescore and ten for every man? Some of us are born with the handicap of a thousand years woven in the nerves of our bodies, the swiftness of our minds, and the delights of our limbs. Others of us are born with the thousand years binding us down to blindness and hobbling, holding us back to disease, but all with the same Imperious Timepiece held above us, to run the same race, to overtake the same truth--before the iron curtain and the dark. Some of us--a few men in every generation--have two or three hundred years given to us outright the day we are born. Then we are given seventy more. Others of us have two hundred years taken away from us the day we are born. Then we are given seventy years to make them up in, and it is called life. If we are to shut ourselves up with one law, either the law of environment or the law of heredity, it is obvious that the best a logical man could do, would be to be ashamed of a universe like this and creep out of it as soon as he could. The great glory of a great book is, that it will not let itself be limited to the law of environment in dealing with a man. It deals directly with the man himself. It appeals to the law of heredity. It reaches down into the infinite depth of his life. If a man has started a life with parents he had better not have (for all practical purposes), it furnishes him with better ones. It picks and chooses in behalf of his life out of his very grandfathers, for him. It not only supplies him with a new set of neighbours as often as he wants them. It sees that he is born again every morning on the wide earth and that he has a new set of parents to be born to. It is a part of the infinite and irrepressible hopefulness of this mortal life that each man of us who dwells on the earth is the child of an infinite marriage. We are all equipped, even the poorest of us, from the day we begin, with an infinite number of fathers and an infinite number of mothers--no telling, as we travel down the years, which shall happen to us next. If what we call heredity were a matter of a few months,--a narrow, pitiful, two-parent affair,--if the fate of a human being could be shut in with what one man and one woman, playing and working, eating and drinking, under heaven, for a score of years or more, would be likely to have to give him from out of their very selves, heredity would certainly be a whimsical, unjust, undignified law to come into a world by, to don an immortal soul with. A man who has had his life so recklessly begun for him could hardly be blamed for being reckless with it afterward. But it is not true that the principle of heredity in a human life can be confined to a single accident in it. We are all infinite, and our very accidents are infinite. In the very flesh and bones of our bodies we are infinite--brought from the furthest reaches of eternity and the utmost bounds of created life to be ourselves. If we were to do nothing else for threescore years, it is not in our human breath to recite our fathers' names upon our lips. Each of us is the child of an infinite mother, and from her breast, veiled in a thousand years, we draw life, glory, sorrow, sleep, and death. The ones we call fathers and mothers are but ambassadors to us--delegates from a million graves--appointed for our birth. Every boy is a summed-up multitude. The infinite crowd of his fathers beckons for him. As in some vast amphitheatre he lives his life, before the innumerable audience of the dead--each from its circle of centuries--calls to him, contends for him, draws him to himself. Inasmuch as every man who is born in the world is born with an infinite outfit for living in it, it is the office of all books that are true and beautiful books--true to the spirit of a man--that they shall play upon the latent infinity in him; that they shall help him to select his largest self; that they shall help him to give, as the years go on, the right accent to the right fathers, in his life. Books are more close to the latent infinity in a human being than anything else can be, because the habit of the infinite is their habit. As books are more independent of space and time than all other known forces in the lives of men, they seem to make all the men who love them independent also. If a man has not room for his life, he takes a book and makes room for it. When the habit of books becomes the habit of a man he unhands himself at will from space and time; he finds the universe is his universe. He finds ancestors and neighbours alike flocking to him--doing his bidding. God Himself says "Yes" to him and delights in him. He has entered into conspiracy with the nature of things. He does not feel that he is being made. He does not feel that he is making himself. The universe is at work on him--under his own supervision. IV The Charter of Possibility In reading to select one's parents and one's self, there seem to be two instincts involved. These instincts may vary more or less according to the book and the mood of the reader, but the object of all live reading--of every live experience with a book--is the satisfying of one or both of them. A man whose reading means something to him is either letting himself go in a book or letting himself come in it. He is either reading himself out or reading himself in. It is as if every human life were a kind of port on the edge of the universe, when it reads,--possible selves outward-bound and inward-bound trooping before It. Some of these selves are exports and some are imports. If the principle of selection is conceived in a large enough spirit, and is set in operation soon enough, and is continued long enough, there is not a child that can be born on the earth who shall not be able to determine by the use of books, in the course of the years, what manner of man he shall be. He may not be able to determine how soon he shall be that man, or how much of that man shall be fulfilled in himself before he dies, and how much of him shall be left over to be fulfilled in his children, but the fact remains that to an extraordinary degree, through a live use of books, not only a man's education after he is born, but his education before he is born, is placed in his hands. It is the supreme office of books that they do this; that they place the laws of heredity and environment where a man with a determined spirit can do something besides cringing to them. Neither environment nor heredity--taken by itself--can give a man a determined spirit, but it is everything to know that, given a few books and the determined spirit both, a man can have any environment he wants for living his life, and his own assorted ancestors for living it. It is only by means of books that a man can keep from living a partitioned-off life in the world--can keep toned up to the divine sense of possibility in it. We hear great men every day, across space and time, halloaing to one another in books, and across all things, as we feel and read, is the call of our possible selves. Even the impossible has been achieved, books tell us, in history, again and again. It has been achieved by several men. This may not prove very much, but if it does not prove anything else, it proves that the possible, at least, is the privilege of the rest of us. It has its greeting for every man. The sense of the possible crowds around him, and not merely in his books nor merely in his life, but in the place where his life and books meet--in his soul. However or wherever a man may be placed, it is the great book that reminds him Who he is. It reminds him who his Neighbour is. It is his charter of possibility. Having seen, he acts on what he sees, and reads himself out and reads himself in accordingly. V The Great Game It would be hard to say which is the more important, reading for exports or imports, reading one's self out or reading one's self in, but inasmuch as the importance of reading one's self out is more generally overlooked, it may be well to dwell upon it. Most of the reading theories of the best people to-day, judging from the prohibitions of certain books, overlook the importance altogether, in vital and normal persons--especially the young,--of reading one's self out. It is only as some people keep themselves read out, and read out regularly, that they can be kept from bringing evil on the rest of us. If Eve had had a novel, she would have sat down under the Tree and read about the fruit instead of eating it. If Adam had had a morning paper, he would hardly have listened to his wife's suggestion. If the Evil One had come up to Eve in the middle of _Les Miserables_, or one of Rossetti's sonnets, no one would ever have heard of him. The main misfortune of Adam and Eve was that they had no arts to come to the rescue of their religion. If Eve could have painted the apple, she would not have eaten it. She put it into her mouth because she could not think of anything else to do with it, and she had to do something. She had the artistic temperament (inherited from her mother Sleep, probably, or from being born in a dream), and the temptation of the artistic temperament is, that it gets itself expressed or breaks something. She had tried everything--flowers, birds, clouds, and her shadow in the stream, but she found they were all inexpressible. She could not express them. She could not even express herself. Taking walks in Paradise and talking with the one man the place afforded was not a complete and satisfying self-expression. Adam had his limitations--like all men. There were things that could not be said. Standing as we do on the present height of history, with all the resources of sympathy in the modern world, its countless arts drawing the sexes together, going about understanding people, communing with them, and expressing them, making a community for every man, even in his solitude, it is not hard to see that the comparative failure of the first marriage was a matter of course. The real trouble was that Adam and Eve, standing in their brand-new world, could not express themselves to one another. As there was nothing else to express them, they were bored. It is to Eve's credit that she was more bored than Adam was, and that she resented it more; and while a Fall, under the circumstances, was as painful as it was inevitable, and a rather extreme measure on Eve's part, no one will deny that it afforded relief on the main point. It seems to be the universal instinct of all Eve's sons and daughters that have followed since, that an expressive world is better than a dull one. An expressive world is a world in which all the men and women are getting themselves expressed, either in their experiences or in their arts--that is, in other people's experiences. The play, the picture, and the poem and the novel and the symphony have all been the outgrowth of Eve's infinity. She could not contain herself. She either had more experience than she could express, or she had more to express than she could possibly put into experience. One of the worst things that we know about the Japanese is that they have no imperative mood in the language. To be able to say of a nation that it has been able to live for thousands of years without feeling the need of an imperative, is one of the most terrible and sweeping accusations that has ever been made against a people on the earth. Swearing may not be respectable, but it is a great deal more respectable than never wanting to. Either a man is dead in this world, or he is out looking for words on it. There is a great place left over in him, and as long as that place is left over, it is one of the practical purposes of books to make it of some use to him. Whether the place is a good one or a bad one, something must be done with it, and books must do it. If there were wordlessness for five hundred years, man would seek vast inarticulate words for himself. Cathedrals would rise from the ground undreamed as yet to say we worshipped. Music would be the daily necessity of the humblest life. Orchestras all around the world would be created,--would float language around the dumbness in it. Composers would become the greatest, the most practical men in all the nations. Viaducts would stretch their mountains of stone across the valleys to find a word that said we were strong. Out of the stones of the hills, the mists of rivers, out of electricity, even out of silence itself, we would force expression. From the time a baby first moves his limbs to when--an old man--he struggles for his last breath, the one imperious divine necessity of life is expression. Hence the artist now and for ever--the ruler of history--whoever makes it. And if he cannot make it, he makes the makers of it. The artist is the man who, failing to find neighbours for himself, makes his neighbours with his own hands. If a woman is childless, she paints Madonnas. It is the inspiration, the despair that rests over all life. If we cannot express ourselves in things that are made, we make things, and if we cannot express ourselves in the things we make, we turn to words, and if we cannot express ourselves in words, we turn to other men's words. The man who is satisfied with one life does not exist. The suicide does not commit suicide because he is tired of life, but because he wants so many more lives that he cannot have. The native of the tropics buys a book to the North Pole. If we are poor, we grow rich on paper. We roll in carriages through the highway of letters. If we are rich, we revel in a printed poverty. We cry our hearts out over our starving paper-children and hold our shivering, aching magazine hands over dying coals in garrets we live in by subscription at three dollars a year. The Bible is the book that has influenced men most in the world because it has expressed them the most. The moment it ceases to be the most expressive book, it will cease to be the most practical and effective one in human life. There is more of us than we can live. The touch of the infinite through which our spirits wandered is still upon us. The world cries to the poet: "Give me a new word--a word--a word! I will have a word!" It cries to the great man out of all its narrow places: "Give me another life! I will have a new life!" and every hero the world has known is worn threadbare with worship, because his life says for other men what their lives have tried to say. Every masterful life calls across the world a cry of liberty to pent-up dreams, to the ache of faith in all of us, "Here thou art my brother--this is thy heart that I have lived." A hero is immortalised because his life is every man's larger self. So through the day-span of our years--a tale that is never told--we wander on, the infinite heart of each of us prisoned in blood and flesh and the cry of us everywhere, throughout all being, "Give me room!" It cries to the composer, "Make a high wide place for me!" and on the edge of the silence between life and words, to music we come at last because it is the supreme confidante of the human heart, the confessional, the world-priest between the actual self and the larger self of all of us. With all the multiplying of arts and the piling up of books that have come to us, the most important experience that men have had in this world since they began on it, is that they are infinite, that they cannot be expressed on it. It is not infrequently said that men must get themselves expressed in living, but the fact remains that no one has ever heard of a man as yet who really did it, or who was small enough to do it. There was One who seemed to express Himself by living and by dying both, but if He had any more than succeeded in beginning to express Himself, no one would have believed that He was the Son of God,--even that He was the Son of Man. It was because He could not crowd all that He was into thirty-three short years and twelve disciples and one Garden of Gethsemane and one Cross that we know who He was. Riveted down to its little place with iron circumstance, the actual self in every man depends upon the larger possible self for the something that makes the actual self worth while. It is hard to be held down by circumstance, but it would be harder to be contented there, to live without those intimations of our diviner birth that come to us in books--books that weave some of the glory we have missed in our actual lives, into the glory of our thoughts. Even if life be to the uttermost the doing of what are called practical things, it is only by the occasional use of his imagination in reading or otherwise, that the practical man can hope to be in physical or mental condition to do them. He needs a rest from his actual self. A man cannot even be practical without this imaginary or larger self. Unless he can work off his unexpressed remnant, his limbs are not free. Even down to the meanest of us, we are incurably larger than anything we can do. Reading a book is a game a man plays with his own infinity. VI Outward Bound If there could only be arranged some mystical place over the edge of human existence, where we all could go and practise at living, have full-dress rehearsals of our parts, before we are hustled in front of the footlights in our very swaddling clothes, how many people are there who have reached what are fabulously called years of discretion, who would not believe in such a place, and who would not gladly go back to it and spend most of the rest of their lives there? This is one of the things that the world of books is for. Most of us would hardly know what to do without it, the world of books, if only as a place to make mistakes and to feel foolish in. It seems to be the one great unobserved retreat, where all the sons of men may go, may be seen flocking day and night, to get the experiences they would not have, to be ready for those they cannot help having. It is the Rehearsal Room of History. The gods watch it--this Place of Books--as we who live go silent, trooping back and forth in it--the ceaseless, heartless, awful, beautiful pantomime of life. It seems to be the testimony of human nature, after a somewhat immemorial experience, that some things in us had better be expressed by being lived, and that other things had better be expressed--if possible--in some other way. There are a great many men, even amongst the wisest and strongest of us, who benefit every year of their lives by what might be called the purgative function of literature,--men who, if they did not have a chance at the right moment to commit certain sins with their imaginary selves, would commit them with their real ones. Many a man of the larger and more comprehensive type, hungering for the heart of all experience, bound to have its spirit, if not itself, has run the whole gamut of his possible selves in books, until all the sins and all the songs of men have coursed through his being. He finds himself reading not only to fill his lungs with ozone and his heart with the strength of the gods, but to work off the humour in his blood, to express his underself, and get it out of the way. Women who never cry their tears out--it is said--are desperate, and men who never read their sins away are dangerous. People who are tired of doing wrong on paper do right. To be sick of one's sins in a book saves not only one's self but every one else a deal of trouble. A man has not learned how to read until he reads with his veins as well as his arteries. It would be useless to try to make out that evil passions in literature accomplish any absolute good, but they accomplish a relative good which the world can by no means afford to overlook. The amount of crime that is suggested by reading can be more than offset by the extraordinary amount of crime waiting in the hearts of men, aimed at the world and glanced off on paper. There are many indications that this purgative function of literature is the main thing it is for in our present modern life. Modern life is so constituted that the majority of people who live in it are expressing their real selves more truly in their reading than they are in their lives. When one stops to consider what these lives are--most of them--there can be but one conclusion about the reading of the people who have to live them, and that is that while sensational reading may be an evil, as compared with the evil that has made it necessary, it is an immeasurable blessing. The most important literary and artistic fact of the nineteenth century is the subdivision of labour--that is, the subdividing of every man's life and telling him he must only be alive in a part of it. In proportion as an age takes sensations out of men's lives it is obliged to put them into their literature. Men are used to sensations on the earth as long as they stay on it and they are bound to have them in one way or another. An age which narrows the actual lives of men, which so adjusts the labour of the world that nearly every man in it not only works with a machine, spiritual or otherwise, but is a machine himself, and a small part of a machine, must not find fault with its art for being full of hysterics and excitement, or with its newspapers for being sensational. Instead of finding fault it has every reason to be grateful--to thank a most merciful Heaven that the men in the world are still alive enough in it to be capable of feeling sensation in other men's lives, though they have ceased to be capable of having sensations in their own, or of feeling sensations if they had them. It was when the herds of her people were buried in routine and peace that Rome had bull-fights. New York, with its hordes of drudges, ledger-slaves, machinists, and clerks, has the New York _World_. It lasts longer than a bull-fight and it can be had every morning before a man starts off to be a machine and every evening when he gets back from being a machine--for one cent. On Sunday a whole Colosseum fronts him and he is glutted with gore from morning until night. To a man who is a penholder by the week, or a linotype machine, or a ratchet in a factory, a fight is infinite peace. Obedience to the command of Scripture, making the Sabbath a day of rest, is entirely relative. Some of us are rested by taking our under-interested lives to a Sunday paper, and others are rested by taking our over-interested lives to church. Men read dime novels in proportion as their lives are staid and mechanical. Men whose lives are their own dime novels are bored by printed ones. Men whose years are crowded with crises, culminations, and events, who run the most risks in business, are found with the steadiest papers in their hands. The train-boy knows that the people who buy the biggest headlines are all on salaries and that danger and blood and thunder are being read nowadays by effeminately safe men, because it is the only way they can be had. But it is not only the things that are left out of men's lives but the things they have too much of, which find their remedy in books. They are the levers with which the morbid is controlled. _Similia similibus curantur_ may be a dangerous principle to be applied by everybody, but thousands of men and women mulling away on their lives and worrying themselves with themselves, cutting a wide swath of misery wherever they go, have suddenly stopped in a book--have purged away jealousy and despair and passion and nervous prostration in it. A paper-person with melancholia is a better cure for gloom than a live clown can be--who merely goes about reminding people how sad they are. A man is often heard to say that he has tragedy enough in his own life not to want to go to a play for more, but this much having been said and truly said, he almost always goes to the play--to see how true it is. The stage is his huge confidante. Pitying one's self is a luxury, but it takes a great while, and one can never do it enough. Being pitied by a five-thousand-dollar house, and with incidental music, all for a dollar and a half, is a sure and quick way to cheer up. Being pitied by Victor Hugo is a sure way also. Hardy can do people's pitying for them much better than they can do it, and it's soon over and done with. It is noticeable that while the impressive books, the books that are written to impress people, have a fair and nominal patronage, it is the expressive books, the books that let people out, which have the enormous sales. This seems to be true of the big-sale books whether the people expressed in them are worth expressing (to any one but themselves) or not. The principle of getting one's self expressed is so largely in evidence that not only the best but the worst of our books illustrate it. Our popular books are carbuncles mostly. They are the inevitable and irrepressible form of the instinct of health in us, struggling with disease. On the whole, it makes being an optimist in modern life a little less of a tight-rope-walk. If even the bad elements in current literature--which are discouraging enough--are making us better, what shall be said of the good? Book III Details. The Confessions of an Unscientific Mind I--Unscientific I On Being Intelligent in a Library I have a way every two or three days or so, of an afternoon, of going down to our library, sliding into the little gate by the shelves, and taking a long empty walk there. I have found that nothing quite takes the place of it for me,--wandering up and down the aisles of my ignorance, letting myself be loomed at, staring doggedly back. I always feel when I go out the great door as if I had won a victory. I have at least faced the facts. I swing off to my tramp on the hills where is the sense of space, as if I had faced the bully of the world, the whole assembled world, in his own den, and he had given me a license to live. Of course it only lasts a little while. One soon feels a library nowadays pulling on him. One has to go back and do it all over again, but for the time being it affords infinite relief. It sets one in right relations to the universe, to the original plan of things. One suspects that if God had originally intended that men on this planet should be crowded off by books on it, it would not have been put off to the twentieth century. I was saying something of this sort to The Presiding Genius of the State of Massachusetts the other day, and when I was through he said promptly: "The way a man feels in a library (if any one can get him to tell it) lets out more about a man than anything else in the world." It did not seem best to make a reply to this. I didn't think it would do either of us any good. Finally, in spite of myself, I spoke up and allowed that I felt as intelligent in a library as anybody. He did not say anything. When I asked him what he thought being intelligent in a library was, he took the general ground that it consisted in always knowing what one was about there, in knowing exactly what one wanted. I replied that I did not think that that was a very intelligent state of mind to be in, in a library. Then I waited while he told me (fifteen minutes) what an intelligent mind was anywhere (nearly everywhere, it seemed to me). But I did not wait in vain, and at last, when he had come around to it, and had asked me what I thought the feeling of intelligence consisted in, in libraries, I said it consisted in being pulled on by the books. I said quite a little after this, and of course the general run of my argument was that I was rather intelligent myself. The P. G. S. of M. had little to say to this, and after he had said how intelligent he was awhile, the conversation was dropped. * * * * * The question that concerns me is, What shall a man do, how shall he act, when he finds himself in the hush of a great library,--opens the door upon it, stands and waits in the midst of it, with his poor outstretched soul all by himself before IT,--and feels the books pulling on him? I always feel as if it were a sort of infinite crossroads. The last thing I want to know in a library is exactly what I want there. I am tired of knowing what I want. I am always knowing what I want. I can know what I want almost anywhere. If there is a place left on God's earth where a modern man can go and go regularly and not know what he wants awhile, in Heaven's name why not let him? I am as fond as the next man, I think, of knowing what I am about, but when I find myself ushered into a great library I do not know what I am about any sooner than I can help. I shall know soon enough--God forgive me! When it is given to a man to stand in the Assembly Room of Nations, to feel the ages, all the ages, gathering around him, flowing past his life; to listen to the immortal stir of Thought, to the doings of The Dead, why should a man interrupt--interrupt a whole world--to know what he is about? I stand at the junction of all Time and Space. I am the three tenses. I read the newspaper of the universe. It fades away after a little, I know. I go to the card catalogue like a lamb to the slaughter, poke my head into Knowledge--somewhere--and am lost, but the light of it on the spirit does not fade away. It leaves a glow there. It plays on the pages afterward. There is a certain fine excitement about taking a library in this fashion, a sense of spaciousness of joy in it, which one is almost always sure to miss in libraries--most libraries--by staying in them. The only way one can get any real good out of a modern library seems to be by going away in the nick of time. If one stays there is no help for it. One is soon standing before the card catalogue, sorting one's wits out in it, filing them away, and the sense of boundlessness both in one's self and everybody else--the thing a library is for--is fenced off for ever. At least it seems fenced off for ever. One sees the universe barred and patterned off with a kind of grating before it. It is a card-catalogue universe. I can only speak for one, but I must say for myself, that as compared with this feeling one has in the door, this feeling of standing over a library--mere reading in it, sitting down and letting one's self be tucked into a single book in it--is a humiliating experience. II How It Feels I am not unaware that this will seem to some--this empty doting on infinity, this standing and staring at All-knowledge--a mere dizzying exercise, whirling one's head round and round in Nothing, for Nothing. And I am not unaware that it would be unbecoming in me or in any other man to feel superior to a card catalogue. A card catalogue, of course, as a device for making a kind of tunnel for one's mind in a library--for working one's way through it--is useful and necessary to all of us. Certainly, if a man insists on having infinity in a convenient form--infinity in a box--it would be hard to find anything better to have it in than a card catalogue. But there are times when one does not want infinity in a box. He loses the best part of it that way. He prefers it in its natural state. All that I am contending for is, that when these times come, the times when a man likes to feel infinite knowledge crowding round him,--feel it through the backs of unopened books, and likes to stand still and think about it, worship with the thought of it,--he ought to be allowed to. It is true that there is no sign up against it (against thinking in libraries). But there might as well be. It amounts to the same thing. No one is expected to. People are expected to keep up an appearance, at least, of doing something else there. I do not dare to hope that the next time I am caught standing and staring in a library, with a kind of blank, happy look, I shall not be considered by all my kind intellectually disreputable for it. I admit that it does not look intelligent--this standing by a door and taking in a sweep of books--this reading a whole library at once. I can imagine how it looks. It looks like listening to a kind of cloth and paper chorus--foolish enough; but if I go out of the door to the hills again, refreshed for them and lifted up to them, with the strength of the ages in my limbs, great voices all around me, flocking my solitary walk--who shall gainsay me? III How a Specialist can Be an Educated Man It is a sad thing to go into a library nowadays and watch the people there who are merely making tunnels through it. Some libraries are worse than others--seem to be made for tunnels. College libraries, perhaps, are the worst. One can almost--if one stands still enough in them--hear what is going on. It is getting to be practically impossible in a college library to slink off to a side shelf by one's self, take down some gentle-hearted book one does not need to read there and begin to listen in it, without hearing some worthy person quietly, persistently boring himself around the next corner. It is getting worse every year. The only way a readable library book can be read nowadays is to take it away from the rest of them. It must be taken where no other reading is going on. The busy scene of a crowd of people--mere specialists and others--gathered around roofing their minds in is no fitting place for a great book or a live book to be read--a book that uncovers the universe. On the other hand, it were certainly a trying universe if it were uncovered all the time, if one had to be exposed to all of it and to all of it at once, always; and there is no denying that libraries were intended to roof men's minds in sometimes as well as to take the roofs of their minds off. What seems to be necessary is to find some middle course in reading between the scientist's habit of tunnelling under the dome of knowledge and the poet's habit of soaring around in it. There ought to be some principle of economy in knowledge which will allow a man, if he wants to, or knows enough, to be a poet and a scientist both. It is well enough for a mere poet to take a library as a spectacle--a kind of perpetual Lick Observatory to peek at the universe with, if he likes, and if a man is a mere scientist, there is no objection to his taking a library as a kind of vast tunnel system, or chart for burrowing. But the common educated man--the man who is in the business of being a human being, unless he knows some middle course in a library, knows how to use its Lick Observatory and its tunnel system both--does not get very much out of it. If there can be found some principle of economy in knowledge, common to artists and scientists alike, which will make it possible for a poet to know something, and which will make it possible for a scientist to know a very great deal without being--to most people--a little underwitted, it would very much simplify the problem of being educated in modern times, and there would be a general gratefulness. Far be it from me to seem to wish to claim this general gratefulness for myself. I have no world-reforming feeling about the matter. I would be very grateful just here to be allowed to tuck in a little idea--no chart to go with it--on this general subject, which my mind keeps coming back to, as it runs around watching people. There seem to be but two ways of knowing. One of them is by the spirit and the other is by the letter. The most reasonable principle of economy in knowledge would seem to be, that in all reading that pertains to man's specialty--his business in knowledge--he should read by the letter, knowing the facts by observing them himself, and that in all other reading he should read through the spirit of imagination--the power of taking to one's self facts that have been observed by others. If a man wants to be a specialist he must do his knowing like a scientist; but if a scientist wants to be a man he must be a poet; he must learn how to read like a poet; he must educate in himself the power of absorbing immeasurable knowledge, the facts of which have been approved and observed by others. The weak point in our modern education seems to be that it has broken altogether with the spirit or the imagination. Playing upon the spirit or the imagination of a man is the one method possible to employ in educating him in everything except his specialty. It is the one method possible to employ in making even a powerful specialist of him; in relating his specialty to other specialties; that is, in making either him or his specialty worth while. Inasmuch as it has been decreed that every man in modern life must be a specialist, the fundamental problem that confronts modern education is, How can a specialist be an educated man? There would seem to be but one way a specialist can be an educated man. The only hope for a specialist lies in his being allowed to have a soul (or whatever he chooses to call it), a spirit or an imagination. If he has This, whatever it is, in one way or another, he will find his way to every book he needs. He will read all the books there are in his specialty. He will read all other books through their backs. IV On Reading Books through Their Backs As this is the only way the majority of books can be read by anybody, one wonders why so little has been said about it. Reading books through their backs is easily the most important part of a man's outfit, if he wishes to be an educated man. It is not necessary to prove this statement. The books themselves prove it without even being opened. The mere outside of a library--almost any library--would seem to settle the point that if a man proposes to be in any larger or deeper sense a reader of books, the books must be read through their backs. Even the man who is obliged to open books in order to read them sooner or later admits this. He finds the few books he opens in the literal or unseeing way do not make him see anything. They merely make him see that he ought to have opened the others--that he must open the others; that is, if he is to know anything. The next thing he sees is that he must open all the others to know anything. When he comes to know this he may be said to have reached what is called, by stretch of courtesy, a state of mind. It is the scientific state of mind. Any man who has watched his mind a little knows what this means. It is the first incipient symptom in a mind that science is setting in. The only possible cure for it is reading books through their backs. As this scientific state of mind is the main obstacle nowadays in the way of reading books through their backs, it is fitting, perhaps, at this point that I should dwell on it a little. I do not claim to be a scientist, and I have never--even in my worst moments--hoped for a scientific mind. I am afraid I know as well as any one who has read as far as this, in this book, that I cannot prove anything. The book has at least proved that; but it does seem to me that there are certain things that very much need to be said about the scientific mind, in its general relation to knowledge. I would give the world to be somebody else for awhile and say them--right here in the middle of my book. But I know as well as any one, after all that has passed, that if I say anything about the scientific mind nobody will believe it. The best I can do is to say how I feel about the scientific mind. "And what has that to do with it?" exclaims the whole world and all its laboratories. What is really wanted in dealing with this matter seems to be some person--some grave, superficial person--who will take the scientific mind up scientifically, shake it and filter it, put it under the microscope, stare at it with a telescope, stick the X-ray through it, lay it on the operating table--show what is the matter with it--even to itself. Anything that is said about the scientific mind which is not said in a big, bow-wow, scientific, impersonal, out-of-the-universe sort of way will not go very far. And yet, the things that need to be said about the scientific mind--the things that need to be done for it--need to be said and done so very much, that it seems as if almost any one might help. So I am going to keep on trying. Let no one suppose, however, that because I have turned around the corner into another chapter, I am setting myself up as a sudden and new authority on the scientific mind. I do not tell how it feels to be scientific. I merely tell how it looks as if it felt. I have never known a great scientist, and I can only speak of the kind of scientist I have generally met--the kind every one meets nowadays, the average, bare scientist. He always looks to me as if he had a grudge against the universe--jealous of it or something. There are so many things in it he cannot know and that he has no use for unless he does. It always seems to me (perhaps it seems so to most of us in this world, who are running around and enjoying things and guessing on them) that the average scientist has a kind of dreary and disgruntled look, a look of feeling left out. Nearly all the universe goes to waste with a scientist. He fixes himself so that it has to. If a man cannot get the good of a thing until he knows it and knows all of it, he cannot expect to be happy in this universe. There are no conveniences for his being happy in it. It is the wrong size, to begin with. Exact knowledge at its best, or even at its worst, does not let a man into very many things in a universe like this one. A large part of it is left over with a scientist. It is the part that is left over which makes him unhappy. I am not claiming that a scientist, simply because he is a scientist, is any unhappier or needs to be any unhappier than other men are. He does not need to be. It all comes of a kind of brutal, sweeping, overriding prejudice he has against guessing on anything. V On Keeping Each Other in Countenance I do not suppose that my philosophising on this subject--a sort of slow, peristaltic action of my own mind--is of any particular value; that it really makes any one feel any better except myself. But it has just occurred to me that I may have arisen, quite as well as not, without knowing it, to the dignity of the commonplace. "The man who thinks he is playing a solo in any human experience," says this morning's paper, "only needs a little more experience to know that he is a member of a chorus." I suspect myself of being a Typical Case. The scientific mind has taken possession of all the land. It has assumed the right of eminent domain in it, and there must be other human beings here and there, I am sure, standing aghast at learning in our modern day, even as I am, their whys and wherefores working within them, trying to wonder their way out in this matter. All that is necessary, as I take it, is for one or the other of us to speak up in the world, barely peep in it, make himself known wherever he is, tell how he feels, and he will find he is not alone. Then we will get together. We will keep each other in countenance. We will play with our minds if we want to. We will take the liberty of knowing rows of things we don't know all about, and we will be as happy as we like, and if we keep together we will manage to have a fairly educated look besides. I am very sure of this. But it is the sort of thing a man cannot do alone. If he tries to do it with any one else, any one that happens along, he is soon come up with. It cannot be done in that way. There is no one to whom to turn. Almost every mind one knows in this modern educated world is a suspicious, unhappy, abject, helpless, scientific mind. It is almost impossible to find a typical educated mind, either in this country or in Europe or anywhere, that is not a rolled-over mind, jealous and crushed by knowledge day and night, and yet staring at its ignorance everywhere. The scientist is almost always a man who takes his mind seriously, and he takes the universe as seriously as he takes his mind. Instead of glorying in a universe and being a little proud of it for being such an immeasurable, unspeakable, unknowable success, his whole state of being is one of worry about it. The universe seems to irritate him somehow. Has he not spent years of hard labour in making his mind over, in drilling it into not-thinking, into not-inferring things, into not-knowing anything he does not know all of? And yet here he is and here is his whole life--does it not consist in being baffled by germs and bacilli, crowed over by atoms, trampled on by the stars? It is getting so that there is but one thing left that the modern, educated scientific mind feels that it knows and that is the impossibility of knowledge. Certainly if there is anything in this wide world that can possibly be in a more helpless, more pulp-like state than the scientific mind in the presence of something that cannot be known, something that can only be used by being wondered at (which is all most of the universe is for), it has yet to be pointed out. He may be better off than he looks, and I don't doubt he quite looks down on me as, A mere poet, The Chanticleer of Things, Who lives to flap his wings-- It's all he knows,-- They're never furled; Who plants his feet On the ridge-pole of the world And crows. Still, I like it very well. I don't know anything better that can be done with the world, and as I have said before I say again, my friend and brother, the scientist, is either very great or very small, or he is moderately, decently unhappy. At least this is the way it looks from the ridge-pole of the world. VI The Romance of Science Science is generally accredited with being very matter-of-fact. But there has always been one romance in science from the first,--its romantic attitude toward itself. It would be hard to find any greater romance in modern times. The romance of science is the assumption that man is a plain, pure-blooded, non-inferring, mere-observing being and that in proportion as his brain is educated he must not use it. "Deductive reasoning has gone out with the nineteenth century," says The Strident Voice. This is the one single inference that the scientific method seems to have been able to make--the inference that no inference has a right to exist. So far as I can see, if there are going to be inferences anyway, and one has to take one's choice in inferring, I would rather have a few inferences on hand that I can live with every day than to have this one huge, voracious inference (the scientist's) which swallows all the others up. For that matter, when the scientist has actually made it,--this one huge guess that he hasn't a right to guess,--what good does it do him? He never lives up to it, and all the time he has his poor, miserable theory hanging about him, dogging him day and night. Does he not keep on guessing in spite of himself? Does he not live plumped up against mystery every hour of his life, crowded on by ignorance, forced to guess if only to eat? Is he not browbeaten into taking things for granted whichever way he turns? He becomes a doleful, sceptical, contradictory, anxious, disagreeable, disapproving person as a matter of course. One would think, in the abstract, that a certain serenity would go with exact knowledge; and it would, if a man were willing to put up with a reasonable amount of exact knowledge, eke it out with his brains, some of it; but when he wants all the exact knowledge there is, and nothing else but exact knowledge, and is not willing to mix his brains with it, it is different. When a man puts his whole being into a vise of exact knowledge, he finds that he has about as perfect a convenience for being miserable as could possibly be devised. He soon becomes incapable of noticing things or of enjoying things in the world for themselves. With one or two exceptions, I have never known a scientist to whom his knowing a thing, or not knowing it, did not seem the only important thing about it. Of course when a man's mind gets into this dolefully cramped, exact condition, a universe like this is not what it ought to be for him. He lives too unprotected a life. His whole attitude toward the universe becomes one of wishing things would keep off of him in it--things he does not know. Are there not enough things he does not know even in his specialty? And as for this eternal being reminded of the others, this slovenly habit of "general information" that interesting people have--this guessing, inferring, and generalising--what is it all for? What does it all come to? If a man is after knowledge, let him have knowledge, knowledge that is knowledge, let him find a fact, anything for a fact, get God into a corner, hug one fact and live with it and die with it. When a man once gets into this shut-in attitude it is of little use to put a word in, with him, for the daily habit of taking the roof off one's mind, letting the universe play upon it instead of trying to bore a hole in it somewhere. "What does it avail after all, after it is all over, after a long life, even if the hole is bored," I say to him, "to stand by one's little hole and cry, 'Behold, oh, human race, this Gimlet Hole which I have bored in infinite space! Let it be forever named for me.'" And in the meantime the poor fellow gets no joy out of living. He does not even get credit for his not-living, seventy years of it. He fences off his little place to know a little of nothing in, becomes a specialist, a foot note to infinite space, and is never noticed afterwards (and quite reasonably) by any one--not even by himself. VII Monads I am not saying that this is the way a scientist--a mere scientist, one who has the fixed habit of not reading books through their backs--really feels. It is the way he ought to feel. As often as not he feels quite comfortable. One sees one every little while (the mere scientist) dropping the entire universe with a dull thud and looking happy after it. But the best ones are different. Even those who are not quite the best are different. It is really a very rare scientist who joggles contentedly down without qualms, or without delays, to a hole in space. There is always a capability, an apparently left-over capability in him. What seems to happen is, that when the average human being makes up his mind to it, insists on being a scientist, the Lord keeps a remnant of happiness in him--a gnawing on the inside of him which will not let him rest. This remnant of happiness in him, his soul, or inferring organ, or whatever it may be, makes him suspect that the scientific method as a complete method is a false, superficial, and dangerous method, threatening the very existence of all knowledge that is worth knowing on the earth. He begins to suspect that a mere scientist, a man who cannot even make his mind work both ways, backwards or forwards, as he likes (the simplest, most rudimentary motion of a mind), inductively or deductively, is bound to have something left out of all of his knowledge. He sees that the all-or-nothing assumption in knowledge, to say nothing of not applying to the arts, in which it is always sterile, does not even apply to the physical sciences--to the mist, dust, fire, and water out of which the earth and the scientist are made. For men who are living their lives as we are living ours, in the shimmer of a globule in space, it is not enough that we should lift our faces to the sky and blunder and guess at a God there, because there is so much room between the stars, and murmur faintly, "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." By the infinite bones of our bodies, by the seeds of the million years that flow in our veins, _material_ things are spiritually discerned. There is not science enough nor scientific method enough in the schools of all Christendom for a man to listen intelligently to his own breathing with, or to know his own thumb-nail. Is not his own heart thundering the infinite through him--beating the eternal against his sides--even while he speaks? And does he not know it while he speaks? By the time a man's a Junior or a Senior nowadays, if he feels the eternal beating against his sides he thinks it must be something else. He thinks he ought to. It is a mere inference. At all events he has little use for it unless he knows just how eternal it is. I am speaking too strongly? I suppose I am. I am thinking of my four special boys--boys I have been doing my living in, the last few years. I cannot help speaking a little strongly. Two of them--two as fine, flash-minded, deep-lit, wide-hearted fellows as one would like to see, are down at W----, being cured of inferring in a four years' course at the W---- Scientific School. Another one, who always seemed to me to have real genius in him, who might have had a period in literature named after him, almost, if he'd stop studying literature, is taking a graduate course at M----, learning that it cannot be proved that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. He has already become one of these spotlessly accurate persons one expects nowadays. (I hardly dare to hope he will even read this book of mine, with all his affection for me, after the first few pages or so, lest he should fall into a low or wondering state of mind.) My fourth boy, who was the most promising of all, whose mind reached out the farthest, who was always touching new possibilities, a fresh, warm-blooded, bright-eyed fellow, is down under a manhole studying God in the N---- Theological Seminary. This may not be exactly a literal statement, nor a very scientific way to criticise the scientific method, but when one has had to sit and see four of the finest minds he ever knew snuffed out by it,--whatever else may be said for science, scientific language is not satisfying. What is going to happen to us next, in our little town, I hardly dare to know. I only know that three relentlessly inductive, dull, brittle, _blasé_, and springless youths from S---- University have just come down and taken possession of our High School. They seem to be throwing, as near as I can judge, a spell of the impossibility of knowledge over the boys we have left. I admit that I am in an unreasonable state of mind.[3] I think a great many people are. At least I hope so. There is no excuse for not being a little unreasonable. Sometimes it almost seems, when one looks at the condition of most college boys' minds, as if our colleges were becoming the moral and spiritual and intellectual dead-centres of modern life. [3] Fact. I will not yield to any man in admiration for Science--holy and speechless Science; holier than any religion has ever been yet; what religions are made of and are going to be made of, nor am I dating my mind three hundred years back and trying to pick a quarrel with Lord Bacon. I am merely wondering whether, if science is to be taught at all, it had not better be taught, in each branch of it, by men who are teaching a subject they have conceived with their minds instead of a subject which has been merely unloaded on them, piled up on top of their minds, and which their minds do not know anything about. No one seems to have stopped to notice what the spectacle of science as taught in college is getting to be--the spectacle of one set of minds which has been crunched by knowledge crunching another set. Have you never been to One, oh Gentle Reader, and watched It, watched It when It was working, one of these great Endowed Fact-machines, wound up by the dead, going round and round, thousands and thousands of youths in it being rolled out and chilled through and educated in it, having their souls smoothed out of them? Hundreds of human minds, small and sure and hard, working away on thousands of other human minds, making them small and sure and hard. Matter--infinite matter everywhere--taught by More Matter,--taught the way Matter would teach if it knew how--without generalising, without putting facts together to make truths out of them. It would seem, looking at it theoretically, that Science, of all things in this world, the stuff that dreams are made of; the one boundless subject of the earth, face to face and breath to breath with the Creator every minute of its life, would be taught with a divine touch in it, with the appeal to the imagination and the soul, to the world-building instinct in a man, the thing in him that puts universes together, the thing in him that fills the whole dome of space and all the crevices of being with the whisper of God. But it is not so. Science is great, and great scientists are great as a matter of course; but the sciences in the meantime are being taught in our colleges--in many of them, most of them--by men whose minds are mere registering machines. The facts are put in at one end (one click per fact) and come out facts at the other. The sciences are being taught more and more every year by moral and spiritual stutterers, men with non-inferring minds, men who live in a perfect deadlock of knowledge, men who cannot generalise about a fly's wing, bashful, empty, limp, and hopeless and doddering before the commonplacest, sanest, and simplest generalisations of human life. In The Great Free Show, in our common human peep at it, who has not seen them, staggering to know what the very children, playing with dolls and rocking-horses, can take for granted? Minds which seem absolutely incapable of striking out, of taking a good, manly stride on anything, mincing in religion, effeminate in enthusiasm--please forgive me, Gentle Reader, I know I ought not to carry on in this fashion, but have I not spent years in my soul (sometimes it seems hundreds of years) in being humble--in being abject before this kind of mind? It is only a day almost since I have found it out, broken away from it, got hold of the sky to hoot at it with. I am free now. I am not going to be humble longer, before it. I have spent years dully wondering before this mind; wondering what was the matter with me that I could not love it, that I could not go where it loved to go, and come when it said "Come" to me. I have spent years in dust and ashes before it, struggling with myself, trying to make myself small enough to follow this kind of a mind around, and now the scales are fallen from my eyes. When I follow An Inductive Scientific Mind now, or try to follow it through its convolutions of matter-of-fact, its involutions of logic, its wriggling through axioms, I smile a new smile and my heart laughs within me. If I miss the point, I am not in a panic, and if, at the end of the seventeenth platitude that did not need to be proved, I find I do not know where I am, I thank God. I know that I am partly unreasonable, and I know that in my chosen station on the ridge-pole of the world it is useless to criticise those who do not even believe, probably, that worlds have ridge-poles. It is a bit hard to get their attention--and I hope the reader will overlook it if one seems to speak rather loud--from ridge-poles. Oh, ye children of The Literal! ye most serene Highnesses, ye archangels of Accuracy, the Voices of life all challenge you--the world around! What are ye, after all, but pilers-up of matter, truth-stutterers, truth-spellers, sunk in protoplasm to the tops of your souls? What is it that you are going to do with us? How many generations of youths do you want? When will souls be allowed again? When will they be allowed in college? Well, well, I say to my soul, what does it all come to? Why all this ado about it one way or the other? Is it not a great, fresh, eager, boundless world? Does it not roll up out of Darkness with new children on it, night after night? What does it matter, I say to my soul-a generation or so--from the ridge-pole of the world? The great Sun comes round again. It travels over the tops of seas and mountains. Microbes in their dewdrops, seeds in their winds, stars in their courses, worms in their apples, answer it, and the hordes of the ants in their ant-hills run before it. And what does it matter after all, under the great Dome, a few hordes of factmongers more or less, glimmering and wonderless, crawlers on the bottom of the sea of time, lovers of the ooze of knowledge, feeling with slow, myopic mouths at Infinite Truth? But when I see my four faces--the faces of my four special boys, when I hear the college bells ringing to them, it matters a great deal. My soul will not wait. What is the ridge-pole of the world? The distance of a ridge-pole does not count. The extent of a universe does not seem to make very much difference. The next ten generations do not help very much on this one. I go forth in my soul. I take hold of the first scientist I meet--my whole mind pummelling him. "What is it?" I say, "what is it you are doing with us and with the lives of our children? What is it you are doing with yourself? Truth is not a Thing. Did you think it? Truth is not even a Heap of Things. It is a Light. How dare you mock at inferring? How dare you to think to escape the infinite? You cannot escape the infinite even by making yourself small enough. It is written that thou shalt be infinitely small if thou art not infinitely large. Not to infer is to contradict the very nature of facts. Not to infer is not to live. It is to cease to be a fact one's self. What is education if one does not infer? Vacuums rolling around in vacuums. Atoms cross-examining atoms. And you say you will not guess? Do you need to be cudgelled with a whole universe to begin to learn to guess? What is all your science--your boasted science, after all, but more raw material to make more guesses with? Is not the whole Future Tense an inference? Is not History--that which has actually happened--a mystery? You yourself are a mere probability, and God is a generalisation. What does it profit a man to discover The Inductive Method and to lose his own soul? What is The Inductive Method? Do you think that all these scientists who have locked their souls up and a large part of their bodies, in The Inductive Method, if they had waited to be born by The Inductive Method, would ever have heard of it? Being born is one inference and dying is another. Man leaves a wake of infinity after him wherever he goes, and of course it's where he doesn't go. It's all infinity--one way or the other." * * * * * And it came to pass in my dream as I lay on my bed in the night, I thought I saw Man my brother blinking under the dome of space, infinite monad that he is: I saw him with a glass in one hand and a Slide of Infinity in the other, and, in my dream, out of His high heaven God leaned down to me and said to me, "What is THAT?" And as I looked I laughed and prayed in my heart, I scarce knew which, and "Oh, Most Excellent Deity! Who would think it!" I cried. "I do not know, but I think--_I think_--it is a man, thinking he is studying a GERM--one tiny particle of inimitable Immensity ogling another!" And a very pretty sight it is, too, oh Brother Monads--if we do not take it seriously. And what we really need next, oh comrades, scientists--each under our separate stones--is the Laugh Out of Heaven which shall come down and save us--laugh the roofs of our stones off. Then we shall stretch our souls with inferences. We shall lie in the great sun and warm ourselves. VIII Multiplication Tables It would seem to be the main trouble with the scientific mind of the second rank that it overlooks the nature of knowledge in the thirst for exact knowledge. In an infinite world the better part of the knowledge a man needs to have does not need to be exact. These things being as they are, it would seem that the art of reading books through their backs is an equally necessary art to a great scientist and to a great poet. If it is necessary to great scientists and to great poets it is all the more necessary to small ones, and to the rest of us. It is the only way, indeed, in which an immortal human being of any kind can get what he deserves to have to live his life with--a whole cross-section of the universe. A gentleman and a scholar will take nothing less. If a man is to get his cross-section of the universe, his natural share in it, he can only get it by living in the qualities of things instead of the quantities; by avoiding duplicate facts, duplicate persons, and principles; by using the multiplication table in knowledge (inference) instead of adding everything up, by taking all things in this world (except his specialty) through their spirits and essences, and, in general, by reading books through their backs. The problem of cultivating these powers in a man, when reduced to its simplest terms, is reduced to the problem of cultivating his imagination or organ of not needing to be told things. However much a man may know about wise reading and about the principles of economy in knowledge, in an infinite world the measure of his knowledge is bound to be determined, in the long run, by the capacity of his organ of not needing to be told things--of reading books through their backs. II--On Reading for Principles I On Changing One's Conscience We were sitting by my fireplace--several of our club. I had just been reading out loud a little thing of my own. I have forgotten the title. It was something about Books that Other People ought to Read, I think. I stopped rather suddenly, rather more suddenly than anybody had hoped. At least nobody had thought what he ought to say about it. And I saw that the company, after a sort of general, vague air of having exclaimed properly, was settling back into the usual helpless silence one expects--after the appearance of an idea at clubs. "Why doesn't somebody say something?" I said. P. G. S. of M.: "We are thinking." "Oh," I said. I tried to feel grateful. But everybody kept waiting. I was a good deal embarrassed and was getting reckless and was about to make the very serious mistake, in a club, of seeing if I could not rescue one idea by going out after it with another, when The Mysterious Person (who is the only man in our club whose mind ever really comes over and plays in my yard) in the goodness of his heart spoke up. "I have not heard anything in a long time," he began (the club looked at him rather anxiously), "which has done--which has made me feel--less ashamed of myself than this paper. I----" It seemed to me that this was not exactly a fortunate remark. I said I didn't doubt I could do a lot of good that way, probably, if I wanted to--going around the country making people less ashamed of themselves. "But I don't mean that I feel really ashamed of myself about books I have not read," said The Mysterious Person. "What I mean is, that I have a kind of slinking feeling that I ought to--a feeling of being ashamed for not being ashamed." I told The M. P. that I thought New England was full of people; just like him--people with a lot of left-over consciences. The P. G. S. of M. wanted to know what I meant by that. I said I thought there were thousands of people--one sees them everywhere in Massachusetts--fairly intelligent people, people who are capable of changing their minds about things, but who can't change their consciences. Their consciences seem to keep hanging on to them, in the same set way--somehow--with or without their minds. "Some people's consciences don't seem to notice much, so far as I can see, whether they have minds connected with them or not." "Don't you know what it is," I appealed to the P. G. S. of M., "to get everything all fixed up with your mind and your reason and your soul; that certain things that look wrong are all right,--the very things of all others that you ought to do and keep on doing,--and then have your conscience keep right on the same as it always did--tatting them up against you?" The P. G. S. of M. said something about not spending very much time thinking about his conscience. I said I didn't believe in it, but I thought that if a man had one, it was apt to trouble him a little off and on--especially if the one he had was one of these left-over ones. "If you had one of these consciences--I mean the kind of conscience that pretends to belong to you, and acts as if it belonged to some one else," I said "one of these dead-frog-leg, reflex-action consciences, working and twitching away on you day and night, the way I have, you'd _have_ to think about it sometimes. You'd get so ashamed of it. You'd feel trifled with so. You'd----" The P. G. S. of M. said something about not being very much surprised--over my case. He said that people who changed their minds as often as I did couldn't reasonably expect consciences spry enough. His general theory seemed to be that I had a conscience once and wore it out. "It's getting to be so with everybody nowadays," he said. "Nobody is settled. Everything is blown about. We do not respect tradition either in ourselves or in the life about us. No one listens to the Voice of Experience." "There she blows!" I said. I knew it was coming sooner or later. I added that one of the great inconveniences of life, it seemed to me, was the Intolerance of Experienced People. II On the Intolerance of Experienced People It is generally assumed by persons who have taken the pains to put themselves in this very disagreeable class, that people in general--all other people--are as inexperienced--as they look. If a man speaks on a subject at all in their presence, they assume he speaks autobiographically. These people are getting thicker every year. One can't go anywhere without finding them standing around with a kind of "How-do-you-know?" and "Did-it-happen-to-you?" air every time a man says something he knows by--well--by seeing it--perfectly plain seeing it. One doesn't need to stand up to one's neck in experience, in a perfect muck of experience, in order to know things, in order to know they are there. People who are experienced within an inch of their lives, submerged in experience, until all you can see of them is a tired look, are always calling out to the man who sees a thing as he is going by--sees it, I mean, with his mind; sees it without having to put his feet in it--they are always calling out to him to come back and be with them, and know life, as they call it, and duck under to Experience. Now, to say nothing of living with such persons, it is almost impossible to talk with them. It isn't safe even to philosophise when they are around. If a man ventures the assertion in their presence that what a woman loves in a lover is complete subjugation they argue that either he is a fool and is asserting what he has not experienced, or he is still more of one and has experienced it. The idea that a man may have several principles around him that he has not used yet does not occur to them. The average amateur mother, when she belongs to this type, becomes a perfect bigot toward a maiden aunt who advances, perhaps, some harmless little Froebel idea. She swears by the shibboleth of experience, and every new baby she has makes her more disagreeable to people who have not had babies. The only way to get acquainted with her is to have a baby. She assumes that a motherless woman has a motherless mind. The idea that a rich and bountiful womanhood, which is saving its motherhood up, which is free from the absorption and the haste, keenly observant and sympathetic, may come to a kind of motherly insight, distinctly the result of not being experienced, does not occur to her. The art of getting the result--the spirit of experience, without paying all the cost of the experience itself--needs a good word spoken for it nowadays. Some one has yet to point out the value and power of what might be called The Maiden-Aunt Attitude toward Life. The world has had thousands of experienced young mothers for thousands of years--experienced out of their wits--piled up with experiences they don't know anything about; but, in the meantime, the most important contribution to the bringing-up of children in the world that has ever been known--the kindergarten--was thought of in the first place by a man who was never a mother, and has been developed entirely in the years that have followed since by maiden aunts. The spiritual power and manifoldness and largeness which is the most informing quality of a really cultivated man comes from a certain refinement in him, a gift of knowing by tasting. He seems to have touched the spirits of a thousand experiences we know he never has had, and they seem to have left the souls of sorrows and joys in him. He lives in a kind of beautiful magnetic fellowship with all real life in the world. This is only possible by a sort of unconscious economy in the man's nature, a gift of not having to experience things. Avoiding experience is one of the great creative arts of life. We shall have enough before we die. It is forced upon us. We cannot even select it, most of it. But, in so far as we can select it,--in one's reading, for instance,--it behooves a man to avoid experience. He at least wants to avoid experience enough to have time to stop and think about the experience he has; to be sure he is getting as much out of his experience as it is worth. III On Having One's Experience Done Out "But how can one avoid an experience?" By heading it off with a principle. Principles are a lot of other people's experiences, in a convenient form a man can carry around with him, to keep off his own experiences with. No other rule for economising knowledge can quite take the place, it seems to me, of reading for principles. It economises for a man both ways at once. It not only makes it possible for a man to have the whole human race working out his life for him, instead of having to do it all himself, but it makes it possible for him to read anything he likes, to get something out of almost anything he does not like, which he is obliged to read. If a man has a habit of reading for principles, for the law behind everything, he cannot miss it. He cannot help learning things, even from people who don't know them. The other evening when The P. G. S. of M. came into my study, he saw the morning paper lying unopened on the settle by the fireplace. "Haven't you read this yet?" he said. "No, not to-day." "Where are you, anyway? Why not?" I said I hadn't felt up to it yet, didn't feel profound enough--something to that effect. The P. G. S. of M. thinks a newspaper should be read in ten minutes. He looked over at me with a sort of slow, pitying, Boston-Public-Library expression he has sometimes. I behaved as well as I could--took no notice for a minute. "The fact is, I have changed," I said, "about papers and some things. I have times of thinking I'm improved considerably," I added recklessly. Still the same pained Boston-Public-Library expression--only turned on a little harder. "Seems to me," I said, "when a man can't feel superior to other people in this world, he might at least be allowed the privilege of feeling superior to himself once in a while--spells of it." He intimated that the trouble with me was that I wanted both. I admitted that I had cravings for both. I said I thought I'd be a little easier to get along with, if they were more satisfied. He intimated that I was easier to get along with than I ought to be, or than I seemed to think I was. He did not put it in so many words. The P. G. S. of M. never says anything that can be got hold of and answered. Finally I determined to answer him whether he had said anything or not. "Well," I said, "I may feel superior to other people sometimes. I may even feel superior to myself, but I haven't got to the point where I feel superior to a newspaper--to a whole world at once. I don't try to read it in ten minutes. I don't try to make a whole day of a whole world, a foot-note to my oatmeal mush! I don't treat the whole human race, trooping past my breakfast, as a parenthesis in my own mind. I don't try to read a great, serious, boundless thing like a daily newspaper, unfolded out of starlight, gleaner of a thousand sunsets around a world, and talk at the same time. I don't say, 'There's nothing in it,' interrupt a planet to chew my food, throw a planet on the floor and look for my hat.... Nations lunging through space to say good-morning to me, continents flashed around my thoughts, seas for the boundaries of my day's delight ... the great God shining over all! And may He preserve me from ever reading a newspaper in ten minutes!" I have spent as much time as any one, I think, in my day, first and last, in feeling superior to newspapers. I can remember when I used to enjoy it very much--the feeling, I mean. I have spent whole half-days at it, going up and down columns, thinking they were not good enough for me. Now when I take up a morning paper, half-dread, half-delight, I take it up softly. My whole being trembles in the balance before it. The whole procession of my soul, shabby, loveless, provincial, tawdry, is passed in review before it. It is the grandstand of the world. The vast and awful Roll-Call of the things I ought to be--the things I ought to love--in the great world voice sweeps over me. It reaches its way through all my thoughts, through the minutes of my days. "Where is thy soul? Oh, where is thy soul?" the morning paper, up and down its columns, calls to me. There are days that I ache with the echo of it. There are days when I dare not read it until the night. Then the voice that is in it grows gentle with the darkness, it may be, and is stilled with sleep. IV On Reading a Newspaper in Ten Minutes I am not saying it does not take a very intelligent man to read a newspaper in ten minutes--squeeze a planet at breakfast and drop it. I think it does. But I am inclined to think that the intelligent man who reads a newspaper in ten minutes is exactly the same kind of intelligent man who could spend a week reading it if he wanted to, and not waste a minute. And he might want to. He simply reads a newspaper as he likes. He is not confined to one way. He does not read it in ten minutes because he has a mere ten-minute mind, but because he merely has the ten minutes. Rapid reading and slow reading are both based, with such a man, on appreciation of the paper--and not upon a narrow, literary, Boston-Public-Library feeling of being superior to it. The value of reading-matter, like other matter, depends on what a man does with it. All that one needs in order not to waste time in general reading is a large, complete set of principles to stow things away in. Nothing really needs to be wasted. If one knows where everything belongs in one's mind--or tries to,--if one takes the trouble to put it there, reading a newspaper is one of the most colossal, tremendous, and boundless acts that can be performed by any one in the whole course of a human life. If there's any place where a man needs to have all his wits about him, to put things into,--if there's any place where the next three inches can demand as much of a man as a newspaper, where is it? The moment he opens it he lays his soul open and exposes himself to all sides of the world in a second,--to several thousand years of a world at once. A book is a comparatively safe, unintelligent place for a mind to be in. There are at least four walls to it--a few scantlings over one, protecting one from all space. A man has at least some remotest idea of where he is, of what may drop on him, in a book. It may tax his capacity of stowing things away. But he always has notice--almost always. It sees that he has time and room. It has more conveniences for fixing things. The author is always there besides, a kind of valet to anybody, to help people along pleasantly, to anticipate their wants. It's what an author is for. One expects it. But a man finds it is different in a morning paper, rolled out of dreams and sleep into it,--empty, helpless before a day, all the telegraph machines of the world thumping all the night, clicked into one's thoughts before one thinks--no man really has room in him to read a morning paper. No man's soul is athletic or swift enough.... Nations in a sentence.... Thousands of years in a minute, philosophies, religions, legislatures, paleozoics, church socials, side by side; stars and gossip, fools, heroes, comets--infinity on parade, and over the precipice of the next paragraph, head-long--who knows what! Reading a morning paper is one of the supreme acts of presence of mind in a human life. V General Information "But what is going to become of us?" some one says, "if a man has to go through 'the supreme act of presence of mind in a whole human life,' every morning--and every morning before he goes to business? It takes as much presence of mind as most men have, mornings, barely to get up." Well, of course, I admit, if a man's going to read a newspaper to toe the line of all his convictions; if he insists on taking the newspaper as a kind of this-morning's junction of all knowledge, he will have to expect to be a rather anxious person. One could hardly get one paper really read through in this way in one's whole life. If a man is always going to read the news of the globe in such a serious, sensitive, suggestive, improving, Atlas-like fashion, it would be better he had never learned to read at all. At all events, if it's a plain question between a man's devouring his paper or letting his paper devour him, of course the only way to do is to begin the day by reading something else, or by reading it in ten minutes and forgetting it in ten more. One would certainly rather be headlong--a mere heedless, superficial globe-trotter with one's mind, than not to have any mind--to be wiped out at one's breakfast table, to be soaked up into infinity every morning, to be drawn off, evaporated into all knowledge, to begin one's day scattered around the edges of all the world. One would do almost anything to avoid this. And it is what always happens if one reads for principles pell-mell. All that I am claiming for reading for principles is, that if one reads for principles, one really cannot miss it in reading. There is always something there, and a man who treats a newspaper as if it were not good enough for him falls short of himself. The same is true of desultory reading so-called, of the habit of general information, and of the habit of going about noticing things--noticing things over one's shoulder. I am inclined to think that desultory reading is as good if not better for a man than any other reading he can do, if he organises it--has habitual principles and swift channels of thought to pour it into. I do not think it is at all unlikely from such peeps as we common mortals get into the minds of men of genius, that their desultory reading (in the fine strenuous sense) has been the making of them. The intensely suggestive habit of thought, the prehensile power in a mind, the power of grasping wide-apart facts and impressions, of putting them into prompt handfuls, where anything can be done with them that one likes, could not possibly be cultivated to better advantage than by the practice of masterful and regular desultory reading. Certainly the one compelling trait in a work of genius, whether in music, painting, or literature, the trait of untraceableness, the semi-miraculous look, the feeling things give us sometimes, in a great work of art, of being at once impossible together, and inevitable together,--has its most natural background in what would seem at first probably, to most minds, incidental or accidental habits of observation. One always knows a work of art of the second rank by the fact that one can place one's hand on big blocks of material in it almost everywhere, material which has been taken bodily and moved over from certain places. And one always knows a work of art of the first rank by the fact that it is absolutely defiant and elusive. There is a sense of infinity--a gathered-from-everywhere sense in it--of things which belong and have always belonged side by side and exactly where they are put, but which no one had put there. It would be hard to think of any intellectual or spiritual habit more likely to give a man a bi-sexual or at least a cross-fertilising mind, than the habit of masterful, wilful, elemental, desultory reading. The amount of desultory reading a mind can do, and do triumphantly, may be said to be perhaps the supreme test of the actual energy of the mind, of the vital heat in it, of its melting-down power, its power of melting everything through, and blending everything in, to the great central essence of life. No more adequate plan, or, as the architects call it, no better elevation for a man could possibly be found than a daily newspaper of the higher type. For scope, points of view, topics, directions of interest, catholicity, many-sidedness, world-wideness, for all the raw material a large and powerful man must needs be made out of, nothing could possibly excel a daily newspaper. Plenty of smaller artists have been made in the world and will be made again in it--hothouse or parlour artists--men whose work has very little floor-space in it, one- or two-story men, and there is no denying that they have their place, but there never has been yet, and there never will be, I venture to say, a noble or colossal artist or artist of the first rank who shall not have as many stories in him as a daily newspaper. The immortal is the universal in a man looming up. If the modern critic who is looking about in this world of ours for the great artist would look where the small ones are afraid to go, he would stand a fair chance of finding what he is looking for. If one were to look about for a general plan, a rough draft or sketch of the mind of an Immortal, he will find that mind spread out before him in the interests and passions, the giant sorrows and delights of his morning paper. I am not coming out in this chapter to defend morning papers. One might as well pop up in one's place on this globe, wherever one is on it, and say a good word for sunrises. What immediately interests me in this connection is the point that if a man reads for principles in this world he will have time and take time to be interested in a great many things in it. The point seems to be that there is nothing too great or too small for a human brain to carry away with it, if it will have a place to put it. All one has to do, to get the good of a man, a newspaper, a book, or any other action, a paragraph, or even the blowing of a wind, is to lift it over to its principle, see it and delight in it as a part of the whole, of the eternal, and of the running gear of things. Reading for principles may make a man seem very slow at first--several years slower than other people--but as every principle he reads with makes it possible to avoid at least one experience, and, at the smallest calculation, a hundred books, he soon catches up. It would be hard to find a better device for reading books through their backs, for travelling with one's mind, than the habit of reading for principles. A principle is a sort of universal car-coupling. One can be joined to any train of thought in all Christendom with it, and rolled in luxury around the world in the private car of one's own mind. But it is not so much as a luxury as a convenience that reading for principles appeals to a vigorous mind. It is the short-cut to knowledge. The man who is once started in reading for principles is not long in distancing the rest of us, because all the reading that he does goes into growth,--is saved up in a few handy, prompt generalisations. His whole being becomes alert and supple. He has the under-hold in dealing with nature, grips hold the law of the thing and rules it. He is capable of far reaches where others go step by step. In every age of the world of thought he goes about giant-like, lifting worlds with a laugh, doing with the very playing of his mind work which crowds of other minds toiling on their crowds of facts could not accomplish. He is only able to do this by being a master of principles. He has made himself a man who can handle a principle, a sum-total of a thousand facts as easily as other men, men with bare scientific minds, can handle one of the facts. He thinks like a god--not a very difficult thing to do. Any man can do it after thirty or forty years, if he gives himself the chance, if he reads for principles, keeps his imagination--the way Emerson did, for instance--sound and alive all through. He does not need to deny that the bare scientific method, the hugging of the outside of a thing, the being deliberately superficial and literal--the needing to know all of the facts, is a useful and necessary method at times; but outside of his specialty he takes the ground that the scientific method is not the normal method through which a man acquires his knowledge, but a secondary and useful method for verifying the knowledge he has. He acquires knowledge through the constant exercise of his mind with principles. He is full of subtle experiences he never had. He appears to other minds, perhaps, to go to the truth with a flash, but he probably does not. He does not have to go to the truth. He has the truth on the premises right where he can get at it, in its most convenient, most compact and spiritual form. To write or think or act he has but to strike down through the impressions, the experiences,--the saved-up experiences,--of his life, and draw up their principles. A great deal has been said from time to time among the good of late about the passing of the sermon as a practical working force. A great deal has been said among the literary about the passing of the essay. Much has been said also about the passing of poetry and the passing of religion in our modern life. It would not be hard to prove that what has been called, under the pressure of the moment, the passing of religion and poetry, and of the sermon and the essay, could fairly be traced to the temporary failure of education, the disappearance in the modern mind of the power of reading for principles. The very farm-hands of New England were readers for principles once--men who looked back of things--philosophers. Philosophers grew like the grass on a thousand hills. Everybody was a philosopher a generation ago. The temporary obscuration of religion and poetry and the sermon and the essay at the present time is largely due to the fact that generalisation has been trained out of our typical modern minds. We are mobbed with facts. We are observers of the letter of things rather than of the principles and spirits of things. The letter has been heaped upon us. Poetry and religion and the essay and the sermon are all alike, in that they are addressed to what can be taken for granted in men--to sum-totals of experience--the power of seeing sum-totals. They are addressed to generalising minds. The essayist of the highest rank induces conviction by playing upon the power of generalisation, by arousing the associations and experiences that have formed the principles of his reader's mind. He makes his appeal to the philosophic imagination. It is true that a man may not be infallible in depending upon his imagination or principle-gathering organ for acquiring knowledge, and in the nature of things it is subject to correction and verification, but as a positive, practical, economical working organ in a world as large as this, an imagination answers the purpose as well as anything. To a finite man who finds himself in an infinite world it is the one possible practicable outfit for living in it. Reading for principles is its most natural gymnasium. VI But---- I had finished writing these chapters on the philosophic mind, and was just reading them over, thinking how true they were, and how valuable they were for me, and how I must act on them, when I heard a soft "Pooh!" from somewhere way down in the depths of my being. When I had stopped and thought, I saw it was my Soul trying to get my attention. "I do not want you always reading for principles," said my Soul stoutly, "reading for a philosophic mind. I do not want a philosophic mind on the premises." "Very well," I said. "You do not want one yourself," my Soul said, "you would be bored to death with one--with a mind that's always reading for principles!" "I'm not so sure," I said. "You always are with other people's." "Well, there's Meakins," I admitted. "You wouldn't want a Meakins kind of a mind, would you?" (Meakins is always reading for principles.) I refused to answer at once. I knew I didn't want Meakins's, but I wanted to know why. Then I fell to thinking. Hence this chapter. Meakins has changed, I said to myself. The trouble with him isn't that he reads for principles, but he is getting so he cannot read for anything else. What a man really wants, it seems to me, is the use of a philosophic mind. He wants one where he can get at it, where he can have all the benefit of it without having to live with it. It's quite another matter when a man gives his mind up, his own everyday mind--the one he lives with--lets it be coldly, deliberately philosophised through and through. It's a kind of disease. When Meakins visits me now, the morning after he is gone I take a piece of paper and sum his visit up in a row of propositions. When he came before five years ago--his visit was summed up in a great desire in me, a lift, a vow to the universe. He had the same ideas, but they all glowed out into a man. They came to me as a man and for a man--a free, emancipated, emancipating, world-loving, world-making man--a man out in the open, making all the world his comrade. His appeal was personal. Visiting with him now is like sitting down with a stick or pointer over you and being compelled to study a map. He doesn't care anything about me except as one more piece of paper to stamp his map on. And he doesn't care anything about the world he has the map of, except that it is the world that goes with his map. When a man gets into the habit of always reading for principles back of things--back of real, live, particular things--he becomes inhuman. He forgets the things. Meakins bores people, because he is becoming inhuman. He treats human beings over and over again unconsciously, when he meets them, as mere generalisations on legs. His mind seems a great sea of abstractions--just a few real things floating palely around in it for illustrations. When I try to rebuke him for being a mere philosopher or man without hands, he is "setting his universe in order," he says--making his surveys. He may be living in his philosophic mind now, breaking out his intellectual roads but he is going to travel on them later, he explains. In the meantime I notice one thing about the philosophic mind. It not only does not do things. It cannot even be talked with. It is not interested in things in particular. There is something garrulously, pedagogically unreal about it,--at least there is about Meakins's. You cannot so much as mention a real or particular thing to Meakins but he brings out a row of fifteen or twenty principles that go with it, which his mind has peeked around and found behind it. By the time he has floated out about fifteen of them--of these principles back of a thing--you begin to wonder if the thing was there for the principles to be back of. You hope it wasn't. As fond as I am of him, I cannot get at him nowadays in a conversation. He is always just around back of something. He is a ghost. I come home praying Heaven, every time I see him, not to let me evaporate. He talks about the future of humanity by the week, but I find he doesn't notice humanity in particular. You cannot interest him in talking to him about himself, or even in letting him do his own talking about himself. He is a mere detail to himself. You are another detail. What you are and what he is are both mere footnotes to a philosophy. All history is a footnote to it--or at best a marginal illustration. There is no such thing as communing with Meakins unless you use (as I do) a torpedo or battering-ram as a starter. If you let him have his way he sits in his chair and in his deep, beautiful voice addresses a row of remarks to The Future in General--the only thing big enough or worth while to talk to. He sits perfectly motionless (except the whites of his eyes) and talks deeply and tenderly and instructively to the Next Few Hundred Years--to posterity, to babes not yet in their mothers' wombs, while his dearest friends sit by. If ever there was a man who could take a whole roomful of warm, vital people, sitting right next to him, pulsing and glowing in their joys and their sins, and with one single heroic motion of an imperious hand drop them softly and lovingly over into Fatuity and Oblivion in five minutes and leave them out of the world before their own eyes, it is Theophilus Meakins. I try sometimes--but I cannot really do it. He does not really commune with things or with persons at all. He gets what he wants out of them. You feel him putting people, when he meets them, through his philosophy. He makes them over while they wait, into extracts. A man may keep on afterward living and growing, throbbing and being, but he does not exist to Meakins except in his bottle. A man cannot help feeling with Meakins afterward the way milk feels probably, if it could only express it, when it's been put through one of these separators, had the cream taken off of it. Half the world is skim-milk to him. But what does it matter to Meakins? He has them in his philosophy. He does the same way with things as with people. He puts in all nature as a parenthesis, and a rather condescending, explanatory one at that, a symbol, a kind of beckoning, an index-finger to God. He never notices a tree for itself. A great elm would have to call out to him, fairly shout at him, right under its arms: "Oh, Theophilus Meakins, author of _The Habit of Eternity_, author of _The Evolution of the Ego_ look at ME, I also am alive, even as thou art. Canst thou not stop one moment and be glad with _me_? Have I not a thousand leaves glistening and glorying in the great sun? Have I not a million roots feeling for the stored-up light in the ground, reaching up God to me out of the dark? Have I not"--"It is one of the principles of the flux of society," breaks in Theophilus Meakins, "as illustrated in all the processes of the natural world--the sap of this tree," said he, "for instance," brushing the elm-tree off into space, "that the future of mankind depends and always must depend upon----" "The flux of society be ----," said I in holy wrath. I stopped him suddenly, the elm-tree still holding its great arms above us. "Do you suppose that God," I said, "is in any such small business as to make an elm-tree like this--like THIS (look at it, man!), and put it on the earth, have it waving around on it, just to illustrate one of your sermons? Now, my dear fellow, I'm not going to have you lounging around in your mind with an elm-tree like this any longer. I want you to come right over to it," said I, taking hold of him, "and sit down on one of its roots, and lean up against its trunk and learn something, live with it a minute--get blessed by it. The flux of society can wait," I said. Meakins is always tractable enough, when shouted at, or pounded on a little. We sat down under the tree for quite a while, perfectly still. I can't say what it did for Meakins. But it helped me--just barely leaning against the trunk of it helped me, under the circumstances, a great deal. No one will believe it, I suppose, but we hadn't gotten any more than fifteen feet away from the shadow of that tree when "The principles of the flux of society," said he, "demand----" "Now, my dear fellow," I said, "there are a lot more elm-trees we really ought to take in, on this walk. We----" "I SAY!" said Meakins, his great voice roaring on my little polite, opposing sentence like surf over a pebble, "that the principles----" Then I grew wroth. I always do when Meakins treats what I say just as a pebble to get more roar out of, on the great bleak shore of his thoughts. "No one says anything!" I cried; "if any one says anything--if you say another word, my dear fellow, on this walk, I will sing _Old Hundred_ as loud as I can all the way home." He promised to be good--after a half-mile or so. I caught him looking at me, harking back to an old, wonderfully sweet, gentle, human, understanding smile he has--or used to have before he was a philosopher. Then he quietly mentioned a real thing and we talked about real things for four miles. I remember we sat under the stars that night after the world was folded up, and asleep, and I think we really felt the stars as we sat there--not as a roof for theories of the world, but we felt them as stars--shared the night with them, lit our hearts at them. Then we silently, happily, at last, both of us, like awkward, wondering boys, went to bed. III--Reading Down Through I Inside It is always the same way. I no sooner get a good, pleasant, interesting, working idea, like this "Reading for Principles," arranged and moved over, and set up in my mind, than some insinuating, persistent, concrete human being comes along, works his way in to illustrate it, and spoils it. Here is Meakins, for instance. I have been thinking on the other side of my thought every time I have thought of him. I have no more sympathy than any one with a man who spends all his time going round and round in his reading and everything else, swallowing a world up in principles. "Why should a good, live, sensible man," I feel like saying, "go about in a world like this stowing his truths into principles, where, half the time, he cannot get at them himself, and no one else would want to?" Going about swallowing one's experience up in principles is very well so far as it goes. But it is far better to go about swallowing up one's principles into one's self. A man who has lived and read into himself for many years does not need to read very many books. He has the gist of nine out of ten new books that are published. He knows, or as good as knows, what is in them, by taking a long, slow look at his own heart. So does everybody else. II On Being Lonely with a Book The P. G. S. of M. said that as far as he could make out, judging from the way I talked, my main ambition in the world seemed to be to write a book that would throw all publishers and libraries out of employment. "And what will your book amount to, when you get it done?" he said. "If it's convincing--the way it ought to be--it will merely convince people they oughtn't to have read it." "And that's been done before," I said. "Almost any book could do it." I ventured to add that I thought people grew intelligent enough in one of my books--even in the first two or three chapters, not to read the rest of it. I said all I hoped to accomplish was to get people to treat other men's books in the same way that they treated mine--treat everything that way--take things for granted, get the spirit of a thing, then go out and gloat on it, do something with it, live with it--anything but this going on page after page using the spirit of a thing all up, reading with it. "Reading down through in a book seems a great deal more important to me than merely reading the book through." I expected that The P. G. S. of M. would ask me what I meant by reading down through, but he didn't. He was still at large, worrying about the world. "I have no patience with it--your idea," he broke out. "It's all in the air. It's impractical enough, anyway, just as an idea, and it's all the more impractical when it's carried out. So far as I can see, at the rate you're carrying on," said The P. G. S. of M., "what with improving the world and all with your book, there isn't going to be anything but You and your Book left." "Might be worse," I said. "What one wants in a book after the first three or four chapters, or in a world either, it seems to me, is not its facts merely, nor its principles, but one's self--one's real relation of one's real self, I mean, to some real fact. If worst came to worst and I had to be left all alone, I'd rather be alone with myself, I think, than with anybody. It's a deal better than being lonely the way we all are nowadays--with such a lot of other people crowding round, that one has to be lonely with, and books and newspapers and things besides. One has to be lonely so much in civilisation, there are so many things and persons that insist on one's coming over and being lonely with them, that being lonely in a perfectly plain way, all by one's self--the very thought of it seems to me, comparatively speaking, a relief. It's not what it ought to be, but it's something." I feel the same way about being lonely with a book. I find that the only way to keep from being lonely in a book--that is, to keep from being crowded on to the outside of it, after the first three or four chapters--is to read the first three or four chapters all over again--read them down through. I have to get hold of my principles in them, and then I have to work over my personal relation to them. When I make sure of that, when I make sure of my personal relation to the author, and to his ideas, and there is a fairly acquainted feeling with both of us, then I can go on reading for all I am worth--or all he is worth anyway, whichever breaks down first--and no more said about it. Everything means something to everybody when one reads down through. The only way an author and reader can keep from wasting each other's time, it seems to me, at least from having spells of wasting it, is to begin by reading down through. III Keeping Other Minds Off What I really mean by reading down through in a book, I suppose, is reading down through in it to myself. I dare say this does not seem worthy. It is quite possible, too, that there is no real defence for it--I mean for my being so much interested in myself in the middle of other people's books. My theory about it is that the most important thing in this world for a man's life is his being original in it. Being original consists, I take it, not in being different, but in being honest--really having something in one's own inner experience which one has anyway, and which one knows one has, and which one has all for one's own, whether any one else has ever had it or not. Being original consists in making over everything one sees and reads, into one's self. Making over what one reads into one's self may be said to be the only way to have a really safe place for knowledge. If a man takes his knowledge and works it all over into what he is, sense and spirit, it may cost more at first, but it is more economical in the long run, because none of it can possibly be lost. And it can all be used on the place. I do not know how it is with others nowadays, but I find that this feeling of originality in an experience, in my own case, is exceedingly hard to keep. It has to be struggled for. Of course, one has a theory in a general way that one does not want an original mind if he has to get it by keeping other people's minds off, and yet there is a certain sense in which if he does not do it at certain times--have regular periods of keeping other people's minds off, he would lose for life the power of ever finding his own under them. Most men one knows nowadays, if they were to spend all the rest of their lives peeling other men's minds off, would not get down to their own before they died. It seems to be supposed that what a mind is for--at least in civilisation--is to have other men's minds on top of it. It is the same way in books--at least I find it so myself when I get to reading in a book, reading so fast I cannot stop in it. Nearly all books, especially the good ones, have a way of overtaking a man--riding his originality down. It seems to be assumed that if a man ever did get down to his own mind by accident, whether in a book or anywhere else, he would not know what to do with it. And this is not an unreasonable assumption. Even the man who gets down to his mind regularly hardly knows what to do with it part of the time. But it makes having a mind interesting. There's a kind of pleasant, lusty feeling in it--a feeling of reality and honesty that makes having a mind--even merely one's own mind--seem almost respectable. IV Reading Backwards Sir Joshua Reynolds gives the precedence to the Outside, to authority instead of originality, in the early stages of education, because when he went to Italy he met the greatest experience of his life. He found that much of his originality was wrong. If Sir Joshua Reynolds had gone to Italy earlier he would never have been heard of except as a copyist, lecturer, or colour-commentator. The real value of Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Discourses on Art" is the man in spite of the lecturer. What the man stands for is,--Be original. Get headway of personal experience, some power of self-teaching. Then when you have something to work on, organs that act and react on what is presented to them, confront your Italy--whatever it may be--and the Past, and give yourself over to it. The result is paradox and power, a receptive, creative man, an obeying and commanding, but self-centred and self-poised man, world-open, subject to the whole world and yet who has a whole world subject to him, either by turns or at will. What Sir Joshua conveys to his pupils is not his art, but his mere humility about his art--_i. e._, his most belated experience, his finishing touch, as an artist. The result is that having accidentally received an ideal education, having begun his education properly, with self-command, he completed his career with a kind of Reynoldsocracy--a complacent, teachery, levelling-down command of others. While Sir Joshua Reynolds was an artist, he became one because he did not follow his own advice. The fact that he would have followed it if he had had a chance shows what his art shows, namely, that he did not intend to be any more original than he could help. It is interesting, however, that having acquired the blemish of originality in early youth, he never could get rid of enough of it before he died, not to be tolerated among the immortals. His career is in many ways the most striking possible illustration of what can be brought to pass when a human being without genius is by accident brought up with the same principles and order of education and training that men of genius have--education by one's self; education by others, under the direction of one's self. Sir Joshua Reynolds would have been incapable of education by others under direction of himself, if he had not been kept ignorant and creative and English, long enough to get a good start with himself before he went down to Italy to run a race with Five Hundred Years. In his naive, almost desperate shame over the plight of being almost a genius, he overlooks this, but his fame is based upon it. He devoted his old age to trying to train young men into artists by teaching them to despise their youth in their youth, because, when he was an old man, he despised his. What seems to be necessary is to strike a balance, in one's reading. It's all well enough; indeed, there's nothing better than having one's originality ridden down. One wants it ridden down half the time. The trouble comes in making provision for catching up, for getting one's breath after it. I have found, for instance, that it has become absolutely necessary so far as I am concerned, if I am to keep my little mind's start in the world, to begin the day by not reading the newspaper in the morning. Unless I can get headway--some thought or act or cry or joy of my own--something that is definitely in my own direction first, there seems to be no hope for me all day long. Most people, I know, would not agree to this. They like to take a swig of all-space, a glance at everybody while the world goes round, before they settle down to their own little motor on it. They like to feel that the world is all right before they go ahead. So would I, but I have tried it again--and again. The world is too much for me in the morning. My own little motor comes to a complete stop. I simply want to watch the Big One going round and round. I cannot seem to stop somehow--begin puttering once more with my Little One. If I begin at all, I have to begin at once. In my heart I feel the Big One over me all the while, circling over me, blessing me. But I keep from noticing. I know no other way, and drive on. The world is getting to be--has to be--to me a purely afternoon or evening affair. I have a world of my own for morning use. I hold to it, one way or the other, with a cheerful smile or like grim death, until the clock says twelve and the sun turns the corner, and the book drops. It does not seem to make very much difference what kind of a world I am in, or what is going on in it, so that it is all my own, and the only way I know to do, is to say or read or write or use the things first in it which make it my own the most. The one thing I want in the morning is to let my soul light its own light, appropriate some one thing, glow it through with itself. When I have satisfied the hunger for making a bit of the great world over into my world, I am ready for the world as a world--streets and newspapers of it,--silent and looking, in it, until sleep falls. It is because men lie down under it, allow themselves to be rolled over by it, that the modern newspaper, against its will, has become the great distracting machine of modern times. As I live and look about me, everywhere I find a great running to and fro of editors across the still earth. Every editor has his herd, is a kind of bell-wether, has a great paper herd flocking at his heels. "Is not the world here?" I say, "and am I not here to look at it? Can I really see a world better by joining a Cook's Excursion on it, sweeping round the earth in a column, seeing everything in a column, looking over the shoulder of a crowd?" Sometimes it seems as if the whole modern, reading, book-and-paper outfit were simply a huge, crunching Mass-Machine--a machine for arranging every man's mind from the outside. Originality may be said to depend upon a balance of two things, the power of being interested in other people's minds and the power of being more interested in one's own. In its last analysis, it is the power a man's mind has of minding its own business, which, even in another man's book, makes the book real and absorbing to him. It is the least compliment one can pay a book. The only honest way to commune with a real man either in a book or out of it is to do one's own share of talking. Both the book and the man say better things when talked back to. In reading a great book one finds it allows for this. In reading a poor one the only way to make it worth while, to find anything in it, is to put it there. The most self-respecting course when one finds one's self in the middle of a poor book is to turn right around in it, and write it one's self. As has been said by Hoffentotter (in the fourteenth chapter of his great masterpiece): "If you find that you cannot go on, gentle reader, in the reading of this book, pray read it backwards." The original man, the man who insists on keeping the power in a mind of minding its own business, is much more humble than he looks. All he feels is, that his mind has been made more convenient to him than to anybody else and that if anyone is going to use it, he must. It is not a matter of assuming that one's own mind is superior. A very poor mind, on the premises, put right in with one's own body, carefully fitted to it, to one's very nerves and senses, is worth all the other minds in the world. It may be conceit to believe this, and it may be self-preservation. But, in any case, keeping up an interest in one's own mind is excusable. Even the humblest man must admit that the first, the most economical, the most humble, the most necessary thing for a man to do in reading in this world (if he can do it) is to keep up an interest in his own mind. IV--Reading for Facts I Calling the Meeting to Order Reading for persons makes a man a poet or artist, makes him dramatic with his mind--puts the world-stage into him. Reading for principles makes a man a philosopher. Reading for facts makes a man---- "It doesn't make a man," spoke up the Mysterious Person. "Oh, yes," I said, "if he reads a few of them--if he takes time to do something with them--he can make a man out of them, if he wants to, as well as anything else." The great trouble with scientific people and others who are always reading for facts is that they forget what facts are for. They use their minds as museums. They are like Ole Bill Spear. They take you up into their garret and point to a bushel-basketful of something and then to another bushel-basket half-full of some more. Then they say in deep tones and with solemn faces: "This is the largest collection of burnt matches in the world." It's what reading for facts brings a man to, generally--fact for fact's sake. He lunges along for facts wherever he goes. He cannot stop. All an outsider can do in such cases, with nine out of ten scientific or collecting minds, is to watch them sadly in a dull, trance-like, helpless inertia of facts, sliding on to Ignorance. What seems to be most wanted in reading for facts in a world as large as this is some reasonable principle of economy. The great problem of reading for facts--travelling with one's mind--is the baggage problem. To have every fact that one needs and to throw away every fact that one can get along without, is the secret of having a comfortable and practicable, live, happy mind in modern knowledge--a mind that gets somewhere--that gets the hearts of things. The best way to arrange this seems to be to have a sentinel in one's mind in reading. Every man finds in his intellectual life, sooner or later, that there are certain orders and kinds of facts that have a way of coming to him of their own accord and without being asked. He is half amused sometimes and half annoyed by them. He has no particular use for them. He dotes on them some, perhaps, pets them a little--tells them to go away, but they keep coming back. Apropos of nothing, in the way of everything, they keep hanging about while he attends to the regular business of his brain, and say: "Why don't you do something with Me?" What I would like to be permitted to do in this chapter is to say a good word for these involuntary, helpless, wistful facts that keep tagging a man's mind around. I know that I am exposing myself in standing up for them to the accusation that I have a mere irrelevant, sideways, intellectually unbusinesslike sort of a mind. I can see my championship even now being gently but firmly set one side. "It's all of a piece--this pleasant, yielding way with ideas," people say. "It goes with the slovenly, lazy, useless, polite state of mind always, and the general ball-bearing view of life." It seems to me that if a man has a few involuntary, instinctive facts about him, facts that fasten themselves on to his thoughts whether he wants them there or not, facts that keep on working for him of their own accord, down under the floor of his mind, passing things up, running invisible errands for him, making short-cuts for him--it seems to me that if a man has a few facts like this in him, facts that serve him like the great involuntary servants of Nature, whether they are noticed or not, he ought to find it worth his while to do something in return, conduct his life with reference to them. They ought to have the main chance at him. It seems reasonable also that his reading should be conducted with reference to them. It is no mere literary prejudice, and it seems to be a truth for the scientist as well as for the poet, that the great involuntary facts in a man's life, the facts he does not select, the facts that select him, the facts that say to him, "Come thou and live with us, make a human life out of us that men may know us," are the facts of all others which ought to have their way sooner or later in the great struggling mass-meeting of his mind. I have read equally in vain the lives of the great scientists and the lives of the great artists and makers, if they are not all alike in this, that certain great facts have been yielded to, have been made the presiding officers, the organisers of their minds. In so far as they have been great, no facts have been suppressed and all facts have been represented; but I doubt if there has ever been a life of a powerful mind yet in which a few great facts and a great man were not seen mutually attracted to each other, day and night,--getting themselves made over into each other, mutually mastering the world. Certainly, if there is one token rather than another of the great scientist or poet in distinction from the small scientist or poet, it is the courage with which he yields himself, makes his whole being sensitive and free before his instinctive facts, gives himself fearless up to them, allows them to be the organisers of his mind. It seems to be the only possible way in reading for facts that the mind of a man can come to anything; namely, by always having a chairman (and a few alternates appointed for life) to call the meeting to order. II Symbolic Facts If the meeting is to accomplish anything before it adjourns _sine die_, everything depends upon the gavel in it, upon there being some power in it that makes some facts sit down and others stand up, but which sees that all facts are represented. In general, the more facts a particular fact can be said to be a delegate for, the more a particular fact can be said to represent other facts, the more of the floor it should have. The power of reading for facts depends upon a man's power to recognise symbolic or sum-total or senatorial facts and keep all other facts, the general mob or common run of facts, from interrupting. The amount of knowledge a man is going to be able to master in the world depends upon the number of facts he knows how to avoid. This is where our common scientific training--the manufacturing of small scientists in the bulk--breaks down. The first thing that is done with a young man nowadays, if he is to be made into a scientist, is to take away any last vestige of power his mind may have of avoiding facts. Everyone has seen it, and yet we know perfectly well when we stop to think about it that when in the course of his being educated a man's ability to avoid facts is taken away from him, it soon ceases to make very much difference whether he is educated or not. He becomes a mere memory let loose in the universe--goes about remembering everything, hit or miss. I never see one of these memory-machines going about mowing things down remembering them, but that it gives me a kind of sad, sudden feeling of being intelligent. I cannot quite describe the feeling. I am part sorry and part glad and part ashamed of being glad. It depends upon what one thinks of, one's own narrow escape or the other man, or the way of the world. All one can do is to thank God, silently, in some safe place in one's thoughts, that after all there is a great deal of the human race--always is--in every generation who by mere circumstance cannot be educated--bowled over by their memories. Even at the worst only a few hundred persons can be made over into _reductio-ad-absurdum_ Stanley Halls (that is, study science under pupils of the pupils of Stanley Hall) and the chances are even now, as bad as things are and are getting to be, that for several hundred years yet, Man, the Big Brother of creation, will insist on preserving his special distinction in it, the thing that has lifted him above the other animals--his inimitable faculty for forgetting things. III Duplicates: A Principle of Economy I do not suppose that anybody would submit to my being admitted--I was black-balled before I was born--to the brotherhood of scientists. And yet it seems to me that there is a certain sense in which I am as scientific as anyone. It seems to me, for instance, that it is a fairly scientific thing to do--a fairly matter-of-fact thing--to consider the actual nature of facts and to act on it. When one considers the actual nature of facts, the first thing one notices is that there are too many of them. The second thing one notices about facts is that they are not so many as they look. They are mostly duplicates. The small scientist never thinks of this because he never looks at more than one class of facts, never allows himself to fall into any general, interesting, fact-comparing habit. The small poet never thinks of it because he never looks at facts at all. It is thus that it has come to pass that the most ordinary human being, just living along, the man who has the habit of general information, is the intellectual superior of the mere scientists about him or the mere poets. He is superior to the mere poet because he is interested in knowing facts, and he is superior to the minor scientist because he does not want to know all of them, or at least if he does, he never has time to try to, and so keeps on knowing something. When one considers the actual nature of facts, it is obvious that the only possible model for a scientist of the first class or a poet of the first class in this world, is the average man. The only way to be an extraordinary man, master of more of the universe than any one else, is to keep out of the two great pits God has made in it, in which The Educated are thrown away--the science-pit and the poet-pit. The area and power and value of a man's knowledge depend upon his having such a boundless interest in facts that he will avoid all facts he knows already and go on to new ones. The rapidity of a man's education depends upon his power to scent a duplicate fact afar off and to keep from stopping and puttering with it. Is not one fact out of a thousand about a truth as good as the other nine hundred and ninety-nine to enjoy it with? If there were not any more truths or if there were not so many more things to enjoy in this world than one had time for, it would be different. It would be superficial, I admit, not to climb down into a well and collect some more of the same facts about it, or not to crawl under a stone somewhere and know what we know already--a little harder. But as it is--well, it does seem to me that when a man has collected one good, representative fact about a thing, or at most two, it is about time to move on and enjoy some of the others. There is not a man living dull enough, it seems to me, to make it worth while to do any other way. There is not a man living who can afford, in a world made as this one is, to know any more facts than he can help. Are not facts plenty enough in the world? Are they not scattered everywhere? And there are not men enough to go around. Let us take our one fact apiece and be off, and be men with it. There is always one fact about everything which is the spirit of all the rest, the fact a man was intended to know and to go on his way rejoicing with. It may be superficial withal and merely spiritual, but if there is anything worth while in this world to me, it is not to miss any part of being a man in it that any other man has had. I do not want to know what every man knows, but I do want to get the best of what he knows and live every day with it. Oh, to take all knowledge for one's province, to have rights with all facts, to be naive and unashamed before the universe, to go forth fearlessly to know God in it, to make the round of creation before one dies, to share all that has been shared, to be all that is, to go about in space saying halloa to one's soul in it, in the stars and in the flowers and in children's faces, is not this to have lived,--that there should be nothing left out in a man's life that all the world has had? V--Reading for Results I The Blank Paper Frame of Mind The P. G. S. of M. read a paper in our club the other day which he called "Reading for Results." It was followed by a somewhat warm discussion, in the course of which so many things were said that were not so that the entire club (before any one knew it) had waked up and learned something. The P. G. S. of M. took the general ground that most of the men one knows nowadays had never learned to read. They read wastefully. Our common schools and colleges, he thought, ought to teach a young man to read with a purpose. "When an educated young man takes up a book," he said, "he should feel that he has some business in it, and attend to it." I said I thought young men nowadays read with purposes too much. Purposes were all they had to read with. "When a man feels that he needs a purpose in front of him, to go through a book with, when he goes about in a book looking over the edge of a purpose at everything, the chances are that he is missing nine tenths of what the book has to give." The P. G. S. of M. thought that one tenth was enough. He didn't read a book to get nine tenths of an author. He read it to get the one tenth he wanted--to find out which it was. I asked him which tenth of Shakespeare he wanted. He said that sometimes he wanted one tenth and sometimes another. "That is just it," I said. "Everybody does. It is at the bottom and has been at the bottom of the whole Shakespeare nuisance for three hundred years. Every literary man we have or have had seems to feel obliged somehow to read Shakespeare in tenths. Generally he thinks he ought to publish his tenth--make a streak across Shakespeare with his soul--before he feels literary or satisfied or feels that he has a place in the world. One hardly knows a man who calls himself really literary, who reads Shakespeare nowadays except with a purpose, with some little side-show of his own mind. It is true that there are still some people--not very many perhaps--but we all know some people who can be said to understand Shakespeare, who never get so low in their minds as to have to read him with a purpose; but they are not prominent. "And yet there is hardly any man who would deny that at best his reading with a purpose is almost always his more anæmic, official, unresourceful, reading. It is like putting a small tool to a book and whittling on it, instead of putting one's whole self to it. One might as well try to read most of Shakespeare's plays with a screw-driver or with a wrench as with a purpose. There is no purpose large enough, that one is likely to find, to connect with them. Shakespeare himself could not have found one when he wrote them in any small or ordinary sense. The one possible purpose in producing a work of art--in any age--is to praise the universe with it, love something with it, talk back to life with it, and the man who attempts to read what Shakespeare writes with any smaller or less general, less overflowing purpose than Shakespeare had in writing it should be advised to do his reading with some smaller, more carefully fitted author,--one nearer to his size. Of course if one wants to be a mere authority on Shakespeare or a mere author there is no denying that one can do it, and do it very well, by reading him with some purpose--some purpose that is too small to have ever been thought of before; but if one wants to understand him, get the wild native flavour and power of him, he must be read in a larger, more vital and open and resourceful spirit--as a kind of spiritual adventure. Half the joy of a great man, like any other great event, is that one can well afford--at least for once--to let one's purposes go. "To feel one's self lifted out, carried along, if only for a little time, into some vast stream of consciousness, to feel great spaces around one's human life, to float out into the universe, to bathe in it, to taste it with every pore of one's body and all one's soul--this is the one supreme thing that the reading of a man like William Shakespeare is for. To interrupt the stream with dams, to make it turn wheels,--intellectual wheels (mostly pin-wheels and theories) or any wheels whatever,--is to cut one's self off from the last chance of knowing the real Shakespeare at all. A man knows Shakespeare in proportion as he gives himself, in proportion as he lets Shakespeare make a Shakespeare of him, a little while. As long as he is reading in the Shakespeare universe his one business in it is to live in it. He may do no mighty work there,--pile up a commentary or throw on a footnote,--but he will be a mighty work himself if he let William Shakespeare work on him some. Before he knows it the universe that Shakespeare lived in becomes his universe. He feels the might of that universe being gathered over to him, descending upon him being breathed into him day and night--to belong to him always. "The power and effect of a book which is a real work of art seems always to consist in the way it has of giving the nature of things a chance at a man, of keeping things open to the sun and air of thought. To those who cannot help being interested, it is a sad sight to stand by with the typical modern man--especially a student--and watch him go blundering about in a great book, cooping it up with purposes." The P. G. S. of M. remarked somewhere at about this point that it seemed to him that it made a great difference who an author or reader was. He suggested that my theory of reading with a not-purpose worked rather better with Shakespeare than with the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ or the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Statistics, or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I admitted that in reading dictionaries, statistics, or mere poets or mere scientists it was necessary to have a purpose to fall back upon to justify one's self. And there was no denying that reading for results was a necessary and natural thing. The trouble seemed to be, that very few people could be depended on to pick out the right results. Most people cannot be depended upon to pick out even the right directions in reading a great book. It has to be left to the author. It could be categorically proved that the best results in this world, either in books or in life, had never been attained by men who always insisted on doing their own steering. The special purpose of a great book is that a man can stop steering in it, that one can give one's self up to the undertow, to the cross-current in it. One feels one's self swept out into the great struggling human stream that flows under life. One comes to truths and delights at last that no man, though he had a thousand lives, could steer to. Most of us are not clear-headed or far-sighted enough to pick out purposes or results in reading. We are always forgetting how great we are. We do not pick out results--and could not if we tried--that are big enough. II The Usefully Unfinished The P. G. S. of M. remarked that he thought there was such a thing as having purposes in reading that were too big. It seemed to him that a man who spent nearly all his strength when he was reading a book, in trying to use it to swallow a universe with, must find it monotonous. He said he had tried reading a great book without any purpose whatever except its tangents or suggestions, and he claimed that when he read a great book in that way--the average great book--the monotone of innumerable possibility wore on him. He wanted to feel that a book was coming to something, and if he couldn't feel in reading it that the book was coming to something he wanted to feel at least that he was. He did not say it in so many words, but he admitted he did not care very much in reading for what I had spoken of as a "stream of consciousness." He wanted a nozzle on it. I asked him at this point how he felt in reading certain classics. I brought out quite a nice little list of them, but I couldn't track him down to a single feeling he had thought of--had had to think of, all by himself, on a classic. I found he had all the proper feelings about them and a lot of well-regulated qualifications besides. He was on his guard. Finally I asked him if he had read (I am not going to get into trouble by naming it) a certain contemporary novel under discussion. He said he had read it. "Great deal of power in it," he said. "But it doesn't come to anything. I do not see any possible artistic sense," he said, "in ending a novel like that. It doesn't bring one anywhere." "Neither does one of Keats's poems," I said, "or Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_. The odour of a rose doesn't come to anything--bring one anywhere. It would be hard to tell what one really gets out of the taste of roast beef. The sound of the surf on the Atlantic doesn't come to anything, but hundreds of people travel a long way and live in one-windowed rooms and rock in somebody else's bedroom rocker, to hear it, year after year. Millions of dollars are spent in Europe to look at pictures, but if a man can tell what it is he gets out of a picture in so many words there is something very wrong with the picture." The P. G. S. of M. gave an impatient wave of his hand. (To be strictly accurate, he gave it in the middle of the last paragraph, just before we came to the Atlantic. The rest is Congressional Record.) And after he had given the impatient wave of his hand he looked hurt. I accordingly drew him out. He was still brooding on that novel. He didn't approve of the heroine. "What was the matter?" I said; "dying in the last chapter?" (It is one of those novels in which the heroine takes the liberty of dying, in a mere paragraph, at the end, and in what always has seemed and always will, to some people, a rather unsatisfactory and unfinished manner.) "The moral and spiritual issues of a book ought to be--well, things are all mixed up. She dies indefinitely." "Most women do," I said. I asked him how many funerals of women--wives and mothers--he had been to in the course of his life where he could sit down and really think that they had died to the point--the way they do in novels. I didn't see why people should be required by critics and other authorities, to die to the point in a book more than anywhere else. It is this shallow, reckless way that readers have of wanting to have everything pleasant and appropriate when people die in novels which makes writing a novel nowadays as much as a man's reputation is worth. The P. G. S. of M. explained that it wasn't exactly the way she died but it was the way everything was left--left to the imagination. I said I was sorry for any human being who had lived in a world like this who didn't leave a good deal to the imagination when he died. The dullest, most uninteresting man that any one can ever know becomes interesting in his death. One walks softly down the years of his life, peering through them. One cannot help loving him a little--stealthily. One goes out a little way with him on his long journey--feels bound in with him at last--actually bound in with him (it is like a promise) for ever. The more one knows about people's lives in this world, the more indefinitely, the more irrelevantly,--sometimes almost comically, or as a kind of an aside, or a bit of repartee,--they end them. Suddenly, sometimes while we laugh or look, they turn upon us, fling their souls upon the invisible, and are gone. It is like a last wistful haunting pleasantry--death is--from some of us, a kind of bravado in it--as one would say, "Oh, well, dying is really after all--having been allowed one look at a world like this--a small matter." It is true that most people in most novels, never having been born, do not really need to die--that is, if they are logical,--and they might as well die to the point or as the reader likes as in any other way, but if there is one sign rather than another that a novel belongs to the first class, it is that the novelist claims all the privileges of the stage of the world in it. He refuses to write a little parlour of a book and he sees that his people die the way they live, leaving as much left over to the imagination as they know how. That there are many reasons for the habit of reading for results, as it is called, goes without saying. It also goes without saying--that is, no one is saying very much about it--that the habit of reading for results, such as it is, has taken such a grim hold on the modern American mind that the greatest result of all in reading, the result in a book that cannot be spoken in it, or even out of it, is being unanimously missed. The fact seems to need to be emphasised that the novel which gives itself to one to be breathed and lived, the novel which leaves a man with something that he must finish himself, with something he must do and be, is the one which "gets a man somewhere" most of all. It is the one which ends the most definitely and practically. When a novel, instead of being hewn out, finished, and decorated by the author,--added as one more monument or tomb of itself in a man's memory,--becomes a growing, living daily thing to him, the wondering, unfinished events of it, and the unfinished people of it, flocking out to him, interpreting for him the still unfinished events and all the dear unfinished people that jostle in his own life,--it is a great novel. It seems to need to be recalled that the one possible object of a human being's life in a novel (as out of it) is to be loved. This is definite enough. It is the novel in which the heroine looks finished that does not come to anything. I always feel a little grieved and frustrated--as if human nature had been blasphemed a little in my presence--if a novel finishes its people or thinks it can. It is a small novel which finishes love--and lays it away; which makes me love say one brave woman or mother in a book, and close her away for ever. The greater novel makes me love one woman in a book in such a way that I go about through all the world seeking for her--knowing and loving a thousand women through her. I feel the secret of their faces--through her--flickering by me on the street. This intangible result, this eternal flash of a life upon life is all that reading is for. It is practical because it is eternal and cannot be wasted and because it is for ever to the point. Life is greater than art and art is great only in so far as it proves that life is greater than art, interprets and intensifies life and the power to taste life--makes us live wider and deeper and farther in our seventy years. III Athletics "The world is full," Ellery Charming used to say, "of fools who get a-going and never stop. Set them off on another tack, and they are half-cured." There are grave reasons to believe that, if an archangel were to come to this earth and select a profession on it, instead of taking up some splendid, serious, dignified calling he would devote himself to a comparatively small and humble-looking career--that of jogging people's minds. This might not seem at first sight to be a sufficiently large thing for an archangel to do, but if it were to be done at all (those who have tried it think) it would take an archangel to do it. The only possible practical or businesslike substitute one can think of in modern life for an archangel would have to be an Institution of some kind. Some huge, pleasant Mutual Association for Jogging People's Minds might do a little something perhaps, but it would not be very thorough. The people who need it most, half or three-quarters of them, the treadmill-conscientious, dear, rutty, people of this world, would not be touched by it. What is really wanted, if anything is really to be done in the way of jogging, is a new day in the week. I have always thought that there ought to be a day, one day in the week, to do wrong in--not very wrong, but wrong enough to answer the purpose--a perfectly irresponsible, delectable, inconsequent day--a sabbath of whims. There ought to be a sort of sabbath for things that never get done because they are too good or not good enough. Letters that ought to be postponed until others are written, letters to friends that never dun, books that don't bear on anything, books that no one has asked one to read, calls on unexpecting people, bills that might just as well wait, tinkering around the house on the wrong things, the right ones, perfectly helpless, standing by. Sitting with one's feet a little too high (if possible on one's working desk), being a little foolish and liking it--making poor puns, enjoying one's bad grammar--a day, in short, in which, whatever a man is, he rests from himself and play marbles with his soul. Most people nowadays--at least the intellectual, so-called, and the learned above all others--are so far gone under the reading-for-results theory that they have become mere work-worshippers in books, worshippers of work which would not need to be performed at all--most of it--by men with healthy natural or fully exercised spiritual organs. One very seldom catches a man in the act nowadays of doing any old-fashioned or important reading. The old idea of reading for athletics instead of scientifics has almost no provision made for it in the modern intellectual man's life. He does not seem to know what it is to take his rest like a gentleman. He lunges between all-science and all-vaudeville, and plays in his way, it is true, but he never plays with his mind. He never takes playing with a mind seriously, as one of the great standard joys and powers and equipments of human life. He does not seem to love his mind enough to play with it. Above all, he does not see that playing with a mind (on great subjects, at least) is the only possible way to make it work. He entirely overlooks the fact, in his little round of reading for results, that the main thing a book is in a man's hands for is the man--that it is there to lift him over into a state of being, a power of action. A man who really reads a book and reads it well, reads it for moral muscle, spiritual skill, for far-sightedness, for catholicity--above all for a kind of limberness and suppleness, a swift sure strength through his whole being. He faces the world with a new face when he has truly read a true book, and as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, he rejoices as a strong man to run a race. As between reading to heighten one's senses, one's suggestibility, power of knowing and combining facts, the _multum-in-parvo_ method in reading, and the _parvum-in-multo_ method, a dogged, accumulating, impotent, callous reading for results, it is not hard to say which, in the equipment of the modern scientist, is being overlooked. It is doubtless true, the common saying of the man of genius in every age, that "everything is grist to his mill," but it would not be if he could not grind it fine enough. And he is only able to grind it fine enough because he makes his reading bring him power as well as grist. Having provided for energy, stored-up energy for grinding, he guards and preserves that energy as the most important and culminating thing in his intellectual life. He insists on making provision for it. He makes ready solitude for it, blankness, reverie, sleep, silence. He cultivates the general habit not only of rejecting things, but of keeping out of their way when necessary, so as not to have to reject them, and he knows the passion in all times and all places for grinding grist finer instead of gathering more grist. These are going to be the traits of all the mighty reading, the reading that achieves, in the twentieth century. The saying of the man of genius that everything is grist to his mill merely means that he reads a book athletically, with a magnificent play of power across it, with an heroic imagination or power of putting together. He turns everything that comes to him over into its place and force and meaning in everything else. He reads slowly and organically where others read with their eyes. He knows what it is to tingle with a book, to blush and turn pale with it, to read his feet cold. He reads all over, with his nerves and senses, with his mind and heart. He reads through the whole tract of his digestive and assimilative nature. To borrow the Hebrew figure, he reads with his bowels. Instead of reading to maintain a theory, or a row of facts, he reads to sustain a certain state of being. The man who has the knack, as some people seem to think it, of making everything he reads and sees beautiful or vigorous and practical, does not need to try to do it. He does it because he has a habit of putting himself in a certain state of being and cannot help doing it. He does not need to spend a great deal of time in reading for results. He produces his own results. The less athletic reader, the smaller poet or scientist, confines himself to reading for results, for ready-made beauty and ready-made facts, because he is not in condition to do anything else. The greater poet or scientist is an energy, a transfigurer, a transmuter of everything into beauty and truth. Everything having passed through the heat and light of his own being is fused and seen where it belongs, where God placed it when He made it, in some relation to everything else. I fear that I may have come, in bearing down on this point, to another of the of-course places in this book. It is not just to assume that because people are not living with a truth that they need to be told it. It is of little use, when a man has used his truth all up boring people with it, to try to get them (what is left of the truth and the people) to do anything about it. But if I may be allowed one page more I would like to say in the present epidemic of educating for results, just what a practical education may be said to be. The indications are that the more a man spends, makes himself able to spend, a large part of his time, as Whitman did, in standing still and looking around and loving things, the more practical he is. Even if a man's life were to serve as a mere guide-board to the universe, it would supply to all who know him the main thing the universe seems to be without. But a man who, like Walt Whitman, is more than a guide-board to the universe, who deliberately takes time to live in the whole of it, who becomes a part of the universe to all who live always, who makes the universe human to us--companionable,--such a man may not be able to fix a latch on a kitchen door, but I can only say for one that if there is a man who can lift a universe bodily, and set it down in my front yard where I can feel it helping me do my work all day and guarding my sleep at night, that man is practical. Who can say he does not "come to anything"? To have heard it rumoured that such a man has lived, can live, is a result--the most practical result of all to most of the workers of the world. A bare fact about such a man is a gospel. Why work for nothing (that is, with no result) in a universe where you can play for nothing--and by playing earn everything? Such a man is not only practical, serving those who know him by merely being, but he serves all men always. They will not let him go. He becomes a part of the structure of the world. The generations keep flocking to him the way they flock to the great sane silent ministries of the sky and of the earth. Their being drawn to them is their being drawn to him. The strength of clouds is in him, and the spirit of falling water, and he knoweth the way of the wind. When a man can be said by the way he lives his life to have made himself the companion of his unborn brothers and of God; when he can be said to have made himself, not a mere scientist, but a younger brother, a real companion of air, water, fire, mist, and of the great gentle ground beneath his feet--he has secured a result. VI--Reading for Feelings I The Passion of Truth Reading resolves itself sooner or later into two elements in the reader's mind: 1. Tables of facts. (a) Rows of raw fact; (b) Principles, spiritual or sum-total facts. 2. Feelings about the facts. But the Man with the Scientific Method, who lives just around the corner from me, tells me that reading for feelings is quite out of the question for a scientific mind. It is foreign to the nature of knowledge to want knowledge for the feelings that go with it. Feelings get in the way. I find it impossible not to admit that there is a certain force in this, but I notice that when the average small scientist, the man around the corner, for instance, says to me what he is always saying, "Science requires the elimination of feelings,"--says it to me in his usual chilled-through, ophidian, infallible way,--I never believe it, or at least I believe it very softly and do not let him know it. But when a large scientist, a man like Charles Darwin, makes a statement like this, I believe it as hard, I notice, as if I had made it all up myself. The statement that science requires the elimination of the feelings is true or not true, it seems to me, according to the size of the feelings. Considering what most men's feelings are, a man like Darwin feels that they had better be eliminated. If a man's feelings are small feelings, they are in the way in science, as a matter of course. If he has large noble ones, feelings that match the things that God has made, feelings that are free and daring, beautiful enough to belong with things that a God has made, he will have no trouble with them. It is the feelings in a great scientist which have always fired him into being a man of genius in his science, instead of a mere tool, or scoop, or human dredge of truth. All the great scientists show this firing-process down underneath, in their work. The idea that it is necessary for a scientific man to give up his human ideal, that it is necessary for him to be officially brutal, in his relation to nature, to become a professional nobody in order to get at truth, to make himself over into matter in order to understand matter, has not had a single great scientific achievement or conception to its credit. All great insight or genius in science is a passion of itself, a passion of worshipping real things. Science is a passion not only in its origin, but in its motive power and in its end. The real truth seems to be that the scientist of the greater sort is great, not by having no emotions, but by having disinterested emotions, by being large enough to have emotions on both sides and all sides, all held in subjection to the final emotion of truth. Having a disinterested, fair attitude in truth is not a matter of having no passions, but of having passions enough to go around. The temporary idea that a scientist cannot be scientific and emotional at once is based upon the experience of men who have never had emotions enough. Men whose emotions are slow and weak, who have one-sided or wavering emotions, find them inconvenient as a matter of course. The men who, like Charles Darwin or some larger Browning, have the passion of disinterestedness are those who are fitted to lead the human race, who are going to lead it along the paths of space and the footsteps of the worlds into the Great Presence. The greatest astronomer or chemist is the man who glows with the joy of wrestling with God, of putting strength to strength. To the geologist who goes groping about in stones, his whole life is a kind of mind-reading of the ground, a passion for getting underneath, for communing flesh to flesh with a planet. What he feels when he breaks a bit of rock is the whole round earth--the wonder of it--the great cinder floating through space. He would all but risk his life or sell his soul for a bit of lava. He is studying the phrenology of a star. All the other stars watch him. The feeling of being in a kind of eternal, invisible, infinite enterprise, of carrying out a world, of tracking a God, takes possession of him. He may not admit there is a God, in so many words, but his geology admits it. He devotes his whole life to appreciating a God, and the God takes the deed for the word, appreciates his appreciation, whether he does or not. If he says that he does not believe in a God, he merely means that he does not believe in Calvin's God, or in the present dapper, familiar little God or the hero of the sermon last Sunday. All he means by not believing in a God is that his God has not been represented yet. In the meantime he and his geology go sternly, implacably on for thousands of years, while churches come and go. So does his God. His geology is his own ineradicable worship. His religion, his passion for the all, for communing through the part with the Whole, is merely called by the name of geology. In so far as a man's geology is real to him, if he is after anything but a degree in it, or a thesis or a salary, his geology is an infinite passion taking possession of him, soul and body, carrying him along with it, sweeping him out with it into the great workroom, the flame and the glow of the world-shop of God. It would not seem necessary to say it if it were not so stoutly denied, but living as we do, most of us, with a great flock of little scientists around us, pecking on the infinite most of them, each with his own little private strut, or blasphemy, bragging of a world without a God, it does seem as if it were going to be the great strategic event of the twentieth century, for all men, to get the sciences and the humanities together once more, if only in our own thoughts, to make ourselves believe as we must believe, after all, that it is humanity in a scientist, and not a kind of professional inhumanity in him, which makes him a scientist in the great sense--a seer of matter. The great scientist is a man who communes with matter, not around his human spirit, but through it. The small scientist, violating nature inside himself to understand it outside himself, misses the point. At all events if a man who has locked himself out of his own soul goes around the world and cannot find God's in it, he does not prove anything. The man who finds a God proves quite as much. And he has his God besides. II Topical Point of View If it is true that reading resolves itself sooner or later into two elements in the reader's mind, tables of facts and feelings about the facts, that is, rows of raw fact, and spiritualised or related facts, several things follow. The most important of them is one's definition of education. The man who can get the greatest amount of feeling out of the smallest number and the greatest variety of facts is the greatest and most educated man--comes nearest to living an infinite life. The purpose of education in books would seem to be to make every man as near to this great or semi-infinite man as he can be made. If men were capable of becoming infinite by sitting in a library long enough, the education-problem would soon take care of itself. There is no front or side door to the infinite. It is all doors. And if the mere taking time enough would do it, one could read one's way into the infinite as easily as if it were anything else. One can hardly miss it. One could begin anywhere. There would be nothing to do but to proceed at once to read all the facts and have all the feelings about the facts and enjoy them forever. The main difficulty one comes to, in being infinite, is that there is not time, but inasmuch as great men or semi-infinite men have all had to contend with this same difficulty quite as much as the rest of us, it would seem that in getting as many of the infinite facts, and having as many infinite feelings about the facts, as they do, great men must employ some principle of economy or selection, that common, that is, artificial men, are apt to overlook. There seem to be two main principles of economy open to great men and to all of us, in the acquiring of knowledge. One of these, as has been suggested, may be called the scientist's principle of economy, and the other the poet's or artist's. The main difference between the scientific and the artistic method of selection seems to be that the scientist does his selecting all at once and when he selects his career, and the artist makes selecting the entire business of every moment of his life. The scientist of the average sort begins by partitioning the universe off into topics. Having selected his topic and walled himself in with it, he develops it by walling the rest of the universe out. The poet (who is almost always a specialist also, a special kind of poet), having selected his specialty, develops it by letting all the universe in. He spends his time in making his life a cross section of the universe. The spirit of the whole of it, something of everything in it, is represented in everything he does. Whatever his specialty may be in poetry, painting, or literature, he produces an eternal result by massing the infinite and eternal into the result. He succeeds by bringing the universe to a point, by accumulating out of all things--himself. It is the tendency of the scientist to produce results by dividing the universe and by subdividing himself. Unless he is a very great scientist he accepts it as the logic of his method that he should do this. His individual results are small results and he makes himself professedly small to get them. All questions with regard to the reading habit narrow themselves down at last: "Is the Book to be divided for the Man, or is the Man to be divided for the Book? Shall a man so read as to lose his soul in a subject, or shall he so read that the subject Loses itself in him--becomes a part of him?" The main fact about our present education is that it is the man who is getting lost. And not only is every man getting lost to himself, but all men are eagerly engaged in getting lost to each other. The dead level of intelligence, being a dead level in a literal sense, is a spiritless level--a mere grading down and grading up of appearances. In all that pertains to real knowledge of the things that people appear to know, greater heights and depths of difference in human lives are revealed to-day than in almost any age of the world. What with our steam-engines (machines for our hands and feet) and our sciences (machines for our souls) we have arrived at such an extraordinary division of labour, both of body and mind, that people of the same classes are farther apart than they used to be in different classes. Lawyers, for instance, are as different from one another as they used to be from ministers and doctors. Every new skill we come to and every new subdivision of skill marks the world off into pigeon-holes of existence, into huge, hopeless, separate divisions of humanity. We live in different elements, monsters of the sea wondering at the air, air-monsters peering curiously down into the sea, sailors on surfaces, trollers over other people's worlds. We commune with each other with lines and hooks. Some of us on the rim of the earth spend all our days quarrelling over bits of the crust of it. Some of us burrow and live in the ground, and are as workers in mines. The sound of our voices to one another is as though they were not. They are as the sound of picks groping in rocks. The reason that we are not able to produce or even to read a great literature is that a great book can never be written, in spirit at least, except to a whole human race. The final question with regard to every book that comes to a publisher to-day is what mine shall it be written in, which public shall it burrow for? A book that belongs to a whole human race, which cannot be classified or damned into smallness, would only be left by itself on the top of the ground in the sunlight. The next great book that comes will have to take a long trip, a kind of drummer's route around life, from mind to mind, and now in one place and now another be let down through shafts to us. There is no whole human race. A book with even forty-man power in it goes begging for readers. The reader with more than one-, two-, or three-man power of reading scarcely exists. We shall know our great book when it comes by the fact that crowds of kinds of men will flock to the paragraphs in it, each kind to its own kind of paragraph. It will hardly be said to reach us, the book with forty-man power in it, until it has been broken up into fortieths of itself. When it has been written over again--broken off into forty books by forty men, none of them on speaking terms with each other--it shall be recognised in some dim way that it must have been a great book. It is the first law of culture, in the highest sense, that it always begins and ends with the fact that a man is a man. Teaching the fact to a man that he can be a greater man is the shortest and most practical way of teaching him other facts. It is only by being a greater man, by raising his state of being to the _n^th_ power, that he can be made to see the other facts. The main attribute of the education of the future, in so far as it obtains to-day, is that it strikes both ways. It strikes in and makes a man mean something, and having made the man--the main fact--mean something, it strikes out through the man and makes all other facts mean something. It makes new facts, and old facts as good as new. It makes new worlds. All attempts to make a whole world without a single whole man anywhere to begin one out of are vain attempts. We are going to have great men again some time, but the science that attempts to build a civilisation in this twentieth century by subdividing such men as we already have mocks at itself. The devil is not a specialist and never will be. He is merely getting everybody else to be, as fast as he can. It is safe to say in this present hour of subdivided men and sub-selected careers that any young man who shall deliberately set out at the beginning of his life to be interested, at any expense and at all hazards, in everything, in twenty or thirty years will have the field entirely to himself. It is true that he will have to run, what every more vital man has had to run, the supreme risk, the risk of being either a fool or a seer, a fool if he scatters himself into everything, a seer if he masses everything into himself. But when he succeeds at last he will find that for all practical purposes, as things are going to-day, he will have a monopoly of the universe, of the greatest force there is in it, the combining and melting and fusing force that brings all men and all ideas together, making the race one--a force which is the chief characteristic of every great period and of every great character that history has known. It is obvious that whatever may be its dangers, the topical or scientific point of view in knowledge is one that the human race is not going to get along without, if it is to be master of the House it lives in. It is also obvious that the human or artistic, the man-point of view in knowledge is one that it is not going to get along without, if the House is to continue to have Men in it. The question remains, the topical point of view and the artistic point of view both being necessary, how shall a man contrive in the present crowding of the world to read with both? Is there any principle in reading that fuses them both? And if there is, what is it? VII--Reading the World Together I Focusing There are only a few square inches--of cells and things, no one quite knows what--on a human face, but a man can see more of the world in those few inches, and understand more of the meaning of the world in them, put the world together better there, than in any other few inches that God has made. Even one or two faces do it, for a man, for most of us, when we have seen them through and through. Not a face anywhere--no one has ever seen one that was not a mirror of a whole world, a poor and twisted one perhaps, but a great one. The man that goes with it may not know it, may not have much to do with it. While he is waiting to die, God writes on him; but however it is, every man's face (I cannot help feeling it when I really look at it) is helplessly great. It is one man's portrait of the universe as he has found it--his portrait of a Whole. I have caught myself looking at crowds of faces as if they were rows of worlds. Is not everything I can know or guess or cry or sing written on faces? An audience is a kind of universe by itself. I could pray to one--when once the soul is hushed before it. If there were any necessity to select one place rather than another, any particular place to address a God in, I think I would choose an audience. Praying for it instead of to it is a mere matter of form. I cannot find a face in it that does not lead to a God, that does not gather a God in for me out of all space, that is not one of His assembling places. Many and many a time when heads were being bowed have I caught a face in a congregation and prayed to it and with it. Every man's face is a kind of prayer he carries around with him. One can hardly help joining in it. It is sacrament to look at his face, if only to take sides in it, join with the God-self in it and help against the others. Whoever or Whatever He is, up there across all heaven, He is a God to me because He can be infinitely small or infinitely great as He likes. I will not have a God that can be shut up into any horizon or shut out of any face. When I have stood before audiences, have really realised faces, felt the still and awful thronging of them through my soul, it has seemed to me as if some great miracle were happening. It's as if--but who shall say it?--Have you never stood, Gentle Reader, alone at night on the frail rim of the earth--spread your heart out wide upon the dark, and let it lie there,--let it be flocked on by stars? It is like that when Something is lifted and one sees faces. Faces are worlds to me. However hard I try, I cannot get a man, somehow, any smaller than a world. He is a world to himself, and God helping me, when I deal with him, he shall be a world to me. The dignity of a world rests upon him. His face is a sum-total of the universe. It is made by the passing of the infinite through his body. It is the mark of all things that are, upon his flesh. What I like to believe is, that if there is an organic principle of unity like this in a little human life, if there is some way of summing up a universe in a man's face, there must be some way of summing it up, of putting it together in his education. It is this summing a universe up for one's self, and putting it together for one's self, and for one's own use, which makes an education in a universe worth while. In other words, with a symbol as convenient, as near to him as his own face, a man need not go far in seeking for a principle of unity in focusing education. A man's face makes it seem not unreasonable to claim that the principle of unity in all education is the man, that the single human soul is created to be its own dome of all knowledge. A man's education may be said to be properly laid out in proportion as it is laid out the way he lays out his countenance. The method or process by which a man's countenance is laid out is a kind of daily organic process of world-swallowing. What a man undertakes in living is the making over of all phenomena, outer sights and sounds into his own inner ones, the passing of all outside knowledge through himself. In proportion as he is being educated he is making all things that are, into his own flesh and spirit. When one looks at it in this way it is not too much to say that every man is a world. He makes the tiny platform of his soul in infinite space, a stage for worlds to come to, to play their parts on. His soul is a little All-show, a kind of dainty pantomime of the universe. * * * * * It seemed that I stood and watched a world awake, the great night still upbearing me above the flood of the day. I watched it strangely, as a changed being, the godlikeness and the might of sleep, the spell of the All upon me. I became as one who saw the earth as it is, in a high noon of its real self. Hung in its mist of worlds, wrapped in its own breath, I saw it--a queer little ball of cooled-off fire, it seemed, still and swift plunging through space. And when I looked close in my heart, I saw cunning little men on it, nations and things running around on it. And when I looked still nearer, looked at the lighted side of it, I saw that each little man was not what I thought--a dot or fleck on the universe. And I saw that he was a reflection, a serious, wondrous miniature of all the rest. It all seemed strange to me at first--to a man who lives, as I do, in a rather weary, laborious, painstaking age--that this should be so. As I looked at the little man I wondered if it really could be so. Then, as I looked, the great light flowed all around the little man, and the little man reflected the great light. But he did not seem to know it. I felt like calling out to him--to one of them--telling him out loud to himself, wrapped away as he was, in his haste and dumbness, not knowing, and in the funny little noise of cities in the great still light. And so while the godlikeness and the might of sleep was upon me, I watched him, longed for him, wanted him for myself. I thought of my great cold, stretched-out wisdom. How empty and bare it was, this staring at stars one by one, this taking notes on creation, this slow painful tour of space, when after all right down there in this little man, I said "Is not all I can know, or hope to know stowed away and written up?" And when I thought of this--the blur of sleep still upon me--I could hardly help reaching down for him, half-patronising him, half-worshipping him, taking him up to myself, where I could keep him by me, keep him to consult, watch for the sun, face for the infinite.--"Dear little fellow!" I said, "my own queer little fellow! my own little Kosmos, pocket-size!" I thought how convenient it would be if I could take one in my hand, do my seeing through it, focus my universe with it. And when the strange mood left me and I came to, I remembered or thought I remembered that I was one of Those myself. "Why not be your own little Kosmos-glass?" I said. I have been trying it now for some time. It is hard to regulate the focus of course, and it is not always what it ought to be. It has to be allowed for some. I do not claim much for it. But it's better, such as it is, than a sheer bit of Nothing, I think, to look at a universe with. II The Human Unit It matters little that the worlds that are made in this way are very different in detail or emphasis, that some of them are much smaller and more twisted than others. The great point, so far as education is concerned, is for all teachers to realise that every man is a whole world, that it is possible and natural for every man to be a whole world. His very body is, and there must be some way for him to have a whole world in his mind. A being who finds a way of living a world into his face can find a way of reading a world together. If a man is going to have unity, read his world together, possess all-in-oneness in knowledge, he will have to have it the way he has it in his face. It is superficial to assume, as scientists are apt to do, that in a world where there are infinite things to know, a man's knowledge must have unity or can have unity, in and of itself. The moment that all the different knowledges of a man are passed over or allowed to be passed over into his personal qualities, into the muscles and traits and organs and natural expressions of the man, they have unity and force and order and meaning as a matter of course. Infinite opposites of knowledge, recluses and separates of knowledge are gathered and can be seen gathered every day in almost any man, in the glance of his eye, in the turn of his lip, or in the blow of his fist. It is not the method of science as science, and it is not in any sense put forward as the proper method for a man to use in his mere specialty, but it does seem to be true that if a man wants to know things which he does not intend to know all of, the best and most scientific way for him to know such things is to reach out to them and know them through their human or personal relations. I can only speak for myself, but I have found for one that the easiest and most thorough, practical way for me to get the benefit of things I do not know, is to know a man who does. If he is an educated man, a man who really knows, who has made what he knows over into himself, I find if I know him that I get it all--the gist of it. The spirit of his knowledge, its attitude toward life, is all in the man, and if I really know the man, absorb his nature, drink deep at his soul, I know what he knows--it seems to me--and what I know besides. It is true that I cannot express it precisely. He would have to give the lecture or diagram of it, but I know it--know what it comes to in life, his life and my life. I can be seen going around living with it afterwards, any day. His knowledge is summed up in him, his whole world is read together in him, belongs to him, and he belongs to me. To know a man is to know what he knows in its best form--the things that have made the man possible. A great portrait painter, it has always seemed to me, is a kind of god in his way--knows everything his sitters know. He knows what every man's knowledge has done with the man--the best part of it--and makes it speak. I have never yet found myself looking at great walls of faces (one painter's faces), found myself walking up and down in Sargent's soul, without thinking what a great inhabited, trooped-through man he was--all knowledges flocking to him, showing their faces to him, from the ends of the earth, emptying their secrets silently out to his brush. If a man like Sargent has for one of his sitters a great astronomer, an astronomer who is really great, who knows and absorbs stars, Sargent absorbs the man, and as a last result the stars in the man, and the man in Sargent, and the man's stars in Sargent, all look out of the canvas. It is the spirit that sums up and unifies knowledge. It is a fact to be reckoned with, in education, that knowledge can be summed up, and that the best summing up of it is a human face. III The Higher Cannibalism It is not unnatural to claim, therefore, that the most immediate and important short-cut in knowledge that the comprehensive or educated man can take comes to him through his human and personal relations. There is no better way of getting at the spirits of facts, of tracing out valuable and practical laws or generalisations, than the habit of trying things on to people in one's mind. I have always thought that if I ever got discouraged and had to be an editor, I would do this more practically. As it is, I merely do it with books. I find no more satisfactory way of reading most books--the way one has to--through their backs, than reading the few books that one does read, through persons and for persons and with persons. It is a great waste of time to read a book alone. One needs room for rows of one's friends in a book. One book read through the eyes of ten people has more reading matter in it than ten books read in a common, lazy, lonesome fashion. One likes to do it, not only because one finds one's self enjoying a book ten times over, getting ten people's worth out of it, but because it makes a kind of sitting-room of one's mind, puts a fire-place in it, and one watches the ten people enjoying one another. It may be for better and it may be for worse, but I have come to the point where, if I really care about a book, the last thing I want to do with it is to sit down in a chair and read it by myself. If I were ever to get so low in my mind as to try to give advice to a real live author (any author but a dead one), it would be, "Let there be room for all of us, O Author, in your book. If I am to read a live, happy, human book, give me a bench." I have noticed that getting at truth on most subjects is a dramatic process rather than an argumentative one. One gets at truth either in a book or in a conversation not so much by logic as by having different people speak. If what is wanted is a really comprehensive view of a subject, two or three rather different men placed in a row and talking about it, saying what they think about it in a perfectly plain way, without argument, will do more for it than two or three hundred syllogisms. A man seems to be the natural or wild form of the syllogism, which this world has tacitly agreed to adopt. Even when he is a very poor one he works better with most people than the other kind. If a man takes a few other men (very different ones), uses them as glasses to see a truth through, it will make him as wise in a few minutes, with that truth, as a whole human race. Knowledge which comes to a man with any particular sweep or scope is, in the very nature of things, dramatic. * * * * * [I fear, Gentle Reader, I am nearing a conviction. I feel a certain constraint coming over me. I always do, when I am nearing a conviction. I never can be sure how my soul will take it upon itself to act when I am making the attempt I am making now, to state what is to me an intensely personal belief, in a general, convincing, or impersonal way. The embarrassing part of a conviction is that it is so. And when a man attempts to state a thing as it is, to speak for God or everybody,--well, it would not be respectable not to be embarrassed a little--speaking for God. I know perfectly well, sitting here at my desk, this minute, with this conviction up in my pen, that it is merely a little thing of my own, that I ought to go on from this point cool and straight with it. But it is a conviction, and if you find me, Gentle Reader, in the very next page, swivelling off and speaking for God, I can only beg that both He and you will forgive me. I solemnly assure you herewith, that, however it may look, I am merely speaking for myself. I have thought of having a rubber stamp for this book, a stamp with IT SEEMS TO ME on it. A good many of these pages need going over with it afterwards. I do not suppose there is a man living--either I or any other dogmatist--who would not enjoy more speaking for himself (if anybody would notice it) than speaking for God. I have a hope that if I can only hold myself to it on this subject I shall do much better in speaking for myself, and may speak accidentally for God besides. I leave it for others to say, but it is hard not to point a little--in a few places.] But here is the conviction. As I was going to say, knowledge which comes to a man with any particular sweep or scope is in the very nature of things dramatic. If the minds of two men expressing opinions in the dark could be flashed on a canvas, if there could be such a thing as a composite photograph of an opinion--a biograph of it,--it would prove to be, with nine men out of ten, a dissolving view of faces. The unspoken sides of thought are all dramatic. The palest generalisation a man can express, if it could be first stretched out into its origins, and then in its origins could be crowded up and focused, would be found to be a long unconscious procession of human beings--a murmur of countless voices. All our knowledge is conceived at first, taken up and organised in actual men, flashed through the delights of souls and the music of voices upon our brains. If it is true even in the business of the street that the greatest efficiency is reached by dealers who mix with the knowledge of their subject a keen appreciation and mastery of men, it is still more true of the business of the mind that the greatest, most natural and comprehensive results are reached through the dramatic or human insights. All our knowledge is dead drama. Wisdom is always some old play faded out, blurred into abstractions. A principle is a wonderful disguised biograph. The power of Carlyle's _French Revolution_ is that it is a great spiritual play, a series of pictures and faces. It was the French Revolution all happening over again to Carlyle, and it was another French Revolution to every one of his readers. It was dynamic, an induced current from Paris via Craigenputtock, because it was dramatic--great abstractions, playing magnificently over great concretes. Every man in Carlyle's history is a philosophy, and every abstraction in it a man's face, a beckoning to us. He always seems to me a kind of colossus of a man stalking across the dark, way out in The Past, using men as search-lights. He could not help doing his thinking in persons, and everything he touches is terribly and beautifully alive. It was because he saw things in persons, that is, in great, rapid, organised sum-totals of experience and feeling, that he was able to make so much of so little as a historian, and what is quite as important (at least in history), so little of so much. The true criticism of Carlyle as a historian is not a criticism of his method, that he went about in events and eras doing his seeing and thinking with persons, but that there were certain sorts of persons that Carlyle, with his mere lighted-up-brute imagination, could never see with. They were opaque to him. Every time he lifted one of them up to see ten years with, or a bevy of events or whatever it might be, he merely made blots or sputters with them, on his page. But it was his method that made it a great page, wider and deeper and more splendid than any of the others, and the blots were always obvious blots, did no harm there--no historical harm--almost any one could see them, and if they could not, were there not always plenty of little chilled-through historians, pattering around after him, tracking them out? But the great point of Carlyle's method was that he kept his perspective with it. Never flattened out like other historians, by tables of statistics, unbewildered by the blur of nobodies, he was able to have a live, glorious giant's way of writing, a godlike method of handling great handfuls of events in one hand, of unrolling great stretches of history with a look, of seeing things and making things seen, in huge, broad, focussed, vivid human wholes. It was a historical method of treating great masses, which Thomas Carlyle and Shakespeare and Homer and the Old Testament all have in common. The fact that it fails in the letter and with hordes of literal persons, that it has great gaps of temperament left over in it, is of lesser weight. The letter passes by (thank Heaven!) in the great girths of time and space. In all lasting or real history, only the spirit has a right to live. Temperaments in histories even at the worst are easily allowed for, filled out with temperaments of other historians--that is, they ought to be and are going to be if we ever have real historians any more, historians great enough and alive enough to have temperaments, and with temperaments great enough to write history the way God does--that can be read. History can only be truly written by men who have concepts of history, and "Every concept," says Hegel, "must be universal, concrete, and particular, or else it cannot be a concept." That is, it must be dramatic. And what is true of a great natural man or man of genius like Carlyle is equally true of all other natural persons whether men of genius or not. A stenographic report of all the thoughts of almost any man's brain for a day would prove to almost any scientist how spiritually organised, personally conducted a human being's brain is bound to be, almost in spite of itself--even when it has been educated, artificially numbed and philosophised. A man may not know the look of the inside of his mind well enough to formulate or recognise it, but nearly every man's thinking is done, as a matter of course, either in people, or to people, or for people, or out of people. It is the way he grows, the way the world is woven through his being, the way of having life more abundantly. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that if Shakespeare had not created his characters they would have created him. One need not wonder so very much that Shakespeare grew so masterfully in his later plays and as the years went on. Such a troop of people as flocked through Shakespeare's soul would have made a Shakespeare (allowing more time for it) out of almost anybody. The essential wonder of Shakespeare, the greatness which has made men try to make a dozen specialists out of him, is not so very wonderful when one considers that he was a dramatist. A dramatist cannot help growing great. At least he has the outfit for it if he wants to. One hardly wants to be caught giving a world recipe,--a prescription for being a great man; but it does look sometimes as if the habit of reading for persons, of being a sort of spiritual cannibal, or man-eater, of going about through all the world absorbing personalities the way other men absorb facts, would gradually store up personality in a man, and make him great--almost inconveniently great, at times, and in spite of himself. The probabilities seem to be that it was because Shakespeare instinctively picked out persons in the general scheme of knowledge more than facts; it was because persons seemed to him, on the whole in every age, to be the main facts the age was for, summed the most facts up; it was because they made him see the most facts, helped him to feel and act on facts, made facts experiences to him, that William Shakespeare became so supreme and masterful with facts and men both. To learn how to be _pro tem_. all kinds of men, about all things, to enjoy their joys in the things, is the greatest and the livest way of learning the things. To learn to be a Committee of the Temperaments all by one's self (which is what Shakespeare did) is at once the method and the end of education--outside of one's specialty. There could be no better method of doing this (no method open to everybody) than the method,--outside of one's specialty,--of reading for persons and with persons. It makes all one's life a series of spiritual revelations. It is like having regular habits of being born again, of having new experiences at will. It mobilises all love and passion and delight in the world and sends it flowing past one's door. In this day of immeasurable exercises, why does not some one put in a word for the good old-fashioned exercise of being born again? It is an exercise which few men seem to believe in, not even once in a lifetime, but it is easily the best all-around drill for living, and even for reading, that can be arranged. And it is not a very difficult exercise if one knows how, does it regularly enough. It is not at all necessary to go off to another world to believe in reincarnations, if one practises on them every day. Women have always seemed to be more generally in the way of being born again than men, but they have less scope and sometimes there is a certain feverish smallness about it, and when men once get started (like Robert Browning in distinction from Mrs. Browning) they make the method of being born again seem a great triumphant one. They seem to have a larger repertoire to be born to, and they go through it more rapidly and justly. At the same time it is true that nearly all women are more or less familiar with the exercise of being born again--living _pro tem_. and at will--in others, and only a few men do it--merely the greatest ones, statesmen, diplomats, editors, poets, great financiers, and other prophets--all men who live by seeing more than others have time for. They are found to do their seeing rather easily on the whole. They do it by the perfectly normal exercise of being born into other men, looking out of their eyes a minute, whenever they like. All great power in its first stage is essentially dramatic, a man-judging, man-illuminating power, the power of guessing what other people are going to think and do. When the world points out to the young man, as it is very fond of doing, that he must learn from experience, what it really means is, that he must learn from his dramatic drill in human life, his contact with real persons, his slow, compulsory scrupulous going the rounds of his heart, putting himself in the place of real persons. Probably every man who lives, in proportion as he covets power or knowledge, would like to be (at will at least) a kind of focused everybody. It is true that in his earlier stages, and in his lesser moods afterward, he would probably seem to most people a somewhat teetering person, diffused, chaotic, or contradictory. It could hardly be helped--with the raw materials of a great man all scattered around in him, great unaccounted-for insights, idle-looking powers all as yet unfused. But a man in the long run (and longer the better) is always worth while, no matter how he looks in the making, and it certainly does seem reasonable, however bad it may look, that this is the way he is made, that in proportion as he does his knowing spiritually and powerfully, he will have to do it dramatically. It sometimes seems as if knowing, in the best sense, were a kind of rotary-person process, a being everybody in a row, a state of living symposium. The interpenetrating, blending-in, digesting period comes in due course, the time of settling down into himself, and behold the man is made, a unified, concentrated, individual, universal man--a focused everybody. This is not quite being a god perhaps, but it is as near to it, on the whole, as a man can conveniently get. IV Spiritual Thrift But perhaps one of the most interesting things about doing up one's knowing in persons is that it is not only the most alive, but the most economical knowledge that can be obtained. On the whole, eleven or twelve people do very well to know the world with, if one can get a complete set, if they are different enough, and one knows them down through. The rest of the people that one sees about, from the point of view of stretching one's comprehension, one's essential sympathy or knowledge, do not count very much. They are duplicates--to be respected and to be loved, of course, but to be kept in the cellar of actual consciousness. There is no other way to do. Everybody was not intended to be used by everybody. It is because we think that they were, mostly, that we have come to our present, modern, heartlessly-cordial fashion of knowing people--knowing people by parlourfuls--whole parlourfuls at a time. "Is thy servant a whale?" said my not unsociable soul to me. "Is one to be fed with one's kind as if they were animalculæ, as if they had to be taken in the bulk if one were really to get something?" It is heartless and shallow enough. Who is not weary of it? No one knows anybody nowadays. He merely knows everybody. He falls before The Reception Room. A reception room is a place where we set people up in rows like pickets on a fence to know them. Then like the small boy with a stick, one tap per picket, we run along knowing people. No one comes in touch with any one. It is getting so that there is hardly any possible way left in our modern life for knowing people except by marrying them. One cannot even be sure of that, when one thinks how married people are being driven about by books and by other people. Society is a crowd of crowds mutually destroying each other and literature is a crowd of books all shutting each other up, and the law seems to be either selection or annihilation, whether in reading or living. The only way to love everybody in this world seems to be to pick out a few in it, delegates of everybody, and use these few to read with, and to love and understand the world with, and to keep close to it, all one's days. The higher form one's facts are put in in this world the fewer one needs. To know twelve extremely different souls utterly, to be able to borrow them at will, turn them on all knowledge, bring them to bear at a moment's notice on anything one likes, is to be an educated, masterful man in the most literal possible sense. Except in mere matters of physical fact, things which are small enough to be put in encyclopedias and looked up there, a man with twelve deeply loved or deeply pitied souls woven into the texture of his being can flash down into almost any knowledge that he needs, or go out around almost any ignorance that is in his way, through all the earth. The shortest way for an immortal soul to read a book is to know and absorb enough other immortal souls, and get them to help. Any system of education which like our present prevailing one is so vulgar, so unpsychological, as to overlook the soul as the organ and method of knowledge, which fails to see that the knowledge of human souls is itself the method of acquiring all other knowledge and of combining and utilising it, makes narrow and trivial and impotent scholars as a matter of course. Knowledge of human nature and of one's self is the nervous system of knowledge, the flash and culmination, the final thoroughness of all the knowledge that is worth knowing and of all ways of knowing it. It is all a theory, I suppose. I cannot prove anything with it. I dare say it is true that neither I nor any one else can get, by reading in this way, what I like to think I am getting, slowly, a cross-section of the universe. But it is something to get as time goes on a cross-section of all the human life that is being lived in it. It is something to take each knowledge that comes, strike all the keys of one's friends on it--clear the keyboard of space on it. When one really does this, nothing can happen to one which does not or cannot happen to one in the way one likes. Events and topics in this world are determined to a large degree by circumstances--dandelions, stars, politics, bob-whites, acids, Kant, and domestic science--but personalities, a man's means of seeing things, are determined only by the limits of his imagination. One's knowledge of pictures, or of Kant, of bob-whites or acids, cannot be applied to every conceivable occasion, but nothing can happen in all the world that one cannot see or feel or delight in, or suffer in, through Charles Lamb's soul if one has really acquired it. One can be a Charles Lamb almost anywhere toward almost anything that happens along, or a Robert Burns or a Socrates or a Heine, or an Amiel or a Dickens or Hugo or any one, or one can hush one's soul one eternal moment and be the Son of God. To know a few men, to turn them into one's books, to turn them into one another, into one's self, to study history with their hearts, to know all men that live with them, to put them all together and guess at God with them--it seems to me that knowledge that is as convenient and penetrating, as easily turned on and off, as much like a light as this, is well worth having. It would be like taking away a whole world, if it were taken away from me--the little row of people I do my reading with. And some of them are supposed to be dead--hundreds of years. * * * * * But the dramatic principle in education strikes both ways. While it is true that one does not need a very large outfit of people to do one's knowing with, if one has the habit of thinking in persons, it is still more true that one does not need a large outfit of books. As I sit in my library facing the fire I fancy I hear, sometimes, my books eating each other up. One by one through the years they have disappeared from me--only portraits or titles are left. The more beautiful book absorbs the less and the greater folds itself around the small. I seldom take down a book that was an enthusiasm once without discovering that the heart of it has fled away, has stealthily moved over, while I dreamed, to some other book. Lowell and Whittier are footnotes scattered about in several volumes, now. J. G. Holland (Sainte-Beuve of my youth!) is digested by Matthew Arnold and Matthew Arnold by Walter Pater and Walter Pater by Walt Whitman. Montaigne and Plato have moved over into Emerson, and Emerson has been distilled slowly into--forty years. Holmes has dissolved into Charles Lamb and Thomas Browne. A big volume of Rossetti (whom I oddly knew first) is lost in a little volume of Keats, and as I sit and wait Ruskin and Carlyle are going fast into a battered copy on my desk--of the Old Testament. Once let the dramatic principle get well started in a man's knowledge and it seems to keep on sending him up new currents the way his heart does, whether he notices it or not. If a man will leave his books and his people to themselves, if he will let them do with him and with one another what they want to do, they all work while he sleeps. If the spirit of knowledge, the dramatic principle in it, is left free, knowledge all but comes to a man of itself, cannot help coming, like the dew on the grass. With enough reading for persons one need not buy very many books. One allows for unconscious cerebration in books. Books not only have a way of being read through their backs, but of reading one another. V The City, the Church, and the College The greatest event of the nineteenth century was that somewhere in it, at some immense and hidden moment in it, human knowledge passed silently over from the emphasis of Persons to the emphasis of Things. I have walked up and down Broadway when the whole street was like a prayer to me--miles of it--a long dull cry to its little strip of heaven. I have been on the Elevated--the huge shuttle of the great city--hour by hour, had my soul woven into New York on it, back and forth, up and down, until it was hardly a soul at all, a mere ganglion, a quivering, pressed-in nerve of second-story windows, skies of clotheslines, pale faces, mist and rumble and dust. "Perhaps I have a soul," I say. "Perhaps I have not. Has any one a soul?" When I look at the men I say to myself, "Now I will look at the women," and when I look at the women I say, "Now I will look at the men." Then I look at shoes. Men are cheap in New York. Every little man I see stewing along the street, when I look into his face in my long, slow country way, as if a hill belonged with him or a scrap of sky or something, or as if he really counted, looks at me as one would say, "I? I am a millionth of New York--and you?" I am not even that. The city gathers itself together in a great roar about me, puts its hands to its mouth and bellows in my country ears, "Men are cheap enough, dear boy, didn't you know that? See those dots on Brooklyn Bridge?" I go on with my walk. I stop and look up at the great blocks. "Who are you?" the great blocks say. I take another step. I am one more shuffle on the street. "Men are cheap. Look at _us_--" a thousand show windows say. Are there not square miles of human countenance drifting up Broadway any day? "And where are they going?" I asked my soul. "To oblivion?"--"They are going from Things," said my soul, "to Things"; and _sotto voce_, "From one set of Things they know they do not want, to another set of Things they do not know they do not want." One need not wonder very long that nearly every man one knows in New York is at best a mere cheered-up and plucky pessimist. Of course one has to go down and see one's favourite New Yorker, one needs to and wants to, and one needs to get wrought in with him too, but when one gets home, who is there who does not have to get free from his favourite New Yorker, shake himself off from him, save his soul a little longer? "Men are cheap," it keeps saying over and over to one,--a New York soul does. It keeps coming back--whispering through all the aisles of thought. New York spreads itself like a vast concrete philosophy over every man's spirit. It reeks with cheapness, human cheapness. How could it be otherwise with a New York man? I never come home from New York, wander through the city with my heart, afterward, look down upon it, see Broadway with this little man on it, fretting up and down between his twenty-story blocks, in his little trough of din under the wide heaven, loomed at by iron and glass, browbeaten by stone, smothered by smoke, but that he all but seems to me, this little Broadway man, to be slipping off the planet, to barely belong to the planet. I feel like clutching at him, helping him to hold on, pitying him. Then I remember how it really is (if there is any pitying to be done),--this crowded-over, crowded-off, matter-cringing, callous-looking man, pities me. When I was coming home from New York the last time, had reached a safe distance behind my engine, out in the fields, I found myself listening all over again to the roar (saved up in me) of the great city. I tried to make it out, tried to analyse what it was that the voice of the great city said to me. "The voice of the city is the Voice of Things," my soul said to me. "And the Man?" I said, "where does the Man come in? Are not the Things for the Man?" Then the roar of the great city rose up about me, like a flood, swallowed my senses in itself, numbed and overbore me, swooned my soul in itself, and said: "NO, THE THINGS ARE NOT FOR THE MAN. THE MAN IS FOR THE THINGS." This is what the great city said. And while I still listened, the roar broke over me once more with its NO! NO! NO! its million voices in it, its million souls in it. All doubts and fears and hates and cries, all deadnesses flowed around me, took possession of me. Then I remembered the iron and wood faces of the men, great processions of them, I had seen there, the strange, protected-looking, boxed-in faces of the women, faces in crates, I had seen, and I understood. "New York," I said, "is a huge war, a great battle numbered off in streets and houses, every man against every man, every man a shut-in, self-defended man. It is a huge lamp-lighted, sun-lighted, ceaseless struggle, day unto day." "But New York is not the world. Try the whole world," said my soul to me. "Perhaps you can do better. Are there not churches, men-making, men-gathering places, oases for strength and rest in it?" Then I went to all the churches in the land at once, of a still Sabbath morning, steeples in the fields and hills, and steeples in cities. The sound of splendid organs praying for the poor emptied people, the long, still, innumerable sound of countless collections being taken, the drone and seesaw of sermons, countless sermons! (Ah, these poor helpless Sundays!) Paper-philosophy and axioms. Chimes of bells to call the people to paper-philosophy and axioms! "Canst thou not," said I to my soul, "guide me to a Man, to a door that leads to a Man--a world-lover or prophet?" Then I fled (I always do after a course of churches) to the hills from whence cometh strength. David tried to believe this. I do sometimes, but hills are great, still, coldly companionable, rather heartless fellows. I know in my heart that all the hills on earth, with all their halos on them, their cities of leaves, and circles of life, would not take the place to me, in mystery, closeness, illimitableness, and wonder--of one man. And when I turn from the world of affairs and churches, to the world of scholarship, I cannot say that I find relief. Even scholarship, scholarship itself, is under a stone most of it, prone and pale and like all the rest, under The Emphasis of Things. Scholarship is getting to be a mere huge New York, infinite rows and streets of things, taught by rows of men who have made themselves over into things, to another row of men who are trying to make themselves over into things. I visit one after the other of our great colleges, with their forlorn, lonesome little chapels, cosy-corners for God and for the humanities, their vast Thing-libraries, men like dots in them, their great long, reached-out laboratories, stables for truth, and I am obliged to confess in spirit that even the colleges, in all ages the strongholds of the human past, and the human future, the citadels of manhood, are getting to be great man-blind centres, shambles of souls, places for turning every man out from himself, every man away from other men, making a Thing of him--or at best a Columbus for a new kind of fly, or valet to a worm, or tag or label on Matter. When one considers that it is a literal, scientific, demonstrable fact that there is not a single evil that can be named in modern life, social, religious, political, or industrial, which is not based on the narrowness and blindness of classes of men toward one another, it is very hard to sit by and watch the modern college almost everywhere, with its silent, deadly Thing-emphasis upon it, educating every man it can reach, into not knowing other men, into not knowing even himself. VI The Outsiders One cannot but look with deep pleasure at first, and with much relief, upon these healthy objective modern men of ours. The only way out, for spiritual hardihood, after the world-sick Middle Ages, was a Columbus, a vast splendid train of Things after him, of men who emphasised Things,--who could emphasise Things. It is a great spectacle and a memorable one--the one we are in to-day, the spectacle of the wonder that men are doing with Things, but when one begins to see that it is all being turned around, that it is really a spectacle of what Things are doing with men, one wakes with a start. One wonders if there could be such a thing as having all the personalities of a whole generation lost. One looks suspiciously and wistfully at the children one sees in the schools. One wonders if they are going to be allowed, like their fathers and mothers, to have personalities to lose. I have all but caught myself kidnapping children as I have watched them flocking in the street. I have wanted to scurry them off to the country, a few of them, almost anywhere--for a few years. I have thought I would try to find a college to hide them in, some back-county, protected college, a college which still has the emphasis of Persons as well as the emphasis of Things upon it. Then I would wait and see what would come of it. I would at least have a little bevy of great men perhaps, saved out for a generation, enough to keep the world supplied with samples--to keep up the bare idea of the great man, a kind of isthmus to the future. The test of civilisation is what it produces--its man, if only because he produces all else. If we have all made up our minds to allow the specialist to set the pace for us, either to be specialists ourselves or vulgarly to compete with specialists, for the right of living, or getting a living, there is going to be a crash sometime. Then a sense of emptiness after the crash which will call us to our senses. The specialist's view of the world logically narrows itself down to a race of nonentities for nothings. And even if a thing is a thing, it is a nothing to a nonentity. And if it is the one business of the specialist to obtain results, and we are all browbeaten into being specialists, but one result is going to be possible. It is obvious that the man who is willing to sacrifice the most is going to have the most success in the race, crowd out and humiliate or annihilate the others. If this is to be the world, it is only men who are ready to die for nothing in order to create nothing who will be able to secure enough of nothing to rule it. One wonders how long ruling such a world will be worth while, a world which has accepted as the order of the day success by suicide, the spending of manhood on things which only by being men we can enjoy--the method of forging boilers and getting deaf to buy violins, of having elevated railways for dead men, wireless telegraphs for clods, gigantic printing-presses for men who have forgotten how to read. "Let us all, by all means, make all things for the world." So we set ourselves to our task cheerfully, the task of attaining results for people at large by killing people in particular off. We are getting to be already, even in the arts, men with one sense. We have classes even in colour. Schools of painters are founded by men because they have one seventh of a sense of sight. Schools of musicians divide themselves off into fractions of the sense of sound, and on every hand men with a hundred and forty-three million cells in their brains, become noted (nobodies) because they only use a hundred and forty-three. "What is the use of attaining results," one asks, "of making such a perfectly finished world, when there is not a man in it who would pay any attention to it as a world?" If the planet were really being improved by us, if the stars shone better by our committing suicide to know their names, it might be worth while for us all to die, perhaps, to make racks of ourselves, frames for souls (one whole generation of us), in one single, heroic, concerted attempt to perfect a universe like this, the use and mastery of it. But what would it all come to? Would we not still be left in the way on it, we and our children, lumbering it up, soiling and disgracing it, making a machine of it? There would be no one to appreciate it. Our children would inherit the curse from us, would be more like us than we are. If any one is to appreciate this world, we must appreciate it and pass the old secret on. No one seems to believe in appreciating--appreciating more than one thing, at least. The practical disappearance in any vital form of the lecture-lyceum, the sermon, the essay, and the poem, the annihilation of the imagination or organ of comprehension, the disappearance of personality, the abolition of the editorial, the temporary decline of religion, of genius, of the artistic temperament, can all be summed up and symbolised in a single trait of modern life, its separated men, interested in separate things. We are getting to be lovers of contentedly separate things, little things in their little places all by themselves. The modern reader is a skimmer, a starer at pictures, like a child, while he reads, never thinking a whole thought, a lover of peeks and paragraphs, as a matter of course. Except in his money-making, or perhaps in the upper levels of science, the typical modern man is all paragraphs, not only in the way he reads, but in the way he lives and thinks. Outside of his specialty he is not interested in anything more than one paragraph's worth. He is as helpless as a bit of protoplasm before the sight of a great many very different things being honestly put together. Putting things together tires him. He has no imagination, because he has the daily habit of contentedly seeing a great many things which he never puts together. He is neither artistic nor original nor far-sighted nor powerful, because he has a paragraph way of thinking, a scrap-bag of a soul, because he cannot concentrate separate things, cannot put things together. He has no personality because he cannot put himself together. It is significant that in the days when personalities were common and when very powerful, interesting personalities could be looked up, several to the mile, on almost any road in the land, it was not uncommon to see a business letter-head like this: ---------------------------------------------- | General Merchandise, | | Dry Goods, Notions, Hats, | | Shoes, Groceries, Hardware, Coffins | | and Caskets, Livery and | | Feed Stable. | | Physician and Surgeon. | | Justice of the Peace, Licensed to Marry. | ---------------------------------------------- If, as it looks just at present, the nation is going to believe in arbitration as the general modern method of adjustment, that is, in the all-siding up of a subject, the next thing it will be obliged to believe in will be some kind of an institution of learning which will produce arbitrators, men who have two or three perfectly good, human sides to their minds, who have been allowed to keep minds with three dimensions. The probabilities are that if the mind of Socrates, or any other great man, could have an X-ray put on it, and could be thrown on a canvas, it would come out as a hexagon, or an almost-circle, with lines very like spokes on the inside bringing all things to a centre. It is not necessary to deny, in the present emphasis of Things, that we are making and inspiring all Things except ourselves in a way that would make the Things glad. The trouble is that Things are getting too glad. They are turning around and making us. Nearly every man in college is being made over, mind and body, into a sort of machine. When the college has finished him, and put him on the market, and one wonders what he is for, one learns he is to do some very little part, of some very little thing, and nothing else. The local paper announces with pride that in the new factory we have for the manufacture of shoes it takes one hundred and sixty-three machines to make one shoe--one man to each machine. I ask myself, "If it takes one hundred and sixty-three machines to make one shoe, how many machines does it take to make one man?" The Infinite Face of The Street goes by me night and day. To and fro, its innumerable eyes, always the sound of footsteps in my ears, out of all these--jostling our shoulders, hidden from our souls, there waits an All-man, a great man, I know, as always great men wait, whose soul shall be the signal to the latent hero in us all, who, standing forth from the machines of learning and the machines of worship, that spread their noise and network through all the living of our lives, shall start again the old sublime adventure of keeping a Man upon the earth. He shall rouse the glowing crusaders, the darers of every land, who through the proud and dreary temples of the wise shall go, with the cry from Nazareth on their lips, "Woe unto you ye men of learning, ye have taken away the key of knowledge, ye have entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in, ye have hindered," and the mighty message of the one great scholar of his day who knew a God: "Whether there be prophecies they shall fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease, whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,..." I do not forget of Him, whose "I, IF I BE LIFTED UP" is the hail of this modern world, that there were men of letters in those far-off days, when once He walked with us, who, sounding their brass and tinkling their cymbals, asked the essentially ignorant question of all outsiders of knowledge in every age--"How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?" As I lay on my bed in the night They came Pale with sleep-- The faces of all the living As though they were dead; "What is Power?" they cried, Souls that were lost from their masters while they slept-- Trooping through my dream, "What is Power?" Now these nineteen hundred years since the Boy In the temple with The Doctors Still the wind of faces flying Through the spaces of my dream, "WHAT IS POWER?" they cried. VII Reading the World Together It is not necessary to decry science, but it should be cried on the housetops of education, the world around in this twentieth century, that science is in a rut of dealing solely with things and that the pronoun of science is It. While it is obvious that neuter knowledge should have its place in any real scheme of life, it is also obvious that most of us, making locomotives, playing with mist, fire and water and lightning, and the great game with matter, should be allowed to have sex enough to be men and women a large part of the time, the privilege of being persons, perchance gods, surmounting this matter we know so much about, rather than becoming like it. The next great move of education--the one which is to be expected--is that the educated man of the twentieth century is going to be educated by selecting out of all the bare knowledges the warm and human elements in them. He is going to work these over into a relation to himself and when he has worked them over into relation to himself, he is going to work them over through himself into every one else and read the world together. It is because the general habit of reading for persons, acquiring one's knowledge naturally and vitally and in its relation to life, has been temporarily swept one side in modern education that we are obliged to face the divorced condition of the educated world to-day. There seem to be, for the most part, but two kinds of men living in it, living on opposite sides of the same truths glaring at each other. On the one hand the anæmically spiritual, broad, big, pallid men, and on the other the funny, infinitesimal, provincial, matter cornered, matter-of-fact ones. However useless it may seem to be there is but one way out. Some man is going to come to us, must come to us, who will have it in him to challenge these forces, do battle with them, fight with fog on one hand and desert on the other. There never will be one world in education until we have one man who can emphasise persons and things together, and do it every day, side by side, in his own mind. When there is one man who is an all-man, an epitome of a world, there shall be more all-men. He cannot help attracting them, drawing them out, creating them. With enough men who have a whole world in their hearts, we shall soon have a whole world. Whether it is true or not that the universe is most swiftly known, most naturally enjoyed as related to one Creator or Person, as the self-expression of one Being who loved all these things enough to gather them together, it is generally admitted that the natural man seems to have been created to enjoy a universe as related to himself. His most natural and powerful way of enjoying it is to enjoy it in its relation to persons. A Person may not have created it, but it seems for the time being at least, and so far as persons are concerned, to have been created for persons. To know the persons and the things together, and particularly the things in relation to the persons, is the swiftest and simplest way of knowing the things. Persons are the nervous system of all knowledge. So far as man is concerned all truth is a sub-topic under his own soul, and the universe is the tool of his own life. Reading for different topics in it gives him a superficial knowledge of the men who write about them. Reading to know the men gives him a superficial knowledge, in the technical sense, of the things they write about. Let him stand up and take his choice like a man between being superficial in the letter and superficial in the spirit. Outside of his specialty, however, being superficial in the letter will lead him to the most knowledge. Man is the greatest topic. All other knowledge is a sub-topic under a Man, and the stars themselves are as footnotes to the thoughts of his heart. "Things are not only related to other things," the soul of the man says, "they are related to me." This relation of things to me is a mutual affair, partly theirs and partly mine, and I am going to do my knowing, act on my own knowledge, as if I were of some importance in it. Shall I reckon with alkalis and acids and not reckon with myself? I say, "O great Nature, O infinite Things, by the charter of my soul (and whether I have a soul or not), I am not only going to know things, but things shall know _me_. I stamp myself upon them. I shall receive from them and love them and belong to them, but they shall be my things because they are things, and they shall be to me, what I make them." "The sun is thy plaything," my soul says to me, "O, mighty Child, the stars thy companions. Stand up! Come out in the day! laugh the great winds to thy side. The sea, if thou wilt have it so, is thy frog-pond and thou shalt play with the lightnings in thy breast." "Aye, aye," I cry, "I know it! The youth of the world seizes my whole being. I hurrah like a child through all knowledge. I have taken all heaven for my nursery. The world is my rocking-horse. Things are not only for things, and my body in the end for things, but now I _live_, I _live_, and things are for me!" "Aye, aye, and they shall be to thee," said my soul, "what thou biddest them." And now I go forth quietly. "Do you not see, O mountains, that you must reckon with me? I am the younger brother of the stars. I have faced nations in my heart. Great bullying, hulking, half-dead centuries I have faced. I have made them speak to me, and have dared against them. If there is history, I also am history. If there are facts, I also am a fact. If there are laws, it is one of the laws that I am one of the laws." All knowledge, I have said in my heart, instead of being a kind of vast overseer-and-slave system for a man to lock himself up in, and throw away his key in, becomes free, fluent, daring, and glorious the moment it is conceived through persons and for persons and with persons. Knowledge is not knowledge until it is conceived in relation to persons; that is, in relation to all the facts. Persons are facts also and on the whole the main facts, the facts which for seventy years, at least, or until the planet is too cooled off, all other facts are for. The world belongs to persons, is related to persons, and all the knowledge thereof, and by heaven, and by my soul's delight, all the persons the knowledge is related to shall belong to me, and the knowledge that is related to them shall belong to me, the whole human round of it. The spirit and rhythm and song of their knowledge, the thing in it that is real to them, that sings out their lives to them, shall sing to me. Book IV What to Do Next "I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, Crying, 'Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!'" I See Next Chapter It is good to rise early in the morning, when the world is still respectable and nobody has used it yet, and sit and look at it, try to realise it. One sees things very differently. It is a kind of yawn of all being. One feels one's soul lying out, all relaxed, on it, and resting on real things. It stretches itself on the bare bones of the earth and knows. On a hundred silent hills it lies and suns itself. And as I lay in the morning, soul and body reaching out to the real things and resting on them, I thought I heard One Part of me, down underneath, half in the light and half in the dark, laughing softly at the Other. "What is this book of yours?" it said coldly, "with its proffered scheme of education, its millenniums and things? What do you think this theory, this heaven-spanning theory of reading of yours, really is, which you have held up objectively, almost authoritatively, to be looked at as truth? Do you think it is anything after all but a kind of pallid, unreal, water-colour exhibition, a row of blurs of faintly coloured portraits of yourself, spread on space? Do you not see how unfair it is--this spinning out of one's own little dark, tired inside, a theory for a wide heaven and earth, this straddling with one temperament a star?" Then I made myself sit down and compose what I feared would be a strictly honest title-page for this book. Instead of: THE LOST ART OF READING A STUDY OF EDUCATION BY ETC. I wrote it: HOW TO BE MORE LIKE ME A SHY AT EDUCATION BY ETC. And when I had looked boldly (almost scientifically) at this title-page, let it mock me a little, had laughed and sighed over it, as I ought, there came a great hush from I know not where. I remembered it was the title, after all, for better or worse, in some sort or another, of every book I had craved and delighted in, in the whole world. Then suddenly I found myself before this book, praying to it, and before every struggling desiring-book of every man, of other men, where it has prayed before, and I dared to look my title in the face. I have not denied--I do not need to deny--that what I have uncovered here is merely my own soul's glimmer--my interpretation--at this mighty, passing show of a world, and it comes to you, Oh Gentle Reader, not as I am, but as I would like to be. Out of chaos it struggles to you, and defeat--can you not see it?--and if but the benediction of what I, or you, or any man would like to be will come and rest on it, it is enough. Take it first and last, it is written in every man's soul, be his theory whatsoever it may of this great wondering world--wave after wave of it, shuddering and glorying over him--it is written after all that he does not know that anything is, can be, or has been in this world until he possesses it, or misses possessing it himself--feels it slipping from him. It is in what a man is, has, or might have, that he must track out his promise for a world. His life is his prayer for the ages as long as he lives, and what he is, and what he is trying to be, sings and prays for him, says masses for his soul under the stars, and in the presence of all peoples, when he is dead. By this truth, I and my book with you, Gentle Reader, must stand or fall. Even now as I bend over the click of my typewriter, the years rise dim and flow over me out of the east, ... generations of brothers, out of the mist of heaven and out of the dust of the earth, trooping across the world, and wondering at it, come and go, and out of all these there shall not be one, no not one, Gentle Reader, but shall be touched and loved by you, by me. In light out of shadow or in the shadow out of the light, our souls fleck them, fleck them with the invisible, blessing them and cursing them. We shall be the voices of the night and day to them, shall live a shadow of life with them, and be the sounds in their ears; did any man think that what we are, and what we are trying to be, is ours, is private, is for ourselves? Boundlessly, helplessly scattered on the world, upon the faces of our fellows, our souls mock to us or sing to us forever. So if I have opened my windows to you, say not it is because I have dared. It is because I have not dared. I have said I will protect my soul with the street. I will have my vow written on my forehead. I will throw open my window to the passer-by. Fling it in! I beg you, oh world, whatever it is, be it prayer or hope or jest. It is mine. I have vowed to live with it, to live out of it--so long as I feel your footsteps under my casement, and know that your watch is upon my days, and that you hold me to myself. I have taken for my challenge or for my comrade, I know not which, a whole world. And what shall a man give in exchange for a whole world? And my soul said "He shall not save nor keep back himself." Who is the Fool--that I should be always taking all this trouble for him,--tiptoeing up and down the world with my little cover over my secret for him? To defy a Fool, I have said, speak your whole truth. Then God locks him out. To hide a secret, have enough of it. Hide it outdoors. Why should a man take anything less than a world to hide in? If a soul is really a soul, why should it not fall back for its reserve on its own infinity? God does. Even daisies do it. It is too big a world to be always bothering about one's secret in it. "Who has time for it?" I have said. "Give it out. Move right on living. Get another." The only way for a man in this twentieth century to hide his soul is by letting it reach out of sight. Not by locks, nor by stiflings, nor by mean little economizings of the heart does a man earn a world for a comrade. Let the laughers laugh. On the great still street in space where souls are,--who cares? II Diagnosis Compelled as I am, as most of us are, to witness the unhappy spectacle, in every city of the land, of a great mass of unfortunate and mutilated persons whirled round and round in rows, in huge reading-machines, being crunched and educated, it is very hard not to rush thoughtlessly in to the rescue sometimes, even if one has nothing better than such a pitiful, helpless thing as good advice. I am afraid it does not look very wise to do it. Civilisation is such a vast, hypnotising, polarising spectacle, has the stage so fully to itself, everybody's eyes glued on it, it is hard to get up and say what one thinks in it. One cannot find anything equally objective to say it with. One feels as if calling attention to one's self, to the little, private, shabby theatre of one's own mind. It is as if in a great theatre (on a back seat in it) one were to get up and stand in his chair and get the audience to turn round, and say, "Ladies and gentlemen. That is not the stage, with the foot-lights over there. This is the stage, here where I am. Now watch me twirl my thumbs." But the great spectacle of the universal reading-machine is too much for me. Before I know it I try to get the audience to turn around. The spectacle of even a single lad, in his more impressionable and possible years, reading a book whether he has anything to do with it or not, in spite of the author and in spite of himself, when one considers how many books he might read which really belong to him, is enough to make a mere reformer or outlaw or parent-interferer of any man who is compelled to witness it. But it seems that the only way to interfere with one of these great reading-machines is to stop the machine. One would say theoretically that it would not take very much to stop it--a mere broken thread of thought would do it, if the machine had any provision for thoughts. As it is, one can only stand outside, watch it through the window, and do what all outsiders are obliged to do, shout into the din a little good advice. If this good advice were to be summed up in a principle or prepared for a text-book it would be something like this: The whole theory of our prevailing education is a kind of unanimous, colossal, "I can't," "You can't"; chorus, "We all of us together can't." The working principle of public-school education, all the way from its biggest superintendents or overseers down to its littlest tow-heads in the primary rooms, is a huge, overbearing, overwhelming system of not expecting anything of anybody. Everything is arranged throughout with reference to not-expecting, and the more perfectly a system works without expecting, or needing to expect, the more successful it is represented to be. The public does not expect anything of the politicians. The politicians do not expect anything of the superintendents. The superintendents do not expect anything of the teachers, and the teachers do not expect anything of the pupils, and the pupils do not expect anything of themselves. That is to say, the whole educational world is upside down,--so perfectly and regularly and faultlessly upside down that it is almost hopeful. All one needs to do is to turn it accurately and carefully over at every point and it will work wonderfully. To turn it upside down, have teachers that believe something. III Eclipse When it was decreed in the course of the nineteenth century that the educational world should pass over from the emphasis of persons to the emphasis of things, it was decreed that a generation that could not emphasise persons in its knowledge could not know persons. A generation which knows things and does not know persons naturally believes in things more than it believes in persons. Even an educator who is as forward-looking and open to human nature as President Charles F. Thwing, with all his emphasis of knowing persons and believing in persons as a basis for educational work, seems to some of us to give an essentially unbelieving and pessimistic classification of human nature for the use of teachers. "Early education," says President Thwing, "occupies itself with description (geometry, space, arithmetic, time, science, the world of nature). Later education with comparison and relations." If one asks, "Why not both together? Why learn facts at one time and their relations at another? Is it not the most vital possible way to learn facts to learn them in their relations?"--the answer that would be generally made reveals that most teachers are pessimists, that they have very small faith in what can be expected of the youngest pupils. The theory is that interpretative minds must not be expected of them. Some of us find it very hard to believe as little as this, in any child. Most children have such an incorrigible tendency for putting things together that they even put them together wrong rather than not put them together at all. Under existing educational conditions a child is more of a philosopher at six than he is at twenty-six. The third stage of education for which Dr. Thwing partitions off the human mind is the "stage in which a pupil becomes capable of original research, a discoverer of facts and relations" himself. In theory this means that when a man is thirty years old and all possible habits of originality have been trained out of him, he should be allowed to be original. In practice it means removing a man's brain for thirty years and then telling him he can think. There never has been a live boy in a school as yet that would allow himself to be educated in this way if he could help it. All the daily habits of his mind resent it. It is a pessimistic, postponing way of educating him. It does not believe in him enough. It may be true of men in the bulk, men by the five thousand, that their intellectual processes happen along in this conveniently scientific fashion, at least as regards emphasis, but when it is applied to any individual mind, at any particular time, in actual education, it is found that it is not true, that it is pessimistic. God is not so monotonous and the universe is not graded as accurately as a public school, and things are much more delightfully mixed up. If a great university were to give itself whole-heartedly and pointedly to one single individual student, it would find it both convenient and pleasant and natural and necessary to let him follow these three stages all at once, in one stage with one set of things, and in another stage with another. Everyone admits that the first thing a genius does with such a convenient, three-part system, or chart for a soul, is to knock it endwise. He does it because he can. Others would if they could. He insists from his earliest days on doing all three parts, everything, one set of things after the other--description, comparison, creation, and original research sometimes all at once. He learns even words all ways at once. All of these processes are applied to each thing that a genius learns in his life, not the three parts of his life. One might as well say to a child, "Now, dear little lad, your life is going to be made up of eating, sleeping, and living. You must get your eating all done up now, these first ten years, and then you can get your sleeping done up, and then you can take a spell at living--or putting things together." The first axiom of true pedagogics is that nothing can be taught except the outside or letter of a thing. The second axiom is that there is nothing gained in teaching a pupil the outside of a thing if he has not the inside--the spirit or relations of it. Teachers do not dare to believe this. They think it is true only of men of genius. They admit that men of genius can be educated through the inside or by calling out the spirit, by drawing out their powers of originality from the first, but they argue that with common pupils this process should not be allowed. They are not worthy of it. That is to say, the more ordinary men are and the more they need brains, the less they shall be allowed to have them. Inasmuch, then, as the inside cannot be taught and there is no object in teaching the outside, the question remains how to get the right inside at work producing the right outside. This is a purely spiritual question and brings us to the third axiom. Every human being born into the world is entitled to a special study and a special answer all to himself. If, as President Thwing very truly says, "The higher education as well as the lower is to be organised about the unit of the individual student," what follows? The organisation must be such as to make it possible for every teacher to study and serve each individual student as a special being by himself. In other words, if this last statement of Dr. Thwing's is to be acted on, it makes havoc with his first. It requires a somewhat new and practically revolutionary organisation in education. It will be an organisation which takes for its basic principle something like this: _Viz._: The very essence of an average pupil is that he needs to be studied more, not less, than any one else in order to find his master-key, the master-passion to open his soul with. The essence of a genius is that almost any one of a dozen passions can be made the motive power of his learning. His soul is opening somewhere all the time. The less individuality a student has, the more he is like other students, the more he should be kept away from other students until what little individuality he has has been brought out. It is not only equally true of the ordinary man as well as of the man of genius that he must educate himself, but it is more true. Other people's knowledge can be poured into and poured over a genius innocently enough. It rolls off him like water on a duck's back. Even if it gets in, he organically protects himself. The genius of the ordinary man needs special protection made for it. As our educational institutions are arranged at present, the more commonplace our students are the more we herd them together to make them more commonplace. That is, we do not believe in them enough. We believe that they are commonplace through and through, and that nothing can be done about it. We admit, after a little intellectual struggle, that a genius (who is bound to be an individual anyway) should be treated as one, but a common boy, whose individuality can only be brought out by his being very vigorously and constantly reminded of it, and exercised in it, is dropped altogether as an individual, is put into a herd of other common boys, and his last remaining chance of being anybody is irrevocably cut off. We do not believe in him as an individual. He is a fraction of a roomful. He is a 67th or 734th of something. Some one has said that the problem of education is getting to be, How can we give, in our huge learning-machines, our exceptional students more of a chance? I state a greater problem: How can we give our common students a chance to be exceptional ones? The problem can only be solved by teachers who believe something, who believe that there is some common ground, some spiritual law of junction, between the man of genius, the natural or free man, and the cramped, _i. e._, artificial, ordinary one. It would be hard to name any more important proposition for current education to act on than this, that the natural man in this world is the man of genius. The Church has had to learn that religion does not consist in being unnatural. The schools are next to learn that the man of genius is not unnatural. He is what nature intended every man to be, at the point where his genius lies. The way out in education, the only believing, virile, man's way out, would seem to be to begin with the man of genius as a principle and work out the application of the principle to more ordinary men--men of slowed-down genius. We are going to use the same methods--faster or slower--for both. A child's greater genius lies in his having a more lively sense of relation with more things than other children. Teachers are going to believe that if the right thing can be done about it, this sense of a live relation to knowledge can be uncovered in every human soul, that there is a certain sense in which every man is his own genius. "By education," said Helvetius, "you can make bears dance, but never create a man of genius." The first thing for a teacher who believes this to do, is not to teach. IV Apocalypse There is a spirit in this book, struggling down underneath it, which neither I nor any other man shall ever express. It needs a nation to express it, a nation fearless to know itself, a great, joyous, trustful, expectant nation. The centuries break away. I almost see it now, lifting itself in its plains and hills and fields and cities, in its smoke and cloud-land, as on some huge altar, to supreme destiny, a nation freed before heaven by the mighty, daily, childlike joy of its own life. I see it as a nation full of personalities, full of self-contained, normally self-centred, self-delighted, self-poised men--men of genius, men who balance off with a world, men who are capable of being at will magnificently self-conscious or unconscious, self-possessed and self-forgetful--balanced men, comrades and equals of a world, neither its slaves nor its masters. I have said I will not have a faith that I have to get to with a trap-door. I have said that inspiration is for everybody. I have had inspiration myself and I will not clang down a door above my soul and believe that God has given to me or to any one else what only a few can have. I do not want anything, I will not have anything that any one cannot have. If there is one thing rather than another that inspiration is for, it is that when I have it I know that any man can have it. It is necessary to my selfishness that he shall have it. If a great wonder of a world like this is given to a man, and he is told to live on it and it is not furnished with men to live with, with men that go with it, what is it all for? If one could have one's choice in being damned there would be no way that would be quite so quick and effective as having inspirations that were so little inspired as to make one suppose they were merely for one's self or for a few others. The only way to save one's soul or to keep a corner for God in it is to believe that He is a kind of God who has put inspiration in every man. All that has to be done with it, is to get him to stop smothering it. Inspiration, instead of being an act of going to work in a minute, living a few hundred years at once, an act of making up and creating a new and wonderful soul for one's self, consists in the act of lifting off the lid from the one one has. The mere fact that the man exists who has had both experiences, not having inspiration and having it, gives a basis for knowledge of what inspiration is. A man who has never had anything except inspiration cannot tell us what it is, and a man who has never had it cannot tell us what it is; but a man who has had both of these experiences (which is the case with most of us) constitutes a cross-section of the subject, a symbol of hope for every one. All who have had not-inspirations and inspirations both know that the origin and control and habit of inspiration, are all of such a character as to suggest that it is the common property of all men. All that is necessary is to have true educators or promoters, men who furnish the conditions in which the common property can be got at. The only difference between men of genius--men of genius who know it--and other men--men of genius who don't know it--is that the men of genius who know it have discovered themselves, have such a headlong habit of self-joy in them, have tasted their self-joys so deeply, that they are bound to get at them whether the conditions are favourable or not. The great fact about the ordinary man's genius, which the educational world has next to reckon with, is that there are not so many places to uncover it. The ordinary man at first, or until he gets the appetite started, is more particular about the conditions. It is because a man of genius is more thorough with the genius he has, more spiritual and wilful with it than other men, that he grows great. A man's genius is always at bottom religious, at the point where it is genius, a worshipping toward something, a worshipping toward something until he gets it, a supreme covetousness for God, for being a God. It is a faith in him, a sense of identity and sharing with what seems to be above and outside, a sense of his own latent infinity. I have said that all that real teaching is for, is to say to a man, in countless ways, a countless "You can." And I have said that all real learning is for is to say "I can." When we have enough great "I can's," there will be a great society or nation, a glorious "We can" rising to heaven. This is the ideal that hovers over all real teaching and makes it deathless,--fertile for ever. If the world could be stopped short for ten years in its dull, sullen round of not believing in itself, if it could be allowed to have, all of it, all over, even for three days, the great solemn joy of letting itself go, it would not be caught falling back very soon, I think, into its stupor of cowardice. It would not be the same world for three hundred years. All that it is going to require to get all people to feel that they are inspired is some one who is strong enough to lift a few people off of themselves--get the idea started. Every man is so busy nowadays keeping himself, as he thinks, properly smothered, that he has not the slightest idea of what is really inside him, or of what the thing that is really inside him would do with him, if he would give it a chance. Any man who has had the experience of not having inspiration and the experience of having it both knows that it is the sense of striking down through, of having the lid of one's smaller consciousness lifted off. In the long run his inspiration can be had or not as he wills. He knows that it is the supreme reasonableness in him, the primeval, underlying naturalness in him, rising to its rights. What he feels when he is inspired is that the larger laws, the laws above the other laws, have taken hold of him. He knows that the one law of inspiration is that a man shall have the freedom of himself. Most problems and worries are based on defective, uninvoked functions. Some organ, vision, taste, or feeling or instinct is not allowed its vent, its chance to qualify. Something needs lifting away. The common experience of sleeping things off, or walking or working them off, is the daily symbol of inspiration. More often than not a worry or trouble is moved entirely out of one's path by the simplest possible device, an intelligent or instinctive change of conditions. The fundamental heresy of modern education is that it does not believe this--does not believe in making deliberate arrangements for the originality of the average man. It does not see that the extraordinary man is simply the ordinary man keyed-up, writ large or moving more rapidly. What the average man is now, the great men were once. When we begin to understand that a man of genius is not supernatural, that he is simply more natural than the rest of us, that all the things that are true for him are true for us, except that they are true more slowly, the educational world will be a new world. The very essence of the creative power of a man of genius over other men, is that he believes in them more than they do. He writes, paints, or sings as if all other men were men of genius, and he keeps on doing it until they are. All modern human nature is annexed genius. The whole world is a great gallery of things, that men of genius have seen, until they make other men see them too, and prove that other men can see them. What one man sees with travail or by being born again, whole generations see at last without trying, and when they are born the first time. The great cosmic process is going on in the human spirit. Ages flow down from the stars upon it. No one man shall guess, now or ever, what a man is, what a man shall be. But it is to be noticed that when the world gets its greatest man--the One who guesses most, generations are born and die to know Him, all with awe and gentleness in their hearts. One after the other as they wheel up to the Great Sun to live,--they call Him the Son of God because He thought everybody was. The main difference between a great man and a little one is a matter of time. If the little man could keep his organs going, could keep on experiencing, acting, and reacting on things for four thousand years, he would have no difficulty in being as great as some men are in their threescore and ten. All genius is inherited time and space. The imagination, which is the psychological substitute for time and space, is a fundamental element in all great power, because, being able to reach results without pacing off the processes, it makes it possible for a man to crowd more experience in, and be great in a shorter time. The idea of educating the little man in the same way as the great man, from the inside, or by drawing out his originality, meets with many objections. It is objected that inasmuch as no little men could be made into great men in the time allotted, there would be no object in trying to do it, and no result to show for it in the world, except row after row of spoiled little men, drearily waiting to die. The answer to this is the simple assertion that if a quart-cup is full it is the utmost a quart-cup can expect. A hogshead can do no more. So far as the man himself is concerned, if he has five sound, real senses in him, all of them acting and reacting on real things, if he is alive, i. e., sincere through and through, he is educated. True education must always consist, not in how much a man has, but in the way he feels about what he has. The kingdom of heaven is on the inside of his five senses. V Every Man his Own Genius I do not mean by the man of genius in this connection the great man of genius, who takes hold of his ancestors to live, rakes centuries into his life, burns up the phosphorus of ten generations in fifty years, and with giant masterpieces takes leave of the world at last, bringing his family to a full stop in a blaze of glory, and a spindling child or so. I am merely contending for the principle that the extraordinary or inspired man is the normal man (at the point where he is inspired) and that the ordinary or uninspired boy can be made like him, must be educated like him, led out through his self-delight to truth, that, if anything, the ordinary or uninspired boy needs to be educated like a genius more than a genius does. I know of a country house which reminds me of the kind of mind I would like to have. In the first place, it is a house that grew. It could not possibly have been thought of all at once. In the second place, it grew itself. Half inspiration and half common-sense, with its mistakes and its delights all in it, gloriously, frankly, it blundered into being, seven generations tumbled on its floors, filled it with laughter and love and tears. One felt that every life that had come to it had written itself on its walls, that the old house had broken out in a new place for it, full of new little joys everywhere, and jogs and bays and afterthoughts and forethoughts, old roofs and young ones chumming together, and old chimneys (three to start with and four new ones that came when they got ready). Everything about it touched the heart and said something. I have never managed to see it yet, whether in sunlight, cloud-light, or starlight, or the light of its own lamps, but that it stood and spoke. It is a house that has genius. The genius of the earth and the sky around it are all in it, of motherhood, of old age, and of little children. It grew out of a spirit, a loving, eager, putting-together, a making of relations between things that were apart,--the portrait of a family. It is a very beautiful, eloquent house, and hundreds of nights on the white road have I passed it by, in my lonely walk, and stopped and listened to it, standing there in its lights, like a kind of low singing in the trees, and when I have come home, later, on the white road, and the lights were all put out, I still feel it speaking there, faint against heaven, with all its sleep, its young and old sleep, its memories and hopes of birth and death, lifting itself in the night, a prayer of generations. Many people do not care for it very much. They would wonder that I should like a mind like it. It is a wandering-around kind of a house, has thirty outside doors. If one doesn't like it, it is easy to get out (which is just what I like in a mind). Stairways almost anywhere, only one or two places in the whole building where there is not a piazza, and every inch of piazza has steps down to the grass and there are no walks. A great central fireplace, big as a room, little groups of rooms that keep coming on one like surprises, and little groups of houses around outside that have sprung up out of the ground themselves. A flower garden that thought of itself and looks as if it took care of itself (but doesn't). Everything exuberant and hospitable and free on every side and full of play,--a high stillness and seriousness over all. I cannot quite say what it is, but most country houses look to me as if they had forgotten they were really outdoors, in a great, wide, free, happy place, where winds and suns run things, where not even God says nay, and everything lives by its inner law, in the presence of the others, exults in its own joy and plays with God. Most country homes forget this. They look like little isles of glare and showing off, and human joylessness, dotting the earth. People's minds in the houses are like the houses: they reek with propriety. That is, they are all abnormal, foreign to the spirit, to the passion of self-delight, of life, of genius. Most of them are fairly hostile to genius or look at it with a lorgnette. I like to think that if the principles and habits of freedom that result in genius were to be gauged and adjusted toward bringing out the genius of ordinary men, they would result in the following: Recipe to make a great man (or a live small one): Let him be made like a great work of art. In general, follow the rule in Genesis i. 1. Chaos. 2. Enough Chaos; that is, enough kinds of Chaos. Pouring all the several parts of Chaos upon the other parts of Chaos. 3. Watch to see what emerges and what it is in the Chaos that most belongs to all the rest, what is the Unifying Principle. 4. Fertilise the Chaos. Let it be impregnated with desire, will, purpose, personality. 5. When the Unifying Principle is discovered, refrain from trying to force everything to attach itself to it. Let things attach themselves in their way as they are sure to do in due time and grow upon it. Let the mind be trusted. Let it not be always ordered around, thrust into, or meddled with. The making of a man, like the making of a work of art, consists in giving the nature of things a chance, keeping them open to the sun and air and the springs of thought. The first person who ever said to man, "You press the button and I will do the rest," was God. The emphasis of art in our modern education, of the knack or science or how of things, is to be followed next by the emphasis of the art that conceals art, genius, the norm and climax of human ability. Any finishing-school girl can out-sonnet Keats. The study of appearances, the passion for the outside has run its course. The next thing in education is going to be honesty, fearless naturalness, upheaval, the freedom of self, self-expectancy, all-expectancy, and the passion for possessing real things. The personalities, persons with genius, persons with free-working, uncramped minds, are all there, ready and waiting, both in teachers and pupils, all growing _sub rosa_, and the main thing that is left to do is to lift the great roof of machinery off and let them come up. The days are already upon us when education shall be taken out of the hands of anæmic, abstracted men--men who go into everything theory-end first. There is already a new atmosphere in the educated world. The thing that shall be taught shall be the love of swinging out, of swinging up to the light and the air. Let every man live, the world says next, a little less with his outside, with his mere brain or logic-stitching machine. Let him swear by his instincts more, and live with his medulla oblongata. VI An Inclined Plane "This is a very pleasant and profitable ideal you have printed in this book, but teachers and pupils and institutions being what they are, it is not practical and nothing can be done about it," it is objected. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED 1. There is nothing so practical as an ideal, for if through his personality and imagination a man can be made to see an ideal, the ideal does itself; that is, it takes hold of him and inspires him to do it and to find means for doing it. This is what has been aimed at in this book. 2. The first and most practical thing to do with an ideal is to believe it. 3. The next most practical thing is to act as if one believed it. This makes other people believe it. To act as if one believed an ideal is to be literal with it, to assume that it can be made real, that something--some next thing--can be done with it. 4. It is only people who believe an ideal who can make it practical. Educators who think that an ideal is true and who do not think it is practical do not think it is true, do not really know it. The process of knowing an ideal, of realising it with the mind, is the process of knowing that it can be made real. This is what makes it an ideal, that it is capable of becoming real, and if a man does not realise an ideal, cannot make it real in his mind, it is not accurate for him to say that it is not practical. It is accurate for him to say that it is not practical to him. The ideal presented in this book is not presented as practical except to teachers who believe it. 5. Every man has been given in this world, if he is allowed to get at them, two powers to make a man out of. These powers are Vision and Action. (1) Seeing, and (2) Being or Doing what one sees. What a man sees with, is quite generally called his imagination. What he does with what he sees, is called his character or personality. If it is true, as has been maintained in the whole trend of this book, that the most important means of education are imagination and personality, the power of seeing things and the power of living as if one saw them, imagination and personality must be accepted as the forces to teach with, and the things that must be taught. The persons who have imagination and personality in modern life must do the teaching. 6. Parents and others who believe in imagination and personality as the supreme energies of human knowledge and the means of education, and who have children they wish taught in this way, are going to make connections with such teachers and call on them to do it. 7. Inasmuch as the best way to make an ideal that rests on persons practical is to find the persons, the next thing for persons who believe in an ideal to do is to find each other out. All persons, particularly teachers and parents, in their various communities and in the nation, who believe that the ideal is practical in education should be social with their ideal, group themselves together, make themselves known and felt. 8. Some of us are going to act through the schools we have. We are going to make room in our present over-managed, morbidly organised institutions, with ordered-around teachers, for teachers who cannot be ordered around, who are accustomed to use their imaginations and personalities to teach with, instead of superintendents. We are going to have superintendents who will desire such teachers. The reason that our over-organised and over-superintended schools and colleges cannot get the teachers they want, to carry out their ideals, is a natural one enough. The moment ideal teachers are secured it is found that they have ideals of their own and that they will not teach without them. When vital and free teachers are attracted to the schools and allowed fair conditions there, they will soon crowd others out. The moment we arrange to give good teachers a chance good teachers will be had. 9. Others will find it best to act in another way. Instead of reforming schools from the inside, they are going to attack the problem from the outside, start new schools which shall stand for live principles and outlive the others. As good teachers can arrange better conditions for themselves to teach in their own schools, wherever practicable this would seem to be the better way. They are going to organise colleges of their own. They are going to organise unorganised colleges (for such they would be called at first), assemblings of inspired teachers, men grouping men about them each after his kind. Every one can begin somewhere. Teachers who are outside can begin outside and teachers who are within can begin within. Certainly if every teacher who believes something will believe deeply, will free himself, let himself out with his belief, act on it, the day is not long hence when the great host of ordered-around teachers with their ordered-around pupils will be a memory. Copying and appearing to know will cease. Self-delight and genius will again be the habit of the minds of men and the days of our present poor, pale, fuddling, unbelieving, Simon-says-thumbs-up education will be numbered. * * * * * Sometimes it seems as if this globe, this huge cyclorama of nations whirling in sunlight through stars, were a mere empty, mumbled repetition, a going round and round of the same stupendous stupidities and the same heroisms in human life. One is always feeling as if everything, arts, architecture, cables, colleges, nations, had all almost literally happened before, in the ages dark to us, gone the same round of beginning, struggling, and ending. Then the globe was wiped clean and began again. One of the great advantages in emphasising individuals,--the main idea of this book,--in picking out particular men as forces, centres of energy in society, as the basis for one's programme for human nature, is the sense it gives that things really can begin again--begin anywhere--where a man is. One single human being, deeply believed in, glows up a world, casts a kind of speculative value, a divine wager over all the rest. I confess that most men I have seen seem to me phantasmagorically walking the earth, their lives haunting them, hanging intangibly about them--indefinitely postponed. But one does not need, in order to have a true joyous working-theory of life, to believe verbatim, every moment, in the mass of men--as men. One needs to believe in them very much--as possible men--larvæ of great men, and if, in the meantime, one can have (what is quite practicable) one sample to a square mile of what the mass of men in that mile might be, or are going to be, one comes to a considerable degree of enthusiasm, a working and sharing enthusiasm for all the rest. VII Allons I thought when I began to make my little visit in civilisation--this book--that perhaps I ought to have a motto to visit a civilisation with. So the motto I selected (a good one for all reformers, viewers of institutions and things) was, "Do not shoot the organist. He is doing the best he can." I fear I have not lived up to it. I am an optimist. I cannot believe he is doing the best he can. Before I know it, I get to hoping and scolding. I do not even believe he is enjoying it. Most of the people in civilisation are not enjoying it. They are like people one sees on tally-hos. They are not really enjoying what they are doing. They enjoy thinking that other people think they are enjoying it. The great characteristic enthusiasm of modern society, of civilisation, the fad of showing off, of exhibiting a life instead of living it, very largely comes, it is not too much to say, from the lack of normal egoism, of self-joy in civilised human beings. It has come over us like a kind of moral anæmia. People cannot get interested enough in anything to be interested in it by themselves. Hence no great art--merely the art which is a trick or knack of appearance. We lack great art because we do not believe in great living. The emphasis which would seem to be most to the point in civilisation is that people must enjoy something, something of their very own, even if it is only their sins, if they can do no better, and they are their own. It would be a beginning. They could work out from that. They would get the idea. Some one has said that people repent of their sins because they didn't enjoy them as much as they expected to. Well, then, let them enjoy their repentance. The great point is, in this world, that men must get hold of reality somewhere, somehow, get the feel, the bare feel of living before they try dying. Most of us seem to think we ought to do them both up together. It is to be admitted that people might not do really better things for their own joy, than for other people's, but they would do them better. It is not the object of this book to reform people. Reformers are sinners enjoying their own sins, who try to keep other people from enjoying theirs. The object of this book is to inspire people to enjoy anything, to find a principle that underlies right and wrong both. Let people enjoy their sins, we say, if they really know how to enjoy. The more they get the idea of enjoying anything, the more vitally and sincerely they will run their course--turn around and enjoy something truer and more lasting. What we all feel, what every man feels is, that he has a personal need of daring and happy people around him, people that are selfish enough to be alive and worth while, people that have the habit and conviction of joy, whose joys whether they are wrong or right are real joys to them, not shadows or shows of joys, joys that melt away when no one is looking. The main difficulty in the present juncture of the world in writing on the Lost Art of Reading is that all the other arts are lost, the great self-delights. As they have all been lost together, it has been necessary to go after them together, to seek some way of securing conditions for the artist, the enjoyer and prophet of human life, in our modern time. At the bottom of all great art, it is necessary to believe, there has been great, believing, free, beautiful living. This is not saying that inconsistency, contradiction, and insincerity have not played their part, but it is the benediction, the great Amen of the world, to say this,--that if there has been great constructive work there has been great radiant, unconquerable, constructive living behind it. There is but one way to recover the lost art of reading. It is to recover the lost art of living. The day we begin to take the liberty of living our own lives there will be artists and seers everywhere. We will all be artists and seers, and great arts, great books, and great readers of books will flock to us. * * * * * Well, here we are, Gentle Reader. We are rounding the corner of the last paragraph. Time stretches out before us. On the great highroad we stand together in the dawn--I with my little book in hand, you, perhaps, with yours. The white road reaches away before us, behind us. There are cross-roads. There are parallels, too. Sometimes when there falls a clearness on the air, they are nearer than I thought. I hear crowds trudging on them in the dark, singing faintly. I hear them cheering in the dark. But this is my way, right here. See the hill there? That is my next one. The sun in a minute. You are going my way, comrade?... You are not going my way? So be it. God be with you. The top o' the morning to you. I pass on. Our European Neighbours Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON 12°. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20 By Mail 1.30 I--FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By HANNAH LYNCH. "Miss Lynch's pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a capital piece of work.... Such well-finished portraits are frequent in Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real excellence."--_The London Academy_. "Miss Lynch's book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series describing the home and social life of various European peoples--a series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.'"--_The Outlook_. II--GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By W. H. DAWSON, author of "Germany and the Germans," etc. "The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and strongest in Europe."--_Commercial Advertiser_. III--RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia). "We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more voluminous tomes ... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys practically all that well-informed people should know of 'Our European Neighbours.'"--_Mail and Express_. IV--DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By P. M. HOUGH, B.A. Not alone for its historic past is Holland interesting, but also for the paradox which it presents to-day. It is difficult to reconcile the old-world methods seen all over the country with the advanced ideas expressed in conversation, in books, and in newspapers. Mr. Hough's long residence in the country has enabled him to present a trustworthy picture of Dutch social life and customs in the seven provinces,--the inhabitants of which, while diverse in race, dialect, and religion, are one in their love of liberty and patriotic devotion. "Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work its charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people, their quaint characteristics, their conservative retention of old dress and customs, their quiet abstention from taking part in the great affairs of the world are clearly reflected in this faithful mirror. The illustrations are of a high grade of photographic reproductions."--_Washington Post_. V.--SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By ALFRED T. STORY, author of the "Building of the British Empire," etc. "We do not know a single compact book on the same subject in which Swiss character in all its variety finds so sympathetic and yet thorough treatment; the reason of this being that the author has enjoyed privileges of unusual intimacy with all classes, which prevented his lumping the people as a whole without distinction of racial and cantonal feeling."--_Nation_. "There is no phase of the lives of these sturdy republicans, whether social or political, which Mr. Story does not touch upon; and an abundance of illustrations drawn from unhackneyed subjects adds to the value of the book."--_Chicago Dial_. VI.--SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By L. HIGGIN. The new volume in the fascinating series entitled "Our European Neighbours" ought to be of special interest to Americans, as it describes faithfully, and at the same time in a picturesque style, the social life of a people who have been much maligned by the casual globe-trotter. Spain has sunk from the proud position which she held during the Middle Ages, but much of the force and energy which charged the old-time Spaniard still remains, and there is to-day a determined upward movement out of the abyss into which despotism and bigotry had plunged her. VII.--ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY By LUIGI VILLARI. The author, who is a son of Professor Villari of London, takes the point of view required by this series, _i. e._, he looks on Italy with the eyes of an Englishman, and yet he has all the advantage of Italian blood to aid him in his sympathy with every detail of his subject. "A most interesting and instructive volume, which presents an intimate view of the social habits and manner of thought of the people of which it treats."--_Buffalo Express_. "A book full of information, comprehensive and accurate. Its numerous attractive illustrations add to its interest and value. We are glad to welcome such an addition to an excellent series."--_Syracuse Herald_. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS _New York and London_ By R. DE MAULDE LA CLAVIÈRE WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE A Study of Feminism. Translated by George Herbert Ely. 8°. With portrait. _net_, $3.50 "We have only admiration to bestow upon this most intricate and masterly analysis of the great feminine revolution of the sixteenth century ... There are chapters that we find ourselves wishing everybody might read; the admirable essay, for instance, on the 'Embroidery of Life,' and that other chapter discussing the influence of Platonism...."--_Athenæum, London_. "Everything is so brightly, so captivatingly important in this volume, the search into the past has been so well rewarded, the conclusions are so shrewd and clever, the subject is so limitless, yet curiously limited, that as history or as psychology it should gain a large public."--_Bookman_. THE ART OF LIFE Translated by George Herbert Ely. 8°. (By mail, $1.85) _net_, $1.75 There is no one to whom Buffon's phrase, _Le style c'est l'homme même_, may be more justly applied than to M. de Maulde. His work is absolutely himself; it derives from his original personality and his wide and sure learning an historical value and a literary charm almost unique. He is a wit with the curiosity and patience of the scholar, and a scholar with the temperament of the artist. The sparkle and humour of his conversation are crystallised in his letters, the charming expression of a large and generous nature. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York London 
37795	----	THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS A KEY TO THE TREASURES OF LITERATURE BY FRANK PARSONS THIRD EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1893 _Copyright, 1889, 1891, 1893,_ BY FRANK PARSONS. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. At the request of the publishers the following statement is made as a substitute for the former indefinite arrangement in respect to authorship. The plan and composition of the book were mine; the work of my colleagues, F. E. Crawford and H. T. Richardson, consisting of criticism, verifications, and assistance in gathering materials for the appendix,--services of great value to me, and of which I wish to express my high appreciation. A few additions have been made in this edition, and the book has been carefully revised throughout. FRANK PARSONS. BOSTON, January, 1893. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The public and the critics have met us with a welcome far more cordial than we had dared to expect, though not more so, of course, than we hoped for. When did a thing such as that ever happen? We are glad to discover that in forming our expectations we underrated their discernment, or our own merit (probably not the latter, judging by the remarks of two or three of our critics), and in real earnest we are grateful for their high appreciation of our work. Some few--a very few--have found fault with us, and our thanks are due to them also; for honest, kindly, intelligent criticism is one of the most powerful means of growth. The fact that this little volume is not intended as an _infallible_ guide, or as anything more than a _stimulus_ to seek the best, and a _suggestion_ of the method of guiding one's self and one's children, has been missed by some, though it appears distinctly in various places through the book, and is involved in what we deem the most useful part of our work,--the remarks following Table V., wherein we endeavor to show the student how he may learn to estimate the value of a book for himself. So far were we from wishing to _decide_ matters which manifestly vary with the wants and capacities of each individual, that we emphatically advised the reader not to accept the opinions of any one as final, but to form his own judgments. Some have failed to perceive that, _in ranking the books, we have considered, not merely their intrinsic merit, but also the needs and abilities of the average English reader_, making a compound test by which to judge, not the relative greatness of the books simply, but their relative claims on the attention of the ordinary reader. This also was set forth, as we thought, quite distinctly, and was in fact understood by nearly every one, but not by all, for some have objected to the order of the books in Table I., affirming, for example, that the "Federalist" and Bryce's "American Commonwealth" are far _superior_ to "Our Country," and should be placed above it. That would be true if intrinsic greatness alone decided the matter. But the average reader with his needs and abilities is a factor in the problem, as well as the book with its subject and style. Now, the ordinary reader's time and his mental power are both limited. "Our Country" is briefer and simpler than the others, and its contents are of vital interest to every American, of even more vital interest than the discussions of the "Federalist" or Bryce; and so, although as a work of art it is inferior to these, it must rank above them in this book, because of its superior claims upon the attention of the average reader. In a similar manner other questions of precedence are determined on the principles contained in the remarks on Table V. It is not pretended, however, that the arrangement is perfect even in respect to our own tests, especially among the authors on the second shelf of Table I. The difficulties of making a true list may be illustrated by the fact that one critic of much ability affirms that Marietta Holley ought to head the tenth column, as the best humorist of all time; another says it is absurd to place her above the Roman wits Juvenal and Lucian; and a third declares with equal positiveness that she ought not to appear in the list at all. We differ from them all, and think the high place we have given Miss Holley is very near the truth. Communications have been received from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Marietta Holley, Senator Hoar, Phillips Brooks, Bishop J. H. Vincent, Brooke Herford, Francis Parkman, ex-Gov. John D. Long, Gen. Benj. F. Butler, T. W. Higginson, and many other eminent persons, bringing to us a number of suggestions, most of which we have adopted to the great advantage of our book, as we hope and believe. We have added a number of valuable works to the lists of the first edition, and have written a new chapter on the guidance of children, the means of training them to good habits of reading, and the books best adapted to boys and girls of various ages. If any one, on noting some of the changes that have been made in this edition, feels inclined to raise the cry of inconsistency, we ask him to remember the declaration of Wendell Phillips, that "Inconsistency is Progress." There is room for still further inconsistency, we do not doubt; and criticism or suggestion will be gladly received. FRANK PARSONS. BOSTON, January, 1891. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Purposes of the book briefly stated System in reading Purposes of reading Its influence on health and mind on character on beauty and accomplishments Its pleasures Quantity and quality of reading Selection of books Order of reading Method of reading Importance of owning the books you read Effect of bad books useless books good books ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK NOTE OF EXPLANATION THE FIRST TWO SHELVES OF THE WORLD'S LIBRARY (TABLE.) REMARKS ON TABLE I. Religion and Morals Poetry and the Drama Science Biography History Philosophy Essays Fiction Oratory Wit and Humor Fables and Fairy Tales Travel Guides Miscellaneous GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT FIELDS OF THOUGHT, Arranged for the purpose of securing breadth of mind (Table II.) A SERIES OF BRIEF BUT VERY CHOICE SELECTIONS from general literature, constituting a year's course for the formation of a true literary taste (Table III.) Groups I. and II., Poetry Group III., Prose Group IV., Wit and Humor A SHORT COURSE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE LAST (Table IV.) WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN SPECIAL STUDIES THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD'S GREAT AUTHORS in time and space, with a parallel column of contemporaneous noted historic events (Table V.) REMARKS ON TABLE V. Definitions and divisions Eight tests for the choice of books Intrinsic merit Periods of English Literature The Pre-Shakspearian age The Shakspearian age The Post-Shakspearian age Time of Milton Dryden Pope The novelists, historians, and scientists The greatest names of other literatures:-- Greece, Rome, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Persia, Portugal, Denmark, Russia The fountains of national literatures:-- Homer, Nibelungenlied, Cid, Chansons, Morte D'Arthur, etc. APPENDIX I. THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT BOOKS AND READING APPENDIX II. BOOKS USED IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS AS SUPPLEMENTARY READING, TEXT-BOOKS, etc. THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. This book is the result of much reading and thought, teaching, lecturing, and conversation, in the direction of its subject-matter. Its purpose is fivefold: _First_, to call attention to the importance of reading the best literature to the exclusion of all that is inferior, by setting forth the benefits that may be derived from the former and the injuries that are sure to result from the latter. _Second_, to select the best things from all the literatures of the world; to make a survey of the whole field of literature and locate the mines most worthy of our effort, where with the smallest amount of digging we may find the richest ore; and to do this with far greater precision, definiteness, and detail than it has ever been done before. _Third_, to place the great names of the world's literature in their proper relations of time and space to each other and to the great events of history,--accompanying the picture with a few remarks about the several periods of English Literature and the Golden Age of literature in each of the great nations. _Fourth_, to discuss briefly the best methods of reading, and the importance of system, quantity, quality, due proportion, and thoroughness in reading, and of the ownership of books and the order in which they should be read. _Fifth_, to gather into a shining group, like a constellation of stars, the splendid thoughts of the greatest men upon these subjects. The book is meant to be a practical handbook of universal literature for the use of students, business men, teachers, and any other persons who direct the reading of others, and for the guidance of scholars in departments other than their own. 1. =System= in reading is of as much importance as it is in the business of a bank or any other mercantile pursuit. 2. =The Purposes of Reading= should ever be kept in mind. They are the purposes of life; namely, health, mental power, character, beauty, accomplishments, pleasure, and the knowledge which will be of use in relation to our business, domestic life, and citizenship. Literature can aid the _health_, indirectly, by imparting a knowledge of the means of its attainment and preservation (as in works on physiology and hygiene); and directly, by supplying that exercise of the mind which is essential to the balance of the functions necessary to perfect health. A study of literature will develop the _mind_--the perception, memory, reason (especially true of science and philosophy), and the imagination (especially the study of poetry and science)--directly, by exercising those all-important faculties; and indirectly, by yielding a knowledge of the conditions of their existence and strength. On the other hand, the mind may be greatly injured, if not wholly destroyed, by pouring into it a flood of filth and nonsense; or by a torrent of even the best in literature, so rapid and long continued that it cannot be properly absorbed and digested. The evil effects of cramming the mind are only too often seen about us. Literature can build or destroy the _character_ both directly and indirectly. Poetry, religion, philosophy, fiction, biography, history,--indeed, all sorts of writings in some degree make us more sympathetic, loving, tender, noble, generous, kind, and just, or the opposite, by the simple power of exercise, if for no other reason. If we freely exercise the muscles of the arm, we shall have more vigor there. If we continually love, our power and tendency to love will grow. The poet's passion, passing the gates of the eye and ear into our souls, rouses our sympathies to kindred states of feeling. We love when he loves, and weep when he weeps; and all the while he is moulding our characters, taking from or adding to the very substance of our souls. Brave words change the coward to a hero; a coward's cry chills the bravest heart. A boy who reads of crime and bravery sadly mixed by some foul traitor to the race, soon thinks that to be brave and grand he must be coarse and have the blood of villainy and rashness pulsing from his misled heart. Not all the books that picture vice are harmful. If they show it in its truth, they drive us from it by its very loathsomeness; but if they gild it and plume it with pleasure and power, beware. Literature, too, can give us a knowledge of the means for the development of character, and the inspiration to make the best use of these means. Books of morals, religion, biography, science, poetry, and fiction especially hold these treasures. In the attainment and enrichment of _beauty_, literature has a work to do. The choicest beauty is the loveliness of soul that lights the eye and prints its virtue in the face; and as our reading moulds the mind and heart to beauty, their servants at the doorways ever bend to their instructions and put on the livery of their lords. Even that beauty which is of the rounded form, the soft cheek's blooming tinge, the rosy mouth, and pearly lip, owes its debt to health; and that, as has been seen, may profit much by literature. And beyond all this we learn the means of great improvement in our comeliness,--how crooked may be changed to straight, and hollow cheeks to oval; frowns to smiles, and lean or gross to plump; ill-fitting, ill-adapted dress to beautiful attire; a shambling gait to a well-conducted walk,--and even the stupid stare of ignorance be turned to angel glances of indwelling power and interested comprehension. _Accomplishments_, too, find help in written works of genius, not merely as affording a record of the best methods of acquiring any given art, but directly as supplying the substance of some of the greatest of all accomplishments,--those of inspiring eloquent conversation, and of writing clear and beautiful English. _Pleasure_ manifestly is, by all these aids to beauty, health, and power, much beholden to the books we read; but more than this, the very reading of a worthy book is a delicious joy, and one that does not drain but fills the fount from which the happiness of others comes. Plato, Fénelon, Gibbon, and a host of others name the love of books the chiefest charm and glory of their lives. 3. =The Quantity and Quality= of what we read should have our careful thought. Whoever lives on literary husks and intoxicants, when corn and wheat and milk are just as easily within his reach, is certainly no wiser than one who treats his physical receptacle in the same way, and will as surely suffer from ill feeding in diminished vital force. Indeed, he may be glad if he escapes acquiring intellectual dyspepsia or spiritual delirium tremens. Even of the best of reading there may be too much as well as not enough. More than we can assimilate is waste of time and energy. Besides the regulation of the _total_ quantity we read, with reference to our powers of digestion, we must watch the _relative_ amounts of all the various kinds of literary sustenance we take. A due proportion ought to be maintained by careful mixture of religious, scientific, poetic, philosophic, humorous, and other reading. A man who exercises but one small muscle all his days would violate the laws of health and power. The greatest mind is that which comes the nearest to attainment of a present perfect picture in the mind of all the universe, past, present, and to come. The greatest character is that which gets the greatest happiness for self through fullest and most powerful activities for others, and requires for its own work, existence, and delight, the least subtraction from the world's resources of enjoyment. The greatest man is he who combines in due proportion and completest harmony the fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual life. 4. =The Selection= of books is of the utmost importance, in view of their influence upon character. All the reasons for care that apply to the choice of friends among the living, have equal force in reference to the dead. The same tests avail in one case as in the other,--reputation and personal observation of the words and deeds of those we think to make companions. We may at will and at slight cost have all the great and noble for our intimate friends and daily guests, who will come when we call, answer the questions we put, and go when we wish. And better yet, however long we talk to them, no other friends will be kept waiting in the anterooms, longing to take our place. Our most engrossing friendship, though we keep them _always_ with us, will produce no interference with their equal friendship with all the world besides. We may associate with angels and become angelic, or with demons and become satanic. Besides the difference in the nature of books, the very number of them commands a choice. In one library there are three million volumes; in the Boston Public Library about three hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand including pamphlets. In your short life you can read but a trifling part of the world's literature. Suppose you are fortunate enough to be able to read one book a week, in thirty years you would read but fifteen hundred books. Use, then, every care to get the best. If it were in your equal choice to go to one of two reputed entertainments and but one, it surely would be worth your while to know their character before selecting. One might be Beethoven's loveliest symphony, the other but a minstrel show. 5. =The Order of our Reading= must be carefully attended to. The very best books are not always to be first read. If the reader is young or of little culture, the _simplicity_ of the writing must be taken into account, for it is of no use to read a book that cannot be understood. One of mature and cultivated mind who begins a course of systematic reading may follow the order of absolute value; but a child must be supplied with easy books in each department, and, as his powers develop, with works of increasing difficulty, until he is able to grasp the most complex and abstruse. If you take up a book that is recommended to you as one of the world's best, and find it uninteresting, be sure the trouble is in you. Do not reject it utterly, do not tell people you do not like it; wait a few months or years, then try it again, and it may become to you one of the most precious of books. 6. =The Method= of your reading is an important factor in determining its value to you. It is in proportion to your _conquest_ of what is worthy in literature that you gain. If you pour it into your mind so fast that each succeeding wave forces the former out before its form and color have been fixed, you are not better off, but rather worse, because the process washes out the power of memory. Memory depends on health, attention, repetition, reflection, association of ideas, and practice. Some books should be very carefully read, looking to both thought and form; the best passages should be marked and marginal notes made; reflection should digest the best ideas, until they become a part of the tissue of your own thought; and the most beautiful and striking expressions should be verbally committed. If you saw a diamond in the sand, surely you would fix it where it might adorn your person. If you find a sparkling jewel in your reading, fix it in your heart and let it beautify your conversation. Shakspeare, Milton, Homer, Bacon, Æschylus, and Emerson, and nearly all the selections in Table III. should be read in this way. Other books have value principally by reason of the line of thought or argument of which the whole book is an expression; such for the most part are books of history, science, and philosophy. While reading them marks or notes should be made; so that when the book is finished, the steps of thought may several times be rapidly retraced, until the force and meaning of the book becomes your own forever. Still other books may be simply glanced through, it being sufficient for the purposes of the general reader to have an idea of the nature of their contents, so that he may know what he can find in them if he has need. Such books to us are the Koran, the works of the lesser essayists, orators, and philosophers. Ruskin says that no book should be read fast; but it would be as sensible to say that we should never walk or ride fast over a comparatively uninteresting country. Adaptation of method to the work in hand is the true rule. We should not read "Robert Elsmere" as slowly and carefully as Shakspeare. As the importance of the book diminishes, the speed of our journey through it ought to increase. Otherwise we give an inferior book equal attention with its superiors. 7. =Own the Books you Read,= if possible, so that you may mark them and often refer to them. If you are able, buy the best editions, with the fullest notes and finest binding,--the more beautiful, the better. A lovely frame adds beauty to the picture. If you cannot buy the best-dressed books, get those of modest form and good large type. If pennies must be counted, get the catalogues of all the cheap libraries that are multiplying so rapidly of late,--the Elzevir, Bohn, Morley, Camelot, National, Cassel, Irving, Chandos, People's Library, World's Library, etc.,--and own the books you learn to love. Use the public libraries for reference, but do not rely on them for the standard literature you read. It is better far to have an eight cent Bunyan, twelve cent Bacon, or seven cent Hamlet within your reach from day to day, and marked to suit yourself, than to read such books from the library and have to take them back. That is giving up the rich companionship of new-found friends as soon as gained. The difference between talking with a sage or poet for a few brief moments once in your lifetime, and having him daily with you as your friend and teacher is the difference between the vales and summits of this life. The immense importance of possessing the best books for your own cannot be too strongly impressed upon you, nor the value of clothing your noble friends as richly as you can. If they come to you with outward beauty, they will claim more easily their proper share of your attention and regard. Get an Elzevir Shakspeare if you can afford no other, but purchase the splendid edition by Richard Grant White, if you can. Even if you have to save on drink and smoke and pie-crust for the purpose, you never will regret the barter. 8. =Bad Books= corrupt us as bad people do. Whenever they are made companions, insensibly we learn to think and feel and talk and act as they do in degree proportioned to the closeness that we hug them to our hearts. Books may be bad, not only by imparting evil thoughts, awakening lust and gilding vice, but by developing a false philosophy, ignoble views of life, or errors in whatever parts of science or religion they may touch. Avoid foul books as you would shun foul men, for fear you may be like them; but seek the errors out and conquer them. Spend little time in following a teacher you have tested and found false, but do the testing for yourselves, and take no other person's judgment as to what is truth or error. Truth is always growing; you may be the first to catch the morning light. The friend who warns you of some book's untruth may be himself in error, led by training, custom, or tradition, or unclearly seeing in the darkness of his prejudice. 9. =Useless Books=. Many books that are not positively bad are yet mere waste of time. A wise man will not spend the capital of his life, or part with the wealth of his energies except he gets a fair equivalent. He will demand the highest market price for his time, and will not give his hours and moments--precious pieces of his life--for trash, when he can buy with them the richest treasures of three thousand years of thought. You have not time to drink the whole of human life from out the many colored bottles of our literature; will you take the rich cream, or cast that aside for the skimmed milk below, or turn it all out on the pathway and swallow the dirt and the dregs in the bottom? 10. =Good Books=.--=A Short Sermon=.--If you are a scholar, professor or lawyer, doctor or clergyman, do not stay locked in the narrow prison of your own department, but go out into the world of thought and breathe the air that comes from all the quarters of the globe. Read other books than those that deal with your profession,--poetry, philosophy, and travel. Get out of the valleys up on to the ridges, where you can see what relation your home bears to the rest of the world. Go stand in the clamor of tongues, that you may learn that the truth is broader than any man's conception of it and become tolerant. Look at the standards that other men use, and correct your own by them. Learn what other thinkers and workers are doing, that you may appreciate them and aid them. Learn the Past, that you may know the Future. Do not look out upon the world through one small window; open all the doorways of your soul, let all genius and beauty come in, that your life may be bright with their glory. If you are a busy merchant, artisan, or laborer, you too can give a little time each day to books that are the best. If Plato, Homer, Shakspeare, Tennyson, or Milton came to town to-day, you would not let the busiest hour prevent your catching sight of him; you would stand a half day on the street in the sun or the snow to catch but a glimpse of the famous form; but how much better to receive his spirit in the heart than only get his image on the eye! His choicest thought is yours for the asking. If you are a thoughtless boy or silly girl, trying the arts that win the matrimonial prize, remember that there are no wings that fly so high as those of sense and thought and inward beauty. Remember the old song that ends,-- "Beauty vanish, wealth depart, Wit has won the lady's heart." Even as a preparation for a noble and successful courtship, the best literature is an absolute necessity. Perhaps you cannot travel: Humboldt, Cook, and Darwin, Livingstone, and Stanley will tell you more than you could see if you should go where they have travelled. Perhaps you cannot have the finest teachers in the studies you pursue: what a splendid education one could get if he could learn philosophy with Plato, Kant, and Spencer; astronomy with Galileo, Herschel, and Laplace; mathematics with Newton or Leibniz; natural history with Cuvier or Agassiz; botany with Gray; geology with Lyell or Dawson; history with Bancroft; and poetry with Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Homer! Well, those very teachers at their best are yours if you will read their books. Each life is a mixture of white and black, no one is perfect; but every worthy passage and ennobling thought you read adds to the white and crowds out the black; and of what enormous import a few brief moments daily spent with noble books may be, appears when we remember that each act brings after it an infinite series of consequences. It is an awe-inspiring truth to me that with the color of my thought I tinge the stream of life to its remotest hour; that some poor brother far out on the ocean of the future, struggling to breast the billows of temptation, may by my hand be pulled beneath the waves, ruined by the influences I put in action now; that, standing here, I make the depths of all eternities to follow tremble to the music of my life: as Tennyson has put it so beautifully in his "Bugle Song,"-- "Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. "O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: _Our echoes roll from soul to soul_, _And grow for ever and for ever_." How careful we should be of every moment if we had imaginative power enough to fully realize the meaning of the truth that slightly differing actions now may build results at last as wide apart as poles of opposite eternities! Even idleness, the negative of goodness, would have no welcome at our door. Some persons dream away two thirds of life, and deem quiescence joy; but that is certainly a sad mistake. The nearer to complete inaction we attain, the nearer we are clay and stone; the more activity we gain, that does not draw from future power, the higher up the cliffs of life we climb, and nearer to celestial life that never sleeps. Let no hour go idly by that can be rendered rich and happy with a glorious bit of Shakspeare, Dante, or Carlyle. Let us never be deluded with the praise of peace, excepting that of heart and conscience clear of all remorse. It is ambition that has climbed the heights, and will through all the future. Give me not the dead and hopeless calm of indolent contentment, but far rather the storm and the battle of life, with the star of my hopes above me. Let me sail the central flow of the stream, and travel the tides at the river's heart. I do not wish to stay in any shady nook of quiet water, where the river's rushing current never comes, and straws and bubbles lie at rest or slowly eddying round and round at anchor in their mimic harbor. How often are we all like these imprisoned straws, revolving listlessly within the narrow circle of the daily duties of our lives, gaining no new truth, nor deeper love or power or tenderness or joy, while all the world around is sweeping to the sea! How often do we let the days and moments, with their wealth of life, fly past us with their treasure! Youth lies in her loveliness, dreaming in her drifting boat, and wakes to find her necklace has in some way come unfast, and from the loosened ribbon trailing o'er the rail the lustrous pearls have one by one been slipping far beyond her reach in those deep waters over which her slumbers passed. Do not let the pearls be lost. Do not let the moments pass you till they yield their wealth and add their beauty to your lives. 11. =Abbreviations=.-- R. means, Read carefully. D. means, Digest the best passages; make the thought and feeling your own. C. means, Commit passages in which valuable thought or feeling is _exquisitely expressed_. G. means, Grasp the idea of the whole book; that is, the train of the author's thought, his conclusions, and the reasons for them. S. means, Swallow; that is, read as fast as you choose, it not being worth while to do more than get a general impression of the book. T. means, Taste; that is, skip here and there, just to get an idea of the book, and see if you wish to read more. e. means _easy_; that is, of such character as to be within the easy comprehension of one having no more than a grammar-school education or its equivalent; and it applies to all books that can be understood without either close attention or more than an ordinary New England grammar-school training. m. means _medium_; that is, of such character as to require the close attention called "study," or a high-school education, or both; and it applies to books the degree of whose difficulty places them above the class e. and below the class _d_. d. means _difficult_; that is, beyond the comprehension of an ordinary person having only a New England high-school education or its equivalent, even with close study, unless the reader already has a fair understanding of the _subject_ of the book. In order to read with advantage books that are marked _d._, the mind should be prepared by special reading of simpler books in the same department of thought. TABLE I. NOTE OF EXPLANATION. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's note: The original format of the table exceeded | | the width requirements for e-text. Therefore the table was | | reformatted. It is now from top to bottom in the order of | | importance. The first shelf and second shelf are arranged | | side by side. | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ TABLE I. contains a list of authors whose books, on principle and authority, have the strongest claims on the attention of the average reader of English. They are arranged from left to right in the order of importance of the divisions of the subject matter regarded as wholes, and from above downward in the order of their value in relation to the highest standard in their own department. The _numbers_ have nothing to do with the ranking, but refer to notes that will be found on the pages following the table. There is also, at the head of the notes relating to each column of the table, a special note on the subject matter of that column. The upper part of the table represents the first shelf of the world's library, and contains the books having the very strongest claims upon the attention of all,--books with which every one should endeavor to gain an acquaintance, at least _to the extent_ indicated in the notes. The lower part of the table represents the second shelf of the world's library, and contains books which in addition to those of the first shelf should enter into a liberal education. It must be always kept in mind that intrinsic merit alone does not decide the position of a book in this table; for in order to test the claim of a book upon the attention of a reader we have to consider not only the artistic value of the author's work, and its subject matter, but also the needs and abilities of the reader. Thus it happens that it is not always the work of the greatest genius which stands highest in the list. Moreover, no claim is made that the ranking is perfect, especially on the second shelf. The table is an example of the application of the principles set forth in the remarks following Table V., to the case of the general reader. For every one above or below the average reader the lists would have to be changed, and even the average list has no quality of the absolute. It is but a suggestion,--a suggestion, however, in which we have a good deal of confidence, one that is based on a very wide induction,--and we have no hesitation in affirming that the upper shelf represents the best literature the world affords. In addition to Table I., there will be found in Tables III. and IV., and in the remarks upon the Guidance of Children following Table IV., a number of pieces of literary work of the very highest merit and value. Some of the most important are Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," one of the very finest American poems; Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;" Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature;" Burroughs' "Pepacton," "Signs and Seasons," "Wake Robin," etc.; Buckley's "Fairy Land of Science," etc.; Ragozin's "Chaldea;" Fénelon's "Lives of the Philosophers;" Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous;" Rives' "Story of Arnon;" Drake's "Culprit Fay;" Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends;" Mary Mapes Dodge's "Hans Brinker;" Andrews' "Ten Boys on the Road;" Arnold's "Sweetness and Light;" Higginson's "Vacations for Saints;" and General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out," a book of great power, which sets forth the most practical method yet proposed for the immediate relief of society from the burdens of pauperism and vice. TABLE I.--THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS. [See explanation on the preceding pages.] (first shelf) (second shelf) 1. Religion & Morals. Bible[1] Milton[11] Bunyan[2] Keble[12] Taylor[3] Cicero[13] Kempis[4] Pascal[14] Spencer[5] Channing[15] M. Aurelius[6] Aristotle[16] Plutarch[7] St. Augustine[17] Seleca[8] Butler[18] Epictetus[9] Spinoza[19] Brooks[10] Drummond[10] 2. Poetry & the Drama. Shakspeare[20] Spenser[27] Homer[21] Lowell[28] Dante[22] Whittier[29] Goethe[23] Tennyson[30] Milton[24] Scott[32] Æschylus[25] Byron[33] Fragments[26] Shelley[34] Keats[35] Campbell[36] Moore[37] Thomson[38] Macaulay[39] Dryden[40] Collins[41] Ingelow[42] Bryant[43] Longfellow[44] Herbert[45] Goldsmith[46] Coleridge[47] Wordsworth[48] Pope[49] Southey[50] Walton[51] Browning[52] Young[53] Jonson[54] Beaumont & F.[55] Marlowe[56] Sheridan[57] Carleton[58] Virgil[60] Horace[61] Lucretius[62] Ovid[63] Sophocles[64] Euripides[65] Aristophanes[66] Pindar[67] Hesiod[68] Heine[69] Schiller[70] Corneille[71] Racine[71] Molière[71] Musset[74] Calderon[75] Petrarch[76] Ariosto[77] Tasso[78] Camoens[79] Omar[80] Firdusi[81] Hafiz[81] Saadi[81] Arnold[82] Pushkin[83] Lermontoff[84] 3. Science. Physiology and Hygiene[85] De Tocqueville[99] "Our Country"[86] Von Holst[100] Federalist[88] Smith[101] Bryce[89] Malthus[102] Montesquieu[90] Carey[103] Bagehot[90] Cairnes[104] Mill[91] Freeman[105] Bain[92] Jevons[106] Spencer[93] Mulford[107] Darwin[94] Hobbes[108] Herschel[95] Machiavelli[109] Proctor[95] Max Müller[110] Lyell[96] Trench[111] Lubbock[96] Taylor[112] Dawson[96] White[113] Wood[97] Cuvier[114] Whewell[98] Cook[115] Tyndall[116] Airy[117] Faraday[118] Helmholtz[119] Huxley[120] Gray[121] Agassiz[122] Silliman[123] 4. Biography. Plutarch[124] G. Smith[139] Phillips[125] Bourrienne[140] Boswell[126] Johnson[141] Lockhart[127] Walton[142] Marshall[128] Stanley[143] Franklin[128] Irving[144] Nicolay & H.[129] Southey[145] Grant[129] Stanhope[146] Carlyle[130] Moore[147] Renan[130] Jameson[148] Farrar[131] Baring-Gould[149] Emerson[132] Field[150] [100] Greatest Men[133] Hamilton[151] Parton[134] Darwin[151] Hale[135] Alcott[151] Drake[136] Talleyrand[151] Fox[137] Macaulay[151] Grimm[138] Bashkirtseff[151] Guerin[151] Jefferson[151] American Statesmen[151] English Men of Letters[151] 5. History. Green[152] Creasy [155a] Bancroft[153] Lecky[156] Guizot[154] Clarke[157] Buckle[154] Moffat[158] Parkman[155] Draper[159] Freeman[155] Hallam[160] Fiske[155] May[161] Fyffe[155] Hume[162] Macaulay[163] Froude[164] Gibbon[165] Grote[166] Palfrey[167] Prescott[168] Motley[169] Frothingham [169a] Wilkinson[170] Niebuhr[171] Menzel[172] Milman[173] Ranke[174] Sismondi[175] Michelet[176] Carlyle[177] Thierry[178] Tacitus[179] Livy[180] Sallust[181] Herodotus[182] Xenophon[183] Thucydides[184] Josephus[185] Mackenzie[185] Rawlinson[185] 6. Philosophy. Spencer[186] Mill[192] Plato[187] Mansel[193] Berkeley[188] Büchner[194] Kant[189] Edwards[195] Locke & Hobbes[190] Bentham[196] Comte[191] Maurice[197] Lewes Hume[198] or Ueberweg Hamilton[199] or Schwegler Aristotle[200] or Schlegel Descartes[201] on the Cousin[201] History of Hegel & Schelling[202] Philosophy. Fichte[203] Erasmus[204] Fiske[205] Hickok[206] McCosh[207] Spinoza[208] 7. Essays. Emerson[209] Macaulay Bacon[210] Leigh Hunt Montaigne[211] Arnold Ruskin[212] Buckle Carlyle[212] Hume Addison[212] Froude Symonds Steele Browne Johnson De Quincey Foster Hazlitt Lessing Sparks Disraeli Whipple Lamb Schiller Coleridge 8. Fiction. Scott[213] Rousseau[235] Eliot[214] Saintine[235] Dickens[215] Coffin[236] Hawthorne[216] Reade[236] Goldsmith[217] Warren[236] Bulwer[218] Landor[237] MacDonald[219] Turgenieff[237] Thackeray[220] Sue[237] Kingsley[221] Manzoni[237] Wallace[222] Cottin[238] Tourgée[223] Besant[238] Hugo[224] Stevenson[238] Dumas[224] Ward[239] Defoe[225] Deland[239] Hughes[225] Sewell[239] Stowe[226] Bret Harte[239] Cooper[226] Green[240] Curtis[227] Mulock[240] Warner[227] Disraeli[240] Aldrich[228] Howells[240] Hearn[228] Tolstoï[240] Ebers[229] Sand[241] Sienkiewicz[229] Black[241] Austen[230] Blackmore[241] Bronté[230] Schreiner[241] Alcott[231] Bremer[242] Burnett[231] Trollope[242] Cable[232] Winthrop[242] Craddock[232] Richardson[243] Whitney[233] Smollett[243] Jewett[233] Boccaccio[243] Fielding[234] Le Sage[234] Balzac[234] 9. Oratory. Demosthenes Sumner Burke Henry Fox Otis Pitt Jay Webster Madison Clay Jefferson Phillips Beecher Lincoln Brooks Everett Choate Bright Garfield Ingersoll Erskine Sheridan Gladstone Cicero Quintilian Bossuet Saint Chrysostom 10. Wit & Humor. Lowell[244] Ingersoll[248] Holmes[245] Holley[249] Dickens[246] Curtis[250] Cervantes[247] Depew[251] Twain[252] Warner[253] Edwards[254] Hale[255] Nasby[256] Ward[257] Jerrold[258] Voltaire[259] Byron[259] Butler[260] Swift[260] Rabelais[261] Sterne[261] Juvenal[262] Lucian[262] 11. Fables & Fairy Tales. Andersen[263] Bulfinch[268] La Fontaine[264] Saxe[269] Æsop[265] Florian[270] Grimm[266] Kipling[270] Goethe[267] Babrius[271] Hawthorne[267] Hauff[272] Ovid[273] Curtin[273] Fiske[273] 12. Travel. Cook[274] Marco Polo[277] Humboldt[275] Kane[278] Darwin[276] Livingstone[279] Stanley[280] Du Chaillu[281] Niebuhr[282] Bruce[283] Heber[284] Lander[285] Waterton[286] Mungo Park[287] Ouseley[288] Barth[289] Boteler[290] Maundeville[291] Warburton[292] 13. Guides. Foster[293] Brook[303] Pall Mall[294] Leypoldt[304] Morley[295] Richardson[305] Welsh[296] Harrison[306] Taine[297] Ruskin[307] Botta[298] Bright[308] Allibone[299] Dunlop[309] Bartlett[300] Baldwin[309] Ballou[301] Adams[309] Bryant[302] Palgrave[302] Roget's Thesaurus Dictionaries Encyclopædias 14. Miscellaneous. Smiles' Self-Help[310] Sheking[324] Irving's Sketch Book[311] Analects of Confucius[325] Bacon's New Atlantis[312] Mesnevi[326] Bellamy[313] Buddhism[327] Arabian Nights[314] Mahabharata[328] Munchausen[315] Ramayana[329] Beowulf[316] Vedas[330] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[317] Koran[331] Froissart[318] Talmud[332] Nibelungenlied[319] Hooker[333] Icelandic Sagas[320] Swedenborg[333] Elder Edda[321] Newton[333] The Cid[322] Kepler[333] Morte D'Arthur[323] Copernicus[333] Laplace[333] REMARKS ON TABLE I. RELIGION AND MORALS. Religion and Morals, though not identical, are so closely related that they are grouped together. The books in Column 1 by no means exhaust these subjects, for they run like threads of gold through the whole warp and woof of poetry. Philosophy, fiction, and fable, biography, history, and essays, oratory and humor, seem rather satellites that attend upon moral feelings than independent orbs, and even science is not dumb upon these all-absorbing topics. If we are to be as broad-minded in our religious views as we seek to be in other matters, we must become somewhat acquainted with the worship of races other than our own. This may be done through Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, Confucius, Buddha, the Vedas, Koran, Talmud, Edda, Sagas, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Shah Nameh, etc. (which are all in some sense "Bibles," or books that have grown out of the hearts of the people), and through general works, such as Clarke's "Ten Great Religions." [1] Especially Job, and Psalms 19, 103, 104, 107, in the Old Testament; and in the New the four Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. (m. R. D. C. G.) [2] Next to the Bible, probably no book is so much read by the English peoples as Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a simple, vivid, helpful story of Christian life and its obstacles. No writer has so well portrayed the central truths of Christianity as this great, untrained, imaginative genius, pouring his life upon the deathless pages of his poetic allegory during the twelve long years in the latter part of the 17th century, when he was imprisoned, under the Restoration, merely because of his religious principles. (e. R. D.) [3] Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying" is a wise, frank talk about the care of our time, purity of intention, practice of the presence of God, temperance, justice, modesty, humility, envy, contentedness, etc. Some portions of the first hundred and fifty pages are of the utmost practical value. Even Ruskin admits that Taylor and Bunyan are rightly placed among the world's best. (Eng., 17th cent.--m. R. D.) [4] "Imitation of Christ" is a sister book to the last, written in the 15th century by Thomas à Kempis, a German monk, of pure and beautiful life and thought. It is a world-famous book, having been translated into every civilized language, and having passed through more than five hundred editions in the present century. (m. R. D.) [5] Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is one of the most important books in literature, having to the science of ethics much the same relation as Newton's "Principia" to astronomy, or Darwin's "Origin of Species" to biology. Note especially the parts concerning altruistic selfishness, the morality of health, and the development of moral feeling in general. (Eng., 19th cent.--d. R. D. G.) Spencer's "First Principles" is also necessary to an understanding of the scientific religious thinking of the day. In connection with Spencer's works, "The Idea of God" and the "Destiny of Man," by Fiske, may be read with profit. The author of these books is in large part a follower and expounder of Spencer. [6] The "Meditations" of M. Aurelius is a book that is full of deep, pure beauty and philosophy; one of the sweetest influences that can be brought into the life, and one of Canon Farrar's twelve favorites out of all literature. (Rome, 2d cent.--m. R. D.) [7] Plutarch's "Morals" supplied much of the cream used by Taylor in the churning that produced the "Holy Living and Dying." Emerson says that we owe more to Plutarch than to all the other ancients. Many great authors have been indebted to him,--Rabelais, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Dryden, among the number. Plutarch's "Morals" is a treasure-house of wisdom and beauty. There is a very fine edition with an introduction by Emerson. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.) [8] Seneca's "Morals" is a fit companion of the preceding six books, full of deep thought upon topics of every-day import, set out in clear and forceful language. The Camelot Library contains a very good selection from his ethical treatises and his delightful letters, which are really moral essays. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.) [9] Epictetus was another grand moralist, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius. Next to Bunyan and Kempis, the books of these great stoics, filled as they are with the serenity of minds that had made themselves independent of circumstance and passion, have the greatest popularity accorded to any ethical works. Epictetus was a Roman slave in the 1st century A. D. (m. R. D.) [10] The little book on "Tolerance" by Phillips Brooks ought to be read by every one. See Table III. side No. 23. The sermons of Dr. Brooks and of Robertson are among the most helpful and inspiring reading we know. Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a book of ingenious and often poetic analogies between the physical and spiritual worlds. If read as poetry, no fault can be found with it; but the reader must be careful to test thoroughly the laws laid down, and make sure that there is some weightier proof than mere analogy, before hanging important conclusions on the statements of this author. A later book by Drummond entitled "The Greatest Thing in the World" is also worthy of attention. (U. S., 19th cent.) [11] "Areopagitica." A noble plea for liberty of speech and press. (Eng., early 17th cent.) [12] Keble's beautiful "Christian Year." [13] Cicero's "Offices" is a very valuable ethical work. It directs a young Roman how he may attain distinction and the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Its underlying principles are of eternal value, and its arrangement is admirable. Dr. Peabody's translation is the best. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [14] "Pensées." Pascal's "Thoughts" are known the world over for their depth and beauty. (France, 17th cent.) [15] "The Perfect Life" and other works. (U. S., 19th cent.) [16] Ethics. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.) [17] "Confessions" and "The City of God." (Rome, 4th cent.) [18] Analogy of Religion. (Eng., 18th cent.) [19] Ethics and theologico-political speculation. (Dutch, 17th cent.) POETRY AND THE DRAMA. The faculty which most widely distinguishes man from his possible relatives, the lower animals, and the varying power of which most clearly marks the place of each individual in the scale of superiority, is imagination. It lies at the bottom of intellect and character. Memory, reason, and discovery are built upon it; and sympathy, the mother of kindness, tenderness, and love, is itself the child of the imagination. Poetry is the married harmony of imagination and beauty. The poet is the man of fancy and the man of music. This is why in all ages mankind instinctively feel that poetry is supreme. Of all kinds of literature, it is the most stimulating, broadening, beautifying, and should have a large place in every life. Buy the best poets, read them carefully, mark the finest passages, and recur to them many, many times. A poem is like a violin: it must be kept and played upon a long time before it yields to us its sweetest music. The drama, or representation of human thought and life, has come into being, among very many peoples, as a natural outgrowth of the faculty of mimicry in human nature. Among the South Sea Islanders there is a rude drama, and in China such representations have existed from remote ages. Greece first brought the art to high perfection; and her greatest tragic artists, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, of the fifth century B. C., are still the highest names in tragedy. The Greek drama with Æschylus was only a dialogue. Sophocles introduced a third actor. It would be a dull play to us that should fill the evening with three players. In another thing the Grecian play was widely different from ours. The aim of ancient playwrights was to bring to view some thought in giant form and with tremendous emphasis. The whole drama was built around, moulded, and adapted to one great idea. The aim of English writers is to give an interesting glimpse of actual life in all its multiplicity of interwoven thought and passion, and let it speak its lessons, as the great schoolmistress, Nature, gives us hers. The French and Italian drama follow that of Greece, but Spain and England follow Nature. _Mystery and miracle plays_ were introduced about 1100 A. D., by Hilarius, and were intended to enforce religious truths. God, Adam, the Angels, Satan, Eve, Noah, etc., were the characters. In the beginning of the 15th century, _morality plays_ became popular. They personified faith, hope, sadness, magnificence, conceit, etc., though there might seem little need of invention to personify the latter. About the time of Henry VIII., _masques_ were introduced from Italy. In them the performers wore extravagant costumes and covered the face, and lords and ladies played the parts. It was at such a frolic that King Henry met Anne Boleyn. The first English comedy was written in 1540, by Udall; and the first tragedy in 1561, by Sackville and Norton. It was called "Ferrex and Porrex." From this time the English drama rapidly rose to its summit in Shakspeare's richest years at the close of the same century. At first the theatre was in the inn-yard,--just a platform, with no scenery but what the imagination of the drinking, swearing, jeering crowd of common folk standing in the rain or sunlight round the rough-made stage could paint. On the stage sat a few gentlefolk able to pay a shilling for the privilege. They smoked, played cards, insulted the pit, "who gave it to them back, and threw apples at them into the bargain." Such were the beginnings of what in Shakspeare's hands became the greatest drama that the world has ever seen. The manner of reading all good poetry should be: R. D. C. G. If the reader wishes to study poetry critically, he will find abundant materials in Lanier's "Science of English Verse" and Dowden's "Mind and Art of Shakspeare" (books that once read by a lover of poetry will ever after be cherished as among the choicest of his possessions); Lowell's "Fable for Critics," "My Study Windows," and "Among my Books;" Arnold's "Essays;" Hazlitt's "English Poets;" "English Men of Letters;" Poe's "Essay on the Composition of the Raven;" Taine's "English Literature;" Swinburne's "Essays and Studies;" Stedman's "Victorian Poets;" Shairp's "Studies in Poetry;" Warton's "History of English Poetry;" Ward's "History of English Dramatic Literature;" and Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature." [20] Shakspeare is the summit of the world's literature. In a higher degree than any other man who has lived on this planet, he possessed that vivid, accurate, exhaustive imagination which creates a second universe in the poet's brain. Between our thought of a man and the man himself, or a complete representation of him with all his thoughts, feelings, motives, and possibilities, there is a vast gulf. If we had a perfect knowledge of him, we could tell what he would think and do. To this ultimate knowledge Shakspeare more nearly approached than any other mortal. He so well understood the machinery of human nature, that he could create men and women beyond our power to detect an error in his work. This grasp of the most difficult subject of thought, and the oceanic, myriad-minded greatness of his plays prove him intellectually the greatest of the human race. It is simple nonsense to suppose that Bacon wrote the dramas that bear the name of Shakspeare. They were published during Shakspeare's life under his name; and Greene, Jonson, Milton, and other contemporaries speak with unmistakable clearness of the great master. Donnelly's Cryptogram is a palpable sham; and to the argument that an uneducated man like Shakspeare could not have written such grand poetry, while Bacon, as we know, did have a splendid ability, it is a sufficient answer to remark that Shakspeare's sonnets, the authorship of which is not and cannot be questioned, show far higher poetical powers than anything that can be found in Bacon's acknowledged works. Richard Grant White's edition is the best; and certainly every one should have the very best of Shakspeare, if no other book is ever bought. (16th cent.) See Table III. No. 1. With Shakspeare may be used Dowden's "Shakspeare Primer," and "The Mind and Art of Shakspeare," Abbott's "Shakspearian Grammar," Lanier's "Science of English Verse," Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays" and "Age of Elizabeth," Lamb's "Tales from Shakspeare," Ward's "English Dramatic Literature, and History of the Drama," Lewes' "Actors and the Art of Acting," Hutton's "Plays and Players," Leigh Hunt's "Imagination and Fancy," and Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." [21] Homer is the world's greatest epic poet. He is the brother of Shakspeare, full of sublimity and pathos, tenderness, simplicity, and inexhaustible vigor. Pope's translation is still the best on the whole, but should be read with Derby's Iliad and Worsley's Odyssey. In some parts these are fuller of power and beauty; in others, Pope is far better. Flaxman's designs are a great help in enjoying Homer, as are also the writings of Gladstone, Arnold, and Symonds. (Greece, about 1000 B. C.) See Table III. No. 2. [22] Ruskin thinks Dante is the first figure of history, the only man in whom the moral, intellectual, and imaginative faculties met in great power and in perfect balance. (Italy, 14th cent.) Follow the advice given in Table III. No. 5, and, if possible, read Longfellow's translation. See note 24, p. 30. Among writings that will be found useful in connection with Dante, are Rossetti's "Shadow of Dante," Lowell's Essay in "Among my Books," Symonds' "Introduction to the Study of Dante," Farrar's "Lecture on Dante," Mrs. Ward's "Life of Dante," Botta's "Dante as a Philosopher," and Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship." [23] Goethe is unquestionably the greatest German, and one of the first six names in literature. His "Faust" is a history of the soul. Read Bayard Taylor's translation, and the explanation of the drama's meaning given in Taylor's "Studies in German Literature." "Faust" was the work of half a century, and completed in 1818, when Goethe was past eighty. As a preparation for Goethe it is interesting to study the story of Faust in Butterworth's "Zigzag Journeys," and read Marlowe's "Drama of Faustus." The novel "Wilhelm Meister" has been splendidly translated by Carlyle, and is full of the richest poetic thought, crammed with wisdom, and pervaded by a delicious sweetness forever provoking the mind to fresh activity. As a work of genius, it is preferred by some critics even to Hamlet. See Table III. No. 15. [24] Milton stands in his age like an oak among hazel-bushes. The nobility of his character, the sublimity of his thought, and the classic beauty of his style give him, in spite of some coldness and some lack of naturalness in his conception of the characters of Adam and Eve, the second place in English literature. His "Lycidas" is a beautiful elegy. His "Comus" is the best masque in English, and certainly a charming picture of chastity and its triumph over temptation. It should be read along with Spenser's "Britomart." His "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," on mirth and melancholy, are among the best lyrics of the world. His "Paradise Lost" is the greatest epic in English, and the greatest that any literature has had since Dante's "Divine Comedy." The two books should be read together. Milton shows us Satan in all the pride and pomp and power this world oft throws around his cloven Majesty. Dante tears away the wrappings, and we see the horrid heart and actual loathsomeness of sin. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 2. The writings of Stopford Brooke, Macaulay, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, and Pattison about Milton may be profitably referred to. [25] Æschylus was the greatest of the noble triumvirate of Greek tragedy writers. Sublimity reached in his soul the greatest purity and power that it has yet attained on earth. One can no more afford to tread in life's low levels all his days and never climb above the clouds to thought's clear-ethered heights with Æschylus, than to dwell at the foot of a cliff in New Mexico and never climb to see the Rockies in the blue and misty distance, with their snowy summits shining in the sun. Read, at any rate, his "Prometheus Bound" and his "Agamemnon." (5th cent. B. C., the Golden Age of Grecian literature.) See Table III. No. 4. The student of Æschylus will find much of value to him in Mahaffy's "Greek Literature," "Old Greek Life," and "Social Life in Greece;" Schlegel's "Dramatic Literature;" Donaldson's "Theatre of the Greeks," and Froude's "Sea Studies." Following the "Prometheus" of Æschylus, it is a good plan to read the works of Goethe, Shelley, Lowell, and Longfellow on the same topic. We thus bring close the ideas and fancies of five great minds in respect to the myth of Prometheus. [26] Many a selection in Table III. is of very high merit, and belongs on the world's first shelf, although the poetic works of the author as a whole cannot be allowed such honor. In the section preceding Table V. also will be found a number of short writings of the very highest merit. See explanatory note to Table I. [27] Edmund Spenser is the third name in English literature. No modern poet is more like Homer. He is simple, clear, and natural, redundant and ingenuous. He is a Platonic dreamer, and worships beauty, a love sublime and chaste; for all the beauty that the eye can see is only, in his view, an incomplete expression of celestial beauty in the soul of man and Nature, the light within gleaming and sparkling through the loose woven texture of this garment of God called Nature, or pouring at every pore a flood of soft, translucent loveliness, as the radiance of a calcium flame flows through a porcelain globe. Spenser was Milton's model. The "Faërie Queen," the "Shepherd's Calendar," and the "Wedding Hymn" should be carefully read; and if the former is studied sufficiently to arrive at the underlying spiritual meaning, it will ever after be one of the most precious of books. (Eng., 16th cent.) See Table III. No. 6. See also Lowell's "Among my Books," Craik's "Spenser and his Poetry," and Taine's "English Literature." [28] Lowell is one of the foremost humorists of all time. No one, except Shakspeare, has ever combined so much mastery of the weapons of wit with so much poetic power, bonhomie, and common-sense. Every American should read his poems carefully, and digest the best. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. Nos. 12 and 24. [29] Whittier is America's greatest lyric poet. Read what Lowell says of him in the "Fable for Critics," and get acquainted with his poetry of Nature and quiet country life, as pure as the snow and as sweet as the clover. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11. [30] Tennyson is the first poet of our age; and though he cannot rank with the great names on the upper shelf, yet his tenderness, and noble purity, and the almost absolutely perfect music of much of his poetry commands our love and admiration. Read his "In Memoriam," "Princess," "Idylls of the King," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11. [31] Burns is like a whiff of the pure sea air. He is a sprig of arbutus under the snow; full of tenderness and genuine gayety, always in love, and singing forever in tune to the throbs of his heart. Read "The Jolly Beggars," "The Twa Dogs," and see Table III. No. 11. (Scot., 18th cent.) [32] Probably nothing is so likely to awaken a love for poetry as the reading of Scott. (Scot., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 7. [33] Byron is the greatest English poet since Milton, and except Goethe the greatest poet of his age in the world. His music, his wonderful control of language, his impassioned strength passing from vehemence to pathos, his fine sense of the beautiful, and his combination of passion with beauty would place him high on the first shelf of the world's literature if it were not for his moral aberration. Read his "Childe Harold." (Eng., 1788-1824.) See Table III. No. 13. [34] Shelley is indistinct, abstract, impracticable, but full of love for all that is noble, of magnificent poetic power and marvellous music. Read "Prometheus Unbound," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.) [35] Keats is the poetic brother of Shelley. He is deserving of the title "marvellous boy" in a far higher degree than Chatterton. If the lives of Shakspeare, Milton, and Wordsworth had ended at twenty-five, as did the life of Keats, they would have left no poetry comparable with that of this impassioned dreamer. Like Shakspeare, he had no fortune or opportunity of high education. Read "Hyperion," "Lamia," "Eve of Saint Agnes," "Endymion," and see Table III. No. 13. (Eng., 19th cent.) [36] Campbell clothed in romantic sweetness and delicate diction, the fancies of the fairy land of youthful dreams, and poured forth with a master voice the pride and grandeur of patriotic song. Read his "Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude of Wyoming," and see Table III. No. 12. (Eng., 19th cent.) [37] Moore is a singer of wonderful melody and elegance and of inexhaustible imagery. Read his "Irish Melodies." (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 11. [38] Thomson is one of the most intense lovers of Nature, and sees with a clear eye the correspondences between the inner and outer worlds upon which poetry is built. Read his "Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence." (Eng., 18th cent.) [39] Read Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." "Horatius" cannot fail to make the reader pulse with all the heroism and patriotism that is in his heart, and "Virginia" will fill each heart with mutiny and every eye with tears. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 12. [40] Dryden's song is not so smooth as Pope's, but doubly strong. His translation of Virgil has more fire than the original, though less elegance. He was the literary king of his time, but knew better _how_ to say things than _what_ to say. (Eng., 17th cent.) See Table III. No. 14. [41] Collins was a poet of fine genius. Beauty, simplicity, and sweet harmony combine in his works, but he wrote very little. Read his odes, "To Pity," "To Evening," "To Mercy," "To Simplicity." See Table III. No. 14. (Eng., 18th cent.) [42] Jean Ingelow's poems deserve at least tasting, which will scarcely fail to lead to assimilation. (Eng., 1862.) See Table III. No. 14. [43] Bryant's "Thanatopsis," written at eighteen, gave promise of high poetic power; but in the life of a journalist the current of energy was drawn away from poetry, and America lost the full fruitage of her best poetic tree. He is serene and lofty in thought, and strong in his descriptive power and the noble simplicity of his language. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13. [44] Longfellow's poetry is earnest and full of melody, but _as a whole_ lacks passion and imagery. Relatively to a world standard he is not a great poet and has written little worthy of universal reading, but as bone of our bone he has a claim on us as Americans for sufficient attention at least to investigate for ourselves his merits. (Amer., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 10. [45] Lowell says that George Herbert is as "holy as a flower on a grave." (Eng., 1631.) See Table III. No. 13. [46] Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "Traveller" will live as long as the language. They are full of wisdom and lovely poetry. His dramas abound in fun. Read "The Good-Natured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer." (Eng., 18th cent.) See Table IV. [47] Read Coleridge's "Christabel," and get somebody to explain its mysterious beauty to you; also his "Remorse," "Ode to the Departing Year," "Ancient Mariner," and "Kubla Khan." The latter is the most magnificent creation of his time, but needs a good deal of study for most readers to perceive the beautiful underlying thought, as is the case also with the "Mariner." Coleridge is difficult reading. He wrote very little excellently, but that little should be bound in gold, and read till the inner light of it shines into the soul of the reader. The terrible opium habit ruined him. Read his life; it is a thrilling story. (Eng., 1772-1834.) Table III. No. 11. [48] Lowell says, in his "Fable for Critics," that he is always discovering new depths "in Wordsworth, undreamed of before,-- That divinely inspired, wise, deep, tender, grand--bore." Nothing could sum up this poet better than that. His intense delight in Nature and especially in mountain scenery, and his pure, serene, earnest, majestic reflectiveness are his great charms. His "Excursion" is one of the great works of our literature, and stands in the front rank of the world's philosophical poetry. Its thousand lines of blank verse roll through the soul like the stately music of a cathedral organ. (Eng., 19th cent.) See Table III. No. 13. [49] Pope is the greatest of the world's machine poets, the noblest of the great army who place a higher value on skilful execution than on originality and beauty of conception. The "Rape of the Lock" is his most successful effort, and is the best of all mock-heroic poems. "The sharpest wit, the keenest dissection of the follies of fashionable life, the finest grace of diction, and the softest flow of melody adorn a tale in which we learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair." Read also his "Essay on Man," and glance at his "Dunciad," a satire on fellow-writers. (Eng., 1688-1744.) See Table III. No. 13, and Table IV. [50] Southey had great ideas of what poetry should be, and strove for purity, unity, and fine imagery; but there was no pathos or depth of emotion in him, and the stream of his poetry is not the gush of the river, but the uninteresting flow of the canal. Byron says, "God help thee, Southey, and thy readers too." Glance at his "Thalaba the Destroyer" and "Curse of Kehama." (Eng., 1774-1843.) [51] Walton's "Compleat Angler" is worthy of a glance. (Eng., 1653.) [52] Browning is very obscure, and neither on authority nor principle a first-rate poet; but he is a strong thinker, and dear to those who have taken the pains to dig out the nuggets of gold. Canon Farrar puts him among the three living authors whose works he would be most anxious to save from the flames. Mrs. Browning has more imagination than her husband, and is perhaps his equal in other respects. (Eng., 19th cent.) [53] Read Young's "Night Thoughts." [54] Jonson, on account of his noble aims, comparative purity, and classic style, stands next to Shakspeare in the history of English drama. Read "The Alchemist," "Catiline," "The Devil as an Ass," "Cynthia's Revels," and "The Silent Woman." The plot of the latter is very humorous. (Eng., 1700.) [55] The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher are poetically the best in the language except those of Shakspeare. Read "Philaster," "The Fair Maid of the Inn," "Thierry and Theodoret," "The Maid's Tragedy." (Eng., 17th cent.) [56] Marlowe's "Mighty Line" is known to all lovers of poetry who have made a wide hunt. His energy is intense. Read "The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus," based on that wonderfully fascinating story of the doctor who offered his soul to hell in exchange for a short term of power and pleasure, on which Goethe expended the flower of his genius, and around which grew hundreds of plays all over Europe. (Eng., 17th cent.) [57] For whimsical and ludicrous situations and a rapid fire of witticisms, Sheridan's plays have no equals. Read "The School for Scandal" and "The Rivals." (Eng., 18th cent.) [58] Carleton's poetry is not of a lofty order, but exceedingly enjoyable. Read his "Farm Ballads." (Amer., 19th cent.) [60] Virgil is the greatest name in Roman literature. His "Æneid" is the national poem of Rome. His poetry is of great purity and elegance, and for variety, harmony, and power second in epic verse only to his great model, Homer. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) Read Dryden's translation if you cannot read the original. [61] The Odes of Horace combine wit, grace, sense, fire, and affection in a perfection of form never attained by any other writer. He is untranslatable; but Martin's version and commentary will give some idea of this most interesting man, "the most modern and most familiar of the ancients." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [62] Lucretius is a philosophic poet. He aimed to explain Nature; and his poem has much of wisdom, beauty, sublimity, and imagination to commend it. Virgil imitated whole passages from Lucretius. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [63] Ovid is gross but fertile, and his "Metamorphoses" and "Epistles" have been great favorites. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [64] The "Antigone" and "OEdipus at Colonus" of Sophocles are of exquisite tenderness and beauty. In pathos Shakspeare only is his equal. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [65] Euripides is the third of the great triumvirate of Greek dramatists. His works were very much admired by Milton and Fox. Read his "Alcestis," "Iphigenia," "Medea," and the "Bacchanals." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [66] Aristophanes is the greatest of Greek comedy writers. His plays are great favorites with scholars, as a rule. Read the "Clouds," "Birds," "Knights," and "Plutus." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [67] Pindar's triumphal odes stand in the front rank of the world's lyric poetry. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [68] Hesiod's "Theogony" contains the religious faith of Greece. He lived in or near the time of Homer. [69] Heine is the most remarkable German poet of this century. He has written many gems of rare beauty, and many sketches of life unmatched for racy freshness and graphic power. [70] Schiller is the second name in German literature; indeed, as a lover of men and as a poet of exquisite fancy, he far excels Goethe. He was a great philosopher, historian, and critic. Read his "Song of the Bell," and his drama of "Wallenstein," translated by Coleridge. (Germany, 18th cent.) [71] Corneille, Racine, and Molière are the great French triumvirate of dramatists. Their object is to produce one massive impression. In this they follow the classic writers. A French, Greek, or Roman drama is to a Shakspearean play as a statue to a picture, as an idea carved out of Nature and rendered magnificently impressive by its isolation and the beauty of its modelling, to Nature itself. The historical and ethical value of the French plays is very great. Corneille is one of the grandest of modern poets. Read "The Cid" ("As beautiful as the Cid" became a proverb in France), and "Horace" (which is even more original and grand than "The Cid"), and "Cinna" (which Voltaire thought the best of all). Racine excels in grace, tenderness, and versatility. Read his "Phèdre." Molière was almost as profound a master of human nature on its humorous side as Shakspeare. He hates folly, meanness, and falsehood; he is always wise, tender, and good. Read "Le Misanthrope," or "The Man-Hater," and "Tartuffe," or "The Impostor." (17th cent.) [74] Alfred de Musset is a famous French poet of this century, and is a great favorite with those who can enjoy charming and inspiring thoughts though mixed with the grotesque and extravagant. [75] Calderon de la Barca is one of the greatest dramatists of the world. His purity, power, and passion, his magnificent imagination and wonderful fertility, will place him in company with Shakspeare in the eternal society of the great. Read Shelley's fragments from Calderon, and Fitzgerald's translation, especially "Zalamea" and "The Wonder-Working Magician," two of his greatest plays. (Spain, 17th cent.) [76] Petrarch's lyrics have been models to all the great poets of Southern Europe. The subject of nearly all his poems is his hopeless affection for the high-minded and beautiful Laura de Sade. His purity is above reproach. He is pre-eminent for sweetness, pathos, elegance, and melody. (Italy, 14th cent.) [77] Ariosto is Italy's great epic poet. Read his "Orlando Furioso," a hundred-fold tale of knights and ladies, giants and magicians. (Italy, 1474-1533). [78] Tasso is the second name in Italian epic poetry; and by some he is placed above Ariosto and named in the same breath with Homer and Virgil. Read his "Jerusalem Delivered," and "Aminta," and glance at his minor poems composed while in confinement. (Italy, 16th cent.) [79] Camoens is the glory of Portugal, her only poet whose fame has flown far beyond her narrow borders. Read his grand and beautiful poem, the "Lusiad," a national epic grouping together all the great and interesting events in the history of his country. (16th cent.) [80] Omar Khayyám, the great astronomer poet of Persia, has no equal in the world in the concise magnificence with which he can paint a grand poetic conception in a single complete, well-rounded, melodious stanza. Read Fitzgerald's translation. (12th cent.) [81] Firdusi, the author of the "Shah Nameh," or Poetic History of the great deeds of the sultans. Hafiz, the poet of love, and Saadi are other great Persian poets deserving at least a glance of investigation. (11th-14th cents.) [82] Arnold's "Light of Asia" claims our attention for the additions it can make to our breadth of thought, giving us as it does briefly and beautifully the current of thinking of a great people very unlike ourselves. (Eng., 19th cent.) [83] Pushkin is called the Byron of Russia. Russian songs have a peculiar, mournful tenderness. "They are the sorrows of a century blended in one everlasting sigh." (19th cent.) [84] Lermontoff is the Russian Schiller. (19th cent.) SCIENCE. The most important sciences for the ordinary reader are Physiology, Hygiene, Psychology, Logic, Political Economy, Sociology and the Science of Government, Astronomy, Geology, and Natural History; but an elementary knowledge of all the sciences is very desirable on account of the breadth of mind and grasp of method which result therefrom. The International Scientific Series is very helpful in giving the brief comprehensive treatment of such subjects that is needed for those who are not specialists. The best books in this department are continually changing, because science is growing fast, and the latest books are apt to be fuller and better than the old ones. The best thing that can be done by one who wishes to be sure of obtaining the finest works upon any given subject in the region of scientific research, is to write to a professor who teaches that subject in some good university,--a professor who has not himself written a book on the subject,--and get his judgment on the matter. [85] Physical health is the basis of all life and activity, and it is of the utmost importance to secure at once the best knowledge the world has attained in relation to its procurement and preservation. This matter has far too little attention. If a man is going to bring up chickens, he will study chicken books no end of hours to see just what will make them lay and make them fat and how he may produce the finest stock; but if he only has to bring up a few children, he will give no time to the study of the physical conditions of their full and fine development. Some few people, however, have a strange idea that a child is nearly as valuable as a rooster. There is no book as yet written which gives in clear, easily understood language the known laws of diet, exercise, care of the teeth, hair, skin, lungs, etc., and simple remedies. Perhaps Dalton's "Physiology," Flint's "Nervous System," Cutter's "Hygiene," Blaikie's "How to get Strong," and Duncan's "How to be Plump," Beard's "Eating and Drinking," Bellows' "Philosophy of Eating," Smith on Foods, Holbrook's "Eating for Strength," "Fruit and Bread," "Hygiene for the Brain," "How to Strengthen the Memory," and Kay's book on the Memory, Walter's "Nutritive Cure," Clark's "Sex in Education," Alice Stockham's "Tokology" or "Hygiene for Married Women," and Naphy's "Transmission of Life" will together give some idea of this all-valuable subject, though none of these books except the first are in themselves, apart from their subject, worthy of a place on the first shelf. [86] Dr. Strong's little book, "Our Country," is of the most intense interest to every American who loves his country and wishes its welfare. (U. S., 19th cent.) [88] The "Federalist" was a series of essays by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, in favor of the Federal Constitution, and is the best and deepest book on the science of government that the world contains. (Amer., 1788.) [89] Bryce on the American Commonwealth is a splendid book, a complete, critical, philosophic work, an era-making book, and should be read by every American who wishes to know how our institutions appear to a genial, cultured, broad-minded foreigner. Mr. Bryce has the chair of Political Economy in Oxford, and is a member of Parliament. His chief criticism of our great republic is that it is _hard to fix responsibility_ for lawlessness under our institutions, which is always an encouragement to wrongdoers. His book should be read with De Tocqueville. (Eng., 19th cent.) [90] Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" is a profound analysis of law in relation to government, customs, climate, religion, and commerce. It is the greatest book of the 18th century. Read with it Bagehot's "Physics and Politics." [91] Mill's "Logic" and "Political Economy" are simply necessities to any, even moderately, thorough preparation for civilized life in America. (Eng., 19th cent.) [92] Read Bain on the "Emotions and the Will," "Mind and Body," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) [93] Herbert Spencer is the foremost name in the philosophic literature of the world. He is the Shakspeare of science. He has a grander grasp of knowledge, and more perfect _conscious_ correspondence with the external universe, than any other human being who ever looked wonderingly out into the starry depths; and his few errors flow from an over-anxiety to exert his splendid power of making beautiful generalizations. Read his "First Principles," "Data of Ethics," "Education," and "Classification of the Sciences," at any rate; and if possible, all he has written. Plato and Spencer are brothers. Plato would have done what Spencer has, had he lived in the 19th century. [94] Darwin's "Origin of Species" stands in history by the side of Newton's "Principia." The thought of both has to a great extent become the common inheritance of the race; and it is perhaps sufficient for the general reader to refer to a good account of the book and its arguments, such as may be found in the "Encyclopædia Britannica." (Eng., 19th cent.) [95] Read Herschel and Proctor in Astronomy, to broaden and deepen the mind with the grand and beautiful conceptions of this most poetic of the sciences. Proctor's books are more fascinating than any fiction. (Eng., 19th cent.) [96] For a knowledge of what has been going on in this dim spot beneath the sun, in the ages before man came upon the stage, and for an idea about what kind of a fellow man was when he first set up housekeeping here, and how long ago that was, read Lyell's "Geology;" Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," "Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man," and Lyell's "Antiquity of Man" (Eng., 19th cent.); and Dawson's "Chain of Life." (U. S., 19th cent.) [97] Read Wood's beautiful and interesting books on Natural History; especially his "Evidences of Mind in Animals," "Out of Doors," "Anecdotes of Animals," "Man and Beast," "Here and Hereafter." (Eng., 19th cent.) [98] Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences" is a very broadening book. [99] De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is one of the great books, and is superior in depth and style even to Bryce. The two books supplement each other. See note 89: (France, 18th cent.) [100] "Constitutional History of the United States." (Ger., 19th cent.) [101] "Wealth of Nations," "Moral Sentiments." (Eng., 18th cent.) [102] "Principles of Population." One of the most celebrated of books. (Eng., 18th cent.) [103] "Principles of Social Philosophy." (Eng., 19th cent.) [104] "Essays on Political Economy," "Leading Principles of Political Economy." (Eng., 19th cent.) [105] "Comparative Politics." (Eng., 19th cent.) [106] "The Theory of Political Economy," "The Logic of Statistics." (Eng., 19th cent.) [107] "The Nation, the Foundation of Civil Order and Political Life in the United States." (U. S., 19th cent.) [108] "Leviathan." See note 190. (Eng., 16th cent.) [109] "The Prince." (Italy, 1469-1527.) [110] "Chips from a German Workshop," and various works on Philology. (Ger., 19th cent.) [111] "Study of Words," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) [112] "Words and Places." (Eng., 19th cent.) [113] "Natural History of Selborne." (Eng., 19th cent.) [114] "Animal Kingdom." (France, early 19th cent.) [115] "Voyages." (Eng., 18th cent.) [116] "Heat as a Mode of Motion," "Forms of Water," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) [117] "On Sound." (Eng., 19th cent.) [118] "Scientific Researches." (Eng., 19th cent.) [119] "Conservation of Energy." In a book on this subject edited by E. L. Youmans. (Ger., 19th cent.) [120] "Man's Place in Nature." (Eng., 19th cent.) [121] Botany. (U. S., 19th cent.) [122] "Methods of Study in Natural History." (U. S. 19th cent.) [123] Physics. (U. S., 19th cent.) BIOGRAPHY. Biography carefully read will cast a flood of light before us on the path of life. Read Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," and try to find the teachings he refers to in the lives of great men. The world still lacks what it very much needs,--a book of _brief_ biographies of the greatest and noblest men and women of every age and country, by a master hand. The aim should be to extract from the past what it can teach us of value for the future; and to do this biography must become a comparative science, events and lives must be grouped over the whole range of the years, that by similarities and contrasts the truth may appear. Smiles's "Self-Help" is a partial realization of this plan. The manner of reading should be: R. D. [124] Plutarch's "Lives" comes nearer to a comparative biography than any other book we have. He contrasts his characters in pairs, a Greek and a Roman in each couplet. It is one of the most delightful of books, and among those most universally read by cultured people of all nations. Dryden's translation revised by Clough is the best. (Rome, 1st cent.) [125] In Wendell Phillips's oration on "Toussaint L'Ouverture," there is a fascinating comparison of the noble negro warrior with Napoleon. (U. S., 19th cent.) [126] Boswell's "Johnson" is admittedly the greatest life of a single person yet written. (Eng., 18th cent.) [127] Lockhart's "Life of Scott" is a favorite with all who read it. Wilkie Collins especially recommends it as finely picturing genius and nobility of character. (Eng., 19th cent.) [128] Marshall's "Life of Washington" is an inspiring book. Gladstone said to Mr. Depew: "Sixty years ago I read Chief-Justice Marshall's 'Life of Washington,' and I was forced to the conclusion that he was quite the greatest man that ever lived. The sixty years that have passed have not changed that impression; and to any Englishman who seeks my advice in the line of his development and equipment I invariably say, 'Begin by reading the Life of George Washington.'" (U. S., 19th cent.) Franklin's "Autobiography" is brief, philosophic, and delightfully frank and clear. (U. S., 18th cent.) [129] "The Life of Lincoln," by Nicolay and Hay, is a book that has very strong claims to the attention of every American, and every lover of liberty, greatness, nobility, and kindliness. (U. S., 19th cent.) Grant's "Memoirs" deserves reading for similar reasons. The great General lived an epic, and wrote a classic. (U. S. 19th cent.) [130] Read Carlyle's "Life of John Sterling," "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and "Heroes and Hero Worship." (Eng., 19th cent.) Renan's "Life of Christ." (France, 19th cent.) [131] Canon Farrar's little "Life of Dante" is, considering its brevity, one of the best things in this department. (Eng., 19th cent.) [132] Emerson's "Representative Men" most strongly stirs thought and inspires the resolution. (U. S., 19th cent.) [133] "The Portrait Collection of the Hundred Greatest Men," published by Sampson, Low, & Co., 1879. [134] Read Parton's "Sketches of Men of Progress." (U. S., 19th cent.) [135] "Lights of Two Centuries." (U. S., 19th cent.) [136] "Our Great Benefactors." (U. S., 19th cent.) [137] "Book of Martyrs." (Eng., early 16th cent.) [138] "The Life and Times of Goethe," and "Michaelangelo." Most interesting books. (Germany, 19th cent.) [139] "English Statesmen." (Eng., 19th cent.) [140] "Life of Napoleon." (France, 19th cent.) [141] "Lives of the Poets." (Eng., 18th cent.) [142] Walton's "Lives." (Eng., 17th cent.) [143] "Life of Dr. Arnold." (Eng., 19th cent.) [144] "Life of Washington." (U. S., 19th cent.) [145] "Life of Nelson." (Eng., 19th cent.) [146] "Life of Pitt." (Eng., 19th cent.) [147] "Life of Byron." (Eng., 19th cent.) [148] "Lives of Female Sovereigns and Illustrious Women." (Eng., 19th cent.) [149] "Lives of the Saints." (Eng., 19th cent.) [150] "Memories of many Men." (U. S., 19th cent.) [151] "Reminiscences." (U. S., 18th cent.) The Life and Letters of Darwin, Talleyrand, and Macaulay; the Journals of Miss Alcott, Marie Bashkirtseff, and Eugénie de Guerin; the Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson; the "American Statesmen" series, edited by John T. Morse, Jr., and the "English Men of Letters" series are all valuable books. The Journals of Miss Alcott and Marie Bashkirtseff are stories of heart struggles, longings, failures, and triumphs, and are of exceeding interest and great popularity. The Journal of Eugénie de Guerin deserves to be better known than it is, for the delicate sweetness of feeling that fills its pages. HISTORY. Remarks may be made about History very similar to those in the special remarks concerning Biography. The field is too vast for an ordinary life, and there is no book that will give in brief compass the net results and profits of man's investment in experience and life,--the dividends have not been declared. Guizot and Buckle come nearer to doing this than any other writers; but _the_ book that shall reduce the past to principles that will guide the future has not yet been written. The student will be greatly assisted by the "Manual of Historical Literature," by C. K. Adams. It is an admirable guide. Putnam's series, "The Stories of the Nations," and Scribner's "Epoch" series are very useful, especially for young people. The manner of reading the best history should be: R. D. G. [152] Green's "History of the English People" has probably the first claims on the general reader. (Eng., 19th cent.) [153] Bancroft's "History of the United States" should be read by every American citizen, along with Dr. Strong's "Our Country." (U. S., 19th cent.) The only trouble with Bancroft is that he does not bring the history down to recent times. Hildreth for the student, and Ridpath for practical business men supply this defect. Doyle's "History of the United States" is perhaps the best small book, and his "American Colonies" is also good. McMaster's "History of the People of the United States" is a brilliant work, given largely to an account of the social life of the people. [154] Guizot's "History of Civilization" and "History of France" (France, 19th cent.) are among the greatest books of the world; and with Buckle's "History of Civilization" (Eng., 19th cent.) will give a careful reader an intellectual breadth and training far above what is attained by the majority even of reading men. [155] Parkman is the Macaulay of the New World. He invests the truths of sober history with all the charms of poetic imagination and graceful style. His literary work must take its place by the side of Scott and Irving. Read his "France and England in North America," "Conspiracy of Pontiac," and "The Oregon Trail." Freeman, Fiske, and Fyffe are also great historians, who require notice here. Freeman's "Comparative Politics," "History of the Saracens," "Growth of the English Constitution," "History of Federal Government," and "General Sketch of History" are all great works,--the last being the best brief account of general history that we possess. (Eng., 19th cent.) Fiske's "Civil Government," "War of Independence," and "Critical Period of American History" are standard books. (U. S., 19th cent.) Fyffe's "Modern Europe" is called the most brilliant picture of the Revolutionary Period in existence. It is certainly one of the best of histories. [155a] "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." (Eng., 19th cent.) [156] "History of England in the 18th Century," "History of European Morals." These books take very high rank in respect to style, accuracy, and completeness. (Eng., 19th cent.) [157] "Ten Great Religions," by James Freeman Clarke. (U. S., 19th cent.) [158] "Comparative History of Religion." [159] "Intellectual Development of Europe." A work of great power. (U. S., 19th cent.) [160] "Middle Ages." (Eng., 19th cent.) [161] "Constitutional History of England." Bagehot's "English Constitution" should be read with the works of Hallam, Freeman, and May on this topic, because of its brilliant generalizations and ingenious suggestions. (Eng., 19th cent.) [162] "History of England." (Eng., 18th cent.) [163] "History of England." (Eng., 19th cent.) [164] "History of England." (Eng., 19th cent.) [165] "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." (Eng., 18th cent.) [166] "History of Greece." (Eng., 19th cent.) [167] "History of New England." (U. S., 19th cent.) [168] "Conquest of Mexico," "Peru," "Ferdinand and Isabella," etc. Prescott's style is of the very best, clear, graphic, and ever interesting. (U. S., 19th cent.) [169] "Rise of the Dutch Republic." (U. S., 19th cent.) [169a] "Rise of the Republic of the United States." (U. S., 19th cent.) [170] "Ancient Egyptians." (Eng., 19th cent.) [171] "History of Rome." (Eng., 19th cent.) [172] "History of the Germans." (Ger., 1798.) [173] "Latin Christianity." (Eng., 19th cent.) [174] "History of the Papacy in the 16th and 17th Centuries." Ranke is one of the strongest names in history. (Ger., 19th cent.) [175] "Italian Republics." (France, 1773-1842.) [176] "History of France." (France, 19th cent.) [177] "French Revolution." (Eng., 19th cent.) [178] "History of France," "Norman Conquest of England." (France, 19th cent.) [179] "Germania." His "Life of Agricola" is also worthy of note for the insight into character, the pathos, vigor, and affection manifested in its flattering pages. (Rome, 1st cent.) [180] "History of Rome." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [181] "The War of Catiline." (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) [182] History of nearly all the nations known at the time he wrote. (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [183] "Anabasis, the Retreat of the Greek Mercenaries of the Persian King." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [184] "History of the Athenian Domination of Greece." (Greece, 5th cent. B. C.) [185] "History of the Jewish Wars." (Jerusalem, 1st cent.) Mackenzie's "History of the Nineteenth Century" is the best English book on the subject. Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies" is strongly recommended. PHILOSOPHY. There have been, since the waters of thought began to flow, two great streams running side by side,--Rationalism and Mysticism. Those who sail upon the former recognize Reason as king; those upon the latter enthrone some vague and shadowy power, in general known as Intuition. The tendency of the one is to begin with sense impressions, and out of these to build up a universe in the brain corresponding to the outer world, and to arrive at a belief in God by climbing the stairway of induction and analogy. The tendency of the other is to start with the affirmed nature of God, arrived at, the thinker knows not how, and deduce the universe from the conception of the Divine Nature. If this matter is kept in mind, the earnest student will be able to see through the mists sufficiently to discover what the philosophers are talking about whenever it chances that they themselves knew. Spencer, Plato, Berkeley, Kant, Locke, are all worthy of a thorough reading; and Comte's philosophy of Mathematics is of great importance. The manner of reading good philosophic works should be: R. D. G. [186] Spencer's Philosophy is the grandest body of thought that any one man has ever given to the world. No one who wishes to move with the tide can afford to be unfamiliar with his books, from "First Principles" to his Essays. He believes that all ideas, or their materials, have come through the avenues of the senses. (Eng., 19th cent.) [187] Plato and Socrates are a double star in the sky of Philosophy that the strongest telescopes have failed to resolve. Socrates wrote nothing, but talked much. Plato was a pupil of his, and makes Socrates the chief character in his writings. Ten schools of philosophy claimed Socrates as their head, but Plato alone represented the master with fulness. Considering the times in which he lived, the grandeur of his thought, the power of his imagination, and the nobility, elegance, originality, and beauty of his writings, Plato has no superior in the whole range of literature. With Plato, ideas are the only realities, things are imperfect expressions of them, and all knowledge is reminiscence of what the soul learned when it was in the land of spirit, face to face with ideas unveiled. Read his dialogues, especially "Phædo" and the "Republic." (Greece, 429-348 B. C.) [188] A most acute idealist, whose argument against the existence of matter is one of the great passages of literature. (Eng., 18th cent.) [189] Kant argues that the _forms_ of _thought_, _time_, and _space_ are necessarily intuitive, and not derived from sensation, since they are prerequisites to sensation. Read the "Critique of Pure Reason," "Critique of Practical Reason," in which he treats moral philosophy, and "Observations on the Sublime and Beautiful." (Germany, 18th cent.) [190] Locke bases knowledge on sensation. His "Essay on the Conduct of the Understanding" is one of the most valuable books in the language. Spencer, Mill, and Locke have so fully imbibed all that was good in Hobbes that it is scarcely necessary to read him. (Eng., 17th cent.) [191] Comte's "Positive Philosophy" rejects intuitive knowledge. It is characterized by force of logic, immense research, great power of generalization (which is frequently carried beyond the warrant of facts), and immense bulk. (France, 19th cent.) [192] Sensationalist. A very strong writer. (Eng., 19th cent.) [193] "Limits of Religious Thought." A very powerful exposure of the weakness of human imagination. (Eng., 19th cent.) [194] "Matter and Force." A powerful presentation of Materialism. (Ger., 19th cent.) [195] "Freedom of the Will." A demonstration of the impossibility of free will. (Amer., 18th cent.) [196] A very acute English philosopher. (Eng., 1748-1832.) [197] Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. (Eng., 19th cent.) [198] A deep, clear thinker, of sceptical character, who laid bare the flaws in the old philosophies. (Eng., 1711-1776.) [199] One of the most profound metaphysicians the world can boast, and inventor of quaternions, the latest addition to Mathematics. (Scot., 19th cent.) [200] Aristotle was the Bacon of the Old World. His method was the very opposite of Plato's. He sought knowledge chiefly by carefully looking out upon the world, instead of by introspection. No one has exerted a greater influence on the thought of the world than this deep and earnest thinker. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.) [201] A very beautiful writer of the idealist school, though he claims to be eclectic. (France, 19th cent.) [202] Hegel endeavored, by the method set forth in his "Absolute Logic," to reduce all knowledge to one science. (Ger., 1770-1831.) Schelling, in his "Philosophy of Identity," tries to prove that the same laws hold in the world of spirit as in the world of matter. Schelling bases his system on an _intuition_ superior to reason, and admitting neither doubt nor explanation. (Ger., 1775-1854.) [203] Fichte carries the doctrines of Kant to their limit: to him all except the life of the mind is a delusion. (Ger., 18th cent.) [204] A great German philosopher of the time of Luther (16th cent.), very learned, refined, and witty. Read his "Familiar Colloquies." [205] "Cosmic Philosophy." (Amer. 19th cent.) [206] "Rational Cosmology, or the Eternal Principles and Necessary Laws of the Universe." (U. S., 19th cent.) [207] Scottish Philosophy. (U. S., 19th cent.) [208] Theologico-politico-moral, voluminous dissertations. (Amsterdam, 17th cent.) ESSAYS. Next to Shakspeare's Plays, Emerson's Essays and Lectures are to me the richest inspiration. At every turn new and delightful paths open before the mind; and the poetic feeling and imagery are often of the best. Only the music and the power of discriminating the wheat from the chaff were lacking to have made one of the world's greatest poets. To pour into the life the spirit of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne is a liberal education in itself. Addison's "Spectator" is inimitable in its union of humor, sense, and imagination. A number of eminent men, Franklin among them, have referred to it as the source of their literary power. Read these essays: R. D. C. G. [209] Emerson's Essays and Lectures certainly deserve our first attention in this department, because of their poetic beauty and stimulating effect upon the imagination and all that is pure and strong and noble in the character. (Amer., 19th cent.) [210] Nowhere can be found so much wit and wisdom to the square inch as in Bacon's Essays. (Eng., 1600.) [211] Montaigne is the most popular of all the world's essayists, because of his common-sense, keen insight, and perfect frankness. The only author we certainly know to have been in Shakspeare's own library. (France, 1580.) [212] Ruskin's "Ethics of the Dust," "Crown of Wild Olives," "Sesame and Lilies," while somewhat wild in substance as well as in title, are well worthy of reading for the intellectual stimulus afforded by their breadth of view, novelty of expression and illustration, and the intense force--almost fanaticism--which characterizes all that Ruskin says. Ruskin is one of three living writers whom Farrar says he would first save from a conflagration of the world's library. Carlyle is another of the same sort. Read his "Past and Present," a grand essay on Justice. (Eng., 19th cent.) So far as style is concerned, Addison's Essays in the "Spectator" are probably the best in the world. FICTION. In modern times much that is best in literature has gone into the pages of the novel. The men and women of genius who would in other days have been great poets, philosophers, dramatists, essayists, and humorists have concentrated their powers, and poured out all their wealth to set in gold a story of human life. Don't neglect the novels; but be sure to read _good_ ones, and don't read too many. In fiction, England, America, and France are far ahead of the rest of the world. Scott may well be held to lead the list, considering the quantity and quality of what he wrote; and Dickens, I presume, by many would be written next, though I prefer the philosophic novelists, like George Eliot, Macdonald, Kingsley, Hugo, etc. Fielding, Richardson, Goldsmith, Sterne, and Defoe, Jane Austen, Cooper, and Marryat all claim our attention on one account or another. The United States can boast of Hawthorne, Tourgée, Wallace, Hearn, Aldrich, Warner, Curtis, Jewett, Craddock, and many others. France has a glorious army, led by Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, Mérimée, etc. But the magnificent powers of these artists are combined with sad defects. Hugo is the greatest literary force since Goethe and Scott; but his digressions are sometimes terribly tedious, his profundity darkness, and his "unities," his plot, and reasons for lugging in certain things hard to find. Balzac gives us a monotony of wickedness. George Sand is prone to idealize lust. "Notre Dame" and "Les Misérables," "Le Père Goriot" and "Eugénie Grandet," "Consuelo" and "La Mare au Diable," "Capitaine Fracasse" and "Vingt Ans Après," are great books; but they will not rank with "Tom Jones" artistically, nor with the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Ivanhoe," "Adam Bede," "Romola," or "The Scarlet Letter," considering all the elements that go to make a great novel. Germany, Italy, and Spain have no fiction that compares with ours. No doubt many will be surprised to find Fielding, Balzac, Tolstoï, and others placed so low in the list as they are. The reason is that the moral tone of a book is, with us, a weightier test of its claims on the attention of the general reader, than the style of the author or the merit of his work from an artistic point of view. There might be some doubt whether or no we ought not to exclude from our tables entirely all books that are not noble enough in character to admit of their being read aloud in the family. The trouble is that much of the finest literature of the world would have to be excluded. So there seems to be no course but to admit these men, with a note as to their character. One who wishes to make a study of the novel will be interested in Dunlop's "History of Fiction," Tuckerman's "History of English Prose Fiction," Hazlitt's "English Novelists," Lanier's "Novel," Masson's "British Novelists and their Styles," and Jeaffreson's "Novels and Novelists." The best fiction should be read: R. D. G. [213] "Heart of Midlothian," "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," "Kenilworth," "Guy Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," "Red Gauntlet," etc. Scott is by very many--and among them some of the greatest--loved more than any other novelist. The purity, beauty, breadth, and power of his works will ever place them among the most desirable reading. (Eng., 19th cent.) Hutton's "Sir Walter Scott," Carlyle's "Essay on Scott," Hazlitt's Essay in "The Spirit of the Age," and other books referred to in the head notes to Poetry and Fiction will be useful to the student of Scott. [214] "Adam Bede," "Mill on the Floss," "Romola," "Silas Marner," etc. Deep philosophy and insight into character mark all George Eliot's writings. (Eng., 19th cent.) Lanier's "Development of the Novel" is practically only an enthusiastic study of George Eliot. [215] "Pickwick," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "Old Curiosity Shop," etc. Dickens needs no comment. His fame is in every house. (Eng., 19th cent.) [216] Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," "Great Stone Face," etc., are by universal consent accorded the first place in the lists of American novels, and are among the best to be found anywhere. (U. S., 19th cent.) [217] "Vicar of Wakefield." One of Goethe's earliest favorites. (Eng., 18th cent.) [218] "Rienzi," "Last Days of Pompeii," "Last of the Barons," etc. Most powerful, delightful, and broadening books. (Eng., 19th cent.) [219] "Malcolm," "Marquis o' Lossie," "David Elginbrod," etc. Books of marvellous spiritual helpfulness. (Eng., 19th cent.) [220] "Esmond," "Vanity Fair," etc. Very famous books. (Eng., 19th cent.) [221] "Westward, Ho!" "Two Years Ago," etc. Among the best and most famous pictures of true English character. (Eng., 19th cent.) [222] "Ben Hur." This book has been placed close to the Bible and Bunyan. (U. S., 19th cent.) [223] "Hot Plowshares," "The Fool's Errand," "The Invisible Empire," "Appeal to Cæsar," etc. Books widely known, but whose great merit is not fully recognized. Tourgée, though uneven, seems to us a writer of very great power. His "Hot Plowshares" is a powerful historical novel; and few books in the whole range of literature are so intensely interesting, and so free from all that is objectionable in subject or execution. (U. S., 19th cent.) [224] "Les Misérables," "Notre Dame de Paris," "Les Travailleurs de la Mer," etc. Wraxall's translations of these great French novels are most excellent. (France, 19th cent.) Some critics think that no characters in Shakspeare are better drawn than those of Dumas. "Monte Cristo," "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" (Stevenson's favorite), "The Three Musketeers," "Twenty Years After," "The Marie Antoinette Romances," etc., are powerful and intensely interesting novels. (France, 19th cent.) [225] "Robinson Crusoe." There are few persons who do not get delight and inspiration from Defoe's wonderful story. (Eng., 1661-1731.) "Tom Brown at Rugby" and "Tom Brown at Oxford," by Thomas Hughes, are delightful books for boys. (Eng., 19th cent.) [226] Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was God's bugle-call to the war against slavery. Her "Oldtown Folks" and "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories" are very humorous sketches of New England life. (U. S., 19th cent.) Cooper's "The Spy," "The Pilot," "Leather Stocking," "Deerslayer," "Pathfinder," etc., are books that interfere with food and sleep, and chain us to their pages. (U. S., 19th cent.) [227] "Prue and I," by George William Curtis, is one of the most suggestive stories in print, and is in every way a delightful book. "Potiphar Papers," "Our Best Society," "Trumps," "Lotus Eaters,"--in fact, everything Mr. Curtis writes, is of the highest interest, and worthy of the most careful attention. (U. S., 19th cent.) The same may be said of the works of Charles Dudley Warner,--"Being a Boy," "A Hunting of the Deer," "In the Wilderness," "Backlog Studies," "My Summer in a Garden," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) [228] T. B. Aldrich, while perhaps not destined to rank with Scott, Eliot, and Hawthorne, is nevertheless one of the most wholesome and interesting of living authors. "The Stillwater Tragedy" is his strongest book. "Prudence Palfrey," "The Story of a Bad Boy," "Margery Daw," and "The Queen of Sheba" will doubtless be read by those who once become acquainted with the author. (U. S., 19th cent.) The first part of Hearn's "Chita" exceeds in beauty and strength any other piece of descriptive writing with which we are familiar. (U. S., 19th cent.) [229] Ebers' "Homo Sum," "Uarda," and "An Egyptian Princess" are very powerful studies of Egyptian life and history. (Ger., 19th cent.) "With Fire and Sword," and its sequels, "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael," by Henryk Sienkiewicz, are among the greatest books of modern times. They are historical romances of the conflict between Russia, Poland, and Sweden; and their power may be guessed from the fact that critics have compared the author favorably with Scott, Dumas, Schiller, Cervantes, Thackeray, Turgenieff, Homer, and even Shakspeare. (Poland, 19th cent.) [230] Miss Austen's "Emma," "Pride and Prejudice" (Eng., 19th cent.), and Charlotte Bronté's "Jane Eyre" (Eng., 19th cent.), are all noble and renowned novels. [231] Louisa Alcott's "Little Women" is a lovely story of home life; and its exceeding popularity is one of the most encouraging signs of the growth of a taste for pure, gentle, natural literature. (U. S., 19th cent.) Mrs. Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy" deservedly met at once a high reward of popularity, and was placed in the front rank among stories of child-life. As a teacher of gentleness and good manners it is invaluable. (Eng., 19th cent.) [232] Cable's "Grande Pointe," "The Grandissimes," etc., should be read by all who wish to know the best living novelists. (U. S., 19th cent.) Craddock's "Where the Battle was Fought," "Despot of Broomsedge Cove," "Prophet of Great Smoky Mountain," "Story of Keedon Bluffs," and "Down the Ravine" are fascinating stories, the last two being fine books for children. (U. S., 19th cent.) [233] Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney's "Sights and Insights," though somewhat too wordy for this busy world, is worthy a place here, because of its spiritual beauty and its keen common-sense in respect to marriage and courtship. (U. S., 19th cent.) Sarah Orne Jewett has won a good name by her excellent stories, "Deephaven," "Betty Leicester," etc. Her "Play Days" is a fine book for girls. (U. S., 19th cent.) [234] Fielding, Le Sage, and Balzac are writers of great power, whose works are studied for their artistic merit, their wit, and the intense excitement some of them yield; but the general moral tone of their writings places them below the purer writers above spoken of in respect to their value to the general reader, one of whose deepest interests is character-forming. Fielding's "Tom Jones" is by many considered the finest novel in existence; and it undoubtedly would be, if along with its literary skill it possessed the high tone of Curtis or Scott. "Jonathan Wild" is also a powerful story. (Eng., 18th cent.) "Gil Blas," by Le Sage, is one of the most famous and widely read books in the world. (France, 1668--1747.) Balzac's best are "Le Père Goriot" (and especially the magnificent preface to this book), "La Recherche de l'Absolu," "Eugénie Grandet," "La Peau de Chagrin," etc. (France, 19th cent.) [235] Rousseau's "Emile" has been called the greatest book ever written; but we presume that bias and limitation of knowledge on the part of critics (not rare accomplishments of theirs) might procure a similar judgment in respect to almost any strong and peculiar book. Rousseau's "Confessions" are worth some attention. (France, 18th cent.) Saintine's "Picciola" is a beautiful story. (France, 19th cent.) [236] Coffin's "Boys of '76," "Boys of '61," "Story of Liberty," etc., are splendid books for young people. The last describes the march of the human race from slavery to freedom. (U. S., 19th cent.) Charles Reade's "Hard Cash," "Peg Woffington," "Cloister and Hearth" are fascinating stories. (Eng., 19th cent.) Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year." [237] Landor's "Imaginary Conversations of Great Men." (Eng., 18th cent.) Turgenieff's "Liza," "Smoke," and "Fathers and Sons." (Russia, 19th cent.) Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew." Manzoni's "I promessi Sposi." [238] Cottin's "Elizabeth." Besant's "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." (Eng., 19th cent.) Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A book that teaches the danger of giving way to the evil side of our nature. [239] Mrs. Ward's "Robert Elsmere" is a famous picture of the struggle in the religious mind to-day. (Eng., 19th cent.) Margaret Deland's "John Ward, Preacher," is a book of the same class as the last, but is not as interesting as her "Florida Days" or her Poems. (U. S., 19th cent.) Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" is the autobiography of a noble horse, and is tender and intelligent. A book that every one who has anything to do with horses, or indeed with animals of any sort, cannot afford to neglect. (Eng., 19th cent.) Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp" is an interesting picture of Western life, and opens a new vein of fiction. (U. S., 19th cent.) [240] Green's "Hand and Ring," "Leavenworth Case," etc., are splendid examples of reasoning, without any of the objectionable features usually found in detective stories. (U. S., 19th cent.) Miss Mulock's "John Halifax, Gentleman," is a great and famous book. (Eng., 19th cent.) Disraeli's "Lothair," "Endymion," etc., are strong books; requiring the notice of one who reads widely in English fiction. (Eng., 19th cent.) Howells' "A Modern Instance," "The Undiscovered Country," "A Hazard of New Fortunes," "A Chance Acquaintance," "Lady of the Aroostook," etc., are not objectionable. (U. S., 19th cent.) Tolstoï's "Anna Karénina" deserves mention, though we cannot by any means agree with Howells that Tolstoï is the greatest of novelists. The motive and atmosphere of his books are not lofty, and some of his work is positively disgraceful. (Russia, 19th cent.) [241] George Sand's "Consuelo" is a great book in more senses than one; and although it deserves a place in this lower list, yet there are so many better books, that if one follows the true order, life would be likely to depart before he had time to read a four-volume novel by an author of the tone of George Sand. (France, 19th cent.) Black's "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," "Princess of Thule." (Eng., 19th cent.) Blackmore's "Lorna Doone." (Eng., 19th cent.) Olive Schreiner's "Story of an African Farm" is powerful, but not altogether wholesome. (Eng., 19th cent.) [242] Bremer's "The Neighbors." (Norway, 19th cent.) Trollope's "Last Chronicles of Barsetshire." (Eng., 19th cent.) Winthrop's "Cecil Dreeme," "John Brent." (U. S., 19th cent.) [243] Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are interesting, because they were the beginning of the English novel; but they are not nice or natural, and have no attractions except their historic position. (Eng., 1689-1761.) Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker" is his strongest work. "Peregrine Pickle" is very witty, and "Adventures of an Atom" altogether a miserable book. Smollett possessed power, but his work is on a very low plane. (Eng., 18th cent.) Boccaccio's "Decameron" is a series of splendidly told tales, from which Chaucer drew much besides his inspiration. The book is strong, but of very inferior moral tone. ORATORY. Great and successful oratory requires deep knowledge of the human mind and character, personal force, vivid imagination, control of language and temper, and a faculty of putting the greatest truths in such clear and simple and forceful form, that they may not only be grasped by untrained minds, but will break down the barriers of prejudice and interest, and fight their way to the throne of the will. Oratory is religion, science, philosophy, biography, history, wit, pathos, and poetry _in action_. This department of literature is therefore of the greatest value in the development of mind and heart, and of the power to influence and control our fellows. Especially read and study Demosthenes on the Crown, Burke's "Warren Hastings' Oration," Webster's "Reply to Hayne," Phillips' "Lovejoy" and "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and Lincoln's "Gettysburg," his debates with Douglas, and his great speeches in New York and the East before the War, in which fun, pathos, and logic were all welded together in such masterly shape that professors of oratory followed him about from city to city, studying him as a model of eloquence. There is a book called "Great Orations of Great Orators" that is very valuable, and there is a series of three volumes containing the best British orations (fifteen orators), and another similar series of American speeches (thirty-two orators). WIT AND HUMOR. In what wit consists, and why it is we laugh, are questions hard to answer (read on that subject Spencer and Hobbes, and Mathews' "Wit and Humor; their Use and Abuse"); but certain it is that a little seasoning of fun makes intellectual food very palatable, and much better adapts it for universal and permanent assimilation. Most men can keep what is tied to their memories with a joke. Considering all things, Lowell, Holmes, Dickens, and Cervantes are the best humorists the world affords. See Table III. Group 4. They exhibit a union of power and purpose that is not found elsewhere. They always subordinate wit to wisdom, always aim at something far higher than making fun for its own sake, never appear to make any effort for their effects, and always polish their work to perfection. A great deal of the keenest wit will be found in books whose general character puts them in some other column,--Poetry, Fiction, Oratory, etc. The works of Shakspeare, Addison, Eliot, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Irving, Higginson, Carleton, Thackeray, Hood, Saxe, Fielding, Smollett, Aristophanes, Molière, etc., abound in wit and humor. The student of humor will be interested in Hazlitt's "English Comic Writers," Thackeray's "English Humorists," and Besant's "French Humorists." [244] "Fable for Critics," "Biglow Papers." Considering the keenness and variety of wit, the depth of sarcasm, the breadth of view, and the importance of its subject, the "Biglow Papers" is the greatest humorous work of all history. (U. S., 19th cent.) [245] "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," "Professor at the Breakfast-Table," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) [246] "Pickwick Papers." (Eng., 19th cent.) [247] "Don Quixote." (Spain, 1547-1616.) [248] Along with much violent scoffing, and calling of his betters by hard names, Ingersoll's speeches contain some of the keenest wit in the language. (U. S., 19th cent.) [249] Marietta Holley's "Sweet Cicely," "Samantha at the Centennial," "Betsey Bobbet," "My Wayward Pardner," "Samantha at Saratoga," "Samantha among the Brethren," etc., are full of quaint fun, keen insight, and common-sense. They are somewhat more wordy than we wish they were, but they are wholesome, and the author's purpose is always a lofty one. Her fun is not mere fun, but is like the laughing eye and smiling lip of one whose words are full of thought and elevated feeling. (U. S., 19th cent.) [250] G. W. Curtis's "Potiphar Papers" is a good example of quiet, refined humor. (U. S., 19th cent.) [251] Chauncey M. Depew's Orations and After-Dinner Speeches are worthy of perusal by all lovers of wit and sense. (U. S., 19th cent.) [252] Mark Twain is the greatest of those who make humor the primary object. He does not, like Artemus Ward, make it the sole object,--there is a large amount of keen common-sense in his "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court," and there is also in it an open-mindedness to the newest currents of thought that proves the author to be one of the most wide-awake men of the day. "Innocents Abroad," "The Prince and the Pauper," "Roughing It," etc., are very amusing books, the only drawback being that the reader is sometimes conscious of an effort to be funny. (U. S., 19th cent.) 253: Charles Dudley Warner's "In the Wilderness" gives some exceedingly amusing sketches of backwoods life. See also other books mentioned under the head of Fiction. (U. S., 19th cent.) [254] S. K. Edwards' "Two Runaways, and Other Stories" is a book that no lover of humor can afford to be without. (U. S., 19th cent.) [255] E. E. Hale's "My Double, and How He Undid Me," and other stories contain much innocent recreation. (U. S., 19th cent.) [256] Nasby's "Ekoes from Kentucky" and "Swingin' round the Circle" are full of the keenest political sarcasm. Lincoln was so impressed with Nasby's power, that he said he had rather possess such gifts than be President of the United States. (U. S., 19th cent.) [257] "Artemus Ward His Book," is funny, but lacks purpose beyond the raising of a laugh. (U. S., 19th cent.) [258] "Caudle Lectures," "Catspaw," etc. Jerrold is one of the sharpest of wits. (Eng., 19th cent.) [259] Voltaire was the Ingersoll of France, only more so. His "Dictionnaire" is full of stinging sarcasm and fierce wit. (France, 18th cent.) "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." The sharpest edge of Byron's keen mind. (Eng., 1788-1824.) [260] "Hudibras." A tirade against the Puritans. (Eng., 17th cent.) "Gulliver's Travels," "Tale of a Tub," etc. Coarse raillery. (Eng., 18th cent.) [261] "Gargantua and Pantagruel." Immense coarse wit. (France, 16th cent.) "Tristram Shandy." Not delicate, but full of humor. (Eng., 18th cent.) [262] Juvenal is one of the world's greatest satirists. (Rome, 1st cent.) Lucian is the Voltaire of the Old World. In his "Dialogues of the Gods" he covers with ridicule the religious notions of the people. (Greek Lit, 2d cent. A. D.) FABLES AND FAIRY TALES. Fables and fairy tales are condensed dramas, and some of them are crystal drops from the fountains of poetic thought. Often they express in picture language the deepest lessons that mankind have learned; and one who wishes to gather to himself the intellectual wealth of the nations must not neglect them. In the section of the book devoted to remarks upon the Guidance of Children, the literature of this subject receives more extended attention. Among the books that will most interest the student of this subject may be mentioned the works of Fiske and Bulfinch, named below, Baldwin's "Story of the Golden Age," Ragozin's "Chaldea," Kingsley's "Greek Heroes," Cox's "Tales of Ancient Greece," Hanson's "Stories of Charlemagne," Church's "Story of the Iliad" and "Story of the Æneid," and the books mentioned in connection with the "Morte D'Arthur," note 323 following:-- [263] "Fairy Tales," "Shoes of Fortune," etc. (Denmark, 19th cent.) [264] The inimitable French poet of Fable. (France, 17th cent.) [265] The world-famous Greek fabulist. His popularity in all ages has been unbounded. Socrates amused himself with his stories. (Greece, 6th cent. B. C.) [266] "Household Tales." (Ger., early 19th cent.) [267] "Reineke Fox." (Bohn Lib.) (Ger., early 19th cent.) Kipling's "Indian Tales." (Eng., 19th cent.) [268] "Age of Fable," "Age of Chivalry," etc. (Eng., 19th cent.) [269] Fables in his poems. (U. S., 19th cent.) [270] A French fabulist, next in fame to La Fontaine. (18th cent.) [271] Greek Fables. (About com. Christ. era.) [272] "Tales." (Ger., 19th cent.) [273] "Metamorphoses." An account of the mythology of the ancients. Ovid was one of Rome's greatest poets. (Rome, 1st cent. B. C.) Curtin's "Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland," "Myths and Folk-Tales of the Russians," etc. (U. S., 19th cent.) Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." (U. S., 19th cent.) TRAVEL. Nothing favors breadth more than travel and contact with those of differing modes of life and variant belief. The tolerance and sympathy that are folding in the world in these modern days owe much to the vast increase of travel that has resulted from growth of commerce, the development of wealth, and the cheapness and rapidity of steam transportation. Even a wider view of the world comes to us through the literature of travel than we could ever gain by personal experience, however much of wealth and time we had at our disposal; and though the vividness is less in each particular picture of the written page than if we saw the full original reality that is painted for us, yet this is more than compensated by the breadth and insight and perception of the meaning of the scenes portrayed, which we can take at once from the writer, to whom perhaps the gaining of what he gives so easily has been a very costly, tedious process, and would be so to us if we had to rely on personal observation. Voyages and travels therefore are of much importance in our studies, and delightful reading too. Stanley's opinions have been much relied on in selecting the following books:-- [274] Voyages. (Eng., 18th cent.) [275] Cosmos; Travels. (Ger., 1762-1832.) [276] Naturalist on the Beagle. (Eng., 19th cent.) [277] Travels. (Venice, 14th cent.) [278] Arctic Explorations. (U. S., 19th cent.) [279] South Africa. (Eng., 19th cent.) [280] Through the Dark Continent; In Darkest Africa. (U. S., 19th cent.) [281] Travels in Africa. (France, 19th cent.) [282] On Egypt. (Germany, 19th cent.) [283] Abyssinia. (Eng., 19th cent.) [284] India. [285] Niger. [286] South America. [287] Upper Niger. [288] Persia. [289] Central Africa. [290] West Coast of Africa. [291] Travelled for thirty years, then wrote the marvels he had seen and heard; and his book became very popular in the 14th and 15th centuries. (Eng., 14th cent.) [292] The Nile. GUIDES. In this column of "Guides" are placed books that will be useful in arriving at a fuller knowledge of literature and authors, in determining what to read, and in our own literary efforts. [293] "What to Read on the Subject of Reading," by William E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence Public Library. Every one who is interested in books should keep an eye on this thorough and enthusiastic worker, and take advantage of the information he lavishes in his bulletins. [294] The "Pall Mall Extra," containing Sir John Lubbock's "List of the Best Hundred Books," and letters from many distinguished men. [295] English Literature. [296] English Literature. [297] "English Literature." The most philosophic work on the subject; but it is difficult, and requires a previous knowledge of the principal English authors. [298] Handbook of Universal Literature. [299] Dictionary of Authors. [300] Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" is one of the most famous and valuable of books. [301] "Edge-Tools of Speech." Brief quotations arranged under heads such as Books, Government, Love, etc. [302] "Library of Poetry and Song;" but for the general reader Palgrave's exquisite little "Golden Treasury" is better. [303] "Primer of English Literature." The best very brief book on the subject. [304] Bibliographical Aids. [305] "Motive and Habit of Reading." [306] "Choice of Books." [307] "Sesame and Lilies." [308] "The Love of Books." [309] "History of Prose Fiction." Baldwin's "Book Lover" is valuable for its lists of books bearing on special topics. C. K. Adams' "Manual of Historical Literature" is invaluable to the student of history. There ought to be similar books relating to Philosophy, Fiction, Science, etc. MISCELLANEOUS. In the column "Miscellaneous" are placed a number of books which should be at least glanced through to open the doors of thought on all sides and to take such account of their riches as will place them at command when needed. [310] One of the noblest little books in existence; to read it is to pour into the life and character the inspiration of hundreds of the best and most successful lives. Every page should be carefully read and digested. (U. S., 19th cent.) [311] An exquisite book; one of Robert Collyer's early favorites. Put its beauty in your heart. (U. S., 19th cent.) [312] A book that should be read for its breadth. (Eng., early 17th cent.) [313] Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" is one of the same class of books to which Bacon's "New Atlantis," More's "Utopia," etc., belong, and may be read with much pleasure and profit along with them. It is really a looking forward to an ideal commonwealth, in which the labor troubles and despotisms of to-day shall be adjusted on the same principle as the political troubles and despotisms of the last century were settled; namely, the principle that each citizen shall be industrially the equal of every other, as all are now political equals. It is a very famous book, and has been called the greatest book of the century, which, happily for the immortality of Spencer and Darwin, Carlyle and Ruskin, Parkman and Bancroft, Guizot and Bryce, Goethe and Hugo, Byron and Burns, Scott and Tennyson, Whittier and Lowell, Bulwer and Thackeray, Dickens and Eliot, is only the judgment of personal friendship and blissful ignorance. But while the book cannot feel at home in the society of the great, it is nevertheless a very entertaining story, and one vastly stimulative of thought. The idea of a coming _industrial democracy_, bearing more or less analogy to the political democracy, the triumph of which we have seen, is one that has probably occurred to every thoughtful person; and in Bellamy's book may be found an ingenious expansion of the idea much preferable to the ordinary socialistic plans of the day, though not wholly free from the injustice that inheres in all social schemes that do not aim to secure to each man the wealth or other advantage that his lawful efforts naturally produce. (U. S., 19th cent.) [314] Everywhere a favorite. It opens up wide regions of imagination. Ruskin says he read it many times when he might have been better employed, and crosses it from his list. But the very fact that he read the book so often shows that even his deep mind found irresistible attraction in it. (First introduced into Europe in 17th cent.) [315] The most colossal lies known to science. (Ger., 18th cent.) [316] The poem of "Beowulf" should be looked into by all who wish to know the character of the men from whom we sprang, and therefore realize the basic elements of our own character. (Eng., early Saxon times.) [317] Should be glanced at for the light it throws on English history and development. (9th-12th cents.) [318] Froissart's "Chronicles" constitute a graphic story of the States of Europe from 1322 to the end of the 14th century. Scott said that Froissart was his master. Breadth demands at least a glance at the old itinerant tale-gatherer. Note especially the great rally of the rebels of Ghent. [319] This masterpiece of Old German Minstrelsy is too much neglected by us. Read it with the three preceding. (Early German.) [320] _Saga_ means "tale" or "narrative," and is applied in Iceland to every kind of tradition, true or fabulous. Read the "Heimskringla," Njal's Saga, and Grettir's Saga, (9th-13th cents.) [321] Along with the last should be read the poems of the elder Edda. (Compiled by Samund the Wise, 12th cent.) [322] The epic of Spain, containing a wonderful account of the prowess of a great leader and chief. (Spain, before the 13th cent.) [323] A collection of fragments about the famous King Arthur and his Round Table. They crop out in every age of English literature. Read the book with Tennyson's "Idylls of the King,"--a poem inspired by Malory's "Morte D'Arthur,"--Cervantes' "Don Quixote," and Twain's "Yankee in the Court of King Arthur," Lanier's "Boy's King Arthur," Ritson's "Ancient English Metrical Romances," Ellis' Introduction to the Study of the same, Preston's "Troubadours and Trouvères," Sismondi's "Literature of Southern Europe," Chapon's "Troubadours," and Van Laun's "History of French Literature" may be referred to with advantage by the student of Malory. [324] A collection of Chinese odes. [325] This and the last are recommended, not for intrinsic merit, but for breadth, and to open the way to an understanding of and sympathy with four hundred millions of mankind who hold these books in profound veneration. (China, as early as 5th cent. B. C.) [326] This is the Bible of the Sufis of Persia, one of the manifestations of that great spirit of mysticism which flows like a great current through the world's history, side by side with the stream of Rationalism. It found certain outlets in Schelling, Swedenborg, Emerson, etc., and is bubbling up even now through the strata of worldliness in the United States in the shape of Theosophy. (7th cent.) [327] Read Saint Hilaire's "Buddha" and Arnold's "Light of Asia." They will open great regions of thought. [328] These are epitomized by Talboys Wheeler in his "History of India." Very interesting and broadening. (Very ancient.) [330] Not valuable reading intrinsically, but as opening the doors of communication with the minds and hearts of whole races of men, most useful. The Vedas are the Bible of the Hindus, and contain the revelation of Brahma (15th cent.). The Koran is the Mohammedan Bible (6th cent.). The Talmud belongs to the Rabbinical literature of the Jews, and is a collection of Jewish traditions (3d cent.). [333] The works of Hooker, Swedenborg, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, Laplace, should be actually _handled_ and _glanced through_ to form a nucleus of experience, around which may gather a little knowledge of these famous men and what they did. This remark applies with more or less of force to all the names on the second shelf. Few can hope to _read all_ these books, but it is practicable by means of general works, such as those mentioned in Column 13, to gain an idea of each man, his character and work; and there is no better way to put a hook in the memory on which such knowledge of an author may be securely kept, than to take his book in your hands, note its size and peculiarities (visual and tactual impressions are more easily remembered than others as a rule), glance through its contents, and read a passage or two. SHORT COURSES. When the reader has a special purpose in view, it is of the greatest advantage to arrange in systematic order the books that will be most helpful in the accomplishment of his purpose, study them one after the other, mark them, compare them, make cross references from one to another, digest and assimilate the vital portions of each, and seek to obtain a mastery of all that the best minds of the past have given us in reference to the object of his effort. For example: a person who has devoted himself exclusively to one line of ideas will be greatly benefited by reading a short course of books that will give him a glimpse of each of the great fields of thought. One who is lacking in humor should get a good list of fine humorous works and devote himself to them, and to the society of fun-loving people, until he can see and enjoy a good joke as keenly as they do,--not only to quicken his perception of humor, but that the organ of fun (the gland that secretes wit and humor) may be roused into normal activity. Again, if a gentleman finds that he does not appreciate Shakspeare, Dante, Irving, etc., as he sees or is told that literary people do; if he prefers his newspaper to the English classics as a source of pleasure and profit; if he sees little difference between Tennyson and Tupper, enjoys Bill Nye as much or more than Holmes, and is able to compare the verses he writes to his sweetheart with Milton without any very distinct feeling except perhaps a disgust for Milton,--if any of these things are true, he has need of a course to develop a literary taste. In the three tables following will be found a suggestion of several important short courses, and others will be found on page 123 _et seq._ TABLE II. A short special course, to gather _ideas_ of practical importance to every life, and to make a beginning in the gaining of that _breadth of mind_ which is of such vital value by reason of its influence on morals and the aid it gives in the attainment of truth. 1. Physiology and Hygiene. Read and digest the best books. See Table I. Col. 3. 2. "Our Country," by Strong; the Constitution of the United States; the Declaration of Independence, and Washington's Farewell. (All m. R. D.) 3. Mill's Logic; at any rate, the Canons of Induction and the Chapter on Fallacies, (m. R. D. C. G.) 4. Smiles's "Self-Help." (m. R. D.) 5. Wood's books on Natural History; especially his anecdotes of animals, and evidences of mind, etc., in animals (e. R. D.). Proctor's books on Astronomy, "Other Worlds than Ours," etc. (e. R. G.). Lubbock's "Primitive Condition of Man" (m. R.). Dawson's "Chain of Life" (m. R.). In some good brief way, as by using the "Encyclopædia Britannica," read _about_ Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, Herschel, Lyell, Harvey, and Torricelli. 6. Spencer's "First Principles." (d. R. D. G.) 7. Green's "Short History of the English People" (m. R. D. G.). Bancroft's "History of the United States" (m. R. D. G). Guizot's "History of Civilization" (m. R. D. G.). 8. Max Müller's philological works, or some of them (m. R.). Taylor's "Words and Places" (m. R.). 9. In some public library, if the books are not accessible elsewhere, get into your hands the books named in Columns 12 and 13 of Table I., and not already spoken of in this table, and glance through each, reading a little here and there to make a rapid survey of the ground, acquire some idea of it, and note the places where it may seem to you worth while to dig for gold. TABLE III. A short course of the choicest selections from the whole field of general literature. It may easily be read through in a year, and will form a taste and provide a standard that will enable the reader ever after to judge for himself of the quality and value of whatever books may come before the senate of his soul to ask for an appropriation of his time in their behalf. Very few books are requisite for this course, but it will awaken a desire that will demand a library of standard literature. No. 1, No. 2, etc., refer to the numbers of the "100 Choice Selections." Monroe's "Sixth Reader" and Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" are also referred to, because they contain a great number of these gems, and are books likely to be in the possession of the reader. For the meaning of the other abbreviations, see the last section of the Introductory Remarks. GROUP I.--_Poetry._ [*] in headings denotes "Degree of Difficulty." +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | [*] | Manner | | | | | of | Where found. | | | | Reading. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | 1. SHAKSPEARE. | | | | | | | | | | Hamlet, especially noting Hamlet's | | | Shakspeare's | | conversations with the Ghost, | | | Plays are | | with his mother and Ophelia, his | | | published | | advice to the players, his | | | separately, | | soliloquy, and his discourse on | d. | R.D.C.G. | and also | | the nobleness of man | | | together, | | Merchant of Venice, especially | | | Richard Grant | | noting the scene in court, and | | | White's | | the parts relating to Portia | e. | R.D.C.G. | edition being | | Julius Cæsar, especially noting the | | | the best. | | speeches of Brutus and Antony, | | | | | and the quarrel of Brutus and | m. | R.D.C.G. | | | Cassius | | | | | Taming of the Shrew | e. | R.G. | | | Henry the Eighth | m. | R.D. | | | Henry the Fourth, read for the wit | | | | | of Falstaff | m. | R.D. | | | Henry the Fifth, noting especially | | | | | the wooing | m. | R.D. | | | Coriolanus, noting especially the | | | | | grand fire and force and | | | | | frankness of Coriolanus | m. | R.D.C.G. | | | Sonnets in Palgrave's Golden | | | | | Treasury, Nos. 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, | | | | | 14, 18, 36, 46 | m. | R.D.C. | | | | | | | | 2. MILTON. | | | | | | | | | | The Opening of the Gates of Hell, | | | | | one of the sublimest conceptions | | | | | in literature. It is in Paradise | | | | | Lost, about six pages from the | | | | | end of Book II. Read sixty lines | | | | | beginning, "Thus saying, from her | | | | | side the fatal key, Sad | | | | | instrument of all our woe" | d. | R.D.G. | Milton's | | Satan's Throne, ten lines at the | | | Poems. | | beginning of Book II. | m. | R.D.G. | | | Opening of Paradise Lost, 26 lines | | | | | at the beginning of Book I. | m. | R.D.G. | | | The Angels uprooting the Mountains | | | | | and hurling them on the Rebels. | | | | | Fifty lines beginning about the | | | | | 640th line of Book VI., "So they | | | | | in pleasant vein," etc. | m. | R.D.G. | | | "Hail, Holy Light," fifty-five | | | | | lines at the beginning of Book | m. | R.D.G. | | | III. | | | | | Comus, a masque, and one of the | | | | | masterpieces of English | d. | R.D.C.G. | Milton's | | literature | | | Poems. | | L' Allegro, a short poem on mirth | d. | R.D.C.G. | The last | | Il Penseroso, a short poem | | | three of this | | on melancholy | d. | R.D.C.G. | list are in | | Lycidas, a celebrated elegy | d. | R.G. | Palgrave. | | | | | | | 3. HOMER. | | | | | | | | | | | | | Homer has had | | | | | many | | Pope's translation. At least the | | | translators, | | first book of the Iliad. A | | | Pope, Derby, | | simple, clear story of battles | | | Worsley, | | and quarrels, and counsels, | | | Chapman, | | charming in its sublimity, | | | Flaxman, | | pathos, vigor, and naturalness. | | | Lang, Bryant, | | The world's greatest epic | e. | R.D.C.G. | etc. | | | | | | | 4. ÆSCHYLUS. | | | | | | | | Potter, | | | | | Morshead, | | Prometheus Bound, the sublimest of | | | Swanwick, | | the sublime. Be sure to reach and | | | Milman, and | | grasp the grand picture of the | | | Browning have | | human race and its troubles which | | | translated | | underlies this most magnificent | | | Æschylus. The | | poem | d. | R.D.C.G. | first two are | | Agamemnon, the grandest tragedy | | | the best. | | in the world | m. | R.D.G. | Flaxman's | | | | | designs add | | | | | much. | | | | | | | 5. DANTE. | | | | | | | | | | Divine Comedy. Read Farrar's little | | | Translated by | | Life of Dante (John Alden, | | | Longfellow, | | N. Y.), and then take the Comedy | | | Carey, John | | and read the thirty-third canto, | | | Carlyle, | | the portions relating to the | | | Butler, and | | Hells of Incontinence and of | | | Dean Church. | | Fraud, thepicture of Satan, and | | | | | the whole of the Purgatorio | d. | R.D.G. | | | | | | | | 6. SPENSER. | | | | | | | | | | Faerie Queen, noting specially the | | | | | first book and the book of | | | | | Britomart, endeavoring to grasp | | | | | and apply to your own life the | | | | | truths that underlie the rich and | | | | | beautiful imagery | d. | R.D.G. | Spenser's | | Hymn in Honor of his own Wedding | d. | R.D.G. | Poems. The | | Fable of the Oak and the Briar, in | | | Calendar is | | Shepherd's Calendar, February | m. | R. | published | | | | | separately. | | | | | | | 7. SCOTT. | | | | | | | | | | Lady of the Lake | e. | R. | Scott's Poems,| | Marmion | e. | R. | or separate. | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's note: Numbers 8 and 9 are missing in the | | original. | +---------------------------------------------------------+ GROUP II.--_Short Poetical Selections._ +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | | Manner | | | | [*] | of | Where found. | | | | Reading. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | 10. PAYNE. | | | | | Home, Sweet Home | e. | C. | | | | | | | | LONGFELLOW. | | | | | Psalm of Life. | | R.D.C. | Longfellow's | | Paul Revere's Ride | | | Poems. | | The Building of the Ship | e. | R. | | | (These may be found in most | | | | | of the reading-books.) | e. | | | | Suspiria, and the close of | | | | | Morituri Salutamus | m. | R.D. | | | | | | | | HOLMES. | | | | | Nautilus; the last stanza | | | Autocrat of | | commit | m. | R.D. | the | | The Stars and Flowers, a | | | Breakfast- | | lovely little poem,--the | | | Table. | | first verses in the | | | | | Autocrat of the | | | | | Breakfast-Table | e. | R.D. | | | | | | | | HUNT. | | | | | Abou Ben Adhem | e. | R.D. | Monroe. | | | | | | | CAREW. | | | | | The True Beauty | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 87. | | | | | | | GRAY. | | | | | Elegy in a Country Churchyard | m. | R.D.C. | " 147. | | Hymn to Adversity | m. | R.D. | " 159. | | Progress of Poesy | m. | R.D. | " 140. | | The Bard | m. | R.D. | " 123. | | | | | | | SAXE. | | | | | The Blind Men and the Elephant| e. | R.D. | No. 4. | | | | | | | JACKSON. | | | Poems of | | The Release | m. | R.D. | H. H. Jackson.| | | | | | | 11. HOOD. | | | | | Bridge of Sighs | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 231.| | Song of the Shirt | e. | R.D. | No. 2. | | | | | | | BURNS. | | | | | Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie | | | | | Doon | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 139.| | To a Field-mouse | e. | R.D. | " 144.| | Mary Morrison | e. | R.D. | " 148.| | Bonnie Lesley | e. | R.D. | " 149.| | Jean | e. | R.D. | " 155.| | John Anderson | e. | R.D. | " 156.| | A Man's a Man for a' that | e. | R.D. | Burns's Poems.| | Auld Lang Syne | e. | R.D. | | | Robert Bruce's Address to his | | | | | Army | e. | R.D. | | | | | | | | MOORE. | | | | | The Light of other Days | e. | R.D. | Palgrave, 225.| | Come rest in this Bosom | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies| | At the Mid Hour of Night | e. | R.D. | Irish Melodies| | Those Evening Bells | e. | R.D. | Monroe. | | | | | | | COLERIDGE. | | | | | Rime of the Ancient Mariner | d. | R.D.G. | Coleridge's | | Kubla Khan; a Picture of the | | | Poems. | | Stream of Life | d. | R.D.G. | | | Vale of Chamouni | e. | R. | Monroe. | | | | | | | WHITTIER. | | | | | The Farmer's Wooing, in Among | | | | | the Hills | m. | R.D.C. | Whittier's | | The Harp at Nature's Advent | | | Poems. | | Strung, etc., in Tent on | | | | | the Beach | m. | R.D.C. | | | Snow Bound, Centennial Hymn | | | | | (No. 13), and at least | | | | | glance athis Voices of | | | | | Freedom | m. | R.D.C. | | | Barefoot Boy | e. | R.D.C. | | | | | | | | TENNYSON. | | | | | "Break, break, break, on thy | | | Tennyson's | | cold gray Stones, O Sea" | m. | R.D.C. | Poems. | | "Ring out, wild Bells," in | | | | | the In Memoriam | m. | R.D.C. | | | Bugle Song, in The Princess | m. | R.D.C. | No. 2. | | Charge of the Light Brigade | e. | R.D.C. | No. 2. | | The Brook | e. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | | | | | | | CHAUCER. | | | | | The Clerk's Tale, or the | | | | | Story of Grisilde, in the | | | Chaucer's | | Canterbury Tales | m. | R. | Poems. | | | | | | | 12. KEY. | | | | | The Star-Spangled Banner | e. | C. | No. 4. | | | | | | | DRAKE. | | | | | The American Flag | e. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | SMITH. | | | | | "My Country, 'tis of thee" | e. | C. | | | | | | | | BOKER. | | | | | The Black Regiment | e. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | CAMPBELL, | | | | | full of fire | | | | | and martial music. | | | | | Ye Mariners of England | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 206.| | Battle of the Baltic | m. | R.C. | " 207.| | Soldier's Dream | m. | R.C. | " 267.| | Hohenlinden | m. | R.C. | " 215.| | Lord Ullin's Daughter | m. | R.C. | " 181.| | Love's Beginning | m. | R.C. | " 183.| | Ode to Winter | m. | R.C. | " 256.| | | | | | | THOMSON. | | | | | Rule Britannia | m. | R.C. | Palgrave, 122.| | | | | | | LOWELL. | | | | | The Crisis | d. | R.D.C.G. | Lowell's | | Harvard Commemoration Ode | d. | R.D.C.G. | Poems. | | The Fountain | e. | R.D.C.G. | | | | | | | | HALLECK. | | | | | Marco Bozzaris | e. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | MACAULAY. | | | | | Lays of Ancient Rome, | | | | | especially Horatius, and | e. | R.D. | No. 2. | | Virginia, also the Battle of | | | | | Ivry | m. | R.D. | No. 5. | | | | | | | O'HARA. | | | | | The Bivouac of the Dead | | | | | | | | | | MITFORD. | | | | | Rienzi's Address | m. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | CROLY. | | | | | Belshazzar | m. | R. | No. 4. | | | | | | | 13. SHELLEY. | | | Shelley's | | | | | Poems. | | Ode to the West Wind | m. | R.D.C. | Palgrave, 275.| | Ode to a Skylark | m. | R.D.C. | " 241.| | To a Lady with a Guitar | m. | R.D.C. | " 252.| | Italy | m. | R.D.C. | " 274.| | Naples | m. | R.D.C. | " 227.| | The Poet's Dream | d. | R.D.C. | " 277.| | The Cloud, Sensitive Plant, | | | | | etc. | m. | R.D.C. | | | | | | | | BYRON. | | | Byron's Poems.| | All for Love | m. | R.D. | Palgrave, 169.| | Beauty | m. | R.D. | " 171.| | Apostrophe to the Ocean, and | | | | | The Eve of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | | The Field of Waterloo | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | | (These are among the most | | | | | magnificent poems in any | | | | | language.) | | | | | | | | | | BRYANT. | | | | | Thanatopsis | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | | | | | | | PRENTICE. | | | | | The Closing Year | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | | | | | | | POE. | | | | | The Bells; The Raven | m. | R.C.G. | No. 1. | | Annabel Lee | m. | R. | No. 5. | | | | | | | KEATS. | | | Keats's Poems.| | The Star | m. | R. | Palgrave, 198.| | Ode to a Nightingale | m. | R. | " 244.| | Ode to Autumn | m. | R. | " 255.| | Ode on the Poets | m. | R. | " 167.| | | | | | | WORDSWORTH. | | | | | A Beautiful Woman | e. | R.C. | Palgrave, 174.| | The Reaper | m. | R. | " 250.| | Simon Lee | m. | R. | " 219.| | Intimations of Immortality | | | " 367.| | | | | | | HERBERT. | | | | | Gifts of God | e. | R.D.C. | " 74.| | | | | | | READ. | | | | | Drifting | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | | Sheridan's Ride | e. | R. | " | | | | | | | FLETCHER. | | | | | Melancholy | e. | R. | Palgrave, 104.| | | | | | | POPE. | | | | | Rape of the Lock | m. | R. | Pope's Poems. | | | | | | | 14. INGELOW. | | | | | The Brides of Enderby | m. | R. | No. 2. | | High Tide, etc. | | | | | | | | | | COWPER. | | | | | Loss of the Royal George | e. | R. | Palgrave, 129.| | Solitude of Selkirk | m. | R. | " 160.| | | | | | | DRYDEN. | | | | | Alexander's Feast | d. | R. | " 116.| | | | | | | COLLINS. | | | | | The Passions | d. | R. | " 141.| | | | | | | JONSON. | | | | | Hymn to Diana | m. | R. | " 78.| | | | | | | ADDISON. | | | | | Cato's Soliloquy | m. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | LODGE. | | | | | Rosaline | m. | R. | Palgrave, 16.| | | | | | | HERRICK. | | | | | Counsel to Girls | e. | R. | " 82.| | The Poetry of Dress | e. | R. | " 92.| | | | | | | 15. GOETHE. | | | | | Raphael Chorus,--a wonderful | | | | | chorus of three stanzas in | | | | | Faust. Read Shelley's | | | | | translations, both literal | | | | | and free, in his Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's | | | | | Poems. | | OMAR KHAYYÁM. | | | | | Rubáiyát, especially the | | | | | "moving shadow-shape" and the | | | | | "phantom caravan" stanzas, | | | | | for their magnificent imagery | m. | R.C.G. | Fitzgerald's | | | | | Translation. | | EURIPIDES. | | | | | Chorus in Medea--Campbell's | | | | | translation | m. | R.C.G. | Campbell's | | | | | Poems. | | | | | | | CALDERON. | | | | | Read Shelley's Fragments | m. | R.C.G. | Shelley's | | | | | Poems. | | SCHILLER. | | | Schiller's | | The Battle | m. | R. | Poems. No. 4. | | The Song of the Bell | m. | R. | Publ. | | | | | separately. | | MOLIÈRE. | | | | | Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite | e. | R.D. | Molière's | | Le Misanthrope, or The | | | Plays. | | Man-Hater | e. | R.D. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ GROUP III.--_Short Prose Selections._ +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | | Manner | | | | [*] | of | Where found. | | | | Reading. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | | | | | 16. LINCOLN. | | | | | Gettysburg Oration. Famous | | | | | for its calm, clear, simple | | | | | beauty, breadth, and power | m. | R.C. | No. 2. | | | | | | | IRVING | | | | | our greatest | | | | | master of style; | | | | | his prose is poetry. | | | | | Rip Van Winkle | e. | R.D.C. | Sketch Book. | | The Spectre Bridegroom | e. | R.D.C. | " " | | The Art of Book-Making | e. | R.D.C. | " " | | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | e. | R.D.C. | " " | | | | | | | 17. BACON. | | | | | Essay on Studies. Note the | | | | | clearness and completeness | | | | | of Bacon, and his tremendous| | | | | condensation of thought | m. | R.D.C. | Bacon's | | | | | Essays. | | CARLYLE. | | | | | Apostrophe to Columbus, p. | | | | | 193 of Past and Present,-- | | | | | Carlyle's finest passage | m. | R.D.C. | | | Await the Issue | m. | R.D.C. | Monroe. | | The account of the | | | | | conversational powers of | | | | | Coleridge, given in | | | | | Carlyle's Life of Sterling | e. | R.D.C. | | | | | | | | 18. WEBSTER. | | | | | Liberty and Union,--a | | | | | selection from the answer to| | | | | Hayne in the United States | | | | | Senate, on the question of | | | | | the power of a State to | | | | | nullify the acts of | | | | | Congress, and to withdraw | | | | | from the Union,--the | | | | | greatest of American | | | | | orations, and worthy to | | | | | rank side by side with the | | | | | world's best | m. | R.D.C. | No. 1. | | | | | | | PHILLIPS. | | | | | Comparison of Toussaint | | | | | L'Ouverture with Napoleon, | | | Phillips's | | in his oration on Toussaint | m. | R.D.C. | Speeches. | | | | | | | 19. EVERETT. | | | | | Discoveries of Galileo | m. | R. | No. 1. | | | | | | | BURRITT. | | | | | One Niche the Highest | e. | R. | No. 7. | | | | | | | 20. HUGO. | | | | | The Monster Cannon, one of | | | | | the great Frenchman's master| | | | | strokes,--a very thrilling | | | | | scene, splendidly painted | e. | R. | No. 11. | | Rome and Carthage | m. | R. | No. 6. | | | | | | | DE QUINCEY. | | | | | Noble Revenge | m. | R. | No. 7. | | | | | | | 21. POE. | | | | | Murders in the Rue Morgue | d. | R. | Little | | | | | Classics. | | INGERSOLL. | | | | | Oration at the funeral of his | | | Ingersoll's | | brother | m. | R. | Prose Poems. | | | | | | | 22. SCOTT. | | | | | Thirty-sixth chapter of the | | | | | Heart of Midlothian | m. | R. | | | | | | | | CURTIS. | | | | | Nations and Humanity | m. | R. | No. 11. | | | | | | | 23. TAYLOR. | | | | | The sections on Temperance | | | | | and Chastity in the Holy | | | | | Living and Dying | m. | R.D. | | | | | | | | BROOKS. | | | | | Pamphlet on Tolerance,--the | | | | | best book in the world on a | | | | | most vital subject | m. | R.D. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ GROUP IV.--_Wit and Humor_--_Short List._ +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | | Manner | | | | [*] | of | Where found. | | | | Reading. | | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ | | | | | | 24. LOWELL. | | | | | Biglow Papers | e. | R.D. | Lowell's | | Fable for Critics | d. | R.D. | Poems. | | The Courtin' | e. | R.D. | | | | | | | | HOLMES. | | | | | Autocrat of the | | | | | Breakfast-Table | m. | R.D. | | | | | | | | 25. CARLETON. | | | | | Farm Ballads, especially the | | | | | Visit of the School | | | | | Committee, and The Rivals | e. | S. | | | | | | | | STOWE. | | | | | Laughin' in Meetin' | e. | S. | No. 11. | | | | | | | TWAIN. | | | | | On New England Weather | e. | S. | No. 13. | | European Guides, and | | | Innocents | | Turkish Baths | e. | S. | Abroad. | | | | | | | 26. DICKENS. | | | | | Pickwick Papers | e. | S. | | | | | | | | JAMES DE MILLE. | | | Cumnock's | | A Senator Entangled | e. | S. | Choice | | | | | Readings. | | LOVER. | | | | | The Gridiron | e. | S. | " " | | | | | | | WHATELY. | | | | | Historic Doubts regarding | | | Publ. | | Napoleon | e. | S. | separately. | +-------------------------------------+-----+----------+---------------+ TABLE IV. SUPPLEMENTARY GENERAL READING. In addition to the short courses set forth in Tables II. and III., at the same time, if the reader has a sufficiency of spare hours, but always in subordination to the above courses, it is recommended that attention be given to the following books:-- Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. (e. R. D.) Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. (e. S.) Dickens' Christmas Carol (m. R. D.); Cricket on the Hearth. (m. R. D.) Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive (m. R. D.); Ethics of the Dust (m. R. D.); Sesame and Lilies. (m. R. D.) Emerson's Essays (d. R. D. C.); especially those on Manners, Gifts, Love, Friendship, The Poet, and on Representative Men. Demosthenes on the Crown. (m. R. D. C. G.) Burke's Warren Hastings Oration. (m. R. D. C. G.) Phillips' Speeches on Lovejoy and Garrison. (m. R. D. C. G.) La Fontaine's Fables. (m. R. D.) Short Biographies of the World's Hundred Greatest Men. (m. R. D.) Marshall's Life of Washington. (m. R. D. G.) Carlyle's Cromwell. (m. R. D. G.) Tennyson's In Memoriam. (d. R. D. C.) Byron's Childe Harold. (m. R. D. C.) Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night. (m. R. D.) Keats' Endymion. (d. R. D. C.) Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. (d. R. D. C. G.) Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (m. R. D. C.) Goldsmith's Deserted Village. (m. R. D. C.) Pope's Essay on Man. (m. R. D. C.) Thomson's Seasons. (m. R. D. C.) CHILDREN. So far we have spoken of reading for grown people. Now we must deal with the reading of young folks,--a subject of the utmost importance. For to give a child good habits of reading, to make him like to read and master strong, pure books,--books filled with wisdom and beauty,--and equally eager to shun bad books, is to do for him and the world a service of the highest possible character; and to neglect the right care of a child in this matter is to do him an injury far greater than to mutilate his face or cut off his arm. WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN. Parents, teachers, and others interested in the welfare of young people have not only to solve the problem of selecting books for their own nourishment, but also the more difficult problem of providing the young folks with appropriate literary food. As literature may be made one of the most powerful influences in the development of a child, the greatest care should be taken to make the influence true, pure, and tender, and give it in every respect the highest possible character, which requires as much care to see that bad books do not come into the child's possession and use, as to see that good books do. The ability to read adds to life a wonderful power, but it is a power for evil as well as good. As Lowell says, "It is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination,--to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments. It enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time. More than that, it annihilates time and space for us,--reviving without a miracle the Age of Wonder, and endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap of darkness." Yes, but it opens our minds to the thoughts of the vile as well as to those of the virtuous; it unlocks the prisons and haunts of vice as well as the school and the church; it drags us through the sewer as well as gives us admission to the palace; it feeds us on filth as well as the finest food; it pours upon our souls the deepest degradation as well as the spirit of divinity. Parents will do well to keep from their children such books as Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe;" Fielding's "Joseph Andrews," "Jonathan Wild," and "Tom Jones;" Smollett's "Humphrey Clinker," "Peregrine Pickle," and "Adventures of an Atom;" Sterne's "Tristram Shandy;" Swift's "Gulliver," and their modern relatives. Many of these coarse pictures of depravity and microscopic analyses of filth I cannot read without feeling insulted by their vulgarity, as I do when some one tells an indecent story in my presence. Whatever the power or wit of a book, if its motive is not high and its expression lofty, it should not come into contact with any life, at least until its character is fixed and hardened in the mould of virtue beyond the period of plasticity that might receive the imprint of the badness in the book. There are plenty of splendid books that are pure and ennobling as well as strong and humorous,--more of them than any one person can ever read,--so that there is no necessity of contact with imperfect literature. If a boy comes into possession of a book that he would not like to read aloud to his mother or sister, he has something that is not good for him to read,--something that is not altogether the very best for anybody to read. Some liberty of choice, however, ought to be allowed the children. It will add much to the vigor and enthusiasm of a boy's reading if, instead of prescribing the precise volume he is to have at each step, he is permitted to make his own selection from a list of three or four chosen by the person who is guiding him. What these three or four should be, is the problem. I cannot agree with Lowell, when he says that young people ought to "confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or, still better, choose some one great author and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him." It is possible to know something of people in general about me without neglecting my best friends. It is possible to enjoy the society of Shakspeare, Goethe, Æschylus, Dante, Homer, Plato, Spencer, Scott, Eliot, Marcus Aurelius, and Irving, without remaining in ignorance of the power and beauty to be found in Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Byron, Burns, Goldsmith, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell, Ingersoll, Omar, Arnold, Brooks, and Robertson, Curtis, Aldrich, Warner, Jewett, Burroughs, Bulwer, Tourgée, Hearn, Kingsley, MacDonald, Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, Ruskin, Hugo, Bronté, Sienkiewicz, and a host of others. Scarcely a day passes that I do not spend a little time with Shakspeare, Goethe, Æschylus, Spencer, and Irving; but I should be sorry to have any one of those I have named beyond call at any time. There are parts of Holmes, Lowell, Brooks, Emerson, Omar, Arnold, Tourgée, and Hearn that are as dear to me as any passages of equal size in Goethe or Irving. So it does not seem best to me to _confine_ the attention to the supreme books; a just _proportion_ is the true rule. Let the supreme books have the supreme attention, absorb them, print them on the brain, carry them about in the heart, but give a due share of time to other books. I like the suggestion of Marietta Holley: "I would feed children with little sweet crumbs of the best of books, and teach them that a whole rich feast awaited them in the full pages," only taking care in each instance that the crumb is well rounded, the picture not torn or distorted. There are paragraphs and pages in many works of the second rank that are equal to almost anything in the supreme books, and superior to much the latter contain. These passages should be sought and cherished; and the work of condensing the thought and beauty of literature--making a sort of literary prayer-book--is an undertaking that ought not to be much longer delayed. Until it is done, however, there is no way but to read widely, adapting the speed and care to the value of the volume. Some things may be best read by deputy, as Mark Twain climbed the Alps by agent; newspapers, for example, and many of the novels that flame up like a haystack on fire, and fade like a meteor in its fall, striking the earth never to rise again. The time that many a young man spends upon newspapers would be sufficient to make him familiar with a dozen undying books every year. Newspapers are not to be despised, but they should not be allowed to crowd out more important things. I keep track of the progress of events by reading the "Outlook" in the "Christian Union" every week, and glancing at the head-lines of the "Herald" or "Journal," reading a little of anything specially important, or getting an abstract from a friend who always reads the paper. A good way to economize time is for a number of friends to take the same paper, the first page being allotted to one, the second to another, and so on, each vocally informing the others of the substance of his page. If time cannot be found for both the newspaper and the classic, the former, not the latter, should receive the neglect. This matter of the use of time is one concerning which parents should strive to give their children good habits from the first. If you teach a child to economize time, and fill him with a love of good books, you ensure him an education far beyond anything he can get in the university,--an education that will cease only with his life. The creation of a habit of industrious study of books that will improve the character, develop the powers, and store the mind with force and beauty,--that is the great object. A good example is the best teacher. It is well for parents to keep close to the child until he grows old enough to learn how to determine for himself what he should read (which usually is not before fifteen or twenty, and in many cases never); for children, and grown folks too for that matter, crave intellectual as much as they do physical companionship. The methods of guiding the young in the paths of literature fall naturally into two groups,--the first being adapted to childhood not yet arrived at the power of reading alone, the second adapted to later years. There is no sharp line of division or exclusion, but only a general separation; for the methods peculiarly appropriate to each period apply to some extent in the other. Some children are able to read weighty books at three or four years of age, but most boys and girls have to plod along till they are eight or ten before they can read much alone. I will consider the periods of child life I have referred to, each by itself. =The Age of Stories=.--It is not necessary or proper to wait until a child can read, before introducing it to the best literature. Most of the books written for children have no permanent value, and most of the reading books used in primary and grammar schools contain little or no genuine literature, and what they do contain is in fragments. Portions of good books are useful, if the story of each part is complete, but children do not like the middle of a story without the beginning and end; they have the sense of entirety, and it should be satisfied. And it is not difficult to do this. Literature affords a multitude of beautiful stories of exceeding interest to children, and of permanent attractiveness through all the after years of their lives. Such literature is as available, as a means of teaching the art of reading, as is the trash in dreary droning over which the precious years of childhood are spent in our public schools. The development of the child mind follows the same course as the development of the mind of the race. The little boy loves the wonderful and the strong, and nearly everything is wonderful to him except himself. Living things especially interest him. Every child is a born naturalist; his heart turns to birds and beasts, flowers and stars. He is hungry for stories of animals, giants, fairies, etc. Myths and fairy tales are his natural food. His power of absorbing and retaining them is marvellous. One evening a few weeks ago a little boy who is as yet scarcely able to read words of two and three letters asked me for a story. I made an agreement with him that whatever I told him, he should afterward repeat to me, and then gave him the story of the elephant who squirted muddy water over the cruel tailor that pricked his trunk with a needle. No sooner had I finished than he threw his arms around my neck and begged for another story. I told him eight in rapid succession, some of them occupying three or four minutes, and then asked him to tell me about the elephants, dogs, bears, etc., that I had spoken of. He recited every story with astonishing accuracy and readiness, and apparently without effort, and would have been ready for eight more bits of Wood or Andersen, if his bedtime had not intervened. If parents would take as much pains to satisfy the mind hunger of their children as they do to fulfil their physical wants, and give them the best literature as well as the best beef and potatoes, the boys and girls would have digested the greater part of mythology, natural science, and the best fiction by the time they are able to read. Children should be fed with the literature that represents the childhood of the race. Out of that literature has grown all literature. Give a child the contents of the great books of the dawn, and you give him the best foundation for subsequent literary growth, and in after life he will be able to follow the intricate interweaving of the old threads throughout all modern thought. He has an immense affinity for those old books, for they are full of music and picturesqueness, teeming with vigorous life, bursting with the strange and wonderful. In the following list parents and teachers will find abundant materials for the culture of the little ones, either by reading aloud to them, or still better by telling them the substance of what they have gathered by their own reading of these famous stories and ditties. Pictures are always of the utmost value in connection with books and stories, as they impart a vividness of conception that words alone are powerless to produce. One plea for sincerity I must make,--truth and frankness from the cradle to the grave. Do not delude the children. Do not persuade them that a fairy tale is history. I have a sad memory of my disgust and loss of confidence in human probity when I discovered the mythical character of Kriss Kringle, and I believe many children are needlessly shocked in this way. _List of Materials for Story-telling and for the Instruction and Amusement of Childhood._ "Mother Goose," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Jack the Giant-Killer," "Three Bears," "Red Riding-Hood," "The Ark," "Hop o' my Thumb," "Puss in Boots," "Samson," "Ugly Duckling," "The Horse of Troy" (Virgil), "Daniel in the Lion's Den," etc. Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Delightful to all children. Grimm's "Fairy Tales." De Garmo's "Fairy Tales." Craik's "Adventures of a Brownie." "Parents' Assistant," by Maria Edgeworth, recommended by George William Curtis, Mary Mapes Dodge, Charles Dudley Warner, etc. "Zigzag Journeys," a series of twelve books, written by Hezekiah Butterworth, one of the editors of the "Youth's Companion." As might be supposed, they are among the very best and most enduringly popular books ever written for young people. Wood's books of Anecdotes about Animals, and many other works of similar character, that may be obtained from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 19 Milk Street, Boston. The literature distributed by this Society is filled with the spirit of love and tenderness for all living things, and is one of the best influences that can come into a child's life. Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." One of the best books of science for young people. Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." A book that is exhaustive of Greek and Roman mythology, but meant for grown folks. Bulfinch's "Age of Chivalry." Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." Brief, deep, and suggestive. Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Books that no house containing children should lack. Cox's "Tales of Ancient Greece." Baldwin's "Stories of the Golden Age." Forestier's "Echoes from Mist Land." An interesting study of the Nibelungenlied. Lucian's "Dialogues of the Gods." Written to ridicule ancient superstitions. Curtin's "Folk Lore of Ireland." Stories of Greek Heroes, Kingsley. Stories from Bryant's Odyssey. Stories from Church's "Story of the Iliad." Stories from Church's "Story of the Æneid." Stories from Herodotus, Church. Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Church. Stories of Charlemagne, Hanson. Stories from "Arabian Nights," Bulfinch. Stories from "Munchausen," and Maundeville. Stories from Chaucer, especially "Griselda." (From Chaucer, or from Mrs. Haweis' book.) Stories told to a Child, by Jean Ingelow. Stories from the "Morte D'Arthur," Malory or Lanier. Stories from Lanier's "Froissart." Stories from Shakspeare. Stories of the Revolution, Riedesel. Stories from American and English History about the Magna Charta, Henry VIII., Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Pitt, Gladstone, Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, Washington, Rebellion, Lincoln, etc. Stories of American life, from "Oldtown Folks," "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories," and from the best novels. Stories from the "Book of Golden Deeds," Miss Yonge. Stories from Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous," and "Girls who became Famous." Stories from Smiles's "Self-Help." Full of brief, inspiring stories of great men. Stones from Todd's "Students' Manual." Stories from Irving's "Sketch Book," Rip Van Winkle, etc. Stories from Green's "Short History of the English People." Stories from Doyle's "History of the United States." One of the very best brief histories. Stories from Mackenzie's "History of the Nineteenth Century." Stories from Coffin's "Story of Liberty." Stories from Freeman's "General Sketch of History." Stories from the "Stories of the Nations." (Putnam's Series.) Stories from the books of Columns 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, and 14 of Table I. The story of Christ and his Apostles. (It is scarcely needful to mention Bible stories in general. Every child born into a civilized family is saturated with them; but the simple story of Christ's life as an entirety is too seldom told them.) The story of Buddha, from the "Light of Asia." The story of Mahomet, Irving. The story of Confucius. The story of Socrates drinking the hemlock, from Plato, or from Fénelon's "Lives of the Philosophers," which contains many splendid Greek stories. The story of Prometheus, from Æschylus. The story of Diogenes in his Tub. The story of Thermopylæ and other battles, from Cressy. The story of Carthage, from Putnam's series of the "Stories of the Nations." (Nine to eleven years.) The story of Roland, Baldwin. The story of the Cid, Southey. The story of the Nibelungenlied. (See Baldwin's "Story of Siegfried.") The story of Faust, from "Zigzag Journeys." The story of "Reynard the Fox," Goethe. The story of Pythagoras and the transmigration of souls. The story of Astronomy, from Herschel, Proctor, etc. The story of Geology, from Lyell, Dawson, Miller, etc., or from Dana's "The Geological Story, Briefly Told." The story of Athena, Pluto, Neptune, Apollo, Juno, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Charon, Vulcan, Zeus, Io, Orpheus, and Eurydice, Phaeton, Arachne, Ariadne, Iphigenia, Ceres, Vesta, Herakles, Minerva, Venus, Scylla and Charybdis, Hercules, Ulysses, Helen, Achilles, Æneas, etc., from Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," "Zigzag Journeys," etc. The story of William Tell, the Man in the Moon, etc., from S. Baring Gould's "Curious Myths." The story of the Courtship of Miles Standish. The story of the Nürnburg Stove, from Ouida's "Bimbi." The story of Robert Bruce. The story of Circe's Palace, from "Tanglewood Tales." The story of Pandora's Box, from the "Wonder Book." The story of Little Nell, from "The Old Curiosity Shop." The story of the Boy in "Vanity Fair." Many other books might be placed on the list of parent-helpers. Indeed, the perfect guidance of youth would require a perfect knowledge of literature throughout its breadth and depth; but the above suggestions, if followed in any large degree, will result in a far better training than most children now receive. THE FORMATION OF A GOOD READING HABIT. As the child learns to read by itself, the books from which were drawn the stones it has heard may be given to it, care being taken that every gift shall be adapted to the ability of the little one. The fact that the boy has heard the story of Horatius at the Bridge does not diminish, but vastly increases, his desire to read the "Lays of Ancient Rome." When he comes to the possession of the book, it seems to him like a discovery of the face of a dear friend with whose voice he has long been familiar. I well remember with what delight I adopted the "Sketch Book" as one of my favorites on finding Rip Van Winkle in it. Below will be found a list of books intended as a suggestion of what should be given to children of various ages. The larger the number of good books the child can be induced to read each year, the better of course, so long as his powers are not overtaxed, and the reading is done with due thoroughness. But if only four or five are selected from each year's list, the boy will know more of standard literature by the time he is sixteen, than most of his elders do. Each book enters the list at the earliest age an ordinary child would be able to read it with ease, and it may be used then or at any subsequent age; for no books are mentioned which are not of everlasting interest and profit to childhood, manhood, and age. Many of the volumes named below may also be used by parents and teachers as story-mines. There is no sharp line between the periods of story-telling and of reading. Most children read simple English readily at eight or ten years of age; many do a large amount of reading long before that, and nearly all do some individual work in the earlier period. The change should be gradual. For the stimulus that comparison gives, story-telling and reading aloud should be continued long after the child is able to read alone; in truth, it ought never to cease. Story-telling ought to be a universal practice. Stories should be told to and _by_ everybody. One of the best things grown folks can do is to tell each other the substance of their experience from day to day; and probably no finer means of education exists than to have the children give an account at supper or in the hour or two following, of what they have seen, heard, read, thought, and felt during the day. In the same way reading _solus_ should lap over into the early period as far as possible. One of the greatest needs of the day is a class of books that shall put _solid sense_ into _very_ simple words. A child can grasp the wonderful, strong, loving, pathetic, and even the humorous and critical, long before it can overcome the mechanical difficulties of reading. By so much as we diminish these, we push education nearer to the cradle. Charles Dudley Warner says, "As a general thing, I do not believe in books written for children;" and Phillips Brooks, Marietta Holley, Brooke Herford, and others express a similar feeling. But the trouble is not with the _plan_ of writing for children, but with the execution. If the highest _thoughts_ and feelings were written in the simplest words,--written as a wise parent _tells_ them to his little ones,--then we should have a juvenile literature that could be recommended. As it is, most writers for babies seem to have far less sense than the babies. Their books are filled with unnatural, make-believe emotions, and egregious nonsense in the place of ideas. The best prose for young people will be found in the works of Hawthorne, Curtis, Warner, Holmes, Irving, Addison, Goldsmith, Burroughs, and Poe; and the best poets for them are Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Burns, and Homer. Books that flavor sense with fun, as do those of Curtis, Holmes, Lowell, Holley, Stowe, Irving, Goldsmith, Warner, Addison, and Burroughs, are among the best means of creating in any heart, young or old, a love for fine, pure writing. P. T. Barnum, a man whose great success is largely due to his attainment of that serenity of mind which Lowell calls the highest result of culture, says: "I should, above almost everything else, try to cultivate in the child a kindly sense of humor. Wherever a pure, hearty laugh rings through literature, he should be permitted and taught to enjoy it." This judgment comes from a knowledge of the sustaining power a love of humor gives a man immersed in mental cares and worriments. Lincoln is, perhaps, the best example of its power. It is often an inspiration to a boy to know that a book he is reading has helped and been beloved by some one whose name is to him a synonym of greatness,--to know, for example, that Franklin got his style from the "Spectator," which he studied diligently when a boy; that Francis Parkman from fifteen to twenty-one obtained more pleasure and profit from Scott than from any other writer; that Darwin was very fond of Mark Twain's "Treatise on the Frog;" that Marietta Holley places Emerson, Tennyson, and Eliot next to the Bible in her list of favorites; that Senator Hoar writes Emerson, Wordsworth, and Scott next after the Bible and Shakspeare; that Robert Collyer took great delight in Irving's "Sketch Book," when a youth; that the great historian Lecky is said to be in the habit of taking Irving with him when he goes to bed; that Phillips Brooks read Jonson many times when a boy, and that Lockhart's Scott was a great favorite with him, though the Doctor attaches no special significance to either of these facts; that Susan Coolidge thinks "Hans Brinker" is the best of all American books for children, etc. Similar facts may be found in relation to very many of the best books, and will aid much in arousing an interest in them. Plato, Bacon, Goethe, Spencer, Emerson, and many others of the best are for the most part too difficult to be properly grasped until the mind is more mature than it usually is at sixteen. No precise rules, however, can be laid down on this subject, I have known a boy read Spencer's "First Principles" and Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" at sixteen, and gain a mastery of them. All I have attempted to do is to make broad suggestions; experiment in each case must do the rest. _Literature adapted to a Child Six or Eight Years of Age and upward._ Little Lord Fauntleroy. A book that cannot fail to delight and improve every reader. King of the Golden River, Ruskin. "Rosebud," from "Harvard Sophomore Stories." Christmas all the Year round, Howells. Mrs. Stowe's "Laughin' in Meetin'." An exceedingly funny story. "Each and All" and "Seven Little Sisters," by Jane Andrews. Used in the Boston Public Schools as supplementary reading. Classics in Babyland, Bates. Scudder's "Fables and Folk Stories." Fine books for little ones. Æsop. Rainbows for Children, Lydia Maria Child. Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. The autobiography of a splendid horse, and the best teacher of kindness to animals we know of. Burroughs' "Birds and Bees." In fact, all his beautiful and simple stories of Nature--"Pepacton," "Fresh Fields," "Wake Robin," "Winter Sunshine," "Signs and Seasons," etc.--are the delight of children as soon as they can read. Winslow's "Fairy Geography." By Sea-side and Wayside, Wright. _Literature adapted to a Child Eight to Nine Years of Age and upward._ Sandford and Merton, Day. One of the very best of children's books. Play Days, Sarah Orne Jewett. Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Cannot be too highly praised. Stories from King Arthur, Hanson. A good foundation for the study of Malory, Tennyson, etc. "Winners in Life's Race," and "Life and her Children," by Miss Arabella Buckley. Books that charm many children of eight or nine. Fairy Frisket; or, Peeps at Insect Life. Nelson & Sons. Physiology, with pictures. Queer Little People, Mrs. Stowe. Kingsley's "Water Babies." A beautiful book, as indeed are all of Kingsley's. Longfellow's "Building of the Ship." The Fountain, Lowell. Ye Mariners of England, Campbell. Carleton's "Farm Ballads and Farm Legends." Humorous, pathetic, sensible. _Literature adapted to a Child Nine to Ten Years of Age and upward._ Story of a Bad Boy, Aldrich. A splendid book for boys. Boys of '76, Coffin. An eight-year-old boy read it five times, he was so pleased with it. New Year's Bargain, Coolidge. Pussy Willow, Stowe. Hanson's "Homer and Virgil." Brief, clear, simple, clean. Stories from Homer, Hanson. Stories from Pliny, White. Grimm's "Fairy Tales." Legend of Sleeping Beauty. Clodd's "The Childhood of the World." A splendid book to teach children the development of the world. "Friends in Feathers and Fur," "Wings and Fins," "Paws and Claws," by Johonnot. Books much liked by the little ones. First Book of Zoölogy, Morse. Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris." Wordsworth's "Peter Bell." Mary, Queen of Scots, Strickland. The Prince and the Pauper, Twain. A book that mingles no small amount of sense with its abounding fun and occasional tragedy. _Literature adapted to a Child Ten or Eleven Years of Age and upward._ Being a Boy, Warner. Little Women, Alcott. One of the most popular books of the day. A Dog's Mission, Stowe. Two Years before the Mast, Dana. Recommended by Sarah Orne Jewett, George William Curtis, and others. Ten Boys on the Road, Andrews. A great favorite with the boys. Jan of the Windmill, Ewing. The story of a poor boy who becomes a famous painter. Hawthorne's "Celestial Railroad." Little People of Asia, Miller. Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales" and "Wonder Book" should belong to every child old enough to read ordinary English. Adventures of a Brownie, Craik. Stories from Chaucer, Seymour. Stories from Livy, Church. Lives of the Philosophers, Fénelon. An excellent book. What Darwin saw in his Trip round the World in the Ship Beagle. Fairy Land of Science, Miss Buckley. An author who writes for children to perfection. Animal Life in the Sea and on the Land, Cooper. Very fine indeed. Darwin's chapter on the "Habits of Ants" (in the "Origin of Species") is very interesting and amusing to little ones, and together with Burroughs' books prepares them to read such works as Lubbock's "Ants, Bees, and Wasps." Ragozin's "Chaldea." One of the indispensable books for children. Longfellow's "Psalm of Life." Longfellow's "Hiawatha." Lowell's "Under the Old Elm." Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone." Lamb's Essay on Roast Pig. A piece of fun always enjoyed by boys and girls. _Literature adapted to a Child Eleven to Twelve Years of Age and upward._ Shakspeare's "Merchant of Venice." Marcus Aurelius. In a school where the book was at their call children from ten to thirteen carried it to and from school, charmed with its beautiful thoughts. Hans Brinker, Mary Mapes Dodge. One of the very best stories for children. Dickens' "Christmas Carol." Hawthorne's "Great Stone Face." Highly appreciated by the young folks. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. A book that every child should have as soon as he is able to read it. Another Flock of Girls, Nora Perry. At the Back of the North Wind, Macdonald. A beautiful story, with a high motive. A Hunting of the Deer, Warner. Crusade of the Children, Gray. A thrilling story. Bryant's translation of the Odyssey. Story of the Iliad, Church. Stories from Herodotus, Church. Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." Half Hours with the Stars, Proctor. Guyot's "Earth and Man." A most excellent book. First Book in Geology, Shaler. First Steps in Chemistry, Brewster. First Steps in Scientific Knowledge, Best. Abou Ben Adhem, Hunt. Scott's "Lady of the Lake." Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn." Whittier's "Snow Bound." How they Brought the Good News to Aix, Browning. Wordsworth's "We are Seven." Franklin's Autobiography. Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech. Samantha at the Centennial. _Literature adapted to a Child Twelve to Thirteen Years of Age and upward._ Shakspeare's "Julius Cæsar." Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. Indispensable. Meditation of Thomas à Kempis. A strong influence for sweetness and purity. Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith. Full of fun and good feeling; one of the most indispensable of books. Cooper's novels, especially "The Spy" and the "Last of the Mohicans." Books that are fascinating and yet wholesome. "My Summer in a Garden," and "In the Wilderness," Warner. Very humorous. "The Dog of Flanders," from "Little Classics." Picciola, Saintine. A great favorite. The Story of Arnon, Amélie Rives. Drake's "Culprit Fay." Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends." "The Man without a Country," "My Double and How He Undid Me," etc., by E. E. Hale. The cast is extremely funny. The Hoosier Schoolmaster, Eggleston. Boots and Saddles, Mrs. Custer. Story of the Æneid, Church. Stories from Greek Tragedians, Church. Plumptre's "Sophocles." Ruskin's "Athena." Boys and Girls in Biology, Stevenson. Other Worlds than Ours, Proctor. Captains of Industry, Parton. Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal." One of the great poet's finest productions. Byron's "Eve of Waterloo." Longfellow's "Evangeline." Scott's "Marmion." Milton's "Comus." "The Two Runaways," "The Born Inventor," "Idyl of Sinkin' Mountain," etc., by Edwards. Very funny. _Literature adapted to a Child Thirteen to Fourteen Years of Age and upward._ Shakspeare's "Coriolanus" and "Taming of the Shrew." Scott's "Ivanhoe," "Heart of Midlothian," "Guy Mannering," etc. It is the making of a boy if he learns to love Scott. He will make a gentleman of him, and give him an undying love of good literature. Journal of Eugénie de Guerin. Full of delicacy and quiet strength. Tom Brown, Hughes. An universal favorite. Curtis' "Prue and I." One of the very choicest books, both in substance and expression,--especially remarkable for its moral suggestiveness. Craddock's "Floating down Lost Creek." Most excellent. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson. A story with a powerful moral,--if we give scope to our evil nature, it will master us. Goldsmith's "Good-Natured Man." Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship." Ben Hur, Wallace. The Fool's Errand, Tourgée. The Boys' King Arthur, Lanier. Epictetus. Physiology for Girls, Shepard. Physiology for Boys, Shepard. What Young People should Know, Wilder. A book that no boy or girl should be without. How Plants Behave, Gray. Goethe's "Erl King." Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch." A favorite. The Forsaken Merman, Matthew Arnold. An exquisite poem. Longfellow's "Miles Standish." Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." The Veiled Statue of Truth, Schiller. Gütenburg, and the Art of Printing. Doyle's "United States History." John Bright's "Speeches on the American Question." Backlog Studies, Warner. "Encyclopædia of Persons and Places," and "Encyclopædia of Common Things," by Champlin, should be within the reach of every child over twelve or thirteen years of age. _Literature adapted to a Child Fourteen to Fifteen Years of Age._ Shakespeare's "Henry Fourth" and "Henry Fifth." Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Holmes; and Irving's "Sketch Book." Two of the best books in all the world. George Eliot's novels, especially "Silas Marner," "The Mill on the Floss," "Romola," and "Adam Bede." The Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot. Our Best Society, Curtis. Bulwer's "Rienzi." The Marble Faun, Hawthorne. Sad Little Prince, Fawcett. Chita, or Youma, by Hearn, a master of English style. Grande Pointe, Cable. La Fontaine's Fables. Plutarch's "Morals." Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. Lady How and Madam Why, Kingsley. Sketches of Creation, Winchell. Very interesting to children of fourteen or fifteen. The Geological Story, Briefly Told, Dana. Ready for Business, or Choosing an Occupation, Fowler and Wells. Ode to a Skylark, Shelley. Birds of Aristophanes, Frere. Alfred the Great, Hughes. Plutarch's "Lives." Green's "Short History of the English People." Demosthenes on the Crown. The finest of all orations. The Biglow Papers, Lowell. The best of fun and sense. Sweet Cicely, Holley. Quiet humor and unfailing wisdom. Higginson's "Vacations for Saints." A splendid example of humorous writing. _Literature adapted to a Child Fifteen to Sixteen Years of Age and upward._ Shakspeare's "Hamlet" and "The Tempest." Dante's "Inferno." Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," "David Copperfield," "Old Curiosity Shop," etc. Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." Tourgée's "Hot Plowshares," and "With Fire and Sword," by Sienkiewicz. Two of the greatest historical novels. Carlyle's "Past and Present." Arnold's "Sweetness and Light." Ruskin's "Crown of Wild Olive." Emerson's Essays on "Manners," "Self-Reliance," "Eloquence," "Friendship," "Representative Men," etc. Mrs. Whitney's "Sights and Insights." A book that is filled with beautiful thoughts and unselfish actions. Spencer's "Data of Ethics." Indispensable to a complete understanding of ethical subjects. "The Light of Asia." A book that cannot fail to broaden and deepen every life it touches. Ten Great Religions, Clarke. Omar. Superb poetry. Bryant's "Thanatopsis." Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." A lesson of the awfulness of cruelty. Auld Lang Syne, Burns. Toilers of the Sea, Hugo. Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature." Tyndall's "Forms of Water." Our Country, Strong. A book that ought to be in the hands of every young person. Bryce's "American Commonwealth." Guizot's "History of Civilization." Mill's "Logic." No young man can afford to remain unacquainted with this book. The Hand and Ring, Green. One of the finest examples of reasoning in the language. Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is another such example, and his "Gold Bug" is another. Phillips' Speeches Webster's "Liberty and Union." Golden Treasury, Palgrave. The Spectator. One of the very best books to study, in order to form a good style. Franklin and others attribute their success largely to reading it carefully in boyhood. The Fable for Critics, Lowell. The Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, Twain. Fun and sense welded together to make the most delightful book the author has written. SPECIAL STUDIES. Next in value to a love of good reading is a habit of concentrating the attention upon one subject through a long course of reading. In this way only can any thorough mastery be obtained. The child should be taught not to be satisfied with the thought of any one writer, but to investigate the ideas of all upon the topic in hand, and then form his own opinion. Thus he will gain breadth, depth, tolerance, independence, and scientific method in the search for truth. Of course it is impossible in a work of this kind to map out lines of study for the multitudinous needs of young people. The universities and the libraries provide the means of gaining full information as to the literature of any subject that may be selected. A few topic-clusters may, however, be of use here in the way of illustration. Many examples will be found in Baldwin's "The Book Lover." =The Industrial Question=.--Suppose a young man desired to study the industrial question, which is one of the most important subjects of to-day, the proper method would be to go to one of the great libraries, or examine the catalogues of the large publishing-houses, to discover the names of recent books on the given topic, or on such subjects as Labor and Capital, Socialism, Co-operation, etc. Such books usually refer to others, and name many kindred works on the last pages. Thus the student's list will swell. I have myself investigated more than two hundred books on this topic and those it led me to. A few of the more important I will name as a starting-point for any one wishing to follow this research. Labor, Thornton. Conflict of Labor and Capital, Bolles; also, Howell. Political Economy, Mill. Progress and Poverty, George. Profit-Sharing, Gilman. In Darkest England, Booth. Wages and the Wages Class, Walker. Book of the New Moral World, Owen. Communistic Societies of the United States, Nordhoff. Dynamic Sociology, Ward. Looking Backward, Bellamy. Destinée Sociale, Considérant. More's "Utopia." Co-operative Societies, Watts. History of Co-operation, Holyoake. The Margin of Profits, Atkinson. Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth." Capital, Karl Marx. The State in relation to Labor, Jevons. Organisation du Travail, Louis Blanc. Co-operative Stores, Morrison. Labor and Capital, Jervis. Newton's "Co-operative Production and Co-operative Distribution in the United States." Property and Progress, Mallock. Principles of Sociology, Spencer. Mill on Socialism. The Progress of the Working Classes, Giffen. Ely's "French and German Socialism," "Problems of To-day," and "Labor Movement in America." Dilke's "Problems of Greater Britain." Contemporary Socialism, Rae. Outlines of an Industrial Science, Symes. Early History of Land-holding among the Germans, Ross; etc. =Malthusianism=.--To take a smaller example. Suppose the student wishes to make a thorough study of the doctrine of Malthusius in regard to population, he will have to refer to Macaulay's "Essay on Sadler," and the works on Political Economy of Ricardo, Chalmers, Roscher, etc., in support of Malthus, and to George's "Progress and Poverty," Spencer's "Biology" (Vol. II.), Sadler's "Law of Population," and the works of Godwin, Greg, Rickards, Doubleday, Carey, Alison, etc., against him. For an example of a very different kind, cluster about the myth of Cupid the poems "Cupid and my Campaspe," by Lilly; "The Threat of Cupid," translated by Herrick; "Cupid Drowned," by Leigh Hunt; and "Cupid Stung," by Moore. A great deal depends on selecting some department of thought and exhausting it. To know something of everything and everything of something is the true aim. If a child displays fine musical or artistic ability, among the books given it ought to be many that bear upon music and art,--the "Autobiography of Rubenstein;" the Lives of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn; and Rocksho's "History of Music," Upton's "Woman in Music," Clayton's "Queens of Song," Lillie's "Music and the Musician," Haweis' "Music and Morals," Jameson's "Lives of the Painters," Crowest's "Tone Poets," Clement's "Painting and Sculpture," Mereweather's "Semele, or the Spirit of Beauty," etc. Probably these examples, with those to be found in the notes to Table I., are amply sufficient to show what is meant by grouping the lights of literature about a single point so as to illuminate it intensely; but one more specimen will be given, because of the interest the subject has for us now and is likely to have for many years. =The Tariff Question= may be studied in Ely's "Problems of To-day," Greeley's "Political Economy," Carey's "Principles of Social Science," E. P. Smith's "Manual of Political Economy," Byles's "Sophisms of Free Trade," Thompson's "Social Science and National Economy," Bastiat's "Sophisms of Protection," Mill's "Political Economy," Sumner's "Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States," Fawcett's "Free Trade and Protection," Mongredien's "History of the Free Trade Movement," Butt's "Protection Free Trade," Walters' "What is Free Trade," "The Gladstone-Blaine Debate," etc. TABLE V. _Showing the Distribution of the Best Literature in Time and Space, with a Parallel Reference to some of the World's Great Events._ [It was impossible to get the writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into the unit space. The former fills a space twice the unit width, and the latter, when it is complete, will require five units.] +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | GREECE | B.C. | ISRAEL | | | Homer | 1000 | David, The | | | Hesiod | | Psalms | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 900 | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 800 | | Rome founded | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Æsop | 700 | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 600 | INDIA | Nebuchadnezzar, | | | | Buddha | king of Babylon | | | | | | | | | | Republic | | | | | established at | | | | | Rome | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | THE GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN | 500 | Mahabharata | Darius, king of | | LITERATURE | | Ramayana | Persia | | Pindar Æschylus Herodotus | |(Epics of India)| GREECE | | Sophocles Thucydides| | | Battle of | | | | | Marathon | | Pericles Euripides Xenophon | | | " " Thermopylæ | | Aristophanes | | | " " Salamis | | | | | Cincinnatus at | | | | | Rome | | Socrates | | |Ezra at Jerusalem | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Plato | 400 | | Alexander | | Aristotle | | | The Gauls burn | | Demosthenes | | | Rome | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 300 | | Wars of Rome | | | | | against Carthage | | | | |Hannibal in Italy | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 200 | | Greece becomes a | | | | | Roman Province | | | | | | | | | | ROME | | | | | The Gracchi, | | | | | Marius, and | | | | | Sylla | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | |ROME. AUGUSTAN AGE, 31 | 100 | | ROME | | B. C. TO A. D. 14. | | | | | Reatinus Ovid | | | Pompey | | Sallust Livy | | | Civil War, | | Cicero Lucretius | | | Empire | | Virgil | | | established | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Tacitus | A.D. | | Jerusalem taken | | | | | by Titus | | Plutarch Juvenal | | | Pompeii | | | | | overwhelmed | | Pliny | | Josephus | Romans conquer | | | | | Britain | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Epictetus | 100 | | Church Fathers | | Marcus Aurelius | | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 200 | | | | | | | Aurelian conquers | | | | | Zenobia | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 300 | | Under Constantine | | | | | Christianity | | | | | becomes the | | | | | State religion | | | | | Roman Empire | | | | | divided | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 400 | | Angles and Saxons | | | | | drive out the | | | | | Britons | | | | | Huns under Attila | | | | | invade the | | | | | Roman Empire | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 500 | | Christianity | | | | | carried to | | | | | England by | | | | | Augustine | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | ENGLISH LITERATURE | 600 | ARABIA | | | Cædmon | | Mahomet | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Bæda | 700 | | FRANCE | | Cynewulf | | | Charlemagne | | | | | founds the | | | | | Empire of the | | | | | West | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Ælfred, 850-900 | 800 | | Danes overrun | | | | | England | | | | | _Ælfred's_ | | | | | _glorious | | | | | _reign_ | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 900 | | Chivalry begins | | | | | Capetian kings in | | | | | France | | | | | ENGLAND | | | | | Saint Dunstan | | | | | Papal supremacy | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | 1000 | PERSIA | ENGLAND | | | | Firdusi's Shah| Canute the Great| | | | Nameh | 1066. | | | | | _Norman_ | | | | | _Conquest_ | | | | | Peter the Hermit | | | | | First Crusade | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Geoffrey of Monmouth | 1100 |PERSIA | ENGLAND | | | | Omar Khayyám | Plantagenets | | | |GERMANY | Richard I. | | | | Nibelungenlied| | | | | SPAIN | FRANCE | | | | Chronicle of | Second and Third| | | | the Cid | Crusades | | | | | Saint Bernard | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Layamon | 1200 |PERSIA | ENGLAND | | Roger Bacon | | Saadi | 1215. Runnymede,| | | | | Magna Charta | | | | | Edward I. | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Mandeville | 1300 | ITALY | ENGLAND | | Langland | | Dante | Chivalry at its | | Wycliffe Chaucer | | Petrarch | height | | Gower | | Boccaccio | The Black Prince| | | | | _Gunpowder_ | | | | | | | | |PERSIA | FRANCE | | | | Hafiz | Battles of | | | | | Crecy, | | | | | Poictiers, and| | | | | Agincourt | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Lydgate | 1400 |GERMANY | ENGLAND | | Fortescue | | Thomas à | Henry VIII. | | Malory | | Kempis | shook off the | | | | | Pope | | | | Arabian Nights |_Movable Type_ | | | | (probably) |_Discovery of_ | | | |PERSIA |_America_ | | | | Jami | Joan of Arc | | | | | Wars of the Roses | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | | | | _Copernicus_ | | More Ascham | 1500 | ITALY | _Kepler_ | | Lyly Sackville | | Ariosto | _The Armada_ | | Sidney | | Tasso | ENGLAND | | Marlowe Fox | | Galileo | Henry VIII., | | Spenser Hooker | | | Elizabeth | | | | | GERMANY | | | |FRANCE | 1515. _Luther's_ | | | | Montaigne | _Reformation_ | | | | | FRANCE | | | | | Massacre of St. | | | | | Bartholomew | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Jonson Bacon Herbert | 1600 |SPAIN. | 1620. Plymouth | | Shakspeare Newton J.Taylor| | Cervantes | Rock and the | | Chapman Hobbes | | Calderon | "Mayflower" | | Beaumont & Walton | |GERMANY | 1649 | | Fletcher S. Butler | | Kepler | _Cromwell_ | | Milton Locke | |FRANCE | 1660 Restoration | | Bunyan Pepys | | Descartes |1688 Revolution | | Dryden | | Corneille | William and Mary | | | | Racine | FRANCE. | | | | Molière | Louis XIV. | | | | La Fontain | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Addison Cowper Otis | 1700 |FRANCE | 1776. American | | Steele Burns Jay | | Montesquieu | Revolution | | Pope Rogers Adams | | Le Sage | 1789-94. French | | Defoe Hume Hamilton | | Rousseau | Revolution | | Swift Edwards Madison | | Voltaire | ENGLAND | | Berkeley A. Smith Jefferson| | | Marlborough | | J. Butler Bentham Pitt | |GERMANY | | | Moore Gibbon Burke | | Munchausen | | | Thomson Johnson Fox | | Lessing | | | Young Boswell Erskine | | | | | Gray Malthus P. Henry.| | | | | Goldsmith Mackintosh | | | | | Sterne Paine | | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ | | | | | | Scott Herschel DeQuincey| 1800 |GERMANY | 1807. Fulton's | | Byron Whewell Whately | | Schiller | Steamboat | | Bryant Ricardo Jeffrey | | Goethe | Wellington | | Drake Carey Brougham | | Kant | 1815. Waterloo | | Wordsworth Faraday S. Smith | | Fichte | 1815. White wives | | Keats Lyell C. North | | Hegel | sold in England | | Shelley Agassiz N. Webster| | Schelling | 1830. Passenger | | Payne Whitney H. H. White| | Niebuhr | railway | | Keble A. Gray D. Webster| | Schlosser | 1833. Matches | | Halleck Hallam Sparks | | Heine | 1844. Telegraph | | Key Prescott Story | | Haeckel | 1845. Mexican War | | Macaulay Lewes Gould | | Helmholtz | | | Hood Milman Cooper | | Grimm | | | Poe Buckle Disraeli | | Froebel | | | Read Merivale Dickens | | | | | Tennyson Hildreth Thackeray| |FRANCE | 1860. Rebellion | | Browning Freeman Bronté | | La Place | 1863. Emancipation| | Lowell Draper Hawthorne| | Guizot | | | Longfellow Froude Irving | | De Tocqueville| | | Carleton Walpole Hughes | | Comte | | | Ingelow Lecky Kingsley | | Hugo | | | Whittier Parkman Eliot | | Dumas | 1870. Franco- | | Mill Bancroft Collins | | Balzac | German War | | Spencer Whipple Macdonald| | Renan | 1874. The | | Ruskin Twain Hunt | | Taine | Telephone | | Arnold Jerrold Wallace | | | Emancipation of | | Curtis Choate Clarke | |RUSSIA | serfs in | | Holmes Lincoln Landor | | Pushkin | Russia | | Mansel Phillips Tourgée | | Lermontoff | | | Carlyle Everett Holland | | Bashkirtseff | | | Emerson Sumner Howells | | Tolstoi | | | Darwin Garfield Mrs. Whitney| | | | | Huxley Gladstone Miss Alcott| |DENMARK | | | Dana A. D. White Bellamy | | Andersen | | | Tyndall Beecher Gronlund | | | | | Lubbock P. Brooks Gilman | |POLAND | | | Proctor Lamb Holley | | Sienkiewicz | | | Davy Hazlitt Dodge | | | | | Proctor Lamb Jewett | | | | | Davy Hazlitt Burroughs| | | | | Bright Rives Stowe | | | | | Fiske Aldrich Hearn | | | | | Curtin Warner Burnett | | | | | Hale Curtis | | | | | Edwards Higginson | | | | | | | | | | | 1900 | | | +-------------------------------+------+----------------+-------------------+ REMARKS ON TABLE V. =Definitions and Divisions=.--Literature is life pulsing through life upon life; but only when the middle life imparts new beauty to the first is literature produced in any true and proper sense. The last life is that of the reader; the middle one that of the author; the first that of the person or age he pictures. Literature is the past pouring itself into the present. Every great man consumes and digests his own times. Shakspeare gives us the England of the 16th century, with the added qualities of beauty, ideality, and order. When we read Gibbon's "Rome," it is really the life of all those turbulent times of which he writes that is pouring upon us through the channels of genius. Dante paints with his own sublime skill the portraits of Italy in the 14th century, of his own rich, inner life, and of the universal human soul in one composite masterpiece of art. In one of Munchausen's stories, a bugler on the stage-top in St. Petersburg was surprised to find that the bugle stopped in the middle of the song. Afterward, in Italy, sweet music was heard, and upon investigation it was found that a part of the song had been frozen in the instrument in Russia, and thawed in the warmer air of Italy. So the music of river and breeze, of battle and banquet, was frozen in the verse of Homer nearly three thousand years ago, and is ready at any time, under the heat of our earnest study, to pour its harmony into our lives. It is the fact that beauty is added by the author which distinguishes _Literature_ from the pictures of life that are given to us by newspaper reporters, tables of statistics, etc. Literature is not merely life,--it is life _crystallized in art_. This is the first great line dividing the Literary from the Non-Literary. The first class is again divided into Poetry and Prose. In the first the form is measured, and the substance imagery and imagination. In the latter the form is unmeasured, and the substance direct. Imagery is the heart of poetry, and rhythm its body. The thought must be expressed not in words merely, but in words that convey other thoughts through which the first shines. The inner life is pictured in the language of external Nature, and Nature is painted in the colors of the heart. The poet must dip his brush in that eternal paint-pot from which the forests and fields, the mountains, the sky, and the stars were painted. He must throw human life out upon the world, and draw the world into the stream of his own thought. Sometimes we find the substance of the poetic in the dress of prose, as in Emerson's and in Ingersoll's lectures, and then we have the prose poem; and sometimes we find the form of poetry with only the direct expression, which is the substance of prose, or perhaps without even the substance of _literary_ prose, as in parts of Wordsworth, Pope, Longfellow, Homer, Tennyson, and even sometimes in Shakspeare; see, for example, Tennyson's "Dirge." =Tests for the Choice of Books=.--In deciding which of those glorious ships that sail the ages, bringing their precious freight of genius to every time and people, we shall invite into our ports, we must consider the nature of the crew, the beauty, strength, and size of the vessel, the depth of our harbor, the character of the cargo, and our own wants. In estimating the value of a book, we have to note (1) the kind of life that forms its material; (2) the qualities of the author,--that is, of the life through which the stream comes to us, and whose spirit is caught by the current, as the breezes that come through the garden bear with them the perfume of flowers that they touch; (3) the form of the book, its music, simplicity, size, and artistic shape; (4) its merits, compared with the rest of the books in its own sphere of thought; (5) its fame; (6) our abilities; and (7) our needs. There result several tests of the claims of any book upon our attention. I. What effect will it have upon character? Will it make me more careful, earnest, sincere, placid, sympathetic, gay, enthusiastic, loving, generous, pure, and brave by exercising these emotions in me, and more abhorrent of evil by showing me its loathsomeness; or more sorrowful, fretful, cruel, envious, vindictive, cowardly, and false, less reverent of right and more attracted by evil, by picturing good as coming from contemptible sources, and evil as clothed with beauty? Is the author such a man as I would wish to be the companion of my heart, or such as I must study to avoid? II. What effect will the book produce upon the mind? Will it exercise and strengthen my fancy, imagination, memory, invention, originality, insight, breadth, common-sense, and philosophic power? Will it make me bright, witty, reasonable, and tolerant? Will it give me the quality of intellectual beauty? Will it give me a deeper knowledge of human life, of Nature, and of my business, or open the doorways of any great temple of science where I am as yet a stranger? Will it help to build a standard of taste in literature for the guidance of myself and others? Will it give me a knowledge of what other people are thinking and feeling, thus opening the avenues of communication between my life and theirs? III. What will be the effect on my skills and accomplishments? Will it store my mind full of beautiful thoughts and images that will make my conversation a delight and profit to my friends? Will it teach me how to write with power, give me the art of thinking clearly and expressing my thought with force and attractiveness? Will it supply a knowledge of the best means of attaining any other desired art or accomplishment? IV. Is the book simple enough for me? Is it within my grasp? If not, I must wait till I have come upon a level with it. V. Will the book impart a pleasure in the very reading? This test alone is not reliable; for till our taste is formed, the trouble may not be in it but in ourselves. VI. Has it been superseded by a later book, or has its truth passed into the every-day life of the race? If so, I do not need to read it. Other things equal, the authors nearest to us in time and space have the greatest claims on our attention. Especially is this true in science, in which each succeeding great book sucks the life out of all its predecessors. In poetry there is a principle that operates in the opposite direction; for what comes last is often but an imitation, that lacks the fire and force of the original. Nature is best painted, not from books, but from her own sweet face. VII. What is the relation of the book to the completeness of my development? Will it fill a gap in the walls of my building? Other things equal, I had better read about something I know nothing of than about something I am familiar with; for the aim is to get a picture of the universe in my brain, and a full development of my whole nature. It is a good plan to read everything of something and something of everything. A too general reader seems vague and hazy, as if he were fed on fog; and a too special reader is narrow and hard, as if fed on needles. VIII. Is the matter inviting my attention of permanent value? The profits of reading what is merely of the moment are not so great as those accruing from the reading of literature that is of all time. To hear the gossip of the street is not as valuable as to hear the lectures of Joseph Cook, or the sermons of Beecher and Brooks. On this principle, most of our time should be spent on classics, and very little upon transient matter. There is a vast amount of energy wasted in this country in the reading of newspapers and periodicals. The newspaper is a wonderful thing. It brings the whole huge earth to me in a little brown wrapper every morning. The editor is a sort of travelling stage-manager, who sets up his booth on my desk every day, bringing with him the greatest performers from all the countries of the world, to play their parts before my eyes. Yonder is an immense mass-meeting; and that mite, brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner, is the great Mr. So-and-So, explaining his position amid the tumultuous explosions of an appreciative multitude. That puffet of smoke and dust to the right is a revolution. There in the shadow of the wood comes an old man who lays down a scythe and glass while he shifts the scenes, and we see a bony hand reaching out to snatch back a player in the midst of his part, and even trying to clutch the showman himself. For three dollars a year I can buy a season ticket to this great Globe theatre, for which God writes the dramas, whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.[1] But theatre-going, if kept up continuously, is very enervating. 'T is better far to read the hand-bills and placards at the door, and only when the play is great go in. Glance at the head-lines of the paper always; read the mighty pages seldom. The editors could save the nation millions of rich hours by a daily column of _brief but complete_ statements of the paper's contents, instead of those flaring head-lines that allure but do not satisfy, and only lead us on to read that Mr. Windbag nominated Mr. Darkhorse amid great applause, and that Mr. Darkhorse accepted in a three-column speech skilfully constructed so as to commit himself to nothing; or that Mr. Bondholder's daughter was married, and that Mrs. So-and-So wore cream satin and point lace, with roses, etc. [1] Adapted from Lowell. =Intrinsic Merit=.--It must be noted that the tests of intrinsic merit are not precisely the same as the tests for the choice of books. The latter include the former and more. Intrinsic merit depends on the character impressed upon the book by its subject-matter and the author; but in determining the claims of a book upon the attention of the ordinary English reader, it is necessary not only to look at the book itself, but also to consider the needs and abilities of the reader. One may not be able to read the book that is intrinsically the best, because of the want of time or lack of sufficient mental development. Green's "Short History of England" and Dickens' "Child's History of England" may not be the greatest works in their department, but they may have the _greatest claims on the attention_ of one whose time or ability is limited. A chief need of every one is to know what others are thinking and feeling. To open up avenues of communication between mind and mind is one of the great objects of reading. Now it often happens that a book of no very high merit artistically considered--a book that can never take rank as a classic--becomes very famous, and is for a time the subject of much comment and conversation. In such cases all who would remain in thorough sympathy with their fellows must give the book at least a hasty reading, or in some way gain a knowledge of its contents. Intrinsically "Robert Elsmere" and "Looking Backward" may not be worthy of high rank (though I am by no means so sure of this as many of the critics seem to be); but their fame, joined as it is with high motive, entitles them to a reading. It is always a good plan, however, to endeavor to ascertain the absolute or intrinsic merit of a book first, and afterward arrive at the relative value or claim upon the attention by making the correction required by the time and place, later publications in the same department, the peculiar needs and abilities of readers, etc. In testing intrinsic worth we must consider-- Motive. Magnitude. Unity. Universality. Suggestiveness. Expression. =Motive=.--The purpose of the author and the emotional character of the subject matter are of great importance. A noble subject nobly handled begets nobility in the reader, and a spirit of meanness brought into a book by its subject or author also impresses itself upon those who come in contact with it. Kind, loving books make the world more tender-hearted; coarse and lustful books degrade mankind. The nobility of the sentiment in and underlying a work is therefore a test of prime importance. Whittier's "Voices of Freedom," Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," Warner's "A-Hunting of the Deer," Shakspeare's "Coriolanus," Macaulay's "Horatius" and "Virginia," Æschylus' "Prometheus," Dickens' "Christmas Carol," Sewell's "Black Beauty," Chaucer's "Griselda," Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch," Arnold's "Forsaken Merman," and "The Light of Asia," are fine examples of high motive. =Magnitude=.--The grander the subject, the deeper the impression upon us. In reading a book like "The Light of Asia," that reveals the heart of a great religion, or Guizot's "Civilization in Europe," that deals with the life of a continent, or Darwin's "Origin of Species," or Spencer's "Nebular Hypothesis," that grapples with problems as wide as the world and as deep as the starry spaces,--in reading such books we receive into ourselves a larger part of the universe than when we devote ourselves to the history of the town we live in, or the account of the latest game of base ball. =Unity=.--A book, picture, statue, play, or oratorio is an artistic unity when no part of it could be removed without injury to the whole effect. True art masses many forces to a single central purpose. The more complex a book is in its substance (not its expression),--that is to say, the greater the variety of thoughts and feelings compressed within its lids,--the higher it will rank, if the parts are good in themselves and are so related as to produce one tremendous effect. But no intrusion of anything not essentially related to the supreme purpose can be tolerated. A good book is like a soldier who will not burden himself with anything that will not increase his fighting power, because, if he did, its weight would _diminish_ his fighting force. In the same way, if a book contains unnecessary matter, a portion of the attention that should be concentrated upon the real purpose of the volume, is absorbed by the superfluous pages, rendering the effect less powerful than it would otherwise be. Most of the examples of high motive named above, would be in place here, especially,-- Prometheus. The Forsaken Merman. The Light of Asia. Other fine specimens of unity are,-- Holmes's "Nautilus." Hood's "Bridge of Sighs." Gray's "Elegy." Hunt's "Abou Ben Adhem." Longfellow's "Psalm of Life." Whittier's "Barefoot Boy." Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark." Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." Byron's "Eve of Waterloo." Bryant's "Thanatopsis." Reed's "Drifting." Drake's "Culprit Fay." Irving's "Art of Bookmaking," etc. (in "Sketch Book"). Rives' "Story of Arnon." Dante's "Divine Comedy." Schiller's "Veiled Statue of Truth." Goethe's "Erl King." Humor alone has a right to violate unity even apparently; and although wit and humor produce their effects by displaying incongruities, yet underlying all high art, in this department as in others, there is always a deep unity,--a truth revealed and enforced by the destruction of its contradictories accomplished by the sallies of wit and humor. =Universality=.--Other things equal, the more people interested in the subject the more important the book. A matter which affects a million people is of more consequence than one which affects only a single person. National affairs, and all matters of magnitude, of course possess this quality; but magnitude is not necessary to universality,--the thoughts, feelings, and actions of an unpretentious person in a little village may be types of what passes in the life of every human being, and by their representativeness attain a more universal interest for mankind than the business and politics of a state. The rules of tennis are not of so wide importance as an English grammar, nor is the latter so universal as Dante's "Inferno" or "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,"--these being among the books that in the highest degree possess the quality under discussion. Other fine examples are-- Goethe's "Faust." Shakespeare's Plays and Sonnets. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." Arnold's "Light of Asia." Bacon's and Emerson's Essays. "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Sewell's "Black Beauty." Eliot's "Romola." Curtis' "Prue and I." Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans." Tourgée's "Hot Plowshares." Irving's "Sketch Book." Plato, Spencer, etc. In fact, all books that express love, longing, admiration, tenderness, sorrow, laughter, joy, victory over nature or man, or any other thought or feeling common to men, have the attribute of universality in greater or less degree. =Suggestiveness=.--Every great work of art suggests far more than it expresses. This truth is illustrated by paintings like Bierstadt's "Yosemite" or his "Drummer Boy," Millet's "Angelus," or Turner's "Slave Ship." Statues like the "Greek Slave" or "The Forced Prayer;" speeches like those of Phillips, Fox, Clay, Pitt, Bright, Webster, and Brooks; songs like "Home, Sweet Home," "My Country," "Douglas," "Annie Laurie;" and books like Emerson's Essays. Æschylus' "Prometheus." Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister." Dante's "Divine Comedy." "Hamlet" and many other of Shakspeare's Plays. Curtis' "Prue and I." The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The Sermons of Phillips Brooks and Robertson. "My Summer in a Garden," by Warner; etc. A single sentence in Emerson often suggests a train of thought that would fill a volume; and a single inflection of Patti's voice in singing "Home, Sweet Home" will fill the heart to overflowing. =Expression=.--Like a musician, an author must study technique. A book may possess high motive, artistic unity, universality, suggestiveness, magnitude of thought, and yet be lacking in clearness, purity, music, smoothness, force, finish, tone-color, or even in proper grammatical construction. The style ought to be carefully adapted to the subject and to the readers likely to be interested in it. _Force_ and _beauty_ may be imparted to the subject by a good style. In poetry beauty is the supreme object, the projection of truth upon the _mind_ being subordinate. Poetry expresses the truths of the soul. In prose, on the other hand, truth is the main purpose, and beauty is used as a helper. As a soldier studies his guns, and a dentist his tools, so a writer must study the laws of rhythm, accent, phrasing, alliteration, phonetic syzygy, run-on and double-ending lines, rhyme, and, last but not least, the melodies of common speech. The first three and the last are the most important, and should be thoroughly studied in Shakspeare, Addison, Irving, and other masters of style by every one who wishes to write or to judge the work of others. Except as to rhyme, the arts of writing prose and poetry are substantially the same. Theoretically there is a fundamental difference in respect to rhythm,--that of a poem being limited to the repetition of some chosen type, that of prose being unlimited. A little study makes it clear, however, that the highest poetry, as that of Shakspeare's later plays, crowds the type with the forms of common speech; while the highest efforts of prose, as that of Addison, Irving, Phillips, Ingersoll's oration over his dead brother, etc., display rhythms that approach the order and precision of poetry. In practice the best prose and the best poetry approach each other very closely, moving from different directions toward the same point. It is of great advantage to form the habit of noticing the _tunes_ of speech used by those around us; the study will soon become very pleasurable, and will be highly profitable by teaching the observer what mode of expression is appropriate to each variety of thought and feeling. There is a rhythm that of itself produces a comic effect, no matter how sober the words may be; and it is the same that we find in "Pinafore," in the "Mariner's Duet" in the opera of "Paul Jones," and in the minstrel dance. For fifteen centuries all the great battle-songs have been written in the same rhythm; they fall into it naturally, because it expresses the movement of mighty conflict. See Lanier's "Science of English Verse," pages 151 _et seq._, 231 _et seq._ This is the best book upon technique; but Spencer's Essay on the Philosophy of Style, and Poe's Essay on his composition of "The Raven" should not be overlooked. Franklin and many others have discovered the laws of style simply by careful study of the "Spectator." Of course it is not easy to decide the true rank of a book, even when we have tested it in respect to all the elements we have named. One book may be superior in expression, another in suggestiveness, and so on. Then we have to take note of the relative importance of these various elements of greatness. A little superiority in motive or suggestiveness is worth far more than the same degree of superiority as to unity or magnitude. A book filled with noble sentiment, though lacking unity, should rank far above "Don Juan," or any other volume that expresses the ignoble part of human nature, however perfect the work may be from an artistic point of view. Having now examined the tests of intrinsic merit, let me revert for a moment to my remark, a few pages back, to the effect that "Looking Backward" and "Robert Elsmere" deserve a high rank. They are books of _lofty aim_, great magnitude of subject and thought, fine unity, _wide universality_, _exhaustless suggestiveness_, and more than ordinary power of expression. Doubtless they are not _absolute_ classics,--not books of all time,--for their subjects are transitional, not eternal. They deal with _doubts_, religious and industrial; when these have passed away, the mission of the books will be fulfilled, and their importance will be less. But they are _relative_ classics,--books that are of great value to their age, and will be great as long as their subjects are prominent. SUPREME BOOKS IN THE LITERATURES OF ENGLAND, AMERICA, GREECE, ROME, ITALY, FRANCE, SPAIN, GERMANY, PERSIA, PORTUGAL, DENMARK, RUSSIA. PERIODS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The highest summit of our literature--and indeed of the literature of the world--is Shakspeare. He brings us life in the greatest force and volume, of the highest quality, and clothed in the richest beauty. His age, which was practically identical with the reign of Elizabeth, is the golden age of English letters; and taking it for a basis of division, we have the Pre-Shakspearian Age from 600 to 1559, the Shakspearian Age from 1559 to 1620, and the Post-Shakspearian Age from 1620 to the present. =The first age= is divided into three periods. _First_, the Early Period, from 600 to the Norman Conquest in 1066, which holds the names of Beowulf,[2] Cædmon,[3] Bæda,[4] Cynewulf, and Ælfred, the great king who did so much for the learning of his country, bringing many great scholars into England from all over the world, and himself writing the best prose that had been produced in English, and changing the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"--till his time a mere record of noble births and deaths--into a valuable periodical, the progenitor of the vast horde that threatens to expel the classics in our day. The literature of this period has little claim upon us except on the ground of breadth. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and the poems of _Beowulf_, _Cædmon_, and _Cynewulf_, should be glanced at to see what sort of people our ancestors were. [2] An epic poem, full of the life, in peace and war, of our Saxon fathers before they came to England. [3] The writer of a paraphrase on the Bible; a feeble Milton. [4] A very learned man, who gathered many scholars about him, and who finished translating the Gospel of John on his death-bed and with his latest breath. _Second_, the Period of Chaucer, from 1066 to the death of Chaucer in 1400. The great books of this period were _Mandeville's Travels_, Langland's "Piers the Ploughman." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible (these two books, with Wycliffe's tracts, went all over England among the common people, rousing them against the Catholic Church, and starting the reformation that afterward grew into Puritanism, and gained control of the nation under Cromwell), Gower's Poems, and _Chaucer's Canterbury Tales_. Those in italics are the only books that claim our reading. Mandeville travelled thirty years, and then wrote all he saw and all he heard from the mouth of rumor. Chaucer is half French and two-thirds Italian. He drank in the spirit of the Golden Age of Italy, which was in the early part of his own century. Probably he met Petrarch and Boccaccio, and certainly he drew largely from their works as well as from Dante's, and he dug into poor Gower as into a stone quarry. He is still our best story-teller in verse, and one of our most musical poets; and every one should know something of this "morning star of English poetry," by far the greatest light before the Elizabethan age, and still easily among the first five or six of our poets. _Third_, the Later Period, from 1400 to 1559, in which _Malory's Morte D'Arthur_, containing fragments of the stories about King Arthur and the knights of his round table, which like a bed-rock crop out so often in English Literature, should be read while reading Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," which is based upon Malory; and _Sir Thomas More's Utopia_ also claims some attention on the plea of breadth, as it is the work of a great mind, thoroughly and practically versed in government, and sets forth his idea of a perfect commonwealth. In this age of nine and a half centuries there were, then, ten noteworthy books and one great book; eight only of the eleven, however, have any claim upon our attention, the last three being all that are entitled to more than a rapid reading by the general student; and only Chaucer for continuous companionship can rank high, and even he cannot be put on the first shelf. * * * * * =In the Shakspearian Age= the great books were (1) _Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster_, which was a fine argument for kindness in teaching and nobility in the teacher, but has been superseded by Spencer's "Education." (2) _Sackville's Induction_ to a series of political tragedies, called "A Mirror for Magistrates." The poet goes down into hell like Dante, and meets Remorse, Famine, War, Misery, Care, Sleep, Death, etc., and talks with noted Englishmen who had fallen. This "Mirror" was of great fame and influence in its day; and the "Induction," though far inferior to both Chaucer and Spenser, is yet the best poetic work done in the time between those masters. (3) _John Lyly's Euphues_, a book that expressed the thought of Ascham's "Schoolmaster" in a style peculiar for its puns, antitheses, and floweriness,--a style which made a witty handling of language the chief aim of writing. Lyly was a master of the art, and the ladies of the court committed his sentences in great numbers, that they might shine in society. The book has given a word to the language; that affected word-placing style is known as _euphuistic_. The book has no claims upon our reading. (4) _Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia_, a romance in the same conceited style as the "Euphues," and only valuable as a mine for poetic images. (5) _Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity_, which was a defence of the church system against the Puritans. The latter said that no such system of church government could be found in the Bible, and therefore should not exist. Hooker answered that Nature was a revelation from God as well as the Bible; and if in Nature and society there were good reasons for the existence of an institution, that was enough. The book is not of importance to the general reader to-day, for the truth of its principles is universally admitted. (6) _The Plays of Marlowe_, a very powerful but gross writer. His "Dr. Faustus" may very properly receive attention, but only after the best plays of Shakspeare, Jonson, Calderon, Racine, Molière, Corneille, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes have been carefully read. (7) _The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher_, which are filled with beauty and imagination, mingled with the immodesty and vulgarity that were natural to this age. The remark just made about Marlowe applies here. (8) _Fox's Book of Martyrs_, which for the sake of breadth should be glanced at by every one. The marvellous heroism and devotion to faith on one side, and cruelty on the other that come to us through the pages of this history, open a new world to the modern mind. (9) _Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene_, which combines the poetry of a Homer with the allegory of a Bunyan. It presents moral truth under vast and beautiful imagery. In English poetry it claims our attention next to Shakspeare and Milton. (10) _Ben Jonson's Plays_, which stand next to those of Shakspeare in English drama. (11) _The Plays of Shakspeare_, which need no comment, as they have already been placed at the summit of all literature; and (12) _Bacon's Works_, including the _Novum Organum_, the _New Atlantis_, and the _Essays_, the first of which, though one of the greatest books of the world, setting forth the true methods of arriving at truth by experiment and observation and the collation of facts, we do not need to read, because the substance of it may be found in better form in Mill's Logic. The "Essays," however, are world-famed for their condensed wit and wisdom on topics of never-dying interest, and stand among the very best books on the upper shelf. The "New Atlantis" also should be read for breadth, with More's "Utopia;" the subject being the same, namely, an ideal commonwealth. From this sixty-one years of prolific writing, in which no less than two hundred and thirty authors gathered their poems together and published them, to say nothing of all the scattered writings, twelve volumes have come down to us with a large measure of fame. Only the last seven call for our reading; but two of them, Shakspeare and Bacon, are among the very most important books on the first shelf of the world's library. * * * * * =The Post-Shakspearian Age= is divided into four times, or periods,--the Time of Milton; the Time of Dryden; the Time of Pope; and the Time of the Novelists, Historians, and Scientists. THE TIME OF MILTON, from 1620 to 1674, was contemporary with the Golden Age of literature in France. The great English books of this time were (1) _Chapman's Translation of Homer_, which is superseded by Pope's. (2) _Hobbes's Leviathan_, a discourse on government. Hobbes taught that government exists for the people, and rests not on the divine right of kings, but on a compact or agreement of all the citizens to give up a portion of their liberties in order by social co-operation the better to secure the remainder. He is one of our greatest philosophers; but the general reader will find the substance of Hobbes's whole philosophy better put in Locke, Mill, and Herbert Spencer. (3) _Walton's Complete Angler_, the work of a retired merchant who combined a love of fishing with a poetic perception of the beauties of Nature. It will repay a glance. (4) _S. Butler's Hudibras_, a keen satire on the Puritans who went too far in their effort to compel all men to conform their lives to the Puritan standard of abstinence from worldly pleasures. In spite of its vulgarity, the book stands very high in the literature of humor. (5) _George Herbert's Poems_, many of which are as sweet and holy as a flower upon a grave, and are beloved by all spiritually minded people. (6) _Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying_, a book that in the strength of its claim upon us must rank close after the Bible, Shakspeare, and the Science of Physiology and Hygiene. (7) _Milton's Poems_, of which the "Paradise Lost" and "Comus," for their sublimity and beauty, rank next after Shakspeare in English poetry. Æschylus, Dante, and Milton are the three sublimest souls in history. From this time of fifty-four years seven great books have come to us, Milton and Taylor being among our most precious possessions. THE TIME OF DRYDEN.--From the death of Milton, in 1674, to the death of Dryden, in 1700, the latter held undisputed kingship in the realm of letters. This and the succeeding time of Pope were marked by the development of a classic style and a fine literary and critical taste, but were lacking in great creative power. The great books were (1) _Newton's Principia_, the highest summit in the region of astronomy, unless the "Mécanique Céleste" of Laplace must be excepted. Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation, and his theory of fluxions place him at the head of the mathematical thinkers of the world. His books, however, need not be read by the general student, for in these sciences the later books are better. (2) _Locke's Works_ upon Government and the Understanding are among the best in the world, but their results will all be found in the later works of Spencer, Mill, and Bryce; and the only part of the writings of Locke that claims our reading to-day is the little book upon the _Conduct of the Understanding_, which tells us how to watch the processes of our thought, to keep clear of prejudice, careless observation, etc., and should be in the hands of every one who ever presumes to do any thinking. (3) _Dryden's Translation of Virgil_ is the best we have, and contains the finest writing of our great John. (4) _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_ picturing in magnificent allegory the journey of a Christian soul toward heaven, and his "Holy War," telling of the conflict between good and evil, and the devil's efforts to capture and hold the town of "Mansoul," should be among the first books we read. The "Progress" holds a place in the affections of all English-speaking peoples second only to the Bible. (5) _Sam Pepys's Diary_ is the greatest book of its kind in the world, and is much read for its vividness and interesting detail. It has, however, no claims to be read until all the books on the first shelf of Table I. have been mastered, and a large portion of the second shelf pretty thoroughly looked into. Of the five great works of these twenty-six years, Bunyan and Locke are far the most important for us. THE TIME OF POPE, or the _Time of the Essayists and Satirists_, covers a period of forty years, from 1700 to 1740, during which the great translator of Homer held the sceptre of literary power by unanimous assent. The great works of this time were (1) _The Essays of Addison and Steele_ in the "Tatler" and "Spectator," which, though of great merit, must rank below those of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne. (2) _Defoe's Robinson Crusoe_, the boy's own book. (3) _Swift's Satires_,--the "Tale of a Tub," "Gulliver's Travels," and the "Battle of the Books,"--all full of the strongest mixture of grossness, fierceness, and intense wit that the world has seen. The "Battle of the Books" may be read with great advantage by the general reader as well as by the student of humor. (4) _Berkeley's Human Knowledge_, exceedingly interesting for the keenness of its confutation of any knowledge of the existence of matter. (5) _Pope's Poems_--the "Rape of the Lock" (which means the theft of a lock of hair), the "Essay on Man," and his translation of Homer--must form a part of every wide course of reading. Their mechanical execution, especially, is of the very finest. (6) _Thomson's Seasons_, a beautiful poem of the second class. (7) _Butler's Analogy_, chiefly noted for its proof of the existence of God from the fact that there is evidence of design in Nature. Of these writers, Pope and Defoe are far the most important for us. We have, down to this time of 1740, out of a literature covering eleven and a half centuries, recommended to the chief attention of the reader ten great authors,--Chaucer and Spenser, Shakspeare and Bacon, Milton and Taylor, Bunyan and Locke, Pope and Defoe. We now come to the TIME OF NOVELISTS, HISTORIANS, AND SCIENTISTS, a period in the history of our literature that is so prolific of great writers in all the vastly multiplied departments of thought, that it is no longer possible to particularize in the manner we have done in regard to the preceding ages. A sufficient illustration has been given of the methods of judging books and the results of their application. With the ample materials of Table I. before him, the reader must now be left to make his own judgments in regard to the relative merits of the books of the modern period. We shall confine our remarks on this last time of English literature to the recommendation of ten great authors to match the ten great names of former times. In history, we shall name _Parkman_, the greatest of American historians; in philosophy, _Herbert Spencer_, the greatest name in the whole list of philosophers; in poetry, _Byron_ and _Tennyson_, neither of them equal to Shakspeare and Milton, but standing in the next file behind them; in fiction, _Scott_, _Eliot_, and _Dickens_; in poetic humor, _Lowell_, the greatest of all names in this department; and in general literature, _Carlyle_ and _Ruskin_, two of the purest, wisest, and most forcible writers of all the past, and, curiously enough, both of them very eccentric and very wordy,--a sort of English double star, which will be counted in this list as a unit, in order to crowd in _Emerson_, who belongs in this great company, and is not by any means the least worthy member of it. One more writer there is in this time greater than any we have named, except Spencer and Scott; namely, the author of "The Origin of Species." _Darwin_ stands by the side of Newton in the history of scientific thought; but, like his great compeer, the essence of his book has come to be a part of modern thought that floats in the air we breathe; and so his claims to being read are less than those of authors who cannot be called so great when speaking of intrinsic merit. Having introduced the greatest ten of old, and ten that may be deemed the greatest of the new, in English letters, we shall pass to take a bird's-eye view of what is best in Greece and Rome, France, Italy, and Spain, and say a word of Persia, Germany, and Portugal. THE GREATEST NAMES OF OTHER LITERATURES. =Greece=, in her thirteen centuries of almost continuous literary productiveness from Homer to Longus, gave the world its greatest epic poet, _Homer_; the finest of lyric poets, _Pindar_; the prince of orators, _Demosthenes_; aside from our own Bacon and Spencer, the greatest philosophers of all the ages, _Plato_ and _Aristotle_; the most noted of fabulists, _Æsop_; the most powerful writer of comedy, _Aristophanes_ (Molière, however, is much to be preferred for modern reading, because of his fuller applicability to our life); and the three greatest writers of pure tragedy, _Æschylus_, _Sophocles_, and _Euripides_,--the first remarkable for his gloomy grandeur and gigantic, dark, and terrible sublimity; the second for his sweet majesty and pathos; and third for the power with which he paints men as they are in real life. Euripides was a great favorite with Milton and Fox. To one who is not acquainted with these ten great Greeks, much of the sweetest and grandest of life remains untasted and unknown. Begin with Homer, Plato's "Phædo" and "Republic," Æschylus' "Prometheus Bound," Sophocles' "OEdipus," and Demosthenes' "On the Crown." A liberal reading must also include the Greek historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. =Rome= taught the world the art of war, but was herself a pupil in the halls of Grecian letters. Only three writers--_Plutarch_, _Marcus Aurelius_ (who both wrote in Greek), and _Epictetus_--can claim our attention in anything like an equal degree with the authors of Athens named just above. Its literature as a whole is on a far lower plane than that of Greece or England. A liberal education must include Virgil's "Æneid," the national epic of Rome (which, however, must take its place in our lives and hearts far after Homer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Goethe), for its elegance and imagination; Horace, for his wit, grace, sense, and inimitable witchery of phrase; Lucretius, for his depth of meditation; Tacitus, for knowledge of our ancestors; Ovid and Catullus, for their beauty of expression; Juvenal, for the keenness of his satire; and Plautus and Terence, for their insight into the characters of men. But these books should wait until at least the three first named in this paragraph, with the ten Greek and twenty English writers spoken of in the preceding paragraphs, have come to be familiar friends. =Italy=, in Chaucer's century, produced a noble literature. _Dante_ is the Shakspeare of the Latin races. He stands among the first creators of sublimity. Æschylus and Milton only can claim a place beside him. _Petrarch_ takes lofty rank as a lyric poet, breathing the heart of love. Boccaccio may be put with Chaucer. Ariosto and Tasso wrote the finest epics of Italian poetry. A liberal education must neglect no one of these. Every life should hold communion with the soul of Dante, and get a taste at least of Petrarch. =France= has a glorious literature; in science, the best in the world. In history, _Guizot_; in jurisprudence, in its widest sense, _Montesquieu_; and in picturing the literary history of a nation, _Taine_, stand unrivalled anywhere. Among essayists, _Montaigne_; among writers of fiction, _Le Sage_, _Victor Hugo_, and _Balzac_; among the dramatists, _Corneille_ the grand, _Racine_ the graceful and tender, and _Molière_ the creator of modern comedy; and among fabulists, the inimitable poet of fable, _La Fontaine_, demand a share of our time with the best. Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Comte belong in every liberal scheme of culture and to every student of philosophy. =Spain= gives us two most glorious names, _Cervantes_ and _Pedro Calderon de la Barca_,--the former one of the world's very greatest humorists, the brother spirit of Lowell; the latter, a princely dramatist, the brother of Shakspeare. =Germany= boasts one summit on which the shadow of no other falls. _Goethe's_ "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" and his minor poems cannot be neglected if we want the best the world affords; _Schiller_, too, and _Humboldt_, _Kant_ and _Heine_, _Helmholtz_ and _Haeckel_ must be read. In science and history, the list of German greatness is a very long and bright one. =Persia= calls us to read her magnificent astronomer-poet, _Omar Khayyám_; her splendid epic, the _Shah Nameh of Firdusi_, the story of whose labors, successes, and misfortunes is one of the most interesting passages in the history of poetry; and taste at least of her extravagant singer of the troubles and ecstasies of love, Hafiz. =Portugal= has given us _Camoens_, with his great poem the "Luciad." =Denmark= brings us her charming _Andersen_; and =Russia= comes to us with her Byronic Pushkin and her Schiller-hearted poet, Lermontoff, at least for a glance. We have thus named as the chiefs, twenty authors in English, ten in Greek, three of Rome, two of Italy, ten of France, two of Spain, seven of Germany, three of Persia, one of Portugal, one of Denmark, and two of Russia,--sixty-one in all,--which, if read in the manner indicated, will impart a pretty thorough knowledge of the literary treasures of the world. THE FOUNTAINS OF NATIONAL LITERATURES. In the early history of every great people there has grown up a body of songs celebrating the heroism of their valiant warriors and the charms of their beautiful women. These have, generation after generation, been passed by word of mouth from one group of singers to their successors,--by each new set of artists somewhat polished and improved,--until they come to us as Homer's Iliad, the "Nibelungenlied" of the Germans, the "Chronicle of the Cid" of the Spanish, the "Chansons de Gestes," the "Romans," and the "Fabliaux" of the French, and "Beowulf" and the "Morte D'Arthur" of English literature. These great poems are the sources of a vast portion of what is best in subsequent art. From them Virgil, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais, Molière, Shakspeare, Calderon, and a host of others have drawn their inspiration. Malory has wrought the Arthurian songs into a mould of the purest English. The closing books, in their quiet pathos and reserved strength,--in their melody, winged words, and inimitable turns of phrase,--rank with the best poetry of Europe. Southey called the "Cid" the finest poem in the Spanish language, and Prescott said it was "the most remarkable performance of the Middle Ages." This may be going rather too far; but it certainly stands in the very front rank of national poems. It has been translated by Lockhart in verse, by Southey in prose, and there is a splendid fragment by Frere. Of the French early epics, the "Chanson de Roland" and the "Roman du Renart" are the best. The "Nibelungenlied" is the embodiment of the wild and tragic,--the highest note of the barbaric drama of the North. That last terrific scene in the Hall of Etzel will rest forever in the memory of every reader of the book. Carlyle has given a sketch of the poem in his "Miscellanies," vol. iii., and there exists a complete but prolix and altogether miserable translation of the great epic, but we sadly need a condensed version of the myth of "Siegfried" the brave, and "Chriemhild" the beautiful, in the stirring prose of Malory or Southey. No reader will regret a perusal of these songs of the people; it is a journey to the head-waters of the literary Nile. The reader of this little book we hope has gained an inspiration--if it were not his before--that, with a strong and steady step, will lead him into all the paths of beauty and of truth. Each glorious emotion and each glowing thought that comes to us, becomes a centre of new growth. Each wave of pathos, humor, or sublimity that pulses through the heart or passes to the brain, sets up vibrations that will never die, but beautify the hours and years that follow to the end of life. These waves that pass into the soul do not conceal their music in the heart, but echo back upon the world in waves of kindred power; and these return forever from the world into the heart that gave them forth. It is as on the evening river, where the boatman bends his homeward oar. Each lusty call that leaves his lips, or song, or bugle blast that slips the tensioned bars, and wings the breeze, to teach its rhythm to the trees that crown the rocky twilight steep o'er which the lengthening shadows creep, returns and enters, softened, sweet, and clear, the waiting portal of the sender's ear. The man who fills his being with the noblest books, and pours their beauty out in word and deed, is like the merry singers on the placid moonlit lake. Backward the ripples o'er the silver sheet come on the echoes' winged feet; the hills and valleys all around gather the gentle shower of sound, and pour the stream upon the boat in which the happy singers float, chanting the hymns they loved of yore, shipping the glistening wave-washed oar, to hear reflected from the shore their every charmèd note. Oh, loosen from _thy_ lip, my friend, no tone thine ear would with remorseful sorrow hear, hurling it back from far and near, the listening landscape oft repeat! Rather a melody send to greet the mountains beyond the silver sheet. Life's the soul's song; sing sweetly, then, that when the silence comes again, and ere it comes, from every glen the echoes shall be sweet. APPENDIX. THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT BOOKS AND READING. APPENDIX I. THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT BOOKS AND READING. =Addison=. "Books are the legacies that genius leaves to mankind." "Knowledge of books is a torch in the hands of one who is willing and able to show those who are bewildered the way which leads to prosperity and welfare." =Alcott, A. B=. "My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs, and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages." "Next to a friend's discourse, no morsel is more delicious than a ripe book,--a book whose flavor is as refreshing at the thousandth tasting as at the first." "Next to a personal introduction, a list of one's favorite authors were the best admittance to his character and manners." "A good book perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers." =Atkinson, W. P=. "Who can over-estimate the value of good books,--those ships of thought, as Bacon so finely calls them, voyaging through the sea of time, and carrying their precious freight so safely from generation to generation?" =Arnott, Dr=. "Books,--the miracle of all possessions, more wonderful than the wishing-cap of the Arabian tales; for they transport instantly, not only to all places, but to all times." =Bacon=. "Studies serve for pastimes, for ornaments, for abilities. Their chief use for pastimes is in privateness and retiring; for ornaments, in discourse; and for ability, in judgment.... To spend too much time in them is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are themselves perfected by experience. Crafty men contemn them, wise men use them, simple men admire them; for they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider.... Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man. Therefore, if a man write little, he had need of a great memory; if he confer little, he hath need of a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not know. Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematicians subtile, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend." =Barrow=. "He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter." =Bartholin=. "Without books God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in Cimmerian darkness." =Beaconsfield, Lord=. "The idea that human happiness is dependent on the cultivation of the mind and on the discovery of truth is, next to the conviction of our immortality, the idea the most full of consolation to man; for the cultivation of the mind has no limits, and truth is the only thing that is eternal." "Knowledge is like the mystic ladder in the patriarch's dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth, its crest is lost in the shadowy splendor of the empyrean; while the great authors, who for traditionary ages have held the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are the angels ascending and descending the sacred scale, and maintaining, as it were, the communication between man and heaven." =Beecher, Henry Ward=. "A book is good company. It seems to enter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transformation there until the outward book is but a body, and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory like a spirit." "Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A home without books is like a room without windows...." =Bright, John=. "What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past time." =Brooks, Phillips=. "Is it not a new England for a child to be born in since Shakspeare gathered up the centuries and told the story of humanity up to his time? Will not Carlyle and Tennyson make the man who begins to live from them the 'heir of all ages' which have distilled their richness into the books of the sage and the singer of the nineteenth century?" =Browning, Elizabeth Barrett=. "When we gloriously forget ourselves and plunge Soul forward, headlong into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book." =Bruyère=. "When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by; it is good, and made by a good workman." =Bury, Richard de=. "You, O Books! are golden urns in which manna is laid up; rocks flowing with honey, or rather, indeed, honeycombs; udders most copiously yielding the milk of life, store-rooms ever full; the four-streamed river of Paradise, where the human mind is fed, and the arid intellect moistened and watered; fruitful olives, vines of Engaddi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; burning lamps to be ever held in the hand." "In books we find the dead, as it were, living.... The truth written in a book ... enters the chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the couch of memory, and there congenerates the eternal truth of the mind." =Carlyle=. "Evermore is _Wisdom_ the highest of conquests to every son of Adam,--nay, in a large sense, the one conquest; and the precept to every one of us is ever, 'Above all thy gettings get understanding.'" "Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books." "All that mankind has done, thought, gained, and been, is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books." =Channing, Dr. Wm. E=. "God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am; no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling: if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof,--if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise; and Shakspeare, to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart; and Franklin, to enrich me with his practical wisdom,--I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live." =Chaucer=. "And as for me, though that I know but lyte[5] On bokès for to rede I me delyte, And to them give I (feyth[6]) and ful credence, And in myn herte have them in reverence So hertily that there is pastime noon,[7] That from my bokès maketh me to goon But yt be seldom on the holy day, Save, certeynly, whan that the monethe of May Is comen, and I here the foulès synge, And that the flourès gynnen for to sprynge; Farewell my boke, and my devocioun." [5] Little. [6] Faith. [7] None. =Cicero=. "Studies are the aliment of youth, the comfort of old age, an adornment of prosperity, a refuge and a solace in adversity, and a delight in our home." =Clarke, James Freeman=. "When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing,--how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, give an ideal life to those whose homes are hard and cold, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from Heaven,--I give eternal blessings for this gift, and pray that we may use it aright, and abuse it not." =Coleridge=. "Some readers are like the hour-glass. Their reading is as the sand; it runs in and runs out, but leaves not a vestige behind. Some, like a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in the same state, only a little dirtier. Some, like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting away all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems." =Collyer, Robert=. "Do you want to know how I manage to talk to you in this simple Saxon? I will tell you. I read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith when I was a boy, morning, noon, and night; all the rest was task work. These were my delight, with the stories in the Bible, and with Shakspeare, when at last the mighty master came within our doors. These were like a well of pure water; and this is the first step I seem to have taken of my own free will toward the pulpit. From the days when we used to spell out Crusoe and old Bunyan, there had grown up in me a devouring hunger to read books.... I could not go home for the Christmas of 1839, and was feeling very sad about it all, for I was only a boy; and sitting by the fire, an old farmer came in and said, 'I notice thou's fond o' reading, so I brought thee summat to read.' It was Irving's 'Sketch Book.' I had never heard of the work. I went at it, and was 'as them that dream.' No such delight had touched me since the old days of Crusoe." =Curtis, G. W=. "Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated wisdom." =De Quincey=. "Every one owes to the impassioned books he has read many a thousand more of emotions than he can consciously trace back to them.... A great scholar depends not simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination,--bringing together from the four winds, like the Angel of the Resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones into the unity of breathing life." =Diodorus=. "Books are the medicine of the mind." =Emerson=. "The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader." =Erasmus=. "A little before you go to sleep read something that is exquisite and worth remembering, and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep; and when you awake in the morning call yourself to an account for it." =Farrar, Canon=. "If all the books of the world were in a blaze, the first twelve which I should snatch out of the flames would be the Bible, the Imitation of Christ, Homer, Æschylus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth. Of living writers I would save, first, the works of Tennyson, Browning, and Ruskin." =Fénelon=. "If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all." =Freeman, E. A=. (the historian). "I feel myself quite unable to draw up a list (of the best books), as I could not trust my own judgment on any matters not bearing on my special studies, and I should be doubtless tempted to give too great prominence to them." =Fuller, Thomas=. "It is thought and digestion which make books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind." =Gibbon=. "A taste for books is the pleasure and glory of my life. I would not exchange it for the glory of the Indies." =Gladstone=. "When I was a boy I used to be fond of looking into a bookseller's shop; but there was nothing to be seen there that was accessible to the working-man of that day. Take a Shakspeare, for example. I remember very well that I gave £2 16_s._ 0_d._ for my first copy; but you can get any one of Shakspeare's Plays for seven cents. Those books are accessible now which were formerly quite inaccessible. We may be told that you want amusement, but that does not include improvement. There are a set of worthless books written now and at times which you should avoid, which profess to give amusement; but in reading the works of such authors as Shakspeare and Scott there is the greatest possible amusement in its best form. Do you suppose when you see men engaged in study that they dislike it? No!... I want you to understand that multitudes of books are constantly being prepared and placed within reach of the population at large, for the most part executed by writers of a high stamp, having subjects of the greatest interest, and which enable you, at a moderate price, not to get cheap literature which is secondary in its quality, but to go straight into the very heart,--if I may so say, into the sanctuary of the temple of literature,--and become acquainted with the greatest and best works that men of our country have produced." =Godwin, William=. "It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them." =Goldsmith=. "An author may be considered as a merciful substitute to the legislature. He acts not by punishing crimes, but by preventing them." =Hale, Sir Matthew=. "Read the Bible reverently and attentively, set your heart upon it, and lay it up in your memory, and make it the direction of your life; it will make you a wise and good man." =Hamerton, P. H=. "The art of reading is to skip judiciously." =Harrison, Frederic=. "The best authors are never dark horses. The world has long ago closed the great assize of letters, and judged the first places everywhere." "The reading of great books is usually an acquired faculty, not a natural gift. If you have not got the faculty, seek for it with all your might." "Of Walter Scott one need as little speak as of Shakspeare. He belongs to mankind,--to every age and race; and he certainly must be counted as in the first line of the great creative minds of the world. His unique glory is to have definitely succeeded in the ideal reproduction of historical types, so as to preserve at once beauty, life, and truth,--a task which neither Ariosto and Tasso, nor Corneille and Racine, nor Alfieri, nor Goethe, nor Schiller,--no, nor even Shakspeare himself, entirely achieved.... In brilliancy of conception, in wealth of character, in dramatic art, in glow and harmony of color, Scott put forth all the powers of a master poet.... The genius of Scott has raised up a school of historical romance; and though the best work of Chateaubriand, Manzoni, and Bulwer may take rank as true art, the endless crowd of inferior imitations are nothing but a weariness to the flesh.... Scott is a perfect library in himself.... The poetic beauty of Scott's creations is almost the least of his great qualities. It is the universality of his sympathy that is so truly great, the justice of his estimates, the insight into the spirit of each age, his intense absorption of self in the vast epic of human civilization." =Hazlitt, William=. "Books let us into the souls of men, and lay open to us the secrets of our own." =Heinsius=. "I no sooner come into the library but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the Mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all that know not this happiness." =Herbert, George=. "This _book of stars_ [the Bible] lights to eternal bliss." =Herschel, Sir J=. "Give a man this taste [for good books] and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,--with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages." =Hillard, George S=. "Here we have immortal flowers of poetry, wet with Castilian dew, and the golden fruit of Wisdom that had long ripened on the bough.... We should any of us esteem it a great privilege to pass an evening with Shakspeare or Bacon.... We may be sure that Shakspeare never out-talked his 'Hamlet,' nor Bacon his 'Essays.'... To the gentle hearted youth, far from his home, in the midst of a pitiless city, 'homeless among a thousand homes,' the approach of evening brings with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation. In this mood his best impulses become a snare to him; and he is led astray because he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. The hours from sunset to bedtime are his hours of peril. Let me say to such young men that books are the friends of the friendless, and that a library is the home of the homeless." =Holmes, O. W=. "Books are the 'negative' pictures of thought; and the more sensitive the mind that receives the images, the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced." =Houghton, Lord=. "It [a book] is a portion of the eternal mind, caught in its process through the world, stamped in an instant, and preserved for eternity." =Irving=. "The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity." =Johnson, Dr=. "No man should consider so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books, nor so meanly as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them." =Jonson, Ben=. "A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes." =King, Thomas Starr=. "By cultivating an interest in a few good books, which contain the result of the toil or the quintessence of the genius of some of the most gifted thinkers of the world, we need not live on the marsh and in the mists; the slopes and the summits invite us." =Kingsley, Charles=. "Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book!--a message to us from the dead, from human souls whom we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as to brothers." =Lamb, Charles=. "Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listens had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears." =Landor, Walter Savage=. "The writings of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander." =Langford=. "Strong as man and tender as woman, they welcome you in every mood, and never turn from you in distress." =Lowell=. "Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key that admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination, to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time?... One is sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or, still better, to choose some one great author, and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him." =Luther=. "To read many books produceth confusion, rather than learning, like as those who dwell everywhere are not anywhere at home." =Lyly, John=. "Far more seemly were it ... to have thy study full of books than thy purse full of money." =Lytton, Lord=. "Laws die, books never." "Beneath the rule of men entirely great The pen is mightier than the sword." "Ye ever-living and imperial Souls, Who rule us from the page in which ye breathe." "The Wise (Minstrel or Sage) _out_ of their books are clay; But _in_ their books, as from their graves, they rise, Angels--that, side by side, upon our way, Walk with and warn us!" "We call some books immortal! _Do they live?_ If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure. In Books the veriest wicked rest in peace,-- God wills that nothing evil should endure; The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, As the dust leaves the disembodied soul!" =Macaulay=. "A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers." =Milton=. "As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself,--kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond." =Montaigne=. "To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my books." "As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit with the pleasure, and from whence I learn how to marshal my opinions and qualities, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch and Seneca,--both of which have this great convenience suited to my humor, that the knowledge I seek is discoursed in loose pieces that do not engage me in any great trouble of reading long, of which I am impatient.... Plutarch is frank throughout. Seneca abounds with brisk touches and sallies. Plutarch, with things that heat and move you more; this contents and pays you better. As to Cicero, those of his works that are most useful to my design are they that treat of philosophy, especially moral; but boldly to confess the truth, his way of writing, and that of all other long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious." =Morley, John=. "The consolation of reading is not futile nor imaginary. It is no chimera of the recluse or the bookworm, but a potent reality. As a stimulus to flagging energies, as an inspirer of lofty aim, literature stands unrivalled." =Morris, William=. "The greater part of the Latins I should call _sham_ classics. I suppose that they have some good literary qualities; but I cannot help thinking that it is difficult to find out how much. I suspect superstition and authority have influenced our estimate of them till it has become a mere matter of convention. Of modern fiction, I should like to say here that I yield to no one, not even Ruskin, in my love and admiration for Scott; also that, to my mind, of the novelists of our generation, Dickens is immeasurably ahead." =Müller, Max=. "I know few books, if any, which I should call good from beginning to end. Take the greatest poet of antiquity, and if I am to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I must say that there are long passages, even in Homer, which seem to me extremely tedious." =Parker, Theodore=. "What a joy is there in a good book, writ by some great master of thought, who breaks into beauty, as in summer the meadow into grass and dandelions and violets, with geraniums and manifold sweetness.... The books which help you most are those which make you think most.... A great book ... is a ship of thought deep freighted with thought, with beauty too. It sails the ocean, driven by the winds of heaven, breaking the level sea of life into beauty where it goes, leaving behind it a train of sparkling loveliness, widening as the ship goes on. And what treasures it brings to every land, scattering the seeds of truth, justice, love, and piety, to bless the world in ages yet to come." =Peacham, Henry=. "To desire to have many books and never to use them, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping." =Petrarch=. "I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable to me; they are of all ages and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at my service; and I admit them to my company and dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my desires and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and upon their information I safely rely in all emergencies." =Phelps, E. J=. (United States Minister to the Court of St. James). "I cannot think the _finis et fructus_ of liberal reading is reached by him who has not obtained in the best writings of our English tongue the generous acquaintance that ripens into affection. If he must stint himself, let him save elsewhere." =Plato=. "Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires." =Plutarch=. "We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats,--not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest." =Potter, Dr=. "It is nearly an axiom that people will not be better than the books they read." =Raleigh, Walter=. "We may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's fore-passed miseries with our own like errors and ill-deservings." =Richardson, C. F=. "No book, indeed, is of universal value and appropriateness.... Here, as in every other question involved in the choice of books, the golden key to knowledge, a key that will only fit its own proper doors, is _purpose_." =Ruskin=. "All books are divisible into two classes,--the books of the hour and the books of all time." Books of the hour, though useful, are, "strictly speaking, not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print," and should not be allowed "to usurp the place of true books." "Of all the plagues that afflict mortality, the venom of a bad book to weak people, and the charms of a foolish one to simple people, are without question the deadliest; and they are so far from being redeemed by the too imperfect work of the best writers, that I never would wish to see a child taught to read at all, unless the other conditions of its education were alike gentle and judicious." Ruskin says a well-trained man should know the literature of his own country and half a dozen classics thoroughly; but unless he wishes to travel, the language and literature of modern Europe and of the East are unnecessary. To read fast any book worth reading is folly. Ruskin would not have us read Grote's "History of Greece," for any one could write it if "he had the vanity to waste his time;" "Confessions of Saint Augustine," for it is not good to think so much about ourselves; John Stuart Mill, for his day is over; Charles Kingsley, for his sentiment is false, his tragedy frightful. Hypatia is the most ghastly story in Christian tradition, and should forever have been left in silence; Darwin, for we should know what _we are_, not what _our embryo was_, or _our skeleton will be_; Gibbon, for we should study the growth and standing of things, not the Decline and Fall (moreover, he wrote the worst English ever written by an educated Englishmen); Voltaire, for his work is to good literature what nitric acid is to wine, and sulphuretted hydrogen to air. Ruskin also crosses out Marcus Aurelius, Confucius, Aristotle (except his "Politics"), Mahomet, Saint Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, Pascal, Spinoza, Butler, Keble, Lucretius, the Nibelungenlied, Malory's Morte D'Arthur, Firdusi, the Mahabharata, and Ramayana, the Sheking, Sophocles, and Euripides, Hume, Adam Smith, Locke, Descartes, Berkeley, Lewes, Southey, Longfellow, Swift, Macaulay, Emerson, Goethe, Thackeray, Kingsley, George Eliot, and Bulwer. His especial favorites are Scott, Carlyle, Plato, and Dickens. Æschylus, Taylor, Bunyan, Bacon, Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, Spenser, Wordsworth, Pope, Goldsmith, Defoe, Boswell, Burke, Addison, Montaigne, Molière, Sheridan, Æsop, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Horace, Cicero, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, and Tacitus, he condescends to admit as proper to be read. =Schopenhauer=. "Recollect that he who writes for fools finds an enormous audience." =Seneca=. "If you devote your time to study, you will avoid all the irksomeness of this life." "It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have." "Leisure without study is death, and the grave of a living man." =Shakspeare=. "A book! oh, rare one! be not, as in this fangled world, a garment nobler than it covers." "My library was dukedom large enough." =Sidney, Sir Philip=. "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done." =Smiles, Sam=. "Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book." =Smith, Alexander=. "We read books not so much for what they say as for what they suggest." =Socrates=. "Employ your time in improving yourselves by other men's documents; so shall you come easily by what others have labored hard to win." =Solomon=. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." =Spencer, Herbert=. "My reading has been much more in the direction of science than in the direction of general literature; and of such works in general literature as I have looked into, I know comparatively little, being an impatient reader, and usually soon satisfied." =Stanley, Henry M=. "I carried [across Africa] a great many books,--three loads, or about one hundred and eighty pounds' weight; but as my men lessened in numbers,--stricken by famine, fighting, and sickness,--one by one they were reluctantly thrown away, until finally, when less than three hundred miles from the Atlantic, I possessed only the Bible, Shakspeare, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Norie's Navigation, and the Nautical Almanac for 1877. Poor Shakspeare was afterwards burned by demand of the foolish people of Zinga. At Bonea, Carlyle and Norie and the Nautical Almanac were pitched away, and I had only the old Bible left." =Swinburne, A. C=. "It would be superfluous for any educated Englishman to say that he does not question the pre-eminence of such names as Bacon and Darwin." =Taylor, Bayard=. "Not many, but good books." =Thoreau=. "Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but half a dozen in any thousand." =Trollope, Anthony=. "The habit of reading is the only enjoyment I know in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade." =Waller, Sir William=. "In my study I am sure to converse with none but wise men; but abroad, it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools." =Whateley, Richard=. "If, in reading books, a man does not choose wisely, at any rate he has the chance offered him of doing so." =Whipple, Edwin P=. "Books,--lighthouses erected in the sea of time." =White, Andrew D=., President of Cornell, speaking of Scott, says: "Never was there a more healthful and health-ministering literature than that which he gave to the world. To go back to it from Flaubert and Daudet and Tolstoi is like listening to the song of the lark after the shrieking passion of the midnight pianoforte; nay, it is like coming out of the glare and heat and reeking vapor of a palace ball into a grove in the first light and music and breezes of the morning.... So far from stimulating an unhealthy taste, the enjoyment of this fiction created distinctly a taste for what is usually called 'solid reading,' and especially a love for that historical reading and study which has been a leading inspiration and solace of a busy life." =Whitman, Walt=. "For us, along the great highways of time, those monuments stand,--those forms of majesty and beauty. For us those beacons burn through all the night." =Wolseley, Gen. Lord=. "During the mutiny and China war I carried a Testament, two volumes of Shakspeare that contained his best plays; and since then, when in the field, I have always carried a Book of Common Prayer, Thomas à Kempis, Soldier's Pocket Book, depending on a well-organized postal service to supply me weekly with plenty of newspapers." =Wordsworth=. "These hoards of wealth you can unlock at will." APPENDIX II. BOOKS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING. BOYS' LATIN SCHOOL. Moss' First Greek Reader. Tomlinson's Latin for Sight Reading. Walford's Extracts from Cicero (Part I.). Jackson's Manual of Astronomical Geography. Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles. GIRLS' LATIN SCHOOL. Sheldon's Greek and Roman History. Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles. LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. Books required for admission to Harvard College. A list of suitable books, carefully prepared under the direction of the Committee on Text-Books, is presented to the Board for adoption. After this list has been adopted, a master may make requisition on the Committee on Supplies for one set (of not more than thirty-five copies) of a book. This committee, after the approval of the Committee on Text-Books has been obtained, will purchase the books and send them to the school for permanent use. No book will be purchased until called for in the manner described. _English._--Barnes's History of Ancient Peoples; Church's Stories from the East, from Herodotus; Church's Story of the Persian War, from Herodotus; Church's Stories from the Greek Tragedians; Kingsley's Greek Heroes; Abbott's Lives of Cyrus and Alexander; Froude's Cæsar; Forsythe's Life of Cicero; Ware's Aurelian; Cox's Crusades; Masson's Abridgment of Guizot's History of France; Scott's Abbot; Scott's Monastery; Scott's Talisman; Scott's Quentin Durward; Scott's Marmion (Rolfe's Student series); Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (Rolfe's Student series); Kingsley's Hereward; Kingsley's Westward Ho; Melville's Holmby House; Macaulay's Essay on Frederic; Macaulay's Essay on Clive; Macaulay's Essay on Dr. Johnson; Motley's Essay on Peter the Great; Thackeray's Henry Esmond; Thackeray's The Virginians; Thackeray's The Four Georges; Dickens' Tale of Two Cities; George Eliot's Silas Marner; Irving's Alhambra; Irving's Bracebridge Hall; Miss Buckley's Life and her Children; Miss Buckley's Winners in Life's Race; Bulfinch's Age of Fable (revised edition); The Boy's Froissart; Ballads and Lyrics; Vicar of Wakefield; Essays of Elia; Tennyson's Selected Poems (Rolfe's Student series); Tennyson's Elaine; Tennyson's In Memoriam; Byron's Prisoner of Chillon; Goldsmith's Deserted Village; Goldsmith's Traveller; Coleridge's Ancient Mariner; Wordsworth's Excursion; Monroe's Sixth Reader; Webster--Section 2 [Annotated English Classics, Ginn & Co.]; Wordsworth's Poems--Section 2 [Annotated English Classics, Ginn & Co.]; Sheldon's Greek and Roman History; Monroe's Fifth Reader (old edition). _French._--St. German's Pour une Épingle; Achard's Le Clos Pommier; Feuillet's Roman d'un Homme Pauvre; Dumas's La Tulipe Noire; Vigny's Cinq Mars; Lacombe's La Petite Histoire du Peuple Français. _German._--Andersen's Märchen; Simmondson's Balladenbuch; Krurnmacher's Parabeln; Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris; Goethe's Prose; Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans; Schiller's Prose; Boisen's German Prose; Bernhardt's Novellen Bibliothek. GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. CLASS VI. (_about Ten Years old_). Seven Little Sisters, first half-year. Each and All, second half-year. This is simple, interesting class-reading, which will aid the geography, and furnish material for both oral and written language lessons. Hooker's Child's Book of Nature; those chapters of Parts I. and II., which will supplement properly the observational studies of plants and animals, and those chapters of Part III., on air, water, and heat, which will aid the instruction in Geography. Our World Reader, NO. 1. Our World, NO. 1; the reading to be kept parallel with the instruction in Geography through the year. Poetry for Children; selections appropriate for reading and recitation. CLASS V. (_about Eleven Years old_). Stories of American History; for practice in reading at sight, and for material for language lessons. Guyot's Introduction to Geography; the reading to be kept parallel with the instruction in Geography through the year. Hooker's Child's Book of Nature, and Poetry for Children; as in Class VI. Robinson Crusoe. CLASS IV. (_about Twelve Years old_). The Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, as collateral to the oral instruction in Stories in Mythology. Hooker's Child's Book of Nature, and Poetry for Children; as in Classes VI. and V. Readings from Nature's Book (revised edition). Robinson Crusoe. CLASS III. (_about Thirteen Years old_). Hooker's Child's Book of Nature; as supplementary to oral lessons. American Poems, with Biographical Sketches and Notes; appropriate selections therefrom. CLASS II. (_about Fourteen Years old_). Selections from American authors; as in part collateral to the United States History. American Poems; appropriate selections therefrom. CLASS I. (_about Fifteen Years old_). Selections from American authors. Early England--Harper's Half-Hour Series, Nos. 6 and 14. American Poems; selections therefrom. Green's Readings from English History. Phillips's Historical Readers, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4. ANY CLASS. Six Stories from the Arabian Nights. Holmes' and Longfellow Leaflets, published by Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. Book of Golden Deeds. Jackson's Manual of Astronomical Geography. Parkman Leaflets, published by Little, Brown, & Co. CIRCULATING LIBRARY FOR GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. Zigzag Journeys in Europe (revised edition); Zigzag Journeys in the Orient (revised edition); Scudder's Boston Town; Drake's The Making of New England; Towle's Pizarro; Towle's Vasco da Gama; Towle's Magellan; Fairy Land of Science; Hawthorne's True Stories; Higginson's Young Folks' Book of Explorers; Scott's Ivanhoe; Longfellow's Evangeline; Little Folks in Feathers and Fur; What Mr. Darwin saw in his Voyage around the World in the Ship Beagle; Muloch's A Noble Life; M. E. Dodge's Hans Brinker; Lambert's Robinson Crusoe; Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare (revised edition, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.); Abbott's Jonas on a Farm in Summer; Smiles' Robert Dick, Geologist and Botanist; Eyes Right; Alcott's Little Men; Alcott's Little Women; Stoddard's Dab Kinzer; Scott's Kenilworth; Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby; Abbott's Mary Queen of Scots; Abbott's Charles I.; Taylor's Boys of Other Countries; How Marjory Helped; Little People in Asia; Gilman's Magna Charta Stories; Overhead; Yonge's Lances of Linwood; Memory Gems; Geographical Plays; Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago till Now; Scott's Tales of a Grandfather; Hayes' Cast Away in the Cold; Sharp Eyes and other Papers; Lessons on Practical Subjects; Stories of Mother Nature; Play Days; Jackanapes; Children's Stories of American Progress; Little Lord Fauntleroy; Gilman's Historical Readers (three volumes); Pilgrims and Puritans; The Patriotic Reader; Ballou's Footprints of Travel. PRIMARY SCHOOLS. PERMANENT SUPPLEMENTARY READING. Easy Steps for Little Feet. Popular Tales (first and second series.) Parker & Marvel's Supplementary Reading (first book). Tweed's Graded Supplementary Reading. Modern Series Primary Reading, Part I. An Illustrated Primer (D. C. Heath & Co.). CIRCULATING SUPPLEMENTARY READING. _First Readers._--Monroe's, Monroe's Advanced First, Appleton's, Harvey's, Eclectic, Sheldon's, Barnes' New National, Sheldon & Co.'s, Harper's, The Nursery Primer, Parker & Marvel's Supplementary Reading (second book), Wood's First Natural History Reader, Stickney's First Reader, Stickney's First Reader (new edition), McGuffey's Alternate First Reader. _Second Readers._--Monroe's, Monroe's Advanced Second, Appleton's, Harvey's, Lippincott's, Sheldon & Co.'s, Barnes' New National, Analytical, Macmillan's, Swinton's, New Normal, Stickney's Second Reader (new edition), Harper's Easy Book (published by Shorey), Turner's Stories for Young Children, Our Little Ones, Golden Book of Choice Reading, When I was a Little Girl, Johonnot's Friends in Feathers and Fur, Woodward's Number Stories, Wood's Second Natural History Reader, Young Folks' Library, Nos. 5 and 6 (Silver, Burdett, & Co.). SUPPLEMENTARY READING IN ONE BUILDING, NOVEMBER, 1890. GRAMMAR SCHOOL. CLASS I. (_about Fifteen Years old_). Longfellow's Poems. CLASS II. (_about Fourteen Years old_). Hans Brinker. Mary Mapes Dodge. How Marjory Helped. M. Caroll. Magellan's Voyages. Ivanhoe. Scott. CLASS III. (_about Thirteen Years old_). American Explorers. Higginson. CLASS IV. (_about Twelve Years old_). Playdays. Sarah O. Jewett. Water Babies. Kingsley. Physiology. A Child's Book of Nature. W. Hooker. CLASS V. (_about Eleven Years old_). Stories of American History. N. S. Dodge. Guyot's Geography. CLASS VI. (_about Ten Years old_). The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Six stories by Samuel Eliot. Our World. Mary L. Hall. The Seven Little Sisters. Jane Andrews. Each and All. Jane Andrews. Poetry for Children. Samuel Eliot. TEXT-BOOKS. PRIMARY SCHOOLS. _Third Class._--Franklin Primer and Advanced First Reader. Munroe's Primary Reading Charts. _Second Class._--Franklin Second Reader. Franklin Advanced Second Reader. First Music Reader. _First Class._--Franklin Third Reader. [8]New Franklin Third Reader. First Music Reader. [8] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. _Upper Classes._--[9]Franklin Primary Arithmetic. First Lessons in Natural History and Language, Parts I. and II. Child's Book of Language, Nos. 1, 2, 3. [By J. H. Stickney.] [9] Each Primary-School building occupied by a first or second class to be supplied with one set of the Franklin Primary Arithmetic; the number in a set to be sixty, or, if less be needed, less than sixty; the Committee on Supplies are authorized to supply additional copies of the book at their discretion, if needed. _All the Classes._--American Text-books of Art Education. First Primary Music Chart. Prang's Natural History Series, one set for each building. Magnus & Jeffries's Color Chart; "Color Blindness," by Dr. B. Joy Jeffries.--One copy of the Chart and one copy of the book for use in each Primary-School building. Normal Music Course in the Rice Training School and in the schools of the third and sixth divisions. National Music Course (revised edition) in the schools of the first and second divisions. GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. _Sixth Class._--Franklin Advanced Third Reader. [10]Warren's Primary Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. Franklin Elementary Arithmetic. [11]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. Worcester's Spelling-Book. [10] Swinton's Introductory Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. [11] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a Grammar School. _Fifth Class._--Franklin Intermediate Reader. [12] New Franklin Fourth Reader. Franklin Elementary Arithmetic. [13]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. [14]Warren's Primary Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. Worcester's Spelling-Book. [12] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. [13] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a Grammar School. [14] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. _Fourth Class._--Franklin Fourth Reader. [15]New Franklin Fourth Reader. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Franklin Written Arithmetic. [16]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. [17]Warren's Common-School Geography. Intermediate Music Reader. Worcester's Spelling-Book. [18]Blaisdell's How to Keep Well. [15] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. [16] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a Grammar School. [17] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. [18] One set of not more than sixty copies, or, if determined by the Committee on Supplies to be necessary, more than one set, be placed in each Grammar School, for use as collateral reading in the third and fourth classes. _Third Class._--Franklin Fifth Reader. [19]New Franklin Fifth Reader. Franklin Written Arithmetic. [20]Greenleaf's Manual of Mental Arithmetic. [21]Warren's Common-School Geography. Swinton's New Language Lessons. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Higginson's History of the United States. [22]Fourth Music Reader. [Revised edition.] [23]Blaisdell's How to Keep Well. [19] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. [20] To be used in the manner recommended by the Board of Supervisors in School Document No. 14, 1883; one set of sixty copies to be supplied for the classes on each floor of a Grammar-School building occupied by pupils in either of the four lower classes, and for each colony of a Grammar School. [21] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. [22] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. [23] One set of not more than sixty copies, or, if determined by the Committee on Supplies to be necessary, more than one set, be placed in each Grammar School, for use as collateral reading in the third and fourth classes. _Second Class._--Franklin Fifth Reader. [24]New Franklin Fifth Reader. Franklin Written Arithmetic. [25]Warren's Common-School Geography. Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Higginson's History of the United States. [26]Fourth Music Reader. [Revised edition.] Smith's Elementary Physiology and Hygiene. [24] To be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies. [25] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. [26] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. _First Class._--Franklin Sixth Reader. Franklin Written Arithmetic. Meservey's Book-keeping, Single Entry. [27]Warren's Common School Geography. Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. Stone's History of England. Cooley's Elements of Philosophy. [28]Fourth Music Reader. [Revised edition.] [27] The revised edition to be furnished at the discretion of the Committee on Supplies to schools where this book is used. Swinton's Grammar-School Geography allowed in Charlestown Schools. [28] The revised edition to be supplied as new books are needed. _Fifth and Sixth Classes._--First Lessons in Natural History and Language. Parts III. and IV. _All Classes._--American Text-books of Art Education. Writing-Books: Duntonian Series; Payson, Dunton, and Scribner's; Harper's Copy-books; Appleton's Writing-Books. Child's Book of Language; and Letters and Lessons in Language, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4. [By J. H. Stickney.] Prang's Aids for Object Teaching, "Trades," one set for each building. Normal Music Course in the Rice Training School and the schools of the third and sixth divisions. National Music Course (revised edition) in the schools of the first and second divisions. HIGH SCHOOLS. _English._--Abbott's How to Write Clearly. Hill's _or_ Kellogg's Rhetoric. Meiklejohn's English Language. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Selections from Addison's Papers in the Spectator, with Macaulay's Essay on Addison. Irving's Sketch-Book. Trevelyan's Selections from Macaulay. Hales' Longer English Poems. Shakspeare,--Rolfe's _or_ Hudson's Selections. Selections from Chaucer. Selections from Milton. [Clarendon Press Edition. Vol. I.] Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. _Latin._--Allen & Greenough's Latin Grammar. [Roxbury, W. Roxbury, and Brighton High Schools.] Harkness' Latin Grammar. [English, Girls', Dorchester, Charlestown, and East Boston High Schools.] Harkness' Complete Course in Latin for the first year. Gildersleeve's Latin Primer. Collar & Daniell's Beginners' Latin Book. [Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Brighton High Schools.] Harkness' Cæsar. Lindsey's Cornelius Nepos. Chase's, Frieze's, _or_ Greenough's Virgil, or any edition approved by the Committee on Text-Books. Greenough's _or_ Harkness' Cicero. Chase's _or_ Lincoln's Horace, or any edition approved by the Committee on Text-books. _History._--[29]Anderson's New General History. Martin's Civil Government. [29] To be dropped from list of authorized text-books, July 1, 1890. _Mythology._--Berens's Hand-book of Mythology. _Mathematics._--Meservey's Book-keeping. Bradbury & Emery's Academic Algebra. [30]Wentworth & Hill's Exercises in Algebra. Bradbury's Elementary Geometry, _or_ Chauvenet's Geometry, _or_ Wells's Geometry. Greenleaf's Trigonometry. [31]Metric Apparatus. [30] This book is not intended to, and does not in fact displace any text-book now in use, but is intended merely to furnish additional problems in algebra. [31] Not exceeding $15 for each school. _Physics._--Cooley's New Text-book of Physics. Avery's Physics, _or_ Gage's Introduction to Physical Science. _Astronomy._--Sharpless & Phillips' Astronomy. _Chemistry._--Williams's Chemistry. Williams's Laboratory Manual. Eliot & Storer's Elementary Manual of Chemistry, edited by Nichols. Eliot & Storer's Qualitative Analysis. Hill's Lecture Notes on Qualitative Analysis. Tables for the Determination of Common Minerals. [Girls' High School.] White's Outlines of Chemical Theory. _Botany._--Gray's School and Field Book of Botany. _Zoölogy._--Morse's Zoölogy and Packard's Zoölogy. _Physiology._--Hutchinson's Physiology. Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How We Live. _Drawing._--American Text-books of Art Education. _Music._--Eichberg's High-School Music Reader. Eichberg's Girls' High-School Music Reader. [Girls' High School.] LATIN SCHOOLS. _Latin._--White's Abridged Lexicon. Harkness' Grammar. Harkness' Reader. Harkness' Complete Course in Latin for the first year. Harkness' Prose Composition, _or_ Allen's Latin Composition. Harkness' Cæsar. Lindsey's Cornelius Nepos. Greenough's Catiline of Sallust. Lincoln's Ovid. Greenough's Ovid. Greenough's Virgil. Greenough's _or_ Harkness' Orations of Cicero. Smith's Principia Latina, Part II. _Greek._--Liddell & Scott's Abridged Lexicon. Goodwin's Grammar. White's Lessons. Jones' Prose Composition. Goodwin's Reader. The Anabasis of Xenophon. Boise's Homer's Iliad. Beaumlein's Edition of Homer's Iliad. _English._--Soule's Hand-book of Pronunciation. Hill's General Rules for Punctuation. Tweed's Grammar for Common Schools (in fifth and sixth classes). Hawthorne's Wonder Book. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. Plutarch's Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Higginson's History of the United States. Hughes' Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby. Dana's Two Years before the Mast. Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare. [Revised Edition, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.] Scott's Ivanhoe. Hawthorne's True Stories. Greene's Readings from English History. [32]Church's Stories from Homer. [32]Church's Stories of the Old World. Selections from American Authors,--Franklin, Adams, Cooper, and Longfellow. American Poems, with Biographical Sketches and Notes. Irving's Sketch-Book. Selections from Addison's Papers in the Spectator. Ballads and Lyrics. Hales' Longer English Poems. Three plays of Shakspeare,--Rolfe's _or_ Hudson's Selections. [32] No more copies of Church's Stories from Homer to be purchased, but as books are worn out their place to be supplied with Church's Stories of the Old World. _History._--Leighton's History of Rome. Smith's Smaller History of Greece. Long's _or_ Ginn & Heath's Classical Atlas. Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary,--Student's Series. _Mythology._--Bulfinch's Age of Fable. _Geography._--Geikie's Primer of Physical Geography. Warren's Common-School Geography. _Physiology._--Macé's History of a Mouthful of Bread. Foster's Physiology (Science Primer). Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How We Live. _Botany._--Gray's School and Field Book of Botany. _Zoölogy._--Morse's Zoölogy and Packard's Zoölogy. _Mineralogy._--Tables for the Determination of Common Minerals. [Girls' Latin School.] _Mathematics._--The Franklin Written Arithmetic. Bradbury's Eaton's Algebra. [33]Wentworth & Hill's Exercises in Algebra. Chauvenet's Geometry. Lodge's Elementary Mechanics. [33] This book is not intended to, and does not in fact, displace any text-book now in use, but is intended merely to furnish additional problems in algebra. _Physics._--Arnott's _or_ Avery's Physics, _or_ Gage's Physics. _Drawing._--American Text-books of Art Education. _Music._--Eichberg's High-School Music Reader. Eichberg's Girls' High-School Music Reader. [Girls' Latin School] LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. _French._--Keetel's Elementary Grammar. Keetel's Analytical French Reader. Super's French Reader. [34]Sauveur's Petites Causeries. Hennequin's Lessons in Idiomatic French. Gasc's French Dictionary. Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Conscrit de 1813. Erckmann-Chatrian's Madame Thérèse. Bôcher's College Series of French Plays. Nouvelles Genevoises. Souvestre's Au Coin du Feu. Racine's Andromaque. Racine's Iphigénie. Racine's Athalie. Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Molière's Precieuses Ridicules. Corneille's Les Horaces. Corneille's Cid. Herrig's La France Littéraire. Roemer's French Course, Vol. II. Ventura's Peppino. Halévy's L'Abbé Constantin. La Fontaine's Fables. About's La Mère de la Marquise. Daudet's Siège de Berlin. Daudet's Extraits. Daudet's La Belle Nivarnaise. [34] To be furnished as new French Readers are needed. The use of the book confined for this year to the English, Charlestown, Roxbury, and West Roxbury High Schools. _German._--Whitney's German Dictionary. Whitney's Grammar. Collar's Eysenbach. Otto's _or_ Whitney's Reader. Der Zerbrochene Krug. Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. Schiller's Maria Stuart. Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea. Putlitz's Das Herz Vergessen. Grimm's Märchen. Goethe's Prose. Schiller's Prose. Stein's German Exercises. Heine's Die Harzreise. Im Zwielicht. Vols. I. and II. Traumerein. Buckheim's German Poetry for Repetition. NORMAL SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. The text-books used in this school shall be such of the text-books used in the other public schools of the city as are needed for the course of study, and such others as shall be authorized by the Board. Normal Music Course. HORACE MANN SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. Such text-books shall be supplied to the Horace Mann School as the committee on that school shall approve. EVENING HIGH SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. Benn Pitman's Manual of Phonography. Reporter's Companion. The Phonographic Reader. The Reporter's First Reader. Bradbury's Elementary Geometry. The text-books used in this school shall be such of the text-books authorized in the other public schools as are approved by the Committee on Evening Schools and the Committee on Supplies. _East Boston Branch._--Graded Lessons in Shorthand. Parts 1 and 2, by Mrs. Mary A. Chandler. EVENING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. Munroe's Charts. Franklin Primer. Franklin Reader. Stories of American History. Harper's Introductory Geography. The Franklin Elementary Arithmetic. The Franklin Written Arithmetic. [35]Andersen's Märchen. Writing-books, Plain Copy-books; and such of the text-books authorized in the other public schools as are approved by the Committee on Evening Schools and the Committee on Supplies. [35] In schools in which the English language is taught to German pupils. SCHOOLS OF COOKERY. Boston School Kitchen Text-book, by Mrs. D. A. Lincoln. REFERENCE-BOOKS. PRIMARY SCHOOLS. Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. National Music Teacher. Munroe's Vocal Gymnastics. Lessons in Color (one copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). White's Oral Lessons in Number (one copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). Smith's Primer of Physiology and Hygiene (one copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). Observation Lessons in the Primary Schools, by Mrs. L. P. Hopkins (one copy for each Primary-School teacher's desk). Simple Object Lessons (two series), by W. Hewitt Beck. Natural History Object Lessons, by G. Ricks (one set of books of each title for each Primary-School teacher's desk). GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. Appleton's American Encyclopædia _or_ Johnson's Encyclopædia. Chambers's Encyclopædia. Anthon's Classical Dictionary. Thomas's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology. Worcester's Quarto Unabridged Dictionary. Webster's Quarto Unabridged Dictionary. Webster's National Pictorial Dictionary. Lippincott's Gazetteer. Johnson's Atlas. Reclus' Earth. Reclus' Ocean. Flammarion's Atmosphere. Weber's Universal History. Bancroft's History of the United States. Battle Maps of the Revolution. Palfrey's History of New England. Martin's Civil Government. Frothingham's Rise of the Republic. Lossing's Field-book of the Revolution. Shurtleff's Topographical History of Boston. Frothingham's Siege of Boston. Lingard's History of England. Smith's Primer of Physiology and Hygiene (one copy for the desk of each teacher of the fifth and sixth classes). Goold-Brown's Grammar of English Grammars. Wilson's Punctuation. Philbrick's Union Speaker. Methods of Teaching Geography (one copy for each teacher of Geography). _First Classes._--Physiography (Longmans & Co.). Copies for teachers' desks. _Second Classes._--Harper's Cyclopædia of United States History. _Maps and Globes._--Cutter's Physiological Charts. Charts of the Human Body (Milton Bradley & Co.). White's Manikin. Cornell's Series Maps, _or_ Guyot's Series Maps, Nos. 1, 2, 3. (Not exceeding one set to each floor.) Hughes's Series of Maps. Joslyn's fifteen-inch Terrestrial Globe, on Tripod (one for each Grammar School). Nine-inch Hand Globe, Loring's Magnetic (one for each Grammar School room). Cosmograph. O. W. Gray & Son's Atlas. (To be furnished as new atlases are needed.) LATIN AND HIGH SCHOOLS. Lingard's History of England. Harper's Latin Lexicon. Liddell & Scott's Greek Lexicon, unabridged. Eugène's French Grammar. Labberton's Historical Atlas and General History (one book for the desk of each teacher). Guyot's and Cameron's Maps of the Roman Empire, Greece, and Italy. Strang's English Lessons (for use on teachers' desks). NORMAL SCHOOL. Observation Lessons in Primary Schools, by Mrs. L. P. Hopkins (one set). NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. Charts of Life. Wilson's Human Anatomical and Physiological Charts. Hough's American Woods.